BY ANY OTHER NAME - A "STO-AWAY" IN MIDSOMER

From the TARDIS Data Core Wiki:
Mr. Copper was an employee aboard the Titanic who met the Tenth Doctor and Astrid Peth.  After the near-destruction of the vessel, the Doctor allowed him to live in 21st century England.  
(TV: Voyage of the Damned)

Mr. Copper was a travelling salesman, but he reached retirement with 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.

Copper helped the Tenth Doctor defeat the Host. After this adventure, he was stranded on Earth with nothing save the clothes on his back and a million-pound credit card. He had been issued this by the Capricorn Cruise Lines for purchasing trinkets from the local life forms, including samples of their local delicacy, beef.

After being refused an opportunity to travel with the Doctor (because the Doctor did not want a new companion at the time), the Doctor told Copper that the credit card he had was worth the local equivalent of 50,000,056 credits. Ecstatic at his newfound wealth, he planned to make a life on Earth so he wouldn't spend the rest of his life in prison on Sto for fraud.

Mr. Copper eventually used some of his wealth to establish the Mr. Copper Foundation, an organization dedicated to advancements in science.  Among the Mr. Copper Foundation's creations was the Sub-Wave Network.
(TV: The Stolen Earth)

Copper's first name was unknown within the episode.  There are reports it was supposed to be Bayldon, but ultimately for Toobworld it is irrelevant.

The Titanic disaster occurred over two days – December 24-25, 2008, Christmas Eve and Christmas, 2008.  The episode was broadcast on Christmas Day, 2007.

Once the Mr. Copper Foundation was established and Mr. Copper had set up the hierarchy so that the foundation could run without his active participation, he withdrew from public life.  Taking the alias “Felix Hope”, he chose to live in Bleakridge, a village in Midsomer, the farthest one from Causton.  It was quite secluded, surrounded by moorlands.  

There he met an Earth woman named Cecily, and they soon married.  For the next decade, they lived a quiet, isolated life there in Bleakridge, with Cecily never the wiser that “Felix” was an alien.  (Humanoids from the planet Sto are basically indistinguishable from Terran humanoids.)

Their voluntary positions with the Bleakridge Village Watch was the most active Mr. Copper had been in Earth affairs since the Doctor dropped him off in 2008.  But that all came to an end when Causton C.I.D. showed up to investigate a series of murders.  Even so, nobody suspected that Felix was not of that Earth.  
(TV: ‘Midsomer Murders’ – “Crime and Punishment”)

As Sto humanoids are similar in genetic structure to the humans of Earth Prime-Time, so too are their lifespans.  Mr. Copper, AKA Felix Hope passed away in 2019; his wife Cecily – as of this writing – is still alive.  “Felix” left her comfortably provided for to see her through to her own final days.  But the majority of his fortune, which had been invested wisely over that decade, was used to keep the Mr. Copper Foundation in operation.

CROSSOVER TIME - THE SYCORAX IN VEGAS

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:

Oh, it's beautiful. What are they, meteors?
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".

“The Christmas Invasion” already had a crossover within it.  After the Doctor had beaten the Sycorax leader, Rose helped him into his borrowed bathrobe since he was only wearing “jim-jams”.

DOCTOR:

Ah, not bad for a man in his jim-jams.
(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.)

So ‘Doctor Who’ serves as the crossover conduit between ‘Las Vegas’ and ‘The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’.

GATWA!

 

Well, there’s no sense in delaying the inevitable any longer….

Last year it was announced that Ncuti Gatwa would be playing the Doctor.  Almost everybody assumed that it meant that he would be the 14th Incarnation of that Time Lord.  But when the 13th Incarnation regenerated, she became an older version of the 10th Incarnation.

So Gatwa will be the 15th Incarnation.

So far we may have seen him in action, but in a promo for David Tennant’s stint as the 14th Incarnation [Pictured up top]. 

Whether that is canon or not remains to be seen.  It’s only 3 seconds long at best, but it could be his future incarnation already existed but was trapped in some kind of limbo.  Not unprecedented – we saw several of the previous incarnations in a limbo at “the edge” in the 13th Incarnation’s final regular episode.

So he won’t be appearing in the actual series before the year is over – it most likely won’t be back until the 60th anniversary as it is.

In the meantime, here are pictures of Gatwa in connection to his upcoming role as the Doctor.  These are publicity photos, fan-made photo-shopped images, plus Gatwa with Russell T. Davies as the returning showrunner.  

He’s also seen with Millie Gibson who will be playing the new Companion, Ruby Sunday.

I’m looking forward to his work as the Doctor.  When he was announced, I started watching him in ‘Sex Education’ and enjoyed his vitality in his role.

It's usually reported that the actors chosen to be the next Doctor participate in the choice of their costume.  In Gatwa's case, I hope his input is limited if his choice for his personal wardrobe is any indication of his tastes....

Good luck, Ncuti!

NPH - WHO'S HE PLAYING?

Everybody should know by now that Neil Patrick Harris is playing the villain in the 60th Anniversary celebration of ‘Doctor Who’.  But little is known about his character other than the statement that he is the most dangerous foe ever faced by the Doctor.  (Sorry, to me that means the Master.)  

The prevailing theory is that he’s playing a regenerated Celestial Toymaker.

Maybe, but from the surviving episodes of his only adventure against the Doctor (William Hartnell as the Doctor; Michael Gough as the Toymaker), he doesn’t really come as much of a threat.

And if that does come across in other media incarnations – novelizations, audio dramas, comic strips – those belong in their own fictional metaverses and have no bearing on Earth Prime-Time.

One thing we have learned about his character is that he is sporting a Germanic accent.

BEEP THE MEEP - THEN & NOW

The TV series version of ‘Doctor Who’ has dipped into other ancillary sources for story ideas in the past, with “Human Nature”, a Seventh Incarnation novel which RTD adapted to be two episodes in the TV show for the Tenth Incarnation.  

(That major change, plus the origins for the “Blink” episode is why I don’t automatically include other media as Toobworthy enough to be considered canon.)

It looks like RTD is going to other such outside sources for the 60th anniversary specials.  Here’s a look at one character becoming the live-action version of its pen-and-ink origin….

From Gizmodo:

Beep the Meep [is] the hilariously named antagonist of a comic story in Doctor Who Weekly that ran in 1980, "Doctor Who and the Star Beast". It’s a tale famous for other reasons beyond Beep, as it also introduced a new companion for Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor, Sharon Davies—the first comics-original companion to the Doctor, and the first person of color to be a long-term companion in any medium in 'Doctor Who' history.

Criminal mastermind and leader of the Meeps—small, spherical, furry creatures with large eyes and mouse-like ears— Beep hails from the Wrarth galaxy, where his people were once a peaceful civilization. After their planet crossed orbits with a Black Sun expelling dangerous, corruptive radiation, the Meeps were suddenly transformed into a rage-filled, hateful race, and began a campaign of intergalactic conquest. World after world fell to the Meeps, who harvested Black Sun radiation to use in their warships—and as a tool that could mentally enthrall their foes into violent rages, as they were before them. Eventually, the Star Council of other races in the Wrarth galaxy came together to establish a new police force to fight back against the Meeps, defeating them in a grand battle.

But Beep himself fled the war, and escaped to 1980s Earth.

Using his cute appearance to ingratiate himself to Sharon and her best friend, Beep also managed to trick the Doctor into thinking he was an innocent being hunted without reason.

When the Doctor discovered the Meeps’ history, however, he helped save Sharon and her hometown from Beep’s thrall, using Black Sun radiation to brainwash them into repairing his ship, and helped capture Beep. Beep would escape imprisonment several times over the years in future Doctor Who comics, attempting to get vengeance on Earth and the Doctor for his detainment—a regular in-joke for the Doctor’s comic adventures.

How much of that character development is retained remains to be seen....

[Toobworld’s Beep will be voiced by Miriam Margolyes.] 

GROUNDHOGMANAY OF THE DALEKS

 

THE COVID PROGNOSTICATION

 

Interesting that this meme, from 2016 into 2017, omits 2020 and 2021.  O'Bviously, being a Time Lord, the Doctor knew Earth Prime-Time - as was also the case for our world, Earth Prime - would be devastated by COVID-19.

Hmmmm....  But how did the meme-maker know?

THE DOCTOR IN SKITLANDIA

 

Don't even bother trying to figure out where these incarnations belong in the regenerative timeline for the Doctor of Earth Prime-Time.  That's because they can only be found in an alternate Toobworld known as Skitlandia, which is founded on all of the comedy sketches ever seen on our TV variety programs and other broadcast sources.

These incarnations of the Doctor are not included in the tally recognized by the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  Maybe one day they will get their own induction ceremony as a group.

That is all.

AN INTERVIEW WITH JON PERTWEE AND KATY MANNING

 

THE MEANING OF LOGOS