The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit

He is using your basic fears against you!

The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit are an interesting and well put together combo. Like many of the Moffat two-parters, they have very different styles of storytelling in each part, but both work well and do not detract from each other. It is up to the preferences of the viewer to decide which part is a bit more to their liking.

Plot Summary

The Impossible Planet sets the stage as a suspense thriller. The Doctor and Rose land on a planet too close to a black hole. It is only not sucked in because there is an energy source generating a counter gravity field against it. A team of humans has come to discover the source of the power and exploit it if possible. They have also brought Ood workers to handle the actual drilling and maintenance (this is the first appearance of the Ood). The team archaeologist begins hearing voices and is eventually taken over by an evil spirit. In this form, he kills one of the workers and also begins to mind control the Ood. Adding additional peril, the TARDIS falls into a chasm in the planet when an earthquake destroys part of the base. The episode ends with the Doctor and one of the crew members (Ida) having gone down to the cavern to which the drill has penetrated. The see a pit which is opening. Meanwhile the Ood are moving against the rest of the crew, having already killed one member.

The Satan Pit picks up the tale as a base under siege story, but with a bit of philosophical punch. The captain has locked the Ood out of the control room while Rose and the surviving members of the crew are holed up in the dig room. The Doctor and Ida attempt to travel back up but the line is cut to their capsule and they are trapped in the cavern. The Doctor then opts to rappel down into the pit using the severed cable. Rose and the other crew figure out how to disrupt the Ood control, giving them breathing space to get to the escape rocket. The security chief is killed in the escape but Rose, the Captain, the archaeologist and the Ood monitor launch away in the rocket. Meanwhile, the Doctor finds himself in a cavern with a chained beast. He realizes that only the body of the Beast is here and that the mind has invaded one of the crew members. Faced with the dilemma of letting the Beast escape or destroying the gravity field which will kill everyone (including those in the rocket), the Doctor opts for the noble sacrifice and destroys the gravity field. As the rocket is pulled towards the black hole, the Beast panics in the body of the archaeologist, revealing his disguise. Rose blows the window of the rocket and releases his harness causing the Beast to be ejected into space towards the black hole before emergency measures reseal the rocket. Down in the pit, the Doctor falls backwards and finds the TARDIS has fallen into the same region. He then rescues Ida from the planet before it is sucked in and pulls the rocket to safety. The remaining crew return to Earth while the Doctor and Rose fly off.

Analysis

There was very little of this two-parter that I did not enjoy. The atmosphere is built up very nicely in The Impossible Planet with some genuine fearful notes established. The oscillation of the Ood between helpfulness and murderous dialogue also gives a strong sense of unease. Things are further put off balance with the Doctor himself being confronted by something that is completely outside his knowledge and openly challenges his understanding of the universe with the evidence presented. Coupled with the loss of the TARDIS, the Doctor is unsettled and seemingly on the wrong foot for nearly the whole episode which helps keep the viewer on edge.

The Satan Pit follows things up well despite my fear that the shift in tone would bring the episode down. If the episode had shifted too much into a chase scenario, it would have lessened the effect. Instead, the Ood are simply outside trying to get in providing a more soft pressure. The only chase sequence comes in a tunnel moving sequence that is very much an homage to Alien and shows just enough to keep the tension up without getting too cat and mouse. It also helps that the performances of the major players are very well done with their limited screen time given over to strong character building moments. When Mr. Jefferson is trapped and is about to die, you fell genuinely sad that this character is lost because he was someone you liked and had bought into. Likewise you understand the burdens the Captain is going through.

Probably the best aspect of either episode is that no character makes a decision that seems out of place. The crew act like real people with real backstories that affect their how they behave and react and it gives a genuine tone to everything. It also emphasizes the Doctor's alienness throughout especially as he reacts to their actions in the way a human does when their pet does something they love to see. It is both patronizing but also endearing. His optimism and bubbliness, even when confronting the Beast's body still set him apart from the grim realness the crew and Rose give off.

My favorite part of either episode was in the first few minutes of The Satan Pit where the Doctor is openly challenged by the Beast, both directly and philosophically. In most Doctor Who stories, the argument between science and religion pulls strongly to the science side. It was rather nice to see a strong challenge from the religion side, something the Doctor couldn't come up with a final answer to, leaving it up to the viewer to decide the Beast's origins and whether he was lying or not. There are many things that cannot be explained except in this manner and it is nice to see that question debated and left open to interpretation.

The only thing I didn't quite care for was the ending. Not the dilemma, I liked that; it was the miraculous reappearance of the TARDIS that bothered me. The removal of the TARDIS was important as it aided the sense of being trapped on the planet and it would of course be necessary to end the story with the Doctor and Rose escaping in it. However, I wish a little more set up had been made to the possibility of it being near there. To see the Doctor back out of the foreground simply fall on to it's side was the absolute definition of a Deus Ex Machina ending. I understand it's necessity, but I wish the ending could have been set up a little better because it just felt like cheating at the end.

In the end, this was a very enjoyable two-parter and quite possibly the best of Series Two.

Overall personal score: The Impossible Planet - 5 out of 5; The Satan Pit - 4.5 out of 5