The Impossible Planet

The Tenth Doctor and Rose explore the area, discovering strange alien writing that the TARDIS is unable to translate, meaning that it is "impossibly old".

Captain Zach explains that a gravity funnel exists around the planet, allowing them to safely enter or leave the vicinity of the black hole.

After travelling down the drill shaft, the Doctor and Ida find a large circular pit inscribed with more undecipherable markings on the rims.

With Rose and the remaining crew alerted that the planet is now falling towards the black hole, the Ood begin to close in on them whilst the voice of the Beast declares that it is free.

Executive producer and chief writer Russell T Davies said that an early draft of the script called for the role of the Ood to be filled by Raxacoricofallapatorians, the same species as the Slitheen.

[citation needed] Scenes of bodies floating in space were filmed on the underwater stage at Pinewood Studios, the first time the series has used this facility, not counting the charity special Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death.

[7] Shaun Parkes previously starred with David Tennant in the BBC's 2005 Casanova serial written by Russell T Davies.

[9] This episode and "The Satan Pit" were released in the UK, together with "Love & Monsters", as a basic DVD with no special features on 7 August 2006.

[10] Dek Hogan of Digital Spy stated the episode got the series "back on form", though he noted that losing the TARDIS was becoming tiresome.

[11] Dave Golder, writing for SFX, felt that the two-parter abandoned Doctor Who's "manic energy, a level of wit and an idiosyncratic visual approach" for more traditional science fiction, which made it look at times like "Stargate lite".

"[12] In a September 2013 National Geographic Daily News article, the author mentioned this episode while discussing planets that surround black holes.