{"id":2352,"date":"2013-10-20T13:51:44","date_gmt":"2013-10-20T01:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/?p=2352"},"modified":"2013-10-20T13:51:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-20T01:51:44","slug":"the-eccleston-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/?p=2352","title":{"rendered":"The Eccleston Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe Unlikely Lad<\/strong><\/p>\n

An unprecedented emotional relationship with his companion, a reckoning with the unexpected survivors of the Dalek race and the loneliness of being the last of his own, encounters with one of the most famous writers in history, an alien spacecraft over London and a wicked Zoe Wanamaker – all met with his whooping catchphrase\u2026<\/p>\n

The Tenth Doctor, right?<\/p>\n

Well, yes, but I\u2019m talking about the bloke who came before him, and did it all first.\u00a0 And on the face of it, ‘bloke’ is the operative word: leather jacketed, booted, close-cropped and determinedly not RADA-yadda.\u00a0 The first time I saw a picture of Christopher Eccleston\u2019s Doctor, I actually wondered what his costume was going to look like…<\/p>\n

Although it’s never been a good idea to judge any of the Doctor\u2019s by their appearance, Eccleston\u2019s portrayal probably succeeded in doing more than any other in convincing us that the cleverest man in any room, on any planet, fizzed behind that deceptive exterior.\u00a0 \u201cDoctor?\u201d snorts Charles Dickens during their first encounter, \u201cMore like a navvy!\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, in the Ninth Doctor we first see that guile-less fascination and joy in encountering something new for the first time, which let\u2019s be honest, has possibly become a little strained of late. And we even see this \u2018hard man\u2019 shed a tear in his second episode, a tiny moment which did so much to establish the tone of this new incarnation of the character and programme.\u00a0 Much has been made of the \u2018romance\u2019 between the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler, (particularly in multitudinous fan-made compilations on You Tube), but watch those few moments between Eccleston and Piper in Number 10 Downing street before its destruction and you\u2019ll see chemistry so intense that you even forget the awesome Penelope Wilton is there too.<\/p>\n

To continue with the same unfairly maligned episode, the sequence involving the Doctor instructing \u2018Mickey the idiot\u2019 on how to save the world not only cemented my young nephew\u2019s love for the programme, but I think conveyed the Ninth Doctor\u2019s modus operandi, that with his nudge any one of us can make a difference.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Eccleston\u2019s too-short tenure and gradually emerging news of behind the scenes difficulties sometimes taint memories of a brave and exciting portrayal. But although not necessarily planned, sometimes it\u2019s good to ‘keep it short’. By the time Tennant finally regenerated I was looking at my watch, but when Eccleston threw back his head and arms to blaze out of existence like the northern star he was, more than any of the other splendid chaps; I really didn\u2019t want him to go.<\/p>\n

AH<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Unlikely Lad An unprecedented emotional relationship with his companion, a reckoning with the unexpected survivors of the Dalek race and the loneliness of being the last of his own, encounters with one of the most famous writers in history, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2352"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2357,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352\/revisions\/2357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}