10 Doctor Who Episodes NOBODY Was Ready For

After going on a 16-year hiatus, Doctor Who announced that it was going to be returning in 2005, with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, and Billie Piper as his companion. Before the episode aired, fans criticised the new logo and the changing of the TARDIS, with some going so far as to send hate mail to the production team.

Due to the ongoing criticism and previous behind-the-scenes drama that caused the show to be cancelled in the first place, there was a lot of skepticism that the 2005 revival was actually going to work.

Spoiler alert: It did.

The first episode, Rose, peaked at 10.81 million viewers when it aired, making it one of the most-viewed NuWho episodes to this day.

The episode had the massive job of introducing the Doctor to both an old and new audience, and despite making the risky move of focusing the episode more on the companion, the show made the good decision of bringing back an old monster, the Autons, to satiate some of that classic demand.

In short, the whole thing worked wonderfully - even in the face of all the doubt that led up to it.