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!