1x09 The Empty Child (1)

"Mummy? Are you my mummy?"

yay, First appearance of Jack harkness!

Obviously The Empty Child is a banger. Iconic imagery, a really well constructed mystery and compelly new characters. I will never disput is status as a New Who classic.

However, it must be noted that Steven Moffat writes Rose awfully in this episode. He made her boy mad and dumber than a bag of rocks in a way so off from her previous characterization. Even in episodes where she had a flirty dynamic in "male side character of the week" like in Dalek it never made her so shallow and silly.

Other than that the episode is great.

Nice break from the Monster of the Week stock formula which was getting boring at this point, gotta give Moffat credit for his (then still) original writing, though he apparently even then couldn't quite help himself with how he wrote female characters (compare this Rose to the one from the pilot and tell me she hasn't hit her head somewhere along the way). Jack is great, of course, even if it's somewhat off-putting seeing Malcom Merlyn in so young. Could have done with a bit less out of character patriotism, though... I mean, "A mouse in front of a lion"? Really? Does the term "the commonwealth" mean anything to you?

All I can remember from this episode is "MUMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, ARE YOU MY MUMMY." God that was stupidly annoying, but I thought the concept of these zombies was pretty interesting. CGI was also good too. I also think I am one of the only people who thinks that Jack Harkness is kind of eh.