Oh Brilliant: An actress at the top of her game delivering another terrific performance. It is like the double whammy of the Daleks and the Master has secured Jodie Whittaker completely and she is ready to walk through every episode, good and bad, like she owns the place. Yaz tells the Doctor she is in a mardy mood and gets snapped at back, fallout from the shock information that Doctor received at the end of the last episode. That was a nice touch without being intrusive. Whilst everybody else dashes off to have fun it is left to the Doctor to be the mardy at the party and try and sniff out any problems at Tranquillity Spa. I love watching the thirteenth Doctor reacting to dangerous situations because she pulls ideas out of hats like its nobody’s business. Did anybody notice how the sonic screwdriver never featured? Interestingly the Doctor tries to prevent her friends from seeing the sign in Russian because she doesn’t want them to know that this is the Earth. How like the Doctor to get right in the face of one of the ugliest critters she has ever faced to try and figure out what there are. She risks getting throttled to see the darkness that humanity has befallen upon the planet. The scenes of the Doctor in the cage trying to figure out and reach out to the Dregs are very well scripted, directed and acted. It’s some of Whittaker’s best material yet. At the climax she offers a damning appraisal of humanity, a far cry from how optimistic the Doctor has been about humanity in the past but at the same time offering hope for the future that it still isn’t too late.
Graham: I don’t remember Graham sounding anywhere this cockney last year but it seems to be his lot in series 12, me old sunshine! It’s an affectation that suits Bradley Walsh very well, who just seems to be getting off on the sheer joy of being in Doctor Who right now. His concern for Ryan bleeds into every episode and its telling that as soon as he can he dashes off to try and find his grandson and make sure he’s okay.
Ryan: I’m not entirely sure why every time that Ryan is mercilessly mocked that I find it so enjoyable. The whole hopper virus sequence had me in stitches. It’s probably because he can be so deathly serious that seeing young Toisin Cole get a chance to play some comedy is a delight. Watch him here flailing around in fear of imaginary bats. Despite some awkward moments (I love the bit where the Doctor sits between Ryan and Bella and cockblocks him), I enjoyed the romance angle because it started out predictably (boy meets girl in emergency situation) and then veered off in a crazy direction (boy realises that girl is responsible for emergency) and then ended in an unexpected place (boy fears girl died horribly but never has any confirmation).
Yaz: In a dark moment in the climax, Yaz asks the Doctor how long it was before she knew Orphan 55 is the Earth. There’s some tension brewing amongst this lot and I don’t think it is going to be long before it blows.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘You want me to tell you that Earth’s going to be OK. Cos I can’t. In your time humanity is busy arguing over the washing up while the house burns down.’
The Good: How insane that an episode would throw away something as hilarious as a mating squid with a throwaway visual gag of a massive tentacle invading the TARDIS as the crew mop up after their latest adventure. Doctor Who is again jet setting around the world to provide an exotic visual look to the show, this time heading to Tenerife to give the Tranquillity Spa a touch of style. It offers the contrasting visual of the volcanic plains for the surface of Orphan 55 later in the episode too. Both look stunning, as I pretty much expect Doctor Who to these days. The sex gag about the Doctor pulling something out of one of her friends make me howl. The Dregs must go down as one of the best designed original monsters in a long while and a lot of the shock of their appearance goes down to the director who literally shoves the camera right down their throats as they salivate and bare their teeth to attack. In long shot they could be the epitome of static Doctor Who monsters but the judicious use of CGI and mist really helps to sell them as a muscular, crispy fried threat. In close up they reminded me of the nasties from the (terrible) Resident Evil movies, that’s how good they look. I loved the reveal of the panel and the fact that this is all a fake-cation. It strikes me as very realistic that in the future, when the Earth is a charred cinder thanks to our meddling, that they would want to plaster over all of that with a location of pure luxury. It’s a perverse example of consumerism, making a mint out of the ashes of a dead world by pretending everything is perfect. Suddenly this is a very different kind of episode, less of a base under siege in the Tranquillity Spa and more a scramble to survive across an alien world (or is it?). There’s some impressive detailed added about the Spa being built on an Orphan world to offer cut price holidays that will pay for its terraforming. The world building is very well done, if delivered at a mad pace. There’s a reason why Ed Hime borrows the twist from The Mysterious Planet and that is because it is a good one with some hefty emotional weight behind it. For all intents and purposes this should be NuWho’s Planet of the Apes moment and it falls way short of that and instead pushes for a vital environmental message. Suddenly the purpose of the episode becomes clear and whether you hate the political angle that the series has taken these past two years and whether you think this is like being hit over the head with a moral mallet this is STILL message worth hearing. Australia is raging right now, over a billion creatures have lost their lives and one of the most powerful men on the planet (as frightening as that is) is ignoring the climate crisis. Doctor Who is waving a flag and telling its audience (a lot of them kids) to sit up and pay attention and try do something about this before its too late. Subtle it isn’t, necessary it is. The CGI shots of the Dregs approaching Tranquillity Spa are truly impressive. And a word for Segun Akinola, whose music this season really is right up my street. Being dragged away from the action by the teleport and leaving two characters to their fate is very unusual for Doctor Who and I like the ambiguity. People will decry that the message at the climax is too liberal, too preachy but I prefer an episode that builds to a point and has the character engaging in intelligent debate rather than another piece of fluff where they all go swimming off in the vortex having a giggle at the end. Yes, this is in your face. It needs to be. If making people angry at the episode is the only way to get people to think about this, then bravo.
The Bad: I realise I am being a bit tail-ist but Hyph3n’s look is rather like she has just stepped out of a particularly low budget panto. On my first watch I thought that Benni’s proposal to Vilma at the moment of his death came from nowhere and was hilarious bad timing but I had completely missed the earlier moment where he slipped the ring out of his pocket (that’ll teach me to eat snacks whilst watching Doctor Who). I wasn’t at all sure about the performance of Gia Re as Bella, a character that has to convince as a culture shocked hotel critic, an emotionally scarred daughter and a terrorist willing to bring the place down. I don’t think she quite has the chops to pull it off. With the vehicle stranded on the surface of the planet and the Dregs attacking I feared this episode was about to ape Midnight. I’m glad that doesn’t happen because there is only one Midnight and I can’t ever see it being bettered. Dropping the twist about Bella being Kane’s daughter in the middle of an already busy episode means that the moment completely loses its impact. There’s no time to register it, it’s just another in a shopping list of things going on. I don’t think an emotional reveal has been handled quite this ineptly since the android-non-android nonsense in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS. In an episode that has time to explore its characters in more depth this might have worked out better. In Orphan 55, it’s a really funny moment of EastEnders in the middle of Resident Evil. When the shock revelation that Orphan 55 is Earth is given as much time and weight as the shock reveal that two characters are related, you are looking at a script that needs a some re-adjustment. Does anyone think the Trumpalike from Arachnids will be back to ignore climate change by the end of the season? James Buckley delivers a fine performance but it is a shame that Nevi’s (very sweet) relationship with his son is given the short shrift because there is so much going on around it. It feels like another element making the episode top heavy rather than a necessary ingredient.
Vilma stands out as the most brilliantly annoying character since, well, any of the children that featured in the Steven Moffat era but she goes one better because the actress is so dreadful that she needs a paragraph all of her own. Not only do her exclamations of her fella’s name get increasingly funnier and more hysterical with each utterance but she has a death scene that is so outrageously overplayed that I was considering handing in my Resurrection of the Daleks card for most over the top murder in Doctor Who. Jenny Laird might have a monopoly on ultimate shrieking old woman acting in this show, but she has stiff competition in Julia Foster. The most hysterical thing of all is that this episode might just go down as being remembered for it’s BENNI’S as it does for anything else. Poor Mandip Gill is giving her all as she looks horrified that Vilma has been eaten up all snickersnacker by the Dregs but all I could feel was relief that we were finally done with her.
Result: ‘BENNNIIIIIIII!’ And breathe. If there was ever a Doctor Who episode that needed time to breathe, it is Orphan 55. It is a story with massive potential and many individually exceptional moments and yet when you shove them all together into 46 furious minutes it is a piece that ends up dashing about so fast that it becomes a story that is less than the sum of its parts. It’s also the story with some of the most unintentionally hilarious moments we’ve had in some time and some of that is down to a lack of time as well. These include everything from from the sudden reveal that Kane is Bella’s mother and the wonderfully daft moment when Vilma, a character who deserves an entire range of Benni themed memes, sacrifices herself. I thought that James Buckley would be the silliest thing about this (especially since he is sporting a green wig) but actually he winds up being the most restrained. All of this is a shame because Orphan 55, despite being a love letter to The Mysterious Planet and the Pertwee era environmental politics, has some seminal Whittaker era moments; the continuing excellent camaraderie amongst the regulars, some properly scary monsters, another star turn from Whittaker who is absolutely owing this show at this point, a romance angle that has some genuine surprises (especially the ending) and a number of twists that take the show in an unexpected direction. Even the ending where the Doctor practically stares out at the screen and implores the audience to pay attention to the scripts message is very worthwhile because it cannot of have escaped your attention that the world is literally on fire at the moment. It reminds me of Pertwee’s heartfelt plea in Invasion of the Dinosaurs and is just as necessary. A real mixed bag then and even the execution, which features some stunning direction but some sabotaging editing that makes scenes disjointingly collide with each other leaves me conflicted. If I were to compare it to a weaker episode under the previous administration then Orphan 55 shines because I had a good time with this. I can just see how, with more time and less frantic energy, practically all of its individual elements would work better. Fun, but flawed and worth it for some very scary scenes with the Dregs and a message worth listening to: 7/10
4 comments:
I think you were too generous. This was the most half-baked episode of the Chibnall era so far. I was laughing out loud in places at how ridiculous it was. I hope this is as bad as it gets this series.
I still want to know where The Doctor picked up the Vulcan Mind Meld technique.
And instead of the colossal bit of Bogus Science of having the Dregs breathe in CO2 and exhale oxygen (which does indeed make them PLANTS! - plants that can somehow function IN THE DARK), how about just having The Doctor be able to adjust her metabolism to require less oxygen? Ask yourself which one need less of a leap of faith to believe.....
After only viewing the episode once I feel nervous in leaving this comment but I'm fairly certain the sonic screwdriver is still being used at multiple instances (although thankfully less like a wand and more like a tool). 7/10 seems a tad high but I have to admit, despite me knowing I was watching a bit of a mess I was continuously having fun with it. To all intensive purposes if you knocked the CGI down and replaced the fam with 7th Doctor and Mel/Ace this would sit comfortably in series 24 or a Big Finish main range audio that time forgot!
I was loving the episode, really having fun with in until the Earth is Orphan 55 part and all the preach after that. I don't know I think all that speach was too obvius, too cheap, so badly written.
Aside this Earth thing it was an enjoyable episode for me. Unfortunately all this Earth thing left me with a bitter taste and not wanting to watch it again.
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