Live-blogging Doctor Who, Season Two: The Impossible Planet

I’m quite pleased, as I think I’ve mentioned before, that ABC2 has brought these episodes back on, because there are two particular episodes coming up that I’m keen to live-blog and discuss (should people feel so inclined) because I found them highly problematic.

This, however, is not one of those episodes. I found this one sincerely creepy, mostly because I’m easily frightened by stories with demonic aspect. (Oh, come now: that’s not a spoiler. You can’t spoil an episode that aired three years ago, and, anyway, the next episode is called “The Satan Pit.”)

I’m hoping that I won’t actually be overly frightened this time around, since this is maybe the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen it.

I’m also thinking that I should probably have taken off the ridiculously large plastic rings I’m wearing on each hand before I started typing, since they’re really starting to annoy me. So I might get on with that now.

Once again, I have started live-blogging too early. I always panic, thinking that I’m going to miss the start of the episode, and then I spent fifteen minutes waffling on about costume jewelry and the like. Still, it’s a fairly accurate representation of my actual conversational style.

And now the TARDIS materialises. I miss you, TARDIS! Have I mentioned that?

The Doctor’s worried about the TARDIS: he says she’s sounding a little queasy. They’ve landed in a cupboard, the Doctor says—while opening door after door. He knows they’re in a base, but doesn’t know whether it’s a sea base or what, until they come out into a bigger room.

“Oh, it’s a sanctuary base!” he exclaims, in monkey-with-a-tambourine mode.

“Welcome to Hell!” says Rose. The Doctor says it’s not that bad, but she points out that it’s written on the wall, and, under it, some writing that the TARDIS translation circuits haven’t translated—which, the Doctor says, means it’s “impossibly old.” He wants to find someone to explain it, but before they can, they’re confronted by a group of Ood (spoiler!), walking forwards chanting “We must feed!”

But after the opening credits, it’s revealed as a cheat, as the Ood taps his speech bubble, and repeats, “We must feed . . . you, if you are hungry.”

More importantly for the plot, the people on the base are astonished to see Rose and the Doctor (and equally astonished to find that they don’t know where they are). But there’s no time to worry about it now, because there’s “incoming”—whatever that means. Everyone’s strapped in, except Rose and the Doctor, who are just clinging on to things as the room explodes.

NICK: Yes, no—flames should not be coming out of your control panel! Sparks are bad enough!

The sanctuary-base staff are astonished—now they have time—that Rose and the Doctor don’t know where they are. Apparently, the “sight of it sends some people mad,” the acting Captain says, as the science officer opens the roof of the room to show that they’re in perpetual geostationary orbit around a black hole.

The Doctor can’t cope with this, because they’re not being sucked in, when everything else is—including time. And you know how the Doctor feels about time.

But that at least explains the buffeting the base is taking, as we’re pulled out to a lovely CGI shot of the base on its asteroid, with the dead constellations streaming into the black hole behind it.

Meanwhile, Toby (the archaeologist), who has been sent to assess damage, is hearing mysterious voices chanting his name. That’s where I start to find it creepy.

Though it’s balanced by the technobabble in the next scene, explaining how they managed to successfully land on the planet in the first place. I can’t recap that—except that if the “gravity tunnel” down which they flew the ship ever closes, they cannot escape from this asteroid. I think that might be significant, later.

Rose is trying to make friends with the Ood, and is slightly worried to find out that the Ood are a slave race. The ethics officer (who pointed out earlier that it’s not as boring a job as it sounds, and we start to see why, here), says that the Ood offer themselves as slaves, that if they aren’t given orders, they pine away and die.

Toby is talking about what’s buried away in the deeps of the planet and what it might mean.

ROSE: What’s your job? Chief Dramatist?

The Doctor’s in serious monkey-with-a-tambourine mode in this episode—watch him and the Captain having a lovely cuddle at this point, while the Doctor’s ranting about how much he loves humans.

He slips into a less cheerful mode, though, once he realises that he parked in Storage Six, and the Captain said that Storage 5 to 8 were damaged during the earthquake—the section in which the TARDIS was parked has collapsed into a void. The ground gave way, and the TARDIS is in the centre of the planet somewhere.

The Doctor wants them to divert the drills that are working down towards the power supply, hidden in the planet, that is keeping them from falling into the black hole, but the Captain refuses: he says they only have the resources for one tunnel.

So the Doctor and Rose are trapped: Ida, the science officer, says she’ll sort out the duty roster, since they need someone in the laundry.

Now we get a series of short scenes showing the various staff at work: Scooty (maintenance) [and, damn, I’ve spelt her name wrong all the way through this] outside drilling things, Danny (ethics officer) overseeing the change in Ood shift, and Toby (archaeologist) being haunted by creepy voices while reading scraps of the mysterious writing. Toby thinks Danny is doing it, which, as Nick points out, is an unfortunate reputation for your ethics officer to have.

Meanwhile, Rose is getting dinner from an Ood server, who, as she tries to talk to him about his pay conditions, says, “The Beast and his armies will rise from the pit to make war with God.”

While the Captain is working, we see a demonic face appear in the display behind him.

And while Danny is closing doors, the electronic door voice says, “He is awake.”

And then we’re back with Toby, who hears a voice directly behind him, but is warned not to look: “One look, and you will die.” Meanwhile, the voice is claiming to be getting closer and closer, and to be able to touch Toby—but when Toby turns, there’s nothing there.

On the other hand, the mysterious script he’s been reading is now printed all over his hands and face, and his eyes are bright red. He collapses on the floor of his room.

Back in the control room, they watch a star system—once home to a mighty civilisation spanning a million years—being sucked into the black hole. Ida sends Scooty out to check out the lock-down, and Jefferson (security) to check the seals.

Rose and the Doctor chat, and Rose notes that her phone is out of range, for the first time. He tells Rose that TARDISs are grown, not built, so they’re stuck. The Doctor just freaks out about the idea of having a house, with doors and carpets—until Rose suggests the two of them getting “the same mortgage,” and it turns into just one of those terribly awkward and sweet conversations that these two do so well.

Then Rose’s phone rings—and a voice says “He’s awake.”

Coincidentally, Toby is awake.

So Rose and the Doctor trot down to the Ood habitat, to ask Danny how the Ood communicate—he says they’re basic empaths, but that the telepathic field is monitored at all times. He says they should only be registering Basic 5, but they’re registering Basic 30—which means they’re screaming in their heads.

When Rose admits that her phone said “He is awake,” the Ood turn simultaneously and say, “And you will worship him.”

Scooty, heading down to Toby’s quarters, hears the computer insist that someone has gone outside, but that no spacesuits have been released. Scooty can’t get in contact with Zach (the captain), and all the door will say is “He is awake. He bathes in the black sun.”

But as Scooty backs up to a window, she sees Toby—still covered in writing—standing outside without a spacesuit. He smiles at her, and gestures—and the glass smashes, while Scooty is pleading with the computer to open the door for her.

The staff (and the Doctor and Rose) race back through the base—including Toby, who is the last through the last safe door. The hull breach is contained, but there’s no word from Scooty. According to her bio-chip, she’s in Habitation 3. But she’s not responding, so they go down to check whether or not she’s unconscious.

But, in fact, Scooty is not in Habitation 3—until the Doctor looks up, and sees her body floating past the skylight. She floats towards the black hole as the Ida closes the skylight, and Jefferson quotes one of Macauley’s Lays of Ancient Rome:

For how should man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his father
And the temples of his gods.

And just at that point, the drilling stops. The Doctor begs permission to go down into the shaft, and is given permission (though the Captain wants to go himself, the Doctor convinces him to stay with the ship). So the Doctor suits up and, despite Rose’s reservations—because she’s entirely dependent on the Doctor now, in the absence of the TARDIS and of her mobile-phone connection to her mother—heads down in the elevator with Ida.

The shaft extends beyond the oxygen field of the ship, so they’re entirely dependent on their suits.

In the interim, Danny orders the Ood to stay exactly where they are, and tells them that no other order can over-ride his. But it doesn’t look as though they are inclined to behave themselves.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ida have reached the bottom of the shaft, and it’s a clearly man-made hall, with massive statuary and carved columns.

IDA: Well, we’ve come this far.
DOCTOR: Oh, did you have to? “We’ve come this far”? That’s nearly as bad as “Nothing can possibly go wrong.”

Meanwhile, Danny says the Ood are at Basic 100 (which should mean brain death) and that they’re “staring at him.” He’s told them to stop, but they won’t. The Captain tells him to stay where he is, and sends Jefferson (and a man-at-arms) to keep an eye on them.

Down in the pit, the Doctor and Ida have found a seal covered in the mysterious writing. But when, back on the base, they ask Toby if he’s decoded the writing, Toby stands up slowly, and shows that he’s covered again in the mysterious writing. Walking slowly towards them he asks Jefferson, “Did you wife ever forgive you?” and assures him that, in fact, his wife never did forgive him.

Jefferson, looking distinctly rattled, tells Toby to stand down and be confined, but Toby, somehow, infects the Ood—who stand and declare themselves the “legion of the beast,” electrocuting the man standing by Danny with their speech bubbles. They declare that the “beast” is called, by some, Satan, as the base staff (with Rose) flee, and the seal in the pit begins to open.

Back on the base, the Captain says the gravity field is going, and they’re losing orbit—they’re going to fall into the black hole.

And we have a final shot—as the beast gloats, “The pit is open, and I am free!”—of the Doctor and Ida staring down into the abyss.

I suppose that would explain the title of next week’s episode: “The Satan Pit.”