There is a fantastic website called Recycled Movie Costumes which tracks the many uses for costumes in a variety of movie and TV show productions.
They also have a Tumblr account where they recently (by which I mean January, 2015) posted these two photos:
(If you want to read their story behind the re-use of the costume, then click HERE.)
But as you’ve probably figured out, that simply wasn’t good enough for the Toobworld Dynamic. Within the “reality” of Earth Prime-Time where did the Doctor get that King of Hearts costume?
From the same place Dennis Price did when he appeared in that 1972 movie - from the “Alice In Wonderland” costume warehouse.
I’ve never gone into detail about the status of “Alice In Wonderland” in the Toobworld Dynamic, but these are the basics: Lewis Carroll, under his real name of Reverend Dodgson, was part of an expedition to the dimension of “Wonderland”. But he was the only one to make it back alive. One of those left behind was a young woman named Alice who was driven insane by her experience.
“Wonderland” was a hellish place, but Dodgson as Lewis Carroll rewrote the experience as an allegory of mathematical logic. Young girls who read the book were so engrossed in the fictional story that they would dream of Wonderland, with themselves as Carroll’s sanitized version of Alice. This was especially true of girls who already were named Alice.
Alice would return to Earth Prime-Time in the 21st Century through a mirror transformed into a Warehouse artifact. And she was pure evil!
But the 1972 movie is just that, as far as the Television Universe is concerned - a movie. And for some reason, the Doctor in one of his previous three incarnations had reasons to visit that movie set where his sticky fingers helped himself to the costume.
I’m thinking it had to be Jon Pertwee’s incarnation as the “Third Doctor”. Trapped on Earth Prime-Time, I think he did a lot of Terran-bound traveling around the globe between the episodes. If my suggestion that he visited Gotham City and helped himself to the Riddler’s wardrobe is accepted, then it’s no big deal for him to have visited the movie set located in the United Kingdom where he was already based with UNIT.
But why should he have visited the “Alice In Wonderland” movie set? O’Bviously the Doctor and his Companion* were there to prevent yet another incursion of Earth by yet another hostile alien.
It may have been the Celestial Toymaker, rumored to be a fellow Time Lord from Gallifrey. He had used someone named Henry in the guise of the King of Hearts as one of his pawns when running the Doctor’s Companions Steven and Dodo through a maze of deadly traps. The Toymaker may have been fond of the imagery for the living playing cards.
Having already faced the Toymaker in his First Incarnation, the Doctor might have assumed he had come to Earth Prime-Time to once again engage in a battle of wits with the rival Time Lord. But then I looked through the “Dramatis Personae” for that 1972 movie and found an actor who would have made a great connection between the production of that film and the “reality” of ‘Doctor Who’.
I don’t often delve into actual fanfic - my Toobworld theories are about as far as I take it. My writing style lacks the creative spark to make it come alive, although I can come up with some imaginative plot details. However, I may try my hand at this idea because it’s just too good…
As I’ve stated above, I think the Third Incarnation of the Doctor had gone to Gotham City and teamed up with Batman in an adventure unseen on TV for either character. I also figured that the Riddler had to be involved and this is how the Doctor got hold of the Riddler’s wardrobe, which would be worn by later incarnations with their question mark motifs on the collars and what have you. (It would come into its full glory with the Seventh Incarnation, what with that question mark-festooned sweater and umbrella with the question mark handle.)
I still think it would be the Riddler as the instigator of the crime and it would have a Wonderland theme kicked off with the Riddler’s use of the classic Lewis Carroll riddle: “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” But the Quizmaster of Crime would be leading a team of super-villains, just as he had been teamed up with the Joker, the Penguin, and Catwoman a few years earlier.
In this new team, centered around the Wonderland theme, would be the Mad Hatter,
Egghead, and Marsha, Queen of Diamonds. (They would have henchmen with names like Dormouse, Mock Turtle, and Cheshire Cat.) Somehow their shenanigans caused a dimensional rift that nearly loosed the horrors of the true Wonderland upon the Earth. But with the help of the Doctor, the Dynamic Duo got them all locked up, either in Gotham Penitentiary or Arkham Asylum.
Jumping forward a year, the Doctor and Liz Shaw receive a strange invitation to visit the set of “Alice In Wonderland”, where the Doctor senses the presence of another… as if he is not the only Time Lord in the area. There is something eerily familiar about the sensation, but he can’t quite put his finger on it…….
Soon they find themselves under attack by a conspiracy of strange aliens. These extraterrestrials seem to be inspired by Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece - an invisible being whose smiling mouth is the only thing that can be seen; a small pig-like alien dressed as a baby; two Sontaran clones dressed as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum; and a remarkable caterpillar said to be unknown to science……..
It would be Liz Shaw that points out that whenever they were attacked, it was the actor playing Lewis Carroll himself - the man who dreamed up this bizarre world - who always seemed to be nearby. They sought out the dressing trailer for the actor in order to question him and there they found the REAL Michael Jayston, drugged and bound in his closet.
Finally cornered, the ersatz Jayston revealed himself to be a Time Lord known as the Valeyard. But in this incarnation, the Doctor had no memory of him. It would be several more incarnations before their paths would cross for the “first” time at the Doctor’s trial on Gallifrey. The Valeyard escaped and as thanks for saving the movie’s production, the Doctor is given one of Dennis Price’s costumes for the King of Hearts as a parting gift. This is one of the costumes that the Fourth Incarnation would try on when looking for his signature outfit.
What say you?
BCnU!
- In this case, because it should be the Third Incarnation, I’m going to say the Companion was Liz Shaw, despite my love for Sarah Jane Smith.
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