I enjoyed this second episode, not as much as the first. The A plot opens with the captain taking the bolt gun and reacts that it only has one bullet - putting a suicide gun in doctor who is a dark choice, I like it. There’s a lot of scuttling about ducts, maybe too much. But the tension and sacrifice from Jefferson helped humanise his otherwise aggressive character. The “nice view” jokes in the ducts were unnecessary. Ditto the scooby do esque reveal that the beast was still among them.

Throughout the B plot we get a discussions about belief systems, and this is the highlight of the episode for me. I enjoyed these and the doctor living out a death wish by cutting his rope in the pit. The big let down for me was seeing the actual beast at the end - like any good lovecraftian outsider monster, the mind can conjure a scarier monster, and once you present it, it was a bit of a let down. Doctor says the beast can’t speak, as it’s intelligence has moved somewhere else, yet as it is animated it still seems to have intelligence. The grin and laugh particularly doesn’t work for me, Toby was already laughing in it’s stead. Animators and live action not quite meshing well.

By the end I am confused about the scale of the planet’s size, how the tardis got into the pit when the door was sealed, and why “strategy 9” exists and they didn’t use it earlier. The ood plotlines went nowhere, highlighting this was maybe not the best story in which to bring up the whole slave race plotline, though the now-released ood huddling in fear at the end was a nice addition. The resolution is decent, and I enjoyed Rose and Doctor reuniting, the discussions and emotions they had have moved them forward a bit now.

Maybe not as strong as the introductory episode, but I still like this one a lot, albeit for only one real reason.

The stuff on the Santuary Base is decent, but perfunctory. Rose and the crew work to disrupt the Ood and make their escape. Rose gets to be a leader, heroic sacrifices are made, Zack gets to learn some self-respect. It’s all fine - good, even, elevated by the same strong performances we got last week. I think the direction betrays the fact that Toby is still possessed, which is unfortunate, because Will Thorp is still quite good. I’m not sure what to make of Danny’s(?) flatulence - is that supposed to be some sulphuric betrayal of Toby’s true self?

The Doctor’s final confrontation with the Beast is also…fine. David Tennant does as good a job as he possibly can - it’s fun to watch him second-guessing the situation and essentially playing chess with himself, but at the end of the day he’s still playing against nothing. It’s the same basic setup that Matt Smith later gets in “The Rings of Akhaten,” but that episode does it better. The Beast looks pretty good, but suffers a lot from the general low-resolutionness of the episode. It’d be great to see a remaster.

But the Doctor and Ida, standing on the edge of the abyss? That’s solid gold. The Doctor standing on the edge of the Pit, waxing philosophical about the compulsion to go down, is all I really think about when I think of this episode. 10/10, no notes.