Wednesday, July 1, 2009

JKF Doctor - Halcyon Putrefaction

Doctor Who--The Superiority Complex Audio Dramas
A short story involving the Doctor as played by Jeffrey Coburn
"Hackneyed Putrefaction"
by Sub Parr

(Note: Set between 'The Pretension Society' and 'Objets D'art')


* * * * *

Suddenly, red warning lights began to pulse over the control room. Before the Doctor could say a word, a blasts of steam began to gush from under the console. Flakes of burnt polycarbons fluttered in the air. The TARDIS trembled alarmingly, as the sound of twisting metal began to be heard all around.

Chris looked around with much less panic than the Doctor. "You didn't actually repair the TARDIS before we took off, did you?

The Doctor tried to look nonchalant as he dodged blasts of burning steam. "Let's not play the blame game right now, Christine," he said as the corridor beyond the control room broke out in flames. Smoke rolled into the room and began to obscure his vision as he tried to check the controls. "It's YOUR fault after all, you stupid girl, you should have reminded me!"

The underside of the console exploded messily, creating a fresh inferno. The Doctor sprinted from panel to panel of the console, desperately trying to regain control of his beloved ship as the heat of the expanding fires singed his back. Realization struck them both that they had nowhere left to run to and soon nothing even to run from.

"Save us, Doctor," said Chris with a deranged calm before she realized which incarnation she was stuck with. "Doctor!" screamed Chris, directing all her annoyance and frustration at the Time Lord she had been lumbered with when he transmogrified into a complete jerk.

"Just hold on, Christine you stupid peasant," sneered the Doctor, trying his utmost to hide the sheer panic that'd been haunting him ever since he woke up after regenerating. It was utterly apparent to everyone with a central nervous system how utterly useless, pathetic and clueless he was - he couldn't even dematerialize the TARDIS properly!

In desperation, the Doctor pulled a lever in the vain hope that, against all the odds, it would magically save his sorry and surprisingly large gluteus maximus.

It didn't.

Because it wasn't a random lever programmed to trigger a precise set of circumstances to miraculously save the time machine and it's occupants.

It was the door control.

The Doctor turned to watch the double doors right before him swing open, revealing the time vortex. His brain raced through a million possible epithets as he was viciously torn from his own two feet and out of the TARDIS into the maelstrom, but he ultimately had to settle for screaming the word "Bugger!" at the top of his voice.

Unable to do a single solitary thing as he plummeted through the vortex, the gravitational pull of the recently departed planet sucked the tubby Time Lord into the deep void of inner time.

Behind him, barely clinging onto the console, Chris hurled abuse at him. "You're a complete failure, you weak, spineless dog! You cheap, smug idiot! I only met you for a day and I hate you more than anyone else I have ever met you arrogant, selfish, self-centred insensitive bastard!

Another violent shudder, only this time more devastating, ripped through the
TARDIS. It received a generous welcome from the audience and was confident enough to follow itself with an encore, this time accompanied by a terrific explosion that was overacting slightly due to first night nerves.

The upshot was that the TARDIS shattered, segmenting the structure into several different pieces. Which is what "shattered" means in case I'm going too quickly. Despite the disintegration of the time machine around her, Chris continued to heckle the Doctor as he hurtled into oblivion.

"You actually think you're an improvement on the last guy?! I hope you die horribly, you callous, spiteful hypocritical, moronic braggart!"

Wow, the Doctor thought. She really HAS expanded her vocabulary.

But the Time Lord knew she spoke the truth. He was a complete and utter failure and his life was not so much 'over too quickly', but 'long overdue to die'.

"I'm sorry, Christine," he said, which might have been poignant if anyone could hear him. "I'm so sorry I EVER MET YOU! I'm sorry I ever ALLOWED YOUR POISONOUS EXISTENCE INTO MY LIFE, TO ROB ME OF MY BEST YEARS AND LEAVE A SHRIVELED-UP HUSK! YOU ARE NOTHING, AND DESERVE TO DIE LIKE THE WHORE YOU ARE!!"

He ran out of insults at that point and had to settle for making vulgar hand gestures and stupid noises. With Christine no longer in his sight, he only had the belief that somewhere, somehow, she was dead and gone forever.

By now, the Doctor was speeding through the vortex like a Ferrari down a racetrack if the racetrack was a long, long tunnel of butterfly hues with a blinding light at the end of it. It was like a near-death experience. Or a near-sex experience. Or, indeed, both for your kinky customer.

As the Gallifreyan continued to hurtle through the vortex,

The multicolored energy that made up the walls of the tunnel began to close in on the Doctor as he continued to hurtle forwards. Like a really messed up screensaver, the walls engulfed him, interfering with biological cells and... whatever else type of cells he had. This in turn corrupted his already shagged-out and thoroughly-knackered DNA.

Helpless and pathetic, the Doctor could only make incoherent, scared shouty noises and weakly flapped his hands in front of his face. Did this hold back the energy swarming around him? Did it bollocks!

His life (for want of a better world) was over.

This Doctor's short, unproductive and thoroughly dull timeline was being undone! Every memory of him, every action he had ever performed (not that there were many of those) were being dissolved, surgically removed from time! The timelines were knitting into a new pattern, and causality healing over him! He was being retconned out of history itself!

"This is just like that Red Dwarf episode!" the Doctor wailed.

Covering his bloodstained face with his scorched hands, the Doctor could only wail pathetically like the crybaby he was as his worthless existence was wiped away to be replaced by someone who would be less of a complete loser.

All my glorious work will be undone, he thought, before it struck him he hadn't DONE any glorious work. He hadn't done anything. He had done absolutely nothing - and he couldn't even hang on to that!

Every bone in his ugly, overweight body clicked and adopted a new physique. He felt the hairs of his ridiculous moustache regressing into his skin, facial features changing... as indeed was the rest of his physicality. Suddenly, the limbo Doctor snapped into reality.

* * * * *

Things change...

* * * * *

"I'm afraid... afraid... that I'm more beat up than I've let on," the Doctor wheezed to Chris as they stood by the gutted console. "But with any luck... I can still survive... without having to do the whole... body changing repair deal..."

"Uh-huh," said Chris flatly, not understanding a word.

With considerable effort, the Doctor managed to hold up his hand out before him and stared at it apprehensively. The veins shimmered with a golden light for a moment, and then the strange glow was gone. The Doctor cheered up instantly. "Oh, no," he said brightly. "False alarm..."

He trailed off as he realized his whole hand was suddenly glowing with the orange light.

"Aw, crap... No, I can't go through with it... I can't... I won't! I will NOT give in... I defy augury, so destiny can go hang!"

And suddenly, the Time Lord was propelled backwards with a blast of golden light. He clutched his stomach as though he had been punched, then fell to the ground in a dead faint.

"Doctor!" he heard Chris shout at an ear-bleeding volume.

But for some reason, he couldn't see her... whoever she was. Memories were shifting in his head, moving like ghosts. His vision was blurred and dim. Through the darkness, a familiar figure appeared.

"Hi, Doctor," said the Bastard with insane glee. "I'm back. Mind if I cut in? Cause now you're out of the way, the universe is mine! Unless you want to play for keeps? Do ya know what it's like to be hit, Doctor? To be struck down, to have your hearts torn out and cut up into pieces? Do ya know what I'm talking about Doctor? Any idea? Do you want fries on the side? Sir? Can I help you, sir? Do you wanna fry? You're gonna fry... I love these psychological games! Go on, little boy. Let yourself die. Why don't you die? Don't have the guts, eh? Finish it off! What are you waiting for? Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile... smile... smile..."

The puckish redhead was blurring now, and as the Doctor tried to focus he realized he wasn't looking at the Bastard any more, but at his old companion Commander Mark Tryhard who was looking down at him in disgust.

"Honestly, Doctor, just look at yourself! Lower than this you cannot sink!" he sneered distastefully. "Pull yourself together, trigger a full scale metabolic change and get over yourself - for the love of god, you are an immortal Time Lord of Gallifrey and you're dying from a couple of pissweak cuts and grazes which any loser with half a brain cell could have avoided... You're a weak, spineless dog and don't ever summon me on a deathbed flashback ever again! DOCTOR, YOU MAKE ME SICK! THE WORLD WILL BE A BETTER PLACE WITHOUT YOU!!!"

The fury of the soldier's words caused his form to shimmer and blur and then Mark was gone. In his place was Colonel Charles Chrichton of UNIT Britain, who had red, puffy eyes and was gnawing on his own fist as he looked around him.

"You all hate me!" he was sobbing. "Yes, you do, you ALL hate me! And I know why! It's because I've got a tin leg, isn't it?! I had a Japanese Samurai sword, and I don't know where it is! I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate everything! Oh, Christ, I've got the fear again!" he was screaming as he collapsed to the floor, hugging his knees to his chest as he let out a wail of despair.

Standing over them both was Dara Hamilton.

"Look on the bright side, Doctor," she said, twirling her dyed hair around one finger, "you got to meet ME before you died, and you know that so many people depend on ME and I'M the one who mustn't die! I still have so much to do! I'm far too important to waste time on you, so I'll just dance erotically as the last thing you ever see... GOD, I am SO hot right now!"

Suddenly, she began to remove her clothing revealing hideous pale flesh shot through with blue veins like certain English cheeses. On the verge of a full blown hysterical fit, the Doctor found the energy to sit bolt upright. "DARA!!" he shouted, as he realized he was in the TARDIS. The only other person was Chris, who was looking at him in confusion.

"Doctor! You still live... what an anticlimax!"

"My past is catching up with me!" the Doctor gasped hoarsely. "Oh, god that was frightening! Is there no escape except oblivion?! I must try to regenerate into someone halfway fistworthy..."

The Doctor realized that he was falling backwards, his spirit separating from his body painlessly as numbness spread. His old form was sloughing like the skin of a snake as everything lost clarity and substance. Energy exploded from his very skeleton in a burst of lightning, and in the blink of an eye everything shimmered, rippled and renewed itself. Suddenly light flooded back into his world. A taller, gangly figure was left on the floor with a long face, strong cheekbones, a very sharp nose and a mouth slightly wider than normal. The tabby-grey-haired figure looked like he could act convincingly as well.

"Who art thou? What hast thou done with my lord Doctor?" Chris demanded.

"You talk too much do you know that? Always asking questions! Maybe if you shut your fat gob for a second you'd know what was happening, hmmm? What do you do anyway?"

"I do not understand..."

"Obviously. What's the point of you being here? Do you usually just stand around and make the place look messy? Why don't you make your self useful and go and get me something to drink? And not tea! That's not a drink, that's bathwater! Bring me something stronger, wench!"

It was at that moment Chris headbutted him unconscious.

* * * * *

The New, Proper Doctor squinted his newborn eyes at the bright, shining white light at the end of the long and treacherous tunnel. As it grew closer and closer, brighter and brighter, the Doctor had but one thing to say before he struck the light:

"I just BET no matter what I say, it's taken out of context..."

Upon contact, there was the distant sound of an explosion and the vortex was empty once more, as if we had simply cross faded to some stock footage of the title sequence. But that, of course, would be ridiculous.


* * * * *

Things change...

* * * * *

With a low rumbling tremor not unlike someone accidentally leaning on a mixing desk and blinding flash of light exactly like a cheap CGI screen-wipe, something hurtled into reality and landed in a patch of marshy grass in a bleak, dreary, dark and morose dump. The sort of place that smelled like a graveyard on a rainy afternoon and mobs of torch-wielding townsfolk chasing demons was the highlight of the social calendar.

Wild-eyed and gasping for breath, the Doctor looked uncomprehendingly around the ugly and alien world he now occupied. Everything was hazy, dreamlike, full of shapeless forms. Even sound seemed to be happening too rooms away.

He was obviously completely stoned.

Numbly he wandered up the road, his lazy, stuttering steps kicking up rocks. He squinted, trying to get his bearings. Thoughts seeped into his consciousness. Lost in the wilderness of space time with no hope of rescue. Condemned to a life of pointlessness. Still, at least there was somewhere to get some booze.

Ahead was a pub with a sign saying HOPE THE LANDLORD'S INN. Two ethnic stereotypes in turtleneck sweaters and beanies were sitting outside, sharing narcotics and chatting about the weather.

The Doctor's eyes drifted, as he wondered if he was hallucinating.

"Look at that bloke coming down the road obviously weakened and injured!" said the more stupid-sounding local. "He looks to be in bad shape!"

"I'm not blind, ya daft twat," retorted his companion. "Come on, let's help the poor fool."

"Excuse me, sir? Sir, are you all right? Sir?"

The Doctor stared at him impassively. "Christine," he mumbled.

"Christine?" asked the other. "Is that your wife? Or your daughter?"

"Maybe some ruffians jumped them up the road."

"Oh get real."

"What?"

"Who says 'ruffians' in real life?"

"Christine... TARDIS... gone..." the Doctor said. Who were these idiots? What was he doing here anyway? Why did his head hurt? Who was he, anyway?

"Poor sod is delirious! Or on cheap smack."

"We need to get him to the doctor."

"That'll be the one that died a few days ago, will it? Moron."

"That was..." the Doctor said, holding his head, "either the biggest hangover in history or--"

He didn't finish and he suddenly collapsed. One of the rednecks caught him, he couldn't be bothered to tell them apart. "Whoa! I've got you, mate."

"Least I'm finally free of that tart Christine," the Doctor told them with a beatific smile two seconds before everything went black.



THE END

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Halcyon Putrefaction
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Doctor Who
Jeffrey Coburn

Doctor Who
Jym De Natale

Doctor Who
James K Flynn

Christine Thunder-Wing Doom-Slayer
Rachel Sommers

Graphics
I See No Graphics!

Additional Script
Julio Iglesias

e-Book Concept
James Quack

Doctor Who copyright SCAD. This is an official production. No infringement from the lying bastards in the BBC will be tolerated.
It's ours! IT'S ALL OURS! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

JDN Doctor - The Perfection Society

One Hundred And th Entry in the YOA Unauthorized Programme Guide Finite Imagination Appendix O' Silver Genesis!


1E - The Pretension Society -

CD Blurb
---------------

Fleeing an Earth corrupted by passions, cruelty, and hatred, the people of Perivale sought to create the perfect society. They failed miserably, so let's talk about something more interesting happening in Saffron Waldon.

As the twenty-first century dawned, could man overcome his very basic nature? Would Pokémon replace real pets? Is having an unhealthy obsession with a computer game character as valid as having a relationship with a real, living person who CAN'T disembowel mutant ninjas?

When the Doctor and Chris arrive on a world frighteningly similar to our own, since it IS our own, and they find a society about to revolutionized by a wonder drug called Cyberon which can fix permanent brain injury, incurable diseases, bad posture, hangovers, depression, constipation and disco fever. Can the Doctor save a society whose zeal for technological advancement and physical superiority will ultimately lead to their own extinction? Why should he bother? Or will time run out as Chris falls in love with a good looking bearded villain and run off to the Bahamas before the Doctor's very eyes?

But, indulging in luddite paranoia for the briefest of brief moments, what if this wonder drug has its OWN evil plan for the deposition of human kind? Is this the start of dethroning man from his supremacy, to become a secondary being like an ape or an estate agent, subservient to a more efficient and reliable species? Is Cyberon merely an omen of the rise of the Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machines, metal giants closely resembling the human form, whose muscles of steel and electronic eyes will defeat the unpredictable insect of man?

Or are we just getting a wee bit hysterical?




Plot Summary
--------------

We join this eugenics-supporting episode as the Doctor perishes mere moments after setting his ruined TARDIS to go to Disneyworld as Chris tells him to stop being a pathetic weakling and stop dying.

At this point, the Doctor's eyes glow a burning red, convincing Chris he has somehow been possessed by the Devil. This impression is not helped when the fiery red glow spreads from his eyes to engulf his face and body, which then dissolves to reveal a big fat guy with long curly hair and a goatee lying in the Doctor's place!

The new Doctor soon proves dangerously irritating as he absent-mindedly forgets that he has already regenerated, repeatedly gets Chris' name wrong, and takes every chance to insult and ridicule the "total magic-obsessed loser" that was his previous incarnation. In between this he admires his new, rugged face in any reflective surface he can find and starts proclaiming that he has finally achieved physical perfection and could beat Helen of Troy in a beauty contest.

After five minutes of narcissistic patronizing, Chris has enough and declares the regenerated Doctor an "arrogant demon son of a bitch" and punches him repeatedly in the kidneys. The Doctor is more interested in getting out of his singed, blood-soaked and ravaged clothes - and the sight of his naked body terrifies Chris so much she flees into the depths of the TARDIS.

The Doctor meanwhile is more upset to discover that 'perfection' doesn't fully extend across ALL of his new body, and is so ashamed he bangs his fist on the console. This has the twin side effects of causing the crippled time machine to crash land, and the Doctor to break a nail - an injury too much for his delicate constitution to handle... despite the fact the last guy was able to suffer five million volts of direct current without flinching.

Instead, the Doctor nearly loses consciousness from the magnitude of his damaged cuticle and stumbles off after Chris, begging for her to come and save his glorious aspect from such harsh realities...

...only to walk straight into Chris's home-made Wyle-E-Coyote-style man trap involving a tripwire, a noose and the ceiling-high piles of unread issues of "Mighty Midget TV Comic 21 Action Magazine". Chris laughs cruelly as the wailing bastard is buried in newsprint that muffles his puny screams for "Melanie and/or Sarah" to show mercy upon his divine salty goodness.

Rubbing her hands with glee at a job well done, Chris tries to find her way back to the control room through the myriad of identically-damaged roundeled corridors. She soon stumbles across the remains of the destroyed Super-Trod (who perished in the episode immediately prior to this one - what sort of fan ARE you?!?), and notices a rather interesting button on its cylindrical body marked "CRUSH-KILL-DESTROY" and switches it on. Just for a laugh.

Soon the deadly robotic life form is rising up, shaking its mighty metal claws and growling Romanian death threats in its heavily-fractured artificial voice. Leaving the Super-Trod to hurtle around the TARDIS corridors looking for people to slash to ribbons, Chris returns to the control room to watch episodes of The Banana Splitz on the scanner. However, the VCR is like everything else on the crashed TARDIS - completely stuffed.

Annoyed, Chris kicks open the doors and strides out of the wreckage of a police box dropped from a great height onto very hard ground. She finds herself in the grounds of the Bayview Retirement Home for the Terminally Bewildered and the Almost Dead. At this point the plot turns 290 degrees and decides to focus on the plight of a bunch of senile pensioners, some of whom believe they are monkeys, and Chris taking the piss out of their mental disabilities.

Chris is soon mistaken for a staff nurse and within six hours finds herself driving to an apartment she shares with a fit-looking gay bloke named Cosmic Raymond and they discuss her frustrated single lifestyle over a coffee and low-fat yogurt. Chris is impressed at how rapidly her lifestyle has turned around when there is a knock at the door as the REAL nurse and flatmate turns up... so Chris headbuts her unconscious and locks her in the cellar.

Meanwhile, inside the ruined TARDIS, the Doctor struggles to free himself from under all his unread comic books, short of breath, dizzy and unable to focus - yet he's still capable of making truly appalling puns and being incredibly smug, blaming all the imperfections of his new form on that 'stupid, stupid bastard' of his previous incarnation who got himself killed.

The Doctor soon hears the telemetric bleeping sound of the approaching Trod-shaped death machine. As he is too weak and feeble to move, the Doctor lies where he is making unfunny would-be-witticisms.

Finally the Super-Trod...

...glides off, bored and to be quite honest used to a far higher quality of murder victim than the total loser it is offered. The unstoppable death machine heads off into the maze of corridors looking for a way out.

Left alone, the Doctor immediately congratulates himself on his amazing McGuyver-style survival skills in defeating the evil Super-Trod without even so much as lifting a finger. Then he realizes he has wet himself in terror and mercifully falls silent for once.

Outside, at the Home for Decrepit Dementia, the sinister American Tom Leyland from the Touchwood Institute has arrived to test out his newly-developed and patented all-purpose elixir he has named the not-at-all-suspicious "Cyberon". Without waiting to say hello, Leyland is grabbing pensioners and injecting mercury into the back of their necks while cackling evilly to himself. He's so caught up in the moment, he injects some of the staff - from the wheelchair-bound Dana to Chris herself - before he realizes what he's doing.

There seem to be no immediate side effects, apart from some of the inmates screaming that shiny silver ghost monsters with stupid jug-handles on their heads are appearing in blue-misted, LSD-CGI-hallucinations that only they can see. Leyland nevertheless insists this is an unqualified success and runs off to the nearest nightclub, BrainStorm, before anyone can stop him.

Chris races after him and after five minutes in a rave party, has suffered such culture shock it has blown her fragile little mind and she immediately falls ass over tit in love with Leyland, who laughs evilly and has a light beer. Together they discuss the future of the human race, the nature of reality, and whether or not Big Brother will really take off in the reality TV genre.

Back at Bayview, several of the residents have dropped dead as their skin turns silver and Dana can now not only walk, she has chosen one of the semi-visible Cyber-ghosts to be her fitness trainer for the next London marathon. She tells everyone that she is being 'lifted by guardian angels', but they're all nuts so they agree with her claims wholeheartedly.

At BrainStorm, in order to keep up with hardcore extreme 24-hour-party-person lifestyle, Leyland ducks into the gents to shoot up with Cyberon. He quickly freaks out as all the mirrors reflect Cyberman helmets and the walls start to melt into rainbows. Curiously, Leyland acts like he WASN'T expecting this, which begs the question of why he started taking hallucinogenics in the first place.

Nevertheless, it still leaves him sweaty and approachable for Chris to take him back to her place and spend a night of borderline illegal ecstasy together. Gosh, it's so mature and dramatic and gritty and realistic! It's like "This Life" with Cybermen! Oh, the future is so bright I gotta see an optometrist!

Meanwhile, the all-night sex session is so draining that Leyland needs another shot of Cyberon. He explains to Chris he only started taking because all the other cool doctors were taking their own drugs, and only needed it to improve his intellect, problem-solving abilities, abstract concept visualization, capacity to retain knowledge and of course make him a better dancer.

When he pops out for some fresh air he finds a silver Cyberman standing in the kitchen, acting like it owns the place. In a booming synthesized voice not at all dissimilar to Nicholas Briggs, it orders Leyland to take another hit so they can talk face-to-silver-moulded-faceplate. Leyland tells the Cyberman to fuck off, which it does in a spooky editing trick the moment Leyland isn't looking.

This proves to be nothing but an excuse to creep up behind the butt-naked Leyland and scare the crap out of him with a similar sudden shocking reveal. After a few more minutes of this, it just gets old and the Cyberman vanishes properly. Chris wanders out, watching her hand move with her Cybus-enhanced LSD vision. She muses that Cyberon is a living, intelligent thing that is using Leyland in order to get it injected into as many brains as possible.

Having deduced the main part of the plot, Chris immediately goes back to having sex with Leyland rather than doing anything about this invasion of Cybermen ghosts who even now are marching around Bayview where the residents who HAVEN'T perished from heart attacks are now fully-cognoscenti members of society.

Suddenly, a massive metallic shape smashes through the French windows - the now completely insane Super-Trod who sings little-known Bad News songs. The Doctor appears and reveals he has reprogrammed the Super-Trod into a horseman of the rock apocalypse, a leader and savior of the wild ride to oblivion and ecstasy and the robot will now free the universe with its own peculiar brand of justice.

Instantly, the Super-Trod starts mercilessly slaughters the residents and starts tearing the Cybermen limb from hydraulic limb.

The Doctor sighs and confesses to Chris that he was talking total crap and hoped that if the Super-Trod DID suddenly end its desire to end all filthy flesh life in the galaxy, the regenerated Time Lord might have been able to steal the credit. Chris responds by repeatedly slamming his head into her kneecap, though whether this is because she is sickened by his complete lack of talent or because she still believes him a demon is left uncertain.

"I'M A WARRIOR! WARRIOR! OF GENGHIS KHAN! THE BLOOD WON'T WASH AWAY! I'M A WARRIOR! WARRIOR! I'LL KILL MYSELF ONE DAY!" grates the Super-Trod in perfect Mongolian as it continues its killing spree. "I'M A WARRIOR! WARRIOR! OF GENGHIS KHAN!"

The Neomorph Cybermen start to lumber out of the retirement home to escape the Super-Trod and a furious battle erupts. The Doctor decides the time has come to leave and let humanity sort out its own problems rather than rely on him constantly cutting into his preening time and save them. Chris is disgusted, and that means a lot since she is really passionate about such carnage!

Nevertheless she follows the rotund hairy twat into the ruins of the police box as the Super-Trod effortlessly finishes ethnic cleansing the Cybermen and turns its attention on the surrounding countryside. Bayview is soon torn apart in massive explosions as the killer robot smashes up the war memorial and uses it as a stone javelin to smash down more buildings. Finally, the government, in a desperate attempt to stop the Super-Trod, initiate their Hammerdown Protocol and drop an atom bomb with 'HAVE A NICE DAY' chalked on the side on the town.

The nuclear holocaust that follows reduces the whole part of England to dust with the only things left standing the TARDIS... and the slightly dented Super-Trod. On the broken scanner, the Doctor and Chris watch as it rises up and starts looking for more thinks to destroy, chanting "BURNING, LOOTING, RAPING AND SHOOTING! ALL THIS I DO! I'D KILL FOR YOU!!" to itself.

With Earth seemingly utterly doomed, the Doctor immediately sets the TARDIS in motion, only to remember at too late how badly damaged the crippled time machine is - and after about thirty seconds after entering the time vortex, it explodes and throws the Doctor and Chris out into the screaming maelstrom of certain and horrible death.

"Getting used to change is never easy. But living a stagnant life is even worse. This is so fucking unfair," the Doctor muses as he plunges, unprotected through the scouring winds of time and space before being spat out back into the physical universe in a ditch.

There, the Doctor convulses, his entire body bathed in bright golden light from no discernable source. For a long moment the orange energy swims across his flesh like a living thing then explodes outwards with blinding brilliance, lighting up the ruined console room. His warping skin burns away, his changing flesh peeling off in the hail of orange fire and flying away like clouds of ash - and when the light dies down, the face and body left behind in the ditch are, to the relief of all concerned, that of an entirely different person...

Books/Other Related Material-
Dr Who - Hypo Full of Love
Doctor Who Increases His Manhood
The Jym de Natale Era (10% Less Impressive Than The Steven Payne Months)


Links and References -
As the TARDIS explodes, the Doctor puts his hands together in prayer and shrieks, "Oh Jon, who art in heaven, Pertwee be thy name...".


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor claims to have been far too busy fighting sabre-tooth gorillas and rubber-brained horses attempting to conquer Mongolia to actually get involved with the main plot. God, he just won't SHUT UP!



Dialogue Train Wrecks
---------------------

Leyland: You will join me, Christine. We will be the first of the New Race!

Doctor: What are they?

Leyland: They're the future

Doctor: They're Cybermen.

Leyland: They're the next stage of evolutionary intelligence on Earth!

Doctor: They're Cybermen.

Leyland: They're the Immortal Ones.

Doctor: Hello? They're Cybermen!

Chris: That's good, isn't it? Who doesn't want to be immortal?

Doctor: GOD DAMN IT, THEY'RE CYBERMEN!

-------

Cyberman: You are more than human now. We are the future. There is no need to resist. We are irresistible. To everyone! Your resistance is useless!

Chris: How about MY resistance?

Cyberman: That's useless too.

Dana: And mine?

Cyberman: That's useless-

Doctor: And mine?

Cyberman: Look, shut up!

-------

Cyberman: Cyberon will not harm you.

Chris: No... I doth must be hallucinating!

Cyberman: Then why are you talking to me?

Chris: ...touche. No... It's a side effect! This isn't real!

Cyberman: What is real?

Chris: Not YOU, that's for sure!


Dialogue Gems
-------------

Doctor: You're talking science fiction now, not realistic medicine!
Leyland: I know this will be a paradigm shift, I'm not arguing there.

Doctor: Huh? Who mentioned paradigms?

Leyland: But the silicon chip, the airplane, the radio, they were all science fiction once! It's not the Twentieth Century any more. We're due a little science fiction. Now let me inject this mercury into the back of your neck...

--------

CyberLeader: Your sexual contact with Christine means that you have formed an emotional bond. That is not long-term commitment. That is weakness. You must play the field.

Leyland: You just want her for yourself you sick metallic bastard!

--------

Leyland: We've made contact with something better than us - they're stronger, they don't die, they'll cast off this human bodies and reach from the stars. It's been staring us in the face. We've known for years we were about to encounter something better than us. Another form of intelligence, something genetically engineered, even some aspect of the divine. We knew it was going to happen. We ARE it. Nothing can stop us. No one needs to be left behind. Anyone who takes Cyberon will be part of it too.

Doctor: And what if they don't want to take it?

Leyland: Oh. I hadn't thought of that.


Listener Reviews
-----------------

"MY GAWD!! KILL US - THIS STORY SUCKS." - Kit Peddler & Gerry Davis (2000)

"Fantastic direction, appropriate music, brilliant all round! I'm sure Jym De Natale will make a great Doctor after his performance in the story. He's already got a big fan!" - Someone Who Now Wishes To Remain Nameless (2000)

"When I listened to this story, I pictured the new Doctor as a good-looking guy in a nicely cut suit, the next door neighbor who kept his lawn perfectly maintained, his car always clean, and his CD collection by genre in alphabetical order. He'd be the kind of guy upon whose word you could depend, who'd give a lot of time to charitable works, who'd have been considered a key member of his neighborhood, his community, and society as a whole. To me, that's what made de Natale's Doctor so scary; that there are wankers like that who live among us right now, good men who take noble ideals across the line of "the end justifies the means" into real and true darkness. All you've got to do is look towards Washington and you'll see those assholes by the bucketfuls. The new Doctor wasn't a complete fuckwit -- that's the tragedy. He was a loser whose passion for his ego cost him his soul and his life." - Andrew Beeblebrox (2001)

"I loved how "Jym DeNatale" was on the list of failed experiments in the Cyberman database. It really amuses me." - Ewen Campion-Clarke (2006)

"We've been discussing this reviewer of the DWADs over at the forum. He goes into greater details with his reviews than any review I've ever seen before. When it comes to my own stories, I think he is mostly fair, but I also have to take what he says with the understanding that he has an axe to grind with the DWAD group overall. In particular, I love how he compares me to Eric Saward to the point where I'm as lost with my writing of the characters as he alleges Saward was." - John S. Drew (2007)

"And YOU can fuck off as well, Drewboy!"
- Ewen Campion-Clarke (2007)

"Like The Cardiff Rift, the ideas and background situations of this story are so abused that they rival certain visitors to Neverland Ranch - it's just a remake of The Price of Paris without all the euroskepticism! There's a lot of sleeping around, moralistic speeches and a lot of picking up the pieces from the previous story (were six long fucking episodes not enough?!) Chris's decent into paranoid schizophrenia pushes her from 'a more passionate Leela' to 'Ally McBeal wannabe'. There is a palpable lack of enthusiasm in all involved and appropriately enough, The Pretension Society in no way feels like the start of a brand new era and it thankfully cut short."
- The Jym de Natale Handbook in its entirety (2010)


Jym de Natale Speaks!
---------------------

"And so it came to pass that Jeffrey Coburn fell and his gimmicky incarnation of the Doctor was no more. And I looked down upon my new dominion, as master of the SCADs, and I thought it... good! What wasn't good was that, unlike those regeneration stories from the original TV series, MY Doctor wasn't out of it or acting like a maniac for a little while following the change until I get my new and infinitely superior head on straight. I didn't get to do that. Christine did. I was pretty much on the verge of death through the whole thing and that's because the so-called writer of this was having trouble getting my character down, and did an utterly awful job. They should just let me BE, rather than expect me to follow some paltry script!

But I enjoy playing the Doctor. It completes me. I bring my gift of audio talent to ALL humanity. I might not have signed a contract, but I'm in this for the long haul, mark my words. How long? How long will I stay? Longer than Tom Baker. Longer than Sylvester McCoy. Longer even than Dave Segal. Fandom is powerless against the might of Jym de Natale! Onwards, forever onwards! To the end of Doctor Who itself! I WILL **NEVER** LEAVE! I'm saying this of my own free will, you know, I'm not being coerced! There's not a gun to my head! I'm a willing participant of the SCADs! THE UNIVERSE WILL SUCCUMB TO ENTROPY BEFORE I GIVE UP THIS PART!!"


Rachel Sommers Speaks!
----------------------

"My character, against the New Doctor, is sick and tired of this shit. He's more of an arrogant asshole than the old Doctor, but I think Chris will beat some respect into him and make him less of an arrogant asshole. I think she's working out just fine. I like a twisted sexual sadist like that. Hopefully a lot of other people do to... if they know what's good for them. Cause Chris is going to be around for a long time. Longer than this new jerk with the moustache, whose fingers I intend to break and his head I shall repeatedly slam against tables if he annoys me ever, ever again."



Jeffrey Coburn Speaks!
----------------------

"Jeez. That was not what I was expecting at ALL. I won't bore you with the details of why the new guy's tenure was cut shorter than a skinhead's hairdresser, but take it from me the guy was a bit miffed. Still, I'm really glad that the next new guy has gotten off to a fabulous start, and all my hopes that everyone involved can continue to put out a professional-sounding and fun product. Yeah, I'm used to my hopes being dashed in that particular department, but this Flynn character blows Jym out of the water in terms of professionalism, talent, charisma, good-looks, honour, nobility and downright sexual appeal. Let's just draw a veil over de Natale's Doctor and pretend it never happened."


James K Flynn Speaks!
---------------------

"I get into character using a bright blue miniature TARDIS on my dashboard. It's a very potent talisman. Tom Baker swears by it. Frequently. And I MEAN Tom Baker, not Dave Segal on smack. I never missed an episode of the TV show when Tom Baker was on, so I can tell the difference. It's really rather pathetic the way Dave thinks we can all be fooled. I try to watch other episodes, but the schedule is so higgledy-piggledy and the producer keeps insisting no other episodes exist, and he burns any books or comics I buy. He also insists we have sort of audience BEYOND people who are crazy for Dr. Who. Of course, I have to pick projects carefully so I don't detract from the day job but being the Doctor, though, is a no-brainer; it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I know that Welsh revival will never choose me, nor will Big Finish. The difference between me and the guy I replaced is that I don't really mind. I have a life beyond it. I'll continue as the Doctor as long as they'll let me. Other than that, we'll see what the Muses send my way. Or if they really ARE as insane as Jeff Coburn says..."



Rumours, Slander, and Libel
---------------------------

To replace Jeff Coburn's wild, decadent, hedonistic, magic-obsessed Doctor, it was decided by Douglas Phillips that his successor should be a more sober, old-fashioned Edwardian, aloof, cultured twat obsessed with class. Someone pedantic, boring, alien and with an ego the size of the planet Jupiter. While he admitted that this was a complete rip off of Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor, Phillips pointed out that Coburn's Doctor was originally a rip off of Peter Davison, and look how well that turned out! Married passionately to Jym de Natale, Phillips was convinced that they could ensure that this New Doctor was a man who could stand beside Life and call it "Friend" and NOT be the irritating, pathetic jerk prophesized in The Warlords of Apeshit.

Unfortunately, it was soon discovered that de Natale was completely insane.

This was down to a sinister brain tumor which kicked in remarkably soon after David Segal congratulated de Natale on getting the top job, followed by claiming, "You are not the Doctor until you wrestle this scarf from my naked body - or are you unworthy of a spine?!"

Of course, Segal had treated Jeff Coburn exactly the same way and no one thought anything of it at the time, instead concentrating on giving the new Doctor a novel twist on the traditional Cyberman story - the "novel twist" in question being they weren't going to simply dub Segal into an old recording of Tom Baker's Return of the Cybermen.

Of course, regeneration stories are problematic by their very nature: how does one tell an absorbing yarn and at the same time introduce a new leading man? The essential characteristics of the Doctor are already there, yes, but idiosyncrasies and nuances of the fresh interpretation must be put under the spotlight and on top of this is the Doctor's companion, who if not au fait with the concept of regeneration have to come to terms with the sudden metamorphosis of their closest friend.

The Pretension Society is without doubt the absolute pinnacle of how NOT to juggle the need to reinterpret the central character with the desire to present a compelling story. Even the staunchest critic of The Twin Double-D Dilemma will embrace Colin Baker's craggy knob after facing THIS abomination of fan-boy overindulgence. Anyone ignorant enough to be excited entering the Doctor's next epoch would have that quickly curtailed by de Natale's redefinition of the hero as an arrogant pompous, self-important loser with absolutely no redeeming features of any kind. Unlike Colin Baker, he can't even speak without sounding like he's pissed on cheap sherry and trying to hold in a fart. And I've seen more convincing facial hair on Jim Henson puppets.

At the end of this 117 minute adventure, it was painfully obvious that Jym de Natale wasn't so much not working out but making cast and crew pine for the good old days of Dave Segal being in charge of absolutely everything. Even John S. Drew considered de Natale "depriving the drones of vital oxygen" and should be blasted at short range with electro-atomic death rays to restore efficiency and productivity to the work force.

Jym de Natale had to go.

This was a double tragedy, as they would be forced to scrap not only the entire supporting cast to prevent re-infection, but also scrap the next years' worth of scripts commissioned for the de Natale Doctor and Chris! Two below-mediocre seasons were now completely unrecordable!

There was The Soul Hunters by Rachel Sommers herself after she stabbed another prospective writer in the bladder. This was a dark, magnificently evil, black and foul tale of the White House being overrun by zombies and lightbulb-headed aliens from Babylon 5.

The Way-Past-Imperfect Doctors by Julio Iglesias, which would be unique in a multi-Doctor story featuring the same incarnation all over again. Over forty-seven separate versions of the Doctor played by de Natale would fight the evil Curtis and save the entire universe twice!

Then there was The Chimera's Shame, the traditional "set entirely in the TARDIS with no other characters trying to tell an incredibly cheap ghost story ripped from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine" tale. Oh, we REALLY missed out here, as Andrew Beeblebrox's second script for the SCADs had a great role for Frobisher the Penguin, while no one noticed the fact the Doctor kept calling Chris "Peri" or referring to himself as "the cat who walks alone"!

Then there was the even more traditional "character wakes up in everyday Earth convinced the entire series is nothing but a disturbed dream but turns out actually be in VR as part of some evil alien plot" story which everything from Stargate: Atlantis to Charmed had tried to pull. I'd like to say that Iglesias' second story, Memorandum, was in any way or new or interesting but as we all know, that would be a complete lie and Farscape cut its teeth on crap like this.

Following this was the amazing, the incomparable Vids of Time! Whereupon Chip Jamison does a 'funniest home video' compilation of SCAD stories, comparing them with all the bits of the genuine series he doesn't like. The fact that he accidentally destroys the universe after trying to work out if Countdown to Armadillos is better than Death Comes to Tom is just the icing on this rancid cake of day-old pus!

The last commissioned story for the de Natale Doctor is only spoken of as a myth; a dark fable; a horror tale, told across the flickering embers of a midnight fire, wherever hardened fan audio enthusiasts gather to drink fermented vegetable products and compete in tales of blood-chilling terror!! The legend speaks of Time's Champignons, an attempt to turn the Patrick Troughton story The Dominatrix into a fifteen-episode-long epic. The Doctor and Christine discover a peaceful alien race of toga-wearing weaklings is under attack by a ruthless space empire of whom we see only their psychotic ruler - Dara Hamilton! In desperation to escape, the aliens try to build a time machine which does absolutely no good whatsoever apart from padding out the first five episodes as the Doctor and Christine end up flung back in time to follow a scene-by-scene remake of the first Hartnell story, only with more shouting, exposition, and the leads refusing to do a damn thing. Around episode eleven, a rebel leader turns out to be the David Segal Doctor, who sells out the aliens to Time Lords who intend to kick some serious ass. The Doctor and Christine then go through a series of Sliders-style parallel universes, with an amazing cliffhanger as they are arrested for loitering in a McDonalds without ordering any food. Finally, episode fourteen manages to condense the entirety of Mistrial of a Time Lord into one thirteen-minute monologue, where the Doctor decides the time has come for him to go back in time and shoot Rassilon from the Patrexes Book Depository. The last episode would have the Doctor explain exactly how the hell this could help anyone in any way whatsoever, before he realizes that he'll just end up wiping out his entire species and destroy two thirds of the universe in a time paradox. The Doctor then discovers that while they've been doing absolutely nothing for the last fifteen episodes, the situation has resolved itself and gives a long speech of congratulation which bores Chris into a coma!

...you know, maybe we DIDN'T miss out much after all.

When it was told to him that he was to be replaced, even though they didn't actually HAVE any replacements, de Natale called a press conference. "Okay, I just been told by these... humans... that I am not wanted here. I have but two questions. Not true, I have dozens, but most can be answered with 'They have small penises and live in their mother's pad'. The two I MUST ask, however, are these: What do my weight and mustache have to do with anything? And if I'm so utterly deranged, why do the public keep begging ME to be the Doctor?!"

The journalists were rather baffled at this, as they had turned up in the belief de Natale was actually running for mayor and was going to make hard stances on tax reform and immigration. Instead he was banging on about some crappy sci-fi fan audio series that he had been thrown out from for being too damn weird.

"I don't mind negative feedback," de Natale continued, fighting off the invisible bats that kept getting caught in his hair as they tried to drink his blood. "As a professional, both actor and stuntman, I learned long ago that opinions are like assholes - everyone has them, and they all stink, yet serve a purpose. But to be so mean-spirited about it is so needless. Besides, almost all the other reviews of me are much more positive. I know people like this personally. People who would not watch the new Battlestar Galactica because it wasn't the old one. People who wouldn't watch Enterprise because it "...threw Gene's ST Bible out the window!" and "...doesn't have Star Trek in the title!". But they didn't get nasty or personal about it!"

By now, not even Phillips and Himinez knew what the fuck he was talking about, and everyone began to wander off, leaving de Natale standing in the middle of the town square, without any trousers, handcuffed to a goat, and continuing to rant about how good he was. He was last sighted fourteen months ago, still standing there, still being boring. The goat, however, had long since escaped.

"Oh, and in case you see this yourself Benji, for the record, since you seem to act like a true Doctor Who fan, you should know that the Doctor's personalities have always been modeled after the actors playing them, at least in part. I AM arrogant, but only to the point I can back it up. Like my Doctor was!!" he was last heard screaming at a lamppost. "But I digress. The producers will go through puberty and actually kiss a girl (or boy, as the case may be, the dirty little homo fuckers) someday, and the won't have to be such a little toad anymore. And my vengeance will know no bounds! THIS WILL BE MY FINAL VICTORY! THE DESTRUCTION... OF THE SCADS... THEMSELVES!!!! ACTIVATE THE REALITY BOMB!!!"

Whatever.

In the meantime, it was desperate that a new Doctor was found to properly replace de Natale while the media liaison officer performed 1984-levels of retconning to make it clear that de Natale was never a real Doctor but an insane, violent half-way incarnation like the Watcher, the Valeyard or Whitnail & I. His appearance as a fully-fledged Doctor in Warlords of Apeshit was cunningly revealed to be a group hallucination since the de Natale Doctor never actually did anything to advance the plot or said anything useful at all.

Potential replacements for de Natale meanwhile included Rupert Booth (who turned it down as he was 'out of their league'), Barbara Benedetti (refused on the grounds she and Sommers were rival Homecoming Queens at high school), David Nagel (turned out to be David Segal using a cunning pseudonym), Aaron Toman (turned down the part when he realized he would not actually be playing every single character and there would be no crossovers with Monkey Magic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Discworld), Mark Kalita (who, upon realizing how bloody stupid everyone at the SCADs were, started his own fan audios, DAMN Productions), Matthew Chambers (immediately joined DAMN Productions by mistake), and Nicholas Briggs... who just laughed at them all hysterically for around twenty-nine minutes and then threw a molitov cocktail into the recording studio as he strolled, still laughing, into the sunset.

The ultimate choice for the new Doctor was none other that James K Flynn, who was signed up instantly in the confused belief he was JFK reincarnated and could easily tap into the Kennedy family fortune to fund the SCADs for ever more! Although there was some disappointment that JKF was merely an experienced actor of the stage and radio, it quickly became apparent that unlike his predecessors he was

a) sane
b) willing to actually play the Doctor for the pittance offered
c) somehow believed that appearing in the SCADs "supported the arts"

Thus, for the first time this century, the Superiority Complex Audio Dramas were looking at a future where they WEREN'T all completely and utterly screwed in every possible and conceivable sense.

The only thing left to deal with was to give the brand new one-off Doctor a brand new one-off title sequence. de Netale did not want the usual 'head and shoulders forming out of the ungodly horrors of the time matrix' bollocks that all other Doctors had. Instead, he decided the credits should involve a full-length shot of him grooving around the TARDIS control room, sophisticatedly leaning on his cane as lights pulsed behind the roundels, dry ice swirled, and members of the KKK in the background performed the theme tune. And as the new incarnation pirouetted around the time machine, he did sing... sing... SING!!!!


I was reborn to be... ALIVE!
I was reborn to be... ALIVE!
Reborn! Reborn to be alive! (Oh, we will survive!)
Christine, I was reborn
Reborn, reborn... COME ON EVERYBODY! Reborn to be alive! WOO!

People always ask me why
I never find a place to stop
And settle down in time! OH YEAH!
But I've never wanted
All the things that people need
To justify their lackluster lives!

I'm the New Doctor, the New Doctor, the New Doctor!
I'm the New Doctor, the New Doctor, the New Doctor!
I'M THE NEW DOK-TAH WHO!!

Time is on my side
When I'm aboard
The TARDIS
And I'm fine flying blind! OH YEAH!
Sonic screwdriver, an old time ship
And something new to occupy
A mind like mine!

Christine saw me reborn
Reborn, reborn to be alive! (Oh, we will survive!)
I was reborn, reborn, reborn
Reborn to be ALIVE!! GRACIAS!!



The End of an Error
-------------------

As a new age dawned, dark rumors began to spread of Doctor Who having the utter temerity to return to the world of television, casting the SCADs back into the shadows of little-known and unliked fandom. Word began to reach Phillips that some strange Neanderthal pervert by the name of "Rusty Davis" would get his diseased talons on the franchise and make it impossible for the SCADs to fit in out of sheer spite, while others claimed that "Rusty Davis" had no idea the SCADs even existed and wouldn't care if he did.

"I like Doctor Who," Phillips announced at an emergency press conference inside a cardboard box known to a select few as the Fortress of Solidarity. "And I like RTD and hope he will write for the series because he will give me an endless supply of examples of how NOT to write a story. He is not and never has been capable of writing anything beyond magical Scooby-Doo-ending mess. I see stories always taking place on Earth, or Parallel Earth or New Earth and NOTHING ELSE! The wanky feldercarb from those Virgin Books NEVER HAPPENED, but they'll make TV adaptions of the really awful ones!! I see duff nonsensical stories, I see shallow individual episodes relying on running around and a frantic pace to make up for the fact that there is very little plot, I see lazy set pieces, I see a crad pop star companions harder to get rid of than the flu, I see fracking cute companions played by BLACK women called 'Free Ahemen', I see RIVERS FOAMING WITH BLOOD!"

And lo, his disciples started to look at each other in confusion as their leader continues to scream hysterically from within the Fortress of Solidarity. "You thought that movie with Sylvester McCoy was bad?!? Well get ready for Dustbins being talked to death, gasmask zombies with sloppy writing misunderstanding the concept of cloning, stories devoted ENTIRELY to farting aliens who sing and then die by magic! WHAT A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF HUGO-NOMINEE ARROGANCE! BAFTA STANDARDS ARE TOO LOW! Wirting, erm, I mean 'writing', is an ART! AND I AM AN ARTIST! I JUST DON'T HAVE ANY FRIENDS TO PROVE IT!"

At this point, the SCAD followers completely lost track of what he was ranting on about and started to light up cigarettes and talk amongst themselves as boredom set in.

"While RTD's mediocre wirting, I mean, 'writing', is of the Lowest Common Denominator type," Phillips continued, now drooling uncontrollably, "and all that bollocks about him being given OBEs and the Dennis Potter Award for absolutely incredible and fantastic wirting, ah, 'writing', that makes Harold Pinter blush is simply tabloid gossip!! The thought of him writing most of Doctor Who unsettles my stomach, kind of like too much junk food and not enough substance. RTD will make us suffer horribly! RTD is a great fan, but not a great writer, just like JST was a great fan, but not a great producer... Now, me? I am a terrible fan, a brilliant producer, and holier than thou! I think this is one of the nice things of being a Yank, I don't have any of that baggage that weighs down people in Bri-ton! I only do what the rice krispies TELL me to do! It's very simple, DON'T write crap like RTD, and they will worship you! I DON'T HAVE TO BE A GOOD WRITER TO RECOGNIZE A BAD ONE! As far as Doctor Who is concerned, allowing the SCADs complete creative, editorial and manifest control is LONG OVERDUE!

By this momentous development, absolutely no one was listening.

"I will vary the stories and won't dive off the cliff of fanwanking like RTD! Doctor Who does best with continual change! Doctors should not last more than a few years! Fresh blood keeps things fresh! And I will remain producer FOREVER! As YOU are NOW, I once WAS! As I am NOW, so YOU shall BE. ARE YOU PREPARED TO FOLLOW ME?!?!"

It was at this point that Phillips finally collapsed from oxygen starvation, having been unwilling to poke any air holes in the Fortress of Solidarity. Since no one else had been able to fit in the box, the rest of the cast and crew simply listen to Phillips' muffled voice and assumed that the sudden silence was a dramatic pause and not, as it eventually transpired, the producer choking to death on his own carbon dioxide. No one else could be bothered to replace him, a quick round of musical chairs was held to determine the new Executive Producer of the SCADs for the first time since 1991...

...was David Segal, who immediately knitted himself a new scarf to celebrate.

Mmmmmmmmmmm. Professional.

JS Doctor - The Chronic Rift (ii)

Books/Other Related Material-
Doctor Who: Crisis On Infinite Earths Rip-Off
Doctor Who Tours The Cosmic Interstate
Dr Who Turns Into A Jerk (Canada Only)
"My Apotheosis Starts Here!" Jym de Natale's Doctor Who Diaries



Links and References -
In this story pretty much every single Doctor ever appears.

For the William Hartnell Doctor, this story takes place between "Doctor Who And The Diagrams of Pompeii Invade From Space" and "Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machines Will Destroy Socialism Forever!". The Patrick Troughton Doctor appears from between "The Umpire Plants" and "Two Thousand And One Bores". The Jon Pertwee Doctor is from a point betwixt "Fugitives from Dance" and "Origin of Atlantis IV (AKA "Before the Leg End")". This story is between "The Spasmoid Jungle" and "The Wogan Terror" for the Tom Baker Doctor, while the Peter Davison Doctor is from a point somewhere around "The 375 to San Francisco Via The Bermuda Triangle" or maybe "The Cretins of Camelot"? The Colin Baker Doctor is from "The Wicked Weed" and "The Mystery of the Things" simultaneously. The Sylvester McCoy Doctor is from "The Squeal of the Silent", "The Sinfinity Treason", "Living in Compost" or maybe at a pinch "Teenage Cocks". The Paul McGann Doctor is from between "The Heroin-Taking Hero Is A Megalomaniac" and "Apocryphal Bullshit". The Rowan Atkinson Doctor and Emma Bunting are from between "Doctor Who and the Brian of Morbius" and "Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death". The Matthew Kopelke Doctor and Chloe Richards are between "Dullness Falls" and "Persuasion of the Dustbins". While for the Steve Johnson Doctor and Monica Swallows this occurs between "The Stockholm Terror" and "Flesh of the... Cursed". The Nicholas Briggs Doctor, Kevin and Squeaky are from after "Futile Signs". The Peter Cushing Doctor, Suzie and Louise are between "Dustbins Versus The Martian Sphinx" and "Dustbins: Vacation on Earth 2150AD". The Mark Gatiss Doctor, Eric and Mong between "A Princess Amongst Warriors" and "Caught in Time". And the Eighth Doctor, Serge the Seal and Charley are from just between "Bored of Ironing" and "The Stoned of Venice".

... are you happy now? WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT? BLOOD?!?



Untelevised Misadventures -
At one point, the Doctor's last two incarnations appear before the ailing Time Lord and start taunting him. This is apparently NOT some deathbed hallucination but the two incarnations travelling through time just to be really nasty.

Segal Doctor: You deserve that you big wanker!
Savage Doctor: Yeah!
Segal Doctor: You really have this coming!
Savage Doctor: Yeah!
Segal Doctor: No one like you!
Savage Doctor: Nah!
Segal Doctor: Everyone says so.
Savage Doctor: Yeah!
Segal Doctor: We've got a really nasty surprise for you, buster.
Savage Doctor: Yeah!
Segal Doctor: We're gonna get you!
Savage Doctor: Yeah!



Dialogue Train Wrecks
---------------------

Doctor: Now, like most people, Chris, you no doubt believe that the universe is the whole thing that exists anywhere? Maybe you would call it Everything, All That Is? But there you would be wrong! The universe in which the planet Earth revolves around Father Sun is but one of an infinite plurality of universes, every one different to every other and no two alike - of space, there is no boundary and of time, there is no end.

Chris: Is this relevant, Lord Doctor?

Doctor: Hmm? Oh, goodness me, no. I'm just spouting nonsense off the top of my head. Now, they used to ask 'how many legions of angels could stand upon the point of a pin?' whenever they wanted to shut each other up. The same notion applies to these infinite universes.

Chris: You mean, that they were created to keep the clergy silent?

Doctor: Yes! And yet no! I mean, the universes occupy no space or room because in the infinite there is no concept of SIZE. Universes can be infinitely large or infinitely small depending on who you are and how you look at it and whether there really is a certain, fixed point of absolute magnitude. Now, that isn't to say these universes don't overlap or coincide...

Chris: Is something about to happen to us involving these universes, Doctor?

Doctor: No.

Chris: It is just whenever thou seem to speak about such things, they always seem to be uncommonly vital knowledge to understand the escapades we are about to endure. It is as if you are telling me all the details now so when we are caught up in a problem with all these other universes, you won't have to explain it to me then...

Doctor: Chris, as if I would deliver raw exposition to you as a cheap form of foreshadowing in lieu of conversation! I value our friendship far too much to use it so shamelessly.

Chris: So that is not what you're doing?

Doctor: Not at all! Put such thoughts from your mind. Now take a look at those small sacks hanging off the trees over there. They're called cocoons and inside are caterpillars, weaving those things in casings around them. They go into a state of hibernation, a time of sleep, and then they change.

Chris: Change?

Doctor: Yes, they become butterflies. Like those over there. Those graceful creatures once crawled on the ground. It's part of the Circle of Life, it's all proof that life continues, and changes with time.

Chris: You are CERTAIN that this is not vital knowledge for the upcoming events in the immediate future?

(Pause)

Doctor: Look here, Chris, do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to find something even REMOTELY interesting to talk about when you are in Cardiff?

-------

Doctor: What happened here? Why are you holding Dara under water?

Crichton: The clouds prepare for battle
In the dark and brooding silence.

Mark: Miss Hamilton is dead. She gave her life to save ours.

Crichton: Bruised and sullen storm clouds
Have the light of day obscured.

Doctor: Gave her life?! Dara?!? Save OTHERS?!?!? IMPOSSIBLE!

Crichton: Looming low and ominous
In twilight premature
Thunderheads are rumbling
In a distant overture...

Doctor: That is REALLY not helping, Colonel! Now, come on, Mark. Admit it. Dara's not dead.

Mark: Can't a guy live in hope?

Doctor: Look, there's hope and there is denial. She's waving at us for crying out loud. She's alive.

Crichton: All at once, the clouds are parted!
Light streams down in bright unbroken beams...

Chris: Why doth he only communicate in Rush songs?

Crichton: FOLLOW MEN'S EYES
AS THEY LOOK TO THE SKIES!

Doctor: No idea, Chris. It sure is irritating though.

Crichton: THE SHIFTING SHAFTS OF SHINING
WEAVE THE FABRIC OF THEIR DREAMS!

-------

Briggs Doctor: I fear I am losing my marbles, my plot has lost it... all of my eggs are in a strange basket. The square of my hypotenuse is nowhere near the square of my other two sides. Oh, cruel fate, I have made my escape but my mind is indeed a prison.

Doctor: Is he always like this?

Kevin: Pretty much.

Briggs Doctor: I must rest at once, perchance I should come right, at dawn's first light, and with a bit of luck, at the crowing of the cock, my mind will cease to run amok. Whew - at least I haven't lost my capacity for lousy poetry!!

Kevin: Stupid junkie.

-------

Crichton: Do you agree to behave?

Dara: Very well, I'll chill. For now. but only because I don't know what's going on and you look eggheaded enough to tell me the answers. Where as I am like totally hot it just isn't funny. I've been chased by mobs of adoring guys in my time.

Chris: Let us kill her anyway!

-------

1st Doctor: You know, if you ever get through to the other side of this one, I think you're going to have change the way you live.

Doctor: What do you mean?

1st Doctor: Get back to Blighty.

2nd Doctor: Find yourself a piece of land.

3rd Doctor: Find yourself a beautiful woman... heck! Maybe even raise some kids!

4th Doctor: Ahhhh, quit dreaming.

5th Doctor: We're not gonna pull through to the other end of this one... Skip.

6th Doctor: You've got to DREAM, old chap! You've GOT to HOLD ON to the DREAM!

Doctor: Can I ask you a question?

7th Doctor: Shoot from the hip, Doctor. That's always been your style.

1st Doctor: What's your question?

Doctor: Well, I guess it's kind of out of left field.

2nd Doctor: Best kind.

Doctor: But my question is this...

4th Doctor: [Sighs] Yeah?

Doctor: Why are you all talking such complete and utter BOLLOCKS?!

6th Doctor: I don't know, Doctor.

5th Doctor: Well, I guess that in times like these you just have to stop lying to yourself...

Doctor: Oh, shut up! Shut up!

3rd Doctor: Yeah... Yeah, well, I guess we're all 'shut up' in our own way...

Doctor: Oh SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UPPP!!

7th Doctor: You know, the truth of it is that...

Doctor: ALL RIGHT, THAT'S IT! I'M REGENERATING! ANYTHING TO SHUT YOU UP!!



Dialogue Gems
-------------

McGann Doctor: Listen to me, you morons! Our TARDISes are feeding the Rift, so the best thing to do is for us all to haul arse out of here as quick as possible before we all get blown to smithereens!

Charley: Oooh, that sounds intriguing...

McGann Doctor: Not now, Charley. There's no other way - but one of us has to stay behind to stop the Rift collapsing in on us as we leave, so one of YOU will have to risk your own lives for the rest of us. Get it? Got it? Good!

(Long pause.)

Bastard: Well, don't look at ME!

Kopelke Doctor: Saving every universe in creation must be worth a full ten on the machismo-meter. What do you think Chloe? Or are you just going to compare everything that happens to us to some pop culture reference?

Chloe: This makes as much sense as DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths!

Kopelke Doctor: That's my girl. No, I think we'll pass.

Briggs Doctor: Well, you can't expect ME to be the one to do it! I let people DIE for me! It's my misjudgment that lead to the destruction of the most beautiful place in the world! Misjudgment! I'LL SHOW YOU MISJUDGMENT!

Kevin: OK, Doctor, time to go back to the womb. Back to the womb, Doctor. Back to the womb.

Briggs Doctor: Out of breath! All right in a minute! No fuss!

Kevin: Boom-boom. Back to the womb. Boom-boom.

Briggs Doctor: [Calming Down] All too much you see... You can't go round making mistakes all the time...

Kevin: Boom-boom. Gurlge-gurgle. Boom-boom.

Briggs Doctor: [Falling asleep] All a matter... of stark... sim...plicity...

Kevin: Boom-boom. Boom-boom. OK, he's down. Can we take a rain check?

Cushing Doctor: The poor chap. You see where the path of vice and drug addiction leads you, Young Susan? Perhaps you'll give up that meth amphetamine lab you've been running after school, hmmm?

Susan: Shut your gob, you useless tosser. Let's blow this place.

Cushing Doctor: But what about the fate of the parallel universes?

Susan: Move it, old man or I'll break both your kneecaps.

Atkinson Doctor: This is all so soul-crushingly predictable. I think I'll have to give this business a miss as well. After you've saved the multi-verse the first five times it gets as tedious as spending an incredibly vast amount of time doing something incredibly tedious when you don't have to. Isn't that right, Leela?

Emma: I'm not Leela! I'm Emma!

Atkinson Doctor: Oh yes. Sorry, Peri, my dear...

Emma: PERI!??! I'M EMMA!!

Atkinson Doctor: Mmm. Yes. Perhaps we best leave here sooner rather than later, all right, Brigadier?

Emma: ARGHHHHHH!!!!

Johnson Doctor: Typical! Typical hypocritical cowardice! Are you all useless would-be feminists? I can smell the estrogen from here. All that needs doing is to re-route the pulse relays by the auxiliary conductor node and transpose all the prime numbers in the first line of the alphabet to the energy equation, and the TARDIS will be in no real danger.

Monica: So why don't YOU stay behind then?

Johnson Doctor: Don't embarrass yourself by trying to achieve abstract thought, Monica, you'll damage your ovaries. No, I'm clearly a far better champion of time and guardian of life than any of these spineless good-for-nothings, who I can confidently suggest won't be missed by their respective universe.

Monica: You're pathetic. I hate you.

McGann Doctor: I guess that narrows it down to between David Copperfield and Lewis Carroll over there. So, which is it to be?

Eric: Er, do we get a say in this?

Gatiss Doctor: No.

Mong: Oh, well, fuck you then!

("Land of Hope and Glory" begins to play.)

Gatiss Doctor: How many lives have I had? Perhaps more than even I know. This must be done, not merely to save the universe, but EVERY universe! They all must be saved, from realities where the Wild West is overrun by dinosaurs, to lands where robot rabbits roam. Worlds full of song and dance, planets made entirely of sweets, lands of movie monsters, and places perhaps where even the Doctor as we know him may never have exist at all. It must be done not for the honor, not for the glory, not even for the thrill, and certainly not for a very large amount of money, but because it is right and we must always...

(Off-the-record noise.)

Doctor: OK! OK! I'll do it! Never mind!

McGann Doctor: Fine with me. DAMN IT, I JUST LOVE NOBLE SELF-SACRIFICE! Bye!

Gatiss Doctor: Yeah, bye.

Johnson Doctor: Bye.

Cushing Doctor: Farewell, young man.

Kopelke Doctor: Bye!

Atkinson Doctor: Ciao.

Bastard: Sayonara, sucker!

--------

Chris: The console! What has happened?! It looks like Kuwait in here!

Doctor: Oh yeah. I was going to mention that. Was thinking of redecorating the place, what with the damage done... by the Trod... and the buffeting it took during time in the Rift... This console room has seen better days... I've tried to repair what I could... just so that we could make... one... last trip...

Chris: "Last"? Doctor, what are you saying?

Doctor: Chris, listen... I've set the coordinates... the old girl... will take you... to Disneyland...

Chris: No!

Doctor: Don't be upset, Chris. Daffy Duck is much nicer.. in person... uh...

(The Doctor sways and nearly falls but Chris balances him.)

Doctor: Thanks for that. I'm afraid... afraid... that I'm more beat up than I've let on. But with any luck... I can still survive... without having to do the whole... body changing repair deal... Makes you think of the first and last... the eternal... whatever...

(The Doctor falls backs onto the the ground in a dead faint.)

Chris: Doctor!

Doctor: Things are looking bleak... Well, I, I suppose this is it then, Chris... Oh, this is it... Shift over... The die is cast... There's nothing... that can be done for me... any more...

Chris: But you can't die! It is not possible! It is impossible! It is the OPPOSITE of POSSIBLE!

Doctor: No, Chris... I too can die... no one lives forever... not... even... Keith Richards...

(The Doctor sits bolt upright, on the verge of panic.)

Chris: Doctor! You still live...

Doctor: My past is catching up with me and it sounds like burning wood! Oh, god that was frightening! My whole life flashed before my eyes! It was sort of one long relentless collage of grey, interspersed with guest appearances by UNIT and returning monsters! I wish... I just wish... I just wish my life had just... just... just been COMPLETELY different! I must try to regenerate and cheat fate! Mind you... pissing fate off might not be the smartest thing to do at the moment...

(The Doctor grins idiotically, overtaken by an invisible power and can talk no more. He is reduced to incoherent mutter until his head falls back, sagging into unconscious. Suddenly, he convulses and orange energy explodes from his skin, blasting out of the holes in his clothes. Engulfed in the golden blaze, the Doctor begins to regenerate!)

Chris: What is happening? What is happening?!

(Chris staggers backwards, shielding her eyes from the heat and light - but she cannot look away. She stares transfixed, as gradually, the Doctor's hair lengthens, his face changes... until the blazing energy eventually dies away, finishing as suddenly as it began.)

Chris: Doctor, what is happening to you?! I won't ask again!

(And a completely new man is lying before her, still wearing the old Doctor's clothes. He looks slightly surprised for a moment, stares at the ceiling for a moment before turning to look at Chris.)

New Doctor: Change and renewal all around I see!

(Chris just stares with undisguised shock at the loony in the Doctor's ragged clothes. He grins.)

New Doctor: Forgive me, my dear Cleo Baxter, I'm feeling grotesquely emotional! I have crossed the great divide between one incarnation and the next - AND IT HURT LIKE HELL! ARGHHHH!

(He screams in pain for a second, then acts like nothing happened.)

Chris: Who art thou? What hast thou done with my lord Doctor?

New Doctor: Haha! I -AM- THE DOCTOR! Now, to work! I have been given a NEW life! My hour is come! I've struck oil at last! Oh, the responsibilities of Time's Champion! (Grimly) Best be careful not to make a bloody balls up of THIS one...

-------------------------------------------------------------------



Listener Reviews
-----------------

"Let the heavens cast their spray
Of light across the sky;
'Twill not touch the dark of Nineveh
Where Gallifreyans go to die!
Twelve rejuvenations all.
And not a season more,
Hath been the lot of the Time Lords
Since the darker days of yore!" - The Watcher of Nineveh! (0000)

"Listening to The Cardiff Rift was, for me, a bit like watching The Phantom of Androzani. There is a sadness to the final scene that touches even the uninitiated at how much is being ripped off better writers. I'm dying to find out if Coburn's successor can possible be as crap as he seems to be here, so roll on The Pretension Society..." - Mr. Twat (2000)

"Me? Rip off some trashy yank fan audios? When I already had my own triple-rejected series format 'XXX-Caliber'? You think I would go to the SCADs of all people for inspiration? Get real. GET.... REAL!!!!"
- RTD when quizzed whether The Cardiff Rift inspired him to create Touchwood

"Some call it the Zone of Silence
Where dreams die unfulfill'd
Where every chord and cadence
Of the song of life is still'd!
Others talk of timeless joy,
And venerate the day
That they might cut the skein
Of life upon dark Nineveh!" - The Deliverer From Mortal Shells (0000)

"There are people in this world who not only LIKE The Cardiff Rift, but say it's as good 'as Rob Shearman would write'. They say 'it has Classic Doctor Who written all over it'. They say 'a story with a regeneration in it can have no flaws?'. They say, 'Cardiff Rift hits home that the SCADs go beyond really good Doctor Who fan audios to absolutely fucking brilliant in every possible way audio amazement and all of human progress has merely been prelude to the Jym de Natale era of double cassette fandomania.' Me? I say 'They ditched Paul Ebbs' for this drivel? It's one long runaround sidelining both the Doctor and Chris. The foreshadowing over the regeneration with depressingly obvious as contrived injuries weaken the Doctor continuously before spending about six minutes stopping the story, then dying and becoming Jym de Natale, an ending not worth waiting for. This is yet ANOTHER reason to cut myself!'" - Ewen Campion-Clarke (2007)

"Easily one of the regeneration stories, since it features a regeneration, The Cardiff Rift does not have much going for it. Not the least of which is its unworthy scale. The Doctor has given up his life to save people... actually, no he hasn't. Or worlds. Or even an entire universe. Here, the Doctor makes the ultimate sacrifice for the ultimate good: to save every universe. Well, sort of. Actually he doesn't make a sacrifice, he just sort of happens to die really close to a grand dramatic gesture. I suppose, though, if you squint and tilt your head, it MIGHT just look like a noble self sacrifice. And that's if you count regeneration as sacrifice. I mean, he's still alive either way. He hasn't lost a bloody thing when you think about it. What a poser. Only occasionally pretending to have a plot, this story makes use of its characters and dues ex machinas... incredibly poor use, but use nonetheless. This is one adventure that will have you listening to it again and again just to convince yourself how truly pathetic the SCADs really can be."
- The Jeffrey Coburn Handbook (2000)

"So walk the ages, Time Lord,
Disregard the sign
But know that where the Watcher waits,
Waits the End of Time!
But do not fear this final fate
Of the reaper scantily clad
For it's a darn sight better
Then being part of a SCAD!" - The Eternal, Undeniable Death (0000)



Jeffrey Coburn Speaks!
----------------------

"I was extremely disappointed with my performance in this story. Then again, I was extremely disappointed with everyone else's performance in this story as well. Come to think about it, I was extremely disappointed with the story full stop. The script called for the Doctor to be ill and borderline psychotic through most of the story, and by 'most of the story', I mean all thirteen minutes I actually appeared in, but I don't think you could hear it in my voice. Could you in fact hear my voice at all?

In order to portray the Doctor's weakening condition, I deliberately slowed down his speech, drank three bottles of vodka and began to talk in a thick Irish accent. But it wasn't until I heard some of the rushes that I realised how much I sounded like a hungover Dylan Moran. I wondered how people could understand him! But then I remembered I didn't actually care.

I'd stopped caring around the fifth year. They do everything by story-blocks, you know. Five stories equaling one "season", no matter how much or how little time it takes to complete. So I was asked originally to do five seasons. I said,

"How about four and we'll see how it goes from there? Now can you please let go of my testicles please?" I remember some hemming and hawing from the executive producer, but they eventually agreed and let go of my bollocks. I can understand their point of view. It's amazing how much you can understand when they've got you by the balls. It's a real eye opener.

I mean, the longer they can contract an actor, the more stability they have for their planning. They can go to the writers and say, "Yes, definitely it will be this Doctor, so write a story for him". Not that they DO that of course, the bunch of hypocritical scumbags are so drunk and gonad-swollen the stories happen by sheer accident! And that was for me doing my very first scene with them - so I was more comfortable promising four. Five is an awfully long time to commit to. And that was when I thought five meant 'four and a bit years' rather than 'see you in 2010'.

Now I know the truth... don't get my wrong, playing the Doctor is great fun. It's playing the Doctor with these FOOLS, these IDIOTS with crucifixes hanging off them, is what isn't fun... I always thought Tom Baker stayed too long in the part. Seven years. Hhahha. Seven years. He got off quicker than I did! That lucky BASTARD! And he had attractive assistants he could bonk at will! Did he have Sheri fucking Divine breathing at him? No he did not! Peter had it right, three seasons and move on. Oh, dear Peter, what did become of him? Hinchman, I mean, not Davo. We all know what HE gets up to when the lights are out.

I took over the role in 1992, and after three seasons one has to wonder if you're beginning to grow stale playing the same part or whether you can get through another day without stabbing every last one of your co-stars to death with a toothpick because they breathe through their fucking FOREHEADS!

Half-way through my contract, they asked me if I wanted to extend it for another season or two. I was very flattered, and laughed hysterically for forty-nine minutes when I realized they were serious. They seemed to think that I, perfectly sane as I was at the time, would want to stay on for ANOTHER decade. After much thought I declined their offer, instead of crushing their skulls like soft-boiled eggs! As great a part as it's been, I think I'm getting a little bit sick and tired of these bastards, and it's probably time for a change before I become a postal worker and kill millions.

Nine years is ENOUGH to be playing ANY role, especially when every day is drowning in the slobber of Dave Segal and Chip Jamison!! The Doctor needs to be kept fresh, and some new blood for him will do wonders! And even if it doesn't, I won't care! I'm free! FREEE!

But I am annoyed at the scandalous rumors that I am somehow ashamed of being part of Doctor Who. A total lie. It's the SCADs I'm embarrassed about. As for my reluctance to do convention appearances, it may surprise you, but I actually get stage fright quite easily. I hide it by appearing as other people, whether it's as the Doctor or whatever other role I'm currently playing. If I'm not in character, I really shy away from the spotlight. Did you know that, except for my wedding photographs, there not a single snap of me not in some sort of costume? Often leather with masks and metal studs, but costumes nonetheless?

I've been asked to do a few conventions in America, but the thought of appearing before all those people as myself is just bone-frightening to me. I wouldn't know how to act. I've spent most of my life playing someone else to the audience that I don't think I'd know how to be just me anymore. Which is really quite all right, I think. There has to be some part of an actor's life that is kept out and away from the public. Otherwise where does an actor go to escape, he whose profession in life is helping other people to escape?

Well, that's what I told Doug, anyway..."



Jym de Natale Speaks!
---------------------

"Fans of the Superiority Complex Audio Dramas, this is your new - improved - Doctor speaking. Boyish grin, exile-of-the-Time Lords hand gesture, even more shining smile. Please attend carefully, the message that follows is vital to the future of you all.

At the time of speaking the fate of Doctor Who hangs in the balance, and the fulcrum of that balance is me. The choice for you all is simple: a continued fanbase under my guidance, or total annihilation! I have at my control the main character of the series, and with this power the entire format of the show! With these, I can revamp Doctor Who or destroy it! And a much better regeneration than with Segal, huh? That one sucked incredibly. But this one is a proper ending for his puny, pathetic and easily-maimed Doctor and a proper beginning for my strong, passionate and not-at-all-a-rip-off-of-Colin-Baker Doctor!

It'll be piss easy taking over from Jeff Coburn. Not that he's a bad Doctor, he's just not as good a Doctor as I am. He really is a very humble person, which is refreshing to come across in this business. Unlike Rachel, who often knifes you in the stomach and tells you, 'You got to meet me before you die! Aren't you lucky!' Which is irritating. Not as irritating as Jeff, though. He wouldn't even entertain invitations for interviews or even conventions, which cost us a lot of... publicity. And proof that 'Jeffrey Coburn' wasn't David Segal like the last two SCAD Doctors. Where was I? Oh yes.

So, earthlings, basically... A new age is dawning! One episode down, and plenty more left in me. The SCADs have been going for eighteen years, and we can do the same again and more! A hundred more years... A HUNDRED MORE YEARS! YAHAH!"



Peter Hinchman Speaks!
----------------------

"They asked me back for this story, what, four years after I left? I'd completely erased all memory of it from my mind. I had completely forgotten about Doctor Who and actually thought it was my GP ringing me up. I was terrified that I was going to be told I only had a few weeks to live. And then they told me they were from the SCADs, and suddenly terminal illness looked like some beautiful and unobtainable happy ending.

For some reason they wanted to bring back the character of Mark Tryhard rather than someone new and interesting most importantly not played by me. Still it was a big thing, because otherwise they wouldn't let Jeff Coburn do his last story. Could I willingly condemn anyone, especially a sweet little gofer like Jeff, to a fate like that? There isn't enough tequila to block out shame like that...

I was fairly impressed with the story. Since I'd left they had proper scripts, got things done on time and it wasn't all recorded live. The producer was still a paranoid schizophrenic and Dave Segal was still hiding in the wires, hunting knife in his mouth. There was this great nostalgia buzz, though the moment passed after about three or four seconds and I immediately tried to make a break for it. And I got out eventually, and so did Jeff.

But it was the last one either of us will do. NEVER AGAIN!!"



Sheri Devine Speaks!
--------------------

"What do I think of the character of Christine? Well, it was hard watching someone else being the companion for my Doctor after I was. Especially as it was on audio. Have you any idea how difficult it is to watch things on audio? You end up staring at a speaker for six hours. Any envy? That goes without saying, but all in all I thought she was incompetent in the role and a complete mockery of the brilliance of Dara Hamilton.

I did find it difficult to understand though for the reasoning that the Doctor had just dropped off Dara and he turned around and picked up Christine in the same sort of way. It just seemed like if he was so intent on not having me as a companion, he wouldn't have ANY more companions and that's the way it should have stayed! It's either me or nothing, bitch!

The ending scene was a very tough thing to do. Very, very hard. I don't know if The Cardiff Rift would be a good story to say goodbye in, I don't know if any story would be a good story to say goodbye in. Mind you, if it was another story, I wouldn't have had Jeff Coburn hogging the limelight because Mr. Wonderful High-And-Mighty Main Character was dying and regenerating all over the place. It Totally detracted from Dara's final appearance. Selfish, selfish, selfish, that is what it is. Who the hell does he think he is? Come to think of it, who the hell am I even talking about? Where am I, anyway? Is it time for my medication yet, sonny?"



Rachel Sommers Speaks!
----------------------

"I liked everything about The Cardiff Rift except for the last scene. Not because Jeffrey Coburn was leaving the series, but because of the New doctor coming in. It was Jym de Natale! That REALLY upset me! I did not want that story to end. The emotions of doing of the last scene with Jeffry Coburn came over me and when I realized I was stuck with that fat nutter, I cried."




Rumours, Slander, and Libel
---------------------------

It was during the middle of his third season that Jeffrey Coburn told the executive producer he was going to fall for the old "extend your contract" ploy that had fooled him throughout the last six times. Cobrun, who have never seemed to be happy in the role of the Doctor whenever the production team were in the same room, intended to leave as soon as possible.

"I knew this was coming," Douglas Phillips explains. "Mainly because every few minutes, Jeff would say to us 'I can't stand this any more! You bastards are all insane! BOWEL-SHATTERINGLY INSANE! I quit!' It seemed Richard Segal and I would spend hours trying to convince him that he was doing a good job; that we were very happy with his performance. But the more you talked to him, the less he'd believe it. Because none of it actually happened. We hardly spoke two words to it, but it really SEEMED like we were trying to encourage him, though Jeff had plenty of witnesses to the contrary. Like me. I can swear blind I never once said I was happy with his performance... but I still get this overwhelming impression that I did anyway! It was like a kind of self hypnosis, I suppose."

Indeed, it was only after management had given in to an exhausting series of demands from Coburn that kept him on long enough for them to set in motion all the stuff needed to regenerate the sod. They needed a new companion introduced and established so there would be someone experienced to work with the new Doctor. They needed a proper build up to the changeover. And they needed a title sequence which didn't trigger stomach churning nausea.

Still... best laid plans, huh?

With the end of the Jeff Coburn Doctor nigh, the production team decided to make no mention or advertisements of the upcoming regeneration, so as keep the ending a surprise for as many people as possible. Exactly WHO would be fooled by this was never established, given Coburn's compulsion to tell everyone he was quitting since 1998 so that everyone who knew of the SCADs' existence knew that Coburn would be gone by 2000, regardless of whether his last season was completed or not.

Luckily, due to Sheri Divine's vice-like grip on the metaphorical testicles of the production schedule meant that his fourth and final season would be completed well before the new millennium. Unless you're one of those subnormal freaks who thinks the century starts with 2000 instead of 2001 anyway. Work on Coburn's final story kicked off by contacting Coburn's favorite writer, Paul Ebbs, to write this regeneration saga.

Ebbs came up with a story entitled Epsilon-Gamma-Delta-Zeta-Sigma-Plus-One-Minus-Omega-Bravo-Charlie-Tea-Kettle-Barbecue, whereupon the Doctor and Christine discovered that the Dustbin Umpire had managed to survive their ultimate destruction and wield the ultimate weapon, the Grime Disruptor, which they would use to scrub Chris out of existence. The mortally wounded Doctor would maroon the Dustbins on a quarry planet, escape in his crippled TARDIS, have an LSD flashback and regenerate into a bearded jerk.

However, Producer Douglas Phillips and Script Editor Thomas Himinez were becoming increasingly insecure and anxious about Ebbs' natural talent and overall professionalism. Despite submitting the script to the first episode of EGDZSP1MOBCTKB only two days are being commissioned to write the story, Ebbs was told be had already missed several deadlines that Phillips and Himinez had 'forgotten' to tell him or anyone else about.

When Ebbs demanded to know what the hell they thought they were doing, he found himself fired on the spot and EGDZSP1MOBCTKB completely abandoned. Ebbs snapped that when Joe "Why Yes, Trods ARE Made Of Awesome!" Medina was script editor true writing talent was appreciated, prompting Phillips to exile Ebbs from the SCADs for ever. Never again would they use him for writing stories or even acknowledge his existence. Ebbs snapped that he'd create his OWN spin-off Doctor Who Audio Dramas of such unimaginable brilliance and intensity it would make the SCAD production teams' brains bleed at the magnificence of them.

"In fact," Ebbs then added, "here's some I prepared earlier!" and hurled a pile of Season 2.7 CDs at everyone, the shattering plastic cases causing hideous facial lacerations and severing many arteries. He stormed off, never to be seen again. Not that anyone had seen him before hand. Hell, I'm just typing this up, I have no proof he actually exists. This is all just empirical poppycock!

With Andrew Beeblebrox having returned to the land down under where women blow and men plunder, the only other writer available was John S. Drew, who was already in charge of two of the four stories in the production block. Thus, his ratio would have to rise to three of the four and they prayed that this sudden promotion would not cause another psychotic episode in Drew's inhuman brain.

Since the production of Radio Y2K, Drew had become fascinated with public access television and other such mid-90s anthropoid conceits. In particular he was curious about a particular holiday infomercial known as The Chronic Rift, which had nothing to do with temporal distortion caused by an imploding singularity but was instead a panel show of geeks discussing sci-fi-fantasy-horror comic strips about women with incredibly large breasts being sexually domination by robots called the Quirks.

Drew was unable to understand the logic behind this program (and to be fair, neither had the network, who cancelled the show right away), and assumed that it was his television at fault. His attempt to improve the 'primitive communications systems' of New York actually succeeded in creating a GENUINE Chronic Rift which left Drew seven years in the future for a period of six months before his temporal mass returned to the present.

In this nightmare hellhole of the future, Drew was alarmed to discover that not only did the "foreigners" of the planet Earth NOT trigger a thermonuclear war within the year, but also Doctor Who had returned to television along with a wealth of cash-in television spin offs like "The K9 Exploitation", "The Sarah-Jane Misadventures", "Rose Tyler: Chav Defense", "Sparrow & Nightingale: Cute Geeks Save The World", "The Family of Blood's Christmas Vacations", "Saxon Violence", "Keeping Up With The Joneses", "Mr. Copper and Mr. Mott Go Large" and worst of all... "Touchwood".

Drew considered the twenty-six episode saga of xenotech theft, non-consensual bondage three ways, pterodactyl torture, hardcore gas penetration, graphic stabbings, double entendres, supernatural pedophile murder, cannibalism, alien prostitution, cybernetic orgasm upgrades, Bowie tributes, 1944 period homoerotica, crack-crazed Ferrari-driving blowfish-headed alien tourists and repeated spiking of the Cardiff water supply with date-rape drugs "an unparalleled challenge to logic and any notion of reason in the universe". The fact the series had been renewed... TWICE... was "the worst of all waking nightmares made a living reality".

On the bright side, he could completely steal the plots, wait seven years and then sue BBC Wales for breach of copyright. Drew soon abandoned this plan... mainly because he would not sully his nine opposable digits with this trendie Joss-Whedon-aping dross.

As work began in earnest on The Cardiff Rift, Phillips began to complain that the storyline was becoming far too insular and unoriginal - featuring as it did the return of Dara, Mark, UNIT, the Dustbins, the Trods, the Bastard, the Snotarans, Milo Clancy, Hawk and the Saigon Palace II restaurant chain. Phillips wanted all stories from now on to be completely free of continuity, divorcing itself entirely from the rest of Doctor Who "unlike those Big Finish sluts", and become a chain of drab, self-contained, easily-forgettable stories with nothing interesting to prostitute itself for.

Drew - long used to having his stories being twisted and tormented into completely unrecognizable forms - silently agreed and changed all the recurring characters into pointless and unimaginative ciphers which had the curious effect of sidelining the Doctor and Chris for the entire story while focussing on a bunch of new characters who stood around bitching for up to forty minutes at a time not including cliffhanger reprises.

This story revolved around the character of Hawk from The Doomsday Single, who mugs Superman and discovers the Immensely Powerful Parallel Laxative (or Parallax for short). Hawk decides to destroy and then remake the entire universe so he will have never had to see Dara Hamilton naked. As events reached their climax, the universe would "fade out" and the story would demonstrate this by becoming softer and softer until the last few episodes were 25 minutes apiece of total silence. Phillips liked this idea, which would unify all the inconsistent timelines of the Whoniverse into a new one - the SCAD one!

In order to demonstrate this completely, the final episode would feature every single Doctor in existence - from the TV Series, the movies, Comic Relief, Big Finish, and even their bitter rival fan audios like the Oddly Visuals, Back Beyond To Traditional Reality Recognition and even Season 2.7 - thanks to Ebbs leaving free CDs all over the place!

However, a lot of the cast felt that this was detracting somewhat from the entropic temporal rifts of the story title and decided to sabotage production. By sabotaging the air conditioning, over the two weeks of production, the temperature in the recording studio climbed to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Soon most of the actors and especially the script editor and executive producer were gripped by heat exhaustion. This allowed Coburn and his allies to swap the script for the earlier drafts.

This change would eventually be notices by the way that, between episodes, the name of The Touchwood Institute became "The Porlock Foundation" then "The Forge" then "The Glasshouse With Wil Anderson". Also on numerous occasions, Mark Tryhard was referred to as "Tom Jones The Gorilla Boy". Luckily Continuity Specialist Dustbin Laden happened to be under the influence of certain mind-altering substances and his drug-added senses were so keen at to notice the discrepancy.

Unfortunately he was so stoned he didn't mention this at the time and eventually contacted David Segal via ouiji board some two years later with these errors. David Segal considered reediting the story, but it was just far too much like hard work - which was why he wasn't executive producer, like Phillips who had noticed these goofs and decided he simply didn't care. He was far more concerned with the edit of the regeneration scene and had rejected the original material and the post-production editing on no less than two hundred and twenty six occasions... and demanded they be redone EVERY time.

This meant that Jeff Coburn was still recording his death scene in 2004, over three years after he had relinquished the role and indeed set his solicitors onto the SCADs, determined to destroy the organization, its members, and everything that it ever stood for.

Ultimately, The Cardiff Rift proved to be a low-key departure to the third SCAD incarnation of the Doctor - marking the end of an interesting parallel between character and actor: both were seemingly happy and jovial on the outside, but inside could be found torments that haunted each... particularly when surrounded by arrogant morons who bullied him into their incredibly cretinous plans.

A look back on the Jeffrey Coburn years would not find a renaissance for the show and an infusion of new blood that would help propel it to the top of the ratings amongst Doctor Who audio, but instead a bunch of people with actual talent meeting a bunch of insane amateurs and being told to sod off and leave them to their institutionalized obsession. It seemed that the Jeffrey Coburn era not only relied heavily upon what went before it, when in fact, it didn't. I didn't listen to previous one hundred and thirty stories and clearly neither did any of the writers. Instead, it actually took ideas planted as seeds during earlier parts of the show on TV and brought them to fruition with aplomb, while ignoring absolutely everything the SCADS had to offer.

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Coburn stayed longer, especially with his claims he would have murdered the producers, script editors and sound designers. From there it could only improve, no?

As the season closed, a new Doctor took the helm of the TARDIS, but had along with him team that had been with the series since the days of David Segal and before him David Segal in an unconvincing afro answering to the name of 'Vince Savage'. The development that had taken place during Jefrey Coburn's time would be seen to die horribly rather than continue into the Jym DeNatale era and beyond...

Finally, in an astonishing coincidence of such high improbability it could single-handedly support the entire concept of Intelligent Design single handed, the very day The Cardiff Rift was released onto the unsuspecting public, they were similarly assaulted by Madonna's first solo album of the decade to accompany her new movie (The Next Best Thing: Fag Hag 2000). The song, "Coburn Doctor" is incredibly reminiscent of the SCAD incarnation and makes absolutely no sense in any other possible context. Nevertheless, it STILL was a number one hit in Canada.

Anyone unaware of the SCADs and their history would, therefore, be completely and utterly baffled when, upon watching The Next Best Thing: Fag Hag 2000, the opening scene where Madonna and her friends are at a funeral for a friend, they suddenly begin to sing:

A long, long time ago,
(Actually 1993)
They finally told David Segal to shoo
And it was time a new guy had a turn
They chose a fellah called Jeff Coburn
And he became the New Doctor Who.

He likes to dress like a magician
His stories were new, unlike tradition
He claimed he had a shameful past
But he only told us for a laugh,

And I know that Dara lacked a soul
And Mark had no time for rock and roll
While Chris killed in blood that's cold
Crichton and UNIT sure got old
But it was bound to end some day.

Bye-bye, Coburn Doctor, goodbye
He closed the rift at Cardiff
When the end looked to be nigh
While Touchwood bitched and tried not cry
Guess this'll be the day that he'll die...
This'll be the day that he'll die!

On his first day the Bastard stole his bod
And used it to rule Gallifrey, the clever sod
But he underestimated the old regime.
And in Paris he found the pace rather hectic
Dara and Mark proved quite Euro-skeptic
When they defeated the French's evil scheme!

With UNIT he saved Earth from nuclear war
Stopped the Saigons when they began to bore
He gave Pewnack his just desert
And met a god called Albert!

And when the Dustbin Empire rose once more
They were actually more pathetic than ever before
Defeating them was hardly a chore
But it was bound to end some day.

Bye-bye, Coburn Doctor, goodbye
He closed the rift at Cardiff
When the end looked to be nigh
While Touchwood bitched and tried not cry
Guess this'll be the day that he'll die...
This'll be the day that he'll die!

An old pop song picked a fight
Autons and Trods turned up one night
With Cybs and Sontars, things sure looked bleak
But the day was saved, and the stakes got higher
The Doctor fell for a groupie vampire
And even Dara thought she was a freak

He fought Milo Clancy, Dustbins and Trods
He met his past selves who were such clods
While his future self was a twat
The latest Bastard was dumber than that!

So it was to Winterworld the TARDIS set sail
Where relationships between empires did fail
And then the finale came to Dara's tale,
But it was bound to end some day.

We were singin'
Bye-bye, Coburn Doctor, goodbye
He closed the rift at Cardiff
When the end looked to be nigh
While Touchwood bitched and tried not cry
Guess this'll be the day that he'll die...
This'll be the day that he'll die!

Well, Dara Hamilton got up the duff
And a polymorph in Dublin had had enough
So the Doctor went back to World War Two
And after fighting aliens and Nazis
He got a new companion called Christine
And then they visited the Dragon Chateau

In the 21st century everything is new
The Trods returned the way that they do
Southbank Caves were boring
And admission fees were soaring!

After four seasons of wanderlust
And we learned of script editors not to trust
The old Type 40 TARDIS was left to rust
But it was bound to end some day.

And I was singin'
Bye-bye, Coburn Doctor, goodbye
He closed the rift at Cardiff
When the end looked to be nigh
While Touchwood bitched and tried not cry
Guess this'll be the day that he'll die...
This'll be the day that he'll die!

We were singin'
Bye-bye, Coburn Doctor, goodbye
He closed the rift at Cardiff
When the end looked to be nigh
While Touchwood bitched and tried not cry
Guess this'll be the day that he'll die...
This'll be the day that he'll die!