I am – Hercules!!

While we here in America just finished watching the 27th season of “Doctor Who” on the SciFi Channel, the wily Brits have already seen “Doctor Who” 28.9 on the BBC. The verdict …

“Napier” says:

Hi Herc.

Long time reader etc. However 1st time I've been impressed enough to even think about reviewing.

So. "The Satan Pit." Who'd have thought you'd ever get a family TV show in the UK broadcasting that catchily monikered title at prime time on a Saturday evening? Sure beats the crap out of "The Generation Game!" But beyond the censor-baiting, kiddie nightmare inducing title, how was it.....?

Frickin' awesome!!! That's how!

So much to fit in, so little time. Almost like a modern Who episode. But thanks to the 2 part spread this & it's predecessor, last week's "The Impossible Planet" both have the time to breath, to drip atmosphere without feeling forced - absolutely imperative given the subject matter.

To summarise -

Having been stranded on the creepy black hole orbiting planet the Doctor & Rose find themselves aligned with a small group of weary explorers being slowly wittled down by forces natural & decidedly unnatural. Whilst the Doctor & Ida explore the cavern that contains the self-titled "pit", Rose is left to organise the survivors to outlive the newly murderous Ood.

There is so much right with this episode.

After last week's atmospheric build there was a danger that this would collapse under the weight of expectation. It sailed close to losing it's edge as Rose handily managed to rally the troops in a rather neat escape plan but just when you feared everything was about to become a little too pat the darkness re-emerged in the unseen form of the Beast.

This is really an episode that pushes the boundaries of Who. The scenes with the Beast exposing the inner secret/fear of every character was just fantastic. Even more pleasing was the fact that nothing was ever fully explained - no tearful character scene explaining just why Jefferson's wife never forgave him - the audience is refreshingly left to fill in the blanks of these character's back-stories. And the tantilising hint of Rose's fate is just peachy - dark foreshadowing in prime time family fare - excellent.

The acting throughout is faultless, aided by some strong direction (no pun intended) by James Strong - all of the guest stars make believeable foils to the Doctor & Rose. There's also some geek pleasing nods to continuity & the Doctor's various encounters with demonic wannabes in the past.

The scenes with the Doctor & Ida are perfect - understated questioning of the Doctor's beliefs that I'd suggest has never been seen in this programme thus far & one of the real advantages this modern version has over it's ancestors - characterisation.

Another advantage is the effects - wow! How cool was that CGI'd Beast? Doctor Who meets Lord Of The Rings via Jason & The Argonauts!!! Frickin' A!!!

I could go on - but you know, I think I have to go & watch this again (3rd time tonight!).

To conclude in that patented Herc style....

What's right with it?

The dark concept. The Beast. The Doctor's questioning of his belief system. The Alien's style shaft chase. Murray Gold's understated score. The pitch perfect acting. The CGI. The hints at what's to come. The Tardis towaway. Peter Kay in next week's episode.

What's wrong with it?

Hmmmm. I'll get back to you.

Is it the new Best New Episode Of Doctor Who winner?

Better than "The Empty Child/Doctor Dances" 2 parter? You know, it just might be. Tell you what - when I've watched this one about 20 times as well I'll let you know.

My Rating

5/5

If you use this call me Napier.

Cheers Herc.

“Kelvington” says:

Doctor Who – The Satan Pit – A Recap and Review (Major Spoilers)

When we last left Rose and The Doctor, things were in quite the pickle. People died, the TARDIS was lost, and a huge manhole cover was opening to let all hell loose. The open of tonight’s episode is a recap of last week’s episode. We get to see several scenes from the last episode, oddly they didn’t bother to show the dead girl floating through space, which was by far the most expensive effect. Go figure.

After the credits roll, we see lots of gun fire, presumably at the Ood, but we don’t see if they fall down. No blood on Beeb thank you very much. As Rose tries to call the Doctor on the communicator, as some Ood come into the chamber with Rose and a few others. Immediately, one of the Ood uses their translator as a shocker device and kill someone who’s name we never really learned. She dies well, even though she isn’t wearing a red shirt.

Captain Zack is forced back into the main control room with only a bolt gun, and a single bolt. The group deices that they need to try “strategy nine” once they are all reunited. The Doctor breaks radio silence and informs us that he’s fine, while Rose swears at him off screen. It’s a hilarious little moment, which is a corner stone of this series, the idea that even in the worst times, there are some moments of laughter to be found. The seal has opened up to a huge hole where nothing is coming out. Least of all Satan. Rose looks to the Doctor to reassure her that there is no such thing as Satan, but the Doctor falls strangely silent, as Zack tells Ida and the Doctor to withdraw from the pit.

Ida doesn’t want to listen to Zack so she asks the Doctor what he thinks of all this, and the Doctor suggests that perhaps they opened the prison but not the cell door. Naturally they want to investigate, and again the Doctor is impressed with the humanity of all this, that even in the face of direct orders and peril, that Ida wants to go into the belly of the beast.

Even inside a space suit, Tennant can still be a great Doctor, I though it would be very limiting, but he plays it spot on. For the first time in the history of the show, and in recent memory, the Doctor suggests retreat as well. Up top, after a few moments of gun pointing at Toby, you remember him, he was the tattoo boy from last week, that infected the Ood. Well it seems our head of security, Mr. Jefferson would feel much more secure if old Toby had some lead in him. Rose intervenes and stops what was surely to become a summary execution. Toby remembers very little of what happened to him, just flashes and emotions of fury, rage and death.

The Doctor and Ida discuss what “strategy nine” is, which if you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s the concept of flushing all the air locks, thus killing the Ood. This too seems lifted right from Alien, but hey, it’s always a sound idea when your dealing with badies. The Doctor has some concern over going back to a slaughter though and just as Ida and he are getting ready to come up from the pit, the power fails, and the Ood broadcasting network is on the air. As they appear over the video screens and inform everyone that “This is my domain”.

You get the sense that whatever is down here is really, really bad. Zack tries to open up a dialog with them, and is informed that they will all die here, which makes Toby get a little bit tetchy and scared. However, the Doctor wants to know exactly WHICH beast this one is. As the Doctor goes through a litany of religions, he wants to know which beast he’s currently addressing. He’s informed, through the Ood that he this beast is “all of them”.

Things start to take an ugly personal turn as the beast tells the Doctor that he knows him, he knows him as the killer of his own kind. The Doctor wants to know how the beast go here and we find out that the disciples of “unlight” rose up and chained him in the pit for all eternity. It seems this occurred “before time” which the Doctor jumps on immediately and scoffs at, “What does that mean?” It turns out it’s before time, and light, and space, and matter, so it’s a really long time ago. The Doctor thinks nothing could have existed back then. The beast questions if that’s the Doctor’s religion.

The beast/Ood take an interesting Steven King type turn as they start to reveal all the inner most secrets and fears of the various crew members, including Toby the virgin, and Rose “the lost girl” who they say will die in battle very soon. You start to get the feeling that Rose has got some kind of interesting arc coming up that will lead to something big, bigger than being just a “bad wolf”. The screen flashes with the horned beast again, just in time to scare everyone. As Rose implores the Doctor to tell her what it meant, when it said she would die soon.

Through a very clever moment of people trying to talk to each other, and over each other, with communications seemingly cut off, everyone gets more and more scared, the Doctor takes over the comm, and tell them, if they like listening to voices in the dark, then listen to his. He tells them that the beast is playing on all their basic fears, such as darkness, nightmares and the like. Followed by one of the best lines ever to roll out of the Doctor’s mouth. The Doctor then give a great little pep talk about humans traveling all the way across space, and that unlike the beast they are not alone. But before the Doctor can finish his speech the cable to car he and Ida are in snaps.

Now mind you, most of the times with a elevator cable snaps people are sure to fall to their deaths, but don’t forget, the Doctor and Ida have yet to leave the floor of the pit, and just run out of the car, before ten miles of cable fall on their heads. Scary in previews, not so scary in the episode. Rose tries to raise the Doctor on the comm, but they are of course down again. If any of you have Virgin mobile you know exactly what they are going through.

The Doctor and Ida only have fifty-five minutes of air left and the group above don’t have another ten miles of cable to send down to them. Things are starting to look very bleak indeed for our group. Plus the Ood are banging at the doors, and are cutting through the door bolts. I don’t know what that tool was, but I know I want one, it looks like it can cut through any two inch bolt with a single squeeze. Rose suggest that they think their way out of this situation, and the Captain comes up with a way to bypass the area power supply with that of the group’s rocket. It works and power is partially restored.

Rose really starts to take command ordering people around to find a way out and to discuss what we know about the pit. Meanwhile, Ida comes up with a way to use the cable that’s fallen down to go into the bottom part of the pit. The Doctor suggests he goes down into the pit and not Ida. Up top, they find a way to turn off the telepathic link between the Ood and the beast but they have to go to the Ood habitat to do it. Of course to do this they have to travel through ventilation style shafts, which have to have air pushed through them.

The Doctor stands on the edge of the seal, and gets ready to go down, as he and Ida talk about the primitive urges. The Doctor starts to jump down in a free falling repelling style. If you look at the device they created for lowering cable it looks like there is less than fifty feet of cable on it, let alone miles, or even half a mile of cable on it. We see this as the Doctor is lowered into the darkness.

Rose and the gang prepare to go into the shafts just as the Ood are breaking through, which includes a great bit about staring at Rose’s bum. Of course the Ood follow Rose and company into the shafts, but they seem to be able to scurry through them much faster than our heroes. Security chief Jefferson stays behind and starts shooting at the Ood it’s so far been very unclear as to what happens when you shoot an Ood. While I don’t need to see blood and guts splattering on the walls, I would like to know if the bullets at least slow them down, or stop them all together. Rose, Danny and Toby, continue on their way to the Ood habitat.

The next few moments consist of people and Ood going through shafts, and finally seeing that there is at least one Ood face down so we know that bullets can in fact stop them. Mr. Jefferson is caught behind a closing wall and left behind. They have a nice chat while the Captain vents the remaining air from the shaft, which has it’s expected effect of killing the security chief. As they get close to the habitat and have Ood on both sides, Toby it seems is seconds away from sure death, then his eyes turn red and we now know, that he’s not as free of the beast as we were lead to believe.

While they run though these hallways to various chambers, I was struck by the thought that I recognized them before. Many have suggested Alien, Red Dwarf or other flicks that have had similar structures, but then it dawned on me. It’s NONE of those. It’s the “Satellite of Love”, it’s the God Damned “Mystery Science Theater 3000” set. Right down to the crap on the walls!

Anyway, the Ood are now breaking into the main control room as Rose, Toby and Danny turn on the machine that will retard the Ood. You can tell these are the same people who must have played Cybermen, because they do a very similar little Cyber jitterbug as the fall down. The Doctor continues going down in the blackness talking about myths and legends about the beast. While we’ve been told they spend loads and loads on the shot of the floating woman in space, they spent NOTHING on the Doctor’s drop into the abyss. Even in a penny pinching environment that is the Beeb, this looked very silly.

Soon the cable runs out and the Doctor can’t tell how far from the bottom he is, Ida starts to pull the Doctor back up before he can do something rash. The Doctor stops the winch and decides it’s better to fall and see what’s there, than to just sit there and run out of air. While the Doctor unhooks, we see Rose, Toby, Danny and the Captain try and reestablish a comm link to two below. The Doctor and Ida discuss religion and rules to live by, while he continues to unhook himself from the cable. He even starts to give a final message to Rose then stops because she knows what it is already, as he falls from view into the blackness.

Ida tries to tell Rose that she couldn’t stop the Doctor from making his choice, and we see that Billie Piper can still really act. Zack informs Ida that she’s too far down for rescue and the rest must leave the base and make sure no one ever comes back again. Rose decides to stay and is carried bum first into the rocket.

We see the Doctor has landed face first on the bottom with his helmet shatter, must to his surprise he can breath. Just then rocket takes off against Rose’s wishes, she nearly chooses to kill the Captain but then decides not to.

The Doctor comes face to face with the beast, and he’s a big one, like King Kong big! As he looks at the beast, Toby onboard the ship starts to smile. The Doctor tries to communicate with the beast and figure out what’s going on. When his superior Timelord mind starts to piece something together. He realizes this is just the body and questions where the mind has gone. After some very verbal reasoning on the Doctor’s part, about if he should or shouldn’t try and destroy the beast’s prison, he figures out that if he does, it would destroy the gravity field protecting the ship, and in turn destroy Rose.

On the rocket Rose starts to sus out what’s going on, that if the beast wanted to kill them there was several ways he could have done so. In the pit the beast while brainless is clearly amused by the Doctor dilemma, who tells the beast of all the gods and near gods he’s encountered, that if he believes in one thing, he believes in Rose. The doctor smashes one of the vases (that’s right a vase or two is what holds the beast back) and the gravity funnel collapse and the rocket turns around and heads straight back for the black hole.

Toby becomes all tattooed again, but this time inside the rocket. Much to the dismay of the Captain and Danny. Rose grabs the bolt gun and shoot the main window of the spaceship and it sucks the Toby/beast thing out into the vacuum of space. Everyone dies… oh wait… this is Doctor Who and shooting a big hole in the window of you space ship while it’s flying into a black hole doesn’t in fact kill you. The rocket, not unlike a Vulcan eye, has an extra eye lid just waiting to close at the push of a button. I mean COME’ON! Now while the Captain does say, “Emergency Shields” I mean.. come’on, it’s another window. It would have been a much more believable effect if a shield had appeared. So I suspect the original line was “Emergency Wind Shield!!” but that sounded wrong on set so they were left with this. Still, we are heading into a black hole.

The planet has lost orbit and is falling into the black hole, how do we know this? Is it because of impressive Mill CGI? Or incredible special underwater effects? Nope, it’s because we see a graphic on the screen just ten percent better than the original “Deathstar” wire frame graphic showing us a ball falling into a funnel. Intercut with this are shots of the beast burning up, Ida running out of air, the Ood wondering what’s going on, and the Doctor running. Running and tripping into something…. for sixty-four thousand dollars does anyone have a guess as to what that something is? Oh come’on you know what it is. It’s the TARDIS of course! Was there any fracking doubt that the TARDIS was going to not only be found, but be used to save the day?

The Captain, Danny and Rose close their eyes as they are about to fall into the black hole, when suddenly everything stops shaking and gets very quiet. Seems the TARDIS is towing the ship away from the black hole. Pretty simple stuff really, the Timelords did invent the things after all. Seems the Doctor had just enough time to pick up Ida on his way to save the Rocket. Oddly he didn’t have time to save the Ood, but at least he mentions this fact. After they get back to normal space the Doctor and Rose are reunited

While I had no problems with the episode save the cheesy and quick ending, it was still pretty good up to a point. As much as I love the TARDIS, and I do. I have one in fact, it’s the height of bad writing to use it to fix every little thing, the TARDIS is not Wesley Crusher, it’s not Superman and it shouldn’t be used to save EVERY impossible day!

Just my 2¢,
Kelvington

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