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The Impossible Planet Format Reviewed: TV Review The second two-part story of the series commences with The Impossible Planet. I am a great advocate of multi-episode stories, so when another comes around I am always waiting in eager anticipation of what is to come. Also here, we move away from Earth and despite encountering Humans, I see this a positive step. I do feel that the new series have become rather Earth bound, and would like to see more adventures into space as well as time. The Impossible Planet sees the Doctor and Rose land in a deep space Earth colony, researching why a land mass isn't being sucked into the black-hole close by. They want to discover the power source and harness it for use on Earth. The first beings they encounter are the Ood, who are a volunteer slave race for the Humans. The Ood take the Doctor and Rose to the control room where they are accepted, but an earthquake then sucks part of the base into the ground, the part containing the TARDIS. Meanwhile, the research team are drilling and trying to decipher ancient writing that even the TARDIS cannot decrypt. The Ood then start becoming strange, and archaeologist Toby becomes under the influence of 'The Beast', who is the reason for the existence of the impossible planet. The drilling then completes and the Doctor and Ida go down to investigate. With the Ood and Toby now possessed, One member of the team is killed and the Doctor and Ida then find a trap door which starts to open. The story builds dramatically from the beginning to a tense finale, with a mysterious cliffhanger as the conclusion. In most ways the story could have been done with ancient Earth based civilisations (without the black hole of course), but as stated previously I am glad to have escaped the confines of Earth for a while. The tone is dark in places, the loss of the TARDIS has a real and noticable effect on the Doctor and Rose, and the crew are much what you would expect from a deep space scientific investigation team. The interaction with the Ood is also interesting, as they are telepathic and communicate as such, a very interesting race. The cast is good here, but David Tennant is unusually slightly subdued and doesn't sparkle quite as much as normal. Billie Piper as Rose does a good job, as her increasing reputation would point to. Of the guest cast, there are no weak performances in my opinion. There are some OK performances that are nothing special from Danny Webb, Shaun Parkes and Claire Rushbrook as Mr. Jefferson, Zachary Cross Flane and Ida Scott respectively, but the stand out performer is Will Thorp as Toby Zed. He has a very important role, and achieves it magnificently, especially when possessed. He really is a true delight in this role, and his slightly dark qualities really bring the story to life. One other member of the guest cast worth a mention is Gabriel Woolf who gives the voice of The Beast. Woolf played Sutekh in the Tom Baker serial The Pyramids of Mars, and was a true delight, so I have a great affection for him in Doctor Who. My one negative is the plausability of why the Doctor and Rose are accepted so readily by the crew of the colony. A tightly knit team rarely accepts outsiders with such ease and grace anyway, and especially given the situation you would expect much more cynicism and distrust on their part. This is really a minor criticism though, and the rest of the episode really makes up for this. We again see the 'deep emotion' being brought in with the apparant loss of the TARDIS and I will again criticise this as I see it as making the show too much like a soap opera. Overall, The Impossible Planet is a very good start to a two-part story, more of which are needed in the new series of Doctor Who. We are removed from the confines of Earth, and I like the use of ancient and mystical almost religious undertones. Everything builds the anticipation and suspense, and the Ood really provide the story with another creepy alien race. Rating:  |