1)So, five billion years in the future looks like a cheesy hotel?
2)"Welcome to the end of the world." I like the inversion of expectations here - the Doctor is not going to save the Earth.
3)"The paper's slightly psychic." "The paper's a somewhat lame plot convenience, on a par with the radio station on Gilligan's Island that always was broadcasting castaway-specific news stories."
4)This is reminiscent of the Peladon stories, with the various aliens, and they have to figure out which one is the heel.
5)Jabe gave the Doctor wood. Uh-huh-huh-huh.
6)"The last human...the Lady Cassandra O'Brien Dot Delta Dot Seventeen." Ah, they don't make villains like her, anymore.
7)"According to the archives, this was called an 'i-pod'." A jukebox survived five billion years?
8)Ah, "Tainted Love". There's a song that brings back memories of my college days.
9)It's interesting to see Rose freak out. It is a fact that in the past, companions sometimes seemed to adjust to the realities of time travle a mite quickly.
10)Ah, Raffalo, a traditional "likable character who gets introduced only to be killed off".
11)"Your machine gets inside my head?" Well, it's an attempt at an explanation anyhow. Best not to think about it too much.
12)"I came first in jiggery-pokery, how about you?" "Nah, I failed hullabaloo."
13)"Nothing can go wrong."
14) Jabe is another Likable character who gets killed off.
15)"I am the last pure human." "...A bitchy trampoline."
16)"I know where you're from." Up norht, obviously.
17)Of course, if this was an old-style four-parter, the bit with Rose and the sun-filter would've been the end of Episode Three.
18)"I bet you were the school swot and never got kissed."
19)"Then stop wasting time, Time Lord."
20)"So you passed my little test, bravo."
21)It's interesting that the Doctor refuses to help Cassandra. It would've been easy enough for him to just say there was nothing he could do, or be too late.
22)"My planet's gone. It's dead. ... There was a war, and we lost."
Overall
Not bad, for a second episode. Deliberately a bit wacky, from what RTD has said. I'm a sucker for the "group of disparate aliens" scenario. Some good interaction between the Doctor and Rose.
Replies
I think this episode gives a good idea of what fun is to be had with a time machine.
Is psychic paper really any more contrived than a sonic screwdriver?
I liked how what I thought to be on-off characters (Cassandra and The Face of Boe) were revisited in later episodes.
Is psychic paper really any more contrived than a sonic screwdriver?
It's funny you would say that - if you listen to the commentary tracks for the DVDs of the old series, one of the main critiques that folks from the old show - the late Barry Letts in particular - have about the new show is the way in which the sonic screwdriver has become something of a magic wand. I tend to agree, actually. In my mind, the pacing of the new show prevents them from taking the time to develop solutions or situation, so there tends to be a tendency towards "magical thinking" to speed them past certain points of the plots.
I know you're doing what you're doing, but I would kind of prefer more detailed discussions, rather than random quotes and disconnected comments. Especially on stories I've only seen once or twice at the most. Oh well...
"THE END OF THE WORLD" struck me as being linked directly to "THE ARK" from Season 3. I'd also suggest that "New Earth" seen later in the new show is the SAME planet reached in Parts 3-4 of that old story.
"I liked how what I thought to be on-off characters (Cassandra and The Face of Boe) were revisited in later episodes."
They wound up doing quite a lot of that over the course of the stories I've seen so far.
"On-off" of course, is a typo for "one-off."
I know you're doing what you're doing, but I would kind of prefer more detailed discussions, rather than random quotes and disconnected comments.
Sorry. As anyone who's ever met me face-to-face could tell you, I'm not actually capable of prolonged coherent thou- Hey! Look! I fond a penny!
On that same theme, I thought the phone call to her Mum was very moving and emotionally charged. Young people tend to take their parents and the people around them for granted, but Rose being able to talk to her Mum, billions of years after she'd lived her lifespan (tiny compared to the life of suns and planets that they are viewing here) really brought home how precious are the lives of those we love.
And done with the piece of everyday technology that we all carry around with us, too.
Nice work, Russell.