Thursday, July 31, 2008

More random stuff mostly about Daleks

God my flu makes it hard to concentrate. A sudden rapid changing-back-and-forth of temperatures have somehow overloaded my formidable immune system (if I do say so myself) and coherent thought is near nigh on impossible. You might think I'm typing this all out with my usual speed and alacrity, but that is the buffer of blogger. I've clicked delete and re-typed this a ridiculous amount of times, and it reaches the point I type the completely wrong word completely anachronism. Accurately. Damn.

So...

what has been on my excuse of my mind of late?

1) Double the Fist is coming back. I honestly lack any ability to discuss this without "squee" (or, in my own enfeebled way "wheeze"). This show is brilliant. Utterly brilliant. Memorably described as The Goodies meet Jackass, this show has a 100% success rate of temporarily dispelling my depression. Not only are there nods to The Young Ones (flying sharks), Doctor Who (space time vortexes), Batman (Mephisto), Trilogy of Terror (cursed Aztec Doll), Die Hard (Alan Rickman) and Gallipoli, it... actually I completely forget where I was going with that. It's just brilliant. No one on this Earth, not even Phillip Martin, can deny that the Fist team would make Creed of the Kromon downright brilliant. This isn't the LONGEST wait I've had for a show, but it is up there. And by that I mean, "next month on ABC, new series!" type wait. The record still stands with Class Act at five years after the coming soon trailers.



2) I give up on Nyder. Alan Stevens. Whatever. Because he has blog, just like me!


http://www.nydersdyner.blogspot.com/


And, well, my final bastion of sympathy and respect melted away as I sped-read through his "recycling watch" on Doctor Who (by the way, my earlier claims he stopped this with Survival are false - he hates that too). Now, while I have no real understanding of why he has to go through every single frame of an episode and scream "rip off rip off rip off", I could forgive some like...



Setup of great big much-trumpeted villain/group of villains, who is/are then promptly killed off, but with a vague exit clause so they can bring him/them back when they start running out of ideas: Aliens of London/World War III; Dalek, The Parting of the Ways, Doomsday, The Age of Steel, The Sound of Drums.



Which is harsh, cynical, but basically fair. But stuff like this?



Pounding on a glass door mouthing words: 42, Partners in Crime.



Testing an ultimate weapon on a convenient stooge: The Daleks' Master Plan



Red Dwarf (character stuck on a single word; character gaining superintelligence at a cost).



Now, I have to step in here. Are we really supposed to damn Journey's End because of these? Are we thinking that RTD was deliberately stealing one scene from a 1965 that no longer exists? I'm surprised Nyder didn't claim it was a rip off of B7: Project Avalon where the exact same scene is used (why, yes, both were by Terry Nation). Donna's 'death scene' is somehow poorer because Alan "You Are All Ignorant Fucktards" Stevens thought it was a bit like Kryten trying to swear? That Mickey and a window was automatically a rip off?



This is just bullshit, especially given the godawful quality of Stevens' OWN work. By the by, even his essays are crumbling before my eyes...





3) The Dalek Master Plan is the pilot for Blake's 7. Um, no. It isn't. For a very simple reason. Terry Nation didn't write it. He scribbled out a lengthy synopsis and threw it from a taxi window at the BBC. Now, that might sound like I'm dissing him, but it's not. It was a fact. He was unable to write more because of prior commitments and all the documentation showed he gave as good as he got (for example, lots of detail about Katarina/Vicki's death scene). But Nyder suggests that the SSS of this story is a forerunner for the Terran Federation and Mavic Chen is some Servalan analogue. Odd considering all the evidence he gives was down to Dennis Spooner - he ignores completely the fact that Nation wanted the yellow peril villain to be called "Banhoong" for Christ's sake. It's also interesting that when John Peel and Terry Nation worked together on novelizing The Dalek Master Plan, they made Mavic Chen a stupid, insane, backstabbing megalomaniac who not only was incapable of thinking up the complicated Carnell strategy Nyder extrapolates from one line of dialogue, but also both turn Karlton into a weak-willed pratt. If you ever watch Counter-Plot, you'll understand why this Uncle Fester/Lady McBeth character is not one you'd target for rewriting. But that's that. Terry Nation intended him to be a useless stooge, nothing deeper.



Oh, and Nyder, you still have to explain how Planet of the Daleks fits into your "Terry Nation - Renaissance Man" pitch of Blake's 7...





4) Cooking is difficult when you're me. Around 2003 I took up the culinary arts (well, more than reheating things in the microwave). I became a master of the spaghetti bolognaise. And when the bolognaise (meat sauce, to put it incredibly crudely), is left over, it gets put on bread, cheese on top and melted. Pizza toast. A delicious and reasonably healthy snack. Anyway, after four days straight of pizza toast, my parents rightly asked for something else.



So, I got the remaining raw mince and tried to turn it into hamburger patties. However, they collapsed into a meat sauce. My attempts to pull it back together turned it into something near-as-bolognaise-as-dammit. So, I go into a kitchen trying to get rid of a meal, and end up tripling it!





5) A lost YOA episode. That's lost as in "never written a single damn word but thought about it a hell of a lot". Now, they always say, write about what you know. And when it comes to aimlessly wandering around a university for days on end and not talking to anyone, or doing much of anything at all, I'm yer man. So my idea was for the gang to visit university and make mischief. I decided to go for a kind of teen slasher flick with our heroes trying incredibly stupid schemes to find a killer they weren't even sure was actually there. Tragically, I read Psi-ence Fiction not too long ago and the big scene where they try to use an ouji board to divine the truth now seems so passe. And how can anything Nigel do beat Leela breaking the thumbs of everyone who assume she's an extra from Xena: Warrior Princess? Damn you, Chris Boucher. Damn you all the way to Gauda Prime.

6) After seeing the Evil Mime Goodies, it strikes me that my favorite 1970s comedy series actually scared me more than it made me laugh. As far back as Snooze, where Graeme and Bill are drugged and wander about the place sleepwalking and refuse to wake up, kinda disturbed me. Or the entirety of Cecily. Huge parts of Goodies and the Beanstalk creep me out now, like the siren song bit or the incredibly dark music that follows Bill... looking at some chickens. So, my top ten terrifying bits from the supposed comedy... in no particular order:

* Bill being chased by an alien on Knutter's Knoll as people are kidnapped, only for Tim to lock the door and leave him trapped outside
* When the Goodies are in the stomach of the T-Rex and note that the skeleton in front of them is quite similar to the kinky transvestite who vanished potholing years ago (closely rivaled with the dinosaur bursting out of the ground and killing everyone)
* The Clown Virus
* In Pollution, where the beach is so poisonous everyone has to wear gasmasks and the dog melts in the water
* The Giant Rats smashing into the office
* The bit where they all notice how quiet the countryside is... and then something that isn't a cow screams
* The Baddies - especially when Graeme and Bill turn into robots and strangle Tim to death at the end
* 2001 and a bit where they destroy the whole Earth over a game of cricket
* The End - in particular where the TV switches off and the telephone melts, trapping them
* The western ep where they all kill each other with tomato sauce guns. The bit where a "blood"-drenched Tim falls over dead with a "I donwanna die!" scream is right up there when Vila gets shot in the back

But worst of all is when Bill gets put in charge of a pornography, bondage S&M reality TV series that kills people. The way he keeps screaming, "I LIKE VIOLENCE!" and then machine gunning his cast dead. "THEY love it! I LOVE IT!" and dancing around the place as the bodies stop twitching. "Exploding Vicars: he has twenty minutes to convert ten athiests or BOOM! HAHAHAHAH!"

Also worth noting is the eps that reveal they keep girlfriends in cupboards and take them out as and when necessary. Of course, they only use them to play chess with. Anything else would be creepy.


7) In Maid Marion and her Merry Men, there's a bit where King John - furious the peasants have no idea who he is - hits upon the idea of getting famous for inventing something. Thus, he orders the Sherrif of Nottingham to come up with an idea. The first idea is a parachute, which doesn't work out. But the second is, "I shall invent the electronic foot, my lord!" which King J turns down because inventions have to be FOR something.

But now you can buy electronic feet for disabled and legless Olympians. Wow, another eerily accurate prediction from the people who took the piss out of "Jeffrey the Archer" twice a week for four years.


8) Distantly returning to my spoof of The Chronic Rift, I was listening to the last episode today and I was gobsmacked at how rubbish the ending was. Even though I knew roughly what was going to happen thanks to the Handbook. Basically, the Doctor flies the TARDIS into a time rift which is threatening every universe in existence. There he finds millions of other TARDISes there and suddenly he gets a collect call from the Master who reveals he is a nice, parallel-Master and the Doctor must heroically sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Looking back, it's borderline agony at how unadventerous the story is - they visit every single universe and there's no monsters, old companions, nothing. Just a bunch of boring characters who steal the limelight from the outgoing Doctor (who appears for fourteen seconds in part two). But that scene with the Master was even worse than I was braced for...

Master: Ah, Doctor, no matter what reality, you're still an incompetent fool!

Doctor: Piss off, I'm busy!

Master: I am the Master!

Doctor: I know, I'm busy!

Master: No, I am from another universe.

Doctor: I DON'T CARE! I'M BUSY!

Master: I'm a goodie!

Doctor: A goodie. Called the Master.

Master: Yes. Hohoho. And I fight the evil known as the Doctor.

Doctor: That would be the same incompetent fool from your universe.

Master: Well. If you put it that way...

Doctor: Why are you called the Master if you're so good anyway?

Master: Oh, look! Exploding TARDISes!

Doctor: I want an answer, asshole!

Master: There is no time. You must tell all the other Doctors to leave the rift.

Doctor: Why me?

Master: Because all the rest are TV soundbites. Look!

Doctors: Need more power to defeat Zarbi! Agh, falling into the land of fiction! Reverse the polarity! Oh, god, let us blow up the Cybermen with a Skystriker! I know what I'm doing, Adric! DOES NOTHING PLEASE YOU, PERI?!? This Hand of Omega plan really needs a rethink! By midnight tonight this planet will be pulled inside out!

Doctor: What?! That last one just doesn't make any sense!

Master: I know. Irritating huh. Now send the message.

Doctor: What message?

Master: I dunno. Any message.

Doctor: I'm still not buying you're a good guy who happens to dress in black and steal Trakenite bodies and call yourself the Master you know.

Master: Well, come and visit my universe then.

Doctor: I might do that!

Master: SHIT! RUN AWAY!

Doctor: Ah, it's all fixed. I've saved the entire universe in a single two-hander scene. Am I brilliant or what? Egads, one of Geiger's Xenomorphs is in the control room! Stupid of me not to notice. Bad alien! Down boy!
Bad! ARRGGHHH!



9) How to Tell You're Taking Daleks A Tad Too Seriously:



Sadly my copy lacks the next page which includes -

If you drop a Dalek from low orbit, it will land the right way up

Krakatoa, the sinking of the Titanic and the 1939 stock market crash were all triggered by the Daleks for a laugh

Daleks are so damn bastard hard they're not afraid to take ANYONE outside

A Dalek could pleasure every woman on Earth for a week

A Dalek's mum is bigger than your mum

Suddenly a story revealing the Daleks used pigs to build the Empire State Building to pick up solar flare energy to rewrite the DNA of the Hooverville Community suddenly seems reasonable, doesn't it?


10) How to Tell You're Not Taking Daleks Seriously Enough


11) And This Is When It Just Gets Silly.

And that, boys and girls, is why you do NOT mess with the Nation Estate...

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Shame of the Spheres

There are some Doctor Who stories destined to be totally forgotten. Like Underworld. Or Terminus. The last three parts of The Space Museum. And now Music of the Spheres - a five minute skit that makes Dimensions in Time look like Time Crash. It has had such little pre publicity, I didn't even know it existed until urgent uploads caught my attention. After suffering through it, I considered deleting it right away.

I had been off the opinion the fanwank explosion of the season four finale was RTD getting everything out of his system at last, but now I start to wonder... did he dive into fanwank because he had literally run out of ideas? Be fair, the guy's worked himself into the dirt over the last five years, but the continual remakes have ridden the point he doesn't seem to have put any brain power into this. It lacks even entertainment value. I can't honestly think why anyone would campaign for this to be canonical.

The skit is so painfully cheap in thought and deed. The whole thing is set in the TARDIS control room (no change there then) and the lone Doctor is bushwhacked by a sudden unexplained arrival (cue: "What? What? WHAT?!" except without the passion): a Grask. Just in case you thought the interactive game had been forgotten. But despite the fourth wall breaking stuff of the Doctor talking to his TV viewers, Attack of the Graske was far funnier and cleverer than this.

The Doctor has seemingly been infested with Ben Chatham disease as we see him lying on the floor, kicking his legs and looking for all the world a teenage girl writing in her diary. He has decided, for some reason, to shut down all the TARDIS defences (despite what happened the last two times). He has then decided to listen to the titular music of the spheres (an expression that is used with all the restrain of Blackadder saying "McBeth!"), copy it down on musical notes and then tell everyone that he wrote it. He then explains to everyone that he is ripping off the sounds of the universe, just so it's made absolutely clear what a talentless fucktard he is.

Egads! A Graske has teleported into the control room and, despite being mortal enemies... the Doctor tells him to go away. And not in a funny, self-aware, Fourth Doctor "you megalomaniacs are all the same way". He is too busy listening to music and marvelling at his own brilliance to deal with a Graske, even as it explains that it has come here urgently to save the Doctor.

Just as our interest is piqued, the Graske and the Doctor immediately change topic and discuss the titular music (which doesn't sound like much... I mean, that space harmonica in Dalek gave out better and more noticeable music), before the incredibly-badly dubbed alien notes a whacking great CGI portal has appeared beside the hatstand. The Doctor rushes over to the portal, which opens out to Albert Hall in the 2008 Proms.

Things go downhill from hereon in.

I suffered the original video in philosophical pain. The thing is, the audience participation was live and unscripted, so what we get is the Doctor shouting at the camera going, "I can't hear you, speak louder" four hundred and twenty seven times, interspersed with long and unamusing pauses. I held back my judgement to when I actually heard the finished thing, with the pantomime audience replying.

It didn't help.

Despite this unexplained whacking great hole in time and space, the Doctor decides that the best thing to do is hurl his stolen music through it and get the orchestra to play it. He will conduct with his sonic screwdriver and it looks as bad as it fucking sounds. The music is a discordant jangle of barely-registering noise. If you remember that time the TARDIS did it's "Goon Show silly noise" compilation in Horns of Nimon, that was far more easy to groove to than this.

Finally, the atonal noise pollution is over and, gazooks, the Doctor notices that the Graske has pissed off. And he's stolen the Doctor's water pistol! You see, this Graske came to the TARDIS - despite the fluke the defences were down - just so he could jump through the still-unexplained portal to Albert Hall. Rather than just teleporting there himself. Why is the Graske wanting to be at Albert Hall? To shoot people with water pistols, of course!

I wish I could say this was hilarious. It's brain-damaged dross.

The Doctor then announces that he is reversing the polarity of the neutron flow with his sonic screwdriver, which sucks the Graske into the TARDIS so the Doctor can do his "nasty Time Lord vengeance" moment and then (because children are present)... send the midget bastard back where he came from. The Doctor turns to the audience and notes he has to close this portal because it's incredibly dangerous to leave open (can you imagine the horror if ANOTHER water pistol wielding alien escaped into Albert Hall?) and thus gives a very, very, very, very long "humans are brilliant" speech. Apparently music has nothing to do with all the poor suckers who spent years mastering the art, but the bone idle audience who sit on their fat arses listening.

The Doctor manages to bore HIMSELF and then wanders off. We suddenly cut to the credits (now boasting SCRIPT EDITOR - Gary Russell) as the original Hartnel theme music plays.

I never expected Doctor Who to ever, ever rival the outright stupidity of The War Machines. This makes WOTAN and his army of fridges look like fucking Seven Periods with Mr. Gormsby!

Having thrown an ear onto the rest of the concert, I was disappointed to learn this quality was quite insistent. Despite being a Doctor Who event, half the music was boring classical stuff the like of which I don't want to hear. I can live without The Ride of the fucking Valkyries, thanks. True pain however struck when Davros and the Daleks turned up to introduce some vaguely Who-related tunes.

Now, I understand that this can be awkward. A Celebration In Cardiff managed to balance the fact that the kids want to be entertained and also expect that when a Dalek turns up on stage the first three rows should automatically be murdered in cold blood. The first time, Nick Briggs managed to get Dalek Caan some decent comedy - furious when the crowd do not automatically obey orders, Caan decides to play Murray Gold music until they beg for mercy. "Let me hear you say exterminate!" it demanded afterwards.

But this time, the Daleks are nothing more than daycare minders for Davros who curiously enough reminds me of Spike Milligan's decrepit principal in Gormenghast. He all but gibbers, "Who are all these pretty people?" except that might be amusing. They get Julian Bleach all made up, in the wheelchair, everything and then he pretty much sits there repeating dialogue from Journey's End. I could sing along as he welcomed everyone to his new empire and ordered the Daleks to... do stuff. The lack of laughter shows even the the less hardcore of the audience were a tad confused when the Daleks announce they have "condititoned" the conductor... and then reveal they just threatened to kill him unless they do what he said.

With the brain-meltingly original "Let the music of destruction play," Davros vanished... presumably to seek, locate and exterminate the twat responsible for the script. Cause when Catherine Tate arrived, gripped with a hangover and clearly not doing any script, she got a better reception than the rest of the bleeding performance put together. The huge cheers and several voices screaming "Bring her back!" show that Donna Noble is actually more popular than the Doctor himself. It's amazing to think that RTD came up with the whole amnesia angle because he was sure the public would hate Donna and never want her to come back...

So, all in all, a complete waste of two hours.

Avoid like a plague farm. Watch I lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper instead...

Friday, July 25, 2008

The DOCTOR WHO Years - The Naughties

Having recently enjoyed the Musical History of Doctor Who, my one regret was that it stopped at Survival.

So, here's my idea for a fourth installment. Or maybe a fifth...



The return of Doctor Who - Slow, Kylie Minogue

THE SCREAM OF THE SHALKA - Mad World, Michael Andrews & Gary Jules

Generic 2004 stuff - Toxic, Britney Spears

2005 Countdown - Against All Odds, Steve Brookstein

ROSE - You've Got A Friend, McFly

Eccleston Quits! - Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, U2

THE END OF THE WORLD - Tainted Love, Soft Cell.

THE UNQUIET DEAD - Is This The Way to Amarillo?, Tony Christie & Peter Kay

ALIENS OF LONDON - Oh My Gosh, Basement Jaxx

WORLD WAR THREE - Over and Over, Nelly

DALEK - Lonely, Akon

THE LONG GAME - Devils And Dust, Bruce Springsteen

FATHER'S DAY - Lyla, Oasis

THE EMPTY CHILD - Axel F, Crazy Frog

THE DOCTOR DANCES - Demon Days, Gorillaz

BOOMTOWN - The Importance of Being Idle, Oasis.

BAD WOLF - Square One, Coldplay

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS - Goodbye My Lover, James Blunt

David Tennant is the Doctor! - Push The Button, Sugarbabes

AFTERLIFE - JCB, Nizlopi

THE CHRISTMAS INVASION - That's My Goal, Shayne Ward

ATTACK OF THE GRASKE - Lose Yourself, Eminem


2006!

Countdown to 2006/Totally Doctor Who - When The Sun Goes Down, Artic Monkeys

NEW EARTH - Crazy, Gnarls Barkley

TOOTH AND CLAW - When You Wasn't Famous, The Streets

SCHOOL REUNION - Storm Coming, Gnarls Barkley

THE GIRL IN THE FIRE PLACE - You're All I Have, Snow Patrol

RISE OF THE CYBERMEN - Strip My Mind, Red Hot Chilli Peppers

THE AGE OF STEEL - Torture Me, Red Hot Chilli Peppers

THE IDIOT'S LANTERN - I wish I was a Punk Rocker, Sandi Thorm

THE IMPOSSIBLE PLANET - No Tomorrow, Orson

THE SATAN PIT - Maneater, Nelly Furtado

LOVE & MONSTERS - A Bad Dream, Keane

FEAR HER - Hips Don't Lie, Shakira

Billie Piper Quits! - Leaving So Soon?, Keane

ARMY OF GHOSTS - Smile, Lilly Allen

DOOMSDAY - Heaven For The Weather, Hell For The Company, Lostprophets/Take A Bow, Muse

Torchwood? - Don't Stop Me Now, McFly

EVERYTHING CHANGES - Welcome to the Black Parade, My Chemical Romance

DAY ONE - For Reasons Unknown, The Killers

GHOST MACHINE - Star Girl, McFly

CYBERWOMAN - Put Your Hands Up For Detroit, Fredde le Grand

SMALL WORLDS - The Rose, Westlife

COUNTRYCIDE - Smack That, Akon

GREEKS BEARING GIFTS - Patience, Take That

THEY KEEP KILLING SUZIE - Shine, Take That

RANDOM SHOES - John and Elvis Are Dead, George Michael

OUT OF TIME - Beautiful World, Take That

COMBAT - A Moment Like This, Leona Lewis

CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS - Reach Out, Take That

END OF DAYS - I'd Wait For Life, Take That

THE RUNAWAY BRIDE - Love Don't Roam, Murray Gold


2007

INVASION OF THE BANE - Wake Up Alone, Amy Whitehouse

SMITH & JONES - Walk This Way, Sugababes vs. Girls Aloud

THE SHAKESPEARE CODE - I'm Gonna Be, Brian Potter & Andy Pipkin

GRIDLOCK - Give It To Me,Timbaland

DALEKS IN MANHATTEN - Beautiful Liar, Beyonce

EVOLUTION OF THE DALEKS - D is for Dangerous, Arctic Monkeys

THE LAZARUS EXPERIMENT - The Bad Thing, Arctic Monkeys

The Infinite Quest - Transylvania, McFly

42 - Umbrella, Rihanna

HUMAN NATURE - Wake Up Call, Maroon 5

THE FAMILY OF BLOOD - Nothing Lasts Forever, Maroon 5

BLINK - Question Existing, Rihanna

UTOPIA - Icky Thump, The White Stripes

THE SOUND OF THE DRUMS - Voodoo Child, Rogue Traders

THE LAST OF THE TIME LORDS - An End Has A Start, The Editors

REVENGE OF THE SLITHEEN - Beautiful Girls, Sean Kingston

EYE OF THE GORGON - About You Now, Sugarbabes

THE WARRIORS OF KULDAK - Bleeding Love, Leona Lewis

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SARAH JANE? - You Are Not Alone, The Eagles

THE LOST BOY - Do Something, The Eagles

TIME-CRASH - It's You, Westlife

VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED - The Stowaway, Murray Gold

2008

KISS KISS, BANG BANG! - Now You're Gone, Basshunter

SLEEPER - Mercy, Duffy

TO THE LAST MAN - I'm Not Over You, Scouting for Girls

MEAT - If I Had Eyes, Jack Johnson

ADAM - Sleep Through the Static, Jack Johnson

RESET - Same Girl, Jack Johnson

DEAD MAN WALKING - That's Not My Name, The Ting Tings

A DAY IN THE DEATH - I Thought It Was Over, The Feeling

SOMETHING BORROWED - Delayed Devotion, Duffy

FROM OUT OF THE RAIN - I'm Scared, Duffy

ADRIFT - Serious, Duffy

FRAGMENTS - Hanging On Too Long, Duffy

EXIT WOUNDS - American Boy, Estelle

PARTNERS IN CRIME - Living Well Is The Best Revenge, REM

THE FIRES OF POMPEII - Until the Day is Done, REM

PLANET OF THE OOD - 4 Minutes, Madonna

THE SONTARAN STRATAGEM - I Don't Like You Any More, The Last Shadow Puppets

THE POISON SKY - My Mistakes Were Made For You, The Last Shadow Puppets

THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER - She's Not Me, Madonna

THE UNICORN AND THE WASP - Another Day That Time Forgot, Neil Diamond

SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY - Appetite, Usher

FOREST OF THE DEAD - Singing in the Rain, Mint Royale

MIDNIGHT - Death and All His Friends, Coldplay

TURN LEFT - Viva la Vida, Coldplay

THE STOLEN EARTH - Cemetaries of London, Coldplay

JOURNEY'S END - Life in Technicolour, Coldplay

I'm no Chris Hale, but...


My Manga-style impressionistic artwork for Countdown to Armageddon, mainly the bits of Logopolis. The Master is holding the masks he wears in the story, plus his official Time Lord robes, to give something unique to the story. Well, to try...


This is my original idea for the artwork, in a YOA style...


This is the page where I tried to draw Dara as she had been sold to me - a companion I didn't actively despise. I eventually came up with the twelve-year-old version in overalls and T-shirt, which not only looks asthetically pleasing but as a young girl she can get away with the stupidity of the twenty-year-old character on the audios. Played by someone much older. I was trying to get that 'bored at being left out' expression right for simply ages. I like Manga Dara a lot more than the real thing...


My artwork trying to work out a look for Mark Triyad. At one point I went for a Sam Tyler angle, to reflect his status as a beacon of sanity, which lead to the Philip Glenister Master... which was a whole new space. Then I tried a Brock-from-Pokemon look which didn't work, along with outline sketches for above and below...


My artwork for the very first Jeffrey Coburn story, Apollyon as Mark and Dara realize who is who. See the subtle clues such as the Doctor weilding the tissue compression eliminator and the Master not wearing his gloves. Dara of course keeps the old Doctor's scarf - it's the kind of stupid thing she'd do, yet this version seems endearing in that she probably thinks she's helping. I'm also pleased with the Master/Doctor's contemptous expression to the interlopers, trying to capture Coburn's almost John Simms cruel villainy...

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Mindless Youtube Mention

SPIKE: Come on! Sing along - it's our song!
JACK: We don't have a song! And if we DID have a song it WOULDN'T be this song!
SPIKE: You're no fun...


While prowling the internet I grew disenchanted at the sheer number of blogs that seem to think linking to random youtube vids was a valid use of bandwidth. Not like old Johnstone, who after all MAKES the vids in question, but just "huh, that's funny" look at this. It makes me fear some kind of 1984 conspiracy to destroy language and have human beings left unable to communicate in any way other that youtube video recommendations. A clue: doubleplusungood.

But if I were ever to compromise my prinicipals and follow the heard (no, the last time I was uploading a video off my computer) completely different, it would be this.

I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper by Hot Gossip.

Why link to it? Because it is the single most ridiculously disturbing vid I have ever seen. Before I saw it, the wierdest youtube had to offer seemed to comprise of Gary Glitter teaming up with KLF - whereupon he changed the lyrics of "Doctor'n the Tardis", had KLF dress up as members of the KKK and then chewed the scenary in an outfit that screamed Space Rat Offspring. But this...

Well, I stumbled across it following finally downloading The Musical History of Doctor Who - basically a clipshow of the Classic Series backed by the chart toppers for a given story, often with amusing irony ("Walk Tall" for Planet of Giants, "Dizzy" for The War Games, "I Don't Like Spiders" for Planet of Spiders, etc.) Starship Trooper was, oddly enough, the song for The Androids of Tara and, mildly entertained by the bubblegum chorus, I prowled youtube for the rest of the song (when youtube was working, naturally). I was expecting disappointment. After all, the bit for City of Death had a beautiful choir-like tune which turned out to be the ONLY bearable part of Are Friends Electric?

But the rather disappointing pop culture lyrics, 2001 riffs and random "communications" talk were not what shocked me. For I finally understand why Spike/Captain John and many others in the decadent 51st century love this song. I finally know why Izzy Sinclair knows the lyrics by heart, but I'll be generous and assume she just fancied the singers, because anything else suggests she's too kinky to be a magazine children read.

Because this is something else.

Frankly, had everyone been in leather masks with whips and spikes, I would have found it more wholesome. When Not The Nine O'Clock News did their Blatant Pornography single (Rowan Atkinson, Gryff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith wearily vogue as scantily-clad prostitutes sexually assault them), that was a sanitized version for this.

It starts off with lots of swirling dry ice and a black man, stripped to the waist, chained to a table and painted silver, mouthing to some 'NASA astronaut talk', staring blankly ahead as we zoom in between his splayed legs.

And then it just goes downhill.

Lots of women in ridiculous silver bathing outfits doing strange haka-like mating dances, erotic gymnastics and dodging the mirrorballs dangling around the place. Odd how by 2000s standards they are pretty well covered up, but somehow putting them in glittery silver body stockings and wigs screams exploitation. They then limber up with Incredibly Camp Black Guy, throwing glitter around the place while the backing singers seem to have retreated into the Dark Places of the Inside to escape this humiliation. None of them make eye contact, presumably out of shame. The fact they have to all molest each other while not looking in the same direction shows this was choreographed by someone with WAY too much time on their hands.

The woman presumably in charge of this, Sarah Brightman, scares me as her eyes seem to be the sort that turn people to stone. Well, actually, I'm not even sure that's her, but there's one lady whose eyes seem ever bigger than her eye sockets, unblinking and bright yellow.

I watched this with kind of enthusiasm that comes from getting spam emails promising to provide me with images of my daughter naked with a trained chimpanzee - ie, very little. She'd never settle for anything less than a baboon, anyway. That add withn all the full frontal nudity on The Gruen Transfer was a breath of unpretentious fresh air compared to this, and several other strapping black guys in chains turn up, as if trying to degrade themselves even more than the white women who walk robotically around the chorus holding dumbbells level with their breasts (last of the girls is Spooky Eyes at 1:34 - seriously, how fucking disturbing is that? Vashta Nerada WISHES it could be as disturbing as this...)

Yet, as what happens when you do something ridiculous long enough, I started to laugh hysterically. If LBC and Nigel Verkoff got in charge of a sci-fi lesbian orgy and a tank of laughing gas, they couldn't come up with something as downright naughty and ridiculous as this. Even pubescent teenagers full of raging hormones must have marvelled as they managed this entire film clip without Graham Chapman turning up in a Brigadier outfit and pointing out that everything's gotten a bit silly and things need sorting out.

I haven't laughed so much since Frank Woodley tried to bare his nipples on national television and managed to get a completely different part of his anatomy out in front of the Australian public. It is the Rob Shearman "Jubilee" of 1970s sexploitation disco music video clips, accept no subsitutes.

Seriously... WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THIS UP?!? WHAT WERE THEY SMOKING? AND HOW MUCH IS IT?!?



And now your brain is left bleeding and bruised, this is the only other version of said same song I can find from some truly demented late night entertainment show called Rodge and Podge - the titular Irish muppet perverts. Wait for a few seconds before the music starts and marvel at the sight of the singer - exhausted, drunk and not a hundred per cent sure of what she's supposed to be singing - put in front of a microphone.

Yet, for some reason, I like this version better than the original.

Friday, July 18, 2008

The Daleks' Revenge!

Intro: this was written BEFORE I had to have my dog put down. Fancy that.

Oooh, that's a very pathetic blog post title, even if I do say so myself. You need to have read a TV Comic strip to even get the reference! My less-than-worthy topic is a review of a DWAD from the distant year of 1984. While Peter Davison was fighting the metallic gits on TV in his most poorly-script-edited story in all of human history, a handful of American fans were piss-farting about in front of their microphones and Revenge of the Daleks has been uploaded, available for first time since... how should I know?

Well, the opening episode has and I might as well check it out.

Our story begins with a terrifyingly young and nasal Dave Segal Doctor talking to himself... I do beg your pardon, he's actually talking to K9, also voiced by Segal and the robot dog sounds more like his televisual incarnation than the Doctor does. You can tell this thing wasn't ever meant for public consumption. Hearing someone you know doing a rather dodgy double act as the Doctor and K9 try to fix the TARDIS might have some appeal, but I doubt it is widespread. The sound quality is pretty poor, lost under a redubbed 'irritatingly chirpy' Dudley Simpson tune, but we're not missing much unless your world NEEDS another "Right, K9, I'll ignore you and fiddle with this until it goes bang and then sheepishly pretend to be your best friend so you can help me fix it" type scene that typifies the gutless and childish incarnation we all know and - if we gave enough thought to - might hate.

Meanwhile... er... stuff is happening. Some guy is showing his girlfriend around his home town of Sillyname New York, and judging by the Sandra Dickenson soundalike's use of the word "quadrant", the girlfriend is not from around these parts. Is, perhaps, this couple some of the TARDIS crew taking a vacation while the Doctor and his amusing talking dog fix the time machine? Honest question there. Oh, they're on a beach and the guy wants 'Sara' to marry him, and some odd thing distracts him. Sara, clearly not being the brightest knife in the picnic hamper, is unable to extrapolate the word "marry" from Awkward Guy's interrupted sentence. Did she just tune out as he took this vacation to bitch about (presumably) the other TARDIS travellers?

Eitherway, Akward Guy (who I shall now refer to as Tarrant till he is named) is more interested in the distraction than getting Sara to marry him. I'd say this was a narrow escape, but Tarrant is being played by a half-asleep actor that doesn't give a damn. I yearn for Chip Jamison who at least had enthusiasm. Tarrant sounds like he's babysitting a particularly tiresome 8-year-old girl who wants to play house, which is ironic as that's exactly what Sara sounds like. But let us away, something that Tarrant has never ever seen before in his life is doing something similarly incomparable, and niether of our heroes sounds like they give a shit! Sara's warm apple sauce for a brain recognizes the odd thing as something she saw, but she forgot, and even if she did remember, it couldn't be. Very helpful, babe, why don't you just pitch about having to carry a picnic hamper while us menfolk use our mighty frontal lobes?

Meanwhile, two other guys are in a cave. And one of them is also not from around here, judging by his disdainful opinion of "Earth". The other guy has "an eerie feeling" but, like the others, doesn't sound remotely interested. His pal definitely isn't, and after some dramatic pauses, move on with their lives. The two guys (similarly unnamed, so I will call them Dr. Spoon and Chamber) are exploring the cave and find... a dead end! Why the hell are they in the cave anyway? WHO are they? They stumble across a button and Dr. Spoon declares it a booby trap. Chamber points out that booby-trapping a button at the back of a cave on a beach no one goes to is a tad unlikely.

So Dr. Spoon suggests, with no basis whatsoever, it MIGHT be the Daleks. Chamber pisses himself laughing at the very suggestion and calls into question the veracity of Dr. Spoon's parentage, suggesting that his mum and dad were at least first cousins. No, wait, I'm transfering in place of waiting for the slightest clue of what's going on. Anyway, Chamber ridicules the idea of Daleks being on Earth.

But, gazooks! We cut straight to some Dalek base where our gargling-voiced robo-mutants are ordering underlings to tell them things they already know - which is very curteous. If only the other people in this story would shout, "REPORT!" to each other, huh? Detecting unauthorized movement, the Daleks sound out Daleks to investigate. Why their detectors don't actually tell them what they're looking for, I dunno, just as I dunno why such simple Dalek dialogue needed to be nicked from Destiny of the Daleks. Even Helen Raynor can manage original dialogue for them! But, no, they're already wretching "SEEK-LOCATE-EXTERMINATE!" around the place even though they don't know if there's anything to exterminate.

Meanwhile, Dr. Spoon has steadfastly refused to explain why Daleks would be on Earth, how he knows they're there or why he was looking for them and instead insults Chamber and throws him onto some bamboo shoots. Well, that's what it sounds like. This is somehow able to let them avoid the Daleks and escape the cave. Ah, bamboo shoots - is there ANYTHING they can't do? Apart from explaining the plot. I'm starting to wonder if Dr. Spoon is actually the Doctor and I've gotten confused with all the similar voices...

Our unnamed heroes are now inside the Dalek base... I think... and continue to wonder what the hell the plot is about. Just then Chamber screams loudly that they're surrounded by Daleks, who not only speak in quotes from Destiny of the Daleks, it's actually soundbites from Destiny of the Daleks! Why not do this earlier? Dr. Spoon and Chamber then run away, and somehow survive without being exterminated... only to get lost. Dr. Spoon decides to use "eenie meenie minie moe" to get them out of this fix, unaware that the Dalek Leader has been going "You will exterminate them. You will exterminate them not." as it counts its cornflakes and finally decided to go with the "exterminate" option. This moment is truly damning as one of the Daleks has forgotten to put on their ring modulator and sounds like a 12-year-old trying to sound sarcastic.

Nine minutes into the story and still without a single concrete idea about what the hell is going on, Dr. Spoon decides they must conquer K9 and hope that the smug metal mutt can convince New York there are Daleks in an underground base... somewhere nearby. Chamber finds this deeply pathetic, a step away from texting Torchwood, but Dr. Spoon is simply inspired and thus goes for getting K9 to contact the Brigadier instead. K9 seems to think Dr. Spoon is his master... but it doesn't SOUND like Dave Segal. And I know what he sounds like.

Nevertheless, the Doctor seems to be Dr. Spoon, so. Right. He tells K9 (how? I have no idea. Maybe he is telepathically linked with K9... or maybe K9 has been with them all along... oh, wait he has a two-way radio rebuilt into the robot dog... OK...) to 'get the car ready'. It seems that the guy I THOUGHT was the Doctor is someone else and has been trying to fix the TARDIS with K9 with limited results. This loser shall be referred to as Vila until further notice. Despite having seemingly wrecked "the car", Vila and K9 are under orders to take the time machine to cave by the beach, while the Doctor and Chamber... uh... well, I dunno. Avoid Daleks?

Chamber points out that ringing up K9 has probably attracted every Dalek on the base and they are twelve kinds of screwed. Grimly, the Doctor decides that more running up and down corridors is required. They somehow find their way back to the beach where the 'car' is waiting for them (why they are giving the TARDIS this odd nickname, I dunno... in fact, it might be some kind of real car), and half way through expositing this, the Doctor and Chamber are bushwhacked by a Dalek, now speaking its own dialogue albeit dialogue that could have been nicked from Destiny of the Daleks soundtrack if required. So they run away. The Dalek has a confidence attack and rings its boss to ask for further instructions, which turn out to be "just SHOOT them, dipstick!"

A way of soundbite Daleks sweep out of the base and the Doctor and Chamber get into the car (which seems to be an actual car... somehow) and after a blizzard of stock sound effects, escape. I think it's The Whomobile, but its existence is shortlived as, in a scene nicked from Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150AD, a passing UFO blows it to smithereen in an even longer blizzard of stock sound effects. The Doctor bitches this is the third car he's lost and Chamber tells him to fucking grow up. The Doctor takes this on the chin and decides to flee to the TARDIS and head to Skaro to complain. Chamber dubs the Doctor beyond stupid and the strange scarfed nutter runs off. Quickly coming the conclusion he'll be more involved in the plot if he stays with the Doctor, Chamber follows...

"I dunno know you talk me into these things..."
"It's very easy when you know how."

"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."

I dunno, but for some reason that exchange is genuinely amusing.

My grip on the plot starts to slip at this point as the time machine reappears in "Downtown Hades" with Tarrant and Sara along with the Doctor and Chamber (one of them is referred to as "Tom", but I dunno which is which). Sara, for her part, is rather annoyed at the slagging off Skaro gets. Apparently, she was born there. Which pretty much demolishes Tarrant's feeble arguments. Um, OK. The Doctor (who sounds uncannily like Chang Lee rather than, say, Dave Segal) explains he has brought Sara here because she knows about Skaro and the Daleks than anything and anyone else. Odd how she kept scratching her head and getting deja vu when she struggled to name one of the buggers...

The TARDIS crew set off across the quarry in the rain, towards a trench which the Doctor instantly puts down to Dalek activity. And, gazooks, the Doctor immediately steps on a landmine... just like that bit from Genesis of the Daleks... "Again?!" exclaims Sara, clearly annoyed of the plot recycling as I am. Surely after 8000 years, most of the mines would be a tad defunct? Nevertheless, Tarrant and Chamber's attempts to save the Doctor are about as useless as you'd expect as they get their hands stuck, set off timers, break the sonic screwdriver, exchange insults and generally do everything possible to blow them all up.

And then it turns out the mine WAS broken anyway!

With only three minutes for the rest of the episode, Tarrant puts his foot in a slimy Dalek mutant... just like that bit from Destiny of the Daleks. They reach the end of the trench which ends in a storage room and our incompetent protagonists explore, while Sara their font of all knowledge... does not say a damn thing. I'd suspect they forgot to bring her with them, the bunch of twits.

Meanwhile, some Daleks bitch at each other that there's someone at the front door and throw a gas bomb down the air vent to get rid of the irritating central cast, who immediately argue, complain and manifestly fail to hold their breath as told. Soon, all four are completely overwhelmed by the fumes... just like that bit from Underworld.

And cue cliffhanger! The titles reveal that... Chamber doesn't exist! At all! Somehow Chamber AND Tarrant were the same person... called Tom Anderson. Which of course, makes complete and total sense...

And now, a rather lame justification for that post title, like I promised...



Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Random Crap

Ron "GAHHH!" Mallet has taken down his site. All those... incomparable stories have been lost. Those incandescently arrogant treatise on why the new series was ripping him off. His vile-filled BF reviews. That annoying background hum to his website. All gone. Oh well. I've still got the stories on the harddrive and apparently they're stinking up Teaspoon and an Open Mind, but maybe we should wear black arm bands in respect. Maybe have a minute's fevered ranting that RTD is a spiteful sexual deviant out to destroy everything we hold dear. Or, you know, maybe just party?

Sapphire & Steel 3.0. The expression "what the fuck?" leaps to mind as I listen to the first few minutes of their new adventure. I was prepared for the fact the new duo were young Australian bodybuilders but... well. As Will Anderson pointed out, an Australian's accent expands out of control the further you get from the mother country, which must be why 80% of BF Aussies sound utterly awful and unconvincing EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE PROPER AUSTRALIANS. But even that did not prepare me for the fact that the story is, pretty much, a word for word remake of Assignment 1, the first story with Joanna Lumbly and David McCallum. A reboot version with these... newbies. While the whole 'regeneration' thing is part of the confusing mystery of who and what S&S are, the point was they seemed to be the same people no matter what they looked like. These two seem completely different. The cold, formal and icily polite Steel is now grunting, "Let's ave a captain cook at yer bedroom" and describing the formerly warm, friendly and compassionate Sapphire as "a hardarse". All of it gives the nasty impression that Sapphire and Steel have shuffled off this mortal coil and two strangers have been drafted in and got the same codenames. And bagging out DVDs of The Tomorrow People? Please!

So... Lemon Bloody Cola was taking the piss all along. It's disappointing yet reassuring simultaneously. Good that he finally revealed the truth though, otherwise it would be like Little Britain where you have to wait for a season finale to get any kind of decent punchline to the catchphrase-based skits. And he also managed to stay so completely in character everyone who thought him a gimmick poster began to wonder... and fear. The question of whether "crack-addicted looters kill the Tenth Doctor" Sparacus is just as serious. And in retrospect, the boycotting of LBC BC fics seems reasonable, dunnit?

Christ I hate the dentists. I've only been on the operating chair three times in my 23ish years. The first time I swore off them when the dentist offered me SWEETS. Even if I could stand the things, I know when someone's touting for business, wanting to get my teeth rotten so I'll come back. Then, one night, lump of tooth comes loose. Next day, go to a dentist and SUFFER. Now, I am no wuss. I say that as a matter of fact rather than any boasting, but even I'm not butch enough to cope with a razor-sharp hook being jammed into my gums. Repeatedly. By a specialist who has just told me how bloody sensitive they are. Seriously, I'd have thought that after years in the dental profession they'd know how to AIM for the bloody teeth. And the thing is, you can't do anything about the pain. You can't scream, joke, roll your eyes, move, pace, distract yourself. You have to stay still as they do strange scraping things to your teeth, your teeth you were 98% happy with and until the tooth lump incident swore blind you'd be buried with. And then, when the torment is over and my teeth STILL hurt because all the 20 years of insulating plaque that kept them safe and warm is gone, the bitches offer me whitening of the teeth. For $400! I bet if I'd been a regular there, they'd offer me sweets.

Gosh, I never actually got round to bitching that Turn Left could be considered a rip off of my Season 4 pitch. Mainly as it only just struck me. I was trying to avoid a big epic season finale (obviously getting entirely the wrong direction from RTD) and my idea was a simple Sontaran/Rutan conflict that ended with the Doctor apparently dying. This would lead to an ep with the Doctor ascending to Heaven and then meeting Martha Jones, interspersed with Donna staying on Earth and watching it cope sans Doctor. Of course, the ep would reveal the Doctor wasn't ACTUALLY in heaven, but his "soul" was being stolen with some unscrupulous aliens, and he found this out by continually questioning the nature of heaven. Like why he was the only Time Lord there, stuff like that. I had a great bit where he finds a tower with a huge TV into it and shows you where the dead end up, and pretty much everyone he knows went to hell for crimes like theft, murder, blasphemy... Then Martha (evil alien Martha) would point out, "You don't mind a system that gives eternal reward, but if it balances with eternal damnation, that's just not on, is it?" It ended with the Doctor returning to life to find himself in some strange situation, kind of like Deadpool or Cerebus, where brief trips to the afterlife are an excuse for wierd shit of Mind Robber proportions to occur. Will I ever do a Season 5 pitch, I ask myself?

It's mindboggling to realize I'm literally drowning in Doctor Who at a time when I've been so bummed out the TV series is temporarily no more. A whole heap of comic strips from every and any Doctor (even the Peter Cushing one! Fighting Daleks! ON MARS!!!!), a massive amount of 8th Doctor audios. Books too, and even the first ever bit of Doctor Who fiction, The Invasion from Space (yeah, titles not so good then), plus bunches of FASA role playing games I still can't wrap my head around. How the hell do you play them? It's just a bunch of fact files about stuff I already know. Is it just supposed to fire my imagination or something? I boggle.

I've also got on the backberner The Slide and Aliens in the Mind - oddly enough, two 1960s Doctor Who stories whose first draft stages have been turned into radio plays. The Slide was the original version of Fury from the Deep, except it's set in a rural English village struck by mysterious earthquakes with evil possessing mud rather than set on a North Sea rig struck by mysterious foam and evil possessing seaweed. And get this, they hastily changed the character of the Doctor to a passing scientist Gomez... played by Roger Delgado. Oh, my head! As for Aliens of the Mind, it's either the infamous lost Robert Holmes story (imagine Tomorrow People meets Midwich Cuckoos) which was about the only plot he offered that never made it to screen in some form... or it's something else entirely. Should be worth listening to.

Seriously, would Big Finish bring back Adric and not have him played by Matthew Waterhouse? It's just there's this Fifth Doctor and Nyssa story called The Boy That Time Forgot where they go back to the Jurassic and find an old man in a cave who recognizes them and they him... I hope it isn't. I mean, even in the 1980s Waterhouse could act. More or less. When the script wasn't portraying him as a complete fucknuckle. I feel confident that 30 years later the guy's acting would have matured to somewhere around "acceptable". Actually, why am I complaining when the very IDEA of revealing Adric didn't die is... STUPID! I've already ranted to anyone who listens that the poetic tragedy of Androzani is undercut at the very idea that the Doctor knew Peri for longer than an afternoon, let alone the Erimem business. Bringing back ADRIC? Doesn't that, you know, contradict 81 billion stories. And not just books. That's... look, I like Adric, but suggesting that at some point between seasons 19 and 20 the Doctor found out he was alive and well, and never actually mentioned it. That's stupid. Ben Chatham being canon is more reasonable. I mean, the brilliant bit in Terminus where the Doctor tells Tegan to let Turlough have Adric's room, then hurries off into the depths of the TARDIS to brood suddenly looks incredibly retarded and childish. Surely I'm not the only one this buggs?

Is Avon a psychopath? No. I was just laughing hysterically at Jared's 'date with Iago' which shows an awkward romantic liason as embarassing as one that Nigel Verkoff might have had, when it struck me with my new "no, Alan Stevens IS talking bollocks" outlook, that a psychopath by definition is unable to empathize with others. Every possible psycho is a variation on that basic premise. But Avon's life is littered with examples of him being quite able of understanding how people think and feel, his uncaring demeanour quite clearly a survival mechanism. Look at Countdown. A psychopath would not have saved Del Grant. Or even wasted time talking to him. Or felt guilt. But the ultimate proof that Avon never was a psycho can be found in Sarcophagus. As the Alien begs Avon to let her live, look at his face. Regret. Anguish, perhaps. But when he tosses the ring into the fire, it is a real "lesser of two evils" thing. The Alien's not as important as Cally. Now, this is NOT "Paul Darrow keeping his face completely expressionless and my puny emotions being overlaid", because you get to see Ghost Avon doing that. But the real Avon looks sad.

Gosh, 12.50. Best retire.

Monday, July 14, 2008

If *I* Had Written Journey's End...

...you know the deal.

So...

The Earth has been taken to the heart of the Medusa Cascade with 26 other worlds, the heart of the New Dalek Empire. As humanity falls before the might of the metal bastards, Harriet Jones manages to unite Torchwood, Sarah Jane Smith and Martha Jones, and they summon the Doctor. When he arrives, he finds his longlost best friend Rose Tyler... and a trigger-happy Dalek. Mortally wounded, the Doctor is dragged back to the time machine by Donna, Rose and Captain Jack while the Daleks regroup and attack...

Aboard the TARDIS, the trio watch as the horrified Doctor slides away into death, glowing brightly on the floor and transforming into Nicholas Briggs! So stunned are they by this development, they don't notice his spare hand also glowing violently in its bubbling container. The new Doctor is dazed but more or less coherent as he struggles to get up ("How do I look, Jack?" "Ah... you been better." "Charming..."), telling off Donna and Rose as they boggle at his new body. Better having to get a new wardrobe than one of his friends dying. As the Doctor slumps into the pilot chair, he snaps at Rose to tell him what's happening. This new incarnation is a bit more formal and a lot less cuddly than the last one.

Jack meanwhile contacts the Hub. Ianto and Gwen are fleeing into the depths of the Hub as the Dalek hunts them down. Yeah, the Daleks only bothered to send one Dalek to nuke the lot of them cause even Daleks know how crap Torchwood is. Gwen frees Betty and Veronica the Weevils to attack the Dalek... and the Weevils run like fuck in the opposite direction. Ianto and Gwen run onwards. Meanwhile, Martha and Francince teleport to the Hub to find themselves with Jack on the answer phone...

Meanwhile, SJ accidentally bumps into two Daleks who, annoyed, prepare to blast her dead. Thinking quickly, our reporter claims she has information for Davros - and the fact any human knows of our favorite blind cripple gives the Daleks pause for thought. They agree to spare her and take her to the Crucible. Davros, getting told there's a journo to see him, asks the Supreme Dalek what the fuck he's on about. He's shown a picture of Sarah. Nope. Don't recognize her. Send her to be tested.

At the Hub, Jack checks readings on the console and tells Martha how to use the rift manipulator. As Ianto and Gwen flee back into the chamber, they slam down lots of levers and the oncoming Dalek rusts into dust before it fully enters the room. Jack punches the air and explains he's used the TARDIS and the rift manipulator to make a Time Lock. The Doctor acidly points out that he's effectively entombed Martha and the others forever - it'll take the best part of five centuries for the Lock to dephase, and nothing can get in or out.

As Martha and co ponder what the hell to do now, the Doctor and Rose talk. She explains that Pete's World is 3 years in the future, and she has been building a device to break through the walls in reality in the hope of finding the Doctor. The Doctor calls her a complete bloody moron ("What part of destroy the universe didn't I make clear?!") but Donna forces him to admit that he's actually glad to see blondie again. Rose explains that her Torchwood helped her when it became clear that the stars were going out, even planets were vanishing in "the darkness". Some kind of energy is sweeping through every dimension and destroying all matter. Rose managed to break the dimension wall and tracked down the Doctor to the moment they parted company, only to find herself on the Trickster Earth where he died. She managed to put things back on track.

Donna asks why everything on Shan Shen turned to say "BAD WOLF" and the Doctor notes it was just the TARDIS panicking via its translation circuits. Clearly this darkness is going to be triggered by the events in the Medusa Cascade, but if they can stop it, not only will every universe be saved, but Rose will never have punctured the dimensions. The risk to everything will unhappen. Rose doesn't like the way this is going, afraid she'll pop out of reality and return to Pete's World. The Doctor notes it may not come to that, but does not elaborate. He is just about ready to walks again...

Meanwhile, the Daleks have surrounded the TARDIS. On their command, they press their suckers against the police box and temporal shift to the heart of the crucible. The Supreme Dalek orders various technobabble to be placed and suddenly the Doctor, Donna, Jack and Rose are left cramped in a police box! The Doctor bitches that these Daleks aren't the pathetic losers they've had to face since 2005, but the real deal - and they've detached the TARDIS interior and exterior. The TARDIS is just a very fragile police box, so they better obediently step outside before the Daleks blow it up. Donna notices that the hand is still here, beside a curious slot in the police box floor. With a sudden crazed look, the Doctor hands Donna the sonic screwdriver and tells her to wait his signal. He's got a plan, and all concerned note that he's still the Doctor, despite looking like a bald toothbrush-wielding maniac...

Back on Earth, Martha explains to the others about the Osterhagen Key. Back in the 1970s, UNIT discovered a fault line running through the core of the Earth which, if tampered with, could trigger the destruction of the Earth (cue crappy Inferno summary). Osterhagen placed a nuclear device in that fault line as the final option. Should it go off, Earth will be utterly destroyed in a matter of hours. The others are horrified, but Ianto notes that it is something of a bargaining chip. The Daleks NEED Earth... and they have the chance to stop the Daleks if nothing else. Elsewhere, Luke is taken aback as there is a knock at the door. Mr Smith grows his laser guns, and is surprised when the caller turns out to be Captain John Hart.

On the Crucible, the Doctor, Jack and Rose emerge from the TARDIS and are confronted by the Supreme Dalek. The Doctor rolls his eyes. As Daleks go, this is the Saddam Hussein 70s porn star of the Dalek Empire, the one even the Emperor found irritating. The Supreme Dalek tells the Doctor to shut his lying mouth, while the attending Daleks point out that there's another companion in the TARDIS. The Supreme Dalek tells the Doctor to order her to emerge, but Rose starts taunting the Supreme Dalek as well. The Doctor nears a control console as Jack orders the Daleks to surrender. The Supreme Dalek stares at Jack for a moment, then shoots him.

But Jack gets back up again.

Terrified, all the Daleks open fire on Jack, while the Doctor starts frantically operating controls. The Supreme Dalek activates the nifty trap door and sends the police box plunging into the heart of the Crucible before the Doctor can cancel the dampener field. The Daleks realize they can't exterminate Jack... but they might be able to do it to Rose. The Doctor is forced to back down as the still-not-at-all-indestructible TARDIS plunges to its doom. Inside, Donna is too busy trying to stay inside the box to worry about the hand, which starts glowing brighter and brighter. When a jolt makes her touch the jar, it explodes and the hand grows a brand new Tenth Doctor... naked... and in a very confined space.

In the Crucible control room, the Doctor warns the Daleks that they are tampering with things they can't understand. The Doctor is the only survivor of the Time War - these Daleks were cowards who fled. They didn't see what he saw, or know what he has become. And if he can make Jack utterly immortal and indestructible, maybe it's not such a good idea to throw the last TARDIS in the universe into the heart of their oh-so-impressive Crucible. The Supreme Dalek tells the other Daleks, who are starting to get a tad worried, to shut the hell up. It knows what it's doing. And when the Doctor suddenly collapses, groaning, things look bleak.

The TARDIS finally hits the fireball, as the naked Tenth Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver and kapow! The control room unfolds into existence around them. The Tenth Doctor explains cheerfully that the Eleventh has sabotaged the Dalek systems that are suppressing the TARDIS, allowing him to pull it together again. Then suddenly all the roundels explode and the room bursts into flames. The defense shields are down and all they've managed is to buy the TARDIS a few more minutes of life.

The Doctor explains to Rose he's linked with the TARDIS and can feel it dying - but that means that Donna has got the interior working again. He notices his hand start to glow, and becomes delirious. Jack is dragged out of the room by the Daleks, desperately trying to crush his skull with their suckers. The Supreme Dalek watches the TARDIS bobbing in the flames. The Doctor shouts out that this is all part of the Time Lord's plan - and even if he's talking crap, the Supreme Dalek is getting rid of some seriously useful technology. The Supreme tells the Doctor to shut the hell up, and is reminded that it's not technically the Supreme Dalek. It's a field promotion, because all its superiors are dead, not a reflection on its skills. "You don't have the genome for it!" Rose mocks. The TARDIS vanishes in the fireball and the Supreme Dalek announces it is destroyed. It then orders the Doctor and Rose to be taken to the Vault to be dealt with by Davros.

As Jack is thrown protesting into a disposal chute (only to emerge a few moments later taking the piss out of the Daleks) Sarah Jane Smith is taken to a football-stadium sized place filled with people. The Daleks have taken crowds from London to use in the test, mainly since they happened to be the easiest to get as the Daleks lay in wait for the Doctor to turn up. As she awaits the test, Sarah realizes in the crowd... is Mickey Smith!

On Earth, Captain John explains his time agent wrist thing (TM) isn't working and so he homed in on the most advanced technology he could find on Earth: Mr. Smith. He finds it typical that some mad old woman in suburbia is more advanced than Torchwood, and, after getting some lip from the said computer after he flirts with a 14 year old boy, Captain John contacts with Torchwood. Gwen and Ianto know who he is, and Martha quickly deduces he's a time traveller like Jack ("I can tell from your walk.") Captain John is not exactly delighted at their plans for thermonuclear destruction, but agrees. He's never met Daleks before, but heard a lot about them. He kind of expected them to be a tad smaller. And sound more like Smurfs. They agree to set up the blackmail of the Daleks... until they discover the Daleks are leaving Earth, en masse. Mal Loup says the Americans are to be congratulated for scaring them off, and the total destruction of half their military (and the world's military, come to that) is entirely incidental. Spin doctors are already suggesting it become a public holiday, but no one is willing to leave their homes.

The Doctor and Rose are taken to the vault and trapped in holding cells as Davros arrives. The Doctor notes that Davros is still scared of him, and puts the mutant cripple in his place - the Daleks changed history and saved Davros in the Time War NOT because they needed him, but because they were altering their own destiny. He's incidental. Which is why he was locked in the vault, and no one asked him for tactics. Davros notes that this was, kinda, what happened... but after Dalek Caan turned up and rescued them, the Daleks agreed that Davros was the better leader. He allows the Supreme Dalek to do all the day-to-day extermination and also it's part of etiquette. The Doctor and Davros put aside their differences to wonder just what a dork the Supreme Dalek is - that utterly pointless neckbrace, what's up with that?!

Davros explains that when Caan saved them, the ripple from breaking the time lock around the Time War caused several planets to drop out of existence and arrive in the Medusa Cascade. Intrigued, Davros discovered the Cascade is a sealed-over rift in the multiverse, whose properties make the Cascade incredibly interesting. After rebuilding his forces, Davros created the Crucible, which drew another twenty-six planets of just the right densities to warp the Cascade into a giant transmitter. From there, and using Dalek Caan's oracle abilities, Davros watched what the Doctor got up to after the war. Amused at the whole Delta Wave fiasco, Davros has decided to adapt that strategy. Just to screw with the Doctor that extra little bit.

The Doctor points out that Van Cassadine energy on such a scale would not only be uncontrollable, it would burn out rapidly. At best, the Crucible would wipe the Medusa Cascade clean of life, but not touch anything outside it. Davros points out that he KNEW that, he's not stupid! He's using the idea, not the practice. And if they want to know more they can shut the hell up while he tests the Reality Bomb on the gathered humans.

At that moment, Captain John contacts the Crucible, along with feed from the Hub. ("Conference calls! How retro!") John explains that they can destroy the entire Earth, and upset the whole balance of the Medusa Cascade. The Doctor is horrified and calls out to Martha... but she has no idea who baldie and blondie are. She points out that the Hub is Time Locked and nothing can stop them from setting off the destruction of Earth. Davros laughs at them. They have NO idea who they're messing with.

At Davros' command, the testing carries out and the captured humans vaporize. Apart from Mickey and Sarah who leapfrogged to safety with his interdimensional gear. Mickey explains he followed Rose to this Earth when she failed to contact Pete's World Torchwood Control, but got caught in the exodus. Mickey suggests they try and steal a way back down to Earth (his teleporter doesn't work for another 30 minutes), but Sarah insists they stay and find the Doctor. They turn and are confronted by Captain Jack and a Dalek. Since they cannot exterminate the fucker, the Daleks decided to take him to the nearest airlock. Mickey throws his dimension jumper against the Dalek and activates it... but it still hasn't fulled charged up, and so half the Dalek vanishes, while the rest bleeds to death.

Meantime, our Earthbound heroes are gobsmacked at what they saw. Captain John and Mr. Smith are starting to understand what they saw, but Davros is quite happy to explain. The energy at the heart of the Crucible can be used to cause the molecular structure of matter to collapse. However, no one has ever been able to harness the energy to anything more than the size of an apple. However, the Crucible has been charging itself up for centuries, and the Cascade will act as a transmitter destroying everything outside the Crucible, turning the whole universe into darkness. The increasingly unwell Doctor points out that includes the 27 planets that make up the transmitter, but by that time the signal will be unstoppable. And when the whole universe is gone, the Medusa Cascade itself will finally shatter, the rift open and the signal will spread into every other universe.

Rose shouts that it can't work. "Of course it will work, Miss Tyler," Davros responds. "You've seen it."

The Doctor confirms that the 'darkness' Rose was fleeing wasn't some black cloud but the signal snuffing out the stars and planets. But he's still utterly convinced that that can be changed. The Daleks are still thinking the universe works the way it did before the Time War. "And that's why they will lose," the Doctor sneers.

Davros points out that they cannot be stopped. The signal will be ready in fifteen minutes - a lot quicker than Torchwood can destroy the Earth, and, after all, the Doctor doesn't want them to do it anyway, does he? Davros glides around the Doctor, explaining that he has watched the Time Lord's adventures. He's seen the corpses left in the wake of his lifestyle and arrogance, the lives snuffed out in his name.

The Doctor stares at Davros. "Amazing. You almost sound like you care. Davros, you're planning to destroy every single living thin in reality. You don't have the moral highground, I think you'll find."

"Then why does the concept bother you?"

"Because the idea that you've seen everything I've done and STILL think you can stop me suggests that your great genius died long ago. Sad really."

"You cannot stop me! You have nothing!"

"He's got friends," points out a voice behind them.

Everyone turns to see Jack, Sarah and Mickey standing there - and Jack shoots Davros in the chest. Davros laughs and activates the holding cells, trapping the three of them, and gives the Supreme Dalek the order to go ahead. The red dustbin bitches that he wanted to do a speech before reality itself was snuffed out, but goes ahead. The countdown begins. Martha swears she'll use the key, but it would take half an hour to get round the Time Lock AND take control of the bomb. All they've done is give Torchwood front row seats at Armageddon itself. "You turn your friends into murderers," Davros spits at the Doctor. "And not very good ones either."

"They're not good at being murderers, Davros..." the weakened Doctor notes. "Because they're not murderers."

"They won't be anything much longer..."

As the countdown ticks towards zero, Davros gleefully notes the Daleks have finally won. The Doctor has been defeated - though he does not accept the fact, Davros admits it would feel plain wrong if the Doctor ever gave up. He challenges the Time Lord to stop him now, in the full knowledge the Doctor can't do anything.

"Oh, I can still do something," the Doctor retorts, suddenly glowing orange. "Surprise!"

With a sudden inrush of energy, the Tenth Doctor is standing there.

Everyone is gobsmacked... and then the TARDIS materializes. Blackened, soot-stained and with broken windows. And out emerges, the other Tenth Doctor and Donna. The OTD carries Jack's defabricator gun and aims it at the wheelchair bound scientist. The gun will destroy Davros and every cell... including the Daleks created from him. Either Davros stops the countdown or the new Dalek-ruled universe is Davros-free.

Davros shrieks that, no matter what the fuck is happening, the Doctor would not murder him!

"Good thing I don't have to, then," OTD notes, as we twig Donna has been reprogramming the main console. Effectively, she'll pulled the plug out of the transmitter. The Supreme Dalek sends every Dalek available to the vault, but Donna is already locking the doors and reversing the transmitter. If the Daleks try to use their reality bomb now, the only thing that will be effected will be the Crucible itself.

Davros notes that he's pretty well screwed, but he can still kill everyone in the room ("Maybe not you," he concedes to Jack). He draws back a wall to reveal... HARRIET JONES! Yes, old Thatcher Mk 2 is still alive. And in suspended animation. And he will kill her right here and right now unless they get that fucking Ginger super temp AWAY from the bloody console!

"Do it," sneers OTD, to the horror of everyone, and Davros stabs the control.

As HJ burns up, the OTD plugs his gun into the console and pulls the trigger. The Daleks draw energy from the heart of the Crucible itself as their main energy supply. Now every Dalek borne of Davros' manly chest is dead meat. The Supreme Dalek wonders what in the name of Slitheen buggery is actually going on, as 98% of the Dalek race is blasted into oblivion. Dalek Caan laughs insanely, revealing he never actually COULD predict the future! He's been lying to the lot of them all the time! Why? HE'S INSANE, DIDN'T YOU GET THE MEMO?!?

All those exploding Daleks have blown lots of holes in the Crucible which is even now starting to collapse. The surviving Daleks are fleeing as fast as they can, and the Supreme Dalek is left alone screaming for someone to obey. Furious, it heads for the vault as Donna releases the others and they flee into the TARDIS. She sets the crippled Crucible (cue DT linguistics gag) to fling the planets back home, which SHOULD calm the Shadow Proclamaition down. The Supreme Dalek arrives and, without even speaking to it, OTD blows its dome off.

Everyone now in the TARDIS bar the proper Tenth Doctor, who turns to Davros and tells him to get the hell out of here before he sets his clone onto him. Realizing he is completely beaten, Davros uses his nifty new Emergency Temporal Shift to escape and find the new Daleks, but not before pointing out the Doctor is the ultimate hypocrite and destroyer of worlds. The Doctor retorts that therefore he is not someone to annoy.

The TARDIS leaves and the Crucible explodes utterly, as the planets pop back to their respective points... no doubt pissing off Magrathea-type planetary real estate agents who were moving in on all the empty space.

(Fucking blogger ate my incredibly detailed description, so...)

* Doc explains that his regeneration was split between him and the hand (no critical mass), making his body snap back to its former shape. He has lost a regeneration
* OTD grew when the hand reacted to the regeneration energy, the crucible fireball, and Donna
* Donna is now half human, which is how she saved everyone
* Jack takes Rose aside when she asks about his immortality. "Rosie, we gotta talk..."

* With the darkness gone, Pete's World was never threatened, so Rose never used the dimension cannon, so the walls were never broken down. As reality catches up, the walls reappear
* Thus, Donna pilots the TARDIS to Pete's World, Bad Wolf Bay
* Jackie is waiting for them. Just typical for them to turn up in the middle of nowhere
* Rose doesn't want to stay, but the Doctor points out that she has a family and a life. Did she come for the time travel, or did she come for him? "You're never gonna stay," Rose points out. "But he is,"
* OTD was grown from hand chopped off while the Tenth Doctor was still 'cooling', and his psyche has hardened into the entirely wrong shape. "Oh, charming! Call me Valeyard why doncha?!" OTD bitches. He is also half-human, one heart, and mortal, but he has all the thoughts and memories and dare I even say soul of the Doctor... up until the CIN special 2005.
* Donna points out that Rose can either choose to stay with the Doctor, grow old and die, or live a proper (dare I say fantastic) life with OTD on Pete's World. Rose is tempted, but won't leave the Doctor on his own. It is pointed out he's not on his own, he's got his spin off companions and Donna. Rose finally accepts it as a favor to the most wonderful man in her life
* Doctor and OTD play scissors paper rock. Both choose paper. Same mind, you see?
* The TARDIS auto takes off when the walls start to close. OTD, Rose and Jackie left alone on beach. Long pause. "Chips?" "Chips." "Chips." (so what if LOM used the same gag? It's bloody brilliant!)

* Mickey is still aboard! Never fear, he explains he was sick of the universe anyway, and was planning to move assuming they all survived it
* TARDIS arrives in the Hub, breaking the Time Lock
* "You live here?!" exclaims the Doctor. "This place is an OHS nightmare!" Donna boggles.
* The Doctor smashes a couple of laptops, insisting that he can't allow Torchwood access to time technology. He also nicks that bit of coral Jack was trying to grow into the TARDIS. "Mine I think!"
* Asks Gwen if they've met before. They haven't.
* "Who was that bald guy?" asks Martha. "I WAS NOT BALD! Just... receding..."
* Incredibly awkward bit with Francine "Ballcrusher" Jones
* Martha and Mickey decide to help TW put the world back together. All agree that the Earth got off lightly, and maybe having all their weapons nuked might get people talking rather than fighting.
* "As for the Daleks, well, there are only a few left. Probably won't be too pleased at what happened and when Davros turns up, he won't find adoring fans." "Are you gonna go after them?" "I'll count to a hundred first."
* As the TARDIS takes off, Jack grins - still got his teleport! Checks it. Fucking thing's broken!

* Captain John heads off, finding SJ's house too Stepford Wives for his liking. Mr Smith and K9 make him put back some stuff he stole. John notes he used to own a K9... till it went rabid.
* Doctor drops off Sarah, says hello to everyone.
* Sarah says goodbye. Wonders if they'll meet again. "Who can tell?"

* In TARDIS, Doctor starts rebuilding damage from Crucible (which desktop theme to choose?)
* Donna goes on about where to next. Starts to flake out.

* Weeks later. Sylvia and Wilf marvelling at the world coming back together. Knock at door. It's Doctor, with Donna apparently dead.
* Told via flashback, Doctor explains that Donna's brain couldn't cope with all the Time Lord consciousness. She knew it was happening, she got the console to scan her. Say goodbye. As he is about to wipe her mind, the Doctor asks, "Do you trust me?" "Yes." "Then forget."
* Doctor and Wilf agree to keep her in the dark. She must not remember. If she does, dead in a minute. But the Doctor is sure there must be some way to save her, and intends to go looking for her. Until he gets back, Wilf will look after her.
* Sylvia butts in, demanding to be part of the conversation.
* Doctor gives her his "Family of Blood" look.
* "She begged me not to send her back here. To this house. To this world. To this life. To a place where she felt WORTHLESS. With people who MADE her feel worthless. Who made her think she was NOTHING. When I get back, Sylvia Noble, I would consider it a HUGE favor, if your daughter felt her mother actually had any respect for her. Just some friendly advice."
* Sylvia, speechless, turns to Wilf. He looks at her, then walks off to check on Donna. Sylvia left alone.
* Donna back to her old self. Doesn't recognize the Doctor. Doctor tries not to be hurt.
* Wilf shows the Doctor out. Asks if there really IS some magical cure. Doctor doesn't know. But if there is, he'll find it. Nothing will stop him... except for the fact he has no idea where to look. Wilf shakes hands with him, promising to think of the Doctor when Donna can't. Doctor gives him a hug.
* TARDIS takes off. Donna hears it, frowns... then gets on with it and helps Sylvia with washing up. Slightly warmer atmosphere when Wilf comes inside.

* Inside the TARDIS, Doctor composes himself and sets course for Shan Shen. Maybe Chippo Chung knows some tricks... or tricksters... who can help.
* TARDIS goes out of control. "No no no no no!"
* TARDIS calms down. Stomping. Doctor looks up. Cybermen are standing over him.





TO BE CONTINUED... IN THE TWELVE UPGRADES OF CHRISTMAS...

Saturday, July 12, 2008

25 Ways Mad Larry Can Sod Off

Oh, how times have jaded my optimistic soul. Over the last few months all respect I've had for several fan allumni has dropped below rock bottom. Alan Stevens for example, has eroded his place from "intelligent but slightly too insightful" B7 extraordinaire to "oxygen thief", when I read his blog and found all the posts NOT involving a certain Miss Moore slagging him off for being a wanker being a LIST of every time ANYTHING in a Doctor Who episode reminds him of something else. Because, as we all know, Survival was the last time anything even remotely original occured. What's more, looking at his rants on the forum make his "essays" look hideously pathetic - Season Two is crap not because it's crap, it's because Alan Stevens guessed wrong about the story arc. Season Two is intolerant and close minded because Alan Stevens didn't get many mentions for his list of gay references in Doctor Who.

But Mad Larry finally lost any respect with his latest post on his blog. The blog where he deletes everything after a week because our oh-so-fucking-clever Laurence Miles is too shit scared to leave his opinions in open views. The guy who acts like Sam Tyler in a world of Raymondos has covered his blog in porn shots and Steven Moffat abuse, followed by an itemized list of why his opinion of what makes Doctor Who good is better than anyone elses.

Well, here's a list of ways you can improve your blog while Steve 'improves' Doctor Who.

1. Stop using the Royal "We"
As has been demonstrated, you are not the bleeding majority, Larry. You remind me of those Seskis-wannabes on your oh-so-unimpressive tale Book of the World, always acting like you automatically agree with him or else you're odd. We know that Season 4 is crap. We know that Steven Moffat is evil. We know Laurence Miles deserves to write an episode of New Who despite him hurling abuse at everyone involved with in it. A clue: no. Don't make up MY mind for me, bitch. Since you have such complete antipathy for other people, it's just a tad hypocritical to summon up the Silent Majority to back you up. You have no interest in agreeing with us, so why should we agree with you?

2. Stop reprinting About Time material.
I've bought all the books. And it's odd how you seem to think that we've all read them, because you reprint chunks out of context and expect us to understand them. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I also see that you are unable to go for a post without going, "As I completely and utterly proved beyond all shadow of a doubt in that essay", reprinting two paragraphs and wanting to look competent. Well, it don't work. It looks like you can't actually write enough material for your blog at any given minute.

3. Stop bagging out other writers
Maybe if you just concentrated on writing stuff instead of sitting in front of the TV, maybe you WOULD have an amazing career. Why the hell should anyone give you a job or ask you to write things? You act like the entire writing community and all of civilization is something you peeled off your shoe! Yet woe betide people complaining about your blog, oh no. How very dare we. Bitch about Tat Wood, the bloke who suffered your cowriting of About Time, and you don't across as anyone we'd like to know SOCIALLY, let alone work with.

4. Mental illness is no excuse.
You can talk, write and form coherent arguments. Any psychological problems you have are so invisible to the audience it seems you claim them because, "I'm a complete arsehole" is not something you're prepared to admit. Either way, get out of the house into the real world, talk to REAL people rather than basing your worldview on an essay you wrote about why the Fifth Doctor got crap TV viewing figures.

5. Take responsibility for your own actions
So your life isn't perfect. Welcome to the solar system. I stared boggle mouthed at your little rant about Steven Moffat, where you blame him for every damn single thing wrong with your life. Not just Moffat, of course, but a whole cross section of humanity, with which he is just the forefront. Oh, he gave your shoulder a matey squeeze. I DON'T GIVE A SHIT! Stand up for yourself. He didn't force you to the floor, shove a funnel down your throat and empty the contents of the bar down it, did he? Your alcoholism is your own damn fault. Your ridiculous anti social manner, which prevented you getting RTD's phone number all those years ago, is your own damn fault. And even if Moffat is this evil bastard whose ruined your life and, despite a consensus equalling the population of Tokyo, a rubbish writer, what the FUCK have you done to get over it? Sit in front of the TV shouting how you don't like the new Doctor Who! STOP WATCHING IT THEN!

6. Get a Grip
OK, Mad Larry, think about the conflicting messages you give people. You are OF COURSE deserving of writing a whole episode of Doctor Who. You are also a person who uploads porn images on the internet and dismisses the death of children as "irrelevent". You are disappointed and disgusted with every single aspect of the new series. Yet your only response is to scribble out a script, wave it in the air, then remove it after a week. Your link didn't even work! If it were not for Jared, I wouldn't have read the bloody thing. Who are these people you think will automatically agree with your quest to write for TV? You don't let anyone comment on your blog, you make it damn near impossible for casual readers to digest what's going on. Why should "we" petition for your inclusion? Your blog is half-filled with an unfunny attack on Moffat's writing style, in a manner immature for a seven year old.

7. Get off your fucking high horse
I've read Interference. I've read Alien Bodies. I read Book of the World. I read Vrs. And I even read your excuse for Faction Paradox comics. You're not the best writer ever. You are, at best, an ideas man. Look at Book of the World. Brilliant ideas. I can't fault them - giant libraries, shadow dimensions, planets in books. But they're ideas. The execution is rubbish. The characters are all assholes. There isn't a single part of it that makes me actually WANT to keep reading. None of it actually matters. There's also the fact that since you bigged up the thing as originality personified, I found it dripping with plagiarism from pretty much everything EXCEPT Silence in the Library. It was dull, it was tedious, smug, arrogant and a waste of webspace. And then, THEN, you do your "hilarious" bit where you get a screencap from SIL and have a caption saying, "Oh, some floating barges would be much better!" Really? Why? Yeah, nice picture to look at, but you don't actually have a reason WHY such a ridiculously dangerous and impractical method is used, huh?

8. Stop deleting posts
Why? I mean, WHY?! Don't you have the courage to leave the words up? Why put it up in the first place? Is there some tiny faction of fans who you KNOW want to read it? Just email them! But no, you want everyone to run to YOUR time table, rush to your blog every week because what's there will vanish within seven days. Your opinions not important enough to last a fortnight, then?

9. The Seal of Rassilon
You really think it's that funny?

10. Lighten up for once
When was the last time you ever actually had something positive to say? About ANYTHING? Everything you spew out drips with dissillusionment and disappointment at the entire world not living up to YOUR particular standards. But you don't actually get off your cold serial-killer-shaped arse and do anything do you? And why use the black and green background? Lighten it up a bit, you fucking emo sadact!

11. The passive aggressive thing has got to go
"Haha! I'm Mad Larry The Pirate King! Everyone hates me! Even Julian Glover! Here's a list of people who hate me saying that they hate me! No one agrees with me! I said I could piss Blink in my sleep! Don't mind me, everyone hates me! I'm a lonely alocoholic with no friends and the whole world despises me! Hahahaha! Are you feeling guilty yet? See how well I cope with such unfairness! Oh, I am a genius! HAHAHA!"

12. Actually review something for once
Since you seem unable to do more than two lines before digressing on a rant for six thousand words on WHY everyone is wrong and Doctor Who fandom is a self-contradictory myth based on nostalgic stereotype, maybe you could, I dunno, focus slightly. Only one damn review I've read was actually a review and THAT stole its format from Old No Nickname Hansen!

13-25. Oop, I just deleted them. They were here last week. Too late.
Not much fun, is it?

The last thirteen weeks have ground my opinion of Larry into the dirt. He's not clever. He's not nice. He's not even interesting. The Tat Wood solo About Time 6 showed who was providing the really amusing and entertaining material, and also who was professional enough to finish what was started. Every week, I looked at the oh-so-brief nugget of Milesian madness, wanting to be impressed, or intrigued, but was subjected to an offensive, misogynistic rant of self-justifying claptrap about why the world sucks since there will never be a DVD boxset with "Laurence Miles" somewhere on the spine.

Well, you finally convinced me that this reality is one to strive for. I'll lock the cage, since you have no interest to actually get out of it.