First, that it was not a light entertainment concern as had been rumoured. Paul Daniels was nowhere to be seen, and an actor of Eccleston’s reputation (there’s almost certainly an algorithm used by the press that selects which adjective from ‘serious’, ‘intense’, ‘brooding’, and ‘Northern’ he is to be described with) showed people on the fence of the size and ambition of the revival. In order for Russell T Davies’ vision to work, it would first need to convince his lead actor. If he liked it, and RTD liked it, then presumably the show would appeal to both the new, harder-to-impress audience with a negative perception of the show, and the hardcore fan who would snigger into their drink at the mention of the words Bandril Ambassador. This is why, before we even heard or saw anything from the new show, the casting of Eccleston was inspired. He simply cut through a lot of the baggage the show had been lumbered with. When we saw him on screen, the general reaction was positive. There was, in online fandom anyway, a sense of a ship being steered in a different direction, and of people not being immediately used to the new orientation. In Rose, which does everything it seeks to do quite effectively without trying to overload people with information and sensation, the Doctor is presented to us via someone else’s eyes. What is cleverly done – and this is clever in the sense of making simple, effective connections and joining the dots, which is harder than it sounds – is that the Doctor is hiding things from Rose that even the hardcore wouldn’t know about, so the character remains a mystery on some level, regardless of your knowledge. The Ninth Doctor is, like the First Doctor, an unknown who remains aggressively weird until his new-found human friends soften him up. He usually inspires others to save the day, and when he does so in The End Of The World, it’s not in the traditional Doctor-way. Rather than find a peaceful solution, he impassively watches as the villain explodes, intoning that “Everything has its time and everything dies”. Eccleston brings a forced mania and aggressive swagger to the role, which I assume is the way the actor played it upon reading the scripts. Not being a fan, it’s a joyful coincidence that he brings his own idiosyncrasies while also being clearly reminiscent of past Doctors. In fact, on forums, I have seen every single incarnation of the character being compared with Eccleston’s take on the role, and there’s some truth in that. Without necessarily watching them all, he’s managed to be similar to Hartnell’s distant alien, Troughton’s upbeat friendliness, Pertwee’s tendency to be abrupt with authority, Tom Baker’s boggle-eyed enthusiasm, Davison’s occasional ineffectiveness, Colin Baker’s brashness, McCoy’s confrontational attitude towards his enemies, and McGann’s passionate bursts of ebullience. He manages nearly all of these in The Empty Child alone. His relationship with his companion is more explicitly an equal friendship than before, and the Ninth Doctor’s relationship with Rose Tyler is much sweeter than the Tenth’s. Being less sure of himself initially, its only when Captain Jack joins the team in Boom Town where he starts to look more assured. Even then, he doesn’t save the day, the TARDIS does. The Ninth Doctor doesn’t often defeat his opponents himself, but inspires others to do so by his example. While this drew complaints that this made the Doctor seem weaker, it did eventually reveal itself to be part of an excellent character arc, where the Doctor’s heroic qualities are revealed precisely because he doesn’t flick a switch and kill everyone, and doesn’t go down the darker-fanboy-pleasing path. He’s already destroyed one planet, and when given the chance to do so again, he ultimately finds himself at peace by proving that he is not defined by that act. He’s managed a complete U-turn from the resolution of The End Of The World, and then Rose saves the day anyway, because she thinks it’s what he would have done. It’s by far the most satisfying of the RTD-era finales, as everything ties together beautifully in terms of character, theme and spectacle. Also, because the Daleks are scary. In series one, the Dalek stories form part of a longer story that’s about the main character’s relationship with his worst enemies, and use an actor who can completely sell that level of hate, anger and despair. Since then, Dalek stories haven’t quite lived up to the then-novel sight of thousands of Daleks floating through space, whole fleets hanging in the sky, and the Doctor veering between defiance and silent resignation. Dalek shows them being effective, cruel, cunning and ruthless. The last few Dalek stories had been very good, but without really showing the Daleks as effective fighting machines. Dalek achieved that, and told part of a bigger story. Indeed, series one is essentially the second half of one huge tale, the first half of which we will never see. Without these semi-serious foundations, we wouldn’t have been able to move onwards towards the even more popular David Tennant era. See Also:
