Signing in from the “traumatized by Cassandra” brigade. Even knowing how this one ended, I still spent most of the episode worried somebody was going to trip over and tear right through her.

It’s funny to see this episode starting out being thrifty with the budget (opening with a time travel montage where we only see the inside of the TARDIS) and then very spend-y a few minutes later (CGI everything, needle drops from Soft Cell and Britney Spears). I don’t know if BBC has any kind of special deal to use music for broadcast, but even if they do, it probably doesn’t apply to streaming or home releases, so this episode has probably remained expensive.

According to Doctor Who Confidential, this one was deliberately high budget, as a showcase for what it can do at the top end of the scale. I’m not really sure what to make of it. High-budget Doctor Who is always a bit of a mixed bag. The most iconic villain is an upside-down dustbin, so how much does it stand to gain from a cash injection? The strongest stuff in this episode is in the smaller scenes, when Nine is chatting with either Jabe or Rose, or even when we’re watching solo Rose contemplate mortality.

I don’t dislike the episode, it’s just not really doing what I expect to see from DW, which is a compelling story told for about six bob, using a bit of theatrical creativity and strongly written characters. Still, I guess it’s good that it sets the bounds of what you should expect to see from the series: it’s either people in mannequin suits or an effects extravaganza. If you haven’t seen something you liked yet by this point, the show probably isn’t for you.

I…don’t really think this one is all that good?

I’m going to jump straight into something that I forgot to talk about last week: the Ninth Doctor himself. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what sets him apart from the others, and…for me, it’s his goofy aloofness. He’s at once extremely enthusiastic and slightly contemptuous of those around him, with an edge that definitely doesn’t carry forward to his successors. He certainly throws Rose into the deep end in this episode, dropping her far into the future, well after everyone she knows is dead and gone, just in time to (almost) watch her planet get destroyed by the sun.

There are really nice character bits throughout, like Raffalo the plumber and of course Jabe the tree lady. Lady Cassandra certainly is memorable.

The Doctor lets Cassandra dry out until she explodes in the end. Remember kids, the Doctor never does cruel things, and the more recent seasons have ruined everything!

Not the worst episode ever, but hardly the best. It continues to focus on Rose’s journey, and her reaction to exactly what it means to travel through time and space. It also continues to lay out the Doctor’s backstory in small drips.

Edit: Oh, and it’s sort of weird that they didn’t tie the Adherents of the Repeated Meme more directly into the Bad Wolf nonsense.