March 26: "Journey's End"

26 March 2005 was the debut of "Rose"... so the BBC Wales version of Doctor Who is ten years old today!  It's therefore somewhat fitting that today we've reached "Journey's End" and the final major appearance of Rose Tyler (though not of Billie Piper).

So.  How do you wrap up your two-parter (and series 4) when your first part was mainly running in place?  Well, the way "Journey's End" chooses to do it is to add an extra 20 minutes to its running time -- so this is rather like an old five-parter then.  Except that the majority of that hypothetical Part Five is saying goodbyes and dealing with the after-effects of what we see here.

Davros confronts the Doctor. ("Journey's End") ©BBC

Still, what we get here is surprisingly compelling -- surprising because, in a way, "Journey's End" is just as motionless as "The Stolen Earth" was.  After the Doctor ends up not dying by redirecting the regeneration energy to his severed hand¹⁹⁹, he's locked up for the majority of the episode, taunted by Davros in the bottom of the Daleks' Crucible ship, and one by one his companions get locked up too.  But what makes it so watchable isn't just Graeme Harper's direction; it's also designed to be a character study of the Doctor and what he does to others.  "The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun," Davros taunts him.  "But this is the truth, Doctor.  You take ordinary people, and you fashion them into weapons.  Behold your Children of Time, transformed into murderers.  I made the Daleks, Doctor.  You made this."  It's an interesting argument that never actually gets refuted or qualified in some way -- indeed, the Daleks are ultimately stopped because the meta-crisis Doctor (the one who spawned from the Doctor's hand) ends up killing them all to stop them from terrorizing the universe, which doesn't look very good if you take Davros's point of view (as he points out: "Never forget, Doctor, you did this," he cries as the Crucible explodes around him.  "I name you forever!  You are the Destroyer of Worlds!").  This is, in fact, the reason why Davros is in this story.  Because, let's face it, there's nothing inherently inventive about the Reality Bomb (which oddly looks an awful lot like the insanely deadly weapon from Star Trek Nemesis -- right down to the green glow), nothing that really says "Davros" about it.  No, Davros is there to challenge the Doctor, to provide the Daleks' viewpoint and declare that the Doctor is no better.  (And also to get in a couple good rants, worthy of Michael Wisher and Terry Molloy.)

The Doctor and his friends fly the TARDIS together. ("Journey's
End") ©BBC

And that's one of the most impressive things about "Journey's End": the way it cons you into thinking you're watching a big action-packed story, but when you stop and think about it you realize it was a character study.  Of course, we do get action at the end, as everyone drags Earth back to where it supposed to be²⁰⁰, and while it is an exciting moment (even if it's also incredibly daft), the episode chooses to focus on the goodbyes for longer.  In many, many ways, this really feels like the end of an era -- so much so, in fact, that it's frankly strange we've still got a year with five episodes left.  But the whole gang is back together (even K-9!) to give this Doctor one last triumphant send-off.

This is not to say that it's perfect, though; there are in fact two glaring problems with "Journey's End" that both manifest at the end.  The biggest one is the return of Rose Tyler.  There were really only two options available for bringing Rose back: have her stay or kill her off.  But Billie Piper's not returning and Davies wasn't about to kill off the darling of (particular teenaged girl) fandom, so they settle for a deeply unsatisfying middle ground.  It makes our Doctor look like a bit of a git, as he essentially says, "Yes, I know you traveled through multiple dimensions to get back to me, but I'm taking you back and then heading back home -- but here's someone who looks just like me that you can have instead.  Only he's a bit genocidal, so you'll have to watch him."  (And once again, I'd just like to point out just how well the story of the Valeyard's origin matches up with what we see in this story, when coupled with the knowledge that the tenth Doctor we see from "Journey's End" to The End of Time is the twelfth incarnation of this Time Lord.)  It's trying to have it both ways, and it really doesn't work, no matter how much Murray Gold's music tries to convince us otherwise.  Still, at least Rose finally gets a proper kiss from someone who looks like the Doctor, at least.

The other problem is in a similar vein, and that's the fate of Donna.  At the time this also felt like Davies trying to have it both ways -- killing off Donna but not really.  Now I'm not so sure.  It's still an incredibly cruel act, taking all the character growth we'd seen and chucking it away in favor of "The Runaway Bride" version of Donna (in fact, it's probably crueler than just killing her off would have been), but I do wonder if Davies really was trying to tug on the heartstrings, rather than just avoiding killing off main characters (as it seemed at the time).  I still think killing Donna would have been the better ending, and the way things play out is incredibly vicious for the audience (and for the characters: "But she was better with you," Wilf laments), but it's no longer quite as cowardly an act as it seemed at the time.

Still, those problems only really make themselves known at the end, and everything up to that point is surprisingly good.  We're not deus ex machina-free, of course (in fact, this one seems to have more than ever before -- meta-crisis Doctor, the DoctorDonna, the TARDIS dragging Earth across space...), but they're delivered with such gusto that it's hard to get truly upset with this.  It's not perfect, but it is a tour de force, and ultimately that's what they set out to deliver -- so you can hardly blame them for succeeding.

And that, of course, wraps up series 4.  This is a series that has aged rather well; as time has passed its virtues have become more apparent.  One of the biggest virtues is Catherine Tate, who provides a fun, realistic companion in Donna Noble -- someone who's changed for the better by what she sees, and who's interested in seeing the universe, not in making out with her travelling companion.  It's a refreshing change -- not that I'm knocking Rose or Martha here, but it's nice to have a purer motivation for travelling in the TARDIS.  We also get a strong performance from David Tennant; in fact, it's interesting to watch him as he moves from series 2 to series 4, as he visibly gets better and better in the role (and it's not like he was bad to begin with).  All this and a reasonably strong run of stories (yes, there are some rough patches, but there are also some standout tales -- plus we get more variety in styles and locations, which is also a bonus) means that series 4 is as much of a success as the previous three were.

(After "Journey's End" I watched "Music of the Spheres", which aired three weeks later as part of the  Doctor Who at the Proms special.  It's an entertaining bit of fluff, and it was probably really fun to be there at the Proms in person and seeing the interactive moments, but it's hardly required viewing.  It's on the disc of "The Next Doctor" if you're curious though.)







¹⁹⁹ In a move that led to lots of online discussions at the time as to whether or not the Doctor had used up one of his twelve regenerations by doing this -- of course, now we know (thanks to "The Time of the Doctor") that the answer was "yes".
²⁰⁰ My brother mentioned, in regard to the previous entry, that the Doctor might have also been thinking of The Ultimate Foe, where the Time Lords moved Earth a couple light years using a magnetron (presumably not like the one in your microwave).  Here the Doctors and Donna use the Dalek magnetron to move the planet back, which suggests that RTD was also thinking of The Ultimate Foe.

March 25: "The Stolen Earth"

Wow, that sure was a lot of excitement for what's essentially little more than a set-up episode!

Because when you think about it, little happens in "The Stolen Earth" beyond moving all the pieces into position.  The Earth disappears before the credits even roll, and everything else involves getting everyone to where they'll need to be for the cliffhanger.  Still, it's really quite exciting seeing not just Martha Jones and Rose Tyler, but also Sarah Jane and Luke and what's left of the Torchwood team -- and being familiar with the spin-off shows does give these guest appearances more impact.¹⁹⁸  It's genuinely exciting to see Sarah Jane's attic and the Torchwood hub on Doctor Who -- and it provides a nice sense of interconnectedness among the three shows, rather than the one-way street it had been.

But because we're tying in three shows, Russell T Davies has to devote quite a bit of time to each one, to give just enough detail for those viewers who haven't been watching all three shows to know who these people are and what's going on.  That does take up a lot of time, and while the process is hurried along by the return of former PM Harriet Jones, who has them all talk to each other via her own version of Skype, it still does slow things down.  Fortunately, Davies has realized that this would happen, so he keeps interspersing these sequences with waves of Daleks attacking the planet while the Doctor and Donna pop off to the Shadow Proclamation (which is, oddly, an organization rather than an announcement) to work out that various instances of planets going missing are related.  "Someone tried to move the Earth once before.  Long time ago," the Doctor recalls in what's most likely a reference to The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

But, because there's so much maneuvering involved, it does take a while before things get started, but once they do, they hardly let up.  After Harriet Jones gets everyone talking (except for Rose, who's frankly a bit bitchy when she sees and hears about Martha), we get Harriet exterminated, the Doctor and Donna involved in the action on Earth, and an onscreen confrontation between the Doctor and Davros.  Davros, it seems, fought in the Time War but was pulled out by Dalek Caan (last seen "emergency temporal shift"-ing in "Evolution of the Daleks"), and has now devised some new plan that involves 27 planets.  They've done a really good job with Davros in terms of make-up and design -- other than a robot hand, he basically looks the same as he's ever looked, and Julian Bleach turns in a great performance which recalls the control of Michael Wisher's turn in Genesis of the Daleks.  Even if all he gets to do in this episode is basically sit there.

The tenth Doctor regenerates. ("The Stolen Earth") ©BBC

But what an episode ending!  Finally, after two series, the Doctor finally sees Rose again, but he's shot down by a Dalek before he can make it to her.  It's a shocking moment, but it's really well done -- we get the Doctor dying in Rose's arms, while Captain Jack (who's teleported to the scene) gets them to bring him into the TARDIS.  Where we watch as he begins to regenerate...

So "The Stolen Earth" is an episode that spends an awful lot of time in a holding pattern, waiting for everyone to get to where they need to be, but thanks to some great direction from Graeme Harper and a script that keeps moving, you still find yourself entertained.  It's not perfect (the return of the joke of Harriet Jones introducing herself to everyone isn't funny, and there's the aforementioned jealousy Rose displays -- and why is evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins talking about astronomical topics?), and there's an awful lot depending on how well "Journey's End" goes, as this has given us almost nothing in terms of actual storyline -- but as a Part One "The Stolen Earth" is a very solid effort indeed.







¹⁹⁸ In fact, one of the main factors for my deciding to include the spin-offs in this marathon was knowing that this story was coming up.

March 24: "Turn Left"

Having given us the "companion-lite" episode last time, this time we get the "Doctor-lite" episode.  "Turn Left" provides us with an interesting thought experiment: if Donna had never met the Doctor in "The Runaway Bride", how would things have turned out differently?  Quite a bit, the answer turns out.

There's no question that life is a lot worse without the Doctor around (his having died during the events of "The Runaway Bride"), but Russell T Davies seems to take some delight in showing us just bad things would get.  And so we get both Martha Jones and Sarah Jane and her gang killed during the events of "Smith and Jones" (with Sarah Jane being the one responsible for stopping the Plasmavore's super-charged MRI scheme; intriguingly this suggests that Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria, and Clyde were all present during the events of "Smith and Jones", and that they simply never crossed paths with the Doctor), the starship Titanic crashing into Buckingham Palace and irradiating southern England, half of America converted into Adipose, and Torchwood sacrificing themselves to stop the Sontaran plot to turn Earth into a breeding world.  Each event makes life worse and worse for the Noble family, but what's most interesting is how Davies has some people making the best of it (such as Rocco Colasanto and his family), even when things turn really nasty with the "England for the English" policy.  Donna, meanwhile, has grown up, albeit in a different way from when she met the Doctor.  There, she had her eyes opened; here, she's just had to hunker down and try to make the best of things, even when there's no realistic way to make that happen.

Rose talks to Donna as Donna prepares to travel back in time.
("Turn Left") ©BBC

But even though we don't have the Doctor around, we still need a Doctor figure, which is where Rose Tyler comes in.  After having been making quick cameos here and there throughout series 4 (mostly on monitor screens that the Doctor isn't looking at), she finally appears here to help guide Donna toward the right path, the one that will set the universe back on track.  She's incredibly Doctor-ish in her dialogue here, which is actually something of a hindrance -- Rose (or possibly Billie Piper) frequently sounds like she doesn't quite believe what she's saying, and it weakens these scenes as a result.  Rose is best when she's empathizing with Donna, not when she has to deliver technobabble.

This is definitely a dark episode, and it's interesting to see just how bad things can get when humanity has to rely on each other instead of the Doctor.  But while it's put together really well and does all the things a story like this should do, I find that "Turn Left" is, for me at least, an easy story to admire but a hard story to actually enjoy.  Maybe that's because it's ultimately a bleak look into an alternate history, with little to redeem things here.  But still, it's a story worth doing, and as a way to define the Doctor by his absence, it would be hard to do better than this.

March 23: "Midnight"

As you've no doubt realized (if you've been following along with this blog), one of the things that has given Doctor Who such longevity is its versatility, its ability to be just about any sort of story you want it to be.  That's why the show can be a surreal children's nightmare, then a comedy Western, and then a contemporary thriller -- and that's just three consecutive stories from season 3.

Part of the way Doctor Who is so versatile is by taking other genres of stories and then inserting the Doctor, to see what happens.  Invariably, the presence of the Doctor serves to distort the story, to send it off in a new direction by virtue of his being there.  Take a story like Pyramids of Mars, which should be a story about an ancient Egyptian god returning to unleash his vengeance upon the planet -- except the Doctor turns up and starts asking questions about Sutekh's origins and intentions.  Or Vengeance on Varos, which is a nasty violent dystopian tale of the sort popular in the early/mid '80s -- but then the Doctor arrives, gets most everyone except the villains on his side, and turns the whole thing into a critique of the genre.  The point is that the presence of the Doctor distorts stories -- he gets people on his side via his personality and confidence and sends stories off in a new direction as a result.

Why bring this up?  Because "Midnight" is the one story where this doesn't happen.

You can see it almost start to happen; it starts out as a tense "possession" thriller, but because the Doctor is there things can go in a different direction.  He has experience with this sort of thing, after all.  He almost calms everyone down, but then the hostess advocates throwing the possessed Sky out of the broken-down shuttle and things start to spiral out of control.  Instead of the Doctor being listened to as the voice of reason, the others turn on him in their hysteria, demanding an accounting of him that he's unable to satisfactorily give.  Instead of distorting the story, he's subsumed by it, unable to affect the changes he normally would; he's now a victim like everyone else.

The others watch as the Doctor examines the possessed Sky.
("Midnight") ©BBC

This would be a terrifying move even if "Midnight" weren't so well directed, but director Alice Troughton (no relation) does an outstanding job of laying the tension on thick, with odd angles and cuts and lighting choices all combining to create a genuinely scary experience.  We also get a superb cast, including David Troughton (Patrick Troughton's son, last seen on the show in The Curse of Peladon) as Professor Hobbes, Colin Morgan (soon to be the main character on Merlin) as Jethro, and Lesley Sharp (from a number of earlier RTD productions) as Sky.  This is a very strong cast, but it might be Lesley Sharp who stands out the most as the possessed Sky.  Russell T Davies takes the simple childhood annoyance of repeating what someone says and turns it into something scary, and Lesley Sharp absolutely delivers in her performance -- even David Tennant can't quite match it when it's his turn to play possessed, and he's hardly a slouch in this.

The end result is an episode that gets tenser and more claustrophobic until it approaches breaking point, and the Doctor is powerless to do anything about it.  No one on the shuttle is a bad person -- the scenes at the beginnings show that these are all "normal" people -- but when they're thrust into this situation their worst nature comes out and they're unable to rise above it.  Once again we see that humanity's worst enemy is itself, and it's only the actions of the hostess (who no one knew the name of) that stops the others from murdering an innocent man and inadvertently letting this strange creature go free.  "Midnight" is a powerful, extremely well-crafted story -- even if the points it raises makes it one of the most depressing stories the series has ever done -- and one of the best stories the show has ever done.

March 22: "Forest of the Dead"

We open with Donna adjusting to a different life, one that seems to jump in time like a dream, but with Doctor Moon helping her.  "And then you remembered," he tells her each time she notices one of the jumps.  This new life is set on (roughly) 21st-century Earth, which is why the girl we saw last time was in that same time period.  Donna seems almost fully "integrated" into this life when glitches start appearing -- such as the Doctor in place of Doctor Moon, or a strange woman dressed all in black, leaving her cryptic notes.  Donna has already started to work out that something is wrong, but that woman (the data ghost of Miss Evangelista) confirms it for her, even though she doesn't want to believe it.  These scenes are directed well -- I really like the edits as time jumps -- and have some imaginative moments, like when we see that all the children playing on the playground are copies of the same two kids, but I think my favorite part is Murray Gold's score, which plays some of the score backwards to really reinforce the sense that something's wrong.  It's a great touch.

"Forest of the Dead" isn't quite as tense and scary as "Silence in the Library" was, but that's because it's more concerned with action and explanation than simply establishing the mood.  The reason the Vashta Nerada appeared in such large numbers in the Library is a clever moment, and the way the Doctor achieves a temporary truce with them at the end ("I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe.  Look me up") works a lot better than it has any right to.  And there's still lots of running up and down corridors and dodging shadows and moving spacesuits full of Vashta Nerada, so it's not like it's completely action-free -- it's just that we get a couple moments where the Doctor actually confronts the Vashta Nerada for explanations.

River Song prepares to sacrifice herself to save everyone else.
("Forest of the Dead") ©BBC

But it's not just them we're getting explanations from; we also learn what CAL is and why Lux is so determined to protect his secrets -- it's not because of a patent, it's so that his aunt isn't turned into a freak show.  "This is only half a life, of course," Lux says.  "But it's forever."  It's a surprisingly sweet moment from a character who, up to this point, had only been something of an irritation, and it does make us revise our opinion of him.  CAL had saved everyone in the library from the Vashta Nerada, but now something's gone wrong and the place is going to self-destruct.  This is where we see River sacrifice herself to save everyone, in what's a surprisingly distressing moment (surprising because we've really only just met River).  "Funny thing is, this means you've always known how I was going to die," River tells the Doctor, who's handcuffed and unable to intervene.  "All the time we've been together, you knew I was coming here."  It's a rather tragic idea but a interesting one as well, to learn that the Doctor has (almost) always known how River would die, every time he sees her.  This also gives them a chance to have a sad ending, as the Doctor has lost River and Donna lost her husband in the computer world.  "Are you all right?" Donna asks him.  "I'm always all right," the Doctor responds, echoing what he said at the end of "The Girl in the Fireplace".  But Donna sees through that immediately: "Is 'all right' special Time Lord code for really not all right at all? ... Because I'm all right, too."

But they also then have a chance to have a (somewhat) happy ending, as the Doctor realizes he gave River his screwdriver in his personal future to save River: there was a (presumably special) neural relay in the screwdriver to save River's consciousness.  It's not a complete victory, because the Doctor can't bring her back into the real world, but it is something.  And this is where it turns out that this story is doing cleverer things than you might initially realize.  Because it is a little odd, having Charlotte Lux appear to be in contemporary times, but that's because the production team is trying to leave us with one last lingering question.  We've seen Charlotte watching the Doctor's adventures on her television -- she's essentially watching Doctor Who, just like the viewers (and note how the incidental music changes with the images as she changes channels), except that at one point the Doctor starts addressing her directly from inside the television.  River is now also in the computer, living her virtual life forever, and the final shot of the episode is of her directly addressing the audience: "Sweet dreams, everyone."  Given that that's exactly what happened to Charlotte, the programme seems to be saying to us, can we really be sure we're not inside the Library computer too?

It's clever, it's fun, it's got great characters and direction...  It's not as neatly packaged and presented as Steven Moffat's other stories thus far have been (where it's almost like solving a puzzle rather than experiencing a story), but that's actually one of the strengths of "Silence of the Library" / "Forest of the Dead".  There's a sense of a universe beyond what we're shown -- this world doesn't end just because the story does, and that's a good quality to have.  It's not as brilliant as "The Empty Child" / "The Doctor Dances" or "Blink", but there's a more subtle wonderfulness at work here.  This is why this story is one of the most satisfying tales we've had in Doctor Who.

(This entry is dedicated to the memory of Chris Tremlett, a friend and Doctor Who fan who lost her battle with cancer earlier today.  The universe is a little more sad and a little less mad without her.)

March 21: "Silence in the Library"

(In the interest of disclosure, it should be noted that "Silence in the Library" / "Forest of the Dead" is the story I wrote about for Outside In vol. 2 -- the only wrinkle being that, as of the time of writing, that book's not actually out yet (should be later this year!).  Still, like Terror of the Zygons, I'll do my best not to cover the same ground here as in that, but some similarities will inevitably occur.  So, with that said...)

The Doctor and the Lux expedition speak to the little girl
through her television. ("Silence in the Library") ©BBC

This starts with, seemingly, two storylines.  The first involves a little girl (apparently in contemporary times, judging from the technology and surroundings) who imagines a giant library that she can explore -- only for the Doctor and Donna to suddenly appear inside her dreams.  The second involves the Doctor and Donna heading to a planet-sized library at the behest of a mysterious note on the psychic paper, only to find the place completely abandoned.  It's not immediately clear what the little girl's doing in this story (although the part with Doctor Moon near the end -- "The real world is a lie, and your nightmares are real; the Library is real" -- is a good clue), and, intriguingly, it isn't laid out for us immediately at the start.  (Compare with, say, "The Doctor's Daughter", and note the difference.)  This is a good move.

This episode is also really good at creating a creepy mood.  We've had some creepy moods in Steven Moffat's previous efforts, but this one is wonderfully effective, as the Doctor explains to us reasons to be afraid of the dark beyond the "you can't tell what's hiding in the shadows" one -- it's not just what's concealed in the shadows, it's the shadows themselves.  The Vashta Nerada -- literally (albeit in an unknown language) "the shadows that melt the flesh" -- lurk in the shadows and allegedly can be seen as dust motes in sunbeams.  (Though presumably not all dust motes are Vashta Nerada.)  It's a creepy idea that lends a nice sense of dread to the proceedings, as characters try not to have their shadows touch and an extra shadow means you're marked for death.  (Creepy and easy to realize.  Nice work, Moffat.)  We also get some creepiness with the data ghosts, after Miss Evangelista is killed by the Vashta Nerada.  Plus it gives us another catchphrase to scare people with: "Hey, who turned out the lights?"

Of course, I'm dancing around the big event in this episode: the introduction of Professor River Song.  It's a really nice idea, having someone meet the Doctor out of sequence for him (i.e., from his future), that's somewhat surprisingly only really been explored once before, in 1989's Battlefield.  It's used very effectively here, in the way that River is so comfortable with the Doctor and affectionate toward him, and the scene between the two where River tries to work out where they each are in their relationship, only to learn that this is the first time the Doctor has ever seen River, is really nice.  "He hasn't met me yet," she tells Donna later.  "I sent him a message, but it went wrong.  It arrived too early.  This is the Doctor in the days before he knew me.  And he looks at me, he looks right through me and it shouldn't kill me, but it does."  It's a great conceit that also serves a practical purpose: it means the expedition is willing to listen to the Doctor without too many "why should we pay any attention to you?" speeches.

So, a great start to this two-part story, with a creepy monster, a cool location (although, that said... there were only 4022 people in a planet-sized library the day it sealed itself off?), and a fascinating figure from the Doctor's future.  So far this looks like another winner from Steven Moffat.

(Oh, and nice move in the "next time" trailer, not showing us any scenes with Donna after she's apparently "saved" by the little girl.)

March 20: "The Unicorn and the Wasp"

I dunno.  I understand that "The Unicorn and the Wasp" wants to be silly and absurd and fun, without too much angst or drama getting in the way, while it pastiches the murder mysteries that Agatha Christie is famous for.  I even think it does a good job with them.  I just don't find it particularly funny.

The nice thing about this episode is that it imagines to be both a trip back to the 1920s, with some elements of flappers and large estates throwing parties thrown in just like we've seen on TV in other shows (or Black Orchid, if Doctor Who is the only thing you ever watch), and a loving tribute to Agatha Christie's novels (along with some of the dafter installments of the Doctor Who strip that TV Comic put out in the 1960s, in case you're wondering what giant wasps have to do with Roaring '20s England).  We also get Felicity Kendal, Christopher Benjamin, and Fenella Woolgar, and a host of other actors who've been in period pieces like this before, so they hardly put a foot wrong as they go through this unusual murder mystery.  And it is a lot like an Agatha Christie mystery -- deliberately, we later learn -- with guests being bumped off in isolated circumstances and everyone keeping secrets from each other.

The Doctor faces the Vespiform.  ("The Unicorn and the
Wasp") ©BBC

The culprit of this mystery, however, is an alien wasp called a Vespiform which can take human form, and which formed a psychic link with its human mother while she was reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.  It's an odd and silly idea, but as it's deliberately designed to be absurd it's hard to be mad at it.  Plus they do a nice job with their CGI wasp -- the Mill certainly have come along since "The Lazarus Experiment".

But for me, at least, it never fully coheres into a unified story.  There are definitely funny moments (Colonel Curbishly admitting he's not crippled is a good one, but I also really like the moment where the Doctor chases the Vespiform down a hallway: "There's nowhere to run!  Show yourself!" the Doctor cries, only for six people to emerge from various doorways), but they never feel like they're part of the main event -- rather, it's like an interlude before we get back to the main plot.  (It doesn't help that a couple of the jokes -- like Donna giving Christie ideas -- were used before in Roberts' last Who script.)  And by necessity, the resolution has to be more serious in nature, which does weaken the more good-naturedly silly bits.

I know a number of people who quite adore "The Unicorn and the Wasp", and while I can admire what it's trying to do, it just doesn't come together for me the way it should.  For me, it tends to look a lot like someone trying to be clever and not quite pulling it off.  You can applaud the attempt, but you wish it had gone better.