Episode #197: Planet of the Ood.
Companions: 10th Doctor and Donna Noble.
Air Date: 19th April 2008.
The Doctor takes Donna to her very first alien planet: the Ood Sphere. There, the Doctor encounters the Ood once more, and red-eye strikes again. But what is causing it this time? He and Donna soon learn horrible secrets kept by Ood Operations, and they discover just what humanity is capable of. Elsewhere, what is the secret that Warehouse 15 holds within its walls? The Doctor arrives and everything will change. The revolution has begun.
Planet of the Ood is a story that gives us a background to the Ood race encountered previously in The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit. The Doctor and Donna arrive on a planet where the Ood are altered and sold into slavery among the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire. They take it upon themselves to see them freed but meanwhile something is turning the Ood into savage killers.
The Ood are revealed to be a peaceful species originally until they were found two hundred years earlier. We learn that they have a second brain that is external to the body and that the corporation replaces with the the communication orb. They also have a great brain being held prisoner which, when not isolated, allows the Ood to communicate with one another telepathically.
Just as in The Fires of Pompeii we see another side to Donna Noble here. The reaction she shows when it is revealed how the Ood are treated makes her seem far more Human than she did previously. Travelling with the Doctor seems to be having a good effect on her already and she isn't the same woman she was when we first met her in The Runaway Bride.
It's an interesting story but again one where humanity is shown to be just as bad a villain as anything the Doctor normally faces down. It is mainly there as a set up for the end of the 10th Doctors era on the show, as it sets up a recurring phrase that the Doctor's song is ending. Overall it isn't a bad story. Very fitting with modern Who.
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