Doctor Who Series 12: 10 Huge Questions After Orphan 55
5. Why Did The Dregs Take Benni?
Whilst there were no head scratchers to mull over in what was a tight and uncomplicated plot, there were nonetheless a few things that didn’t make sense. Chief among them was the fate of Benni. The Doctor herself asks Kane what every viewer was thinking – why didn’t the Dregs kill him? Kane’s answer is hardly instructive. Was she guessing when she said they were keeping him alive and taking him with them for sport? If we are supposed to imagine he was being tortured by them, then it certainly did not sound like that when he made his final request.
As it stands, Benni’s fate looks like a somewhat ham-fisted way to show Kane’s true colours. We would be clutching at straws to try and find a hidden explanation waiting to be revealed in the series finale, but that is an outside possibility. There is at least a link between the Kasaavin saying that they had taken human form to mock us, and the idea that the Dregs are having fun with their victim.
It is far likelier that this is an editing fault, given that there are a few other awkward moments in the script. At some point, with further dialogue and scenes it probably did make sense, but the cutting room floor appears to have had a detrimental effect in this episode. Certainly the Vilma and Benni scenes look to have been chipped away at the most, for instance the oddity of the off-camera “Yaz, I can’t see Benni on there either.”