TV Review | Doctor Who: “Orphan 55” by Ed Hime

From its trailer and promotion, I had expected Ed Hime’s “Orphan 55” to be a bit of a filler, really – a frothy, base-under-siege romp with only the scorching Spanish sun to set it apart from the many similar stories that it follows. However, it seems that after the Christmas-break comfort food of the two-part Spyfall, Doctor Who has snapped back to the format of the show’s dazzling 2018 run with an incessantly entertaining and flagrantly provocative piece that combines cutting-edge thrills with even more frightening ecological realities in a manner reminiscent of the old Jon Pertwee serial, The Green Death.

Holidays for the Doctor have never worked out well, but her visit to Tranquillity Spa stands out as a particularly calamitous attempt. Within moments of arrival, Ryan has contracted a virus from a vending machine and vicious apex predators are running off with the guests. A few blinks later and the gang are running out of oxygen as they are forced to flee across the barren surface of a dead planet in a battered all-terrain vehicle while their fellow survivors drop bombs... in every sense of the phrase. Such perils are made to seem paltry, though, when the Doctor discovers a rusted Russian sign and a tell-tale “made in China” brass plate. This, we realise, is a holiday much closer to home than the Doctor and her extended fam had anticipated.

Of course, ending the world isn’t that big a deal in Doctor Who – the revived series wore the Earth’s doom like a badge of honour in just its second episode, and even that fatalistic affair was merely continuing a long tradition of the programme ravaging our beautiful blue planet with solar flares and/or flinging it across time and space and renaming it Ravolox. “Orphan 55”, though, has a much more uncomfortable sense of propinquity about it, and it’s far from shy when it comes to laying blame. As the global climate change crisis escalates, so does Doctor Who’s response to it – the decorous subtlety of The Green Death has been supplanted by the Kitchener-like image of a Time Lord pointing straight through your TV screen at you. 

“Unless people face facts and change, catastrophe is coming.”

Whereas Skyfall was remarkable for giving each of the Doctor’s friends something significant to do, “Orphan 55” is notable for its tight focus on Ryan, and, through him, the fascinating Kane / Bella relationship. Hime uses the estranged mother and daughter to cleverly reflect the horrific dregs of humanity that roam Orphan 55, with Kane (fiercely played by Breaking Bad’s secret Scot Laura Fraser) epitomising the avarice and apathy that might well bring our world to ruin, and her unforgiving daughter (Gia Ré) embodying the irresponsible anger that lurks beneath every mushroom cloud. Crucially, though, Hime shows us that neither character is beyond redemption – nor, it seems, is the Earth itself. Through great arks in space (plural) or on brand new worlds like New Earth, Doctor Who has always been at pains to show that humanity will endure even without its homeworld, and whilst for the most part “Orphan 55” paints a much ghastlier picture than this, it does still offer the Earth of the Whoniverse the possibility of a different future - even if in doing so it has to tear up the rulebook when it comes to the old “you can’t change history” problem. A volcano erupting in 79 AD is obviously a fixed point in time that couldn’t possibly be altered, whereas the entire planet being devastated by climate change and nuclear war remains conveniently open to revision. It’s one of the show’s most ambitious fudges, but it’s needed to turn what could have been a funeral dirge into a rousing call to arms.

And though not quite as powerful as its story’s central message, the look of “Orphan 55” is nonetheless forcefully stunning. The Auditorio de Tenerife does a thoroughly convincing job of passing itself off as an oasis on a dead planet, while the gruesome Dregs elevate the series’ fear factor to a level unseen since David Tennant’s Doctor faced down the Devil almost fourteen years ago. Lee Haven Jones’ stylistic direction frames the CO₂-breathing apex predators perfectly – close-ups, light flares, sharp cuts and even dropped frames conspire to deliver a monster that, for once, isn’t meant to evoke any other feeling than dread.

“What you talking about?” / “Er… Er… We both have dead parents.”

However, despite the heavy subject matter and visceral horror, Hime’s script is still laden with levity. Tosin Cole’s awkward Romeo might be this episode’s beating heart, but, sucking his thumb as he convalesces and flirts, he’s at the centre of much of its humour too. Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is also at her oblivious best, interrupting budding romance with the same sort of gaucherie that she usually reserves for excessively complimenting tails, while supporting players James Buckley (The Inbetweeners, Rock & Chips) and Lewin Lloyd provide a father and son team that you can laugh at while they steal your heart. 

Make no mistake, the Doctor Who team will probably take more flack for this one than they did Chris Chibnall’s Brexit gag in “Resolution”, but it will certainly be worth it. “Orphan 55” will long be remembered as a fast-paced and thrilling adventure that made the programme’s boldest and most explicit statement about the world that we live in.

Sometimes even the Doctor can’t save the world. Sometimes it’s down to us.

Doctor Who airs on Sunday evenings on BBC 1 and is available to stream for the foreseeable future on BBC iPlayer. A season pass comprising all ten episodes of the season in 1080p HD and bonus material is also available from iTunes for £20.99, with episodes typically becoming available the day after their transmission on BBC 1. A Blu-ray steelbook is also available to pre-order from Amazon for £49.99.