The folks at the BBC must be hopping mad to learn that a 45 minute episode of the newly regenerated Doctor Who television series titled simply Rose has been leaked onto the Internet some three weeks ahead of the show’s return to British television.
Rose is the name of the character played by pop singer Billie Piper, who will be the assistant to the Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston.
It is unclear how it came to be on the web and whether it is the final cut. The BBC was unavailable for comment.
The episode - which appears to be the series’ first instalment - begins with the Doctor and Rose being chased by Autons, shop mannequins that have come to life.
The series is hotly anticipated by fans, who have remained avid followers since the last series ended in 1989.
No shit. I remember being particularly upset when the series was put on indefinite hiatus back in 1989 with a great episode featuring The Master as the villain. The series seemed to finally be getting back to it’s glory days with Sylvester McCoy settling into the role nicely and the effects department getting a budget. A lot of us old fans are so hungry for new Who that we were even willing to watch FOX’s attempt at resurrecting the series even though we hated some of the changes they introduced. Alas, the pilot movie never generated enough ratings to get a series going. I’m actually more surprised it took this long for something to get leaked considering that the show was voted as the show most folks in England would like to see return to TV in 2003. The article goes on to mention that Christopher Eccleston, who will play the latest incarnation of The Doctor, actually wrote the show’s producers hoping to land the part.
Now the question is: Do I do the naughty thing and see if I can track down the episode to fulfill the burning desire to see if the new series is going to bring me tons of joy or crushing disappointment? There’s still no word on if the series will see syndication in the U.S. (though the BBC is trying very hard to make that happen) so I’ll probably end up having to grab the episodes off the net anyway if I want to see them anytime soon, but this is before it’s even been aired yet. Oooo! Tempting to say the least!
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Posted on 03/11/2005 at 02:40 PM 
Well, if it helps your decision in any way, I understand that most of the torrent sites that had the episode have pulled it down already due to too much media attention.
I’ve been missing the show for years myself but I have been enjoying the original audio adventures that Big Finish has been putting out the last few years featuring Doctors 5 thru 8. They have been almost universally excellent.