Doctor Who has a long history of wonderful, politically-tinged science fiction stories, but season 12’s “Orphan 55” wasn’t one of them. The two-part “Spyfall” was generally received very positively by fans and critics, praised for its surprise Master reveal, gripping action and fascinating plot developments. In the follow-up episode, team TARDIS go on a vacation that takes all of 60 seconds to turn hellish, as their tranquility spa retreat is revealed to be nothing more than an immersive dome on a dead, poisoned planet. To make matters worse, the locals are far from friendly, and the Doctor finds herself responsible for ensuring the safety of the surviving holiday-makers.
“Orphan 55” has a number of problems. The plot involved Whittaker’s Doctor marching everyone out into danger, achieving nothing, then marching them back again because the key to saving everyone was right where they started. The supporting cast featured British comedy actor James Buckley of The Inbetweeners fame, but gave him virtually no comedic material to work with. Nothing new was added to the “base under siege” format, with much borrowed from previous episodes and a twist taken from Planet of the Apes. And worst of all, the episode’s finale tried to make sucking your thumb look romantic. Despite this assortment of issues, the biggest problem viewers had with “Orphan 55” was its political overtones.
The episode’s titular planet is revealed to be Earth in the future, destroyed by global warming. Some fans have accused Doctor Who of becoming politically minded in recent years, but this suggestion ignores over 50 years of moral messages dating back to the debut of the Daleks. From nuclear weapons and the futility of war, to industrialization and and the destruction of indigenous species, Doctor Who has always been a series dripping in political allegory and liberally-minded morality and to deny so now is simply revising history to support a contemporary argument.
Where “Orphan 55” falls down is not in the message it chooses to put across, but in the execution. The best science fiction fare, even within Doctor Who, is often based in reality, using futuristic settings to illustrate problems facing the real world in any given era. Genuine concerns and real-world truths are concealed in a fantastical story and an exciting adventure, entertaining the viewer while inviting them to pick up on the more challenging subtext. So many of Star Trek’s best adventures revolve around themes of war, invasion and diplomacy, while everything from Terminator to Wall-E has provided commentary on artificial intelligence, the over-reliance on technology and the perils of capitalism. These examples, and many, many others, succeed by never venturing outside of their designated fictional world, trusting the viewer to draw the real-life parallels themselves without spelling things out.
Conversely, Doctor Who season 12, episode 3 breaks two fundamental rules. Firstly, it alters the show’s own mythology in order to better suit its political message. Having discovered Earth desolate and decayed in the future, the Doctor reveals that Orphan 55 is just one possible timeline - directly contradicting all of the times the Doctor had landed in the future. Suggesting that the futures the TARDIS visits are just “possible” rewrites all of Doctor Who canon, just so the episode can drive home to viewers that it isn’t “too late” to save Earth. There’s also a strange mind-meld with a Dreg for exposition’s sake. Perhaps even more jarring is the very final scene, in which the Thirteenth Doctor steps almost out of character and addresses her companions as if talking directly to the audience, delivering a speech explicitly from writer to viewer. Such overt methods shouldn’t be necessary in a well-crafted story that embeds its political themes in a more refined way.
To say Doctor Who has never before been political is grossly inaccurate, but where past stories would tell a compelling story around a strong moral theme, “Orphan 55” takes it message and repeatedly bludgeons the viewer into submission with it, nowhere more so than in the final scene. Whittaker’s speech might’ve been envisioned as stirring, but instead comes across as patronizing, and this not only spoils enjoyment, but distracts the audience from engaging with the episode’s environmental themes in the first place.
More: Doctor Who: WHEN The New Master Fits In The Timeline (Before Or After Missy)
Doctor Who season 12 continues with “Nikola Tesla’s Night Of Terror” January 19th on BBC and BBC America.
