Have I Got Whos For You (Festive Edition)

“Oh. You’ve redecorated.”

The snowman is about the best part of it. The rest of it looks deliberately pasted on, which I suppose is the point. I can never quite get the hang of lighting in things like this, but I suppose if we’re talking about a fictional alien spacecraft in an entirely made-up TV series, it doesn’t matter if things look a bit plastic.

Anyway, having done up the TARDIS, it’s off for a spot of carol singing.

It’s been a funny few days, really; the fans are angry about the absence of a Christmas episode, never mind the fact that the constant repetition of the ‘Resolution’ trailer meant we had more Doctor Who on our screens yesterday than we have for years. It was helpful, at least, that the BBC finally confirmed what most of us had already figured out even before it was leaked. (And for the record, they never denied the existence of Daleks, nor did they say they were gone for good. So no one lied to you and you can stop complaining about it.)

Meanwhile, in the real world, people are arguing over exactly what may or may not have been said about the Prime Minister, presumably in an attempt to avoid discussing the stuff that actually counts.

Those of you still crying out for a Christmas episode could always head over to The Doctor Who Companion, where I’ve written a festive short story featuring the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions. It features time travel, bad Photoshopping and jokes at the expense of the fandom, and there may be a couple of Father Ted references.

Meanwhile, over here at BoM, the Twelfth Doctor is unable to understand the appeal of stag parties.

“Is there something on my head?”

Anyway, people always talked about wanting a musical episode, and I saw a couple of musicals recently and then one thing sort of led to another…

Incidentally, a very Happy Christmas to all of you at home.

Have I Got Whos For You (series 11 edition, part 5)

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that it’s Wednesday and I have yet to upload a review. That’s in no small part because I was asked, at rather short but nonetheless welcome notice, to do a review for Metro, and you can read that one if you really want to, although it should be taken as read that it’s somewhat different to the one I’d have posted here.

But you know, audiences and that. I do have something quite special planned (that’s ‘special’ in a Church Lady sense, of course), but to help you while away your time while I get that finished, here’s a few…things to keep you going.

First up: Jodie Whittaker’s the king of the world. Sorry, that should be ‘woooooooorrrrlllld’.

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On a hospital ship heading towards an outer colony, the damaged P’ting is healed by an unexpected visitor.

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Elsewhere, in the forests of Lancashire, Nintendo resorts to unorthodox marketing strategies in order to shift units.

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But that’ll have to go on the back burner for now, because the Eleventh Doctor would like a little chat.

See you in a few days…

God Is In The Detail (11-09)

Eagle-eyed readers – or at least those who keep spreadsheets – can’t have failed to notice that we skipped episode eight in our (almost) weekly round-up here at Conspiracy Central. I was trying to sort out Edward’s birthday party and that threw my timetable out of whack, so I trust you will forgive me. Fear not! We return this afternoon with a fresh batch of VERY IMPORTANT SIGNS AND CLUES that you probably missed while you were watching the Doctor and her companions trundle round a Norwegian log cabin in last week’s ‘It Takes You Away’. I can’t promise any frogs, but you won’t be bored.

First and foremost, I want you to think back to Titanic. No, I know it brings back bad memories, but work with me. Recall, if you can, the moment at the beginning where Bill Paxton describes what happened when the boat sank – the filling of the lower decks with water, sinking the boat lower and lower into the water until it was almost vertical, whereupon the hull cracked and split in two. It’s a great scene because Leonardo Di Caprio doesn’t feature at all, but also because it effectively describes the rest of the movie without really spoiling it. If I were feeling particularly callous I’d suggest that you could probably roll the credits there, and it would have made for a better film. But I am not in any way callous, of course.

Nonetheless I now want you to remember the sequence that opened ‘It Takes You Away’, after the TARDIS had landed by the fjord, and the four of them trooped up to the cabin. And you may recall this:

It’s a cleverly framed shot and it’s over in a heartbeat once the camera pans left – thank goodness for freeze frame, eh? Because in point of fact this rope swing represents the entire story, in one single moment. There are two identical cabins – both with triangular-shaped bedrooms (see opening image) – bridged by a long tunnel. (I’ve been scouring Kevin Eldon’s CV for a connection to the plastic swing, but haven’t found anything yet. Give me time.)

Next we move to the shed, where Ryan and Yas have just had an unfortunate encounter with a headless chicken. Or pheasant. Or perhaps an enormous cock, although that might have been Nigel Farage.

Needless to say this is loaded with detail. Rather than spend ages describing everything here, forcing you to scroll endlessly back and forth between text and image, I’ve created a handy annotated guide. See, I’m kind like that.

Ah yes. A note about that gas. There are two bottles – already layered with significance, as you will note from the two on the table. The one in the red bottle is most likely propane, which indicates that the white is one of those replacement cylinders you get from building hardware suppliers, because why would you want both butane and propane? We therefore see an old casing refilled with new material, which is precisely the opposite of the Doctor’s regeneration process; hence the theme of opposites and the mirror universe is hinted at earlier than any of us thought.

But there’s more. You knew there would be more, didn’t you? Leaving aside the obvious Faustian connotations of the red and white (Mephistopheles vs. The Good Angel, not to mention their ties with the White and Black Guardian – something we probably predicted weeks ago although I can’t find the reference – there is a reason we can see two Calor gas bottles (other gas suppliers are available) in the background. Because while Calor have branches everywhere, their headquarters are in Warwick, in a building called Athena House. The name is a red herring; the postcode is not. It’s CV34 6RL – referring specifically to Christopher Villiers (‘The King’s Demons’, ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’) and Rula Lenska (‘Resurrection of the Daleks’), or more specifically to the years in which they turned 34 and 6: that is, 1994 and 1953.

Subtract 1953 from 1994 and you get 41. This is one shy of ’42’, an episode written by Chris Chibnall. Therefore we conclude DEFINITIVELY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY that a prequel to this episode – establishing the sentient sun and presumably carrying a slightly shorter running time – is on the cards for 2019, or whenever Chibnall gets round to finishing it.

Can I also point out that propane turns up in ‘The Moonbase’ and that ‘The Moonbase’ starred Patrick Troughton, who then went on to star in ‘The Two Doctors’? Good. Glad we’ve got that established.

The writing’s on the wall for this next clue.

This isn’t just a random set of instructions that the Doctor scribbled in a panic. Each of those three phrases can be conveniently rearranged. (The last one, by the way, is cut off from view, but I think we can safely assume that it reads ‘Find out who else can take care of her’.)

The first two rearranged phrases read as follows:

HARASSED MEDIA DUDES

HE FREE SPEAK

You’ve figured out, of course, that this refers to the Doctor Who showrunners and Christopher Eccleston respectively. Keep your eyes peeled for that memoir. It’s going to be a blinder.

But that’s only two thirds done, and there’s still a final phrase to unpack. That last one can be shuffled into ACANTHUS ACHE DEER FELINE FOOTWORK, indicating that the Doctor is set to meet a strange dancing cat-stag hybrid in a mysterious forest. There will probably be cake.

Last but not least this week, we’re in a kitchen.

It’s a Slayer t-shirt. But there’s a reason it’s reversed, and it’s nothing to do with the fact that it’s a mirror universe. Well, all right, it is, but it’s not only that. In fact this is a nod to backmasking, the practice of inserting subliminal messages into records that are only revealed when a song is played backwards. They had their heyday in the 1980s when conservative parents started to get very concerned about the terrible effects backmasking was having on their children, who were being told to smoke marijuana, kill their parents and sacrifice a virgin – never mind the fact that half of the reverse ‘messages’ were actually gibberish, given a temporary stay by a fusion of media hysteria and the power of suggestion. (I’ve always found the concept of playing songs backwards faintly odd, truth be told, but I suppose it’s easier when you have vinyl.)

Anyway. In 1985, Slayer released their second studio album, Hell Awaits, and the title track contained a backwards message that was planted quite deliberately – cries of “Join us!”, supposedly referring to the fan club as opposed to a Satanic cult, although Ann Coulter would probably argue that it was basically the same thing. And a curious thing happens when we examine the track listing:

Oh, and while we’re at it, the word ‘Slayer’ may be conveniently rearranged into ‘Yas Rel’. That’s Yas, right? And the UNIT OF DALEK MEASUREMENT? Surely we need no more clues that the Daleks WILL BE MAKING AN APPEARANCE IN THE NEW YEAR SPECIAL?

What do you mean they’ve already called that?

Oh, right. Still. The Mirror published it. You know, the Mirror…

Review: It Takes You Away

A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. The mouse saw a TARDIS, which was in the process of being abandoned by four eccentric travellers, none of whom were dressed for hiking.

The group had a flat structure, which meant that one of them was in charge and told everyone else what to do. This was how they ended up at a mysterious log cabin with three locks on the door, although it was fine to pick them because this is Doctor Who and breaking and entering is perfectly acceptable when you’re a Time Lord.

The house was occupied by a blind teenager hiding inside the wardrobe along with Hitler and several copies of ‘Fury From The Deep’. She was frightened because her father had left her.

“Maybe he’s left yer,” suggested Ryan, prompting a furious Yas to sock him on the jaw.

“What? I’m only sayin’ he’s probably abandoned her – ” Sadly this sentence remained unfinished, because Yas had just kneed him in the gonads.

“None of that, here, Ryan,” said the Doctor, scribbling HER FATHER IS PROBABLY DEAD on the wall so they could all have a good giggle about it.

In the upper room there was a mirror which offered no reflection. Graham and Ryan considered the possibility that they were both vampires, which would explain why Ryan didn’t seem to have a pulse. Graham munched on his cheese and pickle sandwich and hoped the red stuff was beetroot.

The Doctor examined the mirror. “Shall I break the glass?” she asked.

“Why not?” replied Yas. “You already did it to the ceiling.”

On the other side of a mirror there was a long tunnel that looked like the Peak District because it probably was. Inside was Kevin Eldon wearing makeup that was at once instantly familiar and very slightly rehashed.

“I’ll take you through these tunnels if I can have the sonic vibrator,” said Kevin.

“Why do you want that?” asked Graham, which prompted a lecherous grin.

It was just then that the killer moths attacked. This was fortunate, because Kevin was frankly a dickhead.

At the end of the passage was the same room but the grips had moved some of the furniture. Downstairs there was a man wearing a Slayer t-shirt, and two dead women. Neither of them knew what they were really doing there, although this may have been a reaction to the shooting script as much as anything else.

Thankfully the Doctor had figured out that there was another facet to the creation of the universe that the show hadn’t done yet, and that it was responsible for everything, and conveniently well-intentioned.

“How do you know all this?” asked Yas.

The Doctor mumbled something about having seven grandmothers and then made a Zygon reference, which had tabloid journalists reaching frantically for their iPads, although it also had the unfortunate side effect of setting the internet on fire.

Elsewhere Ryan had allowed himself to be hoodwinked by Hanne, who then led him through the mirror into the passage.

“I hate you,” said Hanne, for no very good reason.

Ryan was in the process of composing a witty retort when the moths attacked again. They knew they had to make the most of their screen time, because union rules forbade them appearing at the finale.

One thing led to another, and everyone met up in the mirror cabin.

“You ain’t my real mum,” snarled Hanne with the ferocity of an Eastenders actress.

Ryan blinked. “How can she tell?”

“It’s ‘cos she’s blind,” replied the Doctor. “It’s like her superpower, innit?”

“Isn’t that a bit exploitative?”

“Stow it, Call-of-Duty,” she snapped.

Graham looked over at his dead wife. “You were much nicer before you fell off that crane,” he said.

Grace had recently watched Infinity War, and took this as an opportunity to try out her Iron Man impression. It really was quite good.

The Doctor was struggling with the mirror. “We’ve less than ten minutes to go before the credits, and they haven’t done the throwback gag yet,” she muttered. “Yas, can you drop in a Pertwee reference?”

Yas obliged, although she was too young to really understand how these things worked.

Isolated from her friends, the Doctor wandered through a cost-saving white space to be greeted by the sight of a frog on a chair.

“Hi-ho,” said the frog, “and welcome to The Muppet Show.”

The Doctor cocked her head. “I thought the Brexit debate was next week?”

“Be my friend,” pleaded the helpless frog. “We can make brownies and everything.”

“How are you with French food?” asked the Doctor.

The Doctor left, but not before blowing a kiss to the frog, who promptly turned into Mathew Waterhouse; one of the few times that shedding the body of a lime green amphibian cannot be said to be an improvement.

On their way back to the TARDIS, the gang discussed how they could have had such a cracking story last week only to find themselves caught up in something so gut-wrenchingly tedious.

“They did say everybody would be talking about it,” said Yas, being the only one who subscribed to the BBC Twitter feed. “Just not necessarily in a good way.”

Graham looked over at Ryan. “So is that our character arc done now?”

“Probably,” said Ryan, adding “Grandad. Can I go back to making zimmer frame jokes?”

Graham sighed, and unwrapped another sandwich. And off they went.