Review of Impossible Planet

[owl]

Well, that was scary, if theologically dubious. Well, the Doctor's a god, now we have the devil. When people's eyes start turning red it's never a good sign, no, precious.

I thought this could have worked well with even more parts, to get to know the research station people a little more before everything went to hell, but I might have been distracted by the fact that we'd just discovered our water had gone off (a week of sun and the whole water supply system packs in).
I liked the actual alien planet, and the grittiness of it all.

Toby was VERY VERY scary when he was outside without a spacesuit. His creepy smile...and the way he beckoned to the girl!! And then they tricked us into thinking that she'd survived somehow, until the Doctor spots her floating away into the black hole. And the Doctor is, again, so sorry. And Toby sits in the corner staring at his hands. I take it he dies at the end when the demon left him?
Also the 'don't look behind you' scene makes me glad that i'm not a small child. Nightmare material!

The TARDIS fell down a big hole oh noes! Woe! I liked the part where the Doctor just stood, hugging Rose and staring out into space. It's kind of funny that she's all, 'Mortgages! ah, well, I'm fine as long as I'm with you' and he's 'I'm going to DIE without my TARDIS, woe!' It shows why they don't really work as an OTP (Doctor/TARDIS OTP 4EVA!!1). And the part about leaving home...it's not just Jackie that Rose is talking about, is it? *sniff*

Rose+Ood=Hermione+house-elves. Except they're being possessed and they're going to kill everyone! The crew are being clobbered by nemesis because it's hubris they've got. :) They were so feeble-looking, apart from the 'We must feed' part at the beginning. Evidently the universal translator is a bit wonky, or else Gallifreyan doesn't have a distinction between transtive and intransitive verbs 'to feed' :). I liked Rose grabbing a chair, and the Doctor with his sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor and Ida going down to the pit was wonderful, although I couldn't help wondering what a massive source of gravitational energy would do to the human (or Time Lord's) body. Some impressive CG there for the chamber. The skience wasn't horrible this time; at least it was sort of semi-plausible in a space-opera-ish way.

It was very good as horror; demon-possession and poking into Things That Man Was Never Meant To Meddle With always go into the fear centres of the brain. They've succumbed to the forbidden knowledge and the beast has come up from the pit. Oh, and they're falling into a black hole and the TARDIS is lost. What a cliff-hanger. It won't be so easy to fix this as in Age of Steel; in fact, it's hard to see how they're going to get out of this one.

Fantastic!

Comments

[marcella-riddle.livejournal.com]

Rose+Ood=Hermione+house-elves.

YES! Just like dear Hermione with her S.P.E.W. If it weren't for the problem of the gaping big hole, I feel sure Rose would've bugged the Doctor about freeing the Ood. Yup.

Except they're being possessed and they're going to kill everyone!

House Elves could still prove to be important! A big evil part of me would love that, especially if it happpened in book 7, specifically because it'd screw WB over.

[owl]

WB evidently haven't read Hogwarts, A History :-P

[marcella-riddle.livejournal.com]

Nope and I so want Jo to make them regret that.

[owl]

*snerk*

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

That's my friend duranorak's Dad playing Satan.

[owl]

How exciting! He was very convincingly evil.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Can I pass that on? Oooh, whilst you're here, you don't recall off-hand what Patrick's bedroom window looks out onto, do you? I think it's the terrace but I'm not sure.

[owl]

Can I pass that on?

But natch!

[sacred-sarcasm.livejournal.com]

It was very good as horror; demon-possession and poking into Things That Man Was Never Meant To Meddle With always go into the fear centres of the brain.

You missed Being Taken Over by Ancient Writing!
Seriously, that terrified me! Probably because I'm fascinated by ancient civilisations and writing and stuff and - he has cabin fever to start with and thinks he's hallucinating and then ARGGHHHHHH. I hid behind my cushion.

[owl]

The ancient writing looked more scary as the ep went on, did you find?

[soralin.livejournal.com]

I thought the writing was really pretty--except, of course, when it's painted all over Toby. Yes, that was freaky.

[book-addict.livejournal.com]

The skience on its own wasn't bad; the "explanations" on the other hand ... the dialogue glossed over all of the details that could have made it feasible.
Mm. Good episode.

[owl]

It's Doctor Whop. The skience is always variously bad. But 'The devil is generating an enormous gravitational force' is rather less bad than 'the alien is feeding off people's brain electricity, and that makes their faces disappear'.

[book-addict.livejournal.com]

Indeed. The disappearing faces confused me.

The thing that bothered me here was that it's not impossible for something to orbit a black hole.
If they'd said "wow, it's impossible that a planet of this size could orbit a black hole from this distance," that would have been fine. But I suppose that might have complicated things.

PS I love your icon. It's terribly true.

[owl]

I was thinking along the lines of 'this is dumbed down for the benefit of Rose/yer average Saturday night viewer', so it didn't bother me too much.

PS I love your icon. It's terribly true.

And he is terribly cute!

[soralin.livejournal.com]

And then they tricked us into thinking that she'd survived somehow, until the Doctor spots her floating away into the black hole.

I actually thought Toby was going to spread the red eye disease to Scootie. So when Scootie was supposed to be in Habitation 3 or something, I half-thought she was standing upsidedown on the ceiling, vampire style.

[owl]

I thought that perhaps she was standing outside it, like Toby was. Evidently the biochip tracer does not operate in the thrid dimension.