The Even Doctors

The One Hundred and Forty-Fourth Entry in the Charles Daniels
Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
Special Thanks to R Dan Henry for transcribing a scene and quote.

Serial 6W - The Even Doctors -

 The Time Lords have selected the Second Doctor and Jamie to uncover
and destroy unethical "uplift" experiments.  A rogue race of time
lords is being created from lesser beings.  A renegade time lord
is suspected of taking part in the immoral process.  The Doctor
must discover if this time lord is a willing or unwilling partner
to these affairs -- and then kill the bastard whatever the case.

 The Doctor accepts the mission and once inside the TARDIS immediately
attempts to go renegade.  Dematerializing the Doctor enters deep
space, turns on the monitor and tells the Time Lords to go screw
themselves!  He will never work for them!  He will never be their
stooge in galactic politics - as long as he has a free bone in his
body.

 The Time Lords calmly explain to the Doctor that they now dominate
his TARDIS with a remote control.  They are in complete command
of where and when he visits.  The Doctor is slightly shocked and
dismayed.  He bows his head down and asks for forgiveness.
They grant it and wish him luck.  As soon as the Time Lords fade
from the monitor he gives them the double bird treatment and
sighs in frustration.

 The TARDIS arrives on a top secret space station, The Chimera.
One of the Doctor's oldest and dearest friends works here - Dastari,
Guru of Total Insanity and Director of Projects.   When the Doctor
meets Dastari there is some surprising ill will.  Apparently the
Second Doctor recently destroyed Dastari's homeworld in a failed
attempt to save it from an invasion by the Quirks.

"Well it was just ONE planet!  It slipped through the cracks...
and HONESTLY!  If it was in danger of being destroyed by the
Quirks -- It couldn't have been all THAT GOOD!"

 Dastari forgives the Doctor, admitting that his homeworld,
Splooge IV, was a somewhat pathetic hellhole to start with.

 The new found good will between the two is interrupted when one
of Dastari's servants, Chessene, checks in to see whether Dastari's
guests should be shot on sight as trespassers -- and Dastari takes
a moment to consider the matter.  The Doctor is further appalled when
he realizes that Chessene is a technologically augmented Time Lady!
The Doctor demands to know whom Dastari is working with.
Dastari refuses to answer to the Doctor or his time lord masters.
He insists that he is creating a new super race, far superior
to the Time Lords, by using the natural talents of younger species.
Annoyed the Doctor pulls out a Luger and aims for Dastari's chest.
Before he can pull the trigger the space station wobbles.  At first
Jamie and the Doctor shrug this off as just another dodgy set -
but soon they find themselves at gunpoint, facing mysterious aliens!


 Meanwhile, in 19th century England, the Sixth Doctor and Peri are
on a fishing holiday - in the heavily polluted Thames.  Peri is
bored of England, bored of Europe, bored of Earth - and whines at an
unsympathetic Doctor. During their bitchfest the Doctor manages to
snag something on the line!

The Doctor reels madly, but needs Peri's strength to land the catch.

"This could be dinner!" Promised the Doctor as they combined their
strength.

 Unfortunately both are extremely disappointed when they see their
catch at the end of the line -- it's just Sil!

 After this let down the Doctor calmly explains that he hasn't felt
himself lately.  When Peri asks him what he means by that the Doctor
simply shrugs and collapses on the ground, going into convulsions.


 Across the universe, Jamie and the Second Doctor watch in horror
as the model for the "uplifted" time lords greets them with a wry
smile.

"It can't be!!  It breaks all the laws of time!"

"OH YES!  Even though I imagine they're going to have to dream up
a few more by the time I'm through!"  Replied the 4th Doctor with
fierce intensity.

 This scene is made all the more horrific as the 4th Doctor has
trapped his former self in a glass tube filled with electrical
discharges.

 The Fourth Doctor nearly captures Jamie, but he's distracted when
Chessene arrives and offers him a chicken vindaloo.  After finishing
the curry, the Doctor insists they go to earth for dessert, as
humans are his absolute favorite dessert topping -- "Better than
cream and raspberry jam!"

 Chessene wonders if going all the way to earth for pudding makes
any sense at all, but the 4th Doctor reminds her of his motto for
the new Time Lord race -  "Gratification for the hell of it!"


 Back on Earth the Sixth Doctor jumps up straight to his feet,
smiles at Peri and marches off to the TARDIS as if nothing unusual
has happened.  Sil and Peri follow him back and play along with
the Doctor's new found happiness -- secretly wondering if his mind
has in fact totally snapped.  Sil is almost certain of the fact
and whispers to Peri -

"Nutter...Right, you hold 'em down, I'll cut him open.  I know
where I could get a good price for his liver.  We can share
the profits!"

 Before they can act the Doctor promises to take them to the most
beautiful spot in the entire universe.  To a mysterious planet,
with countless billions years of history - a gem, a jewel of the
cosmos, lost within infinite waves of inky void.  Peri is THRILLED,
this is exactly what she has longed for!

 Both Sil and Peri are mildly surprised when they arrive in
Seville, Spain in the 20th century.  The Doctor insists that
his previous description is a perfect match for earth -- and
in either case, it's a lot less rainy here.

 Meanwhile, by freaky coincidence Chessene and the 4th Doctor
have arrived in Seville, Spain -- to meet old and dear friends.
The Fourth Doctor strides up to an elegant hacienda, knocks on
the door, and meets his dear old friends - Stor, Styre, and Lynx.
Snotaran war lords who have retired from the constant war of their
species and settled in Spain for retirement.

 As the Doctor, Peri, and Sil enjoy a lazy walk through the streets
of Seville, the conversation somehow turns into a long history lecture
about the nature of the Snotaran-Rutan war.  Peri listens to the
Doctor babble on about countless trillions of deaths over incredible
eons of time -- and she gets a little bit bummed out.  She asks the
Doctor to change the subject and so he decides to launch into an
explanation about how, thanks to time travel, the holistic fabric of
Time itself has begun to collapse from the weight of paradox, and
within a very few centuries the Universe will no longer exist...
somehow this fails to lift her mood.

 Peri asks the Doctor if there are any good restaurants in Seville,
and he replies that he isn't really all that hungry right now as
he had a big breakfast and since then he's been bleakly pondering the
prospect of eternal nothingness.

 Peri annoyed, ignores the Doctor, and asks Sil if he's enslaved
any interesting worlds during the course of his career. Sil is
thrilled with the opening in the conversation and begins to describe
a world in the Tharoz Beta system where the only form of life are
hyper-intelligent dolphins who communicate through perfect musical
tones.  Sil was instrumental in enslaving them and forcing them
to produce jingles for toothpaste commercials.

  Meanwhile, inside the hacienda, the 4th Doctor has his former
self and Jamie tied up.  The 4th Doctor explains that through the
creation of a new race of time lords, there will arise a new
universal mind - his mind.  One mind - travelling through the
universe faster than the speed of light and time.  Jamie is
appalled by the megalomania of it all, as is the Second Doctor --
who still wishes he would have thought of it first!

 The Sixth Doctor scouts out around the hacienda while his friends
wonder why he's gone all strange AGAIN.  Sil suggests that kidneys
are also popular on the open galactic market.  The Doctor happens
across the window to the kitchens, where the 4th Doctor is showing
Chessene some of the Belgian chocolate he's found. The 4th Doctor
has come to conclude that the humans aren't as primitive as he'd
believed.   The Sixth Doctor is incredibly surprised, and watches
the situation unfold before him.

 The 4th Doctor and Chessene have decided to perform a radical
new experiment.  They will use their samples of the 4th Doctor's
symbiotic nuclei and inject it into the Second Doctor.  If the
operation is a success, the essence of Fourth Doctorishness will
trickle down the time streams, infecting and overpowering all
subsequent Doctors, and making the 4th Doctor ever more powerful --
possibly as powerful as Rassilon HIMSELF!

 As the Second Doctor begins to transform into Fourth Doctorishness,
the glare in his eyes becomes increasingly more unstable.  The Second
Doctor leaps up from the operating table, hugs the 4th Doctor,
and suggests they go out to the local pub for an ale.  The two Doctors
smile with impish grins and make all haste to a local tavern, Las
Cadenas.

The Sixth Doctor, noticing their exit, quickly rescues Jamie and
follows the two other Doctors from a safe distance.  The Sixth Doctor
and all of his friends are horrified when they discover the other
Doctors are offering tricks to truck drivers for rides into town.
Even as the companions are appalled by this behaviour, the Sixth
Doctor warns them that changes suffered by his second self will soon
begin to affect him as well.   Sil, seriously starts to discuss
offing the weirdo NOW and selling his lungs while he can still get
a good price.

 The Sixth Doctor and company follow the two new friends into
the heart of Seville.  The two other Doctors have a great lead
on them time wise however, and Peri asks how they can possibly hope
to find them in the massive city.  The Doctor immediately replies
that they should restrict their searches to drinking establishments
and underground brothels -- an idea so OBVIOUS Peri feels stupid
for not thinking of it herself.  As the Sixth Doctor looks at Peri
he becomes distracted and dreamily begins listing the many sweet
food items she'd be good on -- apple pie, raspberry tart, chocolate
whip.....but he snaps out of it and heads off, determined to find his
former self before he becomes a scarf-wearing-bastard forever.

 Meanwhile, the landlord of Las Cadenas, a local tavern, is fighting
to ignore his customers' eccentricities - their strange clothes,
their loud belches, the way they exist in a pan-dimensional reality
defined by hyper-mathematics -- "Damn english tourists!" he mutters
to himself.  The landlord allows them to drink over a dozen flagons
of lager -- he doesn't usually measure in flagons -- but with these
two YOU JUST HAVE TO!

 Eventually the landlord asks the pair how they intend to pay.
The 4th Doctor offers 12 Altarian Dollars, but these are not
acceptable!  The 2nd Doctor offers a haiku about having sex with
a Norwegian man named Johan -- but this also fails to cover their
expenses.  After reciting the Haiku with several different variations,
for instance changing the name to Hjalmar, the Second Doctor passes
out face down into the bar.  The 4th Doctor, irritated by the land
lord's continuing to bother him while he's trying to hallucinate
from the absinthe, stabs the land lord in the chest with a knife and
leaves the tavern, leaving a 150,000 Euro tip.

 As the 4th Doctor drags his unconscious new best friend, the altered
2nd Doctor, through the streets - his body rejects the 4th
Doctorishness and returns to normal!

 The methods used by Dastari, Chessene, and the 4th Doctor are
flawed.  The effects of the genetic manipulation seem to be
temporary -- the higher evolved, the closer the Time Lordishness,
the subject is to start with the shorter the effect lasts.
In the 2nd Doctor's case, it lasts mere hours.

 The Fourth Doctor ditches the unconscious 2nd Doctor in an alleyway
and runs to his TARDIS - desperate to escape justice in the hands
of his fellow Time Lords, and future and past selves.

 The Sixth Doctor happens upon the unconscious 2nd Doctor and
revives him back to health.  The Second Doctor uses the TARDIS
remote control to call his TARDIS to him.  The Sixth Doctor is
insanely jealous and demands to know how he came upon such a neat
toy -

"Well, it seems we all aren't as pathetic as YOU.
I like the coat....weirdo!"

"You ungrateful bastard!  This is the last time I stop you from
choking to death on your own vomit in a dark alley after a drinking
binge!"

"That's what you think!"

 The Sixth Doctor, Sil and Peri head back to their own TARDIS,
vowing NEVER to get involved with the affairs of the Doctor from now
on.


Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who - The Evens Are Odd
Doctor Mysterio, El Genetico Insano!
Doctor Who, 30 Years of Hooliganism In Space And Crime

Goofs -
The portrayal of the monsters in this story is illogical and
takes away from the horror of their appearance - "Snotarans,
merciless warlords, gracious social hosts!"

Fashion Victims -
Sil's green box is replaced with an Atari logo necklace in episode 3.
The 4th Doctor wears his typical trademark costume.

Links and References -
While in the kitchen, the 4th Doctor asks himself in the mirror
if he'd like a jellybaby -- and he gladly accepts.

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Second Doctor again brags about the mysterious Crystal of
Discontinuity which allows him to remember his own future.

Also, the 4th Doctor must have missing adventures, without
companions, that allow him ample time to devise ways to
conquer the universe in somewhat creepy ways.


Groovy DVD Extras -
The infamous 30 minute documentary - Tom Baker, Banned In Ireland -
which depicts Tom Baker having troubles clearing airport customs
in Ireland, Holland, Norway, and Burkino Faso!  This uncut version
also includes the shocking footage - when the Spanish authorities
allow Tom into their country on a heavily provisional basis, and
he is arrested and deported before leaving the terminal.


Dialogue Disasters -

---
4th Doctor: What's the use of good genome if you can't change it?

---
4th Doctor: I AM THE DOCTOR - AND YOU WILL OBEY ME!

---
     Styre: It is not easy being commander. The loneliness of
            supreme responsibility...

4th Doctor: Oh yes...so have you taken up any golfing?

---

 Jamie: Look at the size of that thing, Doctor!

Doctor: I'd rather not.
---

While fishing in the 19th century...

PERI:  England is on Earth! *EARTH*! It is *not* an alien planet!
       It isn't even an exotic location on Earth!

DOCTOR: But it's the 19th Century!

PERI: So you say. But even if that were true and not some bizarre
      recreationist fantasy, that's still not alien! You promised me
      alien worlds and as far as I can see, you haven't delivered.

DOCTOR: There's me, I'm alien. There's Sil, he's alien.  And
        the Bastard AND his time wife the Rani - they're alien!

PERI: And I met all of you on *Earth*!

SIL: She's got you there.

DOCTOR: You're not helping Sil!

SIL: And, if I remember right, the Rani was just an enhanced human --
     so not technically ALIEN at all.

(The Doctor kicks Sil back into the river - who falls back helplessly
and crashes with a giant splash)

DOCTOR: I don't understand you, Peri. I take you through time and
        space to 19th century England and all you can do is play the
        ungrateful bitch.

PERI: I just want something that I can see isn't Earth. If I could
      touch the alien sand and hear the cry of strange birds and
      watch them wheel in another sky, that would satisfy me.
      Is that too much to ask?

DOCTOR: Yes!
---

Sixth Doctor: In all my adventures, I've never been so stricken
              with fear.  You can't imagine Peri.  To feel yourself,
              changing..

        Peri: You mean it felt horrifying to change back into
              your former self?

Sixth Doctor: It was beyond horrifying. I could feel my mind
              slipping away.  I was grasping for the shore,
              the land, the bank on the river that was all I
              had left of me...

       Peri: I can't imagine.  To feel yourself, losing your
             mind like that..

Sixth Doctor: Yes, but WORSE Than that even -- for three
              horrific seconds -- I WAS STRAIGHT!
              (Shivers in disgust)
---


Dialogue Triumphs -

----

4th Doctor: The gratification of pleasure is the sole motive of
            action! Is that not our law?

Chessene: Well that's the line you used to pick me up in the singles'
          bar.

4th Doctor: It's as true as today as when I first made it up.

Chessene: I still accept it, but there are pleasures other than the
          purely sensual.

4th Doctor: For you, perhaps. Fortunately, I am the most potent of
            Time Lords -- I walk in perversity.

---

Peri: Let's talk about something a little more cheery Doctor.
      What's that wonderful smell in the air?

6th Doctor: Mainly decaying food. And corpses.

Peri: Corpses?  I thought it smelled more like jasmine.

6th Doctor: That is the smell of death, Peri. Ancient must, heavy in
            the air. Fruit-soft flesh peeling from white bones. The
            unholy, unburiable smell of armageddon. Nothing quite so
            evocative as one's sense of smell, is there?

Peri: Maybe you just need to get laid or something.
---

4th Doctor (Describing Peri): A fine, fleshy beast!

---
Doctor: Eternal blackness. No more sunsets. No more roses.
        Never more a butterfly.

Peri: Like SERIOUSLY laid.  I mean, you REALLY need a good one.

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


Viewer Quotes -

"Tom Baker scared me more than the Cybermen."
    - Thomas Smallson (1986)

"This story was uniquely terrifying.  Watching Doctor Who over
the years, I became accustomed, very comfortable in fact, with
the idea that the cosmos was filled with these merciless killers.
But...then, here they are, retired, relaxing.  Enjoying their
golden years in a typical community.  Your neighbours could actually
be retired mass murders and invite you around for wine and cheese.
It was chilling."  - Jim Clark (1995)

"After seeing this story -- I REALLY wanted to eat Peri.  But then,
to be honest, I wanted to do that BEFORE this story too..so yeah,
this had absolutely no affect on me."  - Charles Daniels (2004)

"The perversity. The sin. The Magic!"  - Father James O'Maley (1985)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"I tried to assert my genome over all creation - but I was a crazy
teenager.  Eventually I settled down and started being responsible.
Those were magical times -- the 60s."


Colin Baker Speaks!
"I had great fun with Frazer Hines.  Every morning he'd be there
and we'd kick old Pat in the arse, punch him in the face, and light
him on fire.  Frazer explained it was a tradition, going back to
their earliest days together on Who.   It was only at a convention
some months later I learned that it was just some elaborate
practical joke thought up by Frazer, poor Pat had NO IDEA what
was going on!!   He's a real joker that Frazier."


Patrick Troughton Speaks!
"Well this story was quite a shock.  I read the script, and it was
set in Seville.  I figured that would be a nice place for a working
holiday and I agreed immediately.  I was shocked however when I
landed in Spain, collected my Doctor Who costume -- and there was
that damned Fur Coat!!!  I explained to John that my Doctor only
wore that coat on rare occasions - such as when hiking across the
Himalayas.  I insisted that there was simply no way my character
would wear such a ridiculous thing in SPAIN in the MIDDLE OF THE
SUMMER!   But John would hear none of it, so I spent the first
three days of filming on the brink of death from heat exhaustion.
Eventually the Red Cross, or some other humanitarian group, arrived
and allowed me to wear my old standard costume.  Of course it
meant three days of re-shooting, and the creation of an odd
documentary - "Patrick Troughton: The Dehydrated Years".
 Overall all though, it was a lovely experience!   Tom got to
play the baddie again, but I got a good drinking buddy scene out
of his nastiness.  If I can't be the evil master of the universe,
I guess I'll be happy with being the bloke he shares a pint of
Guinness with down at the Pears & Peach."


Tom Baker Speaks!
"Ahhh YES!  The EVEN DOCTORS!  The universal mind!!  It's all
terribly esoteric you know?  But the idea, yes, I admit, is deeply
appealing -- Tom Bakerishness, spreading, growing throughout the
cosmos.  A universal army of Tom Baker, from now until the ends
of eternity....that's scary.  They should make a film about that one!
The television version scared me.  I was so terribly happy with it
though.  I looked at the script and said - "A scene with a pub!
I love a scene with a pub!  But, there's one problem.  Just one...
it's scripted.  And I begged and pleaded to just let Pat and myself
in a pub and just do what comes naturally.  I'm sure the landlord
was terribly confused, but the scene captured on camera...
magnificent!"


William Hartnell Speaks!
"No, I'm still dead. Sorry."


Rumors & Facts -

 JST was very eager to bring Doctor Who to America.  He was especially
interested in New Orleans, Louisiana - apparently hoping to have some
personal fun in the Mardi Gras festival.  John Satan-Turner wanted
an American to pen the story, and in April 1981 he contacted Jim
Brown.  Brown's storyline, called "The Revolutionary War: America
Kicks Some Serious British Ass", was not consider suitable, however,
and the idea was shelved.

 In 1983, the producer decided to revive the idea of going to
New Orleans, Louisiana, having a wild sex holiday, and handing the
BBC the bill -- a dream that would dominate his entire career.
Satan-Turner approached Sherlock Holmes, a veteran Doctor Who
writer who had just wrapped up an intriguing case involving a
Prussian heiress.

 Satan-Turner had at least six requirements to impose on Holmes:
He wanted to bring back the Snotarans, he wanted to feature the
Second Doctor and Jamie, he wanted a scene featuring a 19th century
casino river boat afloat on the Mississippi River to showcase
Sil's prowess as a gambler and ladies' man, he wanted to work in
the assassination of Abraham Lincoln as a joint plot of the Bastard
and the Cybermen, he wanted to feature a heart touching reference to
the end of slavery, he wanted a sub-plot that alluded to his
current unhappiness with the Thatcher government, and if at all
possible he would love, as a personal extra, a reference to a failed
invasion of 19th Century Louisiana by Beep the Meep and the Dustbins.

 Sherlock Holmes, a writer who was well known for hating the return
of old characters and situations - always preferring to create new
ones - had a screaming mental breakdown after hearing this mountain
of requests.  Most producers would consider this an unfortunate
deal breaker -- but JST embraced Holmes' new found mental instability,
thinking that this would help the author capture the 6th Doctor's
trademark looniness.

 What clinched the assignment for JST, however, was the idea of
including the 4th Doctor.  JST, upon seeing a jibbering Holmes
walking in circles and babbling about giant rats living in his attic,
was immediately convinced that Holmes was *THE* man who could capture
the essence of Tom Baker!

 Then - disaster struck...umm...again.  The Doctor Who production
team was informed that Tom Baker had virtually no chance of clearing
customs in New Orleans. Apparently the local undead drug-addicted
voodoo zombie vampire scene in New Orleans was deeply frightened of
Tom Baker.  The local authorities, who usually couldn't care less
about the local undead drug-addicted voodoo zombie vampire population,
were convinced that if THEY were scared of someone - he must be
one dangerous dude.  The authorities took one look at a picture
of Tom Baker in costume and immediately branded him as a possible
cult leader, suggesting that he could lead the goth culture in
a psychotic rebellion in a twisted Charles Manson sort of way.

 Tom Baker did not improve efforts in an historic phone call.
JST and Eric Saward had Tom Baker call the local authorities
in Louisiana to convince them he was a harmless eccentric English
actor who only wanted to do some work on location.   When the
Louisiana authorities explained to Mr. Baker their fears that
he might engage in twisted mind control over the local youth
counter-culture movement in New Orleans, he assured them that
the idea had simply never occurred to him, but you know, now
that they'd mentioned it -- it didn't sound half bad!

"Will there be lots of groupies?"  He reportedly quizzed.

 Later Tom Baker claimed that his comments were nothing but a
light hearted laugh at the expense of overly worried bureaucrats --
but, umm...I'm not buying it.


  The production team was forced to consider Venice and a variety of
other locations.  Eventually they narrowed it down to two options -

1) Seville, Spain - This could barely be afforded if the
   actors agreed to reduced pay (Instead of the usual 300 pounds
   an episode, they would receive three free copies of the
   Radio Times)

2) Papua New Guinea - The actors would receive 300 pounds payment
   per episode, however, the BBC could not guarantee that they
   would not be eaten upon landing

 Everyone but Tom Baker agreed to option number one.  Apparently
the deal was easiest for Frazer Hines, as three free copies of
the Radio Times would represent vastly more than what he was
paid for doing the series in the 60s.  (The standard deal at
that time was "Two free copies of the Radio Times, that would
be mysteriously lost in the mail".)

 Holmes, who was just on the brink of recovery, was asked to
re-write his script for the serial - changing America for
Seville.  Holmes agreed but was bitterly disappointed as the
entirety of episode 2 hinged on a bizarre and humiliating
misunderstanding of the word "biscuit".

 Sherlock Holmes dropped his various jokes about the differences
between England and the United States, and focused solely instead
on writing racist jokes against Spaniards.

 In an act of revenge for having to write such a stupidly
implausible script and set it needlessly in a foreign country
that had NOTHING to do with the story - Holmes' threw all
continuity out the window and had the Doctor and Jamie working
as agents of the Time Lords - armed with Lugers and wearing
Nazi-like Black Uniforms.  Unusually, Holmes did bother explain
Victoria's absence -- saying she had decided to cure the women
of the Space Prison by spanking them all until they regained
their sanity!  (This is a behind-the-scenes continuity goof however,
as that story was actually planned for Zoe......but then maybe
they just keep going back to that place AGAIN and AGAIN!)

 On a curious note of trivia - there is a long standing rumour
that this adventure started off in black & white and then slowly
faded into colour - as a homage to the classic Troughton era of
Doctor Who.  In fact, behind the scenes documentation shows that
the Doctor Who production office simply ran out of money for
colour film!  Shooting Troughton's first scenes LAST was just a
happy coincidence!