Everybody obviously had a blast make believe the latest instalment of Doctor Who , with its endless swirly flashback and parade of 1920s stereotype . It remind me of Clue more than Agatha Christie , with its almost epileptic non - stop nictation . It works moderately well , despite a more - nonsense - than - usual storyline , because of an astonishing form of Brit - TV stalwarts . Spoilers and perchance a small snark , below the fold .
This was basically the late in a line of historical - author episodes , include the Dickens installment and the Shakespeare episode . ( The show even winked at the fact that we ’d been here before , with Donna joke about fulfill Dickens at Christmas time , with trace , not take in that had in reality materialize . ) The latest iteration , the Agatha Christie instalment , worked about as well as the Dickens episode and the Shakespeare sequence , except that the construct is a little less refreshed now .
The chief thing that ’s more or less annoying about all three of those notable - writer episode , really , is the way they attempt to pay court to the author ’s work by building the plot around it . I was able to forgive a lot in the Dickens instalment because the plot about the “ ghosts ” actually sort of made signified , and I like the fact that Dickens come up with the way to destroy the ghostwriter , using science . That was a really nice bit . The Shakespeare instalment was more silly , but at least there was a understanding the “ witches ” wanted to put their argot into the manuscript of Shakespeare ’s lost play “ Love ’s Labors Won . ” ( They wanted to use Shakespeare ’s hold over his audience to open a falling out in bombast - dy - blah , whatever . )
really , thinking about it , the Dickens episode had one other matter the Dickens and Christie episodes did n’t — there ’s a moment where the Doctor and Rose are trapped in the cage in the cellar with the Gelth , and they realize they ’re lead to kick the bucket . And the Doctor apologizes to Rose for getting her pop . The bit drags out a little too long , but it ’s still something Doctor Who made an effort to do back in its first time of year , and no longer trouble with .
Anyway , back to the Christie episode . Here ’s the patch , and why it was nonsensical . So there ’s this alien white Anglo-Saxon Protestant animal , which come to Earth in human form . And it meets a adorable young Earth charwoman and fall in love life with her . They get together and make a half - wasp , half - human baby . The woman pay the infant away , but keeps a jewel that is some sort of psychic activator for it . And then one Nox , she ’s reading an Agatha Christie novel just as the half - wasp half - human chimera gets “ trigger . ” So the wight is psychically stick to with Agatha Christie . And it determine to kill the people who learn the truth about it , in the manner of a Christie novel .
Why would n’t the beast be bonded with its female parent ? You sleep together , the person it shares genetic material with ? And the one who was actually wearing the psychic gem thingy when it was activated ? I jazz , it ’s just a mode to have an sequence with a monster and an Agatha Christie - way solidification of murders .
But I ’ll stop picking nit now . In general , this was a fun bit of frivolity , and it really worked because of the cast . I reasonably much set aside my vital faculties any time Felicity Kendall is on screen , and Fenella Woolgar was great as Christie as well . Christopher Hugh has been in so many great British shows in the past , including Who once or double , that it ’s fun to watch him do anything , and his freaky metatextual flashback imply remembering sitting in a chair call back the can - can girls was just so brainsick it fell into wonderful .
Oh , and I just remember : I loved the starchy man of the cloth starting to become overturned and saying “ zzz ” more and more , until he turned into a gargantuan wasp . Best moment ever . No idea why I loved it so much , I just did .
Sadly , Catherine Tate get at me a turn more than common this time — the unremitting “ Copyright Donna Noble , ” the rudeness to the poor servant , and the gratuitous buss were all way too grating . She ’s starting to have the same trouble that Rose did in season two — because she ’s got this amazing prerogative of travel with the Doctor , she ’s all detached from events and can laugh at everyone and everything around her . It make her not very kindly , and also makes me hate the Doctor a small bit . They ’re like objectionable tourist .
Oh , and I just remembered one other affair that tap me slimly : we ’re assure at the start that Agatha Christie fly for 10 Day and then reappeared with amnesia . And then the Doctor is instrumental in making that verison of events happen . Even though at one breaker point he throws in a pro - forma matter about how thing may happen differently this time . Which is it ? Is the Doctor just making thing happen the way they ’re “ hypothecate ” to ? It feels like another example of the show trying to have thing both shipway .
Bottom tune : I like this sequence quite a bit despite the gimcrack patch and the feeling that I ’d seen it all before . It works quite well as fun fluff , and the cast totally carries it . I probably would have care it a lot better if it had n’t been the latest fluff episode in a season full of fluff , but that ’s not the fault of this episode .
Doctor WhoDoctor Who recapitulate
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