Doctor Who: Series 1, Episode 2 – “The End of the World (2005)

My first time through new Who, this was just an all-right episode for me—I didn’t think series 1 really got going until “The Unquiet Dead,” and then it kicked things into high gear with “Dalek.” But now that I’ve rewatched various seasons of the show :mumblemumble: times, “The End of the World” has grown on me quite a bit.

For her first official journey in the TARDIS, the Ninth Doctor promises Rose something “special.” His idea of a great outing? Jumping five billion years into the future to watch the destruction of the Earth from a shielded viewing platform in space. (Clue #1 that Nine has issues.) As Rose struggles to adjust to the extreme culture shock and people treating the end of the Earth like a cocktail party, she and the Doctor begin to realize that someone on the platform has ulterior motives.

There are places in this one where the details get really absurd. Sometimes it ends up feeling too broad, but sometimes it hits the perfect silly note, like the presentation of an Earth “iPod” (a.k.a. full-sized jukebox,) which results in the Doctor grooving to the “classical” song “Tainted Love.” And in the context of the episode, it really works that the various alien visitors to Platform One are so in-your-face alien. It’s disorienting for Rose, who was eased into the idea of life in the universe through the Doctor and the mannequin-looking Autons. Here, there are full-on anthropomorphic trees, a giant face in a jar of smoke, and the much-vaunted Last Human, who is in fact a bitchy sheet of skin stretched onto a rolling frame. The Doctor finds Rose’s discomfort rather pedestrian and a little species-ist, but Rose is dealing with all of this overwhelming change while also truly reckoning with the fact that she’s just run off with a strange man in his time/spaceship. What with the mini existential crisis, Rose isn’t in prime condition to spring into action or investigate mysterious goings-on, but she survives multiple attempts on her life and gives what-for to the aforementioned bitchy sheet of skin, so she rolls with the punches.

The Doctor is also struggling to cope, but in a different way. While he’s totally on top of investigating and doing all kinds of mild heroics—complete with picking up a new quasi-companion via Jabe, a very savvy tree—the impending destruction of Earth is stirring up trauma from his recent past. He’s good at playing the cheery man-about-the-universe with Rose, and he demonstrates his ability to give good Oncoming Storm when he needs to, but we see glimpses of the Doctor’s pain too, the parts of him he doesn’t want to share with Rose but can’t run from forever.

That’s the episode’s best strength. The plot is mostly good and features silly jokes as well as a few compelling oneshot characters (or twoshot, in Lady Cassandra’s case,) but where it sings is in the growing connection between the Doctor and Rose. They’re starting to get to know each other here and starting to trust each other, with more than just having one another’s backs in a wild alien mystery. The last scene is utterly lovely and pure, bittersweet but hopeful.