Rate & Discuss 4.3: Planet of the Ood

[Pip Madeley]

The Doctor takes Donna far into the future, to her first alien world. But on the planet Ood-Sphere, they discover terrible truths about the Human Race. As the enslaved Ood struggle for survival, a secret buried for 200 years threatens to rise up and engulf them all.



You know the score, don't vote or post spoilers until after the episode has aired.

[Rob McCow]

Looking forward to seeing Tim McInnery Mr.Halpen in this episode!

But will his friends, Mr.Hweetabix, Mr.Hricekrispies and Mrs.Hjordanscrunchyoatandsultanaceral be involved?

[Jon Masters]

I don't need to watch this tonight, as I had a very vivid dream this morning involving the Doctor, Donna, the Ood, Tim McInnery, the guy off the video clip and even the Sontarans appearing at the end.

I'd rate my dream 7/10 (there were definitely some plot holes)

[Rob McCow]

Jon Masters' dream is the worst Doctor Who story ever. It's not a patch on the dreams about Doctor Who he was having in the 70's.

[SiHart]

I bet the science was correct though.

Si xx

[Stuart Wallis]

Except for the bits about black holes, solar flares and rice krispies.

[WhiteCrow]

I've a bit apprehensive about this episode, simply because the Ood were little more than an army for the Beast in Season 2.

I'm kind of expecting this to feel pretty much like a rerun of parts of that story again - but I very much hope to be proved wrong.

I hope we don't fall into the trap of "we've still got these costumes and aren't afraid to reused them" as they did with the Slitheen.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I thought the Ood were quite interesting. A hive-like race with no real sense of identity and a mysterious backstory of suddenly just appearing and just wanting to serve... or am I thinking of the Monoids?

Well either way, there was always room for looking at them more closely. That doesn't mean they couldn't balls it up royally of course.

[JohnMan]

Give the episode a chance. It might be really good...

[Pip Madeley]

A solid enjoyable 7 from me. An average (and by that I mean good) episode which somehow seemed a little disposable in some ways, it was slow-moving at times and the climax wasn't quite as climactic as I'd hoped, although the twist with Mr Halpen was a shock. It was nice to see the Doctor get away from Earth for the first time in what seems a lifetime. I have a soft spot for the Ood, and I'm glad they're free at last, a moralistic story that Barry Letts would have enjoyed I'm sure. Some of the CGI wasn't utterly convincing, but for the budget the show is made on it was highly impressive. As for the Doctor's song about to end... ooh.

Bonus points for the reference to The Sensorites - another Hartnell reference!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I gave it 8, I thought it was pretty good all round. Very atmospheric. Gets negative marks from me for the reference though. Who needs bloody references all the time? They don't add anything at all.

Just a thought, but do spiders eat bees particularly?

Next week looks like it will be back to the usual tosh though.

[Pip Madeley]

Gets negative marks from me for the reference though. Who needs bloody references all the time?

The first mention of Sensorites in 44 years is something that should be applauded in my book. There's nothing wrong with the odd reference back to the classic series, it ties it all together nicely and doesn't affect the enjoyment for new viewers (the series isn't going up its own arse like it did in the 80s).

[Philipnet]

They sneeze out their brains?


I bet the kids like that one

[Paul Clement]

I was a bit worried by the return of the Ood as I hadn't particularly taken to them during Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, and couldn't envisage them being much more than pawns in a larger game.
To a degree I was right, although the larger game ended up also being the Ood, but it wasn't as bad as I suspected it would be. The performance of Tim Mcinnery was the best part of the episode, and there were a few good scenes in the story as a whole. I wasn't too keen on the idea of McInnery's character becoming an Ood, finding it hard to suspend my disbelief enough to accept that drinking that drink would be enough to convert a human into an Ood. The effects for the scene were rather good though.
I quite liked the intriguing 'I think your song must end soon' line and am assuming it's a hint that the Doctor is going to regenerate soon.

I'm not sure that there was a real need to namecheck the Sense Sphere in the episode, but I'm not too fussed that they did.

7/10 from me, and pleasantly surprised.

[Logo Polish]

Is Keith Temple a Season 24 fan? Giant brain, as in Time and the Rani, and alien food or drink turning you into an alien, like Billy in Delta and the Bannermen ...

[Zbigniev Hamson]

The first mention of Sensorites in 44 years is something that should be applauded in my book. There's nothing wrong with the odd reference back to the classic series, it ties it all together nicely and doesn't affect the enjoyment for new viewers (the series isn't going up its own arse like it did in the 80s).

I don't see why it's to be applauded. The only people who are going to get it are the kinds of people who already know everything about the series anyway. Having the current Doctor mention the Sense Sphere for no particular reason doesn't make me misty-eyed with nostalgia. Nor do pointless references to Venom Grubs or whatever else the series has thrown at us in recent years. Making references to things that don't matter and have no relevance to the plot at all, solely to induce a squee of delight from the fans who already know everything anyway, is very close to going up its own arse in my book. At least in the 80s they normally had a reason to reference the past, even if it was just so they could build completely crap stories around continuity.

I mean, I'd hardly say it ruined the episode for me, but every time one of these little references crops up it just makes me cringe because it's so blatantly and obviously shoe-horned in to ellicit a certain response from a certain minority of viewers, rather than just being there to tell a good adventure story. It's the kind of thing Star Trek fans love and I though we were supposed to be better than that

[Pip Madeley]

Still disagree, I'm afraid. Cringe away.

[WhiteCrow]

I scored this one quite highly as well.

I thought it was great we didn't just have a rerun of the Ood as a menace under the influence of some evil again. From the trailer last week my son went "oh it'll just be Satan Pit again".

Far from it.

Nice to see the humans as bad guys for a change, it feels like ages since that.

A good story, made better by another wonderful performance by Catherine Tate. It's embarassing how much I'm enjoying her companion.

So 10/10 last week, this week goes to 9/10. And me usually a fairly critical man as well. Or grumpy old man as Paul Monk reminded me!

So far I'm enjoying this season a bit more than last one (and I still enjoyed that one). Everything feels like it's clicking and working at the moment.

[duncan]

Planet of the Ood was a great episode. It was good to see an alien planet at long last and it was well realised. Donna just goes from good to better and she was given some great lines this week. For example, when the rocket ship flew over head, "You've got a box, he's got a Ferrari!" and when talking about the Ood translator, "It's a Persil Ball." Hillarious. And on the subject of the Ood translator, I laughed when she picked it up and spoke into it as if it was the only way the Ood could hear her. Catherine also plays the emotional card very well.

This was well acted by all involved, especially Tim McInnery, and his transformation into an Ood made our Amy shudder.

Oh, and that line at the end about the Doctor's song coming to an end soon. What on earth could that mean. Or is it a bit of a red herring like the line about Rose dying in Battle?

[WhiteCrow]

Oh, and that line at the end about the Doctor's song coming to an end soon. What on earth could that mean. Or is it a bit of a red herring like the line about Rose dying in Battle?

Holy Regeneration Batman!?!

[Andrew Curnow]

Or is it a bit of a red herring like the line about Rose dying in Battle?

She's coming back, so maybe that wasn't a red herring after all?

We all enjoyed it here, and all guessed that Ood Sigma wasn't giving Captain Darling a hair-restorative. The transformation, BTW, is one of very few things in Doctor Who ever that made me almost look away from the screen, especially when he was pulling back his own skin. Ewww!

Really liked this episode; a lot of charm, and some surprising moments and twists. The business with the song was simple but effective, and the final scene on the clifftop actually brought tears to my eyes (again).

[Alex]

I enjoyed that a fair amount, like Pip said it was a solid and enjoyable episode, and for me there wasn't anything particularly wrong with it. I found the Ood pretty disturbing from the word go, especially as it was always going to be only a matter of time before they went psychopathic, and the action and adventure scenes were a lot of fun too.

The only thing that niggles is that for a story which parallel's slavery (and to some extent, the holocaust, what with Tim McInnery's plans to kill all of the Ood on the base), it felt a little lightweight - I'm not quite sure how it could have been done, but a bit more depth would have been nice.

7 / 10 then - it was a good, strong episode, but it's just a shame that it wasn't a little more than this.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Or is it a bit of a red herring like the line about Rose dying in Battle?

What line about Rose dying in battle?

Oh and I might not have liked the Sensorites reference, but it was great to see Thunderbird 3 again.

[Antony Cox]

6/10 from me.

Enjoyable to watch but didn't blow me away. I liked the Sensorite reference as it made me smile but didn't detract from the story.

I liked the non-Earth setting, too. Lovely shots of the TARDIS at the end.

[Logo Polish]

What line about Rose dying in battle?

It was one of the predictions by the Beast in The Satan Pit. Seemingly resolved when the Doctor told Rose, in Doomsday, that she'd been classified as one of the people who died that day.