The Hive Mind: Behind The Scenes

The Doctor in Spacesuit

I think Martha got a raw deal in series 3. It's only with the benefit of hindsight and a generous bit of imagination that we can see Martha's real journey.
At the time I was never convinced by her unrequited love for the Doctor. It was like her feelings appeared from nowhere rather than grew organically out of the stories.
Many of the early characters pick up on it immediately (Shakespeare, Tallulah) yet the audience weren't somehow privy to the same tell tale signs- like we were being told to believe it rather than shown evidence. If her love had been allowed to grow up to the point of her near departure in The
Lazarus Experiment or Human Nature, we would have been swept along with the journey and her choice to leave the TARDIS at the end of The Last of the Time Lords would have had a far greater emotional impact.
As it was, I was left with the feeling that somehow Martha had failed as a companion. Even the Doctor fails to let her in- not even giving her the attention she deserves in her final scene as she delivers her reason for leaving- "is this going somewhere?"- so somehow, the audience can't let her in either.
This is me trying to redress that. On a personal level, I wanted to love Martha as any of the Doctor's companions. She certainly had plenty of moments to shine during the series but here I wanted to give her a platform where could be the hero. Away from the Doctor and out of the shadow of Rose.

Martha

Ood

Costarr- Gladiator

Music by Murray Gold

Making its AFT debut is the utterly fantastic Flight Control TARDIS replacing the Money Box version used previously.

23 December 2007 as the second of a new Flash series of stories.

This story took the ending of Ood In Space and extrapolated a story from it. Since the announcement of Martha's departure from the series I wanted a story that gave Martha something to do and with the absence of the Doctor The Hive Mind gave me that opportunity. The Hive Mind creature itself went through several re-imaginings. It was at one point going to be the Empress of the Racnoss. Another idea had the creatures tendrils as locust type creatures that suck planets and people dry. In the end it settled as a fat, bloated and lazy brain with a rather dry wit.

Shooting for The Hive Mind took place on 14 November. There were two sets- one full size figure scale complete with organic doorway and another 'model' size which housed the brain with scaled down doors. The brain is a modified picture of a deep sea sponge.


Editing began on 26th November with the music for chapter three being completed on 19th December.
Keen eyed viewers will notice the reuse of the silver gladiator figure, first seen as Karrick, captain of the guard in Backwards. Because of that, his planet is deliberately intended to be the same world visited in that (yet to be reposted) story. Costarr was only named during the final editing. Up to that point in the script he was "man". The name was coined from the name Costar and because he is in effect Martha's co-star for the story.
The original draft was less concise with much toing and froing between a prison cell where Martha would meet Costarr. Here she would also learn to manipulate the Ood, getting them to free her for her confrontation with the Mind.
The blue time vortex (created in Flash) indicates that Martha indavertantly sends the TARDIS back in time to where it lands on the Hive Mind. It might not be clear in the story but there is a time parados: the Transpore that the Mind sends to Earth after scanning Martha is the same one they chase in Ood In Space. But you knew that.

Other than being a sequel to Ood In Space, it makes no reference to other stories. The Ood first appeared in series 2's The Impossible Planet/ The Satan Pit where Rose met them and again in series 4's Planet of the Ood where Donna meets them. Martha never faced the Ood on TV.