"The Impossible Planet" is the eighth episode
of the second series of the British science
fiction television series Doctor Who, which
was first broadcast on BBC One on 3 June 2006.
It is the first part of a two-part story.
The second part, "The Satan Pit", was broadcast
on 10 June.
The episode is set on Krop Tor, a planet orbiting
a black hole.
In the episode, a human expedition group drilling
on the planet is terrorised by a creature
calling itself the Beast (Gabriel Woolf),
which possesses the Ood slaves in the humans'
base.
== Plot ==
The TARDIS arrives aboard a sanctuary base
used for deep-space expeditions.
The Tenth Doctor and Rose explore the area,
discovering strange alien writing that the
TARDIS is unable to translate, meaning that
it is "impossibly old".
They are confronted by the Ood, a docile race
of empathic slaves who work on the station.
After a misunderstanding with the Ood, the
Doctor and Rose meet the crew of the base,
Zack, Ida, Jefferson, Danny, Scooti and Toby.
The crew are on an expedition on the mysterious
planet Krop Tor, impossibly in orbit around
a black hole.
Captain Zack explains that a gravity funnel
exists around the planet, allowing them to
safely enter or leave the vicinity of the
black hole.
The source of the funnel is an immense energy
force ten miles within the planet, which they
are drilling towards to understand its power.
As the Doctor and Rose are acquainting themselves
with the crew, the base is struck by a quake
that causes the section of the base containing
the TARDIS to fall into the planet.
Rose and the Doctor resign themselves to being
trapped and begin helping out the crew.
As the drill nears its target, a malevolent
presence begins to make itself known.
The Ood's translation spheres reveal messages
about the Beast awakening, while Toby is unknowingly
possessed by the Beast.
The possessed Toby kills Scooti when she discovers
him surviving outside the base without any
protective gear.
When the drilling is complete, the Doctor
offers to go with Ida into the bowels of the
planet.
After travelling down the drill shaft, the
Doctor and Ida find a large circular disk
inscribed with more undecipherable markings.
The Doctor believes it to be a door, and they
watch as it opens.
Suddenly, the Beast repossesses Toby before
transferring into all the Ood as they refer
to themselves as the Legion of the Beast.
With Rose and the remaining crew alerted that
the planet is now falling towards the black
hole, the Ood begin to close in on them whilst
the voice of the Beast declares that it is
free.
== Production ==
Writer Matt Jones also wrote, as Matthew Jones,
the Virgin New Adventures novel Bad Therapy,
featuring the Seventh Doctor and Chris Cwej.
He was script editor on Russell T Davies'
Channel 4 series Queer as Folk.
Executive producer and chief writer Russell
T Davies said that an early draft of the script
called for the role of the Ood to be filled
by Raxacoricofallapatorians, the same species
as the Slitheen.
Their race would have been enslaved and they
wished to awaken the Beast, whom they believed
to be a god that could free them.
Davies chose the name of the Ood rather than
Jones; he intended it to be a play on the
word "odd".
In the accompanying Doctor Who Confidential
episode, Davies said that he likes to think
that the Ood come from a planet near to that
of the Sensorites from the First Doctor serial
The Sensorites (1964), as he suggests the
races are similar in some respects.
In "Planet of the Ood", this is confirmed.
During an interview with the production crew,
it was noted that the sanctuary base was based
on the spaceship Nostromo from the movie Alien.Scenes
of bodies floating in space were filmed on
the underwater stage at Pinewood Studios,
the first time the series has used this facility,
not counting the charity special Doctor Who
and the Curse of Fatal Death.
This is the first episode of the 2005 revival
of Doctor Who to use a quarry as an alien
planet — quarries were frequently used in
this manner in the original series.
Davies was not a fan of this production decision.
The Ood masks had their eyes in non-human
positions, so the actors who played them had
to see out of pin prick sized holes in the
masks.
=== Cast notes ===
The voice of the Beast is provided by Gabriel
Woolf, who also played Sutekh the Destroyer
in the Fourth Doctor serial Pyramids of Mars
(1975).
One of the names that the possessed Ood have
for the Beast is Satan.
The Fourth Doctor also stated that Sutekh
has been known by many aliases, including
the Typhonian beast and Satan.
However, Woolf was cast only after the episode
had been written and filmed.
Originally, the producers sought out Piper's
husband Chris Evans for the role.Danny Webb
also appeared in the audio plays The Girl
Who Never Was and The Dark Husband.
Shaun Parkes previously starred with David
Tennant in the BBC's 2005 Casanova serial
written by Russell T Davies.
Silas Carson previously played various alien
voices in "The End of the World", while Paul
Kasey is a veteran at playing various monsters
for Doctor Who and Torchwood.
== Broadcast and reception ==
Overnight viewing figures for the episode
were 5.94 million, peaking at 6.78 million.
However, the episode still obtained a 39.8%
share of the audience and was the second highest
rated programme of the evening, behind Casualty.
The final ratings for the episode were 6.32
million viewers.This episode and "The Satan
Pit" were released in the UK, together with
"Love & Monsters", as a basic DVD with no
special features on 7 August 2006.
IGN's Ahsan Haque gave the episode a score
of 9.3 out of 10, describing it as "an extremely
well written and directed episode with awesome
visuals and excellent sound design".
Though he noted that "much of this episode
felt a bit like watching a moderately entertaining
B-movie like Event Horizon", he thought it
was "presented with ample flair and charm".
Dek Hogan of Digital Spy stated the episode
got the series "back on form", though he noted
that losing the TARDIS was becoming tiresome.
Dave Golder, writing for SFX, felt that the
two-parter abandoned Doctor Who's "manic energy,
a level of wit and an idiosyncratic visual
approach" for more traditional science fiction,
which made it look at times like "Stargate
lite".
While he thought the spaceship looked "silly",
he praised the support cast and especially
Tennant and Piper.
Of "The Impossible Planet" he stated, "The
build-up of the mystery was superbly paced
and intriguing.
The characters were fleshed out with masterful
economy.
The tension was tangible.
The villain felt dangerous.
And in the idea of an evil entity taking control
of a telepathically linked race we had the
kind of good, solid SF idea – simple and
technobabble-free enough for the non-SF literate
audience to grasp – in which the new series
should be trading.
It helps that the Ood were such a great piece
of design work, as well."
== In popular culture ==
In a September 2013 National Geographic Daily
News article, the author mentioned this episode
while discussing planets that surround black
holes
