UNIT Stardust - Character Commentary
The other week, when I was feeling a bit too down to write anything at all sensible, I distracted myself with this. And since people liked the other character commentaries, I thought I may as well post it. Although I am embarrassed and it shouldn't happen again. It's just Six, you see, you know what's like...
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Character Commentary for UNIT:Stardust.
*
Me: This fic was an effort to finish off Nat and Tilly’s story and also let 80s Doctor Who have a play with 70s UNIT clichés. I had it planned and most scenes written out in rough, but it still proved hard to keep together.
Six: That’s because you’re not a genius, unlike certain people I’m too modest to mention, but there, that can’t be helped.
Evelyn: Oh, really. Don’t worry. I quite enjoyed most of it.
The Master: Heheheheheheheh.
Six: Do we have to have him here if he’s not going to say anything sensible? In fact, do we have to have him here anyway?
The Master: Well, I’m the only person who can say anything about certain… aspects of the story.
Six: Hmph. Nonsense. I can talk about anything.
Kennedy: Shouldn’t we make a start?
Evelyn: Yes, we should, Sergeant.
Six: Evelyn, don’t start knitting. Honestly.
Evelyn: Well, I started a complicated jumper in ‘A Row or Two’ and I’ve hardly had chance to finish it since. Especially as your so-called ‘holiday’ was nothing of the sort.
Six: They record these things, you know, and there you’ll be clicking away, annoying everyone.
Evelyn: I suppose I could do a crossword instead.
Crichton: Well, it would be a good idea to get a move on, but where are Dr Webber and Miss Holmes?
[Rustling and general noise]
Nat: Sorry, we’re late, but we found this under the sink in the lab. I told Tilly now wasn’t the moment for cleaning, but she insisted and turns out this was there. Anyone know what it is, because it looks like some sort of egg to me?
Kennedy: You brought that with you? Somebody’s better kill the thing before it - [crunching noise] Too late. Get back!
Crichton: It’s one of those Grotchen things. I might have known Arnolds would have kept one somewhere! Drat - somebody shoot it.
Tilly: Well, we didn’t know. And it’s as well I found it -.
[shrill sounds as the Grotchen tries to eat the nearest microphone. Then sudden silence and a definite snap as the Master wrings the creature’s neck]
Six: You didn’t have to do that!
The Master: I make myself useful and you’re still not happy. What does it take? Can we at least get this ridiculous charade over with?
Stranger: Hello.
[silence]
Crichton: I’m sorry - do we know you?
Stranger: I don’t think so. I’m John Grant.
Six: Oh, for goodness’ sake -. I don’t know why I agreed to do this. I have planets to save and -
Evelyn: You agreed, because Mel was only going to beat you at Scrabble again.
Six: She does not beat me! I always win.
The Master: Heheheheheheheh.
Six: I shall whack you over the head with the chair if you keep doing that.
The Master: Well, this gentleman is the estate agent who showed me over the Grange.
Six: Are we going to have every bit player coming along? This is going to take forever!
Me: Look, I didn’t invite him. I didn’t even know what his name was till now.
John Grant: I thought you might like to know that I turned up for work that morning, just your average morning, so I thought. Next thing I’ve been hypnotised by him, then I behave oddly for the next few weeks and then wind up being frozen to death by an alien. And you didn’t even bother to mention it.
The Master: You were a disposable unnamed character. It’s inevitable that you got killed by the villain. What else could I do?
Me: Right, that covered the Prologue, I think.
The Master: You don’t want to hear about my plan?
Six: Of course we don’t. Aha - Part one! Things start to get interesting.
The Master: You always were modest, Doctor.
Crichton: Can we pause this session? I have a suggestion.
***
Me: Right, Part One. The Master will now be joining us on the few occasions when he’s actually in the story.
Six: I assume someone’s keeping an eye on him?
Me: Four volunteered to have a little chat. I’m sure they won’t be bored. Can we do Part One?
Part One: In Praise of Dust
Me: The quotes are from G K Chesterton, because -
Six: Ah, Gilbert. I knew him well. I remember one night in the pub when he was trying to work out the ending to one of his Father Brown stories and I said -.
Evelyn: If we’re going to pause for name-dropping, this is going to be a very long commentary.
Six: I thought it was interesting. Fascinating behind-the-scenes information and anecdotes, somebody said.
Me: I have no idea what I was going to say. Yes, I took quotes that were all about starlight and the coldness of space versus some of the quotes about the splendour of dust, dandelions and other small things of Earth, because that was the underlying theme of Nat’s story.
Nat: I had a theme?
Me: Yes, well, it battled with the UNIT clichés rather a lot.
Tilly: So all these things that happened - they’re all your fault?
Me: Sort of. Can you count me as your humble chronicler and not worry about it too much?
Tilly: I’m not sure.
Six: I would like to point out that I am capable of going on holiday.
Evelyn (amused): Of course, you are, Doctor!
Me: I’m not quite sure what was supposed to happen to the Space-Time Telegraph, so I didn’t look too hard in case the Brigadier waltzed off with it.
Six: I object.
Me: You do? Why?
Six: I resent the implication that Alistair would go around stealing things.
Me: Anyway, the meeting was fun to write and we start the plot here, with the Colonel and the Captain talking about the mysterious cold patches and disappearances and so on.
Six: You know, observing this now, I’m not sure you’re not humouring me here, Evelyn.
Evelyn: Whatever gave you that idea, Doctor?
Tilly: This seems silly to me. I’d rather finish cleaning the lab than sit here watching a lot of horrible things happen to us.
Nat: I keep telling you, there are other people employed to clean the lab. And they don’t use lemons to do it, either.
Tilly: I know, but who found the alien egg that must have been there all the time? Can you excuse me, please? If that’s all right with you, sir?
Crichton: If you’d really rather not, I won’t stop you, Miss Holmes.
Nat: One thing, though. If you do find another alien anything, okay, fetch one of us - or the Captain.
Tilly: I keep telling you I’m not stupid.
Me: I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea, either. Okay - Tilly and the Doctor and time travel… and she’s gone. Great.
Six: But you have Me! I was, of course, rather intrigued by this conversation, as you can imagine. Personally, I would have had me realise the truth instantly, but cunningly hide the fact for my own purposes, but far be it from me to criticise the work of an author-.
Me: Anyway, I did go off and read time travel theories - and give them Tilly’s take on them.
Nat: And where you start being friendly and asking me questions here, Evelyn, you were just trying to find out things? I think I’m totally disillusioned now.
Evelyn: Oh, only half-heartedly. I was doing what I thought the Doctor wanted. Don’t take it personally.
Me: I liked the Doctor meeting Crichton and him not turning a hair.
Crichton: Well, I had read the files. After that, I’d have to be dense to expect anything but the unexpected when it came to the Doctor.
Six: Oho, but the Sergeant doesn’t appear quite as impressed.
Kennedy: Well, you weren’t quite like you were in the files, sir. No offence.
Six: No. I hope you now realise that I am infinitely superior to my younger selves.
Kennedy: Er. Of course, sir.
Six: Perhaps I’m getting a complex, but it suddenly seems as if everyone’s humouring me…
Part Two: The Inhuman Steeps of Space
Me: This was fun. I really enjoyed writing the aliens and running about the woods in this one.
Evelyn: Really, your idea of fun.
Nat: Tilly, Forster and I got chased halfway through the woods by a lethal alien - and then it nearly killed Kennedy and that’s what you have to say about it?
Me: Erm, yes. I was trying for a set of really alien aliens, who couldn’t co-exist with humans easily just by their very nature.
Six: Well, congratulations.
Me: And I thought it was about time the Sergeant got into trouble rather than Nat.
Kennedy: You think this goes in ‘turns’?
Me: Can we do the next part please?
The Master: I haven’t commented on my lurking in the woods yet!
Six: Who let him back in here?
Kennedy: And I still don’t see why I couldn’t have just got up. There were definitely things crawling down my back.
Six: Probably your imagination, Sergeant.
Part Three: Strange New Skies
Six: Aha, the next morning and we all start working out what happened.
Nat: Yes, that was a good day, wasn’t it?
Six: Has no one ever told you sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?
Evelyn: Oh, yes, the Doctor’s shameless namedropping. I told him the Halley business was a step too far, but, of course, he had to go and make it worse by adding in the Battle of Hastings. He never listens.
Six: I was there! And Edmond Halley was a personal friend of mine.
Evelyn: You don’t always have to tell everyone that. However, if you do want to take me back to the Seventeenth Century some day to prove it, I would be delighted.
Me: I did some bits of research into astronomy and that gave me the anomaly about the asteroid, but I’m afraid I got the Halley stuff off Wikipedia.
Six: You… you…you…
Evelyn: Dear me, Doctor, you same to have developed a stammer.
Six: If I am going to agree to appear in a story, I expect proper, detailed historical research. Typical early Twenty-First Century attitudes - oh, I found it on the Internet, so it must be true!
Me: And in this scene where Tilly dropped all the sheets of paper, I -.
Nat: I’d rather you didn’t sit there saying things about me and Tilly, if that’s okay.
Me: Well, that’ll make the commentary shorter.
Six: Of course, in between these scenes that you’ve chosen to select here, I got far more information from Miss Holmes, not to mention entertaining her considerably with some well-chosen anecdotes about my visits to her century.
Evelyn: I hope you’re making that up. Doctor, I know you better. You’re not really that insensitive.
Six: Oh, very well. Although I may possibly have recounted an amusing meeting I had with Queen Victoria, but it was all quite in keeping.
The Master: And, finally, I appear.
Nat: Actually, can I leave?
Kennedy: How about we shoot him instead?
Crichton: Not until after we finish this commentary, Sergeant.
Nat: All right, so I’m an idiot and he’s a psycho. Can we move on?
Me: Oh, and I had a running joke that everyone asks the Sergeant what he was doing back at the HQ.
Six: Really? Never mind, I’m sure it was hilarious.
The Master: Of course, I prepared for this. I am nothing if not thorough. I had been present on earth for several weeks and I knew that I would have to pay UNIT a visit, so I introduced myself to Mr Argyle, in order to gain a few pertinent facts. However, the whole thing was impossibly simple-.
Me: I was trying to show how evil you are, by using established supporting characters.
The Master: Does that really need demonstrating?
Six: Obviously not. Certainly not like that.
Nat: Excuse me, I think I left something in the lab.
Part Four: He Comes to Sell the Stars
Me: Isn’t the quote perfect for the Master? “He is the most masterful of things / A scorner of the stars”?
Six: Well, I may have mentioned to Gilbert in passing -. Evelyn! There is no need to throw crossword books at me.
Me: Okay, then I had to get everyone out of the unpleasant mess I’d left them in with Nat hypnotised and a gun pointed at Tilly. And Tilly had to do it herself or the Master really might have managed to drive a wedge between the two of them. What happened seemed logical enough and goes back to when Tilly suggests Nat use a gun in Strange Weapons and he tells her he wouldn’t know how.
Six: Of course, my entrance was quite difficult timing-wise. I recall we had to do it quite a few times until we got it down pat, by which time Evelyn was laughing - very inappropriately, may I point out?
Nat: (returning): Oh, good, we’re got past that.
Evelyn: Just in time for the Doctor to insult you.
Me: Then in the next few sections, I had to fit in all the explanations at once. That was bad planning and I tried to get round it with some rather gimmicky things - the Master’s phone call, the trip in the TARDIS that threw out the timings and made it look like no one got anything to eat all day except chocolate cake -.
Crichton: I’m sure no one’s imagining we didn’t have food at some point.
The Master: I am a little put out, I must say, that anyone would believe I’d do something so ridiculous.
Six: Hah! If I recall rightly, you seemed to think that you could make several further calls. You were making suggestions about extension lines.
The Master: Curses.
Evelyn: I knew it! And I should add that, no matter what anyone says, I have never attacked anyone with a knitting needle yet.
Part Five: Every Flower Sprang at the Stars
Nat: Which brings us back to the TARDIS trip. I think it’s about time the author explained my back-story, instead of making me look like an idiot for panicking about a trip in the Doctor’s ship and then being completely unreasonable at the end.
Me: I have now. I put it in a missing scene. But yes, it was always there, before I even worked out your name.
Nat: You mean when you were too busy trying to call me Jeremy. Or Graham, or Brian. What was I supposed to do?
Me: I was never going to call you Brian.
Six: Jeremy? Oh, dear.
Me: That’s no reason to go round refusing to be called Peter, which is, by the way, a much more sensible name than Nat. Nat sounds like an 18th century cabin boy or runaway apprentice.
Evelyn: It does, rather.
Nat: It’s what Mum always called me. Her parents are Welsh and nearly all my great aunts and uncles on that side were the same - used their middle name. I suppose it was that - my middle name is Nathaniel, which is nearly as bad as Jeremy, so it could be worse. I don’t know. Shall I ring her up and ask?
Me; No, please don’t. I’ve managed to keep her out of these stories so far. Don’t drag her into the commentary.
Six: You know, I think I’m beginning to lose the thread. The Master somehow knew about this?
Evelyn: Somebody called Brian?
Me: There are no people called Brian in any of these stories, okay?
The Master: Must I mention yet again that Mr Argyle was most informative - especially on the subject of why Dr Webber was an unsuitable choice for scientific adviser.
Nat: He’s an idiot.
Evelyn: Oh, yes, at this point I cooked an excellent chocolate cake. It was one of my best, if I say so myself. And, by the way, Sergeant, I didn’t find the oven temperamental at all.
Me: Anyway, to get back to the story in hand, I did at least manage to use the TARDIS flight to get in a bit about Nat comparing the deadness of space to the life on earth.
Nat: Oh, well done. That’s all right, then.
Part Six: This Night of Carnival
Me: This was the other bit I had written from the start and the running about HQ with the misdirection as to what was going on, ending in the disappearance of Tilly -.
Nat: Don’t tell me, that was fun to write as well?
Me: Yes, it was. Only I wrote all the UNIT sections first and then had to intersperse the action at the Grange, which again meant some odd things happening to get the timings right - like the Master’s video tape. And I finally got to give the Captain something to do.
Six: Be thankful it was only a videotape. He was considering leaving his message by making an astoundingly bad pop record with accompanying surreal video. In the spirit of the times, he said.
Evelyn: I think he was pulling your leg.
Six: Pulling my leg??!!
The Master: Heheheheheheheh…
Six: Now, look what you’ve done, Evelyn. And I should like to make it clear that I did not heartlessly use Dr Webber and Miss Holmes and the Sergeant as a distraction in this section, whatever some people may have been speculating. Some of my other selves may resort to such strategies, but not Me.
Me: I hope the Master’s plot came across all right, because he does have one -.
Six: How unusual!
The Master: Rather an impressive scheme, I felt. I tricked the aliens into allowing me access to their technology in return for a trip back to Earth before the destruction of their planet and once I had disposed of them, I was to be left with a weapon capable of destroying the whole Earth or merely a city at a time, as I chose. I should have started with London, but so many tempting options - how does one narrow it down?
Me: I didn’t say so but in my mind I set this straight after Doctor Who and the Pirates, so Evelyn’s concern that someone else is going to get hurt relates to that. I didn’t want to make a point of it, because I haven’t got a lot of the audios and might mess up continuity by accident.
Six: Ah, yes, now that was a proper adventure! With Gilbert and Sullivan. Does anyone want to hear my rendition of Gallifreyan Buccaneer again? “I am the very model of a -.”
Evelyn: No!
Me: And, we’re back to the UNIT clichés, with a countdown -.
Evelyn: And I made that silly mistake with the weapon. I am sorry about that, Doctor.
Six: Nonsense. You were magnificent.
Nat: Oh, and this is the part where Kennedy and I get to get on and do our job for about the only time in the story.
Kennedy: Yes. Shame about Day, though.
The Master: Heheheheheh.
Nat: Did you really come back there just to set up that trap?
The Master: Yes, and but for the meddling on your part, the Doctor and Dr Smythe at the least would have been killed once they returned.
Part Seven: And the Hope in the Heart remains
Nat: And so we come to the part where the author thinks it’s okay to make everyone think Tilly is dead.
The Master: Not dead, merely missing without trace.
Nat: Yes. Very amusing private joke, wasn’t it?
The Master: So you can hardly blame me for suggesting it remain merely another one of life’s little mysteries.
Crichton: You know, Argyle is nothing but a nuisance. I stepped in at that point, as I was aware of the situation.
Nat: And I meant every word I said about UNIT and their obsession with slime and aliens and tea.
Evelyn: While to begin with, I only thought it might be kinder to let Nat see the situation for himself, looking back, I’m sure that, as I said later, you were right. You might not have been reasoning it through but you knew Tilly and you had an idea about the Master and you saw something didn’t add up.
Nat: I really don’t think so. And, given the state that place was in by the time we found her and where she was, she’s lucky she didn’t suffocate, let alone what might have happened if he’d found her -.
Evelyn: Yes, yes, we know.
Crichton: I’m still not amused by the fact that you didn’t ask permission first.
Nat: Sorry about that, sir.
Me: And then we come to the ending. Originally, Evelyn had recalled something about Tilly’s future. I thought it worked better with the crossed conversations, but maybe it made Evelyn seem a bit sentimental for being so wholly on Nat’s side in the matter.
Six: Well, she can be.
Evelyn: I’m not! I - well - not sentimental, Doctor.
Nat: And that you didn’t go into the details of our conversation there is one relief, at least.
Six: I would like to point out at this juncture that I was merely trying to do what I thought was right. I suspect I may have been mistaken this once but there was no need for all this verbal abuse -. Evelyn, what now?
Evelyn: Well, talk about the pot calling the kettle black, Doctor. Anyway, shortly before this, we lost the little scene between me and Miss Lonsdale where I had the chance to put her right on the subject of Tilly, but I like to think it still happened.
Me: Sorry. It overbalanced the chapter.
Six: Care to enlighten the rest of us?
Evelyn: It turns out her she couldn’t believe this story about her being from the past and maintained that while she had deceived all the men, she wasn’t fooling her. I told her you had sensed the temporal anomaly at once and you knew about these things.
Six: Well, that was fun. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to take Evelyn on holiday before I hear anything more about my failure to do so. And next time, can we not have the villain of the piece?
The Master: But, wait, the Epilogue! You must surely want to hear how I cunningly managed to make my escape?
Six: Not really. I’ve put up with quite enough of this badly written nonsense for one day. Come along, Evelyn.
The Master: But the rest of you -.
Crichton: Personally, I’d be happy if I never heard a word from you again. I think that’s that.
Me: Yes. It’s not as if I worked out how the Master was going to get out of it anyway.
Six: I usually find, “You! So you escaped from X!” covers it…
The Master: Heheheheheheheheheheh.
Six: Colonel, did someone say something about shooting him?
Colonel: Just say the word…
***
And I must stop this. I really need to get on top of my family history instead. (Did you know I have a direct ancestor called John Benton, who was a soldier? But not a Sergeant. :lol:)
***
Character Commentary for UNIT:Stardust.
*
Me: This fic was an effort to finish off Nat and Tilly’s story and also let 80s Doctor Who have a play with 70s UNIT clichés. I had it planned and most scenes written out in rough, but it still proved hard to keep together.
Six: That’s because you’re not a genius, unlike certain people I’m too modest to mention, but there, that can’t be helped.
Evelyn: Oh, really. Don’t worry. I quite enjoyed most of it.
The Master: Heheheheheheheh.
Six: Do we have to have him here if he’s not going to say anything sensible? In fact, do we have to have him here anyway?
The Master: Well, I’m the only person who can say anything about certain… aspects of the story.
Six: Hmph. Nonsense. I can talk about anything.
Kennedy: Shouldn’t we make a start?
Evelyn: Yes, we should, Sergeant.
Six: Evelyn, don’t start knitting. Honestly.
Evelyn: Well, I started a complicated jumper in ‘A Row or Two’ and I’ve hardly had chance to finish it since. Especially as your so-called ‘holiday’ was nothing of the sort.
Six: They record these things, you know, and there you’ll be clicking away, annoying everyone.
Evelyn: I suppose I could do a crossword instead.
Crichton: Well, it would be a good idea to get a move on, but where are Dr Webber and Miss Holmes?
[Rustling and general noise]
Nat: Sorry, we’re late, but we found this under the sink in the lab. I told Tilly now wasn’t the moment for cleaning, but she insisted and turns out this was there. Anyone know what it is, because it looks like some sort of egg to me?
Kennedy: You brought that with you? Somebody’s better kill the thing before it - [crunching noise] Too late. Get back!
Crichton: It’s one of those Grotchen things. I might have known Arnolds would have kept one somewhere! Drat - somebody shoot it.
Tilly: Well, we didn’t know. And it’s as well I found it -.
[shrill sounds as the Grotchen tries to eat the nearest microphone. Then sudden silence and a definite snap as the Master wrings the creature’s neck]
Six: You didn’t have to do that!
The Master: I make myself useful and you’re still not happy. What does it take? Can we at least get this ridiculous charade over with?
Stranger: Hello.
[silence]
Crichton: I’m sorry - do we know you?
Stranger: I don’t think so. I’m John Grant.
Six: Oh, for goodness’ sake -. I don’t know why I agreed to do this. I have planets to save and -
Evelyn: You agreed, because Mel was only going to beat you at Scrabble again.
Six: She does not beat me! I always win.
The Master: Heheheheheheheh.
Six: I shall whack you over the head with the chair if you keep doing that.
The Master: Well, this gentleman is the estate agent who showed me over the Grange.
Six: Are we going to have every bit player coming along? This is going to take forever!
Me: Look, I didn’t invite him. I didn’t even know what his name was till now.
John Grant: I thought you might like to know that I turned up for work that morning, just your average morning, so I thought. Next thing I’ve been hypnotised by him, then I behave oddly for the next few weeks and then wind up being frozen to death by an alien. And you didn’t even bother to mention it.
The Master: You were a disposable unnamed character. It’s inevitable that you got killed by the villain. What else could I do?
Me: Right, that covered the Prologue, I think.
The Master: You don’t want to hear about my plan?
Six: Of course we don’t. Aha - Part one! Things start to get interesting.
The Master: You always were modest, Doctor.
Crichton: Can we pause this session? I have a suggestion.
***
Me: Right, Part One. The Master will now be joining us on the few occasions when he’s actually in the story.
Six: I assume someone’s keeping an eye on him?
Me: Four volunteered to have a little chat. I’m sure they won’t be bored. Can we do Part One?
Part One: In Praise of Dust
Me: The quotes are from G K Chesterton, because -
Six: Ah, Gilbert. I knew him well. I remember one night in the pub when he was trying to work out the ending to one of his Father Brown stories and I said -.
Evelyn: If we’re going to pause for name-dropping, this is going to be a very long commentary.
Six: I thought it was interesting. Fascinating behind-the-scenes information and anecdotes, somebody said.
Me: I have no idea what I was going to say. Yes, I took quotes that were all about starlight and the coldness of space versus some of the quotes about the splendour of dust, dandelions and other small things of Earth, because that was the underlying theme of Nat’s story.
Nat: I had a theme?
Me: Yes, well, it battled with the UNIT clichés rather a lot.
Tilly: So all these things that happened - they’re all your fault?
Me: Sort of. Can you count me as your humble chronicler and not worry about it too much?
Tilly: I’m not sure.
Six: I would like to point out that I am capable of going on holiday.
Evelyn (amused): Of course, you are, Doctor!
Me: I’m not quite sure what was supposed to happen to the Space-Time Telegraph, so I didn’t look too hard in case the Brigadier waltzed off with it.
Six: I object.
Me: You do? Why?
Six: I resent the implication that Alistair would go around stealing things.
Me: Anyway, the meeting was fun to write and we start the plot here, with the Colonel and the Captain talking about the mysterious cold patches and disappearances and so on.
Six: You know, observing this now, I’m not sure you’re not humouring me here, Evelyn.
Evelyn: Whatever gave you that idea, Doctor?
Tilly: This seems silly to me. I’d rather finish cleaning the lab than sit here watching a lot of horrible things happen to us.
Nat: I keep telling you, there are other people employed to clean the lab. And they don’t use lemons to do it, either.
Tilly: I know, but who found the alien egg that must have been there all the time? Can you excuse me, please? If that’s all right with you, sir?
Crichton: If you’d really rather not, I won’t stop you, Miss Holmes.
Nat: One thing, though. If you do find another alien anything, okay, fetch one of us - or the Captain.
Tilly: I keep telling you I’m not stupid.
Me: I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea, either. Okay - Tilly and the Doctor and time travel… and she’s gone. Great.
Six: But you have Me! I was, of course, rather intrigued by this conversation, as you can imagine. Personally, I would have had me realise the truth instantly, but cunningly hide the fact for my own purposes, but far be it from me to criticise the work of an author-.
Me: Anyway, I did go off and read time travel theories - and give them Tilly’s take on them.
Nat: And where you start being friendly and asking me questions here, Evelyn, you were just trying to find out things? I think I’m totally disillusioned now.
Evelyn: Oh, only half-heartedly. I was doing what I thought the Doctor wanted. Don’t take it personally.
Me: I liked the Doctor meeting Crichton and him not turning a hair.
Crichton: Well, I had read the files. After that, I’d have to be dense to expect anything but the unexpected when it came to the Doctor.
Six: Oho, but the Sergeant doesn’t appear quite as impressed.
Kennedy: Well, you weren’t quite like you were in the files, sir. No offence.
Six: No. I hope you now realise that I am infinitely superior to my younger selves.
Kennedy: Er. Of course, sir.
Six: Perhaps I’m getting a complex, but it suddenly seems as if everyone’s humouring me…
Part Two: The Inhuman Steeps of Space
Me: This was fun. I really enjoyed writing the aliens and running about the woods in this one.
Evelyn: Really, your idea of fun.
Nat: Tilly, Forster and I got chased halfway through the woods by a lethal alien - and then it nearly killed Kennedy and that’s what you have to say about it?
Me: Erm, yes. I was trying for a set of really alien aliens, who couldn’t co-exist with humans easily just by their very nature.
Six: Well, congratulations.
Me: And I thought it was about time the Sergeant got into trouble rather than Nat.
Kennedy: You think this goes in ‘turns’?
Me: Can we do the next part please?
The Master: I haven’t commented on my lurking in the woods yet!
Six: Who let him back in here?
Kennedy: And I still don’t see why I couldn’t have just got up. There were definitely things crawling down my back.
Six: Probably your imagination, Sergeant.
Part Three: Strange New Skies
Six: Aha, the next morning and we all start working out what happened.
Nat: Yes, that was a good day, wasn’t it?
Six: Has no one ever told you sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?
Evelyn: Oh, yes, the Doctor’s shameless namedropping. I told him the Halley business was a step too far, but, of course, he had to go and make it worse by adding in the Battle of Hastings. He never listens.
Six: I was there! And Edmond Halley was a personal friend of mine.
Evelyn: You don’t always have to tell everyone that. However, if you do want to take me back to the Seventeenth Century some day to prove it, I would be delighted.
Me: I did some bits of research into astronomy and that gave me the anomaly about the asteroid, but I’m afraid I got the Halley stuff off Wikipedia.
Six: You… you…you…
Evelyn: Dear me, Doctor, you same to have developed a stammer.
Six: If I am going to agree to appear in a story, I expect proper, detailed historical research. Typical early Twenty-First Century attitudes - oh, I found it on the Internet, so it must be true!
Me: And in this scene where Tilly dropped all the sheets of paper, I -.
Nat: I’d rather you didn’t sit there saying things about me and Tilly, if that’s okay.
Me: Well, that’ll make the commentary shorter.
Six: Of course, in between these scenes that you’ve chosen to select here, I got far more information from Miss Holmes, not to mention entertaining her considerably with some well-chosen anecdotes about my visits to her century.
Evelyn: I hope you’re making that up. Doctor, I know you better. You’re not really that insensitive.
Six: Oh, very well. Although I may possibly have recounted an amusing meeting I had with Queen Victoria, but it was all quite in keeping.
The Master: And, finally, I appear.
Nat: Actually, can I leave?
Kennedy: How about we shoot him instead?
Crichton: Not until after we finish this commentary, Sergeant.
Nat: All right, so I’m an idiot and he’s a psycho. Can we move on?
Me: Oh, and I had a running joke that everyone asks the Sergeant what he was doing back at the HQ.
Six: Really? Never mind, I’m sure it was hilarious.
The Master: Of course, I prepared for this. I am nothing if not thorough. I had been present on earth for several weeks and I knew that I would have to pay UNIT a visit, so I introduced myself to Mr Argyle, in order to gain a few pertinent facts. However, the whole thing was impossibly simple-.
Me: I was trying to show how evil you are, by using established supporting characters.
The Master: Does that really need demonstrating?
Six: Obviously not. Certainly not like that.
Nat: Excuse me, I think I left something in the lab.
Part Four: He Comes to Sell the Stars
Me: Isn’t the quote perfect for the Master? “He is the most masterful of things / A scorner of the stars”?
Six: Well, I may have mentioned to Gilbert in passing -. Evelyn! There is no need to throw crossword books at me.
Me: Okay, then I had to get everyone out of the unpleasant mess I’d left them in with Nat hypnotised and a gun pointed at Tilly. And Tilly had to do it herself or the Master really might have managed to drive a wedge between the two of them. What happened seemed logical enough and goes back to when Tilly suggests Nat use a gun in Strange Weapons and he tells her he wouldn’t know how.
Six: Of course, my entrance was quite difficult timing-wise. I recall we had to do it quite a few times until we got it down pat, by which time Evelyn was laughing - very inappropriately, may I point out?
Nat: (returning): Oh, good, we’re got past that.
Evelyn: Just in time for the Doctor to insult you.
Me: Then in the next few sections, I had to fit in all the explanations at once. That was bad planning and I tried to get round it with some rather gimmicky things - the Master’s phone call, the trip in the TARDIS that threw out the timings and made it look like no one got anything to eat all day except chocolate cake -.
Crichton: I’m sure no one’s imagining we didn’t have food at some point.
The Master: I am a little put out, I must say, that anyone would believe I’d do something so ridiculous.
Six: Hah! If I recall rightly, you seemed to think that you could make several further calls. You were making suggestions about extension lines.
The Master: Curses.
Evelyn: I knew it! And I should add that, no matter what anyone says, I have never attacked anyone with a knitting needle yet.
Part Five: Every Flower Sprang at the Stars
Nat: Which brings us back to the TARDIS trip. I think it’s about time the author explained my back-story, instead of making me look like an idiot for panicking about a trip in the Doctor’s ship and then being completely unreasonable at the end.
Me: I have now. I put it in a missing scene. But yes, it was always there, before I even worked out your name.
Nat: You mean when you were too busy trying to call me Jeremy. Or Graham, or Brian. What was I supposed to do?
Me: I was never going to call you Brian.
Six: Jeremy? Oh, dear.
Me: That’s no reason to go round refusing to be called Peter, which is, by the way, a much more sensible name than Nat. Nat sounds like an 18th century cabin boy or runaway apprentice.
Evelyn: It does, rather.
Nat: It’s what Mum always called me. Her parents are Welsh and nearly all my great aunts and uncles on that side were the same - used their middle name. I suppose it was that - my middle name is Nathaniel, which is nearly as bad as Jeremy, so it could be worse. I don’t know. Shall I ring her up and ask?
Me; No, please don’t. I’ve managed to keep her out of these stories so far. Don’t drag her into the commentary.
Six: You know, I think I’m beginning to lose the thread. The Master somehow knew about this?
Evelyn: Somebody called Brian?
Me: There are no people called Brian in any of these stories, okay?
The Master: Must I mention yet again that Mr Argyle was most informative - especially on the subject of why Dr Webber was an unsuitable choice for scientific adviser.
Nat: He’s an idiot.
Evelyn: Oh, yes, at this point I cooked an excellent chocolate cake. It was one of my best, if I say so myself. And, by the way, Sergeant, I didn’t find the oven temperamental at all.
Me: Anyway, to get back to the story in hand, I did at least manage to use the TARDIS flight to get in a bit about Nat comparing the deadness of space to the life on earth.
Nat: Oh, well done. That’s all right, then.
Part Six: This Night of Carnival
Me: This was the other bit I had written from the start and the running about HQ with the misdirection as to what was going on, ending in the disappearance of Tilly -.
Nat: Don’t tell me, that was fun to write as well?
Me: Yes, it was. Only I wrote all the UNIT sections first and then had to intersperse the action at the Grange, which again meant some odd things happening to get the timings right - like the Master’s video tape. And I finally got to give the Captain something to do.
Six: Be thankful it was only a videotape. He was considering leaving his message by making an astoundingly bad pop record with accompanying surreal video. In the spirit of the times, he said.
Evelyn: I think he was pulling your leg.
Six: Pulling my leg??!!
The Master: Heheheheheheheh…
Six: Now, look what you’ve done, Evelyn. And I should like to make it clear that I did not heartlessly use Dr Webber and Miss Holmes and the Sergeant as a distraction in this section, whatever some people may have been speculating. Some of my other selves may resort to such strategies, but not Me.
Me: I hope the Master’s plot came across all right, because he does have one -.
Six: How unusual!
The Master: Rather an impressive scheme, I felt. I tricked the aliens into allowing me access to their technology in return for a trip back to Earth before the destruction of their planet and once I had disposed of them, I was to be left with a weapon capable of destroying the whole Earth or merely a city at a time, as I chose. I should have started with London, but so many tempting options - how does one narrow it down?
Me: I didn’t say so but in my mind I set this straight after Doctor Who and the Pirates, so Evelyn’s concern that someone else is going to get hurt relates to that. I didn’t want to make a point of it, because I haven’t got a lot of the audios and might mess up continuity by accident.
Six: Ah, yes, now that was a proper adventure! With Gilbert and Sullivan. Does anyone want to hear my rendition of Gallifreyan Buccaneer again? “I am the very model of a -.”
Evelyn: No!
Me: And, we’re back to the UNIT clichés, with a countdown -.
Evelyn: And I made that silly mistake with the weapon. I am sorry about that, Doctor.
Six: Nonsense. You were magnificent.
Nat: Oh, and this is the part where Kennedy and I get to get on and do our job for about the only time in the story.
Kennedy: Yes. Shame about Day, though.
The Master: Heheheheheh.
Nat: Did you really come back there just to set up that trap?
The Master: Yes, and but for the meddling on your part, the Doctor and Dr Smythe at the least would have been killed once they returned.
Part Seven: And the Hope in the Heart remains
Nat: And so we come to the part where the author thinks it’s okay to make everyone think Tilly is dead.
The Master: Not dead, merely missing without trace.
Nat: Yes. Very amusing private joke, wasn’t it?
The Master: So you can hardly blame me for suggesting it remain merely another one of life’s little mysteries.
Crichton: You know, Argyle is nothing but a nuisance. I stepped in at that point, as I was aware of the situation.
Nat: And I meant every word I said about UNIT and their obsession with slime and aliens and tea.
Evelyn: While to begin with, I only thought it might be kinder to let Nat see the situation for himself, looking back, I’m sure that, as I said later, you were right. You might not have been reasoning it through but you knew Tilly and you had an idea about the Master and you saw something didn’t add up.
Nat: I really don’t think so. And, given the state that place was in by the time we found her and where she was, she’s lucky she didn’t suffocate, let alone what might have happened if he’d found her -.
Evelyn: Yes, yes, we know.
Crichton: I’m still not amused by the fact that you didn’t ask permission first.
Nat: Sorry about that, sir.
Me: And then we come to the ending. Originally, Evelyn had recalled something about Tilly’s future. I thought it worked better with the crossed conversations, but maybe it made Evelyn seem a bit sentimental for being so wholly on Nat’s side in the matter.
Six: Well, she can be.
Evelyn: I’m not! I - well - not sentimental, Doctor.
Nat: And that you didn’t go into the details of our conversation there is one relief, at least.
Six: I would like to point out at this juncture that I was merely trying to do what I thought was right. I suspect I may have been mistaken this once but there was no need for all this verbal abuse -. Evelyn, what now?
Evelyn: Well, talk about the pot calling the kettle black, Doctor. Anyway, shortly before this, we lost the little scene between me and Miss Lonsdale where I had the chance to put her right on the subject of Tilly, but I like to think it still happened.
Me: Sorry. It overbalanced the chapter.
Six: Care to enlighten the rest of us?
Evelyn: It turns out her she couldn’t believe this story about her being from the past and maintained that while she had deceived all the men, she wasn’t fooling her. I told her you had sensed the temporal anomaly at once and you knew about these things.
Six: Well, that was fun. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to take Evelyn on holiday before I hear anything more about my failure to do so. And next time, can we not have the villain of the piece?
The Master: But, wait, the Epilogue! You must surely want to hear how I cunningly managed to make my escape?
Six: Not really. I’ve put up with quite enough of this badly written nonsense for one day. Come along, Evelyn.
The Master: But the rest of you -.
Crichton: Personally, I’d be happy if I never heard a word from you again. I think that’s that.
Me: Yes. It’s not as if I worked out how the Master was going to get out of it anyway.
Six: I usually find, “You! So you escaped from X!” covers it…
The Master: Heheheheheheheheheheh.
Six: Colonel, did someone say something about shooting him?
Colonel: Just say the word…
***
And I must stop this. I really need to get on top of my family history instead. (Did you know I have a direct ancestor called John Benton, who was a soldier? But not a Sergeant. :lol:)