Eighty-Fourth Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Suicide Kings Serial 4G - Pyramids Of Cards - The Doctor has totally lost his mind. His phone bill is currently approaching the gross national debt of the United States in the year 2014. Convincing Sarah Jane to don advanced battle tech gear the Doctor plans an assault on UNIT HQ. The Doctor and Sarah Jane plan to attack, capture, and then demand some measure of payment for UNITs massive abuses of the Doctor's RassilonCom account. The Doctor fears that agents of The Phone Company Of The Most Ancient And Wise Rassilon may be hunting him down. The vicious phone police of Gallifrey are notorious intergalactic stalkers who do not take prisoners. As the TARDIS makes it's way to UNIT HQ a strange and powerful force grips them. Terrified for the first few moments, the Doctor and Sarah soon discover that being gripped and fondled by unknown god-like entities from the depths and horrors of the time vortex isn't actually all that bad! They learn to relax and enjoy the strange trans-temporal molestation, which sadly ends all too briefly. Still in the glow of the passing excitement they forget to check their destination read out and instead enjoy a short smoke. The TARDIS has been diverted away from it's original course and lands in 1911. As it happens this is convenient because the story this week actually takes place in 1911, and they'd be in some other story if they landed in the right time. Since the script this week was for 1911 this makes it much easier on them as otherwise they'd need to improvise, which in the 4th Doctor's case is extremely dangerous. In recent news, Professor Cartman has inadvertently broken into the forgotten prison of Q-tip, last of the Old Evil Bastard Dirty Wanking Ones. Q-tip is a creature with god-like powers and his only ambition is to build a totally perfect pyramid using several decks of playing cards. Defeated by his brother Cthulhu Jones and the rest of the Old Evil Bastard Dirty Wanking Ones, Q-tip has lain prisoner for centuries in a forgotten Aztec disco dance ballroom. The Doctor and Sarah are upset to arrive in Professor Cartman's house in a strange and haunted place in the english isles known only by the enigmatic name "Surrey" (Which will later become the site of UNIT'S LYCRA BONDAGE FUNHOUSE). The two discover that Cartman has been possessed by the power of Q-tip. While usually possession by a strange elusive dark god that should not be is a negative experience and bad for one's temperment the locals all comment that Cartman is nicer, happier, and livelier than ever! The Doctor demands a direct face to face meeting with Q-tip as he has not yet discovered the being's desires or goals. When he gets his meeting with Q-tip he jumps at the shot to criticize him. He points out that even though Q-tip was once a nearly all powerful being he is now forced to sit in his chair where disembodied hands comically pinch his bottom. An angered Q-tip focuses the power of the hot disco lights onto the Doctor who screams in mind crushing pain. After the Doctor has been totally subdued Q-tip rants on and on about his glorious plan to make perfect pyramids of cards all over the world. The Doctor is shocked and expresses no sympathy whatsoever for these unusual desires. Calmly the Doctor explains that a truly evil entity would have a truly worthy goal such as destroying all life in the cosmos. The Doctor dismisses Q-tip entirely for his lack of malevolent leanings. In rage Q-tip promises the Doctor that he could really destroy all of life in time and space if he truly wished to. The Doctor laughs loudly in Q-tip's face. The Doctor bids the prince of evil an adieu and goes back to Sarah Jane to explain the situation. Sarah Jane demands that they leave. She reasons that she's seen the future and Q-tip never got freed, her world of 1980 isn't filled with pyramids of cards. Indulging the argument the Doctor takes Sarah Jane to the future and she sees a world ravaged by gratuitous playing card constructions. The Doctor is deeply disgusted, this Q-tip loser isn't a proper villain, he isn't a danger to life as we know it on a comic scale. As far as the Doctor is concerned this guy is a total loser and waste of demonic potential. The Doctor returns to 1911 and the prison of Q-tip. Calmly he explains the future world that he and Sarah have seen in the year 1980. Q-tip is delighted to know that one day his decks of cards will rise up from the ground to create an empire of laminated paper pyramids. The Doctor is appalled by the inanity of this menace and simply walks away. Sarah asks about the potential 1980 they saw and the Doctor explains that it was just one of many possible 1980s. Sarah Jane pleads with the Doctor and asks what he is going to do to stop this otherworldly threat to the earth. The Doctor tells her that if the human race can't fend off one insane alien god who wants to build a lot of cute card houses all over the planet, they aren't worth the trouble. He speculates that anyone with half a brain will be able to stop this terror to mankind, but personally he can't be bothered. The quest to settle his phone bill debt is much more important than the fate of being named Q-tip. Book(s)/Other Related - Doctor Who Nude Alien Lust Goddesses (Canada) Doctor Mysterio El Wacko Q-tip Extremo! Tobin's Spirit Guide - Volume Q Fluffs - Tom Baker seemed poker faced for most of this story Fashion Victims - Q-tip praises his mummy servants whom all look like the Michellen Man Goofs - Sarah says the prison reminds her of having sex with a dustbin, but she never had sex with a dustbin! Perhaps the Doctor showed her some pictures of Playbeing Magazine which featured Jo Grant having sex with Dustbins as it was one of the 700 best selling magazines of all time. Rather conveniently Sarah Jane's high tech battle suit, which she puts on before they land, is camouflaged as a period dress! A fan sent me e-mail from a uni account complaining that the Doctor made a mathematical error. Apparently the Doctor says "120.3cm multiply by the binary figure 10 zero zero". Mathmaster@ucs.cam.ac.uk violently INSISTS that the Doctor should say "20.3cm multiply by the binary figure 10 zero zero". Now I'm not going to lie, I have no clue if this is correct or not. I hate long boring e-mail detailing maths concepts which really don't relate to my own life. So I've included his comments in the hopes that other people who don't want to deal with complex maths will spam this sad bastard for being such a maths dork as to correct the higher knowledge of Doctor Who! Technobabble - The TARDIS' relative continuum stabilizer is fixed by giving it a good kick. We also have parallax coils, a cytronic particle accelerator, etheric impulses, a decadron crucible and triobiphysics, all of which are fixed with a good rap on the kitchen counter. Links and References - Sarah Jane wears a kinky victorian battle suit which the Doctor originally wanted Victoria to wear. Untelevised Misadventures - The Doctor was given Marie Antoinette's head as an unusual souvenir of Paris Dialogue Disasters - Sarah: We travel in time, Mr Cartman. I'm really from 1980. Cartman: That is utterly preposterous, Miss Smith. How can that possibly fit into UNIT dating? Sarah: Yes. Sorry. Cartman: Whyever do you suggest having sex in this fashion? Doctor: Well, you see, Cartman, I have the advantage of being slightly ahead of you. Sometimes behind you, but normally ahead of you. Doctor: That's the world as Q-tip would leave it: I dare say Bicycle Playing Cards must be the richest company in the universe by this point. The Doctor's ridiculously inappropriate remark after landing them in the middle of a brothel: "1980, Sarah, if you want to get off." The just plain creepy S&M scene between the Doctor and Q-tip: Q-tip: You pit your puny will against mine? In my presence you are an ant, a termite. Abase yourself, you groveling insect! Doctor: I will do nothing of the kind! Q-tip: I've endured an eternity of darkness and impotence. I shall not be denied now! Dialogue Triumphs - Doctor: I'm a Time Lord... You don't understand the implications. I'm not a human being. I walk in depravity! Doctor: Deactivating a generator loop without the correct key is like repairing a watch with a hammer and chisel. I should know, I do it all the time. Sarah: You have a lot of experience with generator loops? Doctor: What??! No, I just get terribly upset when my watch breaks. Q-tip: My evil is your good. My chocolate is your tofu. My being a really nice guy is your being a total and complete bastard. Where I tread, I leave nothing but playing cards pyramids, that is my good. Doctor: Playing card pyramids?? Wait. Are you shitting me? Q-tip: My sushi is your cardboard, my curry sauce is your glue paste, my sex with asian prostitutes is your evening at home with mom and pop. I think that making pyramids out of playing cards is a fun hobby. Doctor: Yes but you have the powers of a malevolent entity..no more than that A GOD! Can't you aspire to something more evil? How about destroying the cosmos? Q-tip: No. My illicit pornography is your Archie Comic. My onion dip is your ear wax. My-- Doctor: Yes!! YESS! YES! How about just destroying all the life on this planet. At least THAT would be something. Q-tip: No, I just like stacking playing cards. Doctor: Oh well, then fuck off with you, I can't be bothered! Sarah Jane pleading afterwards in the TARDIS - Sarah Jane: But how can you expect the human race to survive without your help? What can we do? Doctor: Don't sell the bastard any playing cards for one! Dialogue Oddities - (ORIGINAL SCRIPT) The Doctor: The ancient gods have been awakened. We are at their mercy. The time of reckoning is upon us. (ON SCREEN) Tom Baker: The ancient gods, they are awake now. Still, it's the loser of the family, the one they kept locked in the closet for centuries out of embarrassment. We should be fine. Viewers' Quotes - "I for one supported Q-tip entirely throughout this tale, and was glad that the Doctor decided to mind his own business. If Q-tip ever did manage to escape the ancient disco, I would like very much to meet him and maybe go out to the pub for some dancing." - Herbert Bromly, Owner of "Bromly's Games And Cards", Seeking Young Men And Ancient Gods For Company At Social And Private Functions (1999) "I can speak directly that I, for one, if summoned, would NOT build any card structures, or indeed anything of any description whatsoever. Instead I would spend my time consuming all of creation. That is what I'm all about." - Cthulhu (1976) "As an Egyptologist, that is as someone who watches an awful lot of documentaries about ancient Egypt on various cable channels, I would like to protest most firmly about this story. There was a REAL god named Q-tip, I believe, which was actually rather powerful and such. I only caught half the documentary in question, but the 15 or so minutes I did catch led me to believe that the portrayal of Q-tip was incorrect in this story. I would stake my professional credibility on this, if I actually had any. - Eric Levine (1995) "I actually met Q-tip at a convention one time. He was one of those really sad fan boys who dominated the panels and complained at length whenever anything contradicted Lair of Zarbi Supremo, what a dumb ass." - Charles Daniels (2000) Psychotic Nostalgia - "You all think you're free?? We shouldn't be living in boxes! We shouldn't be living in squares, and neighborhoods, and with dogs and cats and 2.4 children! We should all worship his man The Q-tip! That dude would set us up in giant pyramids where we could focus our MENTAL energies and bring forth the destruction of the non-believers! Man! Where have you been?" Tom Baker Speaks! Yes, this one was called "The Q-tip Invasion". I remember mostly clearly in fact that at the time we filmed this one we would go afterwards to this very nice pub called Saint Henry's. Now what was vitally important about this pub was that we would get free drinks, because, well I was the Doctor. And people can not resist giving free drinks to the Doctor. As a poor fellow I didn't get any free drinks. No in those miserable days of childhood I would lick the wooden floors of the local pubs hoping to taste whatever drops of lager had been spilled by the patrons as I squirmed under the table. I recall occasionally the patrons would throw moldy cheese in my direction and I would eat it and be terribly sick for days. Those were miserably unhappy days of being poor. People always talk romantically about how happy the poor are. Being poor was a pain in the ass. So when I was the Doctor I would live like an emperor and press plebs to the ground and make them lick my shoes. YES. Yes, I say with a smile. I *DO* like this story." Rumors & Facts - Tom Baker was very unhappy about a detail of the set, and had apparently been so for quite some time. Tom Baker explained at length that he thought the TARDIS console room was quite too bright and the Doctor, being a mysterious chap, should travel in a gothic and extremely DARK room. Whatever thematic excuses he gave it didn't seem to work. He finally admitted his long hours of devotion to the local pubs made it incredibly hard for him to see in the morning in the bright lights and he wanted the subdued lighting as thus far the console room was so bright and interfering with his headaches so massively that the console room appeared to be constantly spinning to him. The directors loved this as they felt this would make the TARDIS seem like it was moving! "I saw him staggering around and I thought 'Wow! That's acting!' it was only when I got to know him much better that I realised 'Wow! That's Whiskey!'." - David Maloney (1981) After one unfortunate morning of the filming the original set suffered over three thousand pounds damage from a severe vomitting attack suffered by Mr. Baker. A new, very dark, moody, and most of all non-agitating set had to be constructed hastily. Also Tom Baker had to agree not to show up to work hung over anymore. Tom Baker fulfilled this request by staying continuously pissed. Meanwhile, as we all should know, in 1980 Q-tip did in fact take over the world and cover it in playing card pyramids. This fact was covered up by the world's various governments who insisted it was all the act of a crazed performance artist. The pyramids were all dismantled over night and Q-tip settled down into a proper job somewhere in London. The last I heard he works at Bakerloo Station as a ticket sellsperson. Of course I have heard other reports that he runs a cult which kills terrified victims in the hopes of elevating him to his previous level of god-like energy after which he will consume all humanity in a giant fireball. That sort of thing isn't all that unusual. I had a friend who worked at Exeter St. Davids who did pretty much the same thing. Either way it's nice to know he's settled in to his current life situation and still has goals for the future.