Friday, December 4, 2009

8th Doctor - Something Inside (ii)

Book(s)/Other Related -
Dunno, Can’t Remember
Doctor Who: Something Inside
Touch Wood: Something Outside
Spot the Loony – the game show with Spike Milligan and David Tennant


Fluffs – Paul McGann seemed cracked in the head for most of this story.
"We are beyond all held now."
"'All held'. Do you mean 'help'?"
"Aw, hell!"
"So now we’re beyond aw hell now?!"
"Shut up, C’Rizz!"


Goofs – C’Rizz and Charley have started holding hands. You don’t think... no, that’s just sick. Let us think of something else.


Fashion Victims -
C’Rizz in a ginger wig, multicolored stripy jumper and denim overalls. Charley wears a white wedding dress, a black neck collar and leather jacket with the words DEATH BY ORGASM spelt out in studs on the back.
...And this is supposed to convince the Cenobites that they are SANE?!?


Technobabble - The Doctor reverses the polarity of the neutron flow.
In these post-RTD days, that’s worth a street party in itself.


Links and References -
The Doctor thinks of happier days when he encountered Mickey Mouse, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy and Dracula in the lower orders of Hell where they repeatedly sang "Happy Birthday" at him until the Dustbins arrive and blew everyone up. (Serial R, "The Chaste")


Untelevised Misadventures -
Charley mentions she invented the term "stevedore" and nearly broke her last lover’s back during a French kiss.


Groovy DVD Extras -
A kind of Hangman game but instead of a stick man being hanged, there is a stick C’Rizz looking worried as a stick Pinhead makes him bend over, then picks up a baseball bat and applies some Vaseline.


Dialogue Disasters –

Doctor: How can you find out if I’m not lying.
Pinhead: There’s one way of finding out – on a purely subconscious level, of course – but it will involve whips and chains.
Doctor: It’s always whips and chains with you Cenobites. You got a fetish or something?


Charley: I wouldn’t try and read my mind right now if I were you. It’s likely to be a bit of a mess. An incredibly kinky, seductive and above all XXX-rated mess but a mess nonetheless. Ooh, that rhymes! Cool!


Pinhead: You are useless to me. You were never amnesiac.
Doctor: Huh? Who are you? I don’t remember where I am!
Butterball: Damn it, he’s good.


Doctor: Well, I don’t FEEL telepathic. I’m sure I’d notice if I was. And I can’t tell what you’re thinking. Beyond the obvious of course.
Charley: Spoilsport! Fine, I’ll put my clothes BACK on, then!
Doctor: I never said I wanted that!


Charley mocks Butterball’s erectile dysfunction –
"Come, then, if you think you’re hard enough."


Doctor: I may not know who I am, but I don’t give second chances.
Charley: I’ll give you a lapdance.
Doctor: Hmm. OK. I don’t give THIRD chances. I’m that sort of a man. DAMN IT, I JUST LOVE BEING MERCIFUL!


Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: Why not just kill me and get it over with?
Pinhead: We have eternity to know your flesh.
Doctor: Bollocks! You’ve only got another two eps and you know it!


Charley: So what did you think of "The Credo of the Moron"?
Doctor: Not one of my best audio plays, Charley.


C’Rizz: You hate me but you need me. That can be an ugly combination.
Charley: Not as ugly as you, lizard boy.


C’Rizz: Doctor, what about Charley?
Doctor: Who are you? Who is Charley? Why can’t I remember?
C’Rizz: Maybe it’s down to you continually biffing yourself in the face with a frying pan?!


UnQuotable Quote -

Dreamer: Keep still, my dear.


Viewer Quotes -

"I really like how Charley and C’Rizz are developing as characters. Trouble is, those characters seem to be Chucky and Tiffany the incredibly homicidal psychotic serial killing children’s toys. Still... a mouth’s a mouth." – Nigel Verkoff (2006)

"The Doctor’s a Liverpool supporter? Tosser! I quit!"
– Chris Eccleston (2005)

"Butterball was kinda like Lytton. He was my favorite character in Doctor Who. The rest can suck my balls." – Eric Saward (1992)

"Once again Conrad Westmaas steals the show. Why does he want it in the first place though? Did he think it was a copy of Bare Parts?"
– Amanda Freeman (2008)

"Rubik’s Cube thoroughly entertained me. But then I am a thoroughly sick son of a bitch who is easily pleased. A lot of this is down to what the regulars go though in this story – particularly the Doctor and C’Rizz who get tortured with rusty metal implements and laser-sighted dildos. That kind of thing really appeals to me."
– an irritating shit of a fan who talks loudly at conventions and thinks he’s even remotely funny (attributed)

"India Fisher loves ME best. She signed the cover of my copy of the play in red, and put three x's on it. Our love is beyond human comprehension." – Cameron Mason, www.istalkcharley.com.au (2007)

"She's just stringing you along, bitch," – Nigel Verkoff (2007 – again)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"There might be an evil worm living inside my head. Then again, there might not. Then again, there might be. Only one way to find out. Pass me the ice pick and close your eyes, pretty boy..."


Paul McGann Speaks!
"The Temporal Difference of Opinion’s really hitting my Doctor hard. There’s a more cantankerous, almost paranoid side coming out and I enjoyed that because both I AND Doctor Who know about the monster hiding in the stationary cupboard, with its dark fur and googly eyes and horns and teeth... IT’S GOING TO KILL US ALL TONIGHT! TONIGHT!"


India Fisher Speaks!
"Sorry, can’t talk, I’m off to play an incredibly kinky and oversexed prison guard in the shittiest ever version of Blake’s 7, where terrorists use exploding frying pans and Avon’s played by an Isaac Haynes wannabe, and Bruce Willis' Armageddon is the set text we’re working from rather than 'The Way Back'."


Conrad Westmaas Speaks!
"Yeah, I gotta go to. I’m playing India’s spiked leather codpiece in the fight scenes. Sigh. It’s a living."


Trivia -
That version of Blake’s 7 they mentioned redefined the word "crap". Sadly, I have to admit I needed to check the definition of the word "crap" in the first place.


Rumors & Facts -

What is happening to Big Finish lately? A couple of years ago they never seemed to put a foot wrong. Actually, they put so many feet wrong that if they were accused of drink driving they’d have been locked up for thirteen consecutive life sentences, but the mob is a fickle thing. As are the cops with the breathalizers, so be warned.

Nevertheless, the fen of fandom were rarely disappointed until 2003, coincidentally the year that Zig-Zag-Gay-Ass was created and RTD announced that the real show was coming back, so no one had to piss about with stopgaps like audios anymore. Since then, the range has managed the impressive feat of treading water in a downward spiral of increasing lacklustreness, and, frankly not worth the time or the cash.

Worst of all was the Eighth Doctor range – once the bravest and most innovative forms of possible Doctor, it is now almost forgotten now that Paul McGann has gone from the Current Doctor to the One Before The One Before The Current Doctor Who Was Brilliant In Casanova.

If only there was some kind of pattern.

Trevor Baxendale, OBE, MBE, BSC, first handed in a version of this script in 2002, fully expecting that no one had done an "Eighth Doctor Versus Hellraiser" story before. Tragically the script was used as kitty litter and the story remained in genesis until 2005 when it was re-submitted and then rejected immediately as it did not feature enough fanwanky foreshadowing to the current Ninth Doctor’s TV series.

Two weeks later, the re-submitted "The Cenobites" was rejected again as featuring far too much fanwanky foreshadowing to the Ninth Doctor, as the Tenth was being cast and Eccleston was 'SO yesterday!' as Gay Russell would say, quite a lot, often when no one was present and thus unaware that this was a symptom of his complete nervous breakdown that left him in charge of Cosgrove Hall’s "Unique Head And Shoulder Doctor Who Animation Department" which went bankrupt three hours later.

However, let us open a black hole in real space and rewind the continuum slightly, to when Russell was still in charge of Big Finish if we can avoid the inevitable Temporal Orbit.

Now totally out of new material, Big Finish was once again being forced to produce scripts they’d maybe accepted and then used in paper plane competitions for their own amusement. Thus, after the soul-crushing despair of Steve Lyon’s Clock Work, it was decided that "Doctor Who Sits Inside Your Head Among the Dead And Mocks You As You’re Sleeping Dear Sweet Jesus They’re Coming Through The Walls Oh God Protect Us Please!" would have to be the next excursion for the Eighth Doctor, Charley Pollard and Cecil Rizz Esquire to suffer.

Baxendale relished the chance to write for Paul McGann’s uniquely Liverpudlian incarnation since Baxendale was uniquely Liverpudlian himself, and thought nothing of the inherent paradox in this sentence. The script originally was an extreme survival reality game show hosted by the Kro’ka in The Double The Fist Universe Story Arc, but only for about three minutes before Baxendale rubbished the arc like every other sane member of the human race. Another abandoned plot thread has the Pinhead character unmasked at the end of episode three to reveal he was really Eric Sykes all the time – hence Pinhead calling himself Eric at various points in the story as heavy-handed exposition.

Production on DWSIYHATDAMYAYSDSJTCTTWOGPUP was slightly hampered as, after re-submitting the same storyline three times an hour for five years, Baxendale found the plot incredibly predictable – especially since it was stolen wholesale from a less-than-memorable episode of Garth Marenghi’s DarkPlace hospital drama.

"Anyone can write a story that surprises the audience," Baxendale said over three pipes of opium, "but to write a story that surprises the AUTHOR, well, that takes imagination. And genius. And blind luck. And more opium. Suki, more lavender oil in my triceps."

Thus, in order to make sure that he had NO idea what was going to happen next, Baxendale logged onto SimplyScripts.Com and downloaded a heap of sci fi horror film early drafts, and cut and pasted randomly from them into the script for DWSIYHATDAMYAYSDSJTCTTWOGPUP, in particular Cube, Scanners, Aliens, Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream If You Know What You Did Last Friday Thirteenth, every film done by Lucio Fulchi and, for an extra twist, Hating Alison Ashley.

Curiously, this created the most predictable plot line used by Big Finish so far. In fact, wander into the local pub and – give or take some giant maggots – the average punter will know the plot off by heart, from the amnesiac Doctor to the cop-out ending where our heroes bravely run for their miserable lives.

"Yeah, well, Doctor Who’s STARDIS arrives in this base that’s under siege by this monster, right? And all the wankers in the base are trying to get out before it turns them into potato salad (the stuff in tins, not the firm, tasty, delicatessen variety). Doctor Who gets locked up and loses his memory while his bird and some losers run up and down lots of corridors telling us the monster’s chasing us cause the show is show cheap it can’t get a monster outfit. Part of the charm of that pathetic, childish crap. Billie Piper’s well fit, in’t she?"

Tragically, timing meant the sequence where C’Rizz puts on a hockey mask and chases Chatterbeast while the Doctor puts on a floppy hat, a stripy jumper and an Edward Scissorhands prop was cut from the final product. Ironically, this makes the plot make a lot more sense.

Another unintentional script tidy was carried out when Baxendale, for a laugh, shuffled every scene in the episode to a completely random place and this amazingly made the narrative more linear.

Meanwhile, Steve Foxx, once again sidelined since his much hated character had been brutally killed off years earlier in a divergent universe, once again got his own back on the production team.

After providing in the inappropriate cello horror music for Clock Work and the ridiculous Waltzing Matilda to The Unsettling, he used an incredibly cheap and nasty 1990s techno brass beat which was as appropriate to this demonic slasher flick as a the Stripper Song at an Amish birthday party. When the cheesy jazz pub turn prodding away the same few notes on the cheap and nasty 1980s Casio keyboard was found, he was hung, drawn and quartered and fed to the hellbeast next door to the studios Big Finish were recording in at the time.

Critically, Rubik’s Cube didn’t do too badly, since after Baxendale’s truly awful New Adventure audio The Dark Llama, expectations about his next audio were so low they were in fact drilling a hole to the inner core of the Earth, deep in the mantle well below the crust.



"Time War Trouble" by Shampoo and Conditioner

Belgium,
There’s Time War Trouble!
Ever since Fargo
Got turned to rubble! Yeah, yeah!

Belgium,
There’s Time War Trouble!
Dustbins versus Time Lords
Gonna burst the Time Bubble!

We could be on the front line
Fighting for the cause
With the N-Forms and the Bowships
And all the in-laws!

We tried to dodge the draft
With a new identity
Get an office job
Claim to be a loony!

Belgium,
There’s Time War Trouble!
Higher beings brickin’ it
It sure ain’t subtle! Yeah, yeah!

Belgium,
There’s Time War Trouble!
Acardia has fallen
Romana’s getting stubble!

We didn’t want to fight
In the last apocalypse
Even though the Nestles say it’s a
"Piece of piss!"

The Animus is just some dust
Eternals running for the hills
Dustbins’ getting religion and
It’s giving us the... chills!

Belgium,
There’s Time War Trouble!
We’ll be right behind the sofa
In a Type 40 shuttle! Yeah, yeah!

Belgium,
There’s Time War Trouble!
It’s a battle in the vortex
Quick march on the double!

The Time Lords are after us
And they’re as mad as hell
The Doctor’s super confident
But you never can tell!

We’re hiding out in Cardiff
Coz there’s nowhere else to go!
Though how it fits with RTD
Only God will know!

Belgium,
There’s Time War Trouble!
Creation is at stake
Got time for a cuddle? Yeah Yeah!

Belgium,
There’s Time War Trouble!
To Gallifrey confusion
And continuity befuddle!

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