Rose, somewhat upset that The Doctor hasn’t told her that the TARDIS has to enter her brain in order to translate things, berates The Doctor for not warning her. With the obvious exception of K-9, these are possibly my all-time favourite bots. Then we are treated to some rather wonderful scuttling robots and it’s on with the story. The Doctor flirts with a beautiful tree, and it’s all a bit Restaurant at the End of the Universe meets the bar in Star Wars for a while. Mention of iPods threatens to give the whole thing a spot of premature ageing. Rusty manages to get a disco joke in there, which is fine, but the two subsequent ones are at least two too many. He may be back one day, of course, but it’s starting to feel a little unlikely. He can probably claim the honour of being the first loose thread in Nu-Who. The disembodied head became a semi-ongoing enigma with a view to some never-occurring Torchwood tie-up. We also get our first glimpse of the Face of Boe. The whole execution of the character is superb – good concept, great effects, fine acting. Last to be introduced, however, is the piece de resistance, the villainous Cassandra played with a wonderfully slimy iciness by Zoe Wanamaker. Some of these creatures will figure later in the piece, others will not. The resulting procession of aliens is a little like Romana’s regeneration scene – a fashion show for the costume team. Several groups of guests are announced in quick succession. It’s a sizeable chunk of the season’s budget that we’re about to witness. There are, apparently, 203 SFX shots in this episode. We have our first view of psychic paper, something that seems to have gone out of fashion lately, and boing! As if by magic, the budget appears. Any concerns about the scenery are soon put to rest by the appearance of Simon Day who is wonderful as the unnamed steward. It’s a nice set enough set, though and the backgrounds are good. It inevitably looks more like a 21st Century conference suite than its 5 billion AD counterpart might be expected to.
The interior is far more ’96 movie than ’89 episode and it’s none the worse for that. The Doctor springs straight into action pumping a rather steam-punky TARDIS through time. New viewers were still to see the TARDIS in action, so we were duly whisked to an observation platform somewhere in the vicinity of our solar system, some 5 billion years from now.
Having spent an episode in contemporary London, it was clearly time for a journey in time and space. Would it be a flawless follow-up or a case of tricky-second-album syndrome? But ultimately those moments can't fully make up for the questionable science that makes up all of the episodes conclusion.After the triumphant return of Doctor Who, the next adventure took us all the way to the end of the world. There are also a couple of gags based on not quite swear words that were good too. The conceit of Cassandra jumping into other people gives, particularly Billie Piper, a chance to show some more of her comedic ability - she does this better than either Tennant or Sean Gallagher, who both just do generic posh women. But what the episode does do well is humour. It was interesting to read about the weather issues that affected the episode in the trivia section, as that helps explain a few times when sets are reused even when that doesn't make a lot of sense for the episode - this is particularly evident in the Zombie-esque finale.
The practical effects though are much better, with the cat nurses looking particularly good, along with the infecteds general boils and sores. Cassandra herself, in her first form, and the transition effects, later in the episode, as people succumb to the disease are also pretty bad. There is some bad CGI work to kick off this episode, that shows things haven't really improved that much yet, despite what must have been a higher effects budget than before. But another former acquaintance, the villainess Cassandra (Zoe Wanamaker) is hiding in the basement, and on seeing Rose again, formulates a plan. They are called to a hospital on the outskirts of New New York, where amongst some miraculous and ahead of schedule medical breakthroughs, the Face of Boe appears to be approaching the end. The Doctor (David Tennant) and Rose (Billie Piper) travel to New Earth, a colony set up on a planet whose orbit and atmosphere are aligned with the previous Earth, prior to the destruction we saw in the episode "The End of the World".
A smart sequel to Rose and the Doctor's first ever off world story that, whilst fun, has the odd technical issue and storyline flaw that stops the episode reaching the top tier.