Doctor Who's Agatha Christie Episode Was Inspired By A Bizarre True Story

Even if you're a "Doctor Who" fan with just a passing knowledge of the show's massive, six-decade-plus history on the BBC, you probably know that the cult fave has some procedural aspects built in, no matter who the current Doctor is or which person is overseeing the show at a given time. In the modern era of the Doctor, there can be a season-long arc of sorts, such as the Bad Wolf arc of the first modern season with Christopher Eccleston or when the Master became Missy for Peter Capaldi. But within that arc, there tend to be episodes that take place in the far future as well as episodes in which the Doctor inevitably meddles with their latest companion's home life. And there's almost always at least one episode set in a specific past era of British history, enabling the Doctor to encounter real-life figures like Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth, and even famed mystery writer Agatha Christie.

When the Doctor, as played by David Tennant, and his companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), met up with Agatha Christie (Fenella Woolgar) in a 2008 episode called "The Unicorn and the Wasp," it felt inevitable. (Perhaps almost as inevitable as Tennant playing the Doctor, the culmination of a lifelong dream.) Few people loom as large over British culture as its premier mystery writer, and the Doctor is nothing if not an inquisitive sort who ends up going on investigations, so meeting the legendary figure made perfect sense. On the face of it, the episode in question seems like a pretty ridiculous (in a good way) blend of sci-fi and history, as Christie goes missing while a shape-shifting wasp kills people akin to how characters die in Christie's own works. But as hard as it may be to believe, this episode is actually based in fact. Well, somewhat.

The fourth-series episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" sets the Doctor and Donna into the world of mid-1920s English upper-crust society, not realizing until it's almost too late that not only is Agatha Christie a guest at the same party they've invited themselves to, but that they happen to have arrived on the same day in 1926 when Christie disappeared, for real. In the show, Christie's disappearance is tied to the arrival of an alien known as a Vespiform that looks like an enormous, murderous wasp. Though Christie herself isn't revealed to be supernatural in some way, her presence at the party is such that the Doctor and Donna can't exactly interfere with recorded history, allowing her to get knocked unconscious and get amnesia, after which they bring her back to civilization ten days later no worse for wear.

What actually happened is always going to be, fittingly enough, something of a mystery. It's known that Christie went missing in early December of 1926, and that she was discovered 11 days later with what appeared to be genuine and severe memory loss. In real life, Christie and her husband Archie were going through such an intensely rough patch that when she vanished, some assumed he may have attempted to kill her (or that she may have died by suicide due to their strained relationship). The most maddening aspect of the disappearance, which arguably enabled the "Doctor Who" writing staff to use this event as a foundational element of the episode, is that there's still no confirmed reason as to why she went missing or what occurred in the 11 days between her vanishing and returning. Obviously, there wasn't an alien wasp involved, but also ... we don't know what actually was the issue that led to her disappearance.

As noted above, "Doctor Who" is nothing if not fond of British history as much as its own place within that cultural history. Just within the course of the modern sets of episodes, airing from 2005 to the present, the Doctor has encountered everyone from Santa Claus (as played by Nick Frost) to an Ebenezer Scrooge stand-in (as played by Michael Gambon), and other memorable Brits in between. And in that same vein, the show tries (to some extent) to be aware of actual history, not just in alluding to current events and leaders, but in acknowledging the limitations of what the Doctor can and can't do. He can, for instance, ensure that Agatha Christie doesn't get attacked and killed by a shape-shifting alien wasp. He can't, however, make it so Christie doesn't even vanish for 11 days; that much still has to happen within the confines of the historical record, even if the details never have to be revealed or unearthed.

Yet the freedom the Doctor and his companions have in traveling the vast reaches of space and time is one of the most appealing aspects of "Doctor Who." Even though there are procedural elements, and certain types of aliens who the Gallifreyan Doctor has to face off against, and even though some of the science-fiction aspects of the show are often charmingly chintzy-looking, it's all in service of a show that's always been intended to appeal to all ages. Sometimes, a kid can enjoy just watching the action and suspense of a given episode, but the show's also designed to give its all-ages audience a glimpse into actual history, even if you don't realize at the time how likely it is that one of the most famous English-language writers of the 20th century nearly had a much shorter legacy because of an inexplicable disappearance. The episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" may be utterly goofy and silly. (It's not as if this installment made it onto the site's list of Tennant's 12 best episodes.) But the creative choices that led to its existence are both fascinating and admirable.