The One Hundred and Fifty-Third Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Omicron Serial 7F - Kappa And The Impresarios - Aboard the TARDIS, Mel is complaining that they never go out anywhere fun anymore. Every time they leave the TARDIS it's for some boring business purpose, such as saving the universe. The Doctor listens to Mel's complaints and heartily agrees that a holiday would do them both a galaxy of good. Mel is excited and awaits to discover what wonder of the universe the Doctor might choose to take her to on their fantastic mystery vacation. When the TARDIS materializes at a space tollport, Mel is not amused. But the Doctor assures Mel that this is NOT their final destination. Upon exiting the TARDIS they are informed that they're the tollport's ten billionth customers and have thus won a trip to Disneyland in the year 1959. Mel asks the Doctor why he's bothered to take them to a tollport to win a free trip to Disneyland. Surely the Doctor could just use the TARDIS to arrive at Disneyland, hypnotise the staff into believing he's paid them, and then severely beat Mickey Mouse for laughs, as he did on their LAST vacation to Disneyland. The Doctor explains that since they've won the trip, now the next customers won't. Mel is annoyed that the whole reason for coming here seems to have been to screw someone else out a trip to Disneyland, but she doesn't complain...for once. Mel and the Doctor are offered passage with a strange alien race known as the Impresarios. The Doctor refuses, saying he will follow on in the TARDIS, but suggests that Mel travel with the aliens. Once Mel is out of ear shot the Doctor mentions to the toll collector that the Impresario Space Bus Service to Earth is the most accident-prone tour company in the Universe. SOME USELESS KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE IMPRESARIOS None of this is vital to the story in any way, but as I took the time to actually research the original notes, scripts, and details behind the story, I thought I'd share what I'd discovered. Apparently the script editors thought the audience should be left out of the little details like - Who the aliens are, or what their motives were, and really any information that can help this story make any sense at all. The Impresarios were once a proud race. They actually had nothing to be proud about - other than perhaps their unusual efficiency in making their homeworld an unlivable hell hole of pollution. While not evil, or bad, they were arrogant, stupid, and one of the most thoroughly aggravating races in the entire universe. The Impresarios experimented briefly with taking over other planets in the galaxy; but after killing countless quadtrillions of sentient beings, devastating bajillions of worlds, and wiping out some of the most interesting and fascinating civilizations in the Milky Way, the Impresarios got bored with having an empire, and decided to do something else. This behaviour is an excellent example of their careless disregard for others. Several races, the Snotarans, Dustbins, etc, worked hard for galactic domination. It was what they were good at, what they were passionate about, and it gave their lives a focus and meaning. The Impresarios were just having a go, taking a stab, and they built one of the most enviable empires in galactic history, before deciding, much like one would simply change majors at college, to stop the whole conquest game and try their hands at show business. Frankly, it was deeply annoying. It's one thing to have your temples burnt to the ground by a horrific cyborg oppressor which will enslave your race for thousands of years; until at last a brave band of rebels deliver you from bondage. It was quite another to have a race of people in awful suits bomb your cities, burn your libraries, and then suddenly lose interest in you and take up acting lessons instead. It was belittling to the dark gods who slowly, deliberately infiltrated the entire galaxies, to have a race come along out of the blue, accomplish all their long standing goals over night, and then decide that they'd rather be on television after all. The Impresarios were, above all else, deeply inconsiderate people. Yet, the Impresarios found that they indeed had a role to play in galactic conquest. They were naturally good promoters, conductors, and sponsors. And so, starting with the more hip power mad alien races, beings started to use them as a vital part of their conquest plans. Picture the scene - A world has been flatted by 3,000 atomic weapons. Deadly fumes of poison gas seep from the scorched earth. Black rain, soot and charcoal, pounds down, flash flooding the landscape. Then a single light appears from the sky, a spotlight. And in the spotlight emerges a small humanoid figure in a bright pink sparkly leisure suit with oversized bowler hat. The being clears it's throat loudly into a microphone to gain the attention of the injured and mutated survivors - "HELLO HELLO!! PEOPLE OF ABARXON! Please, let me be the FIRST and FOREMOST to introduce your new Overlords! You know 'em, You love 'em! THE CYBERMEN!" The upbeat Impresarios gave a certain surrealness, a psychological dream-like effect which helped the invaders control a confused populous during the vital first few moments of taking direct power. It was how the Impresarios were most successful, and in that role they remained almost undefeated (except for that one time on earth, when the evil of Vaudeville was destroyed). Of course, none of this is material to the story whatsoever, but I thought you might like to know! * * * The 1950s Space Bus collides with an early American space probe - the probe being about the size of a small grapefruit! This amazing feat, colliding with just about the only manmade object in orbit around the planet, affirms and maintains the accident prone history of the firm. Millions of radio enthusiasts world wide are saddened when the repetitive, weak, plaintive beeping of the tiny probe dies. Mel and the other passengers survive, much to the Doctor's surprise. Mel has made friends with a friendly giant bird alien named Kappa. Kappa is carrying a silver egg, which the Impresarios desperately seem to desire -- for some reason. This deeply distresses the Doctor, who talks loudly about this development to a random seeming Welshman, as a mysterious shadowy figure listens from a distance. After this curious scene, the Doctor leaves and decides to meet "the only man who can save the world now!". Which turns out to be a local eccentric beekeeper, who has actually come to believe himself to be a bee. The beekeeper is glad to help the Doctor in his quest, whatever that is, but first he must perform an elaborate and winding dance in front of the Doctor, rubbing his legs together often, as the Doctor takes notes. The Doctor thanks the beekeeper for his help in saving the entire universe. Meanwhile, the mysterious Welshman has eaten "a special cornish pasty from space" which has somehow transformed him into an alien. In the next scene, the Doctor and Mel are in a desperate motorcycle chase. Mel screams at the Doctor to drive as fast as inhumanly possible, while the Impresarios apparently do nothing. Meanwhile, the space Welshman tries to find the Doctor, and for some reason his arm bursts into flames as soon as he touches the TARDIS. Across town, the Beekeeper proudly shows his bees and his collection of classic honeys off to a random group of Impresarios, who seem to be either viciously murderous, or just very hungry. It's hard to tell. The beekeeper explains that the bees are producing royal jelly, the food which turns an ordinary drone into a hyperintelligent transdimensional queen bee. When the Impresarios demand that this bee act as their new leader, the Beekeeper sports a devious grin and laughs insanely. Elsewhere, in furtherance of some cunning plan, the Doctor is strapping portable radio equipment onto goats. Back at the abode of the Beekeeper, the Impresarios have attempted to "culturally overwhelm" the bee society, but in the process they are covered from head to toe in sweet natural honey and are immediately attacked by angry bees. Nearby, the Doctor notices a charred human arm near the TARDIS. The Doctor turns to Mel and shouts in horror "THE CORNISH PASTIES!! AGAIN! OH!!! HOW I HAVE FOUGHT THE EVIL OF THE CORNISH PASTIES!!! Will it never end?!?!" Just down the road, the Welshman approaches the giant bird creature Kappa, and explains that a cornish pasty has made him an alien. Kappa looks doubtful, but the man explains that he wishes to marry her and sit on her silver egg. The Kappa is pleased. The surviving Impresarios, still smeared with honey and bees, stumble into an open field. The Doctor, lying in wait, activates the radio goats, and the loud sound waves kill the weakened Impresarios instantly. Walking over the sweet smelling, sticky corpses, the Doctor notices the Welshman and the giant bird alien Kappa experimenting with "cross-species fertilisation" (well, that's how he describes it to Mel because otherwise she'd turn all red and embarrassed). Mel is confused and upset! The Doctor has senselessly murdered the kind people who offered them nothing more than a free trip to Disneyland! The Doctor explains that if she had been paying attention, those same people were trying an evil scheme to rule the universe! Mel asks if this is why they had to win the trip to Disneyland in the first place. And what about the person who didn't win thanks to them? "Oh yes! Well, if we hadn't have won the trip, it would have been the next customer of course. In this case a mother and father with a small, lonely, little boy who always dreamed of fun and adventure. But his parents, being insanely poor, never had the money to take him anywhere. And so he grew up embittered, disillusioned, and spent the rest of his days in an air of cynical disdain which kept him distant to all others." "Wow! And you had to let that happen, because of the web of time! How tragic." "Oh yes. Partly that. Also because I never liked the bastard, and this is my cruel blackhearted attempt at revenge." And so ended another story of Doctor Who...but...wow, can anyone explain that one to me???? I never could follow it. Book(s)/Other Related - Doctor Who - The Birds & The Bees Doctor Who - Last of the Goat Lords The History of Goat Warfare Goofs - There is a deeply unsatisfying bus explosion. I thought that was impossible. A bus explodes and I'm just left there thinking "WoW! That was the lamest bus explosion EVER." That's just wrong. The Doctor rambles endlessly about his "sonic goat army". Now this may technically be a dialogue disaster, but I think when an editor gets a script that includes the phrase "sonic goat army" and that story gets made...that's a goof. How in the hell can a cornish pasty make you an alien?!!?!?!? I mean, I could be an alien right now and not know it! I've eaten traditional, bavarian, hell I've even eaten Chicken Tikka Cornish Pasties man! I'm probably some weird freaky Martian by this point. Links and References - The Doctor mentions that the Brigadier and UNIT specialised in goat operatives. Untelevised Misadventures - Mel thanks the Doctor for saving her life from the platinum dragon they encountered in Glasgow. So, this is either some freaky missing adventure, or just another hint that the Doctor is addicted to AD&D. Groovy DVD Extras - An awesome commentary track by Harrison Ford! It's actually the commentary track for Bladerunner, but somehow it ended up on this DVD. I hope they keep throwing in weird stuff like this, I had to watch the story three times before I figured out that the Doctor wasn't a replicant. MAN! That was confusing! Dialogue Disasters - --- Mel: Doctor, now that you've saved the universe, what are you going to do? Doctor: I'm going to Disneyland! --- Burton: Doctor, I sense that you are not a drone worker bee, but instead, you are a spaceman in fear of an attack from some other spacemen! Doctor: Yes, how very perceptive. Now take your hands off my knee. --- Dialogue Triumphs - ---- Mel: Doctor, how will I know a good alien from a bad alien? Doctor: If it tries to shoot you, that's a bad one! ---- Mel: But, wait, you've tried to shoot me before! Doctor: Yes, well, I'm the rule that proves the exception. Mel: Ummm...don't you mean that the other way around? Doctor: No. ------------------------------------------------------------ Viewer Quotes - "This serial ripped off a classic science fiction film. Unfortunately that film was 'I Married A Monster From Outerspace' and actually this serial had a smaller budget than that classic of B-Movie cinema." - Derrick Wilkins (1990) "Alien rock-n-roll fans try to visit Disneyland, try to take over the universe, but succeed in being attacked by bees and loud goats. That isn't a theme usually explored in science fiction, and now I know why." - Larry Hincock (1988) "Considering that they never explained who the Impresarios were, or what they were doing, or what motivated them; I thought this was a fairly easy story to follow - if you were stoned." - Andrew Brown (1999) "This story was very whimsical. And when I say 'whimsical' I mean 'crap'". - Blunt Review Monthly (January 1993) "A fun romp! This story proves that plotlines are overrated!" - Richard "Desperate Optimist" Rogers Sylvester McCoy Speaks! "This was one of those great stories when everyone just showed up and no one bothered to act, or pay any attention to what was going on. We'd just sort of vaguely look at the script, and then stumble in front of the cameras and did what came naturally. In fact, if I remember correctly, the whole part of the story about the Doctor and Mel winning a free trip to Disneyland was just a mad joke someone on the set thought up at the time and we said 'Okay! Let's go with that!' It all seemed to make some sort of manic sense at the time." Rumors & Facts - Script Editor Andrew Cartmel desperately wanted Douglas Adams to pen a new script for Doctor Who. At this time in Douglas Adams' career the author came to expect six figure advances for just promising to think about possibly one day having a vague idea for a story. The BBC offered Douglas Adams their usual fee - 3 Pounds and a free copy of the Radio Times (which would be mysteriously lost in the mail). Unsurprisingly Douglas Adams expressed some concerns about this fee and explained that he had some deadlines to meet (in fact the deadline he was trying to meet when contacted in May 1987 was for June 1981!) Cartmel, disappointed, but not to be defeated, decided to do the next best thing. Cartmel contacted a Douglas Adams impersonator. Douglas Adams impersonators abound in amateur science fiction writing circles. In fact one out of every two unsolicited submissions to the Doctor Who office had to be rejected as the BBC did not have the rights to the Vogons and Douglas Adams was eagerly seeking to trademark the towel. Cartmel approached a group of strange, insomniac, Douglas Adams impersonators and asked them to pitch some Adamsesque ideas for Doctor Who. The ground rules being of course "No towels, no babel fish, and absolutely no small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri". Half the impersonators were totally unable to work within these constraints, and one of the Douglas Adams impersonators who actually was a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri was deeply offended and refused to proceed, but those who could flooded Cartmel with a fury. "Okay, the Doctor arrives on the planet Kalalakakalakahaha and discovers that his sweater has been plotting against him for 300 years. Annoyed, the Doctor seeks out the one man who can help him - a chubby sellsperson at Marks & Spencers in 1976, who secretly hunts and destroys malevolent garments from outerspace. GREAT companion potential with that chubby guy, we'll call him Arthur!" "I know! The Doctor and Mel discover that the TARDIS is in fact a small dog. But no one has ever noticed this before because you have to look at it with the idea already in your mind that it is a small dog. Once the Doctor realises that the TARDIS is a small dog, he takes it to the TARDIS repair shop on Gallifrey, only to find that all of Gallifrey has been hidden, very carefully, in a small handbag." "The universe is destroyed exactly 3 minutes before the Doctor arrives at the holiday planet Grokakokw. The Doctor is deeply frustrated because now that the universe no longer exists, the hotel manager on Grokakokw doesn't see why he should honour the reservation, seeing as how now everyone else in the universe is dead, and this finally frees him up to be rude and obnoxious; Unfettered as he is from social concerns in an extinct universe. And now, the Doctor has to unravel who destroyed the universe, how, when, and why, if he's ever to check into the hotel and have that warm bath he's been craving." Cartmel, after shifting through hundreds of pitches like this, finally decided that a story about a free trip to Disneyland with a group of alien Impresarios was by far the most hopeful and sensible idea he'd heard all day. Either that, or he picked it at random out of his hat. Cartmel commissioned the writer for a 4 episode story, before remembering that he only had 3 episodes available in the slot! When the script writer learned that the story was 25 minutes shorter than he'd thought, he begged for extra time to re-work the story, trim it down, and tighten it up. Instead Cartmel just axed episode one off and anything else that seemed sensible or explained the situation -- as he felt it captured more of the surreal Douglas Adams feeling if you couldn't understand anything anyone was saying at any time. Cartmel later explained that he wasn't actually a big fan of Douglas Adams, but had heard a lot of terribly mean things about his writing style, assumed it was all true, but figured it would fit in perfectly with the recent batch of stories. Cartmel was of course misguided and wrong. He simply refused to green light a much more interesting story "Doctor Who Versus The Quantum Space Monkeys" which was written by young and talented Douglas Adams impersonator who shined above all the rest and showed the true light of surrealist science fiction in a nihilistic universe. That writer's chief qualifications being his cutting wit, impeccable comedic timing, ability to turn a twisted looking glass on the most mundane of situations, and foremost just happening to be me. It's a complete coincidence that I support my own rejected submission. Now every Thursday I walk down to the pub and have a nice, quiet drink with the quantum space monkeys, and think of glorious opportunities sadly missed. I mean, any old jerk can come up with SPACE MONKEYS! But these monkeys are "quantum space monkeys"! You can smell the quality from here!