Missing Dr Who episodes finally found

Well, at last, at long last, the search is over.

Ian Levine can hang up his telephone, nay all his telephones, settle back in his giant customised Noel Clarke-shaped beanbag, and slowly puff out his bilious cheeks. Yup, the location of all the remaining missing episodes of Dr Who has been revealed. Robert Mugabe has them.

It seems one of the world’s most wicked men, a tyrant who is culpable in the wrecking of a once prosperous nation and the starving of millions of citizens, is also a fan of children’s science fiction.

Now chances are, in some people’s eyes, four words of that preceding sentence cancel out all the others. Indeed, ‘wicked’, ‘tyrant’, ‘wrecking’ and ‘starving’ are undoubtedly tremulous charges.

But in other people’s eyes, people more used to prowling the floors of reference libraries humming tunes inspired by whichever particular archive edition of Radio Times they’ve just requested, or who have installed multiple telephone lines in their Panopticon-sized penthouse just in case two people try and get in touch about an off-air recording of episode four of The Web Planet (‘Crater Of Needles’) complete with BBC continuity at the same time, the thought of even some of those 108 “lost classics” nestling in Mugabe’s ottoman offsets such trivial matters as an inflation rate of 231,000,000%.

Maybe Levine hasn’t eased himself delicately into Noel’s thighs quite yet, and is instead at this moment demanding an open passage to Harare.

What, though, might be the evil fucker’s favourite episodes?

1) The Massacre Of St Bartholomew’s Eve (1966)
Body doubles, body counts and bodies of suspicious evidence, plus the main protagonist absent from the public eye for long periods of time “on holiday”. Home from home, really.

2) The Savages (1966)
A civilised elite maintain an advanced society by requisitioning and siphoning off the physical and psychological assets of a bunch of locals. Well, the siphoning off bit is true enough. And in both cases the locals are left destitute. As for the meddling old man who turns up from out of nowhere, he is, naturally, “the United Kingdom”. Everything that goes “wrong” in Zimbabwe is the fault of “the United Kingdom”.

3) The Chase (1965)
Because Robert likes a good runaround. Look, there’s William Shakespeare doing the Charleston on the top of the Empire State Building.

4) The Daleks’ Masterplan (1965-66)
Because Sara Kingdom sounds a bit like United Kingdom.

5) The Enemy Of The World (1967-68)
“Dinner tonight’s going to be a national disaster! First course interrupted by bomb explosion. Second course affected by earthquakes. Third course ruined by interference in the kitchen. I’m going out for a walk. It’ll probably rain.”

6) The Invasion (1968)
A particular favourite of Robert’s, thanks to its realistic depiction of corrupt western society (a young girl doing a fashion shoot in her own living room! More young girls hiding in packing crates! St Paul’s Cathedral!) plus the fact he can do a frame-by-frame comparison of the original episodes with the animated substitutions done for the DVD and laugh knowingly whenever Gary Russell pops up talking about “taping it all off the telly”.

Mike Smith named as new Dr Who

The BBC has revealed the name of the person to take over from David Tennant as owner of the most famous trans-dimensional time-travelling police call box-shaped spaceship on children’s television.

It is Mike Smith, former Radio 1 DJ, erstwhile comedy foil to Noel Edmonds, and latterly known for his role as full-time husband of Sarah Greene.

Mike is the youngest person to play Dr Who since the last one. An insider at the BBC revealed that Smith intends to bring to the part “something of all the previous Doctors” and that his characterisation will be “similar yet different” to the dozen or so other actors who have depicted the wacky wizard on television, film and stage.

Children, parents and heterosexuals have been speaking of their delight at the news. The entire Dr Who fan community, meanwhile, has gone into an instant sulk at the realisation that for the first time the Doctor is being played by somebody younger than them.

Noel Edmonds, who initially told the press he had nothing to say on the matter, later appeared at the garden gate of his giant mansion and freely chatted to reporters about how he wished “the sad bastard the best of British luck” and hoped he “had more joy flying the TARDIS than that bloody helicopter”.

Mike’s wife Sarah, who appeared in an episode of Dr Who during the 1980s, is rumoured to be making a cameo in the new series. When questioned, Sarah is alleged to have remarked: “the last time anyone saw me on television was locked in a cellar being ravished by a poltergeist; I’m damned if that’s going to be the last line on my CV”.

TV Cream Dr Who Consumer Unit

The air is thick with them, the internet perforated by them, the press carpeted in them.

But enough about rumours concerning the identity of that woman who sings Ride On Time. Let’s try and pin down exactly what is common knowledge about the identity of the next Dr Who.

1) In July, a man in Jedburgh told his local paper he thought he’d spotted someone who “looked like Tony Hawks” stepping in and out of a blue box.

TV CREAM DR WHO CONSUMER UNIT SAYS: It was Tony Hawks, but on investigation it turns out he was merely “researching” his latest book about wryly carrying large goods (in this case a walk-in ice box) in a wry fashion around wryly inhospitable landscapes.

2) A fortnight ago an old lady in Hereford phoned her son to say that she’d overheard two people in Waitrose, “one of whom was Tom Baker”, discussing how much they were looking forward to “seeing more Billie Piper”. The son later posted this revelation on a fan forum.

TV CREAM DR WHO CONSUMER UNIT SAYS: It was Tom Baker, but he was relating how much he was looking forward to “seeing more Marie Piper”, i.e. potatoes.

3) During the summer Russell T Davies reportedly told a fan convention he was very much hoping to give Danny Dyer a hand in getting an opening.

TV CREAM DR WHO CONSUMER UNIT SAYS: Russell T Davies was not talking about Dr Who.

4) The next Dr Who will be someone who has already been in the show.

TV CREAM DR WHO CONSUMER UNIT SAYS: He was asked, but Colin Baker declined, stating it would “be like being asked back for one night with your ex-girlfriend”.

5) The next Dr Who will be a black man/old man/American/child/cripple/gay/gay cripple.

TV CREAM DR WHO CONSUMER UNIT SAYS: The next Dr Who will be Julia Sawalha.

This week’s new Dr Who(s) revealed

It’s the Dr Who silly season, with stupid stories being lobbed into the ether to keep the freaks in a heightened state of pre-coital craziness until Christmas.

There’s the one about the TARDIS being turned gold for a special Children In Need sketch, by way of a tribute to the success of Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic teams. But then there’s Russell T Davies ‘revealing’ the ‘identity’ of the person he’d like to replace David Tennant.

It’s clear his sole rationale here is to keep the words ‘Russell’ and ‘Dr Who’ attached to each other in the public consciousness for another few years or so, while he’s elsewhere busy making another Manchester-based drama about 40-something gay men. But there are surely far more persuasive options that Russell *Tovey*:

1) RUSSELL GRANT
“Now onto Capricorn, this is you Rose…”

2) RUSSELL HARTY
“You are, are you not, a Mechanoid?” Anything’s possible for those folks at The Mill.

3) RUSSELL WATSON
“Cassandra, I’ve just met a girl named Cassandra…”

4) RUSS CONWAY
“You think you’re abominable? Wait till you hear this version of The Entertainer!”

A citizen of the universe and a gentleman to boot

Anyone who listens to Adam and Joe on 6 Music will know the name Chris Salt. He was the deserving winner of the recent Screen Test-esque competition in which members of the public were invited to create a video to accompany one of the pair’s legendary Song Wars tracks.

Anyway, Chris has a number of Lego-based creations to his name, and here’s one of the finest: a charming little salute to Dr Who with a suitably waspish pay-off.

"This is the story of how I died – but not really!"

Ahead of the nation’s largest simultaneous ejaculation, when Billie Piper returns to Dr Who tonight, the TV Cream Matrix Databank has been busy calculating where Rose’s long-inevitable ingress ranks in terms of all-time TV and radio re-appearances. And the results are in!

1) Harold Bishop returns to Neighbours.
2) Angela Rippon joins the ITN News Channel to update viewers on the war in Iraq, but only during working hours because there’s no news after 6.00pm.
3) Michael Grade goes back to save the BBC after Greg Dyke was chased out of Broadcasting House by Lord Hutton and Geoff Hoon.
4) The return of Sherlock Holmes in Granada TV’s The Return Of Sherlock Holmes.
5) Alan Freeman returns to present Pick Of The Pops on Radio 1.
6) Alan Freeman returns to present Pick Of The Pops on Radio 2.
7) The swingometer returns to the BBC’s general election coverage.
8) Bob Monkhouse returns to Celebrity Squares (“Hello celebrities!”)
9) Mark Kermode returns to Mark Radcliffe’s graveyard shift on Radio 1 after two weeks’ absence due to injuring his back in a minor road accident.
10) The chimes of Big Ben return to the Six O’clock News on Radio 4 after having their once-in-20-years polish.

Oh dear! It seems there’s no room for a warm hand on Rose’s entrance* in the top 10 all-time TV returns. And sadly the TV Cream Dr Who Matrix Databank cannot calculate any list-based trivia beyond 258 places (or the number of times Russell T Davies has dropped an incongruous popular culture reference into one his scripts), so it’s not clear whether Billie Piper appears in the chart at all. Ah well. Happy wanking.

*A premature taster for all the fanboys counting down until this evening.

The boy with the Wirrn in his side

It’s been confirmed that Morrissey is to play a leading role in this year’s Christmas episode of Dr Who.

The curmudgeonly racialist is hoping to repeat the success of Kylie Minogue, who dazzled viewers in last year’s festive special with her performance as a load of atoms.

It’s long been known that Morrissey is a Dr Who fan. His Smiths hit ‘William, It Was Really Nothing’ was a tribute to the first actor to play the role, while the song ‘Little Man, What Now?’ from his debut solo LP Viva Hate was a caustic swipe at John Nathan-Turner. The single ‘You’re The One For Me, Fatty’, meantime, was an affectionate love letter to Colin Baker.

When asked for a comment about winning the part, Morrissey replied: “I’m not happy and I’m not sad”.

Dr Who: Refresher Course 1.01

What with the new series of Dr Who just a few ordinary days away, some people might be wondering just what all the fuss is about. Just who is this Dr Who person anyway? And what should I know about his past that might make all of the show’s constant in-jokes and back-references a bit easier to understand?

Fear not! A quick dip into the TV Cream Dr Who Matrix Databank will answer all such questions and tell you everything you need to know about this long-running (except when it was axed for 16 years) children’s science fiction programme. And if there’s anything you still don’t know, why not email digicreamguide@tvcream.co.uk, and have it explained in this week’s Dr Who special Creamguide mailout.

In the meantime…

1) WHAT IS DR WHO?
Created by Terry Nation in 1963 when his boiler broke down, Dr Who is the long-running BBCtv children’s serial about a grumpy inventor who travels through time and space. The series originally ran for 26 years on television, latterly being popularised by Ian Levine. Dr Who is both the name of the show and the man himself, a bit like Cannon, MacGyver, ALF and Pob.

2) WHO HAS PLAYED DR WHO?
To date, Dr Who has been played by nine different actors, the role changing from person to person via a process which has become known within the series’ own mythology as ‘re-casting’.

a) THE FIRST DR WHO was Dr Who William Hartnell – a confused old racist with blackened teeth and a penchant for thrashing teenage girls.

b) THE SECOND DR WHO was Dr Who Patrick Troughton – a piccolo playing Clive Dunn in baggy trousers and Tucker Jenkins haircut.

c) THE THIRD DR WHO was the best Dr Who Jon Pertwee – a satin-clad scientist seconded to the Government’s Killing Aliens division where he acted as a kind of Nigel Hawthorne figure spouting nonsense simply to befuddle boss Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart. Later he starred as the unrelated Ailsa Stewart in Australian soap Home and Away.

d) THE FOURTH DR WHO was Dr Who Tom Baker – the cosmic boho. He was known for his enigmatic, wide-eyed, chocolate-voiced companion Adric.

e) THE FIFTH DR WHO was Dr Who Peter Davidson – the pleasant, open-faced, old-young incarnation was regularly demeaned by having to cook supper for The Doctor’s Wife, Sandra Dickinson. Matthew Kelly accompanied him on some of his most memorable adventures.

f) THE SIXTH DR WHO was also the best Dr Who Colin Baker – he brought nostrils to the part and an essential ‘Doctorishness’ that he formulated with Frank Bough on the Breakfast Time sofa.

g) THE SEVENTH DR WHO was Crap Dr Who Sylvester McCoy – a diminutive Scots personality who took the character into uncharted waters by giving him a penchant for Knorr’s stock cubes. Was accompanied by future game show host devotee Sophie Aldred.

h) THE EIGHTH DR WHO was Dr Who Christopher Eccleston – a supply teacher from Salford who got knifed by Robert Carlyle and played in a skiffle band with James Bond in Newcastle.

i) THE NINTH DR WHO is Pet Shop Boy David Tennant – he likes hanging out with divas of yesteryear like Dannii Minogue and Richard off Keeping Up Appearances. Looks a bit like Freddie off Freddie And The Dreamers.

3) UNOFFICAL DR WHOS
Over the years, other actors have taken on the role of the Time Lord from Gallifrey; none of these officially count as proper Dr Whos. All ‘canon’ Whos come into being in the presence of Production Manager Gary Downie who must formally anoint them with the phrase: “Let’s make magic”. As such, Paul McGann, Peter Cushing, Matt Baker, Nicholas Briggs and prematurely balding 27-year-olds in fan-produced videos don’t count.

4) WHAT IS ‘TARDIS’?
Tardis is the telephone box in which Dr Who travels around the south east of England and, latterly, Cardiff. Its name is an acronym, standing for ‘Toward That Point I Guide My Flight!’ Bigger on the inside than the out, this is due to the vehicle being ‘dimensionally transcendental’, a phrase which means it’s bigger on the inside than the out.

5) WHAT’S INSIDE?
Tardis houses two central control rooms, a costume department, a machine dispensing bacon-and-egg cubes and Tegan’s bedroom.

6) WHERE DID IT COME FROM?
Dr Who made it in his own backyard, and then travelled to 1960s London with his friend Susan who wanted to make use of Earth’s hand-held radios and hooped sweater technology.

7) WHO WERE THE ASSISTANTS?
Throughout his travels, Dr Who was always accompanied by a vulnerable youth with a Dorothy Perkins loyalty card. Dramatically their function revolved around explaining the plot to all the dads looking in and having their name invoked by Dr Who at the end of part one, accompanied either side, by “no!” – eg. “No, Harry, no!”/”No, Victoria, no!”/”No, Peri, nooooOOOOO!” Actress Katy Manning (and she certainly has) is notable for provoking a “Yes, Katy, yes!” from three separate Dr Whos.

8) A GUIDE TO SOME OF THE BEST ASSISTANTS
- KAMELION was a jive-talking android.
- K-9 was a jive-talking android dog.

9) WHO WERE THE FOES?
Dr Who has faced many evil creatures in his time, usually derived from common or garden creatures and implements such as slugs, birds, the late Dave Allen, potatoes and encyclopaedias. They normally display bronchial problems and break Dr Who’s name into its constituent syllables.

10) A GUIDE TO SOME OF THE BEST FOES

a) THE DALEKS were a race of Kit-Kat loving mechanoids who ran off static electricity. In the 22nd century they tried to revitalise Bedfordshire’s mining industry.

b) THE MASTER was Dr Who’s old enemy from school, a complex character who dressed as a gay and enjoyed the works of HG Wells and Oliver Postgate, he was notoriously careless with his Action Man collection.

c) THE ICE WARRIORS had only one directive: to turn Shepherd’s Bush into an Ibiza foam party.

d) THE DRACONIANS were a race of ‘people monsters’ in half-masks created by Jon Pertwee.

e) GAVROCK was an evil Bullman intent on proving Sylvester McCoy couldn’t do confrontation scenes.

f) KOQUILLION was a man in an elaborate hat.

g) THE MALUS is just the evil in all of us, isn’t it?

11) WHAT ARE WHOVIANS?
Whovians is the given name for Dr Who fans. In order to be a true Whovian, enthusiasts must write at least one piece of Dr Who fan fiction in which they subvert the series’ form to deal with a topical issue such as drugs, unemployment, child abuse or who would win out of the Daleks and the Cybermen. Ideally, all Whovians should also:

a) Come up with their own version of the Dr Who logo which they bandy about the internet on crap home-made wallpapers and use as Outpost Gallifrey avatars;

b) Be hugely insulting about anything new in the world of Dr Who (often declaring that they showed it to a ‘non-fan’ friend who also says it’s crap) before re-evaluating their opinion when the next new thing comes along;

c) Display a penchant for hats, glasses, waistcoats, pretentious beards, Matrix-style leather trench coats and middle initials;

d) And attempt to show they possess a broad knowledge of art and culture within which Dr Who is only a small facet whilst drawing all their facts from things they learnt in their pursuit of the programme (which include details of all the BBC1 Controllers up to 1989, the french name for ‘fish soup’, a rudimentary understanding of the notion of entropy, a slight knowledge of Weetabix promotions during the 1970s and a vague grasp of what Cromer might look like).

12) THE SUPER-FANS
Super-fans are those who have reached a senior position within Whovian circles thanks to their knowledge of the programme or direct access to Colin Baker. Although they may occasionally consort with regular Whovians – or ‘mongs’ as they refer to them – they tend to gather in secret internet mailing forums, where they spend their time arranging to meet for drinks, reminding each other of their birthdays and covertly ruling the world of Dr Who with flippancy and genuine skill.

13) A GUIDE TO SOME OF THE BEST SUPER-FANS

a) IAN LEVINE saved early Dr Who video cassettes from being wiped before swearing to get vengeance against one ‘Roger Barratt’ in the early 1990s. As he hasn’t been seen since, it has to be assumed he’s still busying himself with this vendetta, spending his days placing dual telephone calls until he locates his quarry.

b) J JEREMY BENTHAM’s sterling research work was the basis for Whovians’ theories in the mid 1980s that there had been five Dr Whos so far. Later transformed into Andrew Pixley.

c) GARY RUSSELL was the inventor of Russell’s Rateometer, which Whovians everywhere give five Tardises out of five.

d) PETER HAINING was the architect of all modern Dr Who knowledge. His sequel to 25 Glorious Years is keenly awaited.

e) SEBASTIAN J BROOK absolutely isn’t. He really, really is not.

14) WHAT IS THE TV CREAM DR WHO MATRIX DATABANK?
The TV Cream Dr Who Matrix Databank is the internet’s biggest holding bay for Dr Who facts and information, in that it lists all the actors who have played Dr Who and has that “No, I said I travel through space and time. I don’t visit fantasy island” bit on it.

15) WHERE CAN IT BE FOUND?
Here.

16) AND FOR FURTHER QUESTIONS?
That address again : digicreamguide@tvcream.co.uk – or leave a comment below. It’s really up to you.

Doctorin’ the format

Given that David Tennant regenerates in the second of next year’s special episodes, you’d think the hunt must be well under way for the next Doctor Who. In fact the decision has apparently been made, and the show’s new boss, Steven Moffat – for it is he – is already busy piecing together an introductory story that promises to top the imagination, wit and excitement of ‘The Christmas Invasion’ *and* ‘New Earth’. Should take him around 10 minutes, then.

Anyhow, word is the new Doctor Who is to be played by…erm, somebody whose name begins with the letter J. No, this isn’t another attempt to string out an entry about Doctor Who on the flimsiest bit of irrelevance. J, you say? Jehoshaphat! Let’s review the contenders…

James McAvoy
Scottish actor with a cheeky grin who’s able to adopt English accents with ease and likes to play the fool. A shoo-in.

Jonathon Morris
“The entire fabric of space-time…hanging by a thread!”

John Simm
Worth it to see the uber-fans go completely unhinged.

James Nesbitt
Don’t worry, it’s not him.

Jack Davenport
“You don’t want a relationship, Donna, you just want to cut my balls off.”

Joe McFadden
Scottish actor with a cheeky grin who’s able to etc.

Joel Hodgson
From Mystery Science Theatre 3000. This is more like it. Characters ‘sitting’ in silhouette at the bottom of the screen commenting on each episode (“Tsk, I see Rose is back from the dead – again”)? Ratings gold!

Jon P’twee
A stunning CGI presentation, by those same people who turned David Tennant into Gollum. “What d’you think of m’new face, b’the way?”

"’Ere Doctor, ain’t you never ‘eard of Eurovision?"

As the new series of Doctor Who lumbers into view, talk falls once more to that ever-pertinent question: how will the schedulers deal with juggling episodes along with things like the FA Cup final and the Eurovision Song Contest?

Hitherto this subject has caused enormous vexation amongst the programme’s army of devoted fans. But aside from these 239 people, mild consternation, or rather irritation, is also felt amongst the show’s broader audience – albeit of a kind limited to parents going “Well, I’d got the tea ready, as usual, for 7pm, and now you tell me it’s already been on?”

The way to avoid a repeat of all this hubbub, however, is simple: fold the events of this or that Saturday night into the storyline of the relevant episode, like they once did in Coronation Street on Christmas Day and EastEnders on New Year’s Eve.

To wit:

Doctor Who is trying to fix the scanner in the console room when Catherine Tate comes in and changes the channel. A familiar trumpet-led fanfare rings out, followed by the soothing sounds of Irish brogue. “What the devil are you up to?” splutters the Doctor. “Ain’t you never ‘eard of Eurovision?” shouts Catherine. “All of them weird costumes, peculiar-looking foreigners and camp goings-on?” “I thought that was last week’s adventure,” grins the Doctor, stupidly. “Shurrup and feast yer eyes on this,” orders Catherine, and the pair settle down to watch as our screen merges with the scanner and Lord Wogan’s voice takes over.

Or:

Doctor Who has landed his TARDIS in Cardiff where there are problems with the Rift. While taking a breath of fresh air he notices the distant outline of the Millennium Stadium on the horizon. “Didn’t they used to play the FA Cup final there?” he asks Catherine Tate, who is skulking a few paces behind looking petulant. “Doctor, you know nuthin,” she snaps. “Wot’s the matter wit yer? They do it at Wembley now. Y’know – Wem-ber-lee!” “Good gracious,” the Doctor exclaims. “Do you know who’s playing this year?” “Of course. It’s [poorly overdubbed dialogue done in post-production to mask the fact the scene was recorded in mid-March], and kick off’s just about to start.” “Well, what are we waiting for,” booms the Doctor, and heads back into the TARDIS where the sound of Gary Lineker can be heard…

Doctorin’ the middle eight

Obviously the best bit of each weekly Digi-Cream Times mailout is the last line, but this week’s was – hopefully – particularly satisfying, linking as it did to this stunning re-imagining of Ron Grainer’s second finest hour after Tales Of The Unexpected (Winebar Mix).

Said song hails from a site devoted to collecting amateur makeovers of the Dr Who theme, but given there are hundreds on there, and given they’re mostly crap, taking pot luck isn’t an advisable experience. Here, then, are five of the best to save you the bother of unexpectedly downloading HellFire Hard Trance feat. The Cybermen.

1) Manhattan Transfer had nothing on this. One bloke scats, croons and duddle-de-dums his way through a multi-voiced tonsil-taxing triumph.

2) Someone bashing it out on one of those plinky-plonky pianos of the kind you only get in school halls and on Winifred Atwell records. With a TARDIS sound effect for good measure. Ten times more convincing than your average David Tennant episode, that’s for sure.

3) The Jar Humphreys Dr Who Dub Explosion mix. Throw your best skanking shapes to this seriously wonderful bit of demented electronic reggae, of the kind Macca would probably have turned out over a sesame seed bap and a funny cigarette.

4) A toe-tapping cha-cha-cha medley combining your finest Palm Court Orchestra frugging, the old 1960s rubbish theme, and a guest appearance from Professor Who himself. “One day, yes, one day, y-y-yes one day…I shall come back!”

5) A musical joke. With a certain familiar festive tune creeping in at the end.

Nominations for the best one?

For Pete’s sake

The Radio Times has, as usual, failed to resist the urge to go overboard on Dr Who and has put next Friday’s Children In Need vignette on its cover. Is a five-minute non-canonical* skit really the most important thing on television next week?

At least it begs the blog-friendly question: just what will be Pete’s first words as he arrives in the TARDIS? Bookies – the kind that always get quoted in the press but are never conveniently named because they don’t exist – are predicting one of the following:

1) “I don’t believe it – Turlough?”
2) “You’ve had this place redecorated. Don’t like it.”
3) “Am I…late for something?”
4) “Why Kamelion, how nice to see you!”
5) “That’s the trouble with regeneration: you never quite know what you’re going to get.”

Money is also being accepted on two possible alternatives:

a) Tennant: “An apple a day…” Davidson: “…keeps the Doctor away?”
b) Tennant: “Well blow me, it’s Freddie Flintoff!”

*This is true. No Children In Need Dr Who pantomimes are part of the canon, because otherwise the Raston Warriot Robot would still be stalking the galaxy and Colin Baker would be due to land in Albert Square in a decade or so’s time. Oh, and according to the Five Doctors, Peter Davidson would still be Lord High Chief Prime Minister of Gallifrey or something.

Who says

Recent speculation concerning the future of Dr Who, both the identity of its lead and that of the person to take over sitting behind the biggest desk in Cardiff city centre, has had two useful consequences.

First, it means the show can get another mention here again, after all of – ooh – five weeks; and secondly, and more substantially, it allows for a bit of indulgent speculation about alternative writers for the series.

Any new producer should really make it their business to farm out as many episodes as possible to TV veterans, or rather TV writers who haven’t spent all their lives writing Dr Who story books or stories to listen to on tape.

As such, likely contenders who should be given a call ought to begin with:

David Renwick
The Doctor wakes up one morning to discover the TARDIS is trapped inside a kitchen cupboard for which it is both logically and practically too small. Unable to leave the time machine, he puts a call out for Captain Jack Harkness and a circular saw, but when Jack arrives he discovers a version of himself already on the scene sipping tea with the Brigadier. To compound the confusion Julia Sawalha arrives expecting to conduct an interview for her local paper with actor Christopher Biggins. Can the real Doctor – whoever he is – unscramble this conundrum before the kitchen cupboard in question is demolished by a passing bulldozer?

Tony Marchant
15 different characters, each with their own storyline, mooch around a council estate somewhere in London, bumping into each other and exchanging homilies on the decline of society in 21st century Britain. One of them turns out to be the nephew of Jackie Tyler. Pretty soon the Doctor is on the scene, weaving together a plot that connects up the loose ends and takes in a syringe, a dangerous dog, extortion, a betting slip, various nationalities and a mouthy kid with all the answers.

Jed Mercurio
A blip in the time-space pulse rate sends the Doctor hurtling into the body of someone called Doctor John Smith working in the accident and emergency unit of Totters Lane General Hospital. When someone gives birth – very messily – on the floor of a corridor, at the same time as a container of offal goes missing from the tatty staff canteen, an inquiry begins led by the shifty-looking Professor Dave Ross. Soon the Doctor is put on trial – for his life. But just what does the Professor want with all those discarded hospital bathchairs?

Clive Exton
Earth in the 1930s. A fashionable hotel on the south coast of England is playing host to a gathering of bright young things during the Whitsun weekend, but a conference of travelling notepaper salesmen has been double booked. Pretty soon there’s blood on the morning room carpet, and the Doctor, working undercover as a butler, has to clean it up. What he discovers, however, is a fabric of desperately-repressed mayhem and intrigue that is about to unravel with meticulously-coiffeured timing.

Alan Bleasdale
Earth in the near future. A totalitarian dystopia has come to pass whereby everyone needs an ID card to breathe air outside their homes, mobile phones have been implanted inside people’s mouths, and coal mines have been converted into prisons for asylum seekers. Joe McGahey is the only one left who remembers how things were before the dark times came – but he thinks he’s going mad and his wife, Sheila, is too busy stuffing envelopes with home gift catalogues to notice. Will the Doctor be able to tap into Joe’s working class folk memories to liberate the masses from their oppression, or will he fall foul of one too many peppermint squares? And just who is that jive-talking sideboard salesman with a limp?

John Esmonde and Bob Larbey
Earth in the present day. An ordinary suburban close in an unexceptional English town seems to have been entirely inhabited by residents who believe it is 1983. The Doctor and friends, including a local busybody who purports to know everything about everyone, must get to the bottom of the mystery before the enigmatically-named Polling Day when, by the sound of it, a monstrous epiphany will come to pass. Either that or the shopping precinct will stop half-day closing on Wednesdays!

"Pickled in time, like gherkins in a jar"

“Steadily, triumphantly, all our favourites have returned in the rejuvenated time travels,” booms Radio Times of Dr Who. “Cybermen, Daleks, Macra…”

Come again? The Macra? A “favourite”? If there’s one thing RT never does well – apart from its radio listings pages – it’s irony. Then again, maybe the Macra have proved to be surprisingly popular with the nation, and playgrounds are regularly filled with the spectacle of kids impersonating giant clicking clams.

Naturally this leads to speculation as to which “favourite” enemy will be returning next series to fall out of the sky along with the obligatory million rubber balls before landing on the obligatory Cardiff council estate close to the obligatory mixed-race/one-parent family.

Here’s the latest shortlist:

1) The Raston Warrior Robot off of The Five Doctors. He was, after all, “a ruthless killing machine” dressed like a member of Hot Gossip. And it’d turn the entire series finale into a gaudy game of musical statues.

2) Sil off of Vengeance On Varos. A talking turd, this monster already has the distinction of enjoying one comeback by way of a cameo in the dreadful unending Trial Of A Time Lord saga, and hence deserves a far more fitting finale.

3) Kamelion off of The King’s Demons/Planet Of Fire. This shape-changing alien was, according to John Nathan-Turner “ahead of its time”, i.e. crap. Perhaps now its time has come.

4) The Malus off of The Awakening. An over-sized gurning mantelpiece with features like the Gorgs on Fraggle Rock, this should be brought back purely to allow someone to say “well, it’s very much with Malus aforethought.”

5) The Rani. Kate O’Mara mincing about in puffy-sleeved blouses and giant boots screaming about “blundering fools” and being “pickled in time, like gherkins in a jar”? She’d fit right in.

Fixing a hole where the Rift gets in

More information about the conclusion to the present series of Dr Who has emerged.

It appears that just before Martha is taken hostage by a mysterious alien race, she accidentally destroys half of the TARDIS console in frustration at the Doctor’s reticence. In response the Doctor offers up a protracted monologue wherein he finally, finally, says what he really feels about his companion.

“Martha my dear,” he begins, “though I spend my days in conversation – please, remember me.” Absent-mindedly wandering around the wrecked console room, he continues plaintively, “Martha my love – don’t forget me.” He pauses, half-staring into space. “Martha…my dear.”

Noticing his companion is uncomfortably casting her eyes to the floor, the Doctor instantly switches from contemplation to aggression. “Hold your head up you silly girl,” he snaps, gesturing to the damage all around them, “look what you’ve done!” Martha begins to sob, but the Doctor presses on. “When you find yourself in the thick of it,” he barks, “help yourself to a bit of what is all around you – silly girl!”

Noticing that Martha is now openly weeping, the Doctor’s mood changes again. “Take a good look around you,” he orders. “Take a good look!” Martha follows the Doctor’s instructions, only to see that her mentor is smiling broadly. “You’re bound to see,” he murmurs, “that you and me were meant to be for each other – silly girl!”

Hugging his companion affectionately, the Doctor then confides: “Martha my dear, you have always been my inspiration – please, be good to me.” Walking her gently towards the TARDIS exit, he concludes wistfully, “Martha my love. Don’t forget me. Martha my dear.”

At which point he kicks her out the door and into the arms of a alien ship bound for a six-month residential course at a nearby drama school.

"And I don’t think any of us will forget THAT adventure in a hurry!"

Not enough thought is going into solving what has become the annual Dr Who mid-season blues.

Simply dusting down an old monster costume (2005), ringing up Peter Kay (2006) or doing a few line drawings of Paul McGann (2007) is not good enough. No, a far more imaginative and enjoyable strategy suggests itself, something they’ve been doing in America for decades, but which – sadly – has never caught on here.

It is, of course, the clips show.

Ran out of ideas for your next script, Russell? Give us some of your greatest hits! Or rather – because that would make for a very short episode indeed – the other writers’ greatest hits! There’d be no shame whatsoever in running one, two or even three clip shows throughout a specially extended season, each told from a different person’s perspective (the Doctor, Martha, Kamelion) and packed with choice moments from adventures old and new.

“Don’t mind me,” Dr Who would chortle, looking up from his scrap book to notice that Rose and Tegan had just walked into the console room, “just taking a 750-year-old hike down memory lane!” At which point we’d hurtle off round the galaxy for a glittering catalogue of brusquely edited bon mots and excursionism, occasionally cutting back to the TARDIS to have someone proffer a useful bit of exposition (“Phew! I certainly won’t be listening to any ticking clocks again in a hurry!”).

Then at the end the credits could roll over a selection of Dr Who bloopers, during which someone would swear profusely, Russell T Davies would get caught on camera, and a Dalek head would pop open to reveal John Barrowman inside.

Forget the Doctor’s wife, or whatever this next episode is called; on with the clips!

"You don’t look like no Doctor to me, love!"

What with all the camp shouting, garish costumes, grotesque gurning and the feeling that you’re watching the same thing over and over again every three minutes, the Eurovision Song Contest will prove more than an adequate replacement for Dr Who this week.

Meanwhile the present hiatus in the time wizard’s jabbering perambulations around the galaxy affords an opportunity to speculate not just on when the good Doctor will get round to actually placing himself in a decent story again, but also just who, by way of surprise loud-voiced variety-esque guest stars, Russell T Davies might have lined up for a cameo before the final episode and the usual plot about how the world’s in danger of being destroyed for the 75th time.

At this stage last year there were still the delights of Huw Edwards and Barbara Windsor to come; the year before, Anne Robinson’s voice and Victor Meldrew. Based on a combination of painstaking research, detailed analysis, and looking at a few random pictures, all, none or fewer of the following five personalities have emerged as the most likely candidates this series:

1) JESSIE WALLACE
Playing a rough diamond living it up in Cardiff, her no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is attitude, coupled with a heart of gold, helps the Doctor mend a hole in the Rift that accidentally opens up when he shouts in a particularly echoing subway.

2) KEN DODD
Reprising his role of the Tollmaster from the 1980s story Delta and the Bannerman, Doddy joins the TARDIS crew for yet another whimsical pantomime episode set on a far flung planet peopled by bug-eyed monsters, bits of poorly CGI’d Cardiff and gay music.

3) NICK ROBINSON
There is a political crisis in the UK of the near-future. The Prime Minister, Tommy Blear, having held office for 10 years, is stepping down prematurely after a controversial foriegn policy initiative. His long-tipped replacement, Gideon Brone, suddenly goes AWOL. Has he been abducted by the leader of the opposition, an alien imposter named Daffyd Cameroon who claims to be from Cardiff but has actually come through the Rift? Maybe the BBC’s political editor can help.

4) CAROLINE QUENTIN
Starring as the Brigadier: bluff, sassy, but trying to juggle a career with being a mother of two kids – one of whom is a stroppy teenager, the other a deaf mute – plus an estranged husband who works full-time for the Countryside Alliance.

5) RICKY GERVAIS
Martha walks into a room only to hear someone making a joke about black people. Her initial discomfort is quickly erased, however, when she realises the voice belongs to none other than funnyman Ricky Gervais, who is in the middle of another sell-out national tour. Gervais later wins the Doctor’s favour after completely disarming Derek Jacobi/John Simm/whoever else ends up playing the Master with a remark about how all disabled people are tax-dodging frauds, which he delivers at the same time as someone in a wheelchair comes in the room.

"Oh yes, we go back a long way; several centuries in fact…"

Given Russell T Davies’s penchant for reviving more and more Dr Who clutter from the old days, despite saying he’d do no such thing, who – and what – should we reasonably expect to see parading across our screen in years to come?

1) BESSIE
This will happen, there’s absolutely no doubt about it. It’s too simple and lazy a device for Davies to resist. The Doctor will arrive in Cardiff to “mend the rift” or some such bollocks only to notice, out of the corner of his eye, a strangely familiar flash of yellow lurking in a nearby garage. “Well blow me!” he will shout at the top of his voice in a way that, for David Tennant’s Doctor, seems to increasingly pass for normal speech. “The old girl’s back!”

2) THE WHOMOBILE
A slightly less obvious alternative to 1), but a must for mid-way through series five. The Doctor is in Cardiff mending the rift, only to get a strange feeling he’s being watched. Determined to find out who is spying on him, it transpires it’s not a who, it’s a what…the Whomobile, hovering above his head thanks to some kind of preposterous automatic homing beacon business, ready to take the Doctor off to a peace conference where John Simm is threatening to blow up the planet.

3) THE BRIGADIER
While mending the rift in Cardiff, the Doctor is suddenly grabbed by some anonymous looking thugs and bundled into the back of a van. Protesting, he is bound and gagged and transported hundreds of miles to a secret location in the heart of the Cardiff suburbs. Only when he is freed does the Doctor recognise the surroundings as the base for the army’s killing-aliens division, whereupon he marches boldly into the Brigadier’s office, bawls “Alastair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart, me old matey!”, only to find Caroline Quentin sitting behind the desk.

4) KAMELION
Now this is more like it. A shape-changing robot who can disappear for episodes on end and have its non-appearance explained away by being a) in a cupboard b) broken c) having shape-changed into a normal human being. “It was ahead of its time,” boasted John Nathan-Turner. Perhaps, now, it’s time has come.

5) ANOTHER DOCTOR
You just know that this is going to be the “big” Radio Times-cover thing for series four. While the Doctor is mending the rift in Cardiff he gets caught in “a temporal distortion” or some such crap, ending up in an expensive foreign location peopled with guest stars like Stephen Merchant, Kate Thornton and Keith Barron. “Mysterious forces” will have conspired to also bring none other than Peter Davidson to the same location, together with – in a fuck-you to the fans – Sarah Sutton and Sophie Aldred at the same time. The two Doctors must learn to work together if they are to save the world from Keith Barron and his evil wicked space queen, played by Gwen Taylor.

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot and Gelth

It seems that when Douglas Adams took over the role of Dr Who script editor in the late 1970s, he made great play of casting around for writers that had never contributed to the series before and who could bring something new to proceedings. Most of these were luminaries of the literary scene – Tom Stoppard and the like – but one was none other…than Richard Stilgoe! Richard Stilgoe writing for Dr Who! Can you imagine such a thing?

Well, yes, and the results would go something like this.

The Doctor (Tom Baker) lands in present-day London on his way to some secret alien conference or other and immediately gets a parking ticket slapped on the TARDIS by a stroppy traffic warden (Patsy Rowlands).

A wry debate about the city’s transport network ensues, ending with the Doctor vowing it’d be quicker to walk, only to find the pavement dug up by the Gas Board. A wry debate about public utilities ensues, with a workman (Robin Askwith) professing his bemusement at having to dig so many holes only to fill them up again. The Doctor agrees, comparing the situation to being caught in a space-time trap, then shambles off leaving the workman scratching his head and looking suspiciously at a bottle of beer.

The Doctor finds he has to board a train to reach his conference in time, but when he gets to the station he is warned by the station-master (Richard O’Sullivan) of “trouble ahead, squire”. “What, Daleks?” stammers the Doctor. “No – pickets!” quips the station-master. A wry debate about industrial relations ensues, resulting in the Doctor charming his way past the protestors with the promise of “free jelly babies and double time on Fridays!”

Once on board, however, the Doctor has to do battle with an even greater foe: British Rail sandwiches. In the canteen he challenges the attendant (Richard Stilgoe) about the quality of his catering. A wry debate about train cuisine ensues, ending in the attendant making an unusual and witty anagram out of the letters DOCTOR WHO and performing a short ditty about Cheap Day Returns on a small pianola.

The Doctor finally arrives at his destination, only to find the Brigadier (Geoffrey Palmer) looking grim. “Sorry Doctor, but you’re too late,” he intones. “The entire place has been overrun – by red tape!” “Good heavens!” cries the Doctor, “is there nothing you can do?” “Afraid not, old boy. This stuff just keeps on coming. Whitehall is spewing it out, non-stop!”

A wry debate about Government bureaucracy ensues, interrupted by the arrival of the local MP (Frank Thornton). “Quick – you must come up with a new law to ban red tape!” pleads the Doctor, “it’s the only way to save the country!” “That won’t do any good,” moans the MP, “Whitehall is completely out of control! Nobody can stop it, not even the most powerful person in the land!”

“What, the Prime Minister?” queries the Doctor. “No,” responds the MP, “Terry Wogan!”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” a familiar voice interrupts. Lord Terrence of Wogan, for it is he, steps forward to assail the group with a wry debate about the foibles of parliamentary democracy and why there’s nobody called Blake in Blake’s Seven. “That’s often occurred to me as well!” quips the Doctor.

Tel sees off the profusion of red tape with a few capricious remarks about men in suits and a sharp cry of “Avast ye!” A TV interviewer (Russell Harty) then appears to ask all and sundry for their comments on what has just unfolded.

“I wish I could have this man on hand whenever I had to do battle with evil!” observes the Doctor of Wogan. “I’m afraid we can’t spare him,” interrupts the Brigadier. “He’s needed to spearhead a forthcoming wry debate about why nobody’s hair blows when it’s windy in Dallas, and why Southfork only has one telephone.”

“Never mind, Doc,” sighs Terry. “Tell you what: next time you get into a bit of trouble with those Daleks, here’s a tip: run up a flight of stairs!”