Doctor Who 1.2 Retrospective Review - "The End of the World"

Rose In the first episode, we see that Rose is someone who is always looking for the next action to take. In this one, she is more of a passive character. She follows the Doctor's lead, finds a quiet place to sulk when provoked and has to be rescued by the Doctor. Yes, that was inevitable that he would have to come to her rescue someday, but after seeing her save the world with some mad gymnastics skills in "Rose," I was a little bit disappointed by how easily she faded into the background of each scene. To be fair, there are too many people included in the human race who march into any situation as though they should be running things. We've only seen Rose in her element before, surrounded by people who are used to her way of running things. Here we have the Rose Tyler who waits to hear if anyone in this new universe speaks English, who is a bit bemused when expected to give permission for an inferior to speak because she doesn't see the person as an inferior. She is really only herself when dealing with the Doctor, someone with whom she at least has experience. We see her propensity to pass judgment here, though. She asks the Doctor, "I mean--is that what you do, jump in at the last minute and save the Earth?" and then assumes that he hasn't thought of the people when he says he has no intention of preventing the Earth's destruction. Instead of commiserating with "the last human," she passes Cassandra off as a "bitchy trampoline." My favorite Rose bit of this episode is her call to her mother. They are having an ordinary conversation on an ordinary Wednesday, 5 billion years apart. She's relieved to hear that life goes on as usual with laundry and lotteries and is then depressed by the thought that she is spending some of her time in a world where her mother no longer exists.