Saturday, December 5, 2009

8th Doctor - Immortal Beloved

Serial 9F – Immoral Bedfellows
An Alternative Program Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
Thirty-Fourth Entry in the EC Unauthorized Guide O' Beautification
Jared "No Nickname" Hansen is responsible for most of this one too.

D O C T O R W H O

Serial 9F – Immoral Bedfellows -


Two young morons, Prince Calcium and his steady girlfriend Stacey, struggle wearily to the top of a mountain in an isolated part of Cardiff that uncannily resembles Ancient Greece as part of an ill-thought out suicide pact.

However, the moment of self-destructive despair is ruined as the TARDIS lands next to them. The mood is killed stone dead, and Calcium and Stacey decide to skip death and go straight to third base.


Parte the First

Inside the TARDIS, Lucie asks if the Doctor has been able to bring
her home and he refuses to commit himself, she lets loose with an outburst of such profanity it beggars the imagination.

The Doctor wearily explains, for the fifteenth time, that he told her when they first met that there is a time shield around her own home time and place which prevents him from landing there. He also points out that they actually fluked a landing there last week and she wasn’t remotely interested in staying.

"I don’t remember this!" screams Lucie, causing the Doctor to bang his head against a wall in frustration.

Desperate for an escape from this conversation, the Doctor hurls
himself out of the TARDIS doors. When he discovers the time machine has arrived on a mountain top, the Time Lord marvels at the beauty of the mountain sky then considers hurling himself to his death. Surely at least he’ll get a few moments of peace during the time it takes him to fall to the ground? Plus, there’s an outside chance he’ll hopefully regenerate into somebody Lucie doesn’t recognize once he hits the bottom and he can escape the bint for good..

As the Doctor prepares a decent run up to the edge, he bumps into Stacey and Calcium the Ancient Greek lovers. This causes them all to
somehow stumble and fall on the ground without ANY of them falling off
the ledge. This curious development amuses all of them greatly, and helps break the ice, so they forget all about trying to explain it.

Lucie misses all this, since she is too busy rebuking the Doctor for parking the TARDIS so close to the edge of a cliff and giving everyone rude gestures.

When Stacey and Calcium introduce themselves, the Doctor claims to be their God, but once AGAIN this doesn’t work. This time, it’s because the lovers point out that they KNOW the Gods and actually the Gods are complete arseholes.

Lucie breaks into the conversation at this point, leading the youngsters to find her all-to-convincing as a god of anger and the Doctor to think nostalgically of his granddaughter. Lucie notes that Stacey and Calcium are a pair of young, good-looking lovers alone on a
secluded mountainside - she wants to watch big time, especially when she finds out that Calcium is a prince!

As she sits down and prepares some popcorn for herself, the Doctor uses his badass Poroit skills to correctly deduce that they’re here for the same reason he is - to kill themselves. Disturbingly, this only serves to make Lucie MORE excited!

This extremely awkward moment is broken by a thin, bespectacled man in a uniform breathlessly climbing up over the ledge like some kind of demented Princess Bride parody. Stacey and Calcium instantly recognize the newcomer packing a two-way radio as Twerple.

Twerple gives a friendly hello, claiming that he was just passing and thought they’d hang out for a while. He then casually asks the Doctor and Lucie if they’d be kind enough to confirm in a loud clear voice whether or not they’re reinforcements or revolutionaries. Calcium suspects that Twerple has been sent here as some kind of a decoy.

"A decoy? Ha!" Twerple laughs nervously, rubbing his neck and trying to hide the two-way radio behind his back. "As if, man! That is SO not cool, you know..."

At that instant five helicopters land on the hillside, each disgorging five regiments of heavily armed men as a heavy metal guitar version of Ride of the Valkyries plays in the background.

"That is so unexpected!" yells Twerple unconvincingly.

The Doctor agrees, putting this down to the unusually high levels of
Narratorial Coincidence Subversion in the atmosphere, before he, Calcium and Stacey attempt to jump off the mountain again. Unfortunately, squabbling over who gets to be first causes a delay allowing the arrival of the leader of the soldiers, the most dreaded warlord of all - General Airy-Fairy. He then has his men beat the Time Lord unconscious, roll him up in a carpet and locked in the back of the helicopter.

Lucie gets exactly the same treatment, and Airy-Fairy explains that this is all in accordance with the standing orders of the most batshit insane officer this side of the UNIT era.

Airy-Fairy turns to Calcium and orders him to come peacefully. "Oh, the only peace I want is a piece of your arse!" Calcium retorts, trying to impress Stacey.

When Stacey points out that the statement actually sounds rather homo-erotic than threatening, Calcium panics. He pulls out a gun and shoots Airy-Fairy through the lungs. Calcium then realizes he only had one bullet and feels rather silly about the whole thing.

The soldiers overwhelm the puny teenagers and throw them in the back of the helicopter as well and soon they have left the misty mountain top, heading for The Big-Ass Palace of the Gods. As it is known.

When the helicopters arrive, the Doctor, Lucie, Calcium and Stacey emerge in chains. Airy-Fairy emerges on a wheelbarrow, bleeding a lot and groaning in pain. The Doctor quickly frees himself and says that it is imperative that the General get medical attention.

"HOH-YAH! I-HADDEN-FORTA-DAT!" retorts one of the squaddies.

Annoyed, the Doctor decides he is completely and utterly sick of this society. He therefore flips Twerple the bird and decides to get drunk on whatever Godly wine may be lying around...

Meanwhile, the rest of the cast head to the Chamber of Pompous Terminology to save Airy-Fairy's life. "But first," Twerple explains, "we must undergo The Cleansing of The Dirty."

"What’s that then?" asks Lucie. "Decontamination?"

"Something like that," Twerple mumbles.

The Cleansing is undergone - by everyone ripping off each other’s clothes are running around in a long Benny Hill chase sequence. As Twerple explains over the noise of 'Yakkity Sax', the process liberates the soul from The Prison of Cloth and allows everyone to sweat out The Demons of Bad Intention.

Under Lucie's death-stare, Twerple is eventually forced to admit he’s making this up as he goes along, but it really IS the sort of crap they do here.

The Doctor, however, has found his way into a room with a solid stone
sacrificial altar drenched in virgin blood. Atop the altar is a coffee cup on it marked "#1 God". Grinning, he declares that this must be Zeus’ room and logically it must have the best booze!

Indeed, the Time Lord only has to break open three cupboards before he finds amphorae of Guinness, and begins drinking himself into oblivion. But he is interrupted by the most terrifying sight ever..

...his son, AKA the dreaded Richard E Grant Doctor!

Last seen lost in the ultimate cataclysm of a completely separate and divergent universe with Zig-Zag-Gay-Ass in the form of Grace Holloway, the Doctor is reasonably taken aback to see REG entering a room in a Welsh Greek Temple carrying a gold-plated, diamond-studded goblet filled with lighter fluid and methylated spirits.

When the Doctor furiously demands what the hell he’s doing here, REG simply shrugs and says "It's a job, isn't it?"

The morbidly obese toga-fetishist entering the room next to Reg introduces himself as Zeus, lord of the skies and bringer of storms, but the Doctor doesn’t fall for it for a second.

"You’re Lord Fatso, aren’t you?" the Doctor gasps. "Winner of the Zeus look-a-like contest in 1999?"

With some degree of embarrassment, Fatso admits to this, and the Doctor laughs hysterically.

"Let that one go to your head, didn’t you?"

Fatso shouts that if the Doctor WANTS to see a fucking miracle, he will SHOW the Doctor a fucking miracle!

Meanwhile, the Cleansing of the Dirty has finally ended and everyone can now enter the Chamber of Pompous Terminology, where Crumpet, Fatso’s lover and Healer of the Bathed Hands unveils the most divine tool of all: The Helmet of Fantabulous Rebirth!

Crumpet uses said Helmet of Fantabulous Rebirth on the mortally wounded and actually not-at-all-well Airy-Fairy... and nothing
happens - until Twerple dons it, and then he becomes possessed by the soul of Airy-Fairy himself!

Everyone is amazed, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the appropriate moments because of large studio cue-lights, allowing the process to SEEM amazing even though they’ve watched it happen many hundreds of times already and to be honest it’s gotten a little bit repetitive.

Lucie is horrified as she realizes that Twerple no longer exists – logically, therefore, she is now unable to beat the crap out of him! She wails at this injustice at length to Crumpet, who laughs at her misfortune, revealing that Twerple was actually a younger cloned version of Airy-Fairy and bred for the task of surrendering his body to allow Airy-Fairy immortality. Thus, it will be many years before the next clone is old enough to be as annoying as Twerple managed!

"How utterly bleedin evil," Lucie sobs, before getting over it.


Parte the Second

Crumpet then changes the subject by carving up Airy-Fairy's old carcass and suggesting for the umpteenth time that the society "descend into cannibalism already!" Everyone STILL thinks that Crumpet’s cannibalistic desires are just weird, and after having everyone stare at her in silence for twenty minutes, Crumpet awkwardly puts down her knives and shuffles out in silence.

On the way, she passes the Doctor and Lord Fatso as arrive in the chamber so Fatso can show off his "amazing" technology. The Doctor is so unimpressed that it is actually contagious and I can’t even be bothered finishing this sentence. Why? Because absolutely nothing of interest seems to be happening, the Doctor agrees to a lengthy dinner with Fatso so they can repeatedly argue over the moral implications of this excessively obscene science since they are creating eternal youth at the cost of innocent lives like any parasitic nomadic Doctor Who villain you care to name...

Eventually it turns out that the Doctor agreed to the dinner as a pretext to try and chat up Crumpet, and interest briefly returns.

To the Doctor’s horror, however, the seating plan puts him between
Calcium and Fatso's cup-bearer - REG! This means the expected tedious arguments are curtailed as the Time Lord quivers in terror and Fatso awkwardly chats about the weather for a long time as they wait for the moral debate to start.

Finally, Calcium realizes the cause of the Doctor’s distress and the truth is revealed: REG is not actually the Doctor’s hideous offspring, but actually a completely unrelated and unintentional doppelganger. Calcium explains that a genetic oddity in their society often takes the form of Richard E Grant - once every generation a clone comes out wrong, looking always like REG, and with no sense of morals, ethics, and decency... yet somehow doesn’t fit in!

They discovered the only way to keep the REGs peaceful was to persistently give them the job of 'Zeus's cup-bearer'. True, this meant that the cup was almost always empty, and sometimes chewed, but it kept the holder himself out of trouble.

Despite this explanation, the Doctor still visibly flinches whenever REG actually talks at him. Finally, after being asked to pass the salt, the Time Lord can take no more and runs away.

Lord Fatso admires his handiwork in dealing with his rival, and turns
his attention to Lucie, who is also at the dinner, flicking food at the walls and carving her tag into the tabletop while simultaneously stealing all the cutlery she can. Cause she’s Northern, and they nick everything that’s not nailed down, huh? See the social satire? DO YOU?!

Lord Fatso makes it clear through remarkably un-subtle remarks that he intends to rape Lucie. He is crestfallen to hear that she actually has an 'overweight septuagenarian fetish', which spoils the fun of violating young girl utterly. Thus, Lord Fatso decides to sulk.

Put out at his reaction and, like the listener, completely sick of all these losers, Lucie decides that she will have her revenge on this entire society – by teaching Stacey everything that Lucie knows about handling difficult situations!

Within a matter of seconds after the first lesson, Stacey and Crumpet are in a cat-fight SO big that the walls of the space-time continuum themselves have trouble containing it!

Lucie manages to escape in the confusion and chaos and ceramic-shattering catastrophes. Outside the dining room she finds the Doctor, pacing up and down corridors agitatedly. Lucie tells him that they now have a chance to escape, which causes the Doctor to announce that he must now brutally murder REG for the greater good of the entire universe even if he ISN’T his long lost son.

By the time Lucie has finished asking how such an action is meant to make any sort of logical sense, the Doctor is wiping the blood from his coat with a reel of paper-towels and says "Sorry, what was that?"

This detour has nevertheless allowed them both to be put under arrest by Airy-Fairy in Twerple’s body. Airy-Fairy explains that the Doctor and Lucie now rely on Fatso’s mercy for their very survival and they should have escaped when they had the chance.

"Totally worth it, though!" enthuses the Doctor.

In the aftermath of the cat-fight, sixteen people died and tremors measuring .6 on the Richter Scale were recorded - but Crumpet herself was the most horrifying casualty.

She still lives, though barely, and Fatso shouts that they must get her into the Chamber of Pompous Terminology for the Totally Way-Out Bringing Back of The Life And Stuff Like That. Airy-Fairy demands that first they must undergo the Cleansing of The Dirty, and Fatso insists that they don’t have enough time, and come to think of it it’s not even a real ritual anyway!

Airy-Fairy retorts that their society’s going to the dogs and they may as well start eating their own corpses. He compromises by going to the operation naked himself, and barely anyone is happy as a result. In fact, NO ONE is happy as a result.

Once inside the operating theatre, Fatso declares that Stacey will house Crumpet’s mind as a punishment for Stacey’s attempt on Crumpet’s life, and that logically the most trustworthy person to perform the operation would be the Doctor himself!

The Doctor is baffled at this, but goes along with it, pressing random buttons on the helmet to see if anything interesting happens. He thinks he has a result when Stacey begins saying that she is Lady Crumpet, The Healer of the Bathed Hands, She Who Has a Hunger That No Amount of Beans Can Satisfy... but this seems to be false when she pulls Airy-Fairy’s gun from its holster and shoots Lord Fatso through the heart screaming "April Fools, mother fucker!" over and over again.

We fade to black on the carnage as at this point the author stopped giving a shit and the script editor had to come up with some kind of ending at very short notice. And so, the story continuums...

Later that day, Lord Fatso McFat is wheeled into the Chamber of Pompous Terminology on two trolleys, cause he is so fat. Just in case that subtext went over your heads. Fatso announces that the Doctor will transfer his mind into Calcium’s body, ignoring the fact that he didn’t actually do a bang-up job the first time.

The Doctor patiently points out that Fatso has absolutely nothing to live for now: his wife Crumpet is dead, his technology is decayed and his son Calcium has absolutely no reason to let the Doctor complete the transfer. Fatso responds by saying that Calcium has decided to give Zeus his body rather than see Lucie suffer endlessly at the hands of Fatso rape 24-7 for the next three thousand years.

The Doctor swears his head off at this revelation, going so far as to scream "I’d have fucking PAID YOU FOR IT! NO FIST, CALCO!"

Calcium protests that he is being morally high-minded, and saving Lucie from the horror of seeing endless clones of herself killed. Lucie giggles at this point and says she really thinks it’d be quite a laugh.

The Doctor snidely points out that Fatso is going to die and can’t really ensure that his orders are followed out by any of his amazingly incompetent lackeys. Plus his entire plan relies on the Doctor using the helmet for evil rather than good, with no assurance at ALL that the Doctor would use the helmet to save Fatso... especially given that he screwed over Crumpet his wife about ten minutes ago.

"Oh, but I *DO* have an assurance, Doctor.." proclaims Lord Fatso with his usual melodrama. "YOU DON’T HAVE THE GRAPES!"

The Doctor rolls his eyes and, in his most deadpan of deadpan monologues, says that Fatso is entirely correct. He switches on The Helmet of Fantabulous Rebirth, and instantly Calcium starts shouting "I AM LORD FASTO! I AM LORD FASTO! I SERIOUSLY AM LORD FATSO! I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!"

The performance is so offensive that a great many of those present literally vomit in disgust at the amateur theatrics. And yet, it was entirely capable of fooling Lucie, who is now dragging Stacey up the cliff-face so they can smash the TARDIS into tiny pieces.

For some reason.

Calcium asks the Doctor if they should hurry after them to stop them
from destroying the Doctor’s TARDIS - and the Doctor laughs in the
clone’s face. The Time Lord goes on to boast that his ship has survived direct hits from missiles, so is unlikely to be damaged by a couple of insane teenage girls armed with their bare hands.

He then proposes that they whip up a few Olsen-sister clones and enjoy themselves for an hour or three, like "ze good old days". Unlike ANY other plan he has heard of this day, Calcium and can see no flaw in this one.

After a very tiring afternoon, the Doctor staggers back to his TARDIS and finds Lucie lying weakly outside the doors, having collapsed from exhaustion. It appears she has failed in her ill-advised and last-ditch
attempt to eat the TARDIS, possibly having broken her jaw in the process. So the Doctor kicks her in the face. Just to be sure.

The Doctor realizes that the really-quite-irritatingly-morally-high-minded-son-of-a-bitch Calcium won’t actually let the Time Lord leave Lucie behind, and so drags her by the hair into the console room, and bemoaning the fact that he’d like something INTERESTING to happen for a change.

As the TARDIS dematerializes, Calcium and Stacey are completely mystified to see a mysterious leather clad biker moll in mirrored shades run over the crest of the hill and attempt to crash-tackle the police box, before flying through empty air and plummeting over the cliff edge. Her cries of "I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, MILLER! NEXT TIME!!!" echo feebly around the valley.

"Bloody tourists.." sighs Calcium and walks off.


---------
Next Time...
---------
"Phobos is Greek for fear. I have no idea what Deimos is Greek for."
"Is that Mars up there? Or are we still in Cardiff?"
"Welsh, isn’t it?"
"'Welsh' isn’t the word..."
"A senseless, vicious attack. Not something I human could have done. Well, I suppose a human MIGHT have done it. Come to think of it, it sounds exactly like something a human would do. Remember Rodney King? Hmmm? No one else does!"
"I told you so! HAH! My life is vindicated!"
"Oh, god. More unconvincing hairy monsters. Everywhere we go. Except for the last two places. Do you think they see us coming?"
"Nah, they probably just smell that tart perfume you’re wearing..."
"These strange animal things come from the mysterious black pit at the heart of this barren airless rock, a gateway into pure evil. But this time, David Tennant isn’t going to abseil into it."
"Up, up and away! DAMN IT, I JUST LOVE BUNGEE-JUMPING..."
---------
...Deimos...
---------

Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who Versus The Welsh Clods
REGeneration: The Richard E Grant Pointless Cameo Years
I Claudius, You Jane


Fluffs – Paul McGann seemed sedated for most of this story.
"Olympian detachment, Olympian athletes, Olympics, Olympus, Olympioompi oompa loompah, diggity-doo!"


Goofs –
So... Ancient Greece is run by some strange aliens in modern day Cardiff, huh? How exactly does that work, again?
The sound of the helicopters are clearly Barnaby Edwards making "dudderdudderdudder" noises in the background.
Why the hell doesn’t Stacey twig that Calcium is lying about being Zeus reincarnated when she pulled the EXACT same stunt?
Andy Hardwick’s incidental music wasn’t particularly memorable, in that I can’t remember what it sounded like right now. Which is generally what is meant by the expression 'wasn’t particularly memorable'. Oh I am so tired.


Fashion Victims -
Everyone mentions Fatso’s beard. Yet he does not have one.


Technobabble -
The truth can finally be revealed: The Helmet of Fantabulous Rebirth is actually an RSK machine with a positronic sump!! There. Don’t your lives suddenly seem richer and fuller knowing that?


Links and References -
Lucy cannot recall the events of the last two stories, while the Doctor notice that sets for this story seem to have been stolen from the Traken bits of PRIME Evil (Serial 6C/D) The Doctor mentions his 'granddaughter sense is tingling'.


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor has been trying to take Lucie to Blackpool and then murder her, dump her body on the pleasure beach and have lunch with DI Theta Sigma Carlisle (David Tennant).


Groovy DVD Extras -
The Cleansing of The Dirty in all it’s slow motion, perverted and nude glory with optional commentary by Sheridan Smith, Jennifer Higham, David Dobson and some guy who just happened to be passing when he saw all the tits on the TV and decided to join in the commentary.


Dialogue Disasters –

Doctor: This is an antique: an antique to the tenth power.
REG: Don’t talk about my liver like that!

Zeus: Do it. Or Lucie will die in a new and interesting way every day for a thousand years!
Doctor: Seriously? Go ahead!
Zeus: What good is forever without her?
Doctor: You have NO idea. DAMN IT, I JUST LOVE CLONE TORTURE!!

REG: This is not immortality, this is perversity! HAHAHAHAH!

Calcium: Is Lucie the goddess of irritating Northern accents?
Doctor: That’s one way of putting it...


Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: Theosophy? Ha! Surely you mean theophany? Because we're not talking about real gods here, are we? We’re talking about the APPEARANCE of gods.
Zeus: Oooh, someone went to college!

Lucie: Oi, bar-gum, mi name’z Lucie Miller and this mis’rable suthern fucking wanker is mi bumblin’ assistant! Oi’m here to perv on yez!

Doctor: And, if I may be so bold, Lord Zeus, your demeanor is not very godlike.
Zeus: PISS OFF, SHORTY!

Lucie: Will you still need me? Will you still feed me?
Doctor: Hmmm?
Lucie: When I’m 64!!!
Doctor: Lucie. I don’t "need" you NOW, let alone another 45 years of you being a complete and utter moron.
Lucie:...I wish I understood that.


UnQuotable Quote -
Zeus: He’s my heir. And my spare. Over there. Where? Don’t you dare! It isn’t fair. If you care, which is exceedingly rare...


Viewer Quotes -

"Hang on, Stacey is played by that chick who played the bird-watching diabetic sex-on-a-stick granddaughter in Jonathon Creek! They finally get her in Doctor Who and not only DON’T make her a companion, they KEEP Lucie 'More Unpleasant Than An Exploding Colostomy Bag' Miller? THIS IS MADNESS! UTTER MADNESS!!!" – Nigel Verkoff (2006)

"Ian McNeice was also in this. Which was nice."
– Jared "No Nickname" Hansen does his uncannily-accurate "Stater of the Bleeding Obvious" impression (2007)

"Of all this season’s stories, this one needs a closer listen or two to fully grasp its themes and plot. Tragically, its themes and plot are nicked wholesale from that old William Hartnell story, The Cabbages. Definitely requires another listen. The Cabbages, I mean, not Immoral Bedfellows. That can go hang." – Craig Charles (2008)

"Immoral Bedfellows feels like a product of a creative dark age with no redeeming features whatsoever, like those dreary mid-season episodes of Blake’s 7, or those dreary end-of-season episodes of Blake’s 7, or those dreary start-of season episodes of Blake’s 7 ah GOD I HATE BLAKE’S 7 I HATE IT! I HATE EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT! I HATE IT! HATE!! HATE!!! HATE!!!" – John Lloyd (1980)

"The disc is finished off with several interviews with cast members."
– The TRUE Stater Of The Bleeding Obvious (2009)

"The enduring problem with Doctor Who is that nothing is new anymore; unless it’s deliberately parodying some new film genre or narrative technique, its been storytelling for so long it's bound to repeat itself. This story did not acknowledge this or do anything new. Oh, god, life is inherently worthless! Existence has no meaning any more! The world is nothing more than a warm turd wrapped in a sock! END IT ALL NOW!" – Nyder’s Diner (regularly)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"It’s what every emperor, every pharaoh ever dreamed of... turning up to work butt naked and not realizing it. Oh, the humanity. I’m off to bite the necks out of some pigeons, wanna come?"


Paul McGann Speaks!
"Ah, this is the life. Pudding, hippie teas, sweet bowls. I love working for BBC7. Good for me, huh? As for the relationship with the Doctor and Lucie, well, you know, you can have adventures with someone you might not necessarily see absolutely eye to eye with. Or complete and utter soul-annihilating hatred. There’s room for that, I guess. Being with someone you have to get up early in the morning just to find the time to despise, that can be an adventure too. Sheridan and I, we’ve twigged that between all sex sessions and ringing up the Karma Sutra to suggest new positions. It’s got a bit of mileage. We don’t NEED to get on together... as long as we can get OFF together."


Sheridan Smith Speaks!
"With Doctor Who, every week there’s a new adventure to be had. You never know what land you’re going to be in, what you’re going to come across... so it’s good they changed all that, set every story in Cardiff and made it clear it’s always going to be the same bunch of wankers to fight all the time. But the Doctor is such a cool hero – he’s wacky, he’s quirky, sometimes he’s not very nice, sometimes he’s nice, but he’s always Paul McGann in a leather jacket. And he’s well fit. And having Joe Bloggs as a sidekick, that’s great, because you can go 'Hey, even I could travel with Doctor Who!'. Not that you can. I’VE got the job, and none of you fan losers ever forget it, right?!"


Richard E Grant Speaks!
"Big Finish? Doctor Who? You mean, this ISN’T where we film Posh Nosh? Where am I then? I don’t know where I am! WHERE AM I?! Oh god I think I’ve wet myself... I HATE EVERYTHING AND A PIG HAS SHAT IN MY HEAD!"


Eddie Hitler Speaks!
"Ah, Immoral Bedfellows! Solid enough little story, I reckon, it’s fine, dare I even say clever? All right, it’s not exactly thrilling and barely diverts for 50 minutes, but that’s precisely what we set out to do. Not a story that made people think or sank its claws into the public consciousness or ride the zeitgeist all the way to freedom city and back, but just something to fill out 45 minutes and allow Paul and me much more incredibly vital drinking time, in the Green Room, blanking out in front of the telly on a lazy Saturday afternoon. This story succeeds admirably in letting us savor pints of mild and paint stripper for the best part of an hour. FIENDISH! Oh, and anyone who bitches about it has been spoilt rotten by the sheer huge amount of proper Dr Who and its spinoffs of late. You ungrateful BASTARDS! COUNT YER FUCKING BLESSINGS BEFORE YOU COME COMPLAINING TO ME, YOU SHITS!"


Trivia -
This story is actually set between Lymph of the Dustbins and Horror of the Music Industry. All the evidence pointing to contrary is a mistake on the part of Big Finish and don’t they dare deny it.


Rumors & Facts -

Jonathon Clements was the latest writer hired by Eddie Hitler to pen a story for the Eighth Doctor’s radio adventures, mainly because any man who could down six pints, beat up the bartender with a pool cue and STILL critique the plot inadequacies of Touchwood was a worthy in Hitler’s book. Indeed, it was a drunken night with Hitler at the Dog & Handgun which inspired Clements to base an entire 70-minute Big Finish audio on an obscure Rolling Stones song in lieu of plot, the finished product of which was Doctor Who Unsoiled: Sympathy for the Devil.

Once on board with Hitler for the latest season of Paul McGann adventures in time and space and Cardiff, Clements decided to pen a story that tapped into the contemporary Doctor Who zeitgeist, focussing on family affairs rather than rampaging bug eyed monsters with black and decker drills slaughtering mutant goats.

This family saga was entitled Sins of the Father’s Father’s Father’s Father’s Father’s Father And HIS Father’s Father’s Father’s Father’s Father’s Father’s And Then Skip A Couple Of Fathers Oh Who Cares It Just Runs In The Family. Unfortunately, an IMDb search revealed over two thousand other shows had already used this EXACT title, and so it was changed to Immortal Beloved, the Immoral Beloved, then Immoral Bedfellows.

However, as is often the way, by the time the story title was decided, there was only a week until recording and no actual script of any kind to speak of. Desperately, Hitler and Clements got completely pissed and watched twenty-nine hours straight of Star Trek The Original Series and even the bloody Motion Picture. The experience left them twitching, nervous, paranoids, and bursting with philosophical, cultural and big social ideas in an un-showy, un-pompous way.

And in this state of mind they decided to just plagiarize Romeo and Juliet, certain that the thing must be out of copyright after four and a half centuries. But instead of being two rival gangs who talk poncy bollocks instead of getting down to fighting like the fiery, warlike enemies they’re SUPPOSED to be, it would turn out that the family of the doomed lovers were technologically advanced Welshmen who have used that technology to assume power and god-hood over the other banjo-plucking retards that inhabit the valleys.

The idea of the gods achieving eternal life via transferring their consciousness into specially-prepared clones who are raised to sacrifice themselves to this cause was based on Hitler’s retirement plan, which he came up with one night in a police cell after the sixty-seventh pint of mild.

The finished product was thus a strange clash of ancient history and futuristic science fiction, a very difficult thing to get right without losing all credibility.

It also flags up that the Doctor has always been somewhat self-contradictory in that he eagerly salutes all efforts by humans to better themselves, but immediately draws the line when they attempt to extend their own life spans. In this situation, the institutionalized murder makes the Doctor’s moral position clear-cut, but there’s still that same underlying feeling: that these "gods" are somehow WRONG for wanting to live beyond their natural limit, that they should let go and turn things over to their descendants...

On the other hand, the Olsen twins are perfect for group orgies! I’m not a hundred per cent certain as to how this relates to my earlier point but god DAMN it is true!

Recording got off to an awful start when it was discovered that Richard E Grant had gone on a lighter fluid bender and sought shelter from all the goblins, lizards and bats that appeared soon after by hiding at the recording studios. This would be awkward at the best of times, but Grant was soon clutching Paul McGann’s legs and screaming that "Uncle Monty" was going to "finger his entrails".

A quick rewrite was carried out by Hitler to accommodate any unavoidable REG gibberish in the finished product. Many were amazed at McGann’s professionalism despite being repeatedly groped by the drunken Grant throughout – bar the story portraying the Eighth Doctor as much more moodier and confrontational (and the occasional hysterical screaming fit), there was no trace in the finished play of the horrible events taking place beneath the microphone.

However, the sheer terror and disgust REG engendered in the rest of the cast went a long way into giving Immoral Bedfellows the gritty faux-realism that the usual parade of shootings, stabbings, attempted suicides and septuagenarian rape fetish discussion could not have managed alone and makes this fairly uncomfortably part of the early listening time-slot and corrupts lots of youngster who foolishly tuned in expecting more exploding Dustbins and Tom Petty in a stupid hat.

Occasionally, it has been pointed out that Immoral Bedfellows is clearly plagiarized from Roger Zelazny’s Hugo-Award-losing novel Lawks A Lordy My Bottom’s On Fire, involving a bunch of strange people pretending to be Greek Gods in Cardiff and downloading their minds into clones of people called Calcium. This is a complete lie, since neither Hitler nor Clements have ever heard of the book, and Zelanzy himself agrees the whole thing coincidence. Well, no doubt that’s what he will say as soon as he regains the power of speech and can survive off life support for more than a few minutes at any given time.

Some might say Immoral Bedfellows falls into that trap and ends up sounding all rather silly, but don’t say it to Clement or he’ll break your fingers. Some may say starts poorly and is not worth persevering, but soon found solid food no longer an option after Clements hunted them down mercilessly. Some may say that, with an absurd setting and the least starry cast of the series, Immoral Bedfellows is still a big disappointment, but were never seen again and rumor says it are now lost in the foundations of several major motorways.

I myself think it’s the best play of the first four in the new range.

(Please don’t kill me, Jonathon.)


"Olympus Is A Place In Cardiff" by Hint of Leather Goddess

When REG gets drunk and falls down
I wait for him to sober up and come around
And the temples are alive
With the sound of copters on the lawn outside

When you walk into the room
You pull me close and we start to move
And we're spinning with the stars above
And you lift me up in a wave of love...

Ooh, mortals, do you know what life’s worth?
Ooh, Olympus is a place in Cardiff!
They say in Olympus, Zeus come first!
We’ll steal younger bodies in Cardiff!
Ooh, Olympus is a place in Cardiff!

When I feel old, I steal your body
If I may be so bold?
When I’ve been stabbed a lot
I wipe your mind, and don’t care a jot

Thanks to that helmet thing, we’re just beginning
To understand the miracle of living
Mortals were sexy lifetimes before
But I don’t fancy you any more

Ooh, mortals, do you know what life’s worth?
Ooh, Olympus is a place in Cardiff!
They say in Olympus, Zeus come first!
We’ll steal younger bodies in Cardiff!
Ooh, Olympus is a place in Cardiff!
Ooh, Olympus is a place in Cardiff!
Ooh, Olympus is a place in Cardiff!
Ooh, Olympus is a place in Cardiff!

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