Tuesday, December 1, 2009

8th Doctor - Minuet in Hell (i)

Serial 8E - Inuit in Hull
An Alternative Program Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
Sixth Entry in the EC Unauthorized Program Guide O' Magik Chocolate

D O C T O R W H O

Serial 8A - Inuit in Hull -

"The legends of Gallifrey speak of a world where everything is horror... horror and pain and chocolate hobnobs. A world from where there is no escape from the creatures that crawl on the crust of the land of the lost, and the stupid, and the dumber and the dumb... The legends of Gallifrey speak of a world and the name of the world they speak of... is Hull. Hull is where I have come to at last... And there can be no escape. I cannot escape... London's own... Hull."

Part One - Inuit in Hull

Under the guidance of immortal, unscrupulous and hunchbacked Richard Wilkins III, Sunnydale will soon become the fifty-first state of the Union. Richard III and his cronies have been celebrating at the Naughty Hellfire Club. Those cronies include several prominent officials and businessmen who believe that they have seen Richard III drink a yard of vindaloo sauce.

Richard III should have little trouble maintaining his hold on the power in the new state via his armies of vampires, demons and double-glazing salesmen plus the fact that rival politicians in Sunnydale have the average life expectancy of a Spinal Tap drummer.

Elsewhere, a new arrival is having a far less pleasant time of it; he's locked up in a lunatic asylum, where he's been keeping his irritated cellmate awake with his insane babbling about the polarity of the neutron flow.

The madman's cellmate claims to be a British librarian, but the madman himself can't remember who is, how he got here, where his car keys are or why he's so concerned that somebody called Charley might find him again.

A tourist group are lead past the various inmates since a nuthouse full of deranged psychotics is actually one of the safest items of interest in Sunnydale. The British Librarian, Rupert Giles beseeches passers by that he "really shouldn't be here" - true, he caused a bit of chaos last night, running mad on the streets, howling at the moon but he was out of teabags. What else could he do?

However, one of the tourists is Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart (former Brigadier who recently advised on the creation of a new Parliament for Brigadoon) who has been invited to Sunnydale to give the new state the benefit of his experience. Thus, he requests that Giles immediately be given some good old-fashioned public flogging.

The commotion disturbs other nameless patient, who recognizes Lethbridge-Stewart and considers him a friend. Lethbridge-Stewart says he's never seen the man before in his life.

"B-but Brigadier," the Doctor croaks. "It's me, the Doctor! I've just regenerated again!"

"Regen-a-what?" the old soldier replies. "Never heard of it - or you."

"What about the Autons? And the Silly-Lurians! The Ambassadors of Sex? The Bastard? Dustbins? Cybermen? Have you forgotten about them?"

"Of course not," the Brigadier whispers. "Just shut up and act normal."

"Oh, you recognize me then?" the Time Lord hisses back.

"Course I do, Doctor. I'd recognize that vacant stare anywhere."

"Then you're going to get me out of here?"

"Uh... Sure. You bet. Might take a while though."

Lethbridge-Stewart leaves, telling Doctor Deeva Jansen that he knows the patient of old and is quite clearly mad and death will be a blessed release. The Doctor relaxes, knowing that his old friend will rescue him before Charley can find him.

The tour of the nuthouse showcases the latest technology is being used to cure mental illness patients - a large vacuum cleaner that is fitted into the patients' ear and sucks out all the nastyness of the brain. So far, every test case has ended in horrible, bloody mutilation, but Deeva is certain that it will be "859th time lucky".

Lethbridge-Stewart isn't entirely satisfied with what he's seen today, mainly because he suspects that the Doctor may survive the BSO (Brain-Sucker-Outer) process and be allowed out into the universe again.

As Lethbridge-Stewart leaves, Richard III reveals to Deeva that he's tried to look into their visitor's background, and has found that he was originally an oranutang.

He's right to be suspicious, for Lethbridge-Stewart is in fact on an undercover mission so secret not even HE knows what to do with the information he has gathered...

Charley, meanwhile, is in a dormitory which she is expected to share with a number of other girls. Charley has no idea how she came to be here but isn't going to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

The chirpy young Buffy Summers explains that the girls were all picked up by some men in a big blue bus and brought here. Unlike the dazed Charley, Buffy tried to run for it, at least until they started to shoot at her. Richard III's associate Deeva Jensen arrives and introduces herself to the girls as their new Superior Mistress; they have been arrested for vagrancy, and thus are very naughty girls. However, they have been given a chance to serve as hostesses in an exclusive gentlemen's club - The Randy Old Perverts Society.

As Deeva leaves, Charley tries to remember her friend, who would kill be in this club. However, Buffy's vital statistics have erased this information - and how she got here - from the table of her mind. Nevertheless, she remembers enough history to understand that this is a recreation of the original Naughty Hellfire Club from the 1760s.

Her fears that this must be a watered-down version, without the devil worship and orgies is luckily misplaced - in fact, most of that started before they even entered the room. Richard III sends Deeva back to the nuthouse on the pretence that Lethbridge-Stewart may return and steal the BSO to clean his flat with, but really he just wants to scope out Charley in private.

Meanwhile, the Doctor calmly waits for a daring-last minute rescue as Giles and Deeva drag him over to the BSO and prepare to suck out his useless brain and replace it with warm porridge, thus making the model Sunnydale citizen out of him.

The Doctor is not troubled, certain that any second Lethbridge-Stewart will arrive and rescue him. Deeva plugs the Doctor into the BSO and switches it on - but Giles has reversed the polarity of the neutron flow! The BSO blows the Doctor across the room and he cries out for the Brigadier to save him.

Back at his hotel room, the Brigadier has fallen asleep in the arms of a prostitute, a dreamy smile on his face...

Part Two - They're Scheming

The Doctor is plunged into a maelstrom - demonic voices and laughter echo in the Doctor's head, but these are actually the voices of his past incarnations damning him for getting his companion pregnant and being declared insane by a bunch of Americans.

The Doctor recovers, determined to kill Charley with his own bare hands and return to Britain at once. He flees the nuthouse easily as municipal cutbacks have made locks and bolts an unnecessary luxury in a mental asylum, and heads for the alleyway where he crash-landed the TARDIS. There, he is reunited with Lethbridge-Stewart and pleads for assistance.

The Brigadier tells the Time Lord that the plan is working perfectly and just requires a little more time, and he leads the Doctor back to the asylum.

Orderlies return the Doctor to his cell, swearing violently as he kicks them in the goolies, shouting that he is a Master of all Time and Space AND WILL NOT BE DENIED - at least, that is, until they chloroform him, put him in a straightjacket and dump him in a cell.

Lethbridge-Stewart requests an inquiry into his escape, and promises to return the next day to check up on the Doctor's condition, expecting him to be lobotomized by dawn. He then heads back to the hotel and orders another prostitute.

Buffy and Charley are confronted by a club member - but Buffy doesn't like shagging living people and so uses some badly-edited kung fu moves to fling about the club members and knocking them out.

Buffy, Willow and Cordelia flee to freedom and fetches their proper clothing, but Charley insists that there is no hurry. Buffy explains she is Vampire Slayer and is stopping this town from falling prey to evil and lust. Charley replies that she's doing a shit job: they're in the Naughty Hellfire Club (Sunnydale Division) for crying out loud.

Buffy spanks her into silence, which I think was the point of Charley's criticism. Much obliged, the girls head for the local library to the one man in this town who can help her.

Unfortunately, he's been taken captive by a mental asylum and Xander's not interested. He points out that they have no plan of attack or even a decent weapon - if only there had been some blackmailing film of the officials courting in the club.

Charley replies there was, but she lost it, and promises to make up for her transgression with a nice massage. Xander is instantly mollified while Willow, sickened at the intimations of her own sexuality, decides to investigate the asylum to find Giles. However, she trips and sprains her ankle, so Charley will just have to kiss it better.

Richard III broods over the presence of Lethbridge-Stewart, the Doctor's sabotage to the BSO, the foolish move of trying to get a Vampire Slayer to work for him at a Shag Palace, and the fact that his evil plan to conquer the world is under threat by forces unknown.

His followers pledge mediocre loyalty to him, and he decides to hire Serge the Seal to hunt down and kill the Vampire Slayer. It takes a short while to communicate this fact, as Serge mistakenly identities half of the ROPs as the murderers of his family and kills them all with his weapons of mass destruction.

Temporarily sane, Serge heads for the library and locates Charley, who has finished shagging the Scooby gang and going for a long-awaited shower. Picking up a knife, the insane sea mammal creeps towards the shower block...

The Doctor recovers in his cell, blitzed out of his head on laudanum. Giles snaps that the Time Lord is clearly delusional - does he really expect Giles to believe that his cellmate is an alien traveler through time and space?

Any sane person would have done what Giles has done - acted calmly and rationally to convince Deeva that he was not mad after all. Surely a Time Lord, far superior to the run-of-the-mill human, would have done the same.

The Doctor nods thoughtfully, and is struck by an epiphany - Rupert Giles must be the REAL Doctor!

Part Three - Indent Orgy Isis

Giles explains that he is simply a Watcher from an old order sent to America to guide and monitor Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Doctor applauds him, complimenting the imagination of the cover story and the will to maintain it.

The Doctor explains that he, himself, is just a passing nutter and that Giles is in fact the real Time Lord adventurer. He tells Giles just how the real Doctor and Charley ended up in this predicament:

----

It started after they left Venice, when the Doctor planned to visit his American friend Grace and get her to perform an abortion but decided to release Serge back into the wild first.

Charley was disappointed to see her pet leave, but the Doctor knew that Serge was still insane; his apparently tame disposition was only due to his recent sexual activity.

Indeed, as they materialized in a back alley in Sunnydale, the Doctor lured Serge to the doors and had Charley open them, expelling Serge out into the American town. However, a stray shot from Serge's machine gun triggered the TARDIS' seldom used Quantum Jump function, causing a wibbly wobbly swirling thing that left both the Doctor and an innocent passer-by utterly insane and babbling about evil Dustbins.

Charley wandered off, slightly dazed, after the completely dazed Serge and was captured by a blue van while the Doctor and the passer-by were taken to the mental asylum.

----

Giles points out that HE is the passer-by, and not the Doctor, but the Doctor simply replies that Giles is humoring him out of kindness. He can prove that Giles is the real Doctor by asking him twenty questions about Doctor Who trivia: the name of the next Big Finish release, the fate of Victoria Waterfield, the scientific reasoning behind the neutron flow.

Giles is unable to answer any of them, which seems proof enough to the Doctor, who bullshitted his way through such explanations before. Giles suspects that the Doctor is trying to pass himself off as an innocent American so that Giles will be the one lumbered with Charley and the Doctor will get Buffy and the Scooby gang.

The Doctor can only admire "the Doctor's" ratio-incentive powers.

Meanwhile, Charley is about to be stabbed in the high school showers by a cloaked figure in a ghost mask - who is promptly shot dead by Serge, who wants to finish the job.

Charley runs out into the night with a distinct lack of clothes. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

In one of life's funny little turns, Charley is promptly arrested for vagrancy AND public nudity and returned to the Naughty Hellfire Club. Richard III recognizes her at once and especially now that she's naked, decides to make Charley his bride, the Queen of Hell.

Serge is amused when Deeva demands to know what Charley has that SHE hasn't. Richard III simply replies, "Just look at her! I mean, you're a damn Pokémon and she's... whoa."

Buffy contacts Lethbridge-Stewart, and after some initial confusion over whether or not she is the hooker he ordered half an hour ago, they sort out that he is not Charley Pollard's friend the Doctor and indeed, has never heard of the man and if she mentions him again he will have her killed by snipers.

To show her that they are still friends, the Brigadier takes Buffy to the alley, where she spots a weird blue box hidden some ways down the alleyway. Lethbridge-Stewart fails to see it despite the fact he's standing right in front of it and claims that there is no proof, in any way, shape or form that his old... acquaintance the Doctor could be involved.

Buffy explains that rogue Pokémon Deeva Jansen runs both the Naughty Hellfire Club and the mental asylum, who are worried by a mysterious inhuman patient with two hearts calling himself the Doctor who travels in a blue box identical to the one before them. Lethbridge-Stewart concedes that there is the slightest possibility that the Doctor could be involved.

At her request, Charley has been allowed to change into her old clothes: a spiked, red leather costume which SO works for Serge, who watches her from hiding. Richard III, meanwhile, is snacking on a crate of McDonald's spider-burgers, in order to create a McGuffin that will transform him into a thirty-foot snake.

Serge laughs in the Mayor's face - that kind of plan definitely has its roots in subconscious over-compensation. Richard III tires of his little seal assassin's taunting and kicks him out on the street, reminding him that there is still the Scooby gang to fill full of holes. Soon he will have no need for either the lovesick Deeva or the insolent Serge, but can he ever rid himself of his strange attraction to small, furry animals?

Maybe, later. When he's a giant snake. Hopefully.

Using a handy motorcycle, Buffy and Lethbridge-Stewart use the subtle approach to enter the lunatic asylum, smashing down all the doors and running over unlucky security guards.

In the main complex they find two British men, each claiming that the other is the enigmatic "Doctor" and that they are "Rupert Giles". Buffy cannot tell them apart and Lethbridge-Stewart pretends to be too interested in the carpet to pay any attention.

Deeva Jansen arrives and snatches one of the patients for another go at the BSO. This is the real Doctor, who recognizes his failed attempt at a companion has somehow managed to travel from deep space in the far future to 21st century California - how?

Deeva explains she simply reverted to her original form of a small, furry creature from Alpha Centauri and snuck inside the TARDIS. While the Doctor, Charley and Serge have been having their domestic arguments, she time-traveled back here and started a new life for herself. Indeed, she chose this particular point in the canvas of eternity simply because its the closest equivalent to a place that accepts Pokémon as people. Not much, but close.

Now, she plans to blow the Doctor's mind to keep her secret safe. The Doctor begs Deeva to give him another chance - he never loved Charley and she knows it! Instead, she connects him to the BSO machine once again, and as he continues to protest in vain, she switches on...

Richard III's plan is working brilliantly - soon he will be governor of Sunnydale, and from there he will move on to the White House and finally become a huge snake. But first, to celebrate his victory, he has Charley brought in and decides to use an evil magic spell to turn her into... a Furby!

Part Four - Insane

Charley promptly falls over, and Richard III curses the rotten luck that the one blonde he fancies is immune to all magic. However, it quickly becomes apparent to the Mayor that Charley is so IMPURE that all the magic has earthed itself down to the closest she has to innocence - her developing fetus.

Disgusted at this development, and the thought of a 1/3rd human 1/3rd Time Lord 1/3 Furby, Richard III throws her back on the streets and decides to admit his love of Deeva Jansen and slaughter everyone he meets when he turns into a snake. This sort of thing is too embarrassing to let ANYONE know, and he quickly lets Serge loose on the rest of the Club members.

Charley heads for the local lunatic asylum on the assumption it's the only place the nutters she knows would end up and finds the Doctor connected to the BSO machine. Luckily, the last patients' brain is still stuck in the pipe and so the Doctor can be rescued.

Upon realizing who Charley is, the Doctor screams and tries to fix the BSO and put himself out of his misery, and then has a brainwave and tries to plug Charley into it.

Buffy, Giles and Lethbridge-Stewart arrive in the lab and the Doctor demands to know why the Brigadier took his time trying to rescue his unpaid scientific advisor, but Giles leaps on this and conclusively proves that the Doctor is really himself!

Before this conversation can become any more existential, Deeva arrives with a chainsaw-wielding Serge in tow.

Serge recognizes Buffy as the murderer of his parents and promptly chains her to the ceiling with Deeva's help as Buffy cannot bring herself to harm such a cute little animal.

The Doctor points out that Deeva looks cuter than Buffy when she's a cute little animal and Buffy breaks free and runs rampart, smashing and wrecking everything in sight. As the trio runs around the set again and again, the Doctor admits his reasons for pretending to be Giles and how Charley has screwed up his whole life.

Lethbridge-Stewart refuses point blank the possibility the Doctor could get a girl pregnant, and the Doctor suggests he listen to Charley's flat stomach.

However, the hideous mutant baby she carries suddenly goes through a growth spurt.

Her belly swells up like a balloon and knocks the former-Brigadier headfirst into the BSO, which explodes outwards into a huge gaping maw.

Deeva, Serge and Lethbridge-Stewart are so perfectly annihilated that they are sucked into another dimension altogether, and the lunatic asylum crumbles to dust around them. The psychotic inmates run in every direction as the police arrive.

The Doctor decides to leave this one up to Buffy and Giles and he runs to the TARDIS at top speed. Charley waddles after him, worried that she might soon give birth to a Care Bear or something.

The Doctor sincerely doubts that - the callous way it wiped out the Doctor's longest-serving regular character shows it has some goodness in it after all.

He suggests that he take Charley to the birthing pools of the Croesus Nebula and tells her to stay by the doors. We see the TARDIS is set for the Black Hole of Cygnus, and the Doctor grins evilly...

Book(s)/Other Related –
Doctor Who Thinks He's An Inuit In Hull
Psycho Ward 10: Special Celebrity Issue
Crazy Loon, All of them: The Autobiography of General Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart


Fluffs - Paul McGann seemed scarily wide-eyed and calm for this story.


Goofs –
Um... what the hell does the title have to do with the four episodes shown here?

The Doctor is convinced he is trapped in Hull. Why?

The Brigadier is able to switch between hookers instantaneously. While this may be possible with our current technology, I personally do not know how this was pulled off and so refuse to let it lie until someone tells me how!

Serge leaves his chainsaw in the middle of the Pentagram, but has it back when Buffy's dangling from the ceiling by fishing wire.

Just what WAS Giles doing in that alleyway?


Fashion Victims –
Charley's electric blue pubic hair


Technobabble –
"This is a Popplewell-Beaker Transsential Mark 5! What the hell are you on, Brigadier?!? All I wanted was a coffee maker, for Christ's sake!"


Links and References -
Deeva Jansen returns from Bored of Ironing, proving that adventure happened.

Serge the Seal returns after an absence of seven episodes (Bored of Ironing Part 1) and goes on for an absence that will last the next six years.


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor once tried to get Abraham Lincoln to star in an advertisement for 'Mentos: The Freshmaker', which would have had a joke ending when the President was accidentally shot by the Doctor. However, Charley was using the fake gun in a way that is not printable here [but let's say no one was brave enough to touch it for months afterwards until a sad, perfected fan froze it in crystal and sold it on eBay]. A replacement was found for the rehearsal. Unfortunately, it was real, as were the bullets. Charley still laughs about it.


Groovy DVD Extras -
A sing-a-long feature that looks suspiciously like the captions staying on no matter what you do to the remote.

No comments: