The Invasion of Tim

Ninety-Ninth Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide
O' Rouge Beret

Serial 4Z - The Invasion of Tim -

 The Doctor returns to Gallifrey after a smashing galactic
entertainment tour across the universe which has delighted
countless mysterious alien races.  Immediately after arriving
he demands to see Cardinal Borusa and invokes his right to
have curly hair.  Borusa says the Doctor can wear his hair
in any way he pleases as long as he honours his position as
the President and High Lord of Gallifrey.  In response the
Doctor does an eerie duck imitation and a strip tease involving
extremely lewd uses of his scarf.

 In most cases Borusa would be highly insulted but he recognises
this as an ancient traditional Gallifreyian dance, much like one
that would have been performed by Rassilon himself.  Borusa
immediately starts to organize an inauguration party.  What only
the Doctor knows at this point, is that a mysterious alien race,
known as the Vardans, are monitoring his every action.  The Vardans
are creatures which have the ability to travel along any wavelength
(even thought as muddled and strange as the Doctor's) and materialise
at the end.  Although they tend to use this ability for dramatic
effect at the end of incredibly loud rock concerts, this time
the Vardans have decided to do something sensible at last.  The Vardans
have invaded the Matrix via the Time Lords' own voyeur beams which
they use to watch the entire universe.

 As President the Doctor exiles Leela from the Capitol because
he doesn't want his colleagues to realise he's been shacking
up with an ape descendant yet again.  This rather controversial
behavior had once gotten him the nick name "Ape Boy" during
his Academy years.

  The Doctor feels deeply upset at how the Time Lords have
treated him over the centuries and decides it would be fun
to destroy them for a laugh and think about it later.  To help
the Vardans, the Doctor and K-9 destroy the tranduction barriers
that protect Gallifrey through incredibly clever placement of chewing
gum.

 Meanwhile Leela has met the young female trainee Time Lord
Godzilla Rodan and together they encounter Showboats, ex-Time
Lords now living like chartered accountants.  They join together
to form a resistance group and deduct their various weapons of
destruction as business expenses.

 The Doctor secretly meets with the Vardan leaders and discovers
that while he admires their goals of taking over Gallifrey, he
can't stand how they constantly rustle and bunch up like saran wrap.
After becoming incredibly frustrated during a conversation with
them he forces them and their home world into time loop.  The
Doctor always wondered how the highest lords of time performed
this trick and now that he is president he discovers that you
merely have to be able to run film stock backwards over and over
again with optional negative effect for show.

 The Doctor then goes forth to the populace of Gallifrey and takes all
the credit for their defeat. He even writes a best selling novel
'Time Lordin' And Time Loopin'.  As everyone is celebrating in
a vast Sinfinity chamber a new danger appears: The Snotarans
have used the Vardans not only for cheap thrills but also to gain
access to Gallifrey!

 The Doctor has some respect for the Snotarans as well because
at least they don't rustle about like cheap plastic when they talk.
He is worried however that the Snotarans might kill him and ruin
his new body just as he was getting comfy with it.  He decides
to approach the Snotaran leader, who is for some reason named
Tim.  Tim and the rest of the Snotarans defer to the Doctor and
kneel before him.  For a moment the Doctor looks on in shock at
the Snotarans as they fall to their knees, clutching their helmets.
Knowing a good thing when he sees it, the Doctor quickly leads Tim
into the capitol and makes him the Head of Public Relations.
With the Snotarans backing, the Doctor forces Borusa to reveal
the location of "the Key To Big Daddy's House" which once belonged
to Rassilon himself.  The Doctor uses the power of the key to
build the supreme weapon, the Demat Gun.  The weapon is rumored
to either destroy all matter in the universe or perhaps merely
get rid of annoying place mats with cutesy designs on them.

  In either case, the Doctor now has the ultimate weapon in the universe
and plans to destroy the entire high council of Gallifrey, even
if he has to cover them head to toe in mats first -- then he realises
he doesn't know how to turn the damn thing on!  While fiddling with
the controls he accidentally deletes all of his Snotaran allies
from existence and causes the entire planet to lose their memory
of recent events.  After this cheap plot device to resolve the
rather serious problems raised by this story, Leela suddenly falls
in love and chooses to stay on Gallifrey to marry some bloke in a
red hat.  This comes completely out of nowhere and annoys the Doctor
so much he tells K-9 that they are leaving immediately.  However
K-9 decides it's had enough of the Doctor's crap and it's cursing
circuits go into overload as it tells the Doctor exactly what it
thinks of him.  K-9 chooses to stay behind with it's mistress much
to the objections of the entire time lord race.

 As the TARDIS heads towards it's next destination the Doctor
reveals a K9 Mark 2 which he immediately begins kicking in angry rage.

Book(s)/Other Related - Doctor Who Invades Tim (Canada Only)
                        Doctor Mysterio Humungo Fucko Offa Weapona!
                        I, Tim - Memoirs Of A Snotaran Warrior

Fluffs - Tom Baker seemed rat arsed for most of this story

Fashion Victims - Tim, the Snotaran, wears an incredibly long
                  fish bones earring which simply CAN NOT be
                  standard military issue!

Goofs - Okay, Tim has a cockney accent AND Tim is a Snotaran!
        So we have a Snotaran named Tim with a cockney accent.
        Please forgive me while I have a nervous breakdown trying
        to make sense of a cockney accented Snotaran named Tim
        who also has incredibly poor taste in earrings...earrings..
        FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?!

        Let me calm down, what's next - that might help..oh yeah,
        Leela falls in love with this guy in a red hat.  First
        we barely saw Leela in this story at all, not to mention
        this guy in the red hat that I have to assume is a Time Lord.
        Now Leela is a savage from an amazingly primitive culture.
        The guy in the red hat, is from a species which has mastered
        all of time and space!  What can these two have in common??
        A shared love of red hats?!  WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING?!

        Why did the Doctor even take Leela to Gallifrey in the first
        place?  At least Sarah came from an industrial society and
        probably wouldn't have dumped the Doctor for the first guy
        she met in a red hat.  Also why is she allowed to stay there
        and get MARRIED?  I mean the Doctor is ashamed to even bring
        human women to Gallifrey for fear of being called "Ape Boy"
        or "Monkey Molester" and yet this other dude can get settled
        into a marriage?  WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY IN THE RED HAT?!
        He must be damned important to be above the mockery of the
        time lords!  Why is none of this explained?  FOR ALL THAT'S
        GOOD AND RIGHT WITH THE WORLD WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING?!

Technobabble - Cyclic burst ratio, encephialographic barrier,
               a winklegruber, a submeson brain -- and that's
               just what the Doctor breaks during the opening scene!

               The Doctor tells Rodan "after I feed in the doppler
               effect and eliminate the red shift then the instant
               microwave popcorn will be done."

Links and References -
Many references to The Lethal Assassin including more mentions of
silly artifacts - "The Elbow of Rassilon", "The Recliner Chair of
Rassilon", "The Nudie Mag Of His Wise and Ancient Rassilon", and
most surprisingly in a reference to the recent Image of Ken Doll
"The Mighty Fist Of Greebo".

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor claims that in the darkest days of Gallifrey's history
he used to use time scoops for fun and profit -- mostly involving
silly mis-matched battles such as "The Entire Army Of the Snotarans
Versus The Duke of Kent."

Dialogue Disasters -

Tim: If we cannot control the power of the energizer bunny than
     we shall destroy it.

Leela: Is that a RED hat?!

Doctor: (to camera) Not even the sonic vibrators can get me off
        this time!

Dialogue Triumphs -

K9: [To the TARDIS] You are a very stupid machine.  Want to fuck?

Leela: Discussion is for the wise or the helpless and I am neither.
       I like to break things instead.

Borusa: You have access to the greatest source of knowledge in the
        universe.
Doctor: Well, I do talk to myself sometimes.
Borusa: I meant you had access to ME.
Doctor: Well aren't WE egotistical?

Tim: [About K9] This machine is a load of obsolete rubbish.
                May I kick it?


Doctor: Maybe I am getting too young and clever for this sort of thing.
K-9: Scans indicate you grow less intelligent with age, Master.
[The Doctor stops what he is doing and brutally kicks K-9]

K-9: Prognostication pointless in matters concerning the Doctor.
     He always screws up in the worst possible way.

Dialogue Oddities -

(ORIGINAL SCRIPT)
The Doctor: My K-9 companion is a delicate piece of technology.
            Treat him with the utmost care.

(ON SCREEN)
Tom Baker: Try to kick him on the right side, he makes funnier
           noises for some reason when you do that.

Viewers' Quotes -

"I thought the first three episodes were the worst things I'd
ever seen, then I saw the next three."  - Keith Zane (1989)

"Large pieces of bacofoil with Glaswegian accents have the
power to invade Gallifrey, home of the most powerful race
in the entire universe?  Who wrote this?  Drug addicted monkeys?
And why does Leela, a luscious warrior queen, whore herself out
so cheaply to a man who's only redeeming feature is his excellent
taste in head gear?"  - Father James O' Maley (1978)

"I've worn a red hat every day since this story first aired in
1978 hoping that a sexy savage woman would ravish me.  No luck
yet, but I'm still hopeful!"  - Dan Samson (1998)

"Although three Snotarans are seen to enter the TARDIS, only two are
killed, meaning that there is still a Snotaran lost in the TARDIS
somewhere.  I plan to spin this into a whole new series of novels
I will call The Bobo Adventures, after the Snotaran I believe to be
named Bobo."    - Bobo Jones (1985)

Psychotic Nostalgia -
"I wish I could have HELPED the Doctor in this story.  I tend to
have an instinctive understanding of weapons of mass destruction.
We could have really wiped out a lot of mats."

Tom Baker Speaks!
"As a children's hero I thought it was very important that, I,
The Doctor, learned that destroying society wasn't as fun as
maybe it would seem.  As a poor and desperate child living off
moldy cheese, in the cold miserable winters of england, where
I would be brutally beaten by older boys, I often thought of
how wonderful it would be to have the power to really change
society.  Not in a slow and sane way but more in an utterly
violent and gratuitous way like cutting through warm butter with
a chainsaw.  At the time I used to dream of warm butter.  I wouldn't
dare imagine having bread to spread it on, just the butter, that
was good enough when you were a poor hapless orphan with one eye.
Well I didn't actually go with one eye when I was a child.  I've
always had the two.  But at the time I remember feeling very much
like I was a homeless, one eyed, poor orphan boy who could only
 communicate in seal barks.  I actually had both the eyes, and
parents, and I could speak relatively well for a boy my age, but
the FEELING was always there that when you got down to it I was
really just an 8 year old boy with one eye, no parents, who barked
and had syphilis."

Rumors & Facts -

 Graham Williams had been impressed by the Gallifreyan mythology
Sherlock Holmes had invented entirely out of thin air.  For the
conclusion of his first year as Doctor Who's producer, Williams
wanted a follow-up story which would completely ruin all that
Holmes had so desperately tried to establish.  In a twisted irony
Williams invited Holmes to write the story, but Holmes responded
by suggesting that Williams do something which was not at all
physically possible. Consequently, the story was passed along
to David Weird, or as he was known to his life long friend Marc
Antony - David The Weird.

 Following Williams' idea, Weird conceived a story called
The Killer Cats Of Molester Jones.  Weird felt that Terry Jones'
character introduced in The Nose of Evil, would have been a much
more fun and logical companion choice for the Doctor.  So Weird
set about a story in which Cat Molester Jones found himself on
Gallifrey and, in his expeditions across the planet, had happened
upon an intelligent feline race living on a remote island continent.

 Unfortunately, Weird was late in completing his drafts as he first
wrote them in hieroglyphs and only then translated them into Latin
which only Antony could read!  When Antony sat and translated it for
Williams the two men were left in a state of utter horror!   The
scripts were utterly unworkable, requiring abundant location filming
in the Aceton Galaxy and including inconceivable special effects
sequences, like a stadium full of thousands of cat people each and every
one of them doing something uniquely perverse with a tuning fork and a
bottle of milk!

 At the last minute, The Killer Cats was abandoned by the side of
the road, and Williams and Antony were forced to turn to the person
they thought could actually produce a fairly cheap to film script
which could use all interior shots within the greater London era.

 In the meantime, another serious problem had arisen, as it had
become evident that a series of radical terrorist attacks on
the BBC by The Loony Viewers Association would disrupt the
autumn 1977 recording schedule.  Because Christmas programming
was of a higher priority, several forces were INSISTING that Serial 4Z
would now have to include Santa Claus somewhere within the story.
Williams called their bluff and suggested that he was going
to reveal in serial 4Z that Tom Baker was in fact Santa Claus and
that The Doctor would be returning to Gallifrey, which was actually
the North Pole, to enslave the elves to make toys for all the good
little alien monsters of the cosmos.  Upon hearing this The BBC
begged Williams to abandon the serial altogether.
Williams was keen on preserving his finale, however, and reported
that if he was to include Santa Claus it HAD to be Tom Baker.
Eventually the BBC relented and the Santa Claus angle was dropped.

 Meanwhile as this was all being worked out, the ghost writer was
hard at work.  Antony and Williams decided to trust the final Leela
story to the creator of the character, Chris Butcher.  The BBC was
very weary of any future Butcher stories and this entire operation
had to be carried out in strictest secrecy, meaning that Butcher
was only ever paid in small pieces of chocolate for this story.
Overall this was much better pay than what the BBC was offering
writers at the time.  Based on an outline Butcher had put
together over a weekend, he wrote the first draft of "My Friend
Tim Who Comes Over Some Times Has A Really Nice Red Hat" in just a
fortnight!  Truly astoundingly speedy for a six part script about
a man's hat!

  Sherlock Holmes provided some abuse to Butcher by telephone
during this period.  During the course of his verbal attacks he
also gave permission to Butcher to use his creations, the Snotarans.
Holmes did this after Butcher told him he was thinking of creating
an all new alien race called "My Landlord" who would be ruthless,
devilish, and vile in every possible way.  Butcher also wanted
to establish Cat Molester Jones as the companion at the end of
this story.  He had been encouraged by the news that Weird had
found the character so lovable.  Butcher was not allowed to do
this sadly because his scripts were forbidden from reusing any
story elements used by Weird!   Even though Butcher had created
the character HIMSELF based heavily on his friend Terry.
After his chats with Holmes via telephone Chris Butcher
heavily rewrote the scripts during four sleepless days and it
shows.  One radical draft dared to take us to a distance of over
two and a half miles from Butcher's home.

 Meanwhile forces behind the BBC were trying to stop the write out
the character of Leela. Although Louise Jameson had, for several months,
been trying to fake her own death so that departing Doctor Who at the
year's end would be as easy as possible, Williams still held out hope
that she might change her mind and start actually moving about and
responding to questions.  Ultimately, the character's departure was a
last minute addition to the scripts, and hence Leela was married
off to a guy in a red hat.  This was an enormous disappointment to
Jameson, who would have preferred to see Leela killed off than to
marry a silly bloke solely on the basis of his unique clothing style.
Williams and Antony had contemplated killing her off, but decided
that it would be too far too difficult to make look like an accident,
and a pessimistic way to end the season.

 To try to make the relationship more plausible, Jameson
had a monologue at the beginning of the story about how much
she missed Glovehat from her own tribe and how hats are signs
of virility and power.

 So that was season 15.  Now it's very easy to say "My god what a hell
hole of second rate crap!", I should know!  However as this is the
wrap up I must be positive and cheery and yummy, so here we go -

 On a more positive note, this season does have Leela.  In fact
this season has MORE Leela than any other season whatsoever.
Season 14 had some Leela sure, but when you compare the constant
presence of Leela in season 15, with the total absence of Leela
in say seasons 16, or 4, or 25...well then you begin to appreciate
just how much Leela there is in this season.