Rose vs The TV Movie

[Si Hunt]

And why do Grace and Chang Lee come back to life? It seems to be done by some kind of magic re-insertion of their souls (magic dust) into their bodies, rather than a re-writing of time. Isn't there a line where the Doctor implies they're brought back to life because the TARDIS likes them? I think that might have been the point at which things had really hit the skids.

Si.

[Philipnet]

I can't remember any of that happening - so I probably need to watch it again

[Jason Thompson]

Plot of Rose: Rose Tyler accidentally stumbles upon the first stage of an alien invasion of Earth involving living plastic dummies, and meets a strange man called the Doctor who has a spaceship that looks like a police box. Together they find the alien lair and defeat them, then Rose joins the Doctor on his travels.

Plot of the TV Movie: An alien called the Master has been killed by the Daleks and another alien called the Doctor is carrying his remains home when the Master's remains break out of the box as a gooey snake thing and force it to land in San Fransisco. The Doctor is shot immediately he leaves the ship and is rushed to hospital, but he has two hearts so the cardiologist accidentally kills him. He is taken to the morgue, where he turns into someone else and has no memory. He finds the cardiologist who killed him and they start to piece together his memories. Meanwhile the Master snake thing takes over the body of an ambulance driver and opens the Eye of Harmony in the TARDIS, which restores the Doctor's memory but suddenly reveals the Master's whole plan to steal his body as well. Grace thinks he is going mad and calls an ambulance to take him to a mental hospital. The ambulance is run by the Master, and he spits goo over Grace before they escape. After a motorcyle chase they arrive at a place where there is a new atomic clock and pinch a chip from it, then head back to the TARDIS, where the Doctor fixes the console but finds that the Eye of Harmony has been open too long and the Earth will be pulled through it. Then Grace turns on him and he is chained up so that the Master can steal his soul and take his remaining lives. Chang Lee is killed, Grace does something with the TARDIS console which fixes the problem, then the Master kills Grace and attacks the Doctor before being sucked into the Eye of Harmony. Grace and Chang Lee are returned to life and left behind in San Fransisco.

Which if those is more easily accessible to the average viewer? I do think including the regeneration was a mistake, but you're right about the technobabble plot being a big porblem too.

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm not sure we're the best people to really assess the plot. Speaking personally at least, I was totally thrown by the reference to 'the Eye of Harmony' being in the TARDIS, and was frankly niggled by it throughout. The average viewer wouldn't have that continuity issue to agonise over.

I'm not disagreeing with the general point though, which is that Rose's plot is a lot more accessible ("alien invasion") that the TV Movie's ("erm...").

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I'm not sure I like the idea that everything has to be "accessible" in this way. Or rather I should say I don't like it when "accessible" is just used as a synonym for "simple and unchallenging". I think better words to aim for would be engaging, interesting, stimulating, entertaining, thought-provoking etc. There's no reason why something relatively complex can't be any of those things, without being dumbed down for the "average viewer" (which also seems to be a euphemism for simpleton).

The problem with the TVM isn't that it's too complex, it's that it's a mashed up mess that doesn't really make any sort of logical sense.

[Jason Thompson]

That was precisely my point. I didn't intend to imply that the problem with the TV Movie was a complex plot, but that it made little or no sense, even to those of us intimately familiar with the history of the show.

Rose, to me, ticks all the boxes for the other words you suggest (with the possible exception of 'thought provoking'). It is also 'accessible' not in the sense of having a simplistic plot (though it is not the most complex episode of Doctor Who ever produced), but in the sense of actually making sense if you sit through it.

The flip side of the coin is that I dislike the assumption that a simple basic plot is somehow dumbed down. You can have a simple plot executed with style be 'accessible', or a complex plot well-executed be 'accessible'. Even a slightly nonsensical plot well-executed can be enjoyable (Tomb of the Cybermen, for example). A nonsense plot badly executed (such as the TV Movie) is not accessible, it is bad. It has enough incident and individual performances/characters to keep you watching for 90 minutes, but makes very little sense and has huge chunky exposition dialogue stuck in the middle.