The World's End of Time

The World's End of Time was the second episode of Season 42 of Doctor Who. It was written by Russell T Davies, directed by Euros Lyn and featured Hugh Grant as the Doctor & Stephen Fry as Sam Youto.

## The World's End Of Time

### Director

Euros Lyn

Synopsis

The TARDIS lands in the year 5,000,000,000 to see the sun expand and destroy the Earth. The observation deck space station, Platform One, is holding an event with the richest beings of the time observing the Earth's destruction, but mysterious metal spiders gifted by the Adherents of the Repeated Meme to the other guests are secretly infiltrating and sabotaging the station.

Plot

The Doctor takes Sam to a space station orbiting Earth five billion years in the future. As they watch in amazement, the Sun expands partially — "Welcome to the end of the world", the Doctor tells Sam as he looks on forlornly.

The Doctor tells Sam that Earth has long been empty of any kind of life. Mankind left it long ago and the planet was taken over by the National Trust. They have used gravity satellites to hold the effects of the Sun back, but the money has run out. Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun at last. The rich and powerful of the universe will witness the end of the world, which will occur in about half an hour. The Doctor tells Sam that he has no intention of saving the planet. The station has automated systems and is staffed by blue-skinned humanoids.

On encountering the blue-skinned Steward, who manages Platform One, the Doctor persuades him that he and Sam are invited guests by using a piece of psychic paper that makes people see what the Doctor wants. The other guests arrive, including the diminutive Moxx of Balhoon, the Face of Boe, living humanoid trees from the Forest of Cheem (whose ancestors originated on Earth) and, from Financial Family Seven, a group of hooded aliens known as the Adherents of the Repeated Meme. Sam watches in horrified fascination as the last living human arrives — the Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17, a piece of stretched-out skin with eyes and a mouth, mounted on a frame and connected to a brain jar. The skin needs to be constantly moisturised by her attendants. The guests exchange gifts. Jabe of the Forest of Cheem gives the Doctor a cutting taken from her grandfather. The Doctor gives her the gift of air from his lungs. The Moxx gives the gift of bodily salivas, and the Adherents of the Repeated Meme hand out gifts of "peace" in the form of metal spheres, even to the Steward.

Cassandra gives her own gifts: the last ostrich egg, and an "iPod" (actually a jukebox) from ancient Earth. Sam is a bit overwhelmed when the jukebox plays "classical" music — the song "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell — and leaves the hall. The Doctor receives a call about the TARDIS' parking place and is given a ticket telling him where it is being moved. Elsewhere, Sam has a brief conversation with a station plumber, Raffalo, who is investigating a blockage. At first he is comforted by the familiarity of Raffalo's matter-of-fact, working-class manner, but when Raffalo explains that he is from Crespallion, which is part of the Jaggit Brocade, affiliated to the Scarlet Junction in Complex 56, Sam realises just how far he is from home. He leaves and does not see Raffalo spot small, spider-like robots in the ducts, which rapidly grab him and pull him inside. The spiders are being disgorged from the metal spheres gifted by the Adherents of the Repeated Meme to guests. They soon infiltrate the entire station, sabotaging its systems.

The Doctor finds Sam. When the Doctor alters Sam's mobile phone so he can talk to his mother in the past, another fact sinks in — his mother is long dead. The Doctor jokes that if Sam thought the telephone call was amazing, he should see the bill. Suddenly, a tremor shakes the station, and the Doctor gleefully observes that was not supposed to happen. The Steward, investigating the cause of the tremor, is killed when a spider lowers the sun filter in his room, exposing him to the direct heat of the Sun's rays.

The Doctor starts to look into the tremor and Jabe offers to show him where the maintenance corridors are, while Sam goes to speak to Cassandra. Sam finds Cassandra has had seven hundred and eight cosmetic operations and considers herself the last "pure" human — the others who left "intermingled" with other species and she considers them all mongrels. Her next operation, to bleach her blood, is next week. Disgusted that humanity has come to this, Sam insults Cassandra and storms off, with the Adherents following him. They find Sam in the corridor and the leader hits him in the head, knocking him unconscious. The leader then grabs Sam’s leg and drags him away.

In the corridors, Jabe quietly tells the Doctor that she scanned him earlier, and was astonished to discover he exists. She sympathises with him and the Doctor is briefly moved to tears. They continue to the bowels of the station, where they find one of the spiders. Jabe captures it with a long, vine-like appendage.

As the station's systems continue to fail and, as a "traditional ballad" — Britney Spears singing "Toxic" — plays on the jukebox, Sam slowly wakes up and realises that he is in a room with a lowering sun filter. The Doctor hears his cries for help and raises the filter, but Sam is still locked in. Returning to the main hall, he releases the spider to seek out its master. It first scurries over to Cassandra and then veers towards Adherents of the Repeated Meme. The Doctor says that a "meme" is just an idea and reveals that the Adherents are robots as they collapse to the floor. He then sends the spider out to find who was controlling them and it goes directly to Cassandra.

Cassandra has her attendants hold the others at bay, saying the moisturiser guns can also shoot acid. Her operations cost a fortune and she was hoping to create a hostage situation while pretending to be one of the victims herself and later seek compensation. Now she will just let everyone burn while the shares in the guests' rival companies Cassandra holds will triple in price. Cassandra orders the spiders to shut off the force field protecting the station, then uses a teleportation device to transport herself and her attendants away.

With only minutes until the Sun incinerates Earth and the station, the Doctor and Jabe rush back to the air-conditioning chamber. The restore switch for the computer systems is at the other end of a platform blocked by giant rotating fans. The Doctor protests the rising heat will burn the wooden Jabe, but she insists on staying to hold down the switch that slows the fans. The Doctor makes it nearly to the end before Jabe catches fire and burns. He closes his eyes and concentrates, making it past the last fan and throwing the reset switch. The force fields come up around the station just as the Earth explodes into cinders. The station's systems start to self-repair.

Several of the guests are now dead, incinerated as the Sun's rays burst through cracks in the windows. The Doctor finds Cassandra's teleportation feed inside the ostrich egg and reverses it to bring her back. She starts taunting the Doctor, saying that he cannot do anything about her. However, the Doctor calmly notes he has transported Cassandra back without her moisturising attendants. In the heat, she begins to dry out. Cassandra begs for mercy and Sam asks the Doctor to help her, but the Doctor coldly says that everything has its time and everything dies. Cassandra's skin stretches and tears, her innards exploding, leaving only her brain tank and empty frame.

Cast

The Doctor - Hugh Grant

Sam Youto - Stephen Fry

Steward - Simon Day

Jabe - Yasmin Bannerman

Moxx of Balhoon - Jimmy Vee

Cassandra - Zoë Wanamaker

Jackie Tyler - Camille Coduri

Raffalo - Beccy Armory

Computer Voice - Sara Stewart

Alien Voices - Silas Carson

Uncredited cast

Coffa - Paul Kasey

Lute - Alan Ruscoe

Cal MacNannovitch - Ioan Mansaray

Noxwen Van Coofen - Alex Yell

Mr. Pakoo - Matthew Hill

Mrs. Pakoo - Trey Tyler

Brothers Hop Pyleen - Giles Hibberd, Josh Kingston

Surgeons - Von Pearce, John Collins[2]

Ambassadors - Toby Hunt, Jamie Jones

Scholars - Greg Mothersdale, Keith Newell, Matthew Gilbert, Adam Moore

Crew

Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber

Executive Producers - Ira Steven Behr and Julie Gardner

Co-Executive Producers - Ronald D. Moore, Paul Cornell and Robert Shearman

Producer - Tony Redston

Script Editor - Russell T Davies

Writer - Russell T Davies

Director - Euros Lyn

Director of Photography - David Odd

Production Designer - Chris Wilkinson

Visual Effects - The Mill

Make-Up - Davy Jones

Casting Director - Andy Pryor

Music - Murray Gold

Costume Designer - Emma Rosenthal

Edited by - Tony Cranstoun

Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer

Title Sequence - BBC Wales VFX

Music conducted & orchestrated by Ben Foster

Memorable Quotes

To be added.

Background Information

To be added.

Development

To be added.

Pre-Production

To be added.

Production

To be added.

Post-Production

To be added.

Reaction

This episode received a 7-Day Viewing Figure from BARB of 7.23m viewers. It ranked at 20th over the week.

Story Notes

To be added.

Continuity

To be added.

Home Video Releases

To be added.