History Recap / DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld

* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: On a species-level: The Doctor points out to Rose that, for all the time humans spend thinking about dying out, it never occurs to them that maybe they survive. It's implied that the reason he brought her to this particular point in time was to show her that even the destruction of their planet didn't wipe them out as a species, even though they don't resemble the humans of Rose's time anymore.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Rose refers to Cassandra as a "bitchy trampoline".

* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment[=/=]ShapedLikeItself: "They're just so alien. The aliens are so alien. You look at them... and they're alien."

* [[{{Jaccuse}} J'accuse!]]: "The Adherents of the Repeated Meme: J'accuse!"

* LegacyImplosion: The Doctor goes from being a renegade on the run to the ''last of his species'', his entire planet having been wiped out in a catastrophic war. The Time Lords, by extension, go from being pompous academics to a mythic lost race.

-->'''Announcement:''' Guests are reminded that Platform 1 forbids the use of weapons, teleportation, and religion.

* FateWorseThanDeath: When Cassandra suggests Rose could be "flatter", Rose immediately says she'd rather die.

On encountering the Steward, who manages Platform One, the Doctor persuades him that he and Rose are invited guests by using his psychic paper. As the Doctor and Rose wait, the other guests arrive and are announced, including the diminutive Moxx of Balhoon, the Face of Boe, living humanoid trees from the Forest of Cheem (whose ancestors originated on Earth), the brothers Hop Pyleen (inventors of hypo-slip travel systems), Cal Spark Plug, Mr. and Mrs. Pakoo, the Ambassadors from the City State of Binding Light, and, from Financial Family Seven, the hooded Adherents of the Repeated Meme. Rose watches in horrified fascination as the guest of honor arrives; Earth's last human, the Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17, a piece of stretched-out skin with eyes and a mouth that are mounted on a frame and connected to a brain jar. The skin needs to be constantly moisturized 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" (a jukebox) from ancient Earth. Rose 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, Rose has a brief conversation with a station plumber, Raffalo, who is investigating a blockage. At first she is comforted by the familiarity of Raffalo's matter-of-fact, working-class manner, but when Raffalo explains that she is from Crespallion, which is part of the Jaggit Brocade, affiliated to the Scarlet Junction in Complex 56, Rose realises just how far she is from home, with a man she does not know. She leaves and does not see Raffalo spot small, spider-like robots in the ducts, which rapidly grab her and pull her 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 Rose. When she asks where he is from, he brushes off her questions. When the Doctor alters Rose's mobile phone so she can talk to her mother in the past, another fact sinks in — her mother is long dead. The Doctor jokes that if Rose thought the telephone call was amazing, she 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 Rose goes to speak to Cassandra. Rose finds Cassandra has had 708 cosmetic operations and considers herself the last "pure" human — the others who left "intermingled" with other species and she considers them all mongrels. Her 709th operation, to bleach her blood, is next week. Disgusted that humanity has come to this, Rose insults Cassandra and storms off, only to be met by the Adherents, and the leader pistol-whips her with his gauntlet, knocking her unconscious.

As the station's systems continue to fail and, as a "traditional ballad" (Britney Spears singing "Toxic") plays on the jukebox, Rose wakes up and is trapped in a room with a lowering sun filter. The Doctor hears her cries for help and raises the filter, but Rose 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 finds this to be a clever attempt at misdirection, since a meme is just an idea, and rips off one of the Adherents' arms, revealing they are robots, which all collapse to the floor. He then sends the spider out to find who was controlling them and it goes directly to Cassandra.

* NiceToTheWaiter: Rose is kind enough to give a drudge permission to speak (!).

* ObviouslyEvil: Lady Cassandra.

* {{Troll}}: The aforementioned line stating religion is not allowed on Platform One is one of those controversial moments where Creator/RussellTDavies, the showrunner at the time, [[AuthorFilibuster professed his own beliefs in the narratives]] (or lack thereof). [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon Two episodes later]], he would add another controversial line that used the word "gay" in derogatory manner. And he would later pull a similar stunt in ''Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' involving a religious woman's suicide after she thought "science had won".

On encountering the Steward, who manages Platform One, the Doctor persuades him that he and Rose are invited guests by using a piece of psychic paper that makes people see what the Doctor wants. As the Doctor and Rose wait, the other guests arrive and are announced, including the diminutive Moxx of Balhoon, the Face of Boe, living humanoid trees from the Forest of Cheem (whose ancestors originated on Earth), the brothers Hop Pyleen (inventors of hypo-slip travel systems), Cal Spark Plug, Mr. and Mrs. Pakoo, the Ambassadors from the City State of Binding Light, and, from Financial Family Seven, the hooded Adherents of the Repeated Meme. Rose watches in horrified fascination as the guest of honor arrives; Earth's last human, the Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17, a piece of stretched-out skin with eyes and a mouth that are mounted on a frame and connected to a brain jar. The skin needs to be constantly moisturized 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.

Earth has long been empty of any kind of life. The humans left it long ago and the planet was taken over by the National Trust. They have used gravity satellites to hold back the effects of the Sun, but the money has run out. Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun at last. The rich and powerful of the universe will gather here [[SnuffFilm witness the end of the world]], which will occur in about half an hour. The station has automated systems and is staffed by blue-skinned humanoids.

Faced with the utter strangeness of the universe and the tragic briefness of life, Rose decides... that they had better go get some chips. After all, they've only got five billion years till the shops close.

The Doctor starts to look into the tremor and Jabe offers to show him where the maintenance corridors are, while Rose goes to speak to Cassandra. Rose finds Cassandra has had 708 cosmetic operations and considers herself the last "pure" human — the others who left "intermingled" with other species and she considers them all mongrels. Her 708th operation, to bleach her blood, is next week. Disgusted that humanity has come to this, Rose insults Cassandra and storms off, only to be met by the Adherents, and the leader pistol-whips her with his gauntlet, knocking her unconscious.

On encountering the Steward, who manages Platform One, the Doctor persuades him that he and Rose are invited guests by using a piece of psychic paper that makes people see what the Doctor wants. As the Doctor and Rose wait, the other guests arrive and are announced, 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, the hooded Adherents of the Repeated Meme. Rose watches in horrified fascination as the last living human arrives, Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17, a piece of stretched-out skin with eyes and a mouth that are mounted on a frame and connected to a brain jar. The skin needs to be constantly moisturized 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.

It's the year 5.5/Apple/26 when the Doctor and Rose materialise aboard Platform One, a cruciform space station orbiting a dying star. The star is, in fact, our Sun; and in a few minutes, it will finally expand and consume the Earth. This is considered high entertainment in the future — SnuffFilm writ large — so there's a collection of the rich aboard the platform. The guests include a giant face in a jar called the Face of Boe (who will become important later); the last pure human, Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17 (who will also become important later) and a group of tree people. One of them, Jabe, twigs (heh) to the Doctor's oddness, and persuades her PDA to identify his species.

The Doctor seems well at ease in this company, but Rose is completely at sea. She wanders off and has a few second thoughts about this adventure business, as she realises that she is five billion years in the future in the company of a manic alien.

Meanwhile, some serious weirdness is transpiring aboard the platform. Little spider robots are crawling all over the place, pulling fun pranks like lowering the space station's sun filters so as to give anyone unfortunate enough to be around a fatal suntan.

The Doctor rejoins Rose, and they watch doomed Earth spin. Rose anxiously presses the Doctor for more information on his people, homeworld, etc.; the Doctor snaps at her for excessive nosiness, gives her mobile an upgrade to make up for it, then goes off to explore the station. Rose calls her mum for a bit of reassurance. (Although the call accidentally overshoots a little, and reaches Jackie some time ''before'' Rose met the Doctor.)

After Rose insults Cassandra, the mysterious Adherents of the Repeated Meme place her in a room where another set of sun filters are descending. The Doctor saves her, but the door is stuck after being damaged by the intense rays.

Investigating the air conditioning following a mysterious shaking in the space station, the Doctor finds one of the spiders. With the help of Jabe, the Doctor sends the spider back to its masters. The Doctor realizes the Adherents of the Repeated Meme is just a meme, an idea, or in other words: a fake. They're just remote controlled robots and the actual culprit was Cassandra, who intended to create a phony hostage situation and get rich off compensation claims. She teleports away while her spiders, having infiltrated the station deep, deactivate the shields. The glass on the station's exterior begins to break under the strain.

The Doctor and Jabe rush to find the button to reset the computer, restoring the safeties: the space station was manned entirely by computers, computers the spiders compromised, and the makers of the "unsinkable" space station didn't account for this. Jabe holds down the switch to slow the deadly pathway of fans so the Doctor can reach it. Unfortunately, she's made of wood, so she catches fire and dies, and the fans start moving quicker just as the Doctor's at the last one. The Doctor, concentrating, passes through and resets the computer, ordering it to reactivate the shields at the point of the Earth's destruction. Cassandra is returned thanks to the Doctor's ability to reverse the teleport with the feed that allowed her to teleport through the heat. As she begins to dry out, she pleads for the Doctor to "moisturise [her]", but he lets her die, saying "Everything has its time and everything dies."

The space station and everyone on it has been saved, but Rose sadly notes that everyone was so busy that none of them actually watched the Earth go. The Doctor takes her back to contemporary Earth, and as Rose struggles to deal with standing on a planet that was just vaporized, he finally explains why he's been so secretive ''and'' why he took her there in the first place.

* WhatTheHellHero: The Doctor isn't impressed by Rose's slightly xenophobic reactions to the aliens on the Platform ("Good thing I didn't take you to the DeepSouth."). Rose, in turn, isn't particularly pleased to learn that the TARDIS's TranslationConvention circuits rearrange how her mind works without her knowledge or consent — particularly since the Doctor chose to make snide remarks about her culture shock instead of telling her this ("No, you were too busy making cheap shots about the Deep South!").

* GiantSpinningDuctFan: The Doctor has to navigate past a trio of these in a large room that's part of Platform One's cooling system. They're spinning much faster than usual because of the sabotage.

-->'''Cassandra''': I'll bet you were the school swot who never got kissed.

(Unfortunately, it'll take another ''four years'' before we find out [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime exactly what happened to the Doctor's planet]], and another ''eight'' to find out [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor the circumstances]] that lead to what happened.)

-->'''The Doctor:''' Five billion years, and it still comes down to money.

* ShoutOut: Before becoming a major part of the show's mythology, the Face of Boe was originally just a throwaway reference to an obscure narrative poem by Creator/RudyardKipling.[[note]]Specifically ''The Ballad of Boh Da Thone'', about a bandit/warlord who consistently avoids the British Army's attempts to capture and/or kill him only to be crushed to death when a fat ox driver he's trying to rob falls down off his cart on top him. Said ox driver then decapitates Boh's corpse and sends his head by parcel post as a gift to an acquaintance who was one of the aforementioned soldiers who'd tried to catch him.[[/note]]

* {{Jaccuse}}: "The Adherents of the Repeated Meme: J'accuse!"

* EarthThatUsedToBeBetter: In the year 5-billion-or-so Planet Earth, long since abandoned, is engulfed by the sun.

->''"You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're gonna get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible. That perhaps you '''make it.''' Maybe you survive. This is the year 5.5/apple/26, five billion years in your future, and this is the day... Hold on... (the sun starts to become a red giant) ''This'' is the day the sun expands. Welcome to the end of the world."''