Black Orchid Part Two

The one where the Doctor gives the locals a tour of his TARDIS...

A lovely afternoon's trip to the countryside for a game of cricket and a fancy dress party has gone terribly awry for the Doctor. He didn't even get to take his bath before he stumbled into a secret passage and happened across a dead body. While everybody else is outside on the terrace scoffing a cold collation and dancing with strangers, the Doctor meets a Brazilian with a big lip, "an old friend", according to Lady Cranleigh.

It's quite ingenious how writer Terence Dudley gently but cruelly unravels the Doctor's perfectly fine day. He finds the body of Digby the male nurse in the cupboard, but when Ann accuses the Doctor of murdering James the butler, his appeals to Lady Cranleigh for an alibi fall on deaf ears. Madge clams up and refuses to corroborate the Doctor's claim that he was elsewhere when the murder happened. What a cow!

Black Orchid Part One

The one where the Doctor plays cricket...

A two-part story!? We've not had one of those for seven years, but back then it took two weeks to see the story, and not two days like with Black Orchid. Because of the way Doctor Who was being broadcast during the Davison era (twice a week), stories are over so much quicker than before. Take a week's holiday, and you'd miss an entire adventure!

But in this case, you wouldn't be missing very much. Black Orchid part 1 is 25 minutes of almost nothing happening. It's the episode where the Doctor and his friends go on holiday, the sort of story that should happen when we're not looking. Perhaps it's right that Black Orchid was over so quickly back in 1982?