Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie was a famous Human writer in the 20th century. Christie was best known as a writer of murder mysteries. Her prolific body of work was in print hundreds of thousands of years after her death, establishing her as the best-selling author of all time.

Encounter with the Tenth Doctor


Christie was known for her mysterious disappearance on 8th December 1926. Her car was found abandoned and had crashed into a tree by the side of a lake; ten days later, she turned up at a hotel in Harrogate, with no memory of what had transpired in that time.

Having found out that her husband had begun an extramarital affair, she nevertheless attended a party and met the Doctor (an admirer of Christie's work) and his companion Donna Noble. Together, she assisted them in defeating a confused Vespiform after he committed a series of murders under the influence of Christie's own mystery novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. During this adventure, Donna accidentally created minor anachronisms by making references to Christie's not-yet-written Murder on the Orient Express and her not-yet-created character of Miss Marple. After defeating the Vespifom, a psychic link she had formed with the creature resulted in her losing consciousness. The Doctor, surmising that this event is what caused her memory loss and unexplained absence, actually contributed to this historical event by taking the unconscious Christie forward 10 days and leaving her outside the hotel, where she revived with no memory of the events. Despite this, however, fragments of memory later emerged in her storytelling including Donna's suggestions, as well as the Vespiform's wasp-like appearance, which inspired a plot element in her later book, Death in the Clouds. (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp).

Final meeting with the Doctor
Late in her life, soon before her death, Christie began to experience dreams and flashbacks related to her adventure with the Doctor. Ultimately, the Doctor and Donna visited her, at which point her memories of the adventure began to return; the Doctor proceeded to remind her of what happened. (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp; deleted scenes included on the 2008 DVD release).

Works
Apart from The Murder of Roger Ackryod, Christie had written five other novels by 1926. She had not yet written Murder on the Orient Express. A subconscious memory of the Vespiform remained with Christie, so that a giant wasp appeared on the cover of one of her subsequent novels, Death in the Clouds (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp). Centuries after its publication, a copy of Murder on the Orient Express found its way into the possession of Professor Lasky (DW: Terror of the Vervoids).

Christie's works were still in print as late as the year 5,000,000,000 (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp).

Other information

 * The Doctor once claimed Christie had travelled with him (BFA: Terror Firma).
 * The Doctor was a fan of Christie's work, and once told Martha Jones that he wanted to meet her (DW: Last of the Time Lords).
 * Apparently, though he admired her work, only one of her books fooled him as far as the identity of the murderer (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp)

Behind the Scenes

 * The murder mysteries of Agatha Christie had possibly already inspired the Doctor Who television story The Robots of Death, the Big Finish Productions audio play The Chimes of Midnight and, arguably, another television story, Horror of Fang Rock.


 * With the exception of Elizabeth II, who has appeared in cameos, the appearance of Agatha Christie as a character in The Unicorn and the Wasp marks the first time a "historical figure" of a person alive during the original run of Doctor Who, which premiered in 1963 has appeared on the series. This happened with the permission of her estate.
 * The deleted scenes featuring the elderly Agatha do not present a continuity issue, as Donna is seen to be basically parroting the words the Doctor said to her (regarding Agatha being the best-selling writer of all time) in the original ending, allowing both to exist. The fact the Doctor has chosen to inform Agatha about the future edition of her book as well as remind her about what happened suggest the meeting takes place soon before her death, which would place the scene as taking place in 1976.