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Rose (Billie Piper) gets locked in the department store she works at
accidently, & as if that wasn't bad enough, she is attacked by shop
dummies, too (which she initally mistakes for students, because who else
could come up with a stunt like that) ... & she is only just saved by
a mysterious stranger (Christopher Eccleston) ... but minutes after she
has managed to get out of the store, it's blown up (& Rose's job with
it) ... the only souvenir that is left ot her is anj arm of one of the
dummies ... The next day, the mysterious stranger shows up again, &
he & Rose are both attacked by the dummie'a arm, which he only defeats
with a weird kind of gadget called the sonic screwdriver ... Rose soon
grows curious about the man, & does a bit opf research on the internet
... only to find Clive (Mark Benton), a conspiracy theorist who tries to
fit the stranger (he thinks to be called the doctor ... & right he is)
into every (sort orf) conspiracy in the last 100 years or more (including
of course the Kennedy assassination) - which only convinces Rose there's
nothing mysterious about the Doctor & everything that has happened to
her after all, it's all just masde up by some nutters. What shje doesn't
know of course is that her boyfriend Mickey (Noel Clarke), who waits
outside meanwhile, is eaten up by a plastic trashcan & substituted by
a (also plastic) dummy. It is only when she has dinner with plastic Mickey
later, & the Doctor shows up, beheads him & proves him to be made
of plastic that Rose begins to notice there is something wrong about her
boyfriend & she's in grave danger - & not only she, humankind as
well ... Soon the Doctor fills her in on the basic details ... a Nestene
- a superintelligent blob - wants to conquer the earth & feed on its
pollution, but the only way he can do that is by controlling plastic
(& especially shop dummies, called the Autons - & first seen in
the 1970 Doctor Who adventure Spearhead from Space
starring Jon Pertwee) & turn it into his invasion army ... fortunately
though, the Doctor has a small container of antiplastic (don't ask) to
fight the Nestene, but unfortunately he insists on talking the Nestene out
of its invasion plans first ... well of course the Nestene soon
interprets the container of antiplastic as an act of agression & has
the Doctor restrained ... but thank god Rose musters up enough courage to
üpush the Auton who has gotten hold of the anti plastic right into the
Nestene ... the Doctor, Rose, & the earth are saved, & for some
reason, even Rose's boyfriend has survived. The Doctor asks Rose to come
with him for some further adventures - but she declines because of her
boyfriend ... that is until the Doctor reveals he travels through time
& space in a police-telephone-box-shaped thing called the TARDIS (Time
And Relative Dimensions In Space) ... well, who could resist (& Rose
doesn't). The classic
Doctor Who-series, originally planned as a children's
program, was, especially during its height in the early-to-mid-1970's, a
self-consciously campy, tongue-in-cheek exercise in scioence fiction,
which eventually turned first to full blown comedy (especially when
Douglas Adams was script editor - circa 1979), then during the 1980's to
somewhat run-of-the-mill science fiction, so maybe it was best that the
series was laid to a rest (after 26 years) in 1989 ... the 1996
American-produced version of course was an insult to Doctor Who-
& science fiction-fans alike ... All that said, it is almost a small
wonder that the new incarnation of the series comes across surprisingly
fresh, unpretentious, self-consciously campy (again), self parodistic,
highly enjoyable, & successfully steers the emphasis away from its
many sef references ... That all said though, the story of this epsiode
lacks a bit in dramatic tension, too much tiem is wasted to establish the
main characters, too little in ever bringing the story to full swing -
when it is finally explained who the main characters are & what is
going on, the Doctor & Rose have just enought ime to get rid of the
Nestene & the episode ends ... which is a bit of a shame, as the
Nestenes/Autons do, & always did, have potential for a bit of fun at
least.
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