First Major Project - Research Post 3/3

The Drama

in this post I'll contextualize an episode of a drama in relation to how it has effected my own work, I'll be focusing on the First episode of modern Dr Who,(Ep.1 S.1/S.28) Titled "Rose", staring Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor, Billie Piper as Rose, and written by Russel T. Davis

Brief Outline - The drama

One assumes a person knows at least the basics of Dr Who, So, This is the first episode of the Re-started Dr who franchise, this season reintroduces the concept of Dr Who to viewers, reinvigorating a long standing, well known example of British entertainment media.

the series focuses upon the adventures of the 9th iteration or regeneration of The Doctor, and Rose, a fairly normal, low income, human from the cheap side of london, throughout the series we are introduced to new aliens, new species and reintroduced to some of the most well known adversaries and enemies of The Doctor.

Brief Outline - The episode

The episode opens by introducing Rose, an employee of a department store in central london, she encounters The Doctor while working late at the store, he promptly saves her from the Autons, a plastic-borne  Species that had infiltrated the store(and central london) primarily through shop window mannequins, The Doctor promptly destroys the store, saving Rose in the process.

the show promptly cuts to Rose's home where Her mum and boyfriend are crowding her, this is where an interesting tell can be seen, she seems to be the only person not panicking or overreacting, she's busy trying to understand what just happened, this presents her as someone who can deal with the crazy of being a companion.

this scene leads to a beautiful transition, Mickey, Rose's boyfriend gets rid of the arm at her behest, on his way out of the house he throws it into a dark Skip, the camera then follows it into the blackness, the face plate of a digital clock(and the sound of an alarm) rushes towards the lens, the shot then cuts to a CU of the digital alarm clock in rose's room, the decoration and assorted stuff on her table tells you this.

the doctor turns up at her house, gets attacked by the Auton arm, they go for a walk and my favorite screenwriting moment happens here, at 15:40, quoted below.

"Do you know like we were sayin'? About the Earth revolving? [walks towards Rose] It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you that the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it 'cos everything looks like it's standin' still. [looks at Rose] I can feel it. [takes Rose's hand] The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinnin' at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're fallin' through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... [drops Rose's hand] That's who I am."
-The Doctor

This moment is one of the reasons I love this episode, its Russel T Davis's writing at its finest, I re-watch this episode to remind me what good writing sounds like, its poetic, functional, emotional and descriptive.

after this comes a breif break with a disposable character for some exposition, before Rose's boyfriend promptly gets captured by the Autons.

in the end the doctor and rose foil the Nestene Consciousness's plan(the controller of the Autons), Saving Mickey and the world using anti-plastic, she decides to leave with The Doctor for adventures in time and space.

How The episode relates to my own work

I mostly used the characters, Rose and The Doctor, as inspiration for my own characters, Shaz and Mia, I figured thast watching this episode could also help with working out how to introduce Shaz to the world of aliens and weirdness, and, while i did review several different approaches to this, I eventually chose a similar method to this one, an event driven introduction:

steps to introduce a character to aliens on earth as seen in both This Episode and My script:

• introduce character(s) doing things that show who they are(tells etc.)
• introduce a conflict wherein the alien character saves the human, revealing their extra-earthly knowledge/ tech in the process.
• exposition/ drama related scenes revealing that the alien character is actually an alien(banter for relief goes here)

I also used Rose as a part of the inspiration for Shaz in a thematic sense, character-wise they are actually pretty far apart.