Cassandra's change of heart came too sudden; if it was meant to be taken as genuine, that is. I'm in two minds, no pun intended, about that. On the one hand, Cassandra switching back into her younger self would make perfect sense with the rest of her characterisation and would allow the character to come back

Personally, I was somewhat dissatisfied RTD did not go for the "Cassandra switching back into her younger self" option, because I thought this would have made a much better, more harmonious and also nicely ironical ending.

As much as I liked some of New Earth's ingredients (especially the unsettling cat nurses and the hilarious disinfectant showers), the episode as a whole struck me as rather disjointed. Attempting to squeeze so many different plot elements as Rose's first visit to an alien planet, Cassandra, zombies and the Face of Boe into the very same forty-five minutes, was a bit too much for my taste.

I very much enjoyed the new Doctor, though. Apparently even enough to draw him ;-)
http://www.cheery.de/fundus/ten_signed.JPG

Word on Ten displaying quite a few signs of a potentially dangerous hubris. cavendish, who watched the episode together with me yesterday afternoon, said he recognized this particular trait from the fourth Doc; the sole difference being that overly confident Four mostly failed, while overly confident Ten so far has only succeeded.

So I'm really looking forward to see whether the writers are going to turn Ten's self-confidence and arrogance into a tragic flaw...