Planet of the Ood

Dear Gary—

The first two episodes of the season could afford to be slightly script deficient because their main focus was on establishing the Doctor/Donna relationship. Going forward, however, the focus needs to shift; now the Doctor and Donna need strong stories in which to grow. Planet of the Ood delivers just that.

First things first: the Doctor has finally made it to a brand new, never before seen, actual alien planet. Hooray! The TARDIS, courtesy of the random “mystery tour” setting, has taken the Doctor and Donna to the Ood Sphere (in the same solar system as the Sense Sphere). It is a beautifully rendered landscape of ice and snow.

Granted, this alien planet is part of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire, and the year 4126 doesn’t feel too far off from our own era, but it’s a start, even if it has taken four seasons to get here.

Another nice departure is that the Doctor is not actively in search of an alien threat, answering a distress signal, or compelled to save the Earth/Universe.  He is simply showing the marvels of the cosmos to Donna, still getting a thrill out of “the fear; the joy; the wonder.” Along the way he gets caught up in events. He isn’t even particularly interested in the plight of the Ood to begin with, similar to his first encounter with them back in The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit. And ultimately he is not instrumental in freeing them from their captivity. He is more or less a passive bystander, and that’s OK. The Doctor can’t (and shouldn’t) always be the rock star hero of every episode. He can’t always make history happen; sometimes he needs to just let history take its course.

He doesn’t stand as silent witness, however. He has ample opportunity to pass judgment and express moral outrage, and even in the end grabs a bit of the glory for himself. I can take a little of this; the script tends to exaggerate his importance, though; however it is tempered by the compassion supplied by Donna. This is the alien Doctor/human companion dynamic at work, but I’m not sure if the show gets this or not. I am tending toward granting New Who the benefit of the doubt.

It starts with the discovery of the dying Ood. The Doctor shows detached curiosity about his condition while Donna, after her initial shock at his strange visage, kneels by his side to comfort him. Upon his death Donna asks if they should bury him only for the Doctor to brush her concern aside with, “The snow’ll take care of that.” He is focused on the big picture while she considers the individual; they complement each other.  She needs him to expand her views while he needs her to rein him in.

“Last time I met the Ood, I never thought; I never asked,” the Doctor says. Bigger things got in his way and he let the Ood die with nary a thought. This time the Ood are front and center. Rose had raised concerns about their servitude back in those earlier serials, and Donna does the same now. This time the Doctor cannot ignore them.

“Servants? They’re slaves,” Donna says as she and the Doctor watch the Ood being whipped into subservience. And then they discover the crates full of Ood waiting to be shipped off across the universe. Donna is appalled by the sight; and now I have to fault the script for some well-intentioned but misguided moralizing. It wants to draw attention to parallels with our own world, but it is completely mishandled in the exchange between the Doctor and Donna.

It starts with Donna’s disgust at an empire built on slavery, but then the Doctor deflects her criticism away from the current situation and back on her with, “It’s not so different from your time.” Donna feels the need to defend herself, and the Doctor drives home his point with, “Who do you think made your clothes?” Donna is left to comment on his “cheap shots” and the Doctor rather sheepishly apologizes.  This is all well and good, except that the “your time” he is referring to and into which Donna was born is also his time, his chosen time, the time to which he returns over and over, the time in which he interferes and intervenes again and again (but never, to the best of my knowledge, on behalf of the workers in the clothing industry). And it is a distraction away from the Ood, a race that the Doctor has disserved in the past. It reflects poorly on both, but mostly the Doctor. At worst the Doctor’s comments serve as a partial justification for the Ood’s enslavement; at best they are hypocritical.

Overall, however, the Doctor and Donna are magnificent in this. Donna in particular, in sympathy with the Ood, is heartbreaking. The Doctor, meanwhile, is interested in the Red Eye and in the mysterious last words of the dying Ood, “The circle must be broken.” Together this alien/human partnership is a triumph of harmony, best illustrated by the Ood song. The Doctor can hear the telepathically relayed tune at all times; Donna cannot except with the aid of the Doctor, and then she can only bear it for a few seconds. The Doctor is focused on the big picture; Donna is focused on the individual. The Doctor can live with that song constant in his head; Donna breaks under the grief embodied in those musical strains. Working to each other’s strengths, the Doctor and Donna discover the true nature of the Ood.

The history of the Ood is a fascinating one. They had been presented as a convenience in The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit and just as conveniently discarded. Planet of the Ood does them justice. Between the Doctor’s sleuthing and Donna’s empathy we learn a great deal in a short amount of time, and the resulting revelation of the unprocessed Ood is intellectually and emotionally satisfying. The general concept of a race carrying around a secondary brain in their hands and tied together as a communal whole by a giant shared brain is a bit of a head scratcher, but only due to the limited scope of the serial. This is an entire alien race and planet and evolutionary path that remains untold, and the imagination reels with the possibilities (and is better left to the imagination).

There is a trio of baddies in our tale, each interesting in his or her own way. First there is Kess, the stereotypical henchman who takes too much pleasure in his job; Kess seems to display a human version of Red Eye as he becomes increasingly manic and sadistic. Then there is Solana Mercurio, the PR woman who you think is going to convert only to remain true to her mercantile heart. The best, however, is Halpen. On the face of it he is your typical heartless businessman, but there are hints of desperation and conflict beneath the surface. His consideration for Ood Sigma is unexpected and intriguing. And he moves effortlessly from callously tossing Dr. Ryder to his death to philosophizing about having to shoot the Doctor and Donna.

The ultimate fate of Halpen is poetic justice and an ending that the Doctor often strives for but rarely achieves. “All that intelligence and mercy, focused on Ood Sigma.” An intelligent and merciful solution, born out of patience. “I can’t tell what’s right and what’s wrong anymore,” Donna says of this bizarre judgment handed down by the Ood. It is a judgment that the Doctor had no part in; yet he can’t help but ask, “And now, Sigma, would you allow me the honor?” After Sigma’s patience and Dr. Ryder’s sabotage, it is the Doctor who flips the switch to break the circle and unleash the Ood song. (I can’t help but hear strains of “Fahoo fores, Dahoo dores, Welcome Christmas, Come this way” as the Ood stand in a circle with their faces uplifted in song.)

It is an uplifting ending to a satisfying story. We don’t get to see the Ood running wild like wildebeest, but Sigma and a group of processed and unprocessed Ood see the Doctor and Donna off singing their praises: “Our children will sing of the Doctor Donna, and our children’s children, and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names forever.”

There is the ominous warning, “I think your song must end soon,” but as Sigma says, “every song must end.” And as we know, Gary, with each ending there is a new beginning. However we still have a ways to go and the Doctor Donna is still an emerging story.