The One Hundred and Sixty-Second Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Long Journeys Serial TVM - Doctor Who: American Style - "It was on the planet Fargo that my archnemesis, this Bastard, was finally put on trial. They say he listened calmly as his list of evil crimes was read and sentence passed. Then he made his last and, I thought, somewhat stupid request. He demanded that I, the Doctor, a rival Time Lord, should take his remains back to our home planet, Gallifrey. I agreed. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking." We see the seventh Doctor standing in a vast gothic mansion, he seems to be holding something in his hand, and as we read his thoughts we discover that all that was left of the Bastard could easily fit into a coke can. The Doctor carelessly disregards the coke can on the edge of one of the panels of the main control console. He is far too busy to complete his current trip to Gallifrey, dateline 5725.2, in the Rassilon era just at the moment. "The Bastard will still be dead in a few weeks time. I've got some business to look after." The Doctor manipulates the console and we see a new destination appear on the screen - Earth, America, San Francisco, Chinatown, 1999 AD. San Francisco, December 30, 1999. A large group of Chinese teens are sitting in an alley, smoking dope, and listening to the Chemical Brothers. The group is counting large wads of cash and laughing at...everything. They don't even notice a red corvette with tinted black windows which has somehow made its way into middle of the narrow alley. As the leader starts to rubber band large bricks of money and shove them away in his baggy clothing, the door to the corvette swings open and a strange, small fellow with a question mark umbrella emerges. "Woah, check out the hella sketchy guy. We don't got no more acid for you. You look like you might want some E though." The Doctor looks at the lads and explains that he is the mysterious Doctor that started their gang, The Golden Dragons, when he first gave them connections to a flourishing opium trade. The Doctor then tells them that he's back to collect his share. "You're out of your mind! Golden Dragons have been selling shit here for a hundred years!" The Doctor checks a wrist watch "One hundred nineteen years seven months three days four hours and thirty-two minutes actually. Now I've come for my cut which I estimate is approximately 92 million 536 thousand 381 dollars and 37 cents, which I will take in cash or traveller's checks." One of the teens rushes the Doctor, apparently trying to push him back into the corvette, but the Doctor fluidly leaps onto the top of a nearby dumpster, kicking the boy backwards as he somersaults in mid-air and pulls out an AK-47. The teens are stunned, but three of them quickly unsheath katanas and charge the Doctor. The Doctor lifts his left leg and pulls up the palms of both hands, and somehow propels himself up into the air as the boys swing their katanas at where his feet were just precious seconds before. One of the teen boys somersaults into the air to meet the Doctor and they kick box in mid air for several seconds, before the Doctor is finally brought down crashing to earth. When the gang rushes up on his prone body, he surprises them with a wide roundhouse kick, knocking them all on their backs. The Doctor jumps up into a stance, and all but one of the Golden Dragons flee in terror. "You remain here alone child, you are brave. What is your name?" "I am Chang Lee, bravest and smartest of the Golden Dragons." "Interesting. Chang Lee, we will fight to the death employing the sacred disciplines. We shall harness our Chi and the stronger spirit will emerge victorious. It will be a testament not only to the gods but to the physical capabilities of mankind. Even in battle we shall be brothers, sipping the nectar of-" Chang Lee shoots the Doctor at point blank range in the chest. The Doctor fallen, Chang Lee sneers and begins to walk away, leaving the Doctor for dead. When he is at the edge of the alley, Chang Lee hears an eerie, dying gasp that makes him stop in his tracks - "Wait. I have valuables." Chang Lee walks back to the body, and finds the Doctor still alive, who promises that he will grant to Chang Lee all the possessions on his person if he will call an ambulance. "Okay, but I better not be selling myself down the river for a fucking question mark umbrella." In the ambulance, Bruce, a paramedic questions Chang Lee, asking if the man has health insurance -- "I mean this guy looks like a real wino. Maybe we should just dump him in Golden Gate Park. We're never gunna make our money back on this one." They arrive at the Walker General Hospital and the Doctor is wheeled out of the ambulance. As the Doctor's body enters the hospital we cut back to Bruce the paramedic, who is clutching a can of coke, talking to a co-worker. "Dude, is that a coke you stole off the dead guy? That's just wrong!" "He ain't gunna miss it." Bruce drinks down from the coke can in one gulp, and gets a strange look on his face. At the hospital, the resident on duty and two nurses are mildly freaked out by the Doctor, who seems to have recovered greatly and is trying to amuse them by juggling medical equipment and shaping balloon animals out of surgical gloves even though he has a great big sucking chest wound from being shot at point blank range. The nurses examine the Doctor's condition, carefully consider which treatments he might need, and then select all the most expensive procedures possible. "If this guy has insurance, we're gunna bleed them dry! I want some vague justification for an emergency heart surgery NOW!" On call for Cardiology is Dr. Grace Holloway, who happens to be at her night-job play acting her alter ego "Madam Butterfly, Mistress of Pain". She is beeped to the Emergency Room and has to stop whipping some guy named Brian and leaves him chained to a post all night. Dr. Holloway rushes to the operating room, still clad in her leather and chain bondage outfit, complete with leather hat. She asks a nurse to play a CD of monkeys screaming to relax herself. The Doctor's smiles and asks if anyone would like to see a card trick; When he looks up he sees the leather clad blonde lady standing over him with a scalpel. "Sorry, I'm not really into the Nazi sex torture fantasy. Been there, done that, bought the boots." Grace zaps the Doctor with a defibrillator to try to shut him up, but he just continues - "And electro-play. Now that really is out of the question. I never could understand humans. What's wrong with a nice shag and a cookie afterwards?" Grace boredly explains to the Doctor that she is acting as his physician and if this really was some kinky sex play they'd have to go back to her place on Van Ness Avenue and it would cost EVEN MORE. They hit the Doctor with a heavy dose of anesthetic and he seems totally under; however, he sits up and tells them, "The Bastard -- he's out there!" "No, he's in here! Just calm down." The nurses and Grace sit him back down. Not knowing what else to do, and knowing the bill isn't anywhere expensive enough yet, Grace inserts a micro surgical probe into the Doctor to explore his heart. Grace explains that she's only ever actually performed this on donkeys, and thinks this will be a great learning experience. She tells the nurses she's got this really cool idea, but whatever that was it obviously wasn't as cool as she hoped, because the probe snaps off while embedded in the Doctor and she kills him instantly. Time of death: 10:03. It is at this point that Grace bothers to look at the x-rays of the patient "Woah, two hearts. OF COURSE! That explains it. Man, that is so funny. I can't wait to tell 'em about this in the coffee room tomorrow." Grace goes into the hospital waiting room to talk to Chang Lee, who takes one look at her and says "Wow, and I thought the nurses had kinky outfits around here." Grace asks Chang Lee about his friend, John Smith, and Chang Lee tells her that they were best friends, like brothers. She looks deep into Chang Lee's eyes and informs him that John is dead. To her surprise, Chang Lee takes this in stride and asks if he can have the dude's stuff. Chang Lee is presented with a paper bag of the Doctor's belongings and he rummages through them. At first he is totally disappointed - "Umm...what's here...ahh...a goddamn screwdriver, some old bus tickets, oh, wow, cool..." Chang Lee pulls out a set of Corvette keys and smiles widely. 12:50 am In a room adjacent to the mortuary, a cheap comedy relief character named Pete is watching the movie "Jesus Christ Superstar" on TV, eating popcorn with his feet up. In the icebox room, at first glance it appears as if the Doctor is wanking vigourously, however the sheet is simply alive with electricity and the sheet falls off not from rapid wrist movement but instead from the power surging. The Doctor's face is gurning and it seems to be difficult, as though the Doctor is fighting something or someone unknown. Finally the Doctor's arm moves, but thankfully his hand leans off the table. Suddenly, his breath starts up and the spewing begins - icy air from his open mouth...and no other spewing of any description I swear. His eyes open. The Doctor sits up. We hear Jesus Christ Superstar spring into full song. 1:15 AM San Francisco and outside stand Romans with machine guns just like in the movie. It gets quiet and Pete hears slight banging. Afraid, he goes out to the room where the banging comes from. Pete sees the door of one of the ice boxes bang outward and finally the door fall out and down. The Doctor, the shroud wrapped around him, comes out, trance-like, with a dazed expression on his face. "Holy shit! Tim Rice was right! Judgement day has arrived. WOW! Jesus. I'm your biggest fan. You chose to rise up and do the rapture in San Francisco?? That is so progressive man. I really appreciate that." The Doctor moves in closer, as though a bit shortsighted. Pete passes out and falls straight back. The Doctor walks through to the next room where the "Jesus Christ Superstar" movie scares him. The Doctor cringes and holds his head. The Doctor walks the halls of the hospital, dizzy, disorientated, and slightly humming ‘Changes’ by Black Sabbath. Back from the dead with a toe tag on, but still having a keen sense of drama, he walks into a hospital area that is in ruins and being reconstructed. Rain pours into the ruins through tattered protective plastic coverings. Water from a broken pipe falls on him, making him cringe some more. The Doctor cries. He turns and sees eight reflections of himself in eight conveniently placed mirrors. "Who am I? Who am I?" The holds up his hands and shouts upward, "WHO...AM...I!!!!!" Bruce, now the Bastard, sits up in bed, green foam and saliva in his mouth. Lightning hits. The Doctor falls to his knees and crumbles up into a fetal position. Whilst in the fetal position, he looks over and sees a small bomb with an electric red counter, quickly approaching 00:00:00.00 His eyes widen in fear and he runs at a break neck pace as the bomb explodes into a giant fireball. Running at extreme speed the Doctor out races the fireball, having to leap out of a hospital window into the cold night air, in a scene so intense it could only be presented in slow motion. To the Doctor's own amazement he lands in a soft pile of over filled trash bags and looks back up at the windows, which then explode outward as flames light up the night sky around him. Pushing his face into trash bags, glass falls around him but he is unharmed. After a moment he looks back at the charred hospital wing and his eyes narrow - "Who could blow up A HOSPITAL!? Someone will pay for this!" The Doctor makes his way through the wreckage, looking for clues. He soon discovers a locker room, and deciding that he can't fight for justice whilst completely nude, he decides to steal whatever clothes he can find. He does stop himself at stealing a long big ugly multi-coloured scarf though -- he's not THAT desperate. Chang Lee is in a pawn shop trying to sell some of the Doctor's belongings. The man running the pawn shop looks especially interested in the sonic screwdriver. "I'll give you 50 cents for the yo-yo and 2 bucks for the oddly ticking pocket watch of obvious extraterrestrial origin." Still inside the locker room, the Doctor has finally gathered an outfit he is happy with - clothes apparently owned by a mental patient at the hospital who believed himself to be Wild Bill Hicock. The Doctor examines himself and his clothes in a partially shattered mirror, as he practices his revolver quick draw from the gun belt slung around his waist. In Bruce's apartment, the Bastard in Bruce's muscular body is up and feverishly watching the Smurfs on television. He is shirtless and has his back to his wife in the bed. His wife says "Honey, come back to bed. They're never going to finish building that stupid watermill." The Bastard calmly explains that his name is not "Honey" and he is used to people calling him "Bastard". His wife sighs in annoyance, "I don't want to start that whole fight over again. Who cares what my mother said at Christmas, she was just drunk again." She gets up and hugs him from behind. He turns and his eyes are green and silvery. She screams but he chokes her down, killing her. He looks out the window, saying to himself "Soon, Doctor, soon I will finish watching this Smurf marathon, and then, you will die..." Meanwhile Pete explains to Grace the she killed Jesus, but now he has arisen to judge them all. Grace thinks this is some strange come on and leaves Pete alone in the mortuary with only his Tickle Me Elmo doll for company. Grace walks past the bare feet of the Doctor, who, disorientated, is sitting on a couch in the waiting area of the hospital watching the Smurfs. Looking at Grace, he suddenly has a flashback of staring at her chest while on the operating table - it's the first thing he recognises. Grace begins to talk to the hospital administrator, who thinks that the x-rays of the mystery patient might just be the final proof of aliens on earth, living amoungst us. The administrator burns the x-rays of the Doctor's two hearts, and when Grace angrily demands to know why he replies - "Aliens. I thought we should just burn and suppress evidence. I mean, after all, that's what they always do on the TV." Grace is filled with righteous anger - she wants to know what that man was, to learn from him, to dissect him, to write award winning papers, and to eventually get a Nobel Prize. He won't hear of it, aliens always mean trouble, he's seen the movies "Except for that lovable E.T., but then, still, NO. Flying bicycles?! A kid could fall off. We'd get sued." Grace quits and packs her things....and actually she packs some of the hospital's things too...but we won't mention that. When Grace takes her things out of the hospital, the Doctor spots her bust again and this prompts him to squeeze into an awkwardly tiny elevator with her, standing with his nose firmly planted in her cleavage, and obviously getting a painful kink in his neck. "Sorry, far sighted." He tries to explain in an offhand way. He stands closer and asks her if they have met before. She doesn’t think so, but he does sort of remind her of this guy she met that liked to be dressed up as a baby. She hands him her Madam Butterfly Mistress of Pain business card. He follows her out into the parking lot and talks to her as she carefully places her box of belongings next to a man who is hogtied and gagged in the trunk of her car - "Liking it in there Fred? You sick puppy." When she harshly slams the trunk shut, the Doctor seems gone. Grace gets into her car and the Doctor is there in the back seat. "Hey, you wanna stalk me, that's okay. But I don't take checks. Cash only, bucko. I like the spurs." The Doctor calmly removes the broken probe that was still in him and says "Oh yes, I'm not a donkey you know." Grace stares at the probe and realises that the guy she killed last night has returned to life as a cowboy. The Bastard, in black sunglasses, a leather jacket, and a t-shirt reading "San Frantastico" , goes to the emergency room reception to ask if the body he brought in last night was destroyed in the explosion. The nurse at the reception tells him that the hospital is trying to keep the explosion a secret as only a disused and ruined wing with eerie lighting was destroyed. No one is aware of any casualties, but she is surprised that the Bastard had even heard of the incident. Changing the topic, the Bastard asks who collected John Smith's belongings. She tells the Bastard that she saw a doctor talking to some gentleman named Lee. The Bastard smiles and says "The Asian child...in the tight trousers." The nurse calls him sick, to which the Bastard thanks her. Children run past Grace's home as she brings the Doctor inside. Grace explains to the Doctor that her longtime slave gimpboy, Antonio, recently left her for someone with a sharper knife. In the process of leaving he took everything he could throw into the back of a moving truck, including her sofa. The two sit in love swings so Grace can listen to the Doctor’s hearts. As Grace checks him with the stethoscope, he sees a da Vinci painting and comments that Leonardo was always scared of him and would pretend not to be home whenever he came around to visit. Grace interrupts as she realises that the Doctor does have two hearts, and asks if he is from the planet Vulcan or something. The Doctor tells her he was dead for too long this time to remember, and the anesthetic almost destroyed the regenerative process, but on the plus side it did give him a bitchin' high for awhile. Grace is sceptical, but he tells her he has 13 lives. Grace tells him that no matter what he says, the dead stay dead and you can't turn back time. The Doctor replies, "Yes, you can. You humans do it every year in fall." She moves away from him very slowly, while facing him and smiling widely. Chang Lee goes under the police ticker tape into the alley where the TARDIS is waiting. He goes inside and almost immediately realizes that this isn't a standard edition Corvette - "Damned! I never knew rich white guys were driving these things around." Chang Lee vaguely remembers SOME car commercial which claimed that the cars seemed "bigger on the inside than the outside", but he didn't expect anything like this. Chang Lee checks the outside, kicks the tires, and then checks the inside again. He walks to the control console and the doors close automatically. Chang Lee discovers he is not alone; Also inside is the Bastard who recalls Chang Lee's name. Chang Lee panics and immediately tries to leave - "Dammit! Why won't the doors open?!" "Child locks." The TARDIS whistles and starts up, the Bastard explains that the TARDIS is drawing power from Chang Lee' very life essence, using his living human energy to power a vast complex machine that will end all life on the planet. Chang Lee makes another desperate bid to open the doors, and the Bastard cackles maniacally - "I'm just jerkin' your chain boy. The TARDIS likes you. It will not allow you to come to any harm." Chang Lee asks if he is Bruce, the guy from the ambulance last night. The Bastard reveals his true identity to Chang Lee and takes off his glasses and his green eyes hypnotize Chang Lee. The Bastard waves his hand and the teen walks over to him. The Bastard searches through Chang Lee's jacket and grabs the bag containing the Doctor's possessions. The Bastard looks up at Chang Lee with great hatred - "Where is the yo-yo?" Chang Lee tells the Bastard that he has no clue what he's talking about, he swears he never saw a yo-yo. The Bastard hisses, "BULLSHIT! There was a yo-yo, forged in the fires of Gallifrey by Rassilon himself!" Chang Lee is stunned by this outburst. "What did it look like?" "WHAT DID IT LOOK LIKE!? It is the Yo-Yo of Rassilon! A golden disc with the Seal of Rassilon engraved on both sides, with a silk string wrapped around the middle." "Oh. Yeah. I sold that for fifty cents down on Grant Avenue." The Bastard grabs Chang Lee by the throat and moves him over the console. He tells Chang Lee that the man, the Doctor, has stolen his body and they must get it back. The Yo-Yo of Rassilon is the key ingredient in the process to make that happen. Chang Lee is allowed to stand up a bit and asks, "What's in it for me?" The Bastard taps his cheek, "You get to live." The Doctor and Grace take a pleasant stroll in Golden Gate Park, trying their best to ignore the fragrant winos that surround them. For some reason the sights and smells trigger memories deep within the Doctor. He recalls lying back with his father in the grass on a warm Gallifreyan night, Grace hasn’t heard of it but thinks it might be an island off the coast of Greece. The Doctor recalls having it off with some Australian girl in bad 80s clothes, and also seems to recall working for a secret military organization. Then the Doctor suddenly cries out that the cowboy boots fit perfectly, and Grace again slowly backs away, smiling, and reaching in her handbag for mace. In the TARDIS, the Bastard takes out huge bags of opium from filing cabinets. He tells Chang Lee the TARDIS and the San Francisco drug trade was all his but the Doctor stole it from him. He also tells him the Doctor was Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, and the Big Bad Wolf. The Bastard and Chang Lee leave the main control room of the TARDIS and enter a giant cloister room, a room complete with live bats. The Eye of Harmony is here and it is the device that powers the entire TARDIS. If they can open it, they can find the Doctor. The Bastard makes Chang Lee pull a staff out of its mooring and this opens the eye a bit. The Bastard explains that if Chang Lee looks into the beam of light and the TARDIS really, REALLY likes him, it will open the Eye totally. And if it hates his guts, well his new nickname "Will be One-eyed Jim, let's put it that way." The Bastard forces Chang Lee to look into the beam of blue light to open it fully. The Doctor seems to feel this, crying out that something is happening. Yet he now knows who he is and excitedly tells Grace, "I know who I am!" He kisses Grace even as she holds out a cross in front of her body and threatens him with holy water. The Doctor gives Grace serious tongue and then cries out "I am the Doctor!" Grace says that's good, and then asks him if he has a valid credit card and any favourite positions. He does. The Bastard and Chang Lee in the cloister room of the TARDIS are looking into the Eye and see an image of the 7th Doctor, which Chang Lee recognizes. They then see the image of what the new Doctor is doing right now - "WOW! He's banging that kinky doctor I told you about!" The Bastard looks very uncomfortable and changes the channel. On Eye Of Harmony 2, they see 3D holographic trinary DNA strands. The Bastard stands back in awe - "The DNA structure...My GOD....The Doctor is half American!!! OF COURSE! It explains everything. That's why he feels he can just waltz into any political situation, blow up the existing leadership, and leave the ruined remains to a handful of fanatical rebels! Why didn't I see this before!?" Sadly, Grace is still swiping the Doctor's card as he pulls away. "That was incredible." "What was? Oh...umm...did you go already?" Grace is then deeply disappointed and mildly disgusted as the Doctor explains that he felt the presence of the Bastard, who is planning to take the Doctor’s body. "Wait...let me get this straight. While you were going at it with me, you were thinking of some guy?" "No. Not just any 'guy'. The Bastard is the essence of pure evil in this universe. Immoral. Cruel. Pitiless." "Sounds interesting. How do you know him? Sounds pretty nefarious." "We were roommates." Chang Lee and the Bastard see Grace's face, and a whole hell of a lot more of her for that matter-of-fact. They know that they are seeing what the Doctor is seeing. Chang Lee and the Bastard share a large buttery popcorn, but to their disappointment the view suddenly vanishes as the Doctor shuts his eyes. The Doctor tells Grace that the Bastard has found a way to hack into the Eye of Harmony, which is the power source at the heart of the TARDIS, which is his ship that carries him through Time and Space. Grace asks if the Bastard is like the devil, to which the Doctor replies that the Bastard is a rival Time Lord, whose remains he poured into a coke can, which he then lost after a martial arts battle with some asian teens. Grace, who already thinks the Doctor is mad, takes this in stride and asks if they should go to this Eye of Harmony and fix it. The Doctor explains that it's too dangerous - if he looks into the Eye of Harmony, his soul will be destroyed allowing the Bastard to steal his body and inhabit it for his own life -- it was his old party trick back on Gallifrey. The Doctor explains to Grace that if the Eye isn't closed by midnight, the planet will be sucked through it. In order to save the earth, the Doctor must kill the Bastard once and for all. Grace points to the revolver in the Doctor's belt and tells him to "just shoot the dude in the head". The Doctor looks pained - "Conventional bullets won't kill him. He's evolved far beyond that." The Bastard laughs and tells Chang Lee that they need to find the Doctor before the Doctor acquires the resources to kill him. The Doctor shows Grace a news report on TV -- the tides are rising at record amount, it is snowing in Hawaii, and it's actually pleasant in England. When the newswoman reports that scientists are blaming the fluctuation of Earth's magnetic pull that happens only every thousand years, the Doctor laughs, sincerely - "I love humans. They're always seeing patterns in things that aren't there." "Huh?" "Well...the things are there, sure. But the patterns you see... Sorry, I was talking out of my ass for a moment." The two of them see a report about an experimental "Ice Cannon" being developed at the Institute of Weapon Advancement and Research (IWAR). A Lamborghini arrives outside of Grace's house and a man steps out -- it is the Bastard with his shades on. The Doctor opens the door to him and asks if he knows where "I WAR" is. The Bastard smiles, "Of course I do." The Doctor follows the stranger trustingly, and when Grace asks him if it's safe to take a ride from some random guy in lame shades, the Doctor explains - "Yes, but he IS driving a Lamborghini. I thought you liked men with money." Grace jumps into the car with abandon. During the drive, the Doctor reveals he met Mark Twain and knew Madam Curie intimately. Grace still doesn't believe the Doctor's story, even sarcastically asking if Madam Curie dressed as kinky as she does. The car hits a bump and the Bastard's glasses fall off, giving the Doctor a glimpse of his green eyes. When the car gets into a traffic jam, the Doctor pulls off the shades, causing the Bastard to spit out green goo, some of which gets on Grace's wrist as she shields her face. The Doctor shoots the Bastard at point blank range with his revolver, but this only seems to annoy him. The Doctor and Grace flee the car and run into a traffic cop who just got off his motorcycle. He stops them and won't let them go any further. Grace tries to explain the Doctor's oddness by telling the cop, "He's British." The Doctor holds the revolver to the cop's face, steals his keys, and jumps on the motorcycle with Grace. The Bastard uses the commotion to make a break for it and pushes the pedal to the metal. It is only seconds later that the Doctor kick-starts the bike. The Bastard turns his torso and head to looks out the back window at the Doctor for several seconds. When he turns to face traffic again he is shocked to see a truck hauling cars directly in front of him and does a comical spit take. However, the Bastard leans into the gas pedal and climbs the ramp on the back of the truck at speed, which propels him up and over the vehicle. The Doctor follows suit on his motorcycle. The Bastard is stunned to see the motorcycle in flight behind him and decides to over take trucks and swerve lanes randomly. The Doctor tells Grace to "Breathe in" as he takes a short cut between two trucks. The Bastard sees the Doctor approaching him quickly, and switches on his indicator lights as if he is planning to get off the freeway at the next exit. Too close for comfort, the Bastard jerks the wheel harshly and drives off the side of the freeway smashing a concrete barrier, the Lamborghini drops 30 feet but the Bastard and the car are unharmed. The Doctor follows the Bastard on the motorcycle, also driving off the freeway at speed. Several blocks ahead, the Bastard turns a corner and smashes through a huge pane of glass which was being carried across the road by two workmen. Laughing insanely the Bastard pulls into a school zone. The Doctor looks on - "We got 'em now. Even the Bastard isn't evil enough to drive over 20 in a school zone!" We cut back to the Bastard to see that he is driving at 140 mph ON the school's asphalt blacktop. Children everywhere flee from games of basketball and hopscotch. The Bastard takes out an entire children's playground, a metal horse on a spring bouncing off the hood of his car, as he laughs insanely. The Doctor drives into the school grounds, and leans down to pick up a teddy bear with one arm while still driving. As he whizzes past a shocked boy he sticks out his arm and hands the young lad the teddy bear - "I think this is yours, Junior." When the Doctor and Grace finally catch up with the Lamborghini it's park outside of the IWAR development complex. Grace introduces the Doctor as Dr Foreman from London but a guard has no intention of admitting him into the Deadly Weapons Expo 2000. The Doctor produces some children's tickets to the event, and the guard, after a moment of indecisiveness lets them in "As long as you promise not to touch anything." The Doctor tells Grace that the first thing they need to do is to secure a working prototype of the Ice Cannon they saw on the news earlier. They are overheard by Dr. Wagg, creator of the Ice Cannon. Wagg confronts them and tells them he will not hear of allowing "Dr. Foreman" and Grace closer to his weapon. The Doctor asks him to bend the rules and tells Wagg his big secret -- "I’m half American, on my mother's side." As Wagg looks incredulous, the Doctor lifts his pass from him. At the case where the Ice Cannon prototype is stored, the Doctor wishes he had his sonic screwdriver. He fly kicks the glass display and it smashes into a million pieces. The display cabinet spews freezing cold gas into the surrounding room, but the Doctor still rushes into the remains of the cabinet to retrieve the weapon. When the Doctor emerges from the dry ice fog he is carrying a gigantic weapon that looks like a gattling gun. "It's going to take that thing to kill the Bastard?!" Asks Grace in shocked astonishment. "This toy? No, this will only slow him down. Quickly, we have to get to the basement before any one notices the Ice Cannon has been stolen." The Doctor is apparently oblivious of the multi-colored flashing lights around him and the blaring sirens of alarm already filling the building as he climbs down a metal ladder into a secret sub-basement. When Grace joins the Doctor she is shocked to see him standing in front of futuristic and sleek looking jet fighter. The words "U.N.I.T. Advanced Air Attack Prototype" appear in a blocky font on the side of the craft. Grace quickly becomes aware that the Doctor is not alone, he seems to be conversing with a British officer of some sort or other. "Doctor old chap. I was wondering what took you so long." "Have I ever saved the world before the nick of time, Brigadier? AHHH!! Give me a hug you old son of a bitch." Grace watches as the Doctor enthusiastically hugs the Brigadier, who appears as stiff as board and shows no response whatsoever to the attention. When the Doctor ceases his affections, the Brigadier seems completely unfazed and reads from a clipboard. "Now that that silliness is over Doctor. The Advanced Air Attack Prototype, or AAAP, is City Submission Class. It's equipped with long range heat seeking missiles and an experimental death ray." "Really? What I shame. I prefer tactical nukes." "Of course. But these aren't those old 70s Death Rays we used to deal with. We've ironed out all those kinks. Well, most of them." "Thanks Brigadier. This will be a valuable tool in my defeat of the Bastard. I'll win the day for you." "Don't win the day for me Doctor. Win it for King and Country, for old Blighty...and for America." "Yes sir." "Oh and incidentally, while were on the subject. I've talked to the President and for some damned pig headed reason or other he doesn't want you to actually destroy San Francisco. Damned shame. Think this would be a great opportunity to wipe the world clean of those long haired, socialist, left leaning pinkos. Still, times are different. Damn them, times are different." The Doctor and Grace climb into the jet fighter and Grace is immediately confused. "Where's the joystick? The instruments? The control panel?" The Doctor smiles, points to his head and says "All in here." We see the outside of the IWAR building suddenly burst open and explode, as the experimental jet fighter shoots into the sky. Inside the Doctor has a series of wires connected to his head and explains that he is "one with the jet" and that together he and the jet can sense the alien menace of the Bastard. The Bastard is standing on a beach in San Francisco with an astonishing view of the Golden Gate Bridge. He looks over the waves and carefully watches a group of young boys constructing a sand castle, his eyes covered by his thick black sunglasses. The Doctor flies over the beach and with perfect precision lands the jet fighter mere feet from the Bastard. As the Doctor and Grace jump out onto the sand the Bastard smiles. "So, you've stolen the cannon and the experimental jet fighter for me. How kind of you Doctor. Is it Christmas already? And to think, I didn't get you anything." The Doctor has reservations about attacking the Bastard with heavy artillery on a beach filled with innocent people. Instead the Doctor decides to rally the crowd on his side and get them to subdue the Bastard for him. "Ladies and Gentlemen! We must stop this man! HE IS EVIL!" A group of people taking a healthy cookery class on the beach and several office workers on their lunch breaks listen to the Doctor and one asks "Umm..evil? How?" "Well..LOOK AT HIM!! He's obviously gay!" The crowd look at the Doctor and his clothing, and then at each other and seem DEEPLY unimpressed. "Pot, kettle, black." Chants one man. "Oh yeah!" Continues the Doctor "He's also A SMOKER!" The crowd are incensed and as one rise up to attack, maul, and mangle the Bastard. The Doctor and Grace smile and climb back abroad the jet sure that the crazed mob will hold up the Bastard long enough for the Doctor to advance plans elsewhere. They fail to see Chang Lee, who comes to rescue the Bastard seconds after they've lifted off. As they violently break the sound barrier over the city, Grace asks about her future but the Doctor won't tell her -- he explains that he can't meddle with the delicate threads of the universe. As he explains this he accidentally leans on a red button which launches three missiles which completely destroy the TransAmerica building. The Doctor lands the jet fighter near the alley where he left the TARDIS. He explains to Grace that he always hides a set of spare keys inside of the hubcaps. Without the aide of the sonic screwdriver it takes 30 painful minutes to undo the lug nuts, but they finally recover the keys. Going into the TARDIS, they hear the cloister bell, signalling the TARDIS is dying. "It looks like the old dear needs a jump." The Doctor explains. The Doctor goes outside and opens up the hood of the Corvette to expose a glowing engine, he then trails some very thick wires back to the experimental fighter jet. Once back inside the Doctor hears Grace call the console low tech. The Doctor explains that it was once comprised of the most advanced technology in this universe -- but over the years parts have broken down and been destroyed. Over the centuries he's had to do emergency repairs with whatever he had, which was mostly old style tiled-numbered alarm clocks and a few rolls of duct tape. He also explains that the TARDIS is capable of taking them to any planet in the universe at any date in that planet's history - as long as it's 20th century Earth. "So Doctor, all this super science, temporal mechanics, interdimensional transference stuff...is that why I felt so weird when I walked into the threshold room of the TARDIS?" "Oh no, that's just where I keep the cat box. Sorry." The Doctor closes the Eye of Harmony, but something is still wrong so the Doctor opens the ceiling roof scanner dome. They look at one minute after midnight -- there is no future. "The Bastard has somehow succeeded. We are too late to save this world. Oh, well, there's always Gallifrey. Maybe they'd take me back." "WAIT! We're talking about the earth here. What do you mean too late! What's "too late"? We have a goddamned time machine here!" "So? I don't understand what point your attempting to make." "Okay, get this TIME LORD. Why not just go back a few days?" "What? Go back in time before the Bastard opened the eye, thus preventing his evil plan from ever getting off the drawing board? That wouldn't be fair play. It would endanger the whole web of time. Make a mockery of all my struggles and adventures. And GOD DAMMIT, why haven't I ever thought of that!?" The Doctor turns back around to thank Grace for the fabulous idea when he sees her body, unconscious and prone on the floor. Above her body stands the Bastard with a giant wrench in his hand and Chang Lee, both grinning wildly. The Doctor tries to reason with Chang Lee but realises that Lee believes that the Bastard owns both the TARDIS and the Doctor’s body due to some insanely fiendish and deeply immoral bet on a game of poker. Despite the Doctor’s arguments that drug money will be no good to Lee once the Earth is destroyed, Lee doesn’t listen. The Bastard descends the steps in the TARDIS in extremely camp Time Lord attire, "I always dress for the occasion." Flamboyantly, he counters the Doctor's arguments and kisses Lee full on the lips. "Did I mention I like boys?" The Doctor tries to tell Lee the truth, that the Bastard will just use him and expect him to do all the housework as well, but Chang Lee is under some hypnotic spell. The Bastard presents the Doctor with a metallic crown of nails and forces it onto his head. The Bastard explains that it is thanks to the Doctor that Chang Lee no longer has anything positive left on earth; No Golden Dragon gang to protect him, no flashy sports car as the Doctor promised him whilst dying in the alley, but with the Bastard he gets to see the Universe. The Doctor cries out that this is Lee’s last chance to get out of a really horrible and unbalanced relationship. The Bastard asks the Doctor what the hell he knows about it, to which the Doctor replies ‘Back in college. We were roommates. You said you loved me.’ Here the Bastard loses his cool in the debate and slips up, saying that they were both just curious. Lee now knows the Bastard lied to him; He said he'd never been attracted to another man before. The Bastard approaches Chang Lee and kills him by breaking his neck and letting him drop. The Bastard leans over Grace, spreads her eyelids apart and forces her head into the light of the staff to re-open the Eye Of Harmony. "HEY! Only I get to hold her head down like that!" Screams the Doctor in vain. Grace goes blind but the Doctor yells to her from his chains where he has been strung by his wrists and oiled, that her sight will return. When it does, she must go to the console room and re-route the power. Grace says the Doctor will die if she leaves, but the Doctor says they’ll all die if she doesn’t, with tears in her eyes she reluctantly agrees. The Bastard, now on the other balcony landing, shows the Doctor the Yo-Yo of Rassilon. "Just some little shiny thing I picked up at a pawn shop this afternoon." The Bastard now has the equipment that will help him take all the Doctor's lives. Energy crackles between the two of them as the Eye transfers the Doctor’s remaining five regenerations to the Bastard. The Bastard begins to briefly take on the face of the Doctor, and he hears the Doctor's thoughts and feels his memories. Lightning hits the city. The Doctor yells, "This can't be how it all ends... Stop this, please...STOP!!!!!" With a swelling of music, and a giant SWOOSH, the experimental jet fighter flies into the main TARDIS control room. Inside the cockpit the Brigadier and another man pilot the craft towards the balcony. When they get close enough to see the white's the Bastard's eyes the Brigadier bellows - "Sergeant Benton! FIVE ROUNDS RAPID!" The balcony explodes beneath the Bastard's feet, but he quickly rolls up into a ball, his ceremonial cloak flapping in the wind, the Bastard lands with aplomb next the Doctor. The Doctor rips the metal headband of nails from his body and enters a sprawling martial arts stance, balancing his whole body weight on one foot. The Bastard approaches him with the staff of light from the eye of harmony, and attacks the Doctor, hitting and kicking him around. The Doctor makes a failed roundhouse kick and cries to the Bastard - "You want dominion over the living, yet all you do is KILL!" The Bastard thrusts with his staff and replies with a husky voice "Life is wasted on the living!" The Brigadier and Sergeant Benton strafe the area around the Bastard, but simply create a wall of bullets around him, all 387 bullets somehow missing their mark. The Doctor breaks free as the TARDIS shakes, and the second the hail of bullets ceases he rushes the Bastard and captures the staff of light. The Bastard jumps on one leg, alternating legs between jumps to avoid the wild straight pole thrusts of the Doctor. The Bastard ends up holding onto a pole around the Eye, and gloats that he once again has a hand on the Doctor's staff. The Doctor quickly jabs the staff forward and the Bastard falls into the Eye, the power whirling him about as he calls for the Doctor. Elsewhere in the TARDIS, Grace pushes the final button to set the TARDIS travelling again and slumps over dead. Radioactive exposure from the eye of harmony has taken her life. Time reverses from 12:00am on December 30th to 11:59pm on December 29th. The Doctor carries Grace to a leaf covered landing and lays her next to Chang Lee's body. "WHY!! GOD WHY!!! DAMN YOU!! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!" The Brigadier and Sergeant Benton approach the Doctor with two folded American flags. "NO!! IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS!" Screams the Doctor. Then, as it was waiting for the right dramatic timing, the Eye of Harmony emits two glowing balls of life force which enter into the two dead humans. They awaken. Chang Lee returns the Doctor's possessions to him, including the Yo-Yo of Rassilon and the sonic screwdriver. Grace and the Doctor hug and the Eye closes, the Doctor telling her the TARDIS is a sentimental old thing. Grace tells the Doctor that death is nothing to be scared of. Both she and Chang Lee have been somewhere he hasn't. When asked if they’ve gone back far enough, the Doctor says either that or he’s talking to ghosts, and he doesn't believe in ghosts. They are in the future now and look at the stars over the sky scanner and see Gallifrey, which is 250 million light years away- a good ten minutes in the TARDIS. The Doctor explains the fate of the Bastard to Grace and Lee - "He is lost, in the endless swirls of the time vortex. Hopefully never to be seen again." "Wait, Doctor." Interrupted Grace. "Doesn't the time vortex actually give him access to every point in the history of time and space? Haven't we actually transformed him into some evil Time God?" "Oh yeah, most probably. I just wanted to gloss over that part." The TARDIS appears in a San Francisco park near Pete, who has lost his job, his mind, and now lives on the streets with a drinking problem. Pete recognises the Doctor "Oh Jesus!" and runs away into the night. The Doctor looks confused and then turns back to his two companions. The Doctor tells Lee to keep the opium and re-start the Golden Dragons as a new and more powerful drug cartel. He promises to pop along in another 119 years and pick up his share. Chang Lee takes the shit and beats it. Grace wonders if that is more interfering. It is. He starts to warn her about something, "Grace, there's something you should know..." Grace stops him, saying that she knows who she is, and that’s enough. He asks her to come with him, but she asks him to come with her. He calls that offer tempting. The two of them kiss amid the fireworks in the night sky. The Doctor goes and the TARDIS vanishes. The TARDIS pulls away from Earth and enters the time vortex. The Doctor emerges from under the console, fixing some more things, he looks up towards the experimental jet fighter, the Brigadier, and Sergeant Benton, gets a wild gleam in his eyes and says - "Come on boys. Let's go kill the Cybermen." Book(s)/Other Related - Grace 1999 Doctor Who? The Script of the Telefilm (Now printed on extra flammable paper!) Links and References - It would be a challenge to successfully introduce time lords, regeneration, UNIT, sonic screw drivers, and time travel into one high quality 90 minute story; to the best of my knowledge it's never been done. Untelevised Misadventures - The Doctor casually mentions that once, in his third incarnation, he fought the Bastard to the death, using only a toothpick and a small slice of raw bacon. Groovy DVD Extras - Several scenes which were cut for time - The Bastard shows his "doll collection" to Chang Lee, and is deeply hurt when the boy laughs at him The Bastard steals the Lamborghini from a charity auction The Bastard blames Papa Smurf for the inefficient construction methods employed during the building of the watermill Dialogue Disasters - ---- Grace: Wait. Did that guy just say he was the 'Mazda'? ---- Dialogue Triumphs - ---- Grace: I can't make your dream come true forever, but I can make it come true today. I do charge by the hour though. And I charge extra for costumes. ------------------------------------------------------------ Viewer Quotes - "Doesn't seem that Americanized to me." - Charles Daniels (1996) "This may not be the sort of quote you're really looking for Charles, but, honestly, what stands out in my mind is that at LAST we had a truly fuckable Doctor Who for once. I mean sure, I can see myself having sex with Tom Baker while high or something, like in some messed up circle jerk after massive amounts of dope and even then when I woke up I'd have to shower for three weeks straight. But, I want to point out, that I'm not really gay. I just want to have sex with Paul McGann and Sean Connery. Got that? NOT GAY!" - John "He's Really Not Gay You Know?" Finklestein (2004) "I really hated this story. It's so blatant. We've got the BADDIE of the piece and he's this homosexual pedophile who just cares about sex and killing. And then we've got the HERO who goes around pretending to be straight, and true blooded American, and all that Hollywood crap. And then we find out that Mr. Straight Icon Boy has actually had a gay affair before, but of course NOW he sees that he was being used and it was evil and wrong, and the BADDIE had just used him. Honestly, why don't we just tell our children that the only way to be nice and good in this world is to fuck people of the opposite sex and if you have one genuine homoerotic feeling in your whole life you're a villainous child molester?!" - John "He's Really Not Gay You Know?" Finklestein (2005) "I hear this is all so Americanized, but let's face it, Jon Pertwee used to have motorcycle chases and fly jet aircraft all the time. There's not even one hovercraft in this story. So, if anything, it's not Pertwee enough. So yeah, that's why I'm upset, three words: 'NOT PERTWEE ENOUGH!'" - Skullcrusher85, (2001) Sylvester McCoy Speaks! "When I walked into the project I felt that I should strive to maintain a true sense of Britishness in all my acting, my mannerisms, to assure in every way I could that the production FELT very BBC. Then, about five minutes into the shooting, they hooked me up to a series of wires and explained that I would be using the Doctor's super Venusian Aikido to take out an Asian drug gang and it would all be very Hong Kong cinema...and then they showed me my paycheck, and I thought 'What the hell, this looks fun!'" Paul McGann Speaks! "When I saw the casting agent in Los Angeles I was modest and said "You've got the wrong fella." To my surprise, the casting agent double checked and apologised saying that he had, they were actually looking for Ted Danson. I was slightly crushed at that point, and later on, when Danson turned them down, someone must have vaguely remembered talking to me, and I got offered the role. Taking on such a key role hasn't really sunk in yet. I think it will take 2 or 3 seasons before I've really got a handle on it. Whatever happens, I won't be the George Lazenby of the Time Lords." Rumors & Facts - The most surprising aspect of the Doctor Who American Style (DWAS) is that it bore any resemblance at all to the original BBC series. When first commissioned DWAS was set on the planet Gallifrey where a mysterious vampire known only as the Doctor was hunting down members of the ancient Time Lord royal family, lead by his archnemesis the Bastard, a cybernetic alien who recently invented time travel in his shed. Executive producer Philip Segal was ultimately unhappy with the script, and insisted that his favourite actor to portray the Doctor be given the lead role in the production and that he would accept no excuses - When he was later told that William Hartnell had been dead for quite some time, he awkwardly stood by his word for months and thus delayed the entire production. Segal went so far as to pen his own script on his own time "Doctor Who, Return of Sensorites"; Which apparently did not go down well. Segal did in fact commission a totally accurate replica of the original police box; but this was never used as he was over ruled and the TARDIS took the form of a Corvette with tinted windows instead. Segal went even further when he pulled Ron Grainer out of retirement to compose an updated version of the original theme music AND hampered him severely by only allowing Grainer to use equipment that would have been available in 1963. Of course this is not to deny that the movie was heavily Americanised. Segal was however able to tone down the motorcycle chase sequence and completely remove an underwater martial arts sequence starring Sylvester McCoy and a tiger shark. A severe weakness suffered by this production was a deep misunderstanding of the original spirit of Doctor Who. Case in point - The original point of the various strange items carried by the Doctor in his pockets was that so he could easily get arrested by concerned customs officials and also have all the basic paraphernalia for a kinky one night stand if the opportunity arose. The Doctor almost never carried mystical Yo-Yos with badly explained mind transference powers (except of course for Tom Baker, who did sometimes, but please ignore that. I'm trying to make a point). Still, in some ways having the Doctor carry around potent yo-yos from outerspace is getting off easy. It could have been much, much worse. After Segal's script was rejected, he was forced to use a studio script writer. Segal provided the script writer, Leekley, with a detailed description of every existing episode of Doctor Who. Leekley reviewed this and then penned a script set in the Old West entitled "Don't Shoot, I'm The Doctor". This radical re-think of the Doctor Who concept would have featured the Doctor as a renegade Texas Ranger who travelled to Tombstone to track down a Mexican outlaw known only as "El Bastarderro". Segal was adamant that Doctor Who was NOT a Western. The studio heads complained that Segal was trying to "put creativity in a box". Segal was sent a series of illustrations which depicted the Doctor as a drunken Sheriff passed his prime, "living on broken promises and borrowed time". Meanwhile, Segal called up Adam Ant, Rowan Atkinson, Chris Barrie, Sean Bean, Jeremy Brett, Jim Broadbent, Pierce Brosnan, Simon Callow, Martin Clunes, Michael Crawford, Tim Curry, Timothy Dalton, Rupert Everett, Ralph Fiennes, Hugh Grant, Robert Hardy, Anthony Stewart Head, John Hurt, Eric Idle, Derek Jacobi, Ben Kingsley, Rob Lowe, Malcolm McDowell, Ian McKellen, Sam Neill, Peter O'Toole, Michael Palin, Jonathan Pryce, Aidan Quinn, Tony Slattery, Patrick Stewart, and Kermit the Frog - who all said "No." Leekley, hoping that Kermit the Frog would accept, changed his idea away from a Western - as he thought a frog sheriff was "too camp". Leekley's second story proposal was based off of the episode descriptions provided by Segal, but comprised of story details apparently chosen at random - In the midst of a Quirk attack on Gallifrey, President Borusa dies, allowing the Bastard to become President of the Time Lords. The Doctor flees in his TARDIS, which somehow contains Borusa's ghost, whom the Doctor seeks assistance from in times of great crisis. Borusa uses his influence over the TARDIS to pilot the Doctor to World War II London. There the Doctor meets American WAC Lizzie Travis. Together, the Doctor and Lizzie travel back to Ancient Egypt to find King Tut, only to be attacked by the Cybermen. The Doctor then travels back to Gallifrey, where a suspiciously friendly Bastard sends him and Lizzie to Fargo to stop Lavros from creating the Dustbins. In the process, the Bastard takes control of the Dustbin army and has them destroy Lavros. The Doctor escapes and returns Lizzie to Earth, then heads off to continue his search for his lost brother Adric. A revised version of this script eliminated the Cybermen and added a series of James Bondesque henchman for the Bastard. Meanwhile Segal was getting even MORE desperate to find an actor willing to play the title role of "The Doctor". He sent frantic e-mails to Jason Connery, Alexis Denisoff, Matt Frewer, Jeff Goldblum, Rutger Hauer, Chris Isaak, Kyle MacLachlan, Gary Sinise, and Adam West. By the end of August, though, he was notoriously hated across Hollywood for spamming. The e-mail message being this - " From: Segal@drwhomovie.org Subject: Iz a Doxtor Who? film ok 4 u? On April 21st, 1989 Doctor Who was tragically killed in a road accident in Nigeria. Millions of fans mourned, Doctor Who left behind countless friends and a robot dog. But Doctor WHo can live again! If you will e-mail your credit card details to us, and appear for a simple screen test in Vancouver you too can be cast as the Doctor. Join the 7 people who have already encountered the benefits of this amazing process! EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN DOCTOR WHO, I am selling high quality herbal supplement Viagraka. Did you realise that 68% of all women are not fully relieved passionately? Still, most would not tell their partners that they are ill-fated. Amazing, all natural, chemical super Viagraka can extend your trunk for up to 4 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Order now, or become Doctor Who. " Through mid-September, Leekley's script made the rounds of all the various organisations which had to approve it (Amblin, BBC Television, BBC Enterprises, the Fox network, Universal, and Satan). Satan passed along the scripts to Steven Spielberg who was immediately incensed, insisting that "This 'Doctor Who' character is a blatant rip-off of Indiana Jones!" Various attempts to convince Spielberg that Doctor Who was created 18 years before Indiana Jones met with disaster. In order to appease Spielberg the studios asked Segal to start again with a new writer. Annoyed, Segal decided to really give them hell. Segal called up his secret weapon - veteran Doctor Who author and longtime fan Father James O' Maley. O'Maley agreed to put together a new story proposal, using Leekley's script as a starting point, but wanted to accentuate its violent, or as he put it "fun", aspects. On October 7th, 1994 Father James delivered a new draft of the storyline - "Doctor Who Revenge of the Furher". This time, in the process of meeting Lizzie in World War II London, the Doctor also discovers that his father was Adolf Hitler. They travel forward in time to the Moon in the year 1954 where Hitler is living in a secret Nazi moon base, planning a massive world-domination come back tour. The Bastard then lures the Doctor, Hitler and Lizzie to Fargo where he offers them complete control of a new mutant master race. There, the Doctor helps his Hitler construct a time-travelling warship, though the Bastard himself escapes with giant female androids based loosely on the mythical Valkyries of Wagner. After this was rejected for being "a bit more pro-Nazi than typical Doctor Who fare", Father James was sent back to the drawing board. In his next draft "Dr Who?" -- Hitler is revealed to be an android left behind by a race of shape-shifting humanoids called "the Grmmm", Lizzie Travis was renamed Mistress Mungo, and the TARDIS begins the adventure shaped like Zepplin and with a functioning chameleon circuit. O'Maley's next draft, delivered on February 3rd, 1995, was an even more substantial departure from the original spirit of Doctor Who. In this version the Doctor is an alien hunter who seeks out hostile aliens across the cosmos and "neutralises" them. A jackbooted pawn of a totalitarian Time Lord regime the Doctor works closely with his half-brother Jonathan Bastard. They begin the adventure by "neutralising" the planet Telos which was the stronghold of a race of Cybernetic humans called "The Gyxzrydhsi". After this successful mission, the Furher of the Time Lords sends the duo to wipe out a species called "Humanity" which the Historical Projection Matrix concludes has a 0.0001% chance of becoming a minor threat to the Gallifreyian Empire in 3 billion years time. The Doctor and Johnathan Bastard happily perform their duties and on the first night happily report the destruction of San Diego, Paris, and Hong Kong. A fault with their orbital city killer weaponry causes the duo to make an emergency landing in New York City. The Bastard is deeply unimpressed with humanity and explains that this is why they travel the universe, to stop things like this happening. The Doctor however sleeps with some girl named Sarah that he meets on the back of subway train, and decides that he wants humanity to live. The Bastard and the Doctor fight in the time honoured Gallifreyian tradition, with nothing but katanas and Luger pistols, and the Doctor emerges victorious. Saving the earth from destruction. At this point, Fox intervened and indicated that they were not happy with the direction O'Maley was taking the project -- indeed, they suggested just shooting a random 4th Doctor script and hoping for the best. Fox's vice president in charge of movies however saw potential in the O'Maley work and asked Segal to request one further treatment, something more modern and down to earth. Segal approached O'Maley and told him to cut the crap, and just write some thoughtless, modern day, American action movie trash. I've heard tales that O'Maley's eyes glowed with delight. By May 19th, O'Maley had composed a totally new storyline; The Doctor arrives on modern-day Earth in Los Angeles. A shape-shifting Bastard attacks the Doctor, mortally wounding him. The Doctor's body is found by a street kid named Jack. Jack brings the Doctor to the hospital, where he is operated on -- unsuccessfully -- by a drunk guy who just got bored in while waiting in the waiting room. In the morgue, the Doctor regenerates; meanwhile, the Bastard plays Pac-Man at a nearby pizziera. Jack gains access to the TARDIS using car keys he pilfered from the Doctor's body. The Bastard raises Jack's father from the dead and through him uses Jack to take over the TARDIS. As Halloween approaches, the Bastard uses the TARDIS to unleash an army of the dead. Zombies kill everyone on earth. The End. Overall Segal LOVED the new script, he just had hoped for a more cheery ending. Alterations were made by the time of the next draft - The date was shifted to the days leading up to New Year's Eve instead of Halloween, San Francisco was specified as the location, and zombies didn't kill everyone. But other than that there weren't many changes. In the final draft, the zombies were dropped altogether and a new plot involving UNIT was added in to make up the time. The next step was to intimidate people to actually appear in the production. Sylvester McCoy had already agreed to appear, the amount of blackmail held against him often being described as "monstrous". Sophie Aldred was successful in gaining a restraining order from the various media partners, and therefore was allowed her freedom, after three tense weeks of hiding in Morocco. John Levene lived in the LA area and was therefore readily available, and Nicholas Courtney was offered a free bottle of vodka. To appease Sylvester McCoy, Segal decided to radically alter the look of the Seventh Doctor - No longer would Sylvester McCoy have to have a giant red question mark tattooed on each cheek. McCoy kept the umbrella and the hat, but was glad to see the last of the question-mark pullover which was ceremonially burned whilst being worn by an effigy of JST. For the role of the newest Doctor, Alan Davies, Alfred Molina, Julian Sands, Arnold Vosloo, Peter Weller, and Keanu Reeves were all contacted, and all shouted down a long list of obscenities down the line, which the production office took as "No". Segal also wanted a big name actor to play The Bastard. Segal felt that the Bastard's quirky sense of humour should be brought to the forefront as his motivation. "The Bastard doesn't want to rule the universe because he's got some twisted ego-maniac desire, or because he feels he is the heir to some mystical destiny, but because it's a laugh." Christopher Lloyd, Dan Aykroyd, Scott Bakula, James Belushi, pop star David Bowie, Steve Buscemi, Dana Carvey, Chevy Chase, Tim Curry, Richard Dreyfuss, Matt Frewer, Jeff Goldblum, John Lithgow, Randy Quaid, Judge Reinhold, John Cleese, and even Fozzy the Bear were approached about the role -- in each case the actors claimed to be busy on other projects, dead, fictional, or in some way or other unavailable for the role. In the end the production staff simply gave up and cast Eric Roberts. With production just weeks away, the title role was still unfilled, when, due to a quirk in his schedule and a fundamental misunderstanding of the part on offer, Eddie Murphy became available. Bolstered by this news James O'Maley worked night and day on an "edgier and more violent" script featuring gang fights and shoot outs lifted almost directly from John Woo films. As the final day before production dawned, numerous difficulties still remained to be overcome. Geoffrey Sax had originally been promised a luxurious thirty-day shoot, but at the last moment this was reduced to four days filming and 3 hours to edit all the footage together. Then Segal discovered that the BBC did not actually own the rights to the Doctor Who theme music, The Sonic Screwdriver, The Seal of Rassilon, The Dustbins, the character of The Doctor, or even the word TARDIS; As these were apparently all sold in 1993 for 7 pounds at a charity bootsale. The owner of all of these core trademarks of the Doctor Who franchise, Wesley Hepsogg, wanted to charge 5000 pounds "for every single usage of anything I feel to be 'Doctor Who'ish in nature". If he got his way simply calling their character "The Doctor" would cost them roughly 500,000 pounds. Universal balked at this, but finally Segal convinced the BBC to beat Hersogg to death with a piece of rebar, and then buy back the rights from his grieving family. More problems hit the production when Eric Roberts started to complain about the way his character was being handled. Eric Roberts had agreed to play the part of the Bastard, fully aware that the character was an alien monster who's body was slowly disintegrating. Roberts explained that he simply didn't take into account that a slowly decaying body might possibly call for him to wear make up and possibly look unattractive on camera. The production staff and Segal explained the history of the Bastard and the visual themes within the script. "I tried to explain to Eric Roberts that we were trying to expose the horror, the evil, the sick depravity of the Bastard. The Bastard was actually the walking dead. This evil force that had unjustly killed a living human being to continue it's deformed and debauched lifestyle. Roberts listened very calmly, nodded and then asked- 'Okay, well, can't we get that exact same message across by having me just dress in dark sunglasses and a leather jacket?' I'm not entirely certain that Eric Roberts had really gotten my point, but I didn't have time to argue, we only had 3 days of filming time left, and he offered to supply his own costume... which I later found out was just his regular street clothes." This conflict had much larger repercussions on the production. Eddie Murphy had insisted from day one that his Doctor dress in a casual leather jacket and sunglasses. This meant that from a costume stand point the Bastard and the Doctor were wearing nearly identical clothes. A short scene was written on the planet Gallifrey, in an attempt to introduce the idea that the entire planet of the Time Lords actually wears baggy white t-shirts, leather jackets, and sunglasses. This scene was later dropped however when Eddie Murphy became unhappy with the development of the character of the Doctor and retracted his commitment to the role. This looked like the death knell to the entire project. Someone however vaguely remembered speaking to Paul McGann about the role and he was offered the part. The biggest concern now left to the production was that no costume existed for Paul McGann, but with no time to design and create a new one, McGann was asked to appear in his regular street clothes. Which...for some sick and thankful reason was a frock coat. Thank god for eccentrics! Post-production saw various trims to the material, most seemingly carried out at random, as they only had three hours to complete the final cut of the movie. The entire first 15 minutes of the movie were excised, in which Sylvester McCoy challenges a superhuman robot in the midst of a bombed out warzone for the Bastard's remains. No one was more surprised, and upset, than the BBC when the Doctor Who proved very successful in the UK. In the UK the production earned 9.08 million viewers and was 9th in ratings for the week. The production was given virtually unanimous praise and applause by audiences and critics alike. The BBC apparently saw this as a disastrous failure, pointing out that it did in fact NOT trigger the rapture as they had been hoping. Doctor Who American Style deserves praise and credit for what it was - An odd, unique, and interesting exploration of Doctor Who mythos that has it's own special place in the complex fabric of 40 years of storytelling. In 1996 it was the guilty, intense, seductive one-night-stand of Doctor Who fandom. Like fondling a co-worker you've always desired while drunk at an office Christmas party, or picking up that special someone/something whilst completely stoned in a brown cafe in Amsterdam, it left a distinct and unusual flavour in one's mouth, a sense of something slightly wrong and awkward, a rush of excitement, a tingling of fear, and the certain knowledge that it could never EVER happen again. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything...that was all wild fantasy people...(unconvincing cough).... Aahmmm, in closing... If the movie has a central theme, it is the Doctor is Jesus and the Bastard is the Devil who likes to kiss boys.