Doctor Who – The Impossible Planet – Review

I’m beginning to feel like I’m heaping superlative on top of superlative for the season’s reviews of Doctor Who, but I simply can’t help saying that the Impossible Planet is possibly the best looking Doctor Who episode ever made. It is certainly, without doubt, the finest use of a quarry as a location ever, bar none.

Clearly the producers know it, too, as the follow-up Doctor Who Confidential episode concentrates on “the look”. The episodes sets and effects look like they belong in a very big-budget movie, but at the same time have a very convincing look to them. It’s truly stunning to look at.

If that was all it had going for it would still be an impressive episode, but it isn’t. Although it’s the first half of a two-parter and the story isn’t complete yet, it’s been great so far.

The Doctor and Rose arrive on an “impossible” planet – One that is orbiting a black hole. A mining team from Earth is there investigating the amazing power source that is preventing the planet from falling into the black hole.

It cannot be coincidence that this two-parter straddles June 6, 2006. The idiotically tenuous connection between 6/6/06 and the mythical mark of the beast, 666 is being played up as the release date of the new Omen movie, and even some seriously deranged people are trying to induce the birth of their children early in order to avoid giving birth to the anti-christ.

Amid this insanity in the real world, the Doctor arrives just as the beast awakes from his long sleep (imprisonment) in the black hole.

The story is thick with tension and the pacing is just about right. I’ve only a couple of minor criticisms. This first is that the TARDIS cannot translate some ancient writing found on the planet. Having made the TARDIS a miracle device which translates everything, this is a poor contrivance to get around not having the alien inscriptions understood too early.

it does raise an interesting idea that was briefly explored in the Christmas Invasion. As the Doctor recovers (not the TARDIS), suddenly all the humans near the TARDIS begin to understand the aliens. Clearly, the field generated by the TARDIS is not exclusive to the travelers in the TARDIS, therefore, does this mean where ever the TARDIS lands, all the people in the area suddenly begin to be able to understand foreign/alien languages. This episode explicitly indicates that written words should appear as English to Rose also, so does this also extend to all the people around the TARDIS?

One can only imagine the confusion if the TARDIS landed in a group of multilingual people, or somewhere where someone was studying a foreign text and suddenly could read it.

Alas, the TARDIS’ ability to translate has always been rather poorly thought out and inconsistently utilized.

The second problem with the episode are the bit where Rose is trying to cheer up the Doctor and get him to setup house with her. She really is desperate, isn’t she?

Finally, the Doctor has a “could a I hug you?” moment with one of the humans that’s just really stupid.

Now that the beast has awoken, I can hardly wait for next week for the Doctor to defeat him. Or perhaps he won’t…?

Technorati Tags: Blog, Doctor Who, Review