Episode 002 : The End of the World

So, it's been...a while. Originally my goal was to finish writing posts about the first four seasons before the fifth season started, but obviously I've utterly failed at that. I blame no one but myself and my lazy nature. Sorry to any who care.

This really was an interesting episode, though. It's full of wit and drama and all that fun stuff...as well as more mystery. Let's take a look, shall we?

"She's my 'plus 1'."

Wow. If that's not a pretty picture, then I don't know what is. But what is this picture, exactly? Well, it's the year 5.5 /apple/26 of course! Five billion years into the future. The day the SUN EXPANDS. Basically, Rose and the Doctor are crashing a party on the famous satellite 5 (gotta love that slightly psychic paper). It's a party where the best of the best and the richest of the rich come to watch this ancient planet roast. Now I'm not sure about you, but if I were searching for a companion, I probably wouldn't use the death of her world as a persuasion tool, but somehow it works for the Doctor and Rose.

"You lot. You spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're going to get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible: that maybe you survive."

Now when I say the "best of the best", I don't mean humans. In fact, Rose is the only human there... Unless you count Cassandra, of course, but who would count her?

Honestly, though, she is the most entertaining part of this episode. It's always fun to see how history changes in time, and Cassandra's facts, wherever she learned them, are a bit skewed. For example, as a gift she presents the "last remaining ostrich egg"... It's normal looking enough, but I wouldn't want to be around when it hatched. According to her, it had a wingspan of fifty feet and breathed fire out of its nose. Her second gift is an iPod...except it's actually a jukebox. I'm not complaining, though, because, like the iPod, it also holds music from "humanities greatest composers"...aka Soft Cell. Although it is nice to think that of everything we've done as a species, and out of everything we'll ever do, all that will be remembered of this world are fire-breathing birds and 80's music. Honestly, I would be okay with that.



Cassandra doesn't stop there, though. It's a bit subtle, but you may have noticed that she doesn't exactly look human. Sure, she has the fleshy skin-color and a brain (even if it is in a jar), but where is the flesh? This is the product of yet another act of brilliance on the part of the writer(s). Cassandra is the result of a thousand (or, rather, two-thousand) years of a ridiculously extreme desire to be thin. The first thing she says when she enters the room is a reference to the difference made in her figure from having her chin removed. Is this a statement about society or just British humor? Probably British humor.

...

Then again, when does this show not have to do with some sort of evil human quality?

After all, it turns out that Cassandra is more than just a flab of skin. She's an evil, greedy, murderous flab of skin. That's right, she's the villain in this plot. Her plan is to kill everyone on the satellite to make money. This, naturally, is proof that she is, in fact, human.

Not to worry, though, because there are living, humanoid "trees" around to help the Doctor save the world. Or...at least the aliens on board. The Earth still gets roasted.

That's all I have for this episode, though.

Stay moisturized!