Doctor Who: Children In Need Special 2005

"A telethon? I remember those!"

Flatmate Dave’s interest was piqued. We were about to watch the next episode of Doctor Who, which happened to be a special 7 minute long episode that had been made exclusively for the BBC’s annual Children In Need telethon in the UK. I was quite pleased – were it not for the VHS that I’d been posted from England, Flatmate Dave would never have seen this. (unless he’d watched it on the internet)



Terry Wogan's introduction - nice bit of continuity with the original series - he introduced The Five Doctors in 1983 don'tchaknow.

After a budget-saving recap and opening credits, the episode turned-out to a real cheapie, featuring only the 2 regulars and set entirely inside the TARDIS.

While this may sound like what you would expect of a special telethon show, it was something of a comedown from Doctor Who’s last Children In Need episode 10 years ago in 1993, which had featured pretty well every Doctor and companion ever, plus the cast of EastEnders, in 3-D.

Rose doesn't believe that the new Doctor is is the same guy - GOOD. At last the writers have considered events from an individual character’s perspective instead of from the viewers’.

Rose now remembers that Captain Jack is alive - BAD. Once more Rose and the Doctor speak of events that they can only know from having watched the show on the telly. “He’s got plenty to do rebuilding the Earth!” In fact, this was a decision that even we didn’t get to see, as last episode they walked straight from the dead Daleks into the TARDIS without even looking for their doomed friend Jack. Who's alone. On a space-station full of corpses. Incredibly, this episode's only 7 minutes long and already it's contradicted what just happened a moment earlier.

The new Doctor says he has a mole on his back. Okay, I bet the first time they find an excuse to get him to remove his shirt in the series, it won't be there.

The Doctor goes a bit mad - GOOD. The thing that really surprised me was that Tennant was so much better than Ecclestone. I really liked this brief encounter with this Doctor. Of course, he may only be this mad post-regeneration, but it shows promise.

Rose: "Can you change back?"

Doctor: "No."

Yeah, I think he could have done, immediately afterwards, just long enough for him to reassure Rose of the newcomer's identity.

In fact, why stop there? It's a telethon sketch! He could have snapped briefly back into a few of the old actors – that’s the sort of thing telethon sketches do. Davison, Baker, McCoy, McGann, Jayston, whoever’s available. Ecclestone could give one last moan to reassure Rose, and then we're back to Tennant again, leaving us to still wait until Christmas to find out what this new Doctor’s like.

Hey - Romana did it.