Black Orchid

Well, it just wouldn't be cricket.

I have gotten the impression that Black Orchid isn't very popular among Doctor Who fans and I'm not entirely sure why. I thought it moved rather well. There were a few loose ends and glossed over points, but nothing egregious.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and his party land in 1925 and he is mistaken for a friend of a school chum of Lord Cranleigh, the local nobleman. The Doctor is invited back to play cricket, which he does with relish. His companions discover that Nyssa is almost identical in appearance to Lord Cranleigh's fiancee Ann. After the match, the Doctor and his companions are invited to a costume party at the house. Ann get Nyssa a costume identical to hers to play guessing jokes on the guests. The Doctor, while preparing for a bath, discovers a passage leading from his room and is accidentally trapped in a secluded part of the house. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure steals the Doctor's costume.

While in the other part of the house, the Doctor discovers the dead body of a servant. The mysterious figure dances with Ann and takes her into the house. He grabs her and when one of the servants fights him after hearing her cries for help, he kill the servant. Ann faints and the man takes him up to his room. Lady Cranleigh and a South American native find the Doctor and the body. After taking the Doctor back to his room, they also discover Ann. Lady Cranleigh takes her down while the South American ties up the man who is shown to be horribly disfigured. Ann shows Lady Cranleigh the body of the servant, which has also been discovered by the other servants. She accuses the Doctor who had just come down in the costume worn by the mysterious man earlier.

Lady Cranleigh refuses to admit to the existence of the mysterious man and has had the South American native hide the body. The Doctor is arrested and his party taken from the house, the chief constable, Sir Robert Muir, being the love interest of Lady Cranleigh. At the station, a constable notes that they've taken possession of a police box but they can't open. The Doctor opens it and provides proof that he was telling the truth about himself. They return to the house to discover that the mysterious man has killed the Native South American and set fire to part of the house. He rushes in and kidnaps Nyssa, believing her to be Ann. As the Doctor and Lord Cranleigh rush to save her, Lady Cranleigh confesses to Sir Robert that the mysterious man is her older son George who was tortured by a tribe of South American natives. He was rescued by a different tribe and one of their members brought him back. They had been trying to rehabilitate him since his experience had ruined his mind. Lord Cranleigh tries to calm George down and the Doctor pleads with him to release Nyssa upon showing him that he had grabbed the wrong girl. He releases Nyssa to the Doctor but when Lord Cranleigh steps forward to embrace him in affection, he startles backwards, loses his balance and falls off the roof, dying on the pavement below. The Doctor and his party stay for the funeral and then depart.

Analysis

As this story was only a two-parter, it zipped along fairly quickly. What little padding there was was taken up by the cricket match and even if you don't understand cricket (as I don't) it was entertaining. The plot was fairly straightforward in that the only question was who the mysterious man was. It was also fairly easy to figure that it was Lord Cranleigh's elder brother so that eliminated the need for any false meandering in the plot.

Something else that helped this story along was that because of the costume party, Nyssa, Adric, and Tegan were all shuffled off to the side and only given minor roles, mostly in the form of comic relief. Nyssa had her by-play with Ann, Adric stuffed his face at the buffet and Tegan danced with Sir Robert. This lack of need to give the companions anything of substance to do, allowed the plot to stay tightly focused on George's actions and the Doctor's involvement with them. I also personally thought that the acting improved a little. Sarah Sutton seemed to breathe a little easier in the role of Ann and that seemed to add a touch more depth to Nyssa, although I think the character of Nyssa is simply meant to be wooden. Tegan also was actually enjoying herself and not complaining about getting back to Heathrow which made for a great improvement in her character. Adric is of course, still Adric.

I do have to criticize this story a little from a modern point of view in that the Native South American had some sort of wood protruding from his mouth. I'm not sure if that was meant to be a lip disk but it seemed rather silly and a little racially questionable. The South American could have been established without this bit of oddity.

Other than that and a few points where the quality of the acting slipped, I can't complain about this story. A little extra information wouldn't have hurt here and there, but there was nothing that seemed left out or cut because the story was running long like in several of the Seventh Doctor stories. I'd say this was quite entertaining and at only 48 minutes could serve as an easy exposure to the Fifth Doctor era.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5