Sunday, September 20, 2009

5th Doctor - Exotron/Urban Myths

Serial 6Q/AA – Xtro 4: The Judas Goat
An Alternate Programme Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Video Nasties

Serial 6Q/AA – Xtro 4: The Judas Goat -

The Doctor and Peri arrive on an alien desert world Xtro 4, and instantly all sort of alarms go off in the TARDIS warning of "Most Gross Danger", "Extreme Biological Hazard", and "For God’s Sake Just RUN!"

The Doctor recalls that Xtro 4 is a dark and distant world of lethal amniotic swamps and poisonous atmospheres, inhabited by a form of life whose entry in the Encyclopedia Galactica is simply "Pure Evil". The monstrous Xtroids possess strange black magic powers allowing teleportation, possession, animating otherwise inanimate objects into lethal weapons, rewriting the DNA of other life forms and also the seldom-useful ability to conquer black panthers out of thin air.

The alien Xtroids spend most of their times abducting random life forms in bizarre methods right out of German expressionist cinema, infecting their blood with the corrupting Xtro heritage, then putting them back to ravage anyone who crosses their path. Although the Xtroids insist they are equal-opportunity psychopaths, they tend to use females of any species as brood mares, often in such hideously gorey and slime-coated insemination that, upon hearing about it, most people need to sit down with a nice glass of cold sick and watch "Bad Taste".

Despite knowing all this, the Doctor cheerfully opens the TARDIS doors and drags the hysterical Peri, ignoring her screams that she’s too young to have her pelvis shattered by the offspring of terrifying monsters from behind the stars.

The Doctor is slightly put out when the nightmarish hell-scape he was expecting turns out to be... a rather dusty quarry. Has the TARDIS malfunctioned? Is Peri right and they’ve really ended up in Utah? Can the Doctor actually take them to other planets or is this all some strange role-playing game on his part?

No answers are forthcoming as they wander through the hillocks, scattered with human bones and skin-dissolving ooze. But, apart from that, sod all happens for most of the first episode – bar the usual "Hey, do you get the feeling we’re being watched?" repartee.

The time travelers eventually meet a couple of cheerful blue collar workers called Morcombe and Wise setting up a TV aerial who explain that this IS Xtro 4 after it was terraformed to within an inch of its life by human colonists, wiping out most of the Xtroids and rendering the planet uninhabitable for the "randy little warlock bastards".

It turns out that, after all the disemboweling and impregnation of the 1980s, UNIT decided they were sick of being made the bitches of the horribly malformed alien scum. Thus, using a secret underground complex, breached a wall through the dimensions, creating a gateway to Xtro 4. Unfortunately, all this did was give the Xtroids an open door to a planet full of shaggable Happy Meals and untold carnage occurred between the aliens and the heavily-armed military.

Finally, however, humanity got its act together and changed the whole planet Xtro 4 "human only", slaughtering most of the populace. Of course there is still the occasional survivor – like the red-eyed, fanged, drooling brown creature looking like the unholy offspring of a human skeleton and a housefly creeping up behind them.

The humans panic as the scuttling, hissing alien parasite gallops towards them, when, at the last possible moment a giant Cybertron Transformer called Dai Atlas, who has a distinctive Welsh accent. The giant robot fires a rocket at the Xtroid and blows it to cold green goop, snatches up the pathetically grateful Doctor, and skips away, leaving the dazed Peri, Morcombe and Wise in the quarry.

Dai Atlas lurches over to a secure military base decked out in that funky yellow-and-black-diagonal-striped tape that just SCREAMS 1980s sci-fi army installations. There, the giant robot drops the Doctor on the floor in front of the base’s electronics experts – Moss, Roy and Jen the token girl.

The Doctor is taken by the IT crowd deeper into the base to their unkempt basement laboratory where the Time Lord wonders how the hell the fledgling Earth Alliance gained control of an Autobot Transformer without any of the Deceptocons finding out about it? Deeply paranoid, the trio of nerds insist that as long as they stay under budget and prevent any of the Xtroids breeding with them, they are unofficially allowed to do whatever the damn hell they want.

Unfortunately, Moss is so utterly unconvincing in his lies he pretty much confesses directly to the Doctor that they have no authority to do what they’re up to and if the Earth Government find out what they’re doing, they’ll get demoted – and once you’ve ended up on an isolated mudball solely inhabited by inhuman rapist serial killers, where can they send you that’s worse?

"Cardiff?" the Doctor suggests, triggering a screaming panic attack from Roy as his voice goes up several octaves and develops a notable tremor in it.

At this point the Doctor decides it’s time he had a decent escape-run-up-down-corridors-before-being-pointlessly-recaptured sequence, just for the sheer hell of it.

Meanwhile, Peri flees from Dai Atlas as he stomps through the sandpit, only for her to get trapped in a slimy alien cobweb which it doesn’t take a genius to work out was spun by an Xtro. Soon, an ugly quadruped looking like a cross between a lizard and a grasshopper arrives to use the earth woman and use her as an organic incubator...

So Peri screams with enough force to liquefy the Xtro’s brain, which is damn amusing if you’re sick and twisted enough to have seen the film wherein Xtroids love nothing more than letting off ultrasonic brain-bursting squeals to cut down their enemies. Not that I am one of those freaks who watched it. Oh no. Not at all. No sir, indeedy. You can’t prove a damn thing. I REFUSE TO BE BLACKMAILED BY ANYONE!

However, this nifty ability of Peri’s is a plot device that rapidly stops working as she is now surrounded by hundreds of the strangely-contorted crazy-ass weird mutant-looking things scuttling towards her.

Luckily there are plenty of unlucky ladies for the warty-lizard-shaved-dog monsters to have their wicked ways with, and Peri is completely safe. Cause she has to survive this story so she can in a completely DIFFERENT alien sex scandal, this time with Colin Baker. Why you people are so worried about her, I’ll never know. Were any of you so mentally deficient you didn’t realize it was a CLIFFHANGER?!

GOD DAMN!

Anyway, all these slow-mo-disgusting birth scenes allow the Xtroids create evil bodysnatcher versions of Moss, Roy and Jen as part of their vile campaign to rid their world of human invaders. Hah! Not so much fun when YOU’RE the one being pissed about with huh?

Since all the other possibilities have all died from swelling to unbelievable dimensions, the Head Xtroid is forced to explain this plot thread to Peri so the audience have even the faintest idea what the fuck is going on. But no sooner has it finished its obscene gargling when Dai Atlas appears and opens fire – and all the evil clones and unholy-hybrids-of-walrus-and-praying-mantis die, spraying acidic blood everywhere.

Yet again, Peri is completely safe.

Meanwhile, the Doctor watches this on a TV when suddenly a spaceship lands and the evil mastermind behind the colonization of Xtro 4 is finally revealed!

DORIAN HELOTRIX!!!!!

...

I am afraid you read correctly the first time. Yes, that completely forgettable gangster from that even more forgettable Fifth Doctor/Nyssa/Ian Chesterton story "On the Game" back in 2005. The one that was based in 1979 London and his evil plans for universal conquest consisted solely of tricking Japanese businessmen to bet that Manchester United would never win the FA cup! Yeah, he was played by Burnside from "The Bill".

Well, it turns out that when he escaped from a Manchester Retirement Home in an experimental space shuttle, he was somehow able to set up a completely new identity in the heady world of the 23rd Century! I dunno if he could time travel, or was immortal, or – more likely – Dorian was originally a completely different villain who was hastily changed to an established one because only hardcore sequel-fetishists would be interested in this three-episode montage of insectoid rape.

It really is stories like these that make me wonder WHY I ever bothered starting this guide in the first place!

Dorian and his evil gasmask storm troopers take over the entire underground base and shoot to death all the non-speaking extras, who spray their intestines across the room as they fall, choking on their own blood. In another story, there’d be clean, painless laser beams, but no! This is an adventure that has a money back guarantee if you don’t projectile vomit at least once per episode.

The Doctor breaks the fourth wall by complaining this plot has become a self-sustaining circle of exhausting and stressful violence and that he is totally convinced that even though the Transformer bot has wiped out the Xtroids, either the bots will become the enemy, or else some completely strange and illogical shit will occur so MORE sickeningly ugly, nasty, hardcore horror monsters can infest the pot.

Dorian laughs camply and tells the audience that he finds this idea "very difficult to believe" and suggests they get on with the plot.

Just then, a cupboard conveniently opens to reveal Jen has been cocooned HR Gieger-style into a blobby alien-queen style macguffin spewing out an endless supply of eggs which have hatched to reveal wizened moustachioed midget aliens with kissable lips.

Dorian’s gasmask troopers are immediately attacked and dissected by these alien Xtroid bastards – and despite not looking half as freaky, scary or imaginative as the four-legged lizard-grasshopper monstrosities, they have the ability to turn themselves invisible and an endless supply of scalpels to skin and gut their victims.

"Oh no," the Doctor breathes. "They’re evolving! They’ve moved on from ripping off 'Alien' and they’re onto 'Predator'! At this rate they’ll develop into 'Battlefield Earth' John Travolta copies – AND THEN THEY’LL BE UNSTOPPABLE!!!"

Taking this on board, Dorian locks all his troopers into the office with the invisible dissecting midget aliens with their curious hook-noses and facial hair, leaving them all to die. Dorian then reveals his evil plan is to, uh... sell details of this adventure to the military! Which will make him rich! Come to think of it, why am I sitting here when I can contact the Australian armed forces and send them a summary of this story?! Oh wait, because it’s a completely stupid idea!

Dorian is nevertheless convinced it will work and presses a handy red button marked SELF-DESTRUCT when Dai Atlas arrives screaming this is all far too much! Even a Transformer can only take so much teeth, slime, pulsating eggs and things that bite you in the face!

Dorian shoots Dai Atlas through the foot – begging the question of how the hell did he get a reputation as an unstoppable war machine if he’s not even bulletproof?! It appears that with this revelation, Dorian’s entire scheme has gone tits up and it must be abandoned!

Swearing vengeance, the poofy bissexual git ducks into a handy escape pod and flees to safety. Just like last time.

The Doctor leaves Moss and Roy to be slaughtered by the goblin Xtroids and is able to pop outside, collect Peri and leave in the TARDIS without any hassle whatsoever before the entire planet explodes in molten fury. Why?

Cause they have to be in the next story to meet Eminem, dumbo!

Book(s)/Other Related –
Doctor Who: Cyberton
Dr Who & The Rogue Transformer Versus Four-Legged Crab-Like Sex Offenders In A Galaxy Far, Far Away
The Last Asteroid on The Left
"I Indulge In Parthenogenesis On Your Newly-Dug Grave!" (1983)


Goofs –
Just what the hell ever happened to Morcombe and Wise? They just vanished out of the story the same time that Brazilian tapir arrived to slaughter some passing teenagers for no reason whatsover. Come to think of it, what the hell was a Brazilian tapir doing on an alien planet anyway? And why was it eating people?
At one point Dai Atlas shouts "PRIORITY INFORMATION! PRIORITY... OOPS! WRONG STORY!"
If you can stomach the gory mass birth sequence, you’ll notice that apart from evil alien duplicates of speaking parts, the unlucky women also give birth to floods of rotting leaves, mud and crawfish. Is Xtroid amniotic fluid the muck you find at the bottom of a pond?
How the hell can the war between Autobots and Decepticons go on for millions of years with no casualties... when Dai Atlas can bleed to death from being shot in the foot?! Why do Transformers bleed, anyway?
Why in the name of hell was this ever recorded? Are you seriously expecting me to believe that everyone involved – even Briggs – had NOTHING better to do?!?


Fashion Victims –
The Next Generation of Xtroids look like a cross between the Mekon and a really ugly Sustan with comedy porno moustaches.


Fashion Triumphs –
Peri strips off with the immortal phrase, "I’ve got nothing to hide!"


Technobabble –
"At the risk of being simplistic, what you’re looking at is a quasi-neural matrix of synthetic RNA molecules. Ah, my friend! You see? You SEE?!? Our theory of globadobbyangular stimulation through electrical intrinsical whimsical impulses was AGAINST ALL ODDS correct!"


Links and References -
This story purports to be a sequel to "On The Game". Only much, much worse and with more blood, guts and disgusting bodily fluids.


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor hasn’t been so disgusted by a slimy alien monster since he, Nyssa and Tegan were swallowed (and not in a good way) by Voorvolika the planet-sized Energy Parasite of the Apocalypse.


Groovy DVD Extras -
A choice of a "Day in the Life of Nicholas Briggs" with ten minutes of his road rage as he tries to beat the traffic by screaming he is the God of All Dustbins; or extra extended scenes of aliens sexually assaulting terrified and defenseless women with strange tentacles.
I’m honestly not sure which of the two is the more disturbing.


Dialogue Disasters -

Peri: Is that a Transformer?!
Dai Atlas: BAH WEEP GRAH-NAH WEEP NINNY BON!
Peri: ...I’ll take that as a yes.


Roy: Tell me. How much do you know about the Xtroids?
Doctor: I don’t know. How much SHOULD I know?
Roy: Depends on how strong your stomach is.
Doctor: Nauseating, are they?
Roy: No, I mean, literally strong. They rip through stomachs from both inside and outside like overripe tomatoes.
Doctor: ...yuck.
Roy: Warned you.


Peri: What the hell do you want from me?!
Head Xtroid: Well, it’s a strange infatuation taking off across this nation! It’s spreading everywhere, showing here and growing there! Crazy teenager combination but there’s no time for condemnation! It’s an eerie indication of destruction to distraction! Cause one more move and it’s all over, one more move and it’s goodbye and you know WHY we forgot to say...
Xtroids: JUST GIVE US SOME LOVING!
Head Xtroid: It’s what we need!
Xtroids: GIVE US A LITTLE LOVING!
Head Xtroid: It’ll make us feel right!
Xtroids: GIVE US SOME LOVING!
Head Xtroid: That’s the way!
Xtroids: GIVE US A LITTLE LOVING!
Head Xtroid: IT’LL MAKE US FEEL LIGHT!
(Long pause)
Peri: Ah, what the hell? If I could do the whole basketball team, you guys shouldn’t be too much trouble...


Moss: Do you think our distress call got through?
Dai Atlas: LET US HOPE SO. IF IT DIDN’T, WE’RE ALL GOING TO END UP LOOKING LIKE BURNT OUT TOASTER OVENS!
Roy: I like looking like a burnt out toaster oven! It’s a gutted human corpse infested with Xtroid spawn I don’t want to look like.
Dai Atlas: MEH. ORGANICS.


Dialogue Triumphs -

Dorian: I do not like "On The Game!"
Doctor: Neither do I! The extra two episodes means nothing to me!

Jen: From beyond imagination... from beyond the earth itself... Xtro waits. It feels nothing... it fears nothing... there is no escape.
Peri: I just hope that being stripped naked and used as a sex slave by randy aliens is going to a one off, that’s all I can say.


Moss: But Roy, surely what is being done here against the Xtroids is criminal and we cannot participate because no matter how much the bonus is worth, it cannot be worth more than our professional ethics.
Roy: You don’t think, perhaps, that we were chosen for this job precisely because ethics hold no significance for us whatsoever then?
Moss: That WOULD explain a lot of loose ends in this matter, I agree.


Doctor: Peri, some extra-terrestrials aren’t friendly. Some are cold, calculating, evil and callous individuals who like nothing better than kidnapping helpless earthlings and rebirthing themselves out of female stomachs with their fancy black magic. They’re part Alien, part Predator, all derivative and they love nothing more than a brutal excursion in terror and copyright infringement!


Dorian: Dying isn’t romantic, sunshine! And death’s not a game that ends quickly! It's the absence of presence, nothing more! It’s the endless time of never coming back! It’s a gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound! Am I getting through to you, you gormless tit?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT?!
Moss: I think I might have registered the subtext, yes.


Viewer Quotes -

"This story has come in for its fair share of brickbats, which is a shame. Okay, so it is unremittingly cheesy, occasionally truly awful and sometimes just boring, but there are a number of excellent ideas there, if you’re prepared to give it a chance. Like Peri stripped naked and stuck to a giant spider’s web. If that isn’t classic Doctor Who then I don’t know what is! What more do you want, you ungrateful muppet ming-mong FOOLS! YOU MORONS DON’T DESERVE SUCH QUALITY!"
- Bill Codeine (2008)

"A very, very uneven story that mixes more genres than Robert DeNiro has done in his entire career, ranging from bad sci-fi to stereotypical B-horror to British TV drama to Child’s Play slasher to just plain weird! It’s oddball, nauseating and admittedly unoriginal but not much makes sense. What DOES make sense crosses over the line of the absurd and likely to make you violently ill and give you nightmares."
- James Bigglesworth (1986)

"Now I could only hope for BBC to bring back Peter and Nicola even if for just a brief scene in season 4. Image Peri having a chat with Martha in the TARDIS dressing room while comparing bikinis..."
- Father James O'Malley (2007)

"This story is a pretty fun story. Giant stompy robots, psychic alien sex machines, an ambiguous antagonist, that nice Peri/Doctor scene at the start, a growing sense of what’s going on, and lots of fun violence in Part Three. And with Transformers on their way too I am in flashback heaven...it's like Vietnam only more fun. Fun fun fun! Why aren’t daddy’s stories as fun as this?" - Ron Mallet Junior (2008)

"Everyone always focuses on the bit where the abused women are writhing on the floor, and a fully-grown men explode from between their legs in a shower of gore, Geri Halliwell-style, which you never see in normal TV shows like GP or Police Rescue. But no one ever mentions when the creature corners the women in the first place, and makes them pass out somehow as he attaches a phallic looking limb to their mouth, pumping in… Anyway, I never knew oral sex could be done with one partner passed out. Hats off to ya, freaky alien." - Nigel Verkoff (1994)

"I swear, I only saw Xtro once. And only then because Kamelion was in it. And the Autons were in it too. And the fact the music was stolen from Snakedate. And the naked blonde French bond girl. And seeing the trailer on Kenny Everett’s Funniest Home Videoes. But NOT for the deeply unsettling alien rape sequences. That was a complete coincidence. I SWEAR! COMPLETE COINCIDENCE"
- Ewen Campion-Clarke during his 12-day ASIO interrogation (2009)

"I, meanwhile, bought the movie solely to see the alien rape scenes. The Doctor Who connections were a complete coincidence. I have to say, Xtro was far tamer than I expected. Your average Charley Pollard episode is more graphic. Now, if you want a PROPER randy alien on the job filmed in loving closeup, I can do no better than recommend 'Horror Planet of Inseminoids'. At least with that tentacle rape flick the action isn’t accompanied by the worst music outside the BBC Radiophonic Workshop!" - Nigel Verkoff (1994 – later that day)

Psychotic Nostalgia -
"Great Ridley Scott! THAT IS DISGUSTING!!!!"


Peter Davison Speaks!
"The thing about these audios is that they can be far more adventurous than say a television script. You can do things you couldn’t possible achieve on TV just by describing them as going on. And describing what went on in Xtro, well, it’d make Mary Whitehouse spin in her grave if nothing else. Did she get buried on consecrated ground? I remember them driving a stake through her heart to make sure she was dead, but I forget if holy water was used. Mmm. I daresay it’s on wikipedia."


Nicola Bryant Speaks!
"You know, this story is about pop culture. In the sixties, Andy Warhol showed us how pop could be high art. In fact, everything is high art. That's what this is all about. For example, in the first scene two teenage girls were be gang raped by four monsters. Now, let’s not be naive. Humanity works and loves in many ways. Some people get turned on by statues – the "Pygmalion Syndrome". Others can only make love in coffins. You have voyeurs, transvestites, narcissists, bestialists... Being orally sodomized by insectoid vermin is just a variation on a theme. Ah, it’s a funny old world we live in!"


Rumors & Facts -

While rooting through the bottom of the biscuit tin containing all the legal rights Big Finish had bought, borrowed, stolen or seduced out of the BBC, Nicholas Briggs was surprised to discover those for the Xtro film trilogy.

Exactly HOW a Doctor Who tie-in CD publisher had got the rights to a low-budget 1980s video nasty "adult" version of ET the Extraterrestrial is rather mundane. Quite simply, hardcore drug addict Harry Bromley was still high from a vacation to Amsterdam and orders Richard Gregory to build him a 'bitchin' realistic robot' to portray the main character Sam Tyler, who was abducted in 1981 by evil black-magic-practicing alien inseminoids just as Sam was watching the Royal Wedding.

The plot would reveal that when the aliens seemingly 'return' Sam to his wife and son, that he was really an evil robot and, after an awkward reunion where he discovers his wife is now shacked up with Bob Dylan, starts to affect the world in frightening ways involving lots of sharp blades, blood and gore.

Gregory was convinced that the android he had built – a strange creation that resembled C3P0 spray painted silver and wearing a Victorian bathing costume – was entirely up to the all important where he jumps out of a burning runaway delivery truck, back-flips through the air, smashes through a bedroom window, lands directly in front of an ex-Bond girl, give her a long sophisticated kiss before raping her in unsettling detail.

Bromley was not so stoned he didn’t notice when he finally called "action!" that the robot did not move a fucking inch for the first seventeen takes before toppling over and crushing a circus midget who happened to be passing (and was later compensated by portraying a Clown Of Pure Evil who murdered innocents with a Yo-yo of Death).

It soon became clear that the sequence of the robot singing "Ballroom Blitz" as it flung ninja stars at little old ladies trapping to revolving torture wheels would have to be lost, as would other, minor scenes like the robot sniffing suspiciously at Bob Dylan’s after-shave. Bromley, in the way only LSD-soaked lunatics can, rewrote the script so the parts involving the robot were replaced by a Clown of Pure Evil, a Toy Tank of Pure Evil, a Black Panther of Pure Evil, and a couple of Mimes of Pure Evil.

This, coupled with the numerous outtakes involving the robot, combined to make Xtro so utterly bat-shit insane that those who saw it were convinced they were suffering from drug-induced hallucinations – this even included Bromley, who had been dry for weeks.

Xtro was immediately declared a Video Nasty and thus guaranteed a guest mention and screening that week’s episode of The Young Ones. Meanwhile, Bromley gleefully decided to ride on the infamous success of Xtro to make two more movies – Xtro II: The Sexual Encounter and Xtro III: Watch Something Else. However, the lack of robot outtakes and graphic rape scenes caused the sequels to sink without trace.

Meanwhile, Gregory had got Doctor Who producer John Satan-Turner completely drunk and tricked him into buying the malfunctioning robot, to be the Fifth Doctor’s companion Kamelion. In the confusion that followed -–including the now legendary cut scene from The Ambulatory where Kamelion finally finished booting up and attempted to dry-hump Tegan while throttling her-- the legal rights to the Xtro franchise were passed on to the Doctor Who production team.

Nicholas Briggs was so thrilled with idea he immediately scrapped the next few stories!

– another Sixth Doctor and Mel anti-Nigel-Verkoff story by Bernice Yang called "Spyware"
– another Sixth Doctor story, but with Evelyn, called "Clutches of Kylie" by Ranjit Singh
– "The Ace of Spades" by John O’Strangler with the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex
– "Breasts In All Possible Worlds" for the Eighth Doctor, Charley and C’Rizz by Alex Snitch and Kim Snatch
– and a Fifth Doctor/Peri/Eminem story called "Friends & Anemones" by Adrian Vole featuring the Big Finish debut of the Snotarans

These stories weren’t just put on hold but cancelled outright and burned en masse by Briggs with his obscene determination to make his own personal mark, like a dog pissing on a tree.

Briggs decided they needed a writer who could conceive a feverish nightmare so completely insanely whacked as befitted the Xtro series. However, no one had fully recovered from Matthew Sweet’s previous visit, so the task fell to Paul Sutton author of such stories as Engagements that Bore, Normal Guys and Thicker Than Two Short Planks.

Since Evelyn would not be involved, Sutton was quite happy to do a story, ideally featuring his own creation – the werewolf-like Killemall aliens, fighting for their own survival on their home planet up against the Autobots of Transformers!

Briggs however felt that a beleagured Earth colony attacked by giant alien hyenas and defended by enormous steel robots simply didn’t feature the X-rated gore and misogyny of an Xtro film. What’s more, Sutton’s annoying interest in modest human frailties - unimportant in themselves - builds to a colossal chain of events culminating in the threat of a planet-wide genocide simply didn’t feature ENOUGH mindless disemboweling slaughter.

Sutton bitched that he was, actually, pretty good at painting small stories against vast backdrops and not aping the style of vomit-inducing video nasties involving the headless corpses of virgin astronauts being repeatedly raped by slugs.

"Well, what good are you to me then?!" demanded Briggs and decided there and then that Xtro 4 would arbitrarily feature the Fifth Doctor and Peri but NOT Eminem, and thus the story, set between "Red China" and "The Eyes of Scorpius" and therefore in Big Finish’s "past" so it would feel TWICE as dated as anything without David Tennant already would do.

Furious at this contempt, Sutton went to work sabotaging it as much as he possibly could. He ensured Xtro 4 would be a robot story, the third in a row since Nicotine, and then focussed the plot on an isolated human outpost on colonies, just like the previous story Id. Sutton worked day and night for two and half weeks to remove ANY and ALL originality in the story, down to resurrecting Christopher Ellingham’s character from "On The Game", Dorian Helotrix – master criminal wannabe.

Sutton’s intellect was taxed to the very breaking point as he struggled to trot out every bad Doctor Who cliché he could think of, and added a hefty dose of corn and syrup for good measure. He boiled down any plot and characterization so that nothing existed beyond the cover of the story: a giant insectoid alien fighting a colossal robot as Peri and a bunch of other young hotties are scattered naked across a spider’s web that scorched bare skin.

Sutton’s revenge was giving Big Finish the outright worst and most embarrassing mawkish ending ever! And after a tale of bloody slaughter, chaos and sexual assault, that’s no mean feat.

It wouldn't be a Paul Sutton play though, without a twisted romance, leading to the Head of the Xtroids and Peri sharing a remarkable and tragic tale over the course of the three episodes. The way they declare their mutual attraction with Icehouse songs before a passing Transformer machine-guns the aliens to death is tragic, but couple with the knowledge that if they HAD got it on, Peri would have been reduced to shreds of placenta splattered over the landscape. Truly it is a question of whether it is better to have loved and died horribly giving birth to a possessed zombie clones, then to never have loved at all.

Truly this development turns what would have been quite an average story into, on the whole, a fucking disgusting one.

As the latest installment in the Xtro series, this play was immediately banned in Finland, Iceland, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Australia and the USA. It was however allowed in Norway and given a G for General Audiences rating.

Those wacky Norwegians, you gotta love em!


BONUS!

Also included in the disc was a one-episode story entitled "Urban Legends" – written by Sutton and Briggs when they realized, YET AGAIN, that three 25 minute episodes couldn’t quite fill 100 minutes of run time according to the laws of human mathematics. Ergo, Briggs was able to create another installment of his brand new story arc:

The Virus Strand!


The Virus Strand II: "Urban Legend of the Viyrans!"

The Time Lord known only as the Magician – when not known as Magus or Pagad – and his Yamaha Keyboard of Time sit in his chair-filled TARDIS control room and decide to compose a song based on a true story that happened to a friend of a friend of a friend of his: the Doctor!
As the song (a particularly vile 80s bubblegum tune) unfolds, the Doctor and his chronically miserable companion Peri arrive on the planet Peyote which is like downtown Los Angeles only with more drive-by shootings and winner of Insidious Little Hole Of The Galaxy five centuries running. The Doctor straightens his fedora and, with Peri’s help, fires a bazooka at several people for "looking at him in a funny way". As the bloody remains fall back to the ground, the Doctor decides to send a consignment of such weapons to his old pal Generalissimo Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, the notorious Bastard of Brighton!
The two of them slaughter their way into a convenient nuclear power station and set the reactor to "cleansing the planet with lava flows" mode, which destroys Peyote and everything on it the moment the bazooka-wielding Doctor and Peri have left, troubled at all the bloodstains they are acquiring over the course of the adventure.
The Magician pauses and notes that the aggressive nature of the melody is making the Doctor look like a complete and utter psychopath! Has he got the details right? He starts a slower and calmer version.
The Doctor and his occasionally miserable companion Peri arrive on the planet Peyote which is like downtown Los Angeles only with more drive-by shootings and winner of Most Surprisingly Social Collapse Of The Galaxy five years running. The Doctor straightens his trousers and, with Peri’s help, throws a cricket ball at a street gang for trying to eat them. As their unconscious bodies fall back to the ground, the Doctor decides to pop into a convenient penthouse nearby.
The two of them end up arrested and taken before some guy who explains the whole planet has been infected with a strange rage virus. The Doctor decides to set the local nuclear power station reactor to "cleansing the planet with lava flows" mode, which sterilizes Peyote and everything on it the moment the Doctor and Peri have left, troubled at all the death to stop the plague spreading.
The Magician pauses and notes that the contemplative aspect of the song is making the Doctor look like a sad emo loser! Has he got the details right? He starts a more cheerful and upbeat version.
The Doctor and his not-at-all-miserable companion Peri arrive in a penthouse on the planet Peyote which is like downtown Los Angeles only with more drive-by shootings and winner of Tragically Infected by Viyran Rage Disease Of The Galaxy five days running. The Doctor straightens his hat and, with Peri’s help, meet some guy who explains the government have decided to sterilize the planet by using local nuclear power stations set to "cleansing the planet with lava flows" mode. Luckily, the Doctor happened to know the cure to the virus using a bag of sugar, some broad-spectrum antibiotics and the secret ingredient: RU-tan spunk!
Peyote is saved the moment the Doctor and Peri have left, troubled at all the RU-tan fellatio required to stop the plague spreading.
The Magician is satisfied that this version of the song correctly describes the events, but all in all it’s rather empty and soulless pap and he throws the whole song in the bin and swears loudly.

The End.

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