So in the last two weeks, I’ve been a bit down on Doctor Who. I didn’t love the last two because neither were proper Who episodes; they weren’t cheap, a bit crap, or generally about running, like a proper episode is meant to be. This week, don’t expect a two-thousand-word epilogue of why I want to hang Chris Chibnall by his etheric beam locators on the dark side of Skaro. He didn’t touch this episode, and that’s a very good thing indeed.

Sunday’s episode, “Orphan 55” was alright. It was what Doctor Who is about, a big monster chasing our leads with strange side characters, while there’s a bit of a mystery as to why the beasts are there and why they are aggressive at all. As much as the last two episodes reference Tennant-era Who with frivolity, this is the one that I could link the entire episode back to one of those types of episodes. For a show that runs for over 50 years with 850+ episodes (90+ missing), there’s bound to be some overlaps: “The Impossible Planet,” “The Shakespeare Code,” and “42.” All about something strange, people trapped, and The Doctor saving the day.

Written by the wonderful Ed Hime who wrote “It Takes You Away” from the last series, I knew it couldn’t be horrid. I have my problems, and we’ll get to those, but he knows suspense, mystery, and a bit of the weirdness that Who needs in abundance. So to get into the episode itself, the gang has been dealing with a creature that has had its mating period in the entrance to the TARDIS, while Graham is off cutting coupons out an intergalactic magazine. The coupons are to a far future spa, all expenses paid, and sci-ex machina free of charge. Make a little cube of those six coupons and you, and your friend, are shot to the spa’s teleportation pad.

Greeted by a cat/humanoid-thing called Hyph3n, yes, that’s hyphen with a 3. That’s a new cat friend about; I like cat friends, at least if The Sisters of Plenitude were in Cats I wouldn’t be horrified. So Hyph3n gets us settled and sets up this utopian spa called Tranquillity, set up on a glorious vista for miles of beautiful landscapes all the way around. It is almost too perfect of an adventure location on a platitude of Who-based shenanigans. Lovely old couples retreating? Special Security team in all black, and Ryan being bitten and infected by some kind of infection? That’s the Doctor Who I remember.

Of course, Jodie does The Doctor more justice than some have been giving her of late; yet still, something is hanging over the series, guns and bombs. Who do I have to exfoliate like Lady Casandra to get Jodie to say, “guns are for idiots?” That’s probably the weakest part of The Doctor this week, which given last week she was de-white facing someone so that Nazi’s could capture him, that’s sadly a step up. 

I think it is about that time I should say my general opinion before I head into spoilers for the rather short episode. I don’t like these “42,” “The Shakespeare Code,” and other trapped spaceship things; they are the cheap and crap end of Doctor Who, which I can appreciate but usually do not like. “Orphan 55” is just another one of those, but at least it felt like Doctor Who: teaching a lesson about humans, running, and monsters. It’s a 6 because it was enjoyable, but isn’t really my thing.

Spoilers Ahead – Read at your Own Risk

I’ll try to be light with the spoilers for a minute, just so no one catches something out the corner of their eye. Not everything is what it seems. That feels like the most obvious statement, it is a show about adventure, but the tranquil spa of beauty and wonderment isn’t even what it looks like. It’s just a dome on a desolate orphan planet destroyed over hundreds of years of terraforming, war, mass migration, and I think you can now see where this is going. Orphan 55, the planet and episode name, isn’t in deep space or all too alien at all. Orphan 55 is us in the future after ignoring everything.

The thing about the reviews by viewers have been “ahhh, it’s too political,” “This isn’t Doctor Who!” “Why bring my horrible life and way of living into this show!” Some have even suggested the writing should go back to Russell T Davies 2005 writing of Doctor Who. “The End of the World” the sun expands into a red giant, “Aliens of London” and “World War Three” were about aliens wearing human suits controlling the UK government, and if “Fear Her” isn’t classed as torture you are in a weird space politically. Doctor Who has always been lightly political about issues we humans face, including crap episodes about the Olympics.

I like the Dreg (monster) design, it is a slightly more accessible version of Giger’s Alien, which might be the way the introduction of them was directed. The big teeth, the teeth and gums breaking out the mouth, and imposing stature makes them feel like something you want to run away from, like a skinless werewolf. The issue of the setting puts the idea that the entire episode is from someone playing or reading too much of Glukhovsky’s Metro series. Post-apocalypse Russia, unsettling monsters that are mutated humans, and a bit in the subway? Sounds right.

Generally, that’s it. The episode is about five minutes off of the fifty-minute mark we got the majority of the last series, so it was a bit quick. It might not help that the first two episodes threw too much at you for its simple concepts in a larger world that’s full of either supernatural or intergalactic threats. This time it was the usual single threat, single setting, and it builds. The problem is where it builds to isn’t too interesting.

Fans of Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul will notice Kane, played by Laura Fraser who played Lydia in both series. If we put the monsters aside from a minute, she’s the questionable antagonist looking at something from a business mind rather than the safety of the guests. I like characters that butt heads with The Doctor too, but that was to set up a rather useless plot for her and B-plot for the episode. I mean, when she sacrifices herself to fight the Dreg leader, that’s thrown to the wind when she just pops up again to do the same as Tranquillity is destroyed and Bella has offered herself to everyone that’s left.

That whole Bella and Kane story, that needed a good smack about the ears. It led towards the climax; yet if the seeds were sowed earlier it would overtake the story more than it did, and if it was left any later it would have been another “and then” to get to the bombs. If anything it made a character I wasn’t too bothered about a villain for ten minutes for no good reason. It wasn’t really a twist, it was a David Cage melodrama sledgehammer. Bella’s entire arc is: flirt with Ryan, point a gun at him, then sacrifice for him and the group. That’s chaotic neutral, she’s not likable for that.

I’m not too familiar with Channel 4’s The Inbetweeners or James Buckley thereof, but I liked him here. Nevi, Hyph3n, Syles, and the old couple, before Julia Foster was shouting about Benni and the Jets, I liked them. For one-off companions in an adventure, they have some character and things to do in the plot outside just standing there and gawking at the monsters.

Yas, did nothing, of course we knew that’s where I was headed with this didn’t we? Ryan was off flirting with a woman who would sooner turn him into space paste than sleep with him, and Graham was the most useful again. Graham remembered he was a bus driver, so he hung out with Nevi and Syles (the mechanics) parlaying and squawking exposition like no one’s business. At least use Yas as the cop corralling everyone into the lining cupboard when they need to be going back in there. Again, I am asking why we need three companions at once when either none of them are used or only one is. We didn’t get a bit about Ryan’s dyspraxia, but we did get his dead mum.

As a whole, I wasn’t too happy with this episode. I’ve said it, I don’t like these episodes like “Under The Lake,” “Kill the Moon,” and “42,” but at the very least it was a Doctor Who episode. Not a god awful, let’s kill everything on Gallifrey and go through time putting The Master in a Nazi uniform episode, but also not one I want to recommend to a new viewer of the series. The thing about Doctor Who is you have to be able to appreciate episodes that aren’t that great, this wasn’t great.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Doctor Who “Orphan 55”

0.00

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• An actual Doctor Who episode over the former two.
• The Dreg design is great.

Cons

• Companions doing nothing.
• Too short for the story.