Parody # 2: The Restaurant At The End Of The World

The Restaurant At The End Of The World

Serial 102 – The Restaurant At The End Of The World
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Hitchhiker Homages
"YOA's Discontinuity Guides – Inaccurate But Caring."

Serial 102 – The Restaurant At The End Of The World

{Previously on Doctor Who - Ruse}
Rose Tyler's boyfriend Mickey Smith has defeated the evil alien menace the Nestle Consciousness by eating it.
As Rose has strong view on pre-marital sex, Mickey decides to marry her in desperation for a shag.

Unfortunately, when Rose asks the Doctor to marry her to Mickey, he only hears the first part and promptly drags her aboard his dilapidated time machine as his ape-descended concubine.

{And now on Doctor Who – The Restaurant At The End Of The World}
Rose explains the situation and, though disappointed, the Doctor agrees to steer the TARDIS to her flat, idly breaking the news that the police box is completely unsteerable.

The time machine comes to a rest, having overshot the intended destination a tad – they are in New Zealand in 2105, scant months before an alien invasion.

Rose is prepared to get out at this point but the Doctor presses a squeaky toy on the console and announces that the time machine is now in 12005, at the dawn of the New Roman Empire under control of General Ironycus and the ancient Malevolus.

Rose is happy to get out there if it's easier, so the Doctor snaps and starts kicking and bashing the console. Finally, the TARDIS lands an opulent viewing gallery with a window built into an entire wall.

Emerging from the police box, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the shades, revealing that they are in a space station orbiting the Earth.

Before Rose can say "Well, that's close enough for me", the sun begins to expand in a flash of intense light.

The Doctor explains that the TARDIS has brought Rose and himself five billion years into the future, to the year 5.5/Apple/26, to witness the end of the world...

Rose considers this a suitable drop-off point and says goodbye.

Parte The First

The Doctor and Rose head for the station's main reception area as a computer voice announces "If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the World?"

The Doctor reveals that they are present at one of the most extraordinary ventures in the history of catering, a Blastabon space station where the rich and the elite of the galaxy witness the death of planets, galaxies and, in the peak season, the universe itself.

After a spectacularly aggressive game of Monopoly, humanity has fled their home planet and set up two separate colonies. The Shoe group are now living as Tractator snacks on the distant planet of Frontios, while the Little Dog faction have enslaved a bunch of tragic fashion-mistakes known as the Monoids and set out on a 700-year-trip to Refusis – world of the invisible men.

In thirty-two minutes, the expanding sun will strike Earth and destroy everything on it. When Rose begins to sob that she's about to witness the death of her home planet, the Doctor tells her not to be a baby.

"Hey, the Venusians lose their planet ten minutes before you do, count your blessings! Do you see the Ice Cream Vendors blubbing that Mars is about to get roasted? Or the Waro, Devil Goblins of Neptune? Are they getting teary! No, they're bloody not –- YOU WUSS!"

Suddenly, a waiter in the shape of a bright green goat called Garkbit arrives and offers the Doctor and Rose some drinks in the main five star restaurant section – assuming they have a reservation.

The Doctor presents Garkbit with a blank piece of paper. This is his handy-dandy-all-purpose-telepathic-psychic-paper which he bought second hand from the same novelty shoppe where he acquired his "Forbidden Zone Pass", his "Fascist Dictator Members Only Card" and the "Area 51 Top Secret Clearance Decoder Ring".
Luckily, the story is too short for our heroes to be locked up, stripped, tortured, escape and finally prove their worth and so Garkbit instantly believes that the blank sheet of paper is an invitation.

Garkbit leads the duo to the main restaurant area where the candles are lit and other alien guests are there ready to enjoy an intensely exciting and terminal experience where the compere Max Quordlepleen introduces the parties present...

- A trio of walking humanoid marijuana plants from the Secret Gardens of Cheech And Chong – Mary-Jane, Hash and Dopey.

- A solicitors outing from Jolco, Jolco & Jolco Ltd, lead by a floating blue midget nudist calling himself the Moxx of Baloon.

- A party of creepy-looking electronic monks in black robes chanting the lyrics to 'Achey-Breakey Heart' backwards and making pentagrams out of the cutlery.

- Intergalactic comedy duo Haleoid and Paceoid.

- Paranoid Android Cal Sparkplug

- a frustrated pair of Brontillian bird people, Mr. and Mrs. Racquetz

- the severed head of Pierce Brosnan in a jar known the Face of Bond, the sponsor of this entire event and not much of a talker

- the Ambassadors from the City-State of Serves You Right

- and, of course, Rose Tyler and the Doctor.

The Doctor and Rose take their table where Garkbit offers them the very finest in Ultracuisine – the Doctor orders the entire wine list mixed up in a barrel and recommends Rose have an Algolian Zylbatburger smothered in a hint of Vulcan dodo saliva.

The munchkin caterers rush to attend and the Doctor explains that the Earth has been declared dead more times than Roj Blake, but he has made it his habit to turn up at the last minute and prevent the planet's destruction the last seventeen times and has delayed the planet's destruction by over two thousand years

Rose asks if the Doctor has come here to save the Earth yet again, but the Doctor refuses to answer until he sees the desert menu.

No sooner does Rose learn that the Algolian Zylbatburger is made from the most unpleasant parts of a creature well known for its total lack of any pleasant parts, when Mary-Jane arrives and heckles her. Rose is left even more uneasily when the Doctor begins to totally ignore her and flirt with the plant woman.

The other guests are far rougher. The Moxx of Baloon spits in Rose's eye; she gets punched in the jaw by Haleoid and Paceoid; electrocuted by Cal Sparkplug; pecked in the face by the Racquetzes; farted at by the Serve You Rights; and blanked by the Face of Bond.

It rapidly becomes obvious that the entire clientele think that she is the Doctor and the thug in the leather jacket beside her is, in fact, Rose Tyler!

"Sorry," the Doctor mumbles. "Must have got the pass upside down."

The final guest is Joan Collins, the Last Human, who has just completed another round of plastic surgery to make her appear young and thin. In fact, she's had so much plastic surgery that she's now just a translucent sheet of skin with eyes and a mouth, stretched out tightly over a frame above a brain in a jar and constantly attended by masked surgeons who moisturize her skin to keep her from drying out.

Joan Collins arrives and Rose decides to get out before this latest freak identifies her as the Doctor and tries to get her own back. As Rose flees the restaurant, she lifts a cutting of Mary-Jane.

The Doctor follows Rose out, mainly to put more money into the parking meter outside the TARDIS. He is however, far too late – the munchkins remove the blue box for the viewing gallery and give the Doctor a ticket as Garkbit off the record tells 'Rose Tyler' to ditch 'the Doctor' quick smart and find a better ride home.

Rose finds her way to a small side room, but as she watches the expanding sun engulf Mercury through the window, a depressed android with a brain the size of a planet arrives and sets to work on a nearby maintenance hatch. The android bitches at his continual humiliation, forced to fix the pluming in the Face of Bond's suite.

Rose tries to talk to the android, who announces that it is her (i.e.: the Doctor's) fault he is reduced to this ever since that incident on Zaurak Minor and The Vipod Mor. It's a good thing his Asimov circuit are working or he'd beat the living shit out of her.

Rose has no idea what this means, and it finally sinks in with her that she's been dragged from everything familiar in her life by a complete stranger through worlds she knows nothing about. And she suspects that she's only here to draw fire from the Doctor while he enjoys Aldeberan lacquers and flirts with trees.

Rose bids goodbye to the android and retreats to a private viewing gallery to think about what she's going to do.

Once alone, the android removes the hatch and crawls into the service ducts, and decides to just lie there, rust and fall apart as dear God he is so depressed.

Rose sits alone in a viewing gallery and smokes the cutting from Mary-Jane and watches the sun expand. The Doctor drops by and his stoned companion asks why the aliens are all speaking English, he explains that this is a gift he shares with the people he has rompy sex wit due to his firm belief in the inevitable victory of the proletariat.

He is surprised by Rose's reaction when she is horrified – this means she must no longer be a virgin!

The Doctor sighs and admits he tells the sex-proletariat bit for a cheap laugh. It's really just a telepathic field in her brain, generated by the TARDIS – but Rose is now pissed off that her perceptions have been altered without her knowledge or permission.

Rose demands to know about the Doctor, but he evades the issue, loses his temper and refuses to speak to her. He suddenly reminds her that he is her only ride home and snaps she's not gonna get a mobile signal out here now, is she? The Doctor then sends her back into Coventry.

Rose snaps she knows all she needs to know about the Doctor - he's an alien with an earthgirl fetish and a terrible taste in soft furnishings. So saying, she rings up her flat, some five billion years into the past.

To the Doctor's amazement, Rose's mobile phone not only works, it also gets a suitable taxi company AND is able to ring Rose's mother Jackie and explain that she might be a little bit late home tonight.

The Doctor, determined to discover the strange temporal forces working within the telephone, rips it apart to find the secret. Unfortunately, this wrecks the phone and Rose is mightily pissed off.

Suddenly, the entire station shudders around them. In his office, Garkbit realizes that Milliways has been delayed by 2000 years and so vital maintenance is required to keep it going – and the only service droid is now lying with its head in an air duct, counting electric sheep. The situation is deteriorating.

Frustrated, Garkbit bangs the old keyboard on his control panel and accidentally ejects his whole office into outer space. Of course, a lungful of air can allow him to survive thirty seconds and hopefully get rescued by a passing space freighter.

Unfortunately, the 4000 degree heart burns him to a crisp before he has a chance to put that particular plan to work.

The Doctor returns to main dining area to finish the leftovers of the other guests, and meets up with Mary-Jane who appears to have a calming influence over him. He and the tree-lady decide to go back to her place, and she isn't sure if her new boyfriend is "the Doctor's" husband, partner, concubine or prostitute. Luckily, she doesn't care.

Rose arrives and is cornered by Joan Collins, who is furious with her (or rather, the Doctor) for selling her that phony immortality drug and then blabbing the story to the press. She also accuses the Time Lord of committing suicide so he could regenerate into the form of an attractive blonde nineteen-year-old girl and escape her vengeance.

Rose escapes by pushing Joan Collins over and running like hell.

In Mary-Jane's room, the Doctor is trying to seduce the tree lady – not only is it the end of the world, but the space station is on the brink of collapse. Surely all they can do now is get lucky?

Mary-Jane points out that they could sort of evacuate and survive, and promptly leaves to do just that. The Doctor, struggling to hold back his emotions, swears loudly and decides to follow her.

Meanwhile, Rose turns the corner and finds herself facing the crowd of creepy electronic monks. They mock the fact that "the Doctor" had forgotten about them, and bitch-slap Rose unconscious...

Parte The Second

The monks drag the beaten Rose, give her a wedgie and throw her into Milliways' grease trap – which looks identical to the viewing platform where the TARDIS landed.

Earth is due to be destroyed in ten minutes, and the Doctor and Mary-Jane return to the restaurant to complain to the Face of Bond and the other aliens, who are now grooving to 'Because I Want To' one of the few Earth songs left on Jackie Collin's Sony Walkperson.

It becomes clear that not only Garkbit dead and the service android is on strike, but also that the first course is stuffed and one of the guests has been locked in the grease trap.

The Doctor bets everyone that it is his companion in strife, investigate and finds he is right. He thus locks Rose into the trap via a sonic breadstick and returns to the cash the other diners own him.

The Face of Bond is frankly glad that "the Doctor" is locked out of harm's way – after all, if he didn't keep saving the Earth, it would have exploded on time and Milliways' warranty would still be valid. "Rose" agrees sagely and collects the fiver the Face of Bond owes him.

A subsystem finally gives up the ghost and explosions rip through the mainframe, taking out computer controls and shutting down Milliways' force fields.

When the expanding sun reaches them the whole restaurant will be annihilated. All in all, it looks like dinner is off and that they are all about to die a horribly fiery death.

The Moxx of Baloon immediately suggests they hunt down "the Doctor" and kill her - even if she isn't responsible!

Joan Collins and her surgeons decide to go and get help, teleporting out of Milliways into a space ship that hurtles off into the distance. Cal Sparkplug is the only one who thinks she will actually return.

Convinced that there must be a manual reset switch, the Doctor takes Mary-Jane to the computer complex. The Doctor is convinced that reversing the polarity of the neutron flow will save Milliways from the expanding sun – and if reversing the polarity of the neutron flow doesn't save their sorry arses, let's face it, nothing will.

The Doctor and Mary-Jane enter the computer complex, and discover that not only is there ae neutron flow polarity reversing switch, it is also easy to use, cheap to produce and quite striking aesthetically.

It also happens be placed inconveniently behind fifteen spinning giant razor-tipped fan blades that block the maintenance catwalk.

"What kind of twisted nutter designed that?!" the Doctor demands.

Mary-Jane switches off the fans, but instantly the temperature begins to rise and she must stay and hold down the control to stop the auto-air conditioning starting again.

The Doctor thinks that this is remarkably suicidal behaviour for someone who essentially a lump of wood, shrugs, and begins to Fred Astaire his way around the slower blades. He reaches the control easily in, ooh, seconds.

"Hey, Mary-Jane, watch this!" he calls and moon-walks BACK through the blades back to his starting point.

The smoldering Mary-Jane is not amused and tells the son of a bitch to get on with it. The Doctor sniffs haughtily and meanders back to the control, taking his own sweet time.

Meanwhile, the raging heat washes across the planet Earth, slowly but surely annihilating the world. The flames surge towards Milliways, the exo-glass in the station's viewing panels begins to crack and shatter. Spears of intense light cut through the reception hall and the grease trap where Rose is trapped. Just then, she gets a phone call from her mother telling her she's a lazy chav and should get a job.

Rose's not having a good day, is she?

Suddenly, Mary-Jane spontaneously combusts, releasing a cloud of smoke the Doctor immediately inhales deeply. His pupils disappear from his eyes as stares at the main switch, giggling happily.

A dizzy spell gets him to lean on it and he completely unintentionally saves the day. The force fields are reactivated just in time as the Earth is struck by the outer atmosphere of the sun and explodes.

As Milliways' internal temperature returns to normal, the fans slow down, and the Doctor walks back down the catwalk to stare at what remains of Mary-Jane, which he promptly stuffs in his pockets for personal use later on – or earlier on, depending on your point of view.

Rose finally escapes the grease trap and makes her way to the dining area, but is refused entry as she has lost her shoes. Inside, the Moxx of Baloon has been reduced to ashes – revealing that the Moxx was just an android sent there as a decoy!

The stoned Doctor returns alone accuses the robotic monks of sabotage. The monks insist they are just creepy religious androids and had nothing to do with the sabotage.

The Doctor rips off one of their leaders' arms and all the monks die in synthetic agony. The Doctor announces this proves something, but isn't sure if it is their guilt or innocence.

Suddenly, Joan Collins materialises back in the dining hall explaining the emergency services are on their way and she's happy to provide them all a nice lift.

The Doctor denounces Joan Collins as pure evil and Joan Collins, who has neglected to put on moisturizer in her desperation to save the others, bursts into flame.

Even Rose takes pity as Joan Collins begs the Doctor to save her, but he refuses; he thinks this is just a day dream passing through the brain of a supermodel. Rose belts some sense into him and, groggy, the Doctor pours a bucket of water over the burning actress.

Joan Collins changes her agonized cries of "I'M BURNING! I'M BURNING!" to "I'M MELTING! I'M MELTING!"

"God, some people are never happy," the Doctor snaps and lets her die.

The Face of Bond and the guests prepare to leave, waspishly telling "Rose Tyler" that he is spending far too much time around "the Doctor" and is even beginning to act like her.

The Doctor flicks them a V sign and steals the complimentary bread.

After a final photo shoot with the Doctor and Rose assuming silly poses in front of the Earth's remains floating past the viewing window, the duo dive into the TARDIS and return to Cardiff, 2005.

Rose steps from the time machine, thanking the Doctor for the lift. The Doctor explains it isn't always like this on his travels - normally, it looks a lot cheaper. Rose is preparing to return to her normal life. The Doctor suddenly announces that he is alone - the last of the Time Lords after his home planet of Gallifrey was destroyed in a truly embarrassing incident.

"Who did it?" asks Rose, shocked.

"The Moxx of Baloon," the Doctor replies.

"Wait a minute. You're saying that little blue geezer wiped out your planet, your people and like everything you knew and when you bump into him at a restaurant, you do nothing!!?"

The Doctor reveals he has a very good explanation for his behavior.

When Rose asks for said explanation, the Doctor grabs her roughly by the lapels and shakes her violently, screaming "I WANT SOME CHIPS, YOU TART! CHIPS! CHIIIIIIIIIIPS!" over and over again.

From his orbiting space station, the REAL Moxx of Baloon watches this display and laughs a mocking laugh....

Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who - The Revenge of the Moxx of Baloon

Doctor Mysterio el loco Baloon
Baloon in Pompeii!: The Musical
The Doctor Who & The Moxx of Baloon Is Upstairs And Has Drunk The Sky Colouring-In Pop Up Book For Dull Children
Baloonistica Versus Little Red Riding Hood
The Moxx of Baloon Meets The Giant Mutant Star Goat

Fluffs - Christopher Eccleston seemed a bit befuddled in this story.

"This is a monstrous exercise! Monstrous! Completely monstrous! What is it, Rose? I'll tell you, it's monstrous!"

Zoe Wanamaker stumbles on the pronunciation of "Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster" and finally settles on "Oh, just drink this, will you?!"

When Rose tells the Doctor to stop fucking about, he replies "I'm *not* mucking about!"

Goofs –
The Doctor in this story.

CGI stuff. I'm not pathetic enough to tell you each and every one but there is a sequence where one of the delegates walks off in one direction and Rose's eyeballs float after them. (At least, I THINK that's a goof.)

This is the third Doctor Who story to revolve around the destruction of Earth and it's still not interesting.

For someone with no ears, or lungs, or vocal cords, Joan Collins is able to converse with people and plot evil vengeance on the Doctor.

One of the spiders bumps into a camera. Which is quite impressive, given that they're computer generated images.

When Rose calls her mum, Jackie appears to be living in a submarine.

Technobbable -
The Doctor's slightly psychic paper works on the "plot contrivance principal developed in the year 54/Cup/16".

Dialogue Disasters -
Rose's unique channeling of Arnold Rimmer –
"The aliens are so... ALIEN. I mean... you look at them and they're... they're ALIEN. The things about aliens, I mean, the alien quality – that is, the essence of aliens - is that... well, for all intents and purposes... they ARE... alien!"

The Doctor on Earth's destruction -
"Damn! I was going for the record as well!"

Doctor: Sabotaging a ship while you're still on board. How stupid is that? On a scale of one to ten, I mean. Anyone have an idea?
(Rose puts her hand up)
Oh, well, it would be you.

Joan Collins: Vain? VAIN? I'm not vain! Just trying to please everyone else aesthetically!

Doctor: Mary-Jane, you're made of wood.
Mary-Jane: No shit, Sherlock.

Garkbit: Would you like a Whore's Derve, Doctor?
Rose: Is he talking to me?
Doctor: I hope so.

Doctor: So, what you're saying is, if we get into trouble, there's no one to help us out?
Mary-Jane: Yes, I suppose I am.
Doctor: Fan-TAS-tic!
Mary-Jane: I do not understand your use of the word 'fan-TAS-tic'.
Doctor: Sorry, did I say 'fan-TAS-tic'? I meant to say... 'Shit!'.

Rose: I'm off to talk to Michael Jackson over there.
Doctor: That's not Michael Jackson, Rose! That's the Wicker Man, an artificial life form evolving sentience and rather unconvincing facial features. It's one of the most respected creatures in the universe.
Mary-Jane: Uh, no, that is Michael Jackson.
Doctor: Oh. Looking well, isn't he?

Dialogue Triumphs -
Doctor: You lot, you spend all your time thinking about sex. Like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids before you score. But you never take time to imagine the impossible: that maybe you survive. And maybe you really ARE crap in bed.

Rose: Where am I going to go? Ipswich?!
Doctor: Dear God – you can't be THAT insane!

Rose: What about your people?
Doctor: I'm a Time Lord - the Last of a Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I travel on my own because there's no one else. Willing to travel with me after last time, I mean. That, uh, incident with Charley and C'Rizz has really been blown out of proportion by the papers. I mean, Lavros was heading for a bit of breakdown if ALREADY you ask me...

Joan Collins: You know what, Doctor? I bet you were the swot in class and never got kissed!
Doctor: Quite the opposite actually, but she can't prove a thing.

Rose: It's gone. Earth's gone. All that time, all that history, and no one was looking - because we were all stoned off our ass!

The terrifying final scene betwixt the Doctor and Rose -
Doctor: My planet is gone, Rose. It's dead. It burned like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust. Before its time. Not MUCH before it's time, admittedly, but it's fair to say it had another week left in it at least.
Rose: What happened?
Doctor: There was a war. And we lost. Did the whole "I seriously don't think you have the courage to pull that trigger" thing and it went horribly, horribly wrong. I tell you, won't be making THAT mistake any time soon.
Rose: A war? With who?
Doctor: A dark and terrible force. The worst thing imaginable.
Rose: NOT -
Doctor: Yes. THE MOXX OF BALOON!!
(Long pause)
Rose: Get away!
Doctor: No, it's true, Rose - why else would I be so incredibly embarrassed about it?

UnQuotable Quote –
Doctor: If you think THAT'S amazing, you ought to see The Bill - which, incidentally is coming right up next on your ABC.

Links and References -
The Doctor refers to various girlfriends who have similarly claimed to be 'impregnable' when they manifestly weren't ala "Gobot".
There is also some very obvious cut and paste dialogue from "The Mask of Zorro" (the Doctor explaining the universal translation thing), "Lighthouse Cutaway" ('I'm full of ideas of how to make things better and people in authority don't seem to like that sort of thing'), and "Death Comes To Tom" (gleefully telling someone their nearest and dearest is dead).

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Moxx of Baloon destroyed all the Time Lords, TARDISes and Gallifrey itself (not to mention the Nestle Consciousness) and has a blood vendetta against the Doctor. He claims this is a direct result of the Doctor once 'blanking him in polite society'.

Touchy little bastard, isn't he?

K9 Conspiracy –
The false Moxx, when speaking to the Face of Bond, twice mentions K9, including the sentence "Indubitably, this is the K9 scenario."

I'd tell you what this means but I have absolutely no idea and I doubt that the Face of Bond knew what he was talking about either.


Subtext? WHAT Subtext? -
At the episode's climax, the Doctor is seen to, effectively, enact vigilante justice upon Collins. While some have suggested that she might have survived, given that the brain in the tank below the skin does not appear to explode, the story is ambiguous on this point, and the Doctor himself clearly believes that he is killing her.

GOOD! An amoral, vigilante Doctor is a kick-ass cool idea and Joan Collins is indeed a nasty piece of work. This does raise the question of whether it is right to kill any sentient being in cold blood.

The Doctor committing a brutal act of murder out of revenge answers this question with a resounding, "You betcha!"

Groovy DVD Extras –
The uncut musical sequences where the plot stops for five minutes as everyone dances wildly to a bunch of musicians that have mysteriously appeared in the middle of the room and then vanish just as oddly. These include Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" and Brittany Spears' "Toxic".


Psychotic Nostalgia –
"I heard somebody say 'Burn, baby, burn! Planetary inferno! Burn, baby, burn! Burn the orphanage down, baby! Burn, baby, burn! Planetary inferno! Burn, baby, burn!'... but I think it was a wrong number."

Viewer Quotes -

"Oh, man... Mary-Jane is the sexiest plant I've ever laid eye on. Look at her! LOOK AT HER! Sex on a stick! And Billie Piper being forced to strip due to the rise in temperature! Hah, MY temperature is rising at the moment, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more. Oh my God! That's PC Honey Harmon painted blue! Right. That does it. I'm going to the bathroom. I may be some time."
- Nigel Verkoff (yesterday)

"This episode single-handedly has managed to rip off Farscape, Star Trek, Star Wars, Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy, the works of Michael Moorcock, Titan AE as well as a dozen previous Doctor Who stories! So why didn't it steal something GOOD from them?!?"
- Dave Carpenter (2005)

"THAT is the Moxx of Baloon? Well, bugger me sideways and call me Nagasaki."
- Barton Luther Zachariah Robert (B.L.Z. Bob - 2006)

"I often pump away at the TARDIS console, grinning wildly at Billie Piper - or at least, the image of her."
- The Wanker, a lesser-known Time Lord (453/Jug/876)

"The ending of the story horrified me in its amorality. How dare the Doctor try to save Joan Collins. It's just as well Rose, the main audience identification figure, calls him up for it. I would have blown her head off, just to be sure. That woman just bugs me."
- Father James O'Malley (2005)

"Doddering, incontinent and old, fat git Tom Baker admits that, whilst he's never heard of Christopher Eccleston, he wishes the actor 'luck' in the role. How magnanimous – NOT! This proves that Baker's peripheral vision has been the bottom of a wine glass! How dare he miss the glaringly stunning performances from Eccleston in... in whatever he's been in. Oh, and anyone who says Eccleston is quitting is a foul, despicable heathen who deserves to be buggered to death."
- eyeofsauros.com.uk (2000)

"I want chips too." - Me. I'm hungry. It's my guide. Deal with it.

Billie Piper Speaks!
"You know, I didn't mind my music being used in this story. I did mind, however, the fact that all the aliens screamed in agony when they heard it, and Chris shouted, 'Surely I don't have to mime to this crap?' But worst of all, it was scripted."

Christopher Eccleston Speaks!
"I never want to be involved in something that's just spooky escapism. I mean, I appear in The Others and Gone in 60 Seconds, but it doesn't mean I wanted to! Yeah, Russell came to me and insisted that social realism to spooky escapism was a ratio somewhere around 300:1. He later admitted he'd got that back to front. We never spoke again."

Russell T Davies Speaks!
"I remember the first draft of The Restaurant At The End Of The World. There was the best pre-titles scene ever ever ever. Then again, you could just play it and cut to scene 2. I wasn't sure so I decided to do both and justify it, artistically, on the evil power of the Moxx of Baloon causing a warp in space and time."

Trivia –
There is a lampshade in scene two which was involved in Doctor Who longer than Tom Baker. Its career started in 1966's Power-Vac of the Dustbins and was last scene in, well, this episode.

Rumors & Facts
Doctor Who has known many lunatics - Tom Baker, the Creator of the Quirks, Richard Briers. But none so truly off the wall as Russell T Davies. From an early age, RTD's only desire was to see the Doctor have nine colours of crap kicked out of him by the author's own creation - the Moxx of Baloon.

It is no surprise his one and only New Adventure, Domaged Goods, features the mysterous 'Moxx B' brutally bash the Doctor and companions unconscious as it causes chaos, terror and death in a housing estate where a handy Tyler family also happen to live.

For eighteen months, readers of Doctor Who Magazine had been slowly but surely going spare as RTD's "Production Notes" column drove them up the wall with paragraph after paragraph of -

"Yes, the Moxx of Baloon is going to be the biggest monster ever! The Bastard has nothing on this machiavellian master criminal who strides the cosmos like a collosus of unmitigated, blood-chilling TERROR! No audience has ever been prepared to behold the TRUE horror of the Moxx of Baloon - and nothing in the TV series, books, audios or comics will ever be the same after the Moxx passes...

Oh, by the way, we cast Chris Eccleston as the Doctor today.

Anyway, back onto the Moxx of Baloon, this bastard is going to blot out the sun! Dustbins! Pah! Those litterbins haven't a budgie in a microwave's chance of getting out of a fight with the Moxx of Baloon! The Moxx is so damn bastard hard, he's not afraid to take anyone outside! The Moxx could pleasure every woman on Earth for one week at a time, and he'd laugh while doing it! THAT'S the kind of guy he is..."

Unfortunately, Davies' rabid Moxxiphilia lead to a bit-part alien in the second episode, Douglas Adams 'Pastiche', being accidentally named The Moxx of Baloon. As said alien was a comic relief Mekon-piss-takery, RTD realized his lifelong dream of The Moxx of Baloon Strikes Back! was now in jeopardy.

RTD instinctive ditched the whole story and tried to rework the story The Restaurant At The End of the World to be set on contemporary Earth and feature the mysterious time traveler played by Nicholas Briggs arriving to kill the Doctor and save Earth from destruction, only to accidentally cause said destruction instead.

However, the script wasn't working out. Why? No idea. Maybe it was because it was shithouse. The Hitchhikers parody was re-commissioned at behest of special effects team The Mill. As this was the most effects-intensive episode of the season, requiring more than two hundred effects shots for its three-quarter-hour running time to be composed in just eight weeks, they suggested they just cut and paste it out of the HHGTG film and trust no one noticed.

Hastily, he rewrote the story so that, while essentially appearing to be a loveable blue midget who wants nothing more than to spread peace and joy throughout the multiverse he was, in fact, a twitching, bubbling, throbbing lump of pure evil the whole time.

Julie Gardner suggest they improve the reputation of the Moxx of Baloon by inventing a crap back story of the Moxx annihilating Gallifrey in a 4-dimensional war, cobbled together from various Amblin film proposals and Laurence Miles' royalties.

Davies quickly realized that the only way to make the Moxx of Baloon a credible, intelligent enemy for the Doctor was to make the Doctor a credulity-stretching, arrogant moron with a fetish for tree women.

It was brainstorming sessions like this that further convinced Christopher Eccelston to get out while the going was good – not mention the advice given to him by Paul McGann and the fact he had also met Tom Baker and knew what horrible fate awaited him.

Filming began in early September in Cardiff's only five-star restaurant, the Dia-Et Leak Noshorama, which was demolished and reconstructed in a Newport warehouse under cover of daylight.

The debut of The Restaurant At The End Of The World on April 2nd came as Doctor Who continued to be squarely in the public eye. On March 29th, when it became clear Doctor Who would be renewed for a second season and a Christmas special Eccleston announced he would not be remaining for a sophomore season.

Initial BBC reports, apparently released to head off a leak to the tabloids, suggested that Eccleston was concerned about the grueling recording schedule and feared becoming too associated with the role of the Doctor. This is a bloody lie!

Eccleston was far more concerned about the increasing number of skin diseases he was contracting off cast members and his noted Welshophobia was in overdrive. He was also more concerned with staying associated as a gritty fly-by-night Northerner than any particular ongoing role.

He later revealed in his autobiography "I Am The North Made Flesh" that the main reason for his departure from Doctor Who was mainly because of people spelling his name 'Ecclestone'.

RTD and the production team dealt with this in a very mature and reasonable manner, as can be seen in the revised series trailer –

Doctor: D'you wanna come with me? Cause if you do, then I should warn you. You're gonna see all sorts of things. A Christmas special. A second series. The day I quit and pissed you all off. It won't be quiet. It won't be well-timed. And it won't be good for publicity. But I'll tell you what it will be. The anti-climax of a lifetime!

As had so often been the case in the past, controversy and speculation once again stalked Doctor Who like two giant stalking things.

---------
Next Time...
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"Now, you've screwed up the future, so let's screw up the past. 1970 – how does 1970 sound?"
"What happened in 1970?"
"We turned up!"
"I can't believe it! You've killed her! She's gone!"
"Er, not gone, Mr. Redpath, sir, honest! Merely sleeping!"
"Sleeping? She's dead!"
"No, she's just pining for the fjords!"
"Oh, no! The client's up on her feet and out there now! I need to take a happy pill! STAT!"
"Headhunter! For shame! How many more times?"
"I'm not addicted! I can stop whenever I want!"
"Excuse me, sir. Mr. Marwood? This is your call, sir."
"Use the Force, Luke! Find the old lady – or we're screwed!"
"I and my friend are what you might call Evaders from Bars."
"Oh my God, Doctor! This so-called youth hostel is really a bordello, bath house and opium den!"
"That sounds more like it!"
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...The Presuming Ed...
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BONUS! DOCTOR WHO AUDITIONS!

RTD was not so completely deranged when he cast Christopher "This Is Me Swanning Off!" Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. A dozen other artistes were considered for the role and their audition tapes are transcribed here to show you the alternatives that made Chris Eccleston seem like such a sensible choice.

Giving up on reviving the Eighth Doctor, it was decided to cast the Ninth Doctor. Alan Davies was chosen with less thought than it takes to blink of an eye, but mysteriously had been fired within three hours. This is probably to do with Davies' fear of being typecast as Jonathon Creek and his rather unusual decision to play the part as per Paul McGann's suggestion of a black woman.

It should be noted that the Ninth Doctor – effectively a black and white minstrel in drag - also being deaf, partially-sighted, educational sub-normal, in her late fifties, with acute kleptomania and Tourette's Syndrome were Davies' idea as well.

Extract from "Doctor Who – Cataclysm Of The Apocalypse" Episode 1:

(Setting: The TARDIS control room. The Doctor [Alan Davies] and Rose [Billie Piper] are present. The time rotor is at rest.)

Rose: OK, Doctor, you insane harlot, what do we do now?

Doctor: (Cackles insanely) We explore, Rose!

Rose: We explore me?

(She backs away from the Doctor)

Doctor: No, no, not that! Full stop, we explore!

Rose: Explore? Explore what?

(The Doctor walks past the console and points at the central column.)

Doctor: When the TARDIS in flight is, there the time rotor oscilltilidebilitates... Up and down moves. As see you can, it is not much moving now. Means arrived we have somewhere!

(The Doctor puts on hir coat and wanders through a door. A moment later the Time Lord returns and leaves via the exit.)

Doctor: Wrong door.

Rose: (follows) Hey, wait up, Doc! You crazy transsexual wanker!

(Cut to: outside the TARDIS. The Doctor and Rose emerge in the garishly-decorated foyer)

Rose: Nice spot, Doc! Couldn't you have found somewhere a little easier on the eyes?

(The Doctor picks up a menu marked MILLIWAYS THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE WORLD and starts reading it, ignoring Rose)

Rose: (Shakes head) You know, allowing me back into the TARDIS would have been nice. Taking me back home would be nicer. Giving me the racing results for the next three years would have been bloody polite an all!

(The Doctor spins around, nearly knocking Rose over. Hir shoves the menu in Rose's face)

Doctor: Think of that you what?

Rose: Why was it always questions with the Doc?

Doctor: Are you answering back, (Screams) BITCH WHORE ELEPHANT!!

(Rose sighs and looks at the menu.)

Rose: Where are we, Doc?

Doctor: Know I do not. Been here before? I cannot say.

Rose: Great. Just goddamned great. Are we in Vegas? Looks bright enough to be Vegas. And hot enough.

(The Doctor jumps up and down and suddenly spasms uncontrollably.)

Doctor: Nope. Not Vegas. Not even Earth, lass, in fact.

Rose: Excuse me? What do you mean, 'not even Earth'?

Doctor: (Jumps into air again) Gravity is all wrong for Earth. Is much more to the universe than that one small planet, besides there.

(The Doctor puts an arm around Rose's shoulder. She squirms.)

Doctor: (Whispers) Know how much I have been to Earth, Rose? Nor I. But know I do to Earth I have been more times than any other one planet. It is time I think after itself the Earth looked for a change, don’t you?

Rose: Now hang on a minute there, Doc! What do you mean 'not even Earth'? I'll admit, your TARDIS is pretty cool, and yes, even that Nestle crap was trippy. But are you trying to tell me we are on another planet?

Doctor: Exactly what I am saying that is. Quite a concept it is I know, yes, but soon get used to it will your human mind. YOU FUCKING OVERWEIGHT SLAPPER! Hurt do not be, lass. Many companions in my time I have, and humans most of them have been. And each of them was about being on planets Earth other than a little shocked. But adapted well they, as you will I am sure.

Rose: You know, Doc, I wonder if I am still on a trip, or if this is some dream.

Doctor: Oh no, Rose, no dream.

Rose: No? It was a nice hope. But, hey, I will get used to it. I’m nothing if not adapt—

(Suddenly a huge shadow looms over them)

Doctor: ARGH! THE MOXX OF BALOON IT IS!!

Rose: Oh, we are *so* fucked.

Doctor: SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!

(Machine gun bullets spray over our heroes....)