Monday, February 1, 2010

10th Doctor - Love & Monsters (i)

Serial 208 – Love & Pizzas
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' DAMN IT, I JUST LOVE DOCTOR WHO!!!

"YOA's Discontinuity Guides - Inaccurate But Caring."


Serial 208 – Love & Pizzas -

A young man runs across a barren industrial field, and emerges near a large warehouse to see a tall blue police box standing alone. Nearby inside the warehouse tape recorders play voices of both the Doctor and a young girl, while a huge snarling creature lurches around the corridors.

"Danger! Slutty chavs, aliens, even MORE slutty chavs, a powerful man, and even a song! Yeah, this should fool the mark perfectly!" the man gloats to camera, completely breaking the fourth wall.


Day 1

On the distant ice planet of Sauerkraut, the Doctor and Rose are riding Arthur the horse through the snow as the Time Lord regales them both with his tales of nude bathing with Oliver Reed. Suddenly, a suspiciously familiar looking golfball-shaped spacecraft appears and snatches up the TARDIS and two armored Snotaran spruikers arrive and offer the trio an all you can eat Katabatic Winding Entrail buffet for twenty Altarian dollars.

"Funny, innit?" the Doctor muses. "How no good EVER comes from a starter with the word 'entrails' in it?"

Back on Earth, a group of con-artists, grifters and Holmesian double acts have gathered in a Cardiff diner to wait until the heat’s off in London after one of their number – well, Danny – used a false credit card to pay their hotel bills and forced them to flee.

Their new mark is none other than Ian Levine, a strange and blobby Doctor Who fan who is clearly insane but endearingly rich after his management of certain boybands and flogging off missing episodes to Hong Kong restaurants. Head grifter Mickey Briggs suggests they fleece him for every penny they’ve got. This will be a relatively simple con as all they have to do is pick his pocket without drowning in the folds of his body, while providing a huge distraction.

Danny Blue suggests they form a fan club of experts on the Doctor and get Ian Levine to join the gang, then fake an alien invasion. Ash "Three Socks" Morgan quickly prepares to create a false rubber monster costume of an alien race known only as the Hoax, while Albert dresses up in frilly shirts and starts practicing operating a sonic screwdriver. Stacie masters the art of spraining her ankle while Danny is left with the unenviable task of trying to get Ian Levine’s attention...


Day 2

Danny discovers that Ian Levine is a virtual recluse who rarely leaves his mansion, mainly due to an inability to build up sufficient escape velocity. The more Mickey researches Ian Levine on the net, the more he realizes he really, fundamentally hates this guy. Finally he discovers "Doctor in Distress" on youtube and the entire gang are convinced that this con is not merely about money but actually divine retribution.

Unable to contact Ian Levine directly, the gang mock up an interview with Danny as he relates how he and the Doctor defeated the return of the Autons in 2005, the Mantodean computer game scandal of 2006 and single-handedly slaughtered the Evil Space Dentist Drel McCavity. This is then cunningly slipped into Levine’s monthly subscription to What Carcass magazine.

Ash has meantime set up a totally useless website that does not allow anyone to actually contact Danny, but with some homemade footage of Danny having a light sabre battle with a Cyberleader. They get one email: from Ian Levine, demanding proof that Danny knows the Doctor.

Danny responds that he and the Doctor had a tearful parting of the ways on Gauda Prime and Danny has returned to Earth to start his own rockband, the Prydonian Renegades along with his fellow companion Mickey Smith (actually Mickey Briggs under a cunning pseudonym).

Meanwhile, the Doctor, Rose and Arthur find what APPEARS to South Wales now populated by dinosaur-riding cowboys chasing ninjas on unicorns while a Viking called Stegnor the Conquerer captures young school girls for his own personal harem. Before the TARDIS crew can even try to do a single solitary thing, they all get distracted by a superhero crossover as the Shield of Truth beats nine colours of shit out of the Revenger.

Across the town square a young boy chats with his invisible friend as he narrates the events as this unfolds. Could this, perhaps, be somehow relevant to the strangeness going on here? Unfortunately, we will never find out as this is the double bank episode and we have to see what happens to the grifters instead.


Day 3

Having left all sorts of cunning an unobtrusive clues as to their base of operations in the disused basement of an abandoned Welsh library, the grifters wait patiently for Ian Levine to turn up. Hours pass, and over pizzas the conversation turns to what sort of rock band the Prydonian Renegades should be.

Soon, Mickey and Danny come almost to blows over whether or ELO is better than Pink Floyd when suddenly all the lights go out, the power cables flattened under the feet of a huge, barely-human green blobby creature with a black mohawk and albino pink eyes.

This is Ian Levine.

At that exact moment, 20 miles from Cardiff and two thousand years previous, the Doctor and his companions emerge into the forest arguing about whether or not the lyrics to Purple Haze are "excuse me while I kiss the sky" or if, as the Gay Agenda claims, it was "excuse me while I kiss this guy"?

Suddenly a hoard of Roman Legionaries burst into the clearing and scream "SLAY THE SILLY LURIANS!" just so that all the fanboys who don’t know that 'Silly Lurian' is a Celtic tribe name get all excited and assume that the Pertwee era reptile people are back again.

Back in the A plot, Danny insists to Ian Levine that he and the Doctor have parted company and he certainly wouldn’t undervalue their friendship by summoning the Time Lord back to Earth for some paltry interview. Ian Levine offers to become the manager of the Prydonian Renegades, having had much experience with boy bands.

Ian Levine insists he is their salvation and he can make them the UK Number 1 in just eight Working Days on the condition they allow him to meet the Doctor face to face. He also has his doubts that they ever met the Time Lord, but Ash is able to provide a clip off youtube of the five of them walking past a conspicuous Metropolitan police box.

Danny also reveals that he first encountered the Doctor as a small child when he heard the TARDIS landed in his bedroom and unfortunately on top of his mother’s head, which left him a sad orphan for the rest of his life. Mickey watches on, appalled, as Danny is making this shit up off the top of his head rather than sticking to the previously-agreed-on cover stories.

However, it turns out that Ian Levine is a total moron and completely falls for the tale without suspecting a thing.

Ian Levine begs them to ring the Doctor with those super-duper mobiles all companions have, but Albert icily explains that the phone business is a journalistic invention that if true would cause lazy storytelling and a dramatic copout. Only Mickey had a mobile but he lost it and tragically cannot afford to have it replaced.

The imbecilic Ian Levine immediately offers 915 million pounds to Mickey if it can possibly help, and the gang immediately promise to come back tomorrow if they have any ideas about how to bring the Doctor back to Earth. Definitely.

The quintet leave Levine gurgling alone in the basement.


Day 4

The TARDIS has landed on the distant planet of Phijax 5, which has non-stop rain and very low gravity and looks absolutely identical to a Welsh gravel quarry. Suddenly a giant purple scrotum blob monster attacks the Doctor, Rose and Arthur but the Time Lord cunningly works out the creature’s one weakness: blueberry pie with bacon, semolina, cabbage and extra fizzy lemonade!

The gang return back to the basement. Although they have far more money than they are comfortable with (since it means they are so rich they don’t need to con people, which can only lead to long term psychological problems), they HAVE gone to an incredible amount of trouble and decide they should at least use what they’ve done.

Mickey and Danny explain that they discovered through their contact with Captain Jack Sparrow (a regular drinker and prostitute at Eddie’s bar) that the Doctor has apparently returned to Earth in Brecon!

Ian Levine demands the group find the Time Lord and bring him here and they unhurriedly move for the exit and go through the pre-credit sequence with lots of surreal narration from all concerned. Danny videotapes his encounter with the Doctor:

After stumbling across the Hoax Monster in the factory, the newly-regenerated "Doctor" (who looks just like Albert in a question mark cape) and "Rose" (who looks like Stacie in a blonde wig and hoodie) are hunting down the alien armed only with a pork chop and bucket of washing up liquid. The "Doctor" urges Danny to flee lest he get caught in an ontological paradox and bring forth the Dommervoy!

Left behind, the "Doctor", "Rose" and the Hoax Monster get involved in a Scooby Doo chase sequence as the trio chase each other down each of the three parallel corridors, before Danny flees as the distinctive sound of a yale key moving up and down a piano wire is heard.

Danny returns to Ian Levine and, after wondering what’s happened to Mickey, offers up the video evidence of his encounter with the Doctor. Ian Levine is furious and it is only his obesity that stops him beating Danny to death with his imitation First Doctor walking stick.

Thinking quickly, Danny suggests they track down the Doctor through his companion Rose. Since Ian Levine has no realization that "Rose" and Stacie are the same person, he demands that Danny, Stacie, Ash and Albert focus on finding her. They must search throughout Cardiff, one girl in a million faces of one of the most substantial capital cities of Wales itself!

The grifters make non-committal noises and wander off for the night, leaving Ian Levine alone once more in the basement.


Day 5

The next day, for no other reason than to find something to do, Danny asks a random passer-by if they happen to know a "Rose Tyler" – and since the passer-by is Jackie Tyler and she named Rose after her grandmother, she is actually able to help.

Thinking quickly, Danny tries to work out a way to start a conversation, find her name, make an ingratiating joke, worm his way into her life and finally con her... Jackie immediately stuffs a used pair of her knickers in his breast pocket and asks him to come round to her place and become her live in lover to replace the last one after her psychotically jealous daughter and her Time Lord friend assassinated him by letting cyborgs murder him on a mirror version of Earth.

Totally taken aback, Danny finds himself lead to the Powell Estate as Jackie puts on a PVC nurse outfit and pours red wine all over him before sucking the alcohol out of his clothes and removing them with scissors...

And if this is getting a bit heavy, we cut to the Doctor, Rose and Arthur trapped on a runaway spaceship in the 31st century where everything changes and you gotta be ready. The TARDIS crew have been caught up in the internal conflicts of the Disaster Area rock band!

Convinced a saboteur is amongst them, the Doctor jettisons the only escape pod to force them to come clean. However, he STILL hasn’t got the hang of the whole "pride goeth before a fall" stuff and is totally taken aback when the damaged cruiser splits in two and everyone is sucked out into the fatal vacuum as the cruiser explodes and kills everyone!

...

I have no idea how they got out of that mess, but it was no doubt very, very improbable. And probably nicked, er, "homaged" from Douglas Adams.

Anyway, after eight hundred and sixty separate bouts of sexual intercourse, Danny feebly tries to escape. Luckily, Jackie has found a photo of Stacie in a blonde wig in Danny’s wallet and somehow mistaken it for a picture of Rose.

Wracked with horror that she’s bonking another male lusting after her daughter (and thus doomed to suffer at the hands of the Doctor and Rose when they find out), she throws Danny out of the flat. Literally. He falls three stories and ends up naked in a dumpster as the weeping Jackie burns his clothes in a litter pin and cowers under a cold shower screaming that she’s sorry for betraying the memory of Mickey Smith.

...this is the light, fluffy comedy episode, did I mention?


Day 6

After nearly being screwed to death and with a moral question mark hanging over their manipulation of Jackie, Danny argues with Stacie (Albert and Ash having vanished in as mysterious manner as Mickey earlier on) that they have already got twice the gross domestic product out of Ian Levine and should quit while they are ahead.

However, Danny has made a crucial mistake – not only has he blown his own cover in front of Ian Levine and revealed himself as a conman, he is also wearing a grubby rugby outfit gathered from the Powell Estate dumpster after Jackie destroyed his clothes.

Unfortunately, men in rugby outfits are Ian Levine’s big turn on and the hideous mountain of elephantine excessitude rumbles towards Danny and Stacie like a cross between the Blob and that boulder from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!

For over the many years of foot-long lard sandwiches and all night Doctor Who marathons, Ian levine’s digestive system now comprises 97% of his actual body. He is no longer a human being but a sort of absorbathon, absorbaling absortbatrix absorclobbing being called the Absorbthebleedinlotofyou!

Elsewhere, the Doctor, Rose and Arthur are busy making a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in a Season Eight episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer called "No Future For You" as they pass an apartment where ex-Watcher Rupert Giles and rogue slayer Faith are doing all the stuff relevant to the ongoing story arc.

Danny and Stacie flee out of the building as Ian Levine grabs at them with his stumpy, jaundiced claws, ranting that he will absorb every single person he encounters until he finally consumes the Doctor himself!

The unspeakable abomination rolls down the streets after the duo and, this being Cardiff, no one takes a blind bit of notice. Finally the two grifters are trapped in a blind alley as the gargling and laughing Ian Levine approaches, mocking that there is nowhere for them to go now!

Just then a new voice shouts out and a strange bring pink elephant-like creature emerges. This is an alien creature from the twin planet of the Slitheen homeworld of Hotpotatoesorchestralstallspuckwillmakeamends, a world known as Barry. This being is the mighty alien warlord known only in the fables of a terrified cosmos as...

...SAD TONY!

Without breaking sweat (since Sad Tony does not possess sweat glands), the Barryoid warmonger liquefies Ian Levine into a pool of slime which Sad Tony hoovers up with his trunk.

Sad Tony’s three hearts then explode from cholesterol poisoning and he slumps dead on the pavement beside the horrified Stacie and Danny, who are even more taken aback when Touchwood operatives immediately race into the alleyway with flame throwers and start pumping bullets into Sad Tony’s increasingly sad corpse...

In the traditional post-murder Touchwood orgy, Danny and Stacie escape.

Day 7

Sometime later, in Eddie’s Bar, Stacie and Danny meet up with Mickey, Albert and Ash who reveal the con of Ian Levine was merely a rather elaborate assassination attempt – Mickey contacted Sad Tony and was paid a very large fortune to lure Ian Levine into a trap so Sad Tony could finish them off. Meanwhile, Touchwood contacted Albert and requested the grifter lure Sad Tony into a trap so THEY could kill HIM!

As Danny tries to keep up with the twists and turns of the plot, Ash has deep and truly disturbing news: Ian Levine’s cheque has bounced and Sad Tony’s money is not acceptable currency! They’re all out of profit.

Albert reveals it is not a TOTAL loss as they still have Touchwood’s fee to add to the kitty – and the drunken Captain Jack Sparrow stumbles in, offering them their payment.

To their dismay, they have been paid in strange sex aides resembling human faces fused into paving stones, all programmed to provide oral relief to the owner and, for some reason, all resembling Stacie!

As the team come to terms with this hideous concept, Danny suggests they could make a fortune out of selling Slabs Full o’ Head to any foreign businessmen willing to pay the knockdown price of £695!

Meanwhile, the Doctor, Rose and Arthur...


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Next Time...
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"30th Olympiad! Don’t mention Bangladesh though, that’ll just kill the mood entirely..."
"Oh-kaaaaaay."
"They’re not respectful!"
"They’re just playing..."
"Get them inside, I’m begging you before I throttle the little punks!"
"In the last six days, three of your children have turned into drawings? Can you see the difficulty I’m having here taking that on board?"
"We have to find that sauce for dunking dim sims!"
"These? These are kid’s pictures! Now fuck off!"
"Chloe has the Gift! She is the Chosen One! Well, she might not be the Chosen One, but we better point it out to cover our arses."
"If living things can become drawings and drawings can become living things then why oh why did could Tony Hancock never give up the booze?!"
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...Filler...
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