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‘Nice to meet you, Rose – Run for your life!’
Rose (2005) reimagines Doctor Who for the 21st century, showing us the Doctor through the eyes of Rose Tyler, a shop assistant unfulfilled in her job and relationship. It reinvents the Doctor and companion for modern television, grounding the show in a world of council estates, celebrity gossip and soap operas. Rose was not only a new vision for Doctor Who but pioneered a revival for the Saturday-night adventure series.
Jon Arnold edits fanzines and is a major contributor to Hating to Love.
Rose (2005) reimagines Doctor Who for the 21st century, showing us the Doctor through the eyes of Rose Tyler, a shop assistant unfulfilled in her job and relationship. It reinvents the Doctor and companion for modern television, grounding the show in a world of council estates, celebrity gossip and soap operas. Rose was not only a new vision for Doctor Who but pioneered a revival for the Saturday-night adventure series.
Jon Arnold edits fanzines and is a major contributor to Hating to Love.
- GenresDoctor WhoNonfiction
111 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 1, 2016
The first in Obverse's series of novella-length looks at individual Doctor Who stories, it's actually the second one I read. (I skipped ahead to #2 which focused on "The Massacre" - one of my favorite Who tales.)
Jon Arnold's look at "Rose" is obviously of the same general format, but quite different in approach. Rather than intensely examining the story in and of itself, Arnold takes a wider view. By and large, he is looking at "Rose" as an event, rather than just as an "episode". The purpose of this book is to take a look at what it meant for "Rose" to be designed the way it was - the cultural climate of the time, the public expectation of Doctor Who, the way "Rose" functions as a mission statement for the series to follow.
That's not to say Arnold doesn't talk about the episode itself (there are, indeed, some interesting things he has to say on the topic) but the primary content of these essays is about the nature and purpose of "Rose" as a launch to a new series, rather than as a story in its own right.
Immediately, this places it in a different realm to the next book in the series (which I read first) about "The Massacre". The latter spends a lot of time delving into the real-life history of the events portrayed in the episodes, how the TV show dealt with them, the background of the serial's development, and why the episodes are constructed the way they are.
This look at "Rose", however, is entirely different. Of course, the episode in question here does not have the same historical roots, nor is the background of its development in such a murky state of dispute - so it had to be different. The fact that this "Black Archive" series seems from the get-go to be a string of very different approaches to the material being examined is a great indicator for the remainder of what is hopefully a long and successful series.
The book begins (after the preamble which includes a rundown of facts like dates, writers, actors, etc) with a synopsis. Although one might imagine that anyone reading this book already is familiar with one of the biggest television events of 21st century British television, it is still helpful to have a synopsis. Furthermore, I imagine it is mandated by the "Black Archive" series format.
An introduction follows, essentially talking about the leadup to the moment of the premiere of "Rose". It explains a bit about the history of Doctor Who and why and how it ended. Mostly, though, it intends to set up the context in which "Rose" was aired. To explain to an audience who might not otherwise know, just exactly what audiences at the time anticipated - from what the culture envisioned, and from what the trailers indicated. It does a great job at setting the scene, and gets across a relatively complex idea rather easily.
Chapter 1 follows, and is an intriguing look at the work Russell T Davies did to set out the show's stall with "Rose". It takes a wider look at what Davies intended with his version of Doctor Who and how he specifically laid that out in his opening episode.
To do this, Arnold compares the episode to other shows, to the first ever episode of Doctor Who ("An Unearthly Child" back in 1963), and to things like modern superhero movies. Explaining what the pros and cons are of an origin story versus starting in the middle of the adventure, the pitfalls of too much continuity, and the benefits of encountering the main character through a newcomer's eyes, the book takes some detours through Who's own past to show the things Davies learned from to create "Rose" the way in which he did.
The chapter does indeed look at some specific incidents and choices in the episode "Rose", but again does so in a way that emphasizes the wider consequences of the writer's choices. What the plot decisions mean for the series, rather than specifically for the story.
The second chapter focuses on the character of the Doctor, and the way the revival of the series presents him. In doing so, Arnold looks back at the various approaches to the character of the Doctor from the series' beginnings, and then what Davies chose to do with him for his version of the program.
Looking at the way the character is introduced and developed in the episode "Rose" is just the beginning for an examination of the way he is intended to be used across the new era of the program. In particular (appropriate given the content and title of the premiere episode) his relationship with Rose herself occupies much of the word count of this part of the essay. Having the Doctor become part of what is essentially a romantic ongoing relationship was a huge step in the transformation of the series and of the character, and Arnold does his best to argue why this decision was made, and the way this allows for the Doctor to be a viable lead in a 21st century television show.
Luckily, this leads very well into Chapter 3 which is about the role and function of the companion. Rose is, in many ways, a new type of sidekick for the series - albeit a culmination of the direction the series was almost inevitably headed at the time of its original cancellation. She is essentially a co-lead with the Doctor, a fully-fledged person with her own hopes and dreams, foibles and quirks. To satisfy the needs and expectations of a modern audience, Doctor Who needed to have real, well-rounded characters driving its narrative. And that's what we got in Rose.
This book's author takes us on a tour of the series' prior companions and the way the series handled them - with varying degrees of success. Along the way, we see how the lack of character development in the show's past led to a lack of weight to any long-term consequences the events wrought upon its characters, and why this would simply be unacceptable to today's viewers.
Also, Arnold explains the reason it was important to have less of a male-centric narrative - not only to court the female audience (which makes up over half of the television-viewing public) but to create a satisfying and balanced narrative. He shows how Rose the character and "Rose" the episode satisfy this, and what it meant for the series' future.
(This chapter also has a paragraph about actors where the line spacing is off in my Kindle version. I suspect it was a later addition that failed to be formatted in line with the rest of the book, but apart from the odd presentation it flows perfectly well with the rest of the text.)
Chapter 4 is about contextualizing modern Doctor Who - as part of a prime time Saturday night lineup, as well as the original intent of the series. Not only does Arnold appear to feel (and convincingly argue) that the series lost its "adventure serial" origins by being regarded as "science fiction", but he presents a great explanation for what it means to be a centerpiece in BBC One's light entertainment programming.
Especially for fans looking back through the filter of the so-called "wilderness years" when Doctor Who existed as books and audios for a subset of dedicated fans, there can be an expectation of a certain type of "mature" story aimed at a small section of the audience. Even the original 26-year run of the show suffered from this - especially when the focus on "science fiction" happened in lieu of family adventure drama.
Arnold titles the chapter after a quote from Russell T Davies on Doctor Who Confidential about the show having "a great big wodge of 2005" shoved into it. Despite an odd footnote that almost appears to misunderstand the statement (seemingly interpreting it literally as having the year 2005 recur despite the timezone and location of the episodes' events) Arnold elsewhere understands the context of this idea and shows the ways in which Davies honored the roots of the series, but brought it up-to-date for a modern audience.
I bring up the footnote above, incidentally, only because they are the least-polished part of the book. Many instances of the footnotes have poorly-worded sentences that - in their attempt to be appropriately brief - are vaguely contextualized and easily misinterpreted. Most readers (hardcore fans who already know the information they portray) will comprehend them easily enough, but there are several occasions where it really appears that the sentences mean something other than what they do.
Fortunately, the rest of the book is extremely well written, and very precise and eloquent, as well as highly readable.
The book ends with a short "Conclusion" chapter, detailing the ways in which "Rose" was a success, how and why it launched a massively popular TV series, and how much this was a result of one man's vision: Russell T Davies.
All in all, this book was an excellent look at one of the most important episodes in the series' history. If there is one point that may frustrate a segment of the intended audience, it is that the essays herein do not really deconstruct "Rose" itself, to examine its themes and motifs and its structure. Anyone desirous of a detailed critique of "Rose" as a story will need to look elsewhere.
Instead, Jon Arnold presents an amazing look at what "Rose" is as a moment in time, a crossroads in television history. There could be no better look at what the revival of Doctor Who was and is, what it avoided and what it intended, and the expert way in which it was constructed to lay out a blueprint for what the 21st century version of Doctor Who should be.
This book is a solid four stars from me - not more only because I try to save five-star ratings for the most exceptional books I read. If most of the books I like are rated five-stars, there is nowhere left to go for the top tier of literature.
But "The Black Archive #1: Rose" is as good as this kind of thing gets, and is recommended for anyone interested enough to read a review of it!
Jon Arnold's look at "Rose" is obviously of the same general format, but quite different in approach. Rather than intensely examining the story in and of itself, Arnold takes a wider view. By and large, he is looking at "Rose" as an event, rather than just as an "episode". The purpose of this book is to take a look at what it meant for "Rose" to be designed the way it was - the cultural climate of the time, the public expectation of Doctor Who, the way "Rose" functions as a mission statement for the series to follow.
That's not to say Arnold doesn't talk about the episode itself (there are, indeed, some interesting things he has to say on the topic) but the primary content of these essays is about the nature and purpose of "Rose" as a launch to a new series, rather than as a story in its own right.
Immediately, this places it in a different realm to the next book in the series (which I read first) about "The Massacre". The latter spends a lot of time delving into the real-life history of the events portrayed in the episodes, how the TV show dealt with them, the background of the serial's development, and why the episodes are constructed the way they are.
This look at "Rose", however, is entirely different. Of course, the episode in question here does not have the same historical roots, nor is the background of its development in such a murky state of dispute - so it had to be different. The fact that this "Black Archive" series seems from the get-go to be a string of very different approaches to the material being examined is a great indicator for the remainder of what is hopefully a long and successful series.
The book begins (after the preamble which includes a rundown of facts like dates, writers, actors, etc) with a synopsis. Although one might imagine that anyone reading this book already is familiar with one of the biggest television events of 21st century British television, it is still helpful to have a synopsis. Furthermore, I imagine it is mandated by the "Black Archive" series format.
An introduction follows, essentially talking about the leadup to the moment of the premiere of "Rose". It explains a bit about the history of Doctor Who and why and how it ended. Mostly, though, it intends to set up the context in which "Rose" was aired. To explain to an audience who might not otherwise know, just exactly what audiences at the time anticipated - from what the culture envisioned, and from what the trailers indicated. It does a great job at setting the scene, and gets across a relatively complex idea rather easily.
Chapter 1 follows, and is an intriguing look at the work Russell T Davies did to set out the show's stall with "Rose". It takes a wider look at what Davies intended with his version of Doctor Who and how he specifically laid that out in his opening episode.
To do this, Arnold compares the episode to other shows, to the first ever episode of Doctor Who ("An Unearthly Child" back in 1963), and to things like modern superhero movies. Explaining what the pros and cons are of an origin story versus starting in the middle of the adventure, the pitfalls of too much continuity, and the benefits of encountering the main character through a newcomer's eyes, the book takes some detours through Who's own past to show the things Davies learned from to create "Rose" the way in which he did.
The chapter does indeed look at some specific incidents and choices in the episode "Rose", but again does so in a way that emphasizes the wider consequences of the writer's choices. What the plot decisions mean for the series, rather than specifically for the story.
The second chapter focuses on the character of the Doctor, and the way the revival of the series presents him. In doing so, Arnold looks back at the various approaches to the character of the Doctor from the series' beginnings, and then what Davies chose to do with him for his version of the program.
Looking at the way the character is introduced and developed in the episode "Rose" is just the beginning for an examination of the way he is intended to be used across the new era of the program. In particular (appropriate given the content and title of the premiere episode) his relationship with Rose herself occupies much of the word count of this part of the essay. Having the Doctor become part of what is essentially a romantic ongoing relationship was a huge step in the transformation of the series and of the character, and Arnold does his best to argue why this decision was made, and the way this allows for the Doctor to be a viable lead in a 21st century television show.
Luckily, this leads very well into Chapter 3 which is about the role and function of the companion. Rose is, in many ways, a new type of sidekick for the series - albeit a culmination of the direction the series was almost inevitably headed at the time of its original cancellation. She is essentially a co-lead with the Doctor, a fully-fledged person with her own hopes and dreams, foibles and quirks. To satisfy the needs and expectations of a modern audience, Doctor Who needed to have real, well-rounded characters driving its narrative. And that's what we got in Rose.
This book's author takes us on a tour of the series' prior companions and the way the series handled them - with varying degrees of success. Along the way, we see how the lack of character development in the show's past led to a lack of weight to any long-term consequences the events wrought upon its characters, and why this would simply be unacceptable to today's viewers.
Also, Arnold explains the reason it was important to have less of a male-centric narrative - not only to court the female audience (which makes up over half of the television-viewing public) but to create a satisfying and balanced narrative. He shows how Rose the character and "Rose" the episode satisfy this, and what it meant for the series' future.
(This chapter also has a paragraph about actors where the line spacing is off in my Kindle version. I suspect it was a later addition that failed to be formatted in line with the rest of the book, but apart from the odd presentation it flows perfectly well with the rest of the text.)
Chapter 4 is about contextualizing modern Doctor Who - as part of a prime time Saturday night lineup, as well as the original intent of the series. Not only does Arnold appear to feel (and convincingly argue) that the series lost its "adventure serial" origins by being regarded as "science fiction", but he presents a great explanation for what it means to be a centerpiece in BBC One's light entertainment programming.
Especially for fans looking back through the filter of the so-called "wilderness years" when Doctor Who existed as books and audios for a subset of dedicated fans, there can be an expectation of a certain type of "mature" story aimed at a small section of the audience. Even the original 26-year run of the show suffered from this - especially when the focus on "science fiction" happened in lieu of family adventure drama.
Arnold titles the chapter after a quote from Russell T Davies on Doctor Who Confidential about the show having "a great big wodge of 2005" shoved into it. Despite an odd footnote that almost appears to misunderstand the statement (seemingly interpreting it literally as having the year 2005 recur despite the timezone and location of the episodes' events) Arnold elsewhere understands the context of this idea and shows the ways in which Davies honored the roots of the series, but brought it up-to-date for a modern audience.
I bring up the footnote above, incidentally, only because they are the least-polished part of the book. Many instances of the footnotes have poorly-worded sentences that - in their attempt to be appropriately brief - are vaguely contextualized and easily misinterpreted. Most readers (hardcore fans who already know the information they portray) will comprehend them easily enough, but there are several occasions where it really appears that the sentences mean something other than what they do.
Fortunately, the rest of the book is extremely well written, and very precise and eloquent, as well as highly readable.
The book ends with a short "Conclusion" chapter, detailing the ways in which "Rose" was a success, how and why it launched a massively popular TV series, and how much this was a result of one man's vision: Russell T Davies.
All in all, this book was an excellent look at one of the most important episodes in the series' history. If there is one point that may frustrate a segment of the intended audience, it is that the essays herein do not really deconstruct "Rose" itself, to examine its themes and motifs and its structure. Anyone desirous of a detailed critique of "Rose" as a story will need to look elsewhere.
Instead, Jon Arnold presents an amazing look at what "Rose" is as a moment in time, a crossroads in television history. There could be no better look at what the revival of Doctor Who was and is, what it avoided and what it intended, and the expert way in which it was constructed to lay out a blueprint for what the 21st century version of Doctor Who should be.
This book is a solid four stars from me - not more only because I try to save five-star ratings for the most exceptional books I read. If most of the books I like are rated five-stars, there is nowhere left to go for the top tier of literature.
But "The Black Archive #1: Rose" is as good as this kind of thing gets, and is recommended for anyone interested enough to read a review of it!
September 26, 2021
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3772316.html
Given the very encouraging news that Russell T. Davies is returning to Doctor Who, it's by fortunate coincidence that today I am reviewing a study of his first ever Who episode back in 2005. I actually wrote most of this entry over a week ago, little realising how appropriate the timing would turn out to be.
Arnold starts his book with the strong statement that Rose is the most radical episode ever broadcast under the title Doctor Who. In the rest of the book he tries to prove the point, and I think comes quite close. The first chapter looks at Rose as a launch compared with the original 1963 "And Unearthly Child", and with the unsuccessful 1996 reboot with Paul McGann. He makes the point that unlike, say Batman or Superman, the 1963 Doctor Who successfully avoided an origin story for its hero for several years, and Rose takes a similar approach by not giving too much away, except through the research of the unfortunate Clive.
In the second chapter Arnold makes the point that the romantic relationship between Rose and the Doctor was core to Russell T Davis’s concept of the show, and also key to its success. I think this is uncontroversial. In Old Who, there was no hanky-panky in the TARDIS; Paul McGann's snog in 1996 was seen out of order by fans; but Rose adopted romance from the very beginning, starting as RTD meant to go on.
The third chapter makes the point that Rose reimagines the role of Doctor Who companions who in the old era, as Arnold puts it, become a plot function, asking questions and keeping the plots moving, while the show centred on the Doctor. But Billie Piper is given equal billing from the beginning. She was already more famous than any previous companion from Old Who had been, with the exceptions perhaps of William Russell and Bonnie Langford.
The fourth chapter looks at how Davis successfully inserted Doctor Who into the pop culture of the time, and talks about the disconnection between what the fan audience and the mass audience want. The fan audience generally prefer a program with a darker tone that has internal continuity to fascinate us; the mass audience just want an entertaining program for Saturday night. Arnold makes an interesting contrast with Davis's gritty adult Who novel, Damaged Goods, which as noted above has a number of similarities with Rose, but some big differences too.
Arnold concludes that Rose is one of the most remarkable pieces of television made in the UK this century. It’s a very sympathetic analysis which I largely agree with. I think he misses two important and related points. The first is the very strong and convincing performance of Christopher Eccleston in the lead role - it is crucial to the show's success as Billy Pipers. The second thing is that it’s actually quite funny in places, and the humour is usually delivered by Ecclestone. I think the charm of the writing and the chemistry of the principals combined are fundamental to the success of the rebooted show. Let's hope that he is able to deliver that again, seventeen years on. (Imagine if Verity Lambert had been brought back in 1980, instead of John Nathan Turner!)
Apart from that, I found this a very interesting analysis and I learned a lot from it. You can get it here: https://amzn.to/3kfWPo6
Given the very encouraging news that Russell T. Davies is returning to Doctor Who, it's by fortunate coincidence that today I am reviewing a study of his first ever Who episode back in 2005. I actually wrote most of this entry over a week ago, little realising how appropriate the timing would turn out to be.
Arnold starts his book with the strong statement that Rose is the most radical episode ever broadcast under the title Doctor Who. In the rest of the book he tries to prove the point, and I think comes quite close. The first chapter looks at Rose as a launch compared with the original 1963 "And Unearthly Child", and with the unsuccessful 1996 reboot with Paul McGann. He makes the point that unlike, say Batman or Superman, the 1963 Doctor Who successfully avoided an origin story for its hero for several years, and Rose takes a similar approach by not giving too much away, except through the research of the unfortunate Clive.
In the second chapter Arnold makes the point that the romantic relationship between Rose and the Doctor was core to Russell T Davis’s concept of the show, and also key to its success. I think this is uncontroversial. In Old Who, there was no hanky-panky in the TARDIS; Paul McGann's snog in 1996 was seen out of order by fans; but Rose adopted romance from the very beginning, starting as RTD meant to go on.
The third chapter makes the point that Rose reimagines the role of Doctor Who companions who in the old era, as Arnold puts it, become a plot function, asking questions and keeping the plots moving, while the show centred on the Doctor. But Billie Piper is given equal billing from the beginning. She was already more famous than any previous companion from Old Who had been, with the exceptions perhaps of William Russell and Bonnie Langford.
The fourth chapter looks at how Davis successfully inserted Doctor Who into the pop culture of the time, and talks about the disconnection between what the fan audience and the mass audience want. The fan audience generally prefer a program with a darker tone that has internal continuity to fascinate us; the mass audience just want an entertaining program for Saturday night. Arnold makes an interesting contrast with Davis's gritty adult Who novel, Damaged Goods, which as noted above has a number of similarities with Rose, but some big differences too.
Arnold concludes that Rose is one of the most remarkable pieces of television made in the UK this century. It’s a very sympathetic analysis which I largely agree with. I think he misses two important and related points. The first is the very strong and convincing performance of Christopher Eccleston in the lead role - it is crucial to the show's success as Billy Pipers. The second thing is that it’s actually quite funny in places, and the humour is usually delivered by Ecclestone. I think the charm of the writing and the chemistry of the principals combined are fundamental to the success of the rebooted show. Let's hope that he is able to deliver that again, seventeen years on. (Imagine if Verity Lambert had been brought back in 1980, instead of John Nathan Turner!)
Apart from that, I found this a very interesting analysis and I learned a lot from it. You can get it here: https://amzn.to/3kfWPo6
May 9, 2016
I'm going to be a bit critical here. Although many others like this aspect, I found the frequent contextualisation of the episode too much, distracting from a close reading of the episode itself. Indeed it was only about halfway through the book that I finally got to a bit that analysed part of the episode - the initial characterisation of Rose - sufficiently deeply to my liking. For me anyway, too much of the book prior to then, and indeed later in the book as well, was either about the wider context of the episode as an event, or about creative decisions made by Russell T Davies that affected the whole of the first season, not just this one episode. Chapter 4, for example, was really a discussion of the arc structure of the entire first season, rather than Rose itself. I accept that this relaunch episode needs to be considered in the wider context into which it fits. But for me that aspect was too overpowering, and done at the expense of closer study of the episode itself.
I also found quite a lot of repetition throughout the book, where a point would be restated, sometimes even as many as three times. There could probably have been a firmer editorial hand in places.
I suspect I will probably like the less event episodes Black Archive books more ...
But I don't want to sound too critical. I just found things a bit frustrating. I'm sure others will enjoy it masses.
I did really like the conclusion though :)
I also found quite a lot of repetition throughout the book, where a point would be restated, sometimes even as many as three times. There could probably have been a firmer editorial hand in places.
I suspect I will probably like the less event episodes Black Archive books more ...
But I don't want to sound too critical. I just found things a bit frustrating. I'm sure others will enjoy it masses.
I did really like the conclusion though :)
May 2, 2016
A little repetitive on its main ideas.
October 5, 2016
"I see what you did there." Seems like a shrewd move to start a new but oddly familiar series that you hope but aren't sure will find an audience with discussion of an episode that started a new but oddly familiar series that hoped but wasn't sure it would find an audience. Like the actual episode Rose, I feel this book does a good enough job in proving that the format has potential... but isn't actually that amazing a piece, mostly pointing out things that will be very obvious to the diehard fan. But perhaps we who (think we) know everything already aren't the target, eh? We'll probably buy the books either way after all.
On the other hand I didn't get *nothing* new out of this slim thesis - it hadn't struck me before that meeting the Doctor is Rose's lottery numbers coming up. And that's a nice way to think about the phenomenon of becoming a companion - the odds against it happening are astronomical, sometimes it happens to more and sometimes to less deserving people, but don't lose hope, keep playing and one day It Could Be You. I much prefer a lottery analogy to the whole "special snowflake" theme of recent seasons where the Doctor's companions are literally the best people in the entire universe... give me RTD and his totally unexceptional schlubs who prove exceptional the moment they're given a chance to step up to the plate any day.
On the other hand I didn't get *nothing* new out of this slim thesis - it hadn't struck me before that meeting the Doctor is Rose's lottery numbers coming up. And that's a nice way to think about the phenomenon of becoming a companion - the odds against it happening are astronomical, sometimes it happens to more and sometimes to less deserving people, but don't lose hope, keep playing and one day It Could Be You. I much prefer a lottery analogy to the whole "special snowflake" theme of recent seasons where the Doctor's companions are literally the best people in the entire universe... give me RTD and his totally unexceptional schlubs who prove exceptional the moment they're given a chance to step up to the plate any day.
April 1, 2016
A solid analysis that reminds me of Philip Sandifer’s style: Arnold looks at “Rose” not so much as a story, but as a televisual event. In the course of the book he looks at different factors that made Russell T Davies’s relaunch of the series a successful piece of television for the 21st century. As a reader who has watched only New Who, I also learned a bit about the Classic Series, as it often serves as a contrast to Davies’s aproach.
Great start to what seems to be an interesting series. I’ll definitely be buying more books from the Black Archive and I hope they write more on the New Series.
Great start to what seems to be an interesting series. I’ll definitely be buying more books from the Black Archive and I hope they write more on the New Series.
August 16, 2016
There's a section near the end of the book that compares Rose's journey in the first series to that of a competition reality tv contestant. It's simultaneously madness and brilliance, and I approve whole-heartedly.
March 27, 2022
Excellent overview of the risks taken and purpose behind the relaunch of Doctor Who. I would have liked more on Eccleston's performance, and Piper's, for that matter, but very readable and a great reminder of what's already modern history.
December 22, 2024
Settle these footnotes DOWN!!! My goodness.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews