5th Doctor - No Place Like Home

Serial DWMCD03 – No Phone, No Home
No Phone, No Home
An Alternate Programme Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Sealed Orders

Serial DWMCD03 – No Phone, No Home -

The Doctor is running for his life through the corridors of his faithful time machine, being chased by an axe-wielding Eminem. A little cultural faux-pas when Peri refused to let the Pharaoh have HER room and force her to sleep on the floor like a good little girl has created this low-budget recreation of The Shining.

The Doctor stumbles across his wardrobe and frantically uses the outfits his other selves used to wear, as well as clothing
which belonged to his previous companions, to try and defeat Eminem. Only the Doctor's scarf – used like a trip-wire – provides ANY kind of delaying tactic as the terrified Time Lord and flees into his cricket pitch, through the rainforest room and out the other side.

While Eminem destroys an army of terra cotta Chinese warriors the Doctor stole from an Emperor several regenerations ago, the Time Lord frantically shuts down the lights in the TARDIS and stumbles forwards through the dark. Desperately, the Doctor programs a door in the corridor that opens directly onto the vortex so he can lure Eminem to her death.

However, he stumbles across an old man called Paul who the Doctor recognizes as the Time Lord who has been regularly pestering him to marry the Mara, an Eternal, the Gravis, Warlord Raven, Ileana de Cosa amongst others. Paul explains that he wandered off for a sandwich following his latest relay of marriage proposals and has been lost in the TARDIS corridors ever since.

Leaving the booby-trap, the Doctor and Paul head for the TARDIS's dimensional induction chamber, where the Doctor finds, sitting proudly in the middle of an intricate set of controls –

"ADRIC!" the Doctor exclaims in horror.

Adric explains that he is, in fact, a clone that the real Adric created one rainy day when Tegan and Nyssa were monopolizing the TV. However, it became apparent that neither Adric particularly liked the other. One went off to try and hack into the TARDIS TV channels and watch some American soap operas, while the other died horribly in a doomed affair with a suicidal Cyberleader.

Adric has now taken total control of the TARDIS and is horrified that, after the last few years the Doctor still is accompanied by two annoying women who monopolize the TV. He now intends to create an army of Adrics that will conquer all time and space and free-to-air channels. In the Doctor words, the immortal Adricness will "spread like a particularly nasty pop fad."

As Adric gloats over his imminent triumph, Eminem arrives and hacks him to pieces with her axe. The Doctor decides to throw the remains into the nearest black hole – as well as the startled Paul – but has a horrible premonition they have not seen the last of Adric...


Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who And The Revenge of the Circle-Jerk
The Tell-Tale Nerd
The Adventures of the Not-Yet-Toilet-Trained Time Traveler Paul


Goofs -
Why does Eminem use an axe on Adric when she's got a perfectly good Uzi submachine gun at her side? Surely she can gun him down and THEN hack him to pieces!


Fashion Triumphs -
Peri wears Leela's outfit to a frat party. Sadly, she spends this entire episode locked in her room, so we have only the Doctor's wistful description of leather underwear to work on.


Links and References –
The Doctor refuses point blank that he has treated his TARDIS carelessly – bar the time it was nearly destroyed in "Convex and Concave". And was stolen by Tegan in "File to Doomsday". And penetrated by an insane android in "The Visit". And was flung into a cave in "EarthShag". Plus 'transported' by British Airways in "Serial 6C". And nearly engulfed in slimy drool in "The Mutant Phrase". And breached by the power of Omigod in "Arc of Sinfinity". And being lost six years in the past in "Marely Undead". And almost sabotaged in "Terminal". And being plucked out of existence by Eternals in "Entitlement". And left with the door open in "Comrades of the Deep". And being burnt at the stake in "The Ambulatory". And crushed to a singularity in "AFRONTIOS". And invades by another nutty android in "Mammaries of Fire". And being used as target practice in "The Eyes of Scorpius".

Apart from that, he's really looked after her.


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor initially mistakes Paul for Amelia Earhart, who he and K9 rescued from certain death one cold, lonely night between female companions. She promptly spat in his face and stormed off into the TARDIS corridors and hasn't been seen since.


Groovy DVD Extras -
Artists' impression of Peri wearing Leela's leather outfit.


Dialogue Disasters -

Doctor: I have always maintained a strictly platonic relationship with my companions. ESPECIALLY you, Adric.
Adric: Oh, you're cold, Doctor, but space is colder!


Eminem: Those of us who can must help do it.
Doctor: I agree totally, Eminem. You go ahead while I... observe.


The Doctor, on seeing Paul marking the TARDIS corridors...
"Don't do that - it's disgusting!"


Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: This is my home! So why has the telephone been disconnected!
Adric: Hahaha! No phone, no home, Doctor!
Doctor: And what does that mean exactly?
Adric: To be brutally honest... I don't know.


Paul: Why do you have a rainforest in the TARDIS?
Doctor: I need to keep my sonic goat army SOMEWHERE!


Doctor: I don't particularly want surprises and adventure in my own home. I don't particularly want surprises and adventure full stop. But Big Finish can get very pernickety when the episodes become dull... What would they know?


Viewer Quotes -

"Freebies are exciting."
- Easily-Pleased Monthly (2003)

"Matthew Waterhouse is scarier than Lavros! Why won't he just stay dead, mummy? WHY??"
- Average 8-year-old response (1988)

"Normally I waste $50 on a Big Finish story, and here I only spent $18, which, when you consider that an episode per story is worth $14, that means I've STILL been ripped off!"
- A Chartered Accountant (2003)

"Rob Shearman deals out scripts like a Mississippi boat whore."
- Nigel Verkoff (2005)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"I once crept into Matthew Waterhouse's flat, entered his bedroom and shone a pencil-thin beam of light into his eyeball. Neither of us moved for an hour."


Peter Davison Speaks!
"It's amazing what technology can do nowadays. They can cybernetically recreate Matthew Waterhouse... What's scary is not that they CAN do it, it's that they DID anyway!"


Caroline Morris Speaks!
"I've killed better actors than him."


Rumors & Facts -

This story was made when Rob Shearman was dragged kicking and screaming out of the ventilation shaft and forced to rewrite his basic script for the Fifth Doctor and Eminem. This was to be a special one-off episode to celebrate Doctor Who Magazine's new font for issue 326.

Rather that snatch elements from P. J. Hammond's livelihood, Shearman stole an unfilmed script for Season 19 by Phillip K Dick called "The Arse Within", where the Doctor discovers Adric has possessed the TARDIS and needs some killing. Recreating Adric was easily done by forcing Nick Briggs to watch every episode of Happy Days backwards and then recording the curious noises he made.

With around fifty seconds of furious reworking, Shearman finished turning "The Arse Within" into "The Wanker of Time" and scurried out of sight, muttering feverishly that "the devil made me do it".

Everyone at BFP laughed merrily at this – until they let slip that "the devil" was Shearman code for "Gay Russell" who was most displeased. He renamed the story "TARDIS Megalomaniac by Rob Shearman" and then "Shades of Adric by Rob Shearman", "Stealing Adric by Rob Shearman" before settling on "No Phone, No Home".

Some sad, lonely Who fans continue to insist this entry is entirely inaccurate – pointing to the fact that every piece of evidence around this story points to it being written by Ian McLaughlin, author of The Eyes of Scorpius, Eminem's debut.

Even Rob Shearman himself has PMed at Outpost Gallifrey, shouting things like:

"This is slander!"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Leave me alone, you weirdo!"

"Great! Now you're complaining about stories I DIDN'T EVEN WRITE!"

and "You are on my ignore list. BTW, the solicitors will be at your house tomorrow. Kiss your bony ass goodbye.  Hah  Fucking  Hah "

Frankly, he's just covering his own ass – assuming, of course, that he really IS the Rob Shearman. Look at the evidence: Gay Russell was clearly so pissed off he changed the author to the first one that came to mind, to stop Shearman having two entries in a row in Big Finish: The Inside Story. There are also the trademark Shearman plot points –

- a story set in a gloomy maze that rebounds back on itself at the whim of a sinister alien power watching on

- sinister repetition, especially the "Argh! Adric" scene

- a villain the Doctor laughs his head off seeing

- a clear connection to other DWM-comic-related stories The Unholy Error and The Maltesa Penguin, not to mention the continual themes of loneliness, isolation, anger, despair, suicide, infantacide and the evil forces of time breaching reality until the elementals can stop it.

There. You know it makes sense.

Oh, shit! The solicitors are here! GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AW-------