Doctor Who - The End Of The World

The second episode of the new series and a chance to forget all the media furore about who is going to be the new Doctor and actually watch the show. And it was a great episode. Far less frantic than the first episode and altogether more character driven.

The Doctor and Rose end up as guests at a viewing for the destruction of Earth (by the sun). Rose is thrown into a room full of aliens and soon wonders what she is doing. Billier Piper handled this extremely well, in fact her acting throughout the episode was marvellous. She really captured the come-down when Rose realises that she has just jumped in a time travelling spaceship with an alien stranger, who could be anyone! The aliens and the thought of Earth ending freak her out and it was very believable.

Meanwhile the Doctor starts the episode flipping between manic exuberence and deadly serious. In fact in this episode he wears a number of personalities, action hero, detective, concerned companion, life loving maniac and most interestingly lonely timelord. Christopher Ecclestone handled all of this with finesse and style.

For the first time this series it was mentioned that the Doctor is a Timelord, the last Timelord no less, and that his home planet was destroyed in a war. Now I'm not up on my Doctor Who lore so I don't know whether this is new or a known thing. However I have a pretty good guess as to the only creatures that could be responsible for that....!

The episode was tied up nicely with a return to present day Earth and a chance for Rose to leave the Doctor. Which of course she doesn't.

The science throughout was very fiction and not much science, but hey who cares? Hard sf isn't family viewing is it? The plot itself was pretty forgettable but a good vehicle for revealing some character.

All in all I enjoyed it a lot.

For more detail and behind the scenes info (spoilers!) see the BBC Episode guide for The End Of The World