BLACK ORCHID

Written by Terence Dudley.

Directed by Ron Jones.

Transmitted originally: 1 March to 2 March 1982.

[Adric] "So what is a railway station?" [The Doctor] "Well, a place where one embarks and disembarks from compartments on wheels drawn along these tracks by a steam engine - rarely on time."

THE STORY

The TARDIS arrives in England 1925 where, due to a case of mistaken identity, the Doctor ends up playing in a local cricket match. The travellers then accept an invitation to a fancy dress ball, where they discover Nyssa is identical to Ann Talbot, who is due to marry their host, Lord Cranleigh. Events take on a more sinister tone when a number of murders occur and the Doctor comes under suspicion.

Eventually, it is revealed that the murderer is Cranleigh's brother, George, a famous botanist who was horribly disfigured by South American Indians while attempting to steal the rare Black Orchid, which they considered sacred. George was driven mad by the experience and has been locked up in the house. George mistakes Nyssa for Ann, who he was engaged to, and takes her up to the roof. He is persuaded by the Doctor to let her go, but then accidently falls to his death.

CAST:

The Doctor (Peter Davison), Tegan (Janet Fielding), Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), Nyssa/Ann Talbot (Sarah Sutton), Lady Cranleigh (Barbara Murray), Sir Robert Muir (Moray Watson), Lord Cranleigh (Michael Cochrane), Brewster (Brian Hawksley), Tanner (Timothy Block), Latoni (Ahmed Khalil), The Unknown/George Cranleigh (Gareth Milne), Sergeant Markham (Ivor Salter), Constable Cummings (Andrew Tourell).

FACTS:

Actress Vanessa Paine doubled for Sarah Sutton in certain shots where Nyssa and Ann are seen together.

The Fifth Doctor, with his distinctive cricketing costume, is actually seen playing the game in this story (And he does jolly well too!)

This was the first purely historical story after 'The Highlanders' in 1966.

OTHER FORMATS:

The Fifth Doctor Novelisations

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