‘The Impossible Planet’ and ‘The Satan Pit’ are the highlight of what is a mixed series. I’d argue that these stories push up the series a lot. This two parter is a great base under siege story, one of the best, I think. It plays with the format by completely splitting the Doctor and Rose up for the entirety of ‘The Satan Pit’. It gives Rose the base under siege action story, but it gives the Doctor a slow philosophical story with a lot of slow dialogue heavy moments coming together with the confrontation with the Beast. The Doctor gives us a good speech about the natural impulse we have when we stand on edges, the temptation to jump. It’s a great moment and really personifies the mission to the planet. It’s also significant as the Doctor had decided to retreat for once which is a really difficult thing for him to do because he almost never runs away from these kinds of situations. It shows you the type of threat the Beast is as it even has the Doctor afraid to confront it. This story is all about faith and belief, it’s a theme that runs throughout both episodes. Everyone has faith in something which is something that series 6’s ‘The God Complex’ would explore more, even season 26’s ‘The Curse of Fenric’ uses the same theme. It’s also explored quite well here with the Doctor’s faith challenged throughout. Other characters have their own faith like Zack’s faith in his crew and Rose’s faith in the Doctor but the Doctor’s faith is the main focus.
The opening is strong with us landing in a mystery base with the words ‘WELCOME TO HELL’ and some writing that even the TARDIS can’t translate which means the Doctor is thrown into the deep end for once and doesn’t have the answers, this creates a great mystery and sets the tone immediately. The whole look and feel of these two parter is incredible. I love the look of the base, making it seem lived in, not something sleek and white like Sci-Fi bases usually are. It’s clunky and creaky making it feel real like an actual base you can imagine humans have created. It’s a really well directed story, making it sort’ve like a sci-Fi horror movie. The pacing is perfectly suited to this movie like atmosphere along with the two-part format, the first part is all about the slow burn mystery as the characters all start having encounters and hear mysterious voices throughout the base. It’s done so well; you really feel unsettled by the base itself especially as the Ood and the base’s computer keep casually giving us creepy phrases with complete expressionless voices. It does such a good job to make you on edge, creating that Sci-Fi horror atmosphere.
Part of what makes the setting of this episode so great is the helplessness of it all. The mission is to investigate this power source at the center of the planet which allows it to orbit the black hole and not fall in, there’s only one way in and one way out but if this gravity funnel collapses, they’re stuck and will fall into the black hole. This sense of helplessness is furthered by the TARDIS being written out of the story, ensuring that the Doctor can’t just gather everyone and take them home. You really feel the loss of the TARDIS and Tennant sells it well, making it feel like they are doomed and trapped here forever. There’s a nice lighthearted scene where the Doctor and Rose talk about how’d they’d cope with living in one place in one time without being able to travel. Not only is it intentional foreshadowing for the series 4 finale but it’s also a good way to show their unspoken romance. It’s a good character moment between the two butit’ss interrupted by the creepy goings on that’s happening around the base.
The cliffhanger of ‘The Impossible Planet’ is great with the Doctor and Ida down in the pit and the Ood in the base above starting to kill people because they are possessed. It’s a brilliant way to pay off all the tension they have been building throughout the episode, it’s such a great ending and sets things up so well for ‘The Satan Pit’.
The intense start to ‘The Satan Pit’ carries this momentum with the Ood chasing the crew into a dead-end. Rose takes charge of the situation, finally giving her some backbone and responsibility in series 2 since she is without the Doctor and has to take command to stay alive and solve the problem with the Ood. This solution comes with a computer virus that can knock out all of the Ood but the characters have to climb through maintenance tunnels to get to the Ood habitation hub.
This is such a fantastic scene and is so memorable. There isn’t any air in the tunnels, so the captain has to open the doors one by one as the Ood get closer and closer, it feels really claustrophobic and tense once again making the story feel like a movie. Jefferson not making it through in time is a cliché especially as a similar situation happened to Rose in series 1’s ‘Dalek’ but Jefferson’s sacrifice feels noble and heroic with the episode once again taking time to acknowledge it rather than just skipping over it.
This story represents the tenth Doctor at his most thoughtful, challenged far beyond his expectations of what lies within the universe and forced to contend with something he can’t immediately explain away. He gets so many great conversations and moments where he simply doesn’t know what to do and the way many scenes let him sit and dread things is masterful and something we don’t normally get to see. David Tennant really nails every scene he’s in and it’s one of his best performances as the Doctor as a result.
These episodes really let out Tennant’s immaculate acting and lets Ten’s characterisation shine, he’s had plenty of chances to prove himself as the Doctor but I feel like this two parter was the missing piece to complete the image of his incarnation, and what a way to do it.
Billie Piper’s Rose is also at her best in this episode, finally given something more meaningful and important to do that shows of her character.
Rose is fantastic in this adventure. She’s the real MVP of this story, helping everyone to survive almost entirely without the assistance of the Doctor. We see just how far she’s come in these episodes. As a bonus, all the qualities that make her annoying in series two are absent.
She is slowly becoming like the Doctor, as she takes control of the situation when the Beast sabotages the mining lift. Her desperation to get back to the Doctor can be interpreted as Ten/Rose but I don’t think it is here. Anyone who’s known the Doctor for long enough wouldn’t take the idea of leaving him to die lightly.
I really like the Ood as I think they are an imaginative alien. They have a striking look to them which makes them immediately memorable. The Ood being a slave race is an interesting note in the story, their statues as slaves is only slightly challenged by Rose before she got talked down by Danny who says that the Ood offer themselves. The slavery aspect could’ve been explored a bit more in this but thankfully it was in an episode from series 4.
Something else I like is the misdirection of the cold open, the Doctor opens the door just to be confronted by the Ood who advance on him and Rose like the usual aliens that they usually find themselves up against, however it turns out they just wanted to serve the Doctor and Rose food, but their translators were faulty. It’s a fantastic way to subvert our expectations because we’re used to aliens being evil and trying to kill our main characters. It’s also great because the episode ends the same way but with this time the Ood wanting to kill Rose, it’s a good way to come full circle.
Gabriel Woolf is absolutely perfect as the Beast, having played Sutekh in ‘The Pyramids of Mars’. I’m really glad he did the voice here.
The Beast is great as a haunting presence throughout these two episodes, manipulating objects and lights but most importantly getting into the minds of everyone involved. It exploits everyone’s fears and insecurities, taunting them to divide them and plunging them into chaos. It’s also great as there is a cryptic hint towards the finale with the Beast saying Rose will die in battle.
The Doctor’s confrontation with the Beast is a wonderful part of the story. The CGI has obviously aged, but it still looks fantastically sinister and is realised really well. It’s great that the Doctor tries to work out what the Beast is, refusing to accept that it’s before time itself or that it is what it says it is. He has to confront this thing that he refuses to believe exists and has no way to fight against it. His speech about the devil just being an idea is fantastic and I like how the concept of the devil’s existence in all levels of the universe’s cultures is explored and hinted at being the Beast bleeding through. It’s clever. It’s also great that the Doctor may never know what the Beast is because he’s supposed to know everything, but this is one thing he’ll never know for sure. A mystery with no real explanation. It challenges everything about the Doctor and what he believes in which is a brilliant direction to take.
The Doctor eventually realises that the Beast is just a literal body with its mind escaping on the rocket, putting him in a huge dilemma since he can’t stop the Beast without sacrificing Rose. It’s here that we find out where the Doctor’s faith lies, in his companion. He decides he believes in Rose enough to figure out a way to survive. I do like that the Doctor’s faith is in his companions as it adds a lot of subtext to the Doctor-companion relationship. This episode implies that it’s his faith in just Rose but I believe that its all his companions in general.
The side cast are all brilliant and extremely likeable with each having their own characteristic that makes them memorable. This is one of the few times in New-Who were the story actually takes time to spend a considerable amount of time getting used to daily life and the people living in it rather than jump right into the intensity of the situation. As a result you actually care what happens to the supporting characters and want to see them make it out of this horrible situation. Writer Matt Jones makes us get a good understanding of Zack, the reluctant stand in captain and an even better understanding of the brave and curious Ida Scott who’s desperate to prove herself. The characters are all great and you feel connected to them.
I’ve already mentioned spooky atmosphere with the creepy encounters, but archeologist Toby Zed is the focus of a lot of these encounters, hearing a voice calling him and having lights flickering around him however the best part comes when he is studying some ancient writing, he has become obsessed with. He hears a deep disturbing voice behind him, but he can’t turn around to see the source as it yells to him he’ll die if he looks. The tension builds and the voice gets closer until Toby turns and sees nothing. It really plays on our fear of the unknown. It’s such a great scene and its made even better when Toby notices that the letters have disappeared only for it to suddenly appear all over his body. In just one scene it sets up so much and nails that Sci-Fi horror theme perfectly.
Especially with what follows.
Earlier in the episode we were introduced to Scooti Manista, the young trainee maintenance member of the crew. After Toby is possessed, she goes to find him and ends up seeing him outside the base without a spacesuit on. It’s such a creepy visual because we know he shouldn’t be able to survive out there. Toby cracks the window, but Scooti is locked inside the corridor, so she’s pulled out into space. I like how her death is given a lot of emotional impact; they give it a lot more time than other minor character deaths in Doctor Who. Dwelling on it and showing how her death has affected the rest of the crew. It makes her death hit a lot harder as it is given that time to sink in.
Facing the Doctor with the literal devil was such a bold move for a show that too often removes the mystery from its universe, explaining everything initially perceived as strange as aliens and fictional science. It’s a story where humanity’s desire for progress and scientific understanding, often praised by the Doctor, leads them to almost unleash the ultimate evil, which isn’t a story I thought Doctor Who would tell, let alone do it so well. I wish more Doctor Who writers would aim for ideas like this, questioning our assumptions about its world and our own.
These episodes are one of the standouts for series 2. The setting is imaginative, and the production values are really good. The first part takes its time to crank up the tension and slowly build up the horror atmosphere. Murray Gold’s score is on point throughout with a very mystical and ancient score adding so much to the already eerie atmosphere. It also has some really monumental concepts and pushed the boundaries of 2006’s CGI. It has some of the best horror in the series to date. The characters are all really well acted with David Tennant and Billie Piper on top form. It honestly more than deserves the high praise that it gets. Admittedly I can’t say enough good things about these two episodes.
I genuinely believe that ‘The Impossible Planet’ and ‘The Satan Pit’ are top notch Doctor Who episodes that can stand alongside the greatest episodes of New-Who and the Classic series.
It has got to be asked though, is this suitable viewing for a younger audience? This isn’t a family friendly adventure.