Episode two of Doctor Who takes the sound grounding from the series opener and builds upon it.

The fx are far sharper (the destruction of the Earth beats the pants of even the digitally remastered Death Star explosion!). Less obvious green screen this week, and some superb sequences. Several deaths are done with the maximum scare factor - a close-up of the character's reaction and cutting before we actually see them die.

The Doctor's characterisation is slightly calmer than last week, as is to be expected. With the breaking news earlier in the week of Eccleston's departure, its a shame that he looks as though he will build the role into a brilliant incarnation. The shedding of a tear (I think the first time since Jo Grant left to wed Cliff Jones), I found very poignant. Younger fans (i.e those seeing the show for the first time) will see this as a touching moment as we find out the first little segments of this Doctor's backstage. For us more seasoned followers, it shows another side to the Doctor's relationship with his home world.

The costumes are superb, all with a finish and polish that I feel was only achieved in the classic series by the Zygons. Even those aliens that are effectively window dressing have an attention to detail in them that is unsurpassed in the show's history. Another superb aspect of the aliens is that there was some superb concept work done on them. One race is in fact simply an idea - wicked!

Back to the back story. I'd heard rumours, but I quite like the way that this new Doctor's history is being revealed a small layer at a time. It takes us back to the days when he was just a stranger, who didn't have his species revealed for the first 6 years, and his home world went unnamed for another four. We can learn about the ninth Doctor with Rose.

Billy is less effective than last week, slightly more in the mould of the helpless girlie. However, her chat with Cassandra is another one of those "playground moments. However, some excellent POV shots continue to build the feeling of discovering the universe side-by-side with her.

After the coverage he got (cover shots, feature inserts, etc), the Moxx of Balhoun is a fairly insignificant character, but someone give me the funding to do Doctor Who - The officially licensed Moxx of Balhoun Incense Stick Holder!!!

After such a strong start, this episode could have fallen flat, but Phil Collinson has followed up RTD's intro with a superb SF thriller, with some lovely retro touches. There's even a follow up to a reference to the Titanic in The Invasion of Time, that once more fails to bog the show in continuity, but allows a wry smile to grace the face of older fans.

The NEXT WEEK teaser takes us to the past - and it looks every bit as promising as its predecessors. Enough from me - its time for QUATERMASS now.....

Additional: So blown away by the FX in this episode, I forgot to mention that this is the first time I can remember the "world about to end" scenario seem so...well...EPIC. Despite the confines of the location, a floating observation platform, the exterior views, the sun expanding, the perishing of the Earth, all of it is beautiful - there's no other way to describe it. If last week's episode caused you to go WOW, then I must invent the phrase "Even WOWIER!". Its hard to conceive that the series can sustain such continual raising of the bar, but if the remaining 11 eps come anywhere close to this, then our 1 season Doctor will be unforgettable!

On further reflection, there is a downer in the Episode. The oft-quoted "The Doctor is never cruel or cowardly" seems to have been pushed to the background. Although cowardice is not in evidence, I found the denouement of the main plot strand somehow un-Doctorish. Others may disagree.

And on a final note, I would like to distance myself from the seemingly constant vilification of CE since the announcement of his quitting. I would rather see 13 episodes of quality WHO that ensure the show continues, than 26 that wane and wither, with a man disinterested in the role because he is tied to a contract he wants to escape, which is possibly how things would have been had the Beeb insisted on a 2 year option. With some of the postings on various boards these past couple of days, Colin Baker must be glad the internet wasn't around when he declined a regeneration scene....

"Rose" was a fun romp, but perhaps the real test was always going to be episode two. Was "Rose" a fluke? Will the Doctor and Rose get irritating after a while? Can RTD "do" sci-fi? Is "The End of the World" as good as "Rose". I think better.

In a way this is the first "normal" episode of the new series. Last weeks show had the massive responsibility of reintroducing the Doctor and capturing the imagination of a new, more demanding generation and did so by literally dazzling the viewer with a 100mph adventure vaguely involving shop dummies, but in the follow up, they HAD to tell a story.

The plot retains the freshness of Rose, helped by continuing directly after Rose's entry into the TARDIS. Thankfully however, the pace isn't quite so breakneck and allows for many lovely touches, my highlights being "Tainted Love" (check out the Doctor's groove, I never had him down as an synth fan) and classic ballad "Toxic". The characterisation is also lovely. Eccleston really gets a chance to shine this week, most notably without saying a word as Jabe (excellent from start to finish) gives her condolances to the last Timelord (tear!). His exposition to Rose in the final moments is also fantastic and again hints at a very involving story arc.

Billie Piper's Rose is as charming in the future as she was in 2005 and once again her humanity ensures the story has soul (I think her best scene was with the plumber) and she gets a very traditional companion scene when trapped in a room filling with sunlight. This week I had a strong sense of Ace in Rose, notably when she loses her temper with Cassandra and on learning she has essentially been violated by the TARDIS. I felt the supporting cast was very good, Cassandra was fabulous as was The Steward, but I really thought Jabe shone and was almost too sexy to say she was a tree! The Moxx of Balhoon however, didn't get much of a look in and the much publicised Face of Boe doesn't say a word!

My only cirticism was the story was a little "Diet-Plot" for the second week running, while the Doctor, Rose and details of the war continue to grow and deepen the weekly stories are almost as thin as Cassandra. Really the plot boils down to: there are some robot spiders, they might kill you, someone is controlling them, why? Is that enough? I don't know, but I certainly remember single episodes of Buffy, Spooks or The X Files being more involving. The episode is excellent thanks to the characterisation, concept and performances, but now we have our heroes, I feel we need more interesting stories. I predict this will happen organically as it did with Buffy and The X Files (recall, Buffy didn't have a very good story to tell until half way through the first season).

Verdict: "The End of the World" is stunning and makes for more satisfying viewing than "Rose" (I had a lump in my throat as Rose and the Doctor stood on the busy street). I for one am incredibly happy with the way our new series is developing, regardless of events outside of the fictional world of Doctor Who! I suspect "The Unquiet Dead" however, may outshine both of the first two episodes...?

Once again Russell T Davies has pulled a proverbial dove out of his writers hat much to the amazement of all concerned (well me at least). I sat last Saturday and watched Rose and I enjoyed it, in my opinion it was probably the best Doctor Who story since 1984 (Caves of Androzani) and wondered, "How can this be beaten or topped". Then this week we started with the episode "The End of the World" the usual fare (the Doctor takes his companion to see some wonder of the universe and blags his way in). The old touches were there that made the series a favourite of mine back in the 70's and half of the eighties. The slightly telepathic piece of paper that made people see what they were meant to see being the first part that made me smile, ecclestons portrayal of the doctor ad-libbing that his breath was a gift being the other. 

Still this Doctor had something hiding behind the eyes something the others never had we saw a part of it when Rose asked him where he was from. The snappiness, the anger and the hurt that was put across tricked the viewer into thinking that the doctor was just irritated with the question and didn't want to reveal his people or the power they had. His way of apologising to Rose (by enabling her phone to call her mum 5 million years in the past was nice touch) shows that this is a doctor that will not apologise with words but with acts of kindness. 

Moving on from this the plot chugged along at a reasonable rate and started to reveal itself as pretty much a standard who plot however by the end it all revealed itself to be a charade. A smoke and mirrors exercise all put together for what can only be 2 minutes of the real reason for the plot and one of the biggest shocks that somehow I had managed to avoid during all the spoilers the new series and I’m glad I had. 

With Rose (the reasons of which were for the new main plot to be expanded) confined to a room the Doctor had a temporary new companion in the tree person Jabe who was wonderfully played by Yasmin Bannerman. She played the character of Jabe with just the right amount of knowledge and yet at the same time a sense of humanity one of the most powerful scenes has to be the act of kindness she shows the Doctor by saying she was "sorry for what had happened". Eccleston himself proved exactly why he deserves to be in big blockbuster movies and is such a character actor with tears welling in his eye's you couldn't help to be moved by the whole scene (even though it could only have been 30 - 60 seconds in total). 

The ending of the story will probably be the part that will get the most criticism and for reasons of spoiler fairness I must ask that if you haven't seen the story look away now because if you haven't this will really annoy you.

The Doctor lets someone die; he doesn't try to help them he lets them die. He stands there and watches someone die without any remorse or attempt to help them he just watches it and lets it happen. This was the man who would try to save anyone and yet now he watches people die. 

We were of course privy to at least why he had changed so much when Rose stood there saying she had missed the end of world and that no one had seen the earths final moments and lamented that all of earths history and it's people (her people) were gone he took her back to her time and let her see it was all still there and revealed that he was the last of time lords and all clicked in to place. 

The Doctor may have always been a galactic hobo, a traveller but his home was still there. Gallifrey and the time lords were in the background everything he was and had been made into was still there for him. With this Doctor it wasn't, it was gone he was the only one left of his race, no friends, no Romana, no history. With that moment you understood why he was the way he was and why this Doctor would try to save species and race's (the Nestine consciousness) but for the individuals who had no wish to play by rules and wanted death and destruction for power, glory or money he would have no mercy. This Doctor is one to watch and although Eccleston has left, I still can't wait for the eleven other episodes and this episode left me with only one question:

"Who is powerful enough to destroy the time lords"?

PS It's a rhetorical question by the way please, don't respond!

I was very impressed by the first episode, "Rose", but there's a few things that made me cringle in this second episode. 

I'm probably one of the biggest Doctor Who fans around and I really want to see it succeed. If it is to do that the effects need to improve. The story itself was exceptional. Very original entertaining and fun as hell, but a few things almost made the whole thing fall apart for me.

The digital animation outside the platform and in space where just horrid. I happen to own a 3D animation studio and some of the demo reels I get from amatures look better than this. The models are too simplistic looking, textures are plain, the lighting is all wrong, and the animation itself is jittery. Not smooth at all. Better lighting could have done wonders. Now when I refer to lighting I'm talking about the lights set up in the 3D software as well as shader attributes like phong. the platform looked plastic and not metal. Too much phong shading. It all just looks cheap. 

The sun and Earth blowing up was just cheap particle effects that where not convincing at all. The planet explosions in Star Trek are far better.

As for the indoor effects...

The spiders often did not blend in with the scene and the shadows didn't match. No shadow being given off by the egg in one scene. Also the blades, though they looked pretty cool all had the exact same texture map. Each blade should have had a variation of the texture. It just looks bizarre when each blade looks weathered exactly the same. 

As a 3D animator myself I know they could have done much better on the same budget. It's just the guy (s) doing these effects are not very good. I don't expect Star Wars quality stuff from a TV budget but come on you can't get away with such shoddy effects these days. These scenes are probably what made the Sci Fi channel say it's lacking and they where right.

I love Doctor Who and I just hate seeing less than 100% effort being put into it. Hire a professional 3D animator next season.

A few things like the Tardis somehow telepathically translating alien languages into human just seemed totally unplausable as well as the cell phone attachment to call mum from 5 billion years into the past. The show needs to stick to plausable science or it's going to fail. Telepathy and mind stuff always turns me off.

Over all though it was a great story. Iloved the humor and at the end of the day I was very entertained. 

Oh and not to nick pick but on the closeup of the spindle the Doctor rotates in the Tardis you can see numbers on it and it's in english. They need to watch those little details. They obviously used some junk part and forgot about the numbers written on the part. file those numbers off. Details!

I really hate being negative about Doctor Who because I am a huge fan, but I call it like I see it, but hey the story was fantastic overall.

This was the episode that most of us had waited for, Rose was basically an introduction and was fast, pacey, funny and over too quickly and though the ratings were fabulous, everything depends on what happens with this episode, was it 10million of curious viewers or are they all going to tune in again?

Christopher's leaving stories apart from being vital to the Doctor Who world are also, cynically, fantastic press stories, promotion, whatever you'd like to call them and so more than a few people are going to watch to see what all the fuss is about too, despite Ant and Decs schedules having been moved forward. Tomorrow's rating figures are going to be very interesting.

I've read a lot of very positive postings and where they are negative they are very negative at that.

I'm prepared to give the show a chance, I wanted to see this new Doctor in an episode that was complete, and this was it.

Right from the start, the CGI was first class, special effects the production teams would have only dreamt of twenty years ago...and make up and design that was a feast for the eye.

I'm not too sure what to make of the spin wheel device on the Tardis console, or the Doctor pumping away, to start the engines. Very dubious about that one....it may grow on me, certainly the Tardis seems to be very different to anything that's gone before and very organic in look and texture so I'll keep an open mind on that one. I've watched Who all my life, certainly my earliest memories are from Power of The Daleks, and so I have a wealth of memories, which include fantastic to disgraceful and banal.

The story started well, the body language between The Doctor and Rose is fabulous, and every now and again, she reminds us of how human she is, and how alien the Doctor is, he has acquired an innocent arrogance and dismisses her protests when she discovers the Tardis has given her this gift of language. Tom is probably the only other Doctor that could have gotten away with that.

The Aliens were first class, Jade being a very interesting character and one I was sorry that died, as the possibilities were interesting of where that relationship could have gone. the scene between them, when she admits she has scanned him and discovered his identity was interesting, and the Doctors tears were quite touching, obviously another story to come....maybe a future story may have them meet again at an earlier time period, who knows?

Cassandra was exactly what we expected, first class voice over and top notch bitchiness, lots of little in jokes, and sexual innuendos, which some people haven't liked, but doesn't bother me one jot. It may seem that I simply praise everything about it, but I do have some reservations, I am not at all happy with these 50 minute episodes, it's too short. Certainly in the past we all remember stories that were 6 episodes and should have been 4, but 50 minutes is far too short to fit so much into.

The writer has built up the suspense wonderfully, lots of in-jokes and entertaining asides, and suddenly, there's 5 minutes left and everything has to happen in those 5 minutes. I'm aware there are a couple of two parters due and these may well work much better in this respect. Doctor Who's strengths have been drama, characterizations and situations and these take time to develop and though we have excellent people working on this series, I do think this 50 minute format is going to ultimately be too restrictive for them.

I dread the thought of it becoming like Blakes7, colorful, camp, mindless running about in badly written stories, which it did become.

On the whole though, fabulous stuff, I'll stay watching. I'm a middle aged guy that's as excited each Saturday night as I was 35 years ago, which bemuses my children and probably embarrass the hell out of them. Excellent.

I saw this episode Sat. night during its first run and am now more excited for the new series than ever before. Eccleston is brilliant - he's intense and it's a different Doctor than we've ever seen before - ruthless at times - there is an edge. There are some important backstory points about the Time Lords that the purists are going to be scratching their heads over - I'm now more inclined to think that maybe even Eccleston isn't necessarily the "9th" incarnation per se based on the new "history" of the Time Lords being presented here for the first time - the continued reference to the "war" and all that...

The first five minutes in the TARDIS is the best scene ever of the Doctor taking someone for a spin - finally, the Doctor seems to have his TARDIS under control and can travel to any time and space seemingly at will - this is a Doctor with an agenda and his more traditional hero portrayal here reminds me of the Peter Cushing movies in the sense that Eccleston is very pragmatic and is very focused on achieving the mission at hand.

Interesting deviation from tradition by having a "teaser" before the credit sequence - I thought I was missing something - had I tuned in too late? It's a good way to recap what happened the week before in case you missed it...

Billie Piper is great and really holds her own - this pairing is a great way to launch the return of Dr. Who. 

While I feel sad to hear Eccleston is departing so soon, I can't help but feel that this will actually turn into a brilliant stroke of fate for the series - now everyone will be glued to this season to find out what can lead up to the eventual regeneration, including the Christmas special (they should pass the torch at Christmas) and now of course everyone will tune in like mad next season AGAIN to see how the next fellow does it! 

I miss the cliffhanger and now understand the format of the new series and how it's going to fit the 45 minute single-story episodes: the Doctor shows up in the middle of a situation and it's up to him and the companion to get to the bottom of things quickly before it's too late. Think of it as showing up at a lavish Murder-Mystery dinner party and having to solve the whodunnit before dessert is brought out...

There were a lot of really cute in-jokes (like "I-pod" and "Tainted Love" and "Toxic" and "Michael Jackson") that made the episode very entertaining - for a story set entirely in orbit on a space station (ode to Ark in Space and Four to Doomsday?) this is definitely the best - the digital visual effects are great for the time they've got and while not entirely photoreal - okay, it's not like they have Star Wars resources here - they do the trick nicely to convey what's being presented and you lose yourself in the story. 

Gone are the days of running down the corridor again and filming it the other way... it's the limit of the digital effects which will hallmark this incarnation of the series...

There's not much chance for guest characters to have proper story arcs developed in the new format - it's clear we're going to learn a bit about the Doctor and his "history" each week with another morsel of info here and there... by the end of the season I'm sure a lot of the mystery will be revealed.

This Doctor is more "Batman" than Professor Dithers - he's a man of action, a hero - someone who's clearly got a job to do. No stopping to sniff the celery stalk for this timelord!

Bravo!

This the kind of new blood the series needs to rejuvenate itself - it's fresh, it moves fast, and it's fun to watch. Very entertaining. Really, superb writing by Davies. Superb.