Donna gets to visit an alien planet for the first time, and not just any planet, the home plane of the Ood, in Planet Of The Ood.ÂÂ
Spoilers ahead...
This Doctor Who episode follows the now expected course of a new Who story. Promising start, some intriguing stuff, lots of running, a decent story and a completely unbelievable scene. The whole Ood as slaves story, whilst not original, was, I thought, well done. The Oood planet looked pretty nice (although the overhead spaceship was a bit to CGIy), the aspect of Donna discovering an alien world was interesting too, and more than that Donna was challenging the Doctor once again, acting as the one to nudge the Doctor's morals. There was only one slip into Catherine Tate comedy character mode with "do you think I'm single?" (or something similar), but generally I think she does a good job of making Donna an interesting character.ÂÂ
Blatant foreshadowing arc story: the bees have vanished from Earth. What's that all about?ÂÂ
I also liked the caged pre-slave Ood, and I'm willing to overlook the slightly silly brain-in-the hand. The telepathic song was a nice idea. The big pulsating brain was a bit rubbish. Why does there always have to be a big monster in a pit? It would have been much cooler if the Oods were just a big hive mind, and not literally a big mind!ÂÂ
And then, the completely unbelievable scene, the baddie turns into an Ood. Totally unnecessary. Tim McInnerny did a great job of being the villain Halpen, and then it all gets undermined. I'd have preferred to have him poisoned. Russell T Davies is clearly not on the same wavelength as me though, in Doctor Who Confidential he said "If everyone at school on Monday is saying 'urrggh did you see that man turn into an Ood it was disgusting' then job done." Which pretty much confirms what I thought about they're target audience.ÂÂ
But, despite the negatives, I enjoyed it. Fun.
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