Doctor Who: The End Of The World

Now this is more like it! The End Of The World was an old school Tom Baker era outer-space adventure, heaving with exotic aliens, given a Russel T Davies makeover.

Sure, Rose had the Nestene, a wibbly-wobbly jelly creature, and the humanoid Autons, but this tale, of attempted murder on aspace station packed with rich tourists observing the death of planet Earth in the year five billion, has way more.

Already immortalised as highly desirable action figures, this episode gave us Cassandra ("The Last Human"), The Face of Boe and The Moxx of Balhoon, but also introduced us to (hopefully future action figures in the form of): The living trees of the Forest of Cheem, the ambassadors from the city state of Binding Light, Mr & Mrs Pakoo (possibly Skeksis from The Dark Crystal), cybernetic hyperstar Cal MacNannovich, the Adherants of the Repeated Meme, the Steward and his diminuitive blue staff etc.

Sadly, this potentially great story is riddled with supposedly humourous anarchronisms that just jar (particularly the 'classical music' playing on Cassandra's jukebox ... as though in five billion years Britney's Toxic will be the zenith of musical achievement or even still exist!) and also sees the first appearance of Rose's supermobile phone - so she can keep in contact with her mum back in 2005. None of the Doctor's previous companions were that needy!

It just makes you realise how true that Charlotte Church skit was for the first series of Doctor Who - despite having all of time and space to travel in, their adventures, more often than not, seemed to revolve around some grotty London council estate in the early 21st Century (that happened to look like Cardiff).