The End Of The World

As with “Rose,” I’m reviewing this episode after only one viewing, although I must say after re-watching “Rose” I did pick up on some things I didn’t notice the first time around and I’m even fonder of that story now than I was when writing my review.

First off, the Mill and the production team as a whole has to receive a huge thumbs up for the best visual effects seen on an episode of Doctor Who. They AT LEAST equalled those seen in the TV Movie in my opinion. I loved the look of Platform One – very pristine, very art-gallery like – exactly the kind of place you’d imagine a bunch of celebrities watching the World’s End. In particular the robotic spiders, the Mox of Balhoun and of course the Lady Cassandra all stood out as wonderful ideas that finally can be realised with credibility thanks to the budget and the amazing people working on the show. 

As for the story, I was very happy to see that it continued at the pace “Rose” ran along at. From the first two episodes, this series never lets you catch a breath let alone leave you with a dull moment! 

The variety of aliens on show was something I was both looking forward to, yet was slightly worried about – after all, if they looked crap in this day and age the series would lose viewers faster than the BBC regenerates it’s Doctors. However, as I mentioned above I was impressed with most of them – only the blue humanoid and blue midget aliens I thought were a bit unimaginative, at least in their appearance, though Davies’ script did take the time to introduce us to the female plumber and let her win our sympathies before making her the robotic spiders’ first victim, and she was more developed as a character than some of the more-hyped aliens in the story. Why did she need “permission to speak?” Is our future as full of prejudice and class division as our society now?

The first half of the story’s “whodunit” format was a clever route to take. Despite being a “family show,” I knew that even kids would work out that the faceless guys dressed in black robes who sound like Darth Vader were a little too obvious to be the real villains – my money was on the female Tree or the Lady Cassandra. After I’d heard the Mox speak and all the women in the room go “aah,” that ruled him out of contention. 

Davies script, apart from being a fast, funny and compelling sci-fi romp is also a lovely piece of social commentary – how only the richest and most famous life-forms are invited to watch the End of the World – an activity in itself which seems a bit weird; sick even – and in making the Lady Cassandra the villain (who incidentally got the biggest laugh of the show from me when she talked about “being a little boy”… wonderful stuff Russell), this vile piece of skin who thought about nothing else than being rich, “…thin and dainty…”; the epitome of a self-obsessed shallow individual certainly gives us pause for thought in our “nip and tuck” culture.

Ecclestons’ comments to the media about the Doctor being “brutal to his enemies” didn’t really wash last week as he wanted to give the Nestene a chance (very like the Doctors of old) but this week I see what Eccleston meant as Cassandra was left to dehydrate and explode quite gruesomely. Perhaps not quite as brutal as the 6th Doctor’s cold-blooded killing of the villainous Shokeye in “The Two Doctors”, Doctor number 9 seems to have dealing with his enemies spot on.

It’s so sad to say now we know that he’s leaving in the Christmas Special, but Christopher Eccleston really is the perfect Doctor for the 21st century. He can handle action – for example, look this week how he strolled right up to the mime-droid thingys and ripped one of their arms off. He looks like he’s always one step ahead – “…if you’re as clever as I am you can reverse a teleportation beam…”. He’s very funny, has a great accent (up the North!!!), and as this week’s episode shows, he can show emotion, far better than any of the previous Doctor’s ever did if I dare be so bold, though I’m sure that has more to do with the wonderful script than the quality of the Doctor. My favourite thing about him though is that he goes at a hundred miles an hour, he has that zesty Tom Baker/ McGann quality and he still has that Hartnell/Colin Baker grumpiness about him. We’ll miss you Chris!

Now thinking back to “Rose” for a moment, the Doctor mentioned fighting in “the war” and was at his most emotional when he was pleaded that he couldn’t save the Nestene’s world, that he “…couldn’t save ANY OF THEM,” implying world other than those belonging to the Nestene were destroyed. At the time, I thought the reference was just an allusion to the upcoming Aliens of London / World War III two-parter, but it is beginning to look like far more. 

Still thinking back, I loved the Doctor’s reply to Rose when he just answered “yep” to her question about him being alien – no mention on Gallifrey or the Time Lords; I was hoping that this issue would be given the proper time to be explored in another episode. I think that the production team has taken a far better approach in spreading the ‘revelations’ about the Doctor out, there was already enough in the first episode for new viewers to take in without sticking in a throwaway one-liner about the Doctor’s homeworld.

It surprised me how beautifully the Doctors’ origins were explored by this episode, beginning with Rose’s argument with the Doctor about where he’s from and he wouldn’t answer. “You wouldn’t know where it is anyway!” He couldn’t bring himself to say the name. Secondly, through the female Tree scanning the Doctor, then later revealing to him that she knows where he is from. That scene has to be my favourite of the first two episodes – the Doctor with a manly tear trickling down his cheek, the Tree putting her hand (branch/sap?) on his arm to comfort him and so eloquently summing up the thoughts of collected fandom “…it is a miracle that you even exist.” Even then, he couldn’t bring himself to speak he was so overcome with grief. 

The implication that Gallifrey has been destroyed, making the Doctor the last of the Timelords, is a superb idea for the new series as like almost 42 years ago in “An Unearthly Child,” the Doctor is once again truly out on his own, a wanderer in the fifth dimension, only this time he is further than home than he ever has been before – he can NEVER go home because it isn’t there. His decision to take Rose to witness the destruction of her homeworld must have been his way of letting her see his pain, letting her feel his loss, bringing her closer. After the adventure was over, the Doctor finally explaining to Rose about his world being destroyed brought the episode to a fitting and emotionally-satisfying climax, eventually ending with the Doctor taking Rose back to contemporary London for a bag of chips, the message as Eccleston said being something like “enjoy life, because it doesn’t last forever.”

Easy as it was for the Doctor to simply whip the TARDIS back nearly five billion years so Rose could still enjoy her world, I’m almost positive that the Doctor can’t travel back in time to Gallifrey before it’s destruction, the ramifications to the timeline would be too great and even if they weren’t, I’m sure Timelords are born into a specific time and at least on Gallifrey lead linear lives, to have TARDISes popping up all over Gallifreyan history would be too chaotic to think about! In the “classic series,” stories on Gallifrey always took place in a linear order, though I think this was more to do with stories making sense to the viewers! Maybe that infamous “Time barrier” surrounding the planet did just that – blocked out time travel? Who knows. I’m sure this question will be addressed down the line, as will the other wonderful questions raised – what was this war? WHAT HAPPENED TO GALLIFREY? 

The destruction of his planet may help get the Doctor over with the new audience as more of a tragic and lonely character, but to a seasoned fan who has seen every existing episode and listened to most of Big Finish’s audio offerings, the loss of Gallifrey is hard to comprehend. What of President Romana? Leela? The High Council? Rassilon, Omega… all that history, gone. It’s still hard to take in! I heard that the destruction of Gallifrey was going to be in the final 8th Doctor BBC novel, though I sincerely hope not as now it’s been set up it HAS TO be explored on screen, if not in this series than in the next (thanks for series 2 by the way, BBC Wales!)

There were so many little touches to this story that brought a smile to my face, moments of outright comedy (the Doctor dancing to “Tainted Love” on the jukebox; amusing referred to as an “iPod!!!”; his “jiggery-pokery” with Rose’s Nokia!) to moments of horrific poignancy (that awful Britney Spears song, “Toxic,” being played as a piece of ‘classic’ music as the world ends; Rose commenting that the world ended and ‘no-one noticed’ because they were too busy saving themselves.) Far too many little touches to give credit to in a review.

As the first sort of “regular” story I can’t see how anyone would not be impressed by it. Horrible little robotic spiders running around, people (and Trees) being burned alive, and best of all the intrigue surrounding the Doctor, his world, and his relationship with Rose. I hope this character development continues as it has been doing, slowly, a little bit at a time, and I’m very interested to see how Mark Gatiss’ story continues to develop the relationship between our heroic duo next week as Russell T. Davies has done so brilliantly thus far…