Doctor Who Rewatch and Rose Tyler

When I first was introduced to the Doctor Who fandom, it was in a completely haphazard order. I started off with "The Pirate Planet" from the 4th Doctor's run, then "The Voyage of the Damned" Christmas Special with David Tennant, and then skipped around in seasons 3, 2 and 4 (pretty much in that order) of New Who.

The reason for this was that I've always been sensitive to frightening images/ideas. After watching "The Girl in the Fireplace" I could hardly sleep that night thinking of the Clockwork Men hiding under one's bed. And yes, I was 21 years old at the time. So my friends helped me figure out which episodes would be least likely to disturb me and I watched them as I could get my hands on them. I loved every one.

Then there were no more that were "100% Elizabeth safe" so I started branching out, reading Wikipedia synopsises before watching them. I never had a sleepless night over Doctor Who again. Not even with "Blink". I think it was a combination of growing tougher by exposure, and getting healthier so that my sleep patterns were more regular and less likely to be influenced by frightening thoughts.

Ashamed to admit this? Maybe a little bit. But after all "hiding under the couch from the Daleks" is considered a British tradition.

Anyhow, the 1st season was the very last one I saw. And the first episodes in which I saw Rose were some of her worst appearances, where she seems petty and incapable. Plus the first friend who introduced me to her didn't like her... and I naturally loved Martha because she is the most like me of all the companions.

So, yes. I was definitely biased against Rose.

This fall I started getting Netflix (now that they're captioning almost everything) and have unlimited access to all of New Who. I decided to watch the whole thing, in order, to properly see all of the character arcs once and for all.

And you know what? I'm liking Rose a whole lot better  now. I know she's still going to bug me in some episodes, but I genuinely like her in season one, and I like 9 as well. I don't know how to explain it, but it works very well, and it's fun. Maybe it's partially a breath of fresh British air after the high action 'Americanized' recent seasons, but I'm enjoying it far more than I did the last time through. And I felt it was worth acknowledging.

However I'm only up to episode 3 (The Unquiet Dead) so we'll see how my feelings progress as I continue...