 Like Delingpole , Andrew Blair found similarities between the Ninth Doctor era and the Third Doctor era , summarising Eccleston 's single series as " a modern day season seven " . In his retrospective of the character , he states that Eccleston 's casting proved that the revival of the show " was not a light entertainment concern " . He comments that in online fandom there was a sense " of a ship being steered in a different direction " and praises the plot device of the Time War as allowing the character to become mysterious again by providing him a " blank slate " . He compares the Ninth Doctor to the First Doctor ( William Hartnell ) in that both characters are " an unknown who remains aggressively weird until his new @-@ found human friends soften him up " . Blair also felt that the Ninth Doctor 's relationship with the Doctor 's arch enemies the Daleks was more successful than in other incarnations giving particular praise to Eccleston 's " spittle @-@ enhanced and terrifyingly furious reaction " to the monsters in " Dalek " . Blair ends his retrospective by noting that without the foundations laid by Eccleston the show " wouldn 't have been able to move onwards towards the even more popular David Tennant era " . Steven Moffat , who wrote " The Empty Child " / " The Doctor Dances " for Eccleston 's Doctor and would become Doctor Who executive producer in 2010 , observed that in 2005 there was a distinct lack of science fiction and fantasy drama in the UK . He felt that the first series had to establish itself as " a bit Hollyoaks " and " a bit tough detective " to prove itself as a " proper , sensible drama series " . Moffat notes that the 2005 series " changed the landscape into which it once tried to fit " and that now Doctor Who " has to be the most fantastical of the fantasy shows . " 
