Doctor Who: The Unicorn and the Wasp

[purplecat]

Increasingly, as this story unfolded, I became aware of something which is not, strictly speaking Cognitive Dissonance. I was enjoying myself but I became uncomfortable about the fact: a suspicion, perhaps, that it wasn't actually much good? This was the sort of story a BBC Doctor Who production should be able to churn out almost in its sleep but it began to feel more and more like a sequence of Agatha Christie "greatest hits" and less and less like an actual story in its own right.

So it was, undeniably, huge fun most of the time. The actors appeared to be having a whale of a time, Gareth Roberts had clearly enjoyed writing the script and this sense of fun shone through and lifted the whole thing making it immensely watchable. Unfortunately "doing an Agatha Christie" is a staple of a certain kind of television drama. In my life I've already seen more pastiches of the "gather everyone together and accuse each one in turn" scene than I can count. Not to mention Country House Parties where everyone has Secrets and is Terribly Polite. You're playing in a very crowded sandpit when you decide to take on Agatha Christie and you need to be conspicuously good to stand out from the crowd: name-checking her novels doesn't really cut it here and was one of several running jokes that were funny to start with but were beginning to outstay their welcome by the end of the episode - possibly another reason my enjoyment began to wane. Incidentally, my money was on the servant, Davenport, everyone else seemed far too obvious. The underlying problem here though was like that in the Poison Sky. In this case the plot was lurching from one Agatha Christie style moment to another, rather than one action set piece to another, but once again the logical links rarely seemed to hold much beyond three sequences in a row. As daniel_saunders has pointed out, despite all the scriptual nods, there wasn't actually much mystery or detection going on.

This wasn't a good script for Donna either. I was interested when parrot_knight pointed out that The Unicorn and the Wasp was filmed directly after Partners in Crime. Donna's portrayal seemed much closer to the downplayed slapstick we got there than the forthright dignity we've seen since. But basically, Agatha Christie was the companion in this story and Donna was just humourous set dressing. As for that kiss, please, please, please, let this not be a "they are secretly attracted to each other but won't acknowledge it" plot. I know the production team have repeatedly ruled this out but it wouldn't be the first time they'd lied about a plot development in order to maintain the surprise. Donna's conversation with Agatha Christie also cast the Doctor in a much more explicitly romantic light than we've seen elsewhere.

Others have discussed the historical and scientific inaccuracies, I'll limit myself to observing that I find it hard to imagine a couple in the process of breaking both class and gender barriers skipping hand in hand through the daisies in quite such a care-free manner (OK so they weren't skipping, there were no daisies and it was a, possibly unreliable, flashback, but still!). But really, damning by faint praise here, historically and scientifically The Unicorn and the Wasp was actually a lot better than a lot of Doctor Who, both new and old. I also distinctly thought, as the one non-white character, who happened to cast in a loyal servant role got offed that spiralsheep would be unimpressed: I was not wrong*.

I'll leave the final verdict to B: "Not as good as the Charles Dickens one"

*As an aside I'd been wondering what it was about the portrayal of Penny Carter in Partners in Crime that had discomforted me since she did get to survive despite the fact I had her pegged as a sacrificial victim from early on. Of course it's because, despite appearing to be intelligent, inquisitive and brave she is explicitly shown to be more or less beneath the notice of the Doctor and Donna.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Hmm. There's material for an essay there on "Class Consciousness in NuWho".

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

This was filmed before Partners in Crime, I think - immediately after the Christmas special, and before Planet of the Ood, I think, with Fires of Pompeii coming next and then Partners in Crime, being followed by the Sontaran two-parter, then I think Midnight, The Doctor's Daughter and Turn Left.

I have a nasty feeling that we are moving towards a 'secretly attracted to one another but won't admit it' situation.

I think we were certainly dealing in unreliable flashbacks; the narrator of the story himself here has a rather cynical view of the Doctor's adventures, I think.

Poor Penny suffers because she's a leftover; if Catherine Tate hadn't been available then Penny would have been the new companion and played by an older actress.

[purplecat]

Ah! In which case my theory about the evolution of the portrayal of Donna through the filming sequence falls apart.

Maybe this just paradoxically means that for me, at least, the character works better outside of stories primarily conceived of as comic.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Agree with B: not as good as the Dickens one, and also, not as good as an actual Christie whodunnit! Motivation of the Vespiform very dodgy I thought.

[purplecat]

Indeed, the more I think about why the Vespiform was doing things the less sense it makes. Elsewhere people are insisting it wasn't supposed to be an a whodunnit at all, but I think it's comedy needed to be a lot sharper to get away with no whodunnit underpinnings at all.