Unbound # 2 - Sympathy for the Devil

An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Jumping Jack Flash’s Nineteen Nervous Breakdowns

W H A T I F . . . UNIT DATING WAS COMPLETELY REDUNDANT?!

A FILTH-y Doctor – A FILTH-y Dimension


Serial 3A – Sympathy for the Devil

The Doctor has been captured by his own people the Time Lords, a nearly-competent race who are able to control all of time and space on the weekends, and put on trial via pay-per-view "The Doctor Vs. The Time Lords - Galactic Interference Defense Match". With a cunning blend of stock footage, psychology and the Traffikanti Defence, the Doctor is able to plea bargain for his very life.

While he is still to be exiled to Earth at the start of the 1970s, the Doctor is allowed to use the TARDIS to commute on the planet, and can also choose a new appearance so people don’t keep mistaking him for one of the Three Stooges. The Doctor thus visits Dr. Greyboot’s Raddled Cosmetic Renovation Regeneration Specialists to undergo the painful process of nicks, tucks, tightening, ironing and face lifting.

Musing on all the possible regenerative forms on offer at Auto-Plasto-Mat-O-Rama, the Doctor is far from impressed. "NO! That one’s just MGarye du Pompador in a wig! No! I don’t want to be a Rastafarian with a huge conk! NO! John Travolta from Grease? I wouldn’t want to look like that, I can tell you. Glasgow Messiah Fu Manchu? Are you people taking the piss? NO! I’d look like Kojack with ears from Prince Charles! WHAT? Humphrey B Bear? Get stuffed! Mmm. That 1980s punk might be worth a go, but that Jimmy Hill jawline could poke someone’s eye out! Next! Barbara Cartland gossamer hair, Lew Grade cantilevered hooter, and clapped-out-old-has been bodywork? Oh, I really like that one. That’s really me, that is!"

And thus the Doctor is forced into the Tumble Dryer of Rassilon which is set on spin cycle until the poor sucker has been completely transformed into a doppelganger of Captain James Sawyer, insane Navy officer of the HMS Retribution whose laudanum addiction was admired by friend and foe alike. Indeed, the new Doctor is so disoriented, clumsy and prone to hysterical screaming fits that it’s possible he doped himself up on the stuff to add verisimilitude.

Now clad in ill-fitting curry-stained trousers, leather jacket and "WILL WORK FOR SEX" T-shirt, the New Doctor is thrown into his TARDIS and left for dead by the Time Lords, who have had their naughty way with the criminal and don’t care what happens to him now. Desperately, as the time machine hurtles through time and space to Earth, the Doctor sets the TARDIS to home in on the DNA of the one person who can possibly help him...

...but Nelson Mandela isn’t available for this story, so instead the Doctor chooses to home in on Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT HQ. However, it seems due to an administrative error, the local dateline is 572.0 and NOT 570.2, and the TARDIS thus arrives in 1997, not 197-whatever. This revelation proves too much for the Time Lord, who falls to the floor, gurning.

Finally, the Doctor recovers sufficiently to realize two drunken skinhead yobbos in Union Jack waistcoats and ties are trying to vandalize the TARDIS as part of their pub-brothel-opium-den crawl of the local town. The Doctor stumbles outside, violently keyed up when he is shocked to learn that not only is he in the wrong year, he has arrived on a jetty in Hong Kong!

Terrified that the stranger from the police box is, in fact, a police officer, the two yobbos attack the Doctor and try to beat the living shit out of him...

About three seconds later, the Doctor has defeated his attackers with lethal alien kung fu moves he learned while on a sex holiday on the planet Venus. Since he is not where he expected to be at all, the Doctor decides he needs a stiff drink and interrogates the yobbos.

The terrified skinheads reveal they are futures traders who are considered ill-mannered racists by most of the Neo-Nazis they try to be friends with, not that they have any friends as they drunkenly assume every single person in Hong Kong to be inexpensive prostitutes. The yobbos – Dermot and Gary, though no one is entirely sure which is which – decide to go to the only pub in Hong Kong they haven’t been expelled from already:

Little Britain!!! A theme pub celebrating the work of Matt Lucas and David Walliams who the Asian world assume to be the poster children for life in the decadent, projectile-vomit-filled West! The Doctor agrees to let Dermot and Gary live on the condition they lead him to this pub and pay for the first round.

On the way, the Doctor discovers the yobbos came to Hong Kong for one last chance to be unspeakably horrid to the natives as, tomorrow, the British government will finally throw Hong Kong back at the Chinese government, insisting that they never wanted it anyway. This is the last day for British skinheads to stir up trouble without being executed without trial and their families being charged for the cost of the bullets used.

The Doctor, Gary and Dermot head for Little Britain and discover that the pub is nearly empty. The repeats of the comedy show are not on and instead being replaced by boring educational videos from the Chinese Government about testing nuclear bombs in Inner Mongolia, intending to blow up lots of neat atomic stuff on midnight on Handover Day – it seems almost like deliberately taking the piss out of the British... which is why it was considered a suitable replacement to Little Britain and its digestive-tract-obsessed humor.

Gary’s girlfriend Dorothy works as a barmaid at Little Britain and forced to answer to the name "Myfanwy" and talk in a Welsh accent during business hours. Unsurprisingly, this has left her almost psychotically pissed off with the entire world and everything in it, in particular the Doctor when he tries to order a pint of beer in Welsh when Dorothy doesn’t understand a word of it.

Gary and Dermot meekly ask the Doctor who he is and what he was doing in a police box, when the Time Lord downs his pint and is miraculously cured of all post-regenerative illness. Soon he’s jumping up and down on tables shouting that he IS the DOCTOR!!

The owner of the pub clubs the Doctor over the head with a Winchester rifle and tells him that he’s barred. So are Dermot and Gary and, since he’s in a furious mood and likely to get deported after Handover Day, the owner sacks Dorothy as well. Dorothy hurls a pair of scissors at the owner and storms off to take out her frustrations on her boyfriend Gary as Dermot is thrown into the gutter to sober up.

As the pub landlord locks up, he realizes he’s forgotten to throw the Doctor out as well, but the Time Lord realizes that he has stumbled across an old friend. Well, someone he knows anyway. It appears the TARDIS has located Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart after all!

The Brigadier doesn’t want to talk privately with the strange man who looks like James Sawyer, in fact, he doesn’t want to talk to ANYONE, in fact, he wants to shoot anyone that dares speak to him. Things look bleak, but the Doctor is able to escape certain death by saying the only words in the English language that might make the Brigadier think twice about cold-blooded murder:

"Remember the Teletubbies?!"

The Doctor reminds the Brigadier of his 1960s obsession with Teletubbies and how it ended in the London Underground with the horrifying realization that the freaky things were evil and ugly and had to be destroyed by some kind of secret paramilitary organization. The Doctor gives him enough detail about the classified incident and vivid descriptions of Cyberman porn videos to the Brigadier that, despite his changed appearance, this man may be the Doctor after all.

Unsurprisingly, this makes the Brigadier even MORE determined at shooting the Doctor. Apart from everything else, the Brigadier has been trying to drink himself into oblivion to blot out the horrible memories of his time with UNIT. When your job is to protect against the inexplicable, how do you explain that the only proof that you’ve done your job properly is that nothing strange has happened?

The Doctor wonders if this is some kind of Buddhist parable and suggests they discuss things over a bottle of cheap Australian wine.

The Brigadier explains that he quit UNIT the day Charles and Di got married, but mainly because UNIT had become a laughing stock. He fled to Hong Kong to start a new life running theme pubs. The Doctor admits that he’s in a similar situation, except it’s completely different.

His Godlike people have exiled him somewhere where they don’t give a damn if he interferes, and what’s more have given his TARDIS a crippling inhibition circuit which means the time machine is too conservative to take him anywhere that might be interesting or sexy. Depressed at their situation, the Doctor asks the Brigadier what they do for fun around these parts?

The Brigadier doesn’t get a chance to answer as a low-flying invisible stealth bomber crashes in the beer garden outside the Little Britain.

This prompts Gary – who was being violently shagged by Dorothy in the garden at the time – to ask if the Earth moved for her as well?

The Doctor and the Brigadier emerge from the pub. The former is delighted at this turn of events, since an invisible plane suggests Douglas Adams whackiness is afoot; while the latter is furious to find the barmaid screwing her boyfriend on his property.

Suddenly, the stealth plane turns visible, making it far less interesting a plot idea. Even as the injured pilot stumbles out of the wreck; he speaks only in Mandarin, which isn’t much of a problem as everyone in Hong Kong speaks Mandarin as a matter of narratorial convenience. However, he is so drunk and slurring only the Doctor’s Time Lord telepathic powers of translation can possibly understand what he’s saying: his name is Tony and there’s another passenger aboard.

Dorothy is far more interested in getting back to having sex than climbing into a burning plane searching for a passenger who’s most likely already dead in what is BOUND to turn into some geo-political nightmare. Gary finds this extremely harsh, especially as she is a nurse and took all sorts of Hippocratic Oaths and things like that.

Rolling her eyes, Dorothy clambers inside and finds the passenger, a saturnine bearded fellow in smart black clothes. Dorothy hurls her scissors at him and this time his throat is slashed open; the passenger bleeds to death in moments. Dorothy announces that, in her personal medical opinion, he is beyond help and they can sod off.

But then something TRULY demented happens – orange energy explodes from the injured man’s skin, erupting through the holes in his blood-stained clothes. As the light intensifies, the figure sits up and shakes the energy to reveal he is a completely different person: a pale, long curled-haired man humming Rogue Traders songs to himself as he reaches out and snaps Dorothy’s neck. Laughing evilly, he begins to remove her clothes... for some reason...

Outside, the Doctor is forced to render the injured Tony unconscious so he stops singing "Lady in Red". The Brigadier finds this plot development very difficult to believe - why would the Chinese would want to sneak into Hong Kong when it’s about to be handed over to them?

The Doctor assumes this is another Buddhism-style rhetorical question, but eventually realizes that there’s actually an answer: he suspects that they’ve caught someone trying to sneak OUT of China, rather than IN to Hong Kong.

The authorities are on their way, but the first to arrive is a platoon of UNIT troops led by the no-nonsense Brigadier Winnie-Fred Bambi, who makes up for ludicrously cute and fluffy name by being horrifically and unnecessary violent in her duties. Even though she’s technically on a mission to stop a pub burning down, she has everyone beaten up, stripped naked and forced at gun point to form a human pyramid.

There’s no love lost between Bambi and Lethbridge-Stewart, though apparently there was a brief something between them years ago at the 1973 UNIT Christmas Party which left them both bitter and heartbroken. As they hurl very specific abuse at each other for their mutual insensitivity and lack of romance, no one notices the sound of Dorothy screaming in the distance.

Bambi requires a temporary field HQ, and the Brigadier sneers that HE would have brought his own. Thus, UNIT will be forced to use the building directly behind the Little Britain pub, which happens to be a Buddhist Retreat And Drum Clinic. It is full of Buddhist monks chanting night and day for world peace, specifically the chant "Ere we go, ere we go, ere we go!"

They meet the monastery’s abbot, who is far too much like Sir Alec Guiness for comfort, who accepts the temporary invasion by Bambi’s men with equanimity; this is the temple The Path of Inaction Thanks To Being To Stoned To Interfere. Though polite, the Doctor admits that he can’t just stand by and do nothing as things go wrong, as he much rather prefers a chair, or even a bean bag.

Bambi reveals she was in the area on the off-chance she might stumble across General Radbats. He defected from Europe 20 years ago to join the People’s Liberation Army, during the infamous Chocolate Purges of the 1970s where humanity gave up its cocoay goodness to prevent the Nestle Consciousness from enslaving all of mankind. Since then, Radbats developed a notorious rehabilitation process stolen from "A Clockwork Orange" which somehow transforms political prisoners into suicidal, zombie-like soldiers who act as law enforcers throughout China.

The Brigadier finds it highly unlikely that Radbats might suddenly defect back to Europe, and the idea that he might just happen to be aboard an invisible jet plane which conveniently crashed borders on the ridiculous. But Bambi didn’t get to her position of fascistic dictatorship by letting things like logic get in the way. She intends to steal the stealth technology even though it’s broken and Radbats even though he probably isn’t there, within the next 21 hours when Hong Kong is still officially English territory.

So confident is she, Bambi makes an obscene phone call to the Chinese Ambassador and laughs hysterically. When the Ambassador threatens to send in troops immediately and, in his words, "fuck the international implications!" things suddenly look serious.

Bambi has the Doctor kick Tony awake and translate his drunken and incoherent moans. Bambi promises to send the injured man out to international waters for Alka-Seltzer once she’s learned what he needs to know. Tony moans that he is not a spy and just working as Radbats’ all-purpose stooge to pay the bills. He reveals that Radbats was deliberately heading for the Buddhist retreat – the crash was an accident since Tony was completely pissed and didn’t know how to fly the plane in the first place.

Bambi is furious as it means her spurious theory that Radbats intended to defect is now disproved, and begins to cane Tony with bamboo shoots, not remotely interested in the pilot’s babbles that Radbats came to the monastery intent on collecting something of awesome significance – rather like the huge football trophy on the mantlepiece.

The Abbot explains that the trophy is an aide to concentration to help the monks focus their attention and chant incessantly in shift for nearly 150 years without fail (excluding bank holidays) to keep the sins of the world in the recycle bin of existence.

As dawn breaks, time is running out and Gary suddenly remembers his girlfriend has been missing for several hours and decides to search the beer garden for her. He stumbles across a familiar figure in a Nurse’s uniform but is not Dorothy... it is a strange curly haired man who introduces him as a complete bastard.

Gary takes the strange person back to the Buddhist retreat, whereupon he beats up the squaddies and steals their guns. He then orders the Abbot to open the football trophy. The Abbot co-operates without resistance, as is the way of the order, but is amused by such a strange desire for something that’s sole purpose is to collect fly shit as monks chant on their path to enlightenment.

The Doctor and Bambi examine the plane again and finally discover the body of Radbats... and after a few minutes of forensic pathology deduce it is actually the body of Dorothy and the real Radbats has somehow stolen her clothes and escaped. However, the only person they’ve seen in a ludicrously oversized Nurse’s outfit didn’t look a bit like Radbats! The Doctor broods that it must be a coincidence, either that or someone who can completely change their physical appearance.

The Brigadier folds his arms and stares sternly at the Doctor until the penny drops and it becomes clear – Radbats is a Time Lord! But Bambi scoffs at this gibberish, drawing the Brigadier’s ire. Old arguments break out anew, as the skeptical Bambi has no intention of having a one-night stand with her ex-lover. As the two soldiers lay into each other and the Doctor vainly tries to remind them of the plot, the monks stop chanting!

Radbats opens the trophy and finds sludge inside, pulsing with obscene life. The Abbot assumes some of the monks were using the trophy as a spittoon, but Radbats reveals this strange detritus will allow him to... dare I say it?... RULE THE WORLD!

Bambi and her men burst in and take up firing positions, but they are full of hate and fear and repressed sexual desire – unlike the peaceful monks. Their screwed up psyches awake the sludge monster and immediately turns them into mindless zombies. The goo grows stronger and possess all the monks too. The only people not effected are Radbats, the Abbot, the Doctor, the Brigadier and Bambi. Why? Because the story would get bloody dull otherwise!

The Doctor recognizes the strange transvestite Radbats as his old rival the BASTARD – but after exchanging a few insults, things get old, so the evil Time Lord has the Brigadier and Bambi locked in a toilet while he and the Doctor have a cup of tea in the kitchen and discuss weighty manners so massive that would destroy the souls of those who live in linear time.

After discussing each other’s new faces over a biscuit, the Bastard reveals that the thing in the trophy is an alien mind parasite – a spacecraft crash in China 150 years ago left several of them on Earth, which were adopted like Pet Rocks by Buddhist monks. But when the Bastard arrived in the East, Chairman Mao was taking down the monasteries and the parasites threatened to run amok.

With his brilliant business sense, the Bastard put the parasites into jam jars and connected them into some technological gubbins which allowed him to create zombie armies for the Communists, the notorious Radbats divisions. He had it made until weeks ago when he discovered that mind parasites can only steal the souls of five thousand people apiece. The Chinese Government have decided the whole thing is getting rather silly and want to blow up the mind parasites in their convenient atom bomb tests which happen to be on – nifty huh?

However, the Doctor points out a flaw in the plan – destroying the parasites will be bound to return self control the zombie soldiers and law enforcers all over China will be uncontrollable.

The Bastard waspishly points out he’s thought of that! With the parasite from the football trophy, he can control the Radbats divisions and become an overnight ruler of the entire planet Earth. If he’d actually planned this from the start, it’d be really impressive. However, the Bastard accidentally lets slip that he has been stranded on Earth since the 1970s, having lost his TARDIS to a reckless mob of alien Exxons who he was trying to coldly manipulate.

The Doctor knows that the Bastard is cunning enough to psychologically solve the inhibitions preventing his TARDIS from leaving the Earth, and does a deal – if they work together to destroy the last of the parasites, they’ll escape together, Thelma and Louise style!

Quickly they enlist the help of Bambi and the Brigadier. Using a couple of perpetually-looped tapes of the monks chanting, they are able to render the parasite dormant. However, due to lots of general wacky misunderstandings and sitcom-style bad luck it takes all day and with mere tens of minutes before midnight, they have only just finished.

Shoving the parasite into the trophy, the main cast head down to the waterfront where the TARDIS is parked, through throngs of tourists – including the hungover Dermot who’s woken up and fallen in love with a beautiful blonde from the Radbats Division called Deborah.

With ten minutes to get out of Hong Kong before the Handover and fireworks sparking in the sky above, the Bastard suddenly remembers he is evil and he doesn’t actually have to keep his promises. Drawing a gun, he steals the keys to the Doctor’s TARDIS and runs off, laughing evilly at his own naughtiness. However, it quickly becomes apparent the Bastard is still suffering from post-regenerative brain trauma as he assumes that the Doctor’s TARDIS is in the form of a Little Britain theme pub and spends the rest of the story struggling to get the cash-register-shaped console to operate.

The Brigadier finally accepts that this is his old friend the Doctor after all – what with his completely unwarranted success against unbeatable odds, and, of course, all the aliens, time travellers, mind parasites and bollocks along those lines.

The Doctor and the Brigadier head for the TARDIS where the Doctor reveals his brilliant plan – travel to Mongolia and leave it next to an atom bomb test with all the other mind parasites. The Brigadier isn’t sure this plan is brilliant, more sort of "stupendously crap", but this isn’t the time for nitpicking the plot!

The Doctor insists his plan really IS brilliant as the TARDIS lands in the middle of a Mongolian quarry filled with ominously ticking bombs and quite a few sludge-filled football trophies. By now, the Brigadier is up to speed with the plot and notes that even if these things ARE destroyed, won’t that cause every copper in China to go nuts?

The Time Lord retorts that the Brigadier is being unnecessarily pessimistic and they flee and flee back to the TARDIS as the countdown to detonation approaches zero.

It’s 11:59, and as Bambi and his men push their way through the crowd to the waterfront, only for hundreds of stealth fighters to uncloak in the air above Hong Kong: the still-rather-notorious Redbats Division sent here to retrieve General Redbats himself! Bambi and her gang of redshirts are IMMENSELY screwed.

Bambi puts all her faith in the idea that when the mind parasites are destroyed, the zombie soldiers will return to the peace-loving political activists they were once before and go home for a nice cup of tea and not trigger a disastrous international incident.

She turns out to be half right, except the soldiers turn into insane gun-wielding psychopaths who open fire on absolutely everything they can, slaughtering millions across the globe... but due to budget reasons this is shown by some stock explosions and Deboroah screaming quotations from Mao as she ventilates Dermot’s internal organs.

As disaster unfolds on Earth, the Bastard takes it with philosophic resignation and starts to sing "Sympathy for the Devil" on the Little Britain karioke machine...

The TARDIS meanwhile, arrives on an alien planet – the atom bomb proving so Freudian that it removed all the time machine’s inhibitions and allowing the Doctor freedom in time and space once more. He got over his entire exile in two days! Respect!

With the Brigadier his new companion, the Doctor heads off to look for some sexy space vixens with green hair and six breasts apiece, or simply anything that will take their mind off what’s happening on the Earth they left behind, as it’s all rather depressing.


Book(s)/Other Related –
Dr Who Failed In London? Try Hong Kong!
Doctor Who Has Sympathy for the Weevil (Canada Only)
Doctor Who Gets Head From Ace
Doctor Who And The Beard From Beyond


Fluffs – David Warner seemed Mongolian for most of this story.

"I’m stuck here, Brigadier. People in high places don’t like my attitude. They've dumped me somewhere I can’t do any harm and they’ve taken away my means of escape. I’m getting a new agent. Me, reduced to appearing in Big Finish, it’s a crying shame..."

"There’s little trouble in Big Britain. I mean, Big England. Little England. There’s nothing big happening in English Britain. Apparently. I rather got that second hand."

"The biggest military cock up since... since the last one. There have been big military cock ups, haven’t there? I do so hate using sweeping statements that are inaccurate. It just looks stupid."

Goofs -
David Tennant is in this story. But does he play his excitable, toothy future Doctor? No. He plays Brigadier Bambi. In drag. And STILL has floppy hair, gleaming teeth and a wonderfully unique way of screaming "BARCELONA!!" into the conversation at random moments. Did Angela Bruce do that in "Battlefield: Earth?" A clue: no.

Technobabble -
Gary: What are these things in the bottom of the beer cans?
Doctor: Magic widgets. They work on retro-fermentation technology.


Links and References -
Upon realizing that Radbats is a Time Lord, the Doctor narrows it down to three possibilities – the wine-peddling Monk (Serial S), a female supervillain called the Controller who looks uncannily like Wendy Padbury, and floating severed head that kills people with laser beams in-build into his eyeballs: Kappa Alpha. As ever, he turns out to be completely wrong and it was the Bastard all along. Quelle surprise.


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor visited Hong Kong two hundred years previously when it was a fishing village coming under the control of the British Empire.
There, he was instrumental in the development of the bukkake fetish. With any luck, this misadventure will NEVER be referred to again.


Groovy DVD Extras –
Pilot episode for BBC2’s aborted Doctor Who spin off and sitcom "The Porn Dwarves" starring Sam Kisgart as Nobby and Mark Gatiss as Horny.


Dialogue Disasters -

Brigadier: The thing in the jar. It’s pulsing and glowing!
Abbot: Of course it is, it’s a lava lamp!

Bastard: The Doctor? Pah! I’ll deal with that spotty herbert later! Oh, look. little girl! Meditate on THIS!

Deborah: So much for al fresco sex.
Tony: Oh, I love when you talk Italian!

The Doctor on the script:
"It’s worse than I thought. He’s completely ripping off Andy Frankham’s series. I shall complain when this is over!"

Abbot: I suppose I’m what they call a bulletproof monk.
Bastard: I sincerely doubt that.
(He shoots the Abbot through the head)

Doctor: Your English is very good.
Dorothy: It should be, I’m from Slough.
Doctor: Slough? In that case, your English is incredible!

Doctor: WANK? Oh yes. World Allied National... er...
Brigadier: Killingforce. Yes, a disaster, an utter disaster. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. The Thargon Intelligence, reptile people from the Pre-Cambrian Age, inter-dimensional Sarf London arms dealers, cacaodemons...
Doctor: Really?!
Brigadier: Hah! Psyche! Get me another drink, damn you.

Dermot: I’m going to be rich, me. Stahlman Gas, matey! My hot pointless continuity reference!

Brigadier: I don’t recall your face.
Doctor: Well, you see, back then I had a different face.
Brigadier: What did you look like?
Doctor: Patrick Troughton.
Brigadier: Oh, the mad priest in The Omen.
Doctor: Something like that.
Brigadier: And now you’ve moved up to the photographer in The Omen. What next, you’re going to turn into Gregory Peck? Get real!


Dialogue Triumphs -

The Brigadier adapts to the life of running a pub -
"Dorothy? Table four, if you please. Five rounds rapid!"

Bastard: Who might you be?
Doctor: I walk in the shadows. Just like you.
Bastard: Doctor? THE Doctor? My old roomie!
Doctor: I’d know that smug sophistication no matter which women’s clothing you were wearing.
Bastard: I am the Bastard.
Doctor: Is that what you’re calling yourself now? Still, anything’s better than "Wank Lord"...

Doctor: I am Doctor Who
Abbot: Dr Hu? You mean Dr Tiger?
Doctor: No, Doctor WHO.
Abbot: Dr Fox?
Doctor: No, I am DOCTOR WHO!
Abbot: Dr Xue? He Who Tends To The Sick? You’re Dr Doctor? Do you have any idea how retarded that sounds?

Doctor: If you have the last parasite on Earth, you become the only man in the world who can control the Radbats Division. You’d be a new emperor overnight.
Bastard: I will save the world from anarchy overnight.
Doctor: You’d save it by not joining those thieving Commie bastards in the first place!
Bastard: I’m trying to set things right.
Doctor: By becoming ruler of the world?
Bastard: Is it so difficult to believe? You interfere all the time!
Doctor: That’s rich, coming from YOU!
Bastard: You have no grasp of the big picture! You just turn up and help the little people on the off chance you might get a few free drinks and a shag with the landlord’s daughter! You never think of posterity! Posteriors, maybe, but never posterity! WHY IS THAT?
Doctor: BECAUSE WE’RE *ALL* LITTLE PEOPLE! THAT’S WHY! I make a difference where I can with the people around me - and if there are few complimentary narcotics involved, fine! I can’t change everything but I CAN make a difference for the common good. Chicks dig that.
Bastard: Chairman Mao spoke ever so highly of you, you know, Doctor! You gave him tips in how to be a pushy egomaniac!
Doctor: I thought he was part of an amateur dramatics group and just happened to stay in character all the time!
Bastard: You could have stopped him! You’ve let entire cultures, entire races die!
Doctor: Bollocks. I always commit genocide DELIBERATELY! Otherwise it’s no fun!
Bastard: Try telling that to the lizards, and the dinosaurs!
Doctor: Oh boo-hoo. What have you done to preserve ecology? I don’t need a lecture on situational morality from a Bastard like you!
Bastard: Where were you during the Chocolate Purges? What a shame you weren’t able to put your diplomacy to use on Mars Probe 7?
Doctor: What are you dribbling on about?
Bastard: YOU SEE?!? That’s why there’s a series of mile-wide craters where every last Indian takeaway and curry house once stood!! I HAD TO LIVE THROUGH IT ALL! The chaos, the panic, the shortages, the fashions...
Doctor: I haven’t been here since Tommy Roe were in the top ten!
Bastard: It shows! I didn’t see you at My Lai, Doctor! I didn’t see you in East Timor! No interfering in Rwanda, I see! I admit there was a bloke in a scarf trying to sort out Cambodia, but I’m not convinced it was you popping back to sort things out! Where were you in Tiananmen rolled in and the masses heaved?!
Doctor: I bet YOU were driving one of the tanks.
Bastard: Oh, no, don’t drag ME into this! We’re talking about YOU!!
Doctor: Oh for fuck’s sake...
Bastard: POL POT KILLED EVERY DOCTOR HE COULD FIND AND NONE OF THEM WAS YOU!!
Doctor: Talk to the hand.
Bastard: I’ve been stuck on this miserable planet for the last twenty-seven years and I’ve done EVERYTHING I can to get your attention! I’m beginning to think you don’t fancy me any more...


Brigadier: This stopped being a Public House ten minutes ago. An Englishman’s home is his castle. Trespassers will be shot. Unless you’re the Chinese Takeaway and you’ve FINALLY turned up with my crispy duck and extra steamed rice, in which case trespassers will NOT be shot but sure as hell won’t get a tip!


Viewer Quotes –

"Doctor Who Unsoiled? Doctor Who Unnecessary more like! A full five minutes of drunken behaviour on audio make up the incredibly irritating opening scene. I hope there’s no more of this in the Unsoiled Range!"
- Bloke Who Hanged Himself When "Whose Exile Is It Anyway?" Was Released

"Ewen Campion-Clarke, for example, will probably hate it. In fact, a lot of people will probably hate this play. But that’s largely their problem. I got paid. That’s good enough for me."
- EC Unauthorized Guide Exclusive Interview with Nigel Verkoff (2004)

"Now, Dorothy may be from Slough, but that's no reason to take it out on the rest of us. She’s what’s called a Brittle Woman. What this means is, she’s always angry about something. When the Doctor arrives, she’s angry. When she can’t see the airplane, she’s angry. When her boyfriend goes in search of survivors, she’s angry. She’s ALWAYS bloody angry. And it irritates the hell out of me! It’s like Kate Warner in the first few episodes of 24. JUST BLOODY CALM DOWN AND STOP BITCHING FOR EIGHT SECONDS!" - Spartha 'Ballcrusher' Jones (2006)

"My brother lives in Hong Kong, and he regales us with fascinating stories about the handover to China. The uneasy feeling of many, coupled with the inevitability of the event. I am eager to talk to my brother-in-law more about this fascinating place that he seems to adore, about why he never told us about the zombie psychopaths machine-gunning Buddhist monks to death at the behest of alien mind parasites. I mean, he FORGOT to mention this?!" - Mr Stoner (2009)

"Harmful elements in the air, cymbals crashing everywhere! Oh dearie me, is that the time? Better move on. Does it work? Well, to quote the Simpsons, short answer, yes with an if, long answer, no with a but."
- Dave Restal (2003)

"Imagine a world where there were multiple Vietnam wars. Imagine a world where there is a line of mile wide craters across the United States. Imagine a world where a certain UNIT Officer ordered the saturation bombing of Surrey. Imagine a world where there is a lake in the center of London. Imagine a world where the Doctor hasn’t been around since the late 1960s. Imagine a world where the Doctor wasn’t there to keep the monsters under the bed. Whatever you think of next will be a better story than Nigel 'The Blessed Virgin' Verkoff can ever provide in this lifetime." - Andrew Beeblebrox (2005)


David Warner Speaks!
"I don’t think that taking on the role of the Doctor is daunting, just because it has such a history, or a present or future or whatever it’s all about time anyway. I’m just glad to be a part of it. And to be paid. I do so enjoy being paid. I’m very excited, actually, playing the Doctor. And being paid for it. It’s a wonderful idea. There’s a wonderful charm about science fiction without being too heavy. Wonderful, escapist, Saturday tea-time entertainment. And it’s better written than Star Trek, which balanced out the occasionally interesting idea with overcomplicated audience-unfriendly adult wanking. Still, that’s life. There were a lot of people of my age and generation who wanted to be starts, but that wasn’t what it was for me. it was just the thing that I was best at, rather than an athlete or an academic. I just like acting. And being paid. That’s the best part of it. Perhaps I should have a word with someone, because I’d really rather like to do another Doctor Who story. And get paid for it. I think it’s a rather good, no, a smashing idea, me getting paid. If given the choice, I’d much prefer to get paid in this kind of atmosphere on a smaller, friendlier production then get screwed by a blockbuster movie."


Nicholas Courtney Speaks!
"It’s a puzzling script this time round. I think he’s drunk a lot of bitter in this, the Brigadier. I was very uncertain about how to play him time. It seemed out of character for him not to want to help the Doctor blow up aliens. But eventually I just drank enough cheap corner shop plonk I could really believe it was more comfortable sitting at a bar then storming a Buddhist retreat with a machine gun. Some people say I take the role too seriously, but they can say what they like. I don’t have a drinking problem. I can give it up whenever I want!"


'Sam Kisgart' Speaks!
"Playing the Bastard is a dream come true, just not as impressive as playing the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. I’d like to do all the big parts. Hamlet. King Lear. Z Cars. Oh, but this is marvelous fun, although I don’t actually understand a word of it. All mumbo-jumbo to me. I always wondered why no one asked me to do Doctor Who – I mean, I was around, often stalking the cast, but they never asked. Is it still running? I don’t really care, but it’s best to sure of the facts. It isn’t? They should bring Doctor Who back, shouldn’t they? Get some new bitches into it for me to lust over. It’s a national institution. Like Bedlam. Silly old BBC. It wasn’t the same after Jon Pertwee put the restraining order on me and left to marry Nick Courtney. Yes, I was pretending to be a Spanish smuggler from a Sunday night ITV sitcom called Felch, but I still got carted off to prison. Actually, Dave Warner is an old chum, we strangled a seagull together in 1968 and I haven’t seen him since. No one remembers us killing sea birds, but we were incredibly proud of even though no one saw it. Oh, and Nick Courtney, of course – donkey’s years ago, we were both at ballet school in drag perving on the nubile nymphets in sweaty gym-slips. We looked damned fine in leotards, I can tell you. And when I turned around they all had very firm, young bottoms. Aw yeah. One could write a book!"

You aren’t fooling ANYONE, you silly little man.

"You’re no fun any more! Oh, all right then. Cunt."


Mark Gatiss Speaks!
"Yes, it was me all the time! It was a dream fulfilled to play the Bastard. There was no point in just trying to do a Delgado, because each incarnation of the Bastard should be as sexually ambiguous as the Doctors. So rather than mindlessly copy Delgado or Ainley, I mindlessly copied Christopher Walken and Goerge Costigan. I want to be the first person to play the Bastard AND the Doctor! Preferably in my Project X proposal the BBC are BOUND to use to bring back Doctor Who. Mark my words, the only way they’re going to revive the show is by COMPLETELY rebooting it! The first episode will end with the Dustbins turning up and the Doctor not having a CLUE who they are! It must in no way have ANY connections to the old show – what happened last week is ancient history! And the Doctor should be doubly-amnesiac to make sure! If they tried to sell a series which acknowledged for briefest moment that it had something to do with Tom Baker, it’d go down the drain!"

(Ed Note 2008: I just quoted this bit sadistically remind everyone how utterly wrong he was and why we can thank our lucky stars they got RTD to do it instead. "The Idiot Box" was shit, too, wasn’t it?)


Rumors & Facts –

Big Finish’s Unsoiled series was designed to take the history of Doctor Who, stick it upside down into a blender and burn the delicious results onto compact disc and sell at profit. However, there was a slight problem as only four possible scenarios presented themselves:

1. What if the Doctor was EVIL?!!
2. What if "The Wank Games" ended differently?
3. What if "An Unruly Child" started differently?
4. What if Nicholas Briggs WAS the Doctor?!?!???!?

After formally ignoring the last one for as long as it was humanly possible, producers John Ainsworth and Jason Haigh-Ellory decided to simply tackle the first three twice, so there would be 'pathetic uber-nerd take' and 'semi-literate professional' take on the same ideas, with Gay Russell, Mark Plate and Nicholas Briggs in the former category and Steve Foxx, Nigel Verkoff and Rob Shearman in the other.

Verkoff was given the premise of point number two, and cunningly suggested a story where the Third Doctor arrived on Earth thirty years late and the world was overrun with Bilurians and the Brigadier and UNIT were fighting to the bitter end. Everyone agreed it was a brilliant plot, but one adequately explored in Jim Mortimore’s "Brood On Heat" New Adventure novel... a copy of which Verkoff had in his hand as he pitched the story to Ainsworth and JHE.

Despite his insanely graphic descriptions of the opening scenes where a UNIT squad are decimated by shrieking raptors in a post-nuclear-holocaust wasteland, Verkoff was brutally crushed and left not only with having to come up with a brand new plot, he had to feature Mark Gatiss as an Unsoiled Bastard, as he was already playing an Unsoiled Doctor in Nicholas Brigg’s take on point number two, "Whose Exile Is It Anyway?"

Depressed, Verkoff turned to his stepsister Bernice Yang for inspiration. She suggested a story featuring the Bastard and a gang of desperate criminals armed with hand grenades robbing Hong Kong jewelry stores in order to repair his TARDIS. She then demanded he get out of her en suite bathroom while she was bathing, and get on with writing the damn thing himself.

Now brimming with insane enthusiasm (not to mention a worrying amount of sexual frustration) Verkoff set out to pen a story specifically designed to target every single thing Big Finish were crap at: foreign accents, people being drunk, swearing, stabs at youth culture, and of course the entire plot resting on a line of Cantonese dialogue Jon Pertwee fluffed in The Beard of Evil.

The script had to undergo numerous changes when it was revealed that the Third Doctor would be played by none other than David Warner (aka Prime Evil from "Time Bandits" and the Bloke Who Got His Head Cut Off in "The Omen"). Big Finish had wanted to use him for Shagged'er II in some fashion best left unspecified, and also had enough blackmail on him to get him to play the lead in their Sapphire & Steel audio dramas until it was decided that Susannah Harker looked sexier in a blue dress than Warner did. He was also considered for the role of the Fourth Doctor in 1975... but pretty much EVERYONE was considered for the role of the Fourth Doctor in 1975. Even Mr. fucking Pastry was up for the job for crying out loud! It’s only the fact that I wasn’t born in 1975 that prevented ME for being up for the job as well!

Sympathy For The Devil is essentially a reworking of the Doctor’s arrival on Earth following his exile, with Verkoff pretty much sucking every last possible plot point from every Third Doctor he could find on DVD. If a better author tried this it could easily be construed as selecting elements from existing stories into a different context to help emphasize the central theme of the play, but Verkoff’s skill-free writing guarantees it feels like a rehash through and through.

But then, writing the script WAS hampered further by Verkoff’s drunken housemates who bet a year’s washing up duty that he couldn’t reference every single lyric from the Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for the Devil" throughout the dialogue. This lead to plenty of rather odd random exchanges like...

Brigadier: The Radbats Divisions run law enforcement throughout China.
Doctor: Ah. So every cop is a criminal?
Bastard: Please allow me to introduce myself... I am the Bastard. And you WILL obey me.
Brigadier: But what’s puzzling you now?
Doctor: The nature of his game, Brigadier. The nature of his game.
Brigadier: Stand aside or I’ll lay your soul to waste! Thank you.
Owl: Whoo-Hoo. Whoo-Hoo. Whoo-Hoo. What’s mah name? Whoo-Hoo!

Finally, Verkoff gave up, renamed the story from "The Lust Stand" to "Sympathy for the Devil" and added the final scene where the Bastard does a cover of the exact same song. Despite this, his housemates considered this unsuitable and refused to honor the agreement...


Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a Bastard of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for twenty long years
Stole many a man’s wallet and face
I was round when the Brigadier
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Thatcher
Left you to your to your fate!

Pleased to meet you
Hope you’ve guessed my name!
But what’s puzzling you?
Is it the nature of my shame?

I stuck around Weevil’s End
When I thought it was a time for a change
Killed Lew Grade and his Morris Dancers
Jo Grant screamed in vain
I rode a tank
Held a generals rank
When the Autons raged
And UNIT fought back

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah!
The Bastard and Radbats
Are the one and the same, oh yeah!

I watched with glee
Clangers and Teletubbies
As Ambassadors of Sex
Destroyed USA as a debt!
I shouted out,
"Who killed the Kennedies?"
When I’m pretty sure
It was Gandhi!
Let me please introduce myself
I’m a Bastard of wealth and taste!

And I deserted to the Communists
While Europe was left to fall hard!
Why did I nearly spark a war
It’s obvious! I am the BASTARD! Oh yeah, get down, baby!

Just as every cop is a criminal,
All the Buddhists are yobs,
Never mind UNIT brutality
I’m sure they’re only doing their jobs!

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy!
Have some sympathy!
And some restraint!

Use all your well-learned poly-tech
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste! Um, yeah!
Pleased to meet you
You better have guessed my name! Um yeah!
Seriously, are you stupid or something?
Gah, you apes are the same! I MEAN IT! GET DOWN!!

Tell me baby, what’s my name?
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name?
You’ve had plenty of clues, sweetie...
No idea? Sod this for a game!