5th Doctor - Spare Parts

Serial 6C/E – Bare Parts
Bare Parts
An Alternate Programme Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Programme Guide O' CyberNudists

Serial 6C/E – Bare Parts -

The Doctor is idly repairing the damage Nyssa has done to the TARDIS and, nonchalantly, fitted his Easy Catholic Schoolgirl Locator into the helmic regulators, switching to "1950s Sci-Fi Porn" mode. Immediately, the time machine wheezes into existence in an abandoned cinema that SHOULD be screening 'Lavatory Lesbian Lust 2' but has apparently been closed down. The Doctor is troubled at this, and when she learns that this cinema is apparently positioned within spitting distance of the Nebula of Unending Death and Torment Nyssa is shocked – mainly because it's not on the road map.

The Doctor and Nyssa emerge from the cinema into what Nyssa identified as London, Earth 1950. The Doctor points out that that cities on Earth aren't generally built inside stone caverns to protect them from the frozen atmosphere, but admits his local knowledge before Beatlemania is a bit sketchy and decides to leave the matter open.

The time travelers soon note other oddities – the incredibly repressed locals do not have pulses or breathe, the police horses are partially cybernetic, the city is under curfew... But the Doctor is confident that all this will really improve once JFK gets shot and the era of post-modernism and shoddy sci-fi begins.

Nyssa decides to ask a cyber-augmented policeman for directions and learns that they are in the last inhabited city on the planet Monday – all the rest have been wiped out by a particularly nasty yeast infection and the survivors are caught in a downward spiral of rising sexual frustration. As curfew begins, hoards of frustrated policemen start patrolling the streets, kicking cans and starting fights with inanimate objects. Sexual deprivation is getting the best of them.

Watching from hiding, the Doctor and Nyssa watch as some of the policemen snap and start digging up bodies from the graveyard as they resort to necrophilia. The Doctor, nauseous, decides he might just go back to the TARDIS and head for somewhere less inhibited. As they return, the Doctor ponders just where they are. What kind of planet resembles Earth in every way except the cybernetically-enhanced locals are fighting against their own baser designs?

They almost get into the time machine before Nyssa snaps and explains they are on Monday, home planet of the Cybermen who are on the point of being created and GOD DAMN, why is the Doctor so fucking blind at these things? He never guesses if it's the Bastard behind things either! What is wrong with him for goodness' sake?!?

The Doctor snarls and idly notes that he was just PLAYING dumb so Nyssa wouldn't get the idea in her head to start meddling with such a crucial moment in history. The Cybermen are infamous throughout the galaxy, and their absence would change the whole of time – not to mention deprive Doctor Who of its second-best money-spinners.

Nyssa points out that the Cybermen's future clearly is not certain – otherwise the Mondayans would not be resorting to corpse-fondling, would they? Perhaps the Doctor and Nyssa have arrived here in order to trigger the final genesis of the Cybermen?

The Doctor dismisses the idea as idiotic, cliched and disturbingly kinky. He also points out that the mysterious King Cyber VI has decreed that every citizen must now undergo conversion into Cybermen. True, it will most likely slaughter everyone as the process is unreliable, but on the bright side those who survive won't give a damn about the death rate – useless emotional reactions will be purged, along with such irrational things as compassion, tolerance and the inherent desire in human beings to teach a chicken to play a harmonica.

Nyssa wonders if this will be the beginning or the end of the Cyber-race. The Doctor points out it doesn't matter if every Cyberman on the planet paints itself purple and does the Highland Fling – Monday is doomed to plummet into the Nebula of Unending Death and Torment. The Doctor insists they should just leave in the TARDIS.

As they enter, Nyssa points out that if the Cybermen cease to ever have happened, that means that the First Doctor would never have regenerated, changing the Doctor's life in incalculable ways. The Doctor shrugs and powers up the console. Countless future worlds, Nyssa speculates, will remain forever at war without a common enemy to fight against. "Probably," the Doctor agrees.

Nyssa's eyes widen and she points out that this means Adric will not die during his disastrous love affair with a suicidal Cyberleader!

Seconds later, the Doctor flags down a police transport, spills its cargo of inflatable women over the street in order to attract a crowd, and steals the transport and flees before the augmented policeman can stop him – determined to save the Cyber race at any cost.

With Nyssa to aid him, the Doctor decides to break into King Cyber's palace and fix the conversion process before they run out of people. Exactly how they do this is not clear as there is a city-wide blackout and by the time the lights return the Doctor has managed to single-handedly build a planetary propulsion system out of three electric fires and a wireless set. He tricks fully-converted Commander Zheng into completing the circuit and the strange screams fill the air as the planet Monday escapes the Nebula of Unending Death and Torment by doing a three point turn near light speed.

Nyssa, meanwhile, finds that the city roof has given way to the north; the planet's frozen atmosphere is pouring in – making this yet another cold wasteland she's been stuck in on her travels with the Doctor.

The Doctor, meanwhile, discovers that all the conversion problems with the Cybermen can be fixed by fitting a small stick of celery into the hypothalamus, giving them insanely powerful multi-tasking capabilities. On the downside, this makes all Cybermen ludicrously susceptible to cheese – their secret weakness, along with website oriented porn and newsgroups; goonity vibrations; sexual air supplies; artificially-induced impotence; suicidal depression; and Kill-O-Zap guns. "A bit of planned obsolescence never goes amiss," the Doctor explains.

The true Cybermen are about to be born... and that the race will be based upon the Doctor. So, in a way, HE killed Adric!

The Doctor decides to celebrate with some of King Cyber's genuine fruit alcohol before the newly-converted Mondayans decide to add him to their ranks. Realizing he has left his dashing escape a little bit on the late side, the Doctor empties the last bottle of wine into King Cyber's nutrient feed. The Doctor and Nyssa quickly convince the totally wasted King Cyber that Commander Krang is looking at him funny, and the cybernetic potentate shoots him down, starting the first barroom brawl of the Cybermen. The Doctor and Nyssa depart quietly.

As Monday loops backwards through space towards its estranged sister planet Earth, King Cyber decides they should turn their drunken hostility and desire for hardcore domination on their weaker, fleshier cousins. The Cybermen and their tense planet will conquer and survive, and this time no frustrated time traveling pervert will stop them...

Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who & The Silver Genesis
"And Another Thing": Drunken Cybermen Say The Funniest Things
The Big Picture Is For Losers
Necrophilia Notes #4: Passive Partners


Goofs -
The plot hinges on a scene that isn't even part of the script.
(See first entry in Dialogue Disasters)


Technobabble -
There is an "climactic isolator fail-safe" built into every Cyberman.


Links and References -
Nyssa is beginning to suspect the Doctor has a fetish for her in ice-cold places wearing little clothing, based on his recent visits to Alaska, Switzerland and England in general.


Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor has been saving a urn of cyanide-laced tea for the Nipponese Emperor Tokugawa Ieyasu [presumably the Doctor is annoyed by Ieyasu's rejection of him when he was accorded the title of shogun 1603].


Groovy DVD Extras -
An Easter Egg consisting of the extending drunken King Cyber sequence.


Dialogue Disasters -

Nyssa: Have you any idea what is happening here?
Doctor: Of course I have! I should know – I'm the Doctor!
Nyssa: You liar, Peter! You haven't a clue, have you?
Doctor: Yes I do, you just a smuggled a Cybermat into the TARDIS – Tch! Companions, eh? You're all rubbish! Oh, bollocks, I've lost the last page...
Nyssa: Hah! A professional actor at work!
Doctor: Are you being ironic? Look, if the Cybermen killed Adric, I can't possibly just interfere.
Nyssa: But, if you do that, there won't be a story!
Doctor: Won't there?
Nyssa: No!
Doctor: Good point. I'll shut up now.


Doctor: You know, when King Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter in return for a fair wind to Troy, the Gods swooped in at the last minute and spirited her away to safety. Thank Christ nothing like that happened with Adric, huh?


King Cyber: YOU – MUST – KNOW – THE – BACK – ROUTE!!!!


Regos: We all want to get laid, don't we? But with a chrome finish?


Doctor: And you can sleep, sleep and smell the same drams your sire dreamt and his sire's sire before, and go galloping up out of the dark.
Kang: And what did the horse say to you?
Doctor: Nothing. Just stared at me like I was mad or something.


Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: I know a little dive – Pedro's, we call it. Straight liquor, straight talking, no questions asked. They serve anyone. It's on me.
King Cyber: WE - LIVE - IN - A - PIT - DOCTOR > THE - DARK - TIMES – ARE - GETTING - DARKER.
Doctor: Ah, don't get down. Have another drink.
King Cyber: THANKSH – DOCTOR > YOU – ARE – MY – BESHT – MATE! I – REALLY - REALLY - REALLY - MEAN – THAT!


Doctor: How did this start? Just a few leather restraints and breast implants... Celibacy's a killer, isn't it?


King Cyber: I – AM – SUPERIOR – TO – YOU – NYSSA > BE – AROUSED > WHILE – YOU – STILL – HAVE – THE – CAPACITY!!!


The electrifying scene in the wine cellar –
Nyssa: We can't just destroy a whole race!
Doctor: We can but try. Look, I'm sorry it offends your Trakenite lack of principles, but it offends me too. Not much, but it does offend me. Sometimes.
Nyssa: Surely there must be some other way for these people to survive! Maybe they don't have to become Cybermen -
Doctor: Then one day Adric will not die.
Nyssa: ...That was cruel, Doctor.
Doctor: So are the Cybermen – and they don't have safety words. But that's what it about, isn't it? Deep down, for both of us.
Nyssa: Adric. The poor Cybermen.
Doctor: The sparky irritating delinquent who died for love. I am truly sorry I waited so long to dump the little shit.
Nyssa: I'm sorry too. Fancy a shag?


Viewer Quotes -

"This cannot be canon as it totally contradicts a short story I once read on a website that no longer exists. It was called Nobb's End and featured the First Doctor and Dodo arriving on Monday, seconds before this bloke decides to turn himself into a Cyberman and in fifteen minutes the Mondayans are all converted. Because of Big Finish's gross negligence in paying attention to this continuity point, I hereby declare them all inbred hicks who couldn't do something interesting if their livestock depended on it. I now focus all my attention on the BBC Books. Oh, wait I disowned them last week. Damn. OK, I'm onto the Radio Times comic strips – THEY are the only new Who worth reading!"
- Mick Gair (Last Tuesday)

"After Nowhere-Land, I was totally certain that the whole Doctor trying to change the history of the Cybermen was a symptom of Zig-Zag-Gay-Ass. Totally. Until someone pointed me to Red China, so I shut up."
- Blind Cheetah (2001)

"Damn it! This installment of the Radio Times comic strip clearly contradicts my stance on Bare Parts! This must mean that the RT comic strips aren't canon either! Right! That does it! Onto the Unsoiled series! It's all I've got left!"
- Mick Gair (Later that Tuesday)

"King of the Cybermen? It's just a fucking potato!"
- Dismissive 'Potato Insult' Monthly (August 2002)

"GARGHHHHHHH!!!!"
- Mick Gair (Tuesday Night)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"Cyberman! Cyberman! Friendly neighborhood Cyberman! Cyberman! Cyberman! Cyberman does what Cyberman can! Cyberman! Cyberman! Baby, I'm a Cyberman! I kill as many people as I can, cause I'm a Cyberman! Cyberman! Friendly neighborhood Cyberman..."


Peter Davison Speaks!
"This story bugged me. If the Mondayans are advanced enough to create bionic implants, why the hell are living like it's 1940? Why was everyone such a bleeding stereotype? Where are the drunks, the thieves,
the scallys, the looters, the people who might break curfew to go on the piss and notice Cybermen digging up the graveyard? And why is it that in huge city full of people there are only three speaking parts? This story showed that your average working man is all heart and as thick as pigshit, letting a perverted cyborg take over the country because they're TOO BLOODY BUSY PUTTING THE BLOODY KETTLE ON!! The bastards deserved their fate! In fact, if I could, I would convert every one of the sods, go back in time and CONVERT THEM AGAIN!!"


Rumors & Facts -

By August of 2002, Big Finish had just released six adventures for the Eighth Doctor and his companion Charley Pollard, the last of which (Nowhere-Land), had ended with Charley giving birth to Richard E Grant and the Doctor deciding to become a beatnik poet called Zig-Zag-Gay-Ass. For the next CD, Producer Gay Russell decided it might be best to give the public a Doctor Who adventure they actually wanted.

After the spectacular amount of vague enthusiasm conjured up by Mark Plate's previous effort Louis Gooey, Russell suggested he write a sequel. Plate immediately sank into a comatose position, puzzling over how the hell he was supposed to do that.

Finally, Russell snapped and ordered Platt to write another Fifth Doctor story in the long-awaited Origin of the Cybermen story which fans had been proposing to the production office of Doctor Who since 1966. Indeed, Gerry Davis had enthusiastically proposed the final story for the Fourth Doctor to be Genesys of the Cybermen, involving the Doctor and his new companion Felicity Kendall encountering the bisexual King Doggy-Style. This dull tale of palace intrigues ultimately lead to the creation of the Cybermen and apparently started due to the Second Doctor accidentally handing a Mondayan caveman some high-class Edwardian pornographic lithographs.

Plate's first instinct was simply to run Genocide of the Dustbins through a 'Find and Replace' and so create what he hoped to be an uplifting tale of cybernetic bondage in Carry On Up The Cyber-Arse. However, Russell doubted that the script would work so well for the Fifth Doctor (who in this story would demand to be eaten by a walrus, ponder the absurdity of existence and take the evil, wheelchair-bound Cybros out for dinner) and decided he should simply write a generic doom-laden story fitting EXACTLY with the dialogue used in Hartnell's swansong, The Tense Planet.

This proposal, entitled Incision Divorce, was now a base-under-siege sort of gig, with the Doctor, Nyssa and the original Cybermen living in perpetual fear of a mythical being known only as The Grinderman, who reputedly 'grinds away' at any innocent victim it can find. The story ended with the argument over Adric's death and finished with Nyssa saying 'Screw this!' and stealing the TARDIS to go in search of the Bastard so she could pop a cap in his lily-white ass.

Russell lied through his teeth and said that this particular scene had already been done in The Band of the Dead – because not only would such a scene be difficult to reconcile with the existing Season 20 and require ludicrous amount of retconning, he was hoping to steal the scene to use it in his latest book. He also ordered Plate at gunpoint not to place any Alice in Wonderland fanwank reference into the story.

Originally, King Cyber VI was to be Queen Sybil VIII and to be played by Deborah Watling. There were a few concerns that using a companion in such a way would be distracting and to the story's detriment, but these criticism were quickly silenced by the thought of Victoria in leather with a whip, ordering the Cybermen to do her naughty bidding.

Watling proved to be permanently unavailable and so, Big Finish decided to continue with one of their long-standing objectives – to get every major Blake's 7 character to appear as a baddie in Doctor Who. This obsession had already tainted PRIME Weevil, and thus Sally Knyvette was chosen to play King Cyber in drag.

In order to save costs and not release Nicholas Briggs to do the Cyber voices, Jason Haigh-Ellery decided to use the LSD-on-non-English-speakers method pioneered in The Tense Planet. Bare Parts was also the story where Big Finish finally abandoned the Radio Times entries they were spending a fortune on, simply to get gullible fans confused.

Here are the abandoned listings anyway:

EPISODE ONE:
No tea for Tokugawa Ieyasu, no shame shagging the dead

EPISODE TWO:
No business for Tom Baker, no sleep for tortoises.

EPISODE THREE:
No cheers for victory, no power to the proletariat.

EPISODE FOUR:
No dope for humanity, no respect for the Doctor.

With Big Finish actually giving a damn about the stories they produce just this once, with decent actors and a half-thought out script, Russell ordered the Doctor Who Magazine preview to suggest readers to name Bare Parts the 2002 poll winner before they had even heard it.

So they did. People are sheep, aren't they?