Doctor Who - Season 1

So after an absence of over fifteen years from regular episodes and a decade since the last incarnation, Russell T. Davies finally brought Doctor Who back to life in 2005. I've never seen it before, but it's always been a beloved and seemingly interesting series, and this seemed like a good point to jump on, so I decided to check it out. This is Christopher Eccleston's only season as the Doctor, with David Tennant already cast to take the part over before it aired, but he does a pretty entertaining job with the part in his one go at it. It's a more complicated character than I expected at first, normally pretty happy-go-lucky about his position as the final Time Lord who jumps around averting disasters, but he can get deadly serious if he has to. Billie Piper's his main companion and the most remarkable thing about her is the severity of her accent.

I wasn't totally sold on the show in the beginning, as it seems to be filmed on a much lower budget than the current standard for American science fiction television and was a little goofier than I thought. It did seem to get better as it went on, with more intriguing and intelligent conflicts and plot developments. The time travel mechanics often don't seem to make sense, as they ignore obvious solutions to their problems and the universe's solution for paradoxes is laughable. It's definitely very, very British. The whole genesis for this relaunch of the show seems to be Davies' idea for an episode where then-popular shows like Big Brother still exist in the future, though in a much deadlier form, and while it's a bit funny in places it just seems to date the show. Futurama did that too sometimes, and those are generally the weakest episodes in retrospect years later. If you accept Doctor Who as a comedy about as much as science fiction though, it's mostly enjoyable.