Day 718: The Impossible Planet

To be perfectly honest, this story is not only, in my opinion, the best story of Tennant's first series, it is also one of the best stories that I've covered on this blog. It's like a black hole of a story, grabbing your attention and never letting go until the credits start to roll. And it's easy to see why.

Take, for instance, the scene that I've put above, where we see Scooti die in a rather horrific way. The scene begins with her encountering the frightening appearance of Toby, the chief archaeologist, who has been possessed by the Beast. It's handled with a degree of quietness and serenity, acknowledging the perverse beauty of what we're seeing. Like Scooti, we are drawn to Toby and his appearance, but we ultimately reject it. Unfortunately, this is where the story shifts gears slightly, and we go into a more dangerous region. Scooti tries to escape, but she is stopped, as the glass breaks and she is left to go out into the vacuum of space. The music and direction changes abruptly, reflecting the intensity of what is happening, as Scooti's screams become more and more desperate. And whilst this is a ruthlessly tense scene, what makes it powerful, in my opinion, is what comes directly after it.

We eventually end up in one of the habitation zones on the sanctuary base, with the crew-members looking for Scooti. The Doctor finds her, floating beautifully in space, in what is a truly haunting image. We then pay respects to this character, before closing the window and leaving her to drift off into the black hole. And this is what makes the story so powerful. It's based around ordinary humans who have done something stupid, who have gone out to explore a region of space that should never have existed. And it's dangerous, and they're probably going to die, but these are ordinary, likeable people, who clearly have lives outside of the adventure. And the tension of the story is exacerbated because all of these people feel real, feel as if they could be part of your life. And when they die, they are mourned, just like any other person is.

But that's just the first half of how I think this story is so fantastic. Much of The Impossible Planet is based around tension, letting the horror build until it reaches a breaking point. And we'll see that breaking point in the next entry, when we look at The Satan Pit.