The Impossible Planet
| 178a - The Impossible Planet | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Cast | |||
| Production | |||
| Directed by | James Strong | ||
| Written by | Matt Jones | ||
| Script editor | Simon Winstone | ||
| Produced by | Phil Collinson | ||
| Executive producer(s) | Russell T. Davies Julie Gardner | ||
| Production code | Series 2, Episode 8 | ||
| Series | Series 2 (2006) | ||
| Running time | 1 of 2 episodes, 45 mins | ||
| First broadcast | June 3, 2006 | ||
| Chronology | |||
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The Impossible Planet is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is the first part of a two-part story, followed by The Satan Pit. The story was broadcast on 3 June 2006.
Synopsis
Template:Spoiler When the TARDIS crew land on an alien planet in the orbit of a black hole, the last thing they expect is to arrive in a Hell-like world, with an unexplained darkness that stumps even the Doctor. Human scientists are mining to claim the power that keeps the planet in orbit for themselves. But in doing so they reawaken an ancient evil...
Plot
The TARDIS materialises, sounding as though it is ill. The Doctor and Rose emerge to find that they have materialised in a sanctuary base in the far future. They find graffiti saying 'Welcome to Hell' and strange alien writing that the TARDIS cannot translate. The Doctor concludes that the writing must therefore be "impossibly old". Suddenly, the Doctor and Rose are surrounded by squid-faced aliens, the Ood, who repeat the phrase 'We must feed'...
The Ood stop, shake their malfunctioning translation spheres and finish their sentence 'We must feed you', apologising for the confusion. Then a group of armed humans arrive, who are astonished to find new people on their base. The Doctor and Rose are taken to the control room of the base, which is then hit by a brief but violent earthquake, resulting in some sections of the base being destroyed. The humans then introduce themselves and explain that they are on a ruined planetoid orbiting a black hole. This is theoretically impossible as a black hole sucks everything into it and destroys it. The goal of the human expedition is to drill to the centre of the planet and find the power source that is responsible for generating the gravity funnel keeping the planet from falling into the black hole.
The expedition crew ask the Doctor and Rose how they got here. They reply that they arrived via 'another form of transportation' that is stationed in Habitat chamber 16. The Doctor then discovers that, as a result of the earthquake, the room containing the TARDIS has fallen into a huge chasm. The acting captain, Zack, says that he cannot afford to divert the drilling machines to retrieve the TARDIS, but will take the Doctor and Rose with them when they leave the planet. The Doctor and Rose come to the realisation that, as the TARDIS was the last of its kind, they are stuck in this timezone forever.
The expedition's archaeological expert, Toby, is working on translating the alien writing. Whenever Toby is alone he hears a mysterious voice calling him, but assumes that some of the crewmen are playing tricks on him. Rose attempts to become friendly with the Ood, who act as servants for the crew and possess telepathic abilities. Meanwhile, strange messages are heard from the Ood, Rose's mobile phone (despite it supposedly having no signal) and the base's communication system - they all say that 'the Beast has awoken'. When the Ood are resting, their telepathic sleep is interrupted and rises from the standard level of Basic 5 up to Basic 30, which means that they are screaming in their minds from a nightmare.
When Toby is alone in his quarters, the voice tells him he should not look behind him as he will die from the sight. After hearing that the creature is about to touch him, Toby turns around but there is nothing there. The alien writing somehow transfers itself from the artefacts onto Toby's hands and face, his eyes turn red and he falls to the ground. Later, Scooti enters Toby's quarters but he is not there, so she asks the computer, which states that someone is outside the base but no spacesuit has been taken. Scooti attempts to tell the captain but the communicator does not work. She then checks the window and sees Toby outside, somehow still alive despite not wearing a space suit. He seems to be possessed and motions for Scooti to join him. He then uses telekinetic powers to lock the door (preventing Scooti from escaping) and break the window. Scooti is sucked out into space and Toby returns inside to join the crew, the writing having vanished from his skin and his eyes having become normal again.
The security chief, Mr Jefferson, counts everyone then tells Zack via his communication device that Scooti is missing. Zack says that the computer system shows her to be in habitat chamber 3. The Doctor notices that Toby is acting strangely, and Toby explains he was studying the writing and then after that he can't remember anything. At habitat chamber 3, Scooti is nowhere to be seen. The Doctor looks up and says he's found her. Everyone looks up at the viewing window on the ceiling and sees Scooti's corpse floating off into space, towards the black hole. The expedition's science officer, Ida, comments that she was only 20, before closing the metal shutters on the window. Meanwhile, the drilling has stopped, meaning that the shaft has reached point 0, where the power source is located.
The Doctor and Ida volunteer to go down and find out what is going on, leaving Rose behind at the base. The Ood are confined to their chamber, but the crewmen guarding them notice that their Basic rating has now risen to 100. This means that they should be brain-dead but instead they are standing and watching them. As the Doctor and Ida reach the bottom of the shaft they find the ruins of an ancient civilization. Deeper inside, they find a circular seal with the same alien writing on the edge. Back at the base, Toby becomes possessed again. Mr Jefferson holds him at gunpoint, causing the force that is possessing him to transfer to the Ood. The Ood start killing any humans that stand in their way by electrocuting them with their translation spheres. Proclaiming themselves to be the 'Legion of the Beast', they advance towards Rose and Mr Jefferson. The seal begins to open, exposing a deep pit, and the gravitational force holding the planet in place begins to fail, causing the planet to start to fall into the black hole. Ida and the Doctor stare, horrified, as something begins to emerge from the pit...
Cast
- The Doctor — David Tennant
- Rose Tyler — Billie Piper
- Mr. Jefferson — Danny Webb
- Zachary Cross Flane — Shaun Parkes
- Ida Scott — Claire Rushbrook
- Toby Zed — Will Thorp
- Danny Bartock — Ronny Jhutti
- Scooti Manista — MyAnna Buring
- The Ood — Paul Kasey
- Voice of the Beast — Gabriel Woolf
- Voice of the Ood — Silas Carson
Notes
- Chris Evans was rumoured to be playing the part of the Devil in this two-part story. However, David Tennant confirmed on the Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio that Evans will not be appearing in the episode.
- The Voice of the Beast is provided by Gabriel Woolf, who is best known in Doctor Who for playing 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 states that Sutekh has been known by many aliases, including the Typhonian beast and Satan.
- 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.
- In an interview with SFX magazine (#142), Russell T. Davies said that the characters in this story are "pioneers in a dangerous situation, like the Wild West."
- Russell T. Davies and director James Strong have described this episode as "Just about as tense and scary as Doctor Who can get".
- The Doctor encountered adversaries that used a black hole in The Horns of Nimon, The Three Doctors, and Trial of a Time Lord.
- In the episode the human government is "the Empire". This may be any one of several human Empires mentioned previously in the series, depending on the era in which the episode is set.
- Shaun Parkes previously starred with David Tennant in the BBC's 2005 Casanova serial written by Russell T. Davies.
- This episode has numerous references to hell, and the Number of the Beast, 666. The Doctor states that the power source to generate the gravitional field would have to be "6 to the power of 6 every 6 seconds", a character announces that a computer readout is 66.6, plus the story's two episodes are broadcast either side of June 6, 2006 (06/06/06). Additionally, the graphic of the Black Hole as it sucks in The Scarlet System is an inverted six.
- The episode features Maurice Ravel's Boléro. Some may see this fitting, as this won the British Ice Dancing team a set of perfect sixes in 1984.
- Rose refers to the dinner lady job she had in School Reunion when talking to an Ood serving food.
- This episode sees Rose's 'super phone' lose its signal for the first time.
- This episode is full of religious quotations, most of which are fragmented. The most used is "He is awake" and "We are Legion", the latter being a reference to Mark 5:9.
- The death of Scooti is similar to the death of Lynda in The Parting Of The Ways.
- After finding Scooti's body, the Doctor repeats the phrase, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He has used these words many times before in this series, for example when discovering a "New Human" in New Earth and when examining a dying Cyberman in The Age of Steel. Mr Magpie also said this to Rose in The Idiot's Lantern.
- On the accompanying episode of Doctor Who Confidential, Russell T. Davies revealed that he likes to think that the Ood come from a planet near to that of the Sensorites, as seen in The Sensorites.
- Mr Jefferson recites the lines "And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,/ For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?" from Macaulay's poem Horatius about the heroism of Horatius Cocles.
- There are potential parallels with the Doom video game series, particularly Doom 3, in which the Soul Cube is buried by a Martian race in order to stop the portal to Hell being reopened. Both the UAC and the human inhabitants of the sanctuary base discover ancient ruins underneath the ground, and both ultimately lead to the primary problem the protagonists encounter. Furthermore, the first time Toby exits to the corridor after hearing his name whispered, the closing door sound effects are that of the original Doom.
- The use of a black hole echoes the religious depiction of the Sun turning black in the Book of Revelation.
- This is the first episode since the 2005 revival of Doctor Who to use a quarry as an alien planet - quarries were frequently used in this manner in the classic series.
- This is the first episode to be given a 6 ("Beyond Fear") by the BBC's fear forecasters (technically, the scale only goes up to 5). Amy, the youngest, rated it a 3 (psychological horror not working on a 5-year-old), but the other three hold up cards showing the number 6. Their photographs are positioned in a line, continuing the 666 references (however, the fear forecasters being shown in age order, this would've happened anyway).
- Overnight viewing figures for the episode were 5.94 million, the lowest since the revival of Doctor Who in 2005, though still achieving a 39.8% share of the audience (this may be because the day of the episode's transmission was the first properly sunny day for several weeks).
- According to Doctor Who Magazine #366, The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit will be released together with Love & Monsters as a basic DVD with no special features.
References