Thursday, November 5, 2009

7th Doctor - Earth Aid (i)

An Alternate Programme Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
Serial 7P/1 – Live Aid
An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Sacred Bob Geldoff

D O C T O R W H O

Serial 7P/1 – Live Aid


Part One

The new season picks up exactly where the last one came to an unimpressive fart of a conclusion – the Doctor, Ace and one Terry "Cat Molester" Jones were attempting to escape the furry-dominated planet of the Cheetah People using their amazing reality-warping space portals.

Alas, while these amazingly fit Cheetah Lesbians might have the ability to distort the causal nexus at will, they are totally rubbish at navigation and instead of Perivale 1989, the time traveling trio are sent hurtling to the Alpha Quadrant in the 23rd Century.

They appear in mid-air in the briefing room of the Vancouver-built Federation starship the !C-Mel, then fall in a heap on top of a bald Shakespearian starship captain and break his neck. Mr. Jones is horrified at this senseless waste of human life, but the Doctor notes that given the trillion-to-one chance they fetched up in a breathable, civilized locale is something to be grateful for, corpses or no.

Ace, having a very limited – to the point of intellectual disability – grasp on Star Fleet regulations decides that by the law of "dead man's boots" that SHE is now the Captain of the !C-Mel and anyone who has any problems with that will be forced to wear a red T-shirt.

The Doctor would normally advise against such reckless and violent behavior, but frankly everyone in the 23rd Century Federation was a useless jerk and he tells Ace to do what she likes while he tries to work out how to get back to Perivale 1989 and the TARDIS.

Ace seizes control of the star ship and immediately sets about bullying, humiliating and intimidating every single crew member she finds. The crew think she's horrible, common and about as reasonable as a piranha with PMT. Then Ace discovers that the star ship is merely providing humanitarian aide to starving colony worlds and not boldly splitting infinitives where no man has been blown before.

Disappointed and furious, she randomly opens airlocks throughout the !C-Mel and flushes out countless crewmembers that weren't quick enough to escape being spaced. This not only improves discipline but drastically reduces the number of speaking parts and thus names that Captain Ace has to remember. It's win-win!

Just then, all contact is lost with the cargo shuttle being towed along behind the !C-Mel. Is it a coffee break? Are the crew just having a nap? Have hungry pirates attacked wanting food? Or has Mr. Jones done something unspeakable to the cargo?

Ace bugs out her eyes. "I can feel one of my MOODS coming on...."

An away party of expendable ensigns in distinctive red shirts decide to take their chances with whatever the hell has happened on the shuttle – and are quite relieved to discover nothing more dangerous or spooky that the shuttle crew have disappeared, leaving just Mr. Jones building a cat statuette out of ship-issue spam.

The Doctor and Ace try to interrogate Jones, but they get nothing useful out of him and frankly the testimony of a serial cat molester probably wouldn’t be much use at the best of times.

The crew check out the grain supplies in the shuttle hold and the red-shirts are promptly eaten by some giant slug-like weevils that have managed to get into the grain supplies. Ace chalks this down to experience and decides to use the shuttle as target practice, while the Doctor begins to suspect this crisis is but a symptom of some huge and amoral force pulling the strings and manipulating everyone.

"So... basically it's YOU then, Professor?"

"Pretty much. But why? Why would I be doing any of this?"

The Doctor finally bothers to check the !C-Mel's destination and is amazed to discover what planet they are rushing to supply with grain – a planet of nymphomania known in the trade as a Whore World, and this particular Whore World is notorious!

"The legends of Gallifrey speak of a planet and the name of the planet they speak of is... Erotica Time Conjunction!"

The Doctor reveals that this is what he has been preparing Ace for all these seasons, sorting out her awesome backlog of massive psychological problems so she will be ready for this day to become a complicated spatio-temporal sexual event, a prostitute wearing fishnet stockings in thirty-seven separate dimensions!

"And you get to be my intergalactic, superfly pimp?" asks Ace flatly.

"It's one of the perks, yes," the Doctor nods. "But think of it like being a World War II spy – just imagine the sort of information you could overhear from your clients! You can find out Cybermen troop movements in the Acteon Galaxy, or the ongoing multiversal conflict with the Halldons and the Eternals, all for a single handjob!"

Mr. Jones, for his part, can't quite believe the Doctor has meddled and fiddled with all of history past and future and manipulated events solely so he can get a few grotzis to whore out his granddaughter. The Doctor admits it probably DOES seem ridiculous to such limited four-dimensional anthropoids, but as a Time Lord he finds such pan-reality control freakery more addictive than cheap Andromedan cocaine!

"I started out on the small stuff," the Doctor explains sadly. "Sending myself some detailed notes about how my entire future adventures would end so I could take the credit. But then I got in deeper and deeper. I triggered intergalactic wars so a convenient cushion would left at precisely the right time and place so if I tripped over a brick I would have a safe landing. Then I went back and put the brick there as well. MAN, WHAT A BUZZ!!"

Ace and Mr. Jones suggest that maybe the Doctor should see some sort of psychiatric help for his obvious addiction when suddenly there is the grinding of ancient engines and the TARDIS materializes in front of them. The Doctor is shocked, as he didn't preset the coordinates or set up a homing beacon or indeed do anything to bring his ship here.

For the TARDIS to randomly appear here and now must mean the very laws of universal reason must be fragmenting – and that can only mean the Doctor is about to pull off his most daring, most brilliant endeavor in the history of manipulative bastardry on a truly cosmic scale!

"This will be a scheme so diabolically intricate and monumentally overly-complicated that it makes that last episode of The Prisoner look like three minutes of Play School!" the Time Lord vows darkly. "I SHALL HUSTLE CAUSALITY ITSELF! Oh, this is SO working for me..."


Part Two

Suddenly a rather unimpressive-looking silver egg with silly flapping wings appear over the planetary horizon and advance on the !C-Mel. One look at them and the Doctor whimpers in terror. Not only are they being confronted with a Death Angel, the ultimate warrior of an ancient race of omni-cidal maniacs, but the Doctor can't find a single post-it note from a future self telling him how to get out of this mess!

Leaving Ace and her somewhat diminished crew to hold off against the Death Angel, the Doctor and Mr. Jones dive into the TARDIS, setting course for the Federation High Command where suitable reinforcements can be gathered to fight off the Death Angels.

With its usual dramatic irony, the TARDIS fetches up in a darkened Casablanca night club in 1946 in the middle of a jazz rehearsal. Jones points out the bright side – at least they've arrived somewhere full of smugglers and drug runners rather than sickeningly perfect holier-than-thou Star Fleet officers.

The Doctor concedes this point and the pair are soon making mischief by breaking into the office of the nightclub and trying to steal the contents of the drinks cabinet. Unfortunately it is being used by some badass gun runners for a conference about the latest "Amazing Stories" magazine and the loss of 600 Harry Enfield rifles.

Threatened with death by the gun runners, the Doctor comes up with a cunning plan to manipulate the situation and immediately announces he has the power of levitation taught to him by the ancient mystics of Venus for a one-off postal order of 22 pounds 57p.

The gun runners are intrigued, but when the Doctor explains he can only levitate for shockingly short periods of time they eventually twig that he is just jumping up and down. Nevertheless, this bit of padding has delayed events for the Death Angel to follow them to the bar.

The Doctor and Jones run away back to the TARDIS as the Death Angel slaughters everyone. Jones is curious how this massacre in post-war Casablanca can possibly be of ANY use to them, but the Time Lord merely waggles his eyebrows infuriatingly and notes he has now discovered the Death Angel's fatal flaw!

...but he won't reveal what it is, and Jones accuses the Doctor of bullshitting them all and doesn't actually have the faintest idea what's going on. "You're just a junkie getting his fix from interfering with the laws of cause and effect!" the feline-fucker accuses him.

The Doctor is hurt. "Well, if THAT'S your attitude..."

He kicks Cat Molester Jones out of the TARDIS and this long-running and popular is mercilessly exterminated. The Doctor, gripped by a violent rage from time-machination-withdrawal symptoms, laughs cruelly and rolls his "r"s, before we get a quick clip show to celebrate the truly perverted life of Mr. Jones and the sheer number of Doctor Who stories he was edited out of on the grounds of good taste.

The TARDIS takes off, and the Doctor returns to the !C-Mel to tell Ace and the others that while, yes, he hasn't actually gotten any nearer to saving them - and indeed has merely led to more gratuitous civilian casualties in different time periods, this whole cunning master-plan is very much "a work in progress".

"Bloody hell, Professor, you're ripped off your tits, aren't you?"

"Oh, you bet your arse, Ace! That's why I'm stretching THIS one out!"

Cackling like a madman, the Doctor dives into the TARDIS once again and hurtles back through time and space to Stonehenge at the 1970s "Quatermass Versus The Sex Pistols" pop concert where he meets a long-haired hippy called Neil. Neil has, like, this totally amazing theory that Stonehenge is actually a prehistoric parabolic antenna sending a signal (specifically Tangerine Dream) throughout the cosmos.

The Doctor boggles – Neil is absolutely right, as the Doctor himself built the damn thing for just that reason, and it will come in amazingly handy to sort out the crisis on Whore World! Pausing only to drop-kick the stupid hippy, the Time Lord returns to the !C-Mel.

"No need to worry, everyone," he assures the gathered crew. "I've managed to contact some help in the form of the Metatraxi, an alien race of insectoid warriors, one of the most warlike and militaristic races in the universe! They're so utterly ruthless they find the concept of taking prisoners as immoral as toilet humor in polite society! Believe you me, the Death Angels don't stand a chance!"

The swarm of silver eggs rip the !C-Mel apart and the Doctor, Ace and all the surviving crew flee in the TARDIS. Ace suggests that maybe they should try and find their own salvation, since there isn't any sign of the Metatraxi turning up to save them. If only the Death Angels had some kind of fatal flaw that could be used to defeat the menace...

The Doctor suggests they go to Scholars' World, a planet of data vampires who consume all information via the highly original and unhygienic method of sucking blood out of anyone stupid enough to visit. Ace notes she has heard disturbingly credible rumors that the data vampires are just ordinary vampires with a set of encyclopedias, but the Doctor is adamant that this is the only place they can find the information they need!

The TARDIS arrives in a Gothic-style university where the data vampires explain that the Death Angels aren't actually aliens but merely unconvincing rubber suits being worn by a completely DIFFERENT race of aliens – a species that turned aside from the weaknesses of flesh and emotion and declared war on all inferior races with a mindless hatred that has consumed them ever since.

"Yesssssssss," the Doctor says slowly, "that doesn't REALLY narrow it down, though, does it?"

The data vampires decide it is time to suck the Doctor's blood – but whether it's because they want the unique data contained in the inane nucleoids of a Time Lord or simply because he's so damn annoying is a question we may never truly know the answer to...


Part Three

Thinking quickly, the Doctor tells the data vampires that he is the third shadowy figure secretly responsible for the creation of all Time Lord society, reincarnated into the diminutive and Scottish body of an underachieving and badly-dressed Gallifreyan pervert.

This is information the creatures were definitely better off not knowing, so they all conveniently explode and are never ever mentioned again beyond Ace and the others noting that this entire plot thread has been a total waste of screen time.

"I know! I actually set up this entire situation entirely so I could resolve it! These ontological paradoxes are better than sex, Ace! My vision has turned white with ecstasy! History pulling itself up by its bootlaces! BONZAI, BABY! I think I'll go back and get HG Wells to copy every book he will ever write before he becomes a novelist!"

"...you have a problem, Professor. I hope you're aware of this."

The insanely-overconfident Doctor insists everyone should return to the blasted plains of the Whore World, certain that he knows the fatal flaw of the Death Angels and now any minute an army of Metatraxi armed with the ancient lawnmowers of combat will arrive and finish em off!

The Death Angels are not remotely intimidated by the thought of the Metatraxi, and indeed admit they always wanted to get hold of a Primary Metatraxi Crusher-Class Planetary Destroyer ship – so basically the whole situation has just become ten times worse than it already was!

"I know what I'm doing!" the Doctor insists, giggling uncontrollably.

Ace wonders exactly how they are going to stop the Metatraxi from out-and-out murdering them, but the Doctor intends to simply pop back in time and trick the Metatraxi Prime into declaring all-out war on the concept of violence. This will either cause the insectoid samurai to become the most peaceful race in the universe... or cause them all to drop dead of terminal incredulity from this paradoxical ploy.

"You're just taking the piss now, aren't you?" Ace accuses him.

By way of a reply, the Doctor immediately tells her to let the Death Angels capture them. Ace wonders if this somehow is the Death Angels' fatal flaw and they cannot comprehend the concept of surrender.

The Doctor stares at her and admits he had TOTALLY FORGOTTEN about that whole "fatal flaw" business and, truth be told, isn't even sure they HAVE a fatal flaw. It is entirely possible he was just tripping from too much ontological time energy...

However, the Doctor assures everyone that this is just another stunningly-brilliant ploy on his part and this monumentally stupid action will have a similarly stupid REACTION – basically, the Death Angels shall now be compelled to compromise their battle plans and reveal their secret identities for no good reason whatsoever!

And, bugger me sideways, they do!

The Death Angels unfold in a cheap shock moment to reveal they are just a bizarre disguise for some cream-and-gold patterned Dustbins, who have reacted to the destruction of their home world and emperor by going ever-so-slightly peculiar. Especially their squadron leader, who insists on wearing a tutu and being referred to as "War Bastard".

"THIS WHORE WORLD NOW BELONGS TO THE DUSTBINS!" the Dustbin War Bastard screams, just in case the audience (should any still be watching) were getting confused at this point.

"Oh," the Doctor says in dull surprise. "So it's NOT the Snotarans?"

Ace can't believe her ears. The Doctor has been working on this deranged Heath Robinson scam of cause and effect for thirty thousand years and is so out of it he didn't even realize his deadliest and most merchandisable of enemies was actually involved!

"Do you even know what 'Machiavellian' actually MEANS?" she demands.

Just then the Metatraxi wander over the hill, even-more-violently-keyed-up-than-normal and craving the sort of battle you can only get from an army of creepy death-worshipping cleaning machines. Immediately the two alien races get into one hell of a barney that destroys both sides and leaves everyone else completely unharmed.

The Doctor radiates smugness so much you'd swear it was CGI.

Our heroes decide to escape the blitzed Whore World by stealing the Metatraxi's flying saucer – unfortunately, the Doctor forgot all about its robotic defenses and yet more red-shirts are slaughtered. And when they finally take off, they are immediately attacked by some space pirates, killing even MORE red-shirts.

The Doctor confidently takes charge with a poetic speech that now, with the new generation of Dustbins destroyed, that space piracy is simply neither sociologically or economically viable as a career path and there is no place for scum like them in the new order of creation.

The space pirates take this argument completely seriously, as the Doctor tells Ace he has ensured that each and every one of the pirates once saw him in a stand-up comedy gig where he hypnotized them all to obey him when he used the trigger phrase "the yeast infection does not respond to antibiotics".

As the pirates bugger off, Ace is a bit pissed off that the Doctor didn't simply brainwash them NOT to attack in the first place, as there is only a single member of the !C-Mel still alive.

Just then, a rabid Lysenkan bog rat hiding in the wardrobe leaps out to bite the Doctor's face off... but luckily the last surviving red-shirt is available for the Time Lord to use as a human shield.

"Don't get upset, Ace," the Doctor giggles. "He only existed because I went back in time and caused that power cut that trapped both his parents in a lift at the precise moment his mother was ovulating! WOW! I AM SO FUCKING STONED RIGHT NOW – let's go shoot JFK, huh? You and me, Ace, the grassy knoll, a loaded shotgun! That would totally rock!"

Ace kicks him repeatedly in the testicles and the Doctor negotiates downwards so instead of unleashing more predetermined chaos on the time streams they'll just sneak off to a Quorlorgian night club and get completely wasted the old-fashioned way.

After one night on the Voxnic, the Doctor has had to put off the master-manipulation stuff for a few hours which – due to wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey reasons – means he's succeeded at going cold turkey. He now only wants to come up with complicated scams because he's a sadistic prick who likes using human beings as pawns.

A hungover Ace snaps at him that for all his pretensions at godhood he's always been far, far too stupid to win with any of these so-called chess games on a thousand boards as anything but blind luck and he should get over this whole sad midlife crisis he's currently stuck in.

The Time Lord steeples his fingers and mutters darkly about "hypocrisy from the dawn of time" and muses to himself that as Ace has been around for four seasons, it might be time to get himself a new and slightly-less-psychotic companion...

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