5th Doctor - Loup Garoux

Serial 6P/B – Louis Gooey
Louis Gooey
An Alternate Programme Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Doggie Styles

Serial 6P/B – Louis Gooey -

Once again, the Time Lords have interrupted the travels of the Doctor, Turlough and Kamelion and ordered the renegade to marry some politically appropriate nutjob who probably won't survive the story. The Doctor is, frankly, sick of this and tells the Time Lords that, unless they want their dark, unholy secrets offered to the Beatles as song lyrics... again... then they'll back off!

The Doctor immediately sets the TARDIS for Rio de Janeiro, 1984. The Time Lords do not interfere – partially because they're terrified of the Doctor repeating the horrors of The White Album, and partially because he's going to where they were sending him anyway.

Unfortunately, the TARDIS overshoots by a century and the trio find the beach packed with shantytowns of Red Indians, displaced when the ecosystem collapsed. With the Canarval apparently out of the question, the Doctor decides to humiliate Kamelion by repeatedly turning him into a dog and feeding him hamburgers laden with salmonella.

This leads to a nasty incident as Kamelion starts foaming at the mouth and growling backwards, eyes glowing red with evil.

Rather embarrassed, the Doctor and Turlough walk off, leaving the shape-shifting robot running around, howling at the moon and humping the legs of passers-by too slow to escape him.

Meanwhile, the two men jump onto a float celebrating "the carnal carnival" and the Doctor is just seducing a scantily-clad female dancer when she starts screaming in horror.

At first, the Doctor assumes she's just playing hard to get, but then realizes so is Turlough, and, indeed, the entire population of Rio de Janeiro.

The Doctor suspects that this was an auto-fear-suggestion from a passing limo. Exactly how a floating limousine taps into the primal fear centre of the human brain, I have no idea, but the Doctor speculates it could just be the car horn set at too high a frequency.

Nevertheless, the limousine floats out to sea and, following the source of the soul-destroying terror like the morons they are, the Doctor and Turlough find themselves passing the TARDIS.

A tall bloke in a wolf mask, meanwhile, is brought up short by an unearthly scent, like the space between the lightning and the thunder, or the most ancient of forests. He quickly realizes that this is the Doctor's after shave.

The wolf mask guy watches as the Doctor and Turlough leave in a police box which promptly vanishes off the face of the earth.

The Doctor, clearly reacting quite badly to the rejection of that erotic dancer, furiously materializes the time machine above the ocean in the direct path of the limousine.

Turlough realizes that he is about to undergo the most insane game of "Chicken" since King Havoc the Imbecile's inbred half-brother tried to outstare a cliff. Panicking, he tries to nag some sense into the Doctor, but he hasn't the skill of Tegan and so is totally ignored.

The limousine strikes the police box, which does an impressive loop-de-loop before hitting the baggage rails and getting stuck. The Doctor and Turlough emerge and cautiously try and climb down into the limousine. The Doctor is confused when Turlough insists that the limousine is empty – either something is tampering with his companion's perception threshold or he's trying to freak the Doctor out again.

The Doctor climbs across to the driver's window and begins to sweet-talk the chauffeur into giving him a lift and, you know, maybe APOLOGIZE for ruining his night at the carnival?!?

The driver, an attractive but oddly hirsute woman called Ileana de Santos, explains that she's sorry about that, but she's escaping from her psycho stalker who regularly sends her flowers, greeting cards, severed heads of men she's dared look at... She's also getting her teenage daughter through 'that time of the month'.

At this point the Doctor begs her not to continue and decides to break into the back of the limousine and steal some duty-free. He and Turlough note that they are being followed by a wolf – doing the doggie paddle at super-wolf speed. However, as he hasn't actually caught up with him they sit on the boot of the limo and shout abuse at the wolf for being so slow. When he tries to increase his speed, the two men start throwing live lobsters at him.

Turlough quickly gets tired and creeps into the back to meet a beautiful and extremely nude girl called Rosa, who explains she has monthly torments. Turlough rapidly tries to change the subject when Rosa explains she's not talking about that, she's a bloody werewolf. Turlough finds the thought rather arousing, but makes the mistake of telling every dog-related joke he knows. This has the bewildering side effect of turning Rose into a German shepherd. What is even more disturbing is that the relationship really starts to work when she is in the form of a dog.

The limousine finally reaches Ileana's seaside resort, only to find the wolf – Louis Gooey – has got there before them. Ileana tells him to sod off as he's breaking the restraining order. Besides which, she's already got a husband. The Doctor.

Annoyed, the Doctor realized he's wandered into the Time Lord's trap and got hitched without even knowing it. Unlike the Mara, the Gravis, or even Raven, he's been caught out. Clearly, he needed Tegan around to put off potential suitors, and resolves to get a new female companion as soon as he possibly can.

The limousine party enter the seaside home, leaving Louis feeling a right prat and having wasted most of his salary on engagement rings, wedding dresses and petrol-powered chainsaws.

As the Doctor doesn't quite know honeymoon etiquette for werewolves, he decides to ask Turlough for advice, since his relationship with Rosa has lasted longer than his with Ileana – admittedly only about fifteen minutes longer, but even so. The Doctor has slept with many women before, but they’ve always been cutclaws; this is unexplored territory to him. Turlough suggests he puts his lips together and blow.

Totally and utterly misunderstanding him, the Doctor digs out a spare K9 and asks him for his advice. "Insufficient data," lies the computer, annoying the Doctor even more.

The Doctor turns to Ileana and offers her K9 as a parting gift while leaves to get a new, less-hairy female companion that doesn't need to be taken for walks.

At that moment, Louis runs in with a sawn-off shotgun, howling insanely – when a feral Kamelion drops from the ceiling and eats him. The Doctor and Turlough drag the android into the TARDIS and K9, horrified that the Doctor uses OTHER robots, ditches him on the spot and tries to seduce Rosa.

With this as the ideal opportunity to escape, the Doctor and Turlough do just that, heading off into the wild blue yonder, searching for someone suitable as a screaming Doctor Who companion.


Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who Bites Dog
Fur & Claw: Werewolf Lust In Sci-Fi
Mummy & Daddy & Spot Love Each Other Very Much


Goofs -
How the hell did Kamelion get from the shantytowns to the island? And why did he go there? How can a horse burger drive a robot insane anyway? Has Mark Plate had a nasty experience when he forced horsemeat into his floppy disk drive?


Links and References -
In the closing scene, the Doctor rings up almost every single previous female companion and asks her if she wants to rejoin him. Susan, Vicki, Victoria, Liz, Sarah-Jane and Romana tell him to go to hell; Polly, Zoe and Leela are undecided; and Sara, Katarina, Dodo, Jo, Sharon and Nyssa don't even bother to pick up the phone.


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor then announces he'll just have to start on girls he knows, and programs the TARDIS to return to Rio de Janeiro in 1700, where he ditched Cleopatra after a sordid two-week shag-a-thon.


Groovy DVD Extras -
And extra fifteen hour interview where Laurence Miles demands to know where Mark Plate gets off implying that Leela and the guy in the red hat are actually the Doctor's parents.


Dialogue Disasters -

Doctor: I wonder how on Earth that stays up?
Turlough: Skill, Doctor, skill.


Rosa: I'm Rosa Caiman, who the hell are you?
Doctor: I am the Doctor!
Rosa: What kind of Doctor?
Doctor: A fully-qualified gynecologist. Well, a trainee-gynecologist.
But I'm bloody keen.


Chef: One wrong move and he's capybara curry!
Doctor: But I ordered a green salad!
Chef: Well, make that one REALLY wrong move.


Turlough: You've got one sticky wicket there, Kamelion.


Dialogue Triumphs -

Ileana: My god! That robot is humping my leg!
Doctor: Always the same with companions – but Adric was worse.


Doctor: When you've studied humans as long as I have, it's hard not
to find them quite endearing.
Turlough: There's a time for voyeurism and this ain't it! Go on Doctor,
GET IN THERE! SHE'S GAGGING FOR IT!


Ileana: How long have I tried to deny all that darkness? It seems
pastels will never be enough!


Turlough: Is that what the TARDIS runs on, Doctor? Imagination?
Doctor: Well, keep it under your hat, Turlough, but actually it runs
on Panasonic Batteries.


Louis Gooey: I stalk the Earth for eternity!
Doctor: There's no need to, honestly. I'm sure you'll find the
right girl soon enough.
Louis Gooey: Once I have a scent, I never loose it. Don't stray too far
from the path because I'll be waiting!
Doctor: Um, what the hell are you talking about?
Louis Gooey: Tear off that pious mask and let's see the dark side of
your nature!
Doctor: [punches him in the face] Whatever pops your cork.


Viewer Quotes -

"Louis Gooey is not just the finest Peter Davison audio, but the best Big Finish story of all. It's no coincidence that Plate, like Andrew Cartmel, is a hell of a lot better doing 'missing adventures' rather than 'new' ones. Why the hell didn't Ileana go with the Doctor, though? She gives me the fucking horn, god damn it!"
- Nigel Verkoff (2005)

"This story made me want to go sit in a closet for a few hours, writing bad poetry." – Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge (2000)

"The first true great Fifth Doctor story. Believe me, it hurts to even entertain the thought."
- Joe Ford, www.ihateDoc5.com (2003)

"Nice script. Shame about the actors."
- The Nine O'clock News interview with Mark Plate (1983)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."


Peter Davison Speaks!
"A lot of people complained that I tried to board the limousine by hovering the TARDIS in its path and then jumped forward by ten seconds to reappear inside it – when I have landed inside spacecraft moving at dizzying relative velocities dozens of other times. Why was I trying out this stunt more suited to an 18 year-old-boy-racer in an Essex supermarket car park on a Sunday morning? Well YOU get dragged away from the Rio Carnaval just when you're about to score and see how damn sensible YOU can be! Set a good example to time travelers? Piss off."


Eleanor Bron Speaks!
"The trouble is – why they've never had a woman play the Doctor? Why has there never been a woman Doctor? Of course, my greatest ambition is to play Doctor Who. However, as I have done sweet fuck all to achieve it, I live in permanent disappointment."


Trivia -
The story's title was actually not Louis Gooey, but was drifting aimlessly between The Wereling Weekend and The Moon of Tara. Unfortunately, during the creation of the cover (as BBC Worldwide had now decided that all future Big Finish releases should resemble David Bowie albums) the subtitle 'Louis Gooey' was used instead. Darn.


Rumors & Facts -

Mark Plate first submitted this story to the Doctor Who production office in 1982. It was a two-parter entitled 'Louis Gooey's Wacky Weekend' and was set entirely in a limousine with the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan idly waiting for the story to be over. JST rejected it on the grounds that:

a) Nyssa would have left by the time the story could be made

b) The two-parter of Season 20 was already booked to introduce the android companion Kamelion

and c) There were no gratuitous continuity references.

Plate rewrote 'Goofy Gooey' with a strong role for the shape-shifting android, changed the line up to get rid of Nyssa and instead use Turlough, and have the whole story hinge on a RU-tan's toilet roll.

JST rejected it again – because Season 21's two-parter, The Ambulatory, featured just that sort of thing. When Plate offered to give it to the Season 22 line-up, JST replied that they were changing the entire cast and format of Doctor Who so it was a wasted exercise.

Platt abandoned 'Rabid Robot Rapist' and instead submitted a story called Ironmongers, where the Sixth Doctor, Peri and Sil encounter the Snotaran/RU-tan conflict on contemporary Earth. Sherlock Holmes promptly rewrote the script as his magnum opus The Even Doctors. Holmes was a firm believer that Plate's scripts were worth stealing as his own, having previously used Plate's Fourth Doctor fights the Bastard on Gallifrey story The Lyres of Starman as The Lethal Assassin in 1976.

When Big Finish asked for a 'missing 5th Doctor adventure NOT involving Tegan', Plate handed over the latest rewrite of 'Kamelion Gets Mange' and wandered off for a drink.

It was as simple as that.