The One Hundred and Thirty-Ninth Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Celery Serial 6R - The Phantom of Androzani - "I'll show you what a real spin around the universe can do for you Peri!" Promised the young Doctor with an impish grin. "We'll go visit a very old friend of mine Sharaz Jek. I honestly can't remember why I don't go and see him more often." The TARDIS spun through space on yet another exciting adventure... The Doctor and Peri arrive on the planet Androzani Minor, world of violent mudburst caused by orbital chaos and insane temperature fluctuations -- just the sort of place to go on holiday. Exploring the nearby cave system, which is frequently FILLED with molten mud in the planet's many storms, they find the gothic and simple dwelling of one Sharaz Jek. Jek, long time friend of the Doctor, is a method actor of the ultimate extreme. Having come to Androzani Minor especially for the violent mudbursts - he achieved his dream of being horrifically disfigured, so he could completely subsume himself in the role of the Phantom. The actor lives each moment of his life, slaved to his character. Over a charming, relaxing candle lit dinner of wine and song Sharaz explains to the Doctor that he supplements his income by selling giant bat shit, which apparently makes people immortal. The Doctor and Peri are surprised and put off by the conversation, but Sharaz continues to explain that he's built a race of killer androids to protect his chemical longevity empire. After the dinner, Jek admits that he has become entranced with the young MTV VJ, Miss Perpegilium Brown, and comments that she would be the perfect Christine for his Phantom. With a crazed vengeance he then tells the Doctor that as Peri is Christine, then the Doctor must be Raoul, his rival. Jek demands that his androids kill Raoul, but they stand there motionless - they turn out to be badly programmed by a man named Morgus, the corrupt leader of Ursa Major's Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, and these androids are labelled "Kamelion Mark IV". "Three generations later and still the most useless androids in the cosmos!" Muses the Doctor. Jek's sense of betrayal explodes. Morgus has cheated him for the last time, and now endangers his true love for Peri. Jek decides that if he can not kill the Doctor, he must keep them both his prisoner forever and to that end he ties them up in special polycarbon bonds. Peri and the Doctor are tied end to end, trapped in a dark cave on an alien world thousands of years in the future, the prisoner of a madman, all hope seems lost...when at last the Doctor has a flash -- "OF COURSE!! He's a psychotic madman! That's why I don't visit him more often! YES! That's it. I knew it would come to me. I really must remember that fact in future." But after this realisation their problems only worsen. It turns out that not only is Sharaz Jek an insane madman, but he is also an incredibly shoddy chef. The chicken he made was obviously cleaned in a mudflow and now both the Doctor and Peri have some futuristic alien salmonella. The Doctor explains their situation to Jek, who bursts into screams of denial and starts to play moody tunes on his hammond organ. The Doctor is slowly succumbing to the salmonella, but with a distracted Jek he manages to escape. In a flash of delusions he remembers something about alien bat milk being a super penicillin. The Doctor finds a conveniently located Queen Bat and apparently still remembers the finer points of bat milking from his previous life as Tristan Farnon. The Doctor carries Peri into the TARDIS and makes her drink the bat milk at knife point -- because let's face it, we'd probably all rather die. After saving Peri's life the Doctor collapses. The camera zooms on Peri's cleavage as the Doctor regenerates before her eyes... Book(s)/Other Related - Doctor Who - Blonde Boy Snuffs the Big One Doctor Who, The Nude Years Lonely Planets - Androzani Minor (Merriment, Mudbursts, and Mad Men) Goofs - In the underground cave system, Colin Baker can be clearly seen gloating at the Doctor's distress. Links and References - During the regeneration, the Doctor is confronted by spinning ghostly hallucinations of his previous companions, villains, and selves - Tegan: What was that movie you liked, Doctor? Braveheart. Turlough: You mustn't die, Doctor. Too many enemies would delight in your death...me for starts. Nyssa: Dammit Doctor! Get off the floor and stop acting like a wuss! Adric: Join me Doctor. We could be together! I love you Doctor! 4th Doctor: I AM THE WALRUS! Bastard-(chuckling)...No my dear Doctor....you must DIE.... DIE DOCTOR...DIE DOCTOR! 1st Doctor: Excellent point my dear boy! Die you selfless-bastard! Untelevised Misadventures - The Doctor has apparently lead other young women to their deaths at the hands of his old pal Sharaz Jek. How he forgets this after every encounter remains a mystery..... Groovy DVD Extras - A 30 second computer generated vista of the TARDIS sitting in a snow field....and umm....it sits there, and nothing happens. WOW! Dialogue Disasters - ---- Doctor: I tried to keep a diary once - not chronological, of course - but I kept trying to read it without my permission. That's the problem with regeneration, how can you keep yourself to yourself? I just got so tired of returning to my library to find myself reading my innermost thoughts and mocking me. ---- Doctor: KNOCK! KNOCK! Peri (Bored witless): Who's there? Doctor: YES! Sharaz: Your sense of humour will be the death of you, Doctor - probably very soon. ---- Dialogue Triumphs - --- Peri: I thought you knew everything. Doctor: I do! Just not all at once! --- Peri: Doctor, why do you wear a stick of celery on your lapel? Doctor: What's it to you? Peri: Just curious. Doctor: Safety precaution. I'm allergic to certain gases in the praxis range of the spectrum. If the gas is present, the celery turns purple. Then, to protect myself, I eat the celery. Peri: Does that work? Doctor: Okay, I admit it -- I'm a bit of a nutter. --- Sharaz: We shall become the best of companions. Doctor: What do you say, Peri. We can go on nature walks, have picnics and jolly evenings round the camp fire. Sharaz: And we shall make Smores of unbelievable intensity! --- Sharaz: You have the mouth of a prattling jackanapes... But your eyes... they tell a different story. Like two shining jewels of loveliness, sparkling in the night. Doctor: Oh god! Not that old line! --- Sharaz: Do you think I'm mad? Peri: N..no. Sharaz: I believe that I'm the Phantom of the Opera, that you are Christine, and that the Doctor is the opera house owner and your lover, Raoul. And you don't think I'm mad? Does that frighten you? It frightens me! ---- (After the regeneration) Peri: Doctor? Doctor: You're expecting someone else? Peri: I - I - I - Doctor: Three I's in one breath - What about ME!? ME!? ME!!? You're not the only egotistical one around here young lady. Peri: What's happened? Doctor: Change, my dear - and I'm talking about my salary! ------------------------------------------------------------ Viewer Quotes - "The best story ever written ever. Shakespeare is just a fraud!" - Typical Fanboy Opinion "I remember the Sharaz Jek breakfast cereal. It looked like real Bat guano. No idea why it didn't last." - Jim Wolverine (1994) "This was Davison's best story. The height of his entire era. It's good that he died. Because if Davison would have gone on to do the sixth Doctor stories...I would have cried my eyes out." - Larry Benson (1990) "I think it was very clever how they handled that regeneration. Everyone is thinking 'OH GOD!! Stock footage AGAIN!' but it's actually newly recorded footage, cleverly disguised as stock footage. Very clever. I was fooled." - Janis Eros (2002) Psychotic Nostalgia - "That Sharaz dude was crazy, thinking he was really the Phantom of the Opera. Silly. I mean that's not even a real person. Now ME! I'm sane. I'm Sweeney Todd!" Peter Davison Speaks! "My regeneration scene was quite different from that of my predecessors. The whole thing was meant to be shot in 'Cleavo-vision'. I think they were giving out free 3D specs in the Radio Times. It was fabulous! I was so liberated. No one was looking directly at me during the death scene, so I could ham it up, or play it easy, do whatever I liked really because no one was paying attention. After thinking about it for a few seconds, I decided to do the death scene with sort of a bland indifference. I felt that was the best way to express how I'd seen the character during my tenure. I wanted to stay very true to that, even in death. The last thing I needed was to burst out with some actual effort and give up the game that I could have been interesting the entire time. Best to just let it ride." Rumors & Facts - It is well known that Peter Davison was wary of typecasting. Apparently he was further encouraged to leave the role during the filming of "The Four-And-A-Half Doctors" when reportedly Patrick Troughton had said to him - "When I say run! RUN!! RUN PETER! BEFORE DOCTOR WHO STEALS YOUR CAREER!" Later adding - "For god's sake man - RUN! Don't become like Tom!" For this serial, many actors were approached to be Sharaz Jek - Tim Curry, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Mel Smith - but all had unreasonable demands, such as payment. The filming of the regeneration scene was also plagued. Colin Baker claimed that Davison's trousers would not fit his portlier frame - Consequently, he insisted that he perform his sequence with them unbuttoned -- which also afforded him the chance to moon Davison's then-wife, Sandra Dickinson. Apparently, JST was pleased. And so was the graceless end to the Davison era. Peter Davison has garnered a hugely loyal audience, with his depictions of the Doctor ranging from bland concern to bland indifference. After the frantic, frenetic energy of Tom Baker, Davison provided the series with a calming dose of 80s style valium, which it desperately needed. Davison's popularly would continue long after his on screen appearance as the Doctor - spawning dozens of questionable websites devoted to estrogen, several missing adventure novelizations from Virgin and the BBC, and of course several audio plays from Big Finish Productions. He simply won't go away.