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caz963God, I love The Unicorn and the Wasp. What a fun episode. It’s this season’s “Doctor meets famous historical figure” episode and this time, it’s Agatha Christie, which is a nice bit of continuity from his suggestion to Martha at the end of S3 that they go back in time to visit her.
I confess, I’m not a fan of her books. I’ve only read two or three, but from what I remember, they were simplistic and the writing itself bored me. I’m not a great mystery reader anyway, so I’m probably not the best judge, but … there we go.
What we’ve got then is the Doctor and Donna attending a house party in the 1920s at which the special guest is Agatha Christie… and of course, it turns into a murder-mystery with a twist. The twist of course being that, as Donna puts it, the murderer’s an alien.
It falls slap bang in the middle of the season, and it’s the last chance for the Doctor and Donna to have a bit of fun before the more sombre events of the last half of the season begin to unfold. And you know, much as I love the library episodes, and Midnight and Turn Left, I really wish we’d had a few more like this. The way David and Catherine play off each other is such a joy to watch and while we did get glimpses of that elsewhere, watching this again, I can’t help but feel just a little bit cheated. I said in my last rewatch post that there seemed to be this desire on the part of TPTB to torture the Doctor in the last half of S4; and while I can see that it was a way to push David technically and dramatically, and that given the way things were going to end, the Doctor needed to become a bit unstable at some point, I just wish the poor sod hadn’t been hammered week after week for the last six episodes of the series!
So. A fairly straightforward plot with lots of jokes, in-jokes, flirting and … drop-dead gorgeousness
And
Guh
There are also several titles of Christie’s books planted in there along the way. Apart from the obvious ones like Murder on the Orient Express that are actually included as book titles, there’s The Body in the Library, Sparking Cyanide, Murder at the Vicarage (or Vicar’s Rage as the Doctor puns very badly) Dead Man’s Folly, They Do It With Mirrors and loads more which are no doubt listed in an episode guide somewhere.
Let's meet the dramatis personae
The professor
The vicar
The butler
The lady of the manor
The scion of the house (who is unlikely to… er… generate any more scions)
The old duffer of a husband
The deb
The faithful servant – keeper of the family secrets
Heh. You have to love the way Donna cuts through his bullshit... although given there was a car coming up the drive, he almost certainly set himself up for that one :-)
Oh no! How can we go to the ball without an invitation?
Prince Charming can get in anywhere
Flapper... or slapper?
Flapper. You look lovely. Awwww...
He gives her a lovely smile as he says that, but none of the caps I found do it justice. Oh well...
Meeting the hostess, Donna tries out "posh"
No. No, don't do that. (Heh - nice bit of continuity with the earlier "famous people" episodes, where Rose tries a Scottish accent and Martha has a go at Elizabethan English.)
Look at the Doctor's face. That's either "Donna, you're barking up the wrong tree", or "Oi, Lord Fauntleroy - back off."
All the decent men are on the other bus.
Or Time Lords. Heh. He might not want any "complications", but he has to be top-dog with his women doesn't he? *g*
The guest of honour
The Doctor is such a fanboy!
You fool me every time. Well…almost every time. Well…once or twice. Well…once. But it was a good once.
I love Ten's little monologues of diminishing returns. Next time you watch it, watch Donna's face while he babbles on.
I think that’s the last time we get the ‘not married’ gag.
Look how bloody happy they are! *sniff*
Tongue
Surely there's not a woman alive who wouldn't respond to that?
It's the date Agatha Christie disappeared. Which is true - in 1926 she disappeared for about ten days and then reappeared at a hotel with amnesia. I remember a film from the 1970s with Vanessa Redgrave which attempted to explain what happened. What I can't remember is what they came up with, but I'm sure it wasn't anywhere near as good as this version!
That mouth will be the death of me
But before long the peace is shattered and there's a mystery to solve
Guh.
The Doctor announces he’s “Smith of the Yard” and that Donna’s his plucky helper. You just know he’s risking life and limb saying that
There's something about the specs and the floppy fringe that's ... er... where was I? - oh yes. Distracting.
Not very 1926. There’s a murder, a mystery and Agatha Christie.
So? Happens to me all the time.
Of course he's going to lick it
No, but isn’t that a bit weird? Agatha Christie didn’t walk around surrounded by murders. Not really. That’s like meeting Charles Dickens and he’s surrounded by ghosts. At Christmas... It’s not like we could drive across country and find Enid Blyton having tea with Noddy. Could we? Noddy’s not real, is he? Tell me there’s no Noddy.
There's no Noddy. Bwah! That section is fabulous - the Cluedo reference, Dickens and ghosts harks back to The Unquiet Dead, and to cap it all, there's Noddy!
Go on. You're everso plucky! You just know he'd get a slap for that if they were on their own
What a thoroughly mischievous dimple. And more proof, if any were needed, that his pockets really are bigger on the inside!
Solving a murder mystery with Agatha Christie. Brilliant!
The Doctor’s like a kid on a sugar high – but much as Her Maj Queen Vic slapped him down for enjoying himself too much amid death and destruction in Tooth and Claw, Agatha does the same here.
Time for the interrogations. One of the things I really like about the episode is the way it gets in all the clichés you’d expect to find in an episode of Poirot! Here’s one – all the suspects being asked where they were that afternoon - and none of them telling the truth!
That chair must have some kind of truth-serum like properties, because even the Doctor is affected
Although of course, his story matches his ‘pictoral’ memory, even if Agatha thinks he’s totally bonkers
Looks like he’s still looking for the four things and the lizard
That bit there? I nearly fell off my chair. Clearly, he likes killing fangirls
Donna, meanwhile is exerting her amazing powers of detection upstairs
You’d have to be a pretty crap detective to miss that!
When I say giant … I mean flippin’ enormous!
Another one bites the dust
For once, the monster’s not chasing them!
Oi! Flyboy! See? Plucky!
A bit of girl talk – although Agatha doesn’t seem that appreciative. Poor Donna – she’s just trying to help!
Pausing briefly to remind ourselves that David Tennant has lovely hands
Uh-oh. He looks like he’s trying to lay an egg, there
There's a bit in the full-length Confidential - not the Cut-Downs on the DVDs - where Graeme Harper (who directed this episode) talks about how David wasn't best pleased at having to spend most of the day eating walnuts and how he ended up trashing both his suits, despite their attempts to prevent it!
An instant classic of nu-Who. On a par with the miming scene in Partners in Crime.
Also, in the podcast commentary, Harper says that he’d not been looking forward to that days’ filming, because scenes like that are notoriously hard to get right – but that it had turned out to be one of the easiest things he’s ever shot!
Gareth Roberts then says, “that’s because you’re dealing with those two, probably.”
I love that despite the fact that the Doctor’s been poisoned, they still find time to snark each other
Oh, that’s too salty! (That's pure Nan!)
Hopefully, those weren’t actually anchovies!
That’s a scary face! One of the things I adore about him is the fact that he’s not afraid to look like a complete prat if he has to. I’m sure there are a lot of good-looking actors out there who wouldn’t be caught dead doing stuff like this for fear it would damage their heart-throb status. Meh, what a bunch of wussies. Real men don’t worry about stuff like that!
Mammy!
Big shock, coming up
The by now compulsory non-snog with the companion.
David, from the Confidential:
Actually, it’s not so much the not-kiss as their reactions that are open to interpretation, which I imagine is what he's talking about
I must do that more often
Depending on your point of view her reaction is either –
Oh, no you don’t mate!
OR
Yes please, but oh crap, we said ‘mates’ and if he finds that out, I’ll be out on my ear
I mean the… the detox
And that’s either –
I do mean the detox
OR
I don’t mean the detox but she’ll kill me if she ever finds that out!
See?
It’s now a dark and stormy night
Is he twelve? (So cute!)
Pretty by candlelight
But amid the chaos and confusion... Poor Roger.
Trying to work things out..,
Time for the pep-talk as Agatha has a crisis of confidence
The warm-up act introduces the main event
I love how he then scurries off to sit down and watch the show!
Secrets are unearthed... while I am mesmerised by the mean and moody
"The Unicorn" is discovered to be none other than -
It amuses me endlessly to hear David describe her as a "scrubber from the East End" in the DWC :-)
This scene is very well done. A terrific parody of the "get everyone together and unmask the killer" scene which happens in so many of Christie's books and others of that ilk. There's a wonderful thread of comedy running through it as well, with Donna's reaction to each of the Doctor's declarations and his exapserated reactions to her. But she's us - we don't know what the hell he's going on about either, because the scene doesn't work in quite the way we'd expect it to given the way it's been set up. Normally, all the suspects would sit around and be exonerated one by one until we came to the killer - but not here. Clever.
There is much pointing of fingers
Who did I kill?
No, but you said it all along, the vital clue—that this whole thing is being acted out like a murder mystery.
More proof - were it needed - that Donna is awesome
The truth at last. Lady Eddie had an affair with a giant wasp in India, came back with a bun in the oven and had a waspy baby.
Eh, that's just here because it's pretty
And that
Car chase at 20 mph! First time we've seen this Doctor drive a car.
In The Writer's Tale, RTD says that the ending had to be re-written. Originally, the Doctor was to have rammed the wasp with the car, causing it to fall into the lake, but David was concerned that that would be tantamount to the Doctor committing murder - and he wouldn't do that. Rusty agreed - David Tennant - clever, sexy and good on scripts; why don't I hate him? - and the change was made.
So it's down to Donna to deliver the fatal blow. For one thing, she was the only one who could do it, given that the Doctor wouldn't and Agatha couldn't, and her reaction is a very human one. I've yet to meet anyone who actually likes wasps - and I'd probably have done the same! Also, the Doctor says earlier that the Vespiform is capable of wiping them out easily and so it's the only course of action open.
DONNA
How do you kill a wasp? Drown it. Just like its father.
THE DOCTOR
Donna, that thing couldn’t help itself.
DONNA
Neither could I.
But it's not over yet
Until ... it lets her go, and we get the DW version of the mystery behind Agatha Christie's disappearance in 1926.
Is it really any surprise that the Doctor's a) a hoarder and b) files all his crap alphabetically?
The ending is lovely - the book is a nice touch
As is this -
Well, no one knows how they’re gonna be remembered.
We can only hope for the best. Maybe that’s what kept her writing. The same thing that keeps me travelling. Onwards?
Onwards.
*sigh*
Onwards and to the big pile o' crap that's going to get dumped on both of them by the end of the season
Screencaps from Sonic Biro, The Medusa Cascade and Demon-cry.net. Some are from the BBC DW website.
I confess, I’m not a fan of her books. I’ve only read two or three, but from what I remember, they were simplistic and the writing itself bored me. I’m not a great mystery reader anyway, so I’m probably not the best judge, but … there we go.
What we’ve got then is the Doctor and Donna attending a house party in the 1920s at which the special guest is Agatha Christie… and of course, it turns into a murder-mystery with a twist. The twist of course being that, as Donna puts it, the murderer’s an alien.
It falls slap bang in the middle of the season, and it’s the last chance for the Doctor and Donna to have a bit of fun before the more sombre events of the last half of the season begin to unfold. And you know, much as I love the library episodes, and Midnight and Turn Left, I really wish we’d had a few more like this. The way David and Catherine play off each other is such a joy to watch and while we did get glimpses of that elsewhere, watching this again, I can’t help but feel just a little bit cheated. I said in my last rewatch post that there seemed to be this desire on the part of TPTB to torture the Doctor in the last half of S4; and while I can see that it was a way to push David technically and dramatically, and that given the way things were going to end, the Doctor needed to become a bit unstable at some point, I just wish the poor sod hadn’t been hammered week after week for the last six episodes of the series!
So. A fairly straightforward plot with lots of jokes, in-jokes, flirting and … drop-dead gorgeousness
And
Guh
There are also several titles of Christie’s books planted in there along the way. Apart from the obvious ones like Murder on the Orient Express that are actually included as book titles, there’s The Body in the Library, Sparking Cyanide, Murder at the Vicarage (or Vicar’s Rage as the Doctor puns very badly) Dead Man’s Folly, They Do It With Mirrors and loads more which are no doubt listed in an episode guide somewhere.
Let's meet the dramatis personae
The professor
The vicar
The butler
The lady of the manor
The scion of the house (who is unlikely to… er… generate any more scions)
The old duffer of a husband
The deb
The faithful servant – keeper of the family secrets
Heh. You have to love the way Donna cuts through his bullshit... although given there was a car coming up the drive, he almost certainly set himself up for that one :-)
Oh no! How can we go to the ball without an invitation?
Prince Charming can get in anywhere
Flapper... or slapper?
Flapper. You look lovely. Awwww...
He gives her a lovely smile as he says that, but none of the caps I found do it justice. Oh well...
Meeting the hostess, Donna tries out "posh"
No. No, don't do that. (Heh - nice bit of continuity with the earlier "famous people" episodes, where Rose tries a Scottish accent and Martha has a go at Elizabethan English.)
Look at the Doctor's face. That's either "Donna, you're barking up the wrong tree", or "Oi, Lord Fauntleroy - back off."
All the decent men are on the other bus.
Or Time Lords. Heh. He might not want any "complications", but he has to be top-dog with his women doesn't he? *g*
The guest of honour
The Doctor is such a fanboy!
You fool me every time. Well…almost every time. Well…once or twice. Well…once. But it was a good once.
I love Ten's little monologues of diminishing returns. Next time you watch it, watch Donna's face while he babbles on.
I think that’s the last time we get the ‘not married’ gag.
Look how bloody happy they are! *sniff*
Tongue
Surely there's not a woman alive who wouldn't respond to that?
It's the date Agatha Christie disappeared. Which is true - in 1926 she disappeared for about ten days and then reappeared at a hotel with amnesia. I remember a film from the 1970s with Vanessa Redgrave which attempted to explain what happened. What I can't remember is what they came up with, but I'm sure it wasn't anywhere near as good as this version!
That mouth will be the death of me
But before long the peace is shattered and there's a mystery to solve
Guh.
The Doctor announces he’s “Smith of the Yard” and that Donna’s his plucky helper. You just know he’s risking life and limb saying that
There's something about the specs and the floppy fringe that's ... er... where was I? - oh yes. Distracting.
Not very 1926. There’s a murder, a mystery and Agatha Christie.
So? Happens to me all the time.
Of course he's going to lick it
No, but isn’t that a bit weird? Agatha Christie didn’t walk around surrounded by murders. Not really. That’s like meeting Charles Dickens and he’s surrounded by ghosts. At Christmas... It’s not like we could drive across country and find Enid Blyton having tea with Noddy. Could we? Noddy’s not real, is he? Tell me there’s no Noddy.
There's no Noddy. Bwah! That section is fabulous - the Cluedo reference, Dickens and ghosts harks back to The Unquiet Dead, and to cap it all, there's Noddy!
Go on. You're everso plucky! You just know he'd get a slap for that if they were on their own
What a thoroughly mischievous dimple. And more proof, if any were needed, that his pockets really are bigger on the inside!
Solving a murder mystery with Agatha Christie. Brilliant!
The Doctor’s like a kid on a sugar high – but much as Her Maj Queen Vic slapped him down for enjoying himself too much amid death and destruction in Tooth and Claw, Agatha does the same here.
Time for the interrogations. One of the things I really like about the episode is the way it gets in all the clichés you’d expect to find in an episode of Poirot! Here’s one – all the suspects being asked where they were that afternoon - and none of them telling the truth!
That chair must have some kind of truth-serum like properties, because even the Doctor is affected
Although of course, his story matches his ‘pictoral’ memory, even if Agatha thinks he’s totally bonkers
Looks like he’s still looking for the four things and the lizard
That bit there? I nearly fell off my chair. Clearly, he likes killing fangirls
Donna, meanwhile is exerting her amazing powers of detection upstairs
You’d have to be a pretty crap detective to miss that!
When I say giant … I mean flippin’ enormous!
Another one bites the dust
For once, the monster’s not chasing them!
Oi! Flyboy! See? Plucky!
A bit of girl talk – although Agatha doesn’t seem that appreciative. Poor Donna – she’s just trying to help!
Pausing briefly to remind ourselves that David Tennant has lovely hands
Uh-oh. He looks like he’s trying to lay an egg, there
There's a bit in the full-length Confidential - not the Cut-Downs on the DVDs - where Graeme Harper (who directed this episode) talks about how David wasn't best pleased at having to spend most of the day eating walnuts and how he ended up trashing both his suits, despite their attempts to prevent it!
An instant classic of nu-Who. On a par with the miming scene in Partners in Crime.
Also, in the podcast commentary, Harper says that he’d not been looking forward to that days’ filming, because scenes like that are notoriously hard to get right – but that it had turned out to be one of the easiest things he’s ever shot!
Gareth Roberts then says, “that’s because you’re dealing with those two, probably.”
I love that despite the fact that the Doctor’s been poisoned, they still find time to snark each other
Oh, that’s too salty! (That's pure Nan!)
Hopefully, those weren’t actually anchovies!
That’s a scary face! One of the things I adore about him is the fact that he’s not afraid to look like a complete prat if he has to. I’m sure there are a lot of good-looking actors out there who wouldn’t be caught dead doing stuff like this for fear it would damage their heart-throb status. Meh, what a bunch of wussies. Real men don’t worry about stuff like that!
Mammy!
Big shock, coming up
The by now compulsory non-snog with the companion.
David, from the Confidential:
I think Russell sees it as essential that every companion and the Doctor have a bit of a kiss of some description. It’s become a law of modern Doctor Who, ‘cause people love a bit of that, don’t they? They love to speculate on what it is… And of course, as usual, it’s not really a kiss, it’s something else. But you know it’s good, isn’t it – it’s fun… shove these things in, sprinkle ‘em in, keep you guessing.
Actually, it’s not so much the not-kiss as their reactions that are open to interpretation, which I imagine is what he's talking about
I must do that more often
Depending on your point of view her reaction is either –
Oh, no you don’t mate!
OR
Yes please, but oh crap, we said ‘mates’ and if he finds that out, I’ll be out on my ear
I mean the… the detox
And that’s either –
I do mean the detox
OR
I don’t mean the detox but she’ll kill me if she ever finds that out!
See?
It’s now a dark and stormy night
Is he twelve? (So cute!)
Pretty by candlelight
But amid the chaos and confusion... Poor Roger.
Trying to work things out..,
Time for the pep-talk as Agatha has a crisis of confidence
The warm-up act introduces the main event
I love how he then scurries off to sit down and watch the show!
Secrets are unearthed... while I am mesmerised by the mean and moody
"The Unicorn" is discovered to be none other than -
It amuses me endlessly to hear David describe her as a "scrubber from the East End" in the DWC :-)
This scene is very well done. A terrific parody of the "get everyone together and unmask the killer" scene which happens in so many of Christie's books and others of that ilk. There's a wonderful thread of comedy running through it as well, with Donna's reaction to each of the Doctor's declarations and his exapserated reactions to her. But she's us - we don't know what the hell he's going on about either, because the scene doesn't work in quite the way we'd expect it to given the way it's been set up. Normally, all the suspects would sit around and be exonerated one by one until we came to the killer - but not here. Clever.
There is much pointing of fingers
Who did I kill?
No, but you said it all along, the vital clue—that this whole thing is being acted out like a murder mystery.
More proof - were it needed - that Donna is awesome
The truth at last. Lady Eddie had an affair with a giant wasp in India, came back with a bun in the oven and had a waspy baby.
Eh, that's just here because it's pretty
And that
Car chase at 20 mph! First time we've seen this Doctor drive a car.
In The Writer's Tale, RTD says that the ending had to be re-written. Originally, the Doctor was to have rammed the wasp with the car, causing it to fall into the lake, but David was concerned that that would be tantamount to the Doctor committing murder - and he wouldn't do that. Rusty agreed - David Tennant - clever, sexy and good on scripts; why don't I hate him? - and the change was made.
So it's down to Donna to deliver the fatal blow. For one thing, she was the only one who could do it, given that the Doctor wouldn't and Agatha couldn't, and her reaction is a very human one. I've yet to meet anyone who actually likes wasps - and I'd probably have done the same! Also, the Doctor says earlier that the Vespiform is capable of wiping them out easily and so it's the only course of action open.
DONNA
How do you kill a wasp? Drown it. Just like its father.
THE DOCTOR
Donna, that thing couldn’t help itself.
DONNA
Neither could I.
But it's not over yet
Until ... it lets her go, and we get the DW version of the mystery behind Agatha Christie's disappearance in 1926.
Is it really any surprise that the Doctor's a) a hoarder and b) files all his crap alphabetically?
The ending is lovely - the book is a nice touch
As is this -
Well, no one knows how they’re gonna be remembered.
We can only hope for the best. Maybe that’s what kept her writing. The same thing that keeps me travelling. Onwards?
Onwards.
*sigh*
Onwards and to the big pile o' crap that's going to get dumped on both of them by the end of the season
Screencaps from Sonic Biro, The Medusa Cascade and Demon-cry.net. Some are from the BBC DW website.
