What the story does is it pushes the Doctor to the point of madness. It puts him in a scenario, much like that of The Fires of Pompeii, where everyone but him must die by the end of the adventure. And as he walks away, leaving them to their fate, he contemplates why he has to do this, particularly concerning the Laws of Time that must be obeyed at all costs. And as he hears the screaming of the crew members, he turns around and decides that he is going to save people, because the Laws of Time are his playthings to do with what he will. I think that this is perhaps because, once again, he's travelling alone, so he's got nobody looking over his shoulder. Faced with nobody to question whether what he is doing is the right thing or not, he promptly goes with what his twisted mind has decided should happen.
As can be seen in both of the clips above, we see the Doctor in a situation where we'd normally accept him as the hero. He's there, charismatically protecting people from danger and saving the day. But we don't see him as the hero, instead we see him as something that's altogether more dangerous and frightening. Whilst Murray Gold's music soars heroically to signify that the Doctor is ready to rescue people and Graeme Harper's direction continually places the Doctor against shining bright backdrops, signifying his god-like powers and acting as a call-back to The Fires of Pompeii, which featured a similar scene, we have a nice juxtaposition to represent the Doctor's darker side. Tennant's performance is altogether edgier and angrier, as he shouts his way through the dialogue, angrily breaking the very laws of nature itself because he wants to. Similarly Lindsay Duncan, who plays the base captain: Adelaide Brooke, is far more subdued, seeing what the Doctor is doing as wrong, and quietly attempting to defy him as her fellow crew members blindly obey his orders to desperately try to stay alive. Finally, whilst the script for this scene from Russell T Davies and Phil Ford has all of the usual flairs associated with a heroic action from the Doctor such as his charming way of fast talking, or a moment entirely intended to look cool (in this case, Gadget going to the TARDIS), in context it's seen as the slightly worrying thing that it is, giving a slightly worrying scene overall.
It all ends, of course, with tragedy. Adelaide commits suicide rather than allow the Doctor to bend the Laws of Time to his will, in a moment that forcefully shows that the Doctor's arrogance has gone too far this time. Facing what he has become, the Doctor opts to run away from what he knows must happen next. Because the next story is not a story for a Doctor to heroically save others. Instead, it's a story for a Doctor that deserves to die.
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