Welcome to the forum @sedepliss - and those are some good thoughts about the story.
While Rose was a great, but not perfect, way to usher in the new era of Doctor Who, The End of the World truly shows the prowess of this regenrated show!
The episode kicks off with a wonderful tonal shift from the Doctor showing off his TARDIS manoeuvring skills (like the romantoc he is!) to him and Rose marvelling at the morbid beauty of the Earth dying far away in the future.
The End of the World is a monumental episode in the revival. It shows the 21st century potential of future-set space stories with alien characters and further explores the Doctor’s past, his current emotional state, and his modus operandi, while painting a very fascinating and slightly silly picture of our solar system 5 billion years from now.
Rose is wisely at the centre of the story, allowing us to explore this strange place and time alongside her, all the while remaining curious about the Doctor and his mysterious past. I love how she questions the Doctor and is rightfully on her guard, which makes her more relatable, while giving the story a reason to reveal new sides of the Doctor as well.
These aliens and their strange ways and gifts are silly enough to come across as perfectly belivable in the far future. The chief of these is the last human, the talking piece of skin, which is Lady Cassandra. She really shouldn’t work as well as she does, but Zoë Wanamaker makes her aboslutely creepy, fascinating, and memorable, and her “Moisturise me!” catchphrase is the first classic villain quote of the new series!
Jimmy Vee makes his first of several appearances on the show, this time as the Moxx of Balhoon, while Yasmin Bannerman’s Jabe, a lovely tree alien character, truly brings out the Doctor’s emotional side (and her sacrifice in the end always feels so wrong).
The season will reuse the rather simple space station set a few times, and while the VFX is showing its age, the practical make-up effects still look wonderful. I appreciate the light and colourful take on a space station, which is a refreshing change from the usual metallic, grey, and cold. I also really love the soundtrack, from the classic pop beats to Murray Gold’s sweeping melodies.
The scene with the Doctor saving Rose from the descending sun filter and the one where he has to avoid the rapidly spinning fans are the standout action moments, but other than that, the highlights of this epiode lie in the more dramatic scenes that explore Rose and the Doctor as characters. The basic threat is pretty simple and not particularly interesting (this is the second episode in a row where the threat takes the backseat), even though it makes Cassandra easy to dislike.
The moment of Cassandra exploding in the Doctor’s and Rose’s faces is actually a pretty morbid moment and shows the darker side of this Doctor (as he refuses to help her, despite Rose’s pleas). And the last scene is another beautiful emotional moment, something that RTD truly excels at writing, and it also finally reveals to fans of the classic show what has happened to Gallifrey and the Time Lords during the Wilderness Years.
A couple of random thoughts: How exactly is phoning someone 5 billion years apart from yourself supposed to work? And I love that Toxic is considered “a traditional ballad” in the future; I’m happy to hear that my childhood crush Britney is still appreciated long after my death!
My rating: 9.5/10
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This was the second full story of the revival I ever saw after catching a rerun of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, and the first that I saw in an effort to start intentionally watching the show! I personally think it’s amazing, it was the perfect tone-setter to get me into the show (and I’m glad I didn’t start with Rose, because as I suspected at the time I think I wouldn’t have enjoyed it enough to keep going). The aliens are so cool, Rose is probably used better here as a character than anywhere else in the show, and Eccleston gets to show off so much of why he’s an incredible choice for the role of the Doctor. The “air from my lungs” bit absolutely blew me away, especially to me as a teenager when I saw the episode, it stuck out as such a wild, bold choice that really made me want to keep watching this character to see what he would do next.
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I mean, yeah, it’s admittedly a lot of fun but, it’s not particularly stand-out as episodes go. Cassandra is a lot of fun but there isn’t all that much depth to her, she wants money. I still find it hard to warm with Rose because whilst it can be argued she has human reactions, she also just doesn’t present herself as particularly likable, choosing to run off with the Doctor and then having a go at him for her own choices that she’s regretting. Maybe that’s just me though. Overall, it is a lot of fun and Eccleston just really cements why he was the right choice to put their stock in, the gravitas he gives to the battle-scarred traumatised war survivor is just magnificent. This man who on the surface seems to be having a hell of a time but the moment things take a turn and Jabe is killed. An unforgiving fire lights underneath him. Make no mistake, he chooses to let Cassandra die when there’s every chance he could have helped. This isn’t your parents Doctor Who quite literally.
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There’s literally not much depth to Cassandra lol
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I’d forgotten how good this episode actually was. I found Rose’s reactions at the beginning totally believable - it had suddenly hit her how far from home she had been taken by a complete stranger that she knew very little about - although I found her recovery at the end a bit too quick bearing in mind exactly how close to death she had come. I have to assume that some time had passed before the final scene set back on present-day Earth. “Moisturise me” and the corridor with the fans were my main memories of the episode prior to the rewatch, together with the fact that the Face of Boe appeared for the first time - not that he contributed much. The main negative was this early example of RTD’s “magical” approach to science - “The National Trust moved the continents back” - yeah right! And making the phone work with just a couple of seconds tweaking when they weren’t even in the TARDIS - it should have taken several hours tinkering at the very least.
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I remember in DWM them having a breakdown of all the aliens that appear in this episode. Was great reading about new/original who stuff again.
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I have no issue with a ‘magical’ approach to science in Doctor Who when, to all intents and purposes, the TARDIS is the wardrobe into Narnia.
Doctor Who’s science has always been ‘indistinguishable’ from magic and it’s just that some writers lean into it more than others.
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Finally getting around to watching this one. I had forgotten the Rose recap, but love how the recap just flows into the main story. Am I the only one who wants to see the New Roman Empire in the year 12005? The party guests are well-realized, and I believe we just heard Russell’s first dig at religion. I love the way characters get historical facts wrong (fire-breathing ostrich, iPod, etc) which is something that comes back in Voyage of the Damned. I also like the claustrophobic feel we get to feel along with with Rose as the music plays, and the way the Doctor dances to the music.
You really forget the excellent character moments that Russell’s so good at writing. The scene with Rose and the plumber, or Rose and the Doctor in the viewing gallery, or the final scene on the street are superb and often get lost among memories of fans and aliens and Cassandra. Also, it’s so weird seeing someone with a tiny cell phone that’s just a phone. Eccleston also seems to be a much more subtle actor than say Tennant or Smith. When Jabe is interrogating him on who he is, the subtle facial expressions are impressive. I also like the subtle insertion of Bad Wolf, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it background line.
Despite all the quiet character moments, which are really great and possibly the best parts of the episode, there’s still plenty of action and suspense to keep the younger audience members, and older members who just want some fun sci-fi, invested. The little saboteur droids are a great design. Then of course you get the political message, which thankfully isn’t beating you over the head (like say Orphan 55). I really enjoyed this, more than I remembered. It’s budget is noticable, even if the CG seems somewhat dated now. I can still imagine it being quite impressive on broadcast. I’m also enjoying Rose a lot more with Eccleston than I ever did with Tennant. In the end, a fairly simple plot with a lot a little character moments. A great episode that’s often forgotten because of even better episodes to come.
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I guess it’s because I grew up with the Third Doctor who was forever tinkering with the TARDIS - he never just “snapped his fingers”!
He did make the tape reel disappear in The Ambassadors of Death.
More seriously, there is more tinkering in the Pertwee era but there were also 6 or 7 episodes to fill out with ‘incident’. RTD brought back the sonic and introduced the psychic paper specifically to keep the plot moving in the modern fast paced episodes.
And the less said about the ‘science’ behind this gadget, the better…
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Well, you don’t watch that episode for science. You watch it for Doctor/Master banter and the Doctor reminiscing about Gallifrey…
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I watch it as punishment for when I’ve been bad.
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There are plenty of reasons to watch that serial:
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I watch it when I want to feel sorry about Jo Grant’s coccyx.
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And two of them are prominently positioned on the left of that image… 
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Hey now, are you suggesting that The Time Monster is a bad story???
Really???
The one that gave us the most aptly named machine in human history, a marvellous feat of engineering, the TOMTIT?
You have no taste… 
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I mean, I love the Time Monster, but is a TV Club on End of the World really the place to have this discussion?
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Happy for the conversations to flow wherever we want them to go. We’re a small enough community to cope with the odd diversion.
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Fair enough.
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