Black Orchid

Dear Gary—

Tegan: “Now what? Where are we going?”

Doctor: “To a cricket match.”

Tegan: “Why?”

Doctor: “Why not?”

Why not indeed. A cricket match is just the ticket for our quarrelsome quartet. Tegan has finally decided to stay on as TARDIS crew member so the constant harping on the Doctor to get her to the airport on time has ceased, but our four adventurers need some down time to regroup.

With a cricket match, a fancy dress party, a cocktail, a buffet, and a bath the two episode Black Orchid orders up some much needed respite from the relentless infighting, and there is just enough trouble to keep them on their toes.

I like it.

Black Orchid is purely a period piece. No aliens, no sci fi, no important historical significance, just a mad and mutilated son hidden away and casting a pall over the ball. Oh, it may be a lazy plot. So what? For a two episode interlude this can be forgiven. Let Tegan do the Charleston and Adric chow down while Nyssa and her doppelganger Ann are menaced by the phantom of the manor and the Doctor wanders hidden corridors and is arrested for murder.

Black Orchid does demonstrate that the art of the period piece has been lost over the years. This is the kind of story that only William Hartnell’s Doctor could truly pull off. The Troughton era took a stab at the historical with The Highlanders but abandoned the genre thereafter. However I like that the Davison era is at least willing to give it a try, and it wisely kept the script to only two episodes. Of course the shortness of it could be the reason it turned out so weak, but if not and it was extended out over the typical four parts it would have been torturous. As it is, it is a brief and breezy stroll through the 1920’s.

It does seem to go at a leisurely pace despite the murders, the kidnapping, and the Doctor’s arrest. The bulk of the first episode is taken up with the cricket match in which the Doctor proves to be a one man show and a “much better player than Smutty,” and then with some relaxed conversation over drinks, and finally with the ball itself while the Doctor gets lost in a maze of secret passageways (“Why do I always let my curiosity get the better of me?”).

In keeping with the serene nature of the serial, no one seems to get overly excited about anything. In fact about the most noticeable reaction shot comes courtesy of the chauffer as he desperately tries to conceal his surprise at the remarkable resemblance between Nyssa and Ann Talbot. The others express some slight interest in the likeness and take it as an opportunity to question Nyssa’s background until Lady Cranleigh observes, “Our curiosity has been vulgar enough,” and changes the subject. Some things are above notice, like the strange clothes of the newcomers. When Tegan raises the concern that they have no costumes to wear for the fancy dress party Sir Robert simply states, “I was just thinking how charming yours was.”

As things start to heat up, the lid becomes tighter on the emotions. Shown a dead body in the cupboard, Lady Cranleigh takes a ‘let’s keep this between ourselves’ attitude to which the Doctor replies “Yes, of course,” and goes off to dress for the ball. Even when arrested for murder the Doctor just seems to shrug with an ‘oh, all right, if you must’ air. The topper is when Sir Robert and the police enter the TARDIS. “Strike me pink,” is about the strongest response the TARDIS receives, and Sir Robert’s “all this is going to be rather difficult to explain in my report” is the ultimate in understatement.

It is all very nonchalant. The police don’t really seem very serious about detaining the Doctor, either. With a mere ‘By the way can we stop at the railway station on the way to jail’ the Doctor is able to wander about the depot unhindered searching for his missing TARDIS. Then when the TARDIS is located at the police yard Sir Robert takes this, along with the discovery of a second victim, as evidence that the Doctor is innocent.

But then, the Cranleighs also don’t appear exactly eager to keep George detained. His ‘friend’ Latoni, the Brazilian guard, is easily outwitted and overcome and lets his prisoner escape several times during the story. And knowing that there is a madman loose on the premises who is killing off the servants, Lady Cranleigh and Latoni aren’t in any hurry to recapture him.

And despite the hiding away of her son (even though she keeps him bound and gagged, not much of a life for a loving mother to give her son, mad or not) and protecting him from murder charges, Lady Cranleigh doesn’t act overly upset when George plummets to his death. In fact at the end, aside from the mourning clothes, one would almost think the family group had just come from a garden party and not a funeral.

Amazingly, the one person (or rather two in one) to express any feeling above the level of mild interest throughout Black Orchid is Nyssa/Ann. She (they) gets to scream. Even that is too much for Ann, though, and she faints. (Although I do have to say that Tegan gets unnaturally excited about the Charleston and the Doctor is uncharacteristically elated during the cricket match, perhaps to compensate for the pent up sensibility of the overall serial.)

It is a pleasant little foray into the 1920s, not quite a murder mystery since there is very little mystery about it, and not quite a thriller since everyone rides it out on an even keel, but enough pseudo elements of each to keep us entertained.

I hope, Gary, that somewhere out there you, too, are being kept sufficiently entertained as I send this out and wait . . .