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"Rose" 'Now don't make me play this waiting game...' It's been a funny day. There's been a tangible sense of frenzied excitement, and some considerable impatience, in the air. Periodically, I've mentally cheered when I've remembered what day it is, or read the last DWM again, or thought about all the exciting Saturday night thrills that are to come over the next three months (yes, three months! I'm not sure if I can take that in!). And then there is the impatience. I spent this morning driving around Clacton visiting relatives and chatting over cups of coffee. Entertaining various old people, and then getting back in my car in search of some more. Aunty Peggy wants to know if Grandad has died because she has apparently seen Grandma with a young man in Tesco. Uncle Graham dragged me into the shed at the bottom of his garden and asked me to set up a new template for him on Word. Nan's video goes fuzzy when she tries to record, so she wants to know if she needs to buy a new one. There's a quiet uneventfulness, mundane nature even, to life here, a bit evocative of good old suburban "Survival", and as I spent the time in between pacing round the house, browsing through the Radio Times, or scanning threads I'd already read on PS, I realised something. I didn't really want today at all. I just wanted to get to tonight. 'Time passes slowly and fades away...' I wound up in Clacton today because it just so happens to be my parents 30th Wedding Anniversary on Tuesday. A well-meaning Aunt arranged a meal for this weekend, and was struck off my Christmas card list for a while when I considered that she might - just might - organise it for the Saturday. But no - chance saved me of excuses, woes and having to make light conversation over a mackerel pate while Rose and the Doctor were chased by Autons on BBC1. The meal was on Friday, and mackerel pate was consumed last night. My sister, who now lives with her boyfriend Jim, then suddenly decided to come over because she's been poorly and could do with a break from a boisterous visit by his two kids. It's funny but we've all ended up back here, the four of us, in fact the first time the family have been together and together alone for some years, and here we were, watching Doctor Who together. ---- 'Love that's pure hope's all things' The telephone rings. A text message arrives. Then another. Then another. Natalie from work's boyfriend liked it! Dad is hollering on about "a mix about new and old" from the bedroom as I type. Mum stayed awake - in fact she loved it. The funny bits were all really funny, and got laughs all round in just the right places. The scary bits got shudders. Katie wouldn't feel safe around a shop window dummy again. When it started, I got an overwhelming feeling of not being able to take it all in. I felt I couldn't enjoy it because there was so much to look at in one go; but then, in no time at all, I got into it! Not because it was Doctor Who, but because it was good. Fast, and funny, and exciting. Curiously enough the thing that took the most time to 'stick' was Eccleston's Doctor - at first he appeared just plain rude, glib, a bit of a smart arse. The key was the scene in the park - no, not the very deliberately quotable bit about the Earth spinning, but when he strode away. His face was suddenly serious and - yes - underneath it all was the troubled, slightly sinister, alien Doctor we all know and love. I didn't have any doubts again after that. If Doctor Who has been straining at the leash to get out for all these years, this was it breaking free. The TV Movie left its mark - the opening titles are practically the same, even down to the spinning credits, as is the music - but what it took an hour and a half to achieve, "Rose" did in less time, and with a full blown alien invasion plot as well. Yes, we would have loved to have seen more of the Auton children, and the confrontation with the Ghostbusters-like Nestene Consciousness did come about thirty minutes in when we usually have to wait two hours for it - but there's obviously so much more to see. I can remember remarking that it would have been impossible back in '96 to have squeezed in a decent story, introductions, a new Doctor and companion, AND a great monster and/or alien invasion. But tonight, somehow, they managed it. And it was genuinely laugh-out loud funny. And how great was Billie Piper's Mum? ---- 'Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You' There were a few reservations. Mum pointed out that Billie's accent waltzes between Eton and Brixton. Next week's story looks a bit - well, let's not be negative, but a bit Star Trek. Lots of people in silly hats talking. But more importantly, people who were persuaded to tune in now want to watch it next week. It was scary, funny, and addictive. And it had THE most gorgeous closing shot of all time. Rose turns to slo-mo as she runs towards the Doctor. As we all would. If more than eight million people would rather watch Ant and Dec after this, then the human race really is doomed. YES!
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