Are you my Mummy? There, I got it out the way, so we don’t have to reference “The Empty Child” & “The Doctor Dances.” Anyway, the problem with a sci-fi twist on the established mystery that is fairly well-known in this Whodunnit mystery, is that we know who did it. Why bother with it? “Mummy on the Orient Express,” is a sci-fi mystery based on the Agatha Christie novel with a bit of a space-y twist. All despite the 10th Doctor fighting wasps alongside Agatha back in series 4, we’ll handwave that away given we’ve got a Christmas Special with literal Santa coming up.

There’s a newcomer to the writing team, Jamie Mathieson. Don’t worry, he doesn’t last long. He is around for this episode and the next, one in series 9 with Steven Moffat, and the obligatory base-under-siege episode with Bill Potts in series 10. “Mummy on the Orient Express” is a fine episode, slightly elevated by the fact someone finally decided to give Frank Skinner a call. However, it is ruined by its lack of actually going anywhere with a story. We’re on the love train once again, where lovers or more accurately Doctors and companions are back to a lovers quarrel.

When I say we’re going nowhere with the story, I mean it. The Whodunnit falls away when it is revealed there is a mastermind behind it all, but we don’t Scooby-Doo style unmask the mastermind, at least not yet anyway. It is all a big elaborate thumb-war as we wait for Clara to say “bye then” and never come back. Oh, what a tease you were Steven, giving me hope that she would just sod off into the sunset. However, it never happens and we’re left with another filler episode giving us the world’s most toxic adventure pals in horrible situations.

Shall we actually talk about the good bits? I like the idea of The Foretold, a monster that only a victim can see and they have 66-seconds to describe it before it kills them. A solid idea to bring about a mystery: Who is it that’s wrapped up in the mummy gimmick, what does it want, when did this start, where did it come from, and why is it killing specific people? We at least get some of those rapid-fire questions out of the way, but not the most important one, who is behind all this? Given the series arc, you can guess why Toni Basil is behind all this, given Peter’s line about the phone calls.

I like that The Foretold is actually something a bit scary, but not BOO! scary, just unsettling. It is similar to the Angels but they are a special little beast into themselves. As the soldier that is wrapped up and is just following orders, it’s a bit of a trope turned on its head of sorts, with Doctor Who often using military types (Danny) as the jarhead stuck in his ways. “Mummy on the Orient Express” uses that and forces the Doctor to relieve the soldier of his duty, bringing back elements from “The Caretaker.” The episode isn’t all bad, it just loses focus to cram in more about Clara’s inability to function as a human.

Not that Peter’s lines are much better, as he’s still actively trying to insult with almost every line because this is the grumpy Doctor. I said it at some point during Tennant’s run, I believe, that this fan-thing of wanting to bring hundreds of years of the Doctor’s knowledge doesn’t work, especially when showrunners and script editors don’t care as much about it. I know it is an actor and fan thing, but it is something that needs to be let go of because it isn’t productive to the show’s purpose, adventure. I don’t care how many long-scarfed weirdos there are bent on nostalgia for the old days yelling about how it used to be, it was also made on a budget of 2P a week.

This grim Doctor, this man that seems to be arms-length isn’t just jarring, it is unpalatable. We’ve gone from a Doctor that could bring the range in an episode that needed it to Peter being unlikeable, harsh, bitterly critical of everyone and thing, and generally not the man you want to go on an adventure with. That’s always been Doctor Who‘s point, you want to be the companion, you want to be in the TARDIS, you want to see the stars with the Doctor you are watching. With Peter’s Doctor I end up wanting to stay where I am.

The rest of the cast is actually quite good. David Bamber’s Captain Quell is brilliant with an actor that just has a wonderful face for any historical drama. Though again, I have to say, Frank Skinner only getting the call now is a shame because his Perkins is a wonderful (if not original) character with enough of a Frank Skinner smile to it. That said, I wasn’t the most impressed with Daisy Beaumont’s character, she was a bit one-dimensional and lost at that. Equally, having Foxes sing Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” with a slow Orient Express period-appropriate jazz backing, it never felt more than needing a face to sing a song.

I was never impressed with Paul Wilmshurst’s direction. It never stood out nor did it do anything interesting, and if I am honest, I nearly ignored it as it did with “Kill the Moon.” His direction is much like the episode itself, functional but doesn’t do anything interesting at all. We have a mystery, one that could be really interesting, but when it all goes a bit squirrely it never recovers back to solving the mystery. It is almost as if the Doctor doesn’t care who was behind blowing up the train in the end because neither the writer nor the showrunner is bothered about it either.

Overall, “Mummy On The Orient Express” was set up to do something a little predictable. However, at least it had the potential to do something interesting with the story. Instead it was bogged down by an incessant need to show a divide between two characters who shouldn’t be around each other. With fun and interesting casting, there were moments that showed hope though didn’t do much overall with a script aimlessly wandering around a drain hole of a sink.

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Doctor Who "Mummy On The Orient Express"

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Frank Skinner finally getting the call.
• The Mummy is actually a bit scary.

Cons

• A lack of ending to the mystery.
• More hate-filled relationships and lying.