Doctor Who: Orphan 55 (2020) - Review

Series 11's penultimate episode 'It Takes You Away' was a bit of a controversial one with Doctor Who fans. Some loved it, some hated it, but personally I found the episode to be a bit of a missed opportunity, trying to develop an hour-or-so's worth of story in only fifty minutes. 'It Takes You Away' could have easily been a two-parter and been all the better for it, but Ed Hime's script was filled with great concepts, strong emotions and a talking frog, so I thought it was "good, but could have been great".

I mention this because 'Orphan 55', Ed Hime's second Doctor Who episode, and the third of Series 12, is an absolute mess of an episode. Believe me when I say that 'Orphan 55' is a strong story, but is completely wasted in this fifty-minute format. The plot is so unbelievably rushed, the characters are so underdeveloped, the big sci-fi ideas feel half-baked, the editing is absolutely atrocious in terms of pace and conveying the narrative on-screen, and above all, I failed to invest at all in the events unfolding in 'Orphan 55'. I sat there passively watching the screen as stuff just happened with no emotional investment, very little understanding of what the story was supposed to be, and a general exasperation that the BBC watched this through, decided "yep, that's good enough" and didn't for one second think to just give the episode an extra ten minutes or so.

On the positive side, there's a good cast here, albeit one that is utterly wasted, and the episode features some strong production values, impressive effects work, great-looking monsters and some nice directorial flourishes. Unfortunately, these are rather back-handed compliments, as none of these elements were actually shown-off properly in the final version. Sure, it looked nice, but we never get to get a feel for what Tranquility Spa is like; we never feel the distress as the Dregs murder almost everyone staying there; characters die (or don't) off-screen in a confused mess of quick-cuts; important plot revelations are brushed over so quickly that no ramifications are felt; and a huge chunk of the story feels utterly superfluous by the end: that being, why let the characters leave Tranquility Spa in the first place? They go outside and then go back, achieving absolutely nothing. 

From a script-editing stage, it should have been obvious that 'Orphan 55' was juggling far too many elements. There's too many characters, too many twists, and the plot spirals off into so many different directions that it was never going to fit into a shorter, fifty-minute time-slot. I know we've been very privileged to get a two-hour story with 'Spyfall' as the series opener, but this story, as it was, needed to be two hours for the amount of plot-points it was throwing around. 'Orphan 55' should have just been restricted to inside the Tranquility Spa, with everything happening inside, with the Dregs attacking from all sides. The revelation that Oprhan 55 is in fact Earth should have been left out of the shooting script - it does absolutely nothing to help the story, other than to push a heavy-handed message about climate change that gets awkwardly crushed into one monologue from the Doctor at the end. Also, the old couple are completely useless other than as food for the Dregs, and the revelation that Ryan's love interest Bella was Kane's daughter was just completely redundant as soon as it came up.

All in all, 'Orphan 55' is the worst episode of Doctor Who since 'Arachnids in the UK' last series, and even that at least felt like a complete, if not very good, episode. Sure, it's filled with interesting ideas, good performances, an eerie score and there's a good story buried somewhere underneath the abhorrently bad pacing, terrible editing decisions and the awful final monologue, but when I can't invest in the story whatsoever, I just can't enjoy it. 3/10