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From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.tv.drwho
Subject: "Black Orchid" story
Message-ID: <5151@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 9-Oct-84 16:01:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.5151
Posted: Tue Oct  9 16:01:03 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Oct-84 04:18:31 EDT
Organization: Ballistics Research Lab
Lines: 37

The local (St. Louis) station showed the "Black Orchid" story Sunday night.
It was the absolute WORST Dr. Who program I have ever seen! It had the 
dubious advantage of being only 45 minutes long; what is bad about that is
that they showed this on one of the few Sunday nights before a holiday
when I could stay up and watch an entire long episode! (Our outlet has
the despicable habit of scheduling Dr. Who at 10:30 PM Sunday nights, so
I tend to see the first half of most programs and then fall asleep...)

It's hard to enumerate the many faults of this story; first off, it is only
an ordinary 20's country-house murder story, with nothing to tie in the
presence of the Doctor or the companions; they just happen to be there but
take no real part in the story, except for the silly idea of having one
of the locals being an exact duplicate of Nyssa. Among other defects that
spring to mind: the Tardis is moved by the local police; I thought it had
the effect of being super-massive or somehow immovable except by internal
control (maybe I'm wrong on this). The murderer has some kind of super-strength
which is NEVER explained by the reasons given for his condition. There's
an Indian who cannot tie knots, and doesn't learn to keep from being knocked
out repeatedly from behind. The Doctor takes the Tardis on one of those 
infamous "short hops" that are always supposed to be so difficult, but
this time works perfectly and is done merely to save a few minutes of driving.
The insane thing is that he could have just as easily moved in time as well
as space and prevented the murders from happening (and himself from being
suspected) in the first place! Only the convention of the "short hops" being
tricky and un-repeatable prevents this simple solution from eliminating
90% of the plot twists and situations in all the Dr. Who episodes! I wish
they really DID take advantage of the time-travel aspects; then their writers
would really have to WORK instead of churning out the usual drivel...

Anyway, "Black Orchid" is an episode you DON'T want to use to introduce
someone to the Doctor; it will have the effect of making them avoid any
other Dr. Who programs. Miss it if you can...

Will Martin

PS -- the only good part of this was the cricket game; we American viewers
could identify with Adric and Nyssa in being completely mystified by it...