October 07, 2026
Twenty years since its onscreen debut, and with both a new Target novelisation out now and a celebratory screening coming to cinemas, Beth Axford speaks to some of the creative minds behind this chilling two-part Series 2 adventure…
The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit might be one of Doctor Who’s darkest forays into sci-fi storytelling. A deadly black hole, the introduction of one of the show’s most iconic monsters and a meeting with the Beast made it an adventure to remember for the Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, and millions of fans and viewers at home. Twenty years on, what went into the recipe that made it such a perfectly baked Doctor Who story?
"I have really distinct memories of watching this at nine years old and being scared in ways I don’t think I’d been scared before," says Josh Carr, host of the Who Knew? podcast. "And with other episodes, the fear factor may dissipate as you get older, but The Impossible Planet becomes infinitely scarier as an adult when the dark, existential dread of the whole thing really gets a hold of you."
"These episodes remind me of how far Doctor Who can push itself," fan Kezia Newson adds. "Using the idea of the actual devil as the enemy whilst we ate our tea. A figure that we all universally know, but also don’t know, plays with our fears of the unknown, which is something so human to feel and test."
Big Finish writer and fan Christian Markham notes the story as one of his earliest Doctor Who memories. "It’s a high-concept sci-fi epic exploring race/class solidarity, science, and faith. It’s all so layered. Even the little moments are important, such as Rose sympathising with the Ood at the canteen."
Given the heavy subject of the story and the rising death count of the Sanctuary Base 6 crew, some much-needed lighter points came in the form of the Ood. Introduced in these episodes, the creatures quickly became famous for their friendly energy, fleshy fronds, and psychic abilities. And their sensitive aura made them easy to possess - a plot twist that remains just as memorable all these years later. And they were so instantly iconic that they have returned to the show several times since their debut.
"They’re a species that look so alien, yet who completely disarmed us on their first appearance by actually being our intergalactic BFFs," Newson says. "Rather than a human-eating enemy with half a face of corned beef."
"Something about the Ood scrambling through the vents, wild and possessed, has stuck itself in my memory," Markham adds. "You don’t get much alien bug-eyed monster energy in Series 1, which mostly has all sorts of CGI creatures. The Ood are such a simple but elegant design. The tentacles. The Orb. Russell T Davies said they’re similar to the Sensorites, and it’s such a beautiful modernisation of that design ethos."
Prosthetics designer Neill Gorton didn’t quite know the Ood would be so iconic at the time. "But there was something entrancing about them right from the outset," he recalls. "Everyone was just fascinated with them. I think the body language really brought them to life. Paul Kasey was the lead Ood, and Ailsa Berk did the choreography - they gave them a gentleness and poise that contrasted their unusual looks.
"The look of them should be scary and a bit repulsive, but somehow all those elements just came together in a way that drew people to them instead."
Matt Jones, writer of the episodes, adds: "Perhaps they’re so popular because we never really know what the Ood are thinking. There are contradictions at the heart of them - they look frightening, but they’re naturally kind. They’re ugly, but they sing beautifully. They’re the opposite of monsters like the Axons, that look beautiful but are hiding their nastiness inside."
The Ood were created by showrunner Russell T Davies. After originally considering refurbishing the Slitheen and their costumes for this story, the team deduced that it would cost a similar amount to design a new monster, and, fearing the Slitheen would dominate the episodes too much, the Ood were born.
"The brief for the Ood was that they were a basic slave race. Tall, bald albinos dressed in simple, identical suits," costume designer Louise Page recollects. "Russell said they should be eerily elegant. I think they are popular because viewers find them to be rather peaceful creatures. They are timeless."
The episodes marked the first time that a New Series story ventured so far away from Earth, taking the Doctor and Rose to such an impossible place that they almost never returned. There are many elements that contributed to the bleak, high-stakes energy of the episodes, but Page’s costume work is perhaps the unsung hero. From the legendary orange space suit and the workwear of the Sanctuary Base 6 crew to Rose’s mesmerising pink attire, there’s something classic about these designs that has stuck with fans after all these years.
"It’s so typically Doctor Who that out of all the glorious designs that get put to screen in a series, a fairly unassuming orange spacesuit has prevailed across multiple incarnations and multiple decades," Carr enthuses. "Drawing from fluorescent jackets on building sites and weathered overalls gives the suit - and consequently the Doctor - a real working-class everyman vibe.”
"From the tone meeting for these episodes, Russell had been very clear that he didn’t want traditional, chunky Apollo-style white spacesuits with packs on their backs. He always liked a pop of colour," Page explains. "We had seen images of the orange suits known as the space shuttle pumpkin suit in the USA, which tend to be used by NASA. They’re not normally worn outside, but for our purposes, this is what Russell wanted. We didn’t want our cast to look bulky in them."
Page didn’t imagine that the orange spacesuit would ever be seen again on screen. "It's flattering to think the costume ended up working so well that later showrunners wanted to use it too."
And what about the Sanctuary Base 6 crew? "The tone for the episodes was ‘Tough’. The crew needed to look real. They did physical work and should look practical. Tough, working people doing a practical job. It was not a sci-fi base. They were real workers set not too far in the future," Page says.
"Generally, the colour palette from director James Strong was washed-out colours and a weathered look. They had been on the base a long time."
Surviving Krop Tor was arguably Rose Tyler’s most grown-up adventure yet, and heralded the beginning of the end of her travels with the Doctor. Fan Niamh Kennedy thinks this is one of the highlights of the story. "It’s the beginning of Rose’s goodbye. Suddenly, she feels like the most mature Rose we’ve ever seen, but this character development haunts the narrative as we realise she hasn’t got long left, upping the stakes in one of the show’s most serious stories to date."
The colour palette in this story is dark, so, given Rose’s development throughout the series, Page wanted her to stand out. "Rose had grown up a lot in Series 2, and we had made an effort to make her more of a woman and less of the girl seen in Series 1. She was more travelled, and that was partly how we showed that - through her wardrobe.
"I think the strong pink fuchsia jacket worked out to be the perfect colour choice for the episode against the sets and lighting."
Dark, exciting themes, a timeless look and iconic monsters. There’s a lot to love about these episodes. And now, there’s a Target novelisation expanding on the story. How did writer Matt Jones feel about revisiting The Satan Pit, two decades on?
"It was lovely. They’re incredibly well-produced episodes, beautifully directed and performed," he says. "Russell had made the show about feelings and families and relationships - and therefore had brought it into the twenty-first century. We take it for granted that Doctor Who does that now, but at the time, it was seismic."
Doctor Who television stories have been novelised since the 1960s - with the Target book imprint beginning in 1973 - so, Jones feels honoured to have written one. "I literally learnt to read with those books," he explains. ‘"he first novels I ever bought with my pocket money were The Doomsday Weapon [based on Colony in Space] and The Auton Invasion [based on Spearhead in Space]. I still have them - I was six years old, and they were thirty pence each."
The biggest challenge of turning two full episodes into a novelisation was telling the story in just 35,000 words. "I was firmly told by Penguin that they didn’t want the book to be longer than that. It’s actually forty thousand words long, but fortunately, no one seemed to mind."
How did he do that? "I didn’t think I could write every scene of the story in that word count, so I came up with the idea that Ida, Danny and Zack have been arrested and are being interrogated after they get home." The book gives their accounts of what happened on Krop Tor. "It also serves as a sequel to the television story, as we get to find out what happened to them afterwards. And Ida gets to meet the Doctor again!"
An incredible looking sci-fi horror that reels you in and leaves you hiding behind the sofa. It’s a classic Doctor Who formula, but perhaps a story of the likes we had never seen before or since. And what other franchise can re-tell one of its stories in such a unique, fresh way, so many years after airing? The fact that so many of The Impossible Planet’s parts are so celebrated after all this time shows that this is a Doctor Who story for the ages. And if the Doctor and Rose Tyler can survive hell, that gives us hope. Perhaps that’s the core of these episodes; that there’s hope at the bottom of every dark pit.
The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit are now streaming on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on AMC+ in the US.
The Satan Pit Target novelisation by Matt Jones is available now in paperback, ebook and audio release from BBC Books.
The Satan Pit comes to select cinemas this Doctor Who Day (23rd November) in a special extended release - find out more here.
