Revisiting Doctor Who – Series 2, Episode 8 – The Impossible Planet
The TARDIS
materialises on a deep space exploratory ‘sanctuary base’, The Doctor and Rose
popping out of it. Its walls have strange symbols daubed on them,
untranslatable by the TARDIS, making it very old. And it also has ‘Welcome
to Hell’ written above in English, which is sort of comforting that at least we
can read part of it. When they try to leave the room, they open the door to
find a bunch of what we’ll soon learn are Ood, empathic servants, declaring
that they ‘must feed’, and it kinda looks like The Doctor and Rose are the
meal...
Cue title sequence...
Oh, wait, it’s just a
dodgy vocal box that the Ood is carrying – one good smack and it changes to ‘we
must feed...you, if you are hungry’. Phew! Officers soon burst in, surprised to
see The Doctor and Rose. One quake alert later, they end up in the control
room, to find more surprised crew. When that’s all over, they learn they’re on
a planet with no air, and that one of the storage areas has been destroyed,
which a bloke called Toby goes off to investigate. After being introduced to
the rest of the crew, we learn that the base is on a planet in orbit of a black
hole, which is impossible. The Doctor is like, ‘SERIOUSLY, WTF?’. Toby,
meanwhile, is hearing voices as he heads around the base.
According to some
scriptures, the planet is called Krop Tor, and the black hole is a might demon
who was trapped into devouring itself, only to spit it out because it was
poison. ‘The Bitter Pill’, is its translation. A gravity funnel shoots out of
the black hole, which the crew used to travel down. The crew are drilling down
to find the power source, which in no way is going to cause a bloody big
problem. The writing on the wall was copied from fragments by Toby, and they’re
hoping to find more. The Doctor praises them for their wish to explore, whilst telling
them that they’re utterly mad and need to flee. However, Rose and he won’t be
fleeing any time soon, as it was Storage Bays 5-8 that collapsed, and the
TARDIS was parked in 6...
Whilst The Doctor and
Rose contemplate a life without time travel, Toby is analysing fragments and
hearing voices again. At the same time, as Rose is chatting to an Ood serving
her meal, it politely informs her that ’The Beast and his armies shall rise
from the pit, to make war against God’, which one an odd response to her
non-Beast related question. She assumes it be a glitch, but behind Captain Zach
the 3d display of the planet briefly changes to a shot of a horned Balrog
snarling, but changes back before he can properly see what has just happened.
The computer system tells Danny that ‘he’s awake’ as he opens a door. Toby then
finds the symbols drawn on his hands following a voice warning him not to turn
around or else he will die, which he promptly does anyway Then he sees his face
in a mirror, which is covered with symbols, and new bright red eyes. He then
collapses.
The rest of the crew
watch a solar system burning up in the black hole. Rose gets a call on a phone
with no signal, also informing her that ‘he is awake’. Toby’s eyes spring open at
this point. Could be connected? The Doctor and Rose question Danny about the
Ood, and their telepathy. The Oods biosigns suddenly go from Basic 5 to Basic
30, which apparently means that something is shouting at them in their heads.
Apparently, according to the Ood, we should worship whatever is awake. Toby,
meanwhile, has gone outside without a spacesuit, so I think he’s kind of not
Toby anymore. Boy does he have a freaky maniacal expression on his face. He
also cracks the glass from a distance, sucking Scooti out to the planet’s surface,
and compromising the base’s integrity.
Everyone, including
Toby, makes it further inside the base, but they’ve lost Section 11-13. Somehow
Scooti is apparently in Habitation 3, despite being a bit dead. When the crew
get there, they find her stuck to the glass dome, outside. She floats off to
the black hole after a short minute. At the same time, the massive drill stops.
They’ve reached Point Zero, the goal of the drill. The Doctor volunteers to go with
Scott, down to its lowest depths. Despite Danny’s warnings to only obey him,
the Ood all stand as one when the capsule reaches the bottom of the shaft.
The Doctor and Scott
step out into a massive cavern, complete with carvings and massive statues, remnants
of a past civilisation. The Ood’s eyes change to red, as their biosigns change
to Basic 100, putting the crew on alert, as The Doctor and Scott find a massive
metal seal, covered in symbols. Questioning Toby on what the symbols mean,
everyone is a little surprised when Toby stands up and they see his face is
covered in symbols again, his eyes are red, and his voice has broken. He tells
them that the symbols are ‘the words of the Beast...and he has woken’. With a strange
cry, the symbols fly of his face and onto the Ood, turning them into the Legion
of the Beast. Turns out the Beast is Satan, of course, and his Legion have the
ability to electrocute people in the head using their translation sphere, which
they do to some bloke who I swear has only just appeared on the crew roster.
The seal begins to open, and the planet starts to move as the gravity field
collapses. The Beast/Legion continue to rant about being free, as The Doctor
and Scott look warily down into the pit...
It’s rather an ingenious idea, using the idea of Satan as
the basis for an episode. In many societies there seems to be an evil force
that people believe in, so why wouldn’t there be an actual beast from the
beginning of time that was the starting point for the legend? This doesn’t
confirm the existence of God at all, just that there are some nasty beasts out
there.
It’s a pretty scary episode for children, what with the
symbols written over Toby and the Ood turning evil. I know that, even in future
episodes featuring them, I still get a bit wary of the Ood suddenly turning
again. They’re definitely one of new-Who’s
most memorable aliens.
The episode itself has plenty of intriguing points to it,
from the impossible nature of the planet’s orbit around the black hole, the
concept of the beast being Satan, and the issues surround slavery. Regarding
the latter, Rose is rightly appalled by the thought of humanity once again
resorting to taking slaves, even though the humans in the future don’t see it
as a problem because the Ood actively want
to serve. A similar dilemma has been raised about humanity building robots who
want to serve in the present; does that make it alright? After all, that’s kind
of how The Matrix started.
The episode itself sets up the second half nicely, because
in all honesty, how the hell is The Doctor expected to slay Satan? Overall, it’s
a solid episode that brings the ideas mentioned above together nicely, but it
lacks a lot of the fun interactions between Rose and The Doctor that I like so
much. I know that it’s a much darker episode, but others have managed to be
very dark yet very funny in places, and I just don’t see that as much here.
Also, the recovery of the TARDIS just seems to disappear from The Doctor and
Rose’s plans pretty quickly. I know the captain has said that they can’t divert
the drill to go and look for it, but I can’t imagine The Doctor giving up that
easily.
The Doctor’s love for humans comes out in a hug for Acting
Captain Zach, who looks sheepishly pleased by it all. We’re amazing,
apparently, with the way we love to explore and discover what’s out there, even
though it inevitably leads to a shedload of problems that The Doctor has to
rescue us from. Tennant’s glee whenever The Doctor gets excited has always been
one of his most memorable traits, and it never fails to raise a smile when it
crops up.
The Doctor’s role as the Last of the Time Lords come to the
forefront again with his insistence on finding the TARDIS because ‘It’s all I’ve
got, literally the only thing’. In this minute, he’s not thinking about Rose.
His guilt at the thought of trapping Rose is brought out, as well, when he
thinks they can’t go anywhere. It’s meant to be fun, this universe travelling,
not dangerous!
There an awkward love moment when The Doctor and Rose are
talking about the possibility of not travelling the universe anymore, having to
settle down, and potentially doing so together. Oh, how those flames of love
are being fanned! She even kisses his space helmet (that’s not an innuendo).
Perhaps one of Who’s
best jokes that only UK viewers will understand is when Scott says that there’s
no going back, a sure sign in horror films that things are going to go wrong,
to which The Doctor replies that saying that is almost as bad as ‘this is going
to be the best Christmas Walford’s ever had’. Made me laugh a lot, that one.
A TARDIS is grown, not built. Just another fun fact about
Time Lords.
Torchwood Mentions
None
Overall
A solid episode that leads in nicely to the second part, but
without a lot of the warmth and humour that has made new-Who so special for me.
7/10
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