What did people make of 'Rose'?

[mott1]

This can either be on original transmission or just when you first saw it, particularly if it was the first Nu-Who you saw.

Rate, discuss etc. (this in no way indicates how you ended up feeling about the new show after a few more stories!)

[Deleted]

It was a strange one for me because I didn't know what Doctor Who was. I just knew that it was some sort of event because my Mum wanted to watch it. I quite enjoyed it at the time although funnily enough I never watched the rest of Series 1 when it aired except for bits of Parting of the Ways. I suppose if I had watched Spearhead and was more familiar with classic who I might have thought differently about it.

[burrunjor]

It didn't feel right to me, even at the time. I didn't like the one episode and done format, the Autons didn't seem that impressive, and Eccelston from the start didn't really endear himself to me.

I liked Billie but that was pretty much it. Had it not gone the way it did though I would probably look on it more fondly as a decent enough intro.

[Brian MK.II]

I really liked it on initial viewing, mainly due to the novelty of ''Great! Doctor Who's back on the air again!'' but it's aged like milk and it's flaws become more obvious over the years. (Shoddy direction, useless Doctor, Autons are bland, belching wheelie bins and it visually resembles a 2000s C5 soap)

Series 1's a strange one for me in that whilst it's largely aged appallingly visually and tonally. I do have this bizarre angle of nostalgia (despite being far from young when watching) for it in the sense that it seemed like an alright AU type series at the time and I admit I did buy into the narrative that it needed to be more conventional to curry favor with the mainstream audience and Series 2 and Tennant would start to bring more ''classic'' elements back.

Alas, they didn't. And NuWho seemed to (and still does) use everything shit about Series 1 as it's springboard.

[iank]

What Brian said. Was exhilarating at the time but boy has it not aged well.

[Spark Doll King]

I'm not adding anything new. It was pretty good first time around, when I had never watched any classic who properly, but time had done it no favours.

It looks cheap, but not in that timeless way many classic episodes do.

The whole thing has a feeling of wrongness about it that I find hard to describe. Things are happening to fast, things feel to shallow, even the way the episode is shot gives if a look that I don't like but I'd struggle to say why.

It's like the difference between your faviort drink and sugarless variant of it, there are similarities but you never quite get used to the differences.

[mott1]

Sept 29, 2022 20:47:03 GMT Brian MK.II said:

I really liked it on initial viewing, mainly due to the novelty of ''Great! Doctor Who's back on the air again!'' but it's aged like milk and it's flaws become more obvious over the years. (Shoddy direction, useless Doctor, Autons are bland, belching wheelie bins and it visually resembles a 2000s C5 soap)


Series 1's a strange one for me in that whilst it's largely aged appallingly visually and tonally. I do have this bizarre angle of nostalgia (despite being far from young when watching) for it in the sense that it seemed like an alright AU type series at the time and I admit I did buy into the narrative that it needed to be more conventional to curry favor with the mainstream audience and Series 2 and Tennant would start to bring more ''classic'' elements back.

Alas, they didn't. And NuWho seemed to (and still does) use everything shit about Series 1 as it's springboard.

I think this nails it. Nostalgia carried this debut episode when it came out initially, but when you look at the direction of the Autons' threat it's not in the same league as Spearhead, and from the start it felt 'lite'. Personally I thought Billie Piper was fine and would have worked as a companion if reined-in, but Binman seemed uncomfortable and didn't seem to settle, for me, 'til his last episode - it feels like he's taking his frustrations with the production out on the viewers. And from the start it seemed that there was no way they could build any tension in the one-episode format. Oddly s1 stories in particular remind me of mid/late 1990s British TV with its inability to let moments breathe without incidental music, as well as the visual palette.


Brian's right: tonally much of Nu Who has clung to the s1 template, even the comparitive heights of the early Smith era.

[rushy]

It was only the second episode of the show I'd ever seen (the first was "The Big Bang"), so I had very little idea of what Doctor Who even was. It introduced the concept well enough, and I still like Eccleston's performance in it. But aside from being a decent pilot, there's not much to go back to. The Autons were never scary in it, and I was happy to get away from the Powell estate.