I love a good Who celebrity historical, and this was the first one I ever saw. It was also the first historical to use the new Who device of giving an extraterrestrial explanation to a seemingly-supernatural phenomenon. The show goes on to do similar things with werewolves, witches, and vampires, among others, but they do it here first with ghosts on Christmas Eve with Charles Dickens.
The Ninth Doctor takes Rose on her first journey to the past, landing in Victorian Cardiff where, as usual, strange things are afoot. The dead are rising in a small mortuary, and one of the “ghosts” comes to a theatre where Charles Dickens is giving a performance. Naturally, investigating Christmas ghosts with Charles Dickens is too good an opportunity to pass up, so the author is roped into helping our heroes discover the origins behind the seemingly-otherworldly apparitions.
This is a fun historical romp. The Doctor going all fanboy on Dickens is wonderful, and I love all the references, especially, “Go on, do the death of Little Nell, it cracks me up!” The author fits in well with the proceedings, and I always laugh when he exclaims, “What the Shakespeare is going on?” Simon Callow brings it in the role, both comedically and dramatically.
Another noteworthy person appearing in this episode is Gwyneth, the servant girl at the mortuary. For starters, she’s played by Eve Myles, who went on to play Gwen on Torchwood, and the events of this episode form a major part of the foundation for Torchwood as a series. Gwyneth is also just a neat character in her own right; she has great scenes with Rose, and her final scene with the Doctor is excellent.
Speaking of team TARDIS, it’s a good episode for both our heroes. I love series 1, and basically every episode is great purely for the interactions between the Doctor and Rose, but this one gives them some nice material to work with. The backstory for the “ghosts” further explores the Doctor’s recent trauma from the Time War, and because Rose and the Doctor have different opinions about how to deal with them, it leads to a strong conflict between the two of them. One thing that I love about Rose is that, even as she becomes increasingly entrenched in the Doctor’s world and taken with the Doctor himself, she remains her own person. As much as she cares for and admires the Doctor, she’ll speak up if she thinks she’s right and he’s wrong, and they can argue about things that are important in a way that only highlights the bond between them.
When I first started watching Doctor Who (it feels weird to think back on that now, all the years I spent not watching Doctor Who when I could’ve been,) I thought “Rose” and “The End of the World” mostly coasted on the strength of the Doctor and Rose’s dynamic, mixed with flashes of additional potential. This, though, is the first episode that I really genuinely liked from start to finish, that I felt was working on all levels. And even though repeat watches have made me fonder of those earliest episodes, “The Unquiet Dead” still occupies a special place in my regard for that reason.
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