David Tennant’s era as the Tenth Doctor is one of the most beloved periods inDoctor Who, but there’s one episode that could have been so much better than it was with just a slight adjustment. The Doctor is definitely one ofDavid Tennant’s best characters, as it’s a role he was clearly born to play. However, not all his episodes were particularly well-executed. That being said, some ofTennant’s best performances as the Doctorcoming in otherwise-underwhelming episodes proves just how much he carried the show during parts of his reign.
Ofall the doctors to play the Doctor, Tennant is the only one to return twice in the modern era. His comeback under Steven Moffat for theDoctor Who50th anniversary and his eventual reunion with Russell T Davies for the 60th-anniversary celebrations were both excellent ways to acknowledge his brilliance as the Time Lord. Although his reprisals of the role were both brief, they at least helped make up for some of the weaker moments in his original run.Tennantcertainly had some very memorable episodes as the Doctor, but others tried to subvert expectations a little too much.
2008’s “The Unicorn & The Wasp” Tried To Do Too Much For A Doctor Who Episode
The episode’s writer tried and failed to effectively combine too many Doctor Who tropes
Even during Tennant’s time in the TARDIS,the Doctor had already met many real historical figures.Doctor Whoseason 4, episode 7, “The Unicorn at the Wasp,” added to this trend by including Fenella Woolgar as legendary murder mystery writer Agatha Christie.Writer Gareth Roberts cleverly incorporated the framework of the genre for which Christie was known into “Unicorn and the Wasp,“leading to aPoirot-inspired period drama. Unfortunately, Roberts also tried a little too hard to include anotherDoctor Whotrope.
“The Unicorn and the Wasp” was already dominated by its meta take on Christie’s work, so it didn’t need the additional element of accounting for her vanishing act.
Rather than sticking to a fictionalized series of events that also just happened to revolve around Agatha Christie, the episode also attempts to provide an in-universe explanation for the author’s 11-day disappearance in 1926.Doctor Whohas done this kind of thing before, and quite often allows the Doctor to be slotted into real historical events. However, it only ever really works when that scenario is the episode’s primary focus.“The Unicorn and the Wasp” was already dominated by its meta take on Christie’s work, so it didn’t need the additional element of accounting for her vanishing act.
The episode’s excessive ambition ultimately hurt it
As well as combining a detective story with a tale of historical fiction, “The Unicorn and the Wasp” unveils the killer as a human/Vespiform hybrid, played in his human form by Tom Goodman-Hill. On paper, this sounds like a brilliant twist, but when the villain in question is basically just a massive CGI wasp, it all starts to get a little ridiculous.There was no need to make Goodman-Hill’s character a literal insect, as he could have just been a humanoid alien killer with “The Wasp” as his nickname - similar to the episode’s human villain, the Unicorn.
10 Modern Doctor Who Episodes Everyone Has Already Forgotten About
While there have been plenty of brilliant Doctor Who adventures since the show’s 2005 reboot, there are some episodes that have been lost to time.
Taking the Vespiform out of the picture, an episode with the Doctor catching an alien murderer with Agatha Christie as his partner-in-crime sounds like an amazing premise. Similarly, an installment’s sole purpose being to provide a sci-fi explanation for the author’s mysterious vanishing act also sounds hugely appealing. Sadly, the episode’s ambition ultimately betrayed it as it couldn’t decide what type ofDoctor Whoepisode it wanted to be and therefore failed at being anything but a failed blend of everything.
Doctor Who
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An alien from the planet Gallifrey travels through time and space to explore, solve problems and fight injustice while also making friends with human beings. His spaceship, called TARDIS, resembles a police box, but it is much more than it appears to be.
