Doctor Who in Review: Season Four, Episode #7 – The Unicorn and the Wasp
The hit BBC series Doctor Who
Every week, I’ll do my best to go through the most recent episode with a fine-tooth comb (or whatever the "sonic screwdriver" equivalent might be) and call out the highlights, low points, continuity checks and storyline hints I can find to keep in mind for future episodes. I’ll post the review each Monday, so you have ample time to check out the episode once it airs each Friday at 9 PM EST on Sci-Fi Channel before I spoil anything.
Missed a week? Check out the "Doctor Who in Review" archive or check out any of the past editions of this column via the links at the end of this article.
Keep in mind, I’m going to assume readers have already watched the episode when I put fingers to keyboard and come up with the roundup of important plot points. In other words, SPOILER ALERT!
Let’s begin now, shall we?
Season Four, Episode #7: "The Unicorn and the Wasp"
IN BRIEF: The Doctor and Donna Noble arrive at a dinner party on 1920s Earth, just in time to meet famed mystery author Agatha Christie. Not long after introductions are made, one of the guests is found dead in the mansion of Lady Eddison, the party’s host. The Doctor, Donna and Agatha Christie team up to investigate the mysterious murder — only to discover that (surprise!) the culprit might not be human. One big bug and a few murders later, it’s time for big revelations and keen deduction as, like in any good mystery, it turns out that everyone there has something to hide. The notorious thief known as "The Unicorn" is revealed, but the actual murderer turns out to be a Vespiform — an alien shape-changer whose natural state resembles a giant wasp. Agatha Christie saves the day and history falls back in line as The Doctor and Donna head off on their next adventure.
FOR THE LAST TIME, WE’RE NOT TOGETHER: Once again, The Doctor and Donna find themselves needing to clarify their relationship in this episode. Just as I mentioned in last week’s review of "The Doctor’s Daughter," the dynamic between these two characters has become a big part of this season, and while I was slow to warm to Donna as The Doctor’s new companion, I find myself wondering where she’ll end up far more than I did with previous companions. (Although Martha Jones is still my favorite of the new bunch.)
Oh, and as ComicMix reader Vinnie Bartilucci pointed out last week, Donna hasn’t been the first companion to really challenge the Time Lord/companion status quo, as former companion Liz Shaw was known to engage in a bit of intellectual sparring with The Third Doctor back in the original series, too. Good call, Vinnie, but now I’m wondering why they never had these problems with people thinking they were married all of the time.
A GAME BY ANY OTHER NAME: Much like last week’s mention of "Chinese Whispers," I’ll admit to puzzling a bit about the "Cluedo" game Donna mentions. Apparently, popular terminology in use across the pond just isn’t my strong suit, as I wasn’t aware until this episode aired that the original name for the game I know as "Clue" (and am quite good at, I might add) was actually "Cluedo" in its initial, British iteration. In fact, there’s a very interesting entry about it over on Wikipedia, so if you’re feeling ambitious, go have a look.
THE CREATURE REPORT: As the episode progressed and it became clear that the Vespiform creature was posing as a human, I wondered how the Doctor Who special-effects team would handle such a transformation. Would we get the graphic transformation style seen in "Planet of the Ood?" Unfortunately (but understandably, given the budget these things require) the FX team went the pink-gas-and-fade-out route for the Reverend Golightly’s transformation.
All the same, the big wasp was a lot of fun, and the Reverend’s little buzzing tic that revealed itself late in the episode gave the whole scenario a goofy, old-school Who vibe. As longtime Doctor Who fans will certainly attest, it could’ve been a lot worse, right? On that note, feel free to share some of your bad Doctor Who creature memories in the comments section.
CONTINUITY CHECK: When The Doctor flashes back to his last visit to Belgium, he appears to be wearing the same outfit and quiver he was wearing at the end of last season’s episode titled "Blink." (And the Doctor Who Wiki seems to confirm this similarity.) This unseen adventure can be found on the BBC Doctor Who website under the title "The Lonely Computer."
Also, continuity geeks have to love Donna’s passing reference to the notion of seeing ghosts and Charles Dickens on Christmas Eve — which occurred way back in the first season of the new series, in the episode "The Unquiet Dead."
The Doctor advises Donna not to try and fit in by imitating local lingo. He advised Rose about the same thing in "Tooth and Claw" and also did so with Martha in the animated adventure "The Infinite Quest."
This episode mentions the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. In the audio play Storm Warning, the Eighth Doctor was wandering around the TARDIS and picked up a copy of this same novel (although the last page was missing). In the later audio adventure Terror Firma, it was revealed that this had been a birthday present from his old companions Samson and Gemma.
Also in the Big Finish Productions audio plays, the Eighth Doctor told a friend of his that Agatha Christie had once traveled with him, yet the Tenth Doctor acts as if he’s never met the woman before. There are ways around this. You can say you don’t consider the audio plays in continuity and thus there’s nothing to worry about. You could say that the Eighth Doctor was just name dropping (as he often did) and was maybe exaggerated/fibbed a little. Or you could say that the Eighth Doctor met Agatha at a later time in her life and thus had to pretend they had never met before.
WELL, IT WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN: The Doctor Who creators’ efforts to keep The Doctor’s relationship with Donna purely platonic seems to have been successful, as their kiss in this episode was as much a shock to me as it was to The Doctor. Of course, for anyone keeping count, that means The Doctor has now kissed almost every traveling partner he’s had during the new series — even the ultimate swinger himself, Jack Harkness.
BOX "C," PLEASE: At the end of the episode, when The Doctor raids his box of things with names that begin with "C," the decision to name-check the Cybermen and Carrionites was brilliant — but does anyone recognize the stone bust (or possibly, decapitated stone person’s head) that also comes out of the box?
WHAT’S IN A NAME? Once again, The Doctor finds himself fielding questions about his name. This happened in last week’s episode, and as you all know by now, has been one of the most obvious recurring themes this season. Apparently, even the great Agatha Christie doesn’t have a clue about this mystery.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEXT EPISODE, "Silence in the Library": It’s a big ol’ two-parter next week, and the terrifying subtlety of The Doctor’s instruction to "stay out of the shadows" makes it seem like this could be a scary one. Also, when an episode is set in the "universe’s largest library," you know there will be major hints about future storylines to be found in this one. (Or you can just read some of ComicMix reader Mike Weber’s spoiler-filled comments from last week’s episode!)
Thanks to various ComicMix contributors for help with this week’s analysis. Credit also goes out to the good people at The Doctor Who Wiki for information related to several of this week’s story notes.
Screencaps courtesy of SciFi.com.
For more on Doctor Who and other great programs, check out Scifi.com and the BBC.
Want to know what you’ve been missing? Check out all of the past "Doctor Who in Review" features via the following links:
Season Four, Episode #1 – "Partners in Crime"
Season Four, Episode #2 – "The Fires of Pompeii"
Season Four, Episode #3 – "Planet of the Ood"
Season Four, Episode #4 – "The Sontaran Stratagem"
A wonderful episode, quite the treat for the literary minded among us who got the fun of trying to identify all the titles of the Christie books peppered amonsgst the story. There are over 20 novels alluded to in the story, from those explicitly mentioned like Murder on the Orient Express, to "The Silent Pool" where the climax of the story happens.
This is Gareth Roberts’ second episode for Who (After a raft of Virgin adventures and Tardisodes), the first being The Shakespere Code. The two episodes have a common thread of The Doctor needing the help of a extraordinary mind of the past (namely William Shakespere and Agatha Christie) who could see things in a special and unique way to solve the problems of the issue. It’s an interesting idea, and it’s a common belief that certain genius minds are just plain built differently.
"I’m wondering why they never had these problems with people thinking (Liz and The Doctor) were married all of the time."
Primarily, they didn’t bicker the way he and Donna do. Old People like myself will remember a series of commercials to Polaroid cameras starring Mariette Hartley and James Garner. The way they bickered and snipped at each other, and had such chemistry, people assumed they were married in real life. When Mariette (with the kind assistance of her actual husband) got pregnant, she took to wearing a t-shirt that read "This is not James Garner’s baby".
To simplifiy the Wiki page, "Cluedo" was the original British name for the boardgame, mainly as a pun on the game that the game’s board was based on, "Ludo". Ludo also served as the base for Parcheesi, and is a close cousin of the Parker Brothers game "Sorry". The hip-hop band Dream Warriors did a song about it, referring to it as "Ludi", which I believe a Southern malaprop.
GUEST STAR ALERT – Felicity Kendal (Lady Clemency Eddison)is well known to Britcom fans as the female lead of "The Good Neighbors" (original British title "The Good Life") with Richard Briers, who’s also made a couple of appearances on Doctor Who and Torchwood.
Christopher Benjamin, who played Colonel Hugh in this episode, was last seen on Doctor Who as Henry Gordon Jago in the Tom Baker episode "The Talons of Weng-Chiang". back in the day, Jago (and his fellow character Professor Litefoot) were so well received there was a rumor of a spinoff series featuring them as "Scientific detectives". Just in case you thought crazy rumors were solely the creation of the Internet Age.
My personal favorite use of Agatha Christie in a Sci-Fi show was on Red Dwarf. Holly (Norman Lovett), the ship’s computer has had millions of years alone, has read every book in the history of history itself (With the exception of "Football’s a Funny Game" by Jimmy Greaves), and as such is bored to tears. He asks Dave Lister (Craig Charles) to erase all the Agatha Christie novels from his memory so he can read them again. Dave types a few commands and says "Right, I’ve done it"
"Done what?"
"Erased all references to Agatha Christie."
"Who’s that then?"
Holly spends the rest of the episode devouring the novels. Caught reading Orient Express, he confides "You ask me, I think they all did it."
Another fun episode. There were loads of interesting bits in the commentary with writer Gareth Roberts, director Graeme Harper, and actor Tom Goodman-Hill (Reverend Golightly). They mention (as Vinnie does above) that there are loads of Agatha Christie book titles throughout the episode. They were trying to put in as many as possible and they pointed out a few during the commentary at various places. David Tennant's father has a cameo as the footman (seen about 5 minutes into the episode).They moved Agatha Christie's disappearance from December to the summer. They mention a few Brideshead Revisited references as well. The Doctor's flashback was the first shot filmed for this series. The magnifying glass was Russell T. Davies' idea. There was originally a framing sequence of Agatha Christie on her death bed which was removed and may find its way onto the DVD. Gareth Roberts says that he took the poisoning scene from one he wrote in a 9th Doctor DWM comic strip. Tom Goodman-Hill said that the two lads playing the burglars had no idea of what he was going to do and his buzzing scared them. He adds that it was "really hard work – a big suit and I had to learn to fly" joking about becoming a wasp (which really was CGI). I believe they say that they used helicopter sound samples for the wasp. In an early draft they had the dead body of Reverend Golightly float to the top of the lake, but they realized that this body might be more noticeable than Agatha Christie's disappearance so they removed it. Russell T. Davies came up with the use of book cover at the end. The director said wrt to the working environment that it was one of the happiest episodes.As mentioned before, you can get the commentaries from iTunes, though they appear just the week they are aired in England, so you get them in advance and need to save them until they appear in the US.