Mrs. Know-It-All has never seen the first season of the 2005 reboot of Doctor Who, and now she’s absolutely going to see the first season. We’re on episode two, “The End of the World,” and I’m having just as much fun rewatching these through her eyes as she’s having seeing them for the first time. I don’t remember them being this good.
I’m doing it a little differently this time. You get the quick recap, and then I just want to talk to Mrs. Know-It-All about the episode instead of spending a whole lot of time telling you a story that no doubt most of you already know. And if you don’t, why are you reading this? Seriously.
The Doctor takes Rose to the year five billion, where they land on a space station orbiting the Earth named Platform One. Among the elite alien guests assembled to watch the Earth be destroyed by the expanding sun is Lady Cassandra, who takes pride in being the last pure human, though she’s had many operations that have altered her image. It’s discovered that Cassandra, to get money for those operations, plans to let the guests die and then profit from the stock increase of their competitors. She releases discreet robotic spiders all over Platform One and they start interfering with the systems. She departs by teleportation, and the spiders bring down the shields, letting harmful direct solar radiation into the station. The Doctor manages to reactivate the system and save Rose, after which he brings Cassandra back and she ruptures from the intense solar heat.
That’s the cut and dry version.
Culture Shock at the End of the World
From the second they show up, it’s culture shock for Rose. But she handles it so well. Mrs. Know-It-All said she’s more intrigued than she is “I’m so scared,” and that’s right. She’s almost in awe over everything she’s seeing. They separate for a little while, too, so she gets to check everything out on her own.
Even in the TARDIS he’s going, how about this year, how about this year, how about that year, and finally he’s like, oh, I know what we’re going to do. Where he’s taking her is the end of our Earth. She even says that in school they always talked about how one day the sun’s going to expand and take the Earth with it, and he goes, yeah, no, they held it back with these shields, and now the money’s run out and they’re just going to let the Earth burn. So all the rich people are on Platform One to watch. I dig that. I feel like that tracks.
Mrs. Know-It-All got a little nervous when I said the rich people were watching, like she’d misheard something. She hadn’t. He does say the Earth is completely empty. We’ve all left.
Rose is still really sad, though, even five billion years into the future, and Mrs. Know-It-All got that right away. She’s been by her grandmother’s house in Chicago, which hasn’t been her grandmother’s house for what feels like a million years. That was still her home, and it’s all different now. So she could sympathize with Rose there.
Psychic Paper and the Gift of Air From My Lungs
We’d already seen the sonic screwdriver. This is our first look at psychic paper, and psychic paper is a brand new thing for this iteration of the series. He’s always had several different tools at his disposal: the sonic screwdriver, some other things, K9 the dog. So this is the first time we see something brand new. The paper’s slightly psychic. They ask where his tickets are, he pulls the thing up, and it’s here we go, I’m the Doctor, and I’ve got a plus one.
Then all the different aliens come out, and Mrs. Know-It-All is getting introduced to all these species she didn’t know. I loved that there’s a ceremony about it, where everybody’s handing over a gift. There are these tree people who are direct descendants of the trees here on Earth, but they’ve evolved, so they give little clippings, and it’s very adorable. At one point the Doctor’s like, and I give you air from my lungs, and she’s like, oh, it’s so intimate. And I’m like, of course you’d say that, tree woman.
And the eggs. We all know about the eggs. “A gift of peace in all good faith.” So great. Far from peaceful.
Lady Cassandra, the Last Human
Mrs. Know-It-All loves her. This layer of skin that is apparently a human, and she’s had so much work done that she’s perfectly flat. No wrinkles. “Moisturize me.” You can see her veins pumping the blood through everything. Mrs. Know-It-All wanted to know where the rest of her was, and her brain was in a jar at the bottom. She has no nose. She’s had her chin completely removed.
I do love that as she’s talking about Earth, because she’s the last whatever, clearly she’s had memory issues from all the stuff that’s been done to her. She talks about animals that don’t exist. She talks about places that are misnamed. It was brilliant. Then later her gift is an “iPod,” and it’s a giant jukebox, and it plays a classic song from Earth for the goodbye of Earth, and it’s Britney Spears, “Toxic.”
If people in the future think Britney Spears’ “Toxic” is what explains our history? Valid. What’s left, man? What’s left.
A Phone Call Home, and the Plumber
I like that after this whole introduction with all the aliens, Rose almost has an anxiety attack and has to step away. That’s when the Doctor does the little, and it’s my favorite word, jiggery pokery to her phone so she can still call back home. She hears her mom, and it’s oh my God, okay, great, thanks. She’s saying she’s going to be at her friend Shareen’s house, this and that, and she gets just a moment of normalcy before she goes back out to experience everything.
That’s also when she meets the plumber. Mrs. Know-It-All wasn’t sure if it was the electrician. It was the plumber, the Blue Man Group lady, because everybody who works on the station has a blue face. Literally, look at the Blue Man Group. And she was not used to people speaking to her. Mrs. Know-It-All picked up on that one. This is her life, catering to these rich people, and Rose is far from that. She thought that was kind of cool.
The First Time We Hear Time Lord
Remember, this is brand spanking new. Reestablishing things is what the series is doing. So the tree queen lady has a computer and she’s having it scan him. Where’s he from, what’s going on. I guess the computer had trouble finding out, but it totally names him: Time Lord. First time we hear Time Lord in the new era, and it made me excited. I was like, okay, I like it.
Mrs. Know-It-All was impressed with the amount of calm Rose had when the shields started coming down. She was terrified, but she trusted the Doctor enough to not be terrified. She also wanted to know why Rose wasn’t moving in a different direction. You know, you yell at the television. Absolutely.
Then of course the Doctor does as the Doctor will and figures the whole thing out.
Chips
What I liked is that at the very end he takes her back home, to her time. They step out of the TARDIS into a busy street, and he literally tells her, my people are gone, they died in the last great Time War. And rather than get all deep with him, she says she wants chips. French fries to us in America. But she’s like, I want chips. It’s so funny, and it’s a nice normal moment for her, to kind of reset her. It really does pave the way for the very next episode, which is exciting as well.
Mrs. Know-It-All thinks it also helped him understand her a little better, how she deals with anxiety and confusion and that missing feeling, that pining for home feeling. She feels like Rose made him remember: oh yeah, that’s right, I’ve got to be gentle with you guys.
Because remember, these I believe are his first forays back into being the Doctor since the Time War. It’s fresh to him. Very new. So he’s very much like, oh yeah, I’ve got to be careful with you guys. Got it.
The Tree Lady’s Sacrifice
One last thing before I get to my rating. You also see the tree lady with the Doctor when they have to solve the problem, and she sacrifices herself. This both begins and brings back a trend in Doctor Who, which is the Doctor inspiring people of any stripe, humans or other races or whatever, to do great things, even at their own personal sacrifice.
Later on they weaponize this idea against him. Oh yeah, you convince other people to do your fighting for you, in a negative way. And he’s always like, no, you’re experiencing the same things I’m experiencing. He tries to explain many times that he can die just as easily as they can. I guess he regenerates, but you catch him fast enough and it’s done.
So I really liked the humanity of the Doctor here, if that makes sense. Even he knows it was a great personal sacrifice.
The Verdict
Doctor Who “The End of the World” gets an 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index from me, and a 7 from Mrs. Know-It-All.
Hers first. Seven. It was interesting, it was fun, but not like the first one. She thinks she was more excited about the first one, which is why she gave it a nine. The second one wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad at all. She’s still into it.
Mine’s an eight again. I feel like these are some of the most consistent episodes I’ve ever seen, and I honestly don’t remember them being this good. That’s because I got swept up in the Tennant and Matt Smith excitement. They were great. But man, Eccleston did a lot of heavy lifting in the beginning. I think he crawled so Tennant and Matt Smith could walk and run, respectively.
It’s well worth watching. If you haven’t seen these, or you haven’t watched them in a long time, go back and watch them.
Next up is “The Unquiet Dead.” That’s one we’ve actually watched before, and now I want to watch it in context. This’ll be a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to talk about it.
Never forget, everyone loves a know-it-all.
What did you think of this episode? And if you’ve got tips for Mrs. Know-It-All on what to look forward to as she goes through the first season, she’d love to hear them. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
