Spot on. I am always surprised by the fandom's extreme hyperbolic reactions to a naff episode of NuWho.

"basically the problem with orphan 55 is the shitness of everything in it"

I was laughing so hard at “would someone please shoot me”. I assume it was supposed to be chilling but it felt like a sitcom moment.

"That doesn't sound like my Benny" was golden and really shows that this episode should have been a black comedy

Stu’s BowlesTrek impression was spot-on!

Smile is actually good though aside from the resolution.

You were kinder to this episode than Council of Geeks were. Is this one of the signs of the apocalypse?

If they'd made Bella a hallucination of Ryan's (as a side effect of his Hopper virus treatment), cut out the subplot with her mother, and revealed at the end that Bella never existed, it would have made this episode a lot better.

BENNI WHERES BENNI ???

Honestly I think a lot of the outrage comes from this being seen as the status quo for Doctor Who now. Stick this same script in the Tennant era and people would say it was bad but I think they'd leave it at that. Now people see it as an example to parade around to demonstrate how bad the show has gotten overall in recent years.

Just saying the twist of the planet being earth was done way better in Trial of The timelord

If you go on IMDb, you'll see that Orphan 55 is not only the worst rated episode in Doctor Who history since 2005, but since the show's creation in 1963.

Lighter tone, space spa under siege, Graham, what's not to love? Oh yeah, *everything after the first act.* Such a good set-up, such poor execution. I reckon this script had a maximum of two drafts. I'd pay anything to read a fifth.

I never want to hear the name Benni ever again

I seriously thought the girl Ryan bonds with was a hallucination for a bit as it is sort of set up that way.

I felt like it drew more inspiration from The Leisure Hive.

At the point in the episode at 2:36 in this video, I was laughing so incredibly hard at the fact that it honestly looked like they badly photoshopped in a stock fire/explosion effect and I just couldn’t handle it

Orphan 55 may not be the best Episode, but a lot of the smaller ideas are really neat. Fake-cations, Orphan Planets, Hopper virus etc. Ooh and the Dregs are fun

Did anyone else notice how frigging jacked that mutant Human was!?!. I would say that was not mutated, that was evolved. Go ahead and F the planet up, I am gonna be total beefcake!!!.

This should have been set around the pool in the episode and they should have brought the yellow crab robot back from Paradise Towers.

Oh, corny camp charm for the friggin' win! I enjoyed the hell out of _Paradise Towers_ because it was... wait for it.... it was just simple, stupid _fun!_ I think it gets crapped on way more than it should but that's my opinion and I'm allowed to have one. Build high for happiness! :D

Nuwhos history of “worst episode ever” (not my personal opinions, just based from what I’ve observed) 2006: love & monsters or fear her 2007: last of the time lords 2008-2009: journeys end 2010: end of time 2011:the wedding of river song 2012: the angels take Manhattan 2013: the rings of Akhaten 2014: kill the moon or in the forest of the night 2015-2017: hell bent 2018-2019: arachnids in the uk or the tsuranga conundrum or the battle of ranskoor av kolos 2020: orphan 55 (unless something tops it this season)

Ah yes, the Doctor Who/Spaceballs crossover episode

An episode of Doctor Who written by Tommy Wiseau (or Neil Breen) would be quite interesting to say the least.

I find it offensive that people claim Orphan 55 is the worst episode of Doctor Who ever when Hell Bent still exists Sadly

I think someone in the editing room really earned there pay check. The pacing saved it, here is a silly thing don’t dwell on it because the next thing is here and then the next. It kind of works because you can tear it apart but it’s fun to watch (editor should get bonus for gutting the gimp from in betweeners part to nothing). Btw the correct answer is love and the monster it’s terrible, legitimately awful I mean peter Kay exists

The monsters look like something out of Red Dwarf.

I don't have many WHO stories I hate. Last time I loathed a story this much was 6 years ago with "Kill the Moon"

I will admit this episode is such an awful AWFUL episode, it is such a great laugh and perfect to watch when Drunk.

I agree that we live in a time of over-exaggeration where things are instantly labeled best or worst ever. But I'd rather watch Warriors of the Deep on a loop than this one again. And it comes down to the fact that Orphan 55 bored me and then slapped me with the meaning in the last two minutes. I don't think Chibnall quite knows how to tell a good Doctor Who story and that Whittaker is going to be for new Who what Colin Baker was to classic Who -- a good actor let down by the quality of the scripts.

Basically agree. The kick-back was kind of extreme. Despite some OK ideas, characters and camp value, I personally couldn't enjoy this episode for the same reason I couldn't enjoy The Tsuranga Conundrum; it's too manic.

I felt like it was 3 episode scripts smooshed together and then edited by an over caffeinated, on a deadline, panicking person with a big red crayon.

I didn't mind Orphan 55. On the nose, but hasn't Doctor Who always been like that? I think people have just gotten into the idea that any kind of message is "too political", and want to shoot the messenger for reminding them that maybe we shouldn't be so disregarding of consequence or responsibility. These shows can be light entertainment, but some also should take us out of our comfort zone to tell us inconvenient truths. Maybe because it's pre-watershed that prevented it from going completely Black Mirror and thus couldn't come across as more chilling and disturbing as it would have liked; I reckon some people would have been a lot more forgiving if the psychological horror was played up more. Admittedly, the revelation that Orphan 55 was Earth could have been done a lot more subtly, and thus have people into working it out for themselves - maybe just have the Doctor checking the co-ordinates, realise that they correspond to Earth, but choose to not mention it to Graham, Ryan, and Yaz, but the concept that Earth could one day just be dumped because its easier to run away from the problem than to fix it shouldn't be glossed over. What did I like about it? Well, the monsters are actually quite horrific, the make up is still pretty decent, there is at least some effort there; granted, not seeing the monster might have made them much more menacing, but when you do see them, you can admire the fact that they look some inhuman at the same time as looking like something that could come from humans.

Wow I forgot The Battle of Ranskoor existed till this video sweet sweet memories

I loved this Primeval episode

So much weird stuff in this ep. Like, this is a parallel universe Earth, that means the Doctor already travelled to a parallel universe in advance in order for Graham to be able to collect the "free holiday" tokens. If they were in the normal timeline, the holiday destination wouldn't exist as Earth would still be fine, and therefore there'd BE no tokens to collect. Furthermore, the holiday destination only existed for a short period of time. Let's say the woman that founded it and now runs it is 39. If she founded it when she was 19 (pretty early IMO) then it's been around for 20 years and now it's destroyed. That means that not only did the Doctor have to travel to a parallel universe in advance in order for Graham to collect the tokens, she also had to be in the exact 20 or less years out of trillions and trillions of years across the universe's lifetime or the destination wouldn't even exist. Too early and it wouldn't be built, too late and it would have been destroyed. Oh and then you have shit like fire burning in an area with no oxygen and everyone speaking English yet the sign is in Russian. When the Doctor speaks to the Dreg at the end it's already a massive stretch it could understand human language, yet she speaks in English but the episode takes place in Russia. The TARDIS can't be translating automatically or else the sign would've been in English. So they're in future Russia with humans and aliens yet everyone speaks modern English by sheer coincidence.

I personally feel like "Orphan 55" had to have been a holdover from Series 11 as it had that set of bland feel to it that much of that Series had...and I can accept it as such. So far, everything else I've seen this series has been pretty strong, if imperfect at times. Bland just does not seem to be the way I would describe Series 12 at this point...😅

The only story to ever have me go "wow, this is bad" are Galaxy 4 and Ranskoor Av Kolos, and out of the two, the latter is certainly worse.

Exactly... like somebody had sucked all of the fun out of Paradise Towers (which I adore) and then left it out in the sun.

I think a big thing that makes the particularly bad episodes of this era really dull to me is that the central leads have so little going for them personality-wise, so I don't have anyone to latch onto when everything around them is also boring. As bad as previous eras could get, I at least usually had more charismatic companions and Doctors to tide me over. I've been enjoying this series overall, but that's mostly because the story concepts for the most part have been more entertaining and ambitious, the characters are still the weakest element to me. I'd say 13 is definitely getting more of an edge and Whittaker is being allowed to show her acting chops a little more, but the companions are getting less development than ever.

Counter point: BENNI? BENNI! BENNI?!

the subtle ecological message was being re-enforced by the guys having Green hair

The moment I saw the trailer it looked like a Season 24 episode cos of the costume. Even the colours.

When people kept saying orphan 55 is the worst episode I forgot the one they meant and its only watching this Ive been reminded and yeh it was definitely not the worst or else id remember it and for me Forest of the Night still holds that mantle cos its such a cop out with the resolution closely followed by Hell Bent because of the awful treatment of the Doc just shooting another timelord "just cos", this one isnt memorable enough for me to feel anything about it other than the resort gone wrong template of doctor who stories which is just standard fare.

It was awful however James Buckley was the only reason I actually watched this in the end

Some ramblings about episode 5 So I really really hope that Ruth is either the VALYARD or the OTHER. Both would make sense but I’d prefer the other. It explains why she can fight and is on the run but long before the time war. The time lord aesthetic also looks very different from the normal red and gold we see in the late rasilon era. It would also be a nice way to build up the Doctors mythology and general “Whoness” (yes that is a word) whilst not being disrespected to William hartnoll as he would still be the first doctor. but a favourite fan theory of lots of people would now be canon. The doctor would still be the doctor it’s just now we know that the time lord they are loomed from just so happens to be one of the founding members of gallifray. Or the valyard, which would explain all that gunhoness. The reason why the tardis exterior looks like that is because she landed there in the late50s or early60s. But I wouldn’t like it if they pushed Hartnoll to the side and went “yeh actually no mate your not the first”. That would be disrespectful to the show in a non jokey bantering way. Any way so there’s my ramblings.

I genuinely believe that this episode is a tribute to season 24. It has aspects that feel like they relate to paradise towers, delta and the bannerman and dragonfire. It just seems silly on purpose

The biggest problem with this episode is that is just fast as fuck... They get there and shit already starts happpening at high pace plus theres all these characters to keep track of (with 3 companions being kinda pointless again). I really gave me a headache and its they stole the Ravalox twist Oh and the lady who played Kane was Lydia in Breaking Bad

ngl im on the same page as you, i enjoyed the opener so much, that going into this i was already smiling and came out liking it (aside from the ending), i cannot possibly see how it is the worst ever when Kill the Moon, Lets Kill Hitler/TWORS, Forrest of the night and hell bent are so much worse or at their worst more boring

I actually really liked this episode. I felt like I was the only one.

I recognized this as a So Bad It's Good episode from the moment i saw it.

After watching it went "Early McCoy, I'm a sucker for any Mcoy." So thank you for literally being the only other person that had this response.

"In what way is Orphan 55 worse than Ranskoor? Becuse I can't think of a single thing it does worse." Pretty sure "Hyphen with a 3" has every episode of New Who beat in the worst costume category, never mind Ranskoor. Like you said and like we all thought, it's straight out of Paradise Towers. An that's quite a feat, considering that was Classic Who's lowest point.

It's still love and monsters

Death In Heaven is my worst and hopefully will never be topped

Thank you, you’ve changed my perspective on this episode. Whether it makes me enjoy it any more remains to be seen, but I do at least have a better idea of WHY it didn’t work.

This commentary is so much better than most of what I see on the Internet.

i watched it a bit like 'The Room' and enjoyed it :D

Why wasn’t Orphan 55 an hour ? That’s really the main issue because (I hope) if they had more time they could have figured it out ???

Paradise Towers is a guilty pleasure - PEX LIVES!

Finally somebody else who called this Paradise Towers

I feel like this is on the same level as Kill The Moon in terms of piss poor political commentary! I don't know if it's definitely the "worst episode ever" because that title gets thrown around so much it's becoming meaningless but at its definitely up there. As for Nu Who's Warriors of the Deep, I have a feeling that title will go to The Tsuranga Conundrum. If I was a BBC executive and that was the episode I checked into Nu Who with I'd definitely want to cancel it.

I say this is the worst because every other episode I can find something to like, and I can't find anything to like in orphan 55. Like anything at all

Ok, just one more episode, Stu! Come on, you can do it!

I think the backlash was more visceral to this one cause of the overhyping social media over the preceding week. If they had just held back and not made it out as the television equivalent of Avengers Endgame, it probably wouldn’t have been this bad.

I love how they managed to fit more concentrated 80s into 50 minutes than JNT managed in 9 years.

How dare you Stuart! Warriors of the Deep is a fantastic episode!

I think the monsters are easily the scariest we've seen in a while.

This is my favourite episode of the Chibnall era, bar the ending. It just felt like the unrestrained fun that Doctor Who does best and that I’ve been missing from the Chibnall era. Even silly episodes like The Tsuranga Conundrum took themselves too seriously, and eh is one didn’t until the third act.

OH MY GOD I WAS WRONG IT'S BOB HOLMES ALL ALONG THEY MADE MYSTERIOUS PLANET OUT OF MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The problem with Orphan 55 is that it was in Series 12

I wouldn't say this episode was horrible, but I was definitely disappointed at the end. I think the best way for me to describe my feelings towards this episode is it's no masterpiece like Spyfall, but it's also no Tsuranga Conundrum.

Look, at least it wasn't Time and the Rani. That was true horseshit.

Loved, loved your review.

I genuinely liked this episode. Definitely one of the ones I enjoyed the most from the last few years.

I didn't mind it, it was ok, nothing bad but not really good, just meh. My biggest critism is that it would have worked better as a two parter with enough time to explore all of the things it wants to explore, rather than half explore everything. I don't mind the speech, it isn't long and makes sense with the companions from earth wanting to know if what they have just seen is avoidable and the doctor tells them something hopeful in response. Also it was like two sentances, that really doesn't annoy me much.

I enjoyed this one probably the most so far. Seems the only episode this series to pay the companions any attention whatsoever. Every other story has to shove them into a B-plot just so it can hold together. (admittedly, this episode ends up not holding together, but at least it gave it a good go.)

Orphan 55 looks bad when you compare it with the current 4 episodes that surround it. I actually don't mind Hell Bent. It's ok. The problem with it was that it was the concluding part of Heaven Sent which was an understated arthouse masterpiece. Orphan 55 was reasonably enjoyable. It was thematically unfocussed to almost a laughable degree. But it made me laugh a couple of times and it didn't make me feel particularly angry or anything. It was just kind of 'meh, well that happened. I wonder when the Master will come back…'

I completely agree. Actually I think this would have been a fairly below average to average story of it was in series 11, hardly the worst episode of 13s tenure and certainly not the worst of the show.

Yeah, that "People going to the resort to ignore the devastation around them" is a much better and more obvious message. Mt Everest has become awful because of so many people climbing it. Several of the world leaders at the moment choose to ignore climate change despite the G20 being formed and, well, 79% of emmissions is supposed to be from industry. People say that you have to be subtle to make things work. Honestly, the issue with subtlety is that it causes people to get the wrong idea. The Producers is so blatant at taking the mickey out of the far right that it hasn't been adopted by them like American History X has. You need to sometimes whack someone over the head directly with issues. Instead of saying "We need to come together", the message should have been "Your problems won't go away if you hide and don't think about it". Honestly, Doctor who's last 2 seasons can irk me at times by putting the blame on the wrong thing or not going far enough. Whilst "It takes you away" is a good episode, the dad getting off scott free without even Yaz threatening to sick CPS on him lessens my enjoyment.

Spot on Stu!

Doctor Who fans need to be forced to watch Timelash before calling any new episode "the worst ever".

At least it gave you something to talk about. The problem with series 11 was for the most part, it was all just kind of vaguely mediocre, it was boring. Orphan 55 was at least unique in its badness

Smile was amazing though

"Worst episode...." is just Clickbait cr*p, so I don't pay attention to that (and the worst is still "Love and Monsters" incidentally). Apart from the 90's Cartoon "Hey, kids, this is the moral of today's story" end speech, I wasn't too bothered with this one. As I said over at Council of Geeks, only real problem I had with it was that when they got back to the TARDIS and left the two one-episode characters to die, I found the speech particularly annoying - not for its subtle-as-a-sledgehammer commentary (although that was bad), but because they are now in a Time and Space machine and you didn't see those two one-offs die, so how about we skip the speech and go save them.

If I don’t hear an inbetweeners reference in this video I will be dissapointed

The "worst ever"s list you made went whaaa? to me as soon as you listed Hell Bent in it. Sure some people are detractors there, but it's generally really well loved from what I've seen. So it didn't develop Time Lord mythos as much as hardcore fanboys may have wanted... The Clara/12th Doc finale is generally adored. Season 9's "worst ever" was Sleep No More. Just sayin'. 😏 But yeah. Orphan 55 did feel like Chibnall had actually read all of the major gripes fandom had had towards season 11 and just decided to make an episode that was a pastiche of exactly those elements all turned to their extremes. But I did adore the hopper virus scene. Laughed hard a bunch in the first 15 minutes, even. This was still better than Forest of the Night and The Doctor's Daughter and Warriors of the Deep -- to me, anyway. Haha

Gimme Orphan55 over ANY episode of Series11, but Kerblam! any day, because, structurally, those were more boring. BTW, how is Orphan55 "Paradise Tower" and not also "The Mysterious Planet"?! Or "Inferno"?

I feel like this episode was probably about an hour and 15 minutes long but was edited down soooo much

“ how am I supposed to send the same when I don’t get much about it to do so” That’s now I feel most of the time with Doctor Who not because I hate it or am apathetic or anything it’s just I have a life I don’t want Fight over a kids TV show about stuff they’ve done before but everything in Orphan 55 they’ve done before

Stu I am in the same boat as you

if you must watch it the way you watch The Room to enjoy it, it must be the worst piece of shit, Stu 😂

As I say for ET on the Atari, did this episode cause Doctor Who's cancellation? No? Then Warriors of the Deep is still the worst Doctor Who episode of all time

I didn't mind Orphan 55. There was a lot that didn't work but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen. As for Paradise Towers, I've never seen the TV story. I only read the book adaptation. I really enjoyed the book. It was genuinely scary. And can I say...? I don't get the hate for Hell Bent. I thought it was less good than Heaven Sent. But not terrible.

Oh, I might want to ask about a source for Warriors of the Deep being cited by Grade as a reason to cancel the show. If I can find proof of that statement, then that would be helpful - I want to use it in a Doctor Who trivia event.

This is one of those very rare times that you liked an episode and I didn't, feels weird.

Firstly glad to see some love for Paradise towers - this and delta and the bannermen are great cheesy fun adventures and a guilty pleasure of mine. I also don't think this is the worst episode most claim - the ending was a bit too in your face, with the doctor basically talking to the audience - she delivered it fine but it felt like she was saying something like "so viewers what did we learn today." My biggest issue however is the lack of emotional weight to the big reveal of the planet being Earth. I get the whole deserted planet look they where going for but I'd have loved it if the planet had evidence of people once living their, that a civilization lived there. You could have for example ruined buildings, stuff that doesn't tell you it is earth though. Maybe even some other life forms, things that seem to be a mishmash of other things due to radiation and importantly are in pain. Basically you show evidence that something horrible happened - I suppose that's to show don't tell rule again. With the lifeforms in pain and all the evidence of horrible things that happened the crew feel disgusted and horrified at what has happened, and emotional because there are things in pain. That means when they realise it is Earth they also realise all that they witnessed, all that pain, was their own home planets future and then they can also come to the realisation that they are partly due to blame. Not only that but the audience also feels something - I didn't really think about what planet it could be before the reveal but the reveal didn't have enough shock or emotional value because they hadn't built it up. I did feel (at least until the Judoon episode) that this series was maybe being too over ambitious and just didn't have the time and budget to pull off the big scale stories they were trying to tell. I do like the thing you mentioned about the people living in fake surroundings basically being in denial of what is really outside which I never really originally thought of. This to would have made it more relatable as people are in denial when it comes to climate change or just don't think it is their problem or that they can do anything to help. I should also mention I didn't think the daughter really had much of a reason to do what she did. Yes her mother wasn't around but it seemed a bit far fetched for that to lead her to basically become a terrorist. Even after she'd set the bombs off she didn't really come across as someone who would do that.

Fuck the haters. This episode is hilarious and heaps of fun. You just gotta be in it for the ride. I bet ya anything it will develop a cult following over time. In fact.If anyone asks what ep to start with with Doc Who, old or new, I'ma tell 'em this one.

Wait so you like Paradise Towers? I liked it too.

Did anyone else notice how the it turns out to be earth in the future was done in Trial of a Time Lord? Also the trees on the "desolate" landscape with "no oxygen" (surely if there's trees there must be water and they must be giving off oxygen so how is planet totally uninhabitable?). Ffs xD