1.2: The End of the World
Synopsis: The Doctor takes Rose five billion years into her future to show her the day when the sun expands and the Earth burns up. A motley crew of life forms have gathered aboard an orbiting space station to watch the scheduled spectacle, revealing, among other things, that humans are all but extinct and trees have evolved into talking humanoids. Lady Cassandra O'Brien, the last human, is aboard, though she is only a stretched piece of skin with a face. She has planted mean little spider-like robots throughout the ship, programmed to sabotage the space station's machinery and manufacture a hostage situation, in order to collect compensation. As a result, the heat shields are disabled throughout the space station, and Cassandra teleports out, hoping to cash in on some Earth property shares after the deaths of her rivals. The Doctor is able to restore the heat shields, as well as bring Cassandra to a kind of poetic justice.
After the death of the Earth, Rose is understandably distraught. The Doctor returns her to her own time, and confesses that his own home planet burned in a war, and that his people are all dead.
Golden Comic Moment: When Lady Cassandra is offering gifts from Earth, she presents a 1950's jukebox and identifies it as an iPod, claiming it plays the greatest of Earth's classic music. When Tainted Love begins to grace us with its camp presence, one cannot help but laugh. Especially when the Doctor begins to bounce a bit to the music.
Golden Fangirl Moment: In order to restore the heat shields, the Doctor must cross a bridge interrupted by three giant air-conditioner propellers, which could slice him in half longways, if he made a false move. Jabe, the highly evolved tree is holding the propellers' speed down, and the Doctor crosses two of them by timing it the way any one of us might time a miniature golf shot to pass by a windmill. But when the heat becomes too much for Jabe, the propellers' speed picks up to their full, dizzying speed and the Doctor is caught between two of them. Unable to time it, unable to follow the propeller with his eyes, he goes into deep meditation, is able to "sense" the movement of the mighty propeller, and step through unharmed.
This is powerful to a fangirl because it is a moment that reveals a great spiritual power lying beneath the Doctor's whimsical and/or raw exterior. A wellspring of hidden power is a fascinating thing to have, it's a stimulating thing to witness, and this moment constitutes one of Christopher Eccleston's sexiest as the Doctor.
Cringeworthy Moment: When the impossible happens, and Lady Cassandra finds herself aboard the space station without her flunkies, the heightened temperature causes her to dry out with no possibility of moisturising. It's not the Doctor's questionable morality in his decision not to help her that makes this incident cringeworthy. It's the grossness. Her eyes bulge, her skin turns grey and crackly, and when she finally snaps, bloody slabs of skin go flying everywhere and make a squishy noise. Though we are spared any of these skin pieces sloshing the Doctor or Rose's person, this is best watched on fast-forward.
Golden Moment: It's a combination, a series of moments in which Rose realises the impact of what has happened to her, and what it is to be here, in this place at this time. She is five billion years from home, she is the only human being in existence (more or less) and the only one she can count on here is a virtual stranger. It begins when she is speaking to the plumber about having "sort of hitched a ride with this man," and extends to when she and the Doctor are on the observation deck and she demands to be to be told more about him. He fixes her phone to have universal roaming and she speaks to her mum in another time. Later, she lectures Cassandra about humanity, not just being human. Rose is coming into her own as the Doctor's companion, and embodying the qualities that we know he will come to value very much in her.
Why I Beg To Differ: DWM chose two moments. 1) The parade of strange and magical creatures that are on display as spectators to the Earth Death event, and 2) when Rose and the Doctor return to the 21st century after seeing the Earth die, and he points out that life here will not go on forever, and confesses the truth about his own lost planet. On the latter, I can agree, it is a Golden Moment, and certainly the first catharsis in the relationship between the Doctor and Rose. But their relationship, ultimately, is not just about confessionals, secrets and lies. However, Rose's character does ultimately wind up being oh-so-human, in contrast to her oh-so-Time-Lord friend, which is why I felt that Rose's development in this episode was more Golden than the Doctor's revelations about Gallifrey.
After the death of the Earth, Rose is understandably distraught. The Doctor returns her to her own time, and confesses that his own home planet burned in a war, and that his people are all dead.
Golden Comic Moment: When Lady Cassandra is offering gifts from Earth, she presents a 1950's jukebox and identifies it as an iPod, claiming it plays the greatest of Earth's classic music. When Tainted Love begins to grace us with its camp presence, one cannot help but laugh. Especially when the Doctor begins to bounce a bit to the music.
Golden Fangirl Moment: In order to restore the heat shields, the Doctor must cross a bridge interrupted by three giant air-conditioner propellers, which could slice him in half longways, if he made a false move. Jabe, the highly evolved tree is holding the propellers' speed down, and the Doctor crosses two of them by timing it the way any one of us might time a miniature golf shot to pass by a windmill. But when the heat becomes too much for Jabe, the propellers' speed picks up to their full, dizzying speed and the Doctor is caught between two of them. Unable to time it, unable to follow the propeller with his eyes, he goes into deep meditation, is able to "sense" the movement of the mighty propeller, and step through unharmed.
This is powerful to a fangirl because it is a moment that reveals a great spiritual power lying beneath the Doctor's whimsical and/or raw exterior. A wellspring of hidden power is a fascinating thing to have, it's a stimulating thing to witness, and this moment constitutes one of Christopher Eccleston's sexiest as the Doctor.
Cringeworthy Moment: When the impossible happens, and Lady Cassandra finds herself aboard the space station without her flunkies, the heightened temperature causes her to dry out with no possibility of moisturising. It's not the Doctor's questionable morality in his decision not to help her that makes this incident cringeworthy. It's the grossness. Her eyes bulge, her skin turns grey and crackly, and when she finally snaps, bloody slabs of skin go flying everywhere and make a squishy noise. Though we are spared any of these skin pieces sloshing the Doctor or Rose's person, this is best watched on fast-forward.
Golden Moment: It's a combination, a series of moments in which Rose realises the impact of what has happened to her, and what it is to be here, in this place at this time. She is five billion years from home, she is the only human being in existence (more or less) and the only one she can count on here is a virtual stranger. It begins when she is speaking to the plumber about having "sort of hitched a ride with this man," and extends to when she and the Doctor are on the observation deck and she demands to be to be told more about him. He fixes her phone to have universal roaming and she speaks to her mum in another time. Later, she lectures Cassandra about humanity, not just being human. Rose is coming into her own as the Doctor's companion, and embodying the qualities that we know he will come to value very much in her.
Why I Beg To Differ: DWM chose two moments. 1) The parade of strange and magical creatures that are on display as spectators to the Earth Death event, and 2) when Rose and the Doctor return to the 21st century after seeing the Earth die, and he points out that life here will not go on forever, and confesses the truth about his own lost planet. On the latter, I can agree, it is a Golden Moment, and certainly the first catharsis in the relationship between the Doctor and Rose. But their relationship, ultimately, is not just about confessionals, secrets and lies. However, Rose's character does ultimately wind up being oh-so-human, in contrast to her oh-so-Time-Lord friend, which is why I felt that Rose's development in this episode was more Golden than the Doctor's revelations about Gallifrey.