Doctor Who/Recap/S28/E08 The Impossible Planet

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< Doctor Who‎ | Recap‎ | S28

He is awake. And you will worship him.

Rose and the Doctor find themselves in a space base, but the TARDIS seemed strangely reluctant to materialise (bad sign number one). Rose points out that they can hop back in and go somewhere else if they think there's going to be trouble, but neither of them can keep a straight face at the idea. They venture inwards and find a wall with "Welcome to Hell" written on it (bad sign number two), along with a series of symbols that not even the TARDIS can translate, which means the language must be impossibly old (bad sign number three). And to top it all off, Rose's super work-anywhere cell phone has no signal (bad sign number four).

They're soon introduced to the Ood ("We must feed... we must feed... you, if you are hungry"), a "slave race" linked by a telepathic field who communicate with others via orb-shaped translators. Next in line are the base's human crew, who are suitably astonished at these two strangers appearing out of nowhere and having no idea where they are. It turns out the planetoid they're on is far too close to a black hole to still be intact: something at its centre is creating a gravity field (complete with a funnel for the ship to fly down) that holds it in place, and the crew are drilling to the core to find out what. Whatever it is, it doesn't make the planet a comfortable place to live, as the base is routinely hit with earthquakes. The Doctor is delighted at the idea of a bunch of humans choosing to live in such a desolate place just "because it was there" and promptly hugs the ship's captain. However, the place also turns out to have massive earthquakes... one of which has just sent a chunk of the base's storage space falling into a chasm. Including the TARDIS.

The Doctor and Rose deal with the idea of being trapped in that time and place forever. They discuss mortgages and whether or not they'd live together. It's quite awkward. Suddenly, they and everyone else start to notice strange glitches with the intercoms and the Ood's translator devices. When they investigate, the Ood's telepathic field goes berserk and they all start chanting ominously in unison.

Toby, the crew's archaeologist, gets singled out for special treatment by a strange, whispery voice while Toby's examining some artifacts.

"Don't turn around... if you look at me, you will die. Don't look, don't look at me. I'm reaching out, Toby... oh, I can touch you."

Toby looks—and sees nothing... until he looks in the mirror and finds his face and hands are covered in the symbols and his eyes are bright red. When Trainee Maintenance Scooti Manista questions the computer about an unauthorized opening of the airlock (with no space-suit being logged out), she's astonished to see Toby walking on the planet's surface unprotected... before he telekinetically shatters the window, pulling her into space. The others find only a shellshocked Toby and mournfully watch Scooti's corpse drift out of sight.

When the drill finally reaches the planet's core, the Doctor talks his way into being allowed to go down in the capsule along with science officer Ida. They find the ruins of an ancient civilization and an enormous, imposing seal covered with the same markings. Right on cue, it starts to open, as the Ood rise up as the "Legion of the Beast" and the planet starts trembling in its orbit.

"The Pit is open... and I am FREEEE."

Tropes

"Mr Jefferson, tell me, sir: did your wife ever forgive you?"
"...I don't know what you mean."
"Let me tell you a secret. She never did."

The Doctor: ...you'd need a power source with an inverted self-extrapolating reflex of six to the power of six every six seconds.

Rose: That's a lot of sixes.

The Doctor: Oh, come on, "no turning back"? That's almost as bad as "nothing can possibly go wrong" or "this is gonna be the best Christmas Walford's ever had."

  • Black Holes Suck: Black holes are, well, black. The corona of light does not make much sense. Word of God says the original special effects were closer to reality, but they changed it to a corona of orange light to look more ominous.
    • Of course they do say there's stuff being pulled in. An accretion disk would have made perfect sense and given them exactly the imagery they wanted.
    • They also claim there are no stable orbits around a black hole which isn't really true. If we give them the benefit of the doubt and say they're inside the event horizon, though, they might have an excuse to show anything they want.
  • Welcome to Hell
  • Wham! Line: "The Beast and his armies shall rise from the pit to make war against God."
    • The Doctor can't read the writing because it's "impossible old". This from a Time Lord.
  • You Just Had to Say It
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