Watching Doctor Who

Aliens of London by Russell T. Davies is the first half of a two-parter. After her first group of adventures Rose goes home for a visit. But what happens when the Doctor gets the flight a bit wrong, and her adventures follow her home? On to the spoilers!

Episode: Aliens of London by Russell T. Davies
Rating (1 to 5): 3.5
Baddie: The Slitheen
Rose is Trapped: nowhere yet in this half.
The Doctor is Trapped: nowhere yet in this half.
The Doctor Enjoys: History happening right in front of him.
The Doctor Dislikes: Getting slapped. When things get domestic. Soldiers shooting aliens against his wishes.
Doctor-y Strangeness: Well, he *is* 900 years old.
Scary Stuff: People with zips in their foreheads and big green aliens inside.
Does someone local help out? Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North
Bad Wolf? Spray painted on the TARDIS
What we learn: The Doctor is 900 years old. He’s never been slapped by someone’s Mother before. He travels to see history happening right in front of him. He remembers how to deal with UNIT soldiers. The Doctor is classified as a “Code Nine.” As we saw in “Rose,” The Doctor reads very quickly.
The Doctor’s Death Wish: He smiles at the soldiers who are pointing their guns at him.
The Doctor Apologizes To: Rose & Jackie (for the 12 months instead of 12 hours thing)
My Favorite Bits: The conversation between Rose and The Doctor on the roof. Rose finally getting her own TARDIS key. The Doctor automatically taking charge of the UNIT soldiers when he hears the scream. The Doctor trying to keep Rose with him in the conference (it turns out that it was good that she wasn’t there…)

Observations and musings:

Rose encounters for the first time the difficulty of visiting home after going on such amazing adventures. She finds that she can’t tell her mother anything about where she’s been. Luckily, she also gets her own TARDIS key at this point. It’s going to come in handy. Also in this episode, Rose begins to show how different from other people she is on her way to being. When her Mother leaves the TARDIS, Rose only chases after her for a few seconds. Then, she goes back into the TARDIS to have a conversation with The Doctor about the crashed ship. I’d say that many people would have finished chasing after Jackie to calm her down, or some other domestic thing. Rose also takes on board Harriet’s story about the aliens, and proceeds to try and deal with it on her own.

The Doctor gets the flight wrong once again, and instead of being gone from home for twelve hours, Rose has been missing for twelve months. I was impressed that he had enough courage to rush straight to Rose’s apartment to tell her, and thus face her Mum. He even stays to talk to the Police officer. The Doctor is many things, but he is not a coward. I am starting to think that he is a bit jealous of Mickey, however. The Doctor seems to go out of his way to annoy the fellow. I also enjoy The Doctor’s habit of taking charge of situations. He takes charge of UNIT soldiers, and then takes over the alien expert conference. Well, I suppose he has a great deal of experience.

So, Rose is now about one year younger than everyone else. I suppose it will work out in the end, as I’m sure that she has had more time adventuring than even we have seen. I wonder how much time she ended up spending with the Ninth Doctor in total? At this point she has been away for about a week in her time line, and a year has passed at home. It also means that Doctor Who takes place in the near future, not quite right now. Well, that’s it for the first half. See you next Saturday for “World War III.”

Aliens of London, Russell T. Davies, Doctor Who, 9th Doctor

Image Source: http://www.time-and-space.co.uk/