It was only last week, on Christmas Eve, when I discovered this unintentional crossover with ‘Doctor Who’. It has been out there since December, 2006, and it’s possible somebody else out there has already discovered it. If so, I tip my hat to them.
This crossover occurs on the Toobworld timeline in December of 2006, but it began on the Real World timeline in December of 2005. That’s when “The Christmas Invasion” – the first of the annual Christmas specials in the return of ‘Doctor Who’ – was broadcast. While it was first seen on Christmas Day, 2005, the events depicted took place from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day the following year.
In the episode, the Sycorax attempted to take over the Earth while the Doctor was basically in a coma after regenerating from his previous incarnation. (That incarnation was considered the Ninth, but that was before we learned of the existence of the “War Doctor” and were later reminded of the Doctor’s previous incarnations first suggested in the adventure “The Brain of Morbius” with the continuing storyline about the Doctor as “The Timeless Child”.)
The Doctor was revived in time to challenge the Sycorax leader to a one-on-one duel to determine the fate of the big blue marble. And while he did lose his hand in the battle, he was still the Time Lord Victorious. The Sycorax honored the results and made ready to depart Earth’s Orbit. But once the Doctor and Rose returned to Earth, Prime Minister Harriet Jones ordered Torchwood to blast the retreating Sycorax spaceship once it was in space and out of Earth’s atmosphere.
A few hours later, the shrapnel from that explosion re-entered the atmosphere, where it burned to ash. As it rained down on the world below, it resembled snow to those living in the northern hemisphere. (In the southern hemisphere, where they were in the summer season, it was probably looked upon as the ash that it was.)
ROSE:
DOCTOR:
It's the spaceship breaking up in the atmosphere. This isn't snow, it's ash.
ROSE:
Okay, not so beautiful.
And this is where the crossover comes in….
One year later, the American TV series ‘Las Vegas’ aired its Christmas episode on December 15, 2006. However, the storyline began over a week later, two days before Christmas, when the temperature was recorded at 95°. And even with those highs, the Montecito Casino/Hotel was going all out with their celebration of the more commercial aspects of Christmas… which included hot swimsuit models romping in the artificial snow wearing bikinis and Santa caps.
But by Christmas Eve, the temperature had dipped precipitously, where it actually got cold. In the afternoon on Christmas Day, it actually started snowing and all of the show’s main characters gathered to enjoy the wonder of it.
Only… in this TV dimension of Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld, ‘Las Vegas’ and ‘Doctor Who’ co-exist. What the residents of Las Vegas were experiencing was the ash-fall from the burned-up remains of the Sycorax spaceship. If any one of them tried to catch a snowflake on their tongue, they were actually tasting the cremated remains of the Sycorax aliens.
Only later, they would learn on the evening news what had really happened to cause that freak "snowfall".
DOCTOR:
(Rose helps him on with the dressing gown.)
DOCTOR:
Very Arthur Dent. Now, there was a nice man.
That observation suggests that he actually knew Arthur Dent, the unlikely protagonist of ‘The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’ in all its various media incarnations. This connection was already established in the original run of the series, with the Fourth Incarnation reading a book by Oolong Colluphid (a copy of which was later found in the stacks of the library planet visited by the Tenth Incarnation.)
No comments:
Post a Comment