The Doctor Who / Ben Chatham 50th Anniversary Special: TIME OUT OF MIND
A title accurately suggesting both boredom and short-term memory loss. Fitting, no?
OK folks, its Autumn and in the run up to November its time for the alternate Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special.
Blimey, you heard it here first! That's the first time the Emperor's admitted he is the canonical minority round these parts. But can some generic Chatham faff (and it has been universally noted Chatham has fallen a long way from the heights of even The Operation: Delta Interviews, let alone Nemesis (i)) really match to a three-Doctor Dalek Time War Zygon Rose Tyler in a miniskirt orgy of Craig Hinton's precious bodily fluids?
For 50 years, Doctor Who has been a major part of many peoples' lives. This special is not intended to encompass every facet of the show's history, rather to reflect its best ever eras and present a story that I feel would work well on screen and be an impressive addition to the canon.
Hmm. Guess not.
Well, let's just hope Sir Alistair Miles turns up.
My aim is to present an alternate to the actual TV special which has certain additional features:
- a wider range of past Doctors will feature
Yet all of them will be played by Pertwee!
- a wider range of past companions also
Will these be real ones or just the return of Lin Sang and Adam Mitchell?
- Ben Chatham and Operation Delta
AKA the worst warm-up band since Colostomy Explosion sang "Fuck The Police!" at Commissioner Gordon's memorial service.
- a plot more faithful to the best era of the classic series
Oh, gosh, more evil chemical companies and cults trying to find the golden age. You know, it's enough to make you ask the Teselecta to go back in time and murder Malcolm Hulke and Robert Sloman in their cradles for causing this.
Enjoy!
So... out of 50 FUCKING YEARS... 35 TELEVISED YEARS... we get ones from the same 1973 production block. There have been mayflies who lived longer than such a narrow definition.
Part 1 : Death on the Fell
This week, Pertwee stuntman Stuart Fell trips and sprains his ankle!
The rain poured down in torrents, driven by the harsh north-eastern wind, as Nathan Fawley rushed nervously out of Bowland Fell Research Station and towards the car park.
It was a dark and stormy night in middle England... what a novel way to start.
He quickly bundled the papers onto the back seat and drove towards the main exit, as he had done so many times before.
You think he would have got an umbrella and a manilla folder by now. Doesn't he do work online?
The unrelenting wind drove the rain into his windscreen on this cold, autumn night in Cumbria.
God, if only there was somekind of "wiping device" to stop the rain from obscuring vision...
Fawley showed his ID to the armed men patrolling the exit and they waved his car through.
Because no one knows who he is. And despite the place requiring armed guards, no one checks why a nervous man acting suspiciously with a bundle of stolen papers is doing such a thing. Bowland Fell Research Station - good thing it's fictional.
He breathed a sigh of relief and drove for several miles before stopping at the side of a lane to make a phone call.
Nathan Fawley has yet to master the art of hands free.
"...er hi, its Nathan Fawley. Is that Mr Scott? Ok I'm out of there and on my way to Lancaster now, I should be half an hour. See you in the pub. I've got the evidence".
Gosh, let's hope no one bugged your car as you've just informed anyone listening your objective, destination, name, and your contact. M15 would have taken them all out with headshots by now.
In Lancaster, Kyle Scott put his mobile down and went to the bar to order a pint. He felt aggrieved that Ben had sent him on this case alone, especially as it didn't seem much of a case at all.
Yes, there was little work to do and yet surely it required two of them not to do it. Nonetheless, as a hard-working proactive character, Kyle continues to be the most likable character in the franchise.
Just some man working at a scientific research centre claiming that he had information on some cover-up or other.
Does Britain actually have scientific research centres any more? And a cover-up! Well, I bet that won't involve dangerous chemicals mutating wild-life into unstoppable killing machines.
Kyle took his pint back to his seat and shrugged.
...yeah, that's convincing body-language. I often shrug to myself in public after ordering a drink.
The dingy little pub , 'The Black Witch', looked like something from the 1930s with cobwebs on the walls and a publican with a handlebar moustache who was smoking, despite the ban.
Why would anyone name a pub "The Black Witch"? Was there some supernatural negress in local folklore? Is it part of a chain with The Cloven Hoof and The Throat-Slit Prostitute? Is it a crime to have it named "Lancaster Alehouse?" You think it'd be popular to be a smoker's only pub.
However the pub was otherwise deserted and Kyle assumed that its very quietness was why Fawley had insisted on meeting up here.
Cause Kyle's random assumptions always turn out to be right... er. Well. Skip that.
Kyle sipped the beer and winced: "Tastes like friggin' bog water" he muttered to himself.
Like all lower class chav scum, Kyle often drank from the toilet.
Fawley drove on through the driving rain over the hills and troughs of the bleak Cumbrian landscape.
All the time he yearned for some kind of "windscreen wiper" and wondered if the new Batman vs Superman film could possibly match his own vision of the franchise...
As he rounded a bend, he suddenly saw a woman standing in the middle of the road and he broke sharply.
Tch. Flatulence gags! Is this an RTD homage or something?
The woman was dressed in strange, antiquated clothing and wore a headscarf .
It's either Dot Cotton or a Muslim. Either way, it's surprising Fawley didn't do a hit and run.
She approached the car. Fawley wound the window down: "You could have been killed standing in the road like that" he shouted.
The woman held up a leather bag: "I be Squinting Lizzie. I be sellin' pegs an' cutl'ry. How many you want?"
So, this sub-League-of-Gentleman stereotype (played no doubt by Chris Lilley) is hocking goods in the middle of a motorway at night in the pouring rain. Is this business plan really working in the long-term?
"What? I don't want anything from you, you stupid old cow. If you're daft enough to go walking about selling crap in weather like this then thats you're business but you just nearly caused an accident."
So Fawley is passionately committed to exposing injustice and corruption... but if you're a woman without cash you can go get fucked! Yes, the Chathamverse is not a happy place to live.
The woman laughed, revealing a row of black teeth: "Rude bugger ain't ya. You'd be better to buy summat as old Lizzie 'as ways of making it worse off for yer if ya don't."
Seriously, how much cash does she get doing this? Is it really worth it?
Fawley sighed and drove off, winding the window down.
Even though, you know, he could call it quits and offer her a lift to civilization.
"Mad as a brush" he mumbled to himself. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in the back of this neck. He turned around and was horrified to see the old woman sitting in the back of the car with a long knitting-needle in her hand. "Hey, how the hell did you get in here?" The woman laughed and plunged the needle straight into Fawley's left eye, driving it straight through into the brain. The car swerved violently and crashed into a tree.
Meanwhile, in the TARDIS, the 11th Doctor danced a little jig and spun on his heels: "Yes, we're off to see the golden fountains of Lemoria. I like the golden fountains of Lemoria. The golden fountains of Lemoria are cool."
Mein gott... the Eleventh Doctor! Like he is on TV! Total amazement city!
Clara was not impressed: "I wish you wouldn't dance about all the time when you're talking Doctor. And whats so good about some fountains?"
"Clara, these arn't just any old fountains. The water looks like liquid gold and the mountains glisten with real diamonds and emeralds. Whaheeey, geronimo! *dancing*".
Lo, the characterization be acceptable!!!
"Grow up Doctor" Clara said wearily.
Hmm. Once again, Chathamverse women are either sluts or bitches and guess which Clara is... never mind she is quite used to children being a professional live-in babysitter, no no.
The Doctor frowned:
"This is my TARDIS is in not?"
"Er yes",
"Its not your TARDIS is it?"
"You know its not."
"Then I'll be as immature as I like in it."
The Doctor made a farting noise and Clara frowned and flounced towards the door.
However as she did so there was a shudder throughout the TARDIS and time seemed to slow down to a crawl. Moving and speaking was like moving through liquid tar.
But not speaking through liquid tar?
The Doctor desperately tried to move towards the TARDIS console, however suddenly things became normal again and he fell into the console with a thud.
"Ow, that hurt. Whoe!" the Doctor shouted.
"What the hell was that? Is this machine of yours on the blink?" Clara shouted.
"Hey don't call her a 'machine'. And she's not on the blink, that was a time current wake distortion. I'd know one anywhere."
"What the hell is a 'time current wake distortion?"
A string of meaningless words? Mind you, last time that happened, Henry VIII came back from the dead and tried to repeatedly rape Ben Chatham. So... here's hoping.
Also note that despite having crossed dozens of time streams, seen the TARDIS explode inside out and single-handedly steered the ship into a pocket universe twice, Clara is still totally clueless.
The Doctor gave Clara a serious stare: "Someone or something is trying to latch onto the TARDIS and follow it through time. Like tying your trailer to the back of a lorry and hitching a ride." The Doctor fiddled with some knobs on the TARDIS. "And the origin of this attempted hitcher is earth, England. The golden fountains of Lemoria will have to wait."
Oh. What a shock. We nearly had a halfway original setting for once.
In Cumbria, Kyle Scott was onto his third pint, waiting in the pub.
Thirsty work, all that shrugging.
He tried ringing Fawley again however no one answered. He approached the bar: "Ere it looks like I'm gonna be stuck 'ere all night. Do you let rooms out mate? Or is there a B&B near 'ere I can get digs?"
"You can 'ave the back bedroom upstairs. As long as you don't expect luxury" the publican answered.
Wow, why not blow smoke rings in his face while you're at it? Proof that people in Britain have and always will be unnecessary unpleasant assholes, regardless of age, demographic, sexuality or species.
"Ere do I look like the kind of geezer who expects luxury?" Kyle laughed, "I wouldn't mind watchin' a bit of telly though. Ain't you got one for the bar?"
"We have never had a television in this pub and we never will. This is a local pub.
Yes, it seems spara's got confused. This is Doctor Who, not the League of Gentlemen.
We do have a radio. Since you are my only customer you may listen to it at a low volume."
Of course, Kyle could simply tell moustache man to go fuck himself and leave the pub but, as always, people will accept all sorts of abuse from staff if they provide alcohol. Now, if the landlord was a trappist monk...
AFTER-THE-FACT SPARA RETCON: The landlord, Bill Smith, does not believe in televisions or juke boxes in his pub. He wants 'The Black Witch' to be a local pub for nearby residents not a noisy modern pub full of youths or some semi-restaurant.
Oh, so he's not an evil corrupt being of corrupt evil? This is unusual. I find it strange.
The publican placed a battered old transistor radio on the bar and switched it on. Kyle went back to his seat to finish his pint when the local news came on: "Reports are coming in of an accident on the Bowland Fell lane. A car has hit a tree and we understand that there has been one fatality. The male victim has not yet been named."
Wow. Very local news. That isolated stretch of road must be quite busy on a storm-lashed night for them to discover that. No doubt SOCO didn't notice the whacking great knitting needle in Nathan's head.
Kyle quickly tried to ring Fawley again and this time his call was answered: "This is the police. Who is ringing please?"
"This is Kyle... er Kyle Scott."
"Mr Scott, I should inform you that the person you are ringing, who we understand to be Nathan Fawley, is dead......."
No shit. What a thrilling cliffhanger. No, wait, it isn't. It's thoroughly uninteresting. I can't even find the spite and hatred required to use the phrase "bowel-shatteringly insane" in a sentence. Man, I'm so old now - I used to have so much psychotic anger...
Maybe this is best forgotten.
Unlike this.
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