The End Of The World is an excellent episode made even better by the inclusion of the poster girl for questionable cosmetic surgery, Lady Cassandra. She is a real testament to Zoë Wanamakers voice acting capabilities as it cant be easy to portray a talking piece of skin. The remarkable thing about Cassandra, and Wanamakers performance, is that the character has more personality than almost anyone else in the story. Shes not just a clever parody of our societys obsession with physical appearance but a fully realized person with understandable though evil motivations. Lady Cassandra was such a good character we couldnt give her up. She appeared again in New Earth and once more almost stole the show. Yet the thing that makes her most memorable is not her wacky and self-serving behavior but the way her story ends. Her consciousness is displaced into the failing body of her assistant and she dies in the arms of her younger self. Cassandras character has great impact because it is such a pointed comment on our culture of vanity. Cassandra is a monster but she was not created in a vacuum. She is a product of our modern society and we have only ourselves to blame.