Doctor Who Series 1 Episode 2: The End of the World

Director:

Euros Lyn

(Cutting It, Casualty)

Screenplay:

(Bob & Rose, Casanova, Children’s Ward, Cluedo, Doctor Who, The Grand, The House of Windsor, Linda Green, Mine All Mine, Queer as Folk, Revelations, The Second Coming, Springhill, Touching Evil)

Cast:

Continuing immediately after last week’s premiere episode,“The End Of The World” has The Doctor transporting Rose to Platform One – a space-stationorbiting the Earth five billion years in the future, where powerful alienshave gathered to watch the planet’s imminent destruction…

Episode 2 is a blessed relief after the daft excesses of the first episode,although it still contains too many childish jokes that detract from thedrama.

Eccleston manages to reign in his mugging to camera (most of the time) andhis Doctor is given a few moments of unforgiving directness – most notablein a late scene when, against Rose’s wishes, he allows an alien to diebecause “everything has its time”.

The plot for “The End Of The World” – revolving around sabotage of thespace-station using robotic “spiders”, is fairly basic – although thearresting premise keeps the viewer interested enough to see how it all pansout.

More successful is the slant on Rose’s situation – as she’s having doubtsabout being whisked away from her family by a relative stranger. In onetouching scene, The Doctor enables Rose to make a phone call to her mum, andwe realize it’s the first time a Doctor Who companion has ever actuallypined about the life they leave behind. Of course, quite why The Doctorcan’t just promise to send Rose back in time to the moment she left afterso-many years of adventuring is never discussed!

Technically, “The End Of The World” is a marked improvement in terms ofvisual effects. The show, based on this evidence, is capable of attainingspecial-effects that wouldn’t look out of place on an early episode ofBabylon 5.

The make-up for the various aliens is generally very strong, too -particularly the blue alien Moxx Of Balhoon. Of course, the great triumphfor the episode (and perhaps the entire series) is the wonderful Cassandra;the last human, who is now little more than a piece of skin stretched acrossa frame.

Sadly, the incidental music to the series continues to be painful to watch,and detracts from moments of jeopardy. Tellingly, the music isn’t asdominant as it was last week, so hopefully it’s being phased out entirelybefore our ears start to bleed!

Despite encouraging visuals, the story again lets the side down. Therereally isn’t enough going on to justify the 45-minute runtime, although thisdoes mean audiences get their first tantalising taste of the series’mythology – including The Doctor being “outed” as a Time Lord by sexy treealien Jabe (Yasmin Bannerman), and his admittance that the Time Lords haveall been killed in a war – leaving him alone in space and time. Thisrevelation opens up many questions, which hopefully will become part of anongoing mystery this series. My money’s on The Daleks being theaggressors…

Overall, Episode 2 is definitely a step in the right direction. I wouldstill have preferred a more serious “re-imagining” of the series, but thecreators seem adamant that aliens spitting in your face as a greeting, andending the world to the tune of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” is the way to go.

Still, Billie Piper continues to impress as Rose – simply by beingbelievably teenaged in the situations she’s presented with – and ChristopherEccleston can hopefully begin layering his grinning Doc with more subtletynow the tragic back-story to his character has been revealed.

Next week – Doctor Who travels back in time to Victorian London, in thefirst episode not written by Russell T. Davies…

DIRECTION
PERFORMANCES
PLOT
SOUND/MUSIC
SPECIAL FX



OVERALL