Rate "The End Of The World"

Greetings and felicitations upon this happenstance.

Episode 2 of the first series is up for your thoughts, comments and reactions, both from when you first saw it, and what you think of it today. Please, no repeated memes.

4/5 from me.

Rose gave us the comfortable location of our home planet. It's followup proceeded to blow up that location, showing us that Rose (and the viewer) is well out of her comfort zone and that anything can happen in this series. This episode is as introductory as Rose is, introducing us more to the Doctor. And it does it so well. A fun little episode with plenty of Douglas Adams homages.

5/5 - Rose got me watching Doctor Who again, but this is the episode that turned me back into a fan. It's one of RTD's little gems, the sort of episode you can watch again and again, always discovering new things in it. The final scene is the absolute standout, with an amazing performance by Eccleston rising to meet the script.

Yet again, another writing masterclass. Consider how much information this exchange passes to the viewer:

The Doctor: You think it'll last forever, the people and cars and concrete. But it won't. One day it's all gone, even the sky. My planet's gone. It's dead. It burned like the Earth. It's rocks and dust before its time.
Rose Tyler: What happened?
The Doctor: There was a war, and we lost.
Rose Tyler: A war with who?
[the Doctor doesn't answer]
Rose Tyler: What about your people?
The Doctor: I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of them. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own because there's no-one else.
Rose Tyler: There's me.

Seven lines, and you've got the Last Great Time War, the death of Gallifrey, the fact that the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords and Rose planting herself firmly at his side. Bloody marvellous, it is.

This was the episode that made me realise that I'm watching something really special. The last ten minutes especially were superb - the end of the world and the Doctor's reveal, for the first time ever Doctor Who made me want to cry.

I wish there was Outpost Wrinkly in 2005...

5/5

5/5 from me too. Still a favourite of mine.

One of the best info dumps ever. But not quite a 5 for me. Really good story though.

Growing up watching Doctor Who, the array of aliens was always one of the areas where the show was willing to experiment. The aliens have always been part and parcel of the Who experience. So the "next time" trailers following Rose got me hooked.

But the story was so much more. It was all a very entertaining set up for the seven lines of exposition Nick pointed out up-thread. That was the moment I understood that Who was in very capable hands. In retrospect now, some five years from having first seen it, I believe that episode was the one which cemented Doctor Who's longevity in the 21rst century.

I think in rating it, The End Of The World comes in somewhere between a four and a five, but I'm feeling generous in my nostalgia at the moment, so it gets my first five.

I also gave it a 5. I loved this episode, I watched it several times in the week it aired.