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.

End of the World is undoubtedly unlike any episode of Doctor Who I have ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few! Superb aliens, a tearful Doctor, one of the rudest jokes ever in to be heard in the series and a bit of Britney, all add up to one of the cleverest, hilarious and emotional episodes ever.

Some fans may find the outlandish nature of the episode too much to take. If this season has an "oddball" story, then this could be it. The woman who wrote to Points of View exclaiming disgust at the Doctor’s scene with Jackie Tyler in her bedroom was probably straight back on the phone when she heard Cassandra’s funniest line. I have to say it took me a second to register it and then my reaction was one of hilarious disbelief…

The sets were superb and any criticisms of the special effects for Rose should be quashed. The space effects, the Sun and the Earth exploding were absolutely superb and of a standard as high as any US TV series. The costumes and alien make-up were also exemplary, although it was a shame the Face of Boe and the Moxx of Balhoon didn’t really do much.

But it wasn’t a load of style and no substance. Eccleston and Piper have already established a warm and genuine relationship between the Doctor and Rose in their scenes together. No wonder the final scene is executive producer Julie Gardner’s favourite.

Two supporting characters that particularly stood out were Jasmin Bannerman as Jabe and Becky Armory as Raffalo. Just as Mark Benton did in Rose, Armory successfully portrayed a likeable and credible character in such a short space of time, that it was rather sad to see her killed off. 

Likewise Bannerman as the Tree Queen was also excellent. Her scenes with the Doctor were funny at first, again some fans may have baulked at the sight of her flirting at the Doctor. But later on, where she tells him she knows who he is, her performance was very sensitive and moving, effectively demonstrating that this version of Doctor Who is going to have an emotional depth as well as action and adventure. 

Although it was perhaps rather obvious that Cassandra was the villain, Wanamaker made the best of the very funny script and certainly helped to make the character memorable and enjoyable.

I have to say I am truly enjoying this new series (as are many friends and family who aren’t fans) but am left wondering how it can get any better?

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.

After the promising, but uneven 'Rose' I was hoping that 'The End of the World' would settle down and get onto more even keel. The trailer looked good, with Christopher Eccleston much less manic and more Doctor like than in the first episode. What we got was something even better than I could have imagined.

The plot was simple but effective, with the Doctor and Rose journeying to the Year 5 Billion to a space station where the galactic elite are gathering to witness the end of the world. Of course nothing is that simple and the Doctor and Rose are soon mixed up in a murderous plot that threatens them all. But that's not the meat of the episode. The real meat is of course is around the mystery of the Doctor.

The major revelation of the episode is the Doctor is now the 'last' of the Time Lords. The rest and Gallifrey having been destroyed by war, sometime in the Doctor's recent past. The evasiveness of the Doctor when Rose asks where he came from hints at something, a later conversation with one of the alien guests hints that its something bad and in the final scene the Doctor reveals to Rose what happen and its not good. All of these scenes are played wonderfully by Christopher Eccleston, from the grief to the melancholy, he nails it perfectly.

It's also clear that Eccleston could potentially be the best Doctor so far. He once again successfully integrates elements from the previous incarnations, while charting his own course. In the final scene where he utters that "everything has its time and everything dies", you could almost hear the words being uttered by Sylvester McCoy's Doctor in some New Adventure. It's a performance of genius and a shame that he won't be doing more after this season (and the rumored special).

But the real genius is that of Russell T Davies. It's now clear that his plan for reinventing Who is to take the elements from the old series that worked, clean them up for a new audience, while in the process jettisoning the festering swamp of continuity of that dogged the latter years. By getting rid of Gallifrey, he neatly and quickly gets rid of some of the worst of the baggage, gives the Doctor a new motive for traveling and taking a companion, while setting up some mystery for future episodes to explore. I'm sure that at some point we'll find out who took out Gallifrey (my money would be on the Daleks), but for now its a nice juicy dangler.

Of course nothing is perfect. As with the first episode Ecleston sometime plays the humor a little to clumsy, and can be a bit too manic at times. He needs to settle down a little and play it more subtly. Also I'm not sure that 45 minutes is the right length for the series. An extra 5 minutes would give a little room to breath as everything is a little breakneck when crammed into 45 minutes.

But these are all things that can be worked on. It's clear from this episode that the Doctor is well and truly back, and lets hope that the series can maintain this level of quality.

(ps: When I say the 'last' I mean until the Master shows up again)

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.

At last! At last! At last!

Credible science fiction to expunge the PAST!

Auntie Beeb has delivered Dr Who, most credible

Glossy looking, witty, sharp with ne'er a moment dull.

Rose didn't scream but looked logically bemused

And worried at such creatures on a ship broken and fused.

Had she made the right decision human plotline nicely bubbling

Under the 'science-fiction' story most troubling.

With effective links to Episode 1, continuity 

Succeeded to make us feel as we too were on Rose's journey.

Simple sets were few but stopped the endless wandering

Of previous Doctors through that 'ship' again re-visiting.

A super portrayal of the Doctor we were given

Who performed on so many levels, being character driven,

Witty, charming, angry, sad, 

Lonely, amused, amusing, bad!!!

So many layers, slowly being unpeeled

With historical, explanatory and emotional traits revealed.

We convincingly learn more about his background, his timely role

His loneliness as the last of his race, one fish swimming into the shoal!

We have become so used to good sci-fi- from America imported

That this is the first time we have got 'it' 'sorted'!!

Our effects and backgrounds were up there with the best

Production values to match the rest.

The Blake's Seven music over the spaceship sounded dated 

That or me with memory saturated.

4 legged spiders and villians were menacing on the space station 

With all horror of death off screen and left to my imagination.

So all in all, slower with many themes and good effects

Leaving many questions, hope, and curiosity as to what comes next!