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| The Dregs attack. |
THE PLOT:
The TARDIS Team win an unexpected trip to Tranquility Spa, an all-inclusive off-world resort. Graham intends to spend his time napping in as many chairs as possible; Yaz befriends elderly couple Benni (Col Farrell) and Vilma (Julia Foster); and Ryan strikes up a flirtation with Bella (Gia Ré), an attractive young woman who introduces herself as a resort critic before admitting that she's actually unemployed.
Meanwhile, the Doctor finds the control center of the spa - hidden away in an overly secure linen closet. The owner, Kane (Laura Fraser), is unimpressed by her intrusion. But when the spa comes under attack by alien Dregs, the Doctor manages to restore the shield that keeps them safe... though not quickly enough to avoid the deaths of several guests, and the disappearance of Benni.
Kane reveals that Tranquility Spa is a "Fakation," a spa that simulates an idyllic setting while in reality being located on an uninhabitable orphan planet. Kane's plan was to use proceeds from the spa to terraform the dead world. What she didn't realize was that the Dregs had survived the planet's death and adapted.
With Benni outside the spa, the Doctor and Kane lead the others on a rescue mission. When they are trapped by Dregs, however, what began as a rescue turns into a fight for survival - with one of their party being something other than what they seem...
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: Though the script makes no reference to the events of the previous story, we see that she is not particularly interested in a relaxing holiday. She's already hunting for the resort's hidden control center before the Dregs attack. Once the attack starts, her outer silliness - only ever a thin veneer in this episode - drops away completely, replaced by a grim resolve. Throughout the episode, the Doctor is short-tempered, ruthlessly pragmatic, and occasionally downright rude, particularly to the profit-minded Kane (Laura Fraser)... and I absolutely love it; could we see the same characterization in a good episode next time?
Graham: "It ain't the aliens that are going to kill me - It's worrying about you!" Graham remains entirely relatable. While the team works on cleaning up the mess of an alien encounter in the console room, Graham cheerfully finds coupons for a free vacation. His vacation plan? Sit and do nothing in one spot for a few hours, then move to another spot and sit and do nothing over there. After the Dregs attack and Ryan is unaccounted for, Graham barely waits for the door to unlock before rushing out to find him, and his relief when he does find Ryan safe and alive is tangible.
Ryan: Quickly bonds with Bella, who appears to have much in common with him. She had a father she obviously loved who died, and a mother who was nowhere to be found when she needed her - Basically, Ryan's story in broad strokes with the genders flipped. He's quite pleased to find an attractive woman to flirt with, though not so much as to neglect his friends when they are genuinely in trouble.
Yaz: In a stunning plot twist, Yaz gets the least to do of all the regulars in this episode. That said, there are some good character beats. I actually love that Yaz is now the one who is most suspicous of the Doctor. At the end, she demands to know exactly when the Doctor realized the secret behind Orphan 55, clearly thinking that the Doctor had known for a while. She seems satisfied when the Doctor tells her that she found out only seconds before the rest of them did, but there's a wariness in that relationship that wasn't there before. If that carries forward, future scripts could build on that.
Kane: Laura Fraser is always a welcome presence. Kane could easily have been a one-dimensional bureaucrat, a paper tiger for the Doctor to verbally shred (see the various pompous bureaucrats of the Pertwee era). Fraser grounds the character, finds a strength and credibility that allows Kane to stand her ground even as the Doctor berates her. As a result, the Doctor/Kane scenes, of which there are far too few, are the highlights of a weak episode.
THOUGHTS:
Unfortunately, new Who has a bad track record of following up "big" stories with ones that are... well, kind of crappy. The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit two-parter leaves you breathless with its scale, pace, and ambition? Fear not - because Love and Monsters and Fear Her will crush all your excitement in a heartbeat. The Eleventh Hour kicks off the Eleventh Doctor's run with breathless excitement and a grab bag of endless clever reinvention? Well, The Beast Below and Victory of the Daleks will smother that exhilaration with a pillow and leave you actively worried about the new Doctor's run in no time flat.
Chris Chibnall's era as showrunner is radically different from those of Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat. However, one thing remains the same: The big, ambitious story that was almost entirely successful in its ambitions is followed by... a bit of a damp turd.
Orphan 55 actually starts off quite promisingly. The initial TARDIS scene quickly re-establishes the team in a post-Spyfall setting, and obliquely follows up on that story by mentioning the Doctor's "mood." We're then whisked off to the resort, where the companions split up to meet the various guest characters while the Doctor uncovers a mystery. So far, so good. The Dregs attack, the artificial nature of the resort is revealed, and the characters head out into a hostile alien landscape on a rescue mission. This is promising.
Then it all falls apart.
I'm not referring to the episode's overly on-the-nose message. For all that it seems almost calculated to draw an outcry from the usual sources, the message is actually fairly well-integrated into the story. No, the real problem is the pacing. The episode, which runs a scant 46 minutes, feels rushed, with obvious ADR taking us from one scene to the next. I can't say for certain, but it plays as if someone made an ill-advised attempt to "speed things up" by chopping out badly-needed scene transitions, leaving the end product feeling choppy and unfinished.
Orphan 55 is far from the worst episode of Doctor Who. The Dregs are well-realized, if fairly generic. The guest cast ranges from decent to very good. The regulars are on fine form, with Jodie Whittaker particularly strong - It's probably a good sign that she manages to be this good in an episode that's otherwise rather bad.
But after Spyfall started off the season with such a bang, it is a disappointment to follow it up with a misfire. All the more disappointing given that this was written by Ed Hime, who wrote last season's fearless, genre-hopping It Takes You Away. And though I would not rule out the possibility of some overly ruthless post-production edits (the run time is suspiciously short), in the end most of the issues with this episode come down to the script, which is simultaneously too formulaic and too busy.
I hope Hime writes for the series again next season - But I also hope he delivers something a little closer in quality to his Who debut, so that we can just put this one down to a bad day at the keyboard.
Overall Rating: 3/10.
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