One Hundred and Third Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Collectibles Serial 5D - The Fanboys of Tara - The power of the chicken drags the Doctor, Romana, and K-9 to the most annoying sci-fi/comedy convention in the cosmos. Romana finds one of the segments is a sad fan boy dressed as John Cleese in the Silly Walks sketch. Before she can act on this knowledge she is held captive by a fanboy in a cheap cardboard robot costume. The man inside of the cardboard robot costume is no one other than the mysterious creator of the Quirks. Throughout time and space he has plotted to seize the throne of comedic sci-fi fandom from the rightful heir, John Cleese, and has mistaken Romana for a fangirl dressed as an android duplicate of Romana as she appeared at the end of serial 5C. So sad is this costume, that the devious creator of the Quirks, believes that this may present the opportunity for him to finally see a lady in her underwear! The Doctor is meanwhile captured by a group of crazed fans dressed as the inhabitants of the planet Vortis, who hope that their protection of John Cleese will help the forgotten monsters of the past reign anew. The Doctor is held at plastic light sabre point inside of a shared budget suite, where he is forced to repair an android costume and recite exciting passages from Terrance Dicks Target Novelizations. Meanwhile the fan dressed as John Cleese in the Silly Walks sketch acts as a decoy for potential assassins. The Creator of the Quirks kidnaps John Cleese and has the Doctor modify his cheap cardboard cut out robot suit so that it will look regal enough for him to be crowned in. The Creator of the Quirks also commissions a Quirk-style android duplicate of Romana equipped with a lethal ray and something he calls "Dutch Action Mouth". After spending considerable time with this "enhanced" Romana device, he contrives for the Doctor to meet her. K9, recognising that the real Romana didn't deflate in under five seconds, realises that this is a trap. After much internal debate K9 decides not to warn the Doctor, so he can travel alone with Romana and no longer have to worry about the Doctor juggling him about drunkenly to impress people. The real Romana has meanwhile escaped from the strange hotel room of he who designed the Quirks, and she rescues the Doctor from the Android Duplicate of herself -- much to the disappointment of the audience, who never get to see what exactly this "Dutch Action Mouth" does. In rage, The Creator destroys the Romana android and recaptures the original Romana. Thus padding out the story for a fourth episode. The Doctor easily gains access to the hotel room by using K9 as a battering ram. Rescuing Romana, the Doctor and K9 stab John Cleese and the John Cleese look-a-like until they turn into tumeric and corriander powder. With this development the creator of the Quirks seems inevitably poised to seize power. However the fanboys dressed as the inhabitants of Vortis join forces with the fanboys dressed as German Leather Freaks who in turn join the Cybermen and the Dustbins and just about everyone else in fandom to STOP the Quirks rise to power! To the surpise of no one the Doctor engages The Creator of the Quirks in a drinking contest. The Creator, realising that he has been defeated, drunkenly slumps out of the convention and escapes to fight another day. Book(s)/Other Related - Doctor Who And The Quirky Convention Doctor Mysterio La Roboto Cleese Extremo Doctor Who Meets The Talking Penis(Canada Only) Fluffs - Tom Baker seemed salty for most of this story Tom Baker tries, largely without success, to look more sober than the BBC cameraman that swaggers into the shot repeatedly in episodes 2 and 3. Fashion Victims - I once wore something that looked like the Archimandrite's hat -- only not on my head. (Editor Apologises For Providing Too Much Information) Goofs - The Taran Fanboy Beast - how can I ever hope to describe THAT!? Romana's restraints look far too easy to escape from - I NEVER tie women up that haphazardly! They might escape!!!! (Please see above editoral apology) The Creator of the Quirks minions seem to include -- himself.. and a few cardboard boxes with different names written on them. In several scenes that are suppose to take place in different parts of the world at entirely different times, Tom Baker attempts to walk onto the set, only to be dragged off by several pairs of hands. Technobabble - "I've uploaded every single chess game ever played anywhere in the universe into K-9!" "Did you consult the Omni-Delta-Hyper-Information Matrix or The Quasi-Neutron BurgleBrain of Signus V?" "What? No, I just downloaded some shitty freeware thing off of alt.binaries.geeks.chess!" Links and References - The Doctor mentions that he felt a lot more stable when people called him Rasputin, and blames a random candlestick in the console room that he can not remember how to transform himself into Russian madmen at will. Untelevised Misadventures - Not only did the Doctor see Capablanca play Alekhine at chess in 1927, but he later went on to challenge both the men to a game of Connect Four which he describes as "Exhiliariting! The most exciting game of Connect Four in history!". The Doctor also met Izaak Walton, author of the Compleat Angler and describes their game of Connect Four as "Not quite, but close." Several other comments made by the Doctor in this story hints there was an entire missing era of the Doctor's life where he hunted out the best and brightest of history and challenged them to endless games of Connect Four, Candyland, and some unknown mysterious board game from the future which he calls "Baby Oil Twister". Dialogue Disasters - Romana: What's that? Is it yours? Creator: It's a Quirk, my favorite creation. Strong as a refrigator box and swift as the wind. Romana: Well, how does it go? What makes it work? Creator: Good heavens, I don't know, my dear. Romana: You don't? Creator: I'm a writer! I let the BBC deal with the string, spit, and shoe polish that hold these things together! Dialogue Triumphs - Doctor: Gosh, that takes me back. Or forward. That's the trouble with liquor; you can never remember. Doctor: [Speaking to Insane Fanboy] Would you mind not reading Terrance Dicks' aloud? I'm trying to hear what the panel is saying about the new Star Wars movie. Doctor: I shall have to go alone of course. It's funny. They always want you to go alone when you're walking into the men's room. Have you noticed that? Doctor: [Speaking of K9's efforts to cut through a wooden door with his nose laser to free him from his speaking panel] Do hurry up! A man dressed as a hamster is trying to kill me with a blunt penknife. Romana: Uh, Count, far be it from me to query this lady's competence as a doctor, but this bitch is crazy! [The final meeting and confrontation] Creator: A writer does not fear death if he dies with an army of Quirks at this side. Romana: Creator of the Quirks - this is the Doctor. Doctor - this man is a total loony. Doctor: That's alright, for so am I! Prepare the contest of vodka! Creator: Where are the drinking glasses? Doctor: Bottles only today! Dialogue Oddities - (ORIGINAL SCRIPT) The Doctor: Evil. I face it at every turn. Why must I never rest? Who else is there to save creation? (ON SCREEN) Tom Baker: Right, I'll get the Quirk freak liquored up, then it's off to Reno! Viewers' Quotes - "This story was unspeakably plagiaristic! The entire story had a heavy reliance on one particular romantic novel of 1894 entitled 'Victorian Vixens In Velcro'! Needless to say I was disgusted by this gross theivery! So much so that I could not force myself to buy it from the local shoppe -- so I nicked it instead. That will show them!" - Father James O' Maley (1989) "While The Androids of Tara did have a lot going for it, it seemed to have a ridiculously one-dimensional plot and relied much too heavily on the Creator the Quirks trying to establish himself as the God of fandom and to see Romana in her knickers. It's truly sad. I weep at what could have been done with that premise -- especially about the knickers." - Ronald Ashby (1980) "I do not claim that The Fanboys of Tara has hidden depths. It isn't multilayered or meaningful, and it isn't full of socio-political commentary. It has no message and couldn't support a ream of in-depth textual analyses as the series' classics do. But..I would like to say.. that...afterall, looking at the whole...it is...well, it's a bit crap, innit?" - Tom Mono (1992) "The story is like the common fair of english cuisine -- bland." - Cookery And Sci-Fi Review Magazine (1981) Psychotic Nostalgia - "I am the ultimate fanboy!! Wanna see my tattoo with the Cybermen versus the Borg?!" Tom Baker Speaks! - Tom Baker from the record "The Key To Chicken" (1979) - Tom Baker exclusive Rumors & Facts - By the end of February 1978, the only stories left to be decided for Season Sixteen were the fourth and fifth slots. The writer originally approached to pen Serial 5D was Ted Lewis, who had scripted episodes of Z Cars and the feature film Get Carter. Script editor Anthony Read had suggested Lewis write a Doctor Who story in which the Doctor discovers the truth about a figure whom history has painted in a good light. However, the initial drafts needed a variety of changes, and Lewis was going through a variety of personal problems at the time, include separation from his wife and a bout of alcoholism. Read and producer Graham Williams ultimately decided to abandon Lewis' story altogether. Read asked his predecessor, Robert Holmes, to hurriedly prepare a replacement story. Holmes was already familiar with Season Sixteen's Key To Time arc, having written The Ribos Operation some months earlier. He began work on Moon Of Death, commissioned on May 26th. On the same day, Read commissioned The Androids Of Zenda from David Fisher, who had just completed The Stones Of Blood, the year's third serial. Fisher's adventure was an obvious parody of the 1894 Anthony Hope novel The Prisoner Of Zenda. The director assigned to Serial 5D was Michael Hayes, a BBC veteran whose work included Z Cars and A For Andromeda. Hayes quickly became dismayed by Holmes' script, as he felt that some of its technical demands would prove impossible to achieve. Williams decided to switch the fourth and fifth stories around, meaning that The Androids Of Zenda would be transmitted fourth and Moon Of Death would be the season's penultimate serial. As a result, this would mark the third time an author had written consecutive stories within a Doctor Who season, following Ian Stewart Black in Season Three and Chris Boucher in Season Fourteen. Fisher's scripts appear to have gone by a number of different titles over the course of their development, including The Androids Of Zend, The Prisoners (or Prisoner) Of Zenda, and The Seeds Of Time. The latter came about as part of a short-lived idea to further unify the Season Sixteen stories by giving them all names of the form The (Something) Of Time. By the time the serial entered production, its title had become The Androids Of Tara. Fisher's scripts are a clear lift from the Hope novel, following basically the same plotline and including many analogous characters: Prince Reynart for Prince Rudolf, Madame Lamia for Antoinette de Maubin, Zadek for Sapt, Farrah for Fritz von Tarlenheim, and Strella for Flavia. The novel's two chief villains, Duke Michael and Rupert of Hentzau are combined into the person of Count Grendel, while the Doctor and the android "George" essentially share the role of the book's hero, Rudolf Rassendyll. Location filming was originally to have taken place in early July, with Leeds Castle doubling for Castle Gracht. This proved impossible to book, however, because a high-security Middle East peace conference was taking place there at the time. As a result, filming was pushed back to the end of the month, running from July 24th to 28th. These days were plagued by several mishaps, especially concerning recording around the moat. First, on the 24th, Tom Baker inadvertently tossed the antique fishing rod he was using into the water. Stunt arranger Terry Walsh had to dive in and rescue it. Later, on the 28th, the sound recordist himself took a tumble into the moat. The Androids Of Tara was allocated four studio days in blocks of two. Both ran over a Monday and Tuesday, the first session starting on August 14th and the second a fortnight later on the 28th. Unusually, the credits for the serial were recorded out of the regular order, with the episode number appearing prior to the author's name. http://www.pagefillers.com/dwrg/heart.htm