Doctor Who Club of Australia

Greg

A nice standalone episode (well, probably standalone...) with the Doctor yet again encountering a famous writer (mysteriously, he didn't meet a famous writer in series 2...)

So, its a mystery - and I therefore haven't got much to say! (Hey, watch the episode, and see if you can piece together the clues!)

However, some notes...

1. I didn't find Donna as annoying as usual in this story.

2. Gareth Roberts managed to make his references to Christie's work either very plain or a little more subtle (for example, Christie wrote a novel called Taken at the Flood, which is also used as a reasonably natural part of the dialogue at one point in the story.

3. You'll have noted the reference to Cluedo (a murder mystery board game, for those who didn't know), however the character in that game is called Professor Plum rather than Peach (although the stone-fruit remains a constant).

4. This isn't the first time the Doctor has met giant wasps... Back in TV Comics, the second Doctor met a group of giant wasps who were being controlled by the Quarks. (Issues 877-880, in a story called The Killer Wasps.)

5. Christopher Benjamin gets his third role in the show, with Colonel Hugh joining Sir Keith Gold (Inferno) and Henry Gordon Jago (The Talons of Weng-Chiang) as characters he has played.

Sulp Niar · Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 9:49 pm Post subject:

A laugh. That is all.

meglos · Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 660 Location: Perth

Very funny. A nice episode before what is set to become a much darker series from hereon.

Hiruma · Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Posts: 173 Location: Australia

A Different Episode, that the rest of the episodes this season.

Whoever they got to play Agatha Christie was quite good, her eyes were very noticeable (at least they were to me)

Next weeks episode looks interesting, set in a library (well thats different!)

Amano07 · Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 83

fun little story but...

****ing Eurovision!!!!!

Tegan · Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 7:30 pm Post subject:

I have to say first up that I've never liked Agatha Christie novels. To twee, and they always introduce a critical clue in the final page. I was more than prepared to give this a chance though.

Sadly, I found this to be simply the most annoying, tedious episode in the new series of Doctor Who. The first I have ever rated as a one.

It started reasonably well with The Doctor guessing the era from the smell of the air and Donna pointing out the car in the drive, aside from which The Doctor should have a reasonable idea of the time from the TARDIS console.

There were a few good jokes. Enough to keep one interested. There were one or two good setups. But the timing was all wrong. Just when you thought a story line was going somewhere it petered out or was abruptly cut short. Pretty much like a Christie novel in fact.

The closed room? Obvious from the moment it was brought into the story. The old bloke in the wheel-chair? Knew he didn't need it as soon as I saw it. The Unicorn? It was like some second thought thrown in to pad out a very thin story.

There simply weren't any half decent red herrings at all. At least Christie managed to introduce these in her stories.

Most of the supporting cast seemed to be sleepwalking through the script. On the other hand the actor playing Agatha Christie made a lot more of the role than one would reasonably expect. She was, in short excellent. I'm going to have to chase up more of her work. She was a real standout.

My biggest gripe I simply can't get over, is that despite all evidence to the contrary, RTD (and I can see his heavy hand in this) simply couldn't resist the chance to have Donna snog The Doctor. What was a really nice, funny scene up until then just went pfffft as soon as it happened. I actually blurted out NOOOOO! at the time.

And I'm a bit over Super Donna saving the day at the last moment. The Doctor was a little underwhelming about the drowning as well. Ah well, just another dead bug.

I realise that the melodrama and cliches were deliberate, but hhis is one episode I won't be hurrying back to.

FredDag · Joined: 01 Jun 2006 Posts: 66

I found this story very light. Yeah it had good direction, great music, the wasp looked great but the story was sooooo light, there was nothing in it, the story seemed like it was written on one page and then streatched right out. I was really dissapointed at the end of this episode. Though my partner who's not a fan loved the story, so I could be wrong.