5th Doctor - The Veiled Leopard (i)

Serial DWMCD06 – The Veiled Leotard
An Alternate Programme Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Beware Of The Were-Leopards!

Serial DWMCD06 – The Veiled Leotard -

Aboard the TARDIS, Eminem remembers she left her favorite leotard buried in Ancient Egypt and demands on pain of death that the Doctor and Peri locate it. After a few minutes searching the databanks of the time machine, the Doctor is surprised to see the leotard was put on display in the Casino Majestique in Monte Carlo in 1966.

No sooner do they arrive outside the Casino then another TARDIS arrives and a small man in a strange pullover emerges, and Eminem considers killing him for 'looking at her in a funny way'.

This strange man is, in fact, a future Doctor and he has come to the Casino Majestique to send in his own companions Hex and Ace because he just discovered during a pub trivia quiz that the same leotard Eminem owned was, in fact, encoded with all the information of an entire civilization now extinct and after millennia is ready to recreate that civilization on Earth.

As you can imagine, no one really wants the Earth to be reformed in the image of a bunch of stupid jerks who encode the survival of their species and culture onto an article of women’s gymnastic gear, so the Seventh Doctor sends his companions in with Mission: Impossible style ear pieces and microphones.

Eminem demands the Fifth Doctor get her similar high-tech gear, but he’s got nothing – why they hell would he be so anal to have surveillance devices on hand for just this sort of emergency?

Peri and Eminem will have to handle this themselves and so they head for the Casino entrance. The Fifth Doctor checks they’ve gone, laughs triumphantly, and runs into the TARDIS which takes off as the Seventh Doctor watches. "You’ll be back," he sighs.

Ace and Hex sneak in as Lady Lily Hawthorne’s guests while Peri and Eminem are forced to flash Jean the Commisionare, Jean, before they can enter. Inside, Peri snatches a bottle of champagne and knocks it back, thus missing the fact that Lily and an industrialist called Peter are acting in an incredibly obvious and suspicious manner.

Realizing that the violently-keyed-up black chick in the pharaoh headdress and the drunken American girl with the big tits are looking at them, Peter hastily changes the topic by making a number of lewd suggestions about a threesome.

Eminem responds by smashing a champagne glass and trying to stab Peter to death with the shards. Lily races over and kicks Peter in the groin, immediately making a good impression on Peri, who throws up.

Lily then idly notes that she only came to this get together in the hope Janus the society thief will steal the leotard from the safe in the office upstairs and gives detailed descriptions of its location, the security organizer, and then repeats it when Ace and Hex arrive to take notes.

The organizer of the party and owner of the leotard makes a speech welcoming the guests and revealing that the "Veiled Leotard" will be given to his wife as a birthday present at midnight.

Bored, Peri and Eminem follow a stranger into the gents while Lily ducks into a room which just happens to be directly underneath the suite where the Veiled Leotard is being held. Peter stands guard and asks Hex to light his cigarette, but instead is offered several illegal substances instead. When Peter finally snaps, "Leave me alone! I’ve got to steal the Veiled Leotard! I’m an international clothing thief!" Peri and Eminem suspect that maybe, just maybe there is more to him than meets the eye.

Ace meanwhile overhears the organizer of the party, Crawler, tell his private stooge Bennett to steal the leotard before midnight for insurance purposes and blame the crime on Janus. Ace comes over and offers dubious sexual acts in return for Crawler taking her to see the leotard, while Hex runs upstairs. So do Peri and Eminem after they demolish another bottle of champagne.

Hex finds the guards drugged unconscious and swears that he missed getting wasted in high society. While he complains at the bad karma of it all, Peri and Eminem kick down the door to the suite only to find Lily is in the middle of stealing the Veiled Leotard. Lily explains she will sell the dirty gym slip to the highest bidder and spread the wealth to those in need. Like her, for example.

Eminem realizes that this is a pretty damn clever idea and decides to steal back her leotard to do just that!

Just then, Hex barges in with Peter and realizes the Seventh Doctor stuffed some things into his pocket: two copies of Eminem’s gym slip! Hex gives one to Peter to sell off, and decides to swap the other for the genuine leotard before it "does that freaky thing what it was about going to do etc."

Just then Bennett arrives and everyone hides as he steals what he thinks is the real leotard but actually just a copy, sniffs it for a disturbingly long time, then runs off laughing insanely. He then runs back, leaves a fake Janus calling card, then runs out.

Ace arrives as Peter steals the fake card to sell to the highest bidder and redistribute the wealth amongst those in need. Like himself. Ace and Hex then catch Bennett, beat him, and expose him as the thief and ruins Crawler’s incredibly predictable insurance fraud.

Peri and Eminem are now so drunk and confused by all the plots and counter plots they’ve completely forgotten about the whole Veiled Leotard business and just want to crash out, and together they stumble out of the Casino as the Fifth Doctor returns.

"Told you," the Seventh Doctor gloats.

"Shut your face, you ruddy midget," the Fifth Doctor retorts as he drags his inebriated companions inside his time machine.


Book(s)/Other Related –
Companion Cutaway
Doctor-Lite Quartlerly Special "70% Less Main Character" Issue
Doctor Who: Oceans Five Versus Seven


Goofs -
Eminem doesn't know what a Centurion is, or what one looks like, yet in The Council of Niceties, she killed plenty of the poor suckers. Do all her murder victims blur in her memory? Or was the Centurion costume was more Hollywood style than authentic?


Fashion Victims –
At one point Eminem notes, "Seriously, Peri, is that a wig?"


Technobabble –
The leotard encoding technology works on the same principle as "David Bowie’s nipple antennae signals".


Links and References -
The Fifth Doctor suffers the events of The Sequel during this adventure, where he faces his worst nightmare: Tegan Jovanka.


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Seventh Doctor intends to let the leotard loose on one of the planets in the Third Zone, mainly to take the incredibly arrogant Third Zoners down a peg or two.


Groovy DVD Extras -
Lots of trailers for all the BF spin off ranges no one bothered to read about let alone listen to.


Dialogue Disasters -

Peri: This is Pharaoh Eminem and I am Pharaoh Ramadamadingdong.
Ace: Oh really? I am Ace Smith. Of the Perivale Smiths. We deal in futures. And landmines. And a bit of white slavery. But mainly in futures.


Dialogue Triumphs -

Crawler: We’ve got to get the bloke what tried to nick it! And the other bloke who tried to nick it! And his partner! And another gang of two girls trying to nick it! And another girl trying to nick it! And her partner, who is stoned off his head and rubbing the carpet a lot! In fact, is there ANYONE in this ENTIRE Casino NOT trying to steal the Leotard?!


Viewer Quotes -

"LEOTARDS!!!" - Tim Ferguson (1993)

"Isn’t Ace dead yet?" - President of Sarah Griffiths Fan Club (2006)

"Finally! An embarrassing gap in the alternative program guide filled!"
- Ewen Campion-Clarke (2008)

"Great. Another whimsical and inconsequential fluff free with DWM with a contrived, unconvincing plot. All my birthdays have come at once."
- Dave Restal (2006)

"At last, a Doctor Who character – in Big Finish freebie 'The Veiled Leotard' to be precise – notices what’s been staring them in the face for two decades: that Peri has big breasts. It was OK when they were on TV – no comment was needed – but if the best thing about the old series’ leap to books and audios is that you don’t have to look at the Sixth Doctor’s costume, then the downside is you can’t see Peri’s personality at all. When Eminem says, 'In these dresses, it’s definitely bust!' and Peri muses 'Boob jokes now!', it’s like the characters spring to life! We suggest, in future, a few background extras per story to shout 'Get 'em out!' and 'Phwoaaaar' and the like. Or just an appropriate boingy sound effect during running scenes?"
- the entry "MONTE CARLO OR BUST" in The Completely Unofficial Encyclopedia by Steve Lyons and Chris Howarth (page 93)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"There was a civilization growing on my unwashed underwear, but it ended tragically when I forced a drifter to choke on it."


Sophie Aldred Speaks!
"It makes me laugh when all the media went ape shit over Rose, and that mysterious plague of hit and runs on journalists who dubbed her "the first ever feisty companion" was a complete coincidence. I MAY have had something to do with the words "WHAT ABOUT ACE?!" carved into their front lawns, though. What’s so special about Rose? Does she beat people up with baseball bats and use high explosives? Does she have a life of her own? Does she question the Doctor when he shamelessly manipulates her? Does she bollocks!"


Caroline Morris Speaks!
"Eminem is definitely grown up a lot. She’s still very young and she’s still developing, but she’s definitely gone from being a naïve warrior queen psychopath to more of a teenage sadistic maniac, leaning about life and about people and aliens and how many lead weights can be dumped on them before they rib cages shatter..."


Philip Oliver Speaks!
"Hex is still learning the right cocktails of amphetamines at the moment, and in the past couple of scripts we’re seeing a bit more of his character. A bit of a sarcastic side with Doctor, getting along with Ace... and is there maybe anything, any kind of chemistry between him and that giant bunny rabbit called Frank? Time will tell! Or at least the police interviews afterwards will."


Nicola Bryant Speaks!
"God, what a bunch of posers the others are."


Rumors & Facts -
As 2006 dawned, rumors spread that the new Doctor (David Tennant) would gain a new companion, one that was different, exciting, brave, fun to be with and categorically NOT a flatulent time-wasting emo parasite. To celebrate this, Doctor Who Magazine decided to publish a special issue devoted to all the new companions of the Doctor: Benny, Charley, Eminem, Rose, Hex, Evelyn, Jack, Adam and C’Rizz. What’s more, they used their blackmail on Gay Russell to make a special audio adventure for their giveaway, like Clash of the Titans or No Phone No Home. Only this time "not complete crap".

Russell decided on a story that would focus on BF companions having their own team-up story, perhaps forming a kind of vigilante organization devoted to fighting crime with super powers. It was decided for various reason, including that the fact they wanted vaguely attractive on the cover, that Peri, Eminem, Hex and Ace would be the ones to focus on for this adventure.

Iain McLaughlin who has penned the last DWM CD and Eminem’s debut story The Eyes of Scorpius was chosen to pen the entire sequence with the Fifth Doctor’s companions, while some passer by called Claire Bartlett was chosen to write the rest of it. Bartlett hadn’t a clue about the series and simply wrote a Mary Sue Cary Grant fanfic which the team later had to struggle to use.

Finally, the story was finished and released with issue 367 of Doctor Who Magazine as they unveiled the brand new, amazingly brilliant and sure-to-be-universally-loved companion in Doctor Who throughout 2006:

Mickey Smith.

As DWM Editor Clayton Hickman was heard saying, "You have GOT to be fucking kidding me..."