In a fit of extreme brain-deadedness (the only coworker that shares my job full time has been on vacation for the past two weeks, and by the end of it, I was getting a little behind, and a little tired…), I managed to watch the entire first series of Doctor Who in two nights. (Well, excluding the first Christmas special. Not sure exactly where that counts series-wise.)
I hadn’t actually watched these since they first aired (for whatever reason, these are not the ones I seem to randomly catch in reruns). While I still think I like David Tennent’s Doctor better, I now think that’s at least partially because there’s more of Ten to like. I wonder what Christopher Eccelston would have been able to do with the role for another series or so, and it makes me wish he hadn’t been quite so worried about type-casting.
2023 Note: Not so much typecasting – really wish he hadn’t been impacted so badly by mental illness. And that that didn’t get snarkily put down to being afraid to be typecast.
I think my two favorite episodes of the series are “Dalek” and “Father’s Day”, probably because they’re both pretty emotional episodes, and very well done at that. I also really enjoyed meeting Captain Jack for the first time again, and have a bigger appreciation for the series finale. Mostly, I appreciate the lack of a reset button (series three, I’m looking at you), and Ten’s new teeth comment cracks me up. I guess I’m a sucker for regenerations.
The other thing I made sure to watch was Paterson Joseph, who played Roderick in the episode Bad Wolf. By many accounts, he’s first in the running to play Eleven. I couldn’t remember him from this episode, so I definitely paid quite a bit of attention when he came on the screen. It wasn’t a big enough role for me to get a flavor of his full acting ability, but I at least didn’t see anything to make me nervous. (Actually, now that I think about it, I managed to catch sight of quite a few more people than I knew from other roles this time around. I suppose that’s because our Doctor Who viewing began our larger habit of English show viewing, and I’ve had quite a bit more exposure to the BBC et al body of work than I did back in 2005.)
I’m really looking forward to rewatching Ten’s first Christmas episode. I remember it quite fondly. Let’s see if it holds up.