"Planet of the Ood", a curiously unpopular story with the general public, perhaps highlighted more than it should have done the never-ending war between New Doctor Who and Alien Planet Stories. On this topic you do have to wonder, as obvious as it is to state it, why it's a problem now if it never was before. For 26 years, the general public were perfectly at home with a string of adventures set on various different worlds. It's interesting to look at the commissioning policy in the eighties, for example. Season 21 - stories set on Sarn, Jaconda, Frontios... the point is, it doesn't seem to have occurred to them that it mattered where each story was set. One might theorise that this gung-ho freedom was a major loss in itself. And nobody scoffed that they all looked like gravel pits or forests. Why would they? If our astronauts today managed to set foot on a new planet, we would expect it to contain rocks, grit, maybe water, possibly even trees. Not anything so amazing it could only be rendered in the most incredible computer graphics.

Yet this seems to be a constant worry for the new production team. Perhaps the worry is that landing on alien worlds won't be magical enough? That advanced civilisations should be portrayed in terms of massive cities, incredible vistas and huge wheeling creatures in the sky. Well, sometimes would be nice, but of greater concern seems to be an irrational belief that people won't be convinced when the Doctor arrives on Bandraginus Five and finds that it looks like a leafy forest. The trick to understanding the way the old series pulled this off is in considering that arrival on alien worlds WAS an everyday thing for the Doctor; certain periods aside, he was more likely to end up on some remote planet, impressive or otherwise, than he was to land on present day Earth (which in turn made those stories more novel - for example "The War Machines" or "The Invasion"). People didn't expect every alien world to be an event, so weren't disappointed when it wasn't one. In short, in making those alien planet stories such a rarity, the production team has created the expectation that was their motivation for avoiding them in the first place.

"Planet of the Ood" would have nevertheless been just as good with its simple snow-covered hills, and didn't need the distracting CGI shots of huge snow icicle things and that horrid fake ringed planet in the sky. In fact, they only really diverted attention to their absence in the close-up footage. Meanwhile, one has to concede that populating the planet with humans was probably one area where they got it right; the themes of slavery and human greed/exploitation gave the story its heart, and tugged at the viewers own consciences (especially with scenes like the dying Ood in the snow, highly reminiscent of the start of "Revelation of the Daleks"). In the sixties, they were ready for planet entirely populated with people in big ant costumes, today it would be stretching it, which has more to do with story sophistication than anything. Today's world exists in the shadow of various wrongdoings that prick our own consciences for putting up with them - abuse, trafficking, sweat shops... "Planet"'s story was uncomfortably close to home.

Less successful were certain logic-bothering elements like the protagonist suddenly turning into an Ood after a bit of light food poisoning, or the return of the Big Old Brain. "Planet of the Ood" had a kiddie-targetted undercurrent from its title down, which is no bad thing, and may explain why it won't quite be up there with the most popular and impressive episodes come the end of the season. But it had also contained solid, impressive ideas, a chilling monster race and fresh, vibrant settings. Minus those unnecessary CGI vista's, of course...