Thursday, December 3, 2009

8th Doctor - Faith Stealer (i)

Serial 8V – Faith Dealer
An Alternate Program Guide By Ewen Campion-Clarke
Twenty-Fourth Entry in EC Unauthorized Guide O' "MAN! This is some GOOD shit here!"

D O C T O R W H O

Serial 8V – Faith Dealer

Part One – Lark Dreams

As Steve Foxx begins to outline the latest Double The Fist challenge that the Doctor, Charley and C'Rizz must complete in order to regain their TARDIS, C'Rizz suddenly collapses. Erotic images play out in his mind as the corrupting presence of the Doctor and Charley overload his pubescent libido.

As C'Rizz convulses and twitches on the floor, Foxx decides that he can no longer stand the Eutermesan and that the next TRUE mission for the Doctor and Charley is to get rid of their erstwhile companion forever. Oddly enough, the duo were already planning to do this.

C'Rizz finally recovers and, after a quick change of underwear, is ready to hear the challenge. Foxx announces that the trio must head to the planet Multi-Market, a world of stores and franchises where numerous shops interact peacefully.

"This MAKES ME SICK!" Foxx screams.

With their mission to destroy this utopia utmost in their minds, the Doctor, Charley and C'Rizz arrive on Multi-Market. The complex is so large and densely packed that to enter you actually must be starting up a business or already be working for an existing franchise.

Multi-Market is watched over by the Boring Man, a dull accountant that balances the fringe stores and major retailers in the complex. The Boring Man's Assistant (BMA), a camp Welsh stereotype, asks the newcomers to identify the business they represent, and the Doctor explains that he and Charley run a pet's store with C'Rizz as their mascot for handing out leaflets.

C'Rizz tries to argue this point, only for Charley to grab his crotch in order to shut him up. This instead prompts another sickening sexual fantasy, and C'Rizz faints, moaning.

Extremely embarrassed, the BMA allows the trio to jump the queue and meet the Boring Man herself! Yes, this woman was so boring when she accidentally appointed herself as a man, no one was interested enough to correct her.

The Doctor explains to the Boring Man that they need to dump C'Rizz in some dead end job and run like hell, and the Boring Man happily guides them to the nearest McDonalds who are after new staff.

The dazed C'Rizz can't cook, but the store manager assures him that culinary skills are not necessary. There he meets a Goth Eutermesan chick called L'da, the neighbor C'Rizz has been fantasizing about all episode. As she's into self-abnegation and torture, L'da is prepared to start a relationship with C'Rizz.

Elsewhere in the Multi-Market, Mr. Parrot, proprietor of the pet food store is having tea and jelly baby's at Honest Doc's LSD Jelly Babies, a theme restaurant run by the boggle-eyed Fourth Doctor.

The Fourth Doctor offers Parrot some 'lucid crystals' he physically harvested from the dreams of his followers but Parrot correctly identifies as some week-old jelly babies.

Annoyed, the Fourth Doctor lassos Parrot and drags him into his TARDIS, where he is placed in a glass tube flooded with mysterious mind-altering drugs.

The Fourth Doctor's current bitch, Gerbil Jones, doesn't see the point in this – and she's right, there isn't one bar the fact the Fourth Doctor has taken up the hobby of drugging dignified businessmen and letting them wander the streets for a laugh.

As the Eighth Doctor and Charley explore the Multi-Market, they rejoice at finally ditching C'Rizz. The Doctor explains he knows for a fact that Devious Dan's Homemade Police Boxes is somewhere around here – and where else would you hide a TARDIS stuck in the shape of one?

All they have to do is find the shop, break inside and find where Foxx has hidden the TARDIS and they are out of here!

Back at McDonalds, L'da and C'Rizz are exchanging anguished metaphors when the Fourth Doctor and his fellow Jelly Baby warriors storm the restaurant and wait in line for Happy Meals, chanting their own Gregorian chant which is just "Daylight comes and I wanna go home" sung in an extremely pompous manner.

Bored, the Fourth Doctor starts handing out LSD-soaked sweets to everyone and it doesn't take long for all the customers to freak out and are off their face...

...and C'Rizz, deep within his trance, finds himself making the beast with two back-plates once again. But this time, it's for real.

Part Two – Seeing the Blight

The Doctor is bragging to Charley about how he plans to redecorate the interior of the TARDIS in an "Event Horizon Farscape organic funk groove style" when they find the nearest McDonalds ransacked and now populated by stoned wasters painting rainbows over the golden arches.

The Boring Man wanders onto the scene, sees the devastation, shrugs and wanders off, putting it down to the activities of the Jelly Baby warriors, lead by a weirdo called 'the Doctor'.

C'Rizz and L'da, meanwhile, have realized they were just given placebos and head to find the Fourth Doctor and complain. The Fourth Doctor decides to offer them a free trip in his Psychedelic Corkscrew. By this time, C'Rizz and L'da are willing to try anything...

The Eighth Doctor realizes that his Fourth self must have frequented this universe several times. When Charley demands to know why the Eighth Doctor doesn't already know this, the Time Lord replies:

"You'll know when you meet him. I've no idea what I was on back then and the scary thing is that HE doesn't know either!"

The Doctor loses his way in the mall and puts it down to some extra-sensory powers making him doubt his own sense of direction. Charley just asks for direction at the local Ludicrous Compensation Claims Court, who worship Whoops the Great Neglecter, and praise accidents and chaos of all kinds for the law suits they create.

The Fourth Doctor shows them the remains of Mr. Parrot, now a
whimpering, terrified shell of a man who can barely recall his own
name after his chemical dumping. L'da immediately asks for some of whatever he's having, as she feels it will help exorcise her inner demons or at least throw them into sharp relief.

However, she asks C'Rizz to note her behavior for her autobiography and to do that he has to stay sober. Furious, he turns and kills Parrot with the handy hat stand standing nearby.

The Fourth Doctor, meanwhile, goes to the rave in the console room and rings up the Boring Man to tell her what she's missing. After five wrong numbers and an order for pizza, and suggests she lighten up. He makes it quite clear that his 'suggestion' was a not-so-veiled threat.

While searching for Devious Dan's Homemade Police Boxes, the Doctor and Charley stumble into a riot of tripping customers and retail workers handing out flowers, dancing and vomiting and throwing their hands up in the air like they just – don't – care!

Charley spots C'Rizz nearby and tries to run in a different direction, but the Eutermesan is in a real bitch of a mood and, sexual frustration already getting the better of him, decides to throttle Charley there and then, laughing like a madman...

Part Three – Hash Truths

The Doctor returns and watches, amused, as C'Rizz tries to shatter Charley's neck and then decides to head butt the Eutermesan unconscious. Unfortunately, C'Rizz's armored forehead does the Doctor more injury and so the Time Lord is forced to resort to his electric-cattle-prod-finger-jab.

The Doctor and Charley then decide to return to the Ludicrous Compensation Claims Court and file a claim against the Fourth Doctor and the Jelly Baby warriors.

Director Garfield doesn't have much hope of a case, as C'Rizz admits that this is the second time in recent memory that he's tried to kill Charley out of sexual frustration. However, although the LCCC is built on such flimsy excuses for court cases, most of the staff have attended the rave in the Fourth Doctor's TARDIS.

Thus, Garfield is forced to send the Doctor and Charley over their to give the Fourth Doctor a subpoena – unfortunately, LCCC is fresh out of them and so the Doctor must bluff his way with a wine list.

They leave C'Rizz to Garfield's tender mercies, and, under the pretext of 'breaking a witness', ties C'Rizz up, attaches electrodes to his extremities and then prepares the Prosecution Probe...

The rave at the TARDIS is getting more extreme as more and more gatecrashers turn up, tune in and freak out. The Doctor and Charley arrive and denounce Honest Doc's LSD Jelly Babies as nothing more than a scam to get drifters high for sadistic amusement.

Charley points out that, if they sue the Fourth Doctor, surely that means the Doctor will ultimately have to pay himself the cash?

The Doctor protests that it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing that counts, then gives up and they head off to steal the TARDIS from the local police box retailer.

In the central offices, the Boring Man's Assistant decides to get a life and head to the rave party. The Boring Man wants to follow, but the BMA refuses to take her – she's a social embarrassment.

Just as C'Rizz is about to suffer the final humiliation, a hormone-driven L'da bursts into the room, breaks Garfield's head and begins to do very immoral and highly illegal things to the powerless C'Rizz...

Part Four – Faith Dealer

The Doctor and Charley are trying to break into Devious Dan's Homemade Police Boxes when they hear the naughty noises coming from Ludicrous Compensation Claims Court across the aisle and they watch on in disgust at the sight of two Eutermesans mating.

C'Rizz realizes that his companions are watching him and, when they heckle his sexual performance, he loses the flow and L'da turns on him. Amused, the Doctor and Charley return to breaking and entering.

Meanwhile, the party is winding down when the Boring Man finally arrives. The Fourth Doctor is unimpressed with the Boring Man's hand-jiving and produces a crackling glass of LSD milkshake and hands it to her to drink.

The Boring Man vaporizes as the two concepts cancel each other out.

The Fourth Doctor blinks, checks his drink, double-takes, shrugs, and starts doing the Funky Chicken with Gerbil.

The Multi-Market is now a ghost city, with the occasional advertising executive lying face down in their own sick, trousers round their ankles. Everyone else is partying bar the Eighth Doctor and Charley, who are now checking the police boxes for the one they need.

The TARDIS turns out to be the curiously-chubby, squared off version, identical to the one Foxx mocked the Doctor with at the conclusion of the last four-parter.

Upon entering the hotel lobby-styled REG control room, Charley goes crazy – the fumes of the rave party have finally got to her. Before the Doctor can stop her, she starts operating controls.

The TARDIS dematerializes, fading away around the Doctor and Charley like a dream. Furious, the Doctor starts screaming and slapping Charley silly, but she's too far gone to pay attention.

Furious, the Doctor decides to steal his previous self's TARDIS and to hell with the time paradox. Storming there, he finds the only people still conscious are the Fourth Doctor, Gerbil, C'Rizz and L'da.

C'Rizz, seriously annoyed, decides to kill the Doctor and Charley, but the Doctor is in no mood for fannying about and Venusian finger-jabs the Eutermesan before rounding on the Fourth Doctor.

The Fourth Doctor explains it was just a holiday between companions that has all got out of hand and offers his Eighth self a jelly baby. Unfortunately, it's a trap – and when the Eighth Doctor recovers from the LSD trip, the Fourth Doctor has legged it in his TARDIS.

The Multi-Market is now in ruins, hundreds of the inhabitants of
now either mentally sub-normal or hyper-alert and intelligent. What's more, L'da has decided to become the new Boring Man to fuel her artistic suffering. Sadly, this doesn't depress C'Rizz but simply makes him boast pompously that he has known true love (or at least great sex) and is thus a better person.

Seriously pissed off, the Doctor doesn't even wait for Foxx's disappointed summing up. Yes, they're weak. No, no fist. Yes, the Multi-Market will return and Foxx now still has the TARDIS.

"Get on with it!" the Doctor snaps.


Book(s)/Other Related –
Doctor Who – Return Of The Nutter In The Scarf
The Joint Venture II: This Time, It's Super-Freaky
The Warringah Mall Guide: "It's Not As Screwed-Up As Multi-Market in Doctor Who: Faith Dealer, But It's Close!"


Fluffs – Paul McGann seemed worryingly gullible during this story.

"When you've met as many pushers as I have there's a tendency to become a shade... of dunduckaty grey. With black spots."


Goofs –
Why on Earth does the Doctor trust himself not to have poisoned the drink he was handing over to him? Uh... DAMN IT, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!


Fashion Victims –
C'Rizz orange spectacles, skimpy purple T-shirt, crappy flea market pantaloons with purple triangle sewn in and open-toed sandals make him look like a French exchange student. With poor taste in clothes.


Technobabble –
The Multi-Market has an 'identical corridor matrix spread'.


Links and References -
The Doctor reveals his priorities are: to dump C'Rizz, escape Double the Fist, regain the TARDIS, return to his own universe and recover his missing pen (a reference to Full Frontal in Space, Peanut of the Dustbins and The Clean Breath)


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor once caught the Terran Ague (or 3 Day Sweats) from Charley.

Groovy DVD Extras -
A recipe for Marijuana Gin. Well worth the price for Region 1 DVDs.

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