O is for... Ood

The Ood originate on a world known as the Ood-Sphere, which lies in the same region of space as the Sense-Sphere, home to the Sensorites. The two species may well be related, both having some telepathic abilities.

In appearance they were bipedal, with large domes heads and a mass of facial tendrils covering the lower part of the face. From this emerges a white plastic globe - an artificial device which allows them to speak, lighting up as it does so. They speak in a calm, level voice. Like the Sensorites, they are all physically identical.

The Doctor first encountered them when the TARDIS materialised in Sanctuary Base 6, which had been constructed on a hostile planet in perpetual orbit on the edge of a Black Hole. The Ood were being used as servitors for the human crew stationed there - come to investigate a power source located deep within the planet. Their telepathic field was continually monitored.

Buried there was an ancient evil known as "The Beast" which exploited that telepathic field. It was able to possess them and turn them against their human masters - utilising their speech globes to kill by electrocution. Their eyes glowed red when taken over. The Ood could be stunned with a psychic shock, though only for a short time.

The Beast planned to use the creatures to scare the humans into fleeing the planet - carrying it with them as it had possessed the body of one of the crewmen.

The Ood were left trapped in the base as the planet fell into the Black Hole.

The Doctor regretted not being able to save the Ood, and some time later the TARDIS brought him and Donna Noble to the Ood-Sphere itself. There they learned that the Ood were basically a slave race, exploited by humans. Many years before, Earth explorers had visited the planet and found its inhabitants to be a benign but extremely docile people. Natural-born Ood had a second, hind, brain, which they held in their hands. This made them particularly vulnerable and trusting, and a man named Halpen discovered that they acted as a form of gestalt, their society organised through its mental link with a gigantic brain which was located in an ice cavern beside their settlement. With this isolated from them, the Ood would be leaderless and malleable - the perfect slave race. Halpen had the great brain sealed up in a subterranean bunker and ringed with an electromagnetic field, which cut its telepathic link with the Ood.

The Doctor and Donna had arrived on the Ood-Sphere during a period in which Ood across Earth's empire were beginning to turn on their owners - using their communications spheres as weapons. The condition was known as "Red Eye", as the affected Ood's eyes turned bright red. 

 

Ood Operations was now being run by Halpen's descendant Klineman. He was constantly tended by an Ood servant designated "Sigma". A growing number of people were coming to the realisation that the creatures were being exploited as slaves, and a militant group calling themselves the Friends of the Ood decided to do something about this. Working on the Ood-Sphere was a Dr Ryder, who was supposed to be helping find a cure to the Red Eye illness. He was actually a member of the militant group and had secretly been reducing the strength of the electromagnetic field - enough for the giant brain to make a link with the Ood but not enough to be noticed by Halpen's people. When he found out, Halpen killed him. A full-scale revolt broke out. Ood Sigma had been providing Halpen with a hair tonic, but this was laced with Ood genetic material - and the ruthless businessman who had exploited the creatures for so long was suddenly transformed into one himself.

Ood Operations was closed down and the Ood were permitted to return home from across the empire. Before they left, Ood Sigma appeared to foretell the futures which lay in store for both the Doctor and Donna.

The Doctor later attempted to alter the course of history by saving the life of a significant figure who was supposed to die. However, Time corrected itself and she died by her own hand instead, and the Doctor was then confronted by an image of Ood Sigma - which he took to be a sign that his current incarnation was soon to die. He wilfully avoided responding to the vision, which he knew to be a mental projection channelled back through time. By the time he returned to the Ood-Sphere, he realised his error in delaying as the Ood had been trying to warn him about the return of the Master and a threat to Time itself. The Doctor had known that something was wrong when he saw how advanced the Ood civilisation had become in just 100 years, as well as Sigma's ability to mentally project himself through time. Sigma took him to a cave system in which the Ood Elder showed him a vision of the Master's movements back in 2009. This Elder had a larger, brain-like cranium and wore a distinctive white robe.

After defeating the Master and preventing the Time Lord President Rassilon from destroying Time to escape the Time War, Sigma appeared once more to the Doctor - on the Powell Estate on New Year's Eve 2004 - to signify that it was time for him to regenerate.

In his next incarnation, the Doctor met an Ood known as Nephew, which acted as a servant to an entity called House - which inhabited the inside of a planetoid in a bubble universe. House fed on the energy of TARDISes, and used Nephew to assist with the transfer of their matrices - the sentient part of them - into short-lived biological shells. Later, when House hijacked the Doctor's TARDIS to enter the prime universe in search of other TARDISes to feast on, he sent Nephew to kill Amy and Rory who were trapped onboard. Whilst possessed by House, Nephew's eyes glowed a sickly green. Nephew was destroyed when the Doctor landed a makeshift TARDIS on the spot where he was standing.

After Amy and Rory had stopped travelling with the Doctor on a full-time basis, they awoke one morning to discover an Ood in their home. They had been visited the night before by the Doctor, who had been taking this Ood home after rescuing it from the Androvax Conflict. However, it had managed to leave the TARDIS. The couple found it extremely willing to help around the house whilst they endeavoured to get the Doctor back to collect it. Both enjoyed its help but were concerned that they were exploiting its subservient nature. The Doctor did turn up eventually and took it home to the Ood-Sphere. 

On another occasion, the Eleventh Doctor had taken Albert Einstein on a trip in the TARDIS, and the scientist had temporarily been transformed into an Ood.

When the Doctor, in their thirteenth incarnation, was captured by Weeping Angels who were working for the shadowy Gallifreyan organisation known as the Division, she found herself in a huge space station which was slowly passing through a void between two universes. The only beings on board were Tecteun - the Doctor's foster parent and leader of the Division - and her Ood servant. Tecteun was busily destroying the universe with the anti-matter force called the Flux, and the Doctor was able to get this Ood on her side when she pointed out to it that all of its own kind would perish due to the Flux. It then helped her escape.

Ood are widely travelled creatures, and have also been seen in a variety of locations, such as the Maldovarium trading post.

Played by: Paul Kasey (Sigma), Simon Carew (Division Ood), Ruari Mears (Ood Elder). 

Voiced by: Silas Carson, Brian Cox (Ood Elder).

Principal appearances: The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit (2006), Planet of the Ood (2008), The End of Time (2009), Pond Life (2012), Survivors of the Flux, The Vanquishers (2021).

• Ood have appeared as background characters in a number of episodes, including The Magician's Apprentice and Face The Raven. Ood Sigma first appears as a projection to the Tenth Doctor at the conclusion of The Waters of Mars.
• Images of them have been seen in The God Complex and Time Heist amongst others.
• The creatures' very first appearance was in the Tardisode short for the eighth episode of Series 2.
• Russell T Davies originally intended The Impossible Planet to include Slitheen as the base's servitors, but then decided on creating a new alien instead.
• They were inspired by the Sensorites, which is why he later had their planets in the same region of space. Identical in dress and appearance, they have large domed heads, are partially telepathic, and the Ood have tendrils where the Sensorites have beards.
• Davies regretted killing the Ood at the end of The Satan Pit, and of not exploring their subservient nature, so decided on a sequel which could look into this more fully.
• Einstein - played by Nickolas Grace - is turned into an Ood in a piece called Death is the Only Answer, which was the winning entry in a writing competition for schools, organised by Doctor Who Confidential.