Marley Undead

The One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Entry in the Charles Daniels
Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Reggae

Serial 6F - Marley Undead -

 On earth stands one being of pure evil microwaving a frozen burrito
inside an ill-lit 7-11.   This creature is known as The Black Guardian.
The Guardian has come to offer a young man named Turlough an escape
from his boring life.  He promises Turlough a rich and rewarding
lifestyle of excitement and adventure that far outstrips anything he's
likely to come across in Milton Keynes.  All he has to do is assassinate
some blonde guy in a cricketing outfit.

 The TARDIS meanwhile is in a dire state.  The Doctor attempted to
make a minor systems adjustment and accidentally created a temporal
void within the TARDIS control room.  The temporal void causes multiple
laws of physics to fail within the TARDIS, and to make a long story
short Nyssa is transformed into a sentient pancake.

 The Doctor sequences Nyssa's new DNA, which is 99% identical to yeast,
and decides that the only cure is a radical power drain of the TARDIS
systems, causing a total collapse of the temporal void.

 Not surprisingly, things go wrong. The Doctor materialises in the
middle of a Tesco in 1983 but the TARDIS materialises in a roller
disco in 1977. Tegan and Nyssa encounter an eccentric Rasta
man with golden skates and for some reason assume that he is the Doctor.
Together this unlikely team track down the Brigadier.

 The Brigadier is under deep cover for UNIT, posing as a maths teacher.
The Brigadier's mission is to seek, locate, and destroy alien
infiltration at the school.  After interviewing a man with a dead
duck on his head, and a young student with tattoos in a strange
hieroglyphic language, he admits that he has no leads whatsoever
as far as he can see. "Just the typical public school crowd it
seems."

 Nyssa and Tegan try to trigger the Brigadier's deeply repressed
memories of the Doctor.  The Brig seems to have forgotten the
Doctor entirely.  Tegan and Nyssa talk to the Brigadier of their
travels for endless hours, to no avail.  Finally they resort to
a powerful and overwhelming use of stock footage.  The Brigadier
screams in horror, his mind unlocked.  He immediately agrees to
join them.

 The guy from the roller disco, Nyssa, Tegan, and the Brigadier use the
TARDIS to travel to a mothership in orbit around earth.

 Soon after the guy from the roller disco offers the Brigadier a hit off
his spliff, the TARDIS crew realise that this is NOT the Doctor.  The
stranger is actually Marley, one of a group of Rastarfarian Vampires
which travel the universe endlessly in a state of perpetual confusion
seeking out Roller Discos.  "Earth is like a paradise for that sort
of thing, mon!"

 The Rasta Vamps attained their tainted immortality through the use of
of a stolen Time Lord artifact - "The Prosthetic Fangs of Rassilon".
Now that the TARDIS crew and the Brigadier have been lured into the
Rasta Vamp Mothership, "Exodus Vibration", they will become the victims
of an endless blood orgy -- which doesn't sound half bad to some of
them.

 Meanwhile on earth the Doctor encounters a nice young lad named
Turlough and is shown his fine collection of shiny knives.  The Doctor
immediately realises that Turlough is on a mission to kill him under
the power of the Black Guardian - but takes him along on his travels
for a laugh.

 In 1983, the Brigadier is STILL looking for the evil alien influence
at the school.  Even after hiring on Turlough to help him in his
investigations 2 years previously, he has remained unsuccessful
in his mission.

  The Doctor explains to the Brigadier and Turlough of his desperate
need for a transmat capsule.  The Brigadier describes such technology
as "a thousand years beyond our time!  Only an insidious alien would
have the technology!"    Luckily for the Doctor, Turlough mentions
he has a spare one in his closet.

  Inside the transmat capsule the Doctor, Turlough, and Brigadier
arrive at a mothership in orbit around the earth.   The trio
fight off waves of Rasta Vampires to rescue Tegan and Nyssa.
However Tegan and Nyssa seem somewhat disappointed at this turn
of events.  They tell the Doctor about the blood orgies and the
Prosthetic Fangs of Rassilon.

  The Doctor seems slightly unsettled at the power of the Rasta Vamps
and to once again learn of the dark legacy of Gallifreyian technology.
He is then however completely disgusted and appalled when he walks
into the control room and finds the two Brigadiers...umm...touching
themselves.

  This act of cross temporal masturbation releases some sort of
vaguely defined energy which destroys the Rasta Vampires and causes
Turlough, Tegan, Nyssa and the Doctor to be in desperate need of
those little sick bags you get on planes.

  After all this unfortunateness the Doctor takes Turlough aboard
the TARDIS and the Brigadiers return to earth in their quest to track
down the alien menace at the school once and for all.


Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who: Our Bodies, Our Selves
Playgirl Magazine - The Units of Unit
The Rasta Man Vibration Colouring Book!

Fluffs -
"Brigadier, I was wondering...umm..ahh..I say there Nicholas, is
that in the script??  Umm..sorry, I'll knock next time."

Goofs -
I know for a FACT that Nicholas Courtney does NOT look like that
naked - DAMN BODY DOUBLES!


Technobabble -
Lots of stuff about Marley's ship being trapped in a ganja ellipse,
little of which makes sense.

The Doctor talks about reversing the polarity of the neutron flow,
incessantly.  PLEASE MAKE HIM STOP!


Links and References -
This story follows Snakedate, with Tegan and the Doctor talking about
the "homoerotic dreams of unimaginable intensity".

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor admits to Tegan that he caught the Brigadier doing something
VERY similar to this during the Cyberinvasion of the 70s.
"But then EVERYONE DID.  It was a different time."


Groovy DVD Extras -
A short 15 minute segment about Doctor Who-inspired gay pornography,
hosted by Graham Norton, Terry Jones, Sir Sean Connery and God.


Dialogue Disasters -

----

Doctor: Hold on to your arse...I'm about to reverse the polarity of the
        neutron flow...

----


----

(Turlough adjusting the random location override in the transmat
capsule)

Brigadier: So, any signs of aliens?

 Turlough: What?  Ohh...umm..No sir.  No leads at all.

Brigadier: Damn stealthy bastards.  We'll find 'em Turlough, no worries.
----




Dialogue Triumphs -

---

Marley: Perpetual blood orgy.
 Nyssa: Perpetual?
Marley: Lust without end or form. Changing. Changing.
 Nyssa: I read something like that on alt.sex.anne-rice once!

---


---

Black Guardian: The Doctor's good is my evil.  His chocolate is
                my tofu!  His wine is my urine!  His french
                onion dip is my ear wax!   Stop me if you've heard
                this before.

---

Brigadier: Someone just walked over my grave.
   Doctor: Don't be silly!  You don't die until 2013.
Brigadier: WHAT?!
   Doctor: Ohh..umm..nevermind.

------------------------------------------------------------


Viewer Quotes -

"For once the "baddies" didn't want to take over the Earth, but just
wanted to rollerskate and dance to the Bee Gees. A new idea in
Doctor Who."   - Ian McIan (1984)

"The magic of Doctor Who for me was embodied in that magical
scene when the two Brigadiers FIND EACH OTHER.  I watched that,
I cried, I wore out the tape.  It was beautiful."
               - Laura Smith (1997)

"Rasta Babe Vampires - TAKE ME!!!  TAKE MMMEEEE!"
   - Father James O'Maley (1983)

"People always complain and say this story was unrealistic because
you had a hardened war veteran teaching maths at a public school.
Well I don't know about you man, but my maths teacher used to beat
the shit out of me.  I totally believe this story."
               - Ted Small (1985)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"If you listen to "One Love" backwards, it's actually Peter Cushing
and Christopher Lee speaking in code about the Hammer films.  I
know I can't prove it.  But I can hear it man.  When the song goes
"vrrrrwwooorrllllwwwwweeeevvv" when you play it backwards -- that's
actually Cushing telling you the complete inventory of an actual
vampire hunting kit as used by the Russian Mafia."

Peter Davison Speaks!
"This story was one big plothole connected by dialogue.  I recall
thinking "There's no way this is going to work", because if you sit
down and read the script it makes about as much sense as a cheese
sandwich.  But the magic is that when you watch the story, your
mind just drifts off and you don't notice anything.
That taught me a great secret.  The audience is, by and large,
completely uninvolved with the story and you can just do any old
thing you like and most people won't notice.
Just throw in some scene about crosstime masturbation to make them
squirm a bit, and throw them off - and they'll just go along with
anything after that."

Nicholas Courtney Speaks!
"I never liked how my bottom looked in that scene.  Too flat.
No one else noticed.  But, I can't help it.  I just SEE it.
Staring back at me.  Like some sort of DEMON bottom."


Rumors & Facts -

 Producer JST was under the false impression that people gave a damn
about trilogies.  The E-Space Trilogy and the Bastard Trilogy had
been met with luke warm disinterest, which JST somehow mistook for
overwhelming success.  JST decided that if something was a somewhat
interesting idea the first time around, and then a slightly ill-conceived
and mediocre idea the SECOND time around, that the third trilogy would
be EVEN better!

 JST picked an old villain to return for the trilogy, seemingly at
random.  Thus we ended up with the Black Guardian trilogy.
(And thankfully not the Quirk Trilogy or the Gobot Trilogy).

 This trilogy would see the introduction of an "evil" companion whose
presence would heighten the level of suspense in Doctor Who if only
he could be kept out of a locked broom cupboard.

 The story originally pegged to introduce Turlough was "The Song Of The
Space Whale" named after a failed Klaatu album.  The writer of the
story, a drug addicted comic book fan named Jimmy, had a hallucination
about a group of people living in the belly of a gigantic space whale.
The was his first hallucination that he personally thought was cool
enough to be expanded into a TV proposal.

 Everyone else on the planet was less enthusiastic, but nonetheless JST
commissioned it. At this stage, however, Jimmy was becoming increasingly
unhappy with the project, as he'd just had a MUCH cooler hallucination
about singing mushrooms.  After an incident at BBC Centre, apparently
having something to do with live badger and Peter Davison's trousers,
Jimmy was released from his involvement.

 The script was handed to the mysterious Kilgore Trout.  Working solo,
Trout made further progress with the serial, and when requested made
the changes necessary to introduce Turlough (living amongst the whale
colonists) and include the Black Guardian. However, disagreement arose
between Trout and the Doctor Who production staff about what kind of
whale it should be and if the inhabitants were hippies, beatniks, or
just some kind of crazy cultists.

 Finally, it became clear that The Song Of The Space Whale would not be
ready to serve as Turlough's introductory story - as the idea was
stupid beyond belief.  The scripts were not abandoned at this point
on the insistence of JST, and Space Whale would be considered for
inclusion in both Season Twenty-One and Twenty-Two (for which it was
initially pencilled in as the second story). In the end, however, Trout
became convinced that he was receiving alien transmissions in his
tooth fillings that suggested he ask for an unprecedented 25 million
pounds per episode.  As the BBC was only willing to offer a free
subscription to the Radio Times, all negotiations fell apart.
And in July 1985 The Song Of The Space Whale was finally and
firmly rejected.

 This insanity caused a vacuum as a story was needed to kick off
the Black Guardian trilogy.  JST thought an old companion should be
included, as it was a random idea that occurred to him on the motorway
and he made it his personal philosophy to follow such things.
The original thought was that William Russell might reprise his role as
Ian Chesterton, one of the first companions from 1963 (this, in turn,
inspired the school setting of the serial).

 Unfortunately, the shooting schedule for Marley Undead was in direct
conflict with Russell's plans of never EVER having anything to do with
Doctor Who ever again for as long as he lived even at gunpoint.
The production team then contacted Ian Marter about returning to play
Harry Sullivan, but Marter too apparently had the same plans.

 JST turned to Jacqueline Hill, Carole Ann Ford, Maureen O' Brien,
Peter Purves, Jackie Lane, Anneke Wills, Michael Craze, Frazer Hines,
Deborah Watling, Wendy Padbury, Caroline John, Katy Manning, John
Levene, Richard Franklin, Elisabeth Sladen, Louise Jameson, Mary Tamm,
Lalla Ward, and even Adrienne Hill and Jean Marsh before turning
to Nicholas Courtney, who had played the popular Brigadier
Lethbridge-Stewart.

 JST had met Courtney at Tom Baker's farewell party in early 1981, and
when Courtney had indicated his desire to return to Doctor Who, Tom
Baker loudly agreed about what a great idea that would be.  It was most
likely this incident that made JST place Courtney so low on his list.

 Meanwhile, Mark Strickson, was cast as Turlough.  Strickson was
visually similar to Peter Davison -- especially his blond, longish hair
-- so Satan-Turner asked Strickson to shave his head and get several
large, distinctive tattoos on his face. Strickson agreed, on the
condition that he receive six months' extra pay as the tattoos might
seriously limit his ability to land future roles.  Balking at this,
JST decided to just dye Strickson's hair some godawful colour.

 For the tenth millionth time, JST decided to feature a montage of
stock footage clips, this time highlighting the Doctor's past
relationship with the Brigadier and the Brigadier's controversial
relationship with himself.