Rose

So now our journey begins. 

This is my first blog about Doctor Who. I'm watching the episode as I comment, so if you haven't seen the episode, some of what I'm saying may not make sense. Also this blog is going to be one giant spoiler pie, so if you don't want spoilers before you watch the show, watch first and read second.

The first episode in the series is "Rose".  Here we meet the titular character and the 9th doctor played to perfection by Christopher Eccleston.  I really wish that he would do more things like other past doctors have.  But that's his choice. Still the actor is amazing. If you really want to see some fantastic Eccleston acting, check out Elizabeth where he plays the Duke of Norfolk.  Not only is he gorgeous, but he plays an intimidating villain whom you just LOVE to hate.
I love the opening montage where you see a day in the life of Rose. She's just a normal teenager working in a department store and having fun with her boyfriend.  I gotta say this though,  Mickey and Rose have zero chemistry in this episode.  Its kind of a no brainer that she gets a crush on The Doctor.
Next comes the attack of the walking plastic. I've always found Department Store manakins creepy.  When I've worked in shops, I've often gotten a little spooked out when I'd see one in the corner of my eye and thought it was someone sneaking up on me.  This was especially true when I would be working in a dim stock room. I'm surprised that this episode has never given me nightmares.
When Rose gets home, she has screen time with her mother and her boyfriend. I met the lady who plays Jacquie Tyler at a convention.  She is a sweetheart.  She is the perfect mom for Rose. Very energetic and intelligent and spunky enough to keep high spirited Rose in line.  I wanna ask though: what is it that Jacquie Tyler does for a living?  We see her at home all the time, the house is well decorated, and she goes out shopping.  She's clearly not in poverty, but we never get to see what exactly it is that she does for work. Judging by the way she lectures rose on the subject she believes in working for a living, but we never get to see what it is exactly that she does.
[Update: In the Episode World War Three, she does talk about getting a "proper job", but not only are we not told exactly what that means, we still don't know what she does in the mean time.]
The next morning, The Doctor comes to visit the Tyler home.  I just can't get over the fact that Jacquie totally tries to Mac the doctor the first time she meets him.  He says no, but wow! Go Jacquie! And this is a kid's show. You'd never see that happening on an American kids show.
I love the scene where the plastic hand attacks the doctor. He is so good at comic scenes.  He doesn't over do anything or make real jokes, but he is hilarious. Still, you believe that he is a very strong and intelligent person who is clearly on a mission.
So next, Rose tries to get the doctor to tell her what he is up to.  He doesn't give her the complete 411, but he tells her enough that if she thought he was bonkers she could have run off. She asks him, "Who are you?" He gives description of himself that makes him sound like a cross between a superhero, an engineer, an astronaut, and a science teacher. You can't really blame Rose for being completely intrigued.  The sound of the Tardis engine going off after that just drives in the nail even deeper.
And what does an intrigued young woman of the 21st century do? She goes to the internet! In this case, she goes to Mickey's house to surf the web and again we are exposed to their zero percent chemistry. Apparently he's got some dirty emails too. She can totally do better.
She finds a blogger on line who claims to have information about the doctor and she makes an appointment to see him. I love Blogger Clive. I wish (spoilers) that he didn't have the unfortunate end that he has in this episode. He's so much fun I wish he could have been a recurring character.
What I find fascinating is that towards the beginning of the episode, The Doctor looks at himself in the mirror and comments as though it was the first time he had seen what he looks like.
[Spoiler: At the end of the movie The Day of the Doctor, it looks like the War Doctor turns in to Eccleston.  So if he's just seeing himself, this could mean that Rose happens right after Day of the Doctor.  So how does the Blogger have lots of pictures of the Ninth Doctor from the far past?  I guess it's Timey Wimey.]
In the next scene, Mickey gets eaten by the plastic trash can.  As the Mickey character grows I get to like him more and more, but in this episode I think he's a winey little git, so I'm not exactly unhappy when that happens.  His plastic alter ego that replaces him looks nothing like him whatsoever and its a bit confusing as to why Rose doesn't see there's a problem.  Is she that preoccupied or is there really that little chemistry between them?
[Spoiler: Later in Season 2, we find out that Mickey's mother has been long dead and that he was raised by his grandmother who was dead by the time of the first episode.  There's a continuity problem in this episode because Rose talks about having to give his mother the bad news about his "death" after the doctor pops the head off his doppelgänger.]
I love the introduction to the Tardis. If you are a fan of Classic Who before seeing the show, you're giggling at Rose for not wanting to go into the Tardis for safety and you laugh at her "bigger than the inside" comments.
If you're not a whovian, you get to experience this journey with her. You find out that The Doctor is an alien (although this isn't much of a shock) and you learn a little about the Tardis.
One thing I don't like about the 9th Doctor is how insulting he is.  When he takes Rose on her first Tardis ride he insults her intelligence and calls people "stupid apes".  This attitude disappears with him and it might have come from the trauma of the Time War, but its one of the few things that I don't find endearing about Number 9.
One good thing about this scene is that when Rose comments that its weird that he is an alien with a "Northern accent", he comments that lots of planets have a North.  One of my favorite lines.
This fact rings true too if you are a Game of Thrones Fan.  Think about it. The Starks of Winterfell totally have the same accent and they're from the North. Maybe every planet has an England-type country with a North where the accent sounds like that. Has anyone else looked into this with other fandoms? It rings true with Tolkien and the Hobbits! Anyway...
Next we have the first in a series of times when Rose is smarter than the doctor in this episode. She finds the thingy in the Ferris wheel and the entrance to the whatchamacallit's lair.  We also have our first introduction to the nebulous Shadow Proclamation and the horrible Time War.  Does anyone know if there are any sites on line that tell us more about The Shadow Proclamation?  She's all over the seasons with Tennant and Eccleston, but you don't really hear about it much during the Smith years although she does get episodes with Capaldi.
So the Doctor blows it and the Nestine Thing-a-ma-gig starts to destroy the world.  Rose swings in and saves the day.  I wonder if he did that to test her or if he was really in over his head.  What do you think? I don't think the way she saves him is completely out of the realm of possibility since she just has to swing across on a rope.  What do you think?
Now I will comment again on how the Blogger gets killed here. I really wish they didn't do that.
Also you get the Nestine rubber thingy calling The Doctor a "Time Lord".  This only really made sense if you had already been a Who fan, but it does get explained further in episode 2.
I am happy that they rescued Mickey in this scene, but he doesn't seem very grateful.  I don't like the way he's hugging Rose's leg like a little wimp.  I guess the whole point was to show that Rose really didn't fit into her regular life, but I don't like them making Mickey such a wuss.  Especially in life of the cool character he becomes in subsequent seasons.
The ending is kind of weak, but I do think that it is totally believable that she goes with the Doctor. She's a regular girl, but they have shown that she's capable of so much more than she was able to do in her little world in London.

Honestly I think this is a strong episode. It is a lot of fun and I understand why this show grabbed the TV audience and helped the series become the popular monster that it is today.  There are some plot holes, but they're not super big and I thought some of the character development of side characters was a little weak -- especially in the case of Mickey. Still, Chris Eccleston is an amazing doctor.  I give this Episode 4 out of 5 stars.  Solid episode, but Mickey can be a little too annoying. Strong pilot and still one of my favorites.