The End Of The World

You watch this episode with the knowledge that this Dr is already "dead"... he's going to regenerate at the end of this series, or maybe in the Christmas special, regenerate into Casanova it seems...and that knowledge is going to colour your views of this and further episodes this series... but what can you do? Its Dr Who, you have to watch it out of love and so I did, but for the review, here, I want to look at the episode as stand alone, through the lens if possible of 'market forces'... because at the end of the day they didn't bring Dr Who back to please the fans did they? They brought it back so that they (and the they is not some hidden secret society but the BBC) could make some money and gain some recognition out of it. And I don't hold that against them (nor should we)

That said there was plenty for the fans in this one - the news that Gallifrey lost a war and is gone... against who? Was it the daleks? I think we should be told... The noise of the Tardis inside the control room... just like the good old days! Although, as an aside, I think the new design of the control room is just too...alien? Despite the roundels in the walls, it would have been nice to have a bit more continuity here I think...but maybe thats just the fan in me.

Was the episode any good? I watched it with my wife and I think it is worth bringing in her views here. Why? because she can't stand Science Fiction. For every SF film/programme I want to put on the DVD I have to sit through the equivalent amount of RomCom. To date the only positive comments she has ever made are about X2 and Spiderman and lets be honest you would have to be a dour geriatric actuary from Auchtermuchty with your adrenal glands removed not to like those films. Of the end of the world she said "well its better than last week" and yes, by Xoanon, it is!! 

After this episode, there's hope! Some humour (e.g. the Dr's rescue of Rose as the Sun glare goes up and down), some good ideas (the "300G time battery" thing that the Dr puts in Rose's phone) and some weIrd and tragic action (the Dr & t he tree lady in the fan tunnel) these are the kind of ingredients that make the formula that took Buffy to the top, that meant Star Trek kept its franchise going too, sorry, so, long. The stuff in short that makes a winning genre series

After last week (i.e. episode 1) I have to admit to being disappointed - but now I live in hope that, along with the ipod/jukebox collection of records in the sky+box/video the last television series on Earth could well be Dr Who!