Another trip down archive avenue, this time an article on comedy in Doctor Who first published in Doctor Who Magazine issue 377 in 2006 under the title Funny! Peculiar?
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“I AM NOT
AMUSED!”
It’s a moment of nightmares.
Ursula has been grabbed by the
Abzorbaloff, and Elton is powerless to do anything but watch as the love of his
life is ingested alive. She screams in anguish as her body is liquefied and
drawn glue-like into the creature’s stomach. Her face bulges out of its
distended belly, helpless and afraid.
The Abzorbaloff belches heartily.
“Tastes like chicken!”
There are two possible reactions to
this scene - either you laughed or you clenched. Either the ‘chicken’ line
heightened the horror with some black humour, or it punctured the reality of
the situation with an inappropriate gag. Either it was an inspired piece of
writing or it was an embarrassing, self-indulgent betrayal.
The question is, why was that line
there in the first place? The show’s makers must have known it would prove
problematic for some people, surely it would have been safer to simply cut it
and play the scene completely straight?
In fact, wouldn’t Doctor Who be a
better show if it was more serious? After all, it is a drama series, a sophisticated,
dark, gritty, adult, science-fiction drama series. It’s frequently scary,
occasionally moving and every week lots of people die in screaming agony. So
why does it need to have jokey bits at all?
And that’s a serious question. Because,
uniquely in science-fiction drama, Doctor Who is a funny show. A very funny
show. It has a greater humorous content than any other drama series. It has a
greater humorous content than most comedies.
The most important reason for the
humour is because people don’t actually like science-fiction very much. It’s
extremely popular with a small group of people, maybe a million in the UK, a
few million more in the USA. It’s a niche, and in the UK it’s a niche
insufficient to justify the expense of production. For a science-fiction show
to thrive, it needs to reach out to all those people who don’t enjoy programmes
simply because they feature a starfield in the opening titles.
Now, the situation is different in the
USA. There you have a dedicated sci-fi channel making episodes of the
record-breaking Stargate for its
subscribers (well, up until recently). But in the UK science-fiction shows have
had to find their audience within the mainstream and it’s depressing to realise
quite how few have managed it. The
Tripods, Star Cops, Invasion: Earth,
The Last Train - all good shows, but all tepid in the ratings. Blake’s 7 scraped a fourth season
(largely, one suspects, because Howard’s
Way wasn’t ready yet). Only Doctor Who achieved the television holy grail
of a sustained run.
And the reason for that is because it
has always been a science-fiction show for people who don’t care for
science-fiction. Well, not quite always - it has made occasional experimental
forays into being a proper science-fiction show, though these have invariably
led to a drop-off in viewing figures. I’m not knocking those forays – Warrior’s Gate is a glorious,
imaginative story – but watching it now, it seems incredible that it was
broadcast at 6pm, on BBC1, on a Saturday. It feels much more like 9pm, on BBC2,
on a Wednesday. In August.
So Doctor Who has to have something to
offer the viewer who has just been watching Basil
Brush or Strictly Come Dancing,
or who has tuned in early for Brush
Strokes or Casualty. And I would
contend that the best way to get those viewers watching, and to keep them
watching, is through the use of humour.
The problem is not just that people
don’t like science-fiction but that quite a lot of people actively dislike it. Or rather, they have built
up negative preconceptions. They think that it’s all about pseudo-military
organisations, they think it’s about po-faced scientists with no emotional
lives speaking portentous dialogue that seems to have been cribbed from the
manual for a Dyson vacuum cleaner, they think it’s about quarries and spandex
and men in curiously floppy green rubber monster suits, they think that it’s
intended solely for 8-year-old boys, and they think, ironically, that it’s
old-fashioned, corny and irrelevant. It’s a hard sell.
And the way Doctor Who overcomes that,
the way Doctor Who has always
overcome that, is through its use of comedy. If the audience is laughing, they
know that they are in for a good time despite
the fact that they are watching science-fiction. Because so much
science-fiction is put together humourlessly, what jokes there are tend to be
nerdy, dry and insular, such as Data getting the wrong end of the emotional
stick in Star Trek – The Next Generation. It’s not laugh-out-loud
funny, it’s exhale-through-the-nose funny.
Whereas Doctor Who has the capacity to be genuinely and, most
importantly, accessibly funny.
That’s why virtually every Doctor Who
story (after the initial death by screaming agony) begins with a welcoming
slice of silliness, usually involving the Doctor having TARDIS trouble. Terror of the Autons, for instance,
opens with the Doctor singing ‘I don’t want to set the world on fire’ before
emerging, spluttering, from a smouldering TARDIS. Tooth and Claw has Rose and the Doctor attempting ‘hoots-mon!’
Scottish accents. It’s signalling to the audience ‘Okay, so this may be
science-fiction – but don’t worry, it’s also going to be fun.’
Accessibility is all-important.
Particularly with regard to the ‘old’ series, where the special effects
invariably fell a couple of Skaro Muto-clams and a Magma Beast short of being
anywhere near remotely convincing. The production wasn’t merely trying to make
the audience suspend their disbelief, but to suspend their urge to collapse
into fits of derisive laughter. And one way to stop people laughing at a programme is to make them laugh with it. Science-fiction contains much
that is ridiculous and if it offers it up with sententious seriousness then it
is inviting the audience to giggle at its pomposity. Better for the show to get
the joke in first.
The idea being, if there is something
in an episode which is implausible, either in terms of the narrative or the
realisation, you should to credit the audience with some intelligence and
‘point up’ that implausibility rather than hope that ‘Joe Public never clocks a
darn thing’. If a TV show can demonstrate a sense of humour about its own
shortcomings, it will turn those weaknesses into virtues.
We all know that Daleks are not the
most credible aliens ever created. If the show pretended otherwise, it would
appear absurd, so instead, in The Dalek
Invasion Of Earth, Dortmun describes them as ‘motorized dustbins’.
Similarly, the Doctor draws attention to the distinct lack of terrifying Zygons
in Terror of the Zygons with, ‘Don’t
you think this planet will be rather large for the four of you?’
A list of examples is near-enough a
list of the series’ finest moments. In Robot
the Brigadier complains that ‘Just once I’d like to meet an alien menace
that wasn’t immune to bullets’. Sarah-Jane mistakes a quarry for an alien
planet in The Hand of Fear (well,
they do look very alike). Romana, on the other hand, is terrified by a man in a
curiously floppy green rubber monster suit in The Power of Kroll – as the Doctor comments, ‘It was probably more
convincing from the front!’. Even in the very first episode, when Ian is told
that a Police Box can move anywhere in time and space, his reaction is ‘But
that’s ridiculous!’
This is all very sophisticated and
‘metatextual’, ‘post-modern’ and ‘self-referential’ but essentially what it’s
doing is winning over the audience with some self-deprecating humour. It’s the
kind of thing you almost never see in Star
Trek (except in the glorious Tribble episodes) but it’s a near-constant in
shows like The Simpsons, The West Wing,
House and, most notably, Buffy The
Vampire Slayer. It’s a very modern approach, but Doctor Who did it first.
The tradition continues with the new
series, which positively revels in it’s tongue-twisting names for planets and
aliens, such as the Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe and Raxacoricofalipatorious
(twinned with Clom). Love & Monsters directly
addresses one of the implausiblities of the old series: that the Earth keeps on
being spectacularly invaded but no-one ever seems to notice. And The Empty Child has lots of fun cheekily
deconstructing the Doctor’s need for a ‘sonic screwdriver’. ‘Never had a long
night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?’
Of course,
there is a limit to how far self-deprecation can go. Some fans have a problem
with the Doctor goading a Dalek in Destiny
of the Daleks with, ‘If you’re supposed to be the superior race of the
universe, why don’t you try climbing
after us?’. I have more of a problem with the final scene of The Gunfighters where, as they stand
listening to the ‘Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon’, the Doctor points out to
his companion Dodo how clichéd their Western adventure has been. And there is
something rather cynical about Mindwarp,
which has characters criticising the arbitrariness of its
cliff-hangers, observing how boring it is to watch the Doctor bickering with
Peri, and where King Yrcanos looks for some rebels in the caves because in
these sort of stories there are always
rebels in the caves.
But humour isn’t just
there to reassure the audience. It’s also there to involve them. One of the failings with shows like Space 1999 or Babylon 5 is that you never really care about any of the characters
because they are all profoundly boring geeks dressed in beige polo-necks.
Whereas if the audience finds a character amusing, they will care about what
happens to them. It’s why we love the Brigadier and K-9, and don’t give two
hoots about Mike Yates and Kamelion.
Humour is also a
quick way of signposting where the audience’s sympathies should lie. The
obvious case in point is in Rose -
next time you watch it, notice how many funny lines Jackie and Mickey are given
in their introductory scenes; ‘Honestly, it’s aged her...walking in now you’d
think I was her daughter!’. Here humour serves not only to sketch in the characters, it also leave the audience
wanting to see more of them, because they are quirky, vulnerable and human. It’s all about establishing who
are the ‘good guys’. The reverse is also true, as the villains tend to be
defined by their monomaniacal absence of levity – the Daleks and the Cybermen
being the most unequivocal instances. The difference between heroes and
villains is that villains are scared of being laughed at.
That said,
there have been bad guys who haven’t been afraid to crack the occasional quip –
Mavic Chen, Count Scarlioni, Cassandra, even the Master on occasion – but here
the intention is for the audience to retain some sympathy for the villain’s
plight. For example, in the Jon Pertwee era, the Master would usually ally
himself with some malevolent force in a scheme to enslave the Earth, only for
his ambitions to be cruelly thwarted when the malevolent force unexpectedly
turned against him (as happened every week). In that situation, the audience
needs to feel some fondness for the Master in order to provide a contrast to
the terrifying true threat of the Axons, or the Daemons, or the Daleks etc. etc.
The danger here
is that if the villain is too funny,
the audience will no longer find them intimidating. The occasional moment of
black humour can be chilling, such as The Sun
Maker’s Collector anticipating Leela’s death-by-steaming with a gleeful
‘This is the moment I get a real feeling of job satisfaction’, but make the
villain too outré, as with the Kandyman of The Happiness Patrol or Soldeed in The Horns Of Nimon, and they cease to be
a credible menace. Similarly, if the Doctor and his companion are too flippant
in the face of adversity, it can detract from the ‘reality’ of their
predicament - if the characters in the story itself aren’t taking the threat
seriously, why should the audience?
Ideally the humour will work as a means of
keeping viewers hooked. Television isn’t like the cinema or theatre where you
have a more-or-less captive audience, you have to keep on giving them reasons
to stay watching (that said, it’s worth noting that Star Wars starts out as the comedy adventures of a robot
double-act). And people are only going to stay watching if they are being
rewarded, if they care about the characters, and, in particular, if they are
looking forward to the next daft-but-loveable thing those characters are going
to say.
Because we all
know that, when faced with the unknown, Jackie Tyler is going to say something
utterly hilarious, something utterly unpredictable and yet utterly
true-to-life. Put her in the same living room as a homicidal Christmas tree and
we know we are going to be entertained. And the same holds true for all the
great characters in Doctor Who; The Ribos
Operation has its own Del Boy and Rodney in Garron and Unstoffe, The Web Of Fear has Professor Travers
and Harold Chorley, Vengeance On Varos
has Arak and Etta. Greatest of all there is Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier
Lethbridge Stewart, in the most immaculate comic performance in the show’s run,
as he greets each extra-terrestrial invasion with a terribly British mixture of
incredulity, resignation and mild embarrassment.
It’s also why
the ‘post-regeneration’ stories contain so much out-and-out silliness, as the
new Doctor attempts a daring escape by wheelchair, or skips with Harry
Sullivan, or quotes from The Lion King.
The audience have to be persuaded to like the new Doctor, and quickly, because
the Doctor should be the most exciting, most surprising and most fun-to-be-with
character in the show. He should never be conventional or boring. He’s the guy
who ‘goes native’ in tartan for his Scottish adventure, who eats a sandwich
during a swordfight and who gives Madame Du Pompadour a cheery wink as he rides a horse through her ballroom.
Humour can be useful
in other ways. As far as script editor Dennis Spooner was concerned, it was ‘a marvellous way of padding the show...
because the audience will always watch ‘a funny bit’ and quite like it’ and
certainly this approach proved successful in adding another couple of episodes
to The Daleks’ Masterplan. But the
real reason why audiences like ‘funny bits’ is because they are revealing
character. Think of the scenes added to World
War III with Jackie and Rose discussing whether the Doctor eats ‘grass and
safety pins and things’.
And because the
audience will always quite like ‘funny bits’, they are also a good way of getting
exposition across. Not only will people not mind being given an ‘info-dump’ but
they will assimilate the information all the better. Check out the opening
scene of City Of Death part two -
‘What a wonderful butler, he’s so violent!’. The scene’s sole function is to
provide a recap of the events of part one, but because it so gloriously witty
you don't notice that it consists of nothing but characters telling each other
stuff you already know.
A clever writer
can also use humour to surreptitiously ‘set up’ a plot detail to be ‘paid off’ later. The
Doctor discovering he has a tangerine in his pyjama pocket at the beginning of The
Christmas Invasion seems like a throwaway piece of business, but is
actually a set-up for the use of the tangerine in the denouement. There is
something very satisfying about the silly turning out to be the essential.
Humour also provides
a release from tension and indicates to the audience a shift from danger to
safety. If a scene opens with a humorous moment, the viewer knows they can sit back, relax and take stock. Think
again of the first scene at the Tyler’s flat in Rose, with Jackie on the phone - it’s a funny bit, so we know the
next bit will be about us getting to know the characters.
Stories are
structured in terms of periods of jeopardy followed by periods of calm, with
the final, explosive climax being followed by a ‘tag’ to provide a sense of
back-to-life-as-usual and to leave the viewer with a smile. These ‘tags’ can
vary from the sublime ‘Fancy a dance, sir?’ ‘I’d rather have a pint!’ of The Daemons to the car-crash of The Seeds Of Doom’s ‘Or... are... we...
yet... to... come!?!’
A more
interesting use of humour is the false release from tension. This is
where the comedy provides a sense of reassurance, so the kids put down their
cushions, only to AAAAAARGH!!! MY LEGS, MY LEGS, I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS!!! throw
in something scary just when you least expect it. This is a tricky trick to
pull off, as it requires the audience to be laughing at a threat one moment and
taking it seriously the next. Take Rose,
where the Doctor is wrestling with the dummy arm. It’s played for laughs and we
aren’t worried in the slightest... until the hand whooshes towards Rose, and
it’s no laughing matter.
An even better
example can be found in Dalek, where
Simmons is approached by the newly-reactivated Dalek. He laughs at how
non-threatening it is; ‘What are you gonna do? Sucker me to death?’ And the
audience relaxes, because it feels like the show is making a self-deprecating
joke about the absurdity of the Dalek prop. But then the exact thing that Simmons was joking about, the very idea we were
laughing at, actually happens and we are sent diving for our cushions.
That’s what humour does best. It makes scary
bits more scary through dramatic contrast. By throwing something funny into the
mix at moment of suspense, at a point when the audience don’t feel like
laughing, it knocks things off-kilter and adds to the sensation that things are
out of control. It’s quite a brave thing to do, as it’s about doing the ‘wrong’
thing, but when it works, it’s extremely effective.
To illustrate
this ‘fantastically impressive' technique, Douglas Adams used to cite the
arrival of the Porter in Macbeth Act
II Scene 3, and he himself used this technique with the celebrated ‘art
critics’ scene in City Of Death episode
four. However, a more recent instance can be found in World War III, where Mickey and Jackie have been trapped in
Mickey’s kitchen by a Slitheen. At the other end of the
phone, the Doctor has the answer – vinegar! Jackie searches the cupboards,
shouting out the contents, ‘Gherkins! Pickled onions! Pickled eggs!’ And the
Doctor turns to Rose, and says, ‘And you kiss this man?’
World War III is also an instance of
comedy being used as a starting point for a story - in this case, a satire
about people in the government deliberately creating a culture of fear for
their own nefarious ends. But Doctor Who has always had a healthy streak of
anti-authoritarianism, with generals, politicians and high priests invariably
being depicted as corpulent, corrupt and credulous. The Jon Pertwee era would
be several years shorter if it were not for all the politicians sticking
spanners into the works. And there is an important moral to this - you should
not trust people who are in a position of power, instead you should place your
trust in the hobo in the big fur coat who has just walked in and broken your
computer.
There are
numerous other examples of the show doing ‘topical satire’ – The Curse Of Peladon, The Green Death, The Happiness Patrol. More recently, we have The Long Game, which makes the explicit point that power lies with
those who control the news. Not the journalists or the editors, but the amorphous
corporate blobs that live on the top floor. The only flaw with The Long Game is that it tells rather
than shows. Compare this to The Sun
Makers, which anticipated real-life events in Eastern Europe by
demonstrating exactly how TV news coverage can cultivate a revolution.
Another
starting point for a story can be as a parody. Almost from day one Doctor Who
has contained ‘added value’ by appropriating a work of literature or some other
mass-cultural reference point, whether it be King Kong, The Prisoner Of Zenda or The Weakest Link. What these instances have in common is that they
provide a laugh of recognition as the audiences gets the reference – ‘Oh,
they’re doing Invasion Of The Body
Snatchers this week!’ – and then more laughs as Doctor Who pastiches the
conventions of its source material – ‘It’s Frankenstein, so it has to end with a lynch mob carrying
flaming torches!’ – whilst also subverting those conventions by giving them the
trappings of science-fiction. Bad Wolf
is an excellent example, as the gameshow hosts are androids and the situation
is heightened by having everyone play for their lives. It’s not so much a
satire on the trend towards ‘cruelty television’ as a celebration of it.
Finally, humour can be used to
provide texture. Different styles can
create different moods; the gallows humour that colours Revelation Of The Daleks and The Unquiet Dead, the literary pastiche and subtle wordplay of The Talons Of Weng-Chiang and Ghost Light, or the broad slapstick and belly-laughs of The Chase, The Creature From The Pit and Love
& Monsters. It’s all part of the richness and diversity of the series,
the ‘something for everyone’ approach.
What is
important is that the style remains internally consistent. Part of the problem
with stories such as The Two Doctors
and Dragonfire is that they are never
quite sure what level they are pitching at - in the latter, the tone shifts
unsettlingly between juvenile whimsy and black humour. There is, in a sense, a ‘pact’ between the show and its viewers. The
show will establish the level of wit in its opening scenes, and the viewer
expects that to be sustained. When it isn’t, such as when the otherwise rather
droll Mysterious Planet ends with
Merdeen being ‘gunged’, the viewer feels oddly let down.
It’s important
that humour is applied with care and discrimination, and is underpinning the drama
rather than undermining it. The story, the integrity of the characters and the
mood of the moment are more important than any joke. It’s one of the
frustrations of the old series that occasionally, when there was a lack of
rehearsal time and direction, some inappropriate comedy crept in. I’ve already mentioned The
Gunfighters, where the cast seem to be trying to salvage a hackneyed script
by adding random comedy business. Another example is Paradise Towers, where a perfectly fine script is ruined because it
is played far too broadly and, in the case of Richard Briers’ Chief Caretaker,
far too insanely.
This was a
conspicuous difficulty for the series during the late 1970’s. Douglas Adams’
great lament for the stories he worked on as a writer and script editor was the
tendency of actors to adopt ‘silly voices and silly walks’. Just as there are
six words that can bring down any politician, there are six words that can bring
down any comedy writer. Those six words are, ‘Wouldn’t it be even funnier if...’ - to which the writer
will respond with a loud, agonised scream. The last thing a ‘funny bit’ needs is another ‘funny bit’ stuck
on top of it. People can only laugh at one thing at a time, and if a funny line
is said in a silly voice then it will cease to be a funny line. It is the
tragedy of The Pirate Planet that
many of its finest jokes have been compromised by actors saying, ‘Wouldn’t it
be even funnier if...’
That said,
Douglas Adams wasn’t exactly blameless in this regard either. On the
documentary on the City of Death DVD
Steven Moffat points out that during Adams’ time as a script editor ‘an awful
lot of humour was dumped on top of the
story’, and if you watch Destiny Of The
Daleks, you will see a story with too many weak jokes in the wrong places.
Though there are some pretty good jokes too.
In conclusion, humour is not merely
an enjoyable aspect of the series, it’s an essential part of it. To endure, the
show has to keep striving for the funny, because that is what generates the
energy, the excitement and the ideas. It’s creates the atmosphere of optimism
and fun that brings people to the series, it’s what keeps them there, and it’s
what makes it such a good show. It’s a vital part of good drama, generating
character, surprise and diversity of tone. It’s sense of humour is what has always set
Doctor Who apart from other science-fiction.
So please,
don’t clench. Doctor Who has nothing to gain by taking itself more seriously,
but a great deal to lose. A healthy show is one that is not afraid to be a little bit silly. And the same goes for its
fans. As the Doctor says in Robot;
‘There’s no point in being grown-up if you can’t be childish sometimes.’
BOX OUTS
YOU HAVE GOT
TO BE KIDDING...
You’ve just watched Terminus and feel like sticking your
head in an oven... so which Doctor Who story should you put on next to cheer
yourself up?
The Myth
Makers. The siege of Troy, played out as an
episode of Blackadder. The Doctor tries to persuade the Greeks to attack using
giant paper aeroplanes while Vicki turns a ‘small prophet’.
Carnival Of
Monsters. “One has no wish to be devoured by
alien monstrosities, even in the name of political progress.” Vorg and Shirna
have trouble getting their Miniscope through customs.
The Seeds Of
Doom. Harrison Chase could play prog-rock all
day in his green cathedral, as the Krynoid threatens to turn the human race
into compost. Meanwhile, Amelia Ducat is as mad as a shrubbery.
The Talons
Of Weng-Chiang. In which
Professor Litefoot attempts to teach Leela etiquette, dipsomaniac Irishman
Casey has the oopizootics and Henry Gordon Jago punts the posterior of the
inscrutable chink.
The Androids
Of Tara. “On the other hand, I could be with the
android at all times”. For anybody who thought that The Prisoner of Zenda wasn’t complicated enough, a story all about
doubles and chasers.
City Of
Death. Leonardo Da Vinci is knocking up Mona Lisas but Count Scarlioni isn’t
knocking up the Countess, though she’s a beautiful woman, probably. Meanwhile
Duggan knocks everyone out before the Doctor can talk to them.
Revelation
Of The Daleks. Davros is worried about ‘consumer
resistance’, Kara is worried about finding a new secretary, and Grigory is
worried that he will know the name and function of each organ that pops out
when he is sliced open.
The Aliens
Of London. The wind of change is blowing through
10 Downing Street and it’s silent but deadly. Meanwhile the Doctor faces the
greatest danger of his life – the wrath of Jackie Tyler. ‘Stitch this!’
The Empty
Child. “Well, I’ve got a banana, and at a
pinch you could put up some shelves”. The Doctor experiences Captain envy, Rose
is caught in the blitz whilst dressed as Geri Halliwell and Mrs Harcout
unexpectedly gains a leg.
New Earth. Cassandra has had enough of talking out of her
ask-not so she transfers her mind into Rose, who becomes a little bit more
bouncy as a result... it’s almost enough to distract the Doctor from his search
for a gift shop.
WHEN I SAY
RUN... RUN!
Some jokes will just keep on going...
so here’s the top ten greatest Doctor Who running gags. (And no, we’re not including
the one about Mel and the elephant.)
They’re Just
Like Us! No matter where you go in the
universe, you will still find pompous civil servants, cockney mechanics and
smarmy TV presenters. And in the future flying a spaceship will be about as exciting
as working for British Rail.
Knock Knock,
Who’s There? People can’t seem to help asking the
question ‘Doctor Who?’, from Lady Peinforte in Silver Nemesis to Madame Du Pompadour in The Girl In The Fireplace. It’s almost as though they think it’s
his real name...
I Don’t
Believe It! No alien invasion or TARDIS take-off is
complete without an incredulous bystander gawping in amazement. During the Jon
Pertwee era, this person would invariably be a tramp with an impenetrable West
Country accent.
The
Brontosaurus Is Large And Placid. The Doctor
is normally knocked unconscious two or three times per episode, and each time
he wakes up, he has to say something
completely bonkers. Before asking for a cup of tea.
The Fellow’s
Bright Green, Apparently. In a direct
reversal of the ‘I Don’t Believe It’ gag, there are also those people who take
everything in their stride, no matter how bizarre. They are usually either
dotty old ladies or the Brigadier.
He Likes To
Insult Species. The Doctor
is much cleverer than everybody else – and likes them to know it, particularly
if they are in a position of authority. Just don’t try using his line about
‘the inverse ratio’ from The Robots Of
Death in New Cross Gate at closing time, you’ll get your face punched in.
Try Saying
That When You’re Drunk. There is
absolutely no point in giving a futuristic bit of kit a simple and
straightforward name when you can call it a tribophysical waveform
macro-kinetic extrapolator.
History
Today. In the future, people will have some
very peculiar ideas about their ancestors – apparently we eat raspberry leaves,
Moby Dick is a holy book, and both Ticket To Ride and Toxic are great works of classical music.
The TARDIS
Needs Coaxing. It is a
truth universally acknowledged that any malfunctioning piece of technology can
be made to work by being thumped.
All These
Corridors Look The Same! Because
they are.
---
FORGOTTEN TREASURES
We all remember
Harry getting his foot caught in a clam, and Mickey getting his foot caught in
a bucket... but some great comedy moments have always been overlooked. Until
now.
The Time Meddler. The Doctor becomes a little
sarcastic when Steven refuses to believe that the horned helmet they have found
is of Viking origin. ‘What do you mean, ‘maybe’? What do you think it is - a
space helmet for a cow?’
The Seeds Of Death. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe
have been trapped in a storeroom by an Ice Warrior and are desperately
searching for the switch to close the radiation door. Jamie says, ‘Is that the
one?’ and turns off the lights.
The Three Doctors. The Brigadier learns that
UNIT HQ has been transported outside of the United Kingdom. ‘You mean we’re not
even in the same country? There will
be international implications – this could be construed as an invasion!’
The Deadly Assassin. ‘An antiquated capsule,
for which you get adequate early warning, transducts onto the very steps of the
Capitol. You are warned that the occupant is a known criminal, therefore you
allow him to escape and conceal himself in a building a mere fifty-three
stories high... You’re trying to confuse him, I take it?’
The Nightmare Of Eden. Captain Rigg confronts the
Doctor with the fact that he can’t be working for Galactic Salvage, because they
went out of business twenty years ago. The Doctor replies, ‘I wondered why I
hadn’t been paid!’
The Caves Of Androzani. The President has fallen to
his death down a lift shaft, and Morgus doesn’t pretend to be even remotely
distressed. ‘Still, it could have been worse... it could have been me!’
Attack Of The Cybermen. Griffiths may be a hardened
criminal but he’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the box, and so he starts
taking the mickey out of the Cybermen’s speech patterns. ‘Getting-a-bit-rough,
is-it?’
Paradise Towers. Tabby and Tilda admonish
Pex for bursting into their flat. ‘I do wish you’d stop breaking through our
door to try and save us... It’s not as if we’ve ever been in any danger!’
‘Except from bits of door flying all over the place!’
The Long Game. The Editor gives out
instructions to his slaves, one by one. ‘Check him!’ ‘Double-check him!’
‘Triple-check him!’ ‘Quadruple!’ And then he reaches the fifth slave... and
decides, pah, it’s not worth the asking.
Doomsday. ‘Ooh! Fire extinguisher!’