There is genius at work here. A trip of a lifetime was promised. So far it is proving to be just that. People search for deep meaning in Doctor Who. Ardent fans will argue its rich moralistic exposure of society. Occasionally that was there - but rarely and not as deviously and cleverly as it is now unfolding.

The End of the World in its perfection is merely an outer layer constructed to be stripped away only to tease us that an exceptional story arc is developing. It is that which is the trip. Who is taking us on that trip? The Doctor, ostensibly. Certainly Eccleston in the space of less than an hour of screen time has proven himself to be the Doctor and has now set the standard that must be matched and bettered by those who may follow. Confirmation of Chris' departure has only elevated the sense that something special is happening here. Something only this special show could achieve. The isolation, vulnerability, loneliness and emotional instability and sometime coldness of his portrayal of the character are only enhanced and conveyed by our knowledge that we are getting to know someone at the same time as acclimatising ourselves to his departure. For a show that has the anachronistic twists of time travel at its core, isn't this just so perfectly apt?

Yet whilst it is Eccleston who pilots the Tardis, it is Russell T Davies who charts its course. I never expected that course to be so emotionally charged. It is Russell who is steering that trip. He's seeding clues and building new layers. First - the war. Then the war "We lost." Then the nameless enemy who won that war. My guess is that they are not mentioned at this time because they too are being re-invented. I guess that the dangerous species that is so unspeakably evil and mighty enough to defeat the Lords of time will be revealed as merciless soldiers bred to follow orders whose only function is to kill. But we are three episodes away from their reinvention as self-sufficient darkness that have thrived, strengthened and no longer need to seek out their father to solve their inner woes. That's just my second guessing. But only writing that is this engaging incites the brain to guess ahead. When was the last time science fiction did that for you?

Has anyone noticed - even this early - the prevalent undercurrent theme of the natural course? The Doctor would not leap in to save something - our earth - that has spent its purpose and had its time. Just as he would not "moisturise" Cassandra who had outstayed her time. Yet he intervened against the Nestene Consciousness to save the apes who had only just started to walk. Yet, Gallifrey, he reflects; "Went before its time." This Doctor is up to something. He has a plan. Rose is being tested by association. Is she the assistant who might help him put right something that should not have happened? Can this Doctor step into the time vortex, perhaps walk out of the Tardis Doors in flight, leaving Rose in charge of the Tardis so that he can interfere and change his own timeline to prevent defeat in that war and save a planet that "went before its time?" 

I feel that Russell is doing something possibly thought impossible. He is creating a new show whilst cleverly, deviously and subtly honouring its rich past and continuity without allowing it to drown in the minutiae of such detail that marked the latter Nathan-Turner years. Russell is breathing life and regenerating the whole idea of Doctor Who and he has made us excited and proud and emotionally involved in a way few of us have felt for any work of fiction since we first watched Doctor Who as children. Tears rolled from my eyes during the End of the World taking me back to the last scenes of Planet of the Spiders and Logopolis. But for which world was I more emotionally upset at its passing - the Earth or Gallifrey? And which world now - at 37 - do I want to Doctor to step in and save?

There is magic at play here. Russell is frantically pumping that bicycle pump. He is making me feel 7 years old again. He has rolled away 30 years of emotional hardness. Today I read on the BBC news website that drinking milk might cause Parkinson's disease for middle-aged men ... “Beef or eggs or global warming?” Say no more. I remember when the future was not all doom and gloom. This show, in two episodes, has reminded me that it is still possible to view the world with excited eyes that show the horizon as not the end of what your vision can perceive but only the first point in the distance from which you can see even more ...

I may be reading into it something far too deep. But who cares ... I am excited. In a negative world isn't it nice to have 45 minutes of escape and hope?

What’s certain by this stage is that Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who is intended for the Harry Potter generation. What with the wheelie bin episode last week, and the campy munchkin theme that plays over our introduction to the ‘little blue men’, it’s evident that this is a universe that has aspirations towards being cute as well as scary, funny, dramatic and all those other buzzwords we’ve been fed in recent months. Of course, Harry Potter is all of these things, but what the music seems to be saying is, ‘Yeah, yeah, there’s blue men in it – it’s science fiction – but Harry Potter’s a bit silly too, and you like that, don’t you? Go on, it’s ironic. They’re cute!’ Doctor Who isn’t really about irony. It’s about wit, and the music has none. It shouldn’t dominate and intrude like this.

Perhaps we can just ‘blame’ Murray Gold for the score, and move on, because ‘The End of the World’ had much to recommend.

The Doctor, I’m starting to realise, has problems. I love those old articles in Doctor Who Magazine where each Doctor gets a bit of amateur psychoanalysis. Pertwee, we find, is going through a mid-life crisis. Tom is actually mad, and tells lies. Davison is an old man in a young man’s body, hence his difficulties at being ‘the Doctor’. With Eccleston, it’s clear something’s gone terribly wrong. He shouts at Rose when she asks about his past, and has no compassion for the soon-to-explode Cassandra. It seems he’s trying hard to become what the Doctor he once was, but his past – the war – makes this near-impossible. He’s the last Time Lord now (perhaps with some exceptions), and he’s got nothing to rebel against. This is the loneliest we’ve ever seen him, and his attitude’s starting to undercut the flighty stories he’s strolling through. He’s also the most human Doctor we’ve had.

It’s only the second episode, and Rose is already my favourite character. It’s such a surprising performance from Billie Piper, full of wonderful choices that seem at once to break the rules and to be genuinely instinctive. Either Russell T Davies has been highly specific in his scripts, or she’s a great actress. I’m surprising myself here, and I was one of her defenders. Rose doesn’t know what she wants, but she’s the first companion to really notice this, and actually have an attitude to the universe that’s believably ambiguous.

The story this week was almost as slight as last time, but the jokes were (mostly) good ones, and the characters didn’t suffer too badly from the inevitable economy of the writing. The Moxx of Balhoon was fantastically irrelevant, but at least he was an interesting colour, since colour was the only real purpose of most of the creatures on Platform One. The ‘moments of tension’, like last week, were somewhat forced and unsubtle, but they made character stuff possible, and gave it some sense of importance. It’s like he’s in communion with the Holy Spirit when the Doctor steps through the third fan, but it’s probably that he has some psychic connection with time, partially lost with Gallifrey. Euros Lynn handles this beautifully; it would have been less good with Keith Boak’s frenetic sound-and-fury approach to direction last week.

Moral problems and emotional issues that look set to stretch forward into the rest of the series are already starting to creep in, but for the most part ‘The End of the World’ was crazy fun, with some spectacular special effects. The death of the Earth even had some drama invested in its visuals. The story was almost weird, if not for the almost-irritating score. And I suspect only Russell T Davies could get away with ending the world to the sound of Britney Spears. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

There is a large difference to how we think we will would react to situations, and how we do if and when they arise. For most people, this would be finding something untoward in your teenage son's bedroom or meeting a celebrity in the street (I wouldn't ask for an autograph or gawp, honestly). Rose Tyler's reaction to the aliens she meets in the second episode of the new series is closer to the truth. "You look at them," she says, "and they're alien. They're just so alien." I think her reaction would be the least hysterical of any of the viewers had they met the blue Moxx and bird people. But then, RTD has been very clever. To survive, the new series has to be relevant to the audience, and no season of Doctor Who, even in the Earth-bound Pertwee years - has ever been grounded quite so close to home. The adage that it is scarier to find a yeti on your loo in Tooting Bec rather than some alien menace on another planet has never been more true than here and now, employed by the new production team - and to smashing effect. The audience is forced to place themselves in Rose's position - what would I do in this situation? How would I cope with this? Alien menace is coupled with emotional depth, having achieved in two episodes with Rose what it took two years for Ace to achieve in the last run of episodes. By the time, we're putting ourselves in Rose's shoes, our eyes have been seduced by the best effects the series has ever seen, and by then - all too soon - the episode is over and we're fed more deliciously exciting teasers for the following week. The new series is clever, without a doubt, and The End of the World demonstrates that. In Doctor Who terms, it ticks all the right boxes like a Doctor Who square meal. The Doctor and companion invite themselves to the party, conning their way in with "slightly psychic paper" (neatly side-stepped gobbledegook). They meet a cavalcade of aliens. One of the blue things get killed, Rose is knocked unconscious and locked up and it is up to the Doctor to save the day, but only after one of the aliens sacrifices herself for the cause. If you put gravy on it, a Yorkshire man would call it a plate of chips.

Lets be honest. The plot doesn't really need to be any more than this, and rarely has been. If "End" were to set a trend, the visual seductiveness and witty script looks set to replace the "aspiring too high" charm of the Classic Series. And even the slightly too ambitious SFX are there. Not something to be criticised. RTD knows Who, and it wouldn't be Who without reaching for the stars. Which brings us to the aliens... and the Moxx of Balhoon does exist! I laughed my pants off when he spat in Rose's eye, similarly with the Doctor's first meeting with Jabe (hope he has nice breath) and the latter's confusion over Rose's role. Yasmin Bannerman as Jabe was nothing short of brilliant. The make-up job was amazing - never before has a Dr Who alien looked so appealing - and the character just shone throughout. An ambassador tree with sexiness and integrity. Only in Doctor Who! The Face of Boe, too, was impressive, and slightly reminiscent of that big thing in a tank in Dune (I forget its name). Would loved to have heard him speak, and likewise with Mr and Mrs Peckham (boom boom). But of course, the pride of place went to Lady Cassandra, the evil stretch of skin who was that staple of Who villains - a racial purist. Sure, her reasons were all down to her obscure perception of beauty, but she was up there with the rest, something the Doctor could not tolerate in characteristic fashion. What a brilliant realisation, wonderfully vocalised by Zoe Wannamaker, and again something grounded in our own reality where we can watch plastic surgery on television. Makes you think, doesn't it?

For all its aliens, home truths and fast plot, though, the real star was not the one expanding, but the Doctor himself. It was a few minutes into this episode, that I realised that this really was the Doctor. Happy and bouyant, cheeky and confrontational in the party scenes, and even more so when he realises there is no one but him to save the day, something of a trademark for man number nine, and something which is based in the depths of this incarnation's psyche. It is his hurt and dark side that underpins his fun-loving adventurousness (watch it again to see his reaction to the presentation of the egg), and in some ways exposed himself to the outing of his secrets by taking Rose into the future. Jabe knows where he is from and hints at a terrible happening in his past (also alluded to in Rose). It is only in the final scene that he tells his new compananion that he is a Time Lord and that his home planet was destroyed in a war. More secrets are bound to come out during the series, but I would hazard a guess that the war was against the Daleks... maybe. Maybe we shall never find out, and in a way, I don't want to. Not since I was a child, has a mysterious man with a shadowy past taken me on adventures to meet weird aliens and dangerous situations. I love it.

And by the way, RTD, nice use of "Toxic". Beats the pants off Day Tripper.

The Tardis door needs oiling.

That doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the new Doctor Who, but it’s as good a sign as any of where this series’ heart is.

As “Rose” began, so “The End of the World” continues. It’s fun, flippant fantasy-adventure, with a veneer of science fiction, and that special air of everyday downbeat melancholy that’s been at the heart of British sci-fi for at least fifty years; Quatermass – UFO – Blakes 7 – Hitchhiker’s – Dominick Hyde – Star Cops.

And new Who reminds me at times of several of those shows. But what it’s most like though, is, Doctor Who. That rickety old show, which often needed oiling. Original Who was 25 minutes of Saturday night thrills and chills, with the occasional spill, designed to give the kiddies something to hide from and the adults something to, well, hide from, as often as not, although not always for the same reasons. And, of course, it made sink plungers everywhere the cheapest and scariest toys going.

This Who is all of those things, and, maybe, a couple more. The End of the World is disposable entertainment. It doesn’t feel written to be analysed to death frame by frame on a DVD somewhere (not that that’ll stop us trying). It’s there to be gasped at, laughed at and – perhaps – be a bit scared by, in living rooms not signing rooms, by kids from 8 to 80. Watch it that way, and any viewer, however hardcore their whovian credentials, shouldn’t get their sixth doctor boxer shorts in a twist.

The supposed plot is stripped down, as reviewers say. Which is ‘pretty basic’ to you and me. Paul Cornell commented in SFX that Russell T Davies wasn’t too worried at leaving viewers asking questions, and in TeoTW it shows. Cassandra’s scheme makes superficial sense, but as the script only bothers to sketch it in superficially in approximatelty three lines, one of which is the not terribly subtle “I have shares in your rivals’ companies” this is hardly surprising. Watch it through a couple of times and you’ll soon have questions a plenty, but this story’s not designed for that. Like Original Who, this cherry flavour Who is, plotwise a treat to enjoy between meals.

The visuals are effective, but don’t bear too much scrutiny either. Digital effects are colourful and as bombastic as that great big logo, but they lack subtlety and shading. They do the job, but don’t look too close or you’ll end up not seeing the designs for the pixellations. Costume, models and make up are actually rather better, with the costumes looking like they’re made of something other than the cheapest offcuts, although, aside from the regulars’ outifts, everything does look a bit too much like its just come off a peg in a costume store, rather than been worn a bit.

The music varies too, between workmanlike (the rather uninspired theme reworking) via the acceptable (lots of Moonlighting-esque melancholy piano cues) past the embarrassing (whooo-eee-ooo-eee-ooo sub Men-in-Black eerieness) and finally reaching the sublime (the haunting lament for the Doctor. Or Gallifrey? Or both?). Adding in “real” music, with the tracks highlighting the emotions of characters is fun and effective, but needs to be used very sparingly to not become too gimmicky.

As everyone else has probably said by now, the script is supposed to be the heart of this new Who, and it sets the tone for the show. It goes from the sublime to the ridiculous, often within the space of a single exchange. But it’s here that the real plots Davies is interested in come into focus. The End… is one of the means to a very different end. This show’s not only, maybe not really, about saving the world. It might be about saving the Doctor.

And to drive this plotline, Russel T Davies creates characters he likes, gives them stories of their own, which develop through lines he wants to hear people say and things no-one ever gets the chance to do. Rose gets to phone home from 5 billion years in the future and realise just how she feels about her mum, while we see there’s more to mum then we saw in episode one – even if she seems to have got a new kitchen since the day after the day after tomorrow…

And, like a latter-day Robert Holmes Davies is excellent at creating entertaining exchanges between pairs of characters. Rose and the Doctor already convince as a team. Their relationship has shade and dimension. She gets as cross with him as he does with her. He’s as kind to her as she tries to be to him. He consoles her and she tries to console him. They work. You like them. The Doctor and Jabe, while busy advancing the plot, breathe, literally, on a more adult level, as touching sincerity underlies playful flirtation. Davies creates entertaining individuals too. Cassandra gets good lines. The plumber gets good lines. The Steward gets good lines. A shame they don’t get to interact all that much, though

Through these carefully constructed overarching structures, TeoTW is able to continue the slow reveal of the Doctor’s backstories. This, if it was going to be handled at all, could only be done gradually. Anything else would have been not merely incomprehensibly complex to almost all the audience, but far more importantly, a total waste of the series’ greatest dramatic asset – Just who is the Doctor? How much of that backstory is, as we go on, going to feed in to the later episodes and start to drive plots along is something we must wait for, but with so much effort and thought having gone into the set up, it would be a major surprise – and disappointment – if there are no pay offs somewhere down the line.

The care with which this potential arc is established, and the effort taken to draw the characters is in stark contrast to the lack of depth in the episode’s murder mystery plot. It’s not a whodunnit. And don’t even begin to think about the whytheydunnit because Russell didn’t waste much more than an afternoon on it. It’s there to get the characters, especially the lead characters, plural, to those already legendary last five minutes. It might be the best thing Doctor Who’s ever tried to say. Or it might be a load of mawkish sentimentality. Probably the former, in fact.

But as long as it’s one or the other, there’s something there for the geeks to slather over. And as long as there’s lines about bitchy trampolines there’s something for mum and dad to laugh at. And as long as there’s a blue scottie dog with a tulip for a head getting roasted, there’s summat for the kids too. It’s Doctor Who, you see. At least for as long as they don’t oil that door.

It's interesting how marketing alters your expectations of a show - you know I really thought that the Moxx of Balhoon would be of some consequence in the episode, that the amount RTD went on about him and the report that there may be a toy version available made me think that he might - just might - affect the plot or have more that one and half lines. Oh well.

RTD seems to be fond of taking fairly ridiculous but nevertheless very inventive concepts and trying to make them work in a science fiction (or rather fantasy) context. I get the impression that this really started in the novels published since the television series ended in 1989 - for example, when Lance Parkin's 'Father Time' comes along a thinly disguised Transformer and a council tower block turning into an enormous column of roses are made wonderful and believable parts of the narrative because of the way they are explained and the serious manner in which they are done.

RTD pulls this kind of thing off wonderfully in this episode with the Earth belonging to the national trust whose lease has run out. It's ludicrous, but in a carefully put together stranger-than-fiction world it can work as sci fi and be quite funny at the same time. However as usual things are taken a bit too far. Jabe and her companions from the Forest of Cheem are clearly a flimsy allegorical statement about the rainforest being under threat and should - given that Doctor Who has some pretensions to being science fiction - be provided with some context or backstory. It's a bit much to ask us to just swallow a sentient biped is a direct descendent of the rainforest with no suggestion of how trees' evolution took this turn (it's as infuriating as R2D2 being given a medal for bravery - he's a robot, don't give him a medal - unless he's a sentient cyborg in which case make that clear!!)

In any case it is becoming clear that the new series isn't supposed to be serious sci fi, which is a shame as I believe you could achieve all of the pace, wonder and emotional drama that RTD wants and still maintain some credibility. Unless of course you have Murray Gold's score constantly undermining any credibility what you are seeing may have had. The opening shots of the space station have perfectly nice and unintrusive music and similarly when the Earth explodes, the music is fine - but when the alien guests enter the viewing room a jolly march is played as though we're watching Noddy. The music actually seems to suggest we should find the aliens funny rather than mysterious or intriguing - which is clearly the intention RTD has from a culture-shocked Rose's comments on how 'alien' they all are. Similarly the use of 'Tainted Love' as a soundtrack when Rose first gets the willies from the extraterrestrial assembly could work really well - but only with a more art-house and daring direction style. You get the impression that an American production team with the greater genre experience they have would just get these things that bit closer to the mark.

There are some great hints (or rather revelations) about the Doctor's recent past - the Time War and the destruction of Gallifrey. We now of course have to figure out for ourselves if this is a direct link to the mythology developed in the novels or is it something else? The moment with Jabe and the Doctor where Ecclestone actually sheds a tear is wonderful - but overall Christopher Ecclestone's leaping from manic excitement to austere seriousness is looking a bit forced. Interestingly it's only really Tom Baker who ever did this successfully and that was probably because it's part of who he is anyway. All three preceding Doctors and the successful performances after the fourth were when the actor was allowing their own personality to come through in the part rather than pretending to be Tom Baker which is the trap most actors seem to fall into with the part.

I do feel however that RTD's sexual references are getting a bit too frequent and just stick out as quite self conscious. The moment with Rose's mother in the first episode was fine but the

Doctor: 'there's more where that came from'

Jabe: 'I bet there is'

exchange regarding the Doctor's gift of air from his lungs and the queries about Rose and the Doctor's relationship being sexual both here and in 'Aliens of London' are starting to grate.

My final bit of ungrateful wingeing is about the closing scene. Taking Rose back to the 20th century to a shopping street to emphasise how small minded we can be focusing on the present as the extent of our world we are treated to an embarrasing shot of someone selling the Big Issue - it really starts to look like something from Comic Relief or other emotionally angled documentary. I have no problem with that kind of broadcasting but not when it stands out as needless preaching in a drama like Doctor Who. This scene however is rescued by the most wonderful delivery of 'can you smell chips' from Billy Piper who has been constantly a shining example of how to act and how to take something seriously.

More Rose please and music that we don't notice. (Toxic was good though!)

It's a sorry state of affairs when the National Trust no longer has the money to keep the Earth together as a conservation site. If the Doctor can find the money for a mammoth phone bill to Rose's Mum, couldn't he have spared some for his favourite planet? Even if he used it all up on the phone call, couldn't he have started some relief aid from the assembled alpha creatures turning up for gifts and a sun tan? Bad (wolf?) financial planning, if you ask me. He should have spoken to Clive at the Abbey...oh, that’s right; he got shot by living plastic. This continuity is killing me.

It is far better, then, to have continuity through a Time War arc bubbling away than in house style. Suddenly, Doctor Who has contrast. Doctor Who on speed has been replaced by Doctor Who with a social conscience. There are sound bites of political correctness so we can all bask in the fading light of the world, firmly in front of the sofa. Wealth (chinless wonders), vanity, revenge and racism (‘Mongrels’) fly by, as the central story trundles on as if Pip and Jane Baker have been brought in to sketch an Agatha Christie outline whilst Russell T Davies gets the characters firmly embedded. This time one has to care. This time it is all about understanding the adjustment. It is still not about story or suspense, because, let’s face it, a human trampoline setting up a sting to pay for yet more cosmetic surgery is probably more a statement of intent, rather than a plot. An alluded repeated meme, if you will.

The whole script is an opportunity to give a gift of the air from the show’s lungs (sic). In its witty, impish way, it is about solidifying the character of the Doctor and Rose. It is about reminding the audience that there is a hero on Platform One who feels the force, the cold, and has watched Galaxy Quest and knows the override switch is in the same place.. It is about Rose understanding exactly what we she has got herself into; to give her a sense of perspective; to make her understand that everything has its time. Rewritten history is Toxic, and Rose is in a soft cell. She has to survive this, and to do that she has to grow.

The Doctor, meanwhile, has to prove that he is not gay. There is ample time for him to spend time with his woody friend – er – Jabe (outstanding performance, by the way, from Yasmin Bannerman), and to use those method acting skills to get all wistful about the loss of one world, so that he can juxtapose this with the loss of the one he is just whisked Rose away from. In fact, loss is another strong agenda throughout, if that be planetary, humanoid, or plain simply the loss of a good moisturiser (you can never get the staff to teleport back when the ostrich egg is cooked, can you?) In between, he gets all pissed off and undertakes a particularly brutal act, and does a lot of derring-do as one comes to expect from everyone’s favourite socially defective fruit loop, which given he has very little real-time to accomplish it all, is quite an outstanding job.

Black curtains aside, the standard of production on this episode was equally outstanding. There were so many money shots in terms of visual effects, direction and performance that one feels the heat. Euros Lyn’s direction, in particular, seemed to dovetail the dialogue with thought and sympathy, bringing together scenes with an empathy rarely seen in family drama. Whilst there is a mood to gush emphatically, the Mill should be happy as a Dyson ball with the work accomplished here. Murray Gold, also, seems to have released himself from the Hot Gossip soundtrack in Rose to compose some lovely themes for this episode. All three areas pull together to bring together the best, hope-inspiring final 10 minutes of Doctor Who seen in many a moon, or should that be floating continent.

Most impressive of all has to be the simplest of writing devices –everything has its time. Thankfully this is clearly not the case with this new regenerated Who. Under this umbrella, the episode took its shape, and negotiated the tricky path that is the second episode. Having set the right agenda, it then showed how you can make stories set in space mean something to an audience firmly grounded on a planet where reality TV, and light entertainment, are getting high on the equivalent of Skol and chips. The end of the world managed to, in the right hands, bring it all back home.