The Satan Pit

Oh dear oh dear oh dear - after last week's cracking episode full of tension and excitement and almost reminiscent of the Sandminer crew in Robots of Death, the Satin Pit quickly sank into the most of cliche of SF plots - a chained up monster on a planet trying to escape with inhabitants of space base being chased around corridors by monsters (in this case the Oods which had shown great potential last week). For the majority of the episode the Doctor dangles on a rope, eventually crashes to the bottom and has pointless dialogue with a growling devil like creature whilst faithful Rose is left to deal with the creature's intelligence in the space rocket fleeing the black hole. Then bingo the Doctor finds the Tardis at the foot of the pit and saves the remaining humans - hoorah!!

To be fair the acting was of the same high standard as part one and the special effects were terrific. But the concept has been done in Doctor Who many times before - The Daemons, Pyramids of Mars, Battlefield to name a few. Despite the references to the Doctor and Rose questioning their beliefs about a creature that may have existed before the creation of the universe, there was nothing new here. Break a couple of flower pots and the creature remains prisoned for ever more - oh come on - pleasssssssssssssse!!!

So my first thumbs down for this season - maybe I just expected too much and episode one was really quite superb. This was a wasted opportunity to bring a really good space adventure to the season - it ultimately failed in my eyes - what a shame!!! And poor Oods - all wiped out - another race sent to oblivion!