Trollheart's TARDIS Travelogue: Revisiting Doctor Who

[Trollheart]

As promised/threatened last night, and after literally sitting up till 4am doing the first one, here's my retrospective look at Doctor Who, which I'm calling

Yes, Here I go again! Those of you who have read my retrospectives on Star Trek will know what to expect. No reviews, just observations, a lot of data, but this time no character scores, as we usually have just the two, so it wouldn’t be worth it. I might do something on companions, we’ll see. Please note: this journal only covers the “new” or “reimagined” or “insert description here” Doctor Who, i.e., from the time of Christopher Eccleston onwards; it will not include any of the “classic” Who. Also note: while Who fans are generally quite protective and you could say even rabid about their show, did I ever care about that? The piss will be royally taken at every opportunity, and I ask you all to take that in the spirit in which it’s intended. Join in by any means - there’s plenty of room, because as you know the TARDIS is (say it with me) bigger inside than outside. Just try to stay out of the way and don’t touch anything ESPECIALLY THAT oh now look what you’ve done!

A few small points before we begin. As saving a civilisation or galaxy or even time itself is all in a day’s work for our Doctor, “Lives Saved” will only refer to specific lives, such as, I don’t know, if he saves the crew of a doomed ship spiralling down towards a planet’s atmosphere, or saves someone specific from Daleks or cybermen. This can include bystanders, even unnamed ones, but not crowds or like say a full tube or bus or something, or a passenger liner. His current companion(s) also do not count. Basically, if I can count the people or beings saved, cool, if not, they’ll either go on the next category or not at all. Speaking of which: Planets/Civilisations/Galaxies saved speaks for itself, but will only be used when the Doctor actually saves a planet etc from destruction or enslavement or invasion. You get the idea. Earth, by the way, does not count. Guest character(s) refers to usually someone from history (Abraham Lincoln, Churchill, Dickens etc), and they must appear in the episode, not just be referred to, while historical references need not be in the episode, just mentioned, but they can be both.

Deaths (and the Bodycount) again only come into play when I can count them, so if say he fails to save a planet, I’m not counting every damn living being on it. Again, I have got to be able to count heads, or, in the case of some aliens, double heads or whatever they use for heads. You get the picture. Anyhoo, in terms of historical that might be more difficult, as in, if he’s told before he arrived x number of people died. We’ll see how it goes. The Recycle Factor will refer to when the writers rely on the tired old tropes - Daleks, Cybermen, The Master etc - and for each time an old enemy is used 10 points will be awarded. Old ideas will gain the episode 20 points.

 

[Trollheart]

All right then.

“I’m the Doctor, by the way. What’s your name?” - Doctor
“Rose.” - Rose
“Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!” - Doctor

Episode title: “Rose”
Season: 1
Doctor: Christopher Eccleston
Companion(s): Rose Tyler
Standalone or Arc episode: Standalone
Basic plot: Um, living plastic is threatening Earth? What kind of dummies do they think we… oh. Wait.
Importance: 10 (First episode in the reboot, first sight of the new Doctor, first sight of Rose)
Crisis point(s) if any: The Doctor almost dies, and we're only on episode one! Not a great way to make your comeback, is it? Oh, and London is threatened by walking shop dummies. Homicidal ones, of course.
Original transmission date: March 26 2005
Writer(s): Russell T. Davies
Director: Keith Boak
Timeline(s) Present (at the time)
Location: Earth (London)
Villain/Monster (if any): Nestene Consciousness
Deaths: 3
Lives saved (episode): 1 (Jackie)
Planets/civilisations/races saved (episode): 0
Planets/civilisations/races saved (cumulative): 0
Lives saved (cumulative): 1
Locations:
Rose’s bedroom
Rose’s home
Store where Rose works
Basement of store
Clive’s house
Restaurant/bar
Big Ben
London Eye
Basement of London Eye

Historical references: JFK assassination, The Titanic, Genghis Khan
Guest character(s): None
Bodycount

Historical
1 (Wilson, Chief Engineer - what is this? I thought I was doing Doctor Who, not Star Trek!)
Incidental
1 (Clive)
Direct
1 (Nestene Consciousness)
Total: 3
Running total: 3

Recycle Factor: 10
Planets mentioned: 0
Aliens: Nestene Consciousness
Mysteries: Why are normally inanimate things suddenly coming alive? Oh, and attacking, too. Can’t forget the attacking. Very important, that.
Religion: 0
Humour: 3
Episode rating: 9/10


It’s been a very long time, and most of us thought it would never happen, but finally the BBC have caved to pressure from the fans and Doctor Who is back on the telly. Got some big scarves to wear, or something, so can the new guy measure up? Well, I’ve always liked Christopher Eccleston, so the omens are good. Watching this back now for probably only the second time (I attempted to do full episode synopses a while back, gave up after about four I think) brings it all back to me how exciting it was to see the show back on our screens, and the anticipation and also worry that it might not be as good as I remember, or that they might screw it up completely. For a moment I think I’m watching yet another Star Wars movie, as it starts with a shot of the moon and angles downward to… Earth. But thankfully, no unfeasibly large imperial cruiser crosses the screen, presumably intent on other business elsewhere.

Hey! Why is Billie Piper in this? Oh right: because she wants to. Sorry. Actually, I was one of the ones who rolled my eyes (and I’m sure I wasn’t alone) when I saw the ex-pop star(ish) - she had like one or two hits? I said HITS! - in the role of the new Companion, but like everyone else, I was about to be proven so wrong, as Rose Tyler would quickly claim her place as one of the most legendary and best-loved of her kind. It does kick off though sort of like an episode of Made in Chelsea or something, as we follow Rose through her busy day, and it’s some time before the Doctor shows up, grinning like an idiot. We also get our first look - just a quick glimpse - at Rose’s mother, Jackie, who will become an occasional extra and an unlikely almost love interest for the Doctor, and I freely admit, an object of my lust. How can you look into those smouldering eyes and that turned-down mouth and not feel… um. Well, anyway, moving on. Good shot of the shop window as Rose jumps off the bus (very seventies style!) and we see the mannequins there, which will soon come to life. Well, probably not them, but ones like them. Or maybe them. Can’t remember.

Oh, and we also see a quick cameo of Rose’s own love interest, Mickey, um, Pierce? No, that’s Only Fools and Horses, innit? Time to check… ah. Smith. How ordinary. Mickey Smith, who will in time become a Companion too. Got to wonder why a CEO would have an office in the basement! Also, why Rose calls him by his surname. No “Mr. Wilson” or “boss” or “sir”, just “Wilson”. And he’s supposed to look after the lottery money? Maybe the CEO thing is a joke, and he’s no such thing? Oh right I see: CEO stands for Chief Engineering Officer, so it is a joke, Makes sense. I guess you could say in one way Rose wins the lottery here doesn’t she? If she hadn’t gone back with that money she would never have met the Doctor, and had a whole new life opened up for her. It could be you…

"I don't understand, Doctor! You have a ship that can travel in space and time, and yet we have to run for a bus?"

If I may be a little sexist here for a moment, I’d have to say Rose is one of the prettiest Companions so far, and I had my own favourites back in the classic era, but she’s better looking than any of them. In fact, most if not all of the new Companions will have looks, but with an eye on the twenty-first century (and even late twentieth) ideal of women, though they will have them, they won’t be just a pretty face. It’s quite clever to have Rose look the typical dizzy blonde, when she will turn out to be nothing of the sort. Each Companion to each new Doctor will show an aptitude for the job and a willingness to learn, and will participate more in their shared adventures than perhaps any of the older ones did. As I recall, much of the job for those ladies consisted of asking questions of the Doctor and screaming a lot. Maybe not all. Maybe not at all, I’m not sure, but 21st century Companions are a whole new breed, and anyone calling them passengers or the weaker sex just better watch out, that’s all.

There’s no denying the creepiness when the first mannequin moves, first just its head as she passes and then begins to talk towards her. I think in one way many of us have that sort of irrational innate fear about shop dummies, like they always seem as if they’re going to suddenly move, and if I had to spend time after closing in a shop with a bunch of them, I don’t think I’d be too happy or feel secure at all. Imagination is, of course, a powerful thing, but here it’s clear that this is not the girl’s mind or eyes playing tricks on her, and she does what most of us would do in her situation, once she had worked out that this is not a game being played on her by a workmate, and following the soon-to-be-given advice of the Doctor, she runs. I note a kind of tribute to that Twilight Zone episode “After Hours”, in which the idea is that shop mannequins are allowed to come alive and leave the shop once every so often (once a month? Not sure), as these ones do, though they’re not looking for a quick holiday and a nosey around town. They’re out for blood! Hey, how can a plastic doll kill you anyway? Suppose they’re strong and could crush your bones maybe. Either way, our Rose is not waiting around to find out, and legs it with the Doctor (sorry about the pun; I’m ‘armless really. OK I’ll stop now).

I find it interesting that the first time we see the new Doctor, though he’s bright and chipper and cracking wise, there’s an undercurrent of bitterness in his manner when he ushers Rose out of the store, telling her he may die to help her, but never mind, go home and have your tea. It’s like he’s realised, after all this time, that the work he does to protect Earth and humanity is never recognised, never rewarded and never appreciated. A thankless job, being a Timelord! Still, it is somewhat out of character for him, and while I know it was Eccleston's decision to decline to take the role for more than a season, not wanting to get typecast (wonder if he regretted that?) I can’t help but also wonder if his slightly downbeat, almost sulky comment here might have been another reason they replaced him so quickly? Maybe not, but when Tennant comes into the role he’s all love and appreciation for Earth, and so, pretty much, are all his later regenerations. I just think it’s an odd thing to say, an odd comment to make right off the bat. Anyway, back to the show.

Poor Rose! She must feel now that every mannequin in every shop window is after her, and then she sees her livelihood literally go up in smoke as the Doctor perhaps overdoes it, blowing up the store! I wonder did he consider whether anyone might be working late there? I mean, it’s a bit reckless, isn’t it? Nice that we get our first glimpse of the TARDIS as Rose runs by without noticing how out of place a police box from another century is in the middle of London, but then, she has other things on her mind of course. I like how they kind of made Mickey the girl in the relationship: he’s the one who’s attentive, worried, and he who wants her to stay at the end but is too timid - at this point - to accompany her when she goes with the Doctor. Hey, as he throws away the mannequin’s arm, is Mickey symbolically casting off the chains of the white man? I love, too, how Rose literally takes her future in her hands: the Doctor, realising she is, after all, not made of plastic, and hunting down the errant arm, is about to go - surprised as he is to find she lives there - when she grabs him and pulls him inside, almost like she’s taking him into her life, her own personal TARDIS, and making sure the two of them are inextricably linked forever.

 

[Trollheart]

The scenes where the Doctor wrestles with the arm as Rose makes tea, completely oblivious to what’s going on behind her back, show how this series is going to inject humour into what was, let’s face it, a fairly straight and humourless series before it was rebooted. Take it seriously, said the writers, if rolling dustbins on castors growling EXTERMINATE! could be taken seriously. But it was not made to be laughed at, and neither is this, but all the best drama benefits from one or two very carefully chosen and executed pieces of comic relief, and this is one such. Add cartoon sound effects if you wish. You have to feel for poor Jackie, whose attempts to seduce the Doctor fall completely flat.

Jackie: “There’s a strange man in my bedroom.”
Doctor: “Yes, there is.”
Jackie: “Anything could happen.”
Doctor (grinning): “No.”

Rose’s determination is such that even when the Doctor wants to leave her, she ain’t having it, and follows him out of the flat, demanding to be kept in the loop. She really does insert herself into his life, and stakes her claim in the TARDIS unlike I think any other Companion since the first, who was there by special dispensation of her grandfather.

You’ve got to love Mickey’s car! A bright yellow VW Bug! It’s not like anyone’s going to steal that, are they? Be caught in minutes! The idea of using a conspiracy theory nut as the only one who has made the connection about the Doctor is clever, though he’s actually made the wrong assumption, thinking the Doctor brings trouble when in fact he only appears to sort things out when they go pear-shaped, history-wise. Interesting that Clive, the guy in question, is played by Mark Benton, who also starred with Eccleston in The Second Coming and in Clocking Off: must have got him the job. The bit where the wheelie bin attacks Mickey is more comedy gold, and given that it’s a black bin, is this an instance of black-on-black violence? Sorry. The belch is funny, though a bit pointless. It’s living plastic, it’s not eating him. I find it odd that Rose, when she returns, doesn’t notice how shiny and, well, plastic her boyfriend looks. I suppose she’s thinking about the “nutter” she’s just left, and perhaps thinking over the premise of what he suggested, but still. And he smiles too much. Mind you, she has to take notice when he goes all T2 and starts fashioning weapons out of his hands. Oh yeah, and when the Doctor pulls his head off. And it keeps talking. You know, maybe they should see other people...

Ah yes, typical! I suppose only white people can go into the white bins, eh?

You know, it’s telling that the Doctor takes no notice of the fact that there’s now a headless killing machine rampaging through the bar, while Rose has the presence of mind to sound the fire alarm and so clear everyone out of harm’s way. You go, girl! Her first encounter with the TARDIS though has the effect it will have, and has had, on everyone other than its owner. She has to go back out, look at it from outside, go back in, shake her head, and utter the usual mantra. Our own first look inside the new TARDIS does not disappoint: have they updated for the twenty-first century or what! The Doctor again displays his - I would have to say at this point uncharacteristic - lack of feeling when he admits he never even thought about whether Mickey is alive or dead, and that Rose is worried about him. But she shows herself superior to him when it’s her that works out that the transmitter he’s looking for can only be the London Eye. It was, almost literally, staring him in the face and he couldn’t see it.

Of course, now begin the homilies on how bad we are, the moral lessons often so heavy-handed even Gene Roddenberry must wince in his grave. This time we’re told that we’re polluting our planet too much, which of course we are, but there’s no need to rub it in, guy! It’s not like it’s going to stop tomorrow. I like the little knowing aside when Rose asks him if he’s an alien how come he sounds like he’s from the north? Is this a reference to that show that made him a household name, Our Friends in the North, or just a comment on his thick Lancashire accent, and the fact that he never seems to drop it? Anyway here we get the whole enchilada, as they say, as he explodes about trying to save the life of “every stupid ape blundering around on top of this planet!” Way to make friends, Doctor! But again you see the sense of frustration and the need for some sort of recognition of his good work. Like a man who, for some reason, protects anthills against all dangers, knowing the ants will never have any idea they’re even under protection, never mind whose, you can see that he feels a bit, well, under-appreciated I guess.

Good switcharound when, having located the living plastic alien, Rose tells the Doctor to just kill it and they can go, and he, insulted, tells her he’s not here to kill it. This shows, of course, the propensity of humans to go for their first instinct when facing an enemy, to kill or defeat it, and also shows us a small window into the Doctor’s mindset, demonstrating for him why he treats us with such contempt, and why, in this case, he’s justified in doing so. In one way, after proving herself, Rose has earned herself, and her race, a huge black mark by proving we are what Q in Star Trek called “a savage child race.” Our bad. Again, Mickey is the “girl”, cowering in Rose’s arms and shaking like a child, while she knows so much more than him. The Doctor’s past - and he has a longer past than anyone! - comes back to haunt him as the Nestene Consciousness (I’m not writing that every time: let’s call it the Nestene, ok?) upbraids him for destroying its world, which he admits he did, or at least was unable to prevent its destruction. Now it wants revenge.

Brings a whole new meaning to the term bridezilla!

Enter, or rather re-enter into the story Jackie, Rose’s mother, who is now in danger as the Nestene sets off its plastic allies and everything goes to hell. Also re-enter, and rather quickly exit Clive, who at least dies with the knowledge that he was right, though he’ll never know he had the Doctor figured wrong. I guess for anyone who’s spent a boring, interminable afternoon trailing after their wife or girlfriend shopping when they’d rather be in the pub watching the match, this is sweet revenge. "Look, don't blame me! You wouldn't be running from mad plastic dummies if you'd got the dress you tried on in the first shop! We could have caught the second half!" I’m not entirely clear on how shop mannequins can now shoot bullets out of their hands, but as Homer once remarked: “He came to life! Good for him.” Also, the Big W informs me these are actually Autons, from classic Who, and though I've not seen that story, who am I to doubt the world's favourite free encyclopedia? Is there a subtext in those three shop dummies dressed in wedding gowns coming after Jackie? The three vampire brides Count Dracula kept in the basement of his castle in case he felt peckish during the night? It must be said: those mannequins are taking a hell of a long time about throwing the Doctor into the burning pit, aren’t they? I mean, you know, shit or get off the pot, as they say.

Got to say, Mickey does us men no favours when he whimpers at Rose to leave the Doctor to his fate. Oh, Mickey! You’re not so fine, and you really blow my mind! But here again Rose proves that we “stupid apes” can sometimes rise to the occasion and surprise even time-travelling aliens, as she swings across to rescue him, almost Luke Skywalker-like, kicking mannequins left and possibly right too, and dropping the anti-plastic into the vat which, well, has adverse effects on the Nestine. It also stops the rampaging dummies (no, not Chelsea fans after a match they lost!) who were just about to remove Jackie from the story. Oh, and everyone else too. Saved them all. Well done, that girl! Got to feel for the Doctor: he looks crestfallen when Rose declines his invitation, though whether he’s disappointed or just annoyed that he has offered her literally the universe and all of time and she has said no, I can’t say. But of course we know she will change her mind, and so she does, and a new era has begun.

 

[Trollheart]

“Five billion years and it still comes down to money.” - The Doctor

Episode title: “The End of the World”
Season: 1
Part: 1 of 1
Doctor: Christopher Eccleston
Companion(s): Rose Tyler
Standalone or Arc episode: Standalone
Basic plot: The great and the good (i.ie., the rich bastards) gather to witness the end of our planet. But sabotage is in the air.
Importance: 4 (for the first appearance in the reboot of the Face of Boe, the first use of psychic paper, and the first mention of both the time war and Bad Wolf)
Crisis point(s) if any: Um, Platform One is about to be vaporised?
Original transmission date: April 2 2005
Writer(s): Russel T. Davies
Director: Euros Lyn
Timeline(s) 5,000,000,000 (5 billion) years in the future
Location: Earth, or rather, orbiting it on Platform One
Villain/Monster (if any): Cassandra, the so-called last human
Deaths: 4
Lives saved (episode): 0
Planets/civilisations/races saved (episode): 0
Planets/civilisations/races saved (cumulative): 0
Lives saved (cumulative): 0
Locations:
TARDIS
Platform One
London

Bodycount

Historical
0
Incidental
2 (Raffalo; Alien steward)
Direct
2 (Cassandra, Jabe)
Total: 4
Running total: 7

Recycle Factor: 0
Planets mentioned:
Aliens: Far too many to list, but the important ones, and the ones announced or named (bear with me if I misspell or mishear; I’m doing this from the episode without subtitles): Jabe of the Forest of Cheem; The Face of Boe; The Moxx of Balhoon; The Adherents of the Repeated Meme (that’s got to be a comment on social media if ever there was one); The Brothers Hofftiny; Ambassadors from the city-state of Binding Light; Raffalo (don’t know what she is, but she’s from Crispallion and has blue skin and is a plumber).
Mysteries: Who is trying to sabotage Platform One?
Religion: 2
Humour: 3
Episode rating: 8/10


Typical of this show that its second episode features such a title, and yet, it’s not a really apocalyptic scenario as such. The Doctor isn’t trying to save Earth - he can’t; this is just the natural death of our planet as our sun goes nova, and he’s brought Rose to witness it. Perhaps a bit insensitive. Nobody wants to see their own death (just ask Ebenezer Scrooge) but much less do they want to see their homeworld die. Then again, she did kind of goad him and he’s anxious both to impress her and to prove that he can do what he says he can. Sort of reminiscent of Douglas Adams’ Restaurant at the End of the Universe, though there, everyone gathered at Milliways not to see just the end of Earth, but the end of everything. Here, it’s a space station called Platform One which hosts the gala party presiding over the demise of our little blue sphere. This is the first time, I believe (classic Who fans can correct me id not) that we see the TARDIS actually move through space/time. Usually it just vanished and reappeared; now we see it actually plunging into the timestream.

You have to say, it’s a bit cheap of the Doctor, isn’t it? The alien gives him a cutting of her grandfather, no doubt a rare gift, and he breathes on her. Air from my lungs, indeed! Might as well have given her a Tesco gift card! Mind you, the “gift” from the Moxx of Balhoon (sounds like a particularly big and drunk Irishman from the West!) is worse - he spits at them both, Yuck. First usage of “psychic paper”, which the Doctor uses to convince people he is authorised to be wherever he is, and the first appearance of the Face of Boe, who as we all know will turn out to be Captain Jack Harkness. No I bloody won’t spoiler it! That information is decades old now. Poor Rose looks totally bewildered and lost among all these aliens, with the imminent death of her homeworld the backdrop to their partying. Got to feel for her. And then to see the so-called last human, basically a flat sheet of skin stretched across what looks like a bed frame, voiced by one of my least favourite actresses, she must feel, well, alien.

We have the technology. We can rebuild her. Oh no wait: we can't.

She must also feel like screaming, a little like Fry in Futurama when the “fungineers” on the Moon got it so wrong, and he knew. This Cassandra is talking about ostriches breathing fire, mistakes a jukebox for an ipod, and Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” for classical music (though I suppose, five billion years from now, maybe it would be). Also being an actual, real, living human - and not just a stretched and rapidly-drying canvas of skin - she must want to laugh or cry at the self-appointed last human. The Doctor seems to be enjoying it; of course, he’s been here before, probably many times, so it doesn’t seem at all odd to him. Again though, he seems to all but forget Rose, to miss the fact that all this is new and possibly frightening to the girl, and in point of fact, he churlishly leaves her on her own to fend for herself in literally an alien environment.

The usage of “Have a nice day”, even five billion years in the future, is quite amusing. Never went out of fashion. Rose’s “conversation” with the cutting, when she says “we might be related” is funny too. I suppose in some ways, watching the Earth die is a bit of a wrench for the Doctor, who has watched over it for over nine hundred years, give or take a decade, and it possibly also reminds him of the destruction of his own home planet, though I think that’s in the future for us. Still, as he doesn’t live a linear existence, the event has both happened and is yet to, so it must be tough. Kind of makes you wonder why he came here in the first place. Rose is showing she’s not going to just fall into line, arguing with him and berating him for things like allowing the TARDIS to alter her brain so that she can understand alien languages. She says he never even asked her, and he didn’t - he didn’t think to - but I suppose it can be seen as a form of violation if you choose to look at it that way. Not quite the same as swallowing a Babel fish now, is it?

Watching the sun set turned out to be not quite the romantic experience Rose had envisaged…

I love the juxtaposition of Rose being five billion years in the future and phoning her mum, who is doing something so ordinary as washing clothes. In real terms, Jackie Tyler has long long ago turned to dust - in fact, her dust has turned to dust, along with every other inhabitant of Earth - yet here she is, talking to her daughter as if she were just down the road and about to walk in. Hard to get your head around that one. It’s good though, because, as I assume the Doctor knew, talking to her mum provides Rose with a very necessary and needed anchor to her past, both her past life before she met him and Earth’s past, and gives her something to hope for. She knows, surely, that they can leave this time and travel back to her flat, and she will see her mum again, who will think nothing has happened, but for a long moment there I think Rose forgot that, and considered herself trapped friendless and without family in the far-flung future (you’re right: that is a lot of words beginning with f!) and now she knows she’s not alone. So, you know, sometimes he does take notice of how strange and unsettling all of this must be for his new Companion.

You know, if something is that deadly that it can actually kill you, you would think it would be hard to accidentally deploy it, but one of them spider-things just has to push one button and down comes the sunshield? A bit careless. What if someone hit it by mistake? And there seems to be no override? Hah! Rose really lets fly at Cassandra, doesn’t she, telling her what’s what. That’ll shut the flat sheet up. Maybe. You have to say, those Adherents haven’t exactly got the idea of subterfuge down, have they? If anyone looks like they’re plotting something, they’re the ones. Though of course, they’re not: it’s bloody Cassandra who’s behind it all. So the Earth dies to the strains of Britney Spears, eh? Surely something more appropriate could have been chosen? Tom Waits’ “The Earth Died Screaming?” Europe’s “The Final Countdown”? Thin Lizzy’s “The Sun Goes Down”? Meh, have it your way then.

I would say it’s kind of a backward step to have the Doctor save the day while the Companion is trapped and useless, but I guess the show is finding its feet, so we’ll allow it this one. Good usage of the old Poe trope here, with the turning blades preventing passage forward to the shut-off switch, and necessitating the sacrifice of Jabe. Sort of takes the show out of the realm of the superficial and surface and into darker areas, where good people die and there’s nothing the Doctor can do about it. In fact, it has to happen, if everyone is to be saved. Spock knew the deal: the needs of the many etc. Even more bitter a taste for our Doctor, who was, I think, turning sweet on Jabe. Well, as Holly once noted in Red Dwarf, she won’t be much use to him now, not unless it snows and he needs something to grit the path with! I also like the way the obstacle thrown in his way is such old-school technology: big revolving metal propellers, the kind of thing you would have thought would have been replaced by now, but sometimes I guess if it ain’t broke…

“Look, I booked this room with Gerry. We have it till 7pm and - what? What do you mean, there’s no Gerry working there? Hello? Hello?”

I guess the Doctor’s razor-sharp mind comes into play here, as he no doubt rapidly calculates the angles and the rate of turn and the tiny gaps as the blades rotate, and with a single second to go manages to get to the switch and save everyone. Though not Earth, as that’s destined to, as Zaphod Beeblebrox once grinned, do the big firework. I don’t like though how he walks past Rose without barely a glance; I know they’re only getting to know each other, but she could have died. He’s more concerned though with letting Jabe’s attendants know about how she made the ultimate sacrifice, so again maybe we can let it slide. This is also the first time we see how terrible the Doctor can be when he has revenge in mind, and the way he coldly and dispassionately summons Cassandra back to Platform One and then watches as she dries up, pleads for mercy, explodes and dies, shows that he is not a man to be messed with! In the end, Cassandra kind of was the last human, exhibiting all those nasty traits we do: the pursuit of wealth, the will to murder to get what she wants, and the intention of clogging up the courts by using technicality after technicality to stymie the trial. And she was also vain to a fault. Good riddance to her.

I find it interesting too (Stop saying interesting! - No) that you could almost make the case that, having been humanity’s protector for almost all of his long life, if we do allow Cassandra the distinction of being the last human alive (Rose will of course return to her own time) then the Doctor makes a conscious decision to throw away his morals and principles, to allow the last of his protectees to die - watches as she does - and so at the very end, fails in his mission. Not only that, but he essentially sacrifices Earth and humans for an alien he has just met, and fallen either in love with (if he can love) or has taken very much an interest in. In the final analysis, the Doctor’s last action, the emotion that motivates him as the Earth finally goes down, is revenge. You might say, possibly, in one way he is taking vengeance for all the times he protected Earth and got no credit, and nobody even knew, other than whoever his Companion was. It might ne said his last act towards Earth is petty spite, like a child who has lost interest in their toy. Not that Cassandra didn’t deserve it, but you would have liked to have thought he was a better man than that, and above such petty motives. His cold comment that “Everything has its time, and everything dies” might as easily refer to Earth, or Gallifrey, as Cassandra, and perhaps shows why, when they arrived and Rose thought he was there to save Earth, he quickly disabused her of such romantic notions. When something has reached the end, it can’t, and shouldn’t be saved.

However there is also time for an admission, as the Doctor tells Rose his planet is gone. “It burned,” he says. “There was a great war, and we lost.” There’s a moment of sort of existential angst, as the Doctor shakes his head at everyone rushing to and fro, not realising that one day their very planet will no longer be here, but that’s five billion years in the future, and isn’t that the smell of chips?