The Snotaran Expellment

Seventy-Ninth Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide
O' Nasal Decongestants

Serial 4B - The Snotaran Expellment -

 Arriving in desolate and windswept Milton Keynes thousands of years
into the future, the Doctor unsuccessfully tries to start a one man
cricket match.  Distressed that with even his disturbing control of
time and space he can't bowl and be the batsmen at the same time
he starts to actually investigate the area.
 Sarah Jane has already managed to explore all the major sets that
will be used in the programme and therefore the Doctor is free to
advance the plot when he is captured by trio GalSex space vixen
singers.  This 151st century girl band equivalent to the Spice
Girls were lured to earth by a phony stream of fan letters and
stranded there when their agent failed to send a rescue vessel
due to their declining record sales.
 Sarah, unable to find the Doctor, befriends a fourth space traveller,
Philip Roth, who has many questionable hobbies involving women's
clothing and raw meat.  Philip Roth tells Sarah that he is frequently
captured, tortured, and experimented on by an alien in a rock and
that most surprisingly it's rather quite pleasant if you just relax.
Before long Sarah and Roth are captured by a robotic disco afronaut
which has escaped from a Parliament album.   The robot drags Sarah
and Roth into the rocks. Sarah Jane screams in terror as Roth just
spreads out a knowing smile.  In the secret rock lair Sarah sees
the alien is a vile Snotaran and is shocked as she obviously missed
the opening credits.
 Field-Minor Myre is part of a Snotaran K6-2 Military Assessment
Survey, experimenting on humans and testing if they would taste
good when mixed with tofu.  The earth has taken up strategic
importance in the Snotaran chefs' ongoing culinary battle with
the oppressive Ru-tan restaurant industry.
 The Doctor interrupts Myre's experiments and challenges him to
unarmed combat.  Myre readily agrees but insists that the unarmed
combat consist, at least in part, of a cooking challenging involving
soy beans, sake, and various Ru-tan blobby bits.  Myre has not
realised that the unfamiliar gravity of earth will give the agile
Doctor an advantage not only in jump kicks but in mixing the
key ingredients in a timely and proper fashion.
 While the Doctor keeps Myre occupied by kicking him in the head
and dazzling him with creative use of a flame thrower for his
specialty dishes, Sarah Jane sneaks into Myre's kitchen and
replaces his rock salt with dynamite.  When Myre reaches for what he
believes to be rock salt to use in preparing Ru-tan Rasperry Ripple
it explodes killing him instantly.  In an extra disgusting end
to the alien foe, it is revealed that Myre has recently taken the
entire galactic supply of nasal decongestants and, being a Snotaran,
his entire head collapses.
 As a final warning to the main Snotaran fleet, the Doctor sends
an online greeting card to them, telling them of their emissary's
destruction and warning that without Myre's report they can not
know the strength of human flavouring, the proper water balance
for the tofu, or which parts should be grilled or baked with rice.
 The Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith are beamed up by Scotty with the
intention of returning to the BBC set in space -- they have good
news for Viagra.

Book(s)/Other Related - Doctor Who And The GalSex Girls
                        Doctor Mysterio Viva La GalSex Loco!
                        Galactic Iron Chef Magazine, Winter 2010
                        Snotaran Tofu A-Go-Go by White Zombie

Fluffs - Tom Baker seemed plowed for most of this story
         Tom Baker accidentally calls the Snotaran "Kevin" in
         various scenes

Fashion Victims - Sarah's yellow mac and furry beret

Goofs - Kenny Baker is somewhat unconvincing as Tom Baker's
        stunt double.
        During the fight the Snotaran's head is kicked clean
        off and Tom Baker and the actor playing Myre kick it
        back and forth playfully for awhile
        Why only send one Snotaran who can't even serve Ru-tan
        Casserole without a bitter after taste?
        And why is Myre experimenting on human dishes prior to
        a cook out invasion of Earth when there aren't even
        enough people for a proper buffet?
        Myre's intergalactic video telecommunicator is nothing
        more than a CB radio and shaving mirror - terrible BBC
        prop or an act of cost efficiency for a clone race?

Technobabble - Myre foolishly uses a terrulian diode bypass
               transformer instead of the George Foreman Grill
               during the tender steak competition

Links and References -
Sarah Jane mistakes Myre for Unix, which she met in The Slime Warrior
(UUU), until she realises Unix was a slightly cuter warrior clone.

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor explains that he once travelled to a world so barbaric
that he had the best fashion sense they'd ever encountered, this
is believed to be a reference to the missing serial 'The Luau of
Doom' (JNT)

Dialogue Disasters -

DOCTOR: I feel a bit like a breakfast egg - slightly scrambled.

OTO: Fukui-San!  The Titanium Chef is mixing lime gelatin, tofu,
     and human eyes. It's a traditional dish on the Cromag homeworld.

Dialogue Triumphs -

VIRAL: You are a clock expert?
DOCTOR: Horology, Chronometry, atomic clocks, quartz clocks,
        grandfather clocks, cuckoo clocks...nope, don't know
        smeg all about them.  I love clocks though, they're
        so ticky and clocky.

SARAH: Doctor!  I thought you were dead!
DOCTOR: Not me. [holds up a piece of metal] A 40th century
        pornographic lithograph.  I've always kept this in
        my pocket.
SARAH: Fortuitous!
DOCTOR: Foresight.  You never know when these bits and pieces of
        pornography will come in handy.  Never throw anything
        away Sarah. [He throws it away]  Now my letter to Penthouse.
        I remember jotting some notes on the Snotarans...It's a
        mistake to clutter one's pockets Sarah.

SNOTARAN COMMANDER: AH!  You may have defeated us today Doctor,
                    but one day I shall saute you in a white
                    wine sauce and serve you with a slice of
                    lemon!
            DOCTOR: Not today thank you!

The closing dialogue -
SARAH: So not keen on being the special of the day?
DOCTOR: Don't be silly Sarah, I'm special every day.

Dialogue Oddities -
Many times subtle changes in the script are required for the
ever evolving art of television.  Minor changes in the printed
word, suggested humbly by actors, can provide an occasional
additional layer to a performance --  AND THEN THERE'S TOM
BAKER...who takes the classic "hydrogen bomb" approach to
altering scripts.
Here is an example from The Snotaran Expellment -

(ORIGINAL SCRIPT)
The Doctor: Your ongoing culinary war with the Ru-tans is
            pointless.  Their spicy appetizers and your
            subtle Snotaran dishes can work together in
            great harmony.  Imagine the peace and wonder
            that could be achieved if your two races cooked
            TOGETHER!

(ON SCREEN)
Tom Baker: Um, you going to eat that?

Viewers' Quotes -

"The Snotaran Expellment is a pleasing interlude between the two
more substantial stories on either side of it.  It is a lot like
placing a light sauce in the middle of a shrimp and steak platter.
It's a pleasing cheese fondue of a story, with an unfortunate
usage of the world 'Snotaran'".
- The Unpublished Target Novel "Doctor Who and the Cooking Analogies"

"I have always been fond of cannibalism but I feel this adventure
failed to treat the issue with comedy angle I would have enjoyed.
Cannibalism isn't just funny, it's hilarious!"  - Finn Clark (1998)

"This story is a classic that's for sure!  I mean it's got Tom
Baker in it!"  - Average American Fan Reaction (1975-2000)

"This is humanoid propaganda!  A true Snotaran would never use
lemon curry!"  - Snotaran Battle Press (921234912.3 AW)

"I hope you don't think this is sick or nothing, but this story
always makes me kinda' hungry."  - Charles Daniels (2000)

Tom Baker Speaks!
Tom Baker has insisted that I can't accurately cover his era WITHOUT his
keen insights and insider information of that period of the show's
history. So I present him with a forum, and you the reader with....

"The scripts were often dull I recall, but then I never wrote them
so maybe other people might find them interesting.  I hope they'd
find me interesting too. I have an interest in being interesting.
I always felt the series gave me such free rein, such scope for
imaginative puns and jokes and creative uses of styrofoam cups,
and that our writers were throwing it away by writing plots and
dramatic scenes.  So I was shamefully badly behaved with the
scripts - I maltreated our writers' reputations in rehearsal,
on screen, in public, especially in pubs.  I found it so frustrating.
I'm not sure if the average fan of Doctor Who knows this but at
the time the production team actually expected me to memorize
words and lines, that weren't even mine!  It's not that they
were really terrible scripts, or actually really scripts.  They
just didn't have that touch that, you know sometime they might
do.  I've always felt touched.  I like being touched, don't you?
We did so many scripts, sometimes I'd get huge piles of scripts
written on paper.  I can't stand paper, unless it's scrolls.
I think the scripts would be more impressive if they were written
on scrolls, with words if possible.
 I was always suggesting this or that - maybe an extra line, a
different situation, or that we all say sod it and go out to the
local pub - and the director would either say no or just sigh
all depressed at life and say yes.  Generally they were kind to
me.  I don't remember more than the occasional beating.  They
humoured some of my extravagances but kicked me in the back lot
afterward.  And some of my ideas I forced in!"

Rumors & Facts -

 Tom Baker broke his collar bone and therefore for the more
challenging stunts popular actor Kenny Baker agreed to stunt
double.  This created some visual problems which even clever
camera work failed to disguise entirely.
 One of the GalSex scantily-clad lady vixens was in fact played
by Terry Jones, the Monty Python cast member who had previously
written The Spam Museum (serial Q) back in 1965.  Terry Jones'
appearance as a drop dead gorgeous futuristic sex pot may show
a dark destiny for mankind's future history.
 For those who expect actual research from this guide, Tom
Baker broke his collar bone the morning of 29/10/76 after a
breakfast of baked beans, bacon, eggs, and three pints of Guinness.
 For those who expect inaccurate, strange, scandalous, and
questionable trivia from this guide, you know the Fourth Doctor?
Yeah, he was banging Sarah Jane.