Wednesday, July 1, 2009

JS Doctor - The Shadow of the Dragon

One Hundred And Fifty-Third Entry in the YOA Unauthorized Programme Guide Finite Imagination Appendix O' Men In Ion Masks


17D - Château du Dragon -

CD Blurb
---------------

Ages ago, for untold millennia, the dragons ruled the skies of every known world. It was only after a great war were these powerful creatures finally able to be destroyed... except for one.

Long since captured and banished to the nether regions, like some compulsive wanker, the last survivor prepares to make his return from outside of time and space where it has been imprisoned forever. The ages passed, and the dragon waited, plotting his revenge... waiting for someone to enter its domain and free it.

The fate of all life now rests with a renegade Time Lord cut off from his own people and a confused young girl from the middle ages cut off from the world she knew. I'm talking about the Doctor and Chris, if you hadn't already twigged. Our main characters must stop the dragon and its allies before the Flock can return and cast its shadow over the whole of creation!

The time grows late... the dragon extends his wing...

...or have we got completely the wrong end of the stick?




Plot Summary
--------------

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is scared half to death when a strange teenage girl barges into the control room to show off her new, modern dress: a skintight burgundy rubber body stocking with LUST FOR VIOLENCE printed on the back. The Doctor realizes that this girl is Chris, the superstitious and psychotically violent serving wench who made such an impression on him in their previous adventure that he completely forgot she ever existed.

Awkwardly, the Doctor asks how Chris is coping with all the time travel, bigger-on-the-inside phone boxes and the concept of continental drift. This painful attempt at conversation is thankfully cut short as the TARDIS is rocked by a spatial anomaly of "TARDIS-rocking stuff" and fetches up in orbit around the planet Earth in the year 2005.

The Doctor opens the scanner and tries to blow Chris's medieval brain by showing her the star-studded canopy of celestial spaces from a vantage point above the world in the infinite vastness of stellar magnificence. Christine assumes the scanner is some rather poor painting and gets bored.

The TARDIS materializes in London and the Doctor decides to pop out for a bit of fresh air, and Chris follows, curious as to what "fresh air" might be. Seven centuries of progress and civilization do not impress Chris at all, no matter how much the Doctor expounds on its merits.

Meanwhile, further down the street, an annoyingly flirtatious college girl - Anna Nicole Smith - is standing in the rain, bitching about her lack of a lift and texting furiously in Little Britain cliches to people who don't actually like her but have her listed as a friend on Facebook.

Suddenly two odd men answering to the names of Aldo and Royce jump out of a passing van with sub machine guns and tell her to "get in the back of the fucking van!" and kidnap her. But, Aldo and Royce insist, they're only interested in Anna Nicole Smith for her mind... which makes them incredibly shallow, when you think about it.

As the van hurtles past them, the Doctor and Chris wave politely. They then find Anna Nicole Smith's abandoned backpack and immediately steal it for souvenirs or stuff they can sell to rabid fans or blackmail MTV with. Just then, Anna Nicole Smith's half-sister, Donna Hogan turns up in her sports car.

Chris pulls out a bowie knife but the Doctor is able to dissuade her from gutting Hogan like a fish, and they decide to email the police about the missing skanky ho, but the police can find no record of her existence, not even that really awful Skyscraper film where she played a helicopter pilot single-handedly fighting terrorists inside the World Trade Centre in New York.

"Perhaps this is actually a blessing in disguise?" the Doctor suggests. "I mean, a really, REALLY pathetic disguise that anyone can see through?"

Meanwhile, Anna Nicole Smith is thrown into a black pit underground where numerous other skanky girls have been imprisoned, such as chartered prostitute Trixie la Bouche. Vacuously they all twirl their hair and comment on how totally unfair this is and how the Gregorian chanting of seemingly hundreds of strange people in the background is rather distracting.

After establishing these facts for the benefit of the ongoing storyline, Trixie la Bouche is snatched out of the black underground pit by a giant test-your-skills claw used by Aldo and Royce for the benefit of their evil master, a diminutive red-haired psychopath called Weird Simon.

Hypnotizing her totally using his evil mind powers, Weird Simon has Trixie completely shaved, then joins the chanting masses of zombie prostitutes, street walkers and anyone else Aldo and Royce happened to kidnap. Note: there is no actual link between the two events.

After laughing evilly to himself for one minute and nine seconds straight, Weird Simon makes contact with his benefactor on Instant Messanger, who promises death to the Time Lords once he is finally freed. After checking WeirdBenefactor98 is only talking about 99 per cent of the Time Lords and not ALL of them (cause otherwise Weird Simon would be stuffed), they engage in sending the message "WAZUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP?!" to each other repeatedly.

Deciding to abandon all hope of finding Anna Nicole Smith ever again, the Doctor and Chris return to the kidnap site, looking for any other stuff they can nick and sell on eBay. There, Chris finds a discarded email print out - containing a list of simple instructions for Aldo and Royce to follow, clearly telling them to just drive around until they spot a tart in a miniskirt and then kidnap her. The Doctor collects this, hoping to use it to track the origin of the kidnappers... which, moments later, strikes him as completely redundant as he can just read the sender ID and solve the mystery in five seconds flat.

However, we're not even half way through the first episode so the Doctor avoids taking this incredibly logical course of action and instead decides to wander around the adjacent college trying to look cool, hip and interesting.

There, the Doctor tries to sweet talk the lady at the admin building to let him discover what the hell Anna Nicole Smith was doing at a school and whether or not it has already been uploaded to YouTube. The receptionist, Big Ethel, refuses point blank so the Doctor says that he is Dr. Geoffrey Sumner - famous newsreader, lecturer and the first man to play Professor X on television! Without checking ANY of his credentials in ANY manner, Big Ethel immediately gives the Doctor complete access to all information the college has to offer.

The Time Lord explains to Chris that claiming to be Geoffrey Sumner always has this effect on people but he has never been fully able to understand exactly WHY, but you shouldn't look a dues ex machina in the mouth.

The TARDIS crew immediately start stealing everything they can from the office. The Doctor idly looks up Anna Nicole Smith on wikipedia and discovers to his amazement that her entry has been deleted. By looking at the electronic encyclopedia, he discovers around 2000 other skanky hos have been deleted from the database. This fiendishly irresponsible editing and no wonder the police haven't noticed the spate of kidnappings - they automatically assume everyone without a wikipage doesn't exist in the first place.

The Doctor notes that exorbitant fuel prices would mean that the van is only being used for short trips, and so the mysterious evil empire of kidnapped sluts MUST therefore be within spitting distance of the kidnapping. The Doctor decides that illiterate and seven centuries before her time Chris will be the perfect person to use deductive reasoning to determine where this hideout may be.

Chris decides to just hang around on street corners until she is abducted by a megalomaniac lunatic, and the Doctor decides to just let her get on with it - even if she can't look after herself, they haven't been together long enough to fully bond. By curious coincidence, Aldo and Royce have at that exact same moment also been ordered to pick up another brainless tart for Weird Simon's diabolical... weirdness.

As the Doctor steadfastly refuses to get involved in the plot until episode three at the earliest, Chris starts loitering around street lamps and after a merely thirty-seven seconds is kidnapped by Aldo and Royce. Well, not so much "kidnapped", more sort of "Chris dives onto a passing van with a knife between her teeth, screaming insanely and the terrified duo drive off at top speed back to the HQ crying desperately for their mummy to come and save them."

Watching this, the Doctor decides to give up on the catch a train to Perivale to get a kebab. As he enters the nearest tube station it strikes him that the London Underground would be the perfect place to hide so many missing people, but puts this do to coincidence. The Doctor stands on the platform with hundred of hypnotized, chanting streetwalkers for about five minutes before it strikes him that this is a little bit suspicious. Ten minutes after that, he suddenly cries out in horror as he realizes he's in the middle of some kind of conspiracy involved kidnapped young women and mass hypnotism.

The mesmerized women continue to chant mindlessly and not actually do anything like attacking the Doctor, so he coughs self-consciously and leaves them to their chanting. The Doctor heads back to the college and asks if Chris has come back. He then remembers passing Aldo, Royce and Chris heading in the other direction as he left the station, smacks himself on the forehead and heads back.

Hanson and Richter discover that Christine is not the typical, frightened girl they are used to - not only does she not have a wikipage for them to delete and her blood sample shows signs of bubonic plague, she repeatedly breaks their noses for sadistic pleasure. Finally, she dubs them too pathetic and weak and storms off to find someone decent to beat the shit out of.

The Doctor has returned to Donna Hogan and tells her that he believes that he has found where all the missing people are, as well as something more sinister: the chant that he heard was that of Dead Can Dance lyrics being chanted backwards! "It can create solid matter out of pure onomatopoeia, like Logopolitan Block Transfer Computations, only you can GROOVE to it!" the Doctor enthuses and he and Donna Hogan hurry to the TARDIS to sweep in to the rescue.

Weird Simon is furious when he discovers Chris has escaped and he needs another bimbo to ad to his army of chanting chicks. As Aldo and Royce meekly search for her, they are unaware that Chris has got bored and is idly following them in the hope they pass someone even vaguely interesting. Despite her talking to herself very loudly about this, no one actually notices her.

The TARDIS arrives in the tube station and the Doctor and Donna Hogan emerge and start walking around, snorting zygite - an outlawed building compound which has become a narcotic for Yank trendsetters. They are soon utterly blitzed and stumbling around the place shouting advertising slogans very loudly and, for some reason, THIS time someone notices them.

That someone is Weird Simon, who recognizes the Doctor's name from long ago and he knows that the Doctor is a Time Lord. Because this redhead puckish individual is in fact the Bastard - who regenerated after their last encounter when Mark Tryhard found the evil renegade so damn annoying he snapped his neck.

Disgusted at the Doctor for his endless claims of being an evil tyrant with a dark past just to pull chicks, the Bastard has his lifelong enemy and ex-live-in-lover thrown in a dungeon. And, just to be REALLY nasty, the Bastard throws Donna Hogan into the cell with him.

With no possible way to escape, the Doctor plays with his yoyo and then, after a moment, decides to sing "Putting on the Ritz!" very loudly. This discordant cacophony drives Donna to try to suffocate herself with her own hands, when suddenly Chris smashes down the cell door to tell the Doctor to stop mewling like a mortally wounded ox!

The Doctor shamefacedly reveals that this WASN'T an incredibly detailed and manipulative master plan... but a very lucky coincidence. Chris releases the two of them and explains in her usual medieval style that she now knows the entire evil scheme - the hypnotized hookers will chant "The Arrival and Departure" backwards, creating a wormhole and then driving a steam train through it, releasing some strange dragon type creature.

"And how exactly did you find this out?" asks the Doctor suspiciously.

"I just looketh at their wikipedia entry on yonder internet connection," Chris shrugs, totally missing the wonderful dramatic irony inherent in tying up such intricate plot points.

The Doctor wonders just why the Bastard is going to such lengths to create a wormhole in a railway tunnel and totally out of the blue recalls an Old Time Gallifreyian legend about how his people fought a race of creatures called something hideously complex and Lovecraftian and for clarity's sake we shall refer to as 'Dragons' from hereon in, sealing up the last remaining one in an alternate dimension for all eternity. The Doctor figures that this must be what the Bastard is trying to achieve, freeing this creature for his own ends.

Since no one has any better ideas for why a Time Lord would be creating a brainwashed army of backing singers in the London Underground, Chris and Donna Hogan decide to accept this and get on with the plot as there is only another fifteen minutes of the story left!

Meanwhile, the Bastard decides that instead of trying to find another vacuous tart for his Choir of Chaos Theory he'll just brainwash Aldo and Royce and get them to replace the absent Chris. As soon as the Bastard leaves the platform, the Doctor arrives and decides to kung-fu kick the chanters from their hypnosis.

However, the Bastard has already bored the steam train and sent it hurtling down the tracks towards the wormhole. The Doctor and Chris decide to chase him via the incredibly unreliable TARDIS, which the Doctor programs to materialize in the heart of the wormhole in the domain of the dragon.

The police box materializes in a gigantic, silent temple lying in ruins. The Doctor and Chris emerge amidst the toppled statues and broken columns to find... no dragon of any kind whatsoever. They are rather disappointed when suddenly the train materializes and the Bastard emerges. He rushes over to the ruined rafters where sits a dusty bottle of wine on a pedestal, spotlighted.

"At last!" the Bastard leers. "Château du Dragon!"

"That's IT?!" the Doctor exclaims. "THAT is the Dragon all this has been about? Some bottle of duty free bathwater?!"

"Do you mind?" the Bastard snaps. "Can't a renegade Time Lord take up wine collecting as a hobby now without time-wasting prick-teasers coming along to ruin everything!"

Chris is deeply unimpressed that the most evil being in all creation wasn't actually planning to unleash a horde of ancient death on the cosmos, but was just trying to find some rare wine bottles to put on his mantelpiece. The Doctor continues to bait the Bastard, pointing out that with all those block transfer computations at his beck and call he could RULE THE UNIVERSE!?!

"Oh, grow up!" the Bastard snorts, hops into his train and leaves the temple.

At a loss, the Doctor and Chris leave in the TARDIS as the wormhole collapses and the lost realm is utterly destroyed in a blizzard of stock explosions. Hastily working out a cover story involving dragon slaying and other dimensional horrors from beyond the outskirts of the human mind, the Doctor and Chris return to Donna Hogan and Anna Nicole Smith, brag about how they saved the entire universe, then run away before anyone notices the flaws in their story.


Books/Other Related Material-
The Wrath of the Dragon: Doctor Who Hangover Remedies
Weird Simon In Women's Clothing - Enter With Drag On
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.drwho.creative/chateau+of+the+dragon



Links and References -
The Doctor hasn't had such a psychotic, knife-wielding sadistic maniac as a companion since his old pal Leela.


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor finds this entire experience terrifyingly similar in every important to an adventure he had while he traveled with Ace and K9, circa "Rememberin' To Take Out The Dustbins" and "Bertie Bassett Doesn't Take Shit From Anyone".



Dialogue Train Wrecks
---------------------

Doctor: There's no need to shout, Chris. Or stutter. Or lisp. But I'll settle for you not shouting, and... never mind, I'll explain "acting" to you on a rainy day when you're bored.

Chris: I can act - I'm a Bard!

Doctor: Bard? You're bloody awful!

-------

Weird Simon: Mmmm. Young AND female! THIS way PLEASE.

Trixie: What are you going to do to me?

Weird Simon: YOU my sweet are going to become the NEWEST installment in MY WONDERFUL project! It's an HONOR really!! You are going to offer your MIND in the noble PURSUIT of ADVANCING my DESTINY!!! Doesn't THAT sound EXCITING?!?

Trixie: It sounds like you're sick. Take some acting lessons, you freak!

Weird Simon: There's no need for THAT! Oh, don't WORRY?! You're not going to be AROUND for much LONGER!! WELL, not in her PRESENT state!!! At least!!!!!

Trixie: You're a madman!

Weird Simon: NOT MAD?!?! Merely... VISIONARY! AHHHHHHHH, here we go?!?! The PROCESSING room!! Gentlemen, if you'd SET THIS UP FOR ME, I must ATTEND to SOMETHING! But I shall be RIGHT! BACK!?!!

Aldo: Yes, Weird Simon.

(Weird Simon pops into the en suite toilet.)

Trixie: Does he always talk like that?

Royce: Yep. Hence the name, 'Weird Simon'.

Trixie: Do you ever point out that he sounds like a retard?

Aldo: No, it's more fun like this.

Royce: Yeah. Who cares if he's completely sane, he's paying us a boatload of money and that's what counts. Plus, he gives us something to laugh at.

(Weird Simon emerges from the toilet, spraying air freshener everywhere.)

Weird Simon: Is SHE READY, gentlemen!?! EXCELLENT!!! OPEN your MIND to my VERBAL MANNERISMS!! It's all SUBLIMINAL, CHILD!?!!!!? Just SIT BACK, LISTEN to my DIALOGUE and DON'T fight it!!! OPEN your MIIIIIND even FURTHER! OKAY!!!! Let's BEGIN!!??!!?!?! Take PART in the GLOREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Aldo: He's gone crazy.

Royce Let's hope he's sane enough to sign the cheques.

Weird Simon: I stand on the BRINK of the BIGGEST ADVANCEMENT in the HISTORY of the UNIVERSE!! The BEGINNING of a NEW AGE!!!! Yet I'm STILL surrounded by FOOLS!! ADDLED-brained FOOLS!!!?!! This is BAD news, VERY BAD news!

Trixie: Life's funny like that, ain't it?

-------

Doctor: Where does that wormhole go, Weird Simon? Is it linked directly with Mount Olympus, or are you planning a layover in Valhalla?

Hogan: Careful, Doctor, he seems a bit unstable.

Doctor: Perfect, then he'll get along nicely with that wormhole of his!



Dialogue Gems
-------------

Doctor: There you go, Chris! The 21st century, where it all changes and everyone discovers that they're really bisexual! What do you think of it?

Chris: I do not like it. What happened to all the trees? Everything seems so, I don't know... hard now. Is this how people live in the future, all cold and hard?

Doctor: Hmm. You know, that's exactly how the people of today would describe your time - cold and hard. Hah! Amazing. After seven hundred years, kingdoms and eras come and go, technology advances and the landscape changes, but mankind stays so much the same.

(Long pause)

Chris: Let's kill them all.

--------

Weird Simon: Very GOOD, my children! Bring them TO ME!! YOU TO have caused a DELAY in my PLANS and for THAT you will be PUNISHED SEVERELY!! DOC-TORRRRRRRRRRR!!

Doctor: You know me? I'm flattered.

Weird Simon: We MET LONG ago, TIME LORRRRRRD!!! Oh, I am SO BORED by you SELF-appointed HEROES! DESTINY has brought you HERE, DOC-TORRRRRRRRRRR!! You will be on your KNEES, before this NIGHT is out! BEGGING for me to have MERCY on your WORTHLESS HIDE!!

(The evil villain rips off his plastic face mask to reveal...)

Doctor: Well, slap my behind with barbed-wire brasserie. The BASTARD!!!

Bastard: Yes. Or as I am known here... WEIRD SIMON!

Doctor: "Weird Simon"?

Bastard: What?

Doctor: "Weird Simon"??? Weird Si - Simon... heh heh BWAAAH! Ehh hahahahah hah!

Bastard: Hey... hey you, stop it...

(The Doctor falls to his knees, laughing uncontrollably.)

Doctor: WEIRD! SIMON! BWAHAHAHAHA! HAAA!

(The Bastard's henchmen start to snigger and chuckle.)

Bastard: Hey! Shut it, you two.

Doctor: (rolling around the floor, clutching his sides) The -- Bastard -- is - Weird Simon! HAHAHAHAH!

Bastard: IF you're quite finished?

Doctor: (Sigh) Ooooh... oooh... Okay... (Panting) Okay, I'm stopping... Haha... I'm okay... I haven't laughed so hard since Frank Woodley showed off his testicles on Spics & Specs...

(The Doctor gets onto his knees, breathing slowly. He looks up at the Bastard again. A moment passes.)

Doctor: So. Simon. BwaAAAahhh! OH GOD! (Cover his face with his hands) Make it STOP! (Falls onto side) MAKE IT STOP! (Beats fist against floor) Hahahah! Hhahahahahah! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!

(The Bastard turns and walks away.)

Bastard: I hate my life.



Listener Reviews
-----------------

"Another classic tale from Everlasting Films! Big Finish has far from gripping, unlike Chateau of the Dragon. Some may say this suggests a severe attention deficit disorder on my part, but I ignore them! It may be unoriginal, but I honestly could believe that I was hearing a story in Earth's future. In fact, I have been unable to confirm which time zone I've been in ever since! I begin to wonder if it is I, not Weird Simon, who is the perfect madman! I cringed inwardly when I first heard THAT VOICE! So I'm not totally insane..."
- Lord Sebastian Cabbage-Hitherto-Unmentioned (1987)


"Chateau of the Dragon was pretty basic - nothing too bad but didn't hold the interest too well. Especially when it started to seem like a heap of it had just been 'borrowed' from Fan & Phantasmagoria, which, if I'm not mistaken, was Big Finish's second release and hot on the shelves in 1999? Oh, and Chip Jamison is bad. The fact that everyone at the SCADs enthuses over his performance makes it even more puzzling, and suggests that they are somehow making a big joke. But that implies that they have some kind of a sense of humor."
- Jared "No Nickname" Hansen (2007)


"Very poor episode. The New Bastard is just silly, not sinister at all - he's just gone completely loopy. Can't speak of motivation, if he has one at all. What is he getting out of letting a bunch of (Oh, I can't think of the old horror movie these things were stolen from) loose on Earth? This story substitutes a frantic pace in the place of storytelling and doesn't even seem to take itself seriously. Hope the next Bastard story is better than this junior high-school standard writing. The production team HAVE to go!"
- SCAD review of RTD's "The Beat of the Drums" taken completely out of context for satirical purposes (2007)


"Chateau of the Dragon blew my mind with Chip "Bwahahahaha, You Must Be Kidding, Please Tell Me That's Not Meant To Be A South Gallifreyan Accent" Jamison trying to be the Bastard in disguise. When he gets scenes with Jeff Coburn, and your brain will splatter from your ears like a frog under a steamroller. I've never known a scene whose two actors have such completely opposing ideas about what kind of show they're in. The Doctor is giving a proper performance, while the Bastard is high as a kite on Cloud Chip with an accent so silly that even he loses track of it from time to time. I laughed and laughed at the outrageous performance until I suffered breathing difficulties. Of course it could have been worse. This could have been a six-parter, beyond even the ability to wrench your brain to a level of tolerance of this demented grandeur and we'd have all had to take our own lives."
- Ewen Campion-Clarke (2007)


"The maniacal way Weird Simon is played, with his wide-eyed stares, constantly screaming mottos, and flamboyant testosterone is what catapults this otherwise ordinary story into UNFORGIVABLE BARKING MAD HILARITY! Any sense of realism IS jettisoned off into the stratosphere, as Chip Jamison stresses every single word and has a vast array of dribbles about conquest and power, finally losing any dignity for the character, leaving an eye-popping egotist you are rooting to die throughout... and he sucks playing the Bastard sucks too! Admittedly, though, beyond that there isn't much that is memorable about this particular outing. In fact, is this even a story or am I just hallucinating after getting stuck in a lift for thirty hours? That would make a lot more sense. But if Chateau of the Dragon is just my fevered rantings, then what is the story between Seventh Album of Darkmere and Radio Y2K? Come to think of it, do I even care? Though the dragon is given a great voice! Assuming that the story ISN'T a brain-warped delusion on my part and anyone else can actually experience the story for themselves. Which is, I admit, a tad unlikely."
- The Jeffrey Coburn Handbook (2000)



Jeffrey Coburn Speaks!
----------------------

"Chip Jamison, the bloke who played the Weird Simon aspect of the Bastard's personality, did a great job as the villain. He added just the right amount of screaming-laughter-like-a-total-loony to his evil that made him very chilling to listen to. Of all the bad guys the Doctor faced over the years, I think Weird Simon would be the most dangerous. And I really mean that. Hell, I think that Chip as the Bastard full time instead of Patrick Reynolds would be fine. And I'm not just saying that because we've all decided that no matter how awful redhead psycho Cockney Chip is, it's better than bringing back Dave Segal's excruciating Anthony Ainley so-called impressions. Oh no. Chip Jamison rocks."


Rachel Sommers Speaks!
----------------------

"Chateau of the Dragon was my first full story as Christine Thunder-Wing Doom-Slayer, or just Chris as we called her character. I felt it was very, very challenging cause it WAS my first full story in the series and I was very, very nervous. I was shaking so much I couldn't snap the neck of that jerk who stopped me at the traffic lights and tried to clean my windscreen, so I had to settle for doing a hit-and-run and setting fire to his house. I loved this story, though... when it was full of K9 killing Logopolitans with built-in chainsaws. The rewrites ruined it. Made it practically U-rated."




Rumours, Slander, and Libel
---------------------------

After letting former cast member Sheri Divine get her gnarled talons on the Superiority Complex Audio Dramas, the production schedule picked up such pace that it broke thirteen international speed laws and resulted in an unprecedented five stories made per year. Not only did this complete Jeff Coburn's third season two years ahead of schedule, it started his fourth six years early as well. This increased pace left Producer Douglas Phillips and Script Editor Thomas Himinez on the verge to total collapse due to chronic exhaustion.

With Coburn determined to quit the SCADs before the end of 2000, Phillips and his entourage had been run into the dirt to accede to Coburn's insane desires which would have to be fulfilled to keep him on for another five stories. After finally getting rid of Dara Hamilton and replacing her with a psychopathic serving wench in a story set in Coburn's time period of choice, they had absolutely no stories of any kind left - yet another four episodes still to record, forming the second story of the new season!

So utterly desperate were the SCADs for a script, they put out ads in the local newsagent and on a handy passing blimp, begging for storylines. There was only one taker, a being known as Bastard Chimera (or Mr "Bow down before me in all of my mighty glory! MUHUHAHAHA! But, seriously, actually bow down!" Virus to his friends). He provided a beer mat with a hastily-scribbled message on it in lieu of an actual script, claiming it was a detailed synopsis of a story entitled Klaus of the Macramé.

Klaus of the Macramé was set on the planet Coffra - AKA Earth 2.0 - in the year 5 billion, 200 million, 100 thousand, fifty-seven in the City State of Crafe Tec Heydra - AKA New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New Cardiff. There the Doctor and his new companion Chris find the giant descendants of pea crabs, the Macra, have destroyed civilization seven years previously in an orgy of macramé.

Teaming up with Matron Hame the 3654th, a descendant of a cat person the Doctor met on a previous misadventure, the TARDIS crew save Coffra/Earth 2.0 from the "Demon Crabs". Somehow. That bit of the plot isn't very detailed but apparently "enemies will be made, new friends also, but all will rejoice over the downfall of the Macra and all the usual bollocks like that."

Phillips and Himinez considered the story for about a full ten seconds before instantly rejecting it on the grounds it was a fanwank sequel to a TV story that would not be made for another seven years by a production team the SCADs automatically despised on principle.

In desperation, the SCADs took desperate steps and logged onto fanfic archive alt.drwho.creative and decided to plagiarize the first story they came across - even if it was based on the Sylvester McCoy era, which Phillips swore the utter destruction of every single hour of every day and often burned straw effigies of McCoy... at least until he got his hands on the genuine article.

That particular story turned out to be "Listening For The Shadow of The Wolves At The Mind's Eye's Assault On The Underground Castle Walls As The Shepherd In Slippers Visits The Lion's Den Makes Old Promises About An Ace In The Hole During The Vanishing Ship In A Bottle Drag-Act Turnaround Rescuer Via The Oxygen Connections Of The Modern Age And Discover That The Best Defense Is A Good Offense In The Face Of The Gods So Let's All Fuck Off To Logopolis", a curiously unpublished New Adventure novel starring the Seventh Doctor, Ace and K9 getting caught up in continuity-driven chaos and self-destructive angst in a plot that hinged entirely on a fluffed line in Tom Baker's last serial that had kept the author Liberty Hall awake at night in a cold sweat thinking about it for the last eighteen years.

Himinez felt this keystone idea that Logopolis played a much larger role would make "Listening For The Shadow of The Wolves At The Mind's Eye's Assault On The Underground Castle Walls As The Shepherd In Slippers Visits The Lion's Den Makes Old Promises About An Ace In The Hole During The Vanishing Ship In A Bottle Drag-Act Turnaround Rescuer Via The Oxygen Connections Of The Modern Age And Discover That The Best Defense Is A Good Offense In The Face Of The Gods So Let's All Fuck Off To Logopolis" even LESS well received than if they kept the scenes of K9 going on a drug-fueled photon blaster rampage and skewering the villain Weird Simon on a pole, Cannibal-Holocaust-style. And thanks to the originality-bypass of the David Segal, Himinez also was still confused whether the SCADs were the continuation of the TV series or an incredibly brilliant unbound parallel version of it, so links to past stories could cause the whole narratorial universe to suffer irreversible heat death.

The scenes where the Fifth Doctor, Adric, Tegan and Nyssa specifically travel back in time to bully Weird Simon at school, for instance, or the final scene as the Doctor lists all his previous companions 'in order of sexual performance', were felt to be time consuming, completely unnecessary and rather odd.

For a start the title was changed to "Listening For The Shadow of The Wolves At The Mind's Eye's Assault On The Underground Castle Walls As The Shepherd In Slippers Visits The Lion's Den Makes Old Promises About An Ace In The Hole During The Vanishing Ship In A Bottle Drag-Act Turnaround Rescuer Via The Oxygen Connections Of The Modern Age And Discover That The Best Defense Is A Good Offense In The Face Of The Gods So Let's All Fuck Off To Logopolis" to the slightly easier-to-fit-on-CD-cover "Chateau of the Dragon" and then, finally, "Château du Dragon".

The characters of the Seventh Doctor, Ace and K9 were replaced with the Jeffry Coburn Doctor and Christine (who inherited much of K9's blood-drenched murderous habits), while the villain Weird Simon changed from a paranoid schizophrenic with a yeast infection to the brand new incarnation of the Bastard. This change was relatively straightforward as both characters were deeply pathetic redheads with pretensions for conquering the entire created universe. The recurring Norse Gods were also replaced by two stooges called Aldo and Royce who they'd seen somewhere before and were confident could nick without a famous science fiction writer coming after them with an MZ laser cannonette.

In order to keep the Bastard's presence a surprise, it was decided that Weird Simon would be revealed to be the Bastard at a very late stage. This meant that script had to be rewritten YET AGAIN, reversing most of the changes until the Fourth Draft was almost absolutely identical to the Second Draft. Phillips also wanted to preserve the secret by NOT getting Patrick Reynolds to play Weird Simon in a funny voice for three episodes before revealing his true identity, and thus someone else would be needed to play the role. Dave Segal immediately volunteered, so obviously ANYONE ELSE would be right for the part.

"Anyone else" turned out to be Chip Jamison, whose talentless and just plain embarrassing abominations had been contaminating the SCADs since he was a buttock-clenchingly-awful extra in Target Saigon all those long, lonely years ago. During rehearsal, Jamison cranked the OTT meter up to eleven in order to match Segal's earlier portrayal of the Bastard, and Jamison's gratingly shrill, loud, attention-seeking- ritalin-deprived-toddler style performance was described by one traumatized passer by as "a hysterical Grace Jones who's lost her oxygen tank talking like a drunken elephant with twenty toffees in her mouth who's suddenly acquired the gift of speech, walking around like she had a cucumber up her bum... and on ecstasy". Jamison was honest enough to admit this was a fair description of his unforgettable performance - though he was quick to point out it was actually a carrot, not a cucumber.

Nevertheless, despite endless opposition from human rights activists, actor's equity, the good taste brigade and even his own script editor, Phillips decided to go ahead with the Chateau of the Dragon, no matter how stupefyingly horrendous and almost unspeakable the leading villain's excuse for a performance. Pleas to change his mind were received at a rate of twelve a second, and Himinez - who was also director after the real one had a seizure after recording the cliffhanger to episode one - searched desperately for a last minute replacement for Jamison.

Thus, Himinez stumbled across Jack Zarin-Rosenfield who the SCADs had won as part of a package of human slaves auctioned off after the local lunatic asylum was destroyed for charity. Zarin-Rosenfield was immediately put forward as a new actor to play the part of Weird Simon and everyone - even Jamison himself - instantly accepted this idea. But Phillips' journey along the highway of insanity was now at breakneck speed, and he was convinced that they were all plotting against him. Convinced that "Jack Zarin-Rosenfield" was actually David Segal in disguise and being under the hypnotic control of Joseph Medina, Phillips lunged at the unfortunate mental patient and slit his throat.

Tragically, it became obvious even to Phillips that this poor unfortunate was not part of some plot. An emergency tracheotomy was carried out, and the now mute Zarin-Rosenfield was given a Stephen-Hawkings-style computerized voice synthesizer to communicate. As recompense, Phillips allowed Zarin-Rosenfield to play the parts of the script that required computer voices (even though everyone else STILL though Zarin-Rosenfield could do the part of Weird Simon justice), and also gave him a copy of The Empire of the Dustbins Strikes Back!

Zarin-Rosenfield threw the CD at Phillips, blinding him in one eye and fracturing the producer's skull, then fled the SCAD studios to get a guest spot on The Jerry Springer Show.

As 1999 drew to an end and all the normal fans were celebrating Dr Who Night as Mark Gatiss dubbed every living Doctor 'cunts with equity cards', kidnapped Peter Davison at knifepoint, and showed off his own proposal for a new series. This would entail such amazing story titles as "Stock Market of the Usurians", "Doctor Who Teams Up With Captain Picard To Fight The Quos", "Jimmy Saville is an ALIEN!", "Dr. Who Goes To Roysten Vasey", "The Exxons Invade A Laundrette", "Generic UNIT Adventure To Get Brigadier Cameo" and "The Cave of Webs of Cave" - featuring Mark Gatiss as the carbon-copy of the Sixth Doctor dressed as Lewis Carroll, Reece Shearsmith as Eric Randall the lonely computer geek, Steve Pemperton as the giant hairy warrior creature Mong, and Nicholas Briggs as a floating pink cloud who is completely useless.

The BBC kicked Gatiss out and put a restraining order on him for the next five years, and in this resulting climate of despair, outrage and quite a bit of relief, the SCADs drew strength from the lack of new Doctor Who material - it meant they were the only providers of new adventures in time and space. Discounting the books. And the comics. And the newfangled Big Finish audio plays which were SURELY a storm in a teacup and unlikely to have any long term effect of any kind ever.

Phillips was convinced that 2000 would be the year people finally woke up and realized that the Superiority Complex Audio Dramas weren't just a spin off of Doctor Who, Doctor Who was a weak and feeble spin off from the Superiority Complex Audio Dramas! Surely, with the departure of Jeff Coburn on the horizon, no one would be able to think of anything else, let alone Big Finish!

And as Phillips thought these deranged thoughts, half a world away, Paul McGann's pupils dilated at the sight of India Fisher and foolishly signed a contact that Big Finish have held him to ever since...

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