Speaking Confidentially

With time weighing heavy on thy narrow shoulders until the BBC finally get round to showing off Silence in the Library, I find myself looking through my download library for something else for my parents to watch. Doctor Who Confidential, mayhaps? Well, what have I got...



BLINK - Do You Remember the First Time?
With Blink hardly featuring him, David Tennant takes over the whole program for one week only and he shows off his prodigious video cam skills, as he demonstrated throughout 2006. This guy has a job for life on television, even if he does quit in 2009. Thus, our hero is strolling around the BBC Television Centre that the Goodies tried to destroy at least twice a week with his awestruck companion, Steven Moffat, their quest to simply find out why Doctor Who is so powerful that it makes its fans want to make it. Some answers are offered, but as ever it quickly becomes a clipshow as the fans Tennant meets reminisce about how it scared the shit out of them, and what they've been doing since. So, with vox pops from RTD, Gareth Roberts, Mark Gatiss, Nicholas Briggs, Barnaby Edwards, and of course, Steven Moffat "the man who made his name in television by writing about dysfunctional relationships in the 21st Century but really wanted to write about malfunctioning spaceships in the 51st". Blink hardly gets a look in, bar an interview with the actors behind Sally and Larry, and the Moff himself explaining, with visuals, that he ripped off his annual story. Soon, though, the whole thing becomes one glorious youtube clipshow, with lots of nice juxtapositions (the Dalek production line of 1966 becoming the Cult of Skaro 40 years later, similarly the Cyber Controller making an entrance in both) and showing off how utterly unfunny and rubbish Dead Ringers is when it comes to its favorite program. Nev Fountain proves completely useless beyond saying he's a fan, while Jon Culshaw shows he's quite good at impersonating ANYONE except David Tennant (his Colin Baker's rather impressive), and let us be honest - out of the pair of them, it's always Nev who screws up. The Sideshow's casual references of the show were a love letter compared to Dead Ringers' "it's too loud, too spoiled, crap, camp and only wankers watch it" approach. Mind you, they gave Torchwood the right bollocking it deserved... For the first time since Season One, Confidential is willing to acknowledge something existed before Rose, so this clipshow is really quite good.

Best Musical Number: the final montage with Thanks For The Memories screaming around monster shots, Doctor shots, gratuitous babe shots, shots that went horribly wrong, shots that went amazingly right, shots the public will never forget, shots we hope the public will never remember, and even Paul McGann!


UTOPIA - Ello Ello Ello
This episode starts a new tradition with the title sequences being solely reflective of the episode in question, thus meaning you can't spot any future episodes in the generic montage - and also meaning that, for example, they can show John Simm regenerating in the console room without spoiling it (since it's shown after the question). The title refers to the Holy Trinity of Jack, Yana and the Master - or John Barrowman, Derek Jacobi and John Simms - and this week we get a decent balance between background and recording, with Graeme Harper doing his usual enthusiastic work. John Barrowman gets a lion's share of the ep, while skirting around actually anything to do with Torchwood (continuing RTD's anti-spin-off agenda), and it's generally good viewing, as we get to linger around sets and finally see all the details that simply aren't obvious in New Who cause it moves so damn quickly. Yana's armchair and grammophone, Chantho's model rocket ships, the noticeboard for loved ones at the start of the silo, the Futurekind Initiation Rites which gave the Chieftan that rather distinctive facial tattoo, the total and complete Mad Maxx freaks they hired to be Futurekind (serious, no makeup required). There is, of course, a whacking great lack of discussion over the Master, but this IS a three parter, and there's even a nice nod from Harper that if Tennant ever does regenerate, it won't automatically be the 'standing up firework' business - he was intending something different for the Master until logistics intruded. So that's good.

Best Musical Number: Smells Like Team Spirit montage about Jack, Yana and the Master. Clue's in the title.


THE SOUND OF THE DRUMS - The Saxon Mystery
With the opening scene showing the cliffhanger, it's clear you've meant to watch this ep, which is focussed on the Master of old, the Master of new, the Saxon story arc and Freema Agyeman's stunt driving skills. Between David Tennant's "I guessed who it was in The Keeper of Traken!" and RTD cheerfully noting he was full of shit about him not liking the character, there's a veiled apology for the Torchwood arc in Season 2. Because it wasn't an arc, it was an advertisment for a new show, and RTD wishes that he could have been subtler (more TW-bashing) like Saxon, an arc so subtle few notice that a) it first gets referenced in Aliens of London and b) you need a freeze frame to get half the references. The fact there aren't references in every episode, but rather different references (the Face of Boe, the Chameleon Arch, for example) also make it cleverer than shouting a buzzword at the viewers every week. There's also a fair bit of discussion about the New Master and why he is like the Joker, rather than Moriarty - mind you, the fact Moriarty was an unseen manipulator means that the Master is more like him in these episodes than ever before... It also goes to show the entire world that Freema Agyeman was not "farmed out" by anyone, since cast, crew and production team are utterly in awe not only of her acting talent, but ability to become a supreme stunt driver in half an hour. It's so amazing, Barrowman took his reading glasses off (and boy does he look odd in them...)

Best Musical Number: The cover of Mad World playing as we see a reshoot of the cliffhanger in slow mo.


THE LAST OF THE TIME LORDS - The Valiant Quest
A story mainly focussing on special effects, from the CGI Old Doctor (trust me, it could have been a lot worse, as one of the 'Yoda' rip off designs shows) and the awkward-looking David Tennant covered in marbles, shoved in front of a green screen and told to emote to someone who isn't there. The design of the Toclafane is gone into (but curiously enough, their nature is never discussed, or even why RTD makes them the most pessimistic foe ever), as is the Doctor's ascension to godhood (DT was well pissed off that it involved him dangling on wires all afternoon), and the aftermath of the departures of Jack, Martha and the Master (the later nicely undercut, with RTD, Tennant and Agyemen marvelling at the emotions of the scene, ending with Simms awkwardly noting he had Tennant's manly stubbly chin jammed into his eye throughout). Despite the length of the special and of the episode, I was surprised at the lack of mention of Lucy Saxon, or Leo Jones or Torchwood or the Face of Boe or the fucking Titanic. It just dissolves into a "See Ya Later... Maybe... Martha"

Best Musical Number: Lift Me Up as the Doctor flies around the room and the Master has a complete nervous breakdown.


TIME CRASH - Confidential
With the sequence last only as long as the episode itself, there's not a lot to go into here - bar David Tennant's continuing culture shock at playing his childhood hero meeting his childhood Doctor, Peter Davison musing on the fact his Doctor is generally overlooked because even when he was PLAYING the Doctor, there were half a dozen other shows on air with his pleasant open face being shown simultaneously. RTD notes this is the first time he came to recording rather than sleeping in (it was a Sunday) and Steven Moffat continually marvelling at what the hell he can get away with.

Best Musical Number: Young Folk over the DT/PD photoshoot.


VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED - Confidential At Christmas
With sleigh bells and snowflakes added to this episode, I have to say I came away from this liking VOD less than before. The episode is focussed a lot more on in front of the camera than behind it, and RTD doesn't give a single damn word allowing an insight into why he wrote such a downer or what the hell he was trying to do with the Titanic. Killing off Astrid is glossed over in everything other than Tennant having to snog her, then snog thin air and edit it together. Oh, and them noting that the Doctor HAS to be a completely miserable and lonely wanderer, because in RTD's words "it looks good". Yeah, thanks for that. Despite the wealth of material, Kylie doesn't say much (managing to look even older than Astrid, who is ancient compared to how she normally looks anyway), and her uber-fan manager tears his hair out trying to find all the links betwixt Minogue and Doctor Who, coming across less as a fanboy and more as a pathetic tryhard. There's a lot of work on The Stowaway and its various incarnations, including trying to make up for the lack of Confidential episodes for the last two Christmas Specials. All in all, this is a dispiriting episode. Not only is VOD a depressing tale, but no one involved has anything to say about it beyond "Oooh! Kylie and Titanic!"

Best Muscial Number: The closest there is to be had is The Stowaway. Kylie's soundbites don't impress.


PARTNERS IN CRIME - A Noble Return
And noble it is! Donna and Catherine Tate return to give the show a kick up the arse, with RTD clearly delighting at NOT having to do Rose again, allowing him freedom to do his rightly-lauded window mime scene. The plot of PIC is, to be honest, pretty slim, so the show focusses more on behind the scenes. The 'window cleaner thing plummeting to its doom' is given a good deal of cover, especially when you realize most of it was CGI and stunt doubles and that bit where the Doctor and Donna try to break the window was done entirely by computer. There's also the problem that the bloke who played Donna's dad died between rehearsals and filming - fair enough that everyone thought it would be rude to simply recast, but the fact is Wilf's dialogue is exactly the same! The only change was "dad" to "gramps", but Bernard Cribbens still steals the show with his deadpan "This is the most amazing day of my life" as he stands around the kitchen set doing absolutely nothing - it may not sound as hilarious as it is, but it works, as does Phil Collinson noting how much he loves the character of Wilf, and his relationship with Donna. YANA. Meanwhile, Sarah Lancashire shows she CAN act, and the stuffed toy Adipose used for the scenes are a definite merchandise tie in, while that fat lady (forget her name) reveals she's actually skinnier than she appears, and was wearing a vest that inflates to show Adipose moving under her skin. On a final note, RTD draws everyone's attention to Rose's cameo. Then laughs in our faces at the thought he might spill the beans... odd that he doesn't do the same gag elsewhere...

Best Musical Number: The intro with Ray of Light fights with the original opening sequence to the episode, where the Doctor and Donna are accompanied by Austin Power's theme tune.


THE FIRES OF POMPEII - The Italian Job
It was filmed in Italy! I had no idea! But this ep proves it beyond a doubt as everyone heads there to use the sets but, alas, they've trusted the van with all the props and outfits to the a Baldrick wannabe that gets lost trying to do shortcuts, thus meaning when they finally arrive there is hardly any time to set up for the episode and thus all the wonderful shots of the city are missed. With recording more or less unavailable - and absolutely no discussion on writing the story, Catherine Tate or the Pyrovilles let alone The Fires of Vulcan - David Tennant takes charge and buggers off to the REAL Pompeii to take a tour of the place. As Tennant notes, Pompeii would be the coolest place in the world... as long as you're not a slave, and the lines between him and the Tenth Doctor do blur, especially as he expressionlessly studies the display of the corpses unearthed. Including a newborn baby. Powerful shit and no mistake, like the fact that Vesuvius's eruptions get worse and worse the longer the gaps between eruptions. The less it rumbles, the worse it will be when it finally blows. And the exploding shot of Vesuvius in the ep is the REAL Vesuvious, can you believe. I thought it was stock footage... a great ep, ruined only by Phil Cornwall acting "oh so funny" and demanding his own spin off from RTD to replace Torchwood. A clue, Phil? No.

Best Musical Number: the barndance fiddle as the incompetent lorry driver goes on his world tour and visits ANYWHERE except Italy...


PLANET OF THE OOD - Oods and Ends
Well, let's hope that a certain A Stephens shuts the hell up as this episode can't even begin to apologize for the Doctor's Ood-intolerant behavior in The Satan Pit, though for some reason they don't agree with his belief the Doctor mudered every last motherfucking one of them. All of which interspersed with breakdancing Ood extras; the fact the ice planet was just a quarry; DT's disturbing disire to "chew an Ood"; Graeme Harper sitting on the console, acting like he owns the place; a good-old-fashioned clipshow about telepathy/possesion/magic/actually-what-the-hell-is-the-theme-again? as we see the sentient sun, the Master, the Gelth, the Sycorax, the Family of Blood, Cassandra, Carrionites, Bad Wolf, the daily download...; another montage about bumpining into aliens and other culture shock stuff; everyone noting how bloody great it is for Donna not to worship the Doctor like the other companions; the giant brain was actually a huge pile of cardboard boxes; DT noting that the denoument is right out of Ellan Adgar Poe with Halpen becoming an Ood; RTD (and Harper) being revolted at the transformation; and the reveal that the BBC did step in - originally Halpen vomited tendrils directly into camera, but that was too much... Awesome. Still dunno why the writers aren't being allowed to discuss their own material though. And no mention of "your song must end". Yet.

Best Musical Number: I Fought The Law as the Doctor runs from the giant claw. But the telepathy montage comes a very close second. And Nobody Knows over Tim McInnery and Ood Operations. Actually, this whole ep was just musical numbers... that title really IS appropriate.


THE SONTARAN STRATAGEM - Send in the Clones
Unsurprisingly, there is little to say about the episode, so much more focus is put on "evil SatNav" (the aspect that is discarded by the plot first chance it gets) and how "adult" the opening is (adult = nothing to do with the story anyone is expecting). With Helen Raynor's brain power used up (and no writers bar RTD being allowed to talk), the episode focusses on sinking cars and pumping out gas and that business where some kinky extra sits in a bath of goo (said bath is from Fires of Pompeii, believe it or not, and the goo WAS EDIBLE!!). There's the shocking revelation that Evil Martha's expression as she emerges from the goo was down to the fact she'd swallowed the muck and needed to throw up, while we discover the secrets of the paint-on bra (last spotted in Gridlock). Freema's as enthusiastic as ever (oh how fans hate that), and we actually get clips from Torchwood (in the exact same way John Barrowman DIDN'T use last year - more proof that season 1 ain't canon!) interspersed with everyone discussing at length the opening scene with Donna and Martha and the complete lack of cat-fights. DT also notes that the Doctor's dislike of UNIT is specific to his incarnation, which is a retcon only a true fan like him could come up with. The Sontarans merit barely a clipshow compared to Sylvia and Wilf, the latter of which RTD is so pleased to use after being unable to add him to Martha or Donna's family. And why does the Director look so much like Paul McCartney?!

Best Musical Number: Dispiritingly, it's the trailer for next week...


THE POISON SKY - Sontar-Ha!
Christopher Ryan finally gets some screentime and I'm shocked to discover he's a little old man! Well, his voice sounds like a little old man, and the change to Stahl's voice is quite a surprise. However, Ryan gets no mention of being in the show before, or in The Young Ones, and there's a really nasty suggestion that he was only cast cause he's the only decent actor they know that is so short (and, really, he seemed so normally proportioned at Scumbag College - are they ALL ruddy midgets?!). Sontaran makeup fills up a whacking great chunk of this episode, as they finally get the clipshow they deserve, and even Elisabeth Sladen and Colin Baker turn up to big them up. Odd how In A Fix With The Sontarans and Invasion of Time are never discussed when they are the stories most featured in the clipshow, but I do like how the clip of Stike choking is presented as an outtake rather than part of the story itself. There's also lots of tedious focussing on two-second shots like "Sontarans fall over from offscreen explosion" and "Sylvia shatters windscreen" which had to be done by a bloke in drag. This is kept only bearable by Commander Storr speedily narrating things in a most un-Sontaran fashion while in full costume, and RTD laughing how "utterly ridiculous" Rattigans' plans are, and Donna worship,.

Best Musical Number: Without You showing Donna's greatest moments - five stories and already so many!


THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER - Sins of the Fathers
Helen Raynor was allowed to make a few utterly unnecessary grunts over her story, and this week is Stephen Greenhorn who is disturbingly similar to James Nesbitt as Hyde with the huge dark staring eyes and the accent. This is a pity as I'm under no delusions that Greenhorn is not someone to turn to for a deep and meaningful plot. The Lazarus Experiment worked because it was a simple plot with arc heavy running through it, and trying to marvel at anything beyond the idea of Jenny (COUGH!COUGH!Trenchcoat did it!COUGHCOUGH) is a waste of time, except maybe they were scared of Greenhorn following them home and killing them. I know I was. The episode is padded out by a remix of Time Crash Confidential, and interviews with Miss Moffet herself (ironic how she spends the whole episode looking like Buffy but behind the scenes is a dead ringer for Willow), and how bloody difficult the gymnastic scene was, and how shockingly unconvincing the stunt double was in real life. I mean... eww! This is also nicely counterbalanced by absolutely everyone admitting "yeah, this is a complete rip off of The Last of the Time Lords, just with a more heterosexual bent", but RTD never once justifying why this is needed. Caus, unless Jenny returns, this is a waste of time, people. And originally the Hath had dialogue! I know! Bugger me!

Best Musical Number: I'm Not A Soldier, commemorating all the outright hypocrisy from the Doctor as he goes hardcore military on the ass of anyone who gets in his way.


THE UNICORN AND THE THE WASP - Nemesis
Gareth Roberts is here in all his egg-shaped, slightly-too-similar-to-Tom-Baker-to-be-comfortable glory as they strip down the murder mystery, revealing all the things I never noticed (like WHY the murderer chooses those specific victims), and the way titles are scattered through the dialogue, and also that David Tennant's dad plays one of the suspects! There are some fun outtakes and DT brags about how he got the actress to play Christie and how people should listen to him more. Pity, but Christopher Benjamin and Felicity Kendall get sweet FA what with Graeme Harper bemoaning how damn difficult it is to film a murder mystery and a clipshow of historical celebrities on show (including The Crusades - happy yet, Larry? No? Good), and a guest appearance by Christie's real-life grandson whose opinion of the fact his grandmother was attacked by giant wasps and kidnapped by Doctor Who is sadly never revealed. The difficulties of the giant wasp in a lake are revealed, as is the poisoning scene with the Doctor which stresses out Harper and everyone a lot more than you'd think - seriously, is it THAT difficult to get DT another pinstripe suit?! The vintage car chase is even funnier without the drammatic music and editing as the Doctor and Donna shout dialogue urgently at each other then fall silent for minutes on end as the cars inch painfully forward, and the competition between Tennant and Woolgar to master these strange engines is great fun.

Best Musical Number: the chase scene ending with DT's stoic "at least I didn't break it..."

The trailer for Silence in the Library is even worse than the one in the episode proper, can you believe. Space suited people jogging around a set as everyone says "Oooh! Darkness! SCARY!" doesn't even hold interest, even AFTER trying to read The Book of the World...

Well, I'M stoked...

"Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark," muses the Doctor as he sweeps a torch through the darkened library, Donna at his side. "But they're wrong. Because it's not irrational."

Wilfred Mott looks at the night sky in horror. "They're going out... oh my god... the stars are going out!"

And they are.

A familiar blonde with a big, big gun strides through the ruins of a street as explosions go off.

"Rose is coming back. No matter what's happening, isn't that good?" asks Donna by the TARDIS console.

The Doctor looks up. Meets her gaze. And then a giddy expression crosses his face. "Yeah," he gasps.

"The real world is a lie," says the black man in spectacles. "And your nightmares are real."

"Not everyone comes back out of the dark," the Doctor tells Donna as they run through the library, slamming doors as skeletons in gleaming white spacesuits emerge from the shadows, firing blue rays.

"It's coming for me!" screams a helpless some as a spacecraft is buffeted out of control.

"Stay in the light!" the Doctor shouts.

"Stop it! Why are you doing this?!" wails Donna, in a suburban park.

"Don't you play games with me," the Doctor snarls. "We're going to get out of here, I promise!"

Daleks. Lots of Daleks. Aboard the Valiant. And in control.

Rose Tyler looks upwards, unfazed. "Right. Now we're in trouble."

The TARDIS is ablaze.

"And it's only just beginning," concludes Rose.

In the heart of the Dalek stronghold, there is something new. Something like a Dalek, but from the midsection upwards is lost in darkness, bar a spot of blue light at the top.

"It's coming, Donna," says Rose quietly. "It's coming from across the stars. And nothing can stop it."

"What is?" demands Donna, finally losing her patience.

Rose looks at her, scared stiff. "The darkness..."

Silence in the Library

Forest of the Dead

Midnight

Turn Left

Eye of the Storm

Journey's End

SNEED: Echoes in the dark.
GWYNETH: The things you've seen. The Darkness.
MICKEY: See, they've known about aliens for years. They just kept us in the dark.
DOCTOR: Mickey, you were born in the dark.
DALEK: I can ... feel... so many ideas, so much darkness.
ANGELO: It's almost dark.
MICKEY: It was dark!
ROSE: Where are you from, the dark ages?
RICKY: I bet they can see in the dark—
DOCTOR: You, Mr Connolly, are staring into a deep, dark pit of trouble.
DOCTOR: A living shadow in the darkness.
ELTON: But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It's so much darker.
DOCTOR: No light, no dark, no up, no down.
DOCTOR: The Racnoss come from the Dark Times, billions of years ago, billions.
SWALES: It's dark.
FLORENCE: You're quite the funny man. And yet, I think, laughing on purpose at the darkness.
LILITH: The Eternals found the right word to banish us into deep darkness.
DALEK: Humankind is weak. You shelter from the dark.
DOCTOR: Yeah, I found one of your experiments. Just left to die out there in the dark.
TALLULAH: There ain’t nothin’ more creepy than a theatre in the dark.
DOCTOR: The only creature who might have led you out of the darkness.
VOICES IN THE WATCH: The darkness is coming... keep me away from the force and empty man...the last of the Time Lords, the last of a wise and ancient race... Hold me. Keep me safe. Keep me dark. Keep me closed. The time is not right.
MARTHA: Sometimes when you look in his eyes you know - you just know that there's something else in there. Something hidden. Right behind the eyes, something hidden away. In the dark.
DOCTOR: There was a time when the universe was so much smaller than it is now. A darker, older time of chaos.
TOCLAFANE: We have to escape. Because it’s coming, sir. The darkness, the never-ending darkness. The terrible, terrible cold. We have to run and run and run!
MASTER: You should have seen it, Doctor. Furnaces, burning. The last of humanity screaming at the dark.
DOCTOR: The wind is felt most keenly in the dark.
LUCIUS: Ah. But what is the dark, other than an omen of the sun?

My Mad Larry The Pirate King Impression

Would YOU let THIS MAN near YOUR beloved childhood television institution?!?

WELL, IT'S TOO LATE, BUSTER, YOU ALREADY HAVE!

YOU UTTER SCUM! YOU DON'T DESERVE MY GENIUS!!

. . .

TONIGHT, I HATE THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING IN IT!

Doctor Who - Dining With WASPS

DOCTOR WHO: THE UNICORN AND THE WASP

In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy...


Today's dark question of blood-chilling terror is: what if Gareth Roberts suffered a complete nervous breakdown and was left an unfunny, over-inflated egomaniac determined to take the piss out of absolutely everything? What if, in short, Gareth Roberts underwent a Jekyll-and-Hyde-style transmogrification into Nev Fountain? Have we ever seen them in the same room? David Tennant sure hasn't...

The opening scenes of the episode forced this unwanted concept into my mind sans lubricant as the TARDIS arrives at a country house and the Doctor and Donna emerge and see how quickly they can piss me off. Following the painful bit which demonstrates the TARDIS prop was never taken to the house where the rest of the story was filmed, and what's more the false console room inside fell over, meaning we can see the inside of the police box roof before you reach the console room... and there are leaves on the police box! Jesus. Did no one notice this? Like the prat behind the camera?

"Never mind the planet Zog, a party in the 1920s, that's more like it!" giggles Donna, instantly requiring someone to punch her in the face. Or at least the person responsible for that dialogue. For fuck's sake! It's not even FUNNY! Oooh, what would you, average viewer, rather watch? An alien uprising on another planet or some twats called Colonel Peach and Reverened "Mark Gatiss stunt double" Golightly. And, no, those are the actual names of these retards. If they said anything remotely amusing, I can forgive this, but I'm left as I was at the start of Kath and Kim wondering "Why the fuck am I watching this? Am I supposed to laugh? Cringe? Nod my head knowingly? Why should any of this deserve my attention?" Especially the fucking vicar, who has been nasally pissing me off since Christmas last year.

What's this? Professor Peach (or was it Colonel? You see the trouble? I DON'T CARE!!) is in the attic looking through papers and talking to himself as he blandly exposits how exctied and secretive it is. ANY JOKES WOULD BE WELCOME, GARETH! ANY AT ALL!! Then, of course, he gets thumped to death by a giant wasp. "I say, what are you doing with that lead pipining?" Peach asks. Shuting you up, hopefully. "That's impossible!" Try anyway...

And the credits start with me having completely and utterly lost any desire to watch further on. It's The Idiot's Fucking Lantern all over again. You get a decent story progression, then suddenly it gets completely abandoned with a suffocatingly smug historical - and ostensibly a comedy. A comedy! From Gareth "The One Doctor" Roberts? How could it fail? Don't ask me, but it just did. There is only line in the pre-credit sequence that counts as a joke... and it's shithouse. Unless we're supposed to fall around laughing at the fact everyone is a 1920s stereotype with a pathetic name and the Doctor and Donna, having completely lost any of the wonder in the first five episodes are now, Smug Time Tourists... Why am I even wasting time downloading this shit?


Don't get me wrong, I want to like this. Robert's The Shakespeare Code is one of my favorites and he gets the Blackadder-style version of the past done brilliantly, like The Fires of Pompeii, but not the utter contempt for any kind of reality as in The Kingmaker. My hopes are raised in the idea that the location is in glorious sunshine rather than the bleached, overcast atmos the BBC seem to think existed until the 1970s. Everything else was threatened with rain and everyone looked like they'd just been bitten by vampires. Did anyone else watch The Ruby in the Smoke last night? Shit, wasn't it? I mean, Billie was wonderful and the dialogue sparked, the characters worked... but who had the lobotomy before dubbing it a detective story? Billie Piper spends the entire story having random people wander up to her, tell her conflicting stories from the past, and vanish. I was left utterly confused, especially at why psycho Julie Walters just stops mindlessly knifing people and reads out her autobiography before drowning herself, or why the other serial killer in the story does the same thing before Billie shoots him through the bollocks, only for him to escape... why the hell was he killing people if he is the Kerry Packer of the Triad Underworld? What was a recovering Opium addict, Trevor Cooper and Robert Glenister going to threaten him with? I have to say, I feel stupid even asking since every five minutes in the story someone sat down and said, "Let me tell you more of the story we couldn't be arsed to film" before dying... The most inept, cack-handred crap passed off as 'mystery' I've ever seen. Who adapted it? Sparacus?

Speaking of the fishy one, his presence stinks up this story which, as he just HAD to point out, reminds of his seminal work (never has that phrase been used so completely accurately before) Aliens in the Orchid House. Not as crap, of course, because it simply couldn't be. But somehow Mark Goacher's claiming it as his own, plus the most nauseatingly stupid pre-credits sequence since the last one (A clue? FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!!!), mean I'm tempted to give up on this. I haven't felt so disenfranchised since Something Borrowed was inflicted onto the world by the similarly-reliable-seeming Phil Ford.

Maybe it'll get better. But then, why should it? This is the same bloody show that assumed for a disturbingly long period of time that The Doctor's Daughter would work perfectly as a complete rip off of The Last of the Time Lords. The same producer who assumed everyone would be glad he would all but take it off the air every four years. The same corporation so retarded they interrupt the show with the Eurovision Song Contest.

As you can tell, I've pretty much lost every single iota of confidence I had in these ham-fisted "professionals". Maybe if they stopped banging on about how fucking perfect they were every single chance they get, because get this, BBCWales, you fool NOBODY. A conglomerate of Lemon Bloody Colas, the lot of them and as for Karen Beesto...

....and back again!

Hoooboy. Blood sugar must have been low then. All in all, I can still see where I was coming from (coz if I couldn't, no one else will), and that pre-credit sequence is still ten types of crap and the zog line should be shot through the head, but Gareth Roberts, he's never been could with pre-title seqeunces. Look at Attack of the Graske or The Shakespeare Code. Just doesn't work for him.

Once we get into gear, the story's sense of humor establishes itself, starting with a nice moment when Donna asks the Doctor "Flapper or slapper?" and the Doctor takes a moment to reply, clearly not sure which answer she wants. Then the obligatory "No, no, no, don't do that, no" to when his companion tries to indulge in local patter (so good Martha got it twice!) and the "we're not married" gag, they mingle with the guests. How old is Christopher Benjamin anyway? He looks only slightly greyer than he did in Talons of Weng-Chiang? Was he made up to look older than he was or something? Felicity Kendall... well, might be UnAustralian, but she's aged better than Kylie, but I will refrain against all my automatic responses and not lovingly describe her posterier. But I saw The Good Life - it deserved greatness!

Donna finds this set up as unbelievable as I do, which gets her back in my good books. Agetha Christie and a bunch of 1920s socialites have been invited to a party and this is the day Christie vanishes off the face of the Earth and reappears ten days later with amnesia at a hotel in Harrogate (complete with Family Guy cutaways to Christie standing beside a sign saying THE HARROGATE HOTEL... just in case it wasn't clear). But, gazooks, Professor Peach (yeah, I care know) has been found dead in the library with a bit of lead piping, and it takes all of Donna's bladder control not to piss herself laughing at the very idea of such a dumb idea as Agetha Christie caught up in a murder mystery parodying her own work.

Of course, no one has an alibi... bar the Doctor and Donna... and so they are interrogated by the Doctor and Christie with laughingly camp flashbacks (complete with ripples and harp music) which get sillier and sillier. The vicar says he was alone in his room, and we see him alone in his room. The young cad says he was alone in the grounds, and we see him and the manservant skipping hand in hand. Felicity Kendall says she was having tea, and we see her swigging down bottles of hootch and staggering out to meet the Doctor and Donna and recites the entire opening scene as the Doctor shouts HE KNOWS! HE WAS THERE! The young spinster says she was in the loo at the time, and we see her laughing evilly and shoving bullets into a handgun. Henry Gordon Jago goes one better: he says he was reading a military diary, and we see him flipping through 1920s porn. His past self in the flashback reveals it was reminding him of his days in the army, and the flashback Jago has ANOTHER flashback to being in a music hall watching cancan girls... the Doctor takes even longer to shouts how irrelevent this is - and it is flashback Jago who apologizes, not the 'real' one having the flashback! The Doctor bemoans this and slumps down, before having his OWN flashback, to when he was hunting an insane computer through the forrests of Belgium armed with bows and arrows... and Christie points out that this isn't particularly relevent either.

Awesome. It might sound stupid, but it's awesome.

Donna meanwhile, finds a bedroom mysteriously locked for 40 years. No sooner does she break in, the nostalgic sounds of bees buzzing (bees are disappearing, you know, story arc) becomes the less enjoyable sound of a giant wasp smashing through the window and chasing them around the place. The Doctor realizes that the giant wasp is camoflaguing itself as one of the humans. "There's nowhere to run!" the Doctor shouts as he follows the giant wasp (odd how we automatically assumed from the trailers he was being pessimistic about their chances against giant wasps rather than with the upper hand) and, when the wasp ducks down a corridor, screams "SHOW YOURSELF!"

The entire speaking cast emerge from doors all along the corridor, in unison, and look at the Doctor in confusion. As the man himself says, "That's not fair."

But it is incredibly amusing.

And I think the butler did it. I have no evidence bar the ominous music wherever he appears, but it could just be a gag, like that Funky Squad episode where it turns out the butler DIDN'T do it... which in turn makes the entire plot ridiculous because he's the only person who COULD have done it. Oh, the wit!

Meanwhile, no sooner has the Doctor explained the story title for anyone not paying attention, he realizes he's just been poisoned with cyanide. This sequence is SLIGHTLY disappointing for me as it makes a Trenchcoat story uncanonical (for the record, a brilliant bit where we learn Time Lords are immune to cyanide, so the Doctor downs a whole glass with a psycho grin to the bloke who tried to poison him). The other, far more serious thing, is the resolution. If you read The Love Invasion, Roberts' comic strip the first episode of which was published in the month-long era before Eccleston quit, the Doctor gets a lungful of poison gas but survives by eating a chocolate and chicken sandwich, allowing his biochemistry to fix itself. This time, the Doctor's been poisoned and ransacks the kitchens to make a cocktail to cure him. Oh well. If I can cope with A Groatsworth of Wit AND The Shakespear Code, I can cope with this... actually, do I cope with those two contradictory portrayals of Shakespeare? Other times... and this is a rip off of Doctor Vs Doctor, too! Damn you, Steven Moffat, one slow day and you convince all authors to rip off their annual stories...

It's still very funny. DT must have a more screwed up pallet than I do to cope with a stew of gingerbeer, anchovies, walnuts and lemonade... and CT must be damn professional to snog him during such a repast. Oh yeah. Doctor Donna snog. Trust me. It works. And oddly enough, just at the cliffhanger mark of 23 minutes... and I think this has a bit more in common with The Chimes of Midnight than I was expecting. Not that that is in any way a bad thing...

And see? They COULD have used Bessie for The Sontaran Stratagem!! DON'T YOU DARE DENY IT!

All in all I liked that, even though it's pretty much cut and paste from all of Roberts' earlier works, especially the finale where the Doctor muses on how people are remembered - it works when it's the Ninth Doctor's last scene in the comic strip, seems a bit gratuitious otherwise. And, oddly enough, it actually was very much like Ruby in the Smoke. Except it made sense. And had a giant wasp. No Billie Piper, but nothing's perfect.

Next Time: sod all.

Next Next Time: "Donna, stay out of the shadows."
It had to happen. Moffat would drop the ball sooner or later. Well, to be fair he probably hasn't, but this is the single worst trailer for an episode I have ever seen in my entire life. Not only did it leave me with absolutely no desire to watch Silence in the Library, it made it look like something I should actually avoid. The Doctor and Donna arrive at the Biggest Library Ever (wow, ripping off a Moffat short story, what are the odds?) and everyone's dead. Because of evil shadows. And some skeletons in space suits. And a giant tampon who needs acting lessons stat. Booooooooooor-iiiiiiiiiiing. Worst of all, the trailer actually makes a certain internet nutter look credible with their bitching that this is a Benny Summerfield story hastily rewritten... I mean, annoyingly cocksure female "Professor" archaeologist and an intense spectacled Time Lordy bloke doesn't AUTOMATICALLY mean "Benny and Brax". Does it?
I'm sure Moffat will kick my arse inside out. Maybe. Not that he has good form with two parters. But in any case, one thing is certain. That trailer was complete shit.

9/10

PGP EBGB!

...or, the "what happened after Blake" that's sat in my mind since 1986...


BLAKE’S 7 501: "In The Company Of Madmen"
By EWEN CAMPION-CLARKE



1. MODEL SHOT -- SPACE

The foggy blue planet of Gauda Prime hangs in space, alone.
We zoom in on the planet. As we do so, we hear the
distorted, dreamlike sounds of a conversation.

TARRANT
(V/O, dist)
He’s sold us, Avon. All of us. Even
you.

AVON
(V/O, dist)
Is this true?

BLAKE
(V/O, dist)
Avon. It’s me. Blake.


2. EXT. GP FORESTS

The voices continue to be heard, strange and unreal as we
move through the woods. It is raining heavily, and mist
wafts between the trees. We move through the forest.

AVON
(V/O, dist)
Have you betrayed us? Have
you betrayed me?

BLAKE
(V/O, dist)
Tarrant doesn’t understand!

AVON
(V/O, dist)
Well, neither do I, Blake!

BLAKE
(V/O, dist)
I set all this up!!

AVON
(V/O, dist)
... yes...


3. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY (FLASHBACK)

Black and white to indicate it is a flashback. The dialog is
still distorted and while alarms are clearly going off, we
cannot hear it. To the left stands ROJ BLAKE and ARLEN. In
front of them stands KERR AVON holding a long plasma rifle,
aimed at BLAKE. Behind AVON stands VILA RESTAL, DEL TARRANT,
SOOLIN and DAYNA MELLANBY.

BLAKE
(dist)
Avon, I was waiting for you --

BLAKE steps forward toward AVON who raises the gun and fires
three times. BLAKE’s reactions are mixed into each other as
if the three shots are happening simultaneously. The effect
ends as, mortally wounded, BLAKE falls forward. He grabs
AVON’s shoulders stay upright, and stares blindly into
AVON’s horrified face.

BLAKE
(dist)
Avon...

BLAKE loses his hold and falls to the floor, lying on his
back, staring up at the ceiling, quite dead. Gunfire and
explosions are heard. Just over the cacophony:

TARRANT
(V/O, dist)
Avon!

AVON’s head snaps up, leaving his daze. We can now hear the
blaring alarms. He looks around and sees black-clad,
helmeted FEDERATION TROOPERS entering the gallery from the
various entrances. As they enter, they raise their guns to
train them onto AVON. He turns, seeing more and more
TROOPERS arrive, and sees all the others are lying lifeless
on the floor, all apparently dead. The TROOPERS are closing
in around him, guns aimed at his head. AVON turns a complete
circle. He is completely surrounded.

As the TROOPERS cautiously move even closer, AVON looks down
at BLAKE’s body. BLAKE stares sightlessly up at him. AVON
places his feet on either side of the corpse, standing over
him almost protectively. AVON finally lifts his head up once
more. The TROOPERS are a wall around him.

Suddenly, the alarm cuts out, leaving only the gentle whir
of the tracking systems in the room. AVON casually raises
his rifle. The TROOPERS tense. AVON, aiming his rifle at
head height, braces himself for the shot. An eerie smile
spreads across his face, then hardens into a grimace.


4. INT. GP CELL

Color and normal sound. We see a close up of AVON’s
impassive face as we hear a roar of different gunfires that
suddenly ends, leaving silence. He closes his eyes.

KORELL
(V/O)
You still haven’t tried to escape.

He opens his eyes again. We see AVON is lying on a bunk in a
square room, staring up at the ceiling. The bunk is the only
furniture, but the decor shows it is part of the GP base. On
the other side of room, KORRELL leans in the open doorway.
She is relaxed and calm, arms folded.

KORELL
It’s been seven days. The door is
open and I am unarmed. Most people
would at least attempted to escape
by now.

AVON doesn’t look at her as he speaks.

AVON
The trap is too obvious.

KORELL
Is it?

AVON
To run, you need somewhere to go.

KORELL
True. And you don’t seem to have
that possibility. At present.

AVON frowns slightly at this, but does not take his eyes
from the ceiling.

AVON
You have all the cards. You make
the move.

KORELL smiles at this.

KORELL
All right. Let’s talk about you.
You have had no thoughts of escape
for the past seven days. Why?
Because you are looking inwards.
For the second time in your life,
only the second time ever, you have
too much to think about.

AVON
Is that a diagnosis?

KORELL
No. Nor was it a question. You have
been living on a knife edge, just
avoiding death. You could stand the
constant pressure, but could you
stand the memories when they come
flooding back? The memories of the
people you trusted, perhaps?

AVON still does not look at her.

AVON
"People"?

KORELL
The people you trusted, the only
people you trusted in your entire
life. They betrayed you. Anna
Grant, for instance? You nearly
died for her as I understand it.
And she was an agent of Servalan.
Or maybe she was an agent for
someone else? After all, no one
knows. All we know is what she
wasn’t... she wasn’t loyal, she
wasn’t truthful, she wasn’t worthy
of your love. And she wasn’t dead.

AVON
She is now.

KORELL
And so is Blake. You admired him.

AVON rolls his eyes in vague amusement.

KORELL
You pretended to despise him, but
you must have agreed with him and
his purpose. You wouldn’t have
ended up on this planet for any
other reason. Would you?

AVON
Blake was a fool.

KORELL
But he was a fool that you knew. A
fool you thought you could predict.
You thought wrong. In the end, you
couldn’t be sure.

A long pause.

KORELL
Did Blake betray you?

AVON
Is that a question?

KORELL
This time? Yes. A real question.

AVON smiles.

AVON
It’s an interesting theory.

KORELL
Am I right?

AVON
It’s just a story.

KORELL
A true story?

AVON
More or less.

AVON levers himself upright, turning to sit on his bunk,
looking straight at KORELL for the first time.

AVON
What do you want, Korell?

KORELL
There’s no hurry. We’ll talk
tomorrow.

AVON’s voice holds a hint of desperation.

AVON
I’d like to tell you now.

KORELL studies him for a moment.

KORELL
Tomorrow.

She turns and leaves the cell. The door slides shut
smoothly, blocking the view of the corridor outside. AVON
sits, staring at the door. His expression changes to one of
satisfaction. He lies back down on the bunk.

AVON
Tomorrow.


5. MODEL SHOT -- SPACE

Servalan’s personal space craft is positioned in space.
Another, larger space ship is docked with it.


6. INT. SERVALAN’S SHIP -- FLIGHT DECK

Three MUTOIDS sit at the flight controls in the middle of
the deck. SERVALAN sits at her control console to left of
the flight deck. Before her stands ARLEN, now dressed in the
uniform of a trooper. She stands to attention, helmet under
her arm. A fourth MUTOID stands nearby.

SERVALAN
You were on the planet, Commander?

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner.

SERVALAN
What were your orders there?

ARLEN
To remove the prisoners held in the
compound and return them to Earth.

SERVALAN is slightly surprised at this.

SERVALAN
Why Earth? Were these prisoners
particularly important?

ARLEN looks slightly awkward.

ARLEN
Commissioner...

SERVALAN
Yes, Captain?

ARLEN
For some time, the planet had been
used by enemies of the Federation.
We had them under close
surveillance and had infiltrated
the command structure.

SERVALAN
And what form did this command
structure take?

ARLEN
When Open Planet policy was
introduced, normal Federation laws
were abandoned, leading to a number
of criminals arriving to take
advantage. When the policy was
terminated, law enforcement
operations were set up to round up
and execute those criminals.

SERVALAN
So any criminal elements using the
planet as a gathering place would
already be being dealt with?

ARLEN
That is what seemed to be
happening. However, the rebels were
using the cover of one of the
bounty hunter operations to attract
other dissident elements to their
base. They would capture criminals
at large on the planet and, if
suitable, recruit them. They
falsified records so the criminals
would be listed as dead, while
keeping them at large to plan a
rebellion.

SERVALAN
And who was it that infiltrated
this underground organization?

ARLEN
Myself, Commissioner.

SERVALAN
You, Commander?

ARLEN
I ensured that the dissidents were
unaware the rest of my force was on
the planet. At my command, we
stormed the silo they were using as
a base. All the rebels were to be
rounded up, and those that resisted
were executed on the spot.

SERVALAN does not look impressed.

SERVALAN
"Rebels"?

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner.

SERVALAN
And who were these... great
outlaws? That senior officers of
the Terran Federation had to rush
half way across the galaxy in order
to have them arrested?

ARLEN looks slightly smug.

ARLEN
The leader of the rebels,
Commissioner.

SERVALAN
Who was...?

ARLEN
Blake, Commissioner.

SERVALAN stares at ARLEN for a long moment.

SERVALAN
Roj Blake?

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner. He was the major
political criminal on the
Federation’s wanted list for...

SERVALAN
Don’t tell me about Blake,
Commander. I know more about him
than you were ever told.

A pause. SERVALAN is much calmer now.

SERVALAN
Did you actually see him?

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner. I spent much
time with him undercover. He was
one of the false bounty hunters
that captured me, believing me to
be a suitable ally.

SERVALAN
And was Blake taken captive?

ARLEN
Not exactly, Commissioner.

SERVALAN’s voice is like cut glass.

SERVALAN
Then what, "exactly", Commander?

ARLEN
Blake was shot repeatedly from very
close range as the troopers
arrived. I supervised
identification of the body. Roj
Blake is a dead man.

SERVALAN
He resisted arrest, then?

ARLEN
We didn’t shoot him, Commissioner.
He died before my men even entered
the silo. He was shot by one of his
rebel allies.

SERVALAN
Which ally?

ARLEN
His name is Kerr Avon,
Commissioner.

SERVALAN cannot hide her surprise.

SERVALAN
Avon?


7. INT. GP CELL

AVON lies on the bunk, seemingly asleep. There is a
scuffling noise from the closed door. Instantly, AVON opens
his eyes, wide awake. He sits up. He mutters to himself.

AVON
It seems I misjudged you, Korell.

He gets to his feet and crosses to the door, and presses
himself against the wall to the left of it, drawing his arm
up for a karate chop. The door slides open.

A TROOPER stands in the doorway. AVON’s expression shows his
surprise, but he still makes his move. Before the TROOPER
has stepped into the cell, AVON strikes him in the stomach.
Letting out a muffled groan of pain, the TROOPER falls
forward to the floor. AVON crouches down and slips his arm
around the neck of the TROOPER, getting him into a headlock.

AVON glances at the open door and the corridor beyond. No
one else. He tightens his grip on the TROOPER’s neck, as the
TROOPER instinctively tries to pull the arm away. AVON
tightens his grip further, but speaks quietly.

AVON
The wrong type of movement on your
part could have serious
consequences.

The TROOPER stops resisting, intimidated.

AVON
It would be helpful if we could
talk. Take off your helmet.

AVON slackens his grip, while still holding onto the
TROOPER, who gently pulls off his helmet to reveal a
familiar face underneath - albeit with a stubbly beard and a
look of terror in the eyes.

AVON
Vila.

VILA grimaces.

SOOLIN
(V/O)
Since you know who he is, you might
want to let him go.

AVON smiles and does so. We see a SECOND TROOPER standing in
the doorway, holding a sidearm aimed at AVON. VILA scrambles
away from AVON as far as he can.

AVON
Hello, Soolin.

Keeping AVON covered, SOOLIN takes off the helmet.

SOOLIN
It’s bad manners to threaten the
lives of those who’ve just freed
you from a Federation cell.

AVON
It was rather hard to tell who you
were through those uniforms.
Although I should have recognized
Vila.

VILA glares at AVON, annoyed.

VILA
Yes! You should have!

SOOLIN
You thought he was the usual
Federation thug?

AVON
He doesn’t quite have that
aggressive authority which is their
hallmark. As for you...

AVON starts to rise.

SOOLIN
Slowly, Avon.

AVON
I’m not the one with a gun.

SOOLIN
You’ve just demonstrated that
doesn’t count for much.

VILA
You also demonstrated how you’ve
turned into a homicidal maniac with
a tendency to kill people on your
own side!

AVON
I have nothing to gain from harming
either of you.

VILA
Very comforting. We rather got the
impression you wanted us all dead.

AVON
There are a number of locks between
here and the outside world. Vila
can open them quicker than the
average guard. And getting past the
guards is easier with a gunfighter
- especially the best there is.

SOOLIN
I’m flattered.

AVON
Don’t be.

VILA
Well, you don’t need to worry about
the locks between here and the
outside world, they’re all done.

AVON
What about the guards?

SOOLIN
We won’t be bumping into any.

AVON
You killed them all I suppose?

SOOLIN
No.

AVON
I doubt it was Vila who did it.

VILA
I didn’t have to kill anyone. This
place is deserted.

AVON
Deserted?

SOOLIN
There’s no one in this silo, except
you.

AVON is troubled. He doesn’t know how to react.

VILA
How did you scare them off, Avon?
Threaten to give a lecture to the
assembled masses on the subject of
your ego?

AVON
If I’d wanted them to leave, I
would have discussed yours for
maximum effect. Where are Dayna and
Tarrant?

SOOLIN
Not here. We’ve checked all the
cells.

AVON
Do you know if they’re still alive?

VILA
You mean you actually care? It
looked to me like you wanted us all
dead!

SOOLIN
Dead or alive, they’re nowhere in
this silo. At least not any more.

AVON
Unsurprising. It’s been a week.

VILA
A week since you unleashed
universal mayhem. And in all that
time there hasn’t been a single
ship landing or taking off.

AVON gets to his feet.

AVON
What were you doing out there in
the meantime? Counting trees? Or
drinking every drop of adrenaline
and soma within a radius of twenty
miles?

VILA stands as well.

VILA
And what the hell have you been
doing for the last seven days,
Avon? Playing patience?

AVON
I’ve been held prisoner.

SOOLIN
By whom? There’s no people here,
Avon. No guards, no Federation, no
ships...

VILA
No food.

AVON
What about Korell?

SOOLIN
And who might Korell be?

AVON
A civilian woman with long hair.
She was here, in this cell, one
hour ago!

SOOLIN and VILA exchange a glance.

VILA
Well. We haven’t seen her. Maybe
you’ve gone mad, Avon? Again, I
mean.

SOOLIN
Or maybe she was a ghost?

AVON turns to look sharply at SOOLIN.

AVON
Or maybe you are.

SOOLIN smiles knowingly at him.


8. INT. SERVALAN’S SHIP -- FLIGHT DECK

As before. ARLEN stands before SERVALAN.

SERVALAN
Commander Arlen, if your takeover
of Blake’s silo was such an
"unqualified success" why didn’t
you complete the roundup and
identification of the bodies
according to your orders?

ARLEN
It was at that point that we were
attacked, Commissioner.

SERVALAN
I see. By whom were you attacked?

ARLEN
The fighting had only just stopped
when there was a gas attack from
outside the compound. It was Aoline
97 which can maim instantly, and as
a standard precaution...

SERVALAN
You evacuated the silo right away?

ARLEN
Commissioner Sleer, by retreating
we were able to avoid the attackers
without further loss of men.

SERVALAN rises to her feet. ARLEN stays at attention, facing
the console even as SERVALAN moves from behind.

SERVALAN
You lost only five of your troopers
in the entire operation, Commander.
And because you didn’t lose a
sixth, that somehow is supposed to
justify you abandoning your
operation without even seeing your
opponents?

ARLEN
Commissioner, the security systems
inside the silo clearly showed it
was under attack from an
overwhelming force.

SERVALAN
Of course they did, you fool, you
were the overwhelming force!

ARLEN
The alarms were deactivated once we
had control and were inside.

SERVALAN
And did you ever wonder who these
mysterious attackers might be?

ARLEN
I assumed they were more rebels,
Commissioner. Reinforcements
summoned by Blake to protect the
silo perhaps?

SERVALAN moves behind ARLEN, who continues staring ahead -
the Comissioner’s voice drips with sarcasm.

SERVALAN
Yes, it’s just possible that was
the case.

ARLEN
Blake was dead and so were most of
his rebels - and since our primary
orders were to ensure Blake was
eliminated...

SERVALAN
And he was eliminated?

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner.

SERVALAN returns to her seat.

SERVALAN
Then where is his body?

ARLEN
As I reported, Commissioner, we had
to evacuate and there was no
opportunity to return to the
silo...

SERVALAN
So the body is still presumably on
the planet?

ARLEN takes a breath to stop her biting back.

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner.

SERVALAN
So there is no proof? Only your
word?

ARLEN
Commissioner Sleer...

SERVALAN glares at ARLEN.

SERVALAN
You may go, Commander.

ARLEN salutes and walks across the flight deck to the
airlock on the far right. SERVALAN addresses the attending
MUTOID, but doesn’t look at her.

SERVALAN
Call up information from Data
Central. Bring me a complete
analysis of the frontier planet
Gauda Prime.

MUTOID
Yes, Commissioner.

SERVALAN
And have it sifted for references
to "Blake", "Avon", "Orac",
"Scorpio" and "teleport".


9. INT. GP CELL

As before. AVON sits on the bunk. VILA in the corner. SOOLIN
in the doorway, still with her gun aimed at AVON. He has
been talking for a while.

AVON
For the past six days, the routine
never varied. Twice a day, Korell
would arrive here with food. She
would allow me to exercise up and
down the corridor, then attempt to
make conversation.

VILA
Is she pretty?

AVON blinks, distracted at the left-field question.

AVON
Yes.

VILA
Oh, well, what a surprise. We get
to starve in a beaten-up freighter
for six days, while Avon here gets
to be interrogated by a beautiful
woman - assuming you call this
luxury "interrogation"?

AVON
I call it "psychological warfare".
She was playing mind games with me.
She deliberately set up
contradictions of a prison with
only one unarmed guard, unlocked
doors, no security cameras in the
cell, no brutality, keeping me in
total ignorance of what was going
on... just waiting for me to crack.

SOOLIN
It’d be enough to drive you insane.

VILA
If you weren’t already.

AVON
I decided to pretend it was
working. At her next visit, when
she thought I was at my weakest and
could finally make me submit, I
could escape.

SOOLIN
What exactly did she want?

AVON
She wanted me to tell her where I
hid Orac.

SOOLIN
And she thought the best way to do
that was waiting until your
conscience got the better of you?

VILA
She sounds as mad as you are, Avon.

AVON
Speaking of irrational behavior, is
there any particular reason we’re
staying in this cell?

SOOLIN
Where else is there to go?

VILA
The outside world as you call it is
saturated. It’s the rainy season,
and rainy season means rain.
Non-stop endless rain...

AVON
Spare me the weather report.

VILA
It’s warm and dry in here.

AVON
What about the rest of the silo?

SOOLIN
There’s a price for you being
allowed to find out, Avon.

AVON
Which is?

VILA
We want Orac.

SOOLIN
It’s our one chance to get off GP
and we intend to take it.

AVON studies both of them carefully.

AVON
All right.

SOOLIN
And don’t think we’ve forgotten
what happened a week ago.

AVON doesn’t reply but gets to his feet.


10. INT. GP CORRIDOR

AVON emerges from the cell, followed by VILA and SOOLIN. He
looks left and right, then chooses left. They follow.

VILA
You don’t want directions?

AVON
I prefer to trust my own judgement.

SOOLIN
After all, when has it ever let you
down?

AVON’s expression hardens, but he says nothing. VILA and
SOOLIN do not see it.

AVON
If my route is different from
yours, anyone relying on me to
follow your directions will be
sorely disappointed.

VILA is offended at the implication.

VILA
You think this is a trap, don’t
you? That we’ve sold out.

AVON
It’s difficult to tell who you can
trust these days.

VILA
That’s just charming, that is.
Maybe starving outside would have
been the better option, maybe we
should have stayed out in the rain
for another week and died? Would we
be worthy of trust then?

AVON doesn’t reply but continues down the corridor.

SOOLIN
You’re wasting your breath, Vila.


11. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY

AVON emerges from one of the entrances to the right of the
gallery, stopping short in mild surprise at finding the
control centre so quickly. There is no sign of shootout that
took place; all the bodies are gone, and the systems hum and
titter to themselves.

Cautiously, AVON moves from the walkway into the lower area.
He approaches the patch of floor Blake died on. There isn’t
even a bloodstain. VILA and SOOLIN arrive. They watch as
AVON turns in a circle, repeating his actions in the last
episode.


12. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY (FLASHBACK)

Black and white. AVON turns in a circle, surrounded by
troopers. Interspersed we see AVON shooting a TECHNICIAN
attacking TARRANT, shooting KLYN, shooting BLAKE over and
over again. The dying BLAKE grabs hold of AVON. He speaks,
but we hear VILA’s voice overdubbed.

VILA
(V/O, dist)
Avon?


13. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY

As before. AVON is back in reality. VILA looks around the
gallery, sound gloomy and slightly afraid.

VILA
What happened here?

AVON
You tell me.

SOOLIN
We were lucky. We survived.

AVON doesn’t seem to know what she’s talking about.

AVON
"Survived"?


14. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY (FLASHBACK)

Black and white, voices distorted. The alarms are going off.
AVON is staring, catatonic, at BLAKE’s corpse on the floor.
VILA, SOOLIN, DAYNA and TARRANT stand beyond him. ARLEN is
covering them with her handgun. There is a distant
explosion.

ARLEN
(dist)
Be so kind as to drop your guns.
All of you.

VILA, SOOLIN and DAYNA toss their clip-guns to the floor.

ARLEN
(dist)
You and this nest of rebels are now
prisoners of the Federation. Your
friend Blake said he couldn’t tell
anymore who was Federation and who
wasn’t. He was right. He couldn’t.

TARRANT smiles at her.

TARRANT
(dist)
You’re a Federation agent?

ARLEN
(dist)
I’m a Federation officer.

Keeping his hands up, VILA ducks around AVON and moves
toward ARLEN talking reasonably.

VILA
(dist)
Oh, now, look, I’ve never been
against the Federation! I mean,
I’ve only ever been along for the
ride. I’m not even armed. You can’t
kill me! I’m completely harmless
and armless!

As he speaks, DAYNA ducks down and scoops up the nearest
clip-gun. Before she can aim it, ARLEN fires. DAYNA is flung
back against TARRANT and SOOLIN, dropping her gun.
Devastated, VILA turns and slams his fist down on ARLEN’s
hand, forcing her to drop the gun. His fist instantly swings
up into her face, knocking her backwards. As SOOLIN and
TARRANT lower DAYNA to the floor, VILA snatches up ARLEN’s
discarded gun. He glances at her unconscious body.

VILA
(dist)
Sorry.

He straightens up. A gunshot rings out, and VILA reels
backwards, letting go of the gun as he falls lifeless to the
floor. Behind him we now see a TROOPER standing on the
walkway, holding a smoking sidearm.


15. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY

As before. AVON turns to VILA.

AVON
And how exactly did you "survive"?

VILA
Instant reflexes. I was never shot.

AVON
You mean you hit the deck as soon
as the firing started?

VILA
Something like that. No point
hanging around being heroic. Not
twice in one day.

AVON
Was Dayna killed?

SOOLIN
She was injured. We didn’t get a
chance to see how badly.


16. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY (FLASHBACK)

Black and white. VILA is lying on his back beside ARLEN, a
stunned look on his face. His looks around, then he quickly
closes his eyes. Meanwhile, SOOLIN raises her reclaimed
clip-gun and fires. The TROOPER falls dead as TARRANT, now
also armed, heads up onto the walkway.

A second TROOPER breaks cover from the right side of the
gallery, behind the others. He raises his rifle and fires at
SOOLIN. Shocked, she spins, tumbles and falls to the floor
as TARRANT moves and shoots the TROOPER, who collapses.

SOOLIN is lying sprawled on the floor, clearly in a lot of
pain and unable to move. She struggles to keep a grip on her
clip-gun, but only manages to push it away.


17. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY

AVON looks down at the spot where SOOLIN fell.

AVON
You must have been very lucky to
survive a lethal charge.

VILA
Who said they weren’t using stun
guns?

AVON
Why would they bother? They had no
use for any of us alive, and they
weren’t even expecting us to be in
this silo in the first place.

SOOLIN
The blast didn’t strike me dead on,
it was still enough to put me down
and keep me there. Basic first aide
was enough to save me.

VILA
Maybe that was their plan? They
shoot everyone, pick the ones they
want to stay alive and let the rest
die. They would have wanted Blake
alive, might have got him too if
you hadn’t taken the initiative.

AVON
And who exactly gave you that
crucial medical aide, Soolin? The
Federation?

VILA
No, it was me.

AVON
And how did you manage to do that,
and escape without detection?


18. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY (FLASHBACK)

Black and white. AVON is still staring at BLAKE. TARRANT
shoots the TROOPER who shot SOOLIN, and runs down the steps
towards AVON. A third TROOPER emerges from the doorway
directly behind TARRANT.

TARRANT
(dist)
Avon --

The latest TROOPER raises his rifle and fires. TARRANT
jerks, grimaces, and crashes backwards onto the steps,
dropping his gun in the process. AVON looks up, startled at
the noise as the TROOPER trains the rifle on AVON. Another
alarm goes off as other TROOPERS arrive.

VILA peers through narrowed eyes as a TROOPER roughly steps
over him to close in on AVON. The thief’s hand falls to land
near Arlen’s discarded gun.

SOOLIN’s eyes are narrowed too, but on the point of passing
out. With difficulty, she tries to peer up at what is
happening, but cannot move.

AVON is now surrounded. The alarms cut out. VILA takes hold
of the gun. AVON raises his own rifle. SOOLIN closes her
eyes. AVON smiles, grimaces and fires.

A control panel directly in front of AVON takes the blast
and explodes in sparks. Instantly the lights flicker and
dim. AVON dives for the cover of Klyn’s console as the
TROOPERS start firing. Two of the TROOPERS are accidentally
blasted by their own side and collapse. The others look
around, confused in the gloom at AVON’s sudden
disappearance. VILA raises the gun and shoots the nearest
TROOPER in the back. The fall, letting off their own gun in
the process and yet another TROOPER falls.

As the remaining TROOPERS turn to see what is attacking
them, AVON emerges from behind the console and fires again.
A TROOPER collapses beside TARRANT’s body. VILA is crawling
along the floor for a side corridor. Running footsteps fill
the air as more TROOPERS head for the gallery. AVON rises
from under cover and shoots a TROOPER, then runs for the
walkway. The remaining TROOPER shoots at AVON but misses,
causing a small explosion off a pillar.

The lights finally flicker on to full strength as VILA ducks
and sprawls himself against the wall, as if he slumped there
after being shot. Three more TROOPERS enter, as AVON fires
again, then flees the gallery. The TROOPERS follow.

For a moment, the gallery is still. Vila opens his eyes to
see, just in front of him, SOOLIN struggling to get up,
obviously in pain. VILA scrambles over to her, gingerly
avoiding BLAKE’s corpse.

VILA
(dist)
Are you all right?

SOOLIN
(dist, in agony)
Do you really expect me to say
"yes"?

VILA
(dist)
Come on, let’s get moving and find
some place to hide!

SOOLIN
(dist)
What about the others?

VILA is about to reply when a TROOPER arrives from the far
left entrance. VILA quickly aims and fires the handgun, and
the TROOPER falls backwards. VILA turns back to SOOLIN.

VILA
(dist)
Come on, move!

He helps her up and they hobble past TARRANT further into
the base. Two more TROOPERS appear, spot the fugitives and
open fire. Luckily, VILA and SOOLIN are able to turn the
corner and escape the gunfire.


19. INT. GP CORRIDOR (FLASHBACK)

AVON runs down the corridor, to run into three TROOPERS
marching the other way. The stop as they see each other.
AVON aims at them, when a TROOPER right behind AVON raises
his rifle and uses it as club. Struck on the back of the
head, AVON cries out, drops his weapon and falls limply.

We fade to black before he hits the ground.


20. INT. GP TRACKING GALLERY

Fade up.

AVON
And when I regained consciousness I
was in that cell. Not long after I
met Korell for the first time. So
what happened to you after you
crawled away from the action?

VILA
The silo was a death trap. So we
got out of it first chance we got.

AVON
Between your stupidity and Soolin’s
injury, that is rather unlikely.

SOOLIN
Like I said, Avon. First aide. We
found a medical unit and patched
ourselves up. It didn’t take long
and then we managed to get out the
main hatch and out of the compound.

AVON
In the middle of a siege? Even more
unlikely. I doubt you’d even have
the time for Vila to break out.

VILA
What do you mean? I can open in
seconds what takes the
manufacturers four weeks! Even when
they have the key!

SOOLIN
Once we were outside, we looked for
shelter. The nearest ship was the
best bet. Once we were safe inside,
I switched the rear viewers on to
see what was happening.

AVON
What was happening?

VILA
Not a lot. It had started raining.
A few flyers on the far side of the
plantation.

AVON
Any idea who they where?

SOOLIN
No. They might have been
Federation. They might have been
Blake’s friends evacuating. They
might have been Tarrant and Dayna
for all we know.

VILA
After that, there was a freighter
take off, from the other side of
the compound, then... nothing.

SOOLIN
There was something else though.

AVON
What?

VILA
It’s nothing. And whatever it was,
it’s not here now.

AVON
And what was it?

SOOLIN
Hard to say. I think it might have
been some kind of space craft. It
was on the other side of the silo,
through the rain it was difficult
to work out any details.

AVON
Describe it, then.

VILA
It looked round. Sort of like a
sphere. And it was huge. It also
disappeared after a while and we
haven’t seen it since.

VILA leans on a railing, scowling.

VILA
Quiet as the grave.

AVON
Did you see any of the troopers
outside?

SOOLIN
Just corpses of them.

AVON
Were they all dead?

VILA
We didn’t ask them. Conversation is
never up to much when you’re dead.
It’s hard for them to explain
things. You might have noticed that
when you shot Blake.

AVON
So you didn’t see anyone alive. Did
you hear anything?

VILA
Hear anything? It was commando
country out there! Hundred of
bounty hunters across the planet,
armed to the teeth, shouting orders
at each other on the communications
channels! Then, after a while, they
just... stopped.

AVON
Then what?

SOOLIN
Then nothing. It all went silent.

AVON
That ship’s communicator, could it
have been faulty?

VILA
Equipment failure? We’re not
stupid, Avon, we checked for that.
It was working fine. And we double
checked.

SOOLIN
There wasn’t much else to do.

AVON turns away from them.

AVON
It doesn’t make sense.

VILA
I’ll tell you what doesn’t make
sense, Avon. What doesn’t make
sense is you blowing holes in the
one person who could have got us
out of the mess you got us into!

AVON ignores them. VILA’s arm shoots out and grabs AVON’s,
holding him in place. AVON doesn’t look at him.

VILA
We nearly died, Avon. For all we
know, Tarrant and Dayna are dead.
We have no ship, no friends and no
clue what’s going on. We’re worse
off than we were on Terminal and
surprise, surprise, look who dumped
us all in it!

AVON
He betrayed me, Vila.

SOOLIN
No. He didn’t.

AVON
He was...

VILA roughly pulls AVON around.

VILA
He was trying to explain to you
what was going on. This whole thing
was a cover for the rebels! He was
pretending to be a bounty hunter -
what else would he have been doing?
Just what did you expect him to be
doing on this crummy mudball?

AVON
Forgive me for not trusting the
judgement of a fourth class
reprobate with the intelligence of
a brick. What proof do you have
that Blake’s "rebellion" wasn’t a
lie to lure followers here for him
to betray?

VILA
Blake didn’t betray us!

AVON
Then where did the troopers come
from, Vila? Why did Tarrant say he
betrayed us? Why didn’t he explain?

SOOLIN
You shot him. Several times.

AVON
So would you, Soolin - or are we
supposed to follow a hired killer’s
moral high ground?

SOOLIN
We’re certainly not going to follow
yours, Avon. You’re more trouble
than you’re worth, and if anyone
betrayed us that day, it was you.

VILA
So do we shoot you, Avon? After
all, you’ve set a precedent.

AVON
Kill me and you never find Orac.

SOOLIN
And is that why you hid it from us
too, Avon? Just when exactly did we
betray you? What did we do for you
not to trust us?

VILA
He doesn’t trust anyone, does our
Avon. Why should he? It’s not like
he’s done a single damn thing in
his entire life to earn it.

VILA steps closer to AVON.

VILA
You know, I might have forgiven you
for shooting Blake. I might have
accepted you trying to throw me out
of an airlock. I’m not saying I
would have liked it, but I might
have come to terms with it. But you
thinking you were in the right,
that you were the innocent party in
all this? You don’t get to do that.
Not any more. No deal, Kerr Avon.
No deal. Understand this.

VILA speaks almost in a whisper.

VILA
You deserve to be betrayed.

AVON stares at him, and seems to start to speak for a
moment, but then stops. He turns and glares at Soolin.

AVON
Shall we go?

SOOLIN
In your own time. Preferably now.

To be continued....

For Fuck's Sake Gabriel Chase 2008!!

Yes, our favorite sociopathic eccentric oddball has AGAIN updated his fevered rantings - BEFORE Season Four is over! I wonder why?

More than fifteen years after the original series expired, and nearly nine after the abortive plan to conquer America, Doctor Who returned to British television via the BBC's Cardiff studio amidst a hail of publicity.
Aw. He's being reasonable!

However, any traditionalists expecting a revival of the familiar format were in for a shock.
Uh... how many traditionalists HONESTLY expected it to be identical to the old format?

Seriously, I cannot remember a single person expecting that.

The version of Doctor Who brought to the screens by writer Russell T.Davies, whose previous British sci-fi offering had been the six-part children's serial Dark Season in 1991,
Ahem. AND Century Falls.

was as different from the original as could be imagined.
Police Box, Daleks, Cyberman, Sontarans, Time Lord, cliffhangers, companions, historicals, future stories, UNIT, comedies...

Very much a child of its time, Davies' Who was a slick, fast-paced visual spectacular, relying more on extravagent special effects and celebrity guest stars than plot content.
This would REALLY hold more weight if you had actually WATCHED an episode, GC.

In place of a series of stories broken down into twenty-five minute episodes was a collection of forty-five minute installments, most self-contained, some forming halves of longer narratives.
Like Season 22. So even traditionalists could cope with that.

The style of the new series was based very much upon that developed in the series of original novels published by Virgin and BBC Books, which had managed to alienate most of the show's traditional fans but found favour with a host of new devotees grounded in over-elaborate American sci-fi serials, whilst the visual side owed much to the American pilot, in particular the design of the Tardis interior (also reminiscent of the Tardis seen in the Sixties' films - the doors being visible from the inside for instance), the opening titles and music, and the overall dark, brooding atmosphere.
Fuck, that is a long sentence. If the books were so unenjoyable, how come they lasted for fifteen years? And you cannot even realize that TARDIS is an acronym, therefore capitals? And dark, brooding atmosphere... did you miss Season 12-14? Or 22? 25-26? Most Hartnells? Give me a break...

Playing the part of a newly-regenerated Doctor in the first series was Christopher Eccleston, whose character was portrayed in a style reminsicent of Colin Baker's portrayal during the "Mindwarp" section of The Trial of a Time Lord, being frequently arrogant, sometimes condescending, often cowardly, and strangely reluctant to commit himself to resolving crises.
Sorry, shouldn't that just be "Colin Baker's portrayal" if you're going to be THAT superficial? Why single out "Mindwarp"? The story when the whole point is that even the SIXTH Doctor doesn't act like that?

Accompanying Eccleston was pop-starlet and gossip-column regular Billie Piper as London shopgirl Rose Tyler.
Stay calm. Don't kill him.

Typical of the times was the writers' rather annoying habit of turning every drama production into a soap,
I honestly am baffled why you have a link from that word saying Pamper yourself with our all natural soap, sugar scrubs, and herbal balms. Our body friendly natural bath products will promote healthy skin starting the very first day you try our products.

I mean... it's hardly helping your argument is it?

leading to Rose's mother and boyfriend appearing in practically every episode,
Out of the series' first thirteen episodes, they appeared in six episodes. So that's seven without. In the second series they appeared in seven episodes. With seven without. Does "practically" mean "not nearly"?

whilst even her supposedly deceased father appeared twice.
Three times, but why let facts get in the way.

Nevertheless, the new series was an immediate hit with the "Harry Potter" generation of under-twelves and twenty-somethings (most of whom didn't know any better!), despite provoking only lukewarm responses from the likes of former Doctor Peter Davison and former script editor Chris Bidmead.
Except Peter Davison appears in it and publically supports the show and the lead. You keep skipping that bit, don't you? The fact all the living Doctors thought the show was great is avoided as well, I note.

Eccleston bowed out at the end of the first series, "to avoid being typecast", to be replaced in a hurridly rewritten final episode
Liar.

by David Tennant who, like Eccleston and many of the production team, was a member of Davies' unofficial entourage of favoured actors and technical staff.
You're not paranoid, are you GC? The fact Tennant was a lifelong fan of the show with a CV to prove it means nothing. HE WAS A GROUPIE!!

Tennant made his official debut in an hour long Christmas special, which more than anything underlined the difference between 1960s' TV and its 21st Century counterpart.
It was in colour. And had monsters. And actually was watched. And there was the concept of regeneration. And UNIT. And forty-years of social and technological development. Is that what you're saying, GC?

Back in 1965, a Doctor Who "Christmas Special" (the Feast of Steven episode of The Dalek Masterplan) was more an accident of scheduling than a positive decision to celebrate the Festive Season.
Then why did the first draft have the Christmas special written in?

Forty years later Christmas specials were a necessary obligation of every serial screened by the BBC.
No. They're not.

A second series followed in Easter 2006 with Piper departing for fresh projects at the conclusion of an explosive finale involving Daleks and Cybermen, both of which had been revived with an eye on the lucrative toy market.
Cause no one ever thought of toy markets since, ooh, 1964? Does "Dalekmania" ring a bell, shithead?

Also revived was the character of Sarah-Jane Smith, played as ever by Elisabeth Sladen and accompanied by the John Leeson-voiced K9, both of whom were central to a Davies-penned spin-off series for the junior TV market.
Yes! Vile, disgusting commercialism perpetrated by that sexual deviant! Not a bit like the wholesome K9 and Company, a brilliant masterstroke by that butch hetero JNT... the fact Davies only script-edited one episode and didn't write for any of them is similarly ignored. I mean, it's not hard to check wikipedia to find the facts, is it?

Also spun-off was Torchwood, a more adult-orientated sci-fi series based in Cardiff and featuring the character of Captain Jack Harkness from the latter half of the first series.
Come on, you had a free shot there! Tear them to shreds, I won't stop you!

Replacing Piper temporarily in a second Christmas special was Donna Noble, played by the Trendies' favourite BBC comedienne, Catherine Tate, who, thankfully, desisted from using any of the monotonous catchphrases from her trendy (and relatively unfunny) BBC3 sketch show,
GC is clearly a deciple of Donna. She's got more kudos than the rest of the series put together.

before making way for the more permanent medical student Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, in series three.
Who wasn't really BLACK! Oh, wait, you edited that out? Did you? Naughty boy!

Like Rose, Martha had most of her family featured on a regular basis as the show proved seemingly reluctant to stray too far from Earth or its parallel-universe analogue.
Wait. Three episodes were on the parallel universe, and just in the second series. That's about as reluctant as you can get. And there are at least fourteen stories set off Earth, and half a dozen set on alien planets! Still, at least you aren't saying Rose is stuck on New Earth any more...

Series three also featured the return of another old foe in the form of the Master, played by a John Simm fresh from the triumph that was Life On Mars.
No bitching about the beard? Or dissing Derek Jacobi? You don't complain at all!

Martha (and Agyeman) was farmed out to Torchwood at the end of the third series to make way for Donna Noble's return as a permanent fixture
Sigh. Why do I bother.

- presumably because Catherine Tate was worth more gossip column inches than Agyeman -
So why didn't they keep her for season three, fuckwit?

inbetween which pop princess and former Australian soap star Kylie Minogue
Why the link? Seriously?

starred in the third Christmas extravaganza.
Fourth. Remember?

Having outraged traditionalists in series three with the portrayal of a Dalek with a personality striving to become a human being - which is rather like a modern human attempting to regress to becoming the Missing Link between humans and apes
What a brilliant idea for a story!! And "outraged traditionalists"? WHAT? "Annoyed YOU" is what you mean. Find a review of Daleks in Manhattan slagging it off. Easy. Finding one saying "Daleks becoming human? RTD must DIE!" is a lot harder.

- series four provided fresh controversy in featuring the Doctor's daughter, played by Peter Davison's actress daughter Georgina Moffatt (Dariel Pertwee presumably being otherwise engaged or not thought to be high-profile enough).
...who? Dunno why you complain about that?

Whilst Susan had referred to the Doctor in the original series as her grandfather, it had never been established whether this was a biological fact or merely a term of endearment, with many fans leaning towards the latter.
No, they didn't...

This highlighted the cut-and-dried stance of the new series, where everything had to be explained in simple terms, every fact had to be documented, cross-referenced and adhered to, and nothing was left to the individual viewer or writer's imagination.
HAHAHAHH! Oh, man, you really HAVEN'T watched the new series! And you haven't watched The Doctor's Daughter either...

In addition to this, series four witnessed the return of the Sontarans, now resembling a cross between the Vogons from the TV adaptation of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and former EastEnders psycho Ross Kemp,
I don't disagree... but surely that's what they're SUPPOSED to look like?

as well as cameo returns for Freema Agyeman's Martha Jones and Billie Piper's Rose Tyler. With the show forced to take time-out in 2009 to allow David Tennant to appear in a theatrical run of Macbeth, it remains to be seen if it will return for a fifth series.
HURRAH! He finally noticed it will be shown in 2009!

All we need now is for him to realize that the fifth series has been commissioned! It was comissioned at the same time we were told about the hiatus!

And if you're reading this, Gabriel Chase, I fucking hate you.

Doctor Who - I'M YER DADDY!

DOCTOR WHO: THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER

Well, you can bump and grind
And it's good for your mind!
Well, you can twist and shout,
Let it all hang out!

Well you can tear a plane
In the fallin rain!
I drive a Rolls Royce,
Cause it's good for my voice!

But you won't fool the Children of the Revolution!
No, you won't fool the Children of the Revolution!
No you won't fool, no no!!

Think on that title. Cause I did. And after about five microseconds, worked out a plot - the Doctor arrives at some Area 51/Torchwood/Forge gene lab where some shithouse attempt to clone alien DNA creates a "daughter" who is dead before the episode is out. Whether or not the Master would be involved was niether here nor there. But then I see the trailer, where the Doctor notes this hot blonde comes from him and in a way he's rather embarrassed to talk about. And this is the man who keeps his severed hand in his living room. And RTD's utter refusal to discuss the episode. Not even a "it's gonna be brilliant". Even the title was pulled from his vice-like grip.

Could it be?

Susan's mum? Susan's aunt? Lady Larn's godfather? The sister of the Son of Doctor Who?

Well, I mused, fair enough. After all, it's become clear to me that the dislike for the Doctor having a family life is down to the fact that the only real evidence for this is Susan Foreman. And she's crap. Seriously. No dissing Carole Anne Ford for her sterling work, or the writers, but Susan is probably the least likely relative of the Doctor EVER. The Master being his brother is cheesy, unimaginative, boring... but it would make a kind of sense. They're similar enough to each other to put it down to family. Same age. But Susan?!

Imagine if the Doctor had a granddaughter, what would she be like? I'll tell you: Vicki. She'd like to travel through time and space, she wouldn't be so telepathic/alienated/rodentphobic she'd seem autistic, and the Doctor would enjoy her company. He likes Vicki, they share jokes, ideas, friendly arguments. Does that ever happen with Susan? There are a million and one stories where the First Doctor leaves Gallifrey with Susan, and not ONE of them has him take her by choice. Even Terrance Dicks has her following him against his wishes. The Doctor ultimately considers Susan something to worry about rather than someone to travel with. Even in the Peter Cushing movies, precocious genius Susie Who is a better bet for someone who grew up in the TARDIS. Wilf and Donna have a better relationship than the Doctor and Susan. No wonder he never goes back for her.

My only other thought was total surprise when, upon seeing said trailer, my parents immediately said that the hot blonde was the offspring of the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.

...

What? Even aside the whole ickiness factor of that coupling... does Georgina Moffat LOOK in ANY way like Elisabeth Sladen? And why Sarah? My childhood consisted of seasons 17 and 18, so you would have thought Romana would be the better bet for this girl's mum. I mean, SARAH?! They've watched The Sarah Jane Adventures, which make a rather big deal that Sarah had no children. Especially not blonde action heroes who sling uzi submachine guns over their scantily-clad shoulders and - whoops, entering Verkoff Files territory there. Jaysus.

On with the plot.

Our story continues from the ending of last week's intelligence-insulting episode: Martha is saying goodbye to Donna and the Doctor when the TARDIS doors slam in her face and the time machine shakes insanely. Martha assumes the Doctor has taken off in a childish attempt to stop her going (I'll hope she accuses him of this out of fear for what the other option might be rather than the Spartha-like rant it could be taken for). The Doctor insists the TARDIS is not under his control and they're taking off. The jar with his severed hand is boiling. As my parents note, there isn't much of a precedent for this now the Time Lords are gone... so why is the TARDIS under someone else's control and why is the hand glowing?

The TARDIS arrives in a junk-filled subway tunnel and no sooner have the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa... sorry, Donna and Martha (Adric/Luke bought it in an exploding spaceship last week)... emerged then they are arrested by machine-gun-wielding rebels led by the annoyingly girly bloke from Skins, the one that lusts after his teacher and drops babies. The one that's just annoying rather than outright hateable. The Doctor is forced to be "processed" and shoved into a frizzfrazzfuckingrtdrippingmeoffaHEM cloning machine that creates the blonde as a new soldier for the rebels. I think you can work out who she is by now.

If not: "She's my daughter!" "Hello, dad!" Eeeeeooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwww!

I have to say, I was pissed off. It turns out she was a clone. Like we all expected. I have to say I think I must have felt the sort of confusion casual ABC viewers must have had when they sat down to watch Fear Her, since the ads all suggested that the plot involved the Doctor letting slip he fathered Chloe Webber with all the emphasis on the "dad" scene. But then, ABC ads loved messing with our minds - the gang on Platform One were all the Doctor's personal friends in some demented future-UNIT era; the Doctor and Captain Jack being old enemies; the Tenth Doctor and Rose shagging; the Doctor deliberately creating Torchwood; the Doctor and Joan actually being married (the voiceover lady didn't notice 'it was all a dream'); and completely spoiling the plots for Daleks in Manhattan and every last bit of the season finale; not to mention Spaceman, Starman, Sympathy for the Devil and ELO being crucial parts of the story arc. Well, the last one, admittedly...

In a rather dodgy Red Dwarf gag, Donna names the clone Genetic Anomaly (or Jenny for short). The Doctor is unsurprisingly unhappy about Jenny's existence; since she is nothing more than a soldier with his genetic makeup - essentially a Sontaran, if you think about it - he has no paternal feelings whatsoever, much to Donna's amusement. Clearly child-rearing skills skip generations in the Noble family, she is the first to bitch she'll not have a family by cloning booth rather than the old fashioned way... but her turkey-baster joke is a bit extreme for Doctor Who, isn't it? And did Nerice LOOK the maternal type? Still, nice to know they made amends after the whole cheating-ex-fiance-shagging-giant-spiders thing...

Martha meanwhile is having her own adventures and, like Reset, showing us she's a lot better at this lark than most companions as she infiltrates the Hath camp with ease. Who are the Hath? Well, they look like something out of Star Wars, a topic fishman with tanks of bubbling fluid who cannot communicate in anything bar body language, but Martha still manages to get on their goodside and become a hero by her actions alone. Incredibly, she gets more to do in the first ten minutes of this episode than the last two-part story. Or the similarly-structured Torchwood eps. Is this why people keep sidelining her? She's too good?

Moffat's performance as the Doctor's Daughter is surprisingly good. How good? She's Soolin rather than Buffy.

Eerily, she does look related to Mr Tennant and does a great job mimicking his facial expression and vocal tics. I assumed if they tried anything like that it would be for the Fifth Doctor's mannerisms, but is curiously very much like the Second Romana when she thinks she's being insulted. Blonde hair, blue eyes... nah, it's just coincidence. Mind you, her hearts beat a lot faster than the Doctor's usually do, but then, she IS pretty excited at the time. And the idea of growing up in the company of the Doctor and Donna is properly explored in how Jenny behaves - in particular how she gets them out of trouble - and for the first time the 'Doctor and Donna married' gag actually seems relevent. The Doctor's palpable discomfort as his female companions keep trying to seduce their way out of trouble is a nice throwback to all those unseen adventures with Captain Jack. And if it pisses Lawrence Miles off, go ahead, girls, do a striptease while the Doctor reverses the polarity of the neutron flow, it worked in Farscape. And they had a disgusting septugenarian with a third eye do it rather than a possy of well fit babes!

...whoops, entering the Verkoff Zone again...

There is also some nice running themes from The Sontaran Stratagem, where the Doctor is shown to be more of a soldier than he'd like to admit, albeit one whose methods don't involve shooting your enemy as Plan A, which adds to the trauma since said story shows that the LAST thing the post-war Doctor wants to be is any kind of soldier. And his daughter is, as Donna notes, GI Jane and thrilled at being related to 'the ultimate soldier'. Any other fictional character would need hardcore therapy after this, but the Doctor manages to cope in a nice homage his relationship with his old pal Leela, and admittedly the Noble Savage (rather than the Savage Donna Noble) twigged after five minutes that the Doctor didn't LIKE her stabbing people. It takes Jenny at least six...

As for the other characters, I dunno. General Cob comes up with the most trite, contemptuously infantile language ever - "I've waited my whole life for this and I'm not going to let the Doctor stop it!" all said in a strange, "Ooh-ar" Pigbin Josh accent. But the dialogue between the regulars is as good as ever, and after the Sontarans its not like anyone would be going "ooh, how are going to portray a lifelong soldier convincingly?" So I assume Cob and his army's lack of interesting dialogue is to demonstrate how backward their society has become, rather like them using a theatre hall as a base of operations. A Theatre of War, you might say...


It's a relief that this story does some psychological good for the Doctor rather than harm - for the first time since, uh... well, a while, he's left completely helpless but this time there's a happy ending. No dead companions, wiped out civilizations or people he's tried to save and failed: rather than the near breakdown he has in Partners in Crime or The Fires of Pompeii, he is delighted as there is a happy ending, like the universe has decided to prove him wrong just this once. It's nice to have the Doctor happy again, for a disturbed individual like me it's almost permission to enjoy the story (yet this doesn't always work for some reason). So when he finally gets on with his daughter and agrees to take her aboard the TARDIS, alarms go off in my mind.

They're gonna kill her, aren't they? Right in front of him. Just to fuck him over that extra little bit. Cause killing Kylie Minogue... twice... just wasn't enough. He's got to be crying on the inside nowadays, hasn't he? There can never be anything but a phyrric victory, otherwise it's just plain unrealistic. They're going to murder her in cold blood, just for the hell of it.

(Mmm. Even Larry Miles thinks similar. I thought I was suicidally cynical? You ripping me off too, Mad Larry?)

And it looks like the generations-long war between the Hath and humanity has taken place over a week. Considering they're all Jenny-style clones, is it down to them thinking time is different - 20 generations a day - or is it they're so shortlived? Is Jenny already middle aged? Is she going to kark out ala Chip, and for maximum cruelty, just after everything's resolved?

They're gonna kill her...

And the Doctor and his gang of warrior babes run into the middle of the conflict just before either side can open fire, the Time Lord makes one desperate speech for peace and...

...fuck! Internet preview buffer's jammed! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!

(one whacking with a hammer later)

Right, where where we? Oh yes and... and the Doctor's saved the day but General Cob is a psycho and shoots Jenny. Right in front of the Doctor. So she dies in his arms. Martha pronounces her dead, but the Doctor says, "No! She's like me, and..."

...fuck! Internet preview buffer's jammed! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!

(one whacking with a hammer later)

And now the Doctor, sweating like hell, is aiming a handgun at Cob's head, panting with anger and...

...fuck! Internet preview buffer's jammed! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!! IS THIS A CONSPIRACY?!

(one whacking with a hammer later)

I'm not being funny or anything, but she's breathing... yet I don't think I'm supposed to notice, as the Doctor is saying goodbye to Martha. Hmm, the only other Time Lord dying in his arms and then saying goodbye to Martha with that music. "We're making a habit of this," the Doctor muses.

Too bloody right.

No, wait, elsewhere, there's the bloke from Skins and a Hath (for some reason I look at those two and see a Holmesian double act in the making) are getting Jenny ready for a funeral and she breathes out some kind of wierd light. Skins and Hatch exchange comedy 'huh?' looks as Jenny...

...fuck! Internet preview buffer's jammed! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!! THIS IS JUST FUCKING STUPID!!

(one whacking with a hammer later)

And she's back! Cloned DNA takes a little longer to restart and so Jenny's alive. But the Doctor thinks she's dead. So it's like Charley Pollard in reverse - we know it's happy ending but he doesn't! It's Shadow World upside down (bit of a AV reference there), and Ms Moffat does her best Androzani impression as she woozily steals a space ship and hurtles off to do stuff! And it's only a matter of time before she bumps into her dad again... after all, the actress has appeared in Doctor Who before, playing the cloned daughter of alien. Except that time it was an Ice Warrior in Red Dawn. So she'll be back. Well, if ROSE can manage it...

Thank God we got some kind of cheerful ending! Yet the reset button was still pressed (which is why everyone thought she was doomed, because we all know next week it's just Doctor and Donna), so everyone's happy! I'm happy! I'm completely happy with this episode and everything in it... like I was with The Lazarus Experiment. Mind you, there is a niggling question of WHY the Hath can't talk, like WHY prehistoric humans were giant-life-sucking scorpions... but I can deal! Happy ending, angsty Doctor, some emotional scars healed, no one dies... well, no speaking parts, and the promise of a sequel!

Anyway, as we get another alien planet, I have to boggle. Um, isn't this serious TV show supposed to find somewhere apart from a gravel pit to film? Krop'tor, Malcasserio, the Oodsphere, those planets in The Infinite Quest and now Messaline! ALL BLOODY QUARRIES! I honestly wouldn't complain except for the production team screaming night and day for the last few years that they dare not visit alien planets for fear of getting stigma for going back to the Quarry of Fear?! Well, it's obviously possible, SO GET THE HELL ON WITH IT!

Next Time: "If anyone can solve this, it's you!"
Celebrity Historical Versus B-Movie Monster time, with Agetha Christie up against giant wasps. Uh, OK. Let's just say if I were under attack from the Wirrn, I wouldn't turn to Steve Moffat to save my miserable life, you dig? Even though he is a brilliant and clever author. I have to say the CHVBMM never really grabs me, but Gareth Roberts repeatedly kicked me in the face with The Shakespeare Code, so this should be good too. But, after all the delicate un-uncanonizing in The Fires of Pompeii to keep BF canon, will they do the same here? Or was the Doctor just joking in Terra Firma when he listed Agetha as one of his past companions? Am I thinking too much? Could ANYTHING not appear to be a let down after meeting the Doctor's daughter, let alone a seemingly straightforward historical (watch the trailer for The Idiot's Lantern after the Cybermen story and tell me your heart don't sink)? Oh, but why couldn't Martha and Jenny stayed for a few more eps? WHY?!?

10/10

RTD? Stop ripping me off!!

God damn it!

I mean why? WHY? I'm not as creative person as I'd like to be. Out of the small percentage of stuff I've actually finished, honest-to-god originality is few and far between. I'm always to some extent nicking things, concepts, or at the very least writing for someone else's format. Even The Youth of Australia - which sucks the marrow out of every sitcom Rik Mayall ever looked at - was almost entirely thought up by Damian Sanchez. I just write about it. That's my curse. I can do wonders with ingredients, but can't think up a recipe on my own.

So, WHY is it then, that the very very few things I can put (c) Ewen Campion-Clarke next to, somehow RTD uses in the proper Doctor Who?

I'm not stupid! I'm not saying RTD is stalking me and ripping me off - how the hell COULD he without me at least meeting him in some respect? Unless he really IS Sparacus, how? Ergo, he isn't. It's all a coincidence.

And that's the worst.

If anyone ever bothers to read the scraps for my aborted novel, Carribean Blue, they'll probably accuse me of ripping off Season Two. An impossible planet (actually called that in the dialogue), filled with spooky happenings, hanging over a walled-in universe full of ghosts? The Doctor noting he "is the man who gives monsters nightmares". Jack dying and coming back to life? The Doctor getting possessed by an alien? The Doctor ending the story by watching a female villain die in a stolen body?

Hell, I'D say I was ripping it off! But it's there. Look deep enough in the OG archives or click on "properties" and see I came up with all of it. I came up with the idea of a long-lived xeno-tech company called Geocomtex who fought the Doctor throughout human history, with their representative Captain Jack. Sound familiar? I came up with the idea of the Doctor having to regenerate, and getting a good farewell speech before dying, from cellular damage killing his organs. Ring any bells? A machine that spits out an endless army of Daleks? Landsquid aliens possessed by the REAL Devil? Inspired by a scattering of spoiler rumors, yes, but you start to wonder, don't you?

And then The Enemy Within. Fuck, I can barely describe it. Everything that happened in the Season Three finale, I did that. I wrote it, typed it up and sent it to people before ANYONE saw it. I tried everything, and RTD does the same thing, except he's not happy with a haunted house and bog monster, no he needs the end of the universe (which I had the Master say he'd seen, which inspired his nihilism! LOOK!), a new labor government and severed human heads with laser beams. But everything else! Even the Master tormenting a family out of sheer sadism! WHY?!

But this is... this is beyond the pale.

OK. Clear your mind of all preconceptions. Cause this is going to sound like such a lie. I have no proof what I am about to say/type, except that it sucks too much to be false.

Back in 2001ish, Damian and I were discussing The Youth of Australia and how it was a bit male-oriented. As we tossed around ideas to make it less so, I came up with a truly retarded idea. One story arc we had was Andrew and Nigel being marooned in Northern Territory and having to find their way home. I came up with this idea for part of their roadtrip:

Andrew and Nigel stumble across an abandoned genetics lab. They explore it and find a strange Frankenstein's lab with a huge test tube linked to computers, one with a hand-shaped hole built into it. Curious, Andrew puts his hand inside when Nigel, for a laugh, turns it on. Andrew's hand is trapped and he shouts in pain as something stabs his hand. A screen lights up: SECOND GENETIC SAMPLE INTEGRATED.

Andrew finally tears his hand free - a needle has plunged into his palm. The machinery comes to life pink slime fills the test tube, the electrodes inside the tube activate and zap! A huge, deformed blob appears, condensing out of the slime. Andrew realizes this is some fucked up cloning machine, except it's used his DNA and someone else's to create a new life form. Nigel sees the hideously ugly monster and laughs at "Andrew's Child" until the blob starts to change. It's actually a giant fetus and it 'evolves' into its finished form - a beautiful teenage girl. They adopt the girl as "Tambi" (named after the tambourinist from the Dandy Warhols coz THAT'S how damn hot she is!) and she is the new girl regular, learning things, getting into troubles and faux pas (like when she explains the guy old enough to be her boyfriend is, in fact, her father), plus giving the interesting dynamic of Nigel and Andrew despising each other, but both caring for Tambi.

Understandably, we thought it was pretty dumb. YOA was already divorced from reality enough with rent-free accomodation; cloning machines was stupid, and ultimately Tambi's role in the gang was replaced by Eve mk 2, and bar the odd use of a time machine, the show kept its feet on the ground. Well, one of them. But for an afternoon we worked out the whole business of the episode, even down to Nigel's long speech of how he can never look at Tambi sexually since she changed from a six year old to a seventeen year old in front of his eyes, so it just feels wrong to lust after her. The bit where Andrew's arm was bitten by the machine hung around for a while, before we decided it was basically like DNA from Red Dwarf. And the idea of "Andrew's daughter" was dismissed before the sun set.

And then, today, I see the latest ep of Doctor Who.

Where the Doctor gets his arm stuck in a machine and a huge test tube slides up to reveal a hot teenage girl, his de facto child. OK, it's Doctor Who, she's blonde and wearing clothes, but everything else is the same. In fact, I'd argue its worse! The Doctor goes, "Ooh, something's plunged into my palm, taking out a sample and genetically extrapolating it!" Well, at least I had Andrew and Nigel working out what happened in a slightly more naturalistic manner!

I worked out whole paragraphs to justify why I was cool with The Doctor's Daughter seemingly revealing the Doctor had shagged some Gallifreyan bird way back when, like his insistance on being Alpha Male in the TARDIS crew from the first episode onwards to Moffat's defining the Time Lord as coming from an incredibly repressed society (just in case no one noticed). Hell, I was willing to entertain the stupid shipper idea of "You know how in Doomsday, there's a bit where you think Rose is pregnant, but it's actually Jackie's, well, actually Rose was lying and she was having the Doctor's baby even though they never so much as told each other they were in love?" theory to explain the blond blue-eyed daughter and Rose's cameos in the series.

But no. The old "genetic experiment by callous bastards" option is used.

And I could have coped if they hadn't ripped me off to do it.

And this is just the PRE-CREDIT SEQUENCE!

I'm left wondering whether there'll be a Nigel Verkoff in the credits at this rate...

Great. Just fucking fantastic...

Three Years In The Making: Nude Earth!

Gosh, the last week or so has been hectic in the spoof side of things. Only three - count them! THREE! - BF stories from their first "century" are un-spooved. Valhalla has proven to be a particularly difficult one to do. How the hell do you tackle a story where the Seventh Doctor joins Centrelink and looks for a job before being bought by giant termites?! I dunno, and every time I tried to tackle it, I was flung back, still of inspiration, and managed to race through other guides I never expected to tackle - like Excelis Rising, ever since I found out it was just like a YOA script I started, or In A Fix With The Sontarans for the love of Led Zeppelin. And now, having finished the last mainstream Paul McGann stories EVER, I felt I needed a moment to reflect. And work out how the hell I'm going to deal with Lucie's character - God, she's horrible in Blood of the Daleks, isn't she? I'm rather tolerant of Ms Miller, but that first episode gave Spartha Jones a run for her money. I tell ya, it should have been HER that ended up in the care of the Sixth Doctor, so he could throttle some respect into her.

Anyway, my thoughts drifted back to the New Series, and my disappointment that Charles Daniels seems have given up after I suggested a few gags to him (no doubt my talentless horror has driven him to despair...) and remembered I had been intending to do Tennant's first season for quite a while before I 'drew the line' at stories made after 2005. So, after brooding on the sheer lack of enthusiasm and creative imagination in the contemporary OG archives (those kind mods haven't banned me from there, bless their festering bowel complaints), I started to try and tackle them and - like a few stories like The Kingmaker, Terra Firma, 300 and The Empty Child - improve on what we were actually given.

Coz, between you and me, Doctor Who in 06, on the whole, SUCKED!!!


EARTH 2.0

It’s 10 in the morning on Boxing Day, and at the Powell Estate Mickey and Jackie have starting heavy-petting in the middle of breakfast, in front of the horrified Doctor, Rose and Cousin Mo. The Doctor decides this has put him off his sausages and Rose gets to her feet, screaming that she can’t take this any more and wants to get as far away from her mother and ex-boyfriend copulating as possible.

As she runs out of the flat, the Doctor blinks and realizes he doesn’t particularly want to stay either and hurries off after her. Mo stays to finish their untouched breakfasts before she leaves, quite indifferent to the copulating couple on the kitchen table.

The Doctor enters the TARDIS and begins to activate various controls, while Rose vandalizes Mickey’s beetle and sprays DIE SCUM on his imitation leopard-skin seats. Soon she joins her friend inside the craft and in no time at all they are spinning through the time vortex. When Rose inquires as to where they are going, the Doctor explains excitedly: "No idea! I can’t remember how this bloody thing works at all! I managed to fluke it the first few times, but, hell, I was living in denial!"

The ship soon lands and the two travellers find themselves on a windy hillside before a grand city. The Doctor explains that it is the year 5,000,000,023 AD and the planet is Earth 2.0, a new world on which the remains of humanity settled on after the original Earth was destroyed by the expanding sun and the city before them is New New Cardiff.

Rose points out that there is rather large sign saying "WELCOME TO THE CITY STATE CRAFE TEC HEYDRA ON THE PLANET COFFRA" which makes the Doctor blink a few times, shove his hands deeper into his pocket, suck air through his teeth, tilt his head from side to side and sigh.

"Well... obviously... it’s a time share. Next year this place will be swarming with humans, mark my words, you won’t be able to tell the difference between this and Cardiff."

The Doctor then pretends to become very fascinated with the contents of his pockets and then notes something odd with his handy-dandy-all-purpose-telepathic-psychic-paper: words are appearing on it, as if someone is trying to contact them!

0010234 00000001-
00110001 000000 00
123456156756662--------1
>I
546002646 0000000000000000001111
11111111011234864100000
cfx-103268631-3151643k;jaj
PLEASE, WHERE AM I?
******** 015154122 124
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 7773
HELP ME
244+56030000 12346843333
AS PART OF THE MACHINE, WE KNOW THE MACHINE
54637896 00000110000000001111
111111110112346864100000
cfx-103268631-3151643k;jaj
I DON'T WANT TO DIE
cfx-103268631-3151643k;jaj
11111111011978864100000
>2 >4>6 >8
WARD 26. PLEASE COME.

The Doctor and Rose decide that it is some scrambled text message and not worth wasting their time on, so instead they’ll do what all tourists do in Crafe Tec Heydra and get their holographs taken in front of the Temporal Difference of Opinion Memorial in the centre of town.

The TARDIS travelers soon admire the carvings on the monolith, with artwork showing a race of metal beings and a race of flesh being clashing in a fearsome explosion and solitary survivor in a frock coat and long girly hair walking away from the wreckage. Under this is a phrase scratched into the stone: "YOU ARE NOT ALONE".

The Doctor buys a T-shirt with that slogan while Rose gets a purple Bob Dylan cap with the words I SAW THE CRUDE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE INVISIBLE WAR AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID HAT, and they discuss whether or not the artist got the Eighth Doctor’s nose the right size.

It is now the Doctor notices the huge, dark and monastic Hospital of Evergreen Days in the middle of the sci-fi high-towered city full of whizzing shuttles like Coruscant in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The travellers enter the hospital via the foyer and find it filled with feline-like nurses, who busy themselves with their visitors and patients. The Doctor explains that these are the Sister of Plentitude who run a hospice for the Face of Bond, the ancient creature that made numerous self-conscious cameos in the first series.

Rose questions why they are doing this incredibly pointless thing, and the Doctor explains there are countless dubious stories and urban legends surrounding the Face of Bond, in particular the prophecy that moments before his death Boe will impart his final secret to one like himself – the wanderer, the man with out a home, the lonely God.

"What? Like you, you mean?" Rose asks.

"Eh? Course not me, what would be the odds of that?!" the Doctor retorts. "Everyone knows the final secret will be four little words and everyone’s been guessing what they are for centuries! That’s why the Sisters are keeping an eye on him so when the big-headed poser finally karks it, there’ll definitely be someone there to hear them!"

The Doctor heads for the lift, noting that he’s always suspected the infamous four words will be "The Butler Did It" though the clever money is on either "I Am Your Father" or "You Are My Mother". So lost is he in guessing the stunning revelations the Face of Bond might make if he could ever be bothered, the Doctor does not notice a scrawny albino dwarf covered in henna patterns watching them in wide-eyed amazement.

And to be honest, a scrawny albino dwarf covered in henna patterns watching them in wide-eyed amazement bouncing up and down gasping "Human! Pureblood human! Bugger me sideways! She must be the ONLY pureblood human in the ENTIRE BLOODY UNIVERSE!" as he points at Rose is KIND of noticeable.

However at that moment, the Doctor and Rose are distracted when the Duke of New New York, a legendary descendant of Isaac Hayes, is rushed into the Hospital after choking on a cocktail olive. His lawyer, Krau Flovis, threatens to sue absolutely everyone for allowing this to happen until the Doctor sighs, sets his sonic screwdriver to "Heimlich Maneuver", and saves the Duke’s life instantly.

Flovis continues to threaten the Doctor with legal action for interfering with her client, so the Doctor kicks Flovis in the shin and runs away very quickly into a lift and escapes, forgetting to take Rose with him. Thus, she has to get another lift with the scrawny albino dwarf who nervously introduces himself as Chip "Zaggit" Jamison before the lift’s automatic cleansing system soaks them in disinfectant – leading to Doctor Who’s first High-Def wet T-shirt scene.

The rather damp, sticky and, most-important, transparently-clad Rose gets out of the lift in the cellars of the hospital and when Chip follows her, Rose picking up a discarded metal bar and threatens to beat him to death unless he stops stalking her. Then she whimpers and runs away. Chip follows and there is a predictable Benny Hill chase sequence ending with Rose running into a dungeon where she finds...

JOAN COLLINS!

The no-longer-humanoid sheet of skin is sitting in a corner, watching a projector film playing an endless home movie of an acid house rave party. Rose is shocked and disturbed at this for many reasons, least of all that during their last encounter at Milliways, Collins was set alight and melted into a puddle.

Joan Collins explains that her brain survived... somehow... and the Face of Bond offered her remains a lift on the back of space truck. However, Collins insurance policy didn’t cover third party murder and she has used all her cash to reconstruct her trampoline-like body with the remaining skin from her ancient, original buttocks.

"And thanks to you, you dirty blonde assassin, I’m just desiccating in my pit, letting the memories play! Oh, I remember that night. Speed cocktails from the Ambassador of Stoatgobbler. That was the last time anyone told me I was beautiful. It was a pivotal moment, looking back on it, and changed the entire course of my life... but now you’re here! This is beyond coincidence! This is destiny! At last I can be revenged you, DOCTOR!"

Rose remembers that due to a slight misunderstanding, everyone at the Restaurant at the End of the World thought SHE was the Doctor and the Northern bloke with the big ears and the leather jacket was actually Rose Tyler. Awkwardly, she explains the situation to Joan Collins, who proves to be surprisingly understanding about the whole thing.

She then has Chip pull a lever on a nearby control panel and Rose’s arms are grabbed by two chains of light, emitted from nearby run-down machinery. Upon his mistress’ orders the clone then activates the psycho-graft, causing a cage of light to descend on the trapped Earthling. There is a flash and the light surrounding Rose vanishes leaving Rose sly and foxy and with a strange American accent.

"Result!" 'Rose' laughs as she marvels at once again having arms, fingers and hair, ignoring the hysterical screams of "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED THERE?!?" from 'Joan Collins'.

Yes, it is true, Joan Collins has swapped bodies with Rose Tyler!

Cue completely gratuitous scenes of Billie Piper in a wet T-shirt fondling herself in front of a full-length mirror as a tattooed albino dwarf watched on... GOD DAMN IT, I LOVE THIS FREAKING SHOW!!

The Doctor, meanwhile, makes his way to the Face of Bond Ward in the upper levels of the hospital while he and Sister Jatt, one of the hospital’s cat nurses, exchange ideas on what Bond’s last message will be and the bookies odds on said ideas.

On the way they meet Flovis and the Duke of New New York, the former of which starts having a go at performing surgery on the Duke without written permission and official from the senate. The Doctor notes that the Duke is turning to stone – Petrifold Regression, a nasty STD carried by silicon-based lifeforms the Duke caught during his lifetime of charity and abstinence with a hooker called Granite Gretel.

Sister Jatt is confident that the Duke will "be up and about screwing prostitutes in no time" but the Doctor has known many a statue to have once played the field with similar hopeless optimism. Jatt bitches that the Hospital is waging an ongoing war against STDs, but somehow humanity continues to find ways to spread genital diseases...

"When we said we were taking a lifelong vow to heal and mend, we thought we were just finding a way to pass the time..."

The duo finally reach the Face of Bond sitting in the corner, and the Doctor kneels before the tank and laughs: "Bet you didn’t expect to see ME again, did you? I look a bit different, but it's me... it's the Doctor... and I survived that business with the Dustbins – total fluke, huh? So, anyway, you dead yet?"

The Face of Bond sighs.

Just then the Duke of New New York arrives with a bottle of champagne, having been miraculously cured of all diseases despite the Doctor knowing that Petrifold Regression is completely and utterly incurable – but, somehow, the Sisters of Plentitude have found a cure with the tender application of science and two minutes in Intensive Care.

The Doctor turns to the attending nurse, Matron Casp, and delicately raises the matter by grabbing her by the wimple and screaming "HOW THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?!" at the top of his voice.

Matron Casp explains such matters are covered by patient confidentially and tells him to piss off. Scowling, the Doctor stalks the wards of the hospital and finds all the patients cured of infirmities and diseases which are normally considered "extinction-level catastrophes", all in a matter of minutes. When Joan Collins arrives wearing Rose’s body and searching for the leather-clad Northerner she now intends to kill, the Doctor greets her and the two remain totally unaware they are actually mortal enemies. As you do.

"There you are! Have you seen these patients? Look at that bloke with the red skin? He’s got Marconi’s Disease – you hear that beeping? Morse code for 'Let Me Cure You'. Nasty thing, Marconi’s Disease, it makes you generate ironic Morse Code messages, and it should take years to recover. He’s due out tomorrow! I’ve never seen anything like it! And that guy, the one completely white? Pallidome Pancrosis. Kills you in ten minutes, and he’s fine! How the hell do they do it? Some kind of cell washing cascade? Hypnosis? Placebos? HOW?!?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because they’re not telling me! I HATE NOT KNOWING! I LIKE SPOILERS!" The Doctor glances at Rose and notices her shirt is completely unbuttoned and she’s no longer wearing a bra. "Is it getting hot in here?" he asks hopefully.

Joan Collins very suddenly pulls his face towards her and plants a smacking kiss on his lips. When she finally pulls away, he looks extremely shocked and she’s slightly breathless. He stares at her as she wipes her mouthj like she’s eaten fried chicken.

"Sorry," she explains. "I haven’t been getting much lately."

She walks off. The Doctor watches her go looking extremely dazed and tousled. "Yep!" he grins, smoothing his hair down. "I still got it! And this time I’m NOT going to die right afterwards! Yee-HAH!"

The Doctor, invigorated, heads off through the hospital to search for Intensive Care to find out the truth behind this curiously innovative level of treatment in the hospital and the reason why the nurses have kept it a secret from the outside world. Failing that, a secret passage will do him just fine.

The Face of Bond sends his personal masseuse, Novice Hame, to go and fetch the Doctor, and if she accidentally throws him down some stairs, well, then that’s perfectly all right with him. Hame heads off into the depths of the Hospital and finds the Doctor and Rose sneaking behind a tapestry marked "GO BACK! YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY!"

Creeping down a long, dark corridor, the Doctor and Joan Collins find an endless industrial passageway lined with identical, glass-fronted booths glowing an unfriendly green colour – Borg chic by anyone’s standards. "Odd how the cellar of this hospital looks like that paper mill the Nestle Consciousness was in way back at the start, eh, Rose?" the Doctor asks her. "It’s so distinctive! Odd to find it over five billion years in the future..."

The Doctor opens one of the cell chambers and finds, inside... the Duke of New New York, sobbing and turning to stone as they watch. In the next cell are the other patients the Doctor’s seen, all diseased and drooling like zombies. Joan Collins notes that there must be millions of cells, for all the patients who have ever visited the hospital, all linked by psycho-graft body swappers.

"Hmmmm. The patients come here and get linked up to this machinery, and somehow a copy of them with all their memories and personality is let loose in their stead. Jings, if I were paranoid, Rose, I’d say the nurses were up to something dodgy and not curing people at all!"

"That sounds rather convincing, actually."

"Does it? Oh yeah, so it does! The Nuns, being unable to cure all the diseases in the Galaxy, have resorted to cloning healthy duplicates of their patients. They transfer the patient’s minds into those new bodies and claim to have cured the illness and imprison the original sick bodies in these green cells! Brilliant! I’ve seen it tried a few times by the NHS but never on a scale like this. Think of it! Plague carriers hidden away with hideous diseases whilst the patients in the public eye were healthy... just like The Picture of Dorian Gray!" the Doctor gasps. "Deliberate, or a coincidence?"

Novice Hame finally catches up with them and immediately starts reciting their prepared statement abdicating all possible responsibility: "It’s for the greater cause! The Sisterhood has sworn to help! Mankind needed us when it was their turn on the time share, and they caught so many disgusting diseases! We couldn't cope! We did try! We tried everything! We tried growing clones and using it as a plague farm for cures, but it was felt too Gothic by every focus group we tried! So the Sisterhood came up with a scheme to make patients better without curing them! It’s all perfectly legal!"

"So why don’t you tell anyone?" Joan Collins asks.

"It kind of kills the mystical omnipotence vibe," Hame explains.

"But this is deeply immoral!" Joan Collins complains.

The Doctor bugs out his eyes with a psychotic zeal. "I say it’s perfectly reasonable, because I AM THE DOCTOR! And if YOU don’t like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, well there isn’t one! Patrick Moore notwithstanding, IT STOPS WITH ME! And I will NOT be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered!! You’ll do it MY way, because I LIKE it my way! I’m better than you, I’m more powerful than you SO DO AS YOU’RE TOLD!!!!"

Hame and Joan Collins stare at the Time Lord as he foams at the mouth.

"Oh, was I being dictatorial again?" the Doctor asks suddenly. "I suppose saying your own authority is absolute is just a small step away from being a dictator... Is that the sort of person I am now? Am I megalomaniacal tyrant? A deranged psycho control freak? And NOT ginger?"

"Wait a minute," Joan Collins snaps. "YOU are the Doctor? THE Doctor? From Milliways? The SAME Doctor with a NEW face? And you have a go at ME for having plastic surgery? YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITE!!!"

"Er, Rose, what are you on about?"

"YOU UTTER SCUMBAG!!!"

"I’m being very, very calm. You want to beware of that - very, very calm. And the only reason I’m being so very, very calm is that the brain is a delicate thing. And I might smash yours in UNLESS you tell me what the hell you’re talking about?"

"I’m not Rose!"

"Then who are you? Some sort of really sexed-up Auton?!"

"So soon forgotten? I am the Last Human!"

"Dave Lister?"

"No, Joan Collins!"

"Jings, forty years of outstanding villains out for my blood, and a one-note non-entity satirical piece of skin is the one that comes back?! That’s just wrong!"

Furious, Joan Collins takes out Rose’s perfume and sprays it in the Doctor’s face – and he immediately keels over at the incredible potency of Divine Aura # 4!!

to be continued in http://bfwhoguide.bravehost.com/201.html

An Authentic Sequel To The Great TV Series?

The latest from BBC NEWS!

A new remake of sci-fi series Blake's 7 could soon return to television screens, Sky One has revealed. The satellite channel has given the green light for the development of two 60-minute scripts for a "potential event series". It is not yet known if and when production on the series will begin.
"The time is ripe for a revival of a show that represents the best traditions of the genre, not to mention one of the best-loved and most successful dramas of all time," Elaine Pyke, commissioning editor for drama at Sky One, Two and Three, said. Sky is working alongside Blake's 7 Productions, a subsidiary of Blake's 7 Media who owns the licence to the show. The planned new episodes would follow recent re-workings of other sci-fi shows Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman.

...

Why doesn't this fill me with joy? Or enthusiasm? Or... anything?

It's not being done by the same idiots who perpetrated the B7 Audios - you know, the Babylon 5 rip off with lashings of Crusade? There's nothing to suggest it won't be a worthy successor to the original Blake's 7, like Rose or Invasion of the Bane or Will You Stand For This? Except... well, there is a huge problem here. And it's fundamental to Blake's 7.

Why bother to bring it back?

Seriously. Think about it. Why? All the episodes exist. They're on DVD. If you wanted, you could do a Red Dwarf re-mastering and replace all the dodgy, unconvincing model shots with COMPLETELY unconvincing CGI shots. Have the guns fire laser beams. Get Murray Gold to do a theme tune for Cally when she gets possessed. Alter the face of Travis so it doesn't shot that much when he changes appearance. Make alien war at the start of Aftermath isn't a lethal use of stock footage. Have Terminal explode.

Why stop there? Why not get Cosgrove Hall to do their 'talking heads' animation of Assassin and then get someone else to play Cancer? In fact, go the whole hog and rewrite Hostage, Animals, Bounty... and suddenly all seems getting a bit silly. Blake's 7 worked, people. More often than it failed, anyway. So, why remake it? Do you think Kill Bill-style bullet time effects can improve on the horror when Vila gets shot? That a huge Las Vegas set can make Gambit any funnier? That Adam Rickitt can convincingly create a Mutoid?

And if you're not going to remake the stories (more or less) as they were, why the hell reboot it? What was wrong - conceptually - with the original? Cause if it's a choice between The Way Back and Rebellion, I'll throw out Ben Aaronovitch's finest any day.

What good did rebooting the series as audio plays do? The Liberator becomes an out of control ship consisting of a skutter-filled corridor you have to go into a trance to talk to Zen. The episodes where you sit in a control room and start a sentence with "Zen" still work, you know. And if you ARE in love with skuller-filled corridor spaceship, why snatch names from Blake's 7 to make it work? Why set it in the 23rd century where people need hyperspace and cryo-stasis for decent space travel, when the series it is based on rightly thought such material boring and tedious? Why drop Cally? Why drop damn near everything and then replace it with the backstory of Babylon Five as ancient aliens turn up to face humanity with their mistakes, and a completely unambiguous moral hero leads a fight against an unambigously corrupt regime?

Assuming Ben Aaronovitch simply wrote this series and by accident made it seem like Blake's 7 when really it was supposed to be Gateway or something like that, it's still a waste of time.

Why bring it back if it's going to be changed? It's not like Doctor Who or Robin Hood, where as long as you get the basics right you can reinterpret and recast who you damn well choose. And it's not like Sarah Jane Adventures, because you've got none of the original cast.

There's no point rebooting the series, and you can't pick up where Blake ended. Not unless, say, you refilm Season Four - or bits of it, any road - and start from there. And no one is going to do it. Certainly not in a couple of movie specials. Which is why I'm not enthusiastic about this. It CAN'T succeed because it's based on a false premise - even if they somehow made it work, somehow redid Blake's 7 with James Nesbit as Blake and Simon Pegg as Vila and Sarah Lancashire as Servalan - what are they going to do? Really?

The Beginning, that's what. Like last time. They're going to have the gang meet together, steal a spaceship... and what? Destroy the Federation in part two? Why BOTHER?! Why bring it back and make sure it can't be used again? Is it just some broken logic that assumes "Doctor Who is a crap sci fi show now successful" "Blake's 7 is a crap sci fi show" ergo "Blake's 7 can be successful"?

And what happens if they do the opposite? If they, as Paul Darrow wants, continues the original B7 universe, except with a completely new crew fighting the Federation? BTR tried it, the SWARM tried it... and it hasn't worked. Seriously, does anyone watch Blake and go, "Wow, I wonder what's happening back on Earth right about now?"

No, they don't.

The cliffhanger ending works because all the people we care about are cut down mercilessly in a huge misunderstanding. Who cares if the Federation is defeated? The program makers certainly didn't, since they spent the penultimate episode setting up the Rebel Alliance to help fight them off. Blake's 7 is about Blake and the people who were with him. Take that away, and what's the point? Even if I could honestly say recasting them wouldn't matter, they'd have to start right on Gauda Prime for me not to instinctively react like the Doctor in Utopia and flee.

And that is why Blake's 7 is impossible to pick up from. You can't cut X years down the line like Doctor Who did, because effectively little changed in the day to day adventures. The Seventh Doctor and Ace walk into the sunset, and the Ninth Doctor walks out of the sunrise. No wonder Barry Letts scrapped the idea of his BBC audios being a sequel and instead missing adventures (given the quality, it's for the best).

It's worth noting at this point, since I'm mainly rambling in an excuse to get that disturbing Chris Hale cover lower down the page so I don't freak out every time I log on, that the Blake we see today is not the original cut. Having read the magazines at the time, I now know the final shootout scene was reshot, or at least a different take used (fair enough, as the photos show Vila and Tarrant's death agonies as them realizing they've shat their pants). Originally, they all died. I mean, ALL of them DIED. They screamed as they were shot, and much thought went into picking through previous episodes for a scene to be superimposed, a dying memory, if you like. Avon's freeze frame was originally discovering his gun was empty. Blake's flyer had furry dice. And a scene was planned that Orac would get blown up when a security guard shot at it, and Avon would kill him and get that gun in the first place. The cast were all convinced it was finale - Gareth Thomas, Josette and Steven Pacey weren't coming back, Michael Keating was strongly tempted, and Terry Nation assumed that they were all gone for good.

It was Mary Ridge, the director, who gave a more hopeful outcome, specially working in that final sound of gunfire so you hear that Avon's still firing at the very end. It was her who used the slo-mo death scenes to in her words, 'give the impression everything after Blake dies might not be real'. She was the one who suggested Season Five open with Avon in a cell, a prisoner of the Federation - an idea Chris Boucher and Terry Nation agreed had legs and worked out a rough plot for, to coin a phrase, "the restoration of order".

And Tony Attwood, that loveable schizoid B7 fan, novelized that idea/script, and turned it into a full-blown novel. At least the first half was Boucher approved and thus a hell of a lot closer to its tagline of "authentic sequel" than Kaldor City's "I Told You So" nihilistic claptrap of The Logic of Empire.

And, inspired by those first few chapters, with that spooky, dreamlike tale of Avon and Vila exploring a mysteriously deserted and ran-soaked Gauda Prime, I sat at my computer, opened a script-writing bit of software and let rip.

Vaguely justifying this post is an excerpt from my unfinished magnum opus, In The Company of Madmen!

INT. SERVALAN’S SHIP -- FLIGHT DECK

Three MUTOIDS sit at the flight controls in the middle of
the deck. SERVALAN sits at her control console to left of
the flight deck. Before her stands ARLEN, now dressed in the
uniform of a trooper. She stands to attention, helmet under
her arm. A fourth MUTOID stands nearby.

SERVALAN
You were on the planet, Commander?

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner.

SERVALAN
What were your orders there?

ARLEN
To remove the prisoners held in the
compound and return them to Earth.

SERVALAN is slightly surprised at this.

SERVALAN
Why Earth? Were these prisoners
particularly important?

ARLEN looks slightly awkward.

ARLEN
Commissioner...

SERVALAN
Yes, Captain?

ARLEN
For some time, the planet had been
used by enemies of the Federation.
We had them under close
surveillance and had infiltrated
the command structure.

SERVALAN
And what form did this command
structure take?

ARLEN
When Open Planet policy was
introduced, normal Federation laws
were abandoned, leading to a number
of criminals arriving to take
advantage. When the policy was
terminated, law enforcement
operations were set up to round up
and execute those criminals.

SERVALAN
So any criminal elements using the
planet as a gathering place would
already be being dealt with?

ARLEN
That is what seemed to be
happening. However, the rebels were
using the cover of one of the
bounty hunter operations to attract
other dissident elements to their
base. They would capture criminals
at large on the planet and, if
suitable, recruit them. They
falsified records so the criminals
would be listed as dead, while
keeping them at large to plan a
rebellion.

SERVALAN
And who was it that infiltrated
this underground organization?

ARLEN
Myself, Commissioner.

SERVALAN
You, Commander?

ARLEN
I ensured that the dissidents were
unaware the rest of my force was on
the planet. At my command, we
stormed the silo they were using as
a base. All the rebels were to be
rounded up, and those that resisted
were executed on the spot.

SERVALAN does not look impressed.

SERVALAN
"Rebels"?

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner.

SERVALAN
And who were these... great
outlaws? That senior officers of
the Terran Federation had to rush
half way across the galaxy in order
to have them arrested?

ARLEN looks slightly smug.

ARLEN
The leader of the rebels,
Commissioner.

SERVALAN
Who was...?

ARLEN
Blake, Commissioner.

SERVALAN stares at ARLEN for a long moment.

SERVALAN
Roj Blake?

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner. He was the major
political criminal on the
Federation’s wanted list for...

SERVALAN
Don’t tell me about Blake,
Commander. I know more about him
than you were ever told.

A pause. SERVALAN is much calmer now.

SERVALAN
Did you actually see him?

ARLEN
Yes, Commissioner. I spent much
time with him undercover. He was
one of the false bounty hunters
that captured me, believing me to
be a suitable ally.

SERVALAN
And was Blake taken captive?

ARLEN
Not exactly, Commissioner.

SERVALAN’s voice is like cut glass.

SERVALAN
Then what, "exactly", Commander?

ARLEN
Blake was shot repeatedly from very
close range as the troopers
arrived. I supervised
identification of the body. Roj
Blake is a dead man.

SERVALAN
He resisted arrest, then?

ARLEN
We didn’t shoot him, Commissioner.
He died before my men even entered
the silo. He was shot by one of his
rebel allies.

SERVALAN
Which ally?

ARLEN
His name is Kerr Avon,
Commissioner.

SERVALAN cannot hide her surprise.

SERVALAN
Avon?


INT. GP CELL

AVON lies on the bunk, seemingly asleep. There is a
scuffling noise from the closed door. Instantly, AVON opens
his eyes, wide awake. He sits up. He mutters to himself.

AVON
It seems I misjudged you, Korell.

He gets to his feet and crosses to the door, and presses
himself against the wall to the left of it, drawing his arm
up for a karate chop. The door slides open.

A TROOPER stands in the doorway. AVON’s expression shows his
surprise, but he still makes his move. Before the TROOPER
has stepped into the cell, AVON strikes him in the stomach.
Letting out a muffled groan of pain, the TROOPER falls
forward to the floor. AVON crouches down and slips his arm
around the neck of the TROOPER, getting him into a headlock.

AVON glances at the open door and the corridor beyond. No
one else. He tightens his grip on the TROOPER’s neck, as the
TROOPER instinctively tries to pull the arm away. AVON
tightens his grip further, but speaks quietly.

AVON
The wrong type of movement on your
part could have serious
consequences.

The TROOPER stops resisting, intimidated.

AVON
It would be helpful if we could
talk. Take off your helmet.

AVON slackens his grip, while still holding onto the
TROOPER, who gently pulls off his helmet to reveal a
familiar face underneath - albeit with a stubbly beard and a
look of terror in the eyes.

AVON
Vila.

VILA grimaces.

SOOLIN
(V/O)
Since you know who he is, you might
want to let him go.

AVON smiles and does so. We see a SECOND TROOPER standing in
the doorway, holding a sidearm aimed at AVON. VILA scrambles
away from AVON as far as he can.

AVON
Hello, Soolin.

Keeping AVON covered, SOOLIN takes off the helmet.

SOOLIN
It’s bad manners to threaten the
lives of those who’ve just freed
you from a Federation cell.

AVON
It was rather hard to tell who you
were through those uniforms.
Although I should have recognized
Vila.

VILA glares at AVON, annoyed.

VILA
Yes! You should have!

SOOLIN
You thought he was the usual
Federation thug?

AVON
He doesn’t quite have that
aggressive authority which is their
hallmark. As for you...

AVON starts to rise.

SOOLIN
Slowly, Avon.

AVON
I’m not the one with a gun.

SOOLIN
You’ve just demonstrated that
doesn’t count for much.

VILA
You also demonstrated how you’ve
turned into a homicidal maniac with
a tendency to kill people on your
own side!

AVON
I have nothing to gain from harming
either of you.

VILA
Very comforting. We rather got the
impression you wanted us all dead.

AVON
There are a number of locks between
here and the outside world. Vila
can open them quicker than the
average guard. And getting past the
guards is easier with a gunfighter
- especially the best there is.

SOOLIN
I’m flattered.

AVON
Don’t be.

VILA
Well, you don’t need to worry about
the locks between here and the
outside world, they’re all done.

AVON
What about the guards?

SOOLIN
We won’t be bumping into any.

AVON
You killed them all I suppose?

SOOLIN
No.

AVON
I doubt it was Vila who did it.

VILA
I didn’t have to kill anyone. This
place is deserted.

AVON
Deserted?

SOOLIN
There’s no one in this silo, except
you.

AVON is troubled. He doesn’t know how to react.

VILA
How did you scare them off, Avon?
Threaten to give a lecture to the
assembled masses on the subject of
your ego?

AVON
If I’d wanted them to leave, I
would have discussed yours for
maximum effect. Where are Dayna and
Tarrant?

SOOLIN
Not here. We’ve checked all the
cells.

AVON
Do you know if they’re still alive?

VILA
You mean you actually care? It
looked to me like you wanted us all
dead!

SOOLIN
Dead or alive, they’re nowhere in
this silo. At least not any more.

AVON
Unsurprising. It’s been a week.

VILA
A week since you unleashed
universal mayhem. And in all that
time there hasn’t been a single
ship landing or taking off.

AVON gets to his feet.

AVON
What were you doing out there in
the meantime? Counting trees? Or
drinking every drop of adrenaline
and soma within a radius of twenty
miles?

VILA stands as well.

VILA
And what the hell have you been
doing for the last seven days,
Avon? Playing patience?

AVON
I’ve been held prisoner.

SOOLIN
By whom? There’s no people here,
Avon. No guards, no Federation, no
ships...

VILA
No food.

AVON
What about Korell?

SOOLIN
And who might Korell be?

AVON
A civilian woman with long hair.
She was here, in this cell, one
hour ago!

SOOLIN and VILA exchange a glance.

VILA
Well. We haven’t seen her. Maybe
you’ve gone mad, Avon? Again, I
mean.

SOOLIN
Or maybe she was a ghost?

AVON turns to look sharply at SOOLIN.

AVON
Or maybe you are.

SOOLIN smiles knowingly at him.