Saturday, 30 May 2015

(745) The Unicorn and the Wasp

Now after the brief distraction of Martha has been dealt with, it feels like the show can get back to being the Doctor Donna Show. The title of this episode is one of the most fun and wacky titles that the show has come up with for quite sometime. This story sees Fenella Woogar appear as Agatha Christie and this story takes place on the day that she disappeared. Like most Agatah Christie books, this is a who-dunnit. Normally on a Agatha Christie drama that appears on ITV, it takes them two hours for this to unravel and yet Doctor Who manages to do a good job in 45 minutes.

For me this episode is memorable for the appearance of Henry Gordon Jago. There seems to be a nod to that character when Hugh Curbishly is recalling where he was and at one point there are some dancers on a stage which seems deliberate. If it weren’t for him then this episode wouldn’t be as exciting.
There are some good jokes which Gareth Roberts has done well sewing them into the episode. His last story was The Shakespeare Code and I think that he is having more fun with this story and it shows as he seems to thrive trying to mix Doctor Who and murder mysteries together. I think that most writers might have struggled so its credit to Roberts that he made it work. Graeme Harper directs this story well and in some instances the episode looks lovely.

The Wasp turns out to be the vicar. I had forgotten who it was so it was a nice surprise. The thing is that it isn’t normal for there to be such a long scene as the big reveal scene was in new who. It was like the show has slowed to mobility scooter speed. There is a running gag of Doctor asking the Doctor if a person did it after some big revelation has come out about them. That was quite funny.
This is a story that is ok but it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I think that on another day I might be more favourable about this episode but today its not an episode that I think is in the top three of this series.

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