Rate & Discuss 4.7: The Unicorn And The Wasp

[Pip Madeley]

New! Who! Woo! Allons-y!

[Alex]

I really enjoyed that, but at the same time I feel a bit oddly unsatisfied by it. I think it was because the first half was a lot of silly fun, what with the flashbacks, the giant bee and the Doctor's cure for his own poisoning, but when it came down to the ending it was a bit long winded and the eventual revelation was a rubbish in my mind.

I thought the actress who played Christie was excellent and I liked all of her scenes, Tennant was on top form and is slowly winning me back, and the rest of the cast were very convincing too. But I'm starting to find Donna increasingly annoying (especially all her "Top Hole" and "Pip Pip" stuff at the beginning), and whilst she's not ruining any episodes (yet), she's definitely not adding to them for sure.

I'd give it 7/10 then, but can't help but feel it was a bit of a waste of a potentially great story.

[Philipnet]

Has Pip run out of humorous piss-takes of titles - or what?

A 7/10 from me.
The Doctor curing his poisoning was a bit OTT, but otherwise an enjoyable 45 minute romp.

[Pip Madeley]

Has Pip run out of humorous piss-takes of titles - or what?

No, if you look carefully you'll see the thread was started at 6.58pm...

[Paul Clement]

That was a 6/10 from me.

The story slipped between great and downright awful within short bursts. The 'Top Hole' bit was done before in Tooth and Claw and wasn't particularly good then. A repeat performance was completely unnecessary and served no purpose than to show that Donna has little more about her than Rose did when the stories preceeding this had showed this not to be the case. Again, the story title and idea dropping was done to death in Shakespeare Code but at keast with the previous story it felt natural, this time it just seemed forced. The cyanide poisoning scene was poorly thought out and wasn't particularly delivered well either. The biggest problem for me though, was the way Donna was relegated to being a rather dumb assistant to the Doctor in the story, a far cry from how she's been portrayed so far in the series. The dialogue given to her in the latter scene when Agatha Christie and the Doctor are deducing who was responsible and her continual 'so she did it?' was wearing on my nerves by the end.

On the plus side, the actress playing Agatha Christie was very good, I liked a couple of the flashback sequences and the sets looked stunning. The Vespiform was pretty good too, although I'm sure more could have been done with them.

[Larry]

The Doctor curing his poisoning was a bit OTT, but otherwise an enjoyable 45 minute romp.

oh I thought that was hilarious and once again there was some wonderfull inter play between Tennent and Tate not only in that scene but throughout the episode.

This for me is the best episode of the series so far and I just loved the tongue in cheek way they made this episode like one of those Agatha Christie films/tv episodes.

9/10

[WhiteCrow]

8/10

Good solid fun. Everything you kind of expect when people tell you excitedly about Black Orchid.

[duncan]

It was very Black Orchid and I enjoyed this episode. Although, I really didn't like the detoxing scene. It was laughable for all the wrong reasons and reminded me of the body swapping scene in New Earth and the expelling of the Radiation scene in Smith & Jones.

I guessed it was the Vicar but have to admit after seeing the opening sequence played out like cluedo, I was thinking it would by a typical "The butler did it" case.

[Jim]

Lots of fun at times - everyone popping their head out of their respective rooms when hunting the wasp, the flashbacks and spinning newspapers, some nice comedy touches and one liners. I liked the Agatha Christie cover with the "giant wasp" at the end too. It was also summery and well made as we might have expected. Yet, for me at least - it just didnt feel all that great. All the clichés and name dropping gimmicks did get a bit tiresome at times and the cast/characters (im including Donna/Tate in this) were pretty unconvincing in the main. The resolution was heavy handed and confusing. Flashes of brilliance but gets a 6/10 from me.

[Andrew Curnow]

I feel rather like Alex, in that I enjoyed it, and certainly laughed a lot while it was on... but have come away rather disatisfied. I can't really put my finger on why, either - I don't mind my Who being a bit daft, and the idea of rationalising a 'real' Agatha Christies-style Whodunnit was neat, but...

I think, actually, part of the problem was that the whole thing felt like a Christie parody - so although the bizarre series of events was justified narratively by the Vespiform picking up on Christie's books, that didn't excuse names like Professor Peach, or all the other 'skeletons in the cupboard' that came to light. And somehow "We're British" didn't quite work, for me, as a convincing reason why they're all sat round so calmly, Lady E especially after the murder of her son.

The kitchen scene entertained me at the time, but at the moment I'm left wondering whether it's a text book example of Verity Lambert's sniffy "nobody's really believing it" complaint about the 80s.

Similarly, I would say the series has somewhat slipped on its 'real emotion' agenda - last week the Doctor loses a daughter; this week a mother loses a son, murdered by another lost son, so surely there might be some resonance there.

I don't know, it might be just me, but I haven't really come away from the last two episodes all that thrilled. They've both passed a fairly reasonable 45 minutes, but they haven't left me with any warm afterglow. Tonight's just felt like a very good idea which was realised in only a very so-so fashion.

And, someone has to say it, the wasp didn't look like it was really there in any of its scenes - dodgy FX don't bother me, but nevertheless I don't think this one was any great triumph.

But I would also add my voice to the chorus praising up Fenella Woolgar, who was both brilliant & beautiful, in both the show and in Confy afterwards!!

[Lissa]

Absolutely fantastic. Huge fun for an Agatha Christie mark like me. As soon as he asked "is that N or M?" when examining the scrap of paper I knew it was going to be "spot the book title" and that just made it even better. And Fenella Woolgar's been on my strangely attractive list since "Bright Young Things".

[Captain Tancredi]

"The Harrogate Hotel" made me smile, although having said that the avenue of trees wasn't a bad attempt to give an impression of the Valley Gardens.

I didn't pick up on N or M, but I did get Crooked House, Death Comes as the End, Cards on the Table and Nemesis. Rather amusingly the Tommy and Tuppence book which precedes N or M? is Partners in Crime.

[stuartdg]

Best episode so far,perfectly paced and plenty of atmosphere,Tennant didn't go OTT and the flashbacks and references just added to the overall summer feel of it

[Martin Penny]

Well, I really enjoyed it, it was nice to have an episode where the whole cast doesn't just round around shouting. And, again, I found myself laughing at the comedy moments. I particularly liked 'Jago' from Talons of Weng Chiang as the Colonel (although I didn't realise it was him until after!).

And personally, I thought the wasp was the best CGI monster the series has done so far.

[Wayne]

Just finished watching it on video when i got in from my gig. I wasn't particular fussed about this one. Found all a bit meh.......
I gave it 5/10 on the strength of the performances 'coz there was nothing much wrong there really. Maybe i wasn't in the mood, dunno but i just found that story as a whole just didn't grab me.
And the poisoned scene was just stupid.... so 5/10 generous.

[Milky Tears]

Worst episode of NUWHO since the last one.

-10/10 for THE GAY AGENDA (the Roobarb's thread is a Modern Classic* )




* and I don't think Nathan has even posted on it yet...

[Kinggodzillak]

This one was good...back when it was The Unquiet Dead. And then a bit less good when it was Tooth and Claw. And then bordering on not particularly good for The Shakespeare Code.

And now it's just the same old same old. "No, don't do that. No, really." "I need, I need, I need!!!!" "I'll kiss you even though it's not a proper kiss just so's we can get a photo into the papers with a 'Who's Kissing Who?' caption!" "Look - gayness!" "Look, token Indian - SPLAT."

Blaargh. I don't much like this programme at the mo.

[Antony Cox]

I aboslutely loved this episode, though I'm a huge AC fan so I was bound to like it to some extent.

Hightlights:

Great performances all round
The gay agenda moment was, for once, entirely fitting
"Ginger beer!"
All the AC book titles
Christopher Benjamin!

It may not have been a serious sci-fi-heavy Doctor Who story but it was great fun - and I love stories which provide 'explainations' to factual historical events.

9/10

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm a huge AC fan

Aw shucks, thanks Ant.

And backatcha - I'm a big AC fan too!

[Andrew Curnow]

And also... Possibly I was grumpy yesterday because I missed the first few minutes; certainly I've woken up better-disposed to it than I was last night. Harvey Wallbanger!

[Pip Madeley]

I'm a C & A man, myself.

[Andrew Curnow]

Since it's several hours to the watershed, and in deference to the spirit of Mary Whitehouse, I'm not going to reply to that!!

[Pip Madeley]

@ Andrew

[Antony Cox]

@Andrew for his last few posts!

I also forgot to mention - a few of us were round at Andrew Clancy's last night for his birthday, and as there were quite a few people there we didn't watch Doctor Who when it was on. At about 7.10 I joked to Tim: "I wonder how many times the Doctor's used his sonic screwdriver so far - 500 perhaps?"

Of course, the actual number was zero - and it stayed like that for the rest of the story!

[Stuart Wallis]

Since it's several hours to the watershed, and in deference to the spirit of Mary Whitehouse, I'm not going to reply to that!!

Quite right too! that's Tim's job.

I'm agreeing with a number of the somewhat negative comments posted already. It did feel like a Christie parody at times, the references to her story titles became a bit tiresome after a while, and I'm sure that after Murder On The Orient Express, non-fans would have missed most if not all of them. The first half was better, with the shenannigans of pointing to people and saying you're innocent and the comic reactions becoming distracting. The humour was generally hit or miss anyway, which IMO is actually an improvement on that front from Gareth Roberts. The poisoning was the Doctor and Jackie in The Christmas Invasion again.

The plot and acting were good, but the former was partly obscured by the humour. The Vespiform was excellent, except for the vicar-to-wasp transformation, which was just vicar-smoke-wasp, no proper morphing. Wonderful to see Christopher Benjamin, as usual. there was something about the ending though, that didn't seem quite right, maybe partly because it was obvious that Agatha would survive, and partly because Agatha and Donna defeated the monster rather than the Doctor. Overall, it just felt that the episode could have been much more than it was.

6/10