In the late ‘90s, the Doctor Who television landscape seemed at its most barren. The lackluster showing of the 1996 TV movie left most fans unsatisfied and, again, the future of the franchise was up in the air. Would there ever be a Ninth Doctor?
In 1999, five different actors, starting with Rowan Atkinson, played the Doctor in the charity special spoof “The Curse of the Fatal Death,†written by Steven Moffat. Later in 2003, a six-part adventure made using Flash animation called “The Scream of the Shalka†starred Richard E. Grant as an unofficial Ninth Doctor. Both are interesting and fun to watch, but neither are honest-to-Rassilon Who. Probably, it seemed, there’d never be another proper series.
But elsewhere in the UK, the beginnings of a plan were hatching… (I thought I’d go mysterious for a second. Is it working? No? Okay)
During the late ‘90s, TV writer Russell T. Davies lobbied hard to bring the series back properly. As the creator of the groundbreaking series, “Queer as Folk,†Davies had garnered a large amount of sway in the British television world, and had twice pitched bringing back Doctor Who to the screen. In 2003, he pitched a version of the show that, while a continuation, would shake things up a bit. For starters, each story would be a single 45 minute episode with a few being two-parters, much like most modern dramas. Second, he would keep only the very important things about the show’s long continuity, like the Doctor, the TARDIS, the sonic screwdriver, etc, and leave out all the stuff about Gallifrey and the Time Lords. The show, he thought, should be more about the companion with the Doctor acting as a guide to new worlds, not dissimilar to the very first era of the show with Ian and Barbara essentially being the lead characters and the Doctor more of the mysterious stranger who instigates the action.
To play the Ninth Doctor, Davies hired his friend, character actor Christopher Eccleston. Eccleston was best known, to me anyway, for his work with Danny Boyle in “Shallow Grave†and “28 Days Later.†As the show’s heroine, Davies hired former teen pop star Billie Piper, who was relatively new to the acting game at the time, but has since gone on to greater success. It was important that Davies and Eccleston create the right characterization of the Ninth Doctor, since he would be the first incarnation of the Doctor many young children would meet and would need to be accessible enough for viewers of all ages.
NINTH DOCTOR
The Ninth Doctor’s jovial, goofy exterior hides a dark and troubled soul. He is, to the best of his knowledge, the only survivor of the Last Great Time War, and he has a mad case of survivor’s guilt. The war has hardened him, and he’s often quick to condemn humans for their faults, often calling them “stupid apes.†Still, it’s his interaction with humanity, and specifically Rose, that helps him cope with the loneliness of being the last of his kind.
A self-professed coward, the Ninth Doctor never shied away from sacrificing himself for the good of Earth, humans, and that one blonde chick. The Ninth Doctor wore a black leather jacket, black trousers, and various dark-colored frocks. What exactly makes frocks different from shirts is anyone’s guess. He was often heard saying, “Fantastic!†whenever anything warranting such an outburst occurred.
As for the stories, I suggest you just watch the whole season, since it’s on Netflix Instant right this very minute, but I’ll talk about the significant episodes, or ones I like, as always. Each story is a single 45 minute episode unless otherwise noted.
Autons: The normalest looking mannequins ever.
Story 157 – Rose
Written by Russell T. Davies
In an average borough of London, a shop girl, Rose Tyler, goes about her daily routine. Everything is as it always is, until it isn’t anymore. In the empty department store one evening, Rose is attacked by living shop window dummies and is nearly destroyed when out of nowhere a man appears and tells her to run. Just before he blows up the store, he introduces himself as “the Doctor.†The next day, Rose digs into who this mysterious man might be and finds a lot more than she bargained for and begins an adventure of gargantuan proportions.
This is absolutely important because, well, it’s the first New Who episode ever. It introduced the world to Rose Tyler and through her we got to meet the Doctor, the TARDIS, alien menaces, and boundless adventure. Boundless, I tell you! I also love that the first villains used were Autons, who hadn’t been seen since 1971. It adds to the many ways “Rose†is like the Third Doctor’s first serial “Spearhead From Space,†in that they both depict a brand knew Doctor, companion, decade, format, etc. That all being said, if not for the fact that it was first, it’d be a pretty forgettable episode. The story in it is pretty lame and it even attempts a fair amount of slapstick humor, which really doesn’t pay off. It has an Auton garbage can burping after eating a guy. I just rolled my eyes typing that. Don’t judge the entire series on this one episode; it does get a lot better.
Ghosts of Christmas MURDER!
Story 159 – The Unquiet Dead
Written by Mark Gatiss
Meaning to end up in Naples in 1860, the Doctor actually takes Rose to Cardiff in 1869. Christmastime, though, and the travelers decide to make the most of it. Elsewhere at a local funeral parlor, a dead old woman gets possessed by a blue vapor and kills her grieving son. Sneed, the proprietor of the funeral parlor, and his servant girl Gwyneth have become all too familiar with this occurrence and chase the dead woman to a theatre where Charles Dickens is giving a public reading. The blue vapor leaves the old lady’s body and escapes into the gas pipes, scaring everyone and drawing the attention of the Doctor and Rose. When Rose confronts Sneed about what has happened, he chloroforms and kidnaps her and it’s up to the Doctor and Dickens to save her and get to the bottom of the strange goings-on.
An excellent pseudo-historical, complete with celebrity guest (Simon Callow) playing a celebrity guest (Charles Dickens). This story takes place in Cardiff and we get the first mention of the Cardiff Rift, which becomes a huge part of later stories and is the setting for the spinoff series Torchwood. This is the first episode to mention the phrase “Time War,†and it’s also depicted as being a catastrophic event even for beings who weren’t directly involved.
You know why else this episode is great? It’s got zombies in it! Real reanimated corpses looking all creepy and scary and so on. This story re-established Doctor Who’s horror side, which had been such a major part of the‘70s era.
LOOK! MA! I AM FLY-ING!
Story 161 – Dalek
Written by Robert Shearman
Landing in some large underground bunker in Utah in the near future, the Doctor and Rose discover that it actually a museum for alien artifacts, and the Doctor laments when he finds, in a display case, the head of a Cyberman. They have been called to this location via a very weak distress signal and the pair is soon set upon by soldiers who take them to the owner of the museum, billionaire Henry Van Statten, who shows little regard for the pieces he has collected other than his own greed and desire to possess them. He also makes mention that he has one living specimen, and the Doctor is aghast when he finds they’ve been torturing it to try to make it talk. Clearly, this is the creature that has been signaling for help, so the Doctor, under Van Statten’s close supervision, goes to speak to it. The Doctor, of course, knows what this creature is, and it just might be the death of everyone in the base, and maybe the world.
An absolutely brilliant story. It not only reintroduces the Doctor’s oldest foe, but gives us a heap more information about the Time War than ever we’d gotten previously. It’s still, to this day, the best use of the Daleks in New Who. It is here we discover that the Time War which wiped out the Doctor’s race was against the Daleks, and that the Doctor himself was forced to end the war. War does terrible things to a psyche and in this episode we truly see the awful effect the Time War has had, on both sides. It’s also interesting how a creature created in the 1960s can still be effectively scary when used 42 years later. This story also introduces Adam, one of Van Statten’s technicians, who becomes a companion, the first male companion since Turlough left in 1984. Unfortunately, Adam is rubbish, and departs on bad terms in the very next episode.
Rose did something not so good.
Story 163 – Father’s Day
Written by Paul Cornell
Rose’s father died when she was but an infant and her mother often spoke of him as a wonderful man and loving husband and father. Now, with an alien time machine pretty much at her command, she asks the Doctor if they could go see her father as he dies, by being hit by a car on the way to a friend’s wedding. No one was around when it happened and she doesn’t want to think of her father dying alone. I still think it’s morbid, but we’ll go with it. They see it happen, but Rose is unable to run and her father dies.
Once she recovers, Rose asks if they can do it again, which the Doctor hesitantly agrees to. He tells her she has to wait for their earlier selves to depart before running over, lest they cause a paradox. In the moment, though, Rose runs over and prevents her father’s death, causing their earlier selves to vanish. The Doctor is furious, but Rose brushes it off and goes with her father to the wedding. The ramifications of Rose’s actions prove to be massive as large, winged creatures, known as Reapers, appear and begin to devour things and people. Rose has to deal with the fact that her father might not have been the perfect guy she always imagined and that for things to get back to normal, he might still have to die.
One day a few years ago, I happened to be bored one afternoon and as I flipped passed BBC America, I saw that Doctor Who was about to start. Now, I hadn’t seen Doctor Who since I was a very small child and was scared of Tom Baker on PBS, but I knew it had returned in 2005 and thought, somewhat skeptically, this might be as good a time as any to see what it was like. It was this episode, Father’s Day, and though I didn’t know who the characters were, Doctor excluded, I was surprisingly enthralled. I almost immediately put aside the fact that it didn’t look very good and got caught up in the brilliant storytelling and moving performances.
At its best, the show is about how amazing concepts affect real people and this episode is a perfect depiction of that. After watching the episode, after a couple days of deliberation with myself, I decided to give the series a go, since it was on Netflix Instant, planning only to watch the Eccleston season and no more. Cut to 18 months later and I’ve seen just about every episode available since 1963 and I write about it for an awesome website. The power of Who.
They all want their respective mommies.
Story 164 – The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
2 Parts
Written by Steven Moffat
The TARDIS is chasing a large metal cylinder marked dangerous through the time vortex. The cylinder skips out of the vortex to somewhere in London, sometime in the past. The TARDIS materializes within a month of it landing, in the middle of the Blitz. Rose spots a young boy wearing a gas mask on top of a building and tries to help him. The Doctor is puzzled when the prop phone on the exterior of the TARDIS begins to ring. A young woman appears and tells him not answer, though he does anyway, only to hear a child’s voice asking for his mummy. The Doctor turns back to the young woman to find she’s run off to raid a nearby house during the air raid. She brings a number of homeless children into the house to feast while the family it belongs to is in the shelter. The Doctor decides to introduce himself and finds that the woman’s name is Nancy and that she and the children sustain themselves like this every air raid.
Soon, there is a knock on the door and the boy in the gas mask appears outside, again calling for his mother. The Doctor wants to help and is surprised to find that Nancy and the children are terrified of this little boy. Nancy tells the Doctor the boy is empty. Elsewhere, Rose has found herself dangling from a barrage balloon. She is saved, however, by a suave American airman on loan to the British…saved in his invisible spaceship. The man is Capt. Jack Harkness, 51st Century time agent. He immediately assumes, given her severely non-period clothing, that Rose is also a time agent and that he’s prepared to sell the metal cylinder, a Chula warship, to her. She says she has a partner they must find before she can authorize such a trade. The Doctor, meanwhile, has come across a physician who is treating a number of people who appear to be in coma’s wearing gasmasks. It turns out, the masks aren’t on their faces, they ARE their faces and the patients soon sit up at once. Rose and Jack appear just as every patient and the physician stand up and march toward them chanting, “Are you my mummy?â€
Hands down the best story of the season, respect of course to Mr. Cornell and Mr. Shearman. That Steven Moffat is something else, isn’t he? For the first four seasons, Moffat wrote one story and three out of four times he won the Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation. Moffat has a knack for at the same time being very dark and yet very hopeful and this story is wrought with both. This episode introduces new companion Jack Harkness who, unlike Adam, is a much more interesting character and, yes, would eventually go on to be the star in the spinoff series Torchwood, for good or ill. The episode is Christopher Eccleston’s best moment as the Doctor, and he really sinks his teeth into the material here. Excellent stuff.
The Dalek’s Sort of Ridiculous Plan
Story 166 – Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways
2 parts
By Russell T. Davies
The Doctor, Rose, and Jack, find themselves separately involved in futuristic versions of popular reality/game shows (The Doctor in “Big Brother,†Rose in “The Weakest Link,†and Jack in “What Not to Wearâ€) but with a much darker side. The losers on each of these shows are disintegrated. The Doctor ain’t having this and, along with a young female contestant named Lynda, escapes the Big Brother house to find that they’re on Satellite 5, the massive media space station seen in an earlier episode. The station is now under the control of the Badwolf Corporation. The Doctor meets up with Jack and they go to rescue Rose just as she is disintegrated. They get arrested and find a cybernetic being called The Controller who is a prisoner who gets orders from unseen masters. She informs the grieving friends that losers are not indeed disintegrated, but are transmitted to an empty point in space. Scanning for that empty point, Jack and The Doctor are horrified to see hundreds of Dalek ships.
This is the culmination of the season’s mysterious Bad Wolf story arc, which still doesn’t make 100% sense to me. Still, this is RTD’s first huge end-of-series spectacular and it’s a doozy. Wall-to-wall Dalek action propels the second part of the story and Rose proves herself as one of the most capable and compassionate companions ever to ride in the TARDIS. The action culminates with the Ninth Doctor meeting his tragic and heroic end as he saves Rose after she saves him.
At the end of the episode, Christopher Eccleston regenerates into David Tennant, something Rose was not expecting, but sadly, most of the viewers were. Even before the second episode of the series was broadcast, the news leaked that Eccleston would leave after the 13 episodes were shot. It’s not entirely clear as to why he wanted to leave, many various reports have it being a plan from the start or a skirmish between him and RTD, but in a recent interview, the actor said he wasn’t happy with the atmosphere he was working in. That being said, you’d never know in his performance that he was unhappy. Eccleston was a consummate professional who in just a short period of time made an indelible mark on the role and the show as a whole. Without him, it’s doubtful Doctor Who would have made it to where it is today.
Next time we go diving through Tennant waters, which may be the grossest sentence I’ve ever typed, and check out what I’m sure many of you will say is your favorite period of the show.
Images: BBC
The Ninth doctor is definitely my favorite reincarnation of the doctor. He is the most complex and I feel that he is the doctor that has been very well explained and portrayed, thanks to Christopher Eccleston. Rose is also my favorite companion. I teared up a bit when Rose had to leave the doctor. I really miss CE playing the doctor, though. It would’ve been nice if he appeared in the later series one last time or something.
So… “Who is YOUR doctor?” seems to be a query not asked that lots seem to answer. My 1st was the 4th, (and DEFinitely NOT!) and the show never caught my attention, (big brother watched it and we’d “EXTERMINATE” each other with plumber’s helpers and roman candles.
Eccelston was a great choice to reintroduce The Doctor, extremely talented man that sucked me right into watching the ENTIRE series, from 1 through 7 (+8) Pertwee quickly became MY doctor.Then came “the Tennant waters”, with excellent stories and acting throughout… but the 10th just couldn’t de-frock the 3rd
.. then along came a Smith. For me, he’s managed to embody the “mad man with a box” completely. By the third episode the 11th had supplanted the 3rd in my heart. With an ability for pathos that has had my shoulders shaking and cheeks wet from laughter one moment and the same from sobbing like a child the next. He will be sorely missed in my household this winter and spring, I’m hopeful that Peter can make a good showing and keep us all interested (and bring along some new viewers as well.
I just started watching Dr. Who for myself and 2 nights ago I watched the last episode with Nine in it. He’s my doctor, he’s my fave. I’m 4 episodes in w/ Tennant and I just can’t connect yet w/ him. I think that Nine will always be my favorite doctor for good. I miss him.
Oh, and I grew up watching Dr. Who rereuns in the States on PBS, because my GRANDMOTHER was a Dr. Who fan. I grew up w/ doctors 1, 2, 3 and 4 because when she babysat me, that’s what we would watch together. So, out of doctors 1, 2, 3, 4, 9 and 10… Nine is my fave and Ten is my least fave.
i love love love the ninth doctor. he is on my desk top background and i watch an episode almost every night. i love how he is just like he seems happiest when in danger, but if rose is endangered, he will stop at nothing to save her. i was SO sad when he regenerated i hate the tenth.
I am new to Dr. Who and have a huge crush on the 9th Doctor!
Father’s Day was the first episode of New Who I saw as well, and it was that episode that convinced me to give the series a try. Though it’s not reached that level of emotional resonance often since, I’m glad I’ve let myself be drawn in by the show.
I absolutely love the 9th doctor! For one, he’s such a great actor, for another, he resembles my boyfriend. And they both wear black leather coats
Just discovered Doctor Who after breaking my toe and being forced to lounge around for a day – I can easily see how it’s possible to be so completely sucked in you manage to watch all available episodes in eighteen months! I had no idea what I was missing!!!
The 9th Doctor was the first Doctor I saw, and as such, my Doctor. I thought CE’s performance was one of the most nuanced of the 2005 series. Not that I didn’t love both Tennant and Smith, they were both adorable and certainly gave their own depth to the character. That being said, the moment in “The Doctor Dances” where 9 goes to take of the child’s mask saying “Please let it be one of those days. Just this once, everybody lives” and the real joy on his face when that is the case is THE defining moment of the Doctor for me.
And Rose’s part in the season end made her the most powerful companion to me. While other companions were brought into the Doctor’s world by the Doctor himself, it is revealed that through a borderline mystical experience she created her own destiny. I think it is a running theme of the series that the companions are just as important, just as magnificent as the Doctor himself and capable of equally incredible things. When Rose becomes one with the time vortex she demonstrates that potential to its fullest extent more profoundly than I think any of the other companions did.
I have continued to absolutely love very Doctor and companion I have seen since then, but that season inspired me the most.
The first doctor who I ever saw was David Tennant five years back, I only recently decided to go back to watch the whole series. I do love the ninth doctor and it was unfortunate that he left after just one season however David Tennant did a really great job after that, he’s spunky, energetic and able to quickly change his emotions. I think he embodies the quirky doctor very well. Beyond the tenth doctor I’m not sure if I’ll actually like it… we’ll see.
doctor who 10th doctor did more then the 9th did all together that with out him their be no 11th doctor and you would forget the 9th doctor all together and be no doctor who to keep it going with out 10 and 11 or for their to be a 12th doctor every one helps to have it go on and on not just the 9th doctor.
Thank you for pointing out the awesomeness of “Dalek”; I am totally with you on it being the best use of Daleks in New Who. That one Dalek in the bunker still scares me more than the fleets and the Emperor and Davros and the weird black and colored ones. It was the mundane that scared me: watching the Dalek climb stairs, download the Internet, and electrocute all the soldiers drenched from the sprinkler system.
CE is my favorite. The anger he showed in “Dalek” really showed me what acting chops CE has.
I love it when Tennant puts on a gas mask much later and just says “Are you my mommy?”
Empty Child is probably my favorite too. Very haunting. Glad you got me to watch it. 🙂
These summaries, however unnecessary for a whovian like myself, are pretty great. Because I felt like I needed to leave this comment somewhere, I’d just like to point out that Martha says that The Doctor kind of looks like James Bond in Series 3 Episode 7. So, uh, that’s barely notable.
I’m off to go drown in a pool of loneliness now.
The 9th Doctor was my first. I came to Who later than most, and in a backwards way. I watched Torchwood before I watched Who. But Eccleston was amazing, and it’s due to his marvelous turn as the Doctor that I kept watching.
I love CE! I don’t understand why as many people didn’t like (or even go as far as to “hate”) him. But to each their own!
9, 10, and 11 are my boys! Can’t wait for DT’s and MS’s turn!
p.s.
I wanna do the Tennant series review 🙂 lol
@jill ann: captain Jack Harkness started as an ex-time agent, who had two years of his memories wiped and doesn’t know why. At the end of the episode he attempts to be a hero and fly away in his ship with a huge bomb aboard, but the Doctor offers to take him along. He becomes “immortal” (not really, he is dying later on, but I’ll get to that) when the Daleks kill him, whereupon Rose absorbs that yellow light that’s kinda the soul of the TARDIS, becomes all-powerful and brings him back to life, after which the Doctor intentionally leaves him behind (because he seems unnatural to a Time Lord). Jack uses a wrist gizmo to teleport to Earth and waits patiently in Cardiff, inside Torchwood atop the huge time rift, waiting for the Doctor to come recharge the TARDIS. He is head of Torchwood because he decides to take over after the old crew basically commit genicide on an alien rase on christmas, and since he’s fabulous, he get’s what he want’s. Meanwhile the Doctor meets the oldest creature in the universe, the Face of Boe, who has a secret to tell him. And is slowly dying (hint hint) Skipping ahead, the Doctor now looking like David Tennant (YAY!) and Rose replaced by Martha Jones, Jack hears the TARDIS humming and just as the Doctor’s TARDIS disappears grabs hold of it and they travel so far into the future that supposedly not even Time Lords ever went that far. There they encounter the Doctors frienemy the Master (who is actually unaware of the fact at the time). The younger looking Master steals the TARDIS but the Doctor manages to lock the time coordinates so he knows where to look. And luckily Jack is there with the wrist-wobbly-wibbly-time-thingamajig so they can return to Earth. Stuff happens. Lots of stuff, loads of running…Nothing drastic about Jack happens for a while until (except for a developed fetish on the Doctors hand, a few topless scenes and one or two torture scenes…oh and he gives a new meaning to the word bi-curious as he doesn’t really care about the shape of a species as long as it can have sex)…. Jack he is staying behind again while the Doctor is leaving. As an afterthought he mentions that he was the first person from his planet to be accepted into the newly formed Time Agency and because of his good looks (beau, which sounds like boe means attractive in French) they made him the poster boy for the agency, and his fame earned him the nickname the face of boe. Very cool scene 🙂 Last time we see Jack (so far) is when the Doctor is saying goodbye by slipping Jack a name of a likely future date of Jack’s who is standing next to him.
hope that helps
/me had a nerdy moment, yay! 🙂
I’d go diving into Tennant waters anytime!
Jill Ann – I believe they went pretty far into Jack’s backstory in series 2 of Torchwood. IIRC, his time on Who was spent mainly as a sexy red herring. Face of Boe indeed!
Thanks for the summary! Don’t forget to add that in The Unquiet Dead, the servant girl at the center of the Cardiff Rift is played by none other than Eve Myles, who of course went on to play Gwen Cooper in Torchwood. Ooooh, creeepy!
The Empty Child episode was the first one I saw with the 9th Doctor. It was wonderfully disturbing! But is there an explanation later on in the series regarding Captain Jack? How does he go from being a space grifter to being the Doctor’s companion to being the immortal head Torchwood guy?
Eccleston is my favorite Doctor. The moment he told Rose “run for your life!” with that not-so-innocent grin, I was hooked. It was really jarring to watch this Doctor, who I was just getting to know, suddenly switch to Tennet.
And in this season we get to meet the dreamy Captain Jack! Hmmm…. Oh sorry, where was I? Oh yea, Eccleston kicks ass. 🙂
@Wendy
Well done, you gave me a round, rough pedanting.
You’re absolutely right about the jumper/frock debate. I misremembered.
It’s nice to see a Nine fan, but you really should have researched a bit more carefully.
1: The Ninth Doctor probably used the term ‘stupid ape’ once – to Rose in Father’s Day.
2: He certainly did not wear frocks! Look the word up on Merriam-Webster; it’s an old-fashioned term for a dress. The Ninth Doctor wore jumpers, as he says himself – US: sweater. And a jumper/sweater is not a shirt. A shirt is something you wear with a tie.
3: In Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways, it wasn’t the Controller who worked out that the contestants weren’t being disintegrated. It was Jack, with the help of the TARDIS.
Other than that, well done for encouraging more people to watch and love the Ninth Doctor.
Well done yet again!
I’m finishing up this season as I type this and have to thank you for recommending it to me. You’re also absolutely right in that you can watch the various incarnations of Who and because of the time aspect of the show it doesn’t really harm the experience.
No The End of the World? That episode made me fall for Who properly. Witty, inventive, moving, profound, exciting stuff.
Maybe it’s an american vs. british English thing, but isn’t a ‘frock’ a dress? He certainly doesn’t wear frocks, he wears jumpers!
The burping wheelie bin made me laugh.
i know everyone has “their” Doctor…either their favorite or the one that introduced them to the series.
Eccleston is my Doctor. i loved him in the role, and was sad to see him go after such a short time.
Haha, Adam was so inconsequential I actually had forgotten about him until now.
“Tennant waters”, very clever Mr. Anderson
I’ve been watching Dr. Who since the mid 80’s, and I’m the sort of person who will keep buying a groups albums several past when I think they aren’t that great anymore. I didn’t like Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor, and the show seemed to be way more like American shows than the old Doctor Who. I still watched, but never liked it much. I especially hated the Unquiet Dead, I’ve always thought Dr. Who episodes with actual historical people were crap, and this was one of the worst I can think of. It took until Gridlock in Tennant’s time before there was a show that I felt really felt like an older show. And I’ve generally liked the show since then, Tennant and Smith being much better Doctors in my opinion.
CE’s Doctor is incredibly complex and has an amazing range, from dark and brooding to cheeky, and fun. That is why I like him so much. CE was able to show just how jaded the Doctor had become. His view of the universe had become skewed where once there was wonder now there was really just a disheartened old man. Rose was the catalyst for his growing warmth, but when DT regenerated into the Doctor, he was essentially fixed, and I feel that robbed us of what, to me, could have been some “Fantastic” character growth. Stephan Moffat’s Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, is hands down the best of the entire season and one of my top picks for the new series.
The 9th Doctor was the only one I really disliked, and Rose and Captain Jack are my two least-favorite companions (Adam scarcely registers as a companion to me at all). That said, there were some rather good episodes in his run, so he’s not all bad.
I’ve only ever seen the new series, but during my honeymoon phase, every time I saw an episode which blew my mind and made me want to live in the Doctor’s world, inevitably it was Steven Moffat who wrote it. Russell T. and the other writers have their own unique genius, but there’s something about Steven’s stories in particular which squeeze my heart as they kick me in the gut. I was thrilled to learn he took over the helm with #11.
Ninth Doctor is def. my favorite. Maybe because he’s the first I saw, maybe because I have a thing for men who wear black coats (what can I say – I love Neil Gaiman and I’m a Professor Snape fan girl), or maybe its just because that season was so fantastic.
And yes I use the word fantastic way too much after falling for Who as well.
PS but I have to disagree with you about the episode Rose – I LOVE it – just because CE is so fantastic in it – “I’m the Doctor, by the way. What’s your name?” “Rose.” “Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!”
I absolutely LOVE C. Eccleston’s portrayal of The Doctor! I resisted watching Dr. Who for the longest time because I’d always seen it as that “weird show with the rubber alien masks. No, not Land of the Lost, the other one…” This was a great season of television and I was incredibly sad to see him go.