So as someone who is going to be pretty down on Series 2 in general, with a handful of exceptions, I'm a little surprised to see such a low overall score for New Earth, currently.

It's not the best episode but I had a lot of fun with it. Billie Piper gets to have a lot of fun as Cassandra and I am here for it. New Earth is creative as a setting, even if a lot of the effects are kind of dorky. It's good fun, good world building, and I found the cat people relatively impressive in terms of make up. I just don't have much of an issue with this one. It works as a nice pseudo sequel to The End of the World, carrying on the somewhat hopeful tone of the ending and showing us the human race growing and spreading beyond their home world. Then everyone gets sick. Oh well, I still had a good time on my first viewing, and though it only holds up so much with time, I can't help but not be too hard on it. New Earth hardly feels like it is remotely as insufferable as some of the other episodes rated this low.

Looking at episodes with early growing pains around the Tenth Doctor, the content that comes before and after this feels way more uneven in comparison to New Earth, which is executed at least semi-competently. I guess it helps I am already a fan of other New Earth-adjacent content like End of the World and Gridlock, I suppose. As always, others fans mileage may vary and things do get pretty silly by episode end, so I do understand people's problems with New Earth even if I largely had a blast. I also think it is a pretty solid introduction to the Tenth Doctor, and feels a lot smoother and more inviting to the spirit of adventure and old-school romance than something like Christmas Invasion.