The End Of The World

Oh dear. After the rather whizz-bang exposition in "Rose", this was the episode I was expecting to calm things down a bit, deepen and widen the scenario, bring in more of the wide-eyed wonder that is also part of "Dr Who".

It started well enough - the grandeur of the sets, the strangeness of the aliens (even if The Steward could have walked off the set of "Olde Tyme Music Hall"), the visual spendour of the expanding sun held back by gravity satellites.

Then come the spiders, which are beautifully realised all the way through, and obviously Not Good News. And the mystery of who is controlling them - and for what reason...

The building rapport between the Doctor and the tree lady, which culminates in the revelation that Gallifrey is destroyed, and he's the last of the Time Lords, is also wonderful stuff.

But the unfolding storyline is where it rather fell flat for me. Why kill The Steward? The siders had control anyway, they could have just locked him up, or held him hostage like eberyone else. 

The fan room was so obvious that the climax, later, was no surprise at all. And putting THE crucial manual switch at the end of a walkway with them in the way didn't really ring true either. 

The Lady Cassandra, it turns out, is seriously twentieth century obsessed. Her perfect 5-billion year old jukebox (or replica) plays precisely those tunes we the audience will recognise. Her motivation is something any modern business person with few scruples would understand perfectly. And yet, this is 5 billion years into the future? Fans of Michael Moorcock's "End of Time" series must have wept to see such an opportunity missed.

So, for me - like "Rose", this is another curate's egg - full of wonderful moments and touches, yet as a whole, lacking something. As "Casanova" demonstrates brilliantly, Russell T Davies can write wit, comedy and romance to weaken the hardest. But edgy, twisty, genuinely novel thriller stuff ? Still not convinced...