FANFICCER'S FRIEND: TREKKIN' WITH THE TARDIS

With all of the other spacecraft that the TARDIS has materialized within, this doesn't feel wrong at all. Well, maybe the scale, but otherwise it's fanficcer catnip!

Just sayin', is all....

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"DOCTOR WHO" & "STAR TREK"

The Toobworld connection between 'Doctor Who' and 'Star Trek' was unofficially established during the Second Incarnation of the Doctor (my personal fave, played by Patrick Troughton). In the lost episodes of "Power Of The Daleks", the Doctor and his Companions Polly and Ben were at the human colony on the planet Vulcan. According to that story, Vulcan was supposedly a young, volcanic world with no native life, but O'Bviously that's just what the Vulcans wanted the humans to think at the time, perhaps to keep them from pestering the green-blooded aliens in their own settlements. Apparently the Doctor kept their secret, but he must have had contact with them and learned some of their ways - not only in the use of logic, but also in the mind-meld technique.
We saw Doctor #10 employ a mind-meld to form a bond with the mind of Madame Pompadour in "The Girl In The Fireplace". It's a talent the Doctor never displayed before and there was no splainin given for it. Therefore, it's the contention of Toobworld Central that the Time Lords learned of it through their contacts with the Vulcans. (It looks as though all of the Time Lords can perform the mind-meld as the Master forced one upon the Doctor in the first part of "The End Of Time".....)
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HERE LIES THE DOCTOR

THE DOCTOR
"I lied to you, 'cause I liked it."

The Doctor should have a nose like Pinocchio because of all the lies he's told over the years. And we, like the characters he tells them to, have accepted them at face value as being the Truth.

This is going to be a list of the lies told by the Tenth Doctor, but it's not as though he was the first to do so. The First Doctor started all when he told Barbara: "You can't rewrite history! Not one line!" And yet, in the greater scheme of all things Toobworld, that's exactly what has happened, Time and again, in shows like 'Quantum Leap', 'Journeyman', 'Primeval', 'Voyagers!', and 'The Time Tunnel'.

THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH HAS A POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT!
It's the contention of Toobworld Central that the Eighth Doctor lied when he told Dr. Grace Holloway that his mother was human. If the rumors are to be believed, that will be exposed as a lie when we learn the truth of Claire Bloom's character in the second half of "The End Of Time". Why did he make that claim? With every regeneration, the Doctor not only has new DNA which provides a totally new body, but he also gains new personality quirks. I think it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that if we stayed with the Eighth Doctor for more than just that one TV movie, we'd have learned that he enjoys bedding women. And if it would make it easier for him to get into Dr. Holloway's scrubs by claiming to be half-human, so be it.

And the Ninth Doctor kicked off the chain of events for one of Ten's lies by claiming to be only 900 years old when he met Rose Tyler. And yet he previously claimed, during his Seventh Incarnation, that he was 953 years old. By the time we saw him regenerate into the Eighth Doctor during the TV movie, Seven had visibly aged - which should mean he spent several more centuries travelling through Time having adventures we never saw on our TV screens. (And who knows how many centuries Eight was in control of the TARDIS before he regenerated into Nine just before the new series of 'Doctor Who' began?

But then, fellow Time Lord Romana caught him in such a lie, claiming that the Fourth Doctor was shaving years off his true age.

For more information on the Doctor's age, visit the TARDIS Wiki.

So here are some of the lies told by the Tenth Doctor. They have to be considered lies by Toobworld Central because of their impact on the TV Universe in general......

1] The Age thing....

THE DOCTOR:
I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old and I'm the man who's gonna save your lives and all six billion of the people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?
("Voyage Of The Damned")

Despite the regeneration, the Doctor seems to be carrying on with Nine's assertion that he was 900 years old when he met Rose Tyler. But the TARDIS Wiki states that "Assuming the Doctor is either lying about his age or ignoring his early life (the first 236 years of his life) on Gallifrey, The Doctor could in fact be at least 1136 when he was with Rose Tyler and 1139, during the Titanic incident."

2] Re: Dimension hopping
THE DOCTOR

We're not meant to be here. The TARDIS draws its power off the universe, but it's the wrong universe. It's like diesel in a petrol engine.
MICKEY

But... I've seen it in comics. People are hopping from one alternative world to another - it's easy.
THE DOCTOR

Not in the real world.... Used to be easy. When the Time Lords kept their eye on everything, you could hop between realities, home in time for tea. Then they died, took it all with them. The walls of reality closed, the worlds were sealed. Everything became a bit less kind.
("Rise of the Cybermen")

And here's a list of TV shows that prove that Earthlings didn't need the Time Lords to jump between dimensions:

'Sliders'

'Star Trek'

'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'

'Fringe'

'The X-Files'

'The Twilight Zone'

And thanks to 'Fringe', they're still doing it on-screen even without the presence of the Time Lords.....

3] Re: Magic
MARTHA

So, magic and stuff. That’s a surprise. It’s a little bit 'Harry Potter'.

THE DOCTOR

Wait till you read Book Seven. Oh, I cried.

MARTHA

But is it real, though? I mean, witches, black magic and all that, it’s real?

THE DOCTOR

‘Course it isn’t!

("The Shakespeare Code")

Here are some of the shows that put the lie to that statement:
'Bewitched'
'Tabitha'
'Passions'
'Charmed'
'Sabrina, The Teen-aged Witch'

4] Re: the last of the Time Lords
THE DOCTOR

I lied to you, 'cause I liked it. I could pretend. Just for a bit, I could imagine they were still alive, underneath a burnt orange sky.

THE DOCTOR

There was a war. A Time War. The last Great Time War. My people fought a race called the Daleks, for the sake of all creation. And they lost. They lost. Everyone lost. They're all gone now. My family, my friends, even that sky.
("Gridlock")

For once, this was not a knowing lie. It looks as though the Doctor truly didn't know that the Time Lords still existed. With the second half of "The End Of Time" airing tonight, we'll find out the full story behind that....

BCnU!

SNEAK PEEK TO PART TWO.....

The UK will see the second part of David Tennant's finale as the Doctor tonight with the broadcast of 'Doctor Who' - "The End Of Time (Part Two)"; America will have its chance on Saturday night.

I'll have to wait until Sunday morning.....

But here's a tidy little scene from the beginning of the episode....



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WHO DAT?

I realize the Valeyard is a future regeneration of the Doctor, but that's who first came to mind when I saw Timothy Dalton as a Time Lord.

Other pozz'bilities could be Borusa or Rassilon. Dax or Runcible might even be candidates for the character since radical personality changes happen when a Time Lord regenerates.....

Just sayin', is all. They already know the answer over in the United Kingdom......

BCnU!

TELE-MARS

Back in April, with the series finale of the American version of 'Life On Mars', I wrote about the Toobworld timeline as it applies to the Red Planet:

The 'Doctor Who' special "Waters Of Mars" can fit in quite nicely with that established timeline:

2006
Guinevere One is launched with the intention of landing on Mars on Christmas, but it is intercepted by the Sycorax.
('Doctor Who' - "The Christmas Invasion")

2008
NASA probe Phoenix confirmed the presence of water on Mars.
('Doctor Who' - "Waters Of Mars")

2032
A manned Earth mission to Mars, the Ares IV, took place under the command of Lieutenant John Kelly. (VOY: "One Small Step"; ENT: "Demons")

2035
Project Aries spacecraft lands on Mars.
('Life On Mars')

2041
A three-man mission landed on Mars.
('Doctor Who' - "Waters Of Mars")

2058
Bowie Base One, the first human colony on Mars, is established.
('Doctor Who' - "Waters Of Mars")

2059
Bowie Base One is destroyed to prevent an alien invasion of Earth.
('Doctor Who' - "Waters Of Mars")

2097
A new Mars colony is established.
('Mercy Point')

2100
Mars is colonized with several more settlements.
('Babylon 5')

2103
Mars is officially colonized by humans.
('Star Trek')

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AS SEEN ON TV: CASTING ABOUT

Here's some ASOTV casting news from the Toobworld front:

Richard Curtis has announced who'll be playing Vincent Van Gogh in the episode of 'Doctor Who' which Curtis has written: It'll be Tony Curran, who played the temporally displaced knight in the last season of 'Primeval'. Just based on my memories of what Curran looked like in that episode, I think it's fantastic casting!

And two 'Doctor Who' alumni will be teamed up in a TV movie about John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, will be playing Lennon, while Naoki Mori will be the artist who "broke up the Beatles". Mori played Toshiko Sato on 'Torchwood', a character whom she introduced in one of Eccleston's episodes of 'Doctor Who'. Number Nine... Number Nine... Number Nine....

BCnU!

(This is probably old news for some/many. I wrote it up for 12/01/09, but then figured I should save it for the traditional "Who's On First"

WHO'S AT THE NORTH POLE AND WHY

First off, let's refresh your memory with a replay of the BBC's Christmas Ident starring David Tennant as the Doctor.....



It's cute, you probably thought, but it can't possibly be considered as part of the official canon for 'Doctor Who'.

I say, why not?

Toobworld Central accepts that Santa Claus is an established character in the TV Universe. The real Santa Claus has shown up in the main Toobworld of Earth Prime-Time in 'Bewitched', 'I Love Lucy', and several others. He has been spotted in several other TV shows that take place in alternate TV dimensions, like that 'Twilight Zone' episode of "The Night Of The Meek". And at least one of the TV adaptations of "Miracle On 34th Street" (either the one starring Thomas Mitchell or the Ed Wynn version) deserve to be considered for the main Toobworld. (I'd send the Sebastian Cabot TV movie off to an alternate dimension.)

And if Santa Claus exists in Toobworld, then so do his flying reindeer. Even if these ungulates seen in the Christmas Ident aren't the famous members of Santa's sleigh team, they're part of the special herd that Santa breeds at the North Pole.

All the Doctor had to do was hitch these beasties up to the TARDIS and then guide them to pull it out of the snow drift. After that, their basic nature to haul a sled through the air took over and the Doctor got a special ride this past December.

As to why he was at the North Pole, I guess we have to assume he was visiting Santa Claus and perhaps even helping him out with some alien invasion of the workshop. Demonic toy attack, maybe? Whatever the reason, maybe there's a fanficcer out there who will supply the story....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

AS SEEN IN:
'Doctor Who'

AS PLAYED BY:
Physically: TBD, John Simm
Vocally: President Obama, John Simm

Until "The End Of Time (Part One)", RTD was content in using fictional presidents for the United States (one of whom was to be found in a parallel universe). But in this outing, he aligned his corner of Toobworld to coincide with the TV Universe in general and with the real world: Barack Obama was the POTUS, and he was scheduled to deliver a major address on Christmas Day with a plan to fix the financial situation. Let's set aside that Christmas Day messages are a British thang, not American (although Obama has been known to intrude on our TV viewing at the worst possible time for the audience). Other than the simplistic view that Obama single-handedly knew of a way to revitalize the economy, Toobworld Central is glad that RTD now aligned the "Whoniverse" with the rest of Toobworld by acknowledging Obama is the President.

What came before can be splained away with a reference to events that transpired in another British TV series, 'Primeval'. Because of something that Nick and Helen Cutter did in the prehistoric past, the whole timeline for Earth was changed by the time they got back. For the most part, everything seemed the same but there were notable differences - the accelleration of the Anomaly Research Center and the new name and personality for Claudia Brown (into Jenny Lewis). This massive reboot also wiped out several fictional presidents who would have kept certain shows from being in the timeline for the main Toobworld, including 'Doctor Who'. (Another show brought back into the fold was 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' - President McNeill would be replaced by Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.)

So until the Doctor can put right what once went wrong (as we know he must!), President Barack Obama currently looks like the Master in Earth Prime-Time.....
BCnU!

THE "WHO'S ON FIRST" KICK-OFF

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Here it is, from 'Robot Chicken', the inspiration for the celebration of "Who's On First": This is the second annual salute to 'Doctor Who' on the first day of the year. Hopefully, just about every other hour during the day we'll be putting up another post about the series. And since tonight marks the last (regular - one can always hope) appearance by David Tennant as the Tenth Incarnation of the Doctor, most of those articles will be dealing with Tennant's tenure as Ten.....

BCnU!