The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: Black Orchid

BLACK ORCHID (Part One) 01/03/2022 

Well, we're back in Earth's history again! This time it's June 1925 and everything's gone a bit Agatha Christie. The TARDIS has materialised on the platform of Cranleigh Halt train station and the Doctor et al. have been picked up by the chauffeur of Lord Cranleigh believing them to be there to play in a charity Cricket match (I expect that's going to come back and bite the Doctor on the arse!). Not only that, but Nyssa is the spitting image of Lord Cranleigh's fiancée, Ann; yes, it's a doppelganger story.

And not only that but there's been a murder! A mysterious stranger (who I suspect is Lady Cranleigh's supposedly dead eldest son, George) is being kept bound in a secret bedroom at the top of the manor. He's guarded by a native South American, Brazilian given that he's been reading Portuguese, who has the most embarrassingly realised lip plate I've seen (to be fair, it's the only fake lip plate I've seen but, frankly, it's shit). He's also atrociously dubbed, but it would appear that Lady Cranleigh is aware of what's going on.

The post-Cricket ball at the manor was fancy dress so everyone has fancy costumes. Nyssa and Ann have the same costume, an idea Ann had to fool the guests, and she and Nyssa are identical apart from a mole Ann has just above her left boob. I've no idea if this is going to be significant, but much was made of it. Also, kudos to Ann for whipping up two identical costumes she could wear at such short notice! Perhaps she's clumsy and wanted to have a spare in case she fell into the rose bed whilst doing the Charleston. The Doctor has a Pierrot costume, but Mysterious George snuck down from his room after K.O.ing Mr. Brazil, stole the costume, wore it to get Ann/Nyssa away from the party, strangled the butler (like he had one of the servants at the very start of the episode), then went to strangle Ann/Nyssa. Wait! Of course it's George! He was engaged to Ann before his brother! That's why he took Ann/Nyssa away from the party and wanted to dance with her!

Anyway, the Doctor ended up wandering through the manor's inexplicable secret passages and rooms picking up clues (in just his dressing gown) whilst Adric danced awkwardly and Tegan flirted with Sir Robert (Lady Cranleigh's friend).

As lovely as this was, there are a few things which narratively don't work here. Much was made of the fact that, hairdo/moles aside, Nyssa and Ann are identical. Yet Nyssa is often treated like a child (even though she doesn't look that much younger than Tegan) and even here, when she asked for a Screwdriver (Vodka and Orange), Lord Cranleigh suggested "Orange juice for the children" - Nyssa and Adric. If he regards Nyssa as too young to drink, how old is Ann? And surely this brings into question the whole two-years-ago-Ann-was-engaged-to-George situation! How old is Ann??? I know this is the English aristocracy, but even so!

Tegan has changed her tune about getting to Heathrow. At the start of the episode she said she'd told the Doctor she wanted to stay around travelling for a while, but I can't help thinking this should have been a conversation on screen, not referred back to in a sequence which implied that events followed on almost immediately from last week. Also, as charming as this episode was, not a great deal happened. It was nice to see the Doctor playing Cricket (given his choice of clothing), the local Aussie enjoying it, and Adric and Nyssa being slightly confused, and it was lovely to have some sequences focussing on the crew having some downtime, but I'm left wondering what the significance of the narrative strands are.

Overall, the episode was charming and rather nicely shot with some great locations. But this is the first time I've not felt the incidental music worked - one time they should have had Dudley Simpson score. It's written by Terrance Dudley again, who did well with Four To Doomsday but less so with his first two scripts. He seems quite suited for Period Drama (so far, no aliens or anything which is a promising start!). Fun whimsy is, I think, the best description. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what happens next!

BLACK ORCHID (Part Two) 02/03/2022

Well, that all looked absolutely gorgeous! If there's one thing the BBC do well, it's Period Drama, especially the early-mid 1900s. It was lovely to have something a bit Agatha Christie, as well, and a Pure Historical after 15 years! Also, three weeks of episodes in the past! About bloody time! I really hope we don't have to wait another five years before we go into Earth's past again, or another fifteen before we have a tale without aliens! This series is truly refreshing and I'm absolutely loving the diversity and experimentation.

On the other hand, this is probably the first disappointing episode of the season. Underneath the superficial, the story just didn't feel very well written. Agatha Christie this was not. Primarily, the morality was... dubious. One could view it as a commentary on how the rich and privileged in 1925 England (and even 2022 England, to be frank) could get away with absolutely any-fucking-thing, but when it boils down to it, Madge Cranleigh was an absolutely evil bitch who simply got away with her despicable actions. Not even the Doctor so much as admonished her for what she did!

Basically, her eldest son, George, was an explorer, engaged to young Ann Talbot (I won't go into that again). Whilst in Brazil, he discovered the Black Orchid. Unfortunately, a local tribe regard it as sacred and so disfigured him and cut out his tongue. As a result, he went mad (?), was discovered by another tribe and returned to England (somehow) by the tribal leader, Latoni, who subsequently became his gaoler in the secret upper rooms of the Cranleigh mansion (they're not priestholes - nobody ever had priestholes which were basically entire wings of their not-16th-Century houses!). Madge then allowed Ann to believe her fiancé dead instead of imprisoned in the house and become engaged to his younger brother (incidentally, the portrait of George they kept showing on the wall (and in the book at the end) was clearly of Michael Cochrane (Charles) and not Gareth Milne (George) despite the makeup the latter wore). Frankly, Ann is the only one who seemed to express any horror at what Madge had done ("How could you???")! Even Sir Robert and the local police seemed to take Madge's side in sympathy when told. And given the final scene, she wasn't at all held to account (and exactly why did the Doctor et al. seem to go the funeral in their usual attire and not black? Although it was nice that they wore something different in this story).

I also didn't like the fact that George fell to his death. It was clearly just a Jane Eyre retread and got Madge out of a sticky situation, but it all felt a bit of a cop out. Maybe it's because it was only a two-parter (the first since 1975!) or just lazy writing, but narratively this story just unravelled throughout the second half. I may be over-reacting because, so far, the season has been amazing, and this was a very welcome return for the monster/alien-free story which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can work just as well as any episode but, overall, this serial didn't quite make the grade. That said, in a series this good, that's nothing to be sniffed at!