I liked Agatha Christie a lot as a kid. I enjoyed how readable they were, but even more than that, I enjoyed how the endings always took me by surprise but explained everything. Looking back, I can’t be sure just how logical they were, or whether they were just expertly executed tricks on my young mind, but one thing’s for sure; they made more sense than the last five minutes of ‘The Unicorn and the Wasp’.

Luckily for Gareth Roberts’ second story, there are several more minutes in ‘The Unicorn and the Wasp’, and they’re almost all good. Generally speaking, it’s a funnier script than his ‘Shakespeare Code’ last year, with more interesting characters. The flashback sequence and the attempted poisoning probably rank up there as some of the funniest moments in Who ever. For a long time, the story looks like it might be about to be awesome.

But then, for some reason, a giant wasp turns up. I don’t know why. I’m not sure Gareth Roberts knew why. We’ve got crazy flashbacks. We’ve got ridiculous deaths. We’ve got mysteries and intrigue. Why on earth do we need a CGI monster? If the werewolf in ‘Tooth and Claw’ represented the pinnacle of computer graphics, then the wasp represents its nadir. It never quite looks like it’s really there, not because the effects are particularly substandard, but because you can’t really understand why the hell it’d want to be there in the first place.

And, sadly, the answer to the mystery of “what the fuck is up with that giant wasp” is even more unconvincing than the wasp. After having the balls to be completely and hilariously over the top, ‘The Unicorn and the Wasp’ decides it’s necessary to explain why it’s a murder mystery with Agatha Christie. This puzzled me somewhat. What kind of person wouldn’t accept it? What kind of person wouldn’t expect it? But no, there’s a reason it’s all happening this way, and my goodness, but it’s the most ridiculously convoluted thing you’ve ever heard.

So. Useless giant wasp. Bizarre justifications. If the rest of the episode were average, I’d be condemning it now. But the thing is, the rest of the story is quite awesome. Tennant’s giving some of his best comedic work. Tate’s generally entertaining. Fenella Woolgar is an excellent Agatha Christie.¹ Christopher Benjamin is back.² It even has that wibbly twinkling flashback sound effect. So I’m not condemning. I’m just vaguely irritated at yet another kind of average Doctor Who episode. 2.

1. Says the man with no idea what she should look like or be like. But her rather stern relative on Confidential seemed pleased. Whether or not the script should have been quite so insistent on her genius is another matter. I don’t mind it so much, but if Doctor Who meets Dan Brown down the track, and calls him a genius, I might start to get stroppy. ↩
2. But with a disappointingly small part. Those who’ve not seen ‘Inferno’ or ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ probably won’t care, but I was surprised how nice it was to see him again. If only Michael Sheard was still alive… ↩

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Saturday, June 7th, 2008. It concerns such pressing issues as Doctor Who, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.