ECHOES: MARCUS AURELIUS

"Even the most perfect beauty stands in need of praise." 

Marcus Aurelious 

as quoted by Comrade Nicole

'The Rogues' - "The Computer Goes West" 

"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. 

Be one." 

Marcus Aurelius

as quoted by Clara Oswald

'Doctor Who' - "The Day Of The Doctor"

 

WISH-CRAFT: THE DOCTOR IN AUSTENLAND

From:
indiewire.com
RE:
'Doctor Who' - "The Caretaker"

Jenna Coleman has been on consistently top form this season, and her track record continues. It would be very easy for her to get overlooked as just the object of the Doctor/Danny rivalry, but as usual she's her competent, snarky self -- Clara's rant about Jane Austen being the Doctor's "bezzie mate and you went on holiday together...and then you all formed a band and met Buddy Holly" might be the highlight of her entire TARDIS tenure. (Also, that episode needs to happen.)

I'm sure there are fanficcers out there already scribbling away on such a story - as well as one about the time the Doctor lived with otters.

Perhaps one or two fanficcers whooped with delight to hear the line because they already wrote up their own version of a meeting between Austen and the Doctor. The inspiration was already there, after all. During the RTD era, the Doctor met famous English authors almost once a season - Dickens, Shakespeare, Christie. And his sixth incarnation met HG Wells.

As for myself, I'd love to see the Doctor meet a young John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who would find inspiration on a previously mentioned planet of Terran emigres. (Mary Norton would be another I'd like to see. The premise for that story was established in "Planet of the Giants" and "Into The Dalek".)

Getting back to Miss Austen, she did feature in an adventure with the First Doctor from the Audioverse in "Frostfire", but that does not necessarily mean that it also occurred in Toobworld.

But it may still happen......

From DoctorWhoTV.com:

[Mark] Gatiss is best known for his historical episodes. At the recent Brazil Q&A he hinted that novelist Jane Austen may be the next historical figure to feature: “One of the things which new Doctor Who sort of invented was the idea of a celebrity historical – Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, Winston Churchill, Shakespeare. There’s three writers there so I think Jane Austen stands quite a quite a good chance actually…

He adds: “I’m not quite sure what the adventure would be. Maybe an alien posing as Mr Darcy.”

(Originally posted at the Toobworld Dynamic page on Facebook)

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ECHOES - A DICKENS OF A TIME

DOCTOR: 

Charles Dickens? You're brilliant, you are. 

Completely one hundred percent brilliant. 

I've read them all. "Great Expectations", "Oliver Twist", 

and what's the other one, the one with the ghost? 

DICKENS:

"A Christmas Carol"? 

DOCTOR: 

No, no, no, the one with the trains. "The Signal Man", that's it. 

Terrifying! The best short story ever written. You're a genius. 

DRIVER: 

You want me to get rid of him, sir? 

DICKENS: 

Er, no, I think he can stay. 

DOCTOR: 

Honestly, Charles. Can I call you Charles? I'm such a big fan. 

DICKENS: 

A what? A big what? 

DOCTOR: 

Fan. Number one fan, that's me. 

DICKENS: 

How exactly are you a fan? In what way do you resemble 

a means of 

keeping oneself cool? 

DOCTOR: 

No, it means fanatic, devoted to. 

Mind you, I've got to say, 

that American bit in "Martin Chuzzlewit", what's that about? 

Was that just padding or what? 

I mean, it's rubbish, that bit.

'DOCTOR WHO' - "THE UNQUIET DEAD"

BRIAN LANE:

You're a bit of a fan of Charles Dickens, aren't you?
'NEW TRICKS' - "BODY OF EVIDENCE"

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HAT SQUAD THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY FOR ANGUS LENNIE

From the TARDIS Data Core wiki:

Angus Ferguson MacRanald was the landlord of the Fox Inn at Tulloch, Scotland. He was fond of playing the bagpipes and was said to have second sight, being the seventh son of a seventh son. UNITused his inn as a temporary HQ while investigating the destruction of North Sea oil rigs. He was killed by Odda, who was using the guise of Sister Lamont. 

('Doctor Who' - "Terror Of The Zygons")

MacTavish was an inn-keeper in the small village of Stevenage, where Simon Templar stumbled on a small but deadly community of Communist infiltrators.

('The Saint' - "The Fellow Travellers")

MacRanald and MacTavish didn't know it, but they were half-brothers.  Their father was a traveller himself, perhaps a salesman, who had a little fling with the mother of MacTavish around the same time he got his own wife pregnant with Angus.

I don't think either one was ever aware of the other's existence before the death of Angus MacRanald.

This theory of relateeveety is in memory of Angus Lennie, a Scottish actor who died back in September of last year.  He is best known for his Cineverse role of the Mole in "The Great Escape" and for playing Shughie McFee in 'Crossroads' in Toobworld.  (A character who might also have been the bastard son of the elder MacRanald......)

Good night and may God bless.

BLUE HOOLOOVOO "WHO" VIEW

Douglas Adams was playing with the multiverse of "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" right up to when he died.  It exists in all of the major fictional universes - the Radioverse first of all (and to my mind, the best of the bunch!), Earth Prime-Time (aka the Main Toobworld), BookWorld, the universe of Gaming, and multiple versions in WorldStage as well.  (I don't know how many of those stage productions - if any! - DNA was invoved with.)

Of course, the "HHG2TG" of Toobworld is what I'm always dealing with, which is fine with me; I love it, despite its flaws.  First of all, no offense to Geoffrey McGivern, but David Dixon personified the look and personality of Ford Prefect.  (If only he had been offered the chance to play the Doctor!)

And it's in Toobworld where the legacy of Douglas Adams has had the best opportunities to establish deep roots into the TV Universe.  And that's mostly through simple mentions in a show like 'Doctor Who'.

• We've seen the Fourth Incarnation of the Doctor reading Oolon Colluphid's book, "Origins of the Universe".
• The Tenth Incarnation thought the number "42" might be the security protocol to gain control of the Host about the starship Titanic.
• He also observed that Arthur Dent was a very nice man who also wore a dressing gown when dealing with aliens.
• And then the Eleventh Incarnation of the Doctor actually pointed out a Hooloovoo while he and Clara Oswald were visiting a marketplace on Akhetan.

According to the Doctor, most of the "people" in the marketplace, buyers and sellers alike, were from the local region.  This would suggest that the Hooloovoo were from one of the seven worlds in the Akhet solar system.

But the Hooloovoo seen in the marketplace looks nothing like the description from the books: A Hooloovoo is a hyper-intelligent shade of the colour blue.  But the alien pointed out by the Doctor was a bipedal humanoid, as seen below:

I think the answer is simple.  The Hooloovoo were not so much an intelligent shade of blue, but a blue-shaded intelligence.  Much like the Changeling Founders and the Q Continuum, the Hooloovoo shared a combined existence and only occasionally split off to form an individual entity.  (It could be the Great Intelligence was a member of this species.)  

On whichever Akhet world they evolved, the Hooloovoo probably used their great intelligence to force others with actual forms to the manual labors they could not themselves perform - like manufacturing even the slightest things they needed.

Perhaps it's a willing symbiotic relationship which they share with the humanoids on their shared world.  

But in any case, it's likely there were times whena Hooloovoo needed a more human form themselves.  And so like the inhabitants of the Blessed Isle in the ancient tome "True Histories", they probably would inhabit "puppet" shells to give them that form.

And that's what we would have seen in the marketplace.

BCnU!

WHO-VID: DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!

This isn't so much a deleted scene as it is the "grist" for the video of the Doctor which Martha fast-forwards through, so there's no need to have him talking about anything in particular.  

I do like the bit about the pears though......

"MISTER TIME" - A "DOCTOR WHO" RIP-OFF WISH-CRAFT

WHAT IF 'DOCTOR WHO' WAS AN AMERICAN SHOW?

Check out that hyperlink above.  It's a fun "What-If?" of which American actors would have been good counterparts to the British originals if 'Doctor Who' had been an American series.

Most of them are spot-on and I couldn't possibly improve on it overall.  So I decided to take the opposite route and make it worse.

What if some unscrupulous American TV producer decided to rip off the 'Doctor Who' concept and made it on the cheap for syndication on some backwater UHF channel?  Something that might have been so cheesy that even Leonard Pinth Garnell would not be able to sit through it.....

So here's what I came up with:

In this premise, 'Doctor Who' does exist and had been broadcast in Britain for five years already.  But it was basically unknown in America.  So to protect himself the producer would have to change the name.  Perhaps something mundane and dull like "Mister Time".

As with the original show, he would have cast an aging character actor for the role of Mister Time, someone known in the business but not in high demand.....

I decided on Peter Brocco.

Eventually Brocco, for whatever reason (not necessarily for health concerns like William Hartnell), would choose to leave the role.  So this producer would need to hire a new actor and pull off his own version of regeneration.....

Again stealing from the original, a mop-topped actor was sought to be the second Mister Time just as Patrick Troughton was the Second Doctor.  Moe Howard would have turned them down, so the producer would call on Ish Kabibble, the former comedy relief in the Kay Kyser Orchestra.

Then it was Ish Kabibble's turn to say goodbye to the role.  So now a Jon Pertwee model was needed to play Mister Time.  Why not Carl Ballantine, fresh off 'McHale's Navy'?  

And years later, he'd still be playing the role at conventions.  

(Ballantine would revisit the role on the show, meeting one of his future incarnations.  But he would only need to provide the voice-over as Mister Time's past lives had all been turned into puppets!)

Mister Time the Fourth would be played by Paul Sand, who also had that unruly mop of dark hair and the big nose like Tom Baker.  

And mixing up the order in which certain plotlines were introduced, Lynn Redgrave appeared as the American version of the Rani in the Fourth Mister Time's tenure rather than later for the Sixth.

It was decided that Mister Time would next be young and preppy in much the same way Peter Davison brought a youthful energy to the Doctor.  And so James Stephens was hired to be Mister Time with John Houseman taking on the role of his arch nemesis, Professor Tachyon......

 

A change in the stewardship of the show did not guarantee an upgrade in the quality - if it was making money no matter how bad it was, why mess with it?

But perhaps they shouldn't have adhered so closely to the original model by this point, even if attempts by the BBC to block production were proving unsuccessful.  Like Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, the sixth Mister Time nearly derailed the show.

With his wild outfits and abrasive personality, Frank Bonner was not well received by the fans of the program.  Years later, there is a new appreciation for his work, but at the time, it almost brought about cancellation.

So Bonner was fired and Ron Carey was given the chance to play Mister Time.  For this seventh version, a new premise was established, with Mister Time serving as a chauffeur through Time and Space in the BOBOT (Big Old Box O' Time) for young lovers to go back and get it right in their relationships.  

Sort of a Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Love Boat.....

And that killed the show.  Seemingly forever.

In the 1990s, seeing that a new attempt was being launched to reinvigorate 'Doctor Who', a new production company secured the rights to 'Mister Time' and tried again.  This time with Richard Dean Anderson as the hero.

 

However, even with an interesting story that ripped off the Bottle City of Kandor idea from Superman comics, and with a special guest appearance by Ron Carey to pass the baton to Richard Dean Anderson, it never went to series because Anderson was offered a better role.

MISTER TIME #7 ABOUT TO REGENERATE

Another decade would pass and 'Mister Time' remained dormant because nobody could come up with original story and casting ideas.  It was as if they needed to rip off 'Doctor Who' by that point in order to thrive.

And that's when a producer with vision stepped in to revive 'Mister Time', casting Christopher Meloni as the new main character - sort of a tough guy in a jumper with a penchant for hats.

But like the other Christopher across the Pond, Meloni was only interested in getting the show back up and running.  He would commit to only the one season.  As soon as the audience began to warm to his interpretation of Mister Time, he was gone.

The best was yet to come, however, with the arrival of James Roday to play an irreverant and cocky young Mister Time.  A lot of past triumphs for 'Doctor Who' were reworked for Roday's Mister Time, including a visit to the OK Corral, an American version of Romana, and a black sidekick named Mikey instead of Mickey.  Even Professor Tachyon returned to the show with Corbin Bernsen in the role.

JUST AFTER REGENERATING FROM MISTER TIME #9

 "I WEAR A COWBOY HAT, JUST BECAUSE......"

MISTER TIME AND MIKEY

MISTER TIME #10 AND PROFESSOR TACHYON

LINEARA

Roday would prove to be the most popular actor ever to take on the role and nobody thought he could be replaced when it came time for him to say goodbye.

And that's when a young actor, little known in the business, was hired to play the eleventh Mister Time.  Josh Brener definitely heard a different drummer with his version of the character and overcame the skeptics who thought 'Mister Time should have ended when Roday left.  

And so it came to pass that even Brener called it a day on the show and the new producer decided to try something radical - to go back to an older Mister Time like it was in the beginning.

PUBLICITY PICTURE FOR 

CASTING THE NEW MISTER TIME

And that brings us to John Slattery as Mister Time, who has yet to appear officially in the series, but some intriguing photos from the set have been leaked - including Mister Time wearing the stockings of the Wicked Witch of the East and dressed as an Observer.  They were even so bold as to go the bowtie route with his Mister Time.

 

Oh, by the way....  'Mister Time' celebrated its 45th anniversary by bringing in a previously un-remembered Mister Time who served as the bridge between the eighth and ninth incarnation during that lost decade.  Adam West was chosen to add yet another iconic super hero role to his resume as the Mister Time known as Time Phantom.....

So that's my Wish-Craft about a poorly conceived rip-off of 'Doctor Who'......

BCnU!

THE "TWELFTH" DOCTOR IN THE TOONIVERSE

The Doctor exists in the Tooniverse, there's no denying that.  Some of the lost episodes have been recreated in animated form, and "Dreamland", an adventure with the Tenth Incarnation of the Doctor was released as a mini-feature film to DVD.  And he's appeared in TV shows like 'The Simpsons'.

The animation style has varied widely in style, but if this was accepted as canon for Capaldi's animated portrayal, it would be quite different in tone as well......

"WHO" HO/HO

Andrew Brook is one of my crossover correspondents from the UK and he always makes sure I'm aware of even the more trivial items that might be news over there but which fail to make the Atlantic crossing.

Here's what he had to say back in July:

The current issue of "Doctor Who Magazine" suggests that the Tong of the Black Scorpion (in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang") had been borrowed from the Tong of the same name that had already appeared on screen in an episode of 'It Ain't Half Hot, Mum' ("Pale Hands To Love"). 

One actor - Vincent Wong - appeared in both stories (although they're set some decades apart in different parts of the world.)

Vincent Wong as Ho
['Doctor Who']

Vincent Wong as Assassin
(Could be named Ho)
['It Ain't Half Hot, Mum']

This could still work with a loose theory of relateeveety - same family tree, with strong genetics. And there are plenty of roles played by Mr. Wong in other shows like 'Poirot' and 'The New Avengers' which might provide other branches for that tree.....

Thanks, Andrew!

THE VILLAINS OF "DOCTOR WHO" (TOOBWORLD ONLY)

As I've stated often enough, 'Doctor Who' as a TV show does exist in Earth Prime-Time - even as the Doctor exists in Earth Prime-Time as a real person.  The show was probably created by some shadowy governmental organization (which I call "UNReel") to serve as plausible deniability for the Doctor's existence to the general public.

For that Toobworld-only version of the show we've met two of the actors who have played villains - Andy Millman of 'Extras' and Freddie Thornhill from 'Vicious'.  Andy played a slug during the Tennant Tenure while Freddie was voted the tenth most popular villain from the show's classic period.

And since Millman played a character never seen in the Trueniverse 'Doctor Who', we can probably assume the character played by Freddie was unique to Toobworld as well.

But I do think Freddie would have done so during the Pertwee era, since we know that Jon Pertwee's televersion did play the Doctor just as the real Pertwee did - thanks to 'Supernova'.

And if we consider that Pertwee clip in 'Supernova' to be in the fictional version of the show as well, perhaps Freddie was playing the Ambassador from Alpha Centauri.....

 

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Andy Millman  (Ricky Gervais)

'Extras'

"The Extra Special Series Finale"

Freddie Thornhill (Sir Ian McKellan)

'Vicious'

Episode 1.2

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