Black Orchid

Two episodes
Aired between 1st March 1982 and 2nd March 1982

Written by Terence Dudley
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Ron Jones

Synopsis

Things look a little bit suspicious when the TARDIS randomly takes its passengers to a train station in England, 1925 and a chauffeur is actually expecting them. They are invited by him to go to a cricket match run by his employer, Lord Charles Cranleigh.

The group all go there and the Doctor plays along, taking his role in the match and causing his team to win. 

It turns out that Lord Cranleigh has been expecting A doctor, not THE Doctor - a friend of his passed on the invite to this doctor to come and play to help them out.  Nevertheless, the Doctor fools Cranleigh and gets them all invited back to Cranleigh hall for a spot of tea.

Meanwhile, a man in bonds manages to escape and he kills a servant in what looks like a manor house.

Once at the hall, the Doctor meets Lady Cranleigh - Lord Cranleighs mother, and to everyone's surprise, Lord Cranleigh's fiance, Ann Talbot, looks exactly like Nyssa. 

It turns out that Ann was originally betrothed to Charles' brother, George Cranleigh, but he went missing as he went up the Orinocoe river, looking for the elusive Black Orchid, one of which is actually in the hall itself.

Lord Cranleigh is giddy from winning the cricket match and proposes they all have a fancy dress tea party.  The Doctor and co all agree and go off to guest rooms to get changed.

Ann suggests to Nyssa that they both wear the same costume as a bit of fun to confuse people and together with Tegan and Adric, they go off to the party.  The Doctor meanwhile is freshening up when a mysterious figure enters from a secret passage. 

The figure hides and when the Doctor finds the entryway, he is locked in and the mysterious man steals the Doctor's costume.

The party is full of hi-jinx with Adric stuffing his face and Tegan and Nyssa dancing the Charleston,

but Lady Cranleigh is met by an Indian man who explains that someone has escaped.  They go off to search the house and come across the Doctor who's found the dead body of the servant stuffed in a cupboard. 

Lady Cranleigh convinces the Doctor not to spoil the party and he goes off to get changed.

Meanwhile, things turn nasty when the Harlequin that was supposed to be the Doctor, tries to abduct Ann.

A butler tries to stop him and gets killed for his efforts. 

Ann faints and the figure takes her away and secretly returns the costume to the Doctor's room.

When Ann awakes, she panics and legs it straight to the door. Lady Cranleigh and the Indian - Latoni find her and whisk her away downstairs, finding the mysterious man - a hideously disfigured human man, hiding in the corner.

The Doctor cheerfully comes downstairs and is arrested thanks to Ann's accusations.  Lady Cranleigh refuses to confess and he's carted away to the Police Station. 

The Doctor eventually finds the TARDIS at the Police Station and convinces the bobby's to come on-board, confessing that he's a Time Lord.  They're all aghast and understand that he is what he says he is.  They all go back to Cranleigh Hall and find that George Cranleigh is actually alive and well and he's kidnapped Nyssa now, believing she's Ann. 

The Doctor goes onto the roof to talk him down as the building is set on fire.  He manages to convince him to let her go but George falls to his death. 

The TARDIS crew stay in the area for a few days to attend the funeral and then are allowed to go on their way back into time and space.

Trivia

• The most obvious point to make is that this is the first story since The Highlanders in 1964 not to have any supernatural monsters responsible for the bad stuff. 

• The tea party was supposed to be set in summer, but they filmed it in October. It was freezing, rainy and the wind kept blowing things off the table.  Just watch how it flaps the costumes about when the cast are stood talking.

• Peter Davison actually played cricket and they managed to capture his lucky bowl that resulted in him getting the batter out

• This is the only on-screen time that the Doctor's shown to engage in his love of cricket

Review

If you're looking for a story in Black Orchid, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.  It's there, but it's almost totally irrelevant.  The only real dramatic thing to happen is that a couple of people are beaten to death, then the Doctor is accused, then he goes up on a roof and watches someone fall to his death.

The total time this takes is about 15-20 minutes at most. The rest of the time is spent watching Adric stuff his face, or the Doctor show off at Cricket. 

In one sense, it's a nice character piece that shows life with the TARDIS crew, and it is nice to see Tegan suddenly enjoying herself instead of moaning about Heathrow.  Having said that, it's like the characters have had a temporary lobotomy and forgotten all the tension that they'd had in the last few stories. 

As short as this story is, I can't imagine watching it again for a long, long time.

Rating

4 out of 10

Re-watchability Factor

3 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Crusade 

• The Massacre

• Carnival of Monsters

• The Androids of Tara 

• Ghostlight 

• The Unicorn and the Wasp (Doctor Who, Series 4)

The Visitation

Four episodes
Aired between 15th February 1982 and 23rd February 1982

Written by Eric Saward
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Peter Moffatt

Synopsis

The Doctor attempts yet again to take Tegan home, but ends up taking her to Heathrow Airport as it would be in 1666.

Little do they know that a few weeks earlier, lights in the sky crashed to the ground and hearkened the arrival of an alien race on earth.  The aliens made their way to a manor house and invaded it, presumably killing the entire family and their servants.

Anyway, once Tegan finds out she's not exactly home, she loses her temper.  The Doctor soon convinces them all to go and have a look around first.  Unfortunately, they get into a fight with locals and are rescued by a wandering Shakespearean highwayman called Richard Mace.  Mace leads them to a barn where they begin to find strange artefacts that are clearly not of earth origin.  As they investigate, they find an alien holographic force field in the manor house of the family who saw the lights in the sky.

The Doctor and his gang come face to face with an Android.

Tegan and Adric are stunned, and the rest leg it. They soon turn around to go back however, and Nyssa is sent to the TARDIS to make a sound wave machine that will disrupt the android's circuits.

Tegan and Adric are questioned by the owner of the android, a reptilian alien known as a Terileptil.

The boss soon extracts what he needs of them and places them in prison underneath the manor. They are more resourceful than what the boss thought however, and manage to escape.  Adric gets out of a window, but Tegan is re-captured by the android.

The Doctor and Mace go to a nearby stable to steal a horse to use in their rescue attempt but are soon confronted by more villagers who seem to be under mind control of the Terileptil boss.

They prepare to execute them both, but the boss decides to keep them alive to use the Doctor's knowledge of time travel.  The boss sends the android, dressed as the Grim Reaper into the stable to march them back to the manor.

Once there, the Doctor spots Tegan who is now under the control of the boss thanks to a bracelet.

Fearing the Doctor trying a similarly clever plan to escape, the Terilleptil boss destroys the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.

He then smugly recites his plan to genetically modify the black plague to kill everyone. The Doctor pleads with him to live peacefully with the humans but the Terileptil isn't interested in doing that at all.  He leaves to a secret location in the city to put his plan into action.

Things look desperate, as even Mace is fitted with a bracelet.  The Doctor ultimately escapes his death by convincing Tegan that she's the feisty young woman he knows and he stuns Mace with feedback from a power pack.

The Terileptil sends the android out after the TARDIS and reaches it but Nyssa's sound machine destroys it.  Adric against Nyssa's advice, pilots the TARDIS out into the mansion.  The Doctor gets snarky with him but is ultimately grateful as he can quickly look at the scanners and track down the Terileptils to an old bakery.

Despite protests from Mace, they all go in there and have a fight with the aliens that results in an accidental starting of a fire.

The Doctor and crew escape and heap the boxes of unused genetic virus into the flames, thus destroying the threat (and leaving the Terileptils to burn to death).

Nyssa asks if they should put the fire out but the Doctor thinks it should continue to burn.  They leave Mace behind and jump back into the TARDIS.

As the ship de-materialises, we discover that the bakery is on Pudding Lane, the source of the fire that sparked the great fire of London.

Trivia

• As will become evident, this story was the last one in the original run to have featured the Sonic Screwdriver.  The original script had the Doctor simply replace it, but John Nathan-Turner wanted it gone as he saw it as a narrative crutch (which it was)

• This story was the first to be submitted by Eric Saward.  It came in during Christopher Bidmead's time as Script Editor.  John Nathan-Turner was impressed with his ability and asked him to consider becoming Script Editor. He agreed but there was an overlap with Anthony Root who was also in the running for the job.  Anthony sorted this story out, and decided to leave, handing the reins over to Eric.

• Michael Melia of Eastenders fame played the Terilleptil boss. He wasn't too happy with not having his face visible, and wouldn't let them alter his voice even though they wanted to

• Speaking of the Terilleptil, this was the first mask used in Doctor Who to be animated. 

• Another "star" was Micheal Robbins who played Richard Mace.  He's most well known for his time "On the busses" as Arthur.

• The character of Richard Mace was used by Eric Saward for a number of radio plays prior to his appearance in Doctor Who

• If you discount the brief trip into Renaissance Italy during City of Death, this is the first story in the last 5 years to go back in history.

The Review

If you look back over the many reviews that I've done for Doctor Who from 1963 until now, you'll see that, perhaps sadistically, I value the bloodier episodes more than not.  Anyone who knows me can attest that I'm not violent in anyway, but I do find it curious that I'm drawn to such things in Doctor Who.  The Visitation is no exception.

I think it's for the most part, the fact that stories with a body count raise the stakes. It immediately takes us out of the realm of the Doctor swanning through and saving the day, and into the realm of "yes, but at what cost?" The Visitation shows from the start that the stakes are high with the assault on the home of a family (one that contains a woman no less). Watching it, there's a real sense of wanting someone to come and save the day, but they never do, and when the Doctor finally finds the house, it sets up foreboding really well.

The character of Richard Mace is comedic and entertaining, but at the same time, he provides a good outlet for the audiences reluctant voices.  It's a real shame that when the Doctor treats him like a complete idiot, that he's not vindicated by something truly horrible happening as a result. Still, it is family entertainment.

Some reviews I've come across reckon that you'd love this story in 1982 as it was a breath of fresh air to be going back into history, but in 2018, you'll find it pretty empty.  I don't agree.  This story is very enjoyable for me, and it's main downside is the fact that the Terilleptil boss ultimately devolves into a bond villain near the end and the wrap up is a little quick.  Peter Davison's Doctor is quite annoying in this one, but it could be because he hadn't found his stride yet (it was the third story filmed, just before Castrovalva).

I think the Visitation has much suspense and genuine horror going on make it near the very top of the ones you must watch in Peter Davison's era.  That's good enough for me.

Rating

9 out of 10

Rewatchability Factor

7 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Reign of Terror

• The Time Warrior

• Terror of the Zygons

• The Android Invasion

• The Awakening