The End Of The World

‘The End of the World’ tries to be many things at once – a whodunit, a satire, a comedy of manners, and a character piece that paints both the Doctor and Rose in deeper shades than we saw in ‘Rose.’ It simply can’t be all these things successfully, but the fault doesn’t really lie with Russell T. Davies’s script – as with ‘Dalek,’ there just isn’t enough *time* to give all the story elements their due, and as a result, the final product has a somewhat compressed quality. That’s the price of this short-teleplay form – this is the kind of plot that could have made a great four-part adventure in the old days, cliffhangers and all.

But, despite this problem, ‘The End of the World’ isn’t really all that bad. It brings a wonderful alien color back to the world of Doctor Who – these aliens are a bit campy and costumey, but that’s never really been out of place in the series, and, indeed, one almost expects Alpha Centauri to show up at this little shindig. Some fans have criticized this first season of the new series as being too Earth-bound, but that seems silly to me – stories like this one, as well as ‘The Long Game’ and the final two-parter, might as well be set on alien planets. 

As for Davies’s writing contribution, well, his dialogue *is* rather grating in places – the satire about iPods is about as sharp as a boxing glove, and will date terribly. It’s also true that none of his characters here are terribly deep – even Lady Cassandra comes off as merely arch, more the ‘bitchy trampoline’ of Rose’s estimation than a Doctor Who supervillain. And Jabe is purely functional. But that’s not really so out of place in a story that clearly aspires to be the sci-fi equivalent of an Agatha Christie ‘cozy’ mystery. As for the acting, Simon Day’s Steward is amusing in his flips between serene servility and impatient near-panic, the rubbery aliens, as I said, are fun, and the spidery robots are creepy and effective. Plus, Billie Piper gets some good scenes – in particular, the one where she befriends Raffalo the plumber has a way of bringing the out-there sci-fi scenario down to earth, which seems to be a major goal of Davies’s in his approach to the series. The design is quite beautiful (an obvious homage to eighties Who) and the special effects, especially when the sun shields fail, are certainly impressive.

One last concern is worth mentioning, though, and that is the story’s rather ghoulish resolution. I find it hard to believe that the Doctor would stand coldly by and watch the last human being, even a murderer in grotesquely altered form, agonize and explode before his eyes. Even Rose asks him for mercy, but he has none – this is not only out of character with his previous incarnations, but with his own later this season, when he cannot bring himself to kill the humans on Earth in ‘The Parting of the Ways.’ It leaves a bad taste in the mouth, frankly – fans should be warned.

Still, this worth a watch overall.