The Unicorn and the Wasp. You know what, maybe it’s not the best murder mystery story, but to be honest, that’s not really the point. What it does though is make a very funny and enjoyable story out of Christie and other sorts of whodunnit tropes. The references to Christie’s works are pretty fun (though I’m glad they didn’t try to be edgy and work that title into it like was joked about by RTD and Roberts). Lead pipe, cyanide, names like Professor Peach, the list goes on, you see what they’re doing here. Some of the bits are similar to Shakespeare Code especially Donna name-checking characters and works Christie hadn’t yet written, but they were funny there as well as here.
I’m not sure I’m satisfied by the Vespiform kills because he has the works of Christie in his head. He doesn’t have any real motive for doing it, nothing to gain, not even something like his anger at having been abandoned because his mother is an aristocrat who couldn’t live with the scandal it would have been. It’s just he kills because the bad guys in the books do. I think there may have been more that could have tied the origins of this creature from Lady Eddison getting knocked up by a wasp man, but as it is, it’s just backstory. Backstory that doesn’t even really influence the outcome. So if you’re coming into this for a well designed murder mystery, you may be disappointed.
What I think makes this story still work is all the investigating, especially from Christie using her brain as a writer of these stories. And because the killer is basing it on her stories specifically, you don’t even have to worry about “well, she’s just a writer, not an actual detective.” The whole thing is catered to her knowledge and skill set. It’s so fun to see her and the Doctor just looking around for clues, piecing things together, interrogating everyone, and the scene where they make their conclusions and identify the killer is top-notch. Sure, everyone is lying about something, their alibis and such don’t really add up, but in Christie there’s always lots of lying going on to get the reader speculating, drawing their own conclusions trying to figure it out, possibly on the right track, possibly not. And of course, I like how the story has an answer to the mystery of her brief disappearance, as well as the way this story recognizes her as one of the great writers.
I do wish Donna was a bit more of the investigative process in this. Yeah, she finds the big wasp, allowing us to know what the creature was, but aside from that it’s all Doctor and Agatha. Donna is there for comedic relief mostly, but she’s very funny in this. The trying to figure out what the Doctor wants in the detox scene is hilarious every time. I do think the “so he killed them?” interjections in the scene toward the end was a little too much, I’d have liked less breaking of the tension in that scene.
The side characters are maybe a bit forgettable, but not exactly unlikeable. It was cool to see Christopher Benjamin again. Jago could have possibly still been alive in the 1920s, probably in something like his 80s, but I don’t think he would have filled this particular role quite right, they’d have had to rework it to actually get Jago in this. Rather sad that he feels he has to pretend to be disabled in order to have Lady Eddison stay with him. It was really funny how the maid’s death was completely avoidable if she just stepped to the side instead of standing there screaming as a gargoyle fell on her. The Unicorn wasn’t exactly forgettable in this, but she was rather a bit pointless. I think if they had set her up as the Unicorn earlier, she could have functioned as a good red herring, but that’s not what they did.
It’s just a fun bit of Doctor Who, even if it’s not the best structured murder mystery. Stuff can definitely be picked apart, but I think it’s just one of those cases where you should just sit back and enjoy it instead. Just have fun with the Doctor and Agatha doing their deductions, the detox, the pretty cool looking giant wasp, and the comedic pastiche of the whodunnit genre. Too many enjoyable bits for me to treat it particularly harshly or give it any less than a 7/10.
