Fanfic: The Mysterious Doctor and the Omen of the Blue Box
Hey, everyone! So, for the first time in 8 years...ish(?) I am posting a fanfic! I know, I know. Hard to believe. This first chapter is one I actually wrote and posted about a week and a half ago to my Tumblr and my ff.net page, but I forgot to post it here. The work on the second chapter is underway, but I have a theological blog post I want to do first, so that's taken my attention over the last few days.
Some explanation here: there is a webseries I really love called Buzzfeed Unsolved. The basic premise of the series is a man (Ryan) is laying out an unsolved true crime case or a (possible) supernatural mystery to his best friend and resident skeptic (Shane). Both series under the Unsolved umbrella tend to start out easily enough. Ryan will just give out the facts of the case as discussed on reddit boards or in books that document what happened, and then lay out the theories. Shane is there to ask questions and debunk evidence that can be misinterpreted or easily explained. It's pure chaos usually and VERY funny. On their supernatural series, they go ghost hunting and searching for cryptids, but they also sometimes just stay behind a desk and discuss alien abduction cases or things like the disappeared colony at Roanoke.
In recent months, people on Tumblr have written short Unsolved scripts wherein they have Shane and Ryan discuss the events of the CW show Supernatural, in the way they would if the Winchesters were an idea of conspiracy theorists on subreddit boards. Some of them were actually pretty well done, and I began to wish that someone would write one in a similar style for Doctor Who. I mean, in the most recent season of DW (in Spyfall, Part 1), it was mentioned that both UNIT and Torchwood have disbanded, so some of their previously classified files could feasibly be known to the public (albeit, in heavily redacted form.) As time went on, it became obvious that if I wanted to see such a script, I would have to write it myself. So...uh...I did.
I'm linking two episodes of Unsolved, one from True Crime and one from Supernatural; just so that you can get an idea of their dynamic if you haven't seen the show before. If you enjoy what you see, please check out the rest of their content. In addition to Unsolved, there is also Ruining History, which is hosted by Shane, but also has Ryan involved in it (Shane tells history stories to a panel of Buzzfeed friends in really interesting ways.) The boys have also gotten together with their friend Steven Lim, from Buzzfeed's Worth It, and formed their own company Watcher Entertainment. And every show on that YouTube channel is pure gold as well.
Let me know what you think of the first part of this script. I've never written script format before, so this is entirely experimental for me. And let me know what you think of Ryan and Shane's voices. Does it sound anything like them?
Unsolved: True Crime -- The Terrifying Axeman of New Orleans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrMGIqecu0Y
Unsolved: Supernatural -- The Mysterious Disappearance of the Roanoke Colony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjmXzYdxuTQ
Disclaimer: Buzzfeed Unsolved is the brain child of Ryan Bergara and the intellectual property of Buzzfeed. Doctor Who is property of BBC.
Rating: T, for lots of language.
Ryan: Today on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we're looking into the puzzling mystery of an entity known only as "The Doctor" and the corresponding omen of a blue box. It's a mystery that, in its more comprehensive moments, is whimsically strange and, most of the time, is just plain batshit bizarre.
Shane: Okay, so I can hear the air quotes around the name, and you called it an entity. Are we talking like, cryptid creature that is based in reality or am I going to be sitting through theories about zombie plagues and Ant-man Ax murderers again? Just what am I in for here?
Ryan: No zombie plagues, and the Doctor has never murdered anyone with an ax. At least, not in any of the records available. It's just...well, it's hard to explain here, so let's just get right into it. Just bear in mind this is Gene Wilder Willy Wonka levels of weird when it's at its most sensical. And it's rare that this story makes any sense at all.
Shane: Alright, I'll confess I'm...intrigued. I'm ready to listen.
Ryan: Alright, here we go. *opens folder*
Ryan (in his Unsolved VO): The first documented evidence of a being calling itself "The Doctor" is in the files of now deceased British UNIT officer Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
Shane: Wait. UNIT? What's that? Sounds like something out of a video game.
Ryan: (wheeze) It does a bit, yeah. But there is paperwork evidence that verifies this group -- lame as the acronym is -- actually existed. They were set up in the mid-1960s by the United Nations to look into unexplained phenomena and for a long time they were a covert operation. The British Prime Minister knew they existed, and they answered to Geneva, but they weren't known to the wider public until after they shut down three years ago.
Shane: I'm sure that meeting went GREAT. 'Hey, everybody, thanks for coming down this Monday morning. Erm...thanks for protecting us from alien invasions for the last 50 years and for keeping such a great secret about it. Here's your reward: you're all fired, and we're going to tell the entire world what your names were and let you deal with the press about it for the rest of your life. Have a great rest of your Monday!' (Wheeze) What a bunch of shitty bosses.
Ryan: I mean, based on what little there is to read about how UNIT operated, the Brigadier we'll be talking about really had to go to bat for the organization in front of the Prime Minister a lot over the years in order to keep the operation going. After the Brigadier died, they were able to keep going for awhile, but as you'll see from some of these stories we'll be looking at today, the organization was considered obsolete long before it was disbanded.
Shane: Okay, so the Doctor first appears in conjunction with this UNIT?
Ryan: Right, so in the 1960s, there was some weird circumstance that led to the London Underground shutting down and the Brigadier, who was only a Colonel in the regular British army at the time, ran into what he described as a "(quote) man with a foppish haircut, ratty waistcoat, and tartan patterned clown pants; a young teenage girl; and a full Scotsman (end quote)."
Shane: So which is the Doctor?
Ryan: In this case, it's the first description. The man with the clown pants on. (wheeze)
Shane: (wheeze) Do you think he had clown shoes on, too?
Ryan: See, I know exactly what you're picturing right now. You're thinking of a guy with a depressing Beatles haircut and complete clown regalia, including the extra large shoes.
Shane: I am. 100% And you know, given some of the things we saw when traveling around London, including on (*with a terribly fake posh Oxbridge accent*) the Tube, a man dressed as a clown running around the platforms underground wouldn't even register as weird on a normal day.
Ryan: (Conceding) That is true. And on a normal day, I'd agree with you. But, bear in mind, this was the 1960s -- not the modern day -- and the Tube at the time was closed to the public because of this unknown threat the army was trying to deal with. And what's even more notable -- the reason why the future Brigadier apparently wrote about it in his official report to the Prime Minister -- is that the man who called himself the Doctor, together with the two other civilians, saved the day. The details are sparse, but the Brigadier makes it clear that the Doctor is the one who figured out what was really going on and managed to deal with whatever the situation was with minimal casualties.
And that's just the first time the Doctor and the future Brigadier crossed paths. There are later documents that report the Brigadier -- now promoted from Colonel and officially a Brigadier -- came across the same man and Scotsman, but a different young girl in London just weeks after the military organization known as UNIT was founded. And AGAIN, whatever the situation actually was, the Doctor and his friends were the ones that helped UNIT save the day.
Shane: Am I the only one who finds it suspicious that the details are always missing? Like, shady organization set up by the government to look into extraterrestrial happenings? Sure. (*puts hands in the air in surrender to argument*) I'll buy that. Governments do shady shit all the time. But, I mean, things like shutting down the London Underground and alien happenings in the city of London itself. People are going to notice, right? And how shitty are the Brigadier's write ups that no one remembers or knows any of the happenings in Britain's capital? "Dear Prime Minister, stuff happened. Doctor did some other stuff. Stuff stopped. The end. TTYL." Sounds like someone was crap at his job and when things just luckily worked out, everyone just swept it under the rug.
Ryan: You see, I would agree with you there. BUT...there are pictures. We can't show them to the audience because of copyright, but if you know where to look online, people love to discuss the Doctor and all the people who have gone missing while looking for the Doctor, so. Investigate at your own peril. But, Shane, here you go.
*the audience can't see the photos hidden by Ryan's open folder, but we see Shane's expression.*
Shane: (*laughs*) That Doctor looks like a moron. I mean, I still think the Brigadier must have been crap at his job, but he was bang on his descriptor of the Doctor looking like a clown. And I take it the guy in the kilt is the Scotsman?
Ryan: Yeah, I looked up what full Scotsman means when I read the description and apparently it means a guy who wears a kilt with no underwear on underneath it. Before that, I just assumed that it meant this other guy was wandering around the Underground, playing bagpipes and singing songs from Highlander or something.
Shane: You thought this guy was wandering around singing Who Wants to Live Forever over a decade before the film came out. (wheeze)
Ryan: Well, when we get into the theories that idea won't seem entirely out of place, I don't think.
Shane: Well, I'm going to go ahead and call a preemptive bullshit on that theory.
Ryan: Noted.
Ryan: (back in Theory VO) The next record of the Doctor's appearance comes about in the 1970s when a man is admitted to a local hospital after collapsing outside of a blue box in the woods.
Shane: There was a blue box in the woods? Like, human sized or was he scrunched up in it like Shroedinger's cat?
Ryan: We'll get back to the box in a minute, but it's larger than a human, yeah. In fact, it was something called a Police Public Call Box, which were common to see on city or town street corners in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. The idea was that if police or citizens saw a crime being committed, they could either phone the police from the box or shove the criminal in the police box and go fetch a policeman. But what's weird about the box in this case is: 1) it's in the middle of the woods, and not even on like, a hiking path or anything. But, the legit WOODS. And 2) it's the 1970s and police call boxes are no longer really a thing at this point. But, once the man calling himself the Doctor gets to the hospital it gets even stranger.
Shane: I mean, everything about this story so far feels like the Brigadier spinning a yarn, but keep going.
Ryan: So, the Brigadier gets a phone call from the hospital that a man called the Doctor has been admitted to the hospital.
Shane: Wait, how did the hospital know to call the Brigadier about that? Was there a national bulletin? Is the Doctor a wanted man or something?
Ryan: I don't know, man. Maybe the police just call UNIT whenever something with the label "fucking weird" comes across their desk. I don't know. This is just what the report says.
Ryan: (theory voice) Due to a situation UNIT was overseeing in the area at the time, the Doctor's appearance was notably auspicious for the Brigadier, so the UNIT officer went to see if his friend could help with the investigation. However, when he got the hospital, he discovered that he the man calling himself 'The Doctor' was not anyone he recognized.
Shane: Wait...what?
Ryan: (laughing). I told you the situation at the hospital is weird. So, the Brigadier is told that this man who has helped him out before has been admitted to a hospital that is nearby a situation that UNIT is investigating -- a clear sign, in the Brigadier's mind, that this Doctor who is injured is the same one he's met twice before -- and then discovers that it's a completely different man.
Shane: Well, I mean...that's not *too* weird. I mean, the man is in a hospital, and you usually see doctors in a hospital. And I'm sure a lot of doctors are known more by their title than their surname. There are millions of doctors on the planet, so I don't know if two different people wanting to be called Doctor is all that unusual.
Ryan: (with a haughty smile) That makes perfect sense, but listen to this.
Ryan: (Theory voice) The Brigadier assumed at first that the patient calling himself the Doctor was a coincidence and started to leave the room. However, he found himself called back when he heard the unknown man call the Brigadier by name. The conversation made it clear that, not only did the patient know the Brigadier's full name, but also knew the circumstances under which the Doctor and the Brigadier had met both times before. Information which, at the time, was highly classified and known only to those in the Prime Minister's office and those who had been in the UNIT planning room at the time of the situational crises.
Shane: Okay, I'm going to call it. I'm going with spy. I think the Doctor is a code name and this guy inherited the call sign and the information from the Doctor's previous operations.
Ryan: So, you think this is like, a 007 scenario?
Shane: I mean, I'm sure you'll peddle some alien abduction theory or some other supernatural bullshit, but...yeah. I'm going spy call sign. Makes sense to me so far.
Ryan: Well, you might not be a *total* dipshit, but...we'll see. There's still quite a bit more to cover. This isn't even the tip of the weird iceberg.
Shane: (sarcastically) Oh joy...
That's it for Part 1. I think it'll probably be somewhere between 4 and 5 parts total, with the theories taking up the last couple of parts. Let me know what you think!
Some explanation here: there is a webseries I really love called Buzzfeed Unsolved. The basic premise of the series is a man (Ryan) is laying out an unsolved true crime case or a (possible) supernatural mystery to his best friend and resident skeptic (Shane). Both series under the Unsolved umbrella tend to start out easily enough. Ryan will just give out the facts of the case as discussed on reddit boards or in books that document what happened, and then lay out the theories. Shane is there to ask questions and debunk evidence that can be misinterpreted or easily explained. It's pure chaos usually and VERY funny. On their supernatural series, they go ghost hunting and searching for cryptids, but they also sometimes just stay behind a desk and discuss alien abduction cases or things like the disappeared colony at Roanoke.
In recent months, people on Tumblr have written short Unsolved scripts wherein they have Shane and Ryan discuss the events of the CW show Supernatural, in the way they would if the Winchesters were an idea of conspiracy theorists on subreddit boards. Some of them were actually pretty well done, and I began to wish that someone would write one in a similar style for Doctor Who. I mean, in the most recent season of DW (in Spyfall, Part 1), it was mentioned that both UNIT and Torchwood have disbanded, so some of their previously classified files could feasibly be known to the public (albeit, in heavily redacted form.) As time went on, it became obvious that if I wanted to see such a script, I would have to write it myself. So...uh...I did.
I'm linking two episodes of Unsolved, one from True Crime and one from Supernatural; just so that you can get an idea of their dynamic if you haven't seen the show before. If you enjoy what you see, please check out the rest of their content. In addition to Unsolved, there is also Ruining History, which is hosted by Shane, but also has Ryan involved in it (Shane tells history stories to a panel of Buzzfeed friends in really interesting ways.) The boys have also gotten together with their friend Steven Lim, from Buzzfeed's Worth It, and formed their own company Watcher Entertainment. And every show on that YouTube channel is pure gold as well.
Let me know what you think of the first part of this script. I've never written script format before, so this is entirely experimental for me. And let me know what you think of Ryan and Shane's voices. Does it sound anything like them?
Unsolved: True Crime -- The Terrifying Axeman of New Orleans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrMGIqecu0Y
Unsolved: Supernatural -- The Mysterious Disappearance of the Roanoke Colony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjmXzYdxuTQ
Disclaimer: Buzzfeed Unsolved is the brain child of Ryan Bergara and the intellectual property of Buzzfeed. Doctor Who is property of BBC.
Rating: T, for lots of language.
Ryan: Today on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we're looking into the puzzling mystery of an entity known only as "The Doctor" and the corresponding omen of a blue box. It's a mystery that, in its more comprehensive moments, is whimsically strange and, most of the time, is just plain batshit bizarre.
Shane: Okay, so I can hear the air quotes around the name, and you called it an entity. Are we talking like, cryptid creature that is based in reality or am I going to be sitting through theories about zombie plagues and Ant-man Ax murderers again? Just what am I in for here?
Ryan: No zombie plagues, and the Doctor has never murdered anyone with an ax. At least, not in any of the records available. It's just...well, it's hard to explain here, so let's just get right into it. Just bear in mind this is Gene Wilder Willy Wonka levels of weird when it's at its most sensical. And it's rare that this story makes any sense at all.
Shane: Alright, I'll confess I'm...intrigued. I'm ready to listen.
Ryan: Alright, here we go. *opens folder*
Ryan (in his Unsolved VO): The first documented evidence of a being calling itself "The Doctor" is in the files of now deceased British UNIT officer Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
Shane: Wait. UNIT? What's that? Sounds like something out of a video game.
Ryan: (wheeze) It does a bit, yeah. But there is paperwork evidence that verifies this group -- lame as the acronym is -- actually existed. They were set up in the mid-1960s by the United Nations to look into unexplained phenomena and for a long time they were a covert operation. The British Prime Minister knew they existed, and they answered to Geneva, but they weren't known to the wider public until after they shut down three years ago.
Shane: I'm sure that meeting went GREAT. 'Hey, everybody, thanks for coming down this Monday morning. Erm...thanks for protecting us from alien invasions for the last 50 years and for keeping such a great secret about it. Here's your reward: you're all fired, and we're going to tell the entire world what your names were and let you deal with the press about it for the rest of your life. Have a great rest of your Monday!' (Wheeze) What a bunch of shitty bosses.
Ryan: I mean, based on what little there is to read about how UNIT operated, the Brigadier we'll be talking about really had to go to bat for the organization in front of the Prime Minister a lot over the years in order to keep the operation going. After the Brigadier died, they were able to keep going for awhile, but as you'll see from some of these stories we'll be looking at today, the organization was considered obsolete long before it was disbanded.
Shane: Okay, so the Doctor first appears in conjunction with this UNIT?
Ryan: Right, so in the 1960s, there was some weird circumstance that led to the London Underground shutting down and the Brigadier, who was only a Colonel in the regular British army at the time, ran into what he described as a "(quote) man with a foppish haircut, ratty waistcoat, and tartan patterned clown pants; a young teenage girl; and a full Scotsman (end quote)."
Shane: So which is the Doctor?
Ryan: In this case, it's the first description. The man with the clown pants on. (wheeze)
Shane: (wheeze) Do you think he had clown shoes on, too?
Ryan: See, I know exactly what you're picturing right now. You're thinking of a guy with a depressing Beatles haircut and complete clown regalia, including the extra large shoes.
Shane: I am. 100% And you know, given some of the things we saw when traveling around London, including on (*with a terribly fake posh Oxbridge accent*) the Tube, a man dressed as a clown running around the platforms underground wouldn't even register as weird on a normal day.
Ryan: (Conceding) That is true. And on a normal day, I'd agree with you. But, bear in mind, this was the 1960s -- not the modern day -- and the Tube at the time was closed to the public because of this unknown threat the army was trying to deal with. And what's even more notable -- the reason why the future Brigadier apparently wrote about it in his official report to the Prime Minister -- is that the man who called himself the Doctor, together with the two other civilians, saved the day. The details are sparse, but the Brigadier makes it clear that the Doctor is the one who figured out what was really going on and managed to deal with whatever the situation was with minimal casualties.
And that's just the first time the Doctor and the future Brigadier crossed paths. There are later documents that report the Brigadier -- now promoted from Colonel and officially a Brigadier -- came across the same man and Scotsman, but a different young girl in London just weeks after the military organization known as UNIT was founded. And AGAIN, whatever the situation actually was, the Doctor and his friends were the ones that helped UNIT save the day.
Shane: Am I the only one who finds it suspicious that the details are always missing? Like, shady organization set up by the government to look into extraterrestrial happenings? Sure. (*puts hands in the air in surrender to argument*) I'll buy that. Governments do shady shit all the time. But, I mean, things like shutting down the London Underground and alien happenings in the city of London itself. People are going to notice, right? And how shitty are the Brigadier's write ups that no one remembers or knows any of the happenings in Britain's capital? "Dear Prime Minister, stuff happened. Doctor did some other stuff. Stuff stopped. The end. TTYL." Sounds like someone was crap at his job and when things just luckily worked out, everyone just swept it under the rug.
Ryan: You see, I would agree with you there. BUT...there are pictures. We can't show them to the audience because of copyright, but if you know where to look online, people love to discuss the Doctor and all the people who have gone missing while looking for the Doctor, so. Investigate at your own peril. But, Shane, here you go.
*the audience can't see the photos hidden by Ryan's open folder, but we see Shane's expression.*
Shane: (*laughs*) That Doctor looks like a moron. I mean, I still think the Brigadier must have been crap at his job, but he was bang on his descriptor of the Doctor looking like a clown. And I take it the guy in the kilt is the Scotsman?
Ryan: Yeah, I looked up what full Scotsman means when I read the description and apparently it means a guy who wears a kilt with no underwear on underneath it. Before that, I just assumed that it meant this other guy was wandering around the Underground, playing bagpipes and singing songs from Highlander or something.
Shane: You thought this guy was wandering around singing Who Wants to Live Forever over a decade before the film came out. (wheeze)
Ryan: Well, when we get into the theories that idea won't seem entirely out of place, I don't think.
Shane: Well, I'm going to go ahead and call a preemptive bullshit on that theory.
Ryan: Noted.
Ryan: (back in Theory VO) The next record of the Doctor's appearance comes about in the 1970s when a man is admitted to a local hospital after collapsing outside of a blue box in the woods.
Shane: There was a blue box in the woods? Like, human sized or was he scrunched up in it like Shroedinger's cat?
Ryan: We'll get back to the box in a minute, but it's larger than a human, yeah. In fact, it was something called a Police Public Call Box, which were common to see on city or town street corners in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. The idea was that if police or citizens saw a crime being committed, they could either phone the police from the box or shove the criminal in the police box and go fetch a policeman. But what's weird about the box in this case is: 1) it's in the middle of the woods, and not even on like, a hiking path or anything. But, the legit WOODS. And 2) it's the 1970s and police call boxes are no longer really a thing at this point. But, once the man calling himself the Doctor gets to the hospital it gets even stranger.
Shane: I mean, everything about this story so far feels like the Brigadier spinning a yarn, but keep going.
Ryan: So, the Brigadier gets a phone call from the hospital that a man called the Doctor has been admitted to the hospital.
Shane: Wait, how did the hospital know to call the Brigadier about that? Was there a national bulletin? Is the Doctor a wanted man or something?
Ryan: I don't know, man. Maybe the police just call UNIT whenever something with the label "fucking weird" comes across their desk. I don't know. This is just what the report says.
Ryan: (theory voice) Due to a situation UNIT was overseeing in the area at the time, the Doctor's appearance was notably auspicious for the Brigadier, so the UNIT officer went to see if his friend could help with the investigation. However, when he got the hospital, he discovered that he the man calling himself 'The Doctor' was not anyone he recognized.
Shane: Wait...what?
Ryan: (laughing). I told you the situation at the hospital is weird. So, the Brigadier is told that this man who has helped him out before has been admitted to a hospital that is nearby a situation that UNIT is investigating -- a clear sign, in the Brigadier's mind, that this Doctor who is injured is the same one he's met twice before -- and then discovers that it's a completely different man.
Shane: Well, I mean...that's not *too* weird. I mean, the man is in a hospital, and you usually see doctors in a hospital. And I'm sure a lot of doctors are known more by their title than their surname. There are millions of doctors on the planet, so I don't know if two different people wanting to be called Doctor is all that unusual.
Ryan: (with a haughty smile) That makes perfect sense, but listen to this.
Ryan: (Theory voice) The Brigadier assumed at first that the patient calling himself the Doctor was a coincidence and started to leave the room. However, he found himself called back when he heard the unknown man call the Brigadier by name. The conversation made it clear that, not only did the patient know the Brigadier's full name, but also knew the circumstances under which the Doctor and the Brigadier had met both times before. Information which, at the time, was highly classified and known only to those in the Prime Minister's office and those who had been in the UNIT planning room at the time of the situational crises.
Shane: Okay, I'm going to call it. I'm going with spy. I think the Doctor is a code name and this guy inherited the call sign and the information from the Doctor's previous operations.
Ryan: So, you think this is like, a 007 scenario?
Shane: I mean, I'm sure you'll peddle some alien abduction theory or some other supernatural bullshit, but...yeah. I'm going spy call sign. Makes sense to me so far.
Ryan: Well, you might not be a *total* dipshit, but...we'll see. There's still quite a bit more to cover. This isn't even the tip of the weird iceberg.
Shane: (sarcastically) Oh joy...
That's it for Part 1. I think it'll probably be somewhere between 4 and 5 parts total, with the theories taking up the last couple of parts. Let me know what you think!