DOCTOR WHO: The End of the World

It's All About the Moments

By Jason Davis     March 27, 2006

Picking up seconds after Rose Tyler entered the TARDIS, "The End of the World" greatly expands the scope of the new DOCTOR WHO by leaping to near about the year Five Billion. Though the story itself is a simple enough mystery set on a space station where a group of well-to-do beings have gathered to watch the Earth be engulfed by the Sun, it's the moments in between the plot points that hold the most interest in this particular story. Rose's sudden doubt of her situation, the trans-temporal cell phone call, and Jabe's revelation of the Doctor's revised nature are all key moments that do not so much forward the episode's plot, but rather contribute to the season's overall arc in a very satisfactory fashion.

Of course, the setting is first and foremost an updating of the original series standby of isolated outposts under siege. This provides the requisite claustrophobia that was a key ingredient in some of the best stories of bygone seasons. Add to this the assembled aliens and their inherent strangeness to create an atmosphere that emboldens an otherwise prosaic tale. Religion listed alongside weapons and teleportation as something forbidden aboard Platform One is a lovely touch that elicits a snicker as the Doctor and Rose disembark to find themselves crashing a rather cataclysmic party. The psychic paper with which the Doctor confirms his invitation is a touch of genius that seems out of place only in that it hasn't appeared before despite being such a perfect addition to the Time Lord's capacious pockets. Ah, yes...Time Lordwe'll have to leave that aside for a moment longer.

The parade of memorable moments continues with the Doctor's inspired gift of "air from his lungs" and the unveiling of an "I-pod" replete with "classical music" like Soft Cell's "Tainted Love." It is perhaps the single most cynical moment in the history of television fantasy when Britney Spears' "Toxic" is revealed to have outlasted the human race. On the character front, Rose's sudden realization that she's skipped planet with a man she really knows nothing about is absolute magic and her appreciation for the finite nature of her mother's life can't help but put the show's entire concept into a morbid perspective that the original incarnation rarely dwelt upon. Albert Einstein gets a nice affectionate nod when Rose makes what must be the longest distance cell phone call ever portrayed to a mother whose over five billion years dead illustrating that everything is, of course, relative. Perhaps the most startling aspects of the story are its essential modifications to the DOCTOR WHO universe. The aforementioned phone call to Jackie Tyler back in the 2005 London keeps Rose's family alive in a fashion never before attempted by the series. A companion was lucky to occasionally visit their home time and place in the original series and Rose's ability to talk to Jackie, or rather the Doctor's desire to allow her that facility, is proof that this series values Earthly roots more than the 1963 incarnation did. This, of course, is symptomatic of the other major alteration to the mythology of DOCTOR WHO: The Doctor is the last of the Time Lords. To new viewers, this is a bit of insignificant character background, but viewers familiar with the original are aghast at the revelation that the most powerful species in the history of the cosmos is extinct. To Davies' credit, the death of Gallifrey and its people is an essential move in anchoring the Doctor to Earth in a way previously only accomplished by the original show's three-season exile. With one revelation, the Doctor and the series are re-invented for a new audience and updated for an old onenot a bad day's work for one scene.