RALPH MALPH: THE LATER YEARS

'THAT GIRL'
"7 3/4: PART TWO"



In the early 1960s, Ralph Malph received an honorable discharge from the army and return home to Milwaukee. He decided to pursue a career as an optometrist like his father, Mickey Malph, and so he soon departed for college.

Ralph Malph was never again seen in the TV series 'Happy Days".

Here is the Toobworld conjecture:

While at college, Ralph discovered a new passion that was more in keeping with his nature. He became a student of filmmaking, and years later got a job in Hollywood as a film editor.

The Hollywood life changed him. As Ralph got older he put on some weight, as can be seen in these pictures in which he is being interviewed by Donald Hollinger of NEWSTIME Magazine.





The recastaway problem gets a free pass from being a Zonk when the splainin involves the aging process. I don't know who played this film editor in the 'That Girl' episode, but I see no reason not to think that it was Ralph Malph.

BCnU!

DE-ZONKING "THE GOOD WIFE"

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....



Michael Ausiello asked his readers:

"When is 'The McCarthys' going to do an episode that revolves around Ronnie and his mom’s weekly 'Good Wife' viewing party getting derailed by a football overrun?"

It got me wondering if the show's generic title made 'The Good Wife' Zonk-proof. So I checked the list of references from other shows which can be found at the IMDb.

I focused only on those shows that should be found in the same TV dimension as 'The Good Wife'. So that removed all the cartoon references and shows like 'Madam Secretary' or 'The Vampire Diaries'. And episode titles like "The Food Wife" and "The Giggity Wife" have no bearing on Earth Prime-Time. That's just for the benefit of the Trueniverse audience.

NO ZONK TO WORRY ABOUT

'The Office'
"Stairmageddon"
Angela says she'll play 'The Good Wife' by standing beside her husband, the Senator, as he gives a political speech regarding their fragile marriage.

"The good wife" has been a long-standing political term, used to describe the woman who stands by her man during a scandal. 'Little Britain' did a good job of spoofing it in their shows.

GENERIC REFERENCES

This is one I caught this week by chance. I don't watch this show, but I figured this particular episode would have plenty of Toobworld Hollywood goodies (fictional movie & TV show titles, fictional magazines etc):

 

'Stalker'
"Fanatic"
Ben Caldwell: Interesting how you can work side-by-side with someone and you don't really know them at all.
Janice Lawrence: Let me guess: you watch 'The Good Wife'?



'Friends with Better Lives'

"The Bicycle Thieves"
Lowell: Oh, I thought the girls were out tonight.
Bobby: They are.
Lowell: Then what's with the wine and the cupcakes? And what are you watching?
Will: 'The Good Wife'. It's a good show.
Lowell: What kind of dude's night is this?

(Interestingly, that "dude's night" was on a Friday. They could have been watching a recording, but based on the way Will eagerly kept saying "Here it comes!", I think the Toobworld version has a different place on the network schedule.)



'The McCarthys'

"Pilot"
Marjorie: This game better be over in twenty minutes.
Jackie: Why?
Gerard: They want to watch 'Good Wife'.
Marjorie & Ronnie: 'THE Good Wife'!

'The Big Bang Theory' "The Lunar Excitation"
Howard: Oh, Raj, no. Billions of dollars have gone into inventing the Internet and filling it with pictures of naked women, so we don’t have to peep through windows.
Raj: It’s not like that, I’m watching someone’s TV. 'The Good Wife' is on. I tell you, this is my new 'Grey’s Anatomy'.

('Grey's Anatomy' is another show that should be examined for Zonks in other shows. Hopefully it's generic enough as a title to be Zonk-proof.)

 

'Happy Endings'

"Blax, Snake, Home"
Penny: Just watch some TV.......  Aah! Aah! Why is the DVR filled with 'The Good Wife' and 'The View'? I didn't record these. These are for lonely women who talk to themselves. Oh, my God! I'm talking to myself!

 

'Hot in Cleveland'
"That Changes Everything"
Melanie: Babies make me think about Life. Now that I'm all caught up on 'The Good Wife', I could use another challenge.

'Last Man Standing'

"Mike Advises Mandy"
Mandy: Wait, did you see this? All these orders?
Vanessa: Yeah, about 20 minutes ago. I would have come down sooner, but 'The Good Wife' was on.

So far, so good. The plot for the Toobworld version of 'The Good Wife' could be about anything and even feature fictional actors.

SPECIFIC REFERENCES

 

 'Supernatural'
"Defending Your Life"
Sam: Objection!
Osiris: On what grounds?
Sam: Witnesses being called without prior notice.
Dean: Good one.
Sam: I saw it on 'The Good Wife'.

Not really a Zonk - we just know that 'The Good Wife' deals in legal issues.

But now.....?

Here come de Zonk; here come de Zonk.....

SPLAINABLE ZONK!!!



'Hot in Cleveland'
"Magic Diet Candy"
Melanie: It's my dress for the christening. It's the one the Good Wife wore to visit Big in prison.

Okay, so hopes that Toobworld's 'Good Wife' is a legalese reality show are not yet lost. We might have to bend over backwards with the splainin but it just might work.

It still could have been a multi-episode documentary about Alicia Florrick, who would have been the perfect candidate for a reality show because of her husband's scandal which led to his prison time. It's the mention of "Big" that could doom that idea.

"Big" was the nickname for Chris Noth's character in 'Sex And The City'. We never even learned what his real name was until that HBO series made the transition to the Cineverse.

O'Bviously, since Noth plays both men, Governor Peter Florrick does have a resemblance to "Big". They could have been "identical cousins", with the term being a euphemism for the two of them being half-brothers due to an illicit affair by their father, the senior Florrick. (I think "Big" is dead now.)

So how did Melanie know about "Big"? My splainin for now, subject to change, is that she was an avid reader of Carrie's semi-autobiographical columns which must have been syndicated across the country.

Such a splainin would keep 'Sex And The City' Zonk-free whenever it was mentioned in other shows... so long as the reference wasn't too specific.

UNSPLAINABLE ZONK???



'The New Normal'
"Pilot"
Shania: What were your dreams before you and Daddy accidentally had me?
Goldie: Uh, well I wanted to be a lawyer. An independent woman who didn't need a man, and wear these expensive suits, like Julianna Margulies in 'The Good Wife', but without the disgraced husband.

Okay. Hands in the air, I surrender. Toobworld also has a TV show called 'The Good Wife' starring Juliana Margulies and Chris Noth in which she is a lawyer and - thanks to the 'HiC' reference - Noth's character went to jail.

Toobworld Central accepts that lots of the people living on Earth Prime-Time have TV shows about them. At least in this case, there's a very good reason why the Florricks "deserved" such attention.

Aside from the scandal and the prison time, the Toobworld version of 'The Good Wife' could be avoiding all of the other plot lines from the real series. It might just be focused on Alicia's personal life and only some of her professional life. (Granted, that is the bulk of the show.)

So yes, 'The Good Wife' is Zonked, but so far it hasn't been fully unsplainable.... Yet.

BCnU!

ECHOES - IT'S TIME TO GO.....

Tony Fleming: 

Allon Vy! Is that how you say it? 

Simone Carnot:

Allon-sy! 

Tony Fleming:

Allon-sy! 

'The Rogues' - "Take Me In Paris"

Thanks for looking in on our annual "Who's On First" blogAthon, folks.  Drop by every day to see more Toobish goodness!

WISH-CRAFT: PERTWEE PLUS

Eleventh Doctor:

I never forget a face.

The Curator:

 I know you don't.

And in years to come you might find yourself revisiting a few,

but just the old favorites.

 'Doctor Who'

"The Day Of The Doctor"

 

 

That's what I would hope for at some point in the Future - to see Sean Pertwee play a future incarnation of the Doctor, from far in the Future if they so choose.  (But not locked into being a particular incarnation like the Valeyard was.)  And he should play it as an homage to his father, Jon Pertwee the Third Incarnation.

 

BCnU!

 

"DOCTOR WHO" IN BOOKWORLD

"We’re dicing with death on the information superhighway to hell."

A rebellion on another planet. A kidnapping in central London. The head of MI5 assassinated. A hostage siege suddenly and violently ended by the SAS. A computer CD slipped into the Fourth Doctor’s pocket by a dead man...

It’s 1998, and the global information superhighway is about to come on line. OffNet controls everything digita...l from cars to sliding doors, from interactive television to military command and control systems.

The Doctor and Sarah must join forces with an old friend in a race against time: to prevent the breakdown of technological society and foil an unconventional alien takeover bid.
 

'System Shock', written by Justin Richards. Published in June 1995

I know nothing more about this than that back cover description which was shared by a classic 'Doctor Who' page on Facebook.

But doesn't it look like the perfect opportunity for a crossover with 'V'?

BCnU!

CROSSED LINES - PHYLLIS & MISSY

Phyllis:
"You're bananas, you know that?"
'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'
"The Lars Affair"

Missy:
"Well, look at me, I’m bananas."
'Doctor Who'
"Death In Heaven"

 

MUSINGS ON THE CYBER-BRIGADIER

 

I'm sure there are a lot of 'Doctor Who' fanfic writers out there who enjoy writing about Brigadier Sir Alastair Lethbridge Stewart, in all facets of his career and even into retirement.

For my own part, I've notched an appearance by Nicholas Courtney on an episode of 'The Avengers' to be really about Lethbridge Stewart under an alias, and I claimed that one of the street urchins in "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" was Alastair as a boy and again using a different name.

And now we have a final frontier to explore - the Brigadier as a free-thinking Cyberman roaming the galaxy.

If anybody knows of such stories out there, let me know.

BCnU!

CYBER-ZOMBIES!

'DOCTOR WHO'

"DEATH IN HEAVEN"

Missy's "Master Plan" was to revive all of the world's dead as Cybermen, and then hand control over them to the Doctor. It must have been her mad intent to show that he was just as bad as she was.

Most of those dead would have been zombie Cybermen, their minds and souls long since fled. The ones who would still have their souls attached were those she personally culled at the moment of their deaths. Missy focused on those who had some connection to the Doctor and used her TARDIS to collect them throughout human history.

We only saw her collect a handful of characters, and only those who died this season: CSO Matthew, Gretchen Allison Carlisle, the Half-Face "Man", and Danny Pink. (And we definitely know she garnered the Brigadier when he died in Peru.)

Missy must have been gathering up others who died in episodes from the classic series and from earlier in the reboot years - people like Lynda with a Y, Rita, Harriet Jones, the real Margaret Blaine, Sarah Kingdom, Dr. Edward Waterfield, Tobias Vaughn, and everybody from the lighthouse at Fang Rock.

Missy probably collected the mind/souls of those who (hopefully) died long after their encounters with the Doctor: like Cameca, Victoria Waterfield, Richard Mace, HG Wells, and even his wife Queen Elizabeth I.

We can't rule out that Missy also collected the souls of Rory and Amy Pond Williams into the hive-mind data core when they died in their eighties. (If she did, I have a feeling that they would hace overcome the inhibitors just as the Brigadier and Danny Pink did.)

As this is a blog about the Toobworld Dynamic, (even though we've spent the whole day talking about 'Doctor Who'), we've got to assume that dead characters from other TV shows must have been resurrected as these Cyber-Zombies. And not just from British TV shows but from all over the world.

Let's put aside those characters who might still be alive, even though the actors who played them have passed away. Characters like Archie Bunker, Dr. Richard Kimble, Carol Kessler Bondurant, Tony Soprano, and Mike Brady. There are still plenty of others - most of the cast from 'Lost' to be sure!

Edith Bunker, Marshal Matt Dillon, Gary Shepherd, Lady Sybil Crawley, Bill McNeil, Pierce Hawthorne, Coach Ernie Pantusso, Chuckles the Clown, Danny Solano and Danny Latimer.

It's a safe bet that the skeletal remains of Bret Maverick and Nichols were raised up as Cybermen, but I'd like to think Jim Rockford is still alive.

 

I wish I knew more about TV from other countries so that I might add in characters from their programs......

I think based on that possiblity, we can expect to see "Missy's Cybermen" one day induced into the Television Crossover Hall Of Fame (probably in the Birthday Honors List.)

BCnU!

BENEDICTINE MONK?

In one of the many 'Doctor Who' pages which I follow on Facebook, there was a thread wondering about a possible role for Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Doctor Who'. I suggested he should play the Meddling Monk after so many others thought he should play the Master. But one of the other commenters typed up that the Meddling Monk is the Master. And he based this on the fact that this claim is made in... some computer game.

As most of you know, I am heavily immersed in the Toobworld Dynamic. It's all about the Toob with me, with some movies and some online content added in. But I would not accept online gaming to be incorporated into the TwD.

And it seems like such a foolish idea. You've got two great characters, two great foes of the Doctor, why consolidate them into one character? They would work better as individuals, and possibly as a team up against the Doctor someday on the TV show.

I was heartened to read so many other responses which refuted that claim.

BCnU!

SONGS IN THE KEY OF FREAK



So far on 'American Horror Story Freak Show', we have seen songs performed that were written by Fiona Apple, David Bowie, and Alana Del Ray. All of these songs from the last forty years, but none of them could have been around when Elsa's troupe of freaks made camp in Jupiter, Florida, in 1952.

 

So where did they get the sheet music for those songs from the Future?

I think they were part of a package (There will be more!) delivered by a renegade Time Lord known as the Meddling Monk.





The Monk is better known for trying to disrupt Earth's major historical events - like the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Most of his attempts created divergent timelines which had to be set right by temporal agents like Phineas Bogg.

But as the Tenth Doctor pointed out, History was made up of small moments. And so the Monk launched a series of temporal anomalies in hopes of causing a permanent disruption to the timeline of Earth Prime-Time. And the anachronistic music is an example.

(The delivery of Pepsi to the "Middle Ages" style kingdom of Camarand on the planet Mondas is another.)

BCnU!

FACE TIME

I'm posting this link just over two months before it will finally appear in the "Who's On First" blogathon, so I'm not even sure it will be active by that point.

It's a Radio Times quiz in which you have to guess the episode of 'Doctor Who' based only on David Tennant's facial expressions.  All of the background clues have been removed and his head is superimposed on an interior shot of his TARDIS.

I didn't do too badly - I got nine right out of fifteen.  Or as they called it: I was "ten-ish" on Tennant.

Give it a try - if it's still up, that is.

If not, at least I've provided their "Alpha & Omega" picture that topped the article......

ALLONS-Y!

NAME THE EPISODE QUIZ

MOON SPLAININ

When the Toobworld timeline finally caught up to the events depicted in the first episode of 'Space: 1999', I had no choice as the Caretaker for the Toobworld Dynamic but to splain it all away.  I couldn't allow their premise - that the Moon broke free of its orbit and spun off into space, the final frontier - to stand, because since 1999 there have been plenty of TV shows that have shown the Earth's satellite in the sky. 

 

The only way to overcome this Zonk would be to come up with an alternate scenario for the aftermath of the Moon explosion.  In the Toobworld Dynamic, when the atomic fuel dumps exploded because of an errant laser blast by a 7-Up spokesman, Commander John Koenig was left in a coma.  And the Trueniverse audience was then treated to the dreams he had while in that coma, and those dreams made up the plotlines for the rest of the series.  ('Space:1999' is the most fictionalized depiction of real life events in Toobworld, followed by such shows as 'Pushing Daisies' and 'Jack Of All Trades'.)

 

Which brings me to the events of what happened in the 'Doctor Who' episode "Kill The Moon"......

 

Forget about the utterly loopy premise that the Moon is nothing more than a giant egg waiting to hatch.  Basically: "Forget it, Jake; it's Toobworld."  There have been plenty of crazy ideas from TV over the years which differentiate Toobworld from the Real World, with this one just the most cosmic.

 

The event will take place in 2049, thirty-five years into the Future.  It may seem like a long ways off, but I'm sure 1999 seemed like the distant future when Gerry Anderson presented 'Space:1999' and now we're fifteen years beyond that.

 

I know I won't be around by that point in Time.  I've actually lived far longer than my Mom even believed.  But even so, I'd like to imagine the concept of the Toobworld Dynamic might live on beyond my lifetime and if so, I'd like to put my own imprint on that Future.

 

However, I don't see the need to splain away the destruction of the Moon/eggshell by the creature that lived within.  And that's because Earth Prime-Time was without a moon for only about fifteen minutes before the newborn creature laid an egg that closely resembled the original Moon to take its place.  So those TV characters living on Toobworld beyond 2049 can look up in the night sky and still see the Moon.  Well... Moon 2.0.  And based on the gestation period for the previous egg, it will be there for billionss of years, long after the humans have all been killed off by space bees in revenge for their fallen brethren.....

 

Making the claim that the Moon is nothing more than a giant egg would mean that assertion would have to hold true in the other TV dimensions (but not necessarily the other fictional universes like Bookworld or the Cineverse.)  This would include the Monsanto amusement park moon of 'Futurama' (with the hatching long in the past for main character Philip J. Fry), and the Moon which was blasted into chunks in the dimension for 'Three Moons Over Milford'.  (It must have killed off the fetus, not that we saw any of its remains up there....)

 

Whatever that creature was that hatched from the Moon (I'd like to think it was one of those living spaceships like Moya or the Tin Man), it was lucky to have survived the explosion of the atomic fuel dumps and that it wasn't discovered by the colonizing Selenites who might have eaten it given the chance!

 

Here's one last idea: perhaps the creature which hatched from that first Moon was the same creature that was enslaved to become the spaceship for the population of Great Britain when they fled Earth Prime-Time.  It was probably just coming back to say hi to its old neighbors, only to get mistreated like that.  (As seen in the episode "The Beast Below")

 

And that concludes this current look at our lunar neighbor - at least the one in the TV Universe.....

 

BCnU!

 

 

DOCTOR WHO AND THE EBOLA CRISIS

When the Ebola hysteria erupted once a patient was identified in New York City, I received the following three pictures within hours of the announcement:

Some find it offensive, but there are those among Whovians who just read it that way.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised to find that some people who find it offensive are more upset by the idea of addressing the Doctor as "Doctor Who"!

BCnU!

THAT OVERNIGHT GLOBAL FOREST? SPLAINED.

'DOCTOR WHO'
"IN THE FOREST OF THE NIGHT"

I don't think the Doctor actually knows that the Earth (known as "Earth Prime-Time" here at Toobworld Central) is a super computer built by the Magratheans to the specifications of the computer known as Deep Thought.  When he showed the formation of the planet to Donna Noble, he made no mention of the robot barges that must have been attached to the rocks in order to guide them into place.

 

Had he known that the Earth was an artificial construct, he might have realized that the sudden overnight growth of world-wide forests (which would protect the planet from a massive incoming solar flare) was nothing more that an automatic safety program to protect the computer from harm. 

 As for the "fae", those firefly-like lights - "thoughts" as Maeve called them - which pestered the little girl and finally spoke through her, they are the manifestation of the computer's brain, its memory banks and mainframe.  They interfaced with Maeve in order to communicate with the Doctor.  They were the "Interfae" if you wll and even if you won't.

It might seem fortuitous that they just happened to pick her and the Doctor just happened to be there, but I think there must be thousands of people all over Earth Prime-Time who have been conditioned to be the spokesmen for the computer if need be.  And how could it not be Maeve - the Queen of the Fairies was a "Maeve" derivative and her last name was Arden (as in the Forest of Arden.)

It could be that the computer known as Earth steered generations of people to each other in order to mate so that a girl like Maeve would be born.

Nice use of a "tool" that shouldn't have even been on the planet in the first place according to Deep Thought's original plans!

BCnU!

DOCTOR WHO AND THE ADDAMS FAMILY

'DOCTOR WHO'

"FLATLINE"

Clara suggested that the Doctor should do the Addams Family thing in order to get out of the way of the oncoming subway train. And by "thing", she meant Thing - the disembodied "Hand of Glory" that served the Addams Family.



Toobworld Central is always going to ignore actual references to TV shows that should be sharing the same dimension. But we're in luck in this case because of the two theatrical movies which starred Raul Julia and Angelica Huston. In the context of the Earth Prime-Time "reality", those movies were based on a real family. However, Clara might not have known that.

The Doctor, on the other - ahem - hand (Sorry about that, Chief!), might not have ever seen the films. And yet he understood the reference and finger-walked the TARDIS like a hermit crab out of the way... if only momentarily.

I'd like to think that the Doctor (in some previous incarnation) might have met the real Addams family, perhaps even took at least one of them along in the TARDIS.  (Considering his other choices for companions, the money is on Wednesday.  But I think Fester would be more fun!)  If so, the Doctor would have known the real Thing.

And so a Zonk would be diverted.

BCnU!

BLIPVERTS: THE FRAMILY OF BLOOD

From the TARDIS Data Core

(A 'Doctor Who' Wiki):

The Family of Blood were green, gaseous predators that could inhabit and control human bodies. Before taking human form, the members of the Family of Blood were kept in small, spherical receptacles. They had very short lifespans, and, if they went without possessing anyone, they would perish in just three months, "like mayflies."

The Family of Blood were in only two episodes of 'Doctor Who' - "Family Of Blood" and "Human Nature".  But I believe their species has since returned to present-day Toobworld:

Having gaseous aliens kill the soul-spirit of those bodies' original owners and take them over is the only way I can see to bring a logical splainin to such a disparate "framily".

I don't know why "Tom Frobinson" ended up in the body of a hamster.  Maybe that particular "Father Of Mine" was aiming for a guy standing next to the hamster cage at the local pet shop.  A case of lousy aim.

The original Heidi must have been French as well as being in synch with the Tooniverse.  Somehow she can access a portal into that pen and ink dimension to bring her bluebirds into the flesh and blood world.

Jeff Gordon solidifies the presence of this "Framily of Blood" in Earth Prime-Time (if not 'Doctor Who'), thanks to his League of Themselves appearances in 'The Drew Carey Show', 'Arli$$', and 'Sesame Street'.

Gor-Don may actually still be a human when we first meet him, albeit a very bizarre one.  Despite Chuck's objections, "Mom" saw the potential in him to be a host for another Framily member.

I hate the word "framily".  Not a big fan of these ads either.  Making this theoretical link to 'Doctor Who' is the only thing that makes them bearable to me.....

BCnU!

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

For a while there during the RTD era, the Tenth Incarnation of the Doctor and his companions were meeting famous English authors almost once a season:

• Charles Dickens
• William Shakespeare
• Agatha Christie

And the Sixth Incarnation met HG Wells.

We haven't seen that happen since (unless you want to count Winston Churchill), but I think it's a theme that should be revisited at least once every season.  Spark an interest in reading the same way "Vincent And The Doctor" opened up a world of art to my 7 year old nephew at the time.

So here are a few authors (not all of them English) whose lives and works might lend themselves to a 'Doctor Who' episode:

• J.R.R. Tolkien (perhaps something about the Forest of Cheem being an inspiration?)
• Mary Norton
• Walter Scott
• L. Frank Baum
• Arthur Conan Doyle (although Sherlock Holmes was real and Dr. Watson was the actual author!)
• Mark Twain (a Sea Devil on board a riverboat?)
• Jane Austen
• G.K. Chesterton
• Stephen King (which would link to a 'Quantum Leap' episode - and King could play himself!)

Just some ideas.....

BCnU!

THE DOCTOR AND THE IMMORTALS OF EARTH PRIME-TIME

 

DOCTOR: 

It's not easy even just looking at you, Jack, 

because you're wrong. 

JACK: 

Thanks. 

DOCTOR: 

You are. I can't help it. 

I'm a Time Lord. It's instinct. It's in my guts. 

You're a fixed point in time and space. You're a fact. 

That's never meant to happen. 

Even the Tardis reacted against you, tried to shake you off. 

Flew all the way to the end of the universe just to get rid of you. 

JACK: 

So what you're saying is that you're, er, prejudiced? 

DOCTOR: 

I never thought of it like that. 

JACK: 

Shame on you. 

'DOCTOR WHO' - "UTOPIA"

This would serve as a good splainin as to why the Doctor won't ever be seen interacting with Dr. Henry Morgan in 'Forever'.  The Doctor has shown up in New York City several times over the decades, but the TARDIS knows to deliberately avoid Dr. Morgan.

TARDIS 'Forever'

And John Amsterdam of 'New Amsterdam' as well, for that matter. I doubt we'll ever see the head-chopping immortals from 'Highlander' in a 'Doctor Who' episode either.  Of course, both of those shows are long gone, so it would be fair game to force such encounters upon the Doctor in fanfic if that's your sort of thing.  

Methos with the TARDIS

Personally, I think Amsterdam fulfilled the True Love mandate to end his "curse" and has since died, if only to splain away why we don't see John in other NYC-based TV shows, especially 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' and any other NY cop shows.

BCnU!

NUMBERS RUNNING - DANNY PINK'S WATER WELLS

While he had been a soldier in Her Majesty's armed forces in Iraq, Danny Pink dug 23 water wells for the villages he stayed at.  It was an accomplishment in which he took great pride.  (But he knew people would only think he was killing people over there......)

"23" is one of the cosmic numerals that make up the Valenzetti Sequence as seen in 'Lost'.  It has become my favorite because there seemed no earthly reason why it should get so much play outside the series about the mysterious Island and yet it keeps popping up.

BCnU!

FAUX FOXES?

Yortuk Festrunk: 

Now are the Foxes!!

Georg Festrunk: 

Hey, Foxes! Clean up your act!

'Saturday Night Live'

Here's a pozz'bility: Foxes was playing herself in the "Mummy On The Orient Express" episode of 'Doctor Who'.

Originally I was hoping that the point of origin for the Orient Express... in Space! was the planet Sto, another mode of transport from the Max Capricorn Corporation like the space-faring Titanic.  But all of the names for the passengers and crew were too Terran - Perkins, Maisie Pitt, Professor Moorehouse.... And now I have another theory for one of the characters that would need to originate from Earth.

So getting back to Foxes.....

What if thousands of years into the future, the science of Earth was advanced enough that anybody from the Past could be cloned from salvaged cells?  I'm not exactly sure why Foxes would have been chosen for such a project....  Had it not been for this episode, I think I could have gone through the rest of my life without ever knowing who Foxes was.  

Or perhaps by this point in Time, temporal travel is possible and somebody went back into the Past to bring the original Foxes forward just to sing on this deviously special journey.

But then again, Foxes wasn't seen later in the episode after her big showcase.  Perhaps she was just a hologram of the singer, based on a performance from thousands of years before.  That's probably the correct splainin, but it's just not.... "wild and crazy" enough.

BCnU!

"MEDITATIONS" ON MARCUS AURELIUS

After "Robot Of Sherwood" aired, my friend Tay Mueller had this to say on Facebook:

 

"It just seemed wrong to me when Clara didn't pick Marcus Aurellius..."

 

I agree. After all, Clara had this to say about the Roman emperor in a conversation with Madame Vastra:

 

Clara: Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor. Last one of the five good emperors and stoic philosopher.

Madame Vastra: Superlative bass guitarist. The Doctor really knows how to put a band together.

Clara: And the only pin-up I ever had on my wall when I was fifteen. The only one I ever had.

 

So if she was that gaga over the emperor, why didn't she choose him to visit when she got the chance?

 

Here's another question: Why was she so over the moon for Marcus?

 

She was fifteen. A teenager probably given to deep thoughts during moody withdrawals from life around her. Probably a time when her mother had only recently passed away, perhaps.

 

And Clara knew the history of her mother and her fateful first encounter with the man who would become Clara's father - it all came down to a leaf, the "most important leaf in human history"......

 

From the TARDIS Data Core:

A large red ovate leaf, later dubbed "the most important leaf in human history", caused the meeting of Dave Oswald and Ellie Ravenwood. On a windy day in 1981, this leaf fell from its tree and flew into Dave's face. This lead him to almost get hit by a car, before being saved by Ellie. After they began dating, and then got married, he kept the leaf, a symbol of their love.

Ellie would later put the leaf in the first page of her book, 101 Places to See, which she later passed on to her daughter, Clara Oswald.

Clara, who eventually became a companion of the Eleventh Doctor, used that leaf to feed Akhaten, a planet-like entity that fed off peoples' souls, and therefore stories. The leaf represented the history of the family, and well as potential futures. The infinite amount of stories in that one leaf bloated Akhaten, and he imploded. The leaf was destroyed in the process. (TV: The Rings of Akhaten)

The Doctor returned the leaf to Clara after she entered his time stream; the leaf helped them to come back into the world. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)

 

So perhaps while doing the research for what she may have thought was an interminable subject, she happened upon this line from one of the emperor's poems:

leaves,
the wind scatters some on the face of the ground;
like unto them are the children of men.
– Iliad 6.146

 

Feeling the connection to her own family history, Clara may have then seen Marcus Aurelius in a new light. And she may have gone on to read more of his writings in "Meditations", which would have led to this guiding principle in Life:

 

'Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.'

 

So yes, "Robots Of Sherwood" was a fun romp although a Zonk to the greater Toobworld Dynamic as is. (More on that later.) But they should have dropped that fan-girl attitude on Clara's part about Robin Hood. Instead that should have been saved for her chance to finally meet Marcus Aurelius.

 

It's too late now unless Clara is brought back for a special reunion with the Doctor someday, but I'm sure there are plenty of points in the emperor's life where there would be good cause for intervention by the Doctor.

 

Well, if not in Toobworld, perhaps the tale will be told one day in the fictional universe of BookWorld......

 

BCnU!