| PLANET OF THE OOD by Keith Temple |
| Story 36 Synopsis: The Doctor sets co-ordinates at random, landing the TARDIS in a snowy landscape. He and Donna soon find a dying Ood, which talks of a "circle". They come to Ood Operations, a company who market and ship the Ood across local space, and learn they're on Ood-Sphere. Donna is appalled to realise the Ood are slaves. The Doctor suspects there's more to it than simple obedience. Their investigations coincide with increasing outbreaks in the Ood, some of whom are now going berserk. Halpen, head of OO, believes the Doctor is causing trouble, and when the Ood break out of captivity en masse, he sets off for Warehouse 15, where he can put a stop to it. The Doctor and Donna are led there by the chief Ood, Ood Sigma, and they find a giant Ood brain, which Halpen now plans to blow up. They note the brain is kept quiet by a "circle" of machines. Halpen realises that Ood Sigma has been slowly feeding him a substance that effects a transformation into an Ood, and the Doctor stops the planned explosions, and breaks the circle, freeing the Ood. Word travels fast, and soon the Ood are being returned to their natural home planet. But not before Ood Sigma gives the Doctor a warning of the future... |
| Review:- Donna Noble meets some proper aliens on a proper alien planet, and the Doctor finds old friends and old problems... After their minimal role in The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, the chance for the Ood to take centre stage seems pretty sound. Their servile nature leads to an examination of slavery, with humans seeming to see nothing strange in the arrangement. But the Doctor and Donna take a wider perspective. Halpen, the selfish head of OO, is excellently played by Tim McInnerny, striking the right note of economic brutality and vain obsession that has been the mark of many a bad guy over the years. He's credibly the sort of man who could see Ood as sub-human, and yet welcome the presence of his loyal Ood, Ood Sigma. That duality, combined with some useful dialogue about OO being a family business, helps fill out the character, who could so easily have been crudely dismissed. Less impressive is Kess, head of security, who sees the Ood in purely black & white terms, and comes to a fitting end when they turn the tables. What doesn't quite work is the Ood revolt. Like their last appearance, they seem to be operated by a superior intelligence, but this time it is one of their own, and all part of a unifying whole. The sinister presence in Warehouse 15 turns out to be a giant super-brain, held in check by a circle of machinery. The Ood need to break the circle to free the brain and complete themselves... regrettably, this is a little bit opaque, and whilst the notion that the servility of the Ood is connected to having one of their brains cut off and replaced is memorably gruesome, it throws up more questions than answers. That a race could evolve with exterior brains on a string is perhaps no more silly than the curious circular feet of the Sensorites (who remarkably get a mention here!), but when Halpen is later mutated into an Ood by the repeated ingestion of Ood DNA, or whatever it was, logic and reason throw their hands up in defeat. That the idea of freeing the Ood from slavery, as Donna correctly points out, is wrapped up with their special Song tips this further over the edge. I'm afraid I took all that guff about the wonder of the music to be a metaphor for the over-rated and samey works of Murray Gold, uber-composer for the New Series. It's certainly a more bearable metaphor than Halpen comparing the slaughter of the rabid Ood to the treatment of Foot & Mouth Disease, which seems not to have concerned many other people. There have been clunking and insulting metaphors used in the last few years, so FMD comes as little surprise. Perhaps nowhere is safe from the pen of the pretend-satirist. Whilst it is nice that the Doctor and Donna win the Ood over by their actions and compassion, and this is then repaid when their lives are threatened, it's questionable how much they actually achieve. Ood Sigma was clearly working on Halpen for a long time, and it was Halpen's scientist who was the 'Friends Of The Ood' activist all along. Perhaps it was the mask of confusion that they brought that helped cover the rest until the time came. Perhaps. Whilst undeniably set in beautiful scenery (though the frozen landscape is one of many elements reminiscent of Revelation of the Daleks), and with a straightforward tale to tell about slavery being bad, I just felt that there was the script wasn't as wonderful as it clearly thought it was, and there was too many brains used to the wrong effect. And the now-tiresome comments such as telling the Doctor his song will soon end is trying to do too much. It was good. But it could have been better. |
| Disclaimer: I have watched this story. |