Doctor Who: 15 Real Historical Characters The Doctor Has Met
8. Agatha Christie
The choice to visit Agatha Christie in Tennant's final full series was an interesting one, as on first glance she didn't seem to be a character with too much interest to get an exciting episode out of. Thankfully the well researched script for The Unicorn and the Wasp brings the most interesting aspects of her life to the fore here, with the mystery of her 'unexplained absence' beautifully embedded within the narrative.
The murder mystery elements don't work quite so well, mainly because Christie was not a detective and instead a writer, something we are constantly reminded about throughout the episode. Fenella Woolgar's characterisation of Christie as petite and sweet may have been accurate, but this hurts her relevance to the story, with the investigations being largely undertaken by the Doctor and not her. The revelation of an alien wasp being a killer also falls flat.
The move to have Agatha Christie as a character did do what the producers had intended, with the episode receiving strong ratings. Chief writer Russell T Davies had been working on ways to boost the mid-season ratings for the show, and adding the grand murder mystery writer into the fold proved a big hit, watched by over 8 million viewers.