TVXOHOF FOR JANUARY 2020 - SGT. ERNIE BILKO

It’s a new year and it’s time to get down to business with the Television Crossover Hall of Fame now that the holidays are over.

There is no general theme to the monthly showcase spot this year, but we’re adding a new twist for 2021.  (We’ll see how long it can last.) With the Friday Hall of Famers, the last Friday of the month will be celebrating a TV show which not only originated in Earth Prime, but which also existed as a TV show within Earth Prime-Time. Of course that means there will be Zonks a-plenty to deal with, but it should be interesting.

Meanwhile we’ve got the January Showcase to announce....

January is our Classic TV month and my only regret with this new member Is that I didn’t get around to inducting him years earlier!

M/SGT. ERNIE BILKO

From the Phil Silvers Show site:
Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko (Ernie)  Service number: RA 15042699.  Ernest G. Bilko, known to one and all as Ernie, was a master sergeant who would go to any lengths to beat the system, be it by conniving, bluffing, cheating, gambling, lying, fenagling or any other devious device known only to him. No sharper operator ever existed than Bilko, no one more capable of fleecing his fellow man or forcing even the top brass at the Pentagon to quake in their shiny boots.

No one was beyond or safe from a Bilko operation - he could smell money, and he had all human life worked out, being capable not only of predicting the thoughts of others but calculating how long it would take people to think them. But Ernie Bilko had two crucial weaknesses: like all gambling addicts, he could never resist one last bet, and, down, deep down, deep deep down, resided a conscience that prevented him from making the final, ultimate move which would garner him his life's goals: wealth and physical comfort. For all his efforts, Ernie would never win.  

Ernie ran the Motor Pool unit at two US Army camps, firstly at Fort Baxter, Roseville, Kansasand latterly at Camp Fremont, Grove City, California. Nominally the posts were run by Colonel Hall but Bilko was really in charge. He was the man who made the posts work with clockwork precision with the mere click of his fingers. The colonel would have loved to have got rid of Ernie Bilko, but he recognized immediately that Ernie was an essential part of the status quo that granted him, mostly, an easy life.

For more, click here:

Here are the shows and TV specials which qualified Bilko for membership:

1955
The New Recruits
M / Sgt. Ernest G. Bilko

From the IMDb:
This is the unaired pilot for ‘The Phil Silvers Show’/’You'll Never Get Rich’. This episode is known as “The Audition Show” and is titled “The New Recruits”, which was later re-filmed with the same title and a few different actors in different roles. The re-filmed, more polished version later aired as the first episode of the ‘You'll Never Get Rich’ TV series.

O’BSERVATION
That original pilot is how the world’s timeline originally played out before it was tampered with by any number of interfering time travelers before 1955 – everyone from Helen Cutter to the Doctor from Sam Beckett to Tony Newman and Doug Phillips.  It could have been a combination of factors from them all to account for the changes between the original pilot and the episode that later aired.

1955-1959
The Phil Silvers Show
MSgt. Ernest G. Bilko
143 episodes

From Wikipedia:
‘The Phil Silvers Show’, originally titled ‘You'll Never Get Rich’, is a sitcom which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1959. A pilot called "Audition Show" was made in 1955, but never broadcast. 143 other episodes were broadcast – all half-an-hour long except for a 1959 one-hour live special. The series starred Phil Silvers as Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko of the United States Army.

1959
Keep in Step
Sgt Ernest G 'Ernie' Bilko

From the IMDb:Spun-off from ‘The Phil Silvers Show’ (1955)
Bilko learns that a movie is to be made about him - but just who will play him?

From CBS
In 1959 Phil Silvers appeared as Sgt. Bilko with Diana Dors in "The Phil Silvers Pontiac Special: Keep in Step."  

It feels as though there should be more credits for Bilko, but that could be due to Ernie serving as the template upon which future Phil Silvers characters found their inspiration – Harry Grafton, Harold Hecuba, Shifty Shafer, and over in the Cineverse, Otto Meyer.

Bilko with fellow TVXOHOF member Ed Sullivan

Welcome to the TVXOHOF, Sergeant.  I’m sure you’ll find the poker room on your own.  Bret and Bart Maverick with Brady Hawkes and even your old buddy Corporal Rocco Barbella will be ready to test your skills at the table…..

This post is dedicated to two FB friends over in the United Kingdom - Steve Everitt and Mick Clews in honor of everything they do to keep the flame for Bilko burning over there.

WHOVIANS OF THE HAT SQUAD 2019

THIS IS  A WORK IN PROGRESS....

"The Hat Squad" was the name of a short-lived detective series years ago but I have purloined the title for my tributes to those in the TV business who have passed away during the year.  (I publish the list every New Year's Eve here in the blog.)  For me, it's a reference to my tip of the hat to all of the people who contributed to this fictional world of the Toob.

This year, there seemed to be quite a few who had connections to "the Whoniverse."  I don't know if there were more than usual - Time may be wibbly-wobbly, but it still marches on and so there will always be 'Doctor Who' personnel lost as we travel forward to six decades of the show, one second at a time.

The list will begin with the actors from the show.  (I'm not including myself, but there are people out there who are only interested in the characters onscreen.)  These aren't exactly obituaries, but instead a rundown of the characters they played.  With the people behind the scenes, there will be more of a look at their credits.

Most of the character descriptions come from the TARDIS wiki.

Sadly, let the tributes begin.....

W. MORGAN SHEPPARD
[August 24, 1932 - January 6, 2019]

CANTON EVERITT DELAWARE III -  In 2011, Canton was invited by a future version of the Doctor to the place where the Doctor would be shot and killed. There he met River, Amy and Rory again, told them that it was definitely the Doctor who was shot and that he was really dead. He left them gasoline to burn the Doctor's corpse; the Doctor had secretly used a Teselecta duplicate to fake his own death, and the gasoline barely singed it. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut, The Wedding of River Song) Canton also told them that he wouldn't see them again, but they would see him. This was before they were going to meet his younger self later in their personal timelines. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)  

DEL HENNEY
[July 24, 1934 - January 14, 2019]

COLONEL ARCHER - Colonel Archer was an officer in the British Army.  He was in command of the bomb disposal squad sent with Professor Laird to investigate a threat discovered in the London docklands — namely strange canisters discovered by builders in a warehouse. This turned out to be samples of the Movellan virus sent by the Daleks to Earth in 1984 for safekeeping.  Archer was killed by Lytton's "policemen" and replaced by a Dalek duplicate, which was killed fighting Daleks loyal to Davros. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks)  

WINDSOR DAVIES
[August 28, 1930 - January 17, 2019]

TOBY - Toby was a criminal hired by Arthur Terrall to kidnap Jamie McCrimmon.  He took Terrall's keys and sneaked into Maxtible's laboratory and snooped in some of the boxes. Also in the room, was a Dalek, which exterminated him before he could get away from it. (TV: The Evil Of The Daleks)

CLIVE SWIFT
[February 9, 1936 - February 1, 2019]

MR. COPPER - Mr Copper was an employee aboard the Titanic who met the Tenth Doctor and Astrid Peth. Mr Copper was a travelling salesman, but he reached retirementwith little to show for a life's work. He pretended to have a first-class degree in "Earthonomics" to get the job of Ship Historian. In reality, he had been a student at Mrs Golightly's Happy Travelling University and Dry Cleaners. After the near-destruction of the vessel, the Doctor allowed him to live in 21st century England. (TV: Voyage Of The Damned)

SHEENA MARSHE
[dates unknown]
"BIG NOSE KATE" - Kate Fisher or Kate Elder was a singer at the Last Chance Saloon in Tombstone, Arizona and the girlfriend of Doc Holliday.   After the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Kate and Holliday left Tombstone together. (TV: The Gunfighters)    "Big Nose Kate" was an alias, with Mary Cummings being her real name.  

THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY - "DOCTOR WHO" & "OUTLANDER"

With my theories of “relateeveety,” I make familial connections between two TV characters from different TV series which normally don’t have any connection to each other.  These family trees then provide that theoretical connection.  I usually make these connections between two characters who were portrayed by the same actor.  If those characters share the same period in the timeline, I usually suggest my own version of that television trope of the “identical cousins”.  But for my darker vision of that concept, it’s not like ‘The Patty Duke Show’, where Patty and Cathy Lane were identical cousins because their fathers were identical twins (Martin and Kenneth Lane.)  Usually in Toobworld, the reason goes back a generation for examples of infidelity – most times a cheating husband, but sometimes a wife who strays as well. 

And in Toobworld, telegenetics is strong; exact combinations of DNA strands can repeat several times over in a family’s lineage.  (This was made television fact with one episode of ‘Simon And Simon’, as we saw ancestors of Rick and AJ Simon down through the ages and each pair of them looked exactly like the Simon brothers.

But I don’t always have to use exact duplicates because of the actor playing both roles to come up with such a theory.  There could be just a hint of a resemblance between two characters, or even just the same surname for me to find such inspiration.

And so it is in this case….

From the ‘Outlander’ wiki:
William Ransom is the son of Geneva Dunsany and Jamie Fraser. Legally, he is the son and heir of Ludovic Ransom, Eighth Earl of Ellesmere, who was his mother's husband at the time of his birth.  (Both of his parents – meaning Ludovic Ransom and not Jamie Fraser - died soon after William’s birth.)

Since the age of six, William has been raised by Lord John Grey, his legal guardian and husband of Geneva's sister, Isobel Dunsany.

Full name
William Clarence Henry George Ransom

Born
January 9, 1758

Also known as
Willie
William James
Lord Ellesmere

Titles
Ninth Earl of Ellesmere
Viscount Ashness
Master of Helwater
Baron Derwent

As a child he was spoiled and hotheaded, as perhaps befits a young earl.  

Actor Clark Butler portrays Young Willie in the Season Three episode, “Of Lost Things”, in the ‘Outlander’ television adaptation. Oliver Finnegan portrays Willie in the Season Four episode, “Blood of My Blood”.  

Before we move on to who might be the descendants of young Lord Ellsmere, let’s take a look along the family tree’s past.

One of those titles jumps out at me which could serve as a theoretical link to another TV series.  Granted, young William is not related by blood to the character, but he has inherited the title which may have come from him.

For Toobworld Central, the official version of the legend of Robin Hood is from the 1950s series ‘The Adventures Of Robin Hood’ (despite the fact Richard Greene’s title outlaw looks like he went to a 1950s barbershop for that hairstyle.  (I’m still open to the idea that his Robin of Locksley was indeed a time traveler.)

In his band of Merry Men, there was the de rigeur comic relief – Cedric Derwent, of whom I’ve written about in the past.  (If you’re interested, click here.)

This is just a conjectural theory, mind, (but then that’s what most of Toobworld is!), but it could be that after King Richard came home from the Crusades he absolved all of Robin’s band of Merry Men and appointed them with titles when he returned Robin to his rightful place as the hair to the Locksley estate.

If so, the then title of Baron Derwent has been an honorific passed down from Cedric Derwent in the 12th Century to Ludovic Ransom in the 18th Century and now it has passed on to his son.

In the TV series of ‘Outlander’, we’ve only seen William Ransom as a baby and as a twelve year old.  We may yet see him again as a 21 year old should the series continue through the run of Diana Gabaldon’s book series.  (And I see no reason why Starz would discontinue it.)  I don’t know what the future holds for the Master of Helwater, but even should he die young, William might still have planted his seed somewhere to insure a continuation of the family tree.  (Just as is the case with the saloon gals of the wild, wild West, it is for genealogical situations such as this when serving wenches and scullery maids come in handy for televisiological research.)

There are two TV characters who may be descended from William Ransom, one legitimately and the other from an extramarital liaison.  Let’s deal with the “official” offspring first.  It’s kind of boring so let’s get it out of the way.

Since William Ransom did return to the American colonies, it could be that he did put down some roots there.  If so, one of his descendants could have been Hope Ransome,

‘INSPECTOR LEWIS’
“THE POINT OF VANISHING”

While investigating the deaths of two men and the possible suicide of another, Lewis had to talk with Hope Ransome, the daughter of the American Secretary of State.
If William Ransom did have descendants in the later United States, it could be that – while not of royalty, O’Bviously – the family maintained their high placement in society with the wealth and influence that might garner.  And along the way, they altered the family surname as well, adding the “e” (perhaps to differentiate it from the common usage of such an unpleasant word.)

As you can see from this picture of Hope Ransome with Inspector Lewis, she still showed some slight evidence of Jamie Fraser’s contribution to the Ransom bloodline.

One other O’Bservation – “The Vanishing Point” was broadcast in April of 2009.  By that point in the timelines for both Earth Prime and Earth Prime-Time, Hilary Clinton was the American Secretary of State.  Had she been more invisible to public scrutiny, we might have been able to ignore this discrepancy between the two universes.  But her position in the world was referenced in other TV shows, so we have to accept that she was the Secretary of State in the main Toobworld. (In the alternate dimension of ‘Madam Secretary’, we have no choice in the matter – Mrs. Clinton showed up as her own televersion, now a former Secretary of State, along with Colin Powell and Madeline Albright.)

Now.  Let’s get to why we’re running this theory of relateeveety in the ‘Who’s On First’ blogathon!

‘DOCTOR WHO’
“HUMAN NATURE”
In 1913, Martha watches in jealousy from afar as The Doctor learns what it is to be human and to fall in love with the local school nurse, Joan Redfern. 

“FAMILY OF BLOOD”
The Doctor must deal with the repercussions of his decision to become human, as The Family Of Blood unveil themselves...  

(Summaries from the IMDb)

Among the people encountered by the Doctor and his Companion Dr. Martha Jones was Master Tim Latimer, a student at that school.  And I’m making the claim that he is descended from William Ransom as well.

From the TARDIS wiki:
Tim Latimer was a schoolboy who attended Farringham School for Boys in 1913. His history master was John Smith.

The fob watch containing the Tenth Doctor's Time Lord essence communicated with him and instructed him. It could do this because Latimer had low level telepathic abilities it could access. It also granted him a vision of the First World War which he used to escape a shell at a critical moment. After the Family of Blood was defeated, the Doctor let Latimer have his watch to look after and for good luck. He fought in World War I and survived. Like the Doctor, he did not like violence and refused to use a gun when the Scarecrows attacked, responding to a call of "Coward!" with "Yes sir! Every time!" an echo of the Doctor's answer to the question "Are you coward or killer?".

As a boy during his school days, Tim feared being bullied for his intellect, so he made sure to make his grades just good enough. He shared a similar belief in not fighting others, especially if they were poorly armed to combat him, just like the Doctor. He respected the Doctor thanks to what he learned of him, yet still feared the darkness within him.

Many years later, the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones saw him again as an old man, a veteran at a Remembrance Day ceremony. He still recognized them and silently acknowledged them, with tears in his eyes. (TV: Human Nature / The Family of Blood)

This was a theory of relateeveety that came to me because Lord William kind of resembles young Master Latimer.  They are hardly identical cousins but I think there is some similarity in the facial features of the actors Oliver Finnegan (William) and Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Tim).

I also can see a slight resemblance to Chip Douglas whose 'My Three Sons' family has Scottish roots.  But that's a blog post for another day.

Any other TV characters – as long as they are located in the main Toobworld – by the names of Ransom/Ransome and Latimer could be deemed kin to Lord William Ransom.

That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.

Allonsy!

GAME OF ZONKS - A WHOLE LOTTA WHO LATTE

May 6, 2019

From CNN:
What's this? Oh, just a coffee cup. A coffee cup on a table in the great hall of Winterfell in the fictional, very coffee-less realm of Westeros.

Sharp-eyed viewers noticed the anachronism during Sunday night's episode of "Game of Thrones," and, well, it's going to be a long time before anyone lets this mistake go.

Each Season 8 episode reportedly cost $15 million to make, so the fact that a grande mocha from Starbucks or whatever passed so many eyes and so many levels of experts and edits is very hilarious. That coffee cup is Arya Stark levels of sneaky.

Twitter is convinced it's a Starbucks cup, but it really could be from anywhere.

O'Bservation - Personally, I think it came from the craft services table.

There is nothing new about anachronistic items finding their way into ancient time periods of Toobworld.  But in most of those other cases, they were placed there deliberately as a joke point of reference in TV commercials.  These blipverts include


Pepsi


FedEx


Capital One


Bud Light


M&Ms
(The Dirty Dealer meant no harm.)


Winston Cigarettes
(Although granted, that was in the Tooniverse.  Anything goes over there!)

It’s been the Toobworld Central position that these were all caused by one of the oldest ‘frienemies” of the Time Lord known as the Doctor – the Meddling Monk.  After two run-ins with the First Incarnation of the Doctor when he was trying to make grand scale alterations to the timeline of the Earth, the Monk must have decided to make small, subtle changes that would pass unnoticed at first until it was too late to revert back to the original timeline.  And he chose to introduce modern day innovations into those simpler times.

In this particular case, the Monk has mixed things up a bit – he – put that cup of coffee into the feast hall of Winterfell, one of the kingdoms in the North.  But as far as Toobworld Central is concerned, the contnent of Westeros is to be found on the planet of Mondas, Earth’s twin world from the stories of ‘Doctor Who’.

How it changed the timeline of Mondas, I know not.  Its original timeline was bad enough!  But maybe the discovery of the addictive qualities of the cocoa bean accelerated the desire of the inevitable Cybermen to reach Earth sooner.

Luckily the Doctor was there to go back in Time to “put right what once went wrong.”

By the way, that had to have happened – HBO has announced that the offending coffee cup has already been digitally erased from the episode. What does that mean within the reality of the show?

Time travel!

My thanks to Lucas Garrett, one of my Facebook crossover buddies for that meme.

Se voktys hen jēda iksin kesīr!

THE DOCTOR ON VULCAN.... INDEED. (A CONTINUING O'BSERVATION)

'DOCTOR WHO'
"POWER OF THE DALEKS"

I.
The TARDIS arrives on the Earth colony of Vulcan where the newly-regenerated Doctor assumes the identity of an Earth Examiner.
II.
While the Doctor worries about the inert Daleks in the capsules, Lesterson makes plan to reactivate one of them.
III.
The Doctor fails to convince the colonists of the danger posed by the Daleks and soon the other two are also reactivated.
IV.
With Polly being held prisoner by the rebels, the Doctor and Ben decide to investigate them, while Lesterson discovers the Daleks are reproducing.
V.
The Doctor and Quinn attempt to escape in order to stop Bragen using the Daleks to take over the colony.
VI.
With Bragen having taken over, the Daleks trick the rebels into turning them loose and only the Doctor can stop them wiping out the entire colony.

I've written about this story before and how - in their infinite wisdom - the BBC wiped the tapes clean in order to use them again.  So far none of the episodes have been recovered, only clips still exist.  But the soundtrack survived and an animated version was created, which was seen on BBC-America last year.

In the story (set in 2220), there was a human colony on Vulcan.  This doesn't have to create a Zonk with the mythos of 'Star Trek'.  It could be an abandoned and untamed desolate area uninhabited by the Vulcans and leased to the human settlers by the Vulcan High Council.  I imagine they did so in order to promote the relationship with the Terrans.

Once the Doctor was able to disarm the threat of the Daleks on Vulcan, he left the swamp area with Polly and Ben in tow - but he did not leave the planet, merely landed elsewhere on one of the continents dominated by the native Vulcans. 

While there, the Doctor easily picked up the Vulcan mind-meld procedure (in scenes not seen by the audience viewing at home.) And he soon had his fill of their narrow-minded sense of logic, which to him stifled the creativity needed to advance in all fields.  Only then did the Doctor and his Companions beat a hasty retreat in the TARDIS from Vulcan; to the battle fields of Culloden.  ("The Highlanders")

And that's why he dismissed the concept of Logic so flippantly to Zoe Heriot.  (The quote comes from "The Wheel In Space".)

At the same time, it could be that it was the Time Lords who taught Surak everything he needed to know in order to mold the mental disciplines of his fellow Vulcans in their fourth century.  Now that I've finally seen "The Sensorites", it appears the Doctor knew about such mental powers before his first full regeneration.  (More on that elsewhere today.)

'DOCTOR WHO'

"THE SENSORITES"

DOCTOR: 
What's the matter, my child? 
SUSAN: 
I had a talk with the senior Scientist just before we left. It seems that the Sensphere has an extraordinary number of ultra high frequencies, so I won't be able to go on using thought transference. 
DOCTOR: 
Oh, I don't know. It's rather a relief, I think. After all, no one likes an eavesdropper about, do they? No, I think you obviously have a gift in that direction. When we get home to our own place, I think we should try and perfect it. 

So it may be a discipline for the Gallifreyans as well, not an inborn trait which came naturally to them.

As we know however, Susan never did make it home to Gallifrey with her Grandfather - at least not as seen on TV.  By the time we met her again in "The Five Doctors", she may have finally had the chance to go back.  If I had the opportunity to bring her back to Toobworld, not just in fanfic, I would cover that pozz'bility.

BCnU!

UNREEL STRIKES AGAIN!

The shadow ops agency UNReel worked fast.  In order to maintain the illusion that the Time Lord known as the Doctor is not real, they have financed a reboot of the Toobworld version of the TV show ‘Doctor Who’ in which the Doctor has switched gender. 
And according to the dialogue in this scene, apparently Steven Moffat and presumably Chris Chibnall are in on the scheme.
We can claim this scene is also confirmation that the televersion of the actual series is different from the original.  That’s because the kid claims the new incarnation of the Doctor is a “badass”.  She’s smart, she’s crafty, but I’ve yet to see evidence that she’s “badass”.  “Badass” is the Tenth Incarnation drowning all the children of the Empress Racnoss.
Geronimo!

AS SEEN ON TV - KING LOUIS XV

Diana Gabaldon was inspired to write her “Outlander” series of books because of her fascination with Frazier Hines’ portrayal of kilt-wearing Jamie McCrimmon in ‘Doctor Who’ during the tenure of Patrick Troughton as the Second Incarnation of the Doctor.  When the TV series adaptation began production on the first season, they were able to get Hines involved, playing the warden of Wentworth Prison.

I haven’t read the books (yet*), but I’m wondering if she slipped any more allusions to the Time Lord into the eight novels (with one on the way) and several novellas since then.  I know she’s added fictional characters from other sources in before – the eighth novel, “Written In My Own Heart’s Blood”, had a cameo appearance by the first American action hero, Natty Bumppo, from James Fenimore Cooper’s five-volume “Leatherstocking Tales”.  But of course that was safe from any copyright infringement charges.  ‘Doctor Who’ would be a different story.

I would think it would be hard to resist including the Doctor.  After all, both works deal in time travel.  And eventually the TARDIS would realize that the Doctor would be needed to put right what once went wrong; or at the very least, to deactivate the temporal gateway powers of the Cairn Duin stones.  (There’s a suggestion on how to end the series of books.  “Outlander” began with ‘Doctor Who’; maybe Ms. Gabaldon could find a way to end it with the Time Lord as well.)

As far as Toobworld Central is concerned, we do now have a theoretical link to ‘Doctor Who’ which can be found in the second season of the TV adaptation.  We have to play a bit with the splainins for the fact that the character was a recastaway.

I’m speaking of King Louis XV of France, who has been a character in both ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Outlander’.

There will be spoilers ahead.  And with the ‘Outlander’ passage, it might not be suitable for the younger members of Team Toobworld.

Even though we saw King Louis on ‘Doctor Who’ first, we’ll begin with ‘Outlander’ because of the placement for his appearances on the Toobworld Timeline.

From the ‘Outlander’ wiki:

In 1744, Jamie Fraser first meets King Louis when he attends the King's lever at Versailles. Louis meets Claire Fraser at the ball at the Palace of Versailles. Louis stubbornly refuses to meet Charles Stuart at court.

After Jamie is arrested for dueling Jack Randall, Claire has an audience with Louis and begs him to free Jamie. She learns that he remains imprisoned because the Duke of Sandringham demands it as he wishes to keep Jamie away from Charles Stuart. Claire reveals to Louis that Jamie is not a Jacobite and Louis agrees to release Jamie on the condition that he leaves France. Louis will make sure that the charges against Jamie are dropped so that he can return.

Once these negotiations are over Louis asks Claire for a small service in return. Thinking that she is going to have to sleep with him, Claire follows Louis through a door but it does not lead to a bedroom. Louis takes Claire into a darkened round room, lit only by tiny oil-lamps. In the center of the room is a huge round table and the people sitting around it are all hooded. Standing in the room are the Comte St. Germain and Master Raymond, both of whom have been accused of sorcery.

Louis instructs Claire to listen to their testimony then use her powers as La Dame Blanche which enable her to see the soul of a man, to determine who is telling the truth. When Claire declares that the Comte is associated with a group called Les Disciples du Mal, the Comte retaliates by accusing Claire of being the servant of Satan in league with Master Raymond. The Comte produces a snake from his shirt and quotes a passage from the Bible that says that servants of the true God can handle snakes without being harmed. Master Raymond then speaks up and provides the rest of the quote which is that servants of the true God will not die if they drink deadly poison. As Claire, the Comte and Raymond now all stand accused of sorcery, Raymond suggests that they all drink some poison to prove their innocence. He produces a flask of 'Dragon's blood' and pours out three cups. Both he and Claire drink it without effect, but the Comte falls down writhing and then subsides into limpness.

Louis takes Claire back through the door and leads her to the chaise and lifts her skirts. He oils her with rose oil and then penetrates her with a few thrusts before leaving to go to his mistress to finish off.

And now, from the TARDIS Data Core wiki:

King Louis XV of France was the lover of Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson in her later life. Reinette got on well, as his official mistress, with the king's wife. He was dubious about the Tenth Doctor until the Doctor saved him from the Clockwork Droids in 1758. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace)

When the Tenth Doctor arrived in France in 1764, it was in time to see Reinette's hearse leaving Versailles for her grave. The King gave the Doctor a letter from his mistress. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace)

So King Louis XV makes his presence known in Earth Prime-Time first from 1744 to 1745 in ‘Outlander’, and then twice in ‘Doctor Who’: 1758 and 1764.  In total, that’s a span of twenty years.

That time differential helps with the inner splainin as to why he looks different in both series.  (Outside the box of course the reason is that two different actors played the role.)  Toobworld Central gives a pass to the effects of aging on a TV character to help splain away such recastaways.  Louis was a callow young man when we first met him, fair in feature due to his pampered lifestyle.  But after surviving the attack of the clockworks thirteen years later, and grieving the death of Madame du Pompadour six years after that, the King has begun to show the wear on his countenance.

For now, that’s the kind of crossover we can best expect between both series.  We might get more of those in the coming seasons of ‘Outlander’, or at least references to historical figures in both series which not only link the two shows but spare us the need to do any splainin.

Allonsy!
 

FANFICCERS' FRIENDS - SUPERMAN AND THE DOCTOR AND... HARVEY?

It may be New Year’s Day, but we’re going to look at a theoretical fanfic suggestion about Easter.

Thanks to photoshop, the fantasy world of my own making – Toobworld – already knows that the first incarnation of the Doctor interacted with the Last Son of Krypton.  (I think they didn’t get along at first.  Once Kal-El found out that the Doctor was a Time Lord, I would think that he lobbied hard for the Doctor to go back and save Krypton from exploding.  But the reason he didn’t do so had to have been that the loss of Krypton was a fixed point in Time.)

Among the adventures they may have shared would have been the relocation of the Kandorians from their bottle city Kandor (caused by Brainiac) to a planet where they could thrive even at their small size.

I’ve written about these Kandorians on their new world before – they are to be found in an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’, “The Little People” which starred Joe Maross and Claude Akins.

So here’s another one – Superman and the Doctor Meet the Easter Bunny!

Yeah, I know.  It sounds stupid.  And these pictures cement that impression.

But consider this: what if the thing isn’t really the Easter Bunny, but one of those pookas made famous in the play “Harvey”.

From Wikipedia:

"Harvey" is a 1944 play by the American playwright Mary Chase. Chase received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work in 1945. It has been adapted for film and television several times, most notably in a 1950 film starring James Stewart.

Elwood P. Dowd is an affable man who claims to have an unseen (and presumably imaginary) friend Harvey — whom Elwood describes as a six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch (192 cm) tall pooka resembling an anthropomorphic rabbit. Elwood introduces Harvey to everyone he meets. His social-climbing sister, Veta, increasingly finds his eccentric behavior embarrassing. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium. When they arrive at the sanitarium, a comedy of errors ensues. The young Dr. Sanderson mistakenly commits Veta instead of Elwood, but when the truth comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion. When Elwood shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend Harvey, it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood's delusion has had a strange influence on the staff, including sanitarium director Dr. Chumley. Only just before Elwood is to be given an injection that will make him into a "perfectly normal human being, and you know what bastards they are!" (in the words of a taxi cab driver who has become involved in the proceedings) does Veta realize that she would rather have Elwood the same as he has always been — carefree and kind — even if it means living with Harvey. But the only reason Veta hears from the cab driver is that she can't find her coin purse and has to get the cab fare from Elwood. That is when the cab driver sees what is happening and goes into his spiel. Later Veta realizes that the purse was there all along, but Harvey hid it from her.  

The first of the US television adaptations in 1958, starred Art Carney, Marion Lorne, Elizabeth Montgomery, Larry Blyden, Fred Gwynne, Charlotte Rae, and Jack Weston.

And that’s the version we would be using in the main Toobworld.

So here’s a possible story suggestion – mischievous destruction has been happening and all evidence points to Elwood P. Dowd and his pooka friend.  But what if there was another pooka, a more malevolent entity, hoping to reap the benefits of his melee?

As we’ve seen with his “battles” with Mr. Mxyzptlk, Superman’s powers often fail him when it comes to magic.  And based on what the Tenth Incarnation of the Doctor had to say during “The Shakespeare Code” adventure, he refuses to believe in magic, even though he shares the same world as witches and genies and demi-gods.  (For example, name-dropper that I am – Endora, Jeannie, and Hercules.)

So they would need the help of ordinary human Elwood and his pal Harvey.

There’s the premise.  Think you could come up with a fanfic about such a team-up?  If you do and publish it online, let me know where I can find it to read it! 

Up, up, and allons-y!  

WHO'S ON TV? "THE FACTS OF LIFE"

It's not what you think....

'NOT GOING OUT'
"THE FACTS OF LIFE"

After this episode aired in the UK back in April of last year, fellow crossoverist Andrew Brook let others in our FB group about a certain plot line:

The sitcom "Not Going Out" experienced a time-jump of several years, when it was converted from a flat-share sitcom to a "Everybody Loves Raymond"-esque family sitcom. This week's episode revealed that the main characters' twin children were conceived after watching a 'Doctor Who' Christmas special featuring a 'Cyberwoman'. (Presumably that one out of 'Torchwood'?)

Here is the relevant dialogue:

LEE:
Why have my little angels suddenly turned into Roy Chubby Brown? Where are they off now? To draw a foofoo on Mrs Potato Head?
LUCY:
They're just a bit giddy because they had RSE at school.
LEE:
What, using the keyboards too much?
LUCY:
That's RSI.
LEE:
Oh.
LUCY:
RSE is relationship and sex education.
LEE:
Sex education? They're not learning that already, surely?
LUCY:
Yeah.
LEE:
And you're all right with that?
LUCY:
I'm fine.
LEE:
But you don't let them watch Doctor Who?
LUCY:
Doctor Who is not the same as the facts of life - it's got nothing to do with how the kids came to exist in the world.
LEE:
Yes, it has!
You got pregnant with the twins aftxxer we watched that Christmas episode with the Cyberwoman. They're far too young for sex education!

I’ve always claimed that the ‘Doctor Who’ TV series in Toobworld is not the same show we watch here in the Real World.  Maybe some of the episodes are similar, and when scenes are actually shown, often actual scenes were replayed (as seen in an episode of ‘Supernova’.)  But we’ve also seen fictional scenes played out, like the one with the intelligent slug played by Andy in ‘Extras’.

I think that’s the case we have here.  It sounds like it would have been an episode of ‘Doctor Who’, but here in the Real World it was an episode from the spinoff, ‘Torchwood’.  And it wasn’t a Christmas episode from that show; instead it was broadcast in November of 2006.

Here’s my theory:
The shadow ops group UNReel took an actual event – which we saw in the ‘Torchwood’ episode ‘Cyberwoman’ – and then fictionalized it for the Toobworld version of ‘Doctor Who’.  It not only helped reaffirm the general public’s perception of the Doctor as not being a real person within Toobworld, but it also maintained the secrecy surrounding the activities of the organization known as Torchwood.

That ‘Cyberwoman’ episode of ‘Doctor Who’ could have been a Christmas special and it would have been broadcast about three years after the “actual” events.  I’m making that claim because Lee and Lucy’s kids, Molly and Benji, are not in any way thirteen years old.  The actual event took place in 2006 and if the episode aired then, that’s when the twins were supposedly conceived.  Since the events regarding the “real” Cyberwoman didn’t really pierce the consciousness of the general public, there may have been a delay in any need to make a cover-up episode by UNReel until reports surfaced that it had happened.  So at best, the televersion of “Cyberwoman” was probably broadcast for Christmas, 2009.

Thanks for letting us know over here in Telemerica about this reference, Andrew!

Allons-y!

FANFICCERS' FRIEND - BEYONCE & THE DOCTOR

Yeah, there's a reason the internet doesn't show you this stuff.....

Back in February of 2018, this meme made the rounds of Facebook.  A very funny riposte to the idea that if it's on the internet then it must be true.  (As one of FB/IDD friends pointed out, Beyonce was 36 at the time and George Lucas was 74.)

However, I saw it as the jumping off point for a "Fanficcers' Friend" post!

The Doctor has met plenty of famous people in the show, but they're mostly to be found in the "historical" category.  Here would be a case where Beyonce could appear in an episode, playing herself, but also portrayed by another actress - if you insist on following the meme to the letter.  

Personally, I think you can skip that part of it having to be about a younger Beyonce.  And no harm would come from it.  Toobworld and BookWorld are expected to have discrepancies in their treatments of the same material and we've seen it happen in 'Doctor Who'.  There is the two-party story about the "Family of Blood" ("Human Nature" was the other half of the story.)  It started out as a novel featuring the Seventh Incarnation of the Doctor.

Another example was the inspiration for the best 'Doctor Who' story ever - "Blink".  That began as a short story in the Doctor Who magazine, still with the Tenth Incarnation but the main character was not the young woman Sally Sparrow (as played by Carey Mulligan.)  Instead BookWorld's Sally was a young girl, probably no more than twelve years old.

So in a fanfic story based on this meme, especially with dreams to see it filmed, I think it best to just use the actual Beyonce as she is now.

It gets tricky with the George Lucas story.

So here's one way to deal with it.

First you have to come up with a reason as to why Beyonce is traveling with the Doctor.  I think the Doctor and a companion (your choice) go to one of her concerts at which she is attacked by aliens.  Why?  Maybe her singing voice stimulates the mitosis needed for the aliens to reproduce.  But that's up to you.

So the Doctor scoops her up in the TARDIS and takes her on a tour of Time and Space to lose their pursuers.  Meanwhile, another Time Lord enters the story - the Meddling Monk, an adversary whom I hope comes back.  As he enjoys dabbling in Earth's timeline, on both large and small scales, I could see him grabbing George Lucas out of his personal timeline when he was just six or seven years old and dumping in the present day.  Lost in, say, a giant mall, in his panic about this strange world, he sees the Darth Vader figure and is captivated by it.

By pulling Lucas out of his own timeline, the Monk may not have stopped the "Star Wars" franchise, but instead triggered it since he knew the Doctor would come around and bring Li'l Georgie back to approximately 1950.  However, the George Lucas who returned was now contaminated with a future idea.  And there was also the problem of Beyonce giving him a hundred dollar bill that wasn't even being printed back in 1950!

It would be a minor glitch in the timeline that would always puzzle the Doctor - if the Monk had not kidnapped George Lucas, would there have been a "Star Wars"?

Basically that's how I would play it out. How about you?  If you write this up as your own fanfic with your own additions, let me know where I can find it to read it.

BCnU!