The Mysterious Sandwich

The One Hundred and Forty-Seventh Entry in the Charles Daniels
Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Hearsay

M I S T R I A L  O F  A  T I M E L O R D

Serial 7A - The Mysterious Sandwich -

 The Time Lords, a decadent race of full power complete with
appalling fashion sense, have combined their powers to capture the
Doctor's TARDIS with an awesomely expensive special effect.

 The Doctor's TARDIS arrives a Time Lord courtroom in the middle
of panto season.  After asking directions from a pink and yellow
polka dot horse named Trigger, the Doctor discovers that he is
on trial for crimes against....well.....just about everything really.

 It comes as no surprise then that the Doctor is totally disoriented
and introduces himself to the court as "Jimmy, The Spanish Milkman".
At first the prosecutor, The Valeyard, believes this is a mere show
of eccentricity put on for the benefit court -- he has yet to
realise how loopy the fellow actually is, and how easily he might
pull off an insanity defence.  Still the Valeyard presses on,
telling the jury that he accuses the Doctor of meddling in the
affairs of other worlds and of conduct unbecoming of a serial killing
maniac -- much LESS a time lord!  The Valeyard intends to prove
to the Inquisitor that the High Council showed too great a leniency
the last time it tried the Doctor on charges of this nature,
even though they did take the extreme and unusual step of changing
him into Jon Pertwee (a punishment banned on every civilized world).

 The Doctor insists that he can't be tried, since he's a robot.
When the council asks him to prove this claim, he shrugs and mutters
several Altarian swear words under his breath.  A flash of
inspiration strikes the Doctor at this moment however, and he insists
that as the President of Gallifrey he is above the law and should
therefore dismiss this trial immediately.  However the Doctor is
informed that since he neglected his duties he has been deposed,
and the one law he DID bother to pass -- the one about equal
treatment for confectionery shaped as infants -- has been abandoned.

 The Valeyard begins presenting his case on the Doctor's
interference in the affairs of the planet Ravolox, with evidence
he prepared earlier...

 The Doctor has promised Sil and Peri a trip to a magical world
billions of light years from the earth, which his companions are
sick at the sight of. They are slightly annoyed to discover that
the planet he has taken them to, Ravolox, is exactly like earth in
every way except for it's actual location in the galaxy.

 As the three friends/enemies enjoy a blissful nature walk they
are completely unaware that they are being observed.  Which is
somewhat depressing as the two men following them talk loudly,
walk up right behind them, and at one point even offer directions.

 The two seedy lowlifes, Glitz and Dibber, are very paranoid. They
chose Ravolox for it's relative remoteness -- and who should show
up but their two old bosses?  Sil Jones and The Doctor of Death!
Even more surprising is that the pair seem not to recognise them
from their days together at Channel 4.  Glitz is prepared to gun
the duo down immediately, but doesn't for three reasons -

1) A curiosity of what brought his two former employers here

2) A worry about why they don't recognise and gun him down
   immediately

3) A lack of ammunition

 Eventually Glitz and Dibber see their former bosses and their
bimbo du jour, walk into a nearby cave.  Glitz laughs out loud
and decides he won't have to worry about his former employers
for long -- there is a fully functioning L3 Robot in the caves.
It may LOOK like a harmless, partly broken, plastic toy -- but
inside is the computational equivalent of a psychotic death machine
with an overly unfriendly manner.  Glitz once saw an L3 offer
biscuits to a man, just before ripping him apart and having
him for tea.

 For a laugh Glitz and Dibber decide to blow up a sacred totem
worshipped by a local tribe of vegan Wiccans.

 The Doctor, Sil, and Peri walk down what appears to be an ancient
staircase and find themselves in an underground cavern like a tube
station.  Actually eerily like a tube station -- right down to
the big sign saying "Marble Arch Underground station".  After hearing
a tannoy voice reminding her to mind the gap and being asked to
produce a valid ticket it finally dawns on Peri - "DOCTOR!! THIS IS
EARTH!!!"

 The Doctor tries to calm her down and assure her that the people
of Ravolox were probably just insane train spotters who collected
entire railway stations.  Meanwhile the ticket attendant is hearing
none of it and eventually the Doctor and companions are forced to
buy a ticket to Redding.

 When Peri is unconvinced that the people of Ravalox would take
an entire train station from London and then re-bury it millions
of light years away on another planet, the Doctor changes his story.
Perhaps, starts the Doctor, they've merely recreated the station
down to the tiniest detail.  Or perhaps the people of Ravolox
have re-directed them into a pocket reality set up to feel familiar
to alien visitors.  The Doctor is just about to convince Peri and
Sil that they are actually in some massive collective unconscious,
when a man eating a prawn and mayonnaise sandwich approaches
the Doctor and asks why he hasn't been showing up to the monthly
historical recreationist society meetings.  The Doctor denies knowing
the man eating the prawn sandwich, but Peri and Sil leave in
disgust, abandoning the Doctor to a discussion about the Maginot
line.

 Back in the courtroom the Doctor demands to know why he has to
watch these boring events.  He also insists that he has never
worked for Channel 4, or with Sil, nor has he met Glitz and his
associate Dibber. The Valeyard claims that, as boring as the
daily life of the Doctor and his companions is, this testimony will
become relevant later.  The Valeyard also suggests that the Doctor
may be suffering temporary amnesia due to his removal from the
space-time continuum and of course due to the repeated kicks to
the head the Valeyard himself administered as the court watched
the flashback.

The home movies continue...

 The Doctor is on the platform having a violent argument about
which style of buttons were on Napoleonic uniforms during the
failed invasion of Russia.  The man with the prawn sandwich, disgusted
that the Doctor has not only gotten the wrong buttons but actually
claims to have BEEN THERE and seen them himself, gets into one of
those horrific slug matches of fierce intensity, known so well by
those in the historical recreationist world.

 Eventually the Doctor recovers from his beating to find himself
chained to a post.  The Doctor sighs, at least this one didn't end
in a stabbing, not like that one about which size backpack the
Confederacy used during the first year of the American Civil War.
Looking around the Doctor finds that he is chained to a post in
a small library.  Looking around he notices several disappointing
titles - "Graham Norton: Laid Bare","The Suicidal Traveller's Guide
to Rwanda",  "The Complete Manimal Programme Guide" and, most
mysterious of all, "The Secret Alcoholic Habits of the Canadian Goose
in Britain".

 His distraction is cut short however when the man with the prawn
sandwich returns with a few elderly gentlemen.  The man with the
prawn sandwich explains that they've been having a debate about
how big the stones needed to actually be when they stoned people.
He personally figures just pebbles would work if you allowed long
enough, but some of the boys think you need to call on some right
huge boulders.  Gleefully he explains that they've decided to
stop arguing about it, and just practically try it out once and
for all -- the stoning begins.  The Doctor uses his garish
multicoloured umbrella in a desperate attempt to make the man
loose his lunch at the mere sight of it, but fails and is soon
overwhelmed.

 In the court room, the Doctor boasts about his clever and
unexpected use of the umbrella to repel and repulse his attackers.
The Valeyard responds to the Doctor's bragging, claiming he has
made the Valeyard's point for him. The Time Lords simply shouldn't
have to be associated with an umbrella that ugly.  The Valeyard
claims that the Doctor's clothes are an embarrassment -- but if he is
going to accessorize along that same line AND associate with
historical recreationists while doing it....well, he can only
suggest one response to that sort of behaviour -- The DEATH
PENALTY!

This of course cues a cliffhanger featuring the Doctor looking
slightly worried.


Part Two

 As last week, the Doctor looks slightly worried.

 The evidence against him continues....

 The historical recreationist argue over whether the stones
should be specially smoothed for the stoning, or if picking up
any old gravel and flinging it about will do.  Their constant
bickering allows just the distraction for the Doctor to limp away.

 Meanwhile Peri and Sil meet up with the tribe of vegan Wiccans.
They call themselves the Tribe of the Free, and to demonstrate this
philosophy, they lock up the pair immediately in one of the jails
conveniently located around the complex.  They share a cell with
Glitz and Dibber, who are still shocked that Sil has no idea who
they actually are. Glitz decides to leave Sil in the dark about
their past together.  Instead Glitz explains his plan to seduce
Kathy, Queen of the vegan Wiccans, and then use her power to dominate
the entire world.  Sil is mildly impressed by the plan, until Glitz
mentions some pitfalls he's encountered so far.  First, he's in
prison on orders from Kathy, and she rather despises him as when
he first arrived he tried to order a veal cutlet from the royal
kitchens. "Vegan!  I thought they were from Vega!  How was I to
know they'd start crying when I asked for ultra tender meat and
extra gravy???"

 Still limping, the Doctor meets up with a robot named Drathro.
Drathro is the heartless killing machine, the L3 Death Droid,
however he spares the Doctor due to a technical glitch that has
developed in his brain -- believing the Doctor to be a roast potato.

 The Doctor interrupts the court proceedings - claiming that so
far all they've seen in a nature walk, an argument between elderly
scholars, and a psychotic robot which has mistaken him for a heated
vegetable, but the Valeyard insists that the chain of events they
are witnessing are vital to the case and were all triggered when
the Doctor tricked his companions into yet another field trip to
Earth, this time in it's far future.

The stock footage continues...

 The Doctor eventually determines that the fault in Drathro's mind
lays in a redundant part of his positronic brain, but Drathro
concludes that he is lying in order to escape his destiny in the
Sunday Roast.

After this revelation the camera zooms on the Doctor's face looking
directly ahead in mild agitation.


Part Three

 Glitz is randomly killing villagers with grenades as he puffs on
a cigar. Sil is mowing down hapless victims in automatic machine
gun fire, and Peri is smoking copious amounts of organically grown
dope.

 In the courtroom the Inquisitor claims to find the scenes of
primitive violence distasteful -- but requests, for total clarity,
that the last sequence be played back in slow motion.

The Doctor protests but his objections are overruled and
the feature presentation continues...

 The Doctor uses complex streams of logical nonsense to convince
Drathro that potatoes, by their very nature, are incapable of
stealthy escape, and therefore need no guards.  After this victory
the Doctor makes a stealthy escape...and somehow, of the whole
planet of Ravolox -- IMMEDIATELY finds his travelling companions.

 In the courtroom the Doctor interrupts to complain about the nature
of the evidence.  There is no way that this evidence could be real,
unless he had a documentary film crew following him the entire time.
The Time Lords explain that they have bugged his TARDIS and that if
he is unhappy with that arrangement, he can complain to the
government immediately after his show trial and immediate execution.

"Fair enough." Replies the Doctor.


 Dibber and Glitz have set off back to their ship to gather up
enough heavy firepower to kill everyone and everything that moves.
The Doctor, still suffering from a headache and brushing gravel
out of his coat, explains his afternoon to Peri and Sil in the
most incomprehensible way imaginable -- so badly in fact that the
two are left with the conclusion that the Doctor believes himself
to be a roast potato which has just escaped from a side of beef.
After mumbling something further on the topic of Yorkshire puddings
the Doctor passes out entirely.

 Meanwhile Drathro concludes that the Doctor has been sent from
the Potato Kingdom to recover the Secrets stolen by the Sleepers.
In a rage he clinches his metal fists and shouts "HE WILL BE MASHED!"

Back in the courtroom there is a fast zoom on the Doctor's face,
his expression is that of a man who is vaguely embarrassed.


Part Four

 The Doctor is still vaguely embarrassed when the Inquisitor
questions the relevance of the testimony -- she knew that the
Doctor was a renegade who travelled to dangerous parts of the
cosmos -- but if all he ever encountered where lowly cookery
robots, a few con artists, and the occasional militant group of
vegans, then this isn't really of deep concern to the time lord race
as a whole.  The Valeyard again turns the situation to his favour
by reminding the Inquisitor what a right bunch of twonks the Doctor
is making the time lords appear.

 The evidence continues...

 Dibber, tired of carting heavy weaponry through the underground
complex, questions the importance of the secrets Glitz is looking
for, but Glitz wearily reminds him that the secrets were stolen from
----
the next words uttered from Glitz's mouth are heavily bleeped out.
The court assumes that what followed was foul language, something
the time lord race is simply to prudish to tolerate, even in cases
of life and death. The Doctor objects; but the High Council's orders
stand, and the excised sequence is not heard.
----the largest information store in the Universe, well okay, maybe
not THE largest, but quite large, probably in the top 10. Dibber!
The information will be worth a fortune to the correct bidder.


 The Doctor meets up with Drathro and begs him to listen to him.
He insists that he is a member of a powerful godlike race known only
as the Time Lords, and definitely NOT a roast potato.  But Drathro
refuses to believe him. The Doctor tries to argue logically, but
Drathro is working from the premise that the Doctor is merely trying
avoid being slavered in gravy and will say anything to save his
"skin".

 As the Doctor tries to think of another tact, Glitz and Dibber
arrive and blow to robotic bastard away.  He smashes into a million
pieces, still convinced that the Doctor is an edible starch.
Glitz and Dibber realize too late that he's fallen on top of the
Secrets, destroying them all. Still, they raid the kitchen for a
free roast dinner and depart in good spirits.

 The Doctor, Sil, and Peri return to the TARDIS.  The Doctor is
deeply troubled by the loose ends in this adventure -- what were
the secrets being sought by Glitz and Dibber, why was Earth moved
so many billions of light years, and dammit what buttons DID they
have during the failed Napoleonic Invasion of Russia!

 Back in the courtroom the Doctor proudly announces his take on
the events they have witnessed.  He wandered around a planet, got
severely beaten on several occasions, met some interesting people,
and then escaped before anyone else noticed he was there --- quite
a good weekend out in his book.

 The Valeyard counters his points and mentions that if the vegan
Wiccans tribe had believed Drathro's analysis, the Doctor would
have probably been eaten!

 The Inquisitor and jury aren't sure where all this is heading, but
the Valeyard insists that once he has finished presenting the next
segment of evidence he feels certain that the Time Lords will have
no hesitation in condemning the accused to death...

The Doctor stares down the camera with a look of determined resolve!


Book(s)/Other Related -
Jumping Bail At A Kangaroo Court

Gallifreyian Justice Guide: Guilty Until Proven Guilty

The Capital Punishment Colouring Book!


Goofs -
The Doctor seems to mistake the Valeyard for the Black Guardian
at first -- even though he is not wearing his trademark dead duck
on his head.


Fashion Victims -
The Valeyard's comments on the Doctor's attire and matching
accessories are not without merit


Links and References -
The Doctor questions the legitimacy of the trial.  Insisting
that if bad fashion was a crime, he felt his 3rd and 4th
incarnations are infinitely more guilty.


Untelevised Misadventures -
Glitz and Dibber apparently worked at some point for Sil and
the Doctor (known to them as The Doctor of Death), but the Doctor
and Sil have no memory of this.  Were their memories removed or
are Glitz and Dibber actually remembering the future history
of the duo, knowing them from a point in time when they both
work for Channel 4 and are noted for their psychotic cruelty?

Groovy DVD Extras -
Alternate episode endings!!!  The camera zooms in on the Doctor's
face to reveal moments of "General Angst", "Terrified Stupidity",
"Deep Pathos", and "A bit of nausea", respectively.


Dialogue Disasters -

---

Doctor: For the love of god -- if you DO meet Drathro
        remember, I'm a roast potato.

---



Dialogue Triumphs -

----

Doctor: Planets come and go. Stars perish. Matter disperses,
        coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds.
        Nothing can be eternal.

Peri: When we were on Androzani, you said your love for me was
      eternal!

Doctor: Yeah, but then, I lied, didn't I?

----


Doctor: In all my travellings throughout the universe, I have
        battled against evil - well, for the vast majority of
        of the time!  I have rebelled against power-mad
        conspirators.....except for when I had dinner with them.
        I mean, wow, Mao was just fabulous you know?
        Anyway, nevermind, the bottom line I'm going for here is
        that I fight evil wherever I find it throughout the universe,
        alright?
        I should have stayed here! The oldest civilisation, decadent,
        degenerate and rotten to the core! Power-mad conspirators,
        Dustbins, Snotarans, Cybermen - they're still in the nursery
        compared to us! Ten million years of absolute power - that's
        what it takes to be really corrupt!

Inquisitor: What's your point Doctor?

Doctor: I'd like 10 million years of absolute power...please.

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


Viewer Quotes -

'This season has the worst cliffhangers in the entire history
of the series.  All of the episodes end in exactly the same way,
on a close up of the Doctor expressing intense emotion of one sort
or another. I guess you could consider that a theme of the 6th
Doctor really.  On average, throughout his tenure as the Doctor,
three out of four episodes ended in this way - but here it is
particularly horrid.  I mean the man must have an amazing store
of acting ability as he manages a slightly different expression
each time.  It got a bit ridiculous really.  I remember having
a running bet with my mates - "I think this week it will be a
"gurn of resentment" I'd start.  And they'd reply - "Oh yeah?
How sure?" and I'd say "I dunno, a fiver?" and then to make it
more interesting they'd take their best guess, you know, Mike would
say "I bet 5 it will be 'slight remorse'" and then Dave would
chip in with "5 pounds on 'leer of lust' for me!"  And then the ball
would really get rolling.'  - Andrew Carfax (1994)


"I used to think it was very difficult to believe that in the Time
Lord legal system - or indeed in any reasonable legal system - the
charge could be changed at a moment's notice seemingly on the whim
of the prosecuting counsel -- then I went to France!"
                                  - Dave Sims (1996)

"I personally thought the time lords were being deeply irresponsible
in this story.  I mean, they take time out of the Doctor's busy
schedule, saving the universe and everything, to force him to watch
Doctor Who for fourteen weeks!"   - Alex Ribold (1988)

'The opening sequence of the first episode was fantastic!  I was
stunned as I saw the TARDIS being drawn by a tractor beam into a
vast space station. But soon, I realised it was entirely gratuitous.
What did that shot have to do with the adventure?  Why was the trial
held in a space station anyway? Nobody seemed to mention the fact
that they were in space.  Nobody was floating around in zero gravity
reciting Gallifreyian law.  Nobody even looked out the window
and said "Oh look! Outer Space!  How interesting!"  So for all the
difference it made the whole thing might as well have been set in
Sainsbury's.'   - Doug Wickam (1999)


"This story is really unique, because it starts out a total mess
and mystery, and you are wondering how it's going to be all
unravelled and explained in the end.  And at the end of the season
there you are, and they've not bothered to sort out anything!
It's just as much a confusing contradiction at the end as it was
at the beginning.  It leaves the audience feeling that the story
was written by 14 different people who were all strictly banned
from seeing what anyone else had done.  Like some mad round robin
experiment gone horribly wrong.  And then you realise...you've
just spent 3 and a half months watching this road accident!"
                       - Sarah Bixley (1987)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"Dammit!  Some people get all the trials, all the fame, all the
glory! I've put in the time.  I've been involved in just as many
senseless deaths!  When do I get my day in court???"


Colin Baker Speaks!
"I'm very excited by the new season.  The trial has a great many
twists, and nothing is the same at all, and it's all interconnected
somehow, and yet..no one scene seems to follow on from any other
in any sort of logical way.  It's like a fantastic scrambled egg,
right there on BBC 1!  I like things you can't understand.  Like
the last episode of The Prisoner.  I loved everything everyone
else hated about it.  That he's not on some mysterious island
but just in this tiny community in Dorset, and there's that crazy
midget, and the whole Beatles music theme running throughout.
I mean, the trial season coming up may not have Beatles music,
or tiny villages in Dorset, or science fiction midgets -- but it
evokes that same sort of confusing glow that the Prisoner did...
oh yeah, and there are no growling balloons either.  But really,
it's eerie how much this season reminds me of arguably the worst
episode of The Prisoner."



Rumors & Facts -

 A fourteen part Doctor Who story is not necessarily doomed to fail.
I truly and deeply believe this -- even though I have absolutely
no evidence to back it up.

 The only weakness of this season stems largely from the production
team's apparent inability to do anything right whatsoever. For
instance when Pip and Jane were asked to write the final installment
they asked how it was suppose to end and how it began.  No one on
the staff could answer this question and they were basically told to
"Wing it".  When Pip and Jane insisted that someone must have seen
the first installment or at least kept a copy of the script, everyone
launched into long monologues - half of the staff claiming they were
on holiday in Spain during the first installment, the other half
claiming to have been watching Coronation Street.

 Pip and Jane were firm with the production staff and insisted that
if they had intended a multi-part story to be written by different
authors, the production staff should have drafted a complete outline
of the story arc for the season.  This way each of the writers would
know what section of the arc was theirs to complete, from beginning
to middle to end.  The production staff briefly claimed to have done
just that.  When Pip and Jane asked to see the outline, they quickly
added the detail that they had simply lost the outline.  When Pip
and Jane begged them to reconstruct the outline, they went back to
discussing the weather in Ibiza and what lovely beach towels they'd
found on their holiday.

  Pip and Jane pushed the point, annoyed that despite having had the
luxury of the longest period ever available to any production team
for the preparation of a season all they had to show for it
were some naughty postcards from Casa Del Sol.  Pip and Jane
insisted to know what they had been doing with all that time when
they should have been planning for the best season in the show's
history.  It turned out that they'd been idly discussing ways
to upset Michael Grade.

 When Pip and Jane derided the production staff for not coming up
with a single original or interesting idea for a year and half,
they defended themselves with the fact that they did think of the
really neat original idea of the Doctor being placed on trial by
the time lords.  When it was pointed out to them that this had
actually been done in the last Patrick Troughton serial, oh yes
and in The Lethal Assassin, and of course it being repeatedly
mentioned throughout the entirety of the 3rd Doctor's era --
the crew finally admitted that they had never actually seen Doctor
Who, as such.

 The crew also let down the episodes by simply not paying attention
during the filming.  At one point Colin Baker takes a drag off a
cigarette and complains to Michael Jayston about how terribly boring
and appallingly written the current story on Ravolox is.  The crew
apparently thought this was meant to be an exchange between the
Doctor and the Valeyard, and so, incredibly jarringly, the scene
makes it into the final cut of episode three!

 Still, for all it's weaknesses, at least the Season 23 we got
wasn't the original Season 23!  For a time, JST, script editor Eric
Saward, and his ex-girlfriend/Dutch prostitute Anna, considered
salvaging at least some of the stories already being prepared for
the new year, albeit with significant alterations.  The threesome
were working on versions of "Yellow Fever And How To Die From It",
"The Penultimate Evil" and "David Bowie Versus the Space Whale"
right up to the bitter end.  Finally, however, Satan-Turner and
Saward elected to abandon their entire slate of adventures after
David Bowie finally issued the long threatened restraining order.

 Picking up the pieces, JST and Eric decided to create an adventure
that would mirror their feelings of Michael Grade, and also deeply
piss him off to boot.

 JST had the idea that Season 23 should mirror the Charles Dickens'
novel A Christmas Carol.  Through meeting various ghosts throughout
season 23, the Doctor would learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Eric Saward immediately attempted to separate JST from this idea,
but JST insisted some half-hearted thematic link to A Christmas Carol
be maintained.  Eric Saward devised a vague story concept in which
the Doctor would face trial and in this trial adventures from the
Doctor's past, present and future would be used as evidence.

 JST and Eric Saward wanted a veteran Who writer to tackle a story
of this epic scale.  With this in mind they approached Holmes,
explained their vague story arc concept and how it related to
A Christmas Carol, and simply asked Holmes to come up with an
appropriate script meeting with the quality of their original
concept.  This is why, some weeks later, Holmes submitted a script
entitled "Wasteland".

 JST and Saward, the criticism going completely over their heads,
commissioned Wasteland immediately.  This news was said to mildly
depress Holmes ("mild depression" being one of the strongest
emotional cliffhangers of the entire season).

 Holmes completed a final draft of Wasteland and immediately set
out writing the final segment, "The Intellectual Desert".
Some months later Holmes got further feedback on his scripts, and
it was not complimentary.  The editing staff took issue with several
aspects of Wasteland.  Most notably they thought the similarity
to Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol was an appalling bad
idea and questioned how Holmes had ever come to rely on such a shoddy
framework for his adventure.

 Saward, for his part, was livid, believing that the editing staff
were totally misjudging the cleverness of "paying homage", secretly,
to Charles Dickens.  He in fact was too embarrassed to admit it was
actually the result of a collaboration between himself and JST.

 But even so Eric Saward's relationship with Satan-Turner was
deteriorating. Saward felt JST was expending too much time
wooing Doctor Who's American fan base.  JST apparently had asked
Colin Baker if the Doctor might sometimes talk in a Bronx accent
and prefer jelly beans to jelly babies.  He also suggested the
Doctor use the phrase "Who loves ya baby?" whenever possible.

 JST also wanted a strong hook to kick off the new season, and so
agreed to spend more than 800,000 on a twenty-five second model
sequence, utilising what was then 99% of the budget for the entire
serials department, and leaving the remaining 14 episodes of Doctor
Who with a budget of approximately one Malteser.

 Also to set the mood musically, JST asked a young freelance
musician named Dominic Glynn to rearrange the opening title music --
although Glynn was given only five minutes and a Casio keyboard
from Radio Shack to complete the task.

 If the creative elements of the series were in shambles, at least
the props department was on the ball.  Or so one would think.
Unfortunately, problems were encountered on what should have been
the final recording day, when it was discovered the giant screen, on
which the  Valeyard's evidence was to be presented, was first
delivered to the wrong studio and then found to be too large and
then found to be an American television, and not a standard English
one and then found to have no plug for the wall socket and then,
somehow, burst into flames anyway.

 Meanwhile the director became convinced that all the episodes were
too short as scripted.  So he made up totally improvised scenes on
the spot that seemed to make some sort of sense at the time.
Despite his fears, episode four actually overran its allotted time,
as did episode one. To compensate, several segments were removed or
trimmed, but these were basically all the scripted ones which allowed
the viewer to make any sense of the story at all.

 I've read multiple versions of the different scripts and seen
various different unofficial edits...and I'm still not sure where
all that roast potato nonsense originally came from.