Member-only story
The End of Time
In March, 1981, I watched a Doctor Who episode called “Logopolis.” I was eight years old and it terrified me. This is probably unsurprising to anyone who grew up with the classic show…or watched “Blink.” “Logopolis”( had three scary things going for it; it was Tom Baker’s last episode, so the Doctor “died,” the Master was going around turning people into little dolls (Something I was glad to see come back last series) and…
…and it was the thing which introduced me to the ultimate “mortality.” The universe was going to end.
Is going to end.
The regeneration was sad, but I suspect most people were scared of the little dolls. To my eight-year-old self, though, the idea that the world had not always existed and would not always exist?
Yeah.
I had an existential crisis and repressed the episode from my memory until I was ready to face it again as an adult. (It’s not, objectively, as scary as “Blink.”).
But part of me’s still not one hundred percent ready to face the death of the universe. Thankfully, it’s still a long, long time in the future. And we still aren’t entirely sure how it will happen. There are three main theories. Let’s go through them.