Let's clear up a few things.
I bought the Blu-ray for Series 1 used for $20...
...but then I found out why it was such a bargain:
it was part of the Series 1-7 Blu-ray Box Set that came out in 2013.
Apparently, Seasons 1-4 were never shot in HD, so the Blu-rays for these seasons are just slightly better than their DVD counterparts.
But still, $20 is $20. On to the review.
Needless to say, Spoilers abound. And we know how The Doctor feels about Spoilers...
Series 1 Episode 1: "Rose"
The Gist:
Meet Rose Tyler, a nice young woman...
...working hard as a department store associate,
until she has to go the basement of said workplace to drop off the associate Lottery Fund.
Weird things happen,
until she has to go the basement of said workplace to drop off the associate Lottery Fund.
Weird things happen,
she meets this guy, who calls himself "The Doctor",
and together they run away from the weird things.
Rose makes it outside, just in time...
to see her (former) place of employment go up in flames.
By this guy.
Rose makes it home,
Rose makes it home,
and her mom, Jackie, is on the phone telling all her friends that her daughter is lucky to be alive and should seek compensation.
Rose, rather wisely I might add, declines the offer and kisses him goodnight.
The next day, she wake up as usual and realizes she has nowhere to go because...you know...
so she stays home with her mum and has a spot of tea,
when this guy shows up. Again!
He says he's following a signal that seems to be coming from her flat. Turns out it's actually coming from an arm -
(from one of those things)
- that found it's way back to Rose's flat and attacks the poor man.
So the stranger takes the arm, thanks her for her help, and walks out.
Rose, too clever (and probably too bored) to leave it, catches up with him.
She learns what she can about the stranger calling himself The Doctor. He's not a Doctor, or Doctor...whomever, just "The Doctor". She asks him questions and he keeps dodging them until he tells her to go back to her life and forget all about him. She starts to leave, hears a funny noise, turns back...
...and he's gone.
...who's had an adventure of his own.
They stop for pizza (and not Chinese thank you very much) at a rather fancy pizza place, and "Mickey" starts asking Rose questions about the Doctor until he's interrupted by...
They fight, and "Mickey's" head pops off. Head in hand, the Doctor (and Rose, together again) run while "headless Mickey" follows, straight towards:
Rose looks for a way out through a locked gate, while the Doctor calmly suggests they go into the box. Rose wants none of that and keeps looking for a way out.
Giving up, Rose runs into the Big Blue Box...and quickly runs out again. She stares at the Box, walks around the Box, and as "headless Mickey" works his way through the door sealed by the Doctor with his Sonic Screwdriver, goes back into the Box (with us along for the ride) to see this:
She comes accept that the inside is indeed bigger than the outside, and everything else that goes with that, while The Doctor uses the head to follow the signal to it's source - sort of - because it starts melting.
The Nestene Consciousness is looking for a new food source, since their old ones were destroyed in "the war". Earth has so much smoke, oil, toxins and dioxins in the air that it would be the perfect replacement...if it weren't for all the people. So they're sending a signal that makes all the plastic, metal, and other "non-life" stuff on the planet mobile - so that it can kill all the "regular-life" stuff standing in the way.
The Doctor's solution?
Antiplastic. But there's a catch...
The Doctor needs to find the transmitter being used to send the signal. The Nestene Consciousness itself can only send a signal strong enough for part of London, so it needs a transmitter to spread the signal worldwide. And to do that, the transmitter needs to be big.
Like, really big.
Rose and the Doctor get to the Eye and find a way underground to where the Nestene Consciousness (and the real Mickey) are located.
The Doctor, being the uber-cool dude that he is, offers the Consciousness a chance to surrender and/or leave Earth peacefully.
and things start moving.
Jackie, who's out shopping (natch) sees the destruction first hand.
Mickey just sits there in front of the Consciousness, terrified.
The Doctor struggles against the mannequin but can't break free.
The only one who can do anything is Rose, and do something she does.
She knocks the Antiplastic-holding "thing" into the Nestine Consciousness, which shuts down the signal and saves the world.
The Doctor drops off Rose and Mickey near her flat...and offers her to join him.
She turns him down, and he leaves.
But then he comes back, saying that the TARDIS can also travel in time...
...and in she runs, with a smile on her face.
Rose.
What a way to (re)introduce The Doctor to a brand new audience! I saw the 1996 Doctor Who TV-Movie and simply didn't get it. It wasn't so much "Who is this guy?" (which it was - at least somewhat), as it was "Why should I care?". Here, you don't see The Doctor right away. You get to know Rose. Her life, her day-to-day existence, her family, her friends and her job...all in about three minutes. Then you see her life go completely sideways when this man shows up telling her to "run". She's quick on her feet and thinks outside the Box. She impressed The Doctor right away when she told him she thought the mannequins were students, and when he questioned her logic, she explained herself calmly and logically. Well done indeed.
And her introduction to the TARDIS? Priceless.
The Doctor.
I'm not giving him...or any of them...numbers. Call him "The Doctor From Series One", "Series One Doctor", or "The Doctor That Was The Doctor Before The Other Doctor Took Over". I don't care. THIS guy will always be my favorite Doctor, because THIS Doctor got me hooked. He cares about Earth and all the "stupid apes" that live on it, and gives threatening aliens a chance to peacefully end things before taking action. He's awesome...
...but he's also lonely.
It's obvious the Great War took it's toll on him in some way, and he was screaming at the Nestene Consciousness about how sorry he was that he "couldn't save any of them". He's damaged, and he knows it, but keeps pulling a laugh out of Rose or otherwise making light of how serious things really are.
Another thing I found really cool was how the music playing throughout Rose's day also played inside the store where she worked. It kept us focused on her, and I'm all about the little things like that. Which brings me to...
The Bad:
Maybe there's too many Marvel Movies in me, but I couldn't find Rose's "Under Sevens Gymnastics Team" Bronze Medal anywhere in her room. I looked. That would have been cool!
There's usually a moment in every pilot episode where things drag a bit...here, I found three:
When Mickey was captured by the plastic dustbin.
I give props to Noel Clarke for acting with what wasn't there, but his fight with the dustbin ran at least five seconds too long.
When the mannequins were preparing to shoot Jackie.
It really shouldn't take so long for three mannequins to open their hands, point their guns and fire.
When The Doctor was held captive while Rose was deciding what to do.
This kind of goes hand-in-hand with "Drag #2" since they're happening at the same point in the episode, and I get why Rose would hesitate. But seeing The Doctor struggle so much while being held by a single mannequin when he could just as easily push Mannequin #2 into the Consciousness while struggling with Mannequin #1 was downright painful. Speaking of "Drag #2"...
The WTF?:
How'd the mannequins get their guns?
I know - according to Who-ology these mannequins are called Autons, but they're never called that in the episode so I'm not going to either. As for the guns, did the Consciousness' "control beam" that brought them to life also help them re-form some of their matter into guns?
Speaking of rearranging matter...
Speaking of rearranging matter...
...someone's gotta explain this to me.
I always assumed Mickey was pulled into the dustbin in order to scan his DNA or likeness or whatever to create "Plastic-Mickey". I also assumed that the plastic used to create Plastic-Mickey came from said dustbin. But the thing is still there on the side of the road as P-Mickey and Rose drive away. Is Real Mickey still in there? Did it scan his DNA, then send that data back to the Consciousness so it could create P-Mickey, only to have P-Mickey walk all the way to the car? Like I said, someone's gotta explain it to me.
I'm just saying that given the understandable budget limitations, it would have made more sense to cut the bit about metal and glass from the dialogue. Even if it meant killing the implant joke.
The Nestine Consciousness' signal.
There was a joke made as The Doctor and Rose looked for the Consciousness' lair about how the signal would make (and I'm paraphrasing here) "all non-living things come to life", including metal, glass, wiring...and breast implants. Okay. Fine. Ha, ha.
But let's talks about the glass part.
During the scene at the shopping plaza, all the mannequins come to life and burst through the windows to wreak havoc.
Let me repeat that: The mannequins burst through the glass windows.
If that same signal affects glass, wouldn't the windows just move out of the way instead of letting the mannequins smash through them? And as for metal, those escalators looked pretty normal to me...
The Nestene Consciousness' plan in general.
They're looking for a new place to eat, and Earth almost fits the bill. The only thing in their way is all the "life" right? So why kill all the people? Wouldn't it make more sense to kill all the trees? By killing the plant life, the build-up of carbon dioxide would never be converted into oxygen...thereby killing all the animals (on land anyways) including humans. The ecology would spin out of control, and (I'm pretty sure) affect all aquatic life as well. In fact, by sending this signal that affects all metal they could control machines such as bulldozers and oil trucks (and tanker ships come to think of it) to knock down forests, set them on fire and spill deadly toxins into the oceans. Piss poor planning on their (its?) part.
Adorkification Moment:
Two of my favorite quotes from The Doctor start here: "Nononononononononono", and "I. AM. TALKING!"
Whomever thought the mannequins would be creepy "villains" sure knew their stuff...
...but they're not all bad.
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