The End Of The World

There’s something about Christopher Eccleston’s performance as the Doctor, which reminds me of Craig Kelly’s performance as gay ‘Doctor Who’ fan, Vince in Russell T. Davies’ TV drama ‘Queer as Folk’. It’s as if, on being granted the writing duties on the new series of ‘Doctor Who’, Davies outlined the character of The Doctor in Vince’s image – that is to say, Davies own image, as Vince is certainly Davies’ autobiographical cypher.

In ‘The End of the World’ Eccleston’s wide-eyed thrill seeking Doctor echos Vince in almost every way, right down to the accent and catchphrase (‘Fantastic!’) Clad in a black leather jacket with a buzz-cut crop and a female sidekick, who isn’t his girlfriend, as underlined in the exchange between Jabe (Yasmin Bannerman) and the Doctor, we have the Doctor written as a queer icon.

Cassandra O’Brien, the last human and villain of the week, is the perfect foil. She is the typical ‘Dynasty’ bitch taken to the Nth degree and realised as a piece of computer generated skin stretched across a metal frame, the casuality of too much plastic surgery. Zoe Wannamaker brings the character to life with camp hilarity, particularly with her strangled shrieks of “Moisturise me!” as she meets her end. One only wishes she had escaped to return another day, as the best ‘Doctor Who’ villains often do.

Credit must go to Euros Lyn’s direction, which reaches disaster movie heights in the closing fifteen minutes of the episode. Never has ‘Doctor Who’ looked so glorious. The scenes where The Doctor walks messiah-like through the revolving fans, intercut with Billie Piper’s Rose struggling to escape the sun’s rays were beautifully realised. It doesn’t matter that the storyline, on the whole, was somewhat thin; this is ‘Doctor Who’ as a collection of visual set pieces.

Eccleston continues to shine in the role, which make the news of his imminent departure from the programme seem like a great loss. Here is a Doctor you believe in, much more than any of his predecessors. Despite his goofy, almost schizoid performance (bopping to Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’) he brings an emotional gravitas to the role that works to elevate the programme away from its intended audience. Who said this was children’s TV? ‘Doctor Who’ has never been so adult.