The Impossible Planet

The eagle-eyed among you might notice that, like an England tackle and your average first class letter, this column is a little late. The reason being that I decided this week to watch Doctor Who twice before commenting. To put it bluntly, "The Impossible Planet" left me a little... underwhelmed. I had come to the conclusion that I was, perhaps, simply too much of a fan, with too high expectations, to possibly be able to fully appreciate a new episode the first time out. Added to this, my original viewing of "Impossible", in ratings-crippling daylight hours, with three other members of the family, was not exactly conducive to evoking concentration and suspense. So it all kind of passed me by without any real involvement, and I figured I'd have to see it again to get that. Alas, the video failed to work and you're going to be stuck with my first opinions. Only now, I'm beginning to think it might not be me.

I remember thinking, as the action unfolded within that gloomy planet and lots of people we hadn't met before wittered on about black holes and scientific dooguffins, "Ah!". It was a moment of metaphorical coin-dropping-into-meter-tastic realisation. I suddenly saw Russell T's "point" about always having to anchor every adventure into the familiar. For ages now, us fans have been so sure that he's wrong. We moan about Jackie, and Mickey and even Rose with her job and her chips. We complain that every episode is set on Earth, and that there are no alien planets. We want a return to the Doctor Who that doesn't need any of that. Last night, we got it, and guess what? I felt completely uninvolved. I'm still not sure why - the expedition and their fabulous opening ceiling should have evoked a "Robots of Death"-seque scenario of bonding with these isolated yet familiar humans before they are each thrillingly picked off. Alas, instead we were simply REMINDED of how that story captured the Sandminer Crew so well in one, effortless scene, where-as here, well nobody really emerged as either likeable or memorable. The tension was another thing oddly lacking. Perhaps it was the Ood, who looked great but somehow failed to be scary. Maybe it was the lack of threat towards the Doctor and Rose. Or maybe it's best encapsulated by the feeling of not being in the remotest bit bothered that the TARDIS has been "lost". Had we seen it tumble into the black hole then maybe, yes. But instead it just seemed to disappear, presumed lost down a crack in the planet... you know, the one everyone was standing on. You knew instantly that he'd just pop down and get it back at some point.

But let's stop there. "The Impossible Planet" may have felt like an inexplicably uninvolving misfire when it shouldn't have - the elements were all there, it looked and felt awesome and there was nothing wrong with the storyline premise - but I have a feeling it may redeem itself. Let's not get too carried away at thinking bad of an episode that hasn't finished telling us it's story yet - look at "Rise of the Cybermen". Relatively duff opening act, superb finale. There's a strange feeling of denial going on at the minute, no doubt because we really needed this one to be good. To make up for the by-numbers episode last week, and to prove that we were right, and the moment RTD threw caution to the wind and gave us a no-holds-barred alien planet, it'd throw up a classic. But I know it's not just me. Both my Mum and my Nan, ardent supporters of the series since it returned, independently told me they thought this weeks was "not as good". Perhaps the key to understanding it is to note that we didn't really get what we asked for after all - we still got a load of human characters, they just weren't very good ones. Or ones we could relate to. Because regardless of how stunning next weeks episode is, we DO need characters we can relate to; it's what separates "Horror of Fang Rock" from "Planet of Evil". While the fans are all oddly quiet at the moment, neither finding it within themselves to heap praise on this episode nor admit they were wrong, hoping that next weeks will deliver on the 'scares' front to make up for the utter lack of character involvement, we do still have a tiny bit of a problem.

And that is, firstly that they seem to have forgotten that every episode has to have a 'tag line' - a marketable reason to watch ("the one with Sarah Jane and K9", "the one with the werewolf" etc.), secondly that for the first time this week the team got a bit more adventurous and arguably made an episode the fans were sure to like, rather than one the public were sure to like. And thirdly, that however much we blame the weather, two million less people watched. Oh, and we're on Week 8 out of 13, and unless hastily shoehorning the word "Torchwood" into every script counts, then this season has acquired no continuing storyline thread with which to build up excitement for the series climax.

But then, what do I know? Maybe if the video had worked, I'd now be saying it was brilliant.