Parody # 10: The Michaelmas Evasion

The Michaelmas Evasion

Serial 201 - The Michaelmas Evasion
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Bad Santas
"YOA's Discontinuity Guides - Inaccurate But Caring."

Serial XMAS-05 - The Michaelmas Evasion -

The time: December 24th, 2006. The place: Jackie Tyler's bedroom.

Jackie and her jail bait lover Mickey Tyler are preparing for the festive season with some pre-present-wrapping sex, not caring if Jackie's daughter Rose will be home for Christmas - or at all.

As they enjoy a post-coital herbal cigarette, Jackie hears a familiar, ancient grinding noise and for a moment thinks Mickey is having a heart attack from all this sex.

Mickey, who is hard at work, also hears it and they both put it down to creaky bed springs - thus completely missing a battered blue police box tumble out of the sky and very badly-reverse park its way through the roof and into the bedroom.

A mad-looking Scotsman staggers through the doors, and sees the couple shagging each other. "Damn! Missed!" he bitches, before losing his balance. "I'll have to poison the water supply instead," he adds, completely disoriented, yet still disgusted to see them.

"Wait, there was something else I had to tell you apart from the fact I hate you and I'm going to kill you... what was it... Oh! I know! Merry Michaelmas!"

"What you on about?" Jackie retorts. "It's December!"

"Oh, jings, don't tell me I've missed THAT and all!" the newcomer complains, and falls down, completely unconscious.

Rose emerges from the TARDIS and berates her mother for shagging her boyfriend, until she realizes this is just the sort of relationship that could get them on Trisha.

Mickey idly wonders where the Doctor is, and Rose explains the unconscious stranger on the floor IS the Doctor. In fact, he is completely stranger - having lost what little grip he had on reality after he apparently shagged her and died smiling.

"That's my girl," Jackie says proudly.

At Buckingham Palace, Prime Minister Harriet Jones has just had the Royal Family escorted off the premises and shot dead by firing squad as she rather fancied spending Christmas at the palace rather than the newly-reconstructed 10 Downing Street.

As Jones rips up a priceless mink carpet and throws it on the fire, her timid red shirt assistant explains that the British space probe Wino Bill has gone missing. Jones suggests they check at the back of the sofa but it becomes apparent that the last time they remember seeing Wino Bill, it was on the surface of Mars.

In the depths of space, the alien Sycophant Leader is unimpressed to discover his Christmas present is nothing more than a cold metal probe containing the 1812 Overture, a vial of Type A blood and some old Doctor Who episodes.

Annoyed, the Leader checks the probe was "Made in the UK" and decides that instead of having a pleasant Yuletide picnic, the Sycophants will instead invade the planet Earth, crush its people and generally be unpleasant while at the same time being sickeningly polite.

Back at the Powell Estate, Jackie has stripped the new Doctor naked and tied him up to her bed with leather restraints... so at least this is one Christmas tradition being upheld this year. Stealing a stethoscope from a blind orphan down the road, Jackie determines to make the Doctor's hearts beat faster and break him out of this daze.

At various points the Doctor falls into consciousness, but quickly falls back out of it before Jackie can attach the electrodes, but she's definitely getting somewhere - why else would he call her "Brigadier" and ask her if this "is another one of your games, my naughty nun?"

Mickey shouts at Rose that the Doctor she knew is dead, vanished and gone to hell and they are stuck with his DNA understudy and she'll never know that gritty Northerner again.

Rose cheers up immensely at this news and decides to go shopping.

(Whether or not this was Mickey's intention is, as yet, unknown.)

While wandering for bargains at the local market and Mickey updating her on the plot twists of Eastenders, Rose notices that they are being stalked by four badly-made robotic Santas with glowing red eyes shouting "HO - HO - HO! DEATH - TO - THE - HUMANS!"

Suddenly, the Santas reveal brass instruments and begin an up-tempo jazz version of "Little Drummer Boy", and Rose and Mickey flee for their lives. Mickey uses a handy canister of Nitro-9 to topple the street's massive Christmas tree and it squashes the Santas.

"Next time I ask for an xbox," Mickey screams at the red-clad bodies, "I mean I WANT AN XBOX! NOT A BOOK TOKEN, YOU ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATIONS OF WESTERN CONSUMERISM!"

Rose congratulates Mickey on this highly articulate and intelligent outburst, then suggests they run for it as the Santas are recombining into a giant reindeer with a glowing red lightbulb for a nose and carrying two submachine guns.

Back at home, the Doctor is being force-fed laughing gas by Jackie for her own sadistic enjoyment. The Doctor regains his senses long enough to come up with a complicated Bill & Ted style plan.

Once he escapes from Jackie he will duck into the TARDIS and travel back in time a day

Then, he will create a cybernetic killing machine in the form of a harmless Christmas Tree and arrange it is delivered to the Tylers' flat and set up across the room from him

The Tree will then activate and turn into a lethal buzz saw, killing Jackie and allowing the Doctor to escape, and duck into the TARDIS (ref. to step 1)

No sooner does he come up with this plan then the Christmas Tree comes to life like a festive Tasmanian Devil and attacks!

At that moment, Rose and Mickey burst in being chased by the giant reindeer. As she tells the others of their encounters, the Doctor sagely remarks, "Oh, Jings, not the Autons again! Bollocks!" and goes to have a nice nap.

Rose shouts abuse at the Doctor for not helping them and finally realizes there is one way to prove the Doctor is the same man though his face has changed and accent subtly altered.

She offers to sleep with him if he saves them.

The Doctor immediately awakes and orders "C'Rizz The Christmas Tree" to attack the reindeer and slice it to pieces. The whirling destroyer-tree lives up to its name and begins eating the reindeer meat.

Watching this, the Time Lord suddenly claims he can see a cloud of Japanese fighting fish speaking fluent German emerging from his mouth and collapses after Mickey smashes a pint glass against his forehead.
Ultimately the question remains... were these genuine Autons? Or maybe Cybermen in deep cover? Or Ice Cream Vendors? Or the Sexual Toymaker in a festive mood?

Prime Minister Jones is interrupted from beating up her Tamagotchi to learn that the Wino Bill has somehow been swallowed up by UFO that resembles a fish tank ornament hanging in space above Mars.

Jones is not interested - her Christmas Day didn't exactly hinge around a space probe landing in a red quarry, unlike the rest of the NASA saddoes and the British Rocket Group losers.

At that point the Wino Bill starts to beam back images from within the Sycophant space craft. For several minutes, Jones watches these strange alien snarls, mistaking them for an avant-guarde remix of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

Having previously encountered the Slitheens, the Prime Minister's opinion of extra terrestrial life is rather low and denounces the aliens as a student prank - the Sycophants clearly not Martians, because of their lack of an ice cream fetish.

UNIT/WANK use all their resources to identify and isolate these aliens... and as usual give up after five minutes when a police box doesn't immediately materialize in the corner. Normally the Doctor arrives and starts acting all smug and eccentric while UNIT just repeatedly kill green monsters and look butch. This scenario is like nothing they were ever expecting to deal with!

The American President timidly rings Jones to wish Merry Christmas and, you know, not to nuke the USA like the last time she got mildly annoyed by a punchline in Friends. The President goes on to offer help blowing up these weird alien types before they go ID4 on Earth's butt.

"He's not my boss and he's certainly not turning this into a war," Jones retorts. "That's for ME to do... Get Touchwood to deploy Super Alien Attack Weapon A! I'm gonna light those suckers up like a Christmas Tree!"

She then has the following message sent to the Sycophants -

"This is a day of peace on planet Earth. We extend that peace to the Sycophants. BTW, this planet is armed and if you don't surrender immediately we will rip the brains out of your skulls one by one and bathe in the blood of your children while molesting your females with your throbbing, disintegrating brains before playing a quick game of cricket with what internal organs are left.

Just...

...fuck...

...off.

NOW!

Yours, Prime Minister Harriet 'Hellfire' Jones of the United Kingdom."

Jones plans to nuke the Sycophants when they are retreating.

Luckily, Mickey has discovered all this by hacking into www.backgroundexposition.co.uk/doctorwho on his brand new laptop. Knowing that Harriet Jones is going to trigger the ultimate destruction of the human race simply because she's so damn bastard hard she's not afraid to step outside to take anyone on, the Tyler clan decide to quit Earth and leave in the TARDIS.

However, the Sycophants have already made their first steps to conquering all of mankind. With their nauseating toadying, they convince ever human being with Type A blood to climb the nearest tall building and will jump off when the Sycophant Leader announces 'Simon Says Leap To Your Deaths'.

In Paris, Italy, America and Poland there are identical scenes... in fact, come to think of it, it is the SAME scene with a different caption on each one!

In Buckinham Palace, Jones cracks open a bottle of champagne at the thought of mass suicides. She loves a bit of carnage and double-dares the Sycophants to carry out their threat. Taken aback, the Sycophant Leader admits he was expecting her to surrender.

By way of a reply, Jones sets up a party political broadcast.

"Peoples of Earth, alien invaders are about to wipe out one third of our population. They have gained control of human beings through a sample of blood on Wino Bill. Why someone left some human blood on a Mars Probe, well, don't ask me Skippy. Maybe it was HIV+ and was some half-arsed chemical warfare? Anyway, I'm sure we all have friends, relatives or indeed are ourselves about to plummet to our deaths.

And good too.

The reduction of one third of human population will mean more jobs, less crowded public transport, more food, less reason for war and universal mourning might even end racial intolerance and hatred. So, if you're standing on top of Big Ben, jump off. For Britain.

Right, where's a mince pie, I'm fucking famished..."

Realizing their attempted blackmail won't work, the Sycophants swoop their ludicrously-designed spaceship over London in a scene definitely not cribbed from Alias of London or Independence Day. Oh no way sir.

Jones and some red shirt assistants are teleported aboard the Sycophant space ship which resembles the cellar of a Sunnydale High School with a few lava lamps draped around the place.

Prime Minister Jones is unimpressed with alien life after she dealt with the quantum space bimbos the Slitheen. When her aides are reduced to bones in shots not at all nicked from Mars Attacks, she tells the Sycophant to get to the point or she'll rip his bloody face off.

Which she then does because it's getting dull.

Back at the Powell Estate, Jackie, Mickey and Rose have relocated to the TARDIS when they realize they'll need the Doctor to pilot the time machine. The disorientated Time Lord has meanwhile been gang-bashed by some homeboys after he objected to their cries of "Oi! Weasel Features!"

No sooner do the Tylers locate the Doctor and drag his body into the TARDIS then it is teleported aboard the Sycophant space ship - leaving Jackie back at the estate, much to her annoyance.

Rose pops out to tell her mother to get her butt into gear, only to find herself confronted by an army of skull-faced insects and Harriet Jones. When she sees the Prime Minster, Rose screams like a girl and this leads to Mickey getting caught.

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor has had coffee and sugar being fed into him via an intravenous drip. He belches occasionally, but still has yet to regain consciousness. WILL OUR HERO RECOVER IN TIME?!?!?

Yes, actually.

As Rose suffers from the intense passive aggressive posturing of the Sycophant Leader when the Doctor stumbles out of the TARDIS under the impression he is an advaark with no arms.

After some more 'Hey-you're-not-the-Doctor-you-don't-look-like-him-oh-on-second-thoughts-maybe-you-are' moments, the Doctor tells the Sycophants to sod off. It's Christmas fucking Day for God's sake, just leave them alone! Just for once!

The Sycophants start laughing. The Doctor's speech is lifted directly from Disney's The Lion King!

Now completely pissed off, the Doctor takes off his dressing down, picks up a light sabre and begins a massive fight with Darth V... sorry, the Sycophant Leader who demands the Doctor join him.

"Never!" the Doctor shouts. "You killed my father! Well, I *think* it was my father... My mum was into some serious sex slave stuff. And when you come home to discover your 'dad' looks completely different, well, you don't question it on Gallifrey. You know, I think I'm a bit confused..."

During this baffled speech, the Sycophant Leader cuts the Doctor's arm off, chews it up and eats it.

The Doctor's sore relieved - thanks to his demented regeneration, he had three arms! Using his remaining two, he scares the Sycophant Leader so much it wets itself and begs never to give in. In fact, their technology is so puny and pathetic they could not control humans in the first place except be so bloody annoying their victims were pushed to the brink of suicide. They promise they'll become the Earth's defenders and give the Doctor the Christmas holidays off from now on.

The Doctor accepts and everyone is teleported back to the Powell Estate and as they watch the Sycophant spaceship takes off and group hugs are given.

Sick of this smaltsy, self-congratulating crap, Jones reminds Touchwood to wipe out the retreating alien ship with the feared Belgrano Device and the Sycophants are wiped out in a cheap negative effect.

Furious that Jones' mindless prejudice has taken away his holidays, the Doctor charges up to her. All Time Lords know the six words that will bring down the government, but he only needs one:

"Thatcher!"

He and the Tylers storm off for some last-minute Christmas looting as Harriet Jones find she is already being targeted by alternative comedies and being parodied by Dead Ringers. Her political career is as dead as Kerry Packer.

On the way, the Doctor notices that rubber fetishist store Plastic Fantastic has been rebuilt after he destroyed it a year previously. The Doctor is thoroughly annoyed that so much of his good work is undone, and also fears that Rose might have found an excuse to stay on Earth. Thus, with absolutely no regret whatsoever, the Doctor chucks some semtex through the window before heading off again.

After the flames die down a bedraggled shape emerges from the smoke screaming, "Stop blowing up my shop, you bloody bastard! Who you work for, anyway? Prince Philip?"

Back at the Tyler's flat, the Doctor returns from the TARDIS wearing a new outfit to compliment his regenerated appearance - a Ben Elton-style spangly suit with a four-foot mullet hairdo.

Mickey, Rose and Jackie are universally horrified and Jackie offers some of her long-dead husband's wardrobe. Jackie explains she tried to flog them to Barnado's the day he died, but they refused to accept the geeky brown pinstripe suit.

And so, despite the fact it will no doubt guarantee Rose many years on a psychiatrists couch in the future, the Doctor puts on Pete Tyler's old gear which, disturbingly, fits perfectly.

After getting appallingly drunk at the party, the Doctor steals the plum pudding and the VCR and returns to the TARDIS - proving once and for all to Rose that this is the same Doctor.

Then, as this is a full-on Christmas Special, and in the grand tradition snow starts falling in the closing moments, just at the stroke of midnight on the 24th of December.

Rose finds this laughably unbelievable - it never snows at Christmas n England! Or Wales!

The Doctor shrugs and suggested that maybe he blew up some alien ship or whatever and it caused a chain reaction, fused with the water in the atmosphere and through the medium of technobabble ice crystals form and fall as snow!

Hastily he changes the subject and unlocks the TARDIS for them to return to mainstream Doctor Who production.

Suddenly, a figure in a Santa cloak emerges from the shadows, "Ho, ho, ho, little girl! Have I got a surprise for you!" he opens up his cloak.

Rose's screams are drowned out by the flasher screaming,

"Jingle balls, jingle balls, jingle all the way! And a Merry Christmas to all of our viewers in jail!"

The End?

And so ends the commissioned version of The Michaelmas Evasion. However, this is not the only possible plotline for the first David Tennant serial.

According to a strange guy who sits in the corner of my local pub, The Dead Lemming, a completely different script was penned for this debut story by a being known only as Sparacus "Flamingo" Jones which was thrown out of rehearsals with bursts of hyena-like laughter.

Written to "evoke good old English hearth values," the script apparently only does this in that it burns well.

The synopsis is as follows -

The Michaelmas Evasion (b):

The newly regenerated Doctor lands the TARDIS in the village of Dertain Ceath at Michaelmas, 2005. Rose and the Doctor emerge to a snow covered country scene - a robin pecking at the old farm gate and the snow-capped church steeple in the distance.

It is like a Christmas card, and in fact, turns out to be that - a giant Christmas greetings card constructed on a heap known only as the Devil's A Dyke.

The time travelers run off into the snow, screaming with terror. They then discover strange footprints in the snow resembling cloven hooves. The Doctor mumbles something about the Devil walking the earth and Rose looks annoyed, pointing out that it is probably just the local theme park owner trying to drum up business.
The Doctor and Rose burst into the pub and start acting like they own the place. The Time Lord in particular is seduced by the presence of Mrs. Smythesby-Jones (played by Patricia Routledge) who is clearly evil due to suffering such a horrible name. Maybe even a Slitheen.

SJ starts rabbitting on about strange figures marching through the snow at night and that the fields around the village are about to be bought by the government for housing development. The Doctor retorts that if the village is so bloody worried about this why don't they pull their bloody fingers out and do something?

SJ retorts that there was a protest group but the leader, Reg Prentice was found dead next to the church, a pitchfork in his back and bloody pictograms scrawled on the vestry wall.

The Doctor and Rose mildly wonder if SJ has asked the vicar if he has any idea about what's happening - but such a course of action has not occurred to her. And it ultimately proves pointless as the vicar Nathanial York (Angus Deyton) has just had his throat ripped out.

There he was, minding his own business, lighting candles and THWACK - dead. The Doctor and Rose announce that the denizens of Dertain Ceath are too stupid to live and are about to return to the TARDIS when they spot Ben Chatham (Adam Rickitt), standing over the corpse.

"I heard the scream," Ben insists, wiping the blood from his hands. I was investigating the churchyard - I'm Ben Chatham .. I'm an archaeologist - well amateur archaeologist I suppose. I'm researching this site for possible pre-Christian remnants and associations. What could have done this?"

"Dunno," the Doctor replies, bored. "But whatever it is, it has claws. And a violent dislike of vicars lighting candles."

Ben proves he is also a practicing nudist as he tears off his clothes to cover the corpse with it. You know he's dedicated because the setting IS in the middle of a blizzard.

Then follow fifteen minutes of characters admiring Ben's "smooth, muscular chest shining in the candlelight, luscious and luminous".

These characters include Inspector Miles (Ross Kemp) and his fellow coppers (Todd Carty and Callum Best), Lord Acresby (John Savident), Mrs Hattersby the eccentric ghosthunter (Su Pollard), Sexton (Steve McFadden) and some carol singers (Jessie Wallace, Javine) and Charlotte Church (India Fisher).

The Doctor suddenly announces that the 'Hardon Development Company' trying to buy the surrounding lands are, in fact, a race called Lucifarians who just happen to resemble the classical Devil.

The Doctor and Rose decide to annoy the hell out of Lord Acresby and find him in Digby Connor's office, with Digby Connor (Martin Kemp) and several empty bottles of wine as an X-rated film plays on the VCR.

Acresby turned to drink when a spate of ritualistic murders wiped out his housekeeping staff and is now planning to sell his lands and titles to Digby in return for a few more barrels of mind-rotter and his son's cockroach's gambling debts paid off.

"My Lord," the Doctor shouts, "you must listen to this! Look! This whole development plan for Dertain Ceath is a front! For not only something sinister... but also DANGEROUS!! They want your land because of something underneath it!!"

Digby and Lord Acresby react realistically to this by telling the new-age nutter tree-hugging bastards to sod off. Despite their best efforts, Ben has followed the Doctor and Rose and announces that underneath the land is not earth spirits or ley-lines. Rose and the Doctor sneak out as Ben begins his big speech.

"Look something crashed here over a thousand years ago! And it brought with it cretins! Cretins far beyond humanity in their technical prowess and development. Oh, wait, sorry, that's 'creatures'."

Despite this eloquence, he is not believed - mainly because Digby and Acresby know for a FACT the ship only crashed there three hundred years ago. Ben is laughed out into the street.

The Doctor and Rose are trying to get pissed at the local pub, The Pink Elephant, only to find that Ben now seems to be stalking them. Rose goes to tell him to piss off but for some reason her line is -

"Oh Ben. Your beautiful eyes glisten in the light. I imagine myself caressing your muscular chest and planting a kiss on your rose-petal lips. God I love you."

The Doctor, sickened, steps outside for a breath of fresh air and soon is attacked. He escapes. And runs back inside, remembering that there are a bunch of evil, devil-resembling monsters on the loose.

Rose wonders why a bunch of godlike aliens would be interested in a small, impoverished Welsh village.
Ben enters and explains he was visiting Dertain Ceath on the off chance that the church has been built over a spaceship containing the ancient Lucifarian king, Bobbo (Ian Anderson), which crashed there hundreds of years ago, which the Doctor confirms.

Rose asks aloud just why the hell would self-respecting 18th century Welshmen build a village around a crashed spaceship containing the devil and put a church atop the spaceship? Why would such a godlike alien be doing visiting Earth anyway - was it to scare the crap out of St. Jerome? And how the hell do godlike aliens CRASH a spaceship?

She then asks why these godlike aliens are going to all the trouble of managing a corporate buyout instead of simply teleporting the spaceship and the contents away? And why are they murdering villagers which will simply increase the paranoia and draw attention to them?

Ben awkwardly admits that the horrible murders are actually down to him. But before anyone can answer Rose's other perfectly sensible questions, three Lucifarians barge into the church.

Luckily, the Tenth Doctor's new mascot (a violent, alcoholic owl) who has been living in the rafters, comes to life and attacks Ben, gourging out his left eye.

This distracts the Lucifarians long enough for the Doctor, Rose and the now-monocular Ben leg it back to the TARDIS at the Devil's A Dyke, where the Doctor presses a button on the console.

The spaceship explodes, destroys the Church and the Lucifarians - though why Lucifarian technology bows to the will of a button rather than three living Lucifarians, I cannot tell.

The Doctor decides to take off before Mrs. S-J can find them again, even though it means making Ben the new companion - despite the fact he regularly kills villagers in diabolic ceremonies.

The now homeless Owl is taken aboard the TARDIS as well and repeatedly attacks Ben in the face.

The End.

---------
Coming Soon... actually not... this is the last guide... still...
---------
"What base are you aiming for, Doctor?"
"Further than we've ever been before, Rose!"
"I don't think we've met before."
"I'm the Doctor."
"That little Northern shit!?! I'll kill him!"
"Uh, not THAT Doctor! I am Casanova Fronkenstein!"
"Oh, that's all right then."
"May I introduce Ms Sarah Jane Smith? No? Oh, well, I'll stay quiet then."
"They say the Face of Bond will only speak to a wandering traveler without a home. Or anyone who'll buy him a bucket of vodka martinis."
"K9? What kind of name is that for a robot dog!"
"Wow! May I introduce in an unconvincing Scottish accent, Queen Victoria! Rose, we might get to meet James Brown! Funk soul brother!"
"Give her back to me, you magnificent... Bastard!"
"Bullets can't stop it! Try some cheese!"
---------
...some more Doctor Who, I guess...
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Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who Stuffs Up Christmas
Doctor Mysterio ia Queen's Speech Interruptus
Harriet Jones & The Snotaran Invasion (Canada Only)
Harriet Jones & The Zeal of the Zarbi (Mad Norwegians' Edition)
"You... SYCOPHANT!" And Other Priceless One Liners by Colin Baker

Roots -
Doctor: Did you miss me? No, wait, that's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Anyway, Big Fella, this all about the circle of life. No, wait, that's The Lion King. So, where were we? A huge alien spaceship about to wipe out Earth on a quasi-religious festival. No, wait, that's Independence Day. Dear God, I seem to be caught in some pop culture zeitgeist Bermuda Triangle! Change material quick!

Fluffs - Christopher Eccleston seemed as dead as Christmas Spirit on the 28th of December in this story. 28 Days Later, you might say.

Goofs -
The Spirit of Christmas controls Mankind for fifteen hours. Uh, excuse me, what colour of bullshit are you trying to feed us, Russell?

Fashion Victims -
The Doctor's Arthur Dent look in the jimmy jams, dressing gown, slippers and bitching cool shades is a vast improvement on his ultimate choice of apparel: a long brown trenchcoat, a brown pinstripe suit, a silver diamond-studded question mark on a necklace, ludicrously oversized baseball cap not to mention the goatee and neck tattoos.

We see before us, the Chav of the Time Lords!

Technobbable - The Doctor's seven-dimensional vomit.

Dialogue Disasters -
Sycophant Leader: Surrender or they will die... Sycophants rock!
Harriet Jones: "Rock"?
Sycophant Leader: ROCK IT BAYBEEEEE!

Doctor: You can't get the staff, these days. Still, the swords, sais and nunchukas are still available from all good department stores. This and other Ninja Turtle merchandise make Eastman and Laird rich as Cresus, so please buy extra Michaelangelos from now on...

Doctor: Oh my God, Rose, I haven't regenerated into a ginger-haired git, have I?
Rose: No, you don't look a bit like Chris Evans.
Doctor: Am I funny? Sarcastic? Sexy?
Rose: Doctor, I said you weren't a BIT like Chris Evans!
Doctor: OK, now I want to be ginger!

Rose: There's no one to save us, not any more.
Mickey: What about the Phantom, the Ghost Who Walks? And Batman? And Superman? And Green Lantern? And Deadpool? And Superman? And Meteor Man? And Johnny Five? And the Justice League of Cardiff?
Rose: OK, I'll give you that one.

Harriet Jones: Guinevere! Venezuela! Pork Pie! Remote control! That should satisfy the gullible idiots who read DWM 358...

(Rose putting on a leather jacket and fake handlebar moustache...)
Rose: Someone's got to be the Doctor.
Harriet Jones: They'll twig right away you're doing a drag act!
Rose: Never stopped him.

Jackie: What do you mean that is the Doctor? Doctor Who?
Rose: He's my travelling companion, the last of the Time Lords?
Jackie: Who?!
Rose: Northern, big ears, said 'Fantastic' a lot!
Jackie: Means nothing.
Rose: Lived next to us for 20 years trying to kill me?
(Jackie shrugs)
Rose: He refused to sleep with you.
Jackie: Oh, THAT Doctor.
Rose: Of course, which fucking Doctor do you think I'm likely to be talking about you insane bitch?!

Sycophant Leader: Do you like sugar in your tea?
Doctor: I DON'T KNOW!!!

Dialogue Triumphs -
Mickey: Why you suddenly gone Cockney?
Doctor: I would never sully my tongue with that primitive accent! Unless... Oh no. Regenerate yet UNREGENERATE! Snogging Rose must have given me some kind of trans-temporal laryngitis that affected my vocal chords! Right, no more kissing humans possessed by the ungodly powers of the time vortex. Unless they are SERIOUSLY cute.

Sycophant Leader: You stand as Rose Tyler's sugar daddy?
Doctor: Thank you. I've no idea who I am, but you've just summed me up.

Doctor: There's a strange woman in my TARDIS.
Jackie: Yes, there is.
Doctor: I'm in my dressing gown.
Jackie: Yes, you are.
Doctor: Anything could happen. Fancy a shag?

Rose: The Doctor wouldn't do this. The old Doctor. The proper Doctor. He'd would wake up. He'd save us.
Jackie: [confused] We're talking about the same Doctor, aren't we?

Doctor: Am I sexy? It seems I've certainly got a gob on me. Nude and not ginger. Oh look! A great big threatening button that should not be pressed under any circumstances. No, I shouldn't. I mustn't.
OH GOD – I *HAVE*!!

Mickey: Nice cup of tea. The solution to everything. If not, heroin normally does the trick.

Rose: He's left me, Mum.
Jackie: Rose, he's younger, cuter, lacking a Northern accent and is now tied to my bed at my mercy. If that counts as leaving, I want men to ditch me continuously from now on!

Harriet Jones: Doctor, if you're out there, we need you. I can't be bothered to deal with this crap. If you can hear me Doctor, if anyone knows the Doctor, if anyone can find him, the situation has never been so desperate. OK, there was that time in 87... No, drifting off topic, please Doctor, help us. Or I'll hack your bollocks off with a blunt knife.

The Doctor's description of his new body -
"You're getting noticed by opposite sex. You better get used to it."

UnQuotable Quote -
The Doctor in post-regenerative dilirium:
"If you're paddling upstream in a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse? None! Ice cream doesn't have bones!!"

Links and References -
During the final scene in the empty kitchen, a black plastic bin rolls into the room, it's lid flapping as a voice moans "I want Mickey! I want Mickey!"

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Tenth Doctor recently spent several months in Venice wearing a pink neck scarf and answering to the name of "Captain Jack" which the TARDIS translator circuits turned into "Gaicamo Casanova".

Subtext? WHAT Subtext? -
Peace on Earth, goodwill to all men, and nuke the alien bastards!

Groovy DVD Extras -
The original reason for the Doctor's post-regeneration confusion - concussion following Jackie slapping him again.

The alternative ending where the Doctor and Rose get completely plastered on Olde Peculiar and sing a duet of 'Fairytale of New York' as the credits begin to roll.

Psychotic Nostalgia -
"The enemies in The Michaelmas Invasion are a race of flame thrower trumpet-toting killer zombie Santas. Some fans thought that this seemed so terribly lame, barely even possible to recognize it as Doctor Who and needed to be nothing short of Rob Shearman to make up for such abysmal villains. So I put on a Santa suit and stalked and killed them all. Fans now tend to be a lot less closed-minded in their criticisms."

Viewer Quotes -
"I don't believe that Russell T Davies has researched instances of families keeping clothes of their dead loved ones thoroughly enough to incorporate into this story realistically. This, therefore, infringes on the believability of said story - I will not be watching this episode as I'm sure I will find it too far fetched."
- Trinny and Susanah (2005)

"The most worrying thing about this Christmas special is that it shows a fall in production values. The fact that the production team cannot even line up the TARDIS doors properly does not bode well. I don't think I'm imagining it. In some scenes there is a clear gap between the door and base on the right side. Is it just me or is this a really annoying detail? I guess I will only watch the second series if I'm not busy otherwise, I mean with this palpable drop in production values, what would be the point in watching it regularly? It clearly will just be more cheap trash, I'm off to watch some classic series DVD's... oh hang on, look at THESE production values. My head hurts." - Andrew Beeblebrox (2005)

"Filthy British pigs see new Doctor on Christmas Day while Noble American suffer till Valentine's Day. This means war! Alien scavengers dressed as Imperialist Santa Claus Androids of Death! Pah! I say PAH! Is there moral cost about bombing shit out of enemy just because you have superior firepower? Ask me that again, I kill you. Plus, Eccleston looks very strange in this one, as if they recast him but no one stupid enough to do that. Me off to firebomb refugee orphanage. I'll be back."
- Bob Perkins "Half-cocked Reviews Weekly" (2005)

"God, ever since Tennant was announced as the Doctor, Big Finish have been putting whacking great pictures of the weasel-faced git on their CDs, milking him like the cash cow he is... by using him on a free CD. Er, you know what I mean. I'm not touchy, it's just other people apply logic on my opinions before I've finished mouthing off!" - Nigel Verkoff (2005)

"Those wacky Big Finish folk! Not satisfied with casting Who actors in different roles after their appearance in Who, now they've taken to casting them in different roles BEFORE they appear in Who!"
- Dave Restal (2005)

"Oh, piss off, Restal, you clever dick!" - Nigel Verkoff (2005)

Billie Piper Speaks!
"Give up the weed. Ho freaking ho, you dirty ho."

David Tennant Speaks!
"When they asked me to do it, I just laughed. I found it hilarious and impossible - but then, I had just smoked seventeen bongs in quick succession. And I remember Russell T Davies very perceptively saying: 'I hear the sound of distant drums.' But it's such a great job. I get to play a Time Lord and have a TARDIS. You can't knock that. Every time the Doctor goes through the regeneration process, he changes to an extent. So you get a blank canvas where you don't have to worry too much about what has gone before. Viewers are going to see a slightly more no-nonsense Doctor, influenced by what Chris did with him and Billie. He's less indulgent and more ruthless, sexually speaking.

Doctor Who is watched by groups you wouldn't expect to be huge Doctor Who fans. I'm continually surprised by the number of trendy teenage girls and middle-aged mums who come up to talk to me and who genuinely love the show. Ultimately it turns out to be a distraction to allow them to ravish me passionately until dawn, but that's what's extraordinary and unique about it. In any other show, you can tell a fan and a groupie apart instantly. I doubt I'll ever do anything that attracts such a varied audience again. Well, maybe, Bootleg."

Russell T Davies Speaks!
"So yeah, Christmas and a new Doctor, and an alien invasion. And isn't that everything that you could possibly want from a Christmas special? Oh, and crackers! Sometimes Christmas specials don't really include Christmas. But ours does. There's lots of Christmas... and I'm such a Christmas freak! I tape record the Queen's Speech and play it every day with a glass of wine and scream 'GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!' in my best Billy Connelly voice! Every day is Christmas Day! Those psychoanalysts think it's a psychotic condition - let em! Good will to all men! Ding dong merrily on high, for all the bells are ringing... BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Trivia -
There was a trailer for season two directly after this Christmas Special. What?! It's true and trivial! If you want REAL trivia, get out the bit where the Doctor's snogging the Face of Bond - body double, definitely. Don't ask me how I know, just... accept it.

Rumors & Facts -
In the wake of the announcement that Christopher Eccleston would not be returning to play the Doctor beyond the new series' first season, the rumour mill quickly went into overdrive with the speculation that David Tennant would portray the Time Lord's tenth incarnation.

Why David Tennant? Because he is the only man in the world born with a destiny, a destiny to become Doctor Who - he's even a fan of it!

His path has lead him here, from being a closet Doctor Who fan manic depressive disc jockey in Taking Over The Asylum to being a bit part extra in Paul Carnall's "I Scream 'Boom-Shaka-Laka!'" webcast.

He appeared as Luthur Arkwright for Big Finish as a dimension-crossing wander who also hung around jailbait cockney girls called Rose.

He portrayed a Cockney Time Lord with a weakness for real ale.

He fought off the Dustbins in Dustbin Umpire Three!

He narrated the documentary Doctor Who: A Nude Dimension shown hours before the new series premiered!

He co-starred in Sympathy for the Weevil with two other non-canon Doctors Mark Gatiss, David Warner and still had time for scenes with Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier!

In The Quatermass Experiment Live, he appeared as the mysterious Doctor John Smith of UNIT!

In Russell T Davies Casanova, he played "Casanova", a lethario stranded in Venice while the engines of his police-box-shaped time machine recharged!

In Bright Young Things, Christopher Eccleston's character was killed by hepatitis and mysteriously regenerated into David Tenant!

"Damn it! Just let the man do the real job!" was how the BBC finally confirmed Tennant's casting on April 16th, 2005, before confirming that Billie Piper would return for a whole season, then retracted that statement, before denying the retraction and falling over.

When it became known that a special 60-minute Doctor Who episode would be shown on Christmas Day, a strange scaled figure calling itself Sparacus "Flamingo" Jones began to break into the Doctor Who Production Office and demand RTD accept his ideas for such a story.

Jones had for some time been insisting that RTD's Doctor Who was too light weight and just because it had managed to become an award-winning blockbuster series more successful than anyone - even Colin Baker - had ever dared to dream, it wasn't actually good enough.

Amongst other things Jones regularly insisted that only HE was able to create any half-decent Doctor Who story despite the fact he would openly admit he could not read, write or "do that spilling thing, you know, with the letters". When the Captain Jack spin-off series Touchwood was announced, Jones immediately began to brag on Outpost Gallifrey, Outpost Vulcan and his own shoddily-designed Outpost Sparacus that it was all down to him and anyone who said otherwise was a homophobic communist who should be pistol-whipped to death.

First off, Jones ordered that the story involve Rose threatening the Doctor at gunpoint to take her back in time to meet Jesus and finally solve once and for all whether or not The Da Vinci Code is a shocking expose of the truth or complete crap. Jones found it utterly preposterous that Doctor Who had survived 40 odd years without at least one companion demanding to discover the truth about Jesus.

RTD cautiously agreed in order to stall Jones while the men in white coats were requested urgently by a near-hysterical Helen Raynor. RTD then suggested that the story would involve the Doctor catching up with Jesus, Moses and Mohammed and taking them to Mars for a pub crawl (though it should be noted this entire idea was plagiarized from Tom Baker's "What I Did On My Weekend" essay from 1962).

Jones dismissed this idea on the grounds that equating Jesus with drinking binges was highly inappropriate - and when RTD point out Jesus regularly turned water into wine for his mates, Jones began to scream incoherently and pulled out a semi-automatic rifle.

Jones admitted later he had a low opinion of Jesus Christ, calling him a "workshy fop who threw in a carpentry apprentice to hang around with his stoned hippy mates not to mention the hookers! Oh, how many times have we heard of the apostles fire-bombing police cars? Or seen Jesus go to the DSS for not paying child support to Mary Magdeline? If only Jesus had been white man from Oxford, things could have been so much happier and safer in modern life! And he was a poof! They're all queer in heaven, you know, so backs to the wall!".

Jones was very much in favor of the TARDIS crew discovering that Jesus was, in fact, a Japanese albino lesbian in a wheelchair who believed hir was the son of God due to excessive masturbation on Thursdays.

RTD was unimpressed and suggested the slightly less sacrilegious idea that Jesus was a Slitheen. Or maybe Jesus was the illegitimate offspring of Captain Jack, who wooed the Virgin Mary in five minutes flat. Or maybe Jesus was the first Cyberman. (The latter was again an idea nicked by RTD as a stalling game, this time from Matthew Waterhouse's proposed "Adric the Attractive" spin-off series which Handmade Films described as "not worth touching with a barge pole tied to another barge pole").

Indeed, RTD found the only realistic way to deal with the issue without causing undue offence was to have the story consist of Rose asking to go back in time and see Jesus, and the Doctor refuse point blank as Jesus doesn't exist. We would then see the Doctor had his fingers crossed all along.

Jones insisted that Doctor Who should tackle controversial issues and that historical evidence proved that not only did Jesus exist, he was also a Japanese albino quadriplegic transsexual lesbian. Ideally he wanted a story that was subtle, insidious, topical - and inspired TV viewers to hurl bricks at members of organized religions.

When Jones suggested, however, that Adam Rickitt play Jesus, something snapped inside RTD's brain.

He leant forward and proceeded to BITE the shotgun in two, snap both Jones' arms and force the fishy figure face-first into the office microwave.

Jones hastily changed tactics and conceded that maybe Aled Jones could play Jesus as a Yorkshireman. Rickitt could portray an intellectually curious human companion for the Doctor that could draw attention away from "the tits" (as Jones insisted on referring to both Rose Tyler and Billie Piper).

It was the wrong thing to say.

By the time Jones was sufficiently recovered to leave hospital, the Christmas special had been named "The Michaelmas Invasion" and would be the first story of the Tenth Doctor. He desperately offered RTD a new synopsis, reprinted above. Scrawled over the title page of the script was the following:

"This could be without doubt the lamest script in human history. Leave it to the professionals, Jones. They know what they're doing."

*Do they? In what sense?*

"In the sense that they're paid professionals who have been writing for years who - fortunately - don't have an obsession with Adam Rickett getting his pants off. You know, the ones who made a critical success with the first series of Doctor Who?"

*If it's SO good, then why don't I like it??*

"Probably because you fancy Adam Rickitt, that little twat. I've met him twice and if I see him a third time I'll castrate the bastard with a pair of eyebrow tweezers."

*You have met Adam Rickitt twice? Have you any idea how lucky you are to have done so? If I met Adam Rickitt I would not be wasting the opportunity by criticizing his acting skills I'd be inviting him out for dinner at a fine restaurant - followed by a nightcap at my place sitting on the rug by the fire after which I would pour honey over him and lick it off.*

".....OH......DEAR...GOD..."

Jones later resubmitted the plotline for the Children in Need mini-episode, entitled simply Pudsey Cutaway. In this, the dazed post-regenerated Tenth Doctor sends the TARDIS hurtling back to AD 33, Judea, where he and Rose discover that the Biblical account of the Messiah is somewhat different to real thing.

Can the Doctor convince Jesus to accept his destiny and save mankind from their own sins? Why do Jesus' disciples refer to Rose as "That slapper Magdalene"? And why does Pilate have a black beard and a tissue compression eliminator?

All these and more were never to be revealed, for Jones suggested that Adam Rickett could play the part of Jesus if oiled and taunt enough and the idea was immediately scrapped and Jones was knocked out, drugged and had his unconscious body transported overnight to Afghanistan.

By the time Jones had managed to return to England, it was November 20th and the CIN special had been and gone.

This allowed RTD to get on with scripting his own story, the central tenant of which (hah! Tennant! HAHAH!) involved an outbreak of donkeys in spacesuits and Harriet Jones the MP for Flydale North calling in the Doctor to try her new salmon mouse laced with arsenic.

The space donkeys were just 'pilot fish' of the real villain behind the piece - a psychotic Snotaran in a Santa costume using a meat clever to chop off the heads of people who were naughty, not nice.

The Doctor and Rose start tracking the Claus murders, and end up chasing a reindeer-drawn sleigh to the north pole, in the TARDIS, where they finally confront the evil Santa - who turns out be a zeitgeist-style creation, a manifestation made possible by dimensional rifts in the wake of the Temporal Difference of Opinion - who delivers the Christmas that children deserve now they're greedy little so and sos!

Only by Rose speaking to the people of the world and making them think good thoughts, is evil Santa made to not-exist-anymore. She does this by taking her shirt off.

Unfortunately, by this time more unsolicited scripts were being offered for the plot of The Michaelmas Evasion – though whether they were by nutters inspired by Jones or merely Jones himself, remains a mystery to this day as I honestly can't be arsed to find out.

The one I DID read begins with the TARDIS landing in the backroom of a seedy Soho club on Christmas Eve, with the dazed, newly-regenerated Doctor falling into the clutches of three leather-clad musclemen and strapped to the wall. Rose runs after him and manages to lose her blouse, before entering the front of the club and encountering a topless, oiled, muscular archaeologist called Ben who instantly claims to have become mesmerized by the club and forced against his will to strip and ogle topless women.

Rose takes Ben's advice and rubs baby oil over her glistening skin and suddenly Captain Jack enters, wearing tight leather shorts, and determined to rescue the Doctor – hastily explaining that he was interrupted in his job as a Touchwood test pilot when the Doctor's love for Jack "called him through the vortex of time and space" to lead him here. Oh, and also the planet needs some saving.

Jack fondles the Doctor and, er, stuff happens before the end credits roll. No, I will not tell you. Definitely not for such a small amount of cash. Higher, damn you!

All right, the rest of the story can be summarized with "...and the Doctor has one hell of a FANTASTIC time."

The author (ostensibly one Jim "Celery Soup" Varnish) was reportedly confident that RTD would read this and immediately beg him to write the rest of the series and the entirety of Touchwood.

He was wrong.

There was another unsolicited storyline about the Great Narrator invading a Catholic nunnery with evil snowmen and getting Rose to pick up some dirty habits but this is just a rumor I spread at parties in order to impress people and more importantly distract them as I steal the finger buffet.

Ultimately, however, all these submissions did save the production of Doctor Who and the Michaelmas Evasion. During recording, the four evil Santa zombies were accidentally crushed when the town Christmas Tree fell on them. Luckily, this was recorded and the script rewritten to accommodate the change when disaster struck.

No one else was willing to dress up as Santa Zombies for fear they too would die in cheesily ironic ways. Thus, the idea of a race of aliens that resembled zombie Saint Nicholases had to be dropped, along with their reindeer-driven-sleigh-camouflaged spaceships. But RTD had a back-up alien monster ready, based on the personalities of the fans who had desperately offered their own storylines – the Sycophants!

The real tragedy of the Christmas Tree massacre was that the only victim was intended to be Keith Boak.

Another addition to the script was utilized when it was discovered by fandom at large that the Christmas episode would end, yet again, with an incidental character using the handily-placed self-destruct button to get rid of the monsters while the Doctor watched on.

This revelation lead to hundreds of Doctor Who fans threatening to jump of buildings. Unable and unwilling to use computer graphics to edit these fans out of shot, RTD came up with another story line to explain this bizarre and disturbing sight.

The last change to the story was to alter the titles and theme music for the new Doctor. This however proof too much hard work and so the titles remained the same, even though the episode was NOT called Aliens of London and did NOT feature Christopher Eccleston.

As Murry Gold had burnt every copy of the original theme tune on the grounds the 'bridge' section sounds like the 1984 Band Aid record Do They Know It's Christmas?, he decided he might as well put it back as a post-modern in-joke. Tragically, no one remembered to remove it.

Also notable about the credits was David Tennant is credited as playing "The Doctor", whereas Christopher Eccleston portrayed "Doctor Who". This was down to RTD getting sick of Gareth Roberts' insistence that it was only crediting the main character as "Doctor Who" that stopped the show being a flop and wanted to prove him wrong.

It was a whim that should NEVER have been carried out...


Finally, following on from Tennant's performance in Blackpool (where he played DCI Theta "Sigma" Carlisle who worked from the Blackpool Doctor Who Exhibition), it was decided that the Tenth Doctor's "thing" would not be hopping, 'Jings!', 'Bollocks!' or snappy dressing but instead the curious habit of bursting into song during dull bits of the narrative. Thus is his declaration to Rose once he emerges from the TARDIS to discover her attempts to negotiate with the Sycophants have proved completely futile:

"Slice of Heaven" by Dave "Dustbin" Dobbins

Rose, I gotta lotta faith in ya!
Stick with me, kid, that's the bottom line!
Rose, you have a lot of fun, don't ya?
Travellin with you is a ball of a time!

Hey, Rosie, when the mood gets you down
Your bottom lip's near dragging on the ground!
That's when I gotta play the clown for ya
Fart humor made you kick your blues

Howdy Rose Tyler... I really like your teeth!

Her love shines over my horizon
She's a Slice of Heaven! (Slice of Heaven!)
Warm moonlight over my horizon
She's a Slice of Heaven! (Slice of Heaven!)

Rose, I gotta lotta faith in ya!
Stick with me, kid, that's the bottom line!
Rose, we have a lot of fun, don't we?
And Devon is with you all the time!

Hey, Rosie, when the mood gets you down
Your bottom lip's near dragging on the ground!
That's when I gotta play the clown for ya
Fart humor made me kick my blues

Howdy Rose Tyler... I really like your teeth!

Her love shines over my horizon
She's a Slice of Heaven! (Slice of Heaven!)
Warm moonlight over my horizon
She's a Slice of Heaven! (Slice of Heaven!)

Her love shines over my horizon
She's a Slice of Heaven! (Slice of Heaven!)
Warm moonlight over my horizon
She's a Slice of Heaven! (Slice of Heaven!)