6th Doctor - The One Doctor

Serial 7C/Z – There Can Only Be One Doctor...
There Can Only Be One Doctor...
An Alternate Programme Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Century Ending



Serial 7C/Z – There Can Only Be One Doctor... -

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor finally beats Mel at a game of Monopoly and starts to laugh insanely and gloat in a way only a power-crazed dictator can as he controls Mayfair and King’s Cross.

The TARDIS picks up a distress signal, interrupting the Doctor’s deranged self-aggrandizement and Mel nags at him to actually answer the distress signal instead of ignoring like the last sixteen times.

The Doctor protests that they are thousands of years in the future, in a zone of time and space TARDISes fear to go for the chronotonal instabilities and strange demons from beyond the outskirts of eternity.

"Plus, it’s always rainy and duller than a graveyard on a Sunday afternoon! Let em burn, Mel! LET IT ALL END IN FIRE!"

Mel stares at him.

"Or... at a pinch... we could see what the fuss is all about..."

Finally, Mel gets her way and the Doctor lands the time machine on the planet Netora. However, it appears at first the Doctor has instead piloted them all the way to Woodstock in 1969 as they arrive in an open field festival of joy and wonder and lots of wild, LSD-fueled raves.

The Doctor protests to Mel he is hardly likely to misprogram the TARDIS deliberately, since he knew he would just get more bitching, and asks some of the ravers where they are and what the hell is happening.

They learn that they are actually on Netora, and mere minutes after the distress signal was sent – however not only has the capital village Shedax been saved, so has the planet Netora and the surrounding generic Solar System that surrounds them.

The Doctor preens modestly, noting that at last he has encountered a civilization advanced enough to realize that he is a godlike genius who can solve all their problems and save the entire universe by exerting only the tiniest pressure of his thumb.

However, the ravers have no idea who the Doctor is – they have been saved by a strange time travelling alien with a mysterious past, numerous faces and lots of sexy girlfriends.

"Yes, that's me!" the Doctor snaps angrilly.

"Are YOU Professor X then?" ask the ravers, amazed.

Mel buys a newspaper and discovers that the evil alien Timorgs have been utterly defeated by Professor X, a camp, overweight and very hairy man in frock coat, along with a blonde American teenager answering to the name of Sally-Anne.

More dance music begins and the crowd begin to chant "Professor X" and the time travellers watch on as the Professor and Sally-Anne gracefully and modesty accept the worship and prepare to slip away quietly in their time space machine, the SARDIT, which is disguised as a London Transport Information Booth which happens to be much larger on the inside than the out.

"You copycat BASTARDS!" the Doctor screams, hurling an empty bottle of space beer up at the heroes of Netora and hurls even more abuse of such intensity and vulgarity that sweet, innocent Mel faints.

The Doctor charges the main gate, swearing violently and shouting things like "GET OFF MY PATCH, YOU LOSERS! I’M THE FUCKING KA FARAQ GATRI AND I’M GOING TO FARAQ YOU TO DEATH!!!!"

At that moment a gigantic flying saucer bigger than the sky appears overhead, prompting the crowds of Netorans to compare it disdainfully with "Independence Day" and complain that there's a fuzzy orange line around the edges of the ship, as if superimposed with bad CSO.

In a deep booming voice sounding like one half of Little Britian, the UFO demands the Three Moderately Interesting Treasures of the planet Netora and in case anyone starts to think this is some wussy little standard Star Trek ‘probe gone wrong’ scenario... they’re damn right!

The UFO obliterates a couple of moons with a deadly laser beam and carves the words AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR? on the mountain range overlooking the festival.

Meanwhile, the Professor and Sally-Anne are taken by surprise when the Doctor jumps out of the shadows and starts to strangle Professor X to death, demanding the alien confess to being a con man intending to purchase a pleasure planet with ill-gotten gains collected as recompense from saving the universe.

The Doctor lets go of the Professor at this point, realizing that actually this is an incredibly smart career plan and he could actually be filthy stinking rich if he just CHARGED for his services – although a time traveler can have no need of money, the Doctor does so hate not having the correct change for bus fares...

At this point, Professor X and Sally-Anne punch the Doctor’s lights out. Telling Tredar, leader of Netora, that the Doctor is quite clearly some passing lunatic in a weird, flashy outfit and the Doctor is immediately locked in a waiting room.

The Doctor starts screaming abuse at the guards and so is upgraded from a comfortable cell with a sofa and food machine to a rat-infested dungeon deep below the surface of Netora.

Mel is allowed visiting rights so she can give the Doctor a stern talking to, but has irritated the guards so much that they take her AND the Doctor, throw them at the bottom of a well and block it with a boulder, trapping them and consigning them to a horrible death.

The Doctor rants and raves that they are so far in the future, the very vulgar end of time when his legendary exploits are being used by some petty criminals to defraud innocent people. Worse, he’s not getting ten per cent and he’s got half a mind to sue both of them for breach of copyright.

Mel reads through the newspaper and discovers that Professor X is a ‘Watcher’ from the planet ‘Chumran’ and has been saving the universe for ages, from dangers like the Mechanoids, the Cyborgs, the Vikings, and of course evil Watchers like the Cleric, the Vicar, the Controller, Kappa Alpha and the Princess, not to mention robot replicas, mad scientist Doctor Threeways, and the Might of the Terran Empire.

The Doctor tells Mel to shut up and allow him to concentrate his formidably mind powers on the boulder trapping them. There’s just a chance it is made of a psycho-reactive material and thus if the Doctor stares at it long enough, it will move aside.

Nothing happens.

Meanwhile, Professor X and Sally-Anne vow to collect the Three Moderately Interesting Treasures of the planet Netora and use their SARDIT to travel to Bunning’s Warehouse. There, Smash Robots are trying to create the most difficult to assemble flatpack wardrobe in the universe, ensuring that whichever bit needed is in another dimension and that the Allan keys are constantly changing shape.

Sally-Anne gives an inspiring speech about the benefits of the pitiful humans who require all this glorious self-assembly furniture, and then Professor X gets bored and uses his laser signet ring to wipe out the Smash Robots, and they steal the wardrobe.

Back at the bottom of the well, the Doctor and Mel munch on some candy bars and bitch about how unfair life is.

The SARDIT arrives in a quarry where a brightly coloured TV studio has been set up by the immortal artificial superbrain Knowitall. In order to claim this Moderately Interesting Treasure, they must take part in "Touch the Tentacle" and feel protuberances from various alien species and suffer crude innuendo and embarrassing personal questions.

Realizing that this godlike intellect has been bored out of its gourd, and is thus doing the most incredibly moronic and stupid, and starts to flirt wildly with Professor X.

Using her incredible cunning, Sally-Anne starts calling Knowitall a 'complete fucking retard' who 'couldn’t tell a Zarbi from a Navarino' and the Professor reprograms Knowitall with a hatpin and a piece of sting he keeps for just these sort of emergencies.

They then use the SARDIT to arrive at Diamond Island, which is inhabited by ferocious Andromedan blancmanges.

Back at the bottom of the well, the Doctor grins dirtily and bores Mel by telling her about one of his ex-boyfriends, Kurt, who helped him seduce a Tralmafadorian during a visit to the 1970s UNIT era.

Luckily, the boulder is blasted by the irritable UFO which is bored and angrily waiting for the Three Moderately Interesting Treasures of the planet Netora. The Doctor and Mel escape to see the SARDIT reappear on stage and a blancmange-splattered Professor X and Sally-Anne stagger out with a Woolworths shopping trolley containing the Three Moderately Interesting Treasures of the planet Netora.

The UFO accepts this as a suitable tribute, and demands that the Professor identify himself so he may be rewarded for his efforts.

The Doctor runs off stage claiming that this is entirely unfair, and after 901 years of running around the cosmos, interfering with alien women, blowing up planets, and turning famous historical monuments into antennae of extraterrestrial energy, he deserves recognition!

Professor X laughs and explains he has sought out the Doctor through all of time and space for a potential rival, and this entire adventure has been one ridiculously-convoluted and over-complicated trap.

"You should always expect the unexpected," Professor X sneers.

The UFO aims its laser weapon straight at the Doctor.

A million and one different witty bon mots flash through the Time Lord’s mind at incredibly speed, but the only thing the Doctor can think of saying is simply, "Bugger."

The UFO fires.

A burst of cheap negative effects douse the Doctor, drawing the life out of the very core of his existence as his body ages terribly. His interactive cat badge leaps from his lapel, screaming, "Sorry, pal, I'll see you later!" as it runs off.

As the Doctor collapses in agony, the UFO and flies off, promising to see the Professor for that golf tournament on the weekend.

The crowd outside calls for Professor X and Sally-Anne, and express their gratitude and praise by handing over ten million credits they so obviously deserve.

"There's only room in the universe for one time-travelling, face-changing anarchist with a string of jail bait teenage girls," Professor X booms, before kicking the mortally wounded Doctor in the balls before going to reap the cash, fame, illegal drugs and mindless groupies that aren't his by right.

Unable to believe this, the Doctor wishes he had the strength to go on a strangling spree. Melanie, embarrassed by the Doctor's overacting, helps him up.

"Honestly, Doctor, stop acting like a dying duck in a thunder storm! Now, first thing's first. We have to finish that game of Monopoly, and then set you up on that date with that lovely Swedish swimming instructor over a nice glass of carrot juice!"

The Doctor's symbiotic nuclei give up at this point.

"Carrot juice!" he sobs, a broken man as she throws him into the TARDIS. "Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice!"

His petulant whining hangs in the air long after the police box dematerializes...



Inside, the Doctor crumbles to the floor, groaning as death approaches. So taken aback at how events have run away with themselves, the Doctor can't even think up some decent last words, and has to misquote his previous dying utterances:

"Peri... going soon, so it's time to say... that this is NOT the end! But it HAS been prepared for... Tears, Sarah Jane? Nooo... nooooo... Stop it, you're making me dizzy... noooo... Fuck me ragged, this old body of mine is getting tired..."

Mel, rolling her eyes at this melodrama, sets the controls for Gallifrey. Since Time Lords have amazing powers of regeneration, she decides to shock the Doctor into his regenerative cycle.

She does this by brutally kicking the Doctor and beating him with a lesser Great Treasures of the Generic System – an umbrella with a weird cartoon red question mark handle.

Rapidly, the Doctor loses consciousness and after Mel picks up an exercise bike and smashes it over his head, a blaze of crude CGI has transformed him into a small, Gnomish Scotsman who clutches the question mark umbrella feverishly.

Staring with wide-eyed psychosis at Mel, the New Doctor begins to sing!

"I'm a lonely load-luggerrrr
On the highways of infinity!
My thoughts are full of you, my love
And our rrrrrelative prrroximity
Though space is wide,
You'rrrre by my side,
As I face the great divinity!"

The new incarnation of the Doctor smacks himself in the face with a handy lump hammer, shuddering, "That's better! A quick renewal in time for tea and I'm as sound as a dromedary! Oh, Melanie, it was such a STRANGE dream! And you were there! And so was I! These clothes have got to go – my new retina can't take it! I need a jumper... with question marks! QUESTION MARKS FRROM THE DAWN OF TIIIIIMMMEE!"

Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Mysterio Vor Dem Ende
Doctor Who Versus The Bun Doctor
The Colonel X Program Guide by Steve Moffat

Fluffs – Colin Baker seemed to be on a one-way ticket to the depths of Hell for most of this story.
In episode two Professor X refers to his 'Chilli Hotdog Overdrive'.

Goofs -
How do the Professor X and Sally-Anne take the components of ZX419 which aren't currently in their dimension with them? Is it part of the conspiracy? Or are they just going to act like all DIY handymen and simply bluff their way with half the pieces missing?

Technobabble -
The Doctor threatens to transform Professor X’s testicles into "pluvon power crystals" with a "multi-phasing corpolectric wave."

Links and References -
As he regenerates, the Doctor is confronted by ghostly hallucinations of his previous companions' severed heads transformed into balloons on string and float before his very eyes...

Peri: Where is he? Where is that bastard, let me at him!
Doctor: Peri? What are you doing here? Come to see me off, have you? I’m so sorry, I’m sorry I never went back, to tell you why I left you behind on Peladon - no, it wasn’t Peladon, was it?
Peri: Damn it, you can’t even remember!
Doctor: It was, it was... blast, the neural pathways are already beginning to... to... I can’t...
Peri: Oh there’s always SOME excuse!
Doctor: Piss off, Peri!
Peri: FUCK YOU, DOCTOR!
Doctor: Oh, well, at least there was closure... Grant? Is that you?
Grant: I’m sodding broke because of you, you git! And you're crap in bed, you pathetic little----
Doctor: Anyway, rapidly moving on. Evelyn?
Evelyn: Oh, Johnny, you’re such a nancy boy! Why couldn’t you be like your father? He was such a good lover, never knew his own strength... Heheh.
Doctor: Yep, that's Evelyn. Frobisher, you silly old platypus...
Frobisher: Christ, it’s YOU. I thought I was the deathbed hallucination for someone I actually gave a spielsnape's ass about. May your foulness rot in hell.
Vervoid: You intergalactic weed!
Sil: Later, loser boy.
Valeyard: (shrugs) Bummer, dude.
Glitz: See ya, chubby. Hope the next you smartens up a bit!
Bastard: This is getting pretty metaphysical, isn't it?

Untelevised Misadventures -
In 1975, the Doctor shared an apartment with the Sussurats of Chalzon at 35 Jefferson Road, Woking. It was a strained relationship – he was always too busy defeating Cybermen invasions to do the washing up, and they were too far outside conterminous time to choose nicer wallpaper.

Groovy DVD Extras -
The final track of Disc 2 contains over eight minutes of bonus material deemed far too shithouse to appear in the story proper. Depressingly, most of these are embarrassed silences and awkward pauses that last up to minutes at a time.
There is a sequence where the Sixth and Seventh Doctors play Seppulchasm while Melanie watches the 2007 Christmas Speech where Elizabeth II turns into a werewolf and eats Tony Blair.
This is followed by approximately five and a half minutes of Nicholas Briggs being doused in petrol, set alight and hurled out of a top story window to land in a truckload of broken bottles, barbed wire and rusty razor blades – an annual Christmas event for Big Finish cast and crew.
With optional commentary by John Levene.

Dialogue Disasters -

Sally-Anne: One we use the psychic screwdriver on the hydrogen feeding systems, we'll leave the evil Skelloids looking like a right bunch of Quirks!

Doctor: That noise! IT’S DESTROY MY MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINDDDDDDDDDDDD!
Mel: Honestly, I was just whistling, Doctor!

Mel: These corridors all look the same.
Doctor: You’ll spoil the magic, Mel! Stop ruining childhoods!

Doctor: I am the one and only
And there's nobody I'd rather be!'
Professor X: Well now, that IS interesting...

Mel: You're supposed to jog me out of my Slough of Despond!
Doctor: I’m sick of this exercise bollocks. Get out of that Slough pond yourself, fitness freak!

Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: Life is a glorious cycle of song
A medley of extemporanea
And love is a thing that can never go wrong
And I am Marie of Romania.
(long pause)
Mel: Hello, Marie. Still having trouble with those filthy gypsies?

Doctor: When science stumbles, force has a certain finesse.
Mel: That’s hardly an excuse to go round strangling people, though.

Mel: Believe me when I'm scared, I'll scream the paint off the wall!
Doctor: It saves buying paint stripper...

Mel: How’s your weeping willow impersonation?
Sally-Anne: What?
Mel: I’ve got a plan?
Sally-Anne: Well, why didn’t you say so? Is there actually anyone else in the entire history of the universe that actually talks like you?
Mel: No, now you come to mention it.

Viewer Quotes -

"I've always believed that a natural Time Lord regeneration would take place over a long period of time while the subject is in a coma; a natural 'easing out' process after the body is in danger. So Melanie beating the Doctor to death with every single prop to hand pretty much proves that the slow and peaceful transformation, akin to a butterfly, does work better WITHOUT repeated blows to the head with a hammer." - Nick Walters (1987)

"There Can Only Be One Joke... and that's my life. This story isn't really a laugh riot... I felt no desire to go looting, storming police stations with firebombs, or anything else that lightens up this tedious grey collage we call existence." - Dave Restal (2003)

"This story speaks to me on so many levels. Naturally, the biggest concern of any conservative, British, middle-class family is that some oily, cockney-accented con-man with a promiscuous working-class girlfriend will come along and fool them out of their wealth by pretending to be "well-mannered" and "properly-spoken" when we all know them for the vulgar chav scum they are! All of them have to go! ALL CHAVS MUST DIE! ALL CHAVS MUST DIE! ALL CHAVS MUST DIE!" – Sydney Newman (1967)

"Hmmm. A Weakest Link parody in Doctor Who. I think I'll nick that." - some camp Welsh imbecile (2003)

"Oh Colin, Colin, Colin... you were a breath of fresh air when you replaced that wet fish Davison, call me an imbecile, but I honestly believe that magical fairies are summoned into existence whenever he is around, and they make the scripts better, the production standards higher and they're just all round more entertaining! Not like Davison, that loser! Why couldn’t he be as fresh and original as this? Sod the others, bring on the next Colin CD! Oh, wait. He died at the end of this one. Fuck." – Jo Ford Prefect (1999)

"A bit like comfortably fetid seawater." - The Unpublished Target Novel "Doctor Who and the Cooking Analogies"

Psychotic Nostalgia -
"Who needs turkey for Christmas? I want Pescaton!"

Colin Baker Speaks!
"It was lovely to work with Bonnie again, for the first time since 1986, since she can regale me with stories out how she made old Sylvester bang his head against the wall to block out her voice. The cold winter evenings fly by. And I liked this story because it was a little braver than some Doctor Who stories: the way they killed me off for a shock moment went a bit further than I expected, but it’s entirely credible in context. Luckily, they’ve promised me that the next audio they do will reveal this is all a dream and I’m still the Doctor. Not that I’m REALLY fussed. I’m not some sad act like Nick Briggs, am I?"

Rumors & Facts –
The praise heaped upon this story is rather disturbing.

It is a missing Season 23 story with the Sixth Doctor and Mel fighting Christopher Biggins in a treasure hunt for a giant UFO. Anyone would think that this tale was the masterpiece that Doctor Who fans have always been waiting for, rather than the biggest waste of airtime since Sasha Baron-Cohen was told he sounded funnier with a stupid accent.

In fact, the only reason anyone wanted to listen to this is because all fans are compulsive collectors and all want a complete set of Doctor adventures, so they’d get this no matter what.

Now, Colin Baker had been cruelly deprived of a regeneration story during his spell on TV... mainly because producer John Satan-Turner hadn't found the courage to tell Baker he'd been fired. In fact, to spare Baker's feelings, JST pretended that Baker was still the Doctor and was forced to film fake stories for the Sixth Doctor up until 1994, five years after the BBC had pulled the plug on the genuine article.

Baker had always wanted his last story to feature his Doctor dying of old age... mainly because he refused to leave the show unless HE was dying of old age as well, and even suggested a kind of 'exile to Earth' scenario which would allow him to film from his retirement home armed with the sonic incontinence trousers and the temporal walking frame.

Ideally, Baker's swansong would feature a titanic battle with the Bastard in which their brains would swap bodies so that the indestructible Sixth Doctor would become the very destructible Sixth Doctor With The Mind of the Bastard. This way, when the Sixth Doctor died, he was an evil, arrogant, backstabbing little colourblind shit rather than... actually, it's hard to tell the difference. No doubt this would have made the story more gripping with suspense.

"The Sixth Doctor Snuffs It" was one of the handful of fan-based continuity-gap-filling ideas Gay Russell had yet to use for Big Finish, along with "The Cybermen Versus the Dustbins" and "The Revenge of Meglos the Potted Cactus in Tiannaman Square!"

Authors Pip & Jane Baker had written two stories to kill off the Sixth Doctor, as it was a kind of literary fetish of theirs. The first idea, entitled Strange Mutter, was pretty much the same plot for Romp With The Rani, except it started with the Sixth Doctor slipping on a banana peel and snapping his neck on the TARDIS console. This was latter amended to a slight bruise, allowing the Sixth Doctor to survive the story up until the final episode... where he was caught in a bomb blast that, in the finished story, simply nukes a wet minor character that was looking for redemption.

The other major idea was an abandoned Season 23 idea entitled Galifray. This story featured the Bastard conquering the planet Galifray in the mistaken belief it was Gallifrey, Home of the Time Lords. Unfortunately, Galifrey is the Home of the Inbred Rednecks Who Don't Have The Internal Combustion Engine Or Real Teeth.

Chasing the Rani there, the Sixth Doctor and Mel decide that the Inbred Rednecks Who Don't Have The Internal Combustion Engine Or Real Teeth are a menace to life kind and promptly ask a passing Dustbin invasion fleet to nuke the planet and everything on it. The Dustbins are only too happy to oblige – which is a pity as the Doctor's criminal vanity has made one fatal mistake.

He is still ON Galifrey as the Dustbins destroy it.

After suffering lethal radiation poisoning, being shot at point blank rage by Dustbin neutralizer guns fifty seven times, falling a kilometer into a firework factory which promptly explodes, suffering through a time barrier, cracking his head on a stalagmite, the Doctor would enjoy a nice Satay stir fry... only for a hithertoo unmentioned peanut allergy would kill him outright.

The writers Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman shared the Bakers' desire to write a story that mercilessly destroyed the Sixth Doctor and allowed Sylvester McCoy to take his place, but they also wanted him to suffer a demise at the fate of Christopher Biggins.

Russell liked the idea, but found the idea that Melanie was the one that finished the Doctor off appealed to his sick sense of humor. And, more importantly, made sense of a goof in his upcoming story extravaganza, Zig-Zag-Gay-Ass, which claimed Melanie had beaten the Sixth Doctor to death.

The origin of the rest of the plot was a short story Roberts had written in 1984, where the Sixth Doctor and Peri find tabloid newspapers splattering scandals about "the Doctor" on their front pages. This humiliation caused the Doctor die of a heart attack and unregenerate back into Peter Davison, causing much rejoicing.

In order to ensure that the last story of the Sixth Doctor commemorated his incarnation, Roberts and Hickman went to Eric Saward for advice. Saward, who long despised the character of Doctor Who, often had him locked in a cell for most of Seasons 22 and 23 while lots of interesting characters did brutal sodomy to each other.

Unfortunately, this meant that the story would now be set entirely in a cell, something that Gay Russell frowned upon – mainly because he got bored easily, not because he felt Colin Baker deserved any kind of grand exit, and even if he did, it was irrelevant!

Thus, it was decided on the 'fake Doctor' idea, and immediately Christopher Biggins was cast. This was not particularly surprising, since everyone who works at Big Finish Productions is a card-carrying member of the Christopher Biggins fan club and often quote "I, Claudius" dialogue for no real reason to cover embarrassing silences. At one point, Big Finish considered assassinating Kirsty Wauk just so Christopher Biggins could host Newsnight.

With work on There Can Only Be One Doctor... complete, Gay Russell realized he’d allowed someone else to write the fanwankiness of the Sixth Doctor’s finale! Furious, he devoted himself to writing Future Imperfect, a BBC novel that rendered absolutely everything – even itself – non canonical, and gave the Sixth Doctor a truly heroic exit, as his vital Time Lord bodily juices are sucked out by a giant origami snake, before tripping and snapping his neck on the TARDIS console.

In one final bit of insanity, Roberts and Hickman remembered the time their TV got a bit dodgy and the theme music for Part Two of Carnival of Munsters went wonky.

In a sad reference to this occasion, which no one else in the western world understood, it was decided to rescore the episode with the Church’s "Under the Milky Way" which ironically got into the top twenty when Sylvester McCoy took over the show as the Seventh Doctor.

Sometimes when this place gets kind of empty,
Sound of their breath fades with the light.
I think about the loveless fascination,
Under the milky way tonight.

Lower the curtain down in Memphis,
Lower the curtain down all right.
I got no time for private consultation,
Under the milky way tonight.

Wish I knew what you were looking for.
Might have known what you would find.
Wish I knew what you were looking for.
Might have known what you would find.

And its something quite peculiar,
Something that's shimmering and white.
Leads you here, despite your destination,
Under the milky way tonight

Wish I knew what you were looking for.
Might have known what you would find.
Wish I knew what you were looking for.
Might have known what you would find.

{bagpipe solo}

And its something quite peculiar,
Something that's shimmering and white.
Leads you here, despite your destination,
Under the milky way tonight

Wish I knew what you were looking for.
Might have known what you would find.
Wish I knew what you were looking for.
Might have known what you would find.

Under the milky way tonight
Under the milky way tonight
Under the milky way tonight...