[PilotQuest] Doctor Who: "Rose"

In order to understand television better, we have to learn how it works and how it's put together. The best place to start seems to be the pilot. The television pilot is a unique form in itself. Its closest relative is probably the film that hopes to be the first of a series, but even a film like that needs to be primarily a discrete, beginning-middle-and-end story, whereas a TV pilot is necessarily open and intriguing more than it is conclusive. It's in introduction machine, and its job is to optimize our introduction to an unfamiliar world, people we've never met, and questions and concerns we don't yet care about. It has to give us a taste of what kind of story we can expect, while also beginning a series/season-long storylines. Not easy. So I'm going to watch a bunch of pilots of various TV series - some I've seen before and some I haven't, old ones and new ones, and (hopefully) good ones and bad ones. Join me, and let's see what we can learn about the anatomy the pilot.
For our first pilot (yes, our "pilot pilot;" ha ha), I wanted something I'd seen before and judged to be a good example of the form, so I chose the first episode of the New Series of Doctor Who. Except for backdoor pilot attempt in 1996, there had been no Doctor Who on television since 1989 (excluding reruns). Since then, Doctor Who had become a distant memory or a "cult" hobby
for those who knew of it, and a whole generation of people had NOT grown up on the show. So, although 2005's "Rose" was not the first ever episode of Doctor Who, a complete reintroduction was required, making this very much a pilot, one which had to appeal to complete newbies, people with fond memories of the series from their childhood, AND fans.

Here is how the episode breaks down:

0:00-2:30 Introduction to Rose
2:30-7:45 Rose's meets the Doctor/Autons
7:45-10:00 Rose at home (intro. Jackie and Mickey)
10:00-17:35 Sees the Doctor again. He tells her about aliens etc.
17:35-24:00 Rose investigates the Doctor (more info about the Doctor and Mickey).
24:00-32:00 Rose gets caught up in the Doctor/Nestene conflict.
32:00-40:00 Climax. The Doctor's plan fails and the Autons attack. Rose saves the day.
40:00-42:49 "You could come with me."

Something the Doctor Who of old never really did was make the companion the protagonist. "Rose" is the story of Rose meeting the Doctor, not the other way around. If you want to introduce a world, having the audience see through the eyes of an outsider to that world is usually a good plan. It makes the Doctor's info-dumps (a necessary evil of pilots, especially sci-fi ones) believable and interesting, because when there's a character receiving the information, it has the potential to become a scene rather than just exposition. So information can be imparted by Rose chasing the Doctor and begging for information, or by the Doctor respecting her enough to tell her things, or by some bloke called Clive. More importantly, we see Rose's reaction to it all (the scene in the TARDIS when she starts to cry is so good).

The episode's structure, as you can see above, consists of dangerous, exciting interactions with the Doctor, interspersed with scenes at the council flat with Mum and the boyfriend. What is perhaps unusual about "Rose" is that it begins (after the fly-in to Earth) with the mundane and then introduces the unusual. In that respect, the Autons were therefore the perfect monsters for this episode. The interactions with the Doctor intensify each time, and Rose is able to prove herself worthy of the Doctor's attention and then friendship. Ultimately, the episode becomes about Rose being awesome, because it's taken for granted that the Doctor's awesome. It is, I think, a brave move, but one that pays off.

Yes, "Rose" looks a bit rudimentary compared to more recent episodes, but it's also a lot less of a CGI clusterfuck. It's a brilliantly-written episode that introduces the necessary characters and concepts, raises some questions (What war? The Doctor fought??) for future intrigue, and introduces a unique, fast-paced, brightly-coloured, whimsical, fantastical world.