Slightly less inevitable Doctor Who post
Jan. 1st, 2010 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
craigoxbrowWatching The End while planning a game got me thinking about beginnings.
Rose is a decent enough episode, but it introduces the Doctor in drips and drops, through the eyes of a normal person. Look at it from that perspective and that part works beautifully.
Smith and Jones does the same, with the added swagger of a madly confident episode as well.
The even-numbered series start with someone who knows the Doctor already and thus kind of assume you've been watching a while, and of the specials only The Runaway Bride, which is latterly another companion's inroduction, really works as a first episode. I imagine anyone watching the series for the first time with any of the 2009 shows would be rather puzzled.
Not as much as anyone trying to start with The Enemy Within, Paul McGann's one-night-only appearance, which clobbers you over the head with totally-unnecessary continuity references right at the start, and once it gets to the whole regeneration-introduction-explanation bit has been going on for twenty minutes and probably lost everyone not versed in the show, just in time to bring in changes to alienate lots of them.
End result: Rose leads to four and a half years of flagship TV and counting. The Enemy Within... does not.
So I'm hoping Matt Smith's first episode is a good jumping-on point.
Rose is a decent enough episode, but it introduces the Doctor in drips and drops, through the eyes of a normal person. Look at it from that perspective and that part works beautifully.
Smith and Jones does the same, with the added swagger of a madly confident episode as well.
The even-numbered series start with someone who knows the Doctor already and thus kind of assume you've been watching a while, and of the specials only The Runaway Bride, which is latterly another companion's inroduction, really works as a first episode. I imagine anyone watching the series for the first time with any of the 2009 shows would be rather puzzled.
Not as much as anyone trying to start with The Enemy Within, Paul McGann's one-night-only appearance, which clobbers you over the head with totally-unnecessary continuity references right at the start, and once it gets to the whole regeneration-introduction-explanation bit has been going on for twenty minutes and probably lost everyone not versed in the show, just in time to bring in changes to alienate lots of them.
End result: Rose leads to four and a half years of flagship TV and counting. The Enemy Within... does not.
So I'm hoping Matt Smith's first episode is a good jumping-on point.
