Episode 2, Series 1 (158) The End of the World Writer – Russell T. Davies Enemies – The Spiders, the Adherents of the Repeated Meme, and Lady Cassandra Set – 5 billion years in the future, Platform One (Earth orbit) Doctor – Nine Summary – Following on from where Rose left off, Rose has just entered the TARDIS. She decides to go forwards in time, so the Doctor goes a century in the future. (This is apparently ‘not very interesting’.) Eventually, they arrive on Platform One on the day the Sun expands into a red giant and consumes the Earth. After some disagreement with the Steward (a blue-skinned humanoid), they are welcomed as guests, and introduced to the other people there. These include three tree-like beings from the Forest of Cheem, the Face of Boe (a big face in a jar), and the Lady Cassandra.Δ O’Brien – reputedly the last human, despite the fact that she looks like a trampoline with a face. The guests exchange gifts – the Doctor’s being ‘air from his lungs’ – and they start conversing with each other. Rose wanders off in the grand tradition of every single companion ever, but doesn’t go far – just to a small room, where she talks to a plumber. The plumber is promptly captured by robotic spiders once Rose has gone. The Doctor finds Rose and, after a slight argument, upgrades her phone so she can call home. They return to the Manchester Suite, where the aliens are gathered, and the Doctor goes to investigate the engines with one of the trees, Jabe. Rose goes and has an argument with Cassandra. Jabe mentions the Doctor how much sympathy she has for him, as she knows what he has been through. The Steward, meanwhile, has brought one of the gifts from the Adherents of the Repeated Meme into his office, and a spider hatches from it. It lowers the sun filter, making him burn to death. Rose wanders off again, and this time does not get away with it – one of the Adherents knocks her out. In the meantime, Jabe and the Doctor have reached the engine room, where they see some giant fans controlling the air conditioning – not to mention a spider. Jabe captures it with her lianas, and they head back. Rose wakes up in the same room as earlier, only to find that the sun filter is also descending. She can’t escape from the room, but thankfully the Doctor arrives in the nick of time to stop the filter. Rose is still trapped, but the Doctor and Jabe head back to the Manchester Suite, where he puts the spider down and lets it go back to its master. It runs to the Adherents, who try to attack the Doctor, but he pulls one of their arms off, revealing that they are in fact cyborgs. The spider then runs to Cassandra, who, after some bitterness, orders the spiders all over the ship to self-destruct, cracking the windows. She then teleports out. The Doctor and Jabe run back down to the engine/air-con room, where it is revealed that the ‘magic button’ that will make everything better again is on the other side of the fans, which are going at top speed now. Jabe holds down a lever to slow down the fans, although the Doctor still has some trouble getting through them. As he has one fan to go, Jabe catches fire and the fans go at top speed again. With the Sun about to explode, the Doctor faces a countdown until everyone dies. His solution to the top-speed fan? He closes his eyes and steps through, enabling him to pull the magic button which restores the ship’s shields just in time. The Doctor returns, lets Rose out of her room, and heads back to the Manchester Suite. He reverses Cassandra’s teleport, bringing her back onto the ship, where she dries out. (The Doctor is remarkably blasé about this – a hint of the Time War?) Rose and the Doctor return to contemporary Earth for chips and a morale boost, where he tells her that he is a Time Lord – the last of the Time Lords. Mistakes – Rose is sidelined for most of the end of the episode, being locked in a room and having no real part in the story. For five billion years in the future, technology does not seem to have moved on that much (with the exception of the National Trust’s work on Earth mentioned). It is remarkably bad planning to situate the shield lever on the other side of some giant fans, and the Doctor’s sudden ability to step through the fan makes Jabe’s death seem pointless. Verdict – Although it has some slight plot weirdness, The End of the World is, again, an episode that is very good for where it is designed to go – a solid episode that keeps viewers interested. The visual effects are, even eight years on, stunning, and the aliens are great. However, the story does suffer slightly from being compressed into around twenty minute, with the start being devoted to the atmosphere of the thing. The End of the World is very similar in structure to The Rings of Akhaten from Series 7 – cool CGI, aliens not making much impression (the Adherents and the Vigil), and all with the new companion being introduced to the wonders of the universe. Rating – 7/10
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 14:03:45 +0000
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