JS Doctor - Morningstar Manor

One Hundred And Forty-Ninth Entry in the YOA Unauthorized Programme Guide Finite Imagination Appendix O' Ghostly Germans


13D - Devil Gate Drive -

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

"It was a quiet, nondescript village. Quiet and nondescript that was, until that... thing came. That thing we know only of as "Dara"!

Now, each night is shattered by terrifying nightmares. The people are trapped, unable to leave under penalty of... well, even death would be more preferable! We have borne our yoke for so long. Is one life too much to ask for in exchange for the freedom of a whole town? Guess so. Shit. Oh well.

And all the while, I know that we are being watched. But this is a forbidden subject. Hope is something far gone. This town is accursed. Property values are declining. We have sold our souls and worse...

Chip Jamison is in the pub and he just won't stop TALKING at us!!"

While on their way to avoid visiting Hans Christian Andersen, the Doctor and Dara become trapped in a town held prisoner by an entity that feeds on fear. And, you know, the usual sort of shit happens to them.




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

The Doctor realizes with a sinking feeling of depression that he has been travelling with Dara Hamilton for over a year, and it is now her birthday. Dara wants to go back in time to meet Hans Christian Andersen and get him to autograph her VHS copy of Disney's The Little Mermaid, so the Doctor deliberately pilots the TARDIS to Germany in 1877. When Dara asks why he's done this, the Doctor gleefully informs her that the Danish Anderson has been dead for two years and he's chosen this time and place to rub it in.

The Doctor then forces her out of the TARDIS to walk along an old road in the rain, telling her that now she's sixteen she has to get used to the fact life is a drawn-out torture session of disappointment and cruelty.

Annoyed, Dara points out she's old enough to drink in a pub and storms off towards a nearby town. The Doctor shouts after her that she doesn't have any nineteenth century German currency, then decides to let her go. He follows her to the local pub in order to see her make a complete tit of herself.

Inside the Bore's Inn, the resident Bore (Chip Jamison) is demanding more and more booze that blanks out the horrible misery of his life. The innkeeper with no name acquiesces to the demands on the grounds Bore shuts the fuck up already. As the drunk passes out in his pint and starts to drown, the innkeeper with no name makes last call.

Just then a wet redhead in a scandalously short damp T-shirt and miniskirt strides into the pub, flicking her hair in an available manner and orders a cup of peppermint tea. Unsurprisingly, all eyes stare in her direction, mainly in disbelief in a strange American slut appearing out of nowhere and asking for unknown beverages.

The Doctor arrives and asks Dara if her new maturity has allowed her to realize that HE is in the right and SHE is a stupid self-obsessed teenager yet, but Dara blanks him and icily asks the innkeeper with no name if there are any rooms available for her.

The innkeeper tells her the pub is closed and there are no rooms, but if she's prepared to have a threesome with him and the barmaid, he'll let her sleep in his narrow bed for the night.

The Doctor realizes that this is his chance and immediately runs for the doors, intending to abandon Dara forever in nineteenth century Europe, only to skid to a halt as the doors swing open, there is a clap of thunder and Baron Von Schumbag looms out of the rain in front of him.

Von Schumbag explains he has come to complain to the owner of the police box which is now blocking the road, and when the Doctor fesses up is told that he's left his lights on. Von Schumbag starts to drool with lust as he leers over Dara's clammy, wet and nubile form and offers her a free room at his manor house, the innocuously-named Devil Gate's Drive, next to Lucifer Gardens on Pentagram Drive, just past Morningstar Crescent, opposite Warlock's Corner, quite near Bloody Obvious Place For A Coven To Be Hill and next door to For Fuck's Sake The Place Is Crawling With Satanic Forces And You're Bound To Be Sucked Into All Manner Of Weird Goings-On Alley.

However, the innkeeper with no name insists that he saw the prostitute first and so his bid stands. Dara has gone all giggly at the thought of being called 'fraulein' and thus instantly agrees to spend the night at in the suspicious and mistrusting town.

The Doctor offers Von Schumbag a quick snog in return for bed and breakfast but is refused and called a "weirdo", before the Baron calls Dara a cheap colonial whore and storms out.

The Doctor finds himself with the rest of the clientele being chucked out from the pub. The Time Lord warns the innkeeper with no name that getting involved with a stranger is bound to bring about bad karma; he has no idea what an egotistical bimbo he has invited to a threesome.

The innkeeper with no name refuses to hear it and the Doctor cheerfully heads off to the TARDIS. Along the way, the Doctor begins to hear some strange, ghostly whispers - and puts it down to tinnitus. When the whispers become louder and louder, the Doctor slips on his Hatichami Jog Person and puts on a Suzie Quatro number. Since he cannot hear the terrible roars from unseen creatures, the Doctor grooves innocently down the path.

However, his appalling sense of direction leads him back to the pub. As the song finishes, the Doctor realizes he can hear the distinctive sound of Dara screaming from the upstairs window.

Uta the barmaid then runs screaming out of the pub in her underwear, explaining that the innkeeper with no name is dead! His heart simply couldn't take another lecture on how hot Dara was, and he dropped dead before any sex could happen! The Doctor examines the body and notes the terrible expression on the innkeeper with no name's lifeless face.

"How many more innocents have to die before you lose your virginity, Dara?" he demands angrily.

Due to a flaw in continuity, it is now the next morning. Ice delivery salesman Christoph Von Victim arrives and bangs on the Boar's Inn's door, trying to get the innkeeper with no name's attention but failing. Cause he's dead. In case you hadn't got that yet.

Spotting the blond-haired strapping young man in blue shirt and suspenders, Dara's raging hormones immediately zero in on this Little House on the Prairie reject. The Doctor realizes his succubus-without-the-sucking-bit has found a new boyfriend of the week and groans, "Not AGAIN!!"

"It's very innocent and pure," Dara shouts at him. "Oh! My! God! It's real, true romance! Look at the setting, it's like totally perfect! Country farm, village, 19th century, the stuff that amazingly cool love stories are made from!"

"You are incapable of love, you dozy tart!" the Doctor shouts back. "Honestly, the moment you're legal, your first instinct is to shack up with the nearest bloke that hits your G spot!"

"You're not my dad!"

"Thank fucking Christ for that! But I know you, Dara Hamilton, much as it pains me to admit. Your stunted brain couldn't cope with living in a world without lipstick, cable television and cell phones - and as for living on the farm, HAH! You're a product of 1980s consumerism and without riches, your shallow life would have no meaning! You would ritualistically disembowel yourself after three days without servants bowing and scraping and calling you Lady Dara!"

"Would not!"

"Would too!"

"Would not!"

"Would too!"

"Go on then!"

"Fine!" says Dara, and drags the downtrodden stable boy down the street to the nearest equivalent of Lover's Lane. The Doctor watches her impassively for a long moment, then punches the air in triumph:

"Hah! Sucked in again!"

Suddenly there is a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning as Baron Von Schumbag arrives, and the Doctor is surprised since it's as clear as day and no sign of stormy weather. Von Schumbag has come crawling back to offer his family riches to Dara to become his live-in concubine, but the Doctor tells the disappointed despot that she's already "gone off with her fancy man".

Von Schumbag offers the Doctor lunch at Devil's Gate Drive in the form of some cheese and tomato sandwiches. The Doctor accepts, and is rather puzzled when Von Schumbag starts to laugh demonically to himself as more inexplicable thunder and lightning occur for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

As the Doctor and Von Schumbag head to his place, Christoph has taken Dara to the top of a hill overlooking the valley and his family's farm. Dara drones on and on about how popular and attractive she is, and how he saw a blue star where the people transform into something different every twelve years and NEVER end up as hot as her. Christoph comments that she is a slag and desperately begs for her to shut up and let him get a word in edgeways.

Ghostly whispers start in the background, but Dara is unable to hear them as she is too busy congratulating her own beauty. The voices call Dara by name and whisper that they want her forever.

Dara announces she is bored and immediately rips off Christoph's cloths and starts screwing him right there and then. The disgusted voices suddenly quiet and Dara is left shagging the terrified farm hand who begs for mercy.

Down at Devil Gate Drive, the Doctor and Baron Von Schumbag carry out an impromptu Antiques Roadshow examination of the baron's collection of useless and pretentious objets d'art. The Doctor is fascinated by a highly detailed and immoral painting of the baron's late wife Hannah Von Schumbag, the pool cleaner, a bucket of soapy frogs and a battery-operated electric shark.

Suddenly the piano starts playing itself and the Doctor screams in horror. Von Schumbag points out that the piano is one of those self-playing trick pianos and is playing the riff from "Smoke on the Water". The Doctor calms himself down and engages the Baron in idle chit chat about the Cybermen ice tombs of Telos and how he once left the TARDIS in a Torquay Hotel

So lost in reminiscing is the Doctor, he does not hear a strange whisper call to him from the naughty painting.

Suddenly, it begins to rain and, rather than let her make up run, Dara jumps off the dazed and partially comatose Christoph and kicks him conscious. He stumbles for cover, moaning unhappily as Dara chases after him, furious for being neglected for up to three seconds at a time.

The duo eventually end up at Devil Gate Drive, and Von Schumbag can barely control himself when the disheveled, half-naked Dara arrives pulling twigs and leaves out of her and calling Christoph "Big Boy". Dara invites herself to check out the late baroness's room and starts to steal all the good stuff from her wardrobe and the baroness tells off the bitch for nicking her favorite evening gowns. Dara turns around and calls the baron a "fat ugly slag" and scolds her for intruding.

But there's nothing there.

Putting this down to a side effect of having a brain the size of a grape, Dara sweeps downstairs just as the Doctor is telling the incredibly frustrated baron and the incredibly traumatized Christoph the plot of "The House on Haunted Hill". All three rise as she enters the room - the baron, stunned; Christoph, whimpering, and the Doctor dryly commenting "Dress up as your host's dead wife? Don't overstep any boundaries or anything..."

As the foursome dine of banquet of cheese and tomato sandwiches, tomato and cheese sandwiches, and some after-dinner mints, Dara changes the top of conversation to her favorite subject: herself, and her newfound sexual appetites, which oddly enough quell the appetites of everyone else at the table.

The Doctor is disgusted at the animalistic detail Dara goes into about her hillside humping with Christoph who has developed a nervous twitch and stammers uncontrollably. He finishes his mint and tells the baron that he is welcome to this walking vomit stain known as Dara, and ten steals a carriage and escapes back to the TARDIS.

Unfortunately, his steering is terrible and he ends up crashing into the Bore's Inn, where the Bore lurches out drunkenly singing in German. Terrified, the Doctor turns and runs off down the road.

The Doctor has almost reached the edge of town when the ghostly voices are heard, and this time he doesn't have an mp3 player to block them out, and some shaggy Night of the Demon-style monsters lurch out of the woods.

Von Schumbag arrives on horseback and orders the creatures to sod off, which they do so, grumbling in annoyance. The Doctor demands to know what is going on since he's been deliberately ignoring the situation and is thus completely clueless as to what has been happening for the last two episodes.

Von Schumbag tells him that they are trapped in the town just like everyone else is, including the baron himself. He then tries to lighten the mood by suggesting everyone head back to Devil Gate Drive and have a slumber party!

Back at the manor, Christoph finally manages to get a word in edgeways and tells Dara that an unspecified and generic amount of time ago, something came to town and tormented the villagers with soul-destroying nightmares. So the fact Dara scares him so much is true testament to her superiority complex.

Dara is upset with Christoph for having concealed this knowledge from her, and also upset the conversation has drifted away from her for over a minute. Christoph explains that he wasn't allowed to tell her, that there would have been a severe price for disobedience. But he knows whatever punishment cannot outweigh another sex session - and Dara stupidly mistakes this for a compliment.

Just then Von Schumbag arrives with his usual sudden thunderbolt, and Dara jumps into Christoph's arms, terrifying him, so he drops her and runs away. Dara just up and strides off to have a steamy shower session and no one else is invited. The Doctor uses this distraction to once again attempt to escape.

In the washroom, Dara smothers herself with mounds of foam and strangles an off-key rendition of a Suzie Quatro song. Soon the voices of the baron and baroness can be heard shouting through the thin walls, telling Dara to keep it down for Christ's sake!

Just then Christoph enters with a black eye and several teeth missing and explains that he and the baron have had "a bit of a chat" and he now wants to be her full time official boyfriend. However his 'baby, I've changed' act is not made convincing as he keeps whimpering and grimacing every time he catches a glance at Dara's naked form.

These scene, which looks disturbingly like the intro to a 1980s porn flick, is cut short when Dara tells Christoph to prove his love for her by helping her steal possessions from the baroness's room. Christoph, puzzled, reminds Dara that the baroness has been dead for over thirty years.

"I knew that," Dara says after a long pause.

Meanwhile, the Doctor reaches the outskirts of town, certain that he can ignore the illusions by focussing on the incredible powers of 1970s prog rock. Carefully, the Doctor begins to walk down the road and out of town. The voices begin again, but the Doctor continues walking. The closer he gets to the town limits, the more the voices attack his mind. Louder and louder, more frightening, the Doctor is beginning to succumb. The creatures suddenly attack and the Doctor runs past them out of the town.

No sooner does he celebrate his triumph of rationality over a challenger to human logic and reason, the Doctor suddenly cries out...

He's stepped into a sodding bear trap!

The Time Lord is left swearing like a sailor who's had an anchor dropped down the back of his pants. He limps back to Devil Gate Drive to find someone to get his foot out of the damn thing, ignoring all the sniggering wraiths and demons who mock him as he heads back the way he came.

He finally ends up at the manor house to find Dara has been stripped and draped on a sacrificial alter as Baron Von Schumbag and the rest of the villagers put on black robes and start singing "Daylight Comes And I Wanna Go Home".

The baron decides that as the evening is going splendidly he might as well explain his entire evil scheme to the Doctor in mind-numbingly banal detail before actually carrying said scheme out.

Thus the Doctor is allowed to sit in a comfy chair with a glass of port, a cigar and most important of all the bear trap removed from his incredibly sore foot, and listens as Von Schumbag tells a story of a liar, a bounder, and a cad, a tale of dishonor and deceit that will make your stomach turn.

When the strange, unknowable psychic entity arrived in town it created an illusion of Baroness Von Schumbag, giving back the baron's long dead porn star of a wife. In return, the entity fed off the fears of the town and together they await the inevitable arrival of Sapphire and Steel to whup the creature's ass back into the corridors of time.

The Doctor suggests the entity just download itself into someone's mind, but it seems that the drunken, violent German peasants were somehow resistant to it, as though their brains were too busy to accept the intruder. But now, they have Dara, whose empty bimbo brain can accept the alien presence ten times over PLUS she looks *exactly* like the late baroness.

"It's all incredibly convenient!" Von Schumbag enthuses. "I mean, what are the odds? You think we're going to take a chance that an opportunity like this will happen again?"

"Good point," the Doctor muses. "Oh all right, go on that, destroy the teenage girl to create a blatant lie in the shape of your long-lost love. God, I'm a helpless romantic, aren't I?"

Dara screams furiously at the Doctor, who sarcastically mimes playing a violin as the swirling clouds of energy flow through her retina... and are promptly spat back out again!

The Baron realizes that somehow Dara has filled her mind with thoughts of SOMEONE ELSE, which has created an impenetrable barrier. The Doctor instantly deduces that she's actually thinking about Christoph, but is shaken to the core by this: Dara is, for once, not daydreaming about HERSELF!!

"It's probably just teenage lust," he says at last, reassuring everyone. "What we need to do is somehow break her obsession with Christoph, undermine her emotional link with him, perhaps via hypnosis and aversion therapy..."

The entity zaps Christoph with a bolt of lightning, turning him to a lump of charcoal in suspenders.

"OR, at a pinch, we could do that," the Doctor concludes, shrugging.

The entity plunges into Dara's brain... but somehow, Dara is in no way affected and is already working out ways to emotionally blackmail future boyfriends by continually comparing to poor, heroic and above all dead Christoph.

Baron Von Schumbag realizes he has lost his wife forever... and it looks like he's stuck with Dara instead! Thus, he goes insane and stumbles off into the depths of the manor house, singing Susie Q songs over and over and over.

The Doctor says he understands how the baron feels.

Dara idly suggests that, since the ordeal is over, could they possibly untie her from the fucking sacrificial stone already? Glumly, the Doctor does so, hopefully asking if she still has plans to live out the rest of her life in 19th century Germany.

Dara stares blankly ahead, her eyes glowing red. "To stay in this hot and heavy land? No. I wish to walk the shores of orange seas, cool. Shed the crimson, darkling plains, cool. Raft the silent waters, cool. Drink the wind, grey silent wind, so cool. Not hot. But cool."

The Doctor wonders what the hell Dara is talking about, and realizes that somehow the alien intelligence has survived and is infecting her. But if it's not already in Dara's brain than where is it?!

The Time Lord, unusually quiet and deep in thought, heads back into the TARDIS. He is concentrating so much he doesn't seem to notice as Dara hurries into the police box after him with all the possessions she has looted from Devil Gate's Drive and the TARDIS dematerializes.

Aboard the time machine, the Doctor finally works out the answer - and becomes incredibly nauseous.

Thanks to the complete lack of contraceptives, birth control or, in Dara's case, self control, she has managed to get herself pregnant with a 19th century German farmhand's love child, which is now infested with an alien mental parasite which is even now rewriting the cellular structure of its mother's body

Dara sculls a cup of scalding hot coffee and takes a bite from a cow lick which happens to be in the console room, before speaking in tongues, and her stomach swelling up. "I find that very difficult to believe," she says at last.

The Doctor simply cannot believe how closed minded Dara is, after all their incredibly frustrating adventures throughout time and space and death and reality and gives up all hope.

The Doctor begins pressing a few buttons and in a complete fluke the TARDIS materializes in Jordrell Bank on the day they first met. After enjoying watching the previous Doctor plummet to his agonizing death on the scanner screen, the current Doctor turns to Dara and says that it is time for her to get the fuck out of his life.

Dara protests, but the Doctor will not change his mind and gives the annoying schoolgirl a taste of her own medicine by getting her name mixed up with other companions and generally being as upset as she was about Christoph's death.

Finally, he hurls her bodily out of the time machine screaming, "YOU INSENSITIVE BITCH!" before slamming the doors and dematerializing.

Dara is left to rejoin the other schoolgirls in the tour group and immediately starts to brag about her impossible adventures - just the way the Doctor specifically told her NOT to.

As Mrs. Richards ushers the tour group onto the coach, she notes Dara is heavily pregnant and wearing stolen fancy dress and carrying suitcases. She thus sends Dara to Remedial Sex Education.

Dara sighs and there is that wacky "wah-wah-wah" music.

The End.


Books/Other Related Material-
Dara Hamilton: Don't Hate Me Because I'm Like, Totally Hot!
Doctor Who: Teen Pregnancy of EVIL
Doctor Who & The Even Stranger Within


Links and References -
"You better come up with a real good explanation for this, Dara."
"Do you think telling them that I got knocked by a devil-worshipping German cult would be a bit too much? Or how I, like, single-handedly saved the Earth from invading Dustbins? Or how that I was on a planet called Gallifrey that looked just like South Wales? How about telling them about the time I visited the 24th century and the people there thought I was so totally hot they ended a space war to worship me? Or the time I lead this amazing revolt against the French President?"
"OR... you could just tell them you got glandular fever."



Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor remembers his 16th birthday involved him running into the Cosmic Comedian, a man who delights in any form of problem, puzzle or trickery but is rubbish at stand-up. The Doctor escaped the Cosmic Comedian's clutches by firing a harpoon through the Comedian's foot, effectively nailing him to the floor as the Time Lord scarpered.



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

Ghost: Come on, child. An eternity of terror won't be THAT bad.

Doctor: Considering her current life, it's practically promotion.

-------

Von Scumbag: The congregation will repeat after me. "Oh master, we are preparing for your arrival..."

Congregation: "Oh master, we are preparing for your arrival..."

Von Scumbag: "...because you are the prince of darkness..."

Congregation: "...because you are the prince of darkness..."

Von Scumbag: "...and we are your..." Oh shit! My hand!

Congregation: "...and we are your... Oh shit! My hand!"

Von Scumbag: Stupid bloody candles!

Congregation: "Stupid bloody candles!"

Von Scumbag: Shut up! Stop it! Will you stop it!

Congregation: "Shut up! Stop it! Will you stop it!"

Von Scumbag: There's always one...

Congregation: "There's always one..."

Lone Cultist: "There's always one..." Oops.


-------

Ghost: I am your future...

Dara: Piss off!

Ghost: "Piss off"? For thirty years I have waited for this moment. YOU piss off!

-------

Doctor: What's so funny?!

Dara: Your pajamas!

Doctor: And what, may I ask, is wrong with what I'm wearing?

Dara: Winnie the Pooh does not strike me as proper apparel for a Lord of Time.

Doctor: Anything would be proper apparel compared to what you wear, Robo-Slut.

Dara: Where did you get them from anyway?

Doctor: I wear them, Superman-style, under my magician outfit.

Dara: Really?!

Doctor: (Sighs) Good night, Dara.

-------

Dara: Excuse me, Yeoman. There seems to be a problem with this plate.

Butler: It... it appears to be empty, fraulein.

Dara: Precisely. NOW GET TO THE KITCHEN AND MAKE LADY DARA A SANDWICH!!


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

Christoph: I would die for you, Dara.

Doctor: Okay, Christoph, A) you met the bint less than six hours previously and B) you're just asking to die horribly with that. What are you gonna to next, renaissance man? Start wearing a red shirt and fly one final mission? You're dead meat, dude.

-------

Doctor: That's the trouble when you try to fool with the mind of a Time Lord, Baroness - we learn an awful lot about you at the same time. For instance, I know you hate Tuesdays, you can't stand puppies, and most of all, I know YOUR weakness: the exception to the rule of what does not kill you makes you stronger! OSTEOPOROSIS!

--------

Dara: Doctor? Doctor? You've barely said two words to me since we left town.

Doctor: Nothing strange about that?

Dara: Well? Is something wrong?

Doctor: Yes, there is. You see, you're a selfish little madam, Tasha.

Dara: Who?

Doctor: Sorry. Dara. But my point still stands, you horrid bimbo.

Dara: Excuse me? Am I the only hot one in this conversation? A clue: duh!!

Doctor: I nearly lost you yesterday, Sarah.

Dara: DARA!

Doctor: Whatever. I know we've been in some tight scrapes before, but this time I really thought... I'd get lucky and you'd finally be out of my hair. I don't know what I would have done if something had happened to you, but I strongly suspect it would have involved a holiday in Las Vegas.

Dara: You're just jealous of me, like everyone else.

Doctor: That's the point, that's exactly why everyone hates you, you self-obsessed bint. You forget how very fragile life is sometimes. Being a Time Lord, one does tend to become complacent - after all, we always have the hope of regenerating - but you...

Dara: Are you threatening me, Doctor?

Doctor: Yeah. I am. Explicitly and directly and emphatically. You see, Lyssa...

Dara: DARA!!

Doctor: The life I lead is NOT one of my own choosing. I am an exile, forced to spend eternity wandering around the universe. Do I have family or friends to ease the loneliness? No. I get you. And out of the entire population of every universe, out of all the people I could desperately clutch who'll share my agony for however long I can keep them, expose to the dangers and evils that I usually tend to bring upon myself... you'd not be my first choice. In fact, you'd not be my last choice. I'd rather travel around with Brady Bunch, with my mouth taped up so I would be forced to swallow my own vomit, rather than be with you. The Ninth Circle of Hell is a Swedish massage parlor compared to any location with you in it. I do not like you. Nobody likes you.

Dara: You're sure it's me you're talking about?

Doctor: Quite sure, Katy. You do not shine as a companion, you witless, passionless intellectual black hole with as much sympathy as a litre of rancid sweat from those cellulite-bloated thighs of yours. You're a petty, rude, nasty and extremely uninteresting to listen to.

Dara: Doctor, I'm here because I WANT to be here.

Doctor: You, you, you. Did you ever think about what -I- felt?

Dara: Uh... who CARES what you think?

Doctor: That does it! This, Victoria, THIS is the end of the line! To think of all the people I could tempt with the irresistible, forbidden fruit of the universe and I get you. Well, no more!

(The Doctor lands the TARDIS.)

Dara: Doctor, what are you doing?

Doctor: Guess, Susie-Jo! Just guess off the top of your head? No? Nothing? Nothing at all? No idea? Well it's time for us to say... goodbye. Or, to be strictly accurate, FUCK OFF YOU INSENSITIVE BITCH!

Dara: Awww!

I am a Time Lord. I walk in eternity. You know what that means, Melissa? It means I have a long life ahead of me and I should live it the way I was MEANT to, without a whiney brat like you.

Dara: Doctor, please, you're not thinking clearly.

Doctor: Sara...

Dara: You already did Sarah!

Doctor: Different Sara.

Dara: Oh. But I don't care. You have I've NOT wasted your life with me!

Doctor: Au contraire, K9, I've hated every minute of it.

Dara: I know I've shown you so much of my hot body, but there's still so much more in here to here to see!

Doctor: Please! I'll be sick!

Dara: We can do it right here, on the console...

Doctor: THAT'S ENOUGH, SUZI QUATRO!! ... Ew, that sounded Freudian. Anyway, Roy Kitteridge, you. Out. I've always despised you, you embarrassing little weed. So, unless you leave the TARDIS right now, I shall do unto you what God did unto the Sodomites. And despite rumors to the contrary, it was worse than what the Sodomites did to each other.

Dara: Will I ever see you again?

Doctor: Not if I see you first...



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

"Basically your typical haunted house in a small village moments of real terror and emotion keeping you on the edge of your seat throughout type of story. Heard it all before, bought the T-shirt, ironed it, sold it on eBay. Nothing special to speak of at all. Life is so predictable." - Blasé Quarterly (2000)


"Oh. My. God. They actually do the 'pub goes all quiet as visitors arrive'
shtick. HAVE THEY NO SHAME?!?" - Andrew Beeblebrox (2005)


"Devil Gate Drive really is a teenage drama as Dara's first full flown love affair ending abruptly with tragedy, leading to her realization that her 'parent', the Doctor, is not a god and is forced to give up her fairytale childhood to live in a normal everyday land. Bit like what happened to Rose Tyler, except we actually give a crap about what happened to poor Rosie. Oh, I'm tearing up even now... Dara can rot in hell for all I care."
- Ewen Campion-Clarke (2008)


"A real listen-to-with-the-lights-out-and-ear-plugs-in kind of story. A bit short, but then a fourth episode would probably have padded it out too much. A fifth would definitely have padded it out too much. Another twelve episodes would have been just plain stupid. Why the fuck would anyone be so moronic as to make this story fifteen episodes long? Were they not brought up properly as a child? God, such pointless inefficiency! You can almost feel yourself going insane along with Dara... if she had had sanity to lose. The only real complaint is that, for Dara's last story, the story that has the last chance to make us give a flying fuck about her and instead confirms once and for all she's the stupid bitch we've hated since the very beginning."
- The Jeffrey Coburn Handbook (2000)



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

"This was a story that really creeped me out. I actually had nightmares while doing this one, nightmares about turning up to work butt naked and then being eaten by a giant prehistoric Chip Jamison while Sheri and the others had satanic transvestite orgies. I guess that says something about the script. And not something nice, I can tell you.

Of course, Devil Gate Drive was a different sort of Doctor Who story. It wasn't the fact that the Doctor remained pretty much clueless the whole time, but that he simply didn't care at all. It wasn't until the final episode that he admitted to noticing anything was even happening in town but wanted to leg it while Dara was being attacked by this creature. This was a good thing, I think, because it gave the audience a chance to work through the mystery before the mask was finally removed, as it were. Plus, it made Dara suffer more in the long run. DEFINITELY a good thing.

Sheri definitely didn't want to leave. It wasn't her idea, and she was quite vocal about it. She sent hate mail to everyone involved and we had to put a restraining order out on her, which made recording the story quite difficult. I didn't want her to go, either, but I *DID* want the character to die horribly.

Sheri worked very well together and had developed a very strong friendship over the years. I remember she cried when we finally wrapped at the end - but that might have been down to beating I gave her when lack of sleep caused me to hallucinate. Oh well. Never mind."


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

"Devil Gate's Drive is not something I want to talk about much.

So I won't."


Rumours, Slander, and Libel
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Back in 1992, Jeff Coburn agreed to portray the Doctor for an initial four seasons. He was promised that the time taken to produce these seasons would, at most, come to about three and a half years. Three and a half years later, he was only just starting his second season and decided that unless things improved drastically, he would not stay for a fifth season.

By the November of 1998, two and half years later, they STILL hadn't finished his second season.

Sick to death of this, Coburn had his agent and hired goon Uulungid Caloovin ring up the mysterious executive producer, Richard Segal, a being who had not been seen in public for years and whom many considered an urban legend. Caloovin informed Segal and informed him that his client was going to be leaving the series at the end of the year 2000, regardless of whether the fourth season was completed or not. In fact, he was considering walking out right now unless certain demands would be met.

Segal hung up, assuming it was a wrong number.

However, Producer Douglas Phillips knew what the hell was going on and this kind of emergency was just the sort of thing that David Segal was waiting for so he could recast himself yet again as a carbon copy of Tom Baker's Doctor. Thus, they spoke to Coburn and agreed to accede to his demands:

1) That he not have to dress up as a magician during recording any more

2) For a story set in medieval times, his favorite time period

3) They actually get some proper recording facilities and stop doing 'live' recordings

4) They finally get rid of Dara

New script editor Thomas Himinez was set to work to write Dara out of the show immediately, even though they still had another three stories to go and one of them was written specifically with Dara as the companion.

Himinez decided to pick up an old script originally on the cards for Jeff Coburn's first season, commissioned durin the aeons it took to get The Empire of the Dustbins Strikes Back! finished and was ultimately replaced by Dork Dreams.

The script, entitled The Lucifer Estate, was a cliche-riddled slasher story set in a housing estate with lots of scary voices and screams. Despite Phillips' insistence he would be dead and buried before he allowed such derivative crap to be produced, Himinez showed more backbone than the two previous script editors and repeatedly punched him in the face until he agreed.

Himinez authorized the commission of the script from Joshua Schrodier, a pizza delivery boy who lived in their recording studios and was kind enough not to protest about the noise. Schrodier was told that the story would be Dara's last and ideally would feature her suffering a "really, really scary fate" that would make it absolutely impossible for her ever to return.

Schrodier got cracking and only five months after the original deadline of December the first, 1998 for the completed script, finished drafting episode one. Episode two was drafted nine minutes later and episode three, six weeks after that. Curiously, the paper the drafts were printed on had a curious watermark that read I'M WATCHING YOU, which lead to the production team finding the script very creepy to read.

Since Sheri Devine was a massive Suzie Quatro fan, they agreed to change the title from The Lucifer Estate to Devil Gate's Drive, which curiously had absolutely no effect on the story itself, bar a sequence where the entire cast broke into the eponymous song for no apparent reason.

Thomas Himinez was chosen to direct the story by Phillips, trying to cut his violent script editor back down to size. Himinez cunning ensured that the story would only be three episodes long, thus giving him half the week off. Phillips vowed revenge.

Himinez made sure he had even LESS work to do by dwindling the cast of characters to nine and the cast of actors to five, forcing them all to double up for half the pay (except Chip Jamison, who wasn't paid at all). Despite the fact actors were crawling all over the place to play the part of Von Schumbag in the mistaken belief he was the next Bond villain, Himinez cheerfully decided on Jym de Natale with a peg on his nose.

Recording became tense when, unbeknownst to the SCAD team, the local reservoir was used as an unofficial dumping ground for psychotropic chemicals, meaning the drinking water became dangerously hallucinogenic and caused brain-twistingly horrific dreams, often involving faceless nuns sitting in rocking chairs or masked figures grinning from the shadows.

Restless, nervous and awkward, the fact the cast found the runaround they were recording in any way frightening shows how far detached they were from reality. At one point, Jeff Coburn was unable to differentiate fact from fiction and thought Sheri Devine really WAS Dara Hamilton and promptly threw her across the room shouting "YOU INSENSITIVE BITCH!" into the microphone with enough volume to send David Segal screaming that the Devil was inside his skull, gnawing on his soft pink brain and singing Celine Dion songs. Luckily, Devine was such a trooper she was still able to deliver her lines despite the fact she had just had three ribs broken and severe concussion.

Thus, when Himinez's incredibly confused production schedule dictated that Dara's farewell scenes be recorded six hours after Devine's Farewell And Good Riddance Party, the actress was remembering some traumatic incidents from her childhood involving a tennis ball and broke down in tears. When Himinez and Phillips presented her with a plaque with the restraining order, the still slightly insane Coburn used it to bludgeon her unconscious, causing her to collapse over the computer, deleting the special software that erases the annoying hissing noises made by Chip Jamison breathing.

Phillips was not impressed by the finished product. In particular, he was horrified that the years of work that had gone into previous seasons, making the Doctor a tragic character doomed to spend lifetimes wandering the universe were used up and discarded in just one scene, making them all look like retards thanks to Dara's unusual departure story.

Ultimately, Devil Gate Drive is just a sucky remake of Dragonbreath - a three part story writing out the Doctor's female companion, and its simple plot revolves around the stupidity of the Doctor, his friend and the main villain and it is this that drives the story. Of course, in its efforts to scare the crap out of the listener, a little thing called "logic" storms out of the plot, slamming the door behind it.

Why is dark and stormy whenever night falls, but beautiful and sunny during daylight hours? Why on Earth hasn't anyone killed Chip Jamison's character? Why on Earth hasn't anyone killed Chip Jamison full stop? Just what the hell is the creature and why the hell is it worried about Sapphire & Steel when it hasn't caused an irregularity in the time dimension? Is it worried the Doctor might use it as an anecdote at the Annual Time Detectives' Ball in Year Zero? Why is it stuck in Germany of all places? And surely there must be some life form less embarrassing than Dara to possess, like a tree frog or something? And surely an anorexic stick insect like Dara wouldn't be able to carry the creature to term anyway?

Later, Phillips confronted Himinez over what a total shambles the story was and how easily it could have been a genre-subverting magnificence if Himinez had actually got off his arse and done his job properly. "Oh, well," Himinez is reported to have sighed, "It's amazing the award-winning art we can create in hindsight."


"Gratuitous Use of the Title" by Dead Lizards

We need a sharp knife
To end a virgin's life
Down in Devil Gate Drive
Get it into your head
Gonna bring back the dead
Down in Devil Gate Drive

Well the village don't know
Aliens come, aliens go
Gonna steal dead bodies
Gonna do it real slow

Bring the sacrifice up
And some druids to go
Can she survive...
Down in Devil Gate Drive?

Can you survive
Once you arrive
Down in Devil Gate Drive?

Can you survive
Once you arrive
Down in Devil Gate
Down in Devil Gate
Down in Devil Gate Drive?
Down in Devil Gate
Down in Devil Gate
Down in Devil Gate Drive!

When they reach their teens
That's when we all get mean
Down in Devil Gate Drive
She needs to be sweet sixteen
To be the Undead Queen
Down in Devil Gate Drive

You don't need angels
On the road to sin
Who needs Necronomicon?
Throw it in the bin!

Resistance is useless
Do you know where I've been?
Time to die...
Down in Devil Gate Drive

Can you survive? No!
Once you arrive? Where?
Down in Devil Gate Drive!

Down in Devil Gate
Down in Devil Gate
Down in Devil Gate Drive!

Down in Devil Gate
Down in Devil Gate
Down in Devil Gate Drive!