A Matter of Time: The End of the World

ORIGINAL BROADCAST: 02/04/2005

Five years ago today, the ninth Doctor and his companion Rose travelled to the future for the first time in the new series, when they arrived onboard a space station in the year five billion, where they planned to witness the destruction of the Earth. Shortly after their arrival, several people are killed on Platform One, and the Doctor has to prevent the destruction of the space station by the expanding sun.

This story starred Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, as well as featuring many guest actors as visitors attending Platform One. This was the first story to feature the Face of Boe, who would later appear in ‘New Earth’ and ‘Gridlock’, as well as brief cameos. It was also suggested in ‘Last of the Time Lords’ that the Face of Boe is a future incarnation of Captain Jack Harkness, an immortal human from the fifty-first century.

In the documentary series ‘Doctor Who Confidential’, Russell T Davies joked that that there would never be such an expensive episode of Doctor Who again, because of the large amount of CGI special effects. Both Cassandra and the robotic spiders are completely CGI generated creatures, who would appear again in ‘New Earth’. The documentary also revealed that there are 203 visual effects shots in this episode, which is double the amount in the film ‘Gladiator’.

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