Live-Blogging Doctor Who: Planet of the Ood

I’m running a little late on this live-blogging, thanks to a slightly delayed dinner (leftover salads and sliced meats with pita bread—yummy! I would have pavlova for dessert, but I had it for breakfast. I do like my unusual breakfast foods, and there’s only so long I can resist pavlova for.)

So I’m not live-blogging the weather this time, and actually have no idea what the temperature is supposed to be. I suppose I’ll find out tomorrow.

Ah, here we go—creepy Ood advertising campaign. The Ood themselves are creepy—and fifty credits seems very low for a slave. I do like the Andy Warhol-style Ood pictures on the wall behind this man . . . who’s just been killed by a red-eyed Ood. Whoops.

Also, I keep typing “Ood” as “Oood,” which is annoying, because my spellchecker doesn’t recognise either spelling.

Mystery tour? I’m not sure that’s a great idea.

Oh, poor Donna—she’s so excited. And now the Doctor’s excited about the snow—the first time in years he’s seen snow that isn’t actually the detritus of a spaceship and its dead occupants.

This reminds me of the opening of “Seeds of Doom,” where Sarah Jane was promised the beach and popped out of the TARDIS in a polka-dot bikini.

Ah, Tim Mcinerny (don’t correct my spelling!)

And I missed the dialogue about the TARDIS versus that lovely retro-styled rocket that had Nick salivating.

Oh, dying Ood in the snow. I can buy not calling the Ood an “it,” but how does the Doctor know it’s male? Are all Ood male? Or does he have some distinguishing feature that reveals his gender.

Oh, well—he’s dead now, poor bloke.

Donna’s so sweet, really. This first encounter with an alien species (apart from the Rachnos and the Adipose, and she doesn’t get close to the latter) is touching, even if they do leave him sprawled in the snow.

I do get a little bored with the repeated “We’re not married” refrain, but Donna, to me, is the closest to an old-school companion that we’ve ever had (in my opinion, which I’m not asserting is humble.)

Oood hunt: this is creepy, especially since this Ood doesn’t just have red eye but is also rabid—and in conjunction with the sales pitch about “if your Ood is happy, you’ll be happy” is becomes truly disturbing.

Oh, poor bald Tim Mcinerney. Never mind: let us sit upon the floor and tell sad stories, shall we?

The comedy Ood voice is so sad—hey, for five extra credits, would you like to humiliate your slave? But the sexy female voice: I don’t even want to think what kind of fetish prompted that as a viable sales pitch.

Oh, are the bees disappearing? I wonder if that will be important later.

They drop a lot of these early Donna mannerisms—she’s just responded to an Ood calling her “Miss” by saying “Do I look single?” Well, Donna, you are single. You get quite cranky if people assume you’re married to the Doctor—by the later episodes, and I’m glad of it.

Ew, slavering rabid Ood. I’m not a big fan of slavering on television: it’s a good thing I’ve finished my dinner.

And now the guards have whips. Charming.

It’s true: the Doctor didn’t question the Oods’ status in the last two-parter. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but that really isn’t like the Doctor.

Ah, mysterious warehouse bathed in red light. I’m not good at delayed gratification: I want to see what’s in the pit now. And I’ve just noticed that the mysterious song that we heard around the dying Ood has started up again now we’re in the warehouse.

Ah, evil executive who also taunts his enslaved workers? I wonder if we’re supposed to sympathise with him?

Donna’s a Hammers fan? Cool. I think it’s a shame we never get a rousing chorus of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.”

Oods in shipping containers: this series hits quite hard with the social commentary at times. The hardest one to watch I think is still “Turn Left,” which we don’t hit for another couple of months, but this warehouse full of silent queues of slaves is hard to watch.

Oh dear: the head of Security is a bloodthirsty psychopath. I didn’t see that coming. Still, this scene with the Dcotor being chased by the giant hook is well done.

Hang on: the Ood that Donna’s trapped with have red eye.

DONNA: Oh no you don’t.
NICK (as Eric Cartman): Pink eye!

So the Ood aren’t locked into these containers? They’re standing there in ranks? Man, that’s depressing. It’s also looking a bit silly, now they’ve all got red eye.

The Doctor seriously misreads that PR woman’s sympathies. Of course she agrees with what they’re doing—she knows exactly how they’re being treated, so why would she suddenly think, “Hey, you’re right! This isn’t cool!”

More Ood song—it’s hard to judge this, but . . . the Doctor can hear the song because Timelords, like the Ood, are telepathic. But Donna can’t hear it, because she’s isn’t. But we can hear the song—as part of the soundtrack, but as diagetic music not extradiagetic music. But then when the Doctor enables Donna to hear it, it becomes different, more prominent. So am I misreading the earlier examples of music, as when the Doctor comments on the song of the dying Ood? Is that not Ood song? And if it is, should we be able to hear it, when we’re not psychic?

Anyway, these poor sad Oods have their brains in their hands. Well, their hindbrains.

NICK: This is completely daft, though.

It doesn’t seem as though this is a practical evolutionary decision. I can see why it’s what breaks Donna, though—this idea of lobotomising them to make slaves is grotesque.

I like Donna’s insistence that a creature with its brain in its hands would have trust anyone it meets: it’s a neat argument, but I still don’t think that it’s a sensible step for evolution to make, even on a planet where the Ood seem to be the only lifeforms.

Oops, the Ood in the salesrooms all have red eye, now.

I’ve lost any sympathy I might have had for that PR woman—hang on, she was killed by an Ood while I was typing.

I think I’d find this factory setting more alienating and frightening if it didn’t look exactly like the back of the engineering buildings at university.

See, now the evolutionary system is just becoming more disturbing: if a creature with a separate hindbrain and forebrain would be at constant war with itself, why would evolution take that particular step?

Oh, never mind.

Now Donna and the Doctor are being menaced by red-eyed Ood.

The fact that the Ood can turn the red eye on and off, apparently at will, is the creepiest part of this episode, I think.

And now everyone is converging on Warehouse 15, for the final showdown. That means we finally get to see what’s in the big, eerily glowing, red pit.

Ah! Giant brain! Ew.

Of course, looking at the episode again, I should have guessed that it would have been some kind of brain, but I don’t think I did guess the first time around.

So, hang on—Tim Mcinerney was saying earlier that they Ood roamed the ice like animals, when they found them. But then they found a giant brain?

(Oh, ew—some guy’s just been thrown into a giant brain. That can’t be good for the brain. Or the guy.)

So, they found a giant brain. And they applied a damper to lower the telepathic field? So they knew that the Ood had a sophisticated way of communication? So, were they animals? Or not? Or was Mcinerney lying when he said they found them as animals?

Nick won’t watch this next bit. It is rather disturbing, when he peels his own scalp off. What gets me, though, is when he vomits up the tentacles. That’s revolting.

Ew, and then he vomits out his hindbrain. I’d completely forgotten that bit.

Donna’s point that her established moral code is crumbling under the new experiences to which the Doctor is exposing her is an interesting one: the Doctor’s claim that not knowing right from wrong is “easier” is just lazy.

The music for this episode is rather lovely, I think—but then I’m partial to choral music.

The Ood are thanking the Doctor and Donna and promising to sing of them forever—but they didn’t really do much, did they? The Ood pretty much had it under control.

And that’s “Planet of the Ood”!

Next week, Martha! Martha! Martha! And Mike from The Young Ones as a Sontaran.

Cool.