I look at Mummy on the Orient Express, the eighth episode of the eighth season of Doctor Who, where the Doctor takes Clara on one last trip aboard a retrofitted space-train and a mummy kills passengers sixty-six seconds after they see it. I go through the Foretold, Gus, Perkins and the retro design, and why it works so well.
I think it’s the most satisfying episode of the season, and perhaps of new Doctor Who, a brilliant premise carried out with as few frills as possible. The resolution is a bit rushed and the heart-to-heart at the end is turning into a formula, but nothing gets in the way of a good story well told. Frank Skinner as Perkins is outstanding.
As a “last hurrah” before Clara stops travelling with the Doctor, he takes her on board a retrofitted spaceship homage to the Orient Express, arriving just after an elderly passenger, Mrs. Pitt, has died upon hallucinating a Mummy in the last 66 seconds of her life. It’s a great setup for an episode, a murder mystery on a train with a countdown attached to every victim, and it’s the sort of thing the show is at its best doing.
It comes straight after the argument between the two of them in Kill the Moon, so there’s an awkwardness hanging over the trip that gives the “last hurrah” its weight.
A Ship Built to Study the Mummy
The look of the train is the first thing that grabs you. It’s a spaceship dressed up as the Orient Express, all red velvet and brass and dinner jackets, and it’s gorgeous in a way that makes the story feel like an event rather than another run along a corridor. The Doctor in evening wear on a luxury train is such a natural fit that I wondered why it hadn’t been done before.
The Doctor works with ship engineer Perkins to investigate her death while Clara helps Mrs. Pitt’s granddaughter, Maisie, to see the body. A kitchen chef dies, screaming about a “Mummy”. The Doctor consults alien mythology expert Professor Moorhouse about the legend of the Foretold, and Clara and Maisie end up trapped in a storage car with a sarcophagus. That’s a lot of plot for the first act, and the episode makes it all feel quick and easy to follow instead of confusing.
The Doctor deduces that the Express was an excuse to bring alien experts together to study the Foretold. Gus, the ship’s automated computer, reveals himself as the architect and turns the ship into a laboratory. The Doctor and Perkins discover the Foretold is targeting the weak, and the Doctor gets Clara to bring Maisie, the next victim, to him.
The episode takes a playful and darkly comic approach, which instead of trivialising the solemn moments makes them more poignant. Here, the breathless onslaught of events is exhilarating rather than simply confusing, and for once I wasn’t wondering what was going on and why. CultBox’s review is another one worth reading if you want to see how it went down with other fans.
The mechanics of the thing are what make it work. Only the victim can see the mummy, a clock counts down 66 seconds, and when it hits zero they’re dead, so every scene has a ticking timer inside it and every character is a potential next victim. That’s a clean, simple idea, and the episode never muddies it, which means the Doctor can spend his time working out why the victims are who they are rather than explaining the rules.
The Foretold, Gus and a Rushed Ending
The mummy itself is a striking design, bandaged and silent and always just out of reach, and the fact that you only see it the way the victim does keeps it properly frightening. It never needs to chase anyone, because the clock does the chasing. When the Doctor finally works out what it wants, the story turns from a monster hunt into something much sadder, which is a better trick than the usual monster of the week.
The Doctor convinces the Foretold, an ancient soldier draining power from bodies, that he is the victim and helps him die. Gus tries to suffocate the passengers, but the Doctor uses the Foretold’s teleport to rescue them. Clara decides to continue travelling with the Doctor. That’s the resolution, and I’ll be honest that it’s rushed and muddled, with a lot of ground covered in a very short space.
It’s a shame that the story had to be a metaphor for the Doctor and Clara’s relationship, and that they end up talking about the Doctor’s morality again, but nothing else gets in the way of a good story well told. I can think of far less entertaining ways to put their relationship back on track, and many more contrived ways of getting Clara travelling in the TARDIS again. It’s a testament to Jamie Mathieson’s writing, the best script of the season so far, that the objective of the episode is so well disguised until the last few moments.
The supporting cast is a big part of why the first half moves so well. Perkins, the engineer, is warm and funny and clearly out of his depth, Moorhouse is the sort of academic who is thrilled to be near a monster even as it kills people, and Quell, the chef, is a quick sketch that does a lot in very little time. Every one of them is a person with something to lose, and when the Foretold picks them off it matters.
Retro-Futurism, Pertwee and Tom Baker
With costuming and prop call-backs to the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker eras, the whole thing could have been nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, but rather than empty pastiche, the episode learns from classic Doctor Who‘s plotting and characterisation. Vividly drawn and wittily portrayed characters like Perkins, Quell, Moorhouse and Gus carry the story, which unfolds with an elegant economy unseen in recent seasons. A retro-futurist art design and soundtrack signals a return to pop TV shows like Batman and The Avengers, where action and style were paramount.
The soundtrack deserves a mention in that company too. The jazz-tinged music gives the whole thing a sixties sheen, and it’s a nice contrast with the genuinely nasty business of people dying in the dark with a countdown on their heads. The episode keeps the style and the menace apart, and never lets the one wash out the other.
Yet the episode never sinks to superficiality but instead offers well-made, mature adventure. Mathieson is a first-time Doctor Who writer and demonstrates real affinity for the programme and its history, and though the classic four-parter would be the preferred format for this story, he still manages to capture the quintessence of 70s Who in a 45-minute episode. There’s no sell-by date on good storytelling, and the episode is no less insightful or complex for being more traditional.
Perkins, Clara and a Season That Won’t Settle
The episode deftly incorporates a throwaway cliffhanger from the Season 5 finale as well as an obligatory reference to The Empty Child, which suggests not all bridges to past eras have been completely burnt. Without apologising for the Doctor’s behaviour, there’s a much-needed mellowing of his cynicism that helps us better understand his actions. Danny still waits in the wings, while Clara’s contradictory behaviour lets her rebound from her unconvincing rant in “Kill the Moon”.
Clara’s decision at the end is the other thing I want to mention. Having her stay in the TARDIS could have been a cheat, a quick fix for a problem the previous episode created, and a lesser script would have made it one. Here it comes out of the events of the hour, and out of seeing what the Doctor does when the stakes are real, which is a far better reason for her to stay than a speech.
Frank Skinner as Perkins is an absolute standout, and it reminds us that Doctor Who has given comedians the chance to become accomplished character actors. It’s probably not a good thing for the longevity of the show that the Doctor and Clara work better as characters when they’re apart, but we get the most out of the leads when they’re interacting with the other passengers. In fact, we get a much more acutely developed sense of the Doctor from seeing him in action rather than conversation.
It helps that the Doctor is back to being the Doctor here. He’s sharp, he’s rude to the right people, and he gets to be funny on the train without having to explain his morality to anyone for a few scenes. It’s a pleasant change from the weeks when he and Clara have been staring each other down, and it’s a reminder of how good this Doctor is when the episode lets him be in the thick of the action.
In a season where the only consistency is its unevenness, “Mummy on the Orient Express” is a refreshing relief. The concept is strong, the characters a joy, and the realisation is, for once, as interesting as the idea. By the end nothing can detract from this outstanding offering.
Which would you have picked for the Foretold, a fight or the Doctor’s way out, and did Clara make the right call in staying? Tell me in the comments.
2 comments