Episode Critics
Compiled by Martin Willey

16. End of Eternity

Let down by Peter Bowles being totally miscast as Belor [sic]. Bowles is given a ludicrous pair of platform boots to increase his height and a pair of bell bottomed black flares to make him look menacing, but he ends up looking like Noddy Holder at a funeral. The story works well as a Space episode but bad direction and Bowles's attempts to emulate Big Daddy prevent it from becoming the classic it deserved to be. Rating 5/10 (Anthony McKay, DWB, 1992)

This is another of 1999's finest. Johnny Byrne's script is absorbing and adult (rather too adult for the timeslot ITV gave the series!) and Austin does it justice. There are many memorable sequences, particularly those in which he uses music but no sound effects - a device that is particularly unnerving. Not quite as unnerving, however, as the scene in which Baxter attacks Koenig with a model plane. I doubt if that would be allowed in a family show today... (Richard Houldsworth, TV Zone, 1992)

A genuinely frightening and harrowing episode. Bowles is outstanding as the ultimate villain, in spite of his outrageous flares and wedge shoes. A (Chris Bentley, SFX 20, 1996)

End Of Eternity is one of the best episodes of the entire series because it adheres so clearly to the central theme that space is a region of mystery, the unknown and, ultimately, terror. ...tightly plotted and instantly engrossing. High praise must also go to Peter Bowles, who plays the demonic Balor with an almost gleeful enthusiasm. (John Kenneth Muir, Exploring Space: 1999, p63-64)

Routine tale of another evil alien on the prowl that Koenig must dispose of. ** (fair) (James O'Neill, Sci-Fi On Tape, p271, 1997)

...it is a great script, heightened by all the other aspects of the production, particularly the clearly insane characterisation provided by Peter Bowles. 9/10 (Bob Wood, The Future Is Fantastic, 2001)

Emphasising exactly how alone the Alphans are, this is another surprisingly dark and extremely tense episode. 4/5 (Alasdair Stuart, SciFiNow #10, 2007)