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Plot outline from Wikipedia The episode sees the Doctor (David Tennant) and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) arrive at a dinner party hosted by Lady Eddison (Felicity Kendal) and her husband, Colonel Hugh (Christopher Benjamin). One of the guests is none other than Agatha Christie (Fenella Woolgar). Looking at a newspaper, the Doctor finds that it is December 8, 1926, the day of Agatha Christie's disappearance. Just as this revelation is made, another guest, Professor Peach (Ian Barritt), is found by Eddison's friend and companion Miss Chandrakala (Leena Dhingra) in the library, murdered with a lead pipe; Donna alludes to the similarity to Cluedo. The Doctor finds morphic residue on the floor while examining the scene, meaning that one of the guests isn't human. Aided by Agatha, the Doctor interviews the guests while Donna goes looking for clues. She investigates a locked room, which the butler explains Lady Eddison had sequestered herself in while recovering from a bout of malaria contracted in India forty years earlier and they had left locked after her recovery. Donna is attacked by a giant wasp after tracing a buzzing sound to a window. She scares it off with a magnifying glass. It escapes and apparently retakes human form before they can catch up, killing Miss Chandrakala along the way. Her last words are "The poor little child." At this point it becomes clear that the murder is being played out like one of Agatha's novels.
While the three mull over the evidence they've gathered thus far, the Doctor is poisoned with cyanide; however, it is not as fatal for him as it is for humans, and an odd combination of ingredients with a shock (in the form of a kiss) from Donna allows him to detoxify himself. In return, the Doctor "poisons" the guests' dinner with pepper; naturally this is not harmful to humans, but it acts as an insecticide to wasps. A buzzing sound can be heard moments later, to which Lady Eddison exclaims, "It can't be!" The lights are blown out by a sudden wind and they again fail to ascertain the identity of the alien. Roger Curbishley (Adam Rayner), Lady Eddison's son, is murdered in the confusion, and Lady Eddison's necklace, 'The Firestone,' is stolen.
In the sitting room, the Doctor and Agatha reveal several secrets about the guests and hosts. Robina Redmond (Felicity Jones) is a thief called the 'The Unicorn' who coveted the Firestone and stole it in the confusion. Colonel Hugh is not actually wheelchair bound as he appears to be; he faked the condition to make sure Lady Eddison did not leave him. The truth of Lady Eddison's bout of malaria is also revealed; she was actually made pregnant by an alien known as a Vespiform, who gave her the Firestone necklace. The necklace is psychically linked to her son, whom she had given up for adoption and never saw again. Her son is actually the Reverend Golightly (Tom Goodman-Hill), who had come to associate Agatha Christie's novels with the way the world must work because Lady Eddison had been reading one when his alien biology was awakened in a moment of anger.
Golightly, now enraged once more at being discovered, transforms into his wasp form. Agatha snatches the Firestone, and Golightly pursues her since she is now linked to it. The Doctor and Donna follow after her. Agatha leads the creature to the lake, where Donna throws the necklace into the water. Golightly follows it in and thus drowns. Still linked to the necklace, Agatha nearly dies as well, but Golightly chooses to release her as his last act. The trauma causes amnesia, and the Doctor deposits her at the Harrogate Hotel ten days later, fulfilling the conditions of her unexplained disappearance.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor produces one of Agatha's novels, Death in the Clouds, and points to the copyright page in the front. The publication date is listed as the year five billion; Agatha Christie is quite literally the most popular novelist of all time. The cover features a giant wasp, suggesting that the amnesia was not total (although the wasp in the novel is in fact of the normal variety).
Analysis by Cuisle Most television drama, be it soaps, medical, crime, even sit coms, is done in naturalistic style, with realistic sets, and as far as possible, naturalistic acting. The thing to remember about Doctor Who is that it isn’t, never has been, naturalistic. It has always had an element of the surreal, the fantastic. That’s what makes it stand out. But you can’t judge Doctor Who by the standard of something like The Bill or Casualty, or even Eastenders, where it is meant to be ‘real life’ through the fourth wall. That was why the ‘celtic’ joke worked in Fires of Pompeii, for example. Because it was a joke that the audience shared. The Unicorn and the Wasp was another time when Doctor Who was far from naturalistic. It was played in the style of an old fashioned farce. In other words, the acting is very stylised. It is actually hard to do, because it can easily look like bad acting. But Felicity Kendal’s larger than life Lady Eddison, with her over-emotionalism and her grand gestures was meant to be like that.
It was also a parody of the 1920s murder mystery genre. The sinister butler, Professor Peach in the library with the lead pipe, the flapper who was really a jewel thief, the vicar with a guilty secret, the colonel, the lady, her gay son, having an affair with the footman, were all stock characters deliberately and charmingly played up. There is no shame in that. It was meant to be like that. And add in Agatha Christie, a woman at once vulnerable and strong, hurt and disappointed, bitter, yet a strong will that rises to the occasion. The idea worked. Throwing The Doctor and Donna into that mix was a fantastic idea. The Doctor playing up the Poirot role, standing by the fireplace and questioning the assembled suspects was priceless. Their flashbacks, which The Doctor could apparently see clearly, were an extended post-modernist joke that worked magnificently.
The ultimate comedy moment was The Doctor curing himself of cyanide poisoning. It is known that The Doctor can expel poison from his body, but I don’t think it was ever done so noisily before. It wasn’t entirely necessary to the plot, but it was a brilliant comedy moment. The ensemble cast were all very well chosen and they all acted well. Felicity Kendall and Fenella Woolgar were especially excellent. I was doubtful at first about a lightweight episode in the middle of the series. But I think, in fact, it worked on many levels. It had something for literature graduates and classic movie buffs, and for Doctor Who fans at the same time.
And how many Agatha Christie novels were mentioned? I lost count.
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