DOCTOR WHO: Let’s Play Clue with THE UNICORN AND THE WASP

“THE UNICORN AND THE WASP” – Series 4, Episode 7, Story 194 – Written by Gareth Roberts; Directed by Graeme Harper – The Doctor and Donna head back to the 1920s where they go to an upper class party in which Agatha Christie is in attendance. And you know if the Doctor is at a party and Agatha Christie is at a party, someone’s getting whacked. There’s a giant bee buzzing around killing people, which allows the Doctor and Agatha to solve the mystery together and Donna to do a lot of nothing. Because It Seems Clear The Show’s Producers Don’t Have Full Faith In Donna.

THE UNICORN AND THE WASP is a breezy, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it offering that has the Doctor and Donna teaming up with Agatha Christie to solve the mystery of the murderous giant wasp.

It’s one of those episodes that’s both enjoyable and not in the least bit memorable. It offers no real insight into either the Doctor or Donna and uses the murder mystery basically as an opportunity to tell a bunch of in-jokes about Agatha Christie novels.

UNICORN works because of Tennant, who seems to be having a blast in this episode. Christie even scolds the Doctor at one point for having a good time after a murder has been committed. The humor is both what makes the episode and undoes it; it’s great to watch Tennant and Tate play the whole episode as a lark, but that constant sense of whimsy is also what keeps UNICORN from every becoming anything more than a diversion.

I am not saying diversionary stories are bad, but they serve a more important role in the larger context of a season than the specific context of the episode itself. That is, UNICORN provides a welcome respite from the fast-paced action and heavy emotions of the stories that have come before it and will come after it, but I think in some ways it would have worked better as this season’s “Doctor-Lite” episode.

The Doctor largely takes a backseat to Christie in the episode, gladly allowing her to take the lead in the investigation. He even lets her have the “Here’s what happened” moment. Fenella Woolgar is terrific as Christie and I wouldn’t minded just watching her for the bulk of the episode. It would have made the comedic bits more appealing, I think, if we were seeing them through Christie’s lens. The exaggeration would have had more traction with me, I think.

Tennant and Tate do a bunch of slapstick/comedic routines that grate after a while. There’s a completely over-the-top sequence in which the Doctor is poisoned and fashions a prolonged antidote by ingesting lots of different kinds of food. The scene shouldn’t work but Tennant and Tate are so committed to seeing it through that it ends up being okay in its ridiculousness, but it does go way, way, over the top.

Unfortunately, the show doesn’t give Donna a lot to do, yet again, though Tate does her best to make it work. After taking the back seat to Martha and Jenny, she now stands off to the side to allow Christie room to fulfill Companion Duty.

There’s a whole murder mystery plot but it really doesn’t matter. Just like the episode as a whole.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS: I Have a Professional Interest in Crime, Madame

Murder on the Orient Express (1974) – Based on the novel by Agatha Christie; Directed by Sidney Lumet – Starring Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Colin Blakely, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sean Connery, George Coulouris, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Dennis Quilley, Vanessa Redgrave, Rachel Roberts, Richard Widmark, and Michael York.

I will not spoil the ending to this movie in this reaction, which is maybe rather silly seeing as I’m writing about a 26-year old movie that adapted a 66-year old novel. The reason I won’t do that is because it had remained a mystery to me all these years, Christie’s story in all its forms somehow slipping through the entertainment cracks, and if you haven’t seen the movie, get it and watch it. Sidney Lumet’s film isn’t even a must-watch because of the mystery, but because it is one of the all-time great all-star casted movies.

Watching it, I was sort of embarrassed that I hadn’t seen it before, and a bit self-critical that what got me to rent it hadn’t been an urge to overcome my lack of ever seeing it, or a desire to go on a Lumet kick, as much as I’d watched Bullitt last week and wanted to ogle the historical Jacqueline Bisset a bit more.

You know, so long as the movie was good.

It’s good. MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS is an amazingly enjoyable movie, full of great stars delivering small but showcase performances. Lumet masterfully works in star cameo after cameo to play against Albert Finney’s Hercule Poirot. It’s the kind of movie I want to watch when I want to shut out the world and enjoy a contemporary slice of Old Hollywood. As much as there’s a mystery at play here, ORIENT EXPRESS doesn’t really invite you to attempt to solve the mystery; instead, it treats you very much like an audience (or passenger on a train), inviting you to board the Express and sit in on Poirot’s investigation.

In fact, I’d recommend ORIENT EXPRESS to someone who loves Ocean’s 11 more than I’d recommend it to someone who loves Momento.

Albert Finney’s performance as Poirot is completely engrossing. Finney almost entirely disappears inside the character (the nuances, the accent, the costume), which lends to a sense of watching Poirot interrogating Ingrid Bergman or Sean Connery instead of Finney and Connery competing against one another. It’s important that Finney has to be subsumed by his character, while almost everyone else is enhanced by theirs, because it grounds the mystery aspect of the film.

ORIENT EXPRESS is just such a professional movie from start-to-finish that it’s a total joy to watch. It’s written well, acted well, directed well, shot well, scored well …

Man, Richard Rodney Bennett’s score is just so beautiful to listen to you’ll be humming it long after the movie is finished. There’s an anecdote in the special features section relayed by Nicholas Meyer (the guy who directed Star Trek II: Kirk and Khan Yell at Each Other On the Phone) about how the great Bernard Herrmann was infuriated by Bennett’s scoring of the Orient Express leaving the station because instead of using the music to underscore that this was a “train of death,” Bennett went the other way and gave us a remarkably beautiful and catchy waltz.

It’s a perfect – absolutely perfect – accompaniment to an all-star movie.

The secondary performances all work, and other than Martin Balsam (a director of the train company) and George Coulouris (the train’s doctor) who assist Poirot, most of the cast gets one big scene – their interview with Poirot. The best performances beyond Finney’s are delivered by Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, and Richard Widmark, and Anthony Perkins delivers a very underrated performance playing Widmark’s nervous assistant.

Finney’s “Here’s What Happened” moment goes on for almost a half-hour and it’s a pure joy to watch him go through the explanation of the murder. If nothing else, it’s worth watching for that final act, but really, it’s worth watching from fade-in to fade-out.