Episode 1.02

The Doctor and Rose are on a space station "Platform One", orbiting what the Doctor tells his companion is Earth – in the final moments of its life, 5 billion years into the future. The station is there so the rich and famous can watch the spectacle.

Rose gets to meet all sorts of aliens as they arrive to view the supernova, including the “last human”. Humanity have interbred and genetically modified itself until there are no “pure” humans left, except for Cassandra – who has had so many operations she is now merely a piece of skin, stretched on a frame.

Of course, whenever the Doctor is around, someone is bound to get up to something. And so it happens here as it appears one of the alien races is intent on eliminating everyone on the station.

This episode really does harken back to the glory days of Doctor Who and the BBC. The episode does make use of better technology and a bigger budget but, fortunately, never loses its intrinsic “Britishness”. Like all aliens in Star Trek talk American, all aliens in Doctor Who speak the language of the Mother Country – though even this is explained in a nice reference to the power of the TARDIS.

Eccleston has settled into the role of the Doctor beautifully, and it will be a shame to see him leave at the end of this season. His Doctor is both comedian and combatant, intellectual and soldier. His face conveys the most serious of intents to only suddenly break out in the widest grin and we realise yes, everything is OK, the Doctor is on the case. A Time Lord with a sense of humour.

Billie Piper again acquits herself well as Rose. While this episode does relegate her somewhat to being “the damsel in distress” she does get a couple of good moments, especially where she has a verbal sparring with Cassandra, the “last human”, about what it actually means to be human.

A good, simple, self-contained story well told and well acted. The effects are top notch, but they never overtake the story – well, almost never. The huge spinning fans in the episode’s climax can be forgiven, with the Doctor’s throwaway line “they probably call this retro” – almost a nod and a wink to the original series.