Thursday, February 4, 2010

10th Doctor - Twittersode

Serial Twattersode – The Jedward Nightmare
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Twits

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


Serial Twattersode – The Jedward Nightmare -

This unhappy bubble of anal wind in the bathtub of the Whoniverse has slipped most people by. Lucky them. I, however, was not so lucky and thus transcribe all six minutes and two seconds of the damn thing, so that all readers will be able to share my suffering!

(Theme music begins.)

Announcer from Sapphire & Steel: DOCTAH HOO!!!!

Christian: Oh, it’s a good job the bed is here in the AbsoluteRadio Zoo! I’m getting so stressed about John and Edward doing Queen on this weekend’s "X Factor" that it’s putting me off being the host of the Christian O’Connell Show.

Doctor: [suspicious] Very natural delivery you have there, Christian...

(A strange swirling noise.)

Christian: MY WORD! The TARDIS has landed on this bed!

Doctor: [to himself] That wasn’t the TARDIS... Sorry? That wasn’t the TARDIS sound effect, you nicked that from Romp with the Rani from 1987... OH!! I’ve landed – I’m not staying in character though, this crap doesn’t deserve it.

Christian: HOW DARE YOU, YOU COWARD?! CHARLATAN!

Doctor: Oh look! I’ve landed on a crappy old bed and narrowly famous DJ - did YOU write this? - well, mildly-known DJ Christian O’Connell! What’s wrong, Christian? Your brow is furrowed!

Christian: Oh, Jedward are going to ruin Queen on "X Factor" this weekend! Rumors are out there that they’re going to do Radio Gaga! Give us a way to stop them!

Doctor: I could help you there. The Bastard is the force behind this!

Christian: ...what? SIMON COWELL?!

Doctor: [pained sigh] No. John Simm.

Christian: He CAN’T BE!! He’s currently appearing in "Speaking in Tongues" at the Duke of York Theatre until the 12th of December!

Doctor: [bored] Trust me, I’ll end this.

Christian: But you CAN’T DO THIS ON YOUR OWN! You’ll need help! I KNOW! Take Martin, AbsoluteRadio’s long-serving Jamaican security guard!

Martin: Ahm sexier dan Billie Pipah and dat Freema put tagetha!

Doctor: [impressed] ...that’s very good! Very good!

Christian: Let’s just CHECK on the Gallifrey TRAVEL before we GO!

Irish Girl: There’s a broken-down spaceship on your exit for Uranus.

(Loooooooooooooooong pause. Crickets chirp.)

Christian: A cheeky Uranus gag there - doesn’t hurt anybody, does it, to keep it going? That’s the kids turning off, crying "Mummy, what’s a...?" And lets the RADAR WEATHER FOR THE GALAXY!!

Newsreader: We’re expecting a meteor shower at lunchtime today.

Christian: I can also get Eddie the Sports Guy to find out how Gallifrey Athletics got...

Doctor: [interrupts] Where is he, anyway?!

Christian: Go on with the script and you’ll understand the joke.

Doctor: Oh. OK.

Christian: I can also get Eddie our Sports Guy to find out how Gallifrey Athletic got on last night.

Doctor: Don’t bother. We must go. We’ve only got 140 seconds to play with!

(The silly noise from "Romp with the Rani" again.)

Doctor: You morons actually think that sound effect is the TARDIS?!

Christian: IT **IS** THE TARDIS!!

Doctor: That’s not a TARDIS!

Christian: YOU DARE DOUBT MY PROFESSIONALISM, SAH?!

Martin: It’s a toilet flushing!

Doctor: Yeah, a toilet flushing in a portaloo!!

Martin: So it’s perfect for dis.

Doctor: Well said, Martin. You’re a keeper. Anyway. Ah, AH!

Martin: Ah?

Doctor: Ah.

Christian: AHHHHHH.

Doctor: ...OK. Here I am, at the Bastard’s swinging bachelor pad! Jings! He’s so evil he can be a happily married husband AND a swinging bachelor simultaneously! Morning, Lucie Bleeding Miller!

Lucie: Ello, Doctor! Oo are these ponces you’re travelling with this week?

Bastard: [depressed] Oh Lucie, don’t let him in!

Doctor: Oh, John, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry mate. I’m so sorry to have got you caught up in this...

(The Bastard can be heard sobbing.)

Lucie: Do I get an apology too?

Doctor: Yeah, why the hell not? Sorry, Sheridan.

Lucie: Ah, I’ve had lower ebbs in me career. Though I’m not alone in that, eh, Christian?

Christian: Piss off you malignant whore.

Doctor: You’re being very brave, John...

Bastard: [weeping] You SAID you were being a DJ, you dirty liar!!

Doctor: I’m going to be, honest! And YOU said you were currently appearing in "Speaking in Tongues" at the Duke of York Theater until the 12th of December!

Bastard: ...I am. [happy] Book now to avoid disappointment, kids!

Lucie: Can we get on with this? I don’t like the way that DJ’s stroking his nipples while looking at me.

Doctor: Oh, I thought he was doing that at ME.

Martin: No, ee does dat to evrayone, Daktah.

Bastard & Lucie & Doctor: Ewwww.

Bastard: However! However... hang on a sec... in between performances of "Speaking in Tongues" at the Duke of York Theater until the 12th of December I am plotting the downfall of the Cowell Empire!

Doctor: How?

Bastard: By masterminding Jedward!

(The Bastard laughs diabolically.)

Doctor: Very good diabolic laughter. Ahem. Not any longer, you’re not! Martin! Take him out!

Martin: Take dat.

(Long pause.)

Christian: LITTLE bit late there, Richie... You nodding off there? A little slack!

Doctor: Wow, you’re good. One punch and it’s over. What a script...

(Four cheesy punch sound effects.)

Doctor: Oh, wow, there we go!

Martin: Yeah, dere we go!

Doctor: SEVERAL punches and then it’s all over. What an improvement.

Lucie: (spooky) He will knock you out four times!

Bastard: Not now, dear, it’s just sounding pretentious.

Christian: Hang on, Martin! LINE!

Martin: It had to be.

Doctor: What did?

Lucie: I dunno, I think he’s trying to justify resolving the plot by beating people up. What a message to send to the children.

Bastard: Lucie, my sweet, be honest - no children listen to shite like AbsoluteRadio. No one listens to it at all...

Christian: GET THEM OUT OF HERE! THEY’RE UNDERMINING MY GREAT WORK!

Lucie: [hurt] Yeah, well, fuck you, Christian.

Bastard: We have innumerably better things to do. Like appear in "Speaking in Tongues" at the Duke of York Theater until the 12th of December. Come Lucie, what’s done is done! Don’t you wanna feel what I wanna feel, baby?

Lucie: Lalah-lalah-lahlah-lah!

Bastard & Lucie: Embracing! The thought of tasting! Our minds are a labyrinth! Our hearts are racing!

Martin: We are runnin out av tarm. We have to get Christie-yan back to de studio before he starts da next song.

Doctor: [sighs] Let’s go then.

(Another silly sound effect.)

Doctor: Oh, jings...

Christian: IT IS **NOT** A TOILET SOUND EFFECT! OKAY??

(The noise ends.)

Christian: That’s better. WOWSERS! THAT WAS QUICK! IS IT ALL DONE? HAVE YOU ENDED THE JEDWARD NIGHTMARE?!

Doctor: Jings, Christian, you WERE there at the time, remember?

Martin: He’s always like dis, da stupid twat.

Doctor: Don’t worry, those freaky-haired twins won’t be bothering your weekends ever again.

Christian: THAT’S GREAT NEWS! And can you do ONE MORE THING before you GO?!

Doctor: This is going to be about giving Danny Minogue another facial expression isn’t it?

Christian: MAYBE!

Doctor: Well, you empty-headed disc jockey, I’m great mates with her sister and I’m not going to get on the wrong side of her by dissing her easily-forgotten sibling live over the airwaves. I mean, there’s no one listening bar some poor sod in Dulwich Hill Australia, but it’s the principle that counts.

Ewen: Yeah! Fight the machine, Doctor!

Doctor: Ewen, please, this is embarrassing enough.

Ewen: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Doctor: Don’t take the piss out of me, ya wee hippie! Off with you!

Christian: But you MUST SAY THE PUNCHLINE!!!

Doctor: [sighs] I’m. Not. A. Miracle. Worker. HAPPY?

(Ridiculous canned laughter begins.)

Announcer from Sapphire & Steel: YOU’VE BEEN LISTENING TO THE FIRST EVER DOCTOR WHO TWATTERSODE STARRING DAVID TENNANT AS THE DOCTOR, JOHN SIMMS AS THE BASTARD...

Doctor: I’m sorry, John!

Bastard: Tough!

Lucie: See ya at Christmas, Davey boy! Gimme love to Paul!

Doctor: Will do!

Announcer from Sapphire & Steel: ...SHERIDAN SMITH AS THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC DUCK, CHRISTIAN O’DONNELL AS THE TALENTLESS CRETIN ON THE RADIO, MARTIN DAJAN AS THE UNDERPAID SECURITY GUARD, MAGGIE DOYLE AS THE TRAVEL BIRD THAT DID THE URANUS JOKE AND ANDREW BAILEY AS THE ANNOUNCER FROM SAPPHIRE & STEEL!

(Another silly sound effect.)

All: Switch that fucking thing off!!

The End.


Book(s)/Other Related –
Dr Who & The Twitter of the Bastard
Absolut Who (Russian editions only)
When Very Boring DJs Go Slightly Peculiar


Fluffs – David Tennant seemed to finally snap during this story.


Goofs -
...well, Tennant considers the whole thing the biggest mistake of his career so anything else would be pretty much redundant, wouldn’t it?


Fashion Victims -
Watching the video feed reveals the entire cast were forced, sometimes at gunpoint, to appear naked during the recording of episode. So, yeah, we’re ALL victims this time.


Technobbable -
A "psycho-field neural perception filtration overdrive" is what makes organized fandom completely forget this exists. Presumably David Tennant and John Simms had it set up to erase the humiliation they experienced appearing in it?


Dialogue Disasters -
It’s a judgement call.


Dialogue Triumphs -
Your mileage may vary.


UnQuotable Quote -
Lucie: We ARE getting paid for this, right?


Links and References -
The Bastard asks after Jenny, specifically if she’s in a long-term relationship at the moment as Lucie fancied a threesome and the idea of banging the Doctor’s ex-companion and his daughter simultaneously "amused him". Both Lucie and the Doctor feel this is "fucking disturbing", even from the Bastard.


Untelevised Misadventures -
Once again, I myself turn out to be a semi-canonical companion. But I haven’t joined the military, been abandoned in a pocket universe, had my memory wiped or just out-and-out died horribly.
So.
Yay me.


Groovy DVD Extras -
This IS a groovy DVD extra. If you can find it. But don’t bother.


The Spite of Sparacus -
"These specials are the last Doctor Who RTD will produce, surely he should use them to go out on a high and show the very best of what he can do, like the brilliant piece of taut, scary, thought-provoking and challenging writing rather than the bombastic and rather silly populist, lightweight comedic pap that I hate. RTD shouldn’t CARE what mass audiences want and focus on things that I personally find interesting and remind me of 1975 when Doctor Who reached its quality peak. What is wrong with wanting the show to abandon thirty years of social development and the desires of contemporary casual viewers? Lightweight comedy is NOT proper Doctor Who! Tom Baker is not PART of the series because I say so! I HAVE A DEGREE!!!"


Viewer Quotes -

"Shit! He’s onto us! Quickly, to Brazil!"
- John and Edward (2009)

"You SURE this actually happened, Ewen? Outside your head, I mean?"
- Cameron J Mason (2010)

"Jedward would be brilliant in Doctor Who! They could play identical twin clones of Adric and then be forced at gunpoint to bugger each other live on TV while reciting dialogue from the Twin Double-D Lemma! My name? Um. Yellow Sticky Fluid!"
- Joshua Wynne-Cunt (2009)

"I could never buy that bed. Chris O’Connell has lain in it."
- Numerous fangirls on eBay (2010)

"It’s so funny! Wait, did I say "funny"? I meant... pathetic."
- the cast of The OC (2009)

David Tennant Speaks!
"I tried to face it like a man, this skit, this sketch, this... whatever! Call it what you will; it’s a career-ender."

Chris O’Connell Speaks!
"That bed was ridiculously small for a big guy like Dave Tennant – especially for fifteen years of fun! He says there were never more than two people on it at the same time when things got frisky, but I don’t buy it! If that bed could talk it would moan, 'Oooh, David' with ecstasy and there’s no denying it. I’m not obsessed with Tennant’s sex-life, though. I treat EVERYONE like this."

RTD Speaks!
"Don’t look at me, Skippy, I had NOTHING to do with this!"

Trivia -
This really happened. I didn’t make it up.

Rumors & Facts -

Having finished recording every last possible scene as Doctor Who, David Tennant immediately began a new career path of being an incredibly sexy and popular DJ. Unfortunately, the first radio station he got a job at was absoluteradio.co.uk, renowned for being edgy. And by "edgy" I mean crap. Stan Zemanak wouldn’t waste his time with those losers.

The first day on the job, Tennant decided to kill two birds with one stone and sell his 15-year-old wrought iron bed complete with 2005 Dustbin bedspread to the highest bidder for charity. Fellow DJ Christian O’Connell offered to publicize the whole thing for free using his inaccurately named "zoo room" in return for a favor.

It was something Tennant should never have agreed to.

O’Connell demanded in return that his radio show get all the publicity, and he would use it to channel his passionate hatred of the Jedward Twins on The X Factor.

It was O’Connell’s idea to do a live radio episode simultaneously podcast on the radio website, and also using a script composed entirely by the subnormal freaks on Twitter. He bullied and blackmailed Tennant into getting his co-stars Sheridan Smith and John Simm involved, and then demanded they all get naked, climb into the bed and then record the episode with no rehearsal whatsoever.

Thankfully the police arrived within ten minutes and O’Connell is now safely locked up and lobotomized in a Home for the Terminally Bewildered and being drip-fed industrial tranquilizers. He is no longer a threat to innocent people and David Tennant now runs a far more popular and professional radio interview show.

Well, he DID. Until he got bored, quit and fled to Chicago.

Watching the live footage of the episode actually makes the whole thing make even LESS sense than it did on audio! Even with the disturbing bit about all the actors recording naked it in the same bed, there’s weirdness like:

- Chris Moyles running in front of the camera and snapping a microphone stand over his knee while dressed as a nun;

- John Simm idly carving his initials into the wall with a working laser screwdriver prop;

- a group of clearly-drunk extras dressed as Autons stumbling into the room and falling unconscious to the floor;

- Sheridan Smith playing on her drum kit using only her breasts;

- David Tennant openly weeping as he flipped ahead in the script;

- Martin Dajan’s unmentioned ability to levitate, meaning he was flying around the room while acting (which admittedly explains his slightly distracted performance);

- the narrator throwing glass bottles at Christian O’Connell every time he spoke;

- and, of course, the hoards of Oompa-Loompas in the background.
David Tennant to continue his baffling desire to sing in every episode, if only to drone out the inappropriate sound effect of the TARDIS taking off in lieu of theme music...

"The Career Beyond" by Those Who Must Suffer Christian O’Connell.

"I can mime this at the start -
Easy peasy for two hearts!"
Said I, as I read the script
Then I twigged I’d been tricked!

One day I’ll forget this trial
And think of radio without bile
Start once again as a DJ
So much humiliation in only one day!

Every man must, soon or late,
Knock four times at the Gate:
When we weigh in - you and I -
How can career better die?

On this sunlit steeple chase
Out of time and lost in space
Mocking X Factor and Simon Cowell
It’s enough to make you howl!

"Special guest star?" I’m so sorry, mate!
At the time, all seemed straight -
Didn’t know the plan of that sod
Our only hope now is the mercy of God!

Carve in stone above my head
Words that old twat Christian said:
"Fame he sought, and fame he found,
In that AbsoluteRadio sound!"

10th Doctor - Soa Til

Serial TTN-1 – Freak Encounter
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Last Straws Breaking

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


Serial TTN-1 – Freak Encounter -

The TARDIS has been stolen by a strange being resembling Patterson Joseph in the traditional fashion nightmare worn by the Time Lords of Gallifrey for press conferences. Once alone in his stolen time machine, the evil man peels off his suddenly-unconvincing Foamasi flesh mask and Time Lord regalia to reveal...

RORSCHACH FROM "WATCHMEN"!

Only... blue.

Alas, the TARDIS is as likely to arrive on Gallifrey as much as Gateshead, and so fetches up in Cardiff once more. As the alien wrestles with controls and babbles about how soon control over time and space will soon be his, a familiar shambling figure shambles with familiarity through the police box doors.

"The most obvious of felicitations to ye, shipmate," slurs the drunken pirate, aiming a loaded pistol at the alien. "Might I ask why you’ve parked on top of my nifty invisible lift to an underground base? My Egg McMuffins will be getting cold... hang on. This IS the TARDIS, isn’t it?" he notes, peering blearily around the control chamber.

"The TARDIS is mine!" shouts the alien.

"The BBC will have something to say about that, savvy?" belches the newcomer. "And where’s the Doctor anyway?"

"Er... I am the Doctor," the alien extemporizes unconvincingly.

"You didn’t do that contractual renewal thing, did you?" boggles the pirate, quietly being sick over the safety railings. "I must say, Doctor, that new form of yours is a bit... blue. Which is kind of hot. Works for me! I love the hat. And what’s up with your arm anyway?"

"Oh this old thing? It’s a neural probe that paralyzes my prey."

"Ah, so you finally dropped all that no weapons pacifism crap!" laughs the pirate. "Good on ya, Doctor! We can go on gun rampages together! You and me, mate, good things are gonna happen!"

"Um... sure..."

"Now THAT is fascinating," he slurs. "Coz if I know the Doctor, I know he can’t stand me being aboard his vessel. Can’t imagine why, but I’m fairly certain because I get more buxom wenches then what he does! So... who the hell are you REALLY?"

The alien laughs diabolically. "My name is Lentils from the planet Annatopia!" it reveals, aiming its weird gun/arm thing at the intruder. "With the TARDIS under my command, I shall wreak havoc across the cosmos, trading in arms!"

The newcomer blinks a lot. "You’re gonna sell weapons?"

"No, not that sort of arms trader! I literally trade in arms, legs, limbs and organs! I even do the occasional spine!"

"Ah. Bodysnatching. Savvy."

"I’m a not bodysnatcher! Are bodysnatchers unionized? A clue: no! I am a registered body part relocation manager! I work with organ donors across the cosmos, and I know that you, Captain Jack Sparrow, have 'donated' quite a few 'organs' in your time!"

"Have... we met before?" shrugs the Touchwood regular.

"Don’t pretend, Jack!" snaps the alien. "Remember that party on Alpha Sintauri?! That threesome we had with those suspicious-looking aliens? You gave me a whole pamphlet’s worse of venereal diseases that night!"

"Pah! I recall your exact words were 'Safe sex? Bullshit!'"

"I WAS DRUNK!"

"So was I."

"YOU’RE ALWAYS DRUNK!"

"That’s... true. But I’m not letting you nick the TARDIS, mate. I’m not letting you cause chaos across the time streams and manipulating the tapestry of history to your own end!" the pirate vows. "Cause if ANYONE’S going to be doing that... it’s going to be ME!"

"I’ll paralyze you and take your brain!" warns the alien.

"Get out or I’ll shoot!" warns the pirate, raising his gun.

"I’ll shoot first!"

"I’m warning you!"

"I’M warning YOU!"

"You’ll die, Lentils!!"

"YOU’LL die, Captain Jack!! Die NOW! And die FOREVER!!!"

Just at that moment the police box doors create over a spikey-haired Scotsman in a pinstripe suit enters, followed by two fly-headed alien Tritovores in boiler suits.

"Jings, John!" snaps David Tennant. "This IS a take, you know! We’re doing the Easter special! What the hell are you two doing on the set?"

Hastily, the pirate and the alien hide their weapons. "I was, er, just showing a friend of mine around the TARDIS," John Barrowman explains hastily, indicating the blue alien, who gives a little wave.

"My name is Lentils!" booms the alien.

"It’s Tim," Barrowman explains with a forced grin.

"I am from the planet Annatopia!" the alien tells David Tennant.

"Stoke on Trent," Barrowman explains.

"John? HOW many times do I have to say it!" demands TV’s Doctor Who. "**MY** TARDIS. Mine. Say sorry!"

"Sorry," chorus the duo, wandering off set.

"I’m watching you two," vows Tennant, before doing that dignified sniff thing that he does, before rehearsing the last scene of 'Escape to Danger on the Planet in Space Cutaway!'.

"He’s so cool," marvels the alien as they leave.

"I know," the pirate sighs in agreement. "I love him. Anyway, listen, where were we?" He aims his gun at the alien. "I’M GONNA GET YOU, EVIL LENTILS!!"

"I’M GONNA GET YOU, CAPTAIN JACK!!"

"OH YEAH!" retorts the pirate, making 'bang-bang!' noises as the duo start running around the corridors outside the corridor, miming a very intricate and detailed gunfight.

"Oh yeah! I’m immortal!"

"Zap-zap! I won’t give up!"

"Peow-peow! Boom!"

And people still wonder why Eccleston quit...


Book(s)/Other Related –
Doctor Who Watches The Watchmen Infinity Crisis Crossover Wars
The 2009 Doctor Who Special DVD Box Set Extras (under "Outtakes")
Behind the Scenes of Doctor Who (not suitable for family audiences)


Fluffs – David Tennant seemed to be sick of this story.

"I bet ye do this when everyone else has gone home like, don’t you, ya sad wee ponce ye!" mutters one of the Tritovores in the background.


Goofs -
WHAT DO YOU BLOODY RECKON?!?


Fashion Victims -
Lentils’ neon pink glowing stockings he wears over his hands.


Technobbable -
This entire scene "destabilizes the universal reintegrated canonicity" according to Ian Levine.


Dialogue Disasters -
None applicable here, as this is real live footage and no one actually wrote it.


Dialogue Triumphs -
See above, gormless.


UnQuotable Quote -
Are you even paying attention?


Links and References -
Captain Jack seems to have had a threesome with Alpha Sintauri from the Jon Pertwee Paddington stories, so we now know there’s been at least ONE occasion where Jack wasn’t the biggest prick in the room.


Untelevised Misadventures -
Tragically, this WASN’T one of them.


Groovy DVD Extras -
Doctor Who Confidential tries to justify how some random guy John Barrowman knew was able to get on set, stuff up filming and then screen the entire thing on "Tonight’s The Night".


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"I think I hate Tim now."


Viewer Quotes -

"Ah, the ebullient Captain Jack Bannerman, played by John Harkness stars in yet ANOTHER trendy, slick, fast-paced visual spectacular relying more on extravagant special effects and celebrity guest stars than plot content which will leave any and all traditionalists expecting decent 1970s-style Doctor Who to be in for a shock! It’s as bad as those bloody awful original novels published by Virgin that so alienated myself and found favor with those new devotees so grounded in over-elaborate-American-sci-fi they don’t know that TRUE Doctor Who ended in 1977!! As I have said since 2005, it remains to be seen how much longer this vastly different version of 'Who' will last."
- Gabriel "RTD is an abomination against all mankind" Chase (2009)

"My God, this is mind numbing shit. The best bit was where the audience laughed over half the dialogue. I suppose doing this kind of show is the reason John Barrowman is rich and famous and I’m not..."
- Nev Fountain (2009)

"It was good, and strangely moving, hearing DT, so close to his
end as the Doctor, say 'My Tardis. Mine.' It brought a slight, tiny tear to my eye, knowing that the end is coming. Oh GOD! David’s 'dignified sniff' thing makes me wail like a soul in torment! DON’T LEAVE, DAVID! PLEASE! DON’T SEND US BACK TO THE DARKNESS! STAY ONE MORE YEAR!"
- Average Fangirl Response (2009)

"I notice that UNLIKE Afterlife, Time Crush or Prom of the Grinch, this episode has had almost no advance publicity and nobody seems to be looking forward to it with any enthusiasm. I doubt it’s really worth sitting through Tonight’s The Night to see, as it is unlikely to feature Ben Chatham. I shall NOT be watching MORE THAN TWICE!"
- Sparacus "Flamingo" Jones (2009)

"Oh, so Barrowman thinks RTD is the godfather of Doctor Who, does he? Well, LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING..."
- Sydney Newman via ouiji board (2010)

"They mentioned my hometown Stoke on Trent! JOYGASM!"
- some dude who lives in Stoke on Trent presumably (2009)

"You can’t fire guns inside the TARDIS! What about the State of Temporal Grace as mentioned in 1976?! That does it. Freak Encounter is not canon, no matter how much money is spent on it! Indeed, what IS the canon-GBP exchange rate these days? I think it’s two canons to a penny-farthing, but I could be wrong..." - Ewen Campion-Clarke (2009)


David Tennant Speaks!
"What’s depressing is that Tim bloke was actually a better actor than most of the people working at BBC Wales. He made it look very easy. We actors spend all our time trying to convince people our job is very hard to impress people and make them go to bed with us. Wee blue bastard ruined everything, pretty much. I quit!"


John Barrowman Speaks!
"You know, they said if I ever screen any more of my behind the scenes antics on TV, they’ll cancel Touchwood immediately! I mean, like they think I would somehow NOT want that the happen! HAHAH!"


Tim Ingham Speaks!
"Not only should guinea pigs and other small, furry and generally useless animals be cut up for the benefit of us, their lords and masters, but they should also be filleted and sautéed in a nice Merlot! And appearing in Doctor Who was very nice, too."


RTD Speaks!
"I don’t mind Freak Encounter, because it should surprise the audience with what weird shit John Barrowman gets up to on set, because, you know, what he does freaks me out every single day. I’ve been working here for about six years now and it’s still amazing to see what that man does when he should be working. I saw him forcing a sheep in a bondage mask face down into the Dustbin prop just this morning. Why? I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know. I don’t WANT to know. Or that time he got hold of Nick Briggs’ ring modulator and spent fourteen hours doing Miss Slocum impressions through it..."


Trivia -
The strange noise that John Barrowman and his buddy Tim Ingham make is supposed to be Murray Gold’s "All The Strange, Strange Creatures" as background music. Not a lot of people know that.


Rumors & Facts -

Furious at his failure to get the part of the Eleventh Doctor, Patterson Joseph took his revenge out on all of Doctor Who by ruining the end of the 2008 Christmas Special, The Michaelmas Imposter. Joseph had taken matters into his own hands so the story now ended with him, in full Time Lord regalia, stealing the TARDIS and marooning the Doctor in Victorian Cardiff.

RTD had been forced to substantial rewrite to the following Easter special, Escape to Danger on the Planet in Space Cutaway!, to explain how the hell the Doctor was able to get from a hot air balloon in 1851 to a London double-decker bus in 2010. But worse he had to reveal WHO THE HELL was the black guy dressed as a Time Lord who stole the TARDIS in the first place.

RTD considered many possibilities – the spirit of the soon-to-be-born Eleventh Doctor; the regenerated Bastard; the return of the meddling monk; Adam Mitchell... but finally decided that he was sick of having to continually rewrite his final material for Doctor Who because Patterson bleeding Joseph was too crap to be the main star. Instead, he decided to use one of the outtakes for Escape to Danger on the Planet in Space Cutaway! where David Tennant discovered John Barrowman and his latest boytoy mucking about on the TARDIS set and reveal that Joseph’s character was that very same boytoy.

Since such a scene would demolish the fourth wall and then defecate all over the loose bricks and mortar, RTD knew that any fans who wanted to see what happened to the 'Patterson Joseph steals the TARDIS plot' would discover that the entire show was a fake and then vanish in a puff of logic, uncanonizing Joseph’s character even more than if he hadn’t appeared in the show at all!

The big gay Welshman laughed last and laughed loudest! But not laughed campest, as John Barrowman was present and his girlish giggling simply has no equal on this Earth.

The original intention was for this scene to be shown in the pre-credit sequence for the next special, The Water-Fights of Mars, but Barrowman thought it was so cool he stole the footage and screened on Tonight’s The Night (yet another talent-based TV show in Barrowman’s ever-growing light entertainment empire threatening to swallow all of British television). As such, the sixth episode of Tonight’s The Night was the most high-rated in history, as millions of fans sat, slack-jawed as David Tennant threw a temper tantrum in front of two human-sized flies and Rorschach from "Watchmen" about Barrowman shagging people on the TARDIS set when the lights go out.

Fans everywhere started hemorrhaging on the spot, while those still left alive struggled to try and retcon this mother into submission. Soon fan fics began to appear revealing this scene was actually a plot for Touchwood (though sometimes for The Sarah-Jane Misadventures) with Captain Jack Sparrow bravely trying to prevent the stolen TARDIS falling into the hands... or hand... of the evil alien Lentils, before the whole thing turns out to be a really freaky dream in the mind of Ben Elton.

Eventually someone came up with the idea of just pretending it never happened and everyone lived happily ever after as long as they weren’t actually dead.

Many people assume that Tim/Lentils is actually Tim Minchin, but actually it could not be him as after the last time he encountered John Barrowman there is an exclusion order between the pair of them, allowing Minchin the freedom require to compose songs for David Tennant to continue his baffling desire to sing in every episode, even demented outtakes like this one...

"Captain Jack Is Very Unprofessional" by the BBC Wales Drama Dept.

You burden me with your presence
Even though you’ve got your own show!
You’re always larking and mucking about
But don’t listen when I say "NO!"

You say to me I’m not much fun
But when I am, I’m a fool
After three series I’ve realized
You’re just a drunken tool!

The lines you say...
Your adlibs just give you away!
The scenes you wreck!
You’re UNBELIEVABLE!!

You burden me with your cameos
By upstaging me more than mine
You can’t even let me do a song
That will easily rhyme...

The lines you say...
Your adlibs just give you away!
The scenes you wreck!
You’re SO UNBELIEVABLE!!

10th Doctor - The Next Doctor (ii)

Book(s)/Other Related -
The Nuts Doctor
There Can Only Be One David Playing The Doctor...
Dr Who & The Twelve Upgrades of Christmas! (Canada Only)
The Superiority Complex Audio Dramas Doctor Who Range


Roots –
Everyone thought RTD was ripping off There Can Only Be One Doctor with the idea of a con man who tries to pretend he’s an all-knowing time traveler to screw terrified governments out of cash to defeat aliens – but really, he was ripping off Inuit in Hull about a complete sad-act fan who actually thinks he IS such a person. Except it turns out there’s someone even MORE pathetic than Nicholas Briggs... Dave Segal.


Fluffs - David Tennant seemed SCAD-shitless for most of this story.
"He is NOT the next Doctor! He’s a very naughty boy!"

"The-rusted-chains-of-prison-moons-are-shattered-by-the-sun. I-walk-around-horizons-change-the-tournaments-begun. The-purple-piper-plays-his-tune-the-choir-softly-sing-three-lullabyes-in-an-ancient-tongue-for-THE-COURT-OF-THE-CYBER-KING!"

Goofs -
How EXACTLY did Hamilton having a temper tantrum destroy the Cybermen?
I suppose the set dressers deserve credit for realizing that there weren’t baubles and lights on Christmas trees in the 19th century, but rather slices of orange dangling from the branches. But they were REAL oranges, not CHOCOLATE oranges! God damn it.
Dave Segal’s sonic screwdriver is Phillips head in some scenes and a novelty vibrator in others.
Several of the orphans can be heard complaining this story is rubbish because Donna Noble isn’t in it.
The past Doctor montage doesn’t actually show any past Doctors – unless I’ve been really, REALLY wasted all these years and the true canonical Doctors were Simon Callow, Simon Russell Beale, Ian Hart, Daniel Day Lewis, Rufus Sewell, Graeme Garden, David Warner, Douglas Camfield, Mark Gatiss, Patterson Joseph and Peter Cushing...
How come there’s a tower bridge in 1851 when it wasn’t completed in 1894? I’m beginning to think this story isn’t 100 per cent historically accurate! And after all the trouble they went to creating a giant kaiju-sized robot of death, they get a crucial historical detail like that wrong... it totally ruins the credibility of the rest of the episode!


Fashion Victims -
Dara’s low cut school girl outfit and crotchless, spiked red leather underwear. To quote the Doctor: "Can I say I completely disapprove?"


Technobbable -
"Wait a minute! I think I’ve got it! We’re looking at it the wrong way. Instead of thinking of the polarity of the neutron flow as a thing, a phenomenon, think of it as a being! Let's call it Fred. Now look at it: Fred IS the polarity of the neutron flow! If the polarity of the neutron flow IS the polarity of the neutron flow, then what is the polarity of a neutron flow? AND CAN IT BE REVERSED?!"
"...what in the name of god are you talking about?"


Dialogue Disasters -

Dave Segal: Ta-da! Sonic screwdriver!
Doctor: Is that your sonic screwdriver?
Dave Segal: Yes.
Doctor: But that’s... a screwdriver. An ordinary screwdriver. How is it ANY WAY sonic? Honestly, you think Character Options weren’t making perfect replicas by the dozen for crying out loud!


Dave Segal: On Gallifrey we had a saying: "The chosen choose to be chosen."
Doctor: Um. No. That’s the Vulcans.
Dave Segal: I only said we say it a lot. I didn’t say we made it up.
Doctor: Jings, you really ARE pathetic, aren’t you?


Dave Segal: Look beyond the scarf and coat and frizzy hair and book of Tom Baker quotations and you will see that I am a unique and original incarnation of... What’s that noise?!
Doctor: Me. Sniggering.
Dave Segal: How would you like a trip to the sun?!?
Doctor: ...what the hell are on about? Is that supposed to be a threat or something? Jings, give me strength!


Dara: My people! Like, why aren’t they rejoicing?
Cyberman: Because-you-are-stomping-on-their-houses-in-a-bloody-great-robot-of-course! Silly-woman.


The Doctor’s speech about his lack of companions -
"They leave. Because they should. Because they find someone else. And some of them tend to die horribly in a terrible miscalculation of mine. But I suppose, in the end, some of them break my hearts. And others just won’t get the fucking message!!"


Dave Segal: This is hardy the right time to go through my social calendar!
Doctor: Why not?
Dave Segal: Because... because I don’t HAVE a social calendar.


Priest: Dressed like a harlot!
Dara: Oh, and how would YOU know? ZING! Man, this old priest HASN’T been soliciting prostitutes! Now you’ll lose all cred in front of his posse! It’s funny, now I think of it, but in all these years not one of you has asked my first name. It’s DARA!
Priest: Ah, good to know. Fuck you, Dara.


Dialogue Triumphs -

Dara: But you promised me! Oh my God, you so totally said that I’d never ever ever be converted!
Cyberman: That-was-designated-a-lie. Bitch.


Dave Segal: I seem to be telling you everything... as if you have engendered.. some sort of... trust. Is this... what you humans call... 'love'?
Doctor: No. You’re just very, very easy to manipulate.


Dave Segal: Ladies and Gentlemen, I am the man who saved you all! I am the Doctor! Know that I have been reusing old dialogue and plot devices a thousand times but not once, no sir, not once, not ever have I ever been thanked for providing such high quality entertainment! But no more. For I say to you on this Michaelmas morn, "DAVE SEGAL ROCKS! DAVE SEGAL ROCKS!" Come on, everybody! I am CANONICAL, godammit!


Dara: I could do this forever.
Dave Segal: Good. Because if we manage another year we’ll have been producing SCADs non-stop longer than the BBC has been producing Doctor Who non-stop!
Dara: As long as you use OUR definition of "non-stop".
Dave Segal: Precisely, Brotodac. Precisely. Do you realize, Dara, that once the fan base accepts us as the one true source of Doctor Who material, we will have the power to do anything! Anything at all! Absolute power over every particle of the franchise, as of that moment. Are you LISTENING to the SCADs, Dara? Because if you’re not, I can MAKE you listen to them! I can do anything! ONCE THOSE CRETINS ON OUTPOST GALLIFREY REALIZE THE TRUTH, THERE WILL BE NO SUCH THING AS FREE WILL! THERE IS ONLY ONE WILL IN THE UNIVERSE! MINE! BECAUSE I AM THE ONE TRUE DOCTOR! NICHOLAS BRIGGS CAN GO HANG!!!
Dara: Oh! My! God! Megalomania is like so totally random!


Dara: There is hot pie for everyone if you help switch on the giant robot and help me destroy civilization as you know it.


Dave Segal: Doctor! Don’t you have something to live for?
Doctor: More than you do, ya spineless goon!


Dara: You can’t do this to me!
Cyberman: Incorrect. It-is-done.
Dara: But I would have totally slept with you anyway!
Cybermen: Your-ego-is-riddled-with-stupidity-and-inadequacies. These-have-no-place-in-a-Cyber-libido. Lack-of-acting-talent-has-tormented-you-your-whole-life! Now-you-will-be-set-free! This-will-give-you-on-screen-charisma-and-presence!
Dara: You’re not even, like, asking permission! Have you no decency?
Cyberman: Correct. The-Queen-Bitch-will-roll-over-tonight.
Cybermen: All-hail-the-Queen-Bitch.


Doctor: So YOU’RE the Doctor. The next Doctor? The next-but-one? A future Doctor anyway that just so happens to be an exact mimic of a past Doctor? What the hell happened to turn you into such an unimaginative carbon copy?
Dave Segal: I’m not entirely sure. It happened in a story called "Crucible of Error" which hasn’t been shown yet due to quality issues.
Doctor: Riiight. So, how did you regenerate? Nasty incident with a pool cue?
Dave Segal: May have been. Then again I may have just tripped over a brick.
Doctor: Jings. That IS embarrassing.
Dave Segal: But it would have been painless.
Doctor: Depends on the brick.
Dave Segal: There are worse ways to go.
Doctor: Um. No. Actually I can say with honest sincerity that tripping over a brick would be the worst way to go.
Dave Segal: Would you like a jelly baby?
Doctor: ...don’t change the subject!
Dave Segal: You ask a lot of questions.
Doctor: Yeah... you’re not used to creative criticism, are you?


UnQuotable Quote -
The QueenBitch: BITE-MY-COLOSSAL-METAL-ASS!


Links and References -
The Doctor mentions Sally Sparrow and the Weeping Angels in the vain hope there’s a new series episode Dave Segal might like:
"I’m getting a blank. Ooh, Blank? Did you see that one?"


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor speaks nostalgically of his last visit to 1851 Cardiff and the truly disturbing life swaps he, Charley Pollard and Cecil Rizz Esquire got up to ("Other Lies" by Witchfinder Matthew Hopkins).


Groovy DVD Extras -
RealMedia files of SCAD title sequences, usually 410 times less visually coherent and interesting than the ones they’re nakedly ripping off. The Vincent Savage version with Jon Pertwee gangsta rapping DOES have a certain something, it should be noted.


The Spite of Sparacus -
"I was not impressed by the pre-credit sequence which was silly and comedic and doesn’t bode well for the whole episode, which I refuse to watch an average, too-fast-paced, wafer-thin-plotted new series romp panto-Cyber-dogs and a lack of Adam Rickitt. I am not a complete knobhead and am well aware that there may well be explanations given in the full episode that I don’t yet know. I openly accept that I don’t know much about the plot of this episode and have no intention to change this. But I said any episode without Adam Rickitt would be utterly crap and my advance fears were proven to be correct! I was accused of jumping the gun and I’d say I was pretty near the mark, wouldn’t you?

My point is that the two minutes I HAVE seen strongly suggest that there is a massive problem with Cybermen from Irth arriving on Earth in the 19th century? This makes no sense! And, yes, the story might explain such a potential plot hole, but I didn’t watch it, so the problem still stands. It’s not half as pleasing as Meg Lost, is it? I mean, the Doctor just HAPPENS to land the TARDIS conveniently at the exact time and place that the Cybermen are mucking about?! "Birrova coincidence or whaa?" as a chav would say. In fact, the Doctor is ALWAYS landing where there is adventure which is ridiculously too far-fetched and massively coincidental! It defies logic and undermines the quality and believability of the episode, making it so hard to take seriously! FUN IS IMMATURE!

Around 46 hours before it actually DID screen, I got very excited about this story and bought myself a bottle of Laphroaig single malt to enjoy when it was on, but I drained it one gulp and only later regained consciousness after the stomach pump. And while I was under the influence I reportedly tried to kill Russell T Davies. This sounds like a possible damage limitation exercise because it’s obvious I would have politely and calmly advised Russell to replace the alt-universe Cybermen with another alien race or robots rather than trying to beat him to death. That Welsh fag is trying to unseat my from my high reputation as the living heart of Colchester’s VIBRANT Whovian community! Yes, there’s me and a Goth who collects DWM back issues and has put a restraining order on me to come no closer than 200 miles from his disused side-street comic store!"


Viewer Quotes -

"Overall, The Michaelmas Imposter is the weakest of the Christmas specials. And as for Dave Segal, well, no words can really describe how bad he is... Blegh." - Jym de Natale (2009)

"I wish RTD would give up this tiresome habit of DEFINITELY KILLING OFF MONSTERS/VILLAINS FOREVER AND EVER only to have some fall through a crack in time or whatever and survive every bloody time. It worked reasonably well in Dustbin –vs- Cyberman but now it’s just irritating! Oh for the good old days of JST where they didn’t even BOTHER to give an explanation and just insulted the intelligence of the audience? The Michaelmas Imposter is crude fan fiction, not a bit as good as my divine work The Twin Doctors or Equilateral, my new SCAD story! David Segal, a man with a vision big fat gay Welshmen can only DREAM OF!"
- K.Y. Ron Mallet (2009)

"Is Dave Segal truly the Doctor? I say, no, the Matrix is lying and Janet killed them all! This is my new answer for anything concerning Doctor Who." - Charles Daniels (2008)

"Nice twist! So David Segal is the Doctor in his mind, but a Doctor subconsciously playing the part of Charles Bronson in Deathwish VI: Cybermanslaughter! Go get them, mate! Rip them a new one! Let’s have a three minute massacre scene set to Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade!" - Nigel Verkoff while high on eggnog (2008)

"The word 'pathetic' is overused with regards to the SCADs. But I do think they merit it." - Kevin Rudd (2009)

"ALLIANCE SCUM! I KILL YOU THIS MORNING! I KILL YOU STONE DEAD! I GOT A BEAR BECAUSE OF IT! Sorry, am I going off topic? YOU HORDE SCUM!! YOU WILL TASTE THE STEEL OF MY AXES, HORDE! BY THE BLESSING OF NARRU, I WILL HAVE REVENGE FOR MY FALLEN LEADER!"
- Chip Jamison (2009)

"There’s obviously nothing interesting to say about The Michaelmas Imposter, so why do people keep asking me to review it? Just because I’m an incredibly well-known and messianically-popular internet critic doesn’t mean I have to act according to YOUR ridiculous preconceptions! I don’t have to do ANYTHING! And yet BBC Wales still don’t get down on their knees and beg me to run Doctor Who like it should be run! What kind of insane reality must I live in??" - Lawrence Miles (2007)

"My sister, who is a huge fan, hated it. My dad said it was the worst hour of his life. My grandma left half way through then complained about crap on the TV all the time. My mum kept reminding me about how we were missing whatever on other channels. My brother left after about 40 minutes saying it was boring. I hate my family. If I could be arsed, I’d kill the lot of them with an axe." - Dave Restal (2009)

"Doctor Who could only manage a paltry 11.7 million viewers on the ONE DAY of the YEAR when they are GUARANTEED lots of viewers? What is the deal with that? It seems like Doctor Who really is losing its grip and appeal with the viewing public! They should call it a day and allow the show to fade away gracefully! The public have seen through RTD’s deceitful attempts to achieve high viewing figures! YOU GOT BEATEN! AT CHRISTMAS! BY ANIMATED PLASTICINE FIGURES! TOTAL EMBARRASSMENT!"
- Nick Parkes (2008)

"The bleary-eyed, nose-gloope evacuation and compromised memory of Lemsip, Aspirin, galleons of Benylin Blackcurrant cough syrup have become a distant experience. Like a sumptuous Plum Pudding, The Michaelmas Imposter teems with richness, depth, lovingly-prepared with a sought-after sixpence within. The ensemble piece satisfactorily resolved itself like the dancing blue flame atop an ignited alcohol consumed previously mentioned Plum Pudding. An audience replete!"
- The Unpublished Target Novel "Doctor Who and the Cooking Analogies"

"So anyway The Michaelmas Imposter has a bogus Doctor, a pastiche-y Victorian setting AND is meant to finally do justice to the Cybermen? I doubt it. I really do. And I know Ewen will write up one of his BF guides about it and mock the Cybermen for not being worth a story on their own and being too pissweak next to the Dustbins and in some ways he has a point but it almost depresses me for seeming to be so near the mark to fandom's attitude towards the Doctor’s silver nemesis. I’m a right bastard so MAKE ME SOMETHING BETTER!!!"
- Jared "No Nickname" Hansen (2009)

"So rich in invention, it’s a dance with God. Any God. Your God. The Next God. Heroin makes me happy in ways RTD and Doctor Who never could."
- another insightful Eye of Saurus editorial (2008)

"I must say that I was a little disappointed by this episode. It could have been a grim epic of despair and personal damnation, but it ended up stuff children were allowed to watch! If only the Doctor had allowed all the small children to die, and then Dave Segal committed suicide when the Cybermen liquefied vast hordes of people in blood-caked gore and Dara should have been converted with her blood drained, flesh torn away and brain surgery, not a stupid tinfoil hat! Doctor Who shouldn’t be bloodless and upbeat, it should show no mercy to anyone or anything! EVERYONE knows The Wizard of Oz would have been better had the Witch killed Dorothy and raped her corpse!"
- the truly terrifying Risk Manager who I fear I may have met at a convention once (I think he was the one jacking off to Touchwood screaming "Oh, yeah, you like it, don’t you Owen, you dirty slut!")

"Ice cold killer brings death’s sweet darkness. Robots sanction my extreme unction. Clockwork ciphers delete my soul. Tell me: who lies dead among the Cybermen? The answer? Dave Segal. But how long can they keep him underground?" - Black Science Geezer (2009)

"Oh, well burn in hell you shitty fan audios! ALLONZEEE!"
- Andrew Beeblebrox (2008)


David Tennant Speaks!
"Ever since I became the Doctor, people always ask me when I’m leaving. Ah. To leave, or not to leave: that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fandom, or to stay longer than Tom Baker himself and, by typecasting, end my career? To be, or not to be, that is the question. Well. More of *A* question really. Not THE question. Because, jings, I mean, there are billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, jings, you’re looking at numbers that are positively astronomical! I’ll be back in 2009, though. I can’t imagine ANYONE else playing him – I’m too self-centered, but one day someone else will have as much fun as I do. In 2010, for example."

Dave Segal Speaks!
"I know I want to see Dave Segal again! Who else does? He was a better Doctor than that loser geek Tennant, not to mention a better actor with such emotional range! I for one would love to see another story featuring him – he’s a great character who deserves to return! Hell, this loveable character deserves better than a guest spot in Touchwood – he deserves his OWN SPIN OFF! Bah, for such a cracking performance as the Doctor, there will be mass suicides when it becomes clear he is not taking over the role for real! Anyone who says otherwise is a godless heathen, a despicable disciple of Satan! My name? Vincent Savage!"

Sheri Devine Speaks!
"Miss Tartigan was an amazing villain with a grandiose modus operandi! I was gutted that she exploded at the end, rather than becoming an ongoing character a bit like the Borg Queen or Margaret Thatcher! What a SEXY performance TINGED WITH RED! Yes, and Dara deserves to be made a full-time companion! She’s everything a companion needs to be – AND MORE! Doctor Who can show us all what her character can do! She’s fantastic, she’s got great hair, and she’s properly young and feisty! And even though everyone is saying she was a complete disappointment, just like the story as a whole, well... YOU SMELL! Or is it me? Yes, it’s me. Oh, hang on, my Colostomy Bag’s come loose again..."


Russell T Davies Speaks!
"It’s not exactly subtle, but then I’m a firm believer that there are some people in this world who cannot comprehend the concept of subtlety. And some of those losers are in this story. Can you spot them? But something you probably HAVEN’T spotted is that brazier. Keep an eye out for it. It’s in every single bloody scene. I think that brazier might be an evil enemy of the Doctor. It even LOOKS like Dustbin! But, of all the hot Cyber action and a crew on the brink of exhaustion, the biggest unanswered question is 'Why didn’t the history books mention a giant robot in 1851?' The answer is, of course, this is a work of FICTION you morons. And besides, it would make the SCAD losers canonical if it was!"


Steven Moffat Speaks!
"I’m going to be honest and fans may hate me for it, but they have to remember that I am a fan MYSELF. A proper list-making-borderline-autistic fan. I am head mingmong. I’m King Ming. And this story completely sucked. I’m off to watch Season 18 again when they all took it seriously and the companions wore school girl outfits they could actually carry off without looking like a dirty whore grandma!"


Robert Shearman Speaks!
"The Michaelmas Imposter was a great story, but when it comes to two Doctors teaming up to fight ridiculously camp monsters I prefer A Hitch with the Snotarans. A story which, I’m quite sure all TRUE fans will recognize as a bona fide classic. Does anyone REALLY think David Segal’s performance will be as fondly remembered in minutes to come as the towering offered by Gareth Jenkins? I think not."


Trivia -
According to the 2009 census, not a single human being on the planet has actually heard of the SCADs and thus the satire is totally wasted.


Rumors & Facts -
As had become tradition at Christmas, children everywhere were listening out for that telltale sound that promises delight, excitement and the best present you can wish for – no, not the sleigh bells and the clomp of reindeer hooves on the roof, but the comforting vworping of the TARDIS materializing in snowy Victorian Cardiff full of well-fit young girls with huge boobs. The presents and the family and the turkey are all well and good but what we all REALLY care about is evening rolling around so we can shut everyone up and settle down in front of the Doctor Who Christmas Special to see psycho machine-gun-wielding aliens and sexy babes copping off with David Tennant.

To think that in a mere three years that this series has become a cornerstone of the biggest day in TV with full frontal nudity, werewolves, zombies, Kylie Minogue and some truly filthy sexual connotations. Oh, we are so FICKLE nowadays!

After doing Christmas specials in contemporary Cardiff, historical Cardiff, and alien recreations of the Titanic several million miles directly above contemporary Cardiff, it was clear that the next one would have to be slightly different so no one could accuse the production team of being stale and running out of steam – which Doctor Who had been regularly accused of every day since 1962, technically before it ever even existed.

Once more, focus group Hidden Persuaders PLC insisted that the next Christmas special should really have been shown not at Christmas but on the 23rd of November 2008 to celebrate Doctor Who’s fortieth anniversary. This time they also wanted the story to not only feature David Tennant but also Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston and Mark Gattis.

Executive Producer Russell T Davies insisted he was doing a story about Cybermen in Victorian Cardiff and the focus group immediately demanded it feature the Doctor calling upon Rose and Touchwood to help him take down the Cyber army. In fact, they suggested the Christmas special should be cancelled to finally make Rose Tyler Décolletage with Billie Piper trying to hunt down the Doctor through time and defeat the evil Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts with the aide of the Valeyard.

At this point RTD told Hidden Persuaders PLC they were no longer required for Doctor Who, indeed they never HAD been required, and unless they left the premises immediately, he would hunt them all down and kill them with Terileptil hunting knives borrowed from Robert Shearman.

While looking through his own DWMs for inspiration, RTD was impressed when he discovered a comic strip called "Social Lives" where the Seventh Doctor and Ace visit a multi-versal piss-up at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and encounter the Nicholas Briggs Doctor and Ria from the infamously unpopular Oddly Visual audio range. Delighted at the horror of having a sadact fan appear as the Doctor in a proper story, RTD immediately came up with a cliffhanger where David Tennant regenerated into Nicholas Briggs.

It then struck the writer that he’d already used that in the 2008 season finale, and he’d have to come up with something else. Still mildly infatuated with the idea of incredibly bad fan audio Doctors appearing in the canonical TV series, RTD idly surfed the Doctor Who Web Guide (Tetraptaryarbus Version 2.0) and stumbled across the SCADs, the Superiority Complex Audio Dramas, a long-running fan-made audio series which had remained in almost completely obscurity since 1982, even AFTER the invention of the internet and online fandom.

Amazed at the handful of rather peculiar American fans who, after over 27 years of production had yet to find original music, plots or even halfway decent actors and their vociferous abuse of him personally – not only was RTD gay, he was Welsh, talented and made Doctor Who stories that people actually bothered to remember. These were three very good reasons to despise him utterly and consider him unworthy of writing for the great Who franchise, which the SCADs seemed to think was their property and theirs alone.

RTD decided that this was just what he needed: an arrogant bunch of talentless so-and-sos humiliated in front of millions of viewers worldwide as their staggering lack of ability was demonstrated in BBC high-definition for the rest of time. After changing the setting from Milliways to Cardiff, Nick Briggs and Ria to Dave Segal and Dara, and Beep the Meep for a Cyberman invasion phalanx, "SCAD This!!!" was fully transformed into RTD’s next BAFTA-award-winner.

Originally entitled Intense Encounters With The Doctor Who Wasn’t The Other Doctor, the storyline was then known as Attack of Mister Stompy, The Enemy of Death, A Tale of Two Fanbases, The Waking Elevation Surge of the Cybermen. When Benjamin Cook suggested to make the title more honest, so it was renamed Is He? Isn't He? You Decide!, then The Twist Is There Is No Twist before finally settling for Let’s See How High We Can Push These Ratings Using a Cheap Bait and Switch. At the last minute, however, RTD remembered the tradition of inaccurately titling Christmas episodes "The Michaelmas Noun" and changed the title again.

Chosen to play the deranged Not-The-Next Doctor was Martin Clunes, but he sniffed in distaste at the measly thirty six thousand pounds offered for his services and reminded RTD he had never really forgiven the previous regime for the ignominies he suffered in the Peter Davison episode "Snakedate" where he had been forced to wear a foam snake outfit and have a romantic dinner with the Fifth Doctor. Ultimately, Dave Segal was offered the chance to play himself and, like the idiot he is, he accepted the job with no questions asked. Sheri Devine was simply kidnapped from the old people’s home she was staying at without her permission or consent – not that she was lucid enough to give either.

RTD researched deeply the SCADs’ back catalogue... well, he looked them up on a fan wikipedia site, read a review and managed to sit through one of their many remakes of Return of the Cybermen. His mild dislike of the audios grew to the point RTD also considered writing a full-length BBC Books novel, set in the midst of that brief scene where the Doctor crushes Dave Segal’s pathetic illusions where the Doctor pops out back to the TARDIS and has a proper adventure with Magenta Price, Katie Darling, Heather McCrimmon, Will Spender, Wolfgang Ryter and basically confirm that Doctor Who Adventures magazine, Bottles In Time comic, VR Doctor Who online and DWM Comic Strip were all canon. Unlike the SCADs. He then decided this was giving the American fundamentalist losers even more credit than they deserved and completely forgot about the idea, which survives only as an email to Benjamin Cook which he completely forgot to delete.

To cut to the chase, RTD was more than confident that he could do the SCADs justice by giving them as much effort and thought as they gave their own work. Which was why he had the whole script for the story printed in his book, The Welshman’s Tale, which was released some six months before the episode was screened. Fans everywhere read the script and assumed that it was a cunning double bluff and no GENUINE episode could feature such pathetic, foul-minded and talentless creatures of fandom (well, not after Love & Pizzas, anyway). Frankly, the idea of people capable of recording such perverse rubbish, to have written for common denominators lower than man has ever gone, to have plunged the depths of degradation just in order to remake 1975 Tom Baker stories... IT JUST **HAD** TO BE MADE UP!!

Convinced that this script was a pack of lies, fans began to speculate as to what RTD could be hiding – never suspecting that the big guy had broken a habit of a lifetime and was, just this once, telling them the absolute gospel truth. Even the production team suspected some kind of bluff and patiently waited for the revelation that the next special would be a direct rewrite of the previous one, The Michaelmas cruise, only with Cheryl Cole instead of Kylie Minogue and set on board the Hindenburg rather than the Titanic.

Soon, rumors began to abound that this story would be the final one of the Tenth Doctor, triggering his regeneration into to the Robert Carlyle Doctor. This turned out to be a complete lie spread about by Mad Larry the Pirate King, and thanks to an internet variation of Chinese Whispers, word spread that the Eleventh Doctor would also be Harry Lloyd (who would team up with Jenny and Felicity Kendall) while simultaneously also being Daniel Radcliffe, David Thewlis, Rhys Ifans, Lilly Allen and John Simm as a parallel universe Doctor who regenerates into two beings, good and evil, who then body swap for no apparent reason.

These rumors had amazing staying power thanks to the sheer bloody mindedness of fans. They still believed them when David Tennant announced it was "a load of old bollocks". They still believed it when The Michaelmas Imposter came and went with absolutely no such regeneration. They still believed it when David Tennant properly announced his departure and they still believed it when Matt Smith was chosen as his successor as part of the carefully-calculated BBC strategy codenamed "Operation Cobra". They still believe it right now. Bunch of subnormal freaks. Avoid them say I.

The special was filmed during the April of 2008 at Gloucester Cathedral, St Woolos Cemetery in Newport, and in the streets of Gloucester, where shooting was hampered by up to 1000 onlookers – all of which were convinced that this was a con job and not only was this story a bluff, but that David Tennant’s presence was a trick to keep the Nick Briggs Doctor’s arrival in Journey till Dawn a surprise.

We were really in denial back then for some reason, huh?

In desperation to complete filming without boneheads shouting, "Get real! You’re fooling no one! Where’s Cheryl Cole?", the cast and crew retreated to the sets for Touchwood and turn their main setting, the Touchwood Hub, into a generic Victorian OHS deathtrap by the cunning use of Indian drapes, a lava lamp and some coal. Nevertheless, John Barrowman regularly interrupted proceedings by trying to have sex with the Cyberman extras, insisting that this wasn’t a REAL story, just a film set to trick spoiler-hunting internet fans and Sun journalists.

The Michaelmas Imposter would be the hardest and most difficult production for Design Millennium FX – no matter what they did, it ended up far too convincing and intelligent to be passed off as American überfan crap. Take for example their Cybermen, who were originally the new design with added rivets and a copper finish. Even their cruder designs, all angular and blocky, was too sophisticated.

RTD decided the right approach was to simply give the SCAD team some cardboard boxes, stick-back plastic and marker pens and make their own Cybermen helmets. The laughable results, with their distinctive couldn’t-even-get-the-handlebars-at-the-right-angle and weird tongue holes, were augmented with torn up garbage bags to cover the bodies but not restrict movement. After pissing himself at the brain-meltingly awful outfits – AND the SCAD team’s insistence they were far better than the 'silver Iron Man fetish gear' BBC Wales had come up with – RTD managed to control his breathing enough to give the new costumes the go ahead before he needed a lie-down.

Originally, Dara/Hamilton’s transformation into the QueenBitch was to be done by giving Sheri Devine black contact lenses and getting the Mill to CGI out any traces of white. However, the SCAD team spat in the face of Julie Gardner and called her a "Buffy-loving media sell out whore" since something similar was once done with Willow in Season 6 (and in Sapphire and Steel, but the SCAD gang are hardly smart enough to know THAT, are they?). Instead they decided that Dara should be given a crown of suitable Victorian design and beauty... which ultimately took the form of jamming a Cornflakes packet over Devine’s head and poking eyeholes in it so it looked a bit like a Cyberman.

RTD’s response to this was an awestruck, "Oh my lord, why haven’t you people killed yourselves by now?"

The biggest change to the plot was the original ending to the tale. Originally, Dara/Hamilton destroyed her Cybergroupies and, as the QueenBitch fell to the earth, the Doctor would call out to her saying, "Do something good for once in your worthless career and save them!" Dara/Hamilton would then redeem herself if not her acting, by causing the QueenBitch to disperse in a mighty flash of CGI.

However, Segal and the Christian SCAD team were unhappy with this oh-so-convenient ending relying on some jerk sacrificing their life for the greater good – like THAT would ever happen on a religious festival! They were of the opinion this was a typical "magic wand" ending reinforcing their opinion RTD had to be removed from his position and then surgically experimented on until he stopped writing Scooby Doo episodes.

As he possessed "some good intelligence", Segal decided the second half needed spicing up by giving the Doctor a convenient Dustbin Dimension Jumper to stop Cardiff being crushed by a giant robot. This, argued the SCADs, was a far better way to write the Doctor out of the corners than the shit RTD constantly come up with. "Oh, and you are WAY too sensitize," Segal added. "Toughen up!"

RTD capitulated, but was on record that he prided himself that he never allowed anything to go out under his name if there was a better ending to it than the one which was actually transmitted. This is of course incredibly ironic as the ending of the story was being filmed.

You see, Patterson Joseph had failed to get the job of the Eleventh Doctor. Of course, Joseph didn’t have any special love for being the Doctor, but he DID sure as hell hate to fail an audition and so he took his revenge by storming the filming of the final scenes dressed as a Time Lord, drop-kicked Segal and ran inside the police box prop laughing like a madman. Although Joseph was then politely escorted off the property and the scene was filmed properly, his loyal subordinates stole the 'correct' footage and so when The Michaelmas Imposter was screened, the ending was the new, Patterson Joseph-filled one.

This ending was thus seen by 11.71 million viewers on Christmas Day 2008, a 50.5% share of the 18:00 timeslot in which it was shown! More people watched Wallace and Gromit’s A Matter of Loaf and Death because for some reason plasticine serial killers murdering bakers appeals to a festive audience more than giant Cybermen destroying olde Cardiff town, which is why first degree homicide of suspiciously intelligent dogs got an appreciation index figure score two more than The Michaelmas Imposter! Nick Parkes, you JAMMY BASTARD!!!

Anyway, this "new" ending was, in short, a complete disaster. Fans everywhere went absolutely ape shit at this unexpected cliffhanger that left the TARDIS under the control of Patterson Joseph and the Doctor marooned in 1851 in an uncontrollable hot air balloon, while bookies everywhere made a mint as the public concluded that the Eleventh Doctor WAS Joseph. The production for the rest of the 2009 specials was completely and utterly screwed, and the set up for the Steven Moffat era itself was in danger of extinction!

So, pretty much, business as usual, as you can imagine.

Meanwhile, David Tennant continued his baffling desire to sing in every episode in a scene which made it clear to me that I’m going to have to give up all the booze and drugs on Christmas Day if I’m going to make it through a new episode of Doctor Who without questioning my own grip on reality as I have hitherto known it...

Please tell me someone else saw this scene.


(The Doctor strides straight towards Dave Segal and sings straight into his face.)

Doctor: You keep lying instead of facing facts!
And you keep losing when you ought not to bet!
Why keep quoting Tom Baker if you really can act?
Now, what’s right is right – and you ain’t been right yet!

(Dave Segal turns and stalks off. Rolling his eyes, the Doctor follows, even as Dave Segal hastily doubles back.)

Doctor: No one likes your fan audios!
Hardly anyone knows they’re there!
One of these days you’re gonna twig
That no one really cares!

(Dave Segal tries to get past the Doctor, but cannot and soon they are turning in a circle, pressing their foreheads together as they glare into each other’s eyes.)

Dave Segal: You keep winning BAFTAS you shouldn’t be winning!
And you keep thinking that you’re actually canon! HAH!
I just re-edited your wikipage, yeah!
And what I know, you ain’t had time to learn!

(Embracing each other, they start to do the tango.)

Dave Segal: I’ve played the Doctor for over a decade
It’s just what I do!
Any minute all of fandom
Will choose me over you!

(Dave Segal throws the Doctor to the floor. Dave Segal sneers.)

Dave Segal: Are you ready fans? START POSTING ON OG!!

(The Doctor stares at him, hands in pockets for a long moment. Nothing happens. Dave Segal’s face falls. The Doctor winks. Cut to a fruit machine coming up with three David Tennants.)


---------------------------
DOCTOR WHO
will return in
ESCAPE TO DANGER ON THE PLANET IN SPACE CUTAWAY!
---------------------------

10th Doctor - The Next Doctor (i)

Serial XMAS-08 – The Michaelmas Imposter
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Scrooge Syndrome

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


Serial XMAS-08 – The Michaelmas Imposter -


Ah, Michaelmas! The feast of St Michael the Archangel, the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days, where debts are paid, geese are cooked, Satan is banished from heaven and the countdown to the next Richard Curtis movie begins.

Typically, the Doctor is spending the day in 1851 in a Cardiff alleyway watching a red-haired woman in her late fifties and a PVC school girl outfit and an unshaven American with an afro haircut wearing an electric blue Zoot Suit and a long multicoloured scarf exposit loudly about the unseen horrors breaking out of a nearby warehouse.

One such horror reveals itself to be a curious beast covered in scraps of bin liners and a huge paper and cardboard head with a Cyberman face drawn on it. Seemingly impressed by the Phillips head screwdriver the scarf-wearing nutter wields, the creature booms "Such-heroic-nonsense. We-need-warriors-not-loonies!" in an American accent and then runs away up a fire escape of the warehouse.

"I hate the way they leap onto the side of a nearby building like that! Don’t you, Dara?" asks the nutter of his companion before grabbing a lasso to try to climb the walls of the warehouse, even though there’s a perfectly good stairwell which the creature is, at this very moment, using rather successfully.

The Doctor watches the weirdo struggling to climb the rope for about seven minutes before asking the question clearly burning in the minds of the entire audience: "What IS your problem?"

"I’m the Doctor, UNIT’s scientific advisor!" replies the madman.

"Doctor who?" asks the Time Lord, unimpressed.

"Oh, just Doctor! I’ve grown used to it!" he laughs dorkily, before the rope snaps and the imposter falls flat on his ass. "Blast! I’m getting too young for this," he grumbles as the weird creature scurries off.

At first, the Doctor wonders if this might be a future incarnation of himself and the fluxing nature of history is allowing him to see his possible future ala Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" – in which case, the Time Lord has to shape up something chronic if he wants to avoid turning into this scarf-wielding loser! But it quickly becomes apparent that this sad figure is less the Ghost of Christmas Future and more Über-Geek of Fandom Present.

"It’s so pathetic! Why would anyone pretend that? Unless it’s not a pretence and it’s a refuge from something even MORE awful! A place the human mind refuses to go! Despite all the evidence, the conscious mind just doesn’t WANT to accept the truth... like the truth being carried around in that watch pocket maybe?!"

Yes, the Doctor has noticed that the Loser Doctor is wearing a fob watch with a question mark on it – could it be a Chameleon Arch? Is Segal a future Doctor who has chucked it all in, turned himself into a Z-grade audio actor and now the faulty fob watch is bleeding through the true Time Lord spirit and the Fourth Doctor’s essence just happens to be the strongest? If so, opening the watch will cause this Loser Doctor to cease to exist, which is as good as reason as any for the Doctor to snatch the watch and open it.

Nothing happens.

On the plus side this means the Doctor isn’t destined to suffer a horrible soul-destroying catastrophe that makes him flee reality forever. On the downside it means he still has to deal with the jerk in the scarf who, even if he ISN’T a living spectre of a future not exactly great, it still incredibly annoying.

To avoid confusion, the Doctor decides to patronize the other so-called Time Lord and so calls himself "Matt Smith" only to find that the Loser Doctor is too busy banging on about how he is a hero who everyone trusts and loves even though he is the TV Trope definition of 'Jerk Ass'.

Even though the Cybermen are at work in Victorian Cardiff, having fallen to Wales and are planning to consume, assimilate and violently rogger all mankind, the Loser Doctor still needs reminding of this very serious situation by someone even more egocentric and self-centred than him, his raddled oversexed companion Dara.

"See you in a bit!" the Loser Doctor waves, and skips off to observe a funeral carriage being wheeled through the streets of Cardiff – the late Reverend Aubrey Fairchild who, according to local forensic pathologists, died horribly at the hand of an alien cyborg. Being a seasoned time traveler, "Matt Smith" can reveal that Fairchild’s great-great-grandson will one day become Prime Minister... and then die horribly at the hand of alien cyborgs.

The Loser Doctor is totally clueless about this. So he’s consistent in his ignorance if nothing else.

"Matt Smith" watches on with rising nausea as the Loser Doctor orders Dara to return to the TARDIS. "I shall affect an entrance through the rear. Go back to the TARDIS, this is hardly work for a woman!" Dave Segal booms, before quietly adding "Hey, that didn’t make me sound homosexual or anything, did it?"

"No... I don’t believe ANYONE would sleep with you voluntarily," the real Doctor says with a look of naked distaste.

"Matt Smith", bored, storms across the street, zaps the door with his sonic screwdriver and begins searching cupboards and drawers for clues why the Cybermen would want to take out a geriatric preacher famous for his charity to children. Well, he beat children senseless, which practically made him Bono for 1851.

Feeling rather lame, the Loser Doctor follows and demands to know what "Matt Smith" is doing – totally unaware that Dara has put on a black Tina Turner wig and started calling herself "Hamilton" as she sneaks into a secret underground base where the very fake-looking Cybermen are gathering to discuss things in American accents.

"Shouldn’t-you-be-preparing-for-the-ascension?" asks the CyberLeader, puttings his hands on hips. "How-the-hell-are-we-going-to-establish-the-Court-of-the-Cyber-King-if-you-aren’t-at-the-bloody-funeral?!"

"Oh! My! God! I can’t believe you’re bullying me when I’m the only one keeping the Doctor from, like, totally discovering your plans and defeating you utterly? And I just went and left him in the reverend’s apartment so you could, like, totally delete him! I’m so upset!"

The Cybermen watch her storm out.

"Stupid-bitch," a Cyberman notes.

At the dead vicar’s house, "Matt Smith" is bemoaning his inability to raid the fridge on the grounds the backward deceased doesn’t actually own one while the Loser Doctor wanders around the place making unfunny comments and claiming "I’m about as serious as a Romulan in the Klingon Embassy with news about the fate of the whole Federation."

Finally he is temporarily shut up when "Matt" finds a heap of memory sticks in the cupboard under the sink. Being totally useless, the Loser Doctor needs the concept of memory sticks explained to him and even when he finally understands they are mobile databases of information of a technology beyond 1851 Cardiff, he STILL doesn’t get why it might be in any way relevant to the situation with the Cybermen.

"If I killed you but put that scarf on life support," the real Doctor wonders aloud, "would anyone REALLY notice the difference?"

The Loser Doctor meanwhile is bored and suggests they return to his TARDIS and get K9 to do all the hard work for them, much to "Matt Smith’s" disgust, and opens the pantry door to reveal...

...SOME INCREDIBLY FAKE-LOOKING 1970S CYBERMEN!

"Oh, now what?" the Loser Doctor wails pitifully as he runs away, leaving his newfound companion to face the Murray-Gold-Taking-The-Piss-Out-Of-Dudley-Simpson-music. Screaming hysteria, the Loser Doctor attempts to flee to the rooftops, but alas more Cybermen await them on the stairs!

"Matt Smith" sighs, snatches a cutlass from the wall and then engages in a Kill-Bill-style fight with the Cybermen that... well... leaves them all lying on the ground, moaning and bleeding.

"Jings... they’re just guys in suits!" he boggles. "I’m not trying to break the fourth wall or anything. These are just some American teenagers in silver painted cardboard armor..."

"We’ll cross that bridge when it’s hatched!" the Loser Doctor snaps.

"OK, copycat," snaps the real Doctor, threatening to cut the other man’s throat. "What the hell’s going on? Tell me and maybe I won’t cut through your SINGLE heart!"

"Let go of me! You can’t do this!" comes the feeble rejoinder. "I appeal to Caesar! Oops. Wrong century."

The Doctor groans at the awful humor and decides to let the Loser Doctor escape, if only to be free of this wrist-slittingly-awful wisecracking twat.

Meanwhile, in a graveyard blanketed by snow, a crowd of mourners look a tad depressed as the coffin is lowered into the ground. Then Hamilton arrives and, swiveling her hips suggestively in her PVC schoolgirl outfit as she slinks up to the graveside and the service grinds to a halt in abject discuss.

This wardrobe malfunction is indeed retarded behavior from Hamilton, since in Victorian times the penalty for showing up at a funeral like that was gang-rape followed by twenty-four hours of self-flagellation before the gouging out of one’s own eyes. The Victorians were an interesting people, weren’t they?

"Okay, who were the four speaking parts? Ah, yes, stick around. I’ve more work for you. The whole reason we killed the reverend was to lure you all here, anyway. As for everybody else, you’ve been terribly wooden and your facial hair is appalling. Time to die! Kill them, my Cyber-homies!" Hamilton shrieks. "Kill them all!"

Before any of the mourners can ask where what the hell she’s on about, five Cybermen mince through the snow and attack, their lethal-joy-buzzers slaughtering everyone in their path. Desperately, the remaining men scatter, much to Hamilton’s horror:

"Wait, why are you running? How dare you! THAT isn't the idea at all!"

Finally, all except Mr. Cola, Mr. Scooner, Mr. Fido and Mr. Fishfingers have been eradicated, and they ask Dara why they are required by these freaks in metallic bondage gear. She vows to explain later, and starts laughing like a crazy bitch all over again.

Then she runs off, hastily pulling off her wig and becoming Dara once more, and hiding in the deserted railway station that the Loser Doctor and his groupies are staying at on a temporary basis.

Yes, Dara is just one of many companions the Loser Doctor keeps around because they’re even MORE irritating and stupid than he is. Along with Dara are:

- the irritating robot dog K9 toy, won off the back of a Cornflakes packet
- a cardboard cutout of Elizabeth Sladen circa 1977
- Tom Anderson and his mail order Thai bride Sara;
- Susie-Jo Parker, a large-breasted redhead the Loser Doctor married in Los Vegas when both of them were very, very drunk;
- Landon, a Time Lord SO uptight even his fellow immortals think he’s got the Perigosto Stick of Rassilon jammed up his ass and have sent him to "supervise" the Loser Doctor and hopefully lighten up;
- Dylan Dillion, a Cyberman Sex Therapist from the planet Cannit Jannit;
- Roy Kitterage, a wimpy little science geek none of the others seem to be able to shake off.
Arriving at the squalid slum stuffed to the gills with packing crates marked "DAVE SEGAL’S STUFF – TOUCH & DIE!!", Dara manages to look even remotely innocent when the Doctor and the Loser Doctor appear.

"You have a warped concept of what is "brave", Matt!" the Loser Doctor jeers when it becomes obvious what a useless cowardly tool he resembled when the real Doctor was out there fighting Cybermen.

Settling down to watch yet ANOTHER repeat of the Tom Baker story Revenge of the Cybermen, the Loser Doctor leaves the Doctor and Dara to make the tea and biscuits. Dara recalls how she and the Loser Doctor met, when she was slutting it up on the school trip and then murdered two innocent bystanders in cold blood. Not that she cared.

The Doctor begins to suspect that Dara might not just be pathologically self-absorbed, but no-holds-barred, no-beg-your-pardons out-and-out evil. However, he cannot possibly imagine how Dara could be a threat to a sack of dead badgers, let alone people with a functioning central nervous system, so he lets it go.

"Anyway, can I see your TARDIS now?" the Doctor demands impatiently.

"K9! Bring me the TARDIS!" the Loser Doctor says impressively.

Fifteen minutes later, his resolve cracks and he miserably point to the back yard where a perfectly ordinary hot air balloon with the words "TIGER QUEST" written over the side. Sitting beside it is Mark Tryhard, wearing a StarFleet uniform and drinking a bottle of hootch, musing "I coulda been a fucking contender!" to himself.

The Doctor stares at the balloon in shock, unable to think of anything to say beyond simply, "Jings, what the fuck is WRONG with you freaks?"

"That’s the TARDIS," the Loser Doctor says proudly. "T-A-R-D-I-S. Tethered Arial Relocator Designed In Seattle!"

"IT’S A BLOODY HOT AIR BALOON!!"

"I’ll have you know that this is a Class 1-A Modular Tri-Dimenional Prydonian-Grade Time Capsule! It is NOT a 'bloody hot air balloon'!"

Leaving the two of them to argue, Dara swaps wigs once more and runs off into the night cackling insanely. "Hamilton" confronts Mr. Cola, Mr. Scooner, Mr. Fido and Mr. Fishfingers who are now standing rigidly to attention with their brains controlled by some costume jewelry.

"Yeah, those blue-tooth ear-pieces shall, like, totally arouse the suspicion of nobody!" Hamilton laughs.

After making them dance the YMCA, she sends them on their appointed tasks and then runs back to base, becoming "Dara" once again. The Doctor has managed to use the most basic of logical thought to prove that the Loser Doctor is not who claims. Even after proving this beyond all reasonable doubt to everyone present, the Loser Doctor still refuses to admit he’s an incredibly unconvincing imposter.

"There is still something that you’re not saying!" the Loser Doctor rants. "Some secret that is so horrible that you don’t want to face it! What is it? What’s the real reason behind this insane façade? Uncover the truth! I’ll put an end to this insanity once and for all!"

"Jings," the Doctor sighs. "Fine. You want the truth? You’re not the Doctor. Not now. Not ever. You’re actually some nutter called Dave Segal who’s going round pretending to be me."

"WHAT?!" the Loser Doctor gasps.

"I said, 'You’re not really the Doctor'."

"I heard what you said! That was me being rhetorical!"

The Doctor activates a Cyberman memory stick marked "DR. WHO" and on the wall, shimmering stock footage appears as the data on the stick is replayed – all the known body print images of the Doctor (with a caption informing the audience that all the images are from stories available on DVD by BBC Worldwide for a very reasonable price). There are in all ten Doctors and not a single one of them is the tit in the scarf claiming to be one of the canon.

"I disbelieve you with every fibre of my being!" whimpers the imposter pathetically, trying not to cry.

The Doctor holds up the imposter’s pocket watch.

"The watch is Dave Segal’s. You have the watch. You own the watch that belongs to Dave Segal. You, being in ownership of said watch, in all probability, would have some form of connection to Dave Segal. If I had to make supposition, I would suggest the possibility that you, yourself, in your current state of being, are actually Dave Segal himself."

"...I can’t QUITE see what you’re getting at," Dave Segal sobs.

"You’re not the Doctor. I am the Doctor."

"YOU don’t have a scarf!" Segal squeals.

The Doctor laughs cruelly. "No wonder the Cybermen are just humans in masks scaring people! They’re fakes made by you, because you believe you’re a shape-changing alien trying to keep the legend of Tom Baker alive! I thought you might be tapping into the legend of the Doctor in order to put food on the table for his family and constructing stunts like this to make yourself look good but it turns out you’re all just mentally retarded psycho fans!"

"HE’S RIGHT!" screams Roy Kitterage suddenly. "THIS IS ALL A LIE! We’re just a bunch of lonely American fans, who were mocked and dejected by our peers. We fled back in time to this simpler age to enjoy our fun and games and unauthorized audio plays! But the truth has followed us! First the real Cybermen and now the real Doctor! THIS IS THE END OF THE LINE"

Roy delves into a suitcase and pulls out a pump-action shotgun. Screaming that "it’s kinder this way", he shoots Tom, Sara, Susie-Jo, Landon, Dillion, Mark and K9, before turning the gun on himself and blowing his brains out. Only lack of ammunition spared the Doctor, Dave Segal and Dara. That and the fact they’re the main characters.

As the blood drips off the walls and the smell of gunpowder and burnt human flesh wafts around the room, Dave Segal decides that the entire conversation is "completely irrelevant anyway" and to ignore any and all evidence placed before him that he is nerd with no life.

As the church bells chime midnight, Michaelmas Day, the Doctor decides he’s wasted enough of his life on this problem. He doesn’t even care that they’re temporal deviants causing chaos in established history in their fanatical desire to recreate Tom Baker episodes.

The Doctor storms for the exit, leaving Dave Segal weeps over the prop (seemingly not interested in the six friends of his now lying dead in front of him). "K9!" sobs the imposter. "I’m be lost without him!!"

"Good, I hope you stay there," the Doctor sneers as he goes.

As he emerges out into the street, the Doctor notices Mr. Cola marching a crowd of orphans out of a workhouse. Of course, considering the general cruelty of Victorians to the young, the poor, not to mention their borderline slave trading, a mass of flea-bitten young paupers looking miserable being marched through the streets isn’t that much of an odd sight but nevertheless it turns out "Hamilton’s" belief that no one would notice the flashing bluetooth was unsurprisingly stupid and the Doctor twigs some Cyberman crap is going down.

The Doctor joins the kids and cheers them up with his brilliantly-performed renditions of songs from "Oliver!"

Soon the entourage join other children and are lead into a warehouse with a flashing neon sign saying "WELCOME TO THE COURT OF THE QUEENBITCH!!" in large 80s cursive font.

Lead inside the hellish workhouse filled with a myriad of machinery, it’s almost but not quite instantly recognizable as the Touchwood Hub with some bags of coal dumped in the corners. "Hamilton" arrives and announces that the Ascension of the QueenBitch must take place immediately, before the genuine Doctor can interfere.

Nevertheless, she still thinks there’s time for her to make the now-redundant Mr. Cola, Mr. Scooner, Mr. Fido and Mr. Fishfinger do the Funky Chicken and then strangle each other for "Hamilton’s" own sadistic amusement.

Just then the Doctor realizes that Dave Segal has followed him for want of something to do, and it’s quite clear he has absolutely nothing else in his entire life more interesting than stalk the Doctor as he take on fake Cybermen with Brooklyn accents.

"You’re not planning on leaving me behind? You might need me!"

"I might need YOU? In this strange complex of time and space where anything is possible... nope, you STILL wouldn’t be helpful!"

As they watch, "Hamilton" addresses her infant workforce, still showing her tragically low IQ as she doesn’t spot the two adults in anachronistic clothing amongst all the under-tens.

"Isn’t that Dara?" the Doctor frowns.

"That face," Dave Segal murmurs. "It looks strangely familiar. As if I’d seen it before..."

"That’s what 'familiar' MEANS, ya daft tit!"

The horrible truth soon becomes apparent – since the SCADs have so few actors, what ones they DO have must double- and even triple-up! The actress playing Dara is also playing the lead villain and, also, seems to be taking this play-acting a wee bit too far since she’s screaming for " the new industrial revolution is about to begin" and shouts at the children to get to work providing energy levels for the mysterious "QueenBitch" to activate.

Finally the decrepit redhead notices the Doctor and Dave Segal, though she seems to have forgotten who they are. "So, what do we have here? Some with intimate knowledge of my knights in cardboard armor and tinfoil!"

"Dara... it’s US!"

"We were talking to you fifteen minutes ago, remember?"

"I know not this common 'Dara' of whom you speak! I am Miss Hamilton!" rants the nutter, refusing to drop out of character like her co-stars, not even for a cheap sight gag. "The intergalactic femme fatale who has summoned the Cybermen to Old Cardiff Town to replace my legs with a funky Cyber spider leg type thingamajig! Kill them!"

The Doctor eyes the faux Cybermen and tries to look like he cares. "Let me die happy! Tell me one thing! WHO do you think actually LISTENS to your shitty fan audios?! Even Briggsy has a bigger fanbase!"

"Very soon now the whole British Empire will hear our back catalogue!" rants Hamilton. "They will bow down in worship at our superior scripts and subtle budgetary restraints!"

"Just in time for Michaelmas. Was that your idea?"

"Nope, just coincidence, really. Now, time to die! The ascension shall begin at once!"

Hamilton is then thoroughly surprised when the Cybermen – ALSO taking this thing way too seriously – drag her to an electric chair and force a Cyberman voice changer helmet over her heat, converting her into the living mind of the QueenBitch.

Unfortunately, these SCAD losers have made yet another fatal mistake:

Now completely insane, the personalities of Hamilton and Dara fuse and combine into an ego large enough to knock the Earth out of orbit and this is represented televisually by the actress wearing pitch black contact lenses and talking in a funny voice. Hey, if it worked for a season finale in Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

The QueenBitch marvels at the new landscapes and scopes in her head, her ego too strong for this Cyber technology to override. "Such information! I can see the stars, the worlds beyond, the vortex of time itself and the whole of infinity! Oh! My! God! This is so totally random! I am, like, so totally hot right now!"

Deciding that nothing these American fans are capable of could possibly hurt anyone, the Doctor calmly leads all the children out of the workroom and back home, with Dave Segal’s best approximation of "help".

"This looks like the beginning of a warm and beautiful friendship," the scarf-wearing nutter beams beatifically.

"Then you need your eyes tested," the Doctor sighs.

About five minutes after they’ve gone, the QueenBitch decides it’s time to ascend out of the sewers and conquer the entire freaking world and it is only now that we twig that her dinky metal throne is actually the tiniest part of a colossal steam-punk giant Cyberman robot built entirely out of toilet rolls and sticky-backed plastic!

Dave Segal finally remembers this plot point and shit himself in abject terror – this Cyberromp remake has got totally out of hand! "Oh no, but that means... I got to stop them! I must stop them!"

"Jings, what are you driveling on about now?" the Doctor snaps.

"Ah, forget it!"

Just then the QueenBitch ascends, rising out of Mermaid Bay and towering over Cardiff as Dara/Hamilton shouts through a megaphone she is now ruler of the Earth due to her incredible hotness. The QueenBitch is a giant walking factory that, while not being able to create proper Cybermen, can STILL turn millions of people into gimp slaves for Dara/Hamilton’s sick amusement.

Soon the ship begins stomping across the city, crushing buildings underfoot. Their ethereal song echoes out across the land:

"CYBERMEN! WE-ARE-WE-ARE-THE-CYBERMEN! IN-ANOTHER-GALAXY! ON-A-NEW-DIRECTION! ON-OUR-WAY-TO-CONQUER-CARDIFF! THE-CYBERMEN-ARE-ON-A-MISSION! THE-CYBERMEN! THE-CYBERMEN! THE-CYBERMEN! THE-CYBERMEN-ARE-ON-A-MISSION! ON-A-MISSION! ON-A-MISSION! OOO-DARA... OOO-DARA... OOO-DARA..."

Like most of the population, the Doctor and Dave Segal stare up at the behemoth in confusion.

"Uh-oh," the imposter gulps.

"OK, what in the name of Donna Noble’s cleavage is that?!?"

"It’s a Dreadnought-Class Cyber Bling Warrior!" gasps Dave Segal. "A giant walking Cyberman with a cyber conversion factory and android brothel at its heart, with in-built spandex-covered sheep bots!!"

The Doctor falls silent and watches as the QueenBitch lays waste to Cardiff in the best traditions of Kaiju carnage. "You know," he says eventually, "that has to be THE most amazingly retarded alien super weapon I’ve ever seen! Not only does it require a ludicrous amount of power and is impossible to obscure from the enemy, all it has is a big fucking gun!" the Doctor boggles. "You people just don’t GET the idea the Cybermen are supposed to be logical and intelligent, do you?!"

"What are we gonna do now?!" Dave Segal panics.

The Doctor rolls his eyes. "Well, ideally now we would return to the TARDIS and transform it into a Giant Robo-Doctor and then duke it out with them but unfortunately..."

"Then there’s only one option left," rants Dave Segal, finally getting the sarcasm being screamed directly into his face. "I must call on my past and future incarnations to help us!"

"You don’t HAVE any past and future incarnations!" the Doctor points out as Dave Segal presses his fingertips to his temples in a pathetic display of concentration.

Suddenly, with a generic Blake’s 7 sound effect, four figures appear in the snow beside them: a bloke dressed like Sherlock Holmes (JK Flynn); a fat guy with a lazy eye, walking stick and Zampata moustache (Jym de Natale); a skinny dude in a magician’s outfit complete with top hat and cloak (Jeffrey Coburn); and a cardboard cutout of Dave Segal in a StarFleet uniform and grey chest wig.

"You have GOT to be kidding me!" the Doctor groans.

"Oh no, not ANOTHER Abbot & Costello routine!" groans Jeff Coburn. "What is it this time? Children In Need? Comic Relief? And five of us this time? What part of 'overkill' don’t you get?" he demands of Dave Segal, who shuffles uncomfortably.

"You’ve interfered with history and changed the timelines!" exclaims Jym de Natale. "Are you mad? Oh wait, of course you are. I do beg your pardon, you strange and insane individual!"

"Oh blast!" Dave Segal bitches. "I forgot I turned into a rambling windbag anus as I got older!"

"How dare you sah!" Jym de Natale retorts. "I age like a fine wine and grow more palatable over the years!"

"Which makes me the obvious zenith of perfection," JK Flynn points out.

"YOU’RE corked, grandad!" Jym de Natale spits at him.

"You tend to age like spoiled milk if you ask me!" Dave Segal mumbles, pretending the cardboard cutout is actually talking. Which is really kind of creepy if I’m honest.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake..." growls the genuine Doctor and sprints off to actually save the day, leaving the wannabe Doctors arguing. Jeff Coburn looks at the retreating Doctor, then his bickering costars, then decides to follow the Doctor.

"Do you even listen to YOURSELF sometimes?" Jym de Natale boggles. "I’d say it sounds like you’re making it up as you go along, but that would imply you possess a gossamer scintilla of originality, you pallid Tom Baker copycat!"

"Says who?!" demands Dave Segal.

"Says ME," retorts JK Flynn, unimpressed. "Been reading the thesaurus Father Christmas got you, huh?" he asks Jym de Natale.

"It’s a crime not to use the language to all its full richness," he replies, rather defensively. "And not, I repeat NOT, a crutch to mask one being... ahem... physical under-endowed!"

"You’re not fooling anyone, you know. You DO realize this?" asks Jeffrey Coburn gently.

"IF we could concentrate on the matter at hand, there is a giant Cyberman smashing up the town!" Dave Segal snaps. "Has anyone encountered this sort of thing before?"

"I know I haven’t," JK Flynn sighs. "So that rather rules the rest of you out, doesn’t it?"

"And they say *I* have an ego!" seethes Jym de Natale.

"You do!" insists Dave Segal via his cardboard cutout.

"YOU’RE hardly one to talk," JK Flynn protests. "You think anyone’s actually falling for that? There’s only four of us and you pretending to be some loser called Vincent Savage! It’s just embarrassing..."

"He never listens to reason," Jym de Natale sighs.

"YOUR reason is as frilly as your shirt!" 'Vincent Savage' snorts. "And if you think I’m going to play second fiddle to someone who’s ego gets its own dressing room..."

"We don’t have to put up with this, you know!" Jeff Coburn retorts and all three future incarnations flip Dave Segal the bird and disappear, leaving Segal holding the cardboard cutout.

"I guess I’ll just nibble on my jelly babies," the imposter sighs. "Oh. Someone ate them all! Damn!"

The real Doctor has meanwhile, commandeered the hot-air balloon and manages to fly up into the sky away from the carnage. Unfortunately, the wind blows in the wrong direction and he finds himself hurtling straight towards the gigantic QueenBitch where Dara/Hamilton and the Cybermen are all folding their arms and tapping their feet impatiently. Mind racing furiously, the Doctor realizes he must defeat this gigantic war machine and the crazy tart at the controls with only a heap of memory sticks and his superhuman Scottish charisma.

To buy him some more time he goes through the motions of offering QueenBitch and the Cybermen a trip to some uninhabited quarry planet where they can strut around sodomizing each other in peace, which Dara/Hamilton instantly refuses.

Frantically wiring all the memory sticks together with an industrial laser pointer, the Doctor stalls by asking the QueenBitch if she’s really sure that’s her final answer or if she’d like to, perhaps, phone a friend and think again?

"Remember, you have only three hours to make up your mind and if you don’t take up the offer then I’ll forced to go Family of Blood on your pale mechanical ass!"

"What do you think I am?" scoffs the QueenBitch. "Stupid?"

"Pretty much!" the Doctor shouts, cutting the crap and fires his freaky device at the QueenBitch which manages – in a truly impressive blaze of computer-generated electric blue radiation – to do absolutely fuck all.

Undaunted at this apparent failure, the Doctor starts to cackle insanely. "You’re DEAD, Dara Hamilton!"

"Get real! I am, like, totally stronger than ever!"

"FUCK YOU, YOU THICK BITCH!" the Doctor screams at her. "I’m the REAL Doctor with the REAL alien death rays and if I say that you’re dead, you raddled old ham, then YOU’RE DEAD, OKAY? DEAD!"

The QueenBitch flicks her hair. "What are you talking—-"

But she gets no further as she suddenly and inexplicably explodes in a massive fireball that destroys all the Cybermen and the top half of the giant robot, which promptly topples out of the sky and crashes onto the city below. Luckily, as it was made mainly out newspaper and chicken wire, the people on the streets who have been fleeing for cover are totally unharmed and the menace is over.

"The one and only, you ungrateful fanbase!" the Doctor roars.

It then strikes the Time Lord that he has absolutely no idea how to land the hot-air balloon and he floats off into the night, swearing profusely as he drifts further and further away from the city and all the rejoicing Welshmen.

"That was too close," Dave Segal mumbles lamely. "How could you destroy such a unique life form?! How convenient that magic wand manages to defeat the bad guy completely without explanation! Are we just supposed to accept it? You call that rabbit out of your sleeve a wrap-up? YOU CAN’T WRITE YOURSELF OUT OF THE NARRATIVE THAT EASILY!"

Then, realizing that this is his chance to finally become the One, True Doctor, Dave Segal immediately races through the streets towards where the Doctor’s TARDIS is parked. "At last! My hour has come!" he shouts. "I can steal a real time capsule and become the Doctor Eternal!"

But upon reaching the police box, he is bitch-slapped to the snowy ground by a black man in red Time Lord robes and triceratops headgear standing beside the TARDIS.

"Too slow, my friend," the Time Lord booms, stepping over the imposter and striding into the TARDIS. "You were always my LEAST-favorite," he adds before shutting the door and dematerializing.

"...blast," Dave Segal mutters for want of something to say.

---------
Next Time...
---------
"Ding! Ding! Hold on to your hats!"
"End of the line. Only one more year..."
"Dubai; it’s another planet."
"What is it? What’s wrong? Doctor, just stop hiding under the chair and tell me..."
"Every single instinct of mine is telling me NOT to let you become my new companion, you callous bitch."
"Sumtin is cumin! Ridin on der wind! Dey do dat ting dey do."
"...what the hell are you talking about?"
"DEATH... in the form of giant metal stingrays!"
"Doctor, I’m shitting myself with terror right about now!"
"Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run..."
"That planet out there? Three suns, wormholes and alien sand? That planet is NOTHING. Trust me, this time next year, not even the diehard fans will even REMEMBER this story... I know I won’t!"
---------
...Escape to Danger on the Planet in Space Cutaway!...
---------