We hear the sound of the TARDIS as the screen shows a large stone manor house. Cut to the TARDIS, out of which the Doctor and Donna step. The Doctor smells grass, lemonade and a hint of mint, thereby deducing they are in 1920s. Donna is not impressed…because the Doctor is also staring at a vintage 1920s car. Knee swinging 1920s music plays as the butler of the manor house, Greeves, greets the driver of the car, Professor Peach. They are quickly joined by Reverend Golightly who arrives on his bicycle. Greeves informs the gentlemen that Lady Eddison requests they make themselves comfortable in their rooms. Also, cocktails will be served on the lawn from half past four. The Professor needs to first look up something in the library. The Reverend notes “all this work will be the death of [him].” So, my guess: Professor Peach. In the Library. With a….candlestick? (The candlestick was always my weapon of choice, and who knew the Brits called it “Cluedo”?). The Doctor and Donna have been eavesdropping. Donna is excited to attend a party in the 1920s (I’d be more excited if it were a Jay Gatsby party on West Egg), and the Doctor will use his psychic paper to get them in.
Professor Peach is in the library where he has uncovered a secret. Someone we don’t see interrupts him. Professor Peach recognizes the person, but wonders what they are doing “with that bit of lead piping.” (Drat! Not the candlestick). Professor Peach’s jaw goes slack with fear and awe. Also, the camera turns his face into a kaleidoscope of frames. “That’s impossible,” claims Professor Peach as he gets bludgeoned in the head by a giant wasp.
Opening Titles. Gareth Roberts wrote this episode. He also wrote last season’s The Shakespeare Code, which I loved.
Donna exits the TARDIS in low-waisted, fringe-skirted 1920s attire. “What do you think,” she asks the Doctor, “flapper or slapper?” (I don’t speak Brit, so the humor in this line is wasted on me). The Doctor goes with “flapper,” tells Donna she looks lovely, and lends an elbow to escort her. The Doctor is being well behaved? This can’t last long.
Garden party on the lawn. An Indian woman (meaning a woman of South Asian descent, not Pocahontas) tells the staff to “look sharp,” as Donna and the Doctor approach. Greeves comes along behind them announcing Lady Clemency Eddison. The Doctor greets Lady Eddison like a long lost friend. She doesn’t recognize him. No Matter, he’s the Doctor! with his friend Donna Noble, of the Chiswick Nobles. “Good afternoon, milady,” intones Donna, “spiffing day, top-oh.” “No-no-no-no-no” admonishes the Doctor, “don’t do that.” Evidently Donna’s exaggerated received pronunciation is conspicuous, but the exaggerated received pronunciation by the other actors is not. The Doctor flashes their invite/psychic paper, and Lady Eddison pretends she does know him. She’s checking invites because The Unicorn is on the loose. “A unicorn. Brilliant! Where?” wonders the Doctor. (Awesome!). Sadly, the Unicorn is the name of a jewel thief currently preying on the British upper class.
Greeves now announces Colonel Hugh Curbishley, Lady Eddison’s husband, and their son Roger Curbishley. (I love Greeves, his name-announcing makes a recap much easier). Colonel Hugh is in a wheelchair and has been “ever since that flu epidemic back in ’18), and Roger is gay (he compliments Donna’s dress and throws a seductive eye at the male waiter). The Doctor explains to Donna and me that the Eddison title ascends through Lady Eddison, hence the Colonel is a mere Curbishley and one day Roger will be Lord Eddison. Greeves announces another partygoer: Robina Redmond, “the absolute hit of the social scene, a must,” claims Lady Eddison. Robina thinks it’s “spiffing” to at last meet Lady Eddison. Greeves announces Reverend Golightly. Lady Eddison consoles the Revered over a church break-in by some young “ruffians,” whom the Reverend apprehended. Roger thinks naughty little boys deserve a good thrashing. The waiter agrees with him. Donna overhears and laments that all the decent men are “on the other bus.” “Or Time Lords,” adds the Doctor. (This joke falls flat too. Oh, and “on the other bus” is Brit speak for “batting for the other team.” You’re welcome).
The last guest arrives. She introduces herself to Donna as Agatha Christie. “What about her?” queries Donna. “That’s me,” clarifies Agatha. “No! You’re kidding,” marvels Donna. The Doctor is a big fan too. He quite enjoys her work. She fools him…that one time, but it was a good one. (Confession. I have never read an Agatha Christine novel. My knowledge of her works amounts to a collection of six words: Miss, Marple, Hercule, Poirot, Orient, and Express. Allegedly, this episode is laced with references to her more than 160 pieces of work. I’ve probably missed some spectacular ones already, that you, dear reader, might be desiring to hear about. Get used to disappointment). Agatha evaluates our time and space traveling duo and comments they make an unusual couple. The Doctor and Donna talk over each other as they deny they are married. (Still. No. Longer. Funny.) “Obviously,” you’re “not,” says Agatha, “no wedding ring.” Donna and the Doctor are impressed. (I’m not. If I met David Tennant at a garden party, the first thing I’d check would be that little finger!) Stay single, advises Agatha “the thrill is in the chase, never in the capture.” Does that mean that this episode will be anticlimactic? No, it means Agatha is projecting. You see Mrs. Christie is at the party alone because her husband is a rotten, no-good cheater.
About now, the party guests start wondering where Professor Peach is. (In the library! With the lead pipe! It’s my favorite joke of the episode and I’m not letting go of it.) The Doctor takes Donna aside and points out the date he has found on a newspaper: December 8, 1926, the day Agatha Christie disappeared. The Doctor gives Donna a celebrity history lesson: Agatha has just discovered her husband’s affair. She is at this party smiling away because she is British and moneyed, it’s what they do “they carry on.” (Why is the Doctor explaining British people to British Donna?) Except today, Agatha Christie will vanish. (Warning: this speech is inter-cut with a montage of spinning newspaper headlines and flashbacks. This is not the end of such annoying, un-Who like camera tricks for this episode.) Her car will be found tomorrow morning by the side of a lake. Ten days later Agatha Christie will turn up at a hotel in
Meanwhile, the servant of South Asian descent, Miss Chandrakala, who was sent in search of Professor Peach, has found something so awful in the library that it forces her to run back outside waving her arms and literally screaming “murder.” (It would have been much funnier if she were literally screaming “bloody murder.”)
The Doctor runs to the library and inspects Professor Peach’s prone body. The Doctor notes he suffered head trauma from a blunt instrument and that his watch broke as he fell, so the time of death was 4:15. Donna finds the lead pipe. Agatha finds a scrap of paper.
“Someone should call the police,” suggests Agatha. “Don’t have to,” says the Doctor, he’s Chief Inspector Smith with Scotland Yard, says so right on his piece of psychic paper. Ms. Noble is the “plucky young girl that helps [him] out.” The Doctor directs the guests to go into the sitting room where he will question each of them in turn. “Why don’t we phone the real police?” asks Donna. The Doctor doesn’t want human law enforcement dealing with the morphic residue he’s just found. Morphic residue, he explains, is left behind when certain species genetically re-encode. One of the guests is an alien in human form. So “there’s a murder, a mystery, and Agatha Christie?” Donna rhymes. “Happens to me all the time,” the Doctor casually brags. Donna still thinks it is a weird coincidence and compares it to the unlikely scenario of meeting Charles Dickens and “he’s surrounded by ghosts at Christmas.” Next she compares the unlikely situation of seeing “Enid Blyton having tea with Noddy." (Comparable
The Doctor sets the plan. He and Agatha will interview the suspects. Donna will search their rooms for clues…using a giant magnifying glass the Doctor pulls from his inside jacket pocket. I thought he was angry with her? Why does she get the fun snooping job? The Doctor then starts geeking out about how much fun it will be to solve a murder mystery with Agatha Christie. “How like a man to have fun while there’s disaster all around him,” snits Agatha. So, Agatha Christie: definitely not TARDIS companion material. She’ll work with the Doctor, gladly, but for the sake of justice, not the Doctor’s own amusement. Clearly, she doesn’t understand what this TV show is all about.
First Interview: Reverend Golightly. At 4:15 the Reverend was unpacking alone (but with the Lord). Second Interview: Roger Curbishley. At 4:15 he was “taking a constitutional,” behind the house, while also trysting with the waiter. Third Interview: Robina Redmond. At 4:15 she was in the toilet preparing herself for the party and loading bullets into a pistol. (Miss Scarlet. In the toilet. With the revolver! See, told you, I’m not letting the Clue jokes go.) Fourth Interview: Colonel Hugh. At 4:15 he was in the study looking at the 1926 version of pornography---soft pornography, because this is a kids’ show. Fifth Interview: Lady Eddison. At 4:15 she was in the blue room sneaking a swig of alcoholic fortification in preparation for her hostessing duties.
Each of these interview bits have harp music accompanied flashbacks which “amusingly” belie what the interviewee is saying.
Now the Doctor and Agatha finally look at the bit of paper Agatha took from the fire. It says the word “maiden.” “Maiden!” the Doctor loudly and unnecessarily screams. Agatha and I are both annoyed. Both the word maiden and the screaming aren’t much help right now.
Donna is upstairs where she uses her Scotland Yard cred to get Greeves to open a locked room which hasn’t been opened in the 40 years since Lady Eddison used it to recover from a six month case of trip-to-India induced malaria. Six months plus the teddy bear on the dusty bed tell me Lady Eddison had a “lying-in.” While investigating the room, Donna is attacked by the giant buzzing wasp. Donna does the only awesome thing you’re going to see this episode and uses the giant magnifying glass to magnify a burning ray of sunlight onto the giant wasp. It works, temporarily. Donna runs and slams the door on the wasp’s giant stinger before it can get her.
The Doctor and Agatha, hearing Donna’s screams, come running. She tells them about the wasp. “What do you mean a giant wasp?” asks the Doctor. She means A WASP THAT’S GIANT. Geeze, unicorn man, use some imagination! Donna points to the enormous stinger lodged in the door as proof. The wasp is gone, but the Doctor examines the stinger for resin and rattles off some spacey technobabble that Agatha half understands enough to know that the Doctor is “completely potty,” which I hope is antiquated Brit speak. Agatha wants to return to sanity, “there are no such things as giant wasps.” “Exactly,” agrees the Doctor, so “what’s it doing here?”
Downstairs. The help are gossiping with Miss Chandrakala about the Professor Peach murder. The gossip sparks an idea in Miss Chandrakala and she has something urgent to tell Lady Eddison. She walks outside where someone pushes a stone gargoyle from the roof on top of her. Her death fails to rival the spectacular gore of Tim Messenger in Hot Fuzz, but the scene is close enough that I’m pretty sure this is a famous type of death straight out of an Agatha Christie adapted film.
The Doctor follows the sound of “splat!” to discover Miss Chandrakala’s body. “The poor little child!” she manages to croak before she…well,…croaks. Buzzing sound! The giant wasp appears from the roof. The Doctor, Donna and Agatha take to the stairs, chasing it. They find the Wasp and the Doctor tries to reason with it. I’ve tried reasoning with yellow jackets (i.e., “please, please, please ignore me, if you go away I’ll never walk near this part of dad’s landscaping ever again.”), it’s never worked for me. It doesn’t work for the Doctor either. Now the Wasp is chasing them, until Donna shows it her fearsome magnifying glass. Note to self: bring magnifying glass to parents’ house this summer. The Doctor, Donna and Agatha give chase again hoping to catch the Wasp in human form. The Wasp’s getaway dead ends in a long hallway. The Doctor demands it show itself. In response, the five suspects open their bedroom doors.
The suspects and detectives gather in the sitting room. The waiter lets everyone know Miss Chandrakala was on her way to tell Lady Eddison something. The Doctor asks if the “poor little child” phrase means anything. No, there haven’t been children in the house for years. (40 years I’d guess). The suspects start badgering Agatha to solve the case since she’s such a brilliant mystery writer. Agatha passes the buck to the Doctor. He also has no answers. Hmm, unusual for him.
Agatha sits alone outside. Donna comes to comfort her. Agatha feels a failure because she can’t solve the murder. Donna suspects Agatha’s main confidence problem is her dead-beat husband. Donna tells Agatha about her own, literally dead-beat fiancé. Agatha is sort of offended that her marital woes are such common knowledge, but she sticks to her depressive thoughts, lamenting that her books aren’t great literature and will probably be forgotten.
Then Agatha spies something in the flower beds: a burgling tool kit. Back in the sitting room the Doctor has the kit and announces that the Unicorn is also amongst the guests. Greeves brings in some refreshments, and the Doctor explains that the resin from the stinger tells him the Wasp is a Vespiform from another galaxy. For some reason this Vespiform is behaving, atypically, like a character in one of Agatha’s books. Donna wants to brainstorm by thinking of what Miss Marple would do. Agatha thinks the idea of a harmless old lady solving crimes is a clever idea. I bet she’ll write about it someday.
Uh oh. Something is inhibiting the Doctor’s enzymes! The Doctor starts violently twitching and jumping because he has been poisoned by the glass of sparkling cyanide he just drank. The Doctor runs to the kitchen for a cure.
In the kitchen he begs for ginger beer, which, as I understand, is a lot like ginger ale only it tastes bad, sort of like the difference between British and American pies. I kid! I kid! He finds the ginger beer, guzzles some, and then pours the rest over his head. The Doctor claims the cyanide won’t be fatal if he can stimulate his enzymes into reversal. To do that he needs protein, PROTIEN! Donna gives him walnuts, which he also manages to guzzle. His mouth is full of walnuts so he reverts to the Donna-Doctor pantomime form of communication. The pantomime is far less successful (and entertaining) this time. The Doctor shakes his right hand in the air. With the left hand he signals “one word” charades-style. Donna and I try to guess. Shake, Milkshake, Milk, Cocktail Shake, a Harvey Wallbanger (“that last guess was all Donna”). The Doctor, who can talk now, is incensed that Donna thinks he means a two-worded cocktail. Salt! He was miming salt. Donna brings him a bag of salt. Won’t work, he complains, turns out salt is too salty. Agatha brings him anchovies, which he accepts. The Doctor guzzles anchovies, and three fourths of the viewing population cringes. The Doctor, mouth full of tiny fish, can’t talk again and goes back to pantomime by throwing up both hands and doing spirit fingers. “A song,” guesses Donna, “Camptown Races?” (Steven Foster? He’s American, he’s fricking Pennsylvanian. Is this episode allowed to have American references?). “Towering Inferno?” Donna guesses again. (What? the movie? How does that resemble spirit fingers?) A SHOCK! The Doctor needs a shock. So Donna gives him a big open-mouthed kiss. It works. A dark, gaseous substance comes pouring out of the Doctor’s mouth, once the kiss is over, of course. Effect of the kiss: the detox is complete and Donna and the Doctor? Still not a couple.
It is now the dark and stormy night. All guests sit around the dinner table, despite the deaths of the day because they are British! and must “carry on.” The Doctor is still sore about being poisoned and enzyme inhibited, so he has poisoned the entire table’s soup….with pepper. The piperine in the pepper is an insecticide and will cause the Wasp to reveal itself. Suddenly (and inexplicably) the lights and candles go out, the room darkens and everyone hears a buzzing sound. “No, it can’t be,” says Lady Eddison. The other diners search for the source of the buzzing, get scared and start to get up and run about and out of sight. The running out of sight was not part of the Doctor’s now, not-so-brilliant plan. The Wasp appears, but in the chaos, they still don’t know who it is. Donna, the Doctor and Agatha, along with Greeves find a hallway corner from which to defend themselves. Also, Donna makes an obligatory the-butler-didn’t-do-it joke. (Face it, if she didn’t I probably would have).
The buzzing stops, and the Doctor and company return to the dining room where the suspects are all cowering. Except for Roger. He is slumped face down in his soup with a knife in his back. Also, Lady Eddison’s “firestone” is missing from around her neck. So she lost both her son and her jewel. She is distraught.
The dark and stormy night continues. The Doctor, Agatha and Donna are in the sitting room brainstorming again. This time they are exploring the Wasp’s motive. The Wasp could just wipe them all out, so why is it playing this murder mystery game? Agatha posits that it must want something. “You’re right,” realizes the Doctor, and then he proceeds to give Agatha a pep talk about how her deep understanding of human nature makes her the best novelist ever and only she can solve this crime. Because she thought about motive? Wow, the Doctor is easily impressed tonight.
The detectives have now gathered all suspects in the sitting room for the big who-dun-it reveals. The Doctor gives Agatha a flowery introduction, and she starts. Donna sits nearby snacking on food and watching this floor show. Agatha starts with Miss Redmond. Miss Redmond is an impostor; she is actually the Unicorn! Clues: her use of the vulgar word “toilet” and the burgling kit found outside her window. Miss Redmond drops her “posh” accent, admits to her crime and throws the firestone jewel to the Doctor. (Implausible, I know. But wait, there’s much more implausibility to come!) Miss Redmond is a thief, but not a killer.
Next, Agatha examines the Colonel’s motives. Before she can say much, the Colonel crumbles under the weight of anticipated interrogation, stands and admits that he can walk. He only stays in the wheel chair to keep Lady Eddison chained to his side as a nursemaid. How did Agatha know? She didn’t. She was just going to say he was completely innocent.
Moving on, Agatha turns to Lady Eddison and the history of the firestone. Agatha spins a tale about Lady Eddison bringing the jewel and a pregnancy back from
Agatha explains that Lady Eddison’s child was given to the orphanage, but Professor Peach had worked out what happened from a birth certificate (that’s where the scrap of Maiden! paper came from, i.e. maiden name). And Miss Chandrakala had worked out what Professor Peach knew. “But Lady Eddison is innocent,” assures Agatha, and then she formally turns the detecting over to the Doctor.
The Doctor graciously thanks her (he IS behaving very well (for him) this episode) and points to Donna Noble. “What? Who did I kill?” asks Donna around a mouthful of food. No one. The Doctor is pointing because it was Donna who identified the vital clue: this whole thing is acting out like a murder mystery. Which means…the Doctor points to Agatha Christie. So Agatha killed them? No, again. Agatha wrote the murders. Therefore…the Doctor points to Lady Eddison. So she did kill them? Naah. She was up late last Thursday night reading Agatha Christie’s latest and greatest book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. “What else happened on Thursday night?” asks the Doctor as he slowly turns to Reverend Golightly. (Since the Doctor doesn’t point, I’m assuming the Reverend actually is the murderer). Last Thursday night the Reverend caught some boys breaking into the church. He says he apprehended them, but the Doctor doubts that a 40 year old man could detain two youths. Hold on, did he say 40 years old? Lady Eddison realizes the Reverend is her Vespiform love child.
Here is where the Doctor’s explanation gets really far-fetched. See if you can follow along: When the Reverend found the thieves he got deeply angry for the first time in his life. His deep anger broke a genetic lock, and he changed into a wasp for the first time. Additionally, he mentally connected with the firestone which is not just a jewel but a Vespiform telepathic recorder that is part of the Reverend and provides him with a template for his existence. When the Reverend activated so did the firestone. The stone beamed the template for the Reverend’s full identity into his mind but, and here's the problem, at the same time it also absorbed the works of Agatha Christie from Lady Eddison’s reading session. The mechanics of Agatha Christie’s novels became a template for the awakened Vespiform’s brain. He killed in this pattern because that’s what he thinks the world is.
Did you follow that, did I loose you in any of the five or six gaping plot holes? I hope you're with me, because it’s only going to get worse.
That’s how we got in the middle of a murder mystery concludes the Doctor. I think Donna finds this explanation as lame and confusing as I do, so she asks for confirmation. “So [the Reverend] killed them…definitely?” “Yes,” says the Doctor. Well, if the Doctor says so, it must be true.
The Reverend starts to get angry at these accusations and starts adding extra zzzzzz’s to the ends of his wordzzzzz. He also gets very red in the face and develops an awkward neck twitch. Basically, he is turning into the Wasp. A power hungry, human hating wasp. He wants to demonstrate his superiority over the human race by killing everyone in the room. (No, it doesn't make sense, we viewers just have to go with it).
“No,” shouts Agatha while holding the firestone. “If my imagination made you kill then my imagination will find a way to stop you, vile creature.” And she runs out the door. Donna, the Doctor, and the Wasp give chase. Agatha drives away in her car, luring the Wasp after her. The Doctor and Donna follow in Professor Peach’s car. Agatha is bawling while driving, crying that everything is all her fault. Yeah, Agatha all this was COMPLETELY foreseeable.
Where’s Agatha going? She’s heading for the lake. The same lake from which she disappears I bet. The Wasp is still following and his giant wings sound like a helicopter now. Agatha stops near the lakeside, gets out, and commands the Wasp to come to her. Here is the next confusing plot development: The Doctor explains that Agatha can control the Vespiform because its mind is based on her thought processes. (?????) Also, Agatha and the Wasp “are linked.” (???!!!???) Agatha figures out that if she dies the Wasp will die with her. (???????????????)
The Doctor tries reasoning with the Wasp again: “Don’t hurt [Agatha], you’re not meant to be like this you’ve got the wrong template in your mind.” Donna, it appears, shares my experiences with unreasonable yellow jackets. She recognizes the Wasp isn’t listening to the Doctor’s brand of reason, so she grabs the firestone from Agatha’s hand and hurls it into the lake. The Wasp dives in after it and proceeds to drown.
“Donna, that thing couldn’t help itself,” the Doctor admonishes. “Neither could I,” defends Donna. Doctor, this is the woman who helped you push the button that destroyed
Before the Wasp completely drowns, Agatha doubles over in pain. She is still connected to the Wasp, so she is dying too...until…the Wasp lets go. Right at the end, the Vespiform chose to save Agatha’s life. Awh, wasn’t that nice of him. Now we’ll get more to read. This is how Agatha Christie gets her amnesia, a side effect from the Vespiform almost killing her. And that’s the mystery of Agatha Christie: the Doctor did it! In the TARDIS! With a sonic screwdriver! (not really, I just wanted to do one, last Clue joke.)
The Doctor fills Donna in on Agatha’s future: new husband, history’s best selling novelist ever, etc. Also, it is likely Agatha’s amnesia wasn’t quite total. All the stuff the Doctor and Donna told her (Miss Marple, the Orient Express) and what she experienced (sparkling cyanide, the wasp, etc.) bled from her subconscious into her stories. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor goes digging through his “C” trunk to further prove a point. From the “C” trunk the Doctor pulls a Cyberman breast plate, the Carrionite sisters’ crystal ball, Caecilius’s bust, and a book by Chirstie, Agatha, with a giant picture of a wasp on it. The edition was re-printed in the year 5,000,000,000. Even in the future, Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time.
The Doctor leaves us with this “emotional” tag: No one knows how they will be remembered, that is what kept Agatha writing and that is what keeps the Doctor traveling. Then, Donna and the Doctor flip a TARDIS switch and they’re off!
The End.
2 comments:
Good one! I liked your recap, although as you pointed out, I might not like the episode as much. "Completely potty," as an expression, and I heard this expression often from my British aunt, means "totally nuts/crazy/loopy." She used it to describe the reaction of the Japanese tourists going into Burberry in London, "They go completely potty in that shop!"
Thanks for reading. And for the "potty" feedback. It's an entertaining phrase.
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