The second two-part story of the second season of "Doctor Who" begins with this horror homage that, thogh a little light on content itself, feels like a lot of setup for the second part.
The Doctor (David Tennant) and Rose (Billie Piper) arrive on a mining station on a very distant planet, far into the future. The planet is, inexplicably, in a stable orbit around a black hole and has a massive power source buried deep within it. The team, along with their labour force, the Ood, are digging deep to reach the source. But Toby (Will Thorp), the crews archaeologist, has begun to hear a strange voice and the Ood's vocal transmitters are acting strangely, maybe this power was buried for a reason.
As I said, it's a little light on content - but there's lots of set up here for the second part. Any number of alien films, "Alien" for example, are homaged with the ramshackle industrial look of the platform, the airlocks and sealed doors. The use of the distinctive "Doom" door sound here is particularly well done. There's also links backwards, to the satanic horror films of the 70's with the deep rune edged pit containing an unspeakable power. This episode is the debut of the Ood, a voiceless empathic race that speak via a transmitter and are, seemingly, happy to carry out the requests of their human owners without any resistance.
The rest of the cast is made up of recognisable faces. Danny Webb and Shaun Parkes for example, but much of the heavy lifting is done by Will Thorp, who ends up in full body make up when he's possessed. MyAnna Buring, from Ripper Street, has a small but integral role, but it's Clare Rushbrook who operates as the main exposition character and who gets to ride down the elevator with the Doctor, towards the episodes cliff-hanger ending.
This is the first time that the Doctors ability to pull the Tardis back, using his key, as demonstrated in "Father's day" is conveniently forgotten, when the plot requires them to lose their escape route.
It doesn't do much, other than establish things for the next episode, but it does have some creepy highlights and some decent jokes, lets see if the second half can pay them off.