The End Of The World

This episode was certainly an improvement on the slapdash opener although I was less enamoured to Eccleston’s portrayal this time round: seemingly an alien setting heightened the Doctor’s compulsion to assert his earthly bloke-ish mannerisms and worryingly contemporary, slangy vernacular. When he told the delegates to ‘chill’ in one scene I felt a shudder of awkwardness go through me. Maybe I’m old-fashioned and too mindful of the classic Who portrayals but I really don’t feel such every day-style language suits the character. It also detracts from his alienness. It is also an irony as so far this Doctor seems to demonstrate that, despite hanging around a lot on Earth, he is actually a bit of a misanthrope – which I think is an interesting development of the character and harks back to Hartnell’s original incarnation. The contempt of this last Timelord for Cassandra the last human, at the end, contrasts sharply with his far more diplomatic attitude to the Nestene in Rose. This is very interesting and his line ‘everything has an end’ and the Earth’s ‘time’s up’ and thus his flat refusal to save either the last human or her dying planet smack of the hair-shirt amorality of Tom Baker’s early interpretation of the role and at least offers a challenge to the audience as well as thankfully adding to the Doctor’s alienness which is essential to the series. But I still feel this Doctor’s casual, ‘average bloke’ vernacular (and appearance) detracts from these better qualities to this incarnation. There’s obviously nothing wrong about having a more working class version of the character – arguably about time – with a noticeable regional accent, but as long as this does not hamper articulation and gravitas. Eccleston has facial/physical gravitas but his moody glowering is not quite enough: we need more in the way of vocal gravitas, such as Tom Baker most memorably demonstrated.

The aliens were well realised, particularly the Face of Boe (sadly underused) and Moxx of Balhoon (equally underused). The other aliens I felt were nothing better than those seen in stories such as 1972’s Curse of Peladon, with which this story has obvious similarities (group of alien delegates etc.) and which is in my opinion infinitely superior in every sense, and Curse was not even a particularly brilliant story either. I cringed as the (admittedly wittily/well-acted though ludicrously Star Trek-esque blue-faced) controller announced ‘Trees’ as if this could pass as a convincing name/concept for an alien race. Oh but they’re not actually alien are they? Jabe is a direct descendant of the Tropical rainforests – where did this idea come from RTD? Perhaps Trees realised more along the lines of Tolkein’s Elks or even the superbly realised tree demon from the otherwise appalling serial ‘Strange’ would have been more convincing than three Star Trek rejects who are obviously wearing make up. When one remembers the excellent Draconians from as far back as 1973 this puts these new additions to shame.

I suffered the Cringes (or even Scringes) from several almost JNT-esque ‘awkward moments’ (remember those peppering every McCoy episode circa S.24/25?): the Doctor doing his bizarre ‘breathing’ introductions to sundry aliens; the Moxx spitting; but most of all, and I’m surprised how little has been made of this by reviewers so far, the frankly unforgivable gimmick of Cassandra’s jukebox inflictions! That in the year 5 Billion some pop music might be regarded as classical is nothing too far-fetched in itself, but why O WHY O WHY O WHY should it be these particular two tracks, and why from this era, and why more specifically one from this very year 2005 as opposed to the eons passing before this episode is set? So RTD inflicts his record tastes on us with Tainted Love – the Doctor bopping to it was utterly embarrassing – even more so than McCoy burbling jazz into a microphone in Happiness Patrol, and that was embarrassing enough! However, I could have stomached this intrusion into the episode had it been all – but no, the production team couldn’t resist being ultra-contemporary and, instead of playing a single which is vaguely bearable in quality, they choose the atrocious Toxic from the equally atrocious Britney Spears! For me, this practically destroyed any credibility this episode might have otherwise possessed. This is even more unashamed than the contemporary sculpted haircuts visible in RTD’s other series Casanova. Both are equally incongruous in their settings of future and past respectively. No one surely, even in 5 Billion, would consider anything produced by Britney Spears to be anything other than throwaway rubbish. RTD missed a great opportunity here: he could have played anything, an era-defining song from The Beatles, even Imagine by Lennon, something truly classic and thus potential classical in the future. I suppose it could have been worse: he could have played a Robbie Williams song. But this intrusion, nay imposition, into the episode makes the jazz score playing over a shot of space in Silver Nemesis comparatively poetic. Yes, The Chase had a cut from The Beatles’ Ticket to Ride, which was then also a contemporary gimmick, but at least that was a good song. In Three Doctors, Jo recites some lyrics from I Am The Walrus – but not only is this cited about six years after it was released as a single, it was also picking up on a lyric/song embedded in the public consciousness for its seminal quality as, again, an era- defining piece by an era-defining band. Britney Spears’ Toxic does not define an era – it only defines a forgettable, overly commercial ‘moment’ in a pop vacuum. Frankly RTD’s choice could hardly have been worse.

Onto the plot: well, there isn’t much of one really is there? A standard who-dunnit with a less than interesting conclusion. Zoe Wannamaker voices Cassandra expertly and has some fairly good lines here and there, though a bit too tongue-in-cheek, but unfortunately her character is completely undermined by the fact that, although the idea ofa stretched piece of skin bla bla bla is quite unusual, she cannot possibly exist as she has no lungs, heart, brain etc. The concept is thus rendered ludicrous; a vague abstract fancy which should have had more thought put into its realisation in order to make it convincing. I did notice on second viewing some sort of blue glass tank at the base of her metal frame – perhaps this is her cerebral cortex/life support system? If so, it should have been mentioned in the script. What is, again, clumsy, unimaginative and absurd is to actually have her announced as Cassandra O’Brien! Couldn’t RTD have thought up a slightly more imaginative and impressive surname – or is he deliberately going for a mundane-sounding one? If so, why?

Apart from the oft-mentioned giant fans and the 'silly place to put an off-switch' platform design etc. why on earth does the space station have switches to turn off the sun-filter? In what event would this be used exactly, except a mass suicide? Of course these filter scenes are reminiscent of Dragonfire too.

The robotic spiders look very derivative to me - wasn't there something similar in the atrocious Lost in Space film? They were ok but still looked like computer graphics as all computer graphics do. And what the heck was an ordinary tea mug doing on an alien's desk? Had one of the camera crew left it there accidentally after a tea break?

The idea about the National Trust restoring the Earth to its former continental glory is potentially quite good but is rendered absurd by the fact that such a project would have surely involved the charity changing its name to the International Trust – which would have been a more imaginative semantic alteration which would allude rather than clumsily spell out a contemporary name we recognise; again RTD’s obsession with contemporary Earth/UK references all the time!!! He does not have to graphically spell things out to us like this – a bit of subtlety Mr Davies, please, and imagination too, just examine the scripts of Robert Holmes to learn this. For example, RTD’s National Trust reference is the equivalent of Holmes calling the cleverly implied Inner Retinue (The Sun Makers) by its real life satirical target, the Inland Revenue!!! That would have sounded ludicrous wouldn’t it? Well if RTD had taken a leaf out of Holmes’ book, he would have come up with a subtler allusion as Inner Retinue, such as, as I suggested, the International Trust. The concept of the whole Earth being restored by the National Trust of one tiny island nation is utterly laughable and completely implausible. RTD’s terrestrialisation, nay, Anglicisation of the Who mythology is clumsy, unimaginative and sloppy. The series needs much more subtlety – or are modern viewers really as cretinous as modern programme makers would like to think they are?

The pace of the episode was ok, a little rushed in places, with a pointlessly long scene between Rose and the blueberry plumber. Mind you, this scene was slightly reminiscent of the old series – I could have imagined Ace having this conversation too. The scenes between the Doctor and Rose are reasonably well-handled and scripted, but I still feel a little too much emphasis is put on Rose (as was done with Ace) at the expense of developing the Doctor. Should the series perhaps be renamed ‘Rose…Oh, and the bloke in the leather jacket’? Piper is a credible actor though, I admit, and her character is believable and three-dimensional so far, so that’s something I suppose. But I’m frankly more concerned about the Doctor – I’m not a fan of companions particularly (for me the best were Tegan and Turlough (circa S.20), as they were more three-dimensional characters than the rest) and would prefer a Deadly Assassin-style solo Doctor who has different companions in different stories.

The revelations about Gallifrey (though it is not mentioned by name, as the Autons weren’t either) is pointless: with a TARDIS the Doctor can presumably go back to the Timelords anyway if he wants – though possibly by their very definition, the Timelords cease to exist throughout all of time if destroyed in one part of it!?). I don’t actually mind the idea of the Doctor being the last of the Timelords as it re-emphasizes the solitary nature of the character. However, if this new precocious development in the series aims to detract emphasis from the Doctor’s origins, I predict it is already showing signs of doing the opposite, as witnessed in some protracted scenes on the subject in this story. Having said this, the theme of the Doctor now being ‘homeless’ (though as an exile he always was anyway) was nicely juxtaposed with a Big Issue vendor in the last scene.

Certainly the series has some way to go, this Doctor certainly has ‘something’ about him and could potentially be every bit as good as his predecessors (bar, I predict, Tom Baker and Patrick Troughton, with whom, ironically, the Ninth has most in common) and End of the World was, despite its impeachable embarrassments, a significant improvement on Rose and in places, much more reminiscent of the original series. But it is still only good enough to rank alongside the more mediocre stories in the original canon in terms of scripting; I would say End of the World ranks alongside stories such as Dragonfire, Mindwarp, Creature from the Pit, you know, that sort of mediocre space opera style of the old series - it also detectably has a few elements in common with satires like The Sunmakers, but its thin script doesn't compare to Holmesian standards by a long shot. This story, ultimately, is acceptable, with a few good scenes/visuals/lines, but is still severely depleted in terms of credibility by its ill-thought-out terrestrial allusions and Britney Spears intrusion.