How did I get back into watching Doctor Who after 16 years?

Hey guys! While I'm well and truly in this Forum Spirit of things I thought of something. Actually I was reminded of something while watching the "Parting Of The Ways" with Christopher Ecclestone doing his regenaration thing while Rose fries the Emperor Dalek's brain (wasn't that just a GREAT and yet TOTALL BIZARRE episode??!!).

And it was this. How did I get back into Doctor Who after all these years and what started me again? Well, it was Series 1 of course and the first two episodes. My dad sent these to me on video around the time they had come out. I really didn't want to watch, and the video remained unseen in the cabinet for around a year - maybe more. My dad had watched and his comments had not been that complementary. And another reason I had resisted for ages was that BILLIE PIPER was in it!! EUUWWWWW! That one-off pop star! Couldn't imagine HOW she could POSSIBLY fit in and thought how naff it must all be. No way!! Then one day the server which gave me my internet was down a LONG TIME. Hmmm, I thought, what shall I do now - ah, I know! Let's watch that Doctor Who! And so it was done.

SERIES ONE (Christopher Ecclestone, Billie Piper)

1. ROSE - The Doc, Rose, Autons, Nestene Consciousness, new Tardis, first sight of Mickey and Jackie Tyler

• I suppose they needed a way to get Rose into it all as a shop girl and the Autons were the obvious target for Villain Number 1. But they were good though not great. It gave us a good first look at our New Doctor Who that we'd waited 16 years for. Was kind of strange with me remembering old Tom Baker with his scarf and long coat and manic smile. "Doctor Who in a leather jacket of all things!!". Loved the run across the Bridge, the scene at Rose's home with the Auton arm was silly and the acting of Billie Piper on that was pretty poor. Also good though only necessary for people who'd never ever seen Doctor Who before in their life, was how Rose met and talked with Clive about the "historic sightings" of Doctor Who throughout the ages.

• We also saw the first hint of humour - there was the Doc getting throttled by this arm, falling down and Rose with no idea what was going on. Pretty silly. Also daft was the scene with Rose's mum in her dressing gown seeing the Doc for the first time and coming on to him. It was totally out of character as we saw in the character of Jackie for the rest of the two series as she never did anything like that again (except maybe in 'Love And Monsters' with the Abzorbaloff).

• OVERALL RATING FOR EPISODE --> 7 / 10

2. THE END OF THE WORLD (The Doc, Rose, Cassandra, Face Of Boe, Moxx Of Balhoon, Appearance Of The Repeated Meme, spiders, Jabe from the Forest Of Cheem)

• THIS WAS THE ONE THAT DID FOR ME and proved to me that Doctor Who really WAS BACK.
  

• This was such a brilliant episode! Not only a great Doctor Who episode but a really GREAT science-fiction story in its own right. The monsters were brilliant, the action was great and the argument between the Doc and Rose was a high point too. The only naff and unexplained bit is of course HOW the hell DID Doctor Who walk through those rotating blades and not get chopped to bits? OK, he concentrated, and maybe that was it. Ah hell! It's sci-fi!! Who says you have to explain it all!

• And it was the final few monents which really did it for me. The final few seconds when The Doc saved them all, the sight of the sun exploding and the Earth shattering to pieces. And to cap it all, it was the final revelation that Gallifrey had gone in a Time War. "They nuked the Time Lords!!", I thought. What could be next? This was definitely IT now!
  

• OVERALL RATING FOR EPISODE --> 9.5 / 10

So there you are! And, as I began this blog, even though I was one year and a half out-of-date, I was definitely BACK!!

OK, I'll do more with that 'blooper reel' another time. But I think I got out of a tight spot there. And you didn't really notice, did you?