Aired on 2nd April 2005
Written by Russel T. Davies
Produced by Phil Collinson
Directed by Euron Lyn
Synopsis
To impress Rose, the Doctor takes her five billion years into the future to see the sun expand and swallow the Earth. They arrive on an orbiting space station.
Rose is concerned about the planet, but the Doctor reassures her that all the humans have left it so it's ok for it to die, in fact, the station is hosting a party of the rich and influential who have all come to see it sent off.
A blue skinned steward turns up and is angered because the Doctor and Rose are apparently gate crashing, but the Doctor flashes a bit of "psychic paper" at him and convinces the steward that it's his invitation.
Rose and the Doctor go and meet the other guests including the Moxx of Balhoon, the Face of Boe, living trees from the Forest of Cheem (their leader being called Jabe), Adherents of the Repeated Meme..
and the last human - lady Casandra O'Brien.
The lady is quite unusual as she's nothing more than stretched skin over a frame with a brain in a jar.
Rose is a bit overwhelmed and runs off. As she's out in the corridors she meets a janitor who is investigating a blockage. She's kind to her, but goes off to wander the station. When she's gone, the janitor finds a host of mechanical spiders that attack her and drag her into the air vents.
The Doctor finds Rose and calms her down. He modifies her phone so she can call home whenever she wants. He is talking with her when the station shudders. He goes off to investigate, meeting Jabe who offers to accompany him.
Elsewhere, the panicking steward is killed by the same spiders who come out of the vent and lower the sun protection visors to his room.
Whilst travelling through the bowels of the station, Jabe says she's astonished to see a Time Lord alive, referring to something bad that's happened. The Doctor is moved to tears but blocks the emotion and continues, accepting her condolences. Not long after they capture one of the spiders.
Rose likewise meets with Cassandra, but is disgusted by her arrogance so insults her and tries to leave, but is knocked unconscious by the brotherhood of the Meme. She wakes up in a viewing room with the sun visors going down.
She screams for help and the Doctor hears her, rescuing her just in time.
They go back to the main hall and the Doctor releases the spider, telling it to go back to it's master. The thing goes to the Adherents of the Repeated meme, but the Doctor says that the Meme is just a repeated idea and reveals that the Adherents are all in fact robots which he summarily de-activates. He instructs the spider to go to it's real master and it goes to Casandra.
Casandra, holding the other guests off with her assistants "acid" shooting moisturising guns, she explains that her cosmetic operations cost a fortune so she hatched a plan to fake being held hostage and ransom some money. Now with that foiled, she opts to teleport away whilst letting the other guests burn.
With the station about to fail and they all get burned to a crisp, the Doctor goes with Jabe to reset the computer terminals. He has to go through some whirling fans. He could never do it, but Jabe elects to hold down a button that will slow the fans, despite the rising heat burning her to death. He honours her sacrifice and makes it through the fans to reset the computers and saves the station.
Returning to the hall, the Doctor finds a way to bring Casandra back and the heat from the air stretches her skin to the point where she ruptures and rips herself apart.
Going back to the TARDIS, Rose comments that she's sad nobody watched the Earth die. The Doctor reveals his home planet was destroyed also in a war, and that he's the last of the Time Lords. They cheer each other up and return to the console room, ready for another adventure.
Trivia
- This episode has the most visual effects shots to date. It stands at a whopping 205 effects, where for comparison, Gladiator only had 100! Understandably, most of the budget went on this, and Russell T. Davies said it's unlikely to be beaten in that regard
- Davies said he was inspired to write Casandra from watching all the skinny actresses attend the academy awards
- in the scripts, the janitor, Raffalo gets a more grizzly death and Rose phones her mum as she's about to be burned to a crisp as the visor lowers
- This is the first instances of the series aspects - Bad Wolf and the Great Time War. they go on to become major plot points
- This is also the first instance of the use for Psychic paper. Obviously a plot device to get things going and not bog down in proving credentials
The Review
After a solid start, it's difficult to follow up. Russel T. Davies manages it though with a logical progression in showing Rose the absolute possibilities of where they can go.
The story is equal parts fun and intelligent, focussing on the ridiculousness of the aliens, just as much as it does with the reality of Rose's difficulty in coming to terms with the loss of the Earth and the death of her loved ones, as well as the apparent mangled corruption of what's left of her race.
I have special love for the steward, and the Moxx of Balhoon who seems to come straight out of Hitchhikers with his gift of bodily saliva!
This was ambitious and at times feels grand in scope but it pulls it off very well, even managing to stick in the fate of the Time Lords along the way. There are bits of this if there's any criticism that do tend to drag, with half an hour to kill before "Earth Death" and the bits where Rose is moping about do get a bit tedious.
Overall, another solid effort and something that was a great follow up to the first episode. I can easily see why people would continue to watch, although for the more adult of us, some of the aliens did come across as a little childish and not as threatening as maybe we were hoping for. This would not get any better in the next few episodes of this season (see Aliens of London).
Rating
7 out of 10
Re-watchability Factor
6 out of 10
Watch this if you liked...
- Utopia
- Voyage of the Damned
- The Rings of Akhaten
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