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.
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!!
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
8 comments:
Wow. Two DWAD references! And I thought one was excessive in Terror of the Music Industry!
Nice work. Especially like the gigantic "YOU ARE NOT ALONE!".
So... does this mean I'm in charge of the BBC7s? I've done a fair bit on most of them. But I haven't put Ace in any. Because I have to admit I have no idea how Ace as the Headhunter is meant to result in comedy...
For my part I write Lucie by taking her highly aggressive performance and cranking it up to ten.
Wow. Two DWAD references!
Yeah... the last one is actually down to me not knowing any proper perfume names, rather than a deliberate reference
Nice work. Especially like the gigantic "YOU ARE NOT ALONE!".
I'm really struggling to capture the incredulity I felt when Boe DIDN'T tell us the secret and THEN RTD says, "Nope, wait till next year, it's only four words."
Hell, we worked out what those words were BEFORE 2005 was over!
So... does this mean I'm in charge of the BBC7s?
Not if you don't want to be. I was still going to tackle Blood of the Daleks - though it'll be hard to mock the ruined colony now I've seen Threads...
I've done a fair bit on most of them. But I haven't put Ace in any. Because I have to admit I have no idea how Ace as the Headhunter is meant to result in comedy...
Well, er... actually, does the Doctor ever actually meet the Headhunter? I did have my idea that the Headhunter only appears in No More Lies and Human Resources, so when they bump into each other it's "Ace??" "Professor?!?" and that's why she 'joins the good guys' in the last bit. Actually, now I come to think of it, does the Headhunter even have to BE in it? The Doctor might suddenly just work out how to get rid of her.
For my part I write Lucie by taking her highly aggressive performance and cranking it up to ten.
Yeah. I guess I was reluctant to have a companion the Doctor was desperate to be rid of, since I did that with Charley and C'Rizz. But maybe that's the Eighth Doctor's THING - he hates whichever companion he's stuck with?
Yeah... the last one is actually down to me not knowing any proper perfume names, rather than a deliberate reference
Ah, right.
The thought got me thinking about Dead London having everyone played by Chip Jamison instead of Rupert Vansittart... *shudder*
I'm really struggling to capture the incredulity I felt when Boe DIDN'T tell us the secret and THEN RTD says, "Nope, wait till next year, it's only four words."
Being utterly out of the loop intentionally, I missed all of that. And, I think, was all the happier for it.
Not if you don't want to be.
No, it's cool.
though it'll be hard to mock the ruined colony now I've seen Threads...
...it really does seem to have tainted you for life.
Well, er... actually, does the Doctor ever actually meet the Headhunter?
...in Human Resources. Not for very long.
Actually, now I come to think of it, does the Headhunter even have to BE in it?
Erm... no. She is a massively pointless character, actually.
I had been intending to send her incredible pointlessness up, though, by making her even more inept..
Yeah. I guess I was reluctant to have a companion the Doctor was desperate to be rid of, since I did that with Charley and C'Rizz.
You certainly did jump the gun with that one, didn't you?
Ah, right.
Still, if it looks deliberate, who cares?
The thought got me thinking about Dead London having everyone played by Chip Jamison instead of Rupert Vansittart... *shudder*
Ow!
Being utterly out of the loop intentionally, I missed all of that. And, I think, was all the happier for it.
Definitely.
...it really does seem to have tainted you for life.
It has. I don't think there's ANYTHING else that lives up to the claim of "traumatizing a generation" (as the latest DWM described it - it was on against Warriors of the Deep!)
...in Human Resources. Not for very long.
They might meet again in Grand Theft Cosmos, apparently.
Erm... no. She is a massively pointless character, actually.
I was never going to do "headhunter turns up five hours aftter TARDIS left" endings, which were... retarded.
I had been intending to send her incredible pointlessness up, though, by making her even more inept..
A Wile E Coyote sort of deal?
You certainly did jump the gun with that one, didn't you?
It was supposed to balance out Rose, the companion he desperately wanted to stay...
BTW, did you get the disc I sent you?
Ow!
Alternatively, it could be Conrad Westmaas. So the Doctor just meets all of the characters that he played over the years. And gets really pissed about at it.
It has. I don't think there's ANYTHING else that lives up to the claim of "traumatizing a generation" (as the latest DWM described it - it was on against Warriors of the Deep!)
What about Xtro? (j/k, I know it's an ultra-obscure video nasty)
Oh, and speaking of which what was that story that you called 'Xtro 2'? I have trouble imagining any BF being quite as messed up as that spoof...
I was never going to do "headhunter turns up five hours aftter TARDIS left" endings, which were... retarded.
Yeah, I'm not sure how exactly the revelation that she was constantly unable to show up in time was meant to make us take her MORE seriously as a villain...
A Wile E Coyote sort of deal?
That was it exactly.
BTW, did you get the disc I sent you?
Yes, I did thank you.
Sometime soon there should be a review of Planet of the Ood and a disbelieving rant about the sheer bewildering retardedness of Alex Drake.
Alternatively, it could be Conrad Westmaas. So the Doctor just meets all of the characters that he played over the years. And gets really pissed about at it.
...that makes a hell of a lot of sense. I didn't understand a bloody word of Dead London, and did not feel a desire to listen to it again.
Oh, and speaking of which what was that story that you called 'Xtro 2'? I have trouble imagining any BF being quite as messed up as that spoof...
It's "Exotron". You see? And it's quite close, except instead of the Xtroids there are giant coyotes, instead of Transformers there are Transformer-rip-offs, instead of the IT Crowd some faceless goons, and the evil corporate villain is just a one off.
Yeah, I'm not sure how exactly the revelation that she was constantly unable to show up in time was meant to make us take her MORE seriously as a villain...
And if she DID capture Lucie, would we care? No More Lies only works as a cliffhanger because the Doctor's left stuck in that lame story...
That was it exactly.
Neat.
Yes, I did thank you.
Phew.
Sometime soon there should be a review of Planet of the Ood and a disbelieving rant about the sheer bewildering retardedness of Alex Drake.
Yes. I haven't been able to download the next episode, so I can't say she improves. But then, I can't say she's still as bad...
...that makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Really? Not bad for a bit of idle musing on my part..
I didn't understand a bloody word of Dead London, and did not feel a desire to listen to it again.
I understood it, more or less... but like a lot of the BBC7s it felt strangely pointless. One of those stories that's a bit too preoccupied with trying to be clever rather than being entertaining.
It's "Exotron". You see? And it's quite close, except instead of the Xtroids there are giant coyotes, instead of Transformers there are Transformer-rip-offs, instead of the IT Crowd some faceless goons, and the evil corporate villain is just a one off.
It sounds quite terrible..
Yes. I haven't been able to download the next episode, so I can't say she improves. But then, I can't say she's still as bad...
It'd be hard for her to get worse... personally I've noticed a definite shift towards Philip Glenister as the main character. For which I'm very grateful.
Really? Not bad for a bit of idle musing on my part..
Well, you're a genius, aren't you?
I understood it, more or less... but like a lot of the BBC7s it felt strangely pointless. One of those stories that's a bit too preoccupied with trying to be clever rather than being entertaining.
Yeah. The anti-matter opposite of No More Lies... which tries at niether... and succeeds.
It sounds quite terrible..
It's by the guy who wrote the Villag/Evelyn stories... sub-Star-Wars politics, shitty romance and angry werewolves are the guy's limit.
It'd be hard for her to get worse... personally I've noticed a definite shift towards Philip Glenister as the main character. For which I'm very grateful.
Yes, forgive me, but I sure as hell didn't tune in for Alex Drake, even BEFORE I learned how damn annoying she was...
Glenister all the way! I spotted him in Hornblower the other day - he scrubs up well when he talks Posh.
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