DW 4/30.03 Planet of the Ood

[selenak]

This one reminds me of Genesis of the Daleks in that Doctor and companion(s) are actually peripheral to the story being told; you could take them out of it without much change. (Which is why the Doctor's big dilemma scene in Genesis of the Daleks always seemed pasteded on to me, though of course it has major relevance in hindsight, but Genesis of the Daleks is really about the Kaled and the Thal, and Davros, of course.) For a story like this, I think it was the right choice; you can't tell the story of a people freeing themselves of the oppression of slavery and make this all due to an external benefactor. Actually, you can, Hollywood has done it lots of times, but I'm glad DW didn't this time. The Ood themselves are the ones who free each other after two hundred years of oppression. And while the ending might be overly optimistic, it does work for me. It's neither "everyone lives" nor "everyone dies"; it's "some live, some die, but freedom has been won".

Planet of the Ood pulls no punches with the depiction of slavery, with the cargo scenes clearly paralleling the way African slaves were shipped while the scenes with the Ood being driven there echo more recent events like the camps. It also captures the psychology; the way the humans treat the Ood as animals and talk of them as a mixture of cattle and fashionable accessoire is again exactly how slaves were talked of. (Details such as the female and comedy soundtrack voices are in their way as revolting as the later "obvious" things like the guard using a whip.) And with Ood Sigma, we get a twist and turnaround of the Uncle Tom idea; I thought that the Ood who eternally turns the other cheek and is submissive would at some point turn against his owner, but like the man himself, I thought there had to be poison in the drink, I hadn't expected what Sigma actually did, which was basically pulling an X1 Magneto on him.

By and large, this is an episode where the "aliens" (I'm using quotation marks as the Oods are the natives and the humans are actually the aliens on their planet) are the good guys and the humans the villains, which is a reverse from the majority (but not all) stories; the picture painted of humanity isn't too flattering, though obviously with the (other) doctor and with the "friends of the Ood" that were mentioned in Impossible Planet two seasons ago there are human activists who don't go along with the injustice and work against it. Still, the idea that the majority will look away and go along with having their obedient servants is sadly all too plausible, given history.

Other details: I have a soft spot for stories in which telepathy plays a role, so I loved that the concept of Ood telepathy was used in a way different from Impossible Planet's "Ood get possessed by evil force" and developed further; as a means of natural communication for them, it makes sense, as does bringing up Gallifreyan telepathy again in this episode by letting the Doctor hear them (when they manage to break through the lobotomized stage).

Maybe it's the Star Trek fan in me, but I loved the concept of the song.

On the other hand: "All songs must end", hm? Hard to see this not foreshadowing either the Doctor's or Donna's demise, which makes me worried. I mean, I think were not due for another regeneration yet, given that DT has signed on for the Christmas Specials (but on the other hand, maybe that's a cunning lie so there won't be a repeat of the Eccleston event where everyone knew he'd leave after one season before the first episode was broadcast?), which endangers Donna even more. DO NOT WANT DEAD COMPANION. Then again, that particular implication is so obvious that it could mean the reverse, i.e. the "song ending" will come true in another way.

Next week: Martha! Sontarans! UNIT! (And there better be some explanation for a certain TW episode.)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medley_/]

I was creeped out by the bit about the Doctor's song ending, too, but I kind of think it means something other than death. Because the Ood tend to seem a bit menacing even when they're not trying to be, and because it does seem a bit obvious, and I haven't heard rumors of Tennant leaving either.

I think (I hope) it's another song that will end. I wonder what they saw in his mind, what they heard from him. Not, I would think, a pleasant song. So maybe it's something about moving on a bit from Gallifrey/Rose/feeling alone when he's not? Maybe?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Frankly I think he already has moved on from his Rose issues, but here's another thought: both Nine and Ten have the "last of the Time Lords" etiquette as deep part of their self definition, with even the Master's return not really changing that. I don't think New Who will do something as radical as bring the Time Lords back as a people, because that would mean giving up on one of the key changes they made, but what I could see them doing is restart the Gallifreyans, on a basis that means while there won't be any around to interact with now, there will be in a few centuries, making the Doctor from the last of something old to the precursor of something new.

...maybe. *frets anyway*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medley_/]

I only bring up Rose because, well. That bit in "Partners in Crime, among other things. In my head the Doctor's moved on. I'm not sure the show agrees with me. *g*

what I could see them doing is restart the Gallifreyans, on a basis that means while there won't be any around to interact with now, there will be in a few centuries, making the Doctor from the last of something old to the precursor of something new.

Ooh, interesting.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Something else: maybe it's because I recently rewatched the last three s3 eps, but doesn't DT say "listen, listen" EXACTLY like John Simm does as the Master when talking to the Doctor?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medley_/]

Now that you mention it, he so did. That's funny.

[wondygal.livejournal.com]

Marthaaaa! And Donna! My Donna love just grows and grows. I liked that the Doctor was peripheral to the story too, and that the Ood and some of the humans were responsible for the revolution. I do think the Doctor plays an important role on Genesis of the Daleks, though, as do Sarah Jane and Harry.

The depictions of slavery were pretty horrible in that it very clearly paralleled History, yes. I thought the whole scenario was very plausible, too, sadly. To the point where I thought PR lady, while clearly wrong and a willing participant in a slavery operation, was a well-constructed minor character. She knew it was wrong, but it was her job, and she did it, but little touches - like her telling the boss he couldn't drink in the building( even though the purpose of that scene was to tell us "Look! He's drinking stuff!") made me get a sense that she was very professional. I'm not trying to excuse her, just saying I thought she was one of those well-built minor characters Who is rather good at doing.

I thought (not based on spoilers or anything, just - wrong already - speculation) that, on the scene of the "All songs must end" quote, the Bad Wolf theme was playing, thus referring to Rose, but I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else, so I'm already pretty sure I was wrong. I'm hoping for Gallifrey related things. No dead Donna, kthx. Just NO. I think Ten and Donna may be my favorite Tardis Team already. *clings*

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*clings with you* Ten and Donna are definitely my favourite New Who TARDIS team. I mean, I love Martha with undiminished passion, too, but she got burdened with the unrequited love, alas, which means as a team, Donna and the Doctor are effective. (Whereas Martha is splendid on her own, plus I still have hopes of her becoming the new Brigadier, not rank-wise but as the character the Doctor keeps in touch with and keeps coming back to in his regenerations.)

Agreed about PR lady - one thing I love about DW is that they manage to bring this one episode characters alive. By now, I've seen complaints that she should have been redeemed, but I actually thought letting her NOT be persuaded by the Doctor (or her conscience) but still go along with the enslavement despite knowing the wrongness was the better storytelling choice. Otherwise we'd have been left with only the obvious evil ones like the greedy boss as individualized characterse, and a system like slavery works precisely because people like the PR lady go along with it, not just guards or greedy capitalists.

[wondygal.livejournal.com]

I mean, I love Martha with undiminished passion, too, but she got burdened with the unrequited love, alas, which means as a team, Donna and the Doctor are effective. (Whereas Martha is splendid on her own, plus I still have hopes of her becoming the new Brigadier, not rank-wise but as the character the Doctor keeps in touch with and keeps coming back to in his regenerations.)

YES YES EXACTLY. Word to this paragraph. Word like a worded thing.

(Marthaaaaaaaa.)

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I thought (not based on spoilers or anything, just - wrong already - speculation) that, on the scene of the "All songs must end" quote, the Bad Wolf theme was playing, thus referring to Rose, but I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else, so I'm already pretty sure I was wrong.

I thought we got a snatch of Rose's theme at that point, which seemed likely as she seems to be the obligatory mention of this season. Or was there a reference to the Shadow Proclamation that I missed?

[wondygal.livejournal.com]

No Shadow Proclamation this week, no. I just watched that scene again and there really seems to be a ten second snatch of Rose's theme. It might well not be, though. There was no Rose mention last week(... except for that "She's returning" bit, right. But I want that to be Gallifrey!), and so the obligatory mention of the season could just be Cryptic Portents of Doom. (I mean, we already saw Rose, stop teasing us! It seems too obvious.)

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Pretty big parallel with Rome, too, the "empire built on slavery" line, following last week's Pompeii episode, which alas lost the opportunity to have slaves playing a role in it.

I liked that they addressed that the Doctor didn't do anything for the Ood last time around, although his "I had other things on my mind" excuse doesn't entirely justify his disregard in "The Impossible Planet" / "The Satan Pit".

(Fake, fake, oh so obviously fake snow, though. And I wish this had been a four-parter. Or at least a three-parter.)

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

My brother and I immediately started doing "the Master tap" when the Doctor started going on about the song only he could hear, etc. Telepathy is a bit of a bulletproof scifi kink of mine as well, so I kind of hope they're going somewhere with that. I can almost tell that they're not -- part of me suspects that the whole line is only an oblique way of saying that as the Last of the Time Lords, the Doctor is the only singer left from his own circle. For his part, the Doctor seems not the least bit tempted by the offer.

(It must be the Trek fan in me as well -- this episode was SO straight out of The Original Series. By my count the only big hattip to post-modernism in this one is the reference to the Simpsons.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And as someone who still hasn't watched a single Simpsons episode, I missed that one entirely. In addition to the obvious backstory reference to Impossible Planet, we also get one to the First Doctor story The Sensorites, but other than that, I didn't catch something, either.

TOS, though? I was more thinking TNG, Darmok or The Inner Light...

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

The Doctor's not Picard, either.

You're right though, maybe the allegory wasn't broad enough to be a TOS.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

This reminds me that by the time I go to Stratford this summer to watch two actors playing Hamlet and Claudius respectively, there probably there will be photos online and icons made of same, with the inevitable "Doctor and Picard" inscriptions...

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's geek mecca time for sure. (I wish there were tickets still available.)

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

The Simpsons ref is the "Doh" for the comedy Ood voice, which is Homer Simpson's catchphrase when he realises that he's done something more than usually idiotic.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

On the other hand: "All songs must end", hm? Hard to see this not foreshadowing either the Doctor's or Donna's demise, which makes me worried.

My immediate thought was "Oh no! The TARDIS!" Which is a bit silly, because of course the TARDIS is the one thing guaranteed to always be there, but (tries desperately to save face) it could be damaged or stolen or something.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Yep, the TARDIS has an even safer life guarantee on this show than the Doctor, but you know, you aren't wrong. It WAS damaged (and unable to fly, and hence barely around) for two seasons on Old Who, after all.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Will comment more when I've watched the episode, but what is an "assecoire"?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

My missspelling of "accessoire". *edits*

I thought the word exists in English, as it does in German (we both pinched it from the French, of course)? Or is it "accessory" in English - what I mean is something like a handbag, or jewelry, or another decorative item.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

It's "accessory".

[butterflykiki.livejournal.com]

And which always amuses me when you can get the double meaning in there (meaning co-conspirator) since Ood Sigma was certainly both, both in the true sense with the Ood Daddy Brain and seemingly with the President of the company. *g*

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

There were a few things that made me cringe - having the black guy as the excessively violent slave master, for example.

Must admit that when I saw the S4 trailer I briefly thought in the second or so we saw of him that he was Mickey, mostly because I'm crap at faces. I have a feeling that this may have been deliberate.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Err, why? I mean, what does Mickey have to do with the Ood?

[thesecondevil]

(but on the other hand, maybe that's a cunning lie so there won't be a repeat of the Eccleston event where everyone knew he'd leave after one season before the first episode was broadcast?)

This has been my pet theory ever since it was announced that Tennant was off to do Shakespeare. However it is also possible that the Ood meant that the particular 'song' The Doctor is singing will come to an end which might indicate some other change to his status quo.

I'm also intrigued by another reference to bees disappearing and whether that might be significant.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

The bee thing, I'm told, is a rl event, but of course they could pun a DW spin on it. I'm looking forward to it!

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

This one reminds me of Genesis of the Daleks in that Doctor and companion(s) are actually peripheral to the story being told; you could take them out of it without much change.

Exactly! I wasn't quite sure why the Ood said they were going to sing about Doctor-Donna at the end, because I couldn't see that they'd done anything much apart from make sympathetic noises on the day that Sigma and Dr Ryder pulled off their plan. Why weren't the Ood going to sing about Dr Ryder, who lost his life in the struggle to free them?

And I always said the Ood were Pak'ma'ra, so I kept muttering "told you so" when the singing came up!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Dr. Ryder got his own song.*g*

(Re: Doctor-Donna, on second thought, there was one thing - Ood Sigma wouldn't have been able to enter the whatsit where the Ood central brain was kept without the Doctor (and his sonic screwdriver, since the ep showed us only Halpen had the access key to the whatsit), and it's questionable whether Ryder would have been able to prevent Halpen blowing up said brain, considering how easily Halpen overpowered him, so at the last minute, everything could have gone terribly wrong. (Assuming that Halpen was right and killing the central brain would mean killing all the Ood simultanously. This presumably would have included him, but that's no comfort to a lot of dead Ood.) By arriving and distracting Halpen a few crucial minutes more, the Doctor and Donna provided the last pebble to crown the Ood's masterful revolution plan. (And the Doctor had figured out that Halpen would try to go after the brain, which was why he tried to find it; presumably Sigma in turn knew he needed someone to unlock the doors for him which was why he showed the Doctor and Donna where to look.)

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

That may be it. Though I hope that, given that the Brain was already exerting its influence and spreading the thought that "the circle must be broken" thanks to Ryder turning down the controls (if he could do that, why couldn't he just switch them off?), it would have been able to force the Oodified Halpen to break the circle himself.

I do hope there will be fanfic about Ryder and Sigma. Sigma appears to have had control of his own mind for a long time, despite having lost his second brain; was this some freak of nature which meant he wasn't properly processed in the first place, or was it down to Ryder/other FOTO agents? Were they in cahoots all along? And how did Ryder become so passionately committed to the cause?

[andraste]

My first thought when the 'song ending' bit came along was that the BBC may have been very stealthy in planning the next regeneration. I would vastly prefer this to Donna dying because, well, DO NOT WANT. Also, Astrid just died at Christmas! Sure, One lost two companions in a row way back when, but surely Ten has been through enough lately? I am worried after the seer's 'you have something on your back' remark last week, though. Wonder what on earth that was about?

Of course, the song ending may refer to something else entirely. I suppose we'll be waiting a while to find out about that and the incredible vanishing bees.

I agree that Ten/Donna is the most awesomest New Who team yet. He really, really does need someone to stop him and tell him off and give him hugs.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Aren't the bees a rl problem? Though two mentions probably mean they're going to do something with that.

I agree that Ten/Donna is the most awesomest New Who team yet. He really, really does need someone to stop him and tell him off and give him hugs.

And she's admirably suited to both tasks! I just adore their scenes together, no matter whether she skips over his inspirational speech by sensibly getting a coat or tells him the other guy has a Ferrari, or whether they're handcuffed together, or telepathically sharing songs. More and more I tend to agree with the theory that while several companions work with each Doctor, there is always one ideal companion per regeneration, and it looks like for Ten, that's Donna!

[kernezelda]

The story was entertaining, although the Ood evolution explanation was completely off-putting and ridiculous. The giant living brain reminded me of Ultraworld from Blake's 7.

I'm interested in the disappearing bees, and what it means that the doctor's song might soon end, and what the glimpse of Rose in Ep 1 meant.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

This is a show that has established an entire alien race consiting living plastic and able to spark life into any other plastic (the Nestene consciousness and the Autons, if you recall from the episode Rose - they're straight from Old Who, of course, and were established in the classic series' 10th season). I never expect science from it. I found the concept of the Ood and their brain-in-hand suitably alien and gut-wrenching (coupled with the implication of the translator).

The bees and the song intrigue me, too; the most interesting thing about the Rose cameo in the season opener to me was that if we didn't know who Rose is, we'd assume it was a first glimpse at the season villain, the way it was staged.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

The female and comedy voices were ugly, yes.

I wonder about the "all songs must end". The only wild idea I have is that given RTD's Earth-centricness we might be in for the Doctor becoming permanently trapped on 21st-century Earth again via some plot device. Which would outrage a large number of fans, but RTD seems to see that as some kind of badge of honour when he doesn't sympathise with them.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Well, if recent articles are anything to go buy, he intends to leave after the specials, so chances are he'll do something for the end of his run as producer (didn't one article already name the next producer, or was that a hoax?), and if it's not a regeneration... but no. Because the problem with the Doctor trapped on Earth as he was in Three's day is that in the age of two spin-offs, this would make him no different from either the Torchwoodians or Sarah Jane in terms of what kind of stories could be told with him as the lead. Three didn't have that problem. Now if both SJA and TW were cancelled, I'd say you could be on to something, but they both have their next seasons greenlighted, haven't they?

Another thing about the female and comedy voices: in addition to the viciousness, it graphically illlustrates that the humans literally have taken the Ood's own speech and replaced it with a mode of expression entirely designed to entertain/help them. Coupled with the way their song, i.e. their own language, is used as a symbol first of grief and then of liberation, it works very well as a metaphor of colonialism and regaining independence...

[meret.livejournal.com]

DO NOT WANT DEAD COMPANION.

I actually think having a companion die would be a good thing. Traveling with the doctor isn't always safe, and he can't always save the day. I just don't want it to be Donna! I adore Donna. :)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Well, Astrid died in Voyage of the Damned, though you could say she doesn't count as a companion because she never actually travelled with him on the TARDIS. And I agree on the principle, but no Donna death! Nonono!

(Of course, the most well-known companion death in Old Who was of a companion who was thoroughly disliked was not that popular, Adric; killing off characters one isn't fond of is a bit easy, but I still don't want a dead Donna!)