Doctor Who Discussions: Season 1 – Aliens of London/World War Three

Nine hundred years of time and space and I’ve never been slapped by someone’s mother.

It’s back to good old modern day London for the Ninth Doctor’s fourth and fifth outings, and we have a lot to be getting on with here. There’s Rose’s family to check up on, a mysterious spaceship crash in the Thames, a very confused pig, and a threat to the very existence of Planet Earth itself. So far, so Doctor Who.

Well, almost. It’s the part about going back to check on Rose’s family that is new. In classic Who, that just didn’t happen much. The companions didn’t go home. We didn’t see the impact that their mysterious lives had on their families. By bringing Rose back to her mother and Mickey so early on, Russell T Davies was making a bold statement about what we could expect from his new Doctor Who vision. There were going to be story arcs, and consequences like we hadn’t known them before.

The very first consequence, the Doctor learns, is that if he takes Rose off with no explanation, Jackie Tyler is going to slap him. Hard. Poor Mickey has his own issues – he’s chief suspect in Rose’s murder, and he is none too pleased to see the Doctor either. Rose may have only been away for a few days, but it has been a whole year on Earth, and you really feel for them.

Jackie’s face when she sees Rose for the first time is heartbreaking. Camille Coduri and Noel Clarke really begin to come into their own in these episodes, and show us who the characters would eventually evolve into. Mickey virtually saves the day with his old computer and his mobile phone. There is more to him than we know. As for Coduri, she is especially brilliant and she steals the show with her snappy dialogue — no easy feat when you’re up against enormous farting aliens in Downing Street. It’s also a sign of things to come – in all of her tenure in the show, she will never be boring to watch.

Personally, I think that the decision to include Rose’s family – and, later on, those of Martha and Donna – was a brilliant one. It was a risky move. Science fiction is rarely so domestic, and the Doctor makes sure Rose knows that – ‘I don’t do families’. How much he will come to evolve, how much he will come to care later on. But for now, he’s still that prickly, damaged war veteran. Rose has already begun to soften his edges, but he has a long way to go.

As for those enormous farting aliens, they are ironically the least interesting part of a two parter episode that is all about them. The Slitheen really head up the rogues gallery of new Who baddies, by virtue of being the first (the Autons from episode one were borrowed from classic Who, and the Gelth of episode three weren’t very memorable). I do have to say though that the farting gets really old, really fast. I’ll let them off because this is, of course, a show designed to appeal to viewers of all ages, but it’s hardly peak comedy. Especially when it is playing on the ‘overweight people farting’ stereotype. I think it dates the episode more than anything else – you can’t imagine them making the same lazy joke even just fifteen years later.

That being said, the Slitheen have a now iconic silhouette, and their dastardly plan is a pretty good one. They want to incite a nuclear war and get the planet to destroy itself so they can sell off the remains to the highest bidder. Annette Badland is the stand out actress amongst the Slitheen, and it is no surprise that she was the one who would come back towards the end of the series to face off with the Doctor. She plays the part with such relish that in many scenes she is acting her fellow baddies off the screen. There is a stillness about her that is deceptive, and her little smirk and sing-song voice is more scary than any of the shouty, manic laughter of the other Slitheen.

The real joy of these episodes is the Doctor and Rose running around in Downing Street and – of course – meeting the icon that is Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. Apart from the doctors themselves, no new Who character has been more quotable. Penelope Wilton, another boon of a guest star for the early run, is so wonderful in the role that it really is no surprise that she would return to play Harriet several times over Davies’ tenure. Harriet is mild and unassuming, but we really should have known from her persistence that this would end up being a character that wasn’t to be underestimated. All of the clues were there. When she tells the Doctor that she is the only elected person in the room and, therefore, she will make the difficult choices for him, you trust her. Davies had a real knack for creating these instantly memorable and endearing characters, but Harriet Jones is probably my favourite of them all.