October 16: Black Orchid Parts One & Two

Two stories in a row featuring trips to Earth's past!  That's almost unique in the show's history: the only comparable occasion is The Talons of Weng-Chiang followed by Horror of Fang Rock, and that involved multiple seasons.

But Black Orchid is a decidedly different beast; it's a shorter story (our first two-parter since The Sontaran Experiment), it's an historical story with no SF elements beyond the TARDIS (our first since The Highlanders), and the theme of the TARDIS's trip to the 1920s is decidedly whimsical.  We see the Doctor playing cricket, Tegan dancing the Charleston, Nyssa involved in some "you look just like me!" antics, and Adric stuffing his face (well, he is Alzarian, with super-fast healing properties; presumably he has a high metabolism).  There's a definite sense, particularly in the first episode, of the TARDIS team relaxing -- they're noticeably happier around each other, and even Tegan and Nyssa's ribbing of Adric about his food comes off as more good-natured than you might expect.

Of course, this is Doctor Who, so it can't all be a lark, and the trouble this time around comes in the form of a disfigured man who's roaming the halls of Cranleigh Hall and breaking people's necks (although he does appear to be tied up much of the time, so it's hard to tell if he's killing people as a result of being tied up, or if he's tied up to stop him killing).  This actually leads to another case of mistaken identity; not only does Nyssa look like Charles Cranleigh's fianceé Ann Talbot, but the disfigured man (or "The Unknown", as the credits style him) dresses up in the Doctor's fancy dress costume and kills someone else in front of Ann.  But, as he was wearing the Doctor's costume, Ann thinks the Doctor was responsible, and thus most of part two consists of the Doctor trying to prove he didn't do it.

The Doctor tries to reach George Cranleigh, who's holding Nyssa
hostage. (Black Orchid Part Two) ©BBC

It's a bit of a grim turn in such a lightweight story, but it turns out that this is a secret being kept in the family: the Unknown is in fact Charles's brother George, who went up the Orinoco River to find the black orchid and was mutilated by the local tribe as a result, as they considered the flower sacred.  This does lead to some awkward questions, though; why are Lady and Charles Cranleigh keeping George locked and tied up in a wing of the hall and essentially treating him like a leper, rather than trying to help him in some way?  And how did George finish the book he wrote about finding the flower if he was disfigured, and in a way that no one knew his final fate?  And how were the Cranleighs explaining the presence of the actual black orchid in their sitting room, and not how they got it?  (A possibility: they were claiming that George had returned and then died in England, rather than that he was lost in the rainforest -- well, except Lady Cranleigh explicitly says that he never returned from his last expedition.  Hmm.)

This family tragedy does feel slightly at odds with everything else, because Black Orchid ultimately wants to be a fun and charming story and they don't quite get the balance right.  There's also the issue that the TARDIS crew's involvement is rather slight; the Doctor provides George with the opportunity to roam the house, and Nyssa is mistaken for Ann at the end, in the events that lead to George's death, and that's really about it.  There's no impassioned plea from the Doctor to reveal George's presence (in the event, it's Charles's unwillingness to see the Doctor take the fall for George's action that leads to the Cranleighs revealing their secret) or anything like that; this is a story in which the Doctor and his friends are very much observers.  But the story is done well, and it's nice to see them have a bit of fun between more weighty events -- and at only two episodes, this is a story that doesn't outstay its welcome.  It's exactly the sort of tale that would fit into modern Who very well.