I came to really like Rose after my third viewing, and feel it’s a strong serial despite its problems. In this respect I may also develop an appreciation for the second story in the new Doctor Who series. And yet Rose initially left me feeling mostly positive – I recognised that the strengths of the episode far outweighed the weaknesses. The End Of The World, however, left me feeling flat on first watching it, and a second viewing has not really improved things.

I think what undermines this entire story is an air of facetiousness that makes it difficult to take anything seriously. Presumably this is to help inject comedy into the show, but instead it makes the show seem somewhat silly, very much like the stories of McCoy’s first season. Unfortunately, Russel T. Davies, while good at delivering the odd witty line here and there, is not very good at pacing his comedy so that it blends in well with horror, suspense or the darker elements of the show. He seems to lack the ability of past writers like Robert Holmes, Douglas Adams and even Eric Saward.

The underlying story borrows heavily from Adams’ The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe. There’s the similar presence of dignitaries and the rich getting together in a protected space station to view a large-scale cosmic event. There is also a similar ending, where the heroes (be they the Doctor and Rose, or Ford and Arthur Dent) return to a younger Earth before it was destroyed and muse on its future destruction and the futility, and somewhat absurdity, of it all. The idea that the Earth has been held in its classical state and protected by gravitational devices for what seems to be none other than artistic reasons is rather charming, and the whole context, while not original, is a welcome sight in Doctor Who.

The mystery theme built into the plot works quite well. The identities of the repeated Ming are secretive and their appearance makes them quite chilling. They are obviously the bad guys, as the Doctor points out. The impact of the mystery was never really who the saboteurs were, but what they were planning and why. At this level, the story fails to deliver. Firstly, because Cassandra’s role as the brains behind the scheme is revealed by the Doctor without any real effort on his part. He merely kicks the little spider droid and tells it to find its mummy like a puppy dog. Is there any reason why it should obey the Doctor? Did he reprogramme the spider? If so, why didn’t we see it? And secondly, even when Cassandra is revealed to be the real enemy, the “why” element fails simply because her plan is utterly ludicrous. If you’ve seen the show, you know what I mean. Even the Doctor comments on what a daft plan it is. Her vanity and ideas of race purity could have been played upon to construct a far more interesting scheme than simply demanding ransom money from kidnapping the people on board. While a hostage situation may have worked, why did she choose such a precarious environment in which to do it – and then herself make the environment even more precarious? And finally when the Doctor uncovers her plot, she resorts to that terrible writer’s clichй: the backup plan! Her going on about having shares in rival companies and making mega-profits due to their deaths is bloody inane.

I feel the Doctor in this story is far worse than in Rose, and all the elements that were wrong about his character in the first story come to the fore here. One of these factors is the Doctor’s lack of explanation regarding what he is doing and his over-reliance on gadgetry. It’s never really clear what the Doctor is doing when working with technology, and one of the most frustrating aspects of this story is the over-use of the sonic screwdriver to unlock doors, play with keypads, find out data, phase out spider droids, etc. without even the slightest bit of explanation what is going on. This Doctor seems to be the least resourceful yet; when in the slightest bit of trouble, out comes the sonic screwdriver, some slightly psychic paper or a similar gadget to deal with it. Think of how his reprogramming of the spider with the sonic screwdriver mirrors his cutting off the Nestene signal to the detached arm in Rose with whatever he was using. Another thing that struck me was when the Doctor passed through the final revolving blade to activate the station’s shields. Once again, his seemingly Jedi abilities only serve to highlight that this is a Doctor, unlike his predecessors, who isn’t particularly good at using his wits and ingenuity, and instead relies on “a magic ring to rub” as Glitz told the Sixth Doctor.

In fact I am finding the Doctor’s portrayal to be very concerning indeed. In Rose he was very manic, with bizarre grinning for no reason and mood swings from buffoonery to deadly earnestness. While this might have worked – as it did work at times for Troughton and Tom Baker – Eccleston’s grinning, inane outbursts (like his “Fantastic!” in this story that was totally inappropriate, prompting Jabe to understandably inquire why such a dangerous situation was in any way fantastic) and constant laughing occur at the least appropriate times. He doesn’t do it to annoy or deflect an enemy, or to put them off guard by seeming a clown – he just does it, all the time, for no apparent reason. What’s worse, I guess, is that it doesn’t even come across as intelligent buffoonery, but like a five-year-old who has drunk too much red cordial. Think of the scene when the Doctor starts bopping to “Tainted Love”!!! I mean, this isn’t eccentric behaviour, it’s sad behaviour!

Now onto the death of Cassandra. In the past, the Doctor has stood by and failed to save a villain’s life at the last moment, even when it was in his power to do so, the most famous example being the Master’s apparent death in Planet Of Fire. With the new series, however, the Doctor seems to have a new view on how he deals out death, or allows it to be dealt out, which is rather disturbing. Firstly, perhaps because he is revealed to be the last of the Time Lords, the Ninth Doctor has an almost Judge Dred-like opinion on his responsibilities. His comments to Cassandra as she dries and dies suggest that everything has its time and place and her time was over. However, the look in the Doctor’s eyes and his body language tell us something else entirely different: here is a Doctor who has decided that she should die because of the deaths she has caused. The Doctor has done this in the past but has always shrouded his beliefs in a higher morality that seems to justify his negligence. This Doctor only says, “Oh well, that’s life” but with burning anger in his eyes. And there is the second problem with the Ninth Doctor’s approach to death and killing: he is far too emotional. I think it’s quite clear that the Doctor allowed Cassandra to die because she had caused the deaths of others – that is, he is her judge – but specifically he allowed her to die because she had indirectly caused Jabe’s death. The Doctor had developed an emotional attachment with Jabe and was filled with feelings of anger and hatred; his response was revenge. This is very dangerous ground for Doctor Who. A Doctor whose actions seem to justify revenge is completely at odds with the character’s established history. His judgement is also heavily clouded by his emotions. Why did the Doctor give the Nestene Consciousness a chance when it was already responsible for many deaths, such as Wilson the CEO of the department store where Rose worked? The reason is obvious: he never knew Wilson and never felt any kind of emotional attachment to him, therefore he judges the Nestene Consciousness impartially. But in this story, he deals with Cassandra as a form of revenge trip because of Jabe’s death. The Doctor should represent a figure, a hero, who does not resort to revenge, especially not on emotional imbalances.

While I hope some of this behaviour will mellow in future episodes, the Ninth Doctor seems to be the most immature of Time Lords, a veritable teenager in his ludicrous, socially inept behaviour, his resort to the “quick fix” solution of gadgetry and other devices, and his dangerous emotional imbalances.

Now on to the even bigger revelation that all the Time Lords are kaput and the Doctor is the last of his race. This was sweetly begun in a very touching scene between Jabe and the Doctor, which both actors pulled off in style. If only they’d left it there! The mystery surrounding the Doctor would have remained and instead of being an answer, this scene would merely raise more questions, more Doctor Who? After deliberately keeping the audience in the dark in Rose and doing so also throughout most of this story, Russell T. Davies spoils the show at the end when the Doctor reveals all. Why? What is the point? Unless there is a story during the series that will work off this revelation, I don’t think any kind of revelation should have been made at all.

The pacing and length of this story really harms characters, I feel. If you compare the screen time and development of characters in a story like The Curse Of Peladon with this story the difference is obvious. We see, for example, the Ice Warriors in the former serial as initially a threat, then as suspicious, then as honourable, etc. and others like Alpha Centauri and King Peladon also get a lot of development. However in this story, some characters, while looking great, like the Face of Moe and the Moxx of Balhoon, either say very little or nothing at all. A lot of money was spent on characters that were on screen for only about five or six minutes. When the Moxx died at the end of the story, his death should have elicited at least some kind of emotional reaction, but we don’t really get to know him, all we know is that he can deliver a mean spit ball. This is a problem.

The dialogue was great at times (“gift of air from my lungs”, “if you think that’s amazing, you should see the bill”, etc.), pedestrian through most of the story, and at times downright rubbish. Again there was a lot of unnecessary innuendo. As in Rose, the sexual references are obviously put in for humour, and while I don’t think Doctor Who is the ideal medium in which to talk about “prostitutes” and “bitchy trampolines” if you’re going to use this kind of language, at least make it funny. (Lewd language also says very little about the quality of English being imparted to children. One of the most enjoyable aspects of Doctor Who I found as a child was the use of quite a sophisticated English vocabulary and the artistry of constructing beautiful dialogue in a TV show.) When Jabe asks the Doctor about Rose’s relationship with him, why on Earth would she think Rose is his prostitute? (Other than the fact that the Doctor is actually dressed like a 20th century pimp, that is…) She is a tree, so her understanding of relationships should have been reflected in that way, perhaps asking the Doctor if Rose was his leaf stylist, herbalist, fertiliser, or hopefully something better! Rose then proceeds to tell Jabe to bring the Doctor back by midnight and leaves them to “pollinate” (her a relevant term, but the consequences are quite gross). The innuendo surrounding Jabe’s liana is also quite farcical. I’m surprised the Doctor didn’t say, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!” The attempts by Russell T. Davies to make Doctor Who funny, “contemporary” and “relevant” should not resort to ill-used, banal sexual humour.

After all that criticism, I should point out that there were some really great things about this story. Billie Piper is brilliant again as Rose – the lines written for her are great and Piper delivers them with conviction. Her culture shock by being surrounded by something so different is well portrayed, as is the Doctor’s concern for her. The scenes where she speaks with the maintenance worker and realises she doesn’t know who the Doctor is at all, and then insists on the Doctor telling her who he is are magnificent. And the way the Doctor makes up for his secrecy and Rose’s insecurity in the new environment by fixing her mobile so that she can call home is rather silly but charming and the joke at the end is well worth it. It’s a shame Rose spends quite a substantial amount of time stuck in a room about to be vaporised by pure sunlight, since she could have been used to uncover Cassandra’s plot rather then the unimaginative way it actually was uncovered. Finally, the reason for Rose understanding alien languages is well handled – a tip of the hat to the “Time Lord gift” mentioned in The Masque Of Mandragora. Thank God there wasn’t a Babel fish in sight!

Jabe is another interesting character and well acted. Her death was very touching and it was wise and noble of the director not to show us her charred remains. The initial greetings and gifts given by the various alien races are superb. Cuttings from Jabe’s grandfather, spitting by the Moxx, even the Doctor’s gift of air from his lungs, are inventive, relevant, funny and insightful. The line about the Titanic, though seemingly lifted from Robot, was great too.

The costumes, make-up, sets and effects glow with heaps of money being thrown at them. Once again the music was generally obtrusive and used poorly, especially during the spider scenes, where instead of the music complementing to their menace, actually made them rather cute and certainly less of a threat. 

Perhaps I just don’t shine to Russell T. Davies’ writing. Lots of people seem to have enjoyed The End Of The World and it certainly was fun. The third episode looks very promising, so I’m anticipating greater things to come! 4/10

My hats off to Russell T Davies and his team for supplying us with a great first episode. Don't get me wrong this isn't the best piece of writing we have ever had on the show but it introduces the show to a whole new generation of kids with considerable skill. It was sexy and funny and fast and all the great things about modern television.

I remember seeing a drawing in DWM of the eighth Doctor being rampaged by Autons on the streets of San Francisco and I remember thinking what a great pilot that would have been, certainly infinitely preferable to the story we eventually got. Obviously Russell T Davis had the same idea and he utilises the Autons skilfully in this first episode to really get the kids attention. When they come smashing out of the windows and shooting innocent bystanders I am certain that today's children will be equally as enraptured as those of the 1970's.

What Davies has done that is especially clever is to introduce the series through so much that people will recognise. You have a recognisable main character (Rose) in a recognisable setting (London) with a recognisable monster (shop window dummies). How can anyone fail to understand that? It was the domestical scenes that impressed me most about this episode to be perfectly honest; there was a lot of subtle touching between the actors that suggested real intimacy between them and the grounded, believable performances sold the story just fine. The gritty, down to Earth locations (the flat, the garages, the restaurant exterior) were well counter-pointed by the more fantastical locations (the beautifully lit London Eye, the Nestene Lair) and made them seem wonderfully otherworldly.

Christopher Eccelston is such a brave chap to take on a role with such baggage and I have to congratulate him for pulling it off with so much charm. I wan not sure about him for the first ten minutes or so, he seemed to be a bit goofy and McCoy-ish but he soon settled down and behaved as if he had been playing the role for yonks. I especially liked his scene on the Thames and his sudden burst of anger, condemning the human race as stupid apes. And the Doctor's huge grin when he realises just what Rose is trying to show him behind his back is to die for. Simon and I both agreed he was totally hot.

A huge round of applause though for Billie Piper who after the initial shock of her casting I was behind one hundred percent. What a revelation. Warm, witty, believable and totally hot. Forget Mary Tamm Rob, this is the girl that would turn a man straight! This episode is all about Rose and I would argue that the success of the pilot rested on Piper's shoulders as much as Eccelston's and she managed to connect with the audience with effortless ease. There were too many scenes where I was punching the air with delight but her "We can't hide inside a wooden box!" and "You were right, you ARE alien?" were superb moments. Billie makes entering the TARDIS an EVENT, which is something that was far too often forgotten in the series after AN Unearthly Child (except, amazingly, for Tegan in Logopolis) and I loved how the story explored how she loved being caught up in the excitement of it all (she is grinning like a nutter when they start running around London). Davies capitalises on the wish to escape our humdrum lives and leap into adventures with outer space and I found impossible not to identify with Rose. Ooh somebody has been watching far too much Farscape! The new TARDIS interior is certainly eye catching, probably not as much as the TV Movie's attempt but they have captured the scale and the awe of that last attempt. It has a very organic feel to it that I liked a lot, for once you get the idea that this isn't just a giant computer but a living organism in its own right. I could certainly see a lot of scope for lots of imaginative camera work in upcoming episodes.

Too much humour? I don't think so, this has to appeal to the kiddies after all and burping wheelie bins and gaping Mickey's are just the right way to go about it. Whilst Eccelston and Piper are playing their roles for all the depth they can get away with (well in a script about a 900 year old alien who fights shop window dummies) Noel Clarke goes for a much broader performance and he has come in for some heavy criticism which I think is a mite unfair. Whilst I could have done without his "P..pizza!" pronunciation I really enjoyed the wheelie bin scene, which was as silly and as scary as it needed to be. I also quite enjoyed his reluctance to help the Doctor, why all the people who meet him some around to his way of thinking?

Didn't you just love Jackie Tyler? What a hopeless character! All that guff about compensation was hilarious (well Simon laughed). And her reaction to the Auton massacre was perfect, utter confusion and then sheer terror (the poor actress looked like she had walked into the wrong programme at first!).

I do have to comment on the special effects which were much, much better than imagined after listening to some ungrateful gits over at Outpost Gallifrey bemoan the quality of the production (and if that sounds like dismissing other peoples opinions Mikey, good!). Nothing made me go "WOW OH MI GOD THEY MUST HAVE SPENT MILLIONS ON THIS!" but there were certainly enough great set pieces to confirm that Doctor Who has entered the new millennium. I loved headless Mickey smashing up the restaurant and the Nestene creature, both were highly convincing pieces of CGI. The lighting was excellent and gave the entire episode a real sense of style; Davies' comment that he would rather watch beautiful images than ugly ones certainly looks as though it has made it on screen. The whole episode was a delight on the eye.

The direction could probably have done with tightening up at bit. Compared to eighties Doctor Who this was a triumph but compared to other SF shows that are on the market these days (I'm thinking of the slick and quick Battlestar Galactica and the trippy and sensual Farscape) it didn't quite have the oomph all the time. Certain scenes (such as the montage at the beginning and the wonderfully frantic climax) had real energy and style whilst others (the more domestic scenes) were directed more akin to a modern soap.

I don't want to walk away from this review sounding negative however because this was everything I had hoped for and more. Considering he had to introduce all the core elements of the series and try and tell an individual story (which was a little thin but perfectly serviceable) as well Russell T Davies has done us proud. This is everything we could have hoped for and more, distinctly British in flavour but far more interesting and well made than anything I have seen in Britain in ages.

This is Doctor Who for fans and the mainstream audience. I never thought the series could make the connection between the two but I have never been more pleased to be wrong.

Reprinted from somewhere or other in the treasure trove of mid-seventies-to-mid-nineties fan opinion that is License Denied, there's an article by a fella named Thomas Noonan entitled 'Television, Technique and Convention.' Discussing attempts made by the production team of season 18 to move the show in a more cinematic direction, Noonan argues that 'Doctor Who is (...) essentially television, and television is a medium between stage-drama and film', and suggests that 'efforts to make the programme more like film (are) misguided.' 

1980 was a long time ago, wasn't it. I mean, Rose Tyler wouldn't even have been born then! 

Jump-cut to Doctor Who 2005. To episode two of the brand new season, 'The End of the World', to one of the most thoroughly entertaining forty-five minutes of television I've seen in absolutely ages. To the only show I can think of since Roseanne in its heyday that's had me doubled over with laughter one minute and fighting back a little tear the next. I mean, yeah, I'm used to Doctor Who being this wonderful ... but it's unexpectedly shocking to see television being this wonderful! 

It's been my opinion for a while now that Doctor Who doesn't really need TV. Certainly that's where it started, and certainly that's what Doctor Who was to me when I was a kid. But having drifted away from Who fandom around the age of twelve, returned to it around the age of twenty-two and discovered that it was still going in the form of books (and to a lesser extent audio plays) that could go places and do things that the TV show never could have done, I've always been perfectly satisfied with Doctor Who as the offscreeen 'cult' thing it's been these past fifteen years; the 'long wait' posited by the heroic slogan emblazoned on the homepage of this very site never actaully existed for me, because until The Announcement, I neither thought Who would actually find its way back to the small screen, or harboured any particular desire to see it do so. For those of us who are already fans, there's no shortage of new and old stories in various media, and that's always been enough for me. 

But what I overlooked there, and what Andrew Wixon rather wisely pointed out after I said something to this effect on the Doctor Who Ratings Guide, is that TV - in this banal, degraded stage of its history where a Channel 4 announcer can in all seriousness refer to a repeat of the first episode of Sex and the City as 'the dawn of a legend', and where bloody Ant and Dec can be considered a viable alternative to anything other than self immolation - really, really needs Doctor Who. 

(erm, those weren't Andrew's exact words, by the way) 

And what makes Doctor Who great television in 2005 is precisely that movement towards filmic technique Noonan was railing against all those years ago. Seems to me that in - as the sturdy old adage has it - trying to keep up with Star Wars, the show was moving along the right lines all along. Misjudged that one, Tommy! 

Mind you, how was he to know what TV audiences would stop accepting with the passage of time. That - for example - the idea of a science-fiction/adventure serial made on videotape would become unthinkable little more than a decade hence. It'd certainly be true to say that though the show was right to fumble in the direction of a more filmic style throughout the eighties, the fact that it needed to do so was symptomatic of a major loss of imagination on the part of audiences. But, you know, you can't control circumstances, only your reaction to them. 

It's my view that in the latter seasons of the show's 'classic' run, the Cartmel/McCoy years, the primary factor which made the show work, where it did work, was the direction. Not that there hadn't been a lot of great direction in earlier periods of the show, but by the late eighties it was no longer, for want of a better phrase, an optional extra; the halfway-house narrative between stage-drama and film was on the road to obsolecence. 

Come 2005, the residual 'stage play' element of the particular variety of television to which Classic Doctor Who (?) belonged has long since become obsolete. Or certainly appears to have done so. Noonan's hybrid style persists only in sitcom and soap opera, presumably because those formats have allegedly realistic bases, and believing that that a well-lit set is a living room doesn't amount to as great a leap of faith for a viewer as believing that this other well-lit set is a time/space machine, and that the man in the rubber suit coming through the door is an alien from another world. For the purposes of New Who, television has become a form comprised of the basic essence of the old episodic format, and the techniques of filmic storytelling. In fact, what with so many fantasy/SF movie franchises coming either in trilogies or with sequel-whoring non-endings, the only real differences between 'adventure' film and 'adventure' television seem to come down to running time and budget. 

'Forty-five minute stories' sounded short, didn't it. I suggested way back when while reviewing season 22 that if Who were on screen now it would be in the form of self-contained one-hour stories. But even to me, knocking another fifteen minutes off that seemed to be pushing it. Matthew Harris (another DWRG chappie, still at a time when this was all just speculation in our crazy minds!) looked back for precedent and found... The Awakening and The Sontaran Experiment. Somewhat lacking. 

What I think we underestimated is the extent to which the variety of 'filmic TV' to which Who now belongs is a different animal from old-school televised Who. And also, the amazing malleability of a format which we fans constantly praise as being able to do anything, and then constantly criticise for not doing the exact things that each individual one of us want it to. Myself included, I'm sure. 

Character-driven Doctor Who? That's something which has worried a few fans in the reviews I've read since the series commenced (for readers of the future, I'm writing this one between the broadcast of episodes 3 and 4!). Only a minority, I should point out. 

But, well, why not! 'Character-driven' was the way it was going when it was last on screen with Ace's hijack of season 26; it was a prime factor in the success of the New Adventures; it was the thinking behind the generally well-received 'Caught on Earth arc' in the EDAs. The very title of the first episode, Rose, was a pretty good indicator that the new show has a rather different emphasis than before (as Lawrence Miles pointed out, it's like imagining Terror of the Autons being called Jo) - but in Rose, because of having to get all the introductory I'm-the-Doctor, this is the TARDIS stuff out the way, the mixing of character-based story (bored shop assistant in a rut gets a chance to go off on a wonderful adventure with a bloke she obviously fancies) with Who's customary morality play plot (desperate alien invades Earth) unavoidably became unbalanced and the Nestene suplot - for that was what it was - ended up wafer thin and hackneyed. 

Introductions are difficult. In a way, The End of the World is (oh the irony) the real beginning of this series. Doctor Who as character-driven drama and moral drama at the same time, Doctor Who as television and film at the same time. And the amazing thing is it's done utterly perfectly straight from the off. 

On the, admittedly scant, evidence so far - and isn't fun to be reviewing a TV episode without the easy crutch of hindsight -, the storytelling focus of this new Who season is weighted more or less equally between rather slimmed down variations on the indispensable Doctor-defeating-bad-guys template, and a cumulative character drama that will, I'd imagine, become the story formed by the season as a whole. 

The Doctor-defeating-bad-guys story in this episode is a silly, camp whodunnit in space. And I have to say... it was utterly, stupendously fab! Much closer to the tone of season 17 than I'd ever dare hoped this new series would be in its initial run, and the Lady Cassandra is a wickedly funny villain who could've come right from the pen of Paul Magrs, but with a brilliantly understated sense of underlying pathos too - a cheap shot at the extremes of cosmetic surgery and at the same time a sad, stretched portrait of the lengths we'll go to to resist the brevity of our existence. 

And did I mention funny - I was chuckling throughout, even at those things that have elicited a tut from certain fans; I laughed at the iPod gag, at 'Talk to the face!', at the 'old Earth ballad', at 'the... er... human club!' Okay, the 'When I was a little boy' gag was stolen from The Simpsons. It was, nevertheless, a huge, huge relief to me to find they'd remembered to make this new series funny. 

Funny, but - and this is the main point of resemblance to the Williams era - not to an outrageous extent that pees up against the fourth wall, not in a way that undercuts the believability of the drama. 

Not mrerely 'believable' drama either; this is that 'full-blooded' gubbins RTD was on about. The Doctor quickly making an emotional connection with Jabe and then losing her to Cassandra's cheap machinations is affecting stuff. His rage, and then his coldness as he stands by and allows Cassandra to die are thoroughly believable and perfectly performed. 

('Have pity!' - a deliberate evocation, for those in the know, of Davros' plea in Genesis?) 

Perhaps even more impressive, though, is Rose's quiet plea for the Doctor to help Cassandra. Two episodes in and I gleefully retract any doubts I ever had about Billie Piper. Despite everything the 'bitchy trampoline' has done, Rose can't simply stand by and watch another human being die, and Piper's delivery of the line really brings out that sense of naked, compassionate humanity. 

Oh great; now this page'll get a load of hits from people googling 'Billie Piper naked' 

Anyhow, a compassionate impulse has always been at the core of Doctor Who, and I'm glad that, even if it's being challenged (again), it's not being forgotten. 

Course, compassion is one thing. Love is another... 

The End of the World is a silly whodunnit, but it's also the second chapter of an love story that's set to progress as the series goes on. The love story of the Doctor and Rose. Oh, it'll stay between the lines - at least I shouldn't expect there'd be any of that 'hanky panky' the tabloids like to go on about. But it's shaping up as the spine of the series, and I must admit to finding it a bit moving - a fella who's been newly reconstructed as loneliest guy in the universe, taking to the interstitial road with a kindred spirit. The cool thing about this is that it works in subtle as well as overt ways - Rose's confusion and jealousy over Jabe's immediate bond with the Doctor ('You two go and pollinate') is obvious, her kidding-on-the-square reference to him as her 'date' is obvious, but other things only hit you when you think about it afterwards; could it be, for example, that the Doctor, who in this incarnation evidently isn't too good at the touchy-feely stuff, chooses to take Rose to see the end of her own planet for the very reason that it then makes it easier to tell her about the loss of his own? To make her understand by showing rather than telling? The Doctor is, after all, a man who can rely on showing things rather than talking about them. It's telling that he refuses to say what's outside those TARDIS doors at the beginning, eager for Rose to see for herself. Also, his angry 'This is me, right here, right now is what counts!' response when she questions who he is and where he's from suggests that a good part of his interest in seeing Rose enjoy the journey comes from a desire to escape from himself; to experience a sense of wonder again through her. Theres a hint, not overplayed and indeed often undercut, of this very romantic (by which I mean, Romantic) notion of the possibility of redemption though another person. 

"Perhaps a man only enjoys trouble when there's nothing else left" says Jabe. 

"There's me", says Rose. 

Rusty is indeed a great scriptwriter - pluck lines out and mix them around, they still work. 

Speaking of scripting, the emphasis on the word 'alien' is interesting - it's used very liberally in this episode, as it was in Rose, and moreso than at any time I can recall in the show's past. There's an episode coming up called Aliens of London, so I'd guess this is going somewhere. Rose actually used the phrase 'The end of the world' in that first episode when the Auton attack began, which for me adds to a nice sense of threads running in and out across stories, even if obliquely. 

What makes it all work so well, though, what binds old elements and new seamlessly together, is that filmic style I was on about. In traditional televisual terminology, (bloody hell, I sound like Henry Gordon Jago), the original run of Doctor Who was indeed a 'show'. New Who is, by contrast, an Experience; look at the number of POV shots we get from Rose's perspective, then try to remember any similiar use of the camera in the original series. The jumbled, random-looking shot of all the aliens mingling, for example, which brilliantly represents Rose's disorientation. Think of the shot we see of Rose's mum from inside the washing machine, something we'd be remembering as the height of creative direction if it had happened in the middle of Terror of the Autons or something. Compare the scuttling spider-droids to the Cybermats or the Marsh Spiders... the development of CGI, of course, means that special effects of a quality corresponding reasonably well to those of movies are now available on an - albeit inflated - TV budget (and though its fashionable among the more discerning of us geeks to diss CGI for not 'keeping it real' or whatever, let's not forget that the development of that facility is what, more than anything, has allowed Who to get back on screen at all). 'Tainted Love' and Britney Spear's 'Toxic' are used in the episode for laughs, but even then, the editing is so slickly, tightly done that the lyrics don't just waft off, they match what's going on onscreen ('Sometimes I feel I want to get away', 'There's no escape'). The bit with the Doctor gearing himself up and stepping through that fan blade is pure cinema; or more accurately, pure Star Wars. When the Doctor takes Rose back to present-day London we don't go through all the rigmarole of going back to the TARDIS, materialising on Earth and so on. Rather, we cut straight there and get a far more powerful emotional hit from the sudden contrast. None of this remarkable in terms of current day TV and movies, of course, but it's striking because we've never seen a Doctor Who narrative done this way. 

And it is genuinely powerful. Plot complexity may of necessity be lessened, but - and I don't say this merely glibly - you can't have everything. The End of the World has a thoroughly enjoyable story with characters we care about. If it sets the tone for the rest of the series I'll be more than happy, and the only other TV Who stories I can recall ending on such raw, alive emotional notes are The Curse of Fenric and Survival ... hmm, both in the last televised season; in some ways TV Who is picking up right where it left off. 

In others, of course, it's leaping into a whole new realm altogether. But in retrospect it's a place it's been heading to from, ooh, at least The Leisure Hive onward. Big screen storytelling on the small screen. 'Fits and starts' doesn't begin to cover the bumpy journey here but now, finally, it's totally at home with that fusion. 

And now, finally, I know what I'm paying my license fee for... 

Slightly trivial afterword: I do hope episode three doesn't open with the Doctor and Rose eating chips and then heading straight off to the 19th century. Remember, all this has happened for Rose on the same day she went to meet Clive - - - the girl needs sleep!

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.

There is a problem faced by all critics at some point during their writing career, a dilemma which is especially prevalent to those of us under the self-delusion of ‘objectivity’; What do you do when you see something of such outstanding quality that making any criticism of it becomes no more than a futile gesture? Suddenly you’re panic stricken, trying to find something, anything, to pull apart so you might live up to your highbrow ideals. But as an exercise in pedantry its best if you don’t bother because there are some shows that deserve all the shameless plaudits and backslapping that they can get. And Doctor Who; The End of the World is one of them.

Many people may think this sentiment typical of a fan, a person who watches a 35 year-old story about giant maggots and calls it a “classic”. But I am more than a fan of Doctor Who, I am a fan of television. It is as a modern piece of TV that I have chosen to sit down to watch these stories and it is as a modern piece of TV that this story succeeds so brilliantly.

Mixing liberal amounts of humour, wonder, emotion and excitement in the big ol’ mixing bowl of imagination this story succeeds on so many levels. Where else but in Doctor Who would the idea of an Earth preserved and run by the National Trust get past the planning stages? Where else would we be treated to living trees, disembodied heads, metal spiders and spitting blue solicitors all in the same story? Add to this some slightly psychic paper and a slightly psychotic paper-cut of a villain and we see with perfect clarity that Doctor Who still has the wit, charm and imagination that etched it into the public psyche.

Whereas in the pilot, ‘Rose’, I found the humour nearly overwhelming the story here I thought it better balanced, complimenting the action rather than clashing with it. Part of the reason that the humour works so well is the sheer other-worldliness of its setting. With the laughs based mainly around the culture shock experienced by Rose we are less inclined to question why we are laughing or how silly it all is (and it is all rather silly, isn’t it?) because we are already suspending our disbelief.

There are several laugh-out-loud moments in this story that really hit the mark. Of particular note is the rather risquй aside from Cassandra when she tells Rose of the time “when I was a little boy,..” that had me rolling on the floor. Another belly laugh came from the Doctor’s phone bill quip and Cassandra’s put down of the Moxx of Balhoon was so delightfully vicious that you couldn’t help but chuckle.

RTD’s quirky sense of humour shines through and there is a great sense that the series isn’t taking itself too seriously as a result. When we are challenged head on with a well-known sci-fi clichй (a fix-all switch behind some deadly fans!) it’s as if the production crew are sharing a private joke with us in a little knowing wink.

We can see the antithesis of this jollity in the dreadfully mis-judged Star Trek; Enterprise, where self reverence, a stern adherence to style, format and the colour grey left things without any real sense of fun. Happily, based on the evidence of these first two episodes, it is not destined to be the case with Doctor Who.

It’s partially the heavier material, juxtaposed with this wit, which makes this episode such an enjoyable experience. Creating the effect of a roller-coaster ride we are confronted with ironic and hilarious pastiches on modern pop culture (an iPod?!) before being thrown a tragic curve ball as we discover the root of the Doctors loneliness. This creates a journey for the audience that, even with a relatively thin plot, is both fulfilling and rewarding. The dramatic scenes are such a marked contrast to the jovial nature of the whole that they become much more powerful as a result. So too the comedy lightens the mood enough that you don’t spend the episode in tears. It is a fine line to walk but the balance is just perfect in this story.

Once again the writer and stars of the piece deserve the most praise. Davies script is of an order far higher than we usually see on modern TV, balancing all the right ingredients and having a good time with the resulting cake. Small moments, such as Rose being heartened by the idea that there are still plumbers in the future, are worth their weight in gold and even superfluous characters, such as the aforementioned plumber, are fleshed out enough for you to care about them. Also the scenes of high emotion are written softly enough for them to be brought to life by the quality of the performances themselves. There is always a danger for these to be bogged down in dialogue and it’s a testament to Davies that these moments are given time to breathe. Notice how, in the saddest moment of the episode, as Jabe comforts the Doctor in the maintenance tunnel, he doesn’t say a single word. That’s superior writing.

Russell’s aim to keep the series anchored in humanity is also cleverly handled. For all its alien science fiction The End of the World still remains humanitarian story. It is essentially all about the importance of the Earth and our need to have a place to call home and as a moral message it is kept just far enough to the side so as not to become preachy. Children may watch this story for the wonder and excitement but somewhere in there they’ll catch that message and run with it. “One day all this will be gone so appreciate it and look after it while you can. But be we can survive it all, so put aside your petty worries”. These are the two parables that Russell cleverly smuggles into the story and I can’t think of two more worthy messages for primetime TV to be giving.

As for our two co-stars, once again Ecclestone and Piper shine as The Doctor and Rose, however while it was Billie who shone brightest in Episode 1 it is Chris who steals the show here. The Doctor seems to be very much ‘in his element’ for a lot of this episode, ready to meet and greet strange aliens or to save his companion from a severe case of sunburn with equal gusto. Ecclestone captures this spirit of adventure and eccentricity perfectly but it is not this that makes his performance so memorable this time around. Returning again to the scene in maintenance tunnel, we are shown why Chris is lauded as one of the greatest British actors working today. He literally brings a tear to the eye as he receives Jabe’s sympathy and his reveal to Rose at the end is one of the greatest, and most heartbreaking, scenes of television I’ve seen all year.

As for Billie, Rose finally gets into some believable jeopardy and Piper handles it brilliantly. At no point do we find the character as limp and helpless as many of her predecessors but her panic at her impending death still kept me on the edge of my seat. She is one of a very rare breed of Doctor Who companion who you feel for as a person and it is down to Billie’s dazzling performance that I’ve warmed to Rose so much. The moment where she realises what she has just done, running off with the Doctor, is excelled only by her brilliant reassurance to him that “there’s me” at the end. Her lament at the un-witnessed death of the planet is also handled brilliantly, helped by Davies’ thoughtful scripting.

The other supporting characters are played with equal relish by those involved but special mention must go to Yasmin Bannerman and Zoe Wannamaker. They created very unique characters in situations that may have left other actresses giving wooden (I’m so sorry) or two dimensional performances (so very, very sorry).

The production on The End of the World was superb throughout. The choice to use a location for the observation deck rather than a studio made it seem more solid than it might otherwise have been. It also provided inspiration for the other sets, giving Platform One a unique feel instead of creating just another generic Sci-fi space station. The design throughout was excellent, creating a plush and believable environment for all concerned to inhabit and creating a varied and imaginative assortment of alien races, all of which were superbly realised

As for the effects, this was the episode when The Mill really showed what they were capable of. The CG and other effects were stunning and so far beyond what has become expected of British sci-fi that you wonder just how much of the series budget was handed to them for this story. While the exterior shots of the station amaze it is the Spiders that The Mill should be most proud of. As well as looking the part they were animated with a sense of mass that made them particularly believable. In fact the only time the effect fell down was at the end when the Doctor put one on the floor but this was just one shot of many of which the majority worked flawlessly.

With television stations across the board mired in the drab day to day of Reality TV and Lifestyle programmes, this one story is really going to open some eyes. Where ‘Rose’ was the introduction, bridging the gap between the mundane and the potential, this is the first story to deliver on RTD’s promise that the new Who is ‘like nothing else on TV’. And how! Great scripting, great effects and great performances have conspired to create possibly the greatest single piece to Science Fiction/fantasy that I’ve seen in the last three years. Where there may be diehard fans quibbling over the smaller details and boycotting the series as a result (Gallifrey dead?!?!?!? Get over it) they really will be missing out on something quite special. This series is taking the programme forward into what can only be seen as a bright future and I for one will be along for the ride.

Five out of five, Doctor.

After the entertaining but flawed ‘Rose’, Doctor Who continues with a special-effects laden trip to the far future, full of monsters, thus throwing the Doctor’s new companion right in at the deep end of culture shock. And it’s really rather good.

‘The End of World’ has more plot than ‘Rose’, although it is still rather slight, something I’m starting to realize is going to be a limitation of the single fifty minute episode format. Nevertheless, there is intrigue aplenty as sabotage and murder break out on Platform One, and there are a couple of nice twists. The Appearance of the Repeated Meme are obviously the culprit behind the robotic spiders, but I wasn’t expecting them to be revealed as androids, despite the clue in their name, which the Doctor picks up on. I also wasn’t expecting the deeply unpleasant Cassandra to be the real villain, and the teleport feed hidden in the ostrich egg was also rather a nicely unexpected moment since I’d completely forgotten about it by that point, as writer Russell T. Davies had obviously intended. There is a slightly tongue-in-cheek feel to parts of the episode, which also works very well, an example being the presence within the Platform of a gantry hung beneath three massive fans; from the moment we see it, it is obvious that someone will have to run across it, and it seems likely that this someone will be the Doctor. There is an explanation for why the sun would so slowly expand, with the technobabble explanation being that gravity satellites are holding it back, but even better is the Doctor explaining that the continents look just like they did in Rose’s time because the Natural Trust owns Earth and restored its old layout. This is magnificently silly, especially since the production team obviously has the ability to make the CGI Earth look different if they want. This being written by Davies, there are also elements of adult human scattered throughout the script, usually in the form of innuendo that might go over the heads of the younger audience members. There is Lady Cassandra’s fleeting comment, “when I was a little boy”, and Liana’s gentle flirting with the Doctor, most notably the moment when he tells her “Nice liana” and she blushing replies, “Thank you. I’m not supposed to show them in public.” Rather less subtly, she also casually and non-judgmentally asks if Rose is the Doctor’s wife, girlfriend, concubine, or prostitute, prompting Rose to indignantly respond, “Whatever I am, it must be invisible. Do you mind?” One criticism however, is that the same joke was used in ‘The Chase’ without involving music that makes me want to jam pins into my ear. 

‘The End of the World’ is also notable for showcasing a plethora of new monsters, which works to mixed effect. The Face of Boe and the Moxx of Balhoon both look superb, and the Lady Cassandra looks like a comic homage to Hellraiser and is impressively grotesque. The other guests are perhaps less well advised. The guests from the Forest of Cheem are not exactly Ents; of the Trees, Jabe’s companions look quite good, but Jabe herself is given a more human appearance, with most of Yasmin Bannerman’s face uncovered. This poses various questions, which irritate me, the main ones being, why would a tree have tits and teeth? The other guests look like cast-offs from the Cantina scene in Star Wars, or worse, most aliens from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Then there is the Steward, who looks like Simon Day painted blue, and his various staff members, who like dwarfs and children painted blue. I should also mention the spiders, which would probably have been made of rubber and plastic in the old series, but here are achieved by CGI; they aren’t bad, but occasionally do look like CGI images, whereas the genuinely impressive Cassandra does not. Still, this is Doctor Who after all, so I’m not complaining, but it is interesting to see what effect the budget has had on the monsters. Nevertheless, Euros Lyn does a fine job of directing, and the incidental music this episode is far more effective than in ‘Rose’ except when Munchkin music plays when we first see the little blue men. One oddity however is that we don’t actually see the Steward or Jabe incinerated, which might be something to do with the time at which the story is transmitted, but contrasts with Cassandra rather gorily exploding in a splatter of blood. 

What is obvious about ‘The End of the World’ even more so than in ‘Rose’ is that Davies is more interested in characterisation than plot. Whilst I hope the two don’t become mutually exclusive as the series progresses, it does work very well here, and unlike in ‘Rose’ none of the actors put in a bad performance. Christopher Eccleston is less manic in this episode overall, although the opening scene, in which he is visibly showing off as he pumps away at his lever in the TARDIS faster and faster and taunts Rose in to travelling further and further into the future is extremely funny. But there are darker, more emotional moments here, which give Eccleston a chance to show off his acting skills more in this episode. The Doctor’s quiet speech about humans surviving far into the future seems to be influenced by the Fourth Doctor’s similar speech in ‘The Ark in Space’, but it doesn’t work any less well because of this. Other notable moments include his obvious delight at meeting the other guests, as he improvises a gift by offering air from his lungs. He gets some very good scenes with Rose, who is starting to worry about what she’s got herself into, and it’s interesting that the Doctor gets defensive when she asks about his origins and goes into a very childish sulk. His subsequent scene with the awestruck Jabe is excellent, as she tells him, “I know where you’re from. I just want to say how sorry I am.” Impressively, Eccleston manages to bring a tear to his eye at this moment, adding to the pathos of the scene. We finally learn, “My planet’s gone… there was a war that we lost” and he then adds, “I’m the last of the Time Lords. They’re all gone”, which builds on the hints about a terrible war in ‘Rose’ and suggests that this is definitely going somewhere. The Doctor is also visibly furious at Jabe’s death as well as all the others, and the showdown with Cassandra, as he impassively watches her dry and out and rip apart, is quite disturbing. The fact that Rose whispers, “Help her” and he coldly replies, “Everything has its time and everything has its place” makes the moment all the more striking. The Doctor isn’t all gloom here however; Eccleston grins happily whilst delivering the line, “What you’re saying is, if we do get into trouble, there’s no one to help us out… fantastic!” His “Use the force, Luke” moment with the third fan is also a nice touch. 

Rose and Billie Piper also continue to impress. For the first time since Ian and Barbara, we get a companion who reacts to the sheer enormity of what is happening to her in a realistic way. Piper conveys Rose’s wonder, excitement, confusion and fear when she steps out of the TARDIS simultaneously, largely through facial acting, and she gets dialogue such as “The aliens… they’re just so… alien”, which allows Piper to really emphasize the depth of culture shock that Rose is being subjected to. She looks disgusted when she learns that Rifallo needs her permission in order to speak, but is relieved to learn that plumbers are still necessary five billion years in the future. Her best moment in my opinion comes when she’s telling Rifallo where she came from and starts to realize how bad her tale sounds, looking increasingly worried as she explains, “I just sort of hitched a lift with this man. I didn’t really think about it. I don’t even know who he is, he’s a complete stranger.” She also finds out how the TARDIS translates for her, and reacts in a way that, like the Doctor, I wouldn’t have thought of, angry that it has entered her mind without her permission. Crucially, Piper also proves good at conveying panic and terror, which she gets to do when Rose is trapped in a room with a descending sun filter and she hammers frantically on the door whilst screaming at the of her voice. This prompts the exasperated Doctor to exclaim, “Oh well, it would be you” when he realises who he’s rescuing. The only thing I’m not sure about is the mobile phone scene; I liked ‘Rose’ because it took the mundane and introduced the fantastical into it. Somehow, giving Rose the opportunity to phone home whenever she wants does the reverse for this episode, especially as the scenes on board Platform One are suddenly punctuated by a shot of Rose’s mum doing laundry. 

Finally, there are the supporting characters. Simon Day’s Steward comes across as a put-upon fellow, who is troubled by the day-to-day minutiae of bureaucracy, but Davies gives him a brief scintilla of characterisation that manages, very impressively, to give some impact to his death. It’s the moment when the Appearance of the Repeating Meme gives him a gift, and he looks genuinely honoured to be considered as anything other than a mere Steward by one of the guests. Ironically of course, there is an ulterior motive for this, but it is still a nice moment. Day manages to make his character likeable throughout, and he also screams convincingly when he’s roasted to death in his office. The Moxx of Balhoon, a fussy little fellow who gives the Doctor and Rose “the gift of bodily salivas” is similarly effective despite being incidental to the story; his general air of amiable excitement and his obvious terror when he thinks everyone is going to die makes him strangely sweet, so that the shot at the end of blue dwarves standing unhappily around his charred commode is rather touching. Jabe gets rather more to do, and she’s a great character, who swiftly forms a bond with the Doctor and almost acts a surrogate companion. Yasmin Bannerman gets some great dialogue, especially when she offers a cutting of her Grandfather as a gift, and makes the character utterly likeable. Her sacrifice is so obviously selfless that it plays a large part in the Doctor angrily letting Cassandra explode. Speaking of whom, Zoe Wanamaker is perfectly cast as the last human, a character who manages to by thoroughly loathsome largely by being a distillation of self-important divas of the late twentieth century. The concept of her appearance is mad, but feels perfectly at home in Doctor Who, and although she’s rather unoriginally motivated by greed, she’s effective enough as a villain. Davies deserves to be punished for giving her the atrocious line, “Talk to the Face” though, and I do find myself wondering why the Doctor’s trick with the teleport feed only brought Cassandra back, and not her armed guards.

Overall, ‘The End of World’ delivers on the promise offered by ‘Rose’, and it has a great last scene, as the Doctor asks Rose if she’s sure she wants to continue travelling with him. Trying to articulate what she wants, she’s distracted by the smell of chips and the pair wander happily off in search of food. I’m still not sure about the pre-credits trailer by the way, although it did result in me getting very excited about ‘The Unquiet Dead’, which will be like a cross between ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ and The League of Gentlemen. I hope.