Doctor Who S01 E02 – Dancing as the world burns

Previously: Rose met The Doctor and also some mannequins attacked London. It was a thing, just go with it.
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The End of the World

Kirsti: We pick up exactly where we left off, with Rose running into the TARDIS. Only this time, the shot is from the inside. The Doctor grins and asks Rose where she wants to go first – forwards or backwards in time. She picks forwards, one hundred years. The Doctor flicks some switches and gizmos on the TARDIS console, and they vworp vworp their way to the 22nd century. But when they land, the Doctor declares 100 years to be nothing and suggests going further. Rose agrees, and he flicks some console stuff again. More vworp-ing, and they’re 10,000 years in the future, at the height of the New Roman Empire. Rose smirks that the Doctor thinks he’s impressive, and he decides they’re going further. He mans the console again and we see the TARDIS flying through a time vortex. (L: Flying with our old, dear friends, Bad Special Effects. Man, those guys stay busy!)

Sweeney: Abysmal special effects for sure, and the banter also still feels ridiculous, but the actors sold it well.

K: Doctor Who is run on a budget of about £20. Abysmal special effects are par for the course.

When they land, Rose asks what’s outside. The Doctor just gestures at the door. Rose grins and steps through the door, finding herself in a fancy looking room. The Doctor follows her, and uses his sonic screwdriver on a control panel, which lowers a window shade. Through the window, the Earth is visible. The Doctor tells Rose that they’re five billion years into the future. The sun flares and turns red, and he says, “This is the day the sun expands. Welcome to the end of the world.” HAVE A GOLD STAR, NINE!

DOO DEE DOOOOOOO!

After the credits, a spindly-looking space station orbits the Earth and its dying sun. Spaceships fly towards it and dock as a voiceover informs us that Platform One (the space station) forbids teleportation, weapons and religion. (L: Then, surely nothing can go wrong here!) The voice also informs us that drinks will be served to guests in the Manchester Suite after the Earth dies.

Walking down a corridor, Rose asks if “guests” means people. The Doctor says it does. As long as by “people,” she means “aliens”. Rose wants to know why everyone’s there, and the Doctor replies that the great and powerful (read: rich) have gathered to witness the planet burn. You know, for fun. He sonics an access point and leads Rose into the Manchester Suite. At the window, she stares out at the Earth, saying that she thought it took hundreds of years for the sun to expand. The Doctor informs her that The National Trust bought Earth years ago, restored the position of the continents to their former glory, and used special satellites to hold back the sun. But now, they’ve run out of money, so Earth go boom. Rose asks if they’re there to save it, but LOL NOPE. She asks about the people, and is told that they’ve all left. Earth is deserted.

Lorraine: Excellent pick, Doctor. There is absolutely nothing depressing about this…

Sweeney: “Come travel with me, and face the mortality of your species! Wooo!” You could have at least brought a strong drink a long for the ride.

K: Truth.

A blue skinned alien with gold eyes appears, all “WTF are you doing here??” The Doctor says he’s a guest – Rose is his plus one – and waves a piece of blank paper. Blue Man Group stares at the paper for a second, then tells them to enjoy themselves. He leaves them, and the Doctor informs Rose that the paper is psychic, and shows people what he wants them to see. Blue Man Group sets his staff in motion, and starts to introduce the other guests before saying there will be an exchange of gifts in the spirit of peace. The guests include THE FACE OF BOE and I flail with excitement because of reasons.

Lor: KIRSTI. You can’t do stuff like this because by informing our Snow that there is a spoiler, YOU ARE SPOILING HER. STAHP.

Sweeney: This is a longstanding Traumaland problem wherein Knower Of Spoilers are like antsy toddlers who need to pee. People with this condition can’t help themselves. But to affirm your point: I watched this scene and it carried no significance whatsoever, AND NOW I’MMA GO BACK AND OBSERVE WHAT YOU’RE FLAILING ABOUT. (No I’m not. This episode was better than the last one but it’s not that good.)

K: I’d like to think that I’m less like a toddler who needs to pee and more like the annoying friend who stares at you creepily the whole time you’re watching a thing that they like to judge your reactions.

A trio of tree people approach Rose and The Doctor. One offers them a plant, a clipping from her grandfather. In exchange, The Doctor does this:

Lor: I love Rose’s face. She looks from him to the aliens like, “shit, I wonder if this is going to work…”

K: His gift is “air from my lungs.” A short blue alien approaches, offering them “the gift of bodily salivas“, and spits in Rose’s face. She’s not impressed. A group of black robed aliens with big claws hand over a metal ball as their gift. Blue Man Group introduces their guest of honour: the last human, the Lady Cassandra. The Doctor grins excitedly as Rose stares in confusion, because the Lady Cassandra is just a piece of skin with a face, stretched out in a frame. She’s accompanied by two white-clad medical types, and she demands that they “moisturise me!“, which they do with big hose things. I love Cassandra, mostly because she’s voiced by Zoe Wanamaker (aka Madam Hooch).

Anyway, Cassandra informs the guests that she’s brought gifts from Earth: the last ostrich egg, which she says hatched a bird with a fifty foot wingspan that breathed fire, and a jukebox, which she calls an iPod, claiming it stores music from humanity’s greatest composers. Rose watches with a “WTF IS HAPPENING” expression as the jukebox starts to play Tainted Love. The Doctor does a little dance in time to the music.

Sweeney: I danced along too, friend. It actually quite closely resembled this.

K: To paraphrase Boromir, one cannot simply not dance to Tainted Love. Or something.

Rose is overwhelmed and rushes from the room. The Doctor goes to follow her, but Jabe (the tree woman) interrupts him, taking his photo. As he leaves, she tells her camera to find out where he’s from. Behind them, the robe wearing aliens offer a metal ball to Blue Man Group. He takes it reluctantly. Jabe’s camera chirps at her, and she declares the results to be impossible. Up on a shelf, one of the metal balls opens, revealing a metal spidery thing, which scurries away.

Out in the hallway, Rose stares out at the dying sun. Another blue alien – this one female and wearing a boiler suit – approaches and Rose asks if she’s allowed to be there. After establishing that she needs permission to talk, she informs Rose that guests are allowed anywhere. She introduces herself as Raffalo, and says that she’s a plumber. Rose is a little surprised to hear that they still have plumbers, and Raffalo asks where she’s from. The zoomy cameraman does a suuuuuuuper slow zoom as Rose goes through a bit of an existential crisis: “Er, I don’t know. A long way away. I just sort of hitched a lift with this man. I didn’t even think about it. I don’t even know who he is. He’s a complete stranger.”

Lor: Yeah, girl. Probably should’ve thought of that five billion years ago.

Sweeney: I’m glad they actually addressed this. The last episode had such a high, “Why is this evening happening?” factor that I omitted about 85% of my questions to that end because I couldn’t keep track of them. Rose’s total Aria-shrug-BAI-LIFE! flouncing off was weird and one of my many questions. I’m sure the struggle is real and all but mostly I am grateful for your existential crisis, Rose.

K: Better late than never, that’s for sure.

Raffalo gives her “GIRL, NO” face, which is totally understandable. Rose awkwardly makes her excuses and scurries away, leaving Raffalo to open an access panel. She radios in, then leans into the air vent. One of the metal spiders appears, shining a laser on her face, then skitters away. She tells it to come back because she needs to register its ID. It does so, but is closely followed by another one. She thinks it’s all fine until another two appear, and she gets dragged into the vent. Cut to Blue Man Group’s office. He puts his metal ball down, and listens to the computer beep and burble. Then he makes an age-old announcement: “Would the owner of the blue box in private gallery fifteen please report to the Steward’s office immediately.” Behind him, the ball opens and another metal spider appears.

Rose sits alone in a viewing gallery, tossing the metal ball from hand to hand, and talking to the plant clipping. It’s kind of adorable:

She sets the ball down, and it does its spidery thing. Out in the corridor, Blue Man Group’s minions move the TARDIS and offer The Doctor a valet parking ticket. In the air vents, the metal spiders skitter. The one behind Rose stops just short of touching her, then scurries off into a vent when it hears the sonic screwdriver opening the door. The Doctor walks in and sits down, asking Rose if she’s okay. “Great. Yeah, fine. Once you get past the slightly psychic paper. They’re just so alien. The aliens are so alien. You look at ’em and they’re alien…” she replies.

She also wonders how they’re all speaking English, and the Doctor informs her that they’re not – the TARDIS gets all up in your brain and makes everyone sound like they’re from London. (L: LOL.) Rose is pissed: “Your machine gets inside my head. It gets inside and it changes my mind, and you didn’t even ask?” The Doctor replies that he’d never thought of it like that.

Lor: Second time The Doctor has said those words to her: first when she thought Mickey was dead and now. He doesn’t seem to think very much about these normal, human reactions to abnormal situations.

Sweeney: Also, this business about the magical translations is one of a million oh-so Hitchhiker’s Guide moments in this episode, all of which made me smile.

K: Understandably. Although personally, I’d rather have the TARDIS translating things in my brain than shove a babel fish in my ear…

Rose hurls questions at him, demanding to know who he is and where he’s from. He yells back that all that matters is here and now, then stalks over to the window, staring out at the Earth.

Rose sighs and joins him at the window. She pulls her phone out, lamenting the lack of signal. That gets The Doctor’s attention, and he replaces her phone battery with one of his own, and suddenly her phone works. Disbelievingly, she dials her mum’s number. Back in 2005, Jackie answers and wants to know what’s wrong that Rose is calling in the middle of the day. Rose tears up a little and says that she might be home late, and Jackie hangs up. (L: WITHOUT SAYING GOODBYE, UGH.)

Suddenly, the space station shakes. “That’s not supposed to happen,” The Doctor says, but he looks a little excited about it. In his office, Blue Man Group demands answers. When none are apparent, he does a scan of the space station. It detects the metal spiders, one of which is scurrying along the wall next to him. It climbs onto his desk and he demands to know how it got on board, because it’s not on the guest list. It sassily presses a button on his keyboard, and the computer says “Sun filter deactivated“. The sun filter lowers and Blue Man Group screams, pounding the keyboard as the computer announces that the temperate is 4,000 degrees. The metal spider ducks out of the room through a vent.

Back in the Manchester Suite, the alien that spat on Rose is talking to The Face of Boe. I mention this only because it says “Indubitably, this is the Bad Wolf scenario.” BAD WOLF SHOTS!! Yes, I just made that a thing. Go with it.

Rose and the Doctor walk in, and he says that he knows the shaking wasn’t just turbulence. He decides to investigate further. Jabe walks up, and becomes very interested in the Doctor’s relationship with Rose. Rose gets pissed when she’s talked about like she’s not there, and declares that she’s going to go and talk to “Michael Jackson“, aka Cassandra. The Doctor and Jabe head off to investigate the engine room.

Metal spiders scurry around a maintenance duct, but disappear when the Doctor sonics the door open. He asks Jabe who’s in charge of the station, and she replies that it’s just the computer and Blue Man Group because the facility is totally automated and nothing can go wrong. The Doctor rolls his eyes and mentions the Titanic. He also says “fantastic,” so SHOTS! Metal spiders follow them down the passageway.

Manchester Suite. Cassandra waxes nostalgic about her childhood on Earth, and Rose asks what happened to the other humans. Cassandra says condescendingly that they all interbred with other species, and that she’s the last pure human. She’s had 708 operations to keep herself as pure as possible. She tells Rose that she could use some work because she’s a little sticky-outy. Rose sasses in return: “I would rather die. It’s better to die than live like you, a bitchy trampoline.”

She informs Cassandra that she, Rose Tyler, is the last human in the room because Cassandra’s had everything human removed. She leaves, and the black robed aliens watch her go.

Down in the maintenance duct, the Doctor asks Jabe why she’s there, at the end of the world. She reluctantly tells him that it’s about being seen at the right events, but says that she’s descended from one of Earth’s tropical rainforests, so it’s also about respect for her ancestors. He stops and scans a door panel with his sonic screwdriver, which refuses him access. Jabe asks about his ancestry, and the Doctor doesn’t reply. She tells him that she scanned him and she knows what he is. She places her hand on his arm and says “I just wanted to say how sorry I am.” He places his hand over hers and a tear rolls down his cheek. The Doctor quickly blinks it away and sonics the panel again. This time, the door opens, and he steps through into the engine room. It runs the full length of the station, with huge fans sweeping across the path.

Sweeney: His tearing up gave me feels, but they were offset by the sheer silliness of her little tree fingers.

K: Legit. The fingers were terrible.

Upstairs, Rose walks through a corridor alone. The black robed aliens knock her out and drag her into a room.

Engine room. The Doctor rips open an access panel and a metal spider skitters out and up the wall. He tries to sonic it, but it’s too far away. Jabe tosses out a vine and snags it. The Doctor studies it for a second and declares there to be sabotage afoot. Manchester Suite. Cassandra says that it’s nearly time for Earth to die, and they must mourn her with “a traditional ballad“. The jukebox changes records, and Britney Spears’ Toxic starts playing. I swear, I can never hear that song without thinking of Doctor Who.

Lor: All the rest of this set to Toxic makes me giggle so much. IT’S SO RIDICULOUS.

Sweeney: This party is clearly inferior to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but they do have some sweet jams.

K: I, for one, look forward to the return of jukeboxes.

The Doctor and Jabe rush back upstairs and find a bunch of Blue Man Group’s minions panicking outside his door, which is smoking. The Doctor sonics a nearby panel, raising the sun shield, then realises there’s another sun shield programmed to descend. Elsewhere, Rose awakens to a voice saying that the sun filter is descending. Bright light fills the room as she hammers on the door, demanding to be let out. The Doctor arrives and sonics the door panel. After a moment, the filter starts to rise again. Rose heaves a sigh of relief, but it’s shortlived because the computer takes over and starts to drop the filter again.

She runs down the stairs towards the window and hides as The Doctor struggles to get control of the panel again. He’s successful and Rose returns to the door, yelling to the Doctor that the lock has melted. He tells her to stay put, which she’s not impressed by. Back in the Manchester Suite, Jabe informs the other guests of the sabotage. The Doctor walks in and grabs the metal spider from Jabe. He sonics it, and tells it to return to its master. It heads over to Cassandra. “I bet you were the school swot and never got kissed!” she glares. The Doctor wants to know what kind of idiot sabotages a ship that they’re on, and Cassandra says that she was hoping she could fake a hostage situation and get some money to pay for more surgeries.

Sweeney: Maybe a CGI upgrade, too.

K: Nope. It’ll make the budget team cry.

The other guests are horrified when she reveals that it doesn’t matter that she’s been busted because she holds stock in all their companies and it will go triple after their deaths. Also, she has a super secret teleport planned to get her out before the station disintegrates. She yells “Spiders? Activate!” and all over the station, metal spiders explode. She informs them that the forcefields are down and they’ll die quickly before teleporting out. The computer voiceovers that heat levels are rising and safety systems are down. The Doctor says they need to reset the computer by hand. He grabs Jabe and heads back to the engine room.

With two minutes to Earth death, they reach the engine room. The reset switch is on the other side of the massive, razor sharp fans, because obviously. The Doctor finds a convenient lever, and yanks on it which stops the fans. But when he releases the lever, the fans start up again. Jabe pulls the lever, and The Doctor looks at her in surprise. He tells her that she can’t stay because the heat will vent through there and she’s made of wood. She says that she knows, and tells him “stop wasting time, Time Lord,” He grins at that, and turns towards the fans.

Upstairs, the glass in the Manchester Suite starts to crack. The guests panic. The Doctor ducks past the first fan. Rose cowers on the floor as the glass in her room starts to crack too. The Doctor runs past the second fan, and upstairs, the cracks in the glass get worse. The heat levels reach a critical level, and Jabe bursts into flames, releasing the lever. The fans speed up again.

Lor: That’s probably because he wasted precious seconds throwing longing looks at Jabe. And when you think about the fact that he’s throwing longing looks at a tree with boobs, things take a turn for the hilarious.

K: SO MUCH. The Doctor closes his eyes and walks forward to the last fan as the computer counts down the last ten seconds to Earth death. He makes it through, dashes for the reset button, and demands that the computer raise the shields.

The shields return with one second to spare. Earth explodes into pieces, and Rose heaves a sigh of relief as the computer announces that the glass has repaired itself.

The Doctor walks back through the now-slow fans to Jabe’s smoking remains. He looks at them sadly, then returns to the Manchester Suite. Some of Blue Man Group’s minions are mourning the chubby blue alien, who was burnt. Rose looks shell shocked. The Doctor walks over to Jabe’s companions and tells them the news.

Rose asks if he’s okay, and he replies that he’s full of ideas. Like for instance, the fact that teleportation through those kinds of temperatures would require a feed to be hidden nearby. He smashes the ostrich egg and finds a gizmo inside. “If you’re as clever as me, then a teleportation field can be reversed,” he says smugly. He twists the gizmo and Cassandra reappears, gloating about her victory, then trailing off awkwardly. The Doctor calls her a murderer, that people are dead, and Cassandra says that depends on your definition of people. Ouch. She dares him to take her to court, where her lawyers will keep the case tied up for years. He points out that she’s creaking, and she realises that her Moisturising Men haven’t reappeared with her. She’s drying out.

Cassandra screams to be moisturised, and Rose tells the Doctor to help her. He has no fucks to give: “Everything has its time and everything dies,” he says. Cassandra explodes, and The Doctor walks away. Cut to an empty Manchester Suite, the computer voiceover-ing that the station is now closed for maintenance. Rose stares out the window, and says that after all that, no one saw the Earth go. They were too busy trying to save themselves. The Doctor holds out his hand. She takes it, and he leads her away.

She emerges from the TARDIS is 2005 and stands in a crowded London street, a little teary as she watches life teem around her. The Doctor tells her that nothing lasts forever, no matter what you think. His planet, he says, is gone. Nothing but rocks and dust before its time. Rose asks what happened, and he says that there was a war. She asks what happened to his people, and he replies “I’m a Time Lord. I’m the last of the Time Lords. They’re all gone. I’m the only survivor. I’m left travelling on my own ‘cos there’s no one else…” She says that he’s got her, and he’s a little surprised to hear that she doesn’t want to go home. She tells him that he has to buy her chips before their next adventure, and they head off to find some, smiling at each other as we throw to the credits.

Lor: Chips are fries, right? Because if yes, than yeah I’d need some fries after that adventure. Extra ketchup.

Sweeney: Food first, decisions later. Maybe a nap in between, too.

K: I’m pretty sure that should be the Snark Squad motto.

 

Next time on Doctor Who: A wee jaunt to the nineteenth century goes a little bit awry in S01 E03 – The Unquiet Dead.