Oh, Christie!

I thought it appropriate that the title of this episode’s entry should be probably the worst joke I’ve done yet, as all I’ve heard in the build-up to The Unicorn and the Wasp seems to be the mind-numbingly poor joke “there’s a sting in the tale”. For crying out loud, is that really the only pun anybody could come up with? Alas, sometimes I worry about the state of our collective state of humour.

So, I suppose I should mention the episode itself. I have to say I enjoyed it a lot, somehow with a greater sense of freedom to do so than in some others this season, mainly because there were considerably less political overtones about the whole thing – Who got back to a plain old romp, and it’s good to see, especially considering that the trailer for the next episode, Stephen Moffat’s two-parter, looks as scary as his season 3 highlight Blink.

I revelled in the constant shoehorning of Christie’s titles into the dialogue, and of course the extension of that homage into the revelatory scene with everyone gathered in the lounge – I thought it was a cheeky, but not too over-the-top, way to send up Poirot and the like. Fenella Woolgar (what a great name) was absolutely superb as Agatha Christie, portraying her strengths and doubts with real conviction, and made an excellent spearhead for the episode in general.

Time for an update, then, on the continued ups and downs of Donna. I thought this was a bit of a mixed bag for Tate, personally, with some scenes that I loved (trying to cure the Doctor’s poisoning, her part in the exposition scene) and others I…didn’t, mostly when she wasn’t around the Doctor, like when she was investigating the locked room. Somehow her comedy abuse of power just didn’t come off for me like some similar jokes in the episode did. Perhaps Tate is best suited to making asides and having attitude while allowing the Doctor centre stage, but when she’s left to carry the scene on her own, she’s not quite able to grab it completely. (Borderline case is her excellent scene in the Sontaran two-parter, but the Doctor was around that time.)

I felt the ending got to be a tad much, what with the “she’s the best-selling author of all time” shpiel and all, but I’m willing to forgive it because I think overall I had more fun with this episode than any other this season. I do have to ask now, though, if the next “historical celebrity” we meet isn’t an author of some kind? We’ve had Dickens, Shakespeare and now Christie. I rather fancy meeting Genghis Khan or somebody else suitably un-Western, for a change of pace.

Oh, one other thing – that Doctor-Donna kiss was painfully gratuitous. A slap would have made much more sense.

Goodnight.