The End Of The World

The ironic thing about this episode is that after a hectic week in which season 2 was given the green light and Eccleston quit the title role, a week in which the ugly side of fandom reared it's head and tried to convince us it was the end of the world, it turns out it isn't the end of the world after all, it's only The End of the World. By that I mean the second episode of a series set to run for another 25 episodes at least. Dear oh dear, we have a funny way of celebrating the successful re-launching of Doctor Who as the flagship if the BBC, don't we? Still, it pleases me to announce to the petty contingent who grumpily switched allegiance to Ant and Dec while grumbling about Eccleston's treachery - you're missing something special, you really are!

The first thing that needs stressing about the second episode is that Eccleston's performance is superb. We know now that we have him for another 11 episodes, 12 if the doommongers haven't scared him off the Christmas special, and we should relish every second while we can because, whomever your favourite Doctor might be, he's never before been portrayed by such a fine actor. Unfortunately, his being such a fine actor envolves him always seeking out new challenges and therefore not doing a follow up series. A shame? Yes. A disaster? Hardly! treachery? You're having a laugh, aren't you? Ricky Gervais as David Brent - 14 episodes, John Cleese and Basil Fawlty - 12 episodes, both works of genius, nobody said a word. If you want an actor as talented as Eccleston you can have him, and count yourself lucky that you get him for a season. If you want someone to stay in the part forever, maybe you can have Paul Daniels for as long as you like. I know which I'd prefer.

And now to the important stuff - the ongoing success of the series which, on this evidence, looks set to go from strength to strength.

Episode 2 is set in the year 5 billion and looks as though about half the budget for the season has been thrown at it. The plot - wealthy aliens from across the universe gather on a space station / viewing station / hotel for the wierd to witness our sun swell and our planet roast, and they do this... for fun! But on a sinsiter note someone is sabotaging the station using computer generated spiders, this someone is computer generated herself, which i think makes the message of this episode - computer generation = evil. Which would explain Ja-Ja Binx. The spiders de-activate the shields the evil one laughs, reveals her motives in true bond-baddie style, then makes her escape, and the remaining guests are left to roast along with the earth. Luckily, in an unfeasably perilous location, there is a switch to bring the shields back, which is duly flicked, and the day is saved, except if you count the Earth, which blows up good. With the space station safe and the Moxx even smaller than he was to start off with The Doctor brings back the evil computer generated face by setting an egg timer, then watches it shrivel and pop. Yum. Throughout this Rose has been wondering whether following a strange man into a wooden box was such a good idea after all and The Doctor has been flirting with a tree. A standard day in the life of a Timelord then.

We are also given a glimpse of things to come as The Doctor explains to Rose at the end of the episode that he is the sole survivor of a war that ended in the destruction of his planet. The identity of the pepperpots is not given so it would be wild speculation on my part to suggest that Daleks might have exterminated Gallifrey, nor could i suggest that this will have anything to to with the three Dalek episodes yet to come.

Then they go for chips.

The story for this episode is really the paper thin bones on which to layer the special effects, of which there are many, more, I'm led to believe, than in the movie Gladiator. And for the most part these effects are very impressive. I would say the spiders were the most successful, with the least successful being Cassandra. I wanted to be impressed by Cassandra, I really did, I was encouraged by the pictures I'd seen beforehand, but in motion she had that cartoonish quality to her. Many a computer generated character has had a lot more money than this thrown at it and disappointed (somehow I keep coming back to Ja-Ja Binx), so I would like to have seen the results had they tried to create her physically somehow.

That's all the dwelling I'm going to do on negatives for this episode, though, as there was so many more possitives to take from it. Even amongst all the effects the standout moments for me were the quieter ones, The Doctor being comforted by Jabe was heart wrenching in no small part due to Eccleston's talent as an actor but also credit must be given to Murray Gold, whose incidental music was at times inspired, although this is still at times, a little more consistency in this department wouldn't go amiss (sorry, said I was done with negatives, didn't I?). Also the moment at the end when The Doctor expresses his loneliness brought a lump to my throat and Billie Piper can take some of the credit for that, it was the way she said "you've got me." I think Murray Gold's music got to me here as well. Russell T. Davies writes clever, touching and witty dialogue for fun although I did grimace when the Doctor told the guests to "chill". You know that feeling you get when your dad tries to be hip?

And so, leaving this episode and looking to the future. 45 minutes an episode still isn't selling itself to me. Like with Rose I felt The End of the World world would have been better served by an hour. That's why I'm looking forward to the 2 parters particulary. This season, we live with the format, we have no choice, but I think for future seasons they might consider telling 6 stories over 13 episodes. And while I'm talking about the future, how about this for a Christmas special... The Doctor inlists the help of previous incarnation Paul McGann to defeat some unspeakable evil, only by the end of the episode it is McGann who takes the series' reigns. At the end of his season(s) he regenerates into Eccleston, who might, by that time, be willing to take the Tardis for a spin once more (although you'd have to jump back to where we left off at the Christmas episode. Ow, my head). There are some slight continuity issues involving Rose but it's late and my head hurts, so I'll stop there.

Roll on The Unquiet Dead and Mark Gatiss' attempt at conquering the 45 minute format.