9th Doctor - The Long Game (i)

Serial 106 – The Long Haul
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Tears for Gethsemane

{More thanks to Cameron J Mason for ideas about Adam's fate}

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


Serial 106 – The Long Haul -

-------------Transcriber's Note-------------
Due to circumstances beyond the control of executive producer Russell T Davies, the master tape of episode seven, "The Long Haul", were wiped by a vengeful ex-cast-member before screening. The back-ups had also been sabotaged in such a way that while the nation was able to WATCH the episode, the soundtrack had been replaced by a perpetual loop of 'Spaceman' by Babylon Zoo.
As Nigel Verkoff's testimony (which has been used for all previous entries) seems more than normally biased in this episode, this entry will entirely ignore his description of the adventure (which he insists should be re-titled "Nigel Verkoff – Don Juan Of Time!") and instead be based around a version re-dubbed by the Late Show/D-Generation/Panel gang, after their amazingly accurate and astonishingly realistic recreations of "Bluey" as "Bargearse" and "Rush" as "The Olden Days".
In short, if you want cast-iron facts, sod off to Charles Daniels.
--------------------------------------------


Not trusting himself to speak, the Doctor orders Rose to take Adam into the depths of the TARDIS and get him settled in. After the awful reminder of the events of the Temporal Difference of Opinion, the Doctor needs to sit down, relax, get away from it all, to concentrate, to cogitate, to meditate and vegetate.

The Doctor, a self-styled master of martial discipline, the perfect union of mind and body, a devoted student of Eastern mysticism, puts on black, fingerless gloves, a crash helmet and starts waving a checkered flag as anime plays on the console screen.

"Go, Speed Racer!" the Doctor screams. "GO, SPEED RACER!! GO!!!!"

His enjoyment of Speed Racer, Astro Boy, Macross and Voltron is ruined when Rose storms in, annoyed that Adam tried it on with her the moment they were alone and insisted that he was a sex-god. He knows that the TARDIS is not big enough for the three of them and has told her to break the news to the Doctor that the Time Lord has go.

The Doctor decides to superglue a rabid hamster to Adam's genitals but Rose, gagging at the thought of seeing Adam naked, suggests just dumping him on the next planet they come across.

"That's just cruel to the people living there, Rose," the Doctor retorts. "Now, a black hole, for example..."

Adam returns to the control room and both he and Rose wonder aloud just what the hell the Doctor is doing wearing racing gloves, a crash helmet and carrying a checkered flag on his own.

Rather than admit to his secret shame of enjoying Japanese cartoon syndication, the Doctor claims he was preparing himself for the Tri-National Speedway Championship which just happens to be their next destination actually.

The TARDIS materializes in a deserted arcade overlooking a race track full of sports cars doing practice laps. The Doctor, Rose and Adam emerge to face the Fourth Grand Prix Gymkhana – the most difficult racing obstacle course ever, about to won by Rick Roberts in his specially-modified shrike turbine car.

Rose and Adam are unimpressed when Rick Roberts loses and the Doctor faints dead away in surprise.


Parte The First

The Doctor quickly recovers and insists that his knowledge of Grand Prix results is unrivalled – but it quickly becomes apparent that the Brands Hatch race track is, in fact, aboard a huge orbiting space station full of over-priced, quick-fixed merchandise and food.

The Time Lord is relieved that this is some wacky human empire recreation and that he doesn't look a complete prat in front of his two monkey-descended companions.

Rose and Adam just sigh and shake their heads.

Meanwhile, the favorite driver for tomorrow's Tri-Solar Speedway Championship is involved in a mysterious, inexplicable car crash during practice – but as this is the FIFTH such mysterious, inexplicable car crash during practice, it seems like someone is sabotaging the race.

Two spectators are idly wondering who would be so bowel-shatteringly pathetic as to cheat their way to being Galactic Speedway Champion, the Doctor stops them and asks them for some cash as he's fresh out.

The women – Suki and Cathica – tell the Doctor to get a job and, offended, the Time Lord shows them his handy-dandy-all-purpose-telepathic-psychic-paper and explains he is part of Satellite Undercover Speedway Police Internal Commission of Interstellar Order by the United States, or SUSPICIOUS for short.

Cathica points out the Doctor can just get some money from the cashpoint and the Doctor realizes that all it needs is a quick fiddle with the sonic screwdriver to give him a credit bar containing all the cash in Mutter's Spiral but decides not to – he's already caused seventeen intergalactic recessions by doing that already.

Elsewhere on the station, a pale bearded man and his stiff, unresponsive girl from the nearest escort agency watch the accident unfold through a bar of carbonite binoculars and the man cackles that his 'adjusting' of the brakes means his plan is running to... plan.

"Finally, my dream will come true!" he laughs diabolically.

"What? The one about bathing the Spice Girls in jello?" asks the bored escort girl.

"No, you fool! My dream of being the GALACTIC SPEEDWAY CHAMPION!!!"

However, the bearded man feels certain that, as things are going so swimmingly disaster must, logically be about to strike him and his pathetically mundane plans.

He thus decides to retire to his evil control room and triple-check Satellite Five for any unusual activity, suspicious circumstances or the appearance out of thin air of tall blue Metropolitan police boxes.

He promptly discovers one and begins to sob uncontrollably.

The Doctor, meanwhile, has broken up a possible romantic tryst between Adam and Rose and drags them to watch the next race from the Total Immersion Media Suite for Automated Wide-band Applied Neuro Kinetic Energy Retention, or TIM'S A WANKER for short.

Cathica, Suki and several other non-speaking cast members lie under glowing spheres and snap their fingers, opening circular ports in their foreheads. Spikes of energy surge out of the sphere and into their brains, allowing them to perceive the racing driver's actions as they happen via nifty telepathic technology.

The moment he realizes he has to pay for this viewing, the Doctor denounces the technology as evil, alien and plain wrong.

Meanwhile, the bearded man finally traces the owner of the blue box – either that skinhead in the leather jacket, the blonde girl with bad teeth or the strange prat in the bizarre anachronistic clothing.

An alien voice roars its displeasure at the man, who apologizes desperately for their failure to detect the guy earlier and orders his workers to seek, locate and bring Adam to him.

Back at the track, Pierce Brosnan (who has survived the last 198,000 years through a mixture of plastic surgery, gene alteration and bad scripting) is treating his car, number 8, without the respect Q would want and soon severe vibration leads to the knock-off hub and left front wheel flying off, spinning the turbine car into sponsor signs.

The last thing Brosnan manages to say before impact is the decidedly dry-witted, "This IS a day of infamy." What a guy, huh?

Only the actor's head survives and, as emergency services try to keep his brain alive in a jar, the Doctor decides that there is a notable pattern emerging. Cars driven by people who seem to know what they are doing are crashing as if cursed, while the mysterious Sir Tristan Cravatt is seemingly unaffected.

"And," the Doctor adds, "I know for a fact that Cravatt was disqualified from car racing 198,026 years ago for cheating on the course, GBH and possession of a truly appalling tie!"

The Doctor and Rose decide to go undercover in the race, enter one of the gang in the race and use them as bait. They also decide that Adam would be the perfect one to do it – Rose can't drive and the Doctor is the main character of the show and must be kept alive at all costs.

Adam is under-whelmed, but the Doctor insists that as the cars are being sabotaged in numerical order he knows that by giving the car a very high number, Adam will be safe. He will also ensure Adam uses a fake name so no one will suspect his true purpose.

Reassured, Adam lets the Doctor take him to get a car while Rose enters him as 'Adam Undercover-Snoop' driving car number 9, the next due for demolition.

Adam is lead out onto the race course and bundled into The Discotron, a neon green flying car the Doctor built during his Super Disco LSD phase of the 1970s and has always been rather embarrassed about. Now he has a chance to get rid of two birds with one stone.

The Doctor and Rose suit him up, wish him good luck and run off laughing evilly to themselves.

Adam suddenly gets out of the car and runs straight for the TIM'S A WANKER Installation Centre, where a scary-looking woman called Fran Katspanjamma decides to use him as a guinea pig for how many head-implants she can stuff into him in under ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, Adam finds a port installed in his forehead that will open with a snap of the fingers, a digest-o-matic that processes his bodily waste into peppermint breath mints, and also an emergency download link to the Puterspace network.

Fran explains that Brosnan (or The Face of Bond as he will now be known) was so worried about being pregnant while driving the race he downloaded his freakish off-spring into Puterspace and so warns Adam not to click his fingers too often or the creature will be birthed through his forehead.

On the bright side, Adam can now link into human intelligencia and maybe hack into some hardcore lesbian bondage action in Io's red light district. He might even get some sex after this.

Ridiculously overconfident, he prepares to do some practice laps.

Meanwhile, the bearded man of evil decides to sabotage the new driver, certain that the owner of the blue box is about to drive to his death. However, he then is caught by Suki, who is, in fact an anarcho-terrorist on vacation.

Thinking she might be a more 'relaxed' woman than his current girlfriend, the man announces that he is an alien Time Lord known as the Bastard and decides to hypnotize her with The Look.

The Look, however, Is Crap and Suki pulls a gun on him and decides to kill him for the Freedom Foundation of Fedorin 7 and thus allow the racing competition to continue unchecked.

But the Bastard reveals that he's not the man in charge; there is someone above him, quite literally. The true boss of Satellite Five is, in fact, the ceiling! And it descends on Suki as the terrified woman fires her gun repeatedly at it, to no effect...

The Doctor and Rose are trying to sneak back to the TARDIS and still look casual and the Doctor idly mentions that he's fairly certain that the continual Tri-Solar Speedway Races is deliberately being held to hold back humanity's progress but frankly, this kind of stuff is way too Mike Moore and depressing.

The Bastard notices the Doctor and Rose are returning to the TARDIS and the evil alien Time Lord needs something to take his mind off the fact the owner of the thundering alien voice has reduced another of prospective girlfriends into a frozen, dead-eyed zombie.

He decides to take his sexual frustrations out on the Northerner and the Blonde, and begins to laugh diabolically.

His indescribably bathetic plans are nearing fruition...


Parte The Second

The Doctor and Rose are about to leave when Adam rings them up on Rose's mobile and explains a couple of zombies have sabotaged the Discotron. From Adam's description, the brakes, clutch and stereo cables have been cut and the Doctor instructs Adam how to connect the latter two and hangs up before Adam can realize that the Discotron is still a deathrap.

Two zombies then drag the Doctor and Rose to the Bastard's suite where the albino in the business suit is shocked that the big-eared Northerner is, in fact, his old roommate and deadliest of enemies.

"Doctor!?" the Bastard gasps. "What in England happened to you?"

The Doctor laughs in a deranged manner. "Oh, no, Bastard. Not in England! Not what happened to me! It was in CARDIFF!"

The Bastard boggles in sympathy. "You poor, wretched creature."

The Doctor explains to Rose that the Bastard is a fellow Time Lord, his former university roommate, mortal enemy and bitter ex-lover but he's fairly confident he is safe until the Bastard gloats all over their dire situation and explains his diabolical plan.

"You see, Doctor, I plan to sabotage the cars of all other drivers and be the sole entry in the Tri-Solar Speedway Championship to become the GALACTIC SPEEDWAY CHAMPION!!!"

A long pause.

"Is that it?" the Doctor asks, non-plussed.

"Just about the size of it, yes," the Bastard agrees.

"And that's ALL of it?! Where's the convoluted psychotic little twist you’ve got planned? You surely won't waste all of that genius on a nice straightforward idea, would you?"

"Becoming Galactic Speedway Champion is a simple enough idea."

"And how much blood have you split this time to keep your rotting carcass clinging to that title? How many people have you murdered just to give yourself a few extra years with that trophy?!"

"Throw me a fricken bone here, Doctor. Look, I tried to take over the universe and failed. I tried to re-write history and failed. I seized control of the High Council of Gallifrey and not only failed but also ended up reduced to a sea lion. At least trying to rig a race might be small enough for me to get away with!"

The Doctor can't fault his enemy's thinking, but is more troubled by the fact that he was banking on at least half an hour of planning, plotting and gloating with some spreadsheet presentations.

It looks like the Bastard is ready to do the "place arch enemy in a ludicrously convoluted and easily escapable danger and wander off generally hoping for the best" phase.

Rose points out that there is also the small matter of the race holding back human evolution and the Bastard explains that THAT whole angle is entirely down to his superior, the ceiling.

Or, as the Doctor as Rose know it...

...the Moxx of Baloon!

{Currently trading under the name of the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe And Associates Limited.}

The true ruler of the Fourth Grand Prix Gymkhana!!

Which, reminds the Bastard, he now intends to win.

The Bastard boards his neon pink racing translocation podule The Creepybastardmobile and the race between him and Adam in the Discotron begins.

The Tri-Solar Speedway Championship seems a forgone conclusion as car number 9 goes into trouble and is looks like yet another mysterious and fatal care accident. Everything is going to the Bastard's plan and, unless something untoward happens, he will win the race.

Unfortunately, something untoward happens and Adam regains total control of the Discotron.

Despite being one lap behind, Adam manages to catch up by driving flat out in the straight, braking and downshifting at the last possible moment before taking each corner, going into a wild power slide before a sudden, mysterious downpour of rain forces the Bastard to slow down.

If that weren't bad enough, the engine of the Creepybastardmobile chooses that moment to explode and the car catches an oil slip, spinning, flipping off the road and crashing into a ditch.

Adam wins hands down to become Galactic Speedway Champion.

Not wasting a moment, he drives out of the race track and crashes into the suite where the Moxx of Baloon is about to consume the Doctor and Rose. Using his trophy, Adam slams down a central lever and reverses the polarity of the neutron flow.

The entire station starts to quake before the Bastard even escapes the wreck of his car and decides to tender his resignation to the Moxx and flee in his TARDIS. He snatches the zombie girlfriends while he's at it as the Moxx retreats into the higher dimensions...

...but he WILL return!!!

With the Tri-Solar Speedway Championship ended, the human race is free to progress without their knowledge and ambitions being curtailed.

Adam proudly reveals how he not only won the race but saved the day and also rescued the Doctor and Rose – he is, without doubt, the coolest, most competent and sexiest companion ever.

The Doctor and Rose respond by beating him up and returning him to his squalid betsit in 21st century Cardiff by the TARDIS. The Time Lord refuses to let him travel with them any further, as he just makes Time's Champion look incompetent.

What's more, the Doctor is going to leave the port in Adam's head, even though it will open every time someone snaps their fingers in his vicinity; if Adam wants to avoid having his head cut open by curious scientists, he'll have to lay low from now on, and he'll never be able to do anything important with his life.

"But YOU'RE the one who took me into the future and told me to experience the culture for myself!" Adam protests.

"Oh, it's all MY fault now, is it?!"

"Look, don't take it out on me just because you can't get into Rose's pants. I bet if you just shagged her on the console, all this petty jealousy and feeble sexual tension would be gone like that!"

Adam unfortunately underlines his point by snapping his fingers, revealing the socket in his skull and prompting the Doctor and Rose to start snapping their fingers to the tune of "Whoops, There Goes Another Rubber Tree Plant", making his head open and close.

Finally, they both get bored and decide to leave in the TARDIS.

Adam watches them go, bitching that fate deals her cards out like some Mississippi boat whore. "How infinitely depressing," he complains. "What could possibly go wrong now?"

Suddenly, the port in his head explodes outwards and the Child of the Face of Bond disgorges from Adam's skull to find itself in Cardiff, Wales, 2012.

It sighs, depressed, and starts watching 20 Years of Ant'n'Dec.


Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who and the Gymkhana of Death
Doctor Who – 45 Minutes of Speed At Brands Hatch
The "Adam Mitchell Is A Swinger" Saga, An Exhaustive Investigation Into The Golden Age of The Ninth Doctor Who by Nigel J Verkoff
Hot Rods & Hot Bods in Sci-Fi
Time Ladies Gone Wild (video starring Anna Maxwell Martin as a regenerated Romana, Rose, Rani and Ace)


Fluffs - Christopher Eccleston seemed doupleplusgood in this story.


Goofs –
After all the fuss made about it earlier in the episode, it is never explained just why the Moxx of Baloon hired a moron like the Bastard.

There is a distinct absence of people acting like they're sober in the Bastard's suite, including a few camera men and the PA that's passed out in the middle of the set hugging a bottle of hootch.

One of the extras in the "bordello" obviously couldn't manage the simple task of placing their hand into the blender.


Technobbable -
The Bastard is amazed that Adam repairs the sabotage to the Discotron by "reducing the torque and synchro-meshing the overdrive alternator circuit to correct the steering".
Adam, meanwhile, is amazed that thumping the dashboard fixed the car.


Dialogue Disasters -

Rose: Doctor, what's this?
Doctor: It's a letter...from the Bastard!
Rose: What's it say?
Doctor: 'My Dear Doctor, my time is at an end now. Remember all the times we sat together and sang your favorite song. How did it go? Was it "agh-aghagah-gahagag-aghahag-gahahag-gagahah"? Or was it "agahahah-gahahag-hagahah-gagaha-gahagahah-gahah"? Either way, whenever I see a police box, all I can do is think... "agahahaha-gagahahagah..."'
Rose: You're gonna get a smack, you are.


Bastard: So... the Doctor will HAVE to bow to my will BECAUSE I POSSESS THE PAPER BIKINI OF RASSILON! And I'm doing the dance! Remember the dance!


Doctor: This society's the wrong shape.
Adam: Whoa, that's a bit of a sweeping generalization, isn't it?
Doctor: I know where of I speak, Aaron.
Adam: ADAM. Besides, you're making huge assumptions about an entire civilization when you've met exactly two people! We've only been here three minutes and you're pre-judging a million planets already!
Doctor: Can't you just take it on trust?
Adam: On trust?! How do you know you just haven't met two slight dull
people?!? Honestly, what are you like?
Doctor: Where do you live, Aaron?
Adam: Cardiff.
Doctor: No, WHERE do you live? What street?
Adam: Oh. Why do you need to know that for?
Rose: Oh, just for emergencies. No real reason.


Doctor: What is it you want? I mean, really? Why are we here? Is it forgiveness you want? Is it absolution? Or do you want to end this now - to become Galactic Speedway Champion? Finish what you started so long ago, what you almost succeeded in doing on many occasions? No more fighting for survival, it's all down to just finishing the job now, isn't it? Doing what you've wanted to do all this time. It must be tiring, shooting after the same goal all your life.
Bastard: You think you know.
Doctor: Of course I do! But why do you do it? Why do you have to win that stupid race? Would it really make that much of a difference to your life if you were to let this job go unfinished?
Bastard: Well, if you put it like that... I'll just have to achieve my other goal in life.
Doctor: Good. What is that again?
Bastard: To kill you.
Doctor: Ah. You know, winning that race is possible, I suppose...


Bastard: What's the matter, old boy? Having a touch of trouble with the brakes, are you?
Adam: Yeah, but the clutch feels good.


Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: Time travel's like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guidebook. You've gotta throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double, kiss complete strangers and end up sleeping with the entire population over eight centuries... Or is that just me?


Doctor: Look at me. I'm Northern.


Suki on the Bastard:
"This is ridiculous. You've got access to the computer's core. You could look at the archive, the news, the stock exchange, the all Nazi porn channel... And you're looking at a police box?!"


Bastard: How can you walk through the world and not leave a single footprint?
Doctor: With difficulty. And slippers.


Doctor: You paid to get a hole drilled into your head?! Aaron, I'm shocked! I would have done it free of charge!


UnQuotable Quote –

Doctor: I'll shag anyone. Especially you, Suki!