Day 2 of the Countdown Challenge is difficult. Choosing a single favourite episode...how do you do that?! It can only be an extremely subjective exercise. So today I've chosen Planet of the Ood, a New Who episode that is dear to me for a very unique and personal reason. It's a great example of how, in my world at least, art isn't just a hobby or a luxury. It interweaves itself with every aspect of our lives - what we love, our self-awareness, our development as a person.
Planet of the Ood is, I think, a very under-rated episode. The musical score is sublime. The story is simple enough, sure, but it has heart. It cleverly picks up a throwaway alien race from The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, gives them personality, and sets them in their own world. The Ood are a magnificent piece of design and writing. I love them. They are so physically repulsive that their kind and gentle nature is a total surprise. And one of the underlying messages of the episode is that appearances are deceiving. The Ood are so, so ugly, and yet when they're not in unbearable pain, they're beautifully peaceful and forgiving by nature. The humans of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire, on the other hand, are externally familiar to us, but they're pretty ugly inside - either actively engaging in the brutal exploitation of an entire race, or turning a blind eye, happy to be complicit as long as they get the cheap labour of the Ood. The parallels to slavery and human trafficking are very clear. Enter the Doctor and Donna, bent on righting wrongs. Hooray.
The Ood's suffering and their need for justice is the heart of the episode, and the Doctor is uniquely able to understand their plight, because of a certain ability he possesses. He has a type of telepathic ability that enables him to listen in to the Ood's empathic hive mind, a realm of reality that is closed to us and to Donna until the Doctor opens her (and our) mind to hear, through the medium of music, the terrible reality of the Ood's suffering.
If you've watched the episode you'll no doubt remember the poignant moment when, after Donna's mind has been opened to hear the Ood's song, she weeps. And then after her mind is closed again she says to the Doctor, in dismay, "But you can still hear it..." "All the time," he answers quietly, and we see for a brief moment how very lonely it must be inside the Doctor's mind. Having a brain that's open to things other people don't perceive isn't always as fun as it sounds.
I said this would be a personal essay. I'll never forget the moment when I watched the scene I've just described, and I realised, "But that's what I hear. I hear that sort of thing in real life, all the time." And that started a wonderful and strange little journey for me, as I realised that I'm what is called an empath. It's not a terribly rare ability - the odds are that you know an empath - but the nature of this ability isn't widely understood. An empath (also called a clairsentient) is someone who hears or feels the emotional energy of other living beings, like an antenna picking up signals from everything in proximity. When an empath passes someone on the street who is angry, they feel that anger as if it is their own. I receive all sorts of information from my empath abilities, from the mundane to the horrific. It all sounds incredibly woo-woo or, well, sci-fi - something that should exist only in the realm of fiction - but it's real. And for me, I've never known any different. I understand what the Doctor means when he complains that it's so noisy inside his head - being an empath is like listening to ten radio stations at once. The sheer volume of information is overwhelming. And so it was an incredibly strange - and reassuring - experience for me to recognise such commonality with, of all people, an alien using his weird alien abilities. How completely bizarre. And wonderful.
But that's what Doctor Who has done for so long, isn't it? The reason the show has traditionally had such a big following among queer people is that the Doctor will always have something in common with anyone who feels different or out of place in their world. Geeks relate to his consuming enthusiasm. Idealists relate to his code of ethics that constantly clashes with the injustice and suffering he sees around him. Neurodivergents of all kinds can understand the feeling of having a brain that works differently than other people's.
Not only that, but the Doctor is good at being different. He loves it. No wonder he's such a beloved character. The Doctor's difference - his alien-ness - doesn't make him a victim. It makes him lonely, for sure, but he transcends that. His difference makes him strong. He uses it to make the universe a kinder place. That's truly inspiring. The Doctor loves being the kid who never quite fits in. And we love him for it.
