Fish Fingers and Custard - Doctor Who Fanzine - Issue 4 by Daniel Gee

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4

It’s A New, New, New, New, New, New Year I couldn’t be arsed writing all 2011 of them, but yes it’s a new (x2011) year and a new series of Doctor Who! I don’t think anyone would have thought that this revival of Doctor Who, that started production in 2003, would have entered a second decade, arguably more popular than it’s ever been. I’m sure we all have our own reasons about why we love Doctor Who. But you just look at the impact it has made on peoples lives – making Cardiff a popular travel destination, on a par with New York, Paris and Skegness. You look at the fandom, the message boards, conventions, podcasts etc and that is the true legacy of Doctor Who – bringing people together. As I keep saying - It isn’t just a television program. And long may it continue! That brings me nicely onto the new series and I really think we’re in for a good one. I think Steven Moffat is now starting to hit his stride as the headmaster (see what I did there? Only true Moffat stalkers will get that one!) and Matt Smith’s Doctor will be even better. I think it’s fair to say that Series 5 was written/planned before Matt was even cast, so with that done and dusted - he and Moffat have had more time to work on his character and how he fits in with the various story arcs that are happening. Everyone involved with the show seems to look more comfortable in their roles and I sincerely hope that they stay for quite a while, if only to give the program some stability. You can read reviews of ‘A Christmas Carol’ throughout this Issue and watching that, as well as the build-up to it, gave me the feeling that Doctor Who is starting to establish itself as a fixture in television now. It’s been almost 8 YEARS since production began on that first series and the BBC have been rewarded with the best viewing figures, outside of the ‘big two’ soaps and sporting events. Not to mention all the merchandise that BBC Worldwide flog…yep, Doctor Who is here to stay and I truly believe that Steven Moffat is the man to take the program forward and establish it as, not just a much-loved show in the UK, but around the world too. (If it already isn’t!) The program itself is able to change and evolve, but yet still set as high (and sometimes as low!) a standard in quality as it’s always done. That’s another aspect which makes it the best television series around. If you’re reading this, I do hope you’ve checked out the many new Doctor Who fanzines that are surfacing. These last 12 months have been great for fanzines - many people are now starting to write and draw more, some even do their own fanzines, as well as help others (like myself!) to do one. All of them are different, written by different people, from different backgrounds, in different styles, with many differing views. But one thing we all have in common is that we all love Doctor Who. There’s a good community building up around fanzines now – just check out the fanzines section on Gallifrey Base, or the #doctorwhofanzines tag on Twitter to learn more. 2011 will be even better methinks!

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 As always, you can contribute to future Issues of Fish Fingers and Custard (and please do!) by sending your work to fishcustardfanzine@googlemail.com You can also chat on our new forum, which you can access via the blogsite. Come along and join the ‘fun’! Cheers and roll on Series 6 (or whatever you call it!) Danny This Issue was cobbled together by the following players/playeresses: Editor: Daniel Gee Contributors (and receivers of a knuckle bump each, from me): Thomas Cookson, Sean Homrig, Lauren Blakely, John Lipponen, Emma Donovan, Tim Jousma, David MacGowan & Steve James Special Thanks To: Jeff Toschlog, Craig Price & The John Bull Chophouse Doctor Who is © BBC, no copyright infringement is intended, although my Dad has been paying for a TV licence for many years, so it isn’t really theft. What IS theft, is using his money to make Coming of Age on BBC Three. Sort it out.

FFAC104

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Hots and Nots We like to think we’re a fashionable bunch here at Fish Custard Towers (Er… - Ed). Here is our guide to what’s currently Hot and Not in the world of Doctor Who fandom…

HOT Sylvester McCoy having a Fez and mop in Sliver Nemesis and nobody copying him Making your own Fez Kazran Sardick Katherine Jenkins Staying at home during Christmas Leather Jackets Fanzines People who spell ‘Doctor Who’ The various Doctor Who news sites Doctor Who at Christmas Waiting a year until you can pick up a boxset for a tenner on Ebay Writing for fanzines Harry Sedgewick The return of Primeval Coronation Street Doing armed robberies on the banker, whilst playing Monopoly Sharktopus Girls dressing as Amy Pond at conventions Getting drunk after watching an episode of Doctor Who Drinking beer out of a glass you ‘accidently slipped into your pocket’ from a pub 5 years ago Doctor Who Fangirls Beth Willis Graham Norton Mr. Rigsby Ginger Beer Playing a Recorder Fat Cyberman in Attack of the Cybermen Mondas Cyberman’s “Excellent” The Kandy Man Fish Custard Fanzine

NOT Matt Smith having a Fez and a mop in The Big Bang and everyone copying him Buying a Fez for treble it’s normal price, because it was featured in Doctor Who Albus Dumbledore Billie Piper Staying at the Airport during Christmas Garments with question marks on them Magazines People who spell ‘Dr. Who’ Tabloid newspapers Star Trek at Christmas Queuing outside shops, freezing your bollocks off, to pay £40 for a boxset Writing bollocks on a forum Mel Gibson The National Television Awards Eastenders Doctor Who games for the Nintendo Wee Avatar Boys dressing as Amy Pond at conventions Going straight on Gallifrey Base to moan/praise an episode of Doctor Who Novelty beer glasses with cartoon characters on them Twihards All Male Producers Jonathan Ross Craig Owens A Pot of Coffee Playing the Spoons Cyberman with no head in The Big Bang Pete’s World Cyberman’s “Delete” The Daleks Playboy

So, to fit in with the Fish Custard Crowd - buy yourself a fanzine, make your own fez, drink Ginger Beer, watch Coronation Street and do armed robberies on a Monopoly Banker!

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The Coat… I’m not saying Doctor Who Producers copy off me, but… It’s 2004 and I’m a young(er) slip of a lad. I’m spending all week at College and the weekends drunk on the dancefloor of a nightclub (because I slipped over whilst trying to ‘dance’!) I loved going out, wearing my best clothes, chatting to the ladies and getting told to ‘piss off’ by them. During this time I loved wearing my combo of jeans and leather jacket, with either a shirt or a jumper to match. Then came 2005, then came Doctor Who… I couldn’t believe how good it was. I had heard about Doctor Who (who hadn’t in the UK?) but my childhood was robbed of it. I was starting to get interested in watching sci-fi, so I decided to check out the first episode, ‘Rose’. Absolutely brilliant. I do remember Billie Piper appearing on kids telly flogging her first single when she was about 15 and here she was, Chris Evans-less and travelling around with this man, with a Salford accent, in his time and space machine – and wearing MY CLOTHES!!! Okay, they’re not an exact match, a cosplay expert would be offended if I said it was, but it was similar. I was convinced then-producer Russell T. Davies had copied me. I went out after that episode and everyone was talking about it – and taking the mickey out of me for dressing like him! Leather jacket and dark blue jumper. I even walked home at about 4am pretending to be The Doctor, uttering the ‘Do you want to come with me?’ tagline that was in those first trailers for the new series! As my love for the series began, I delved into its rich history and became fascinated by it. As I watched these battered-old episodes, my jacket grew more battered and I eventually retired it. I still have it and maybe it’ll make a comeback. Or maybe I should stop being tight and just buy a new one! I had some great (and bad) times in it, very much like The Doctor himself! It holds so many memories, most of which I can’t really remember (again – like The Doctor!) But one thing I will remember is this tale. And the fact that RTD copied me. Coming next time: How Steven Moffat copied my idea for a female, Scottish companion!  DANIEL GEE

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A Christmas Carol: Reviewed

Christmas comes but once a year and along with presents from Santa it brings up the annual Doctor Who Christmas Special. This year’s story concerned the Doctor’s efforts to save a ship in distress which contains Amy and Rory as passengers on their honeymoon. The cloud mass the ship is traveling through disrupts the ship’s controls. The Doctor discovers that the clouds are controlled on the planet below by a man named Kazran Sardick, a bitter old man intent on keeping the people on the planet under his control like cattle. The Doctor, unable to convince him to help let the ship land safely, decides, after some Sherlock Holmes type deduction, that Kazran became this bitter old man thanks to his Father. So the Doctor devises a scheme similar to A Christmas Carol to teach this man a lesson in compassion. What a wonderful trip back into the Whoniverse after the long absence from the end of Series 5. The change of tone, compared to previous Christmas Specials from Russell T. Davies, was a noticeable touch that this viewer enjoyed. What struck me most about this episode was the characters. The best thing in Steven Moffat’s reign as producer on the show is that his characters, from the Doctor down, are that they are fully realized, interesting characters. I say this because, as someone who has had to sit through American television for so many years, it is great to see the immense attention to detail in terms of the characterization. Kazran Sardick, played by the wonderful Michael Gambon, did an amazing job. He refrained from playing the character as the stereotypical Scrooge that another actor may have chosen to do. While there are elements of the Scrooge character in his performance, he is a fully realized character that I was personally glad to see redeemed at the end of the show.

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 Katherine Jenkins, the noted Welsh Opera singer, played Abigail Pettigrew, a woman who chose to be frozen by Kazran’s father in order for her family to borrow some money from him. I was shocked to discover that this was her first acting role since her portrayal of Abigail was so nuanced. Her character’s role only had one function; to make Kazran discover the error of his ways and redeem him. Yet she was able to give her character such life. Seeing her smiling face every time the Doctor and the young Kazran took her on a Christmas Eve adventure would warm any soul. Plus her secret, which was skillfully kept quiet till the end, was handled wonderfully by her. The scene of her and Kazran at the end with smiles on their faces was a great ending. The Christmas Specials are meant to do one thing, whet the appetite for us viewers for the upcoming Series. This story has done more than that for me. The anticipation I have for the upcoming Series has topped that of any previous series. This was a great episode. I can’t wait to see where the Doctor takes us next.  TIM JOUSMA Differing From Tradition It’s Christmas Day. You’ve already got stuck into your latest six-pack (of beer) and you’ve pulled a belly muscle after eating too much Christmas dinner. Suddenly you’re telling everyone to shut up as Doctor Who comes on. It’s now a tradition. This sort of scenario happens in homes up and down the country nowadays. What’s also a tradition, is that these festive episodes aren’t that great of a watch. Okay, The Christmas Invasion is pretty decent, but as a regeneration episode, it doesn’t really count (that’s what a man with a Tom Baker avatar said anyway), but on the whole, these festive episodes don’t sit too well with fans of Doctor Who. Is the latest, A Christmas Carol, any different? Well, it’s certainly different, in fact it’s a decent story, but that’s all I can say about it. It’s a good, solid tale that is well written, acted and produced. There isn’t really any points in which anyone (with half a brain) can criticise. I’ve seen people bang on about the shark and the fish (great CGI btw), but this is supposed to be an alien planet - get some imagination! The support cast, for once, all had something to do and weren’t just hangers-on. Michael Gambon was as classy as you’d expect, the young lad who played the child Karzan was very good but it was Katherine Jenkins who impressed me the most. For someone who has never acted before, she seemed to take to it very well and was very believable as the ill-fated Abigail Pettigrew. Cynics will say ‘Well she didn’t have a lot to do’ I think the

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 fact that what she did do was very good, proves that she was a good choice. We all know the reason she was cast was because of her singing, which added a beautiful soundtrack to the episode, but for her to make a decent stab at acting too, was a bonus. This episode was companion-lite. I think this is a good thing, as it gives us a chance to concentrate more on The Doctor and the story which developed around him. I’m sure we’ll see lots of more of Amy and Rory (no smutty pun intended!) in the coming series, so all is good. It was also great to see Arthur Darvil’s name in the opening credits too. As for the main man, I think Matt is very infectious, it’s so hard not to like him (unless you’re a scorned DT Fangirl – quick Matt, hide your pets!). I really loved the moment when the young Karzan was trotting around wearing a bowtie, trying to be like his new friend. That moment for me, just showed what kind of Doctor Matt is – a happy-go-lucky weirdo, in a bowtie, that makes everything around him just stand and stare – and want to go on adventures with (and not just the characters either – we, the viewers, too!) And with another exciting series just ahead of us, there’s plenty adventure to come!  DANIEL GEE A Sharks Tale There’s many things you can say about Steven Moffat’s writing, but you just cannot deny his stories are well thought-out and intellengent. Take the appearance of the Shark in the story. You can moan all you like about it (The Doctor is on another planet…if you can believe that a man can change his appearance and is able to travel in time and space in a Police Box, surely you can believe in flying alien Sharks?) but I picked up on the intentional irony of it all. Take the older Karzan – a heartless Loan Shark who has amassed his fortune by borrowing money to people and taking their family members as collateral. Family members who should be worth more than any amount of money. The Doctor travels back in time and the shark threatens the young Karzan. The would-be heartless loan shark, being hunted by an actual shark. The rest they say, is time-wimey history - Karzan uncovered the truth about Abigail, then turned his back on The Doctor and followed his father and learned his tricks. Karzan became a bigger shark than the one he was hunted by when he was a kid, running around with that strange man in a bowtie. I loved this little plot point and I urge you to go back and watch Moffat’s stories carefully, there are many points which nobody has picked up on. If he’s that good at hiding relatively-harmless imagery, such as the loan shark scenario, how good is he at hiding a major plot point for future stories? I don’t think Doctor Who fans appreciate what a talent we have leading our favourite show these days - if you look at other television shows (and even films) most come nowhere near the quality of writing that The Moff produces time and time again. A Christmas Carol was a good, fun episode for all the family, with a few scares thrown in. If that isn’t Doctor Who in a nutshell, then I’m a Cyberman!  STEVE JAMES

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AN UNEARTHLY CHILD: 2010 A.D The story so far: It's 1963. School-teachers Ian 'Chesty' Chesterton and Barbara 'Babs' Wright follow home a pupil who has been acting strangely, Susan Who. They bundle into a police box at the behest of her even strangeracting grandfather, Doctor Who. But it is in fact a time/space machine! With one touch of the controls, they go shooting into the vortex and arrive... somewhere! Colin 'Kal' Kallerton looks out from his office overlooking Canary Wharf. From this vantage point (and thanks to the fact he was looking through a telescope to perv over the ladies' toilet in the HSBC bank building) he spies the time/space machine known as TARDIS as it materialises in an alley. Colin: ("Grunt!") Back in TARDIS, Ian and the Doctor are arguing. Ian: "Are you trying to tell me you have taken us out of London, 1963, and are now anywhere in time and space?" Dr Who: "Well, within reason. There's a budget to think of you know!" Susan: "Can we explore, oh can we, can we, can we?" Dr Who: "Very well. But I'll need to take some samples first." Ian: "You mean to test for radiation, toxicity in the air, that sort of thing?" Dr Who: "No, urine. Here, use this bottle..." Colin 'Kal' Kallerton continues to watch the travellers as they emerge to explore the strange new world that is London, 2010. He quickly cancels all his morning appointments and takes the executives-only lift down to the ground floor. He nimbly navigates traffic to get closer to his quarry... Dr Who: "Well, we appear to be in early 21st century London. Let's see if I can access my Twitter account from here..." Dr Who withdraws from his capacious pockets an iPhone 4.0 and updates his Twitter. Colin's eyes bluge out in shock. He clubs the Doctor into unconsciousness with his rolledup copy of the Financial Times and drags him back up to the top floor with the help of a security guard who has been paid handomsely to ignore such behaviour. Susan: "Grandfather! Grandfather! He's gone! Look - he's left his crackpipe behind! He'd

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 never leave that behind unless it was someting terrible! Oh he's dead I know it, I just know it!!" Babs: "Get a grip of yourself!" Babs slaps Susan. Susan: "Oh thank you Miss Wright, I was beginning to get hysterical there, I-" Babs slaps Susan again. Susan: "Oww! What was that for?!?" Babs: "No reason." Ian: "LOOK! Bootprints! They lead up to this large, futuristically tall building..." Up in the top floor, Colin is addressing the boardroom. Colin: "He may be wearing strange clothes, but I believe this man holds the secret of unlimited wireless broadband connectivity. And he will teach it - to ME!" Zippy 'Za' Zabregniev, a rising young executive, approaches stealthily. Zippy: "Empty promises! Our ISP has been eating up our budget every quarter. And you claim you can get us no-hassles access to the 4G network with this - this stranger...!" Dr Who's eyes flicker open. Dr Who: "Oh... where am I... when am I... am I anywhere near a bar..." Colin: "It's true! I saw him access his Twitter account from this - " He whips out the Doctor's iPhone. All gasp in astonishment and mutter enviously. The Doctor stands up, fully awake. Dr Who: "Let me go, and I shall give you the secret of fire!" Zippy: "Eh?" Dr Who: "Er, I mean 'unlimited wireless connectivity'. Sorry, I slipped texts there!" 'Her' (she has a name, but being the token woman, nobody knows it) walks up to Colin and snakes his arms around him lovingly. 'Her': "It's obvious Colin is the one with the balls here. I'm going with him. 'Za' would be a poor chairman. And his nickname's crap. No wonder he didn't get through to 'The Apprentice' final." 'Za': "That was three years ago!!" Colin: "Silence! I have decided! We will kill this stranger's credit rating, and steal his iPhone! All agreed say aye." All: "Aye." Just then, Ian, Babs and Susan rush in, having made their way undetected through the building's ventilation shaft system. They grab the Doctor and, in the confusion the iPhone is dropped. The businessmen immediately drop to their knees in supplication as its touchscreen illuminates their faces in an odd, but sexy fashion. All: "iPhone, iPhone!!" The travellers make it back to TARDIS just as an overzealous traffic warden attempts to place a ticket on the front door. With a wheezing, groaning noise, it dematerialises. Ian: "Well that was quite an adventure!" Dr Who: "Hmm, yes, and what to do with you two Earth people, hmm?"

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 Babs: "Stop clutchin’ your lapels like that, you look stupid." Dr Who: "The day I take fashion advice from a woman with sensible shoes is the day I start wearing that multi-coloured jacket I picked up on the fourth planet Quinnis and chucked to the back of the wardrobe..." Susan: "But... where will we land next?" Dr Who turns, takes out 'The Dr Who Programme Guide' by Jean Marc L'officer from his pocket. He skips to the entry for the second story. Dr Who: "Oh, I have no idea, my dear child. No idea at all..."  DAVID MacGOWAN David MacGowan is the Editor of the paper fanzine Rassilon’s Rod. You can check out more information, on the fanzine’s Facebook Group here - http://on.fb.me/therod

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The Secret Diary of a WHOVIAN A (clichéd) Doctor Who fan on a Saturday. In a microcosm 12pm: Wake up and roll over 1.05: Wake up again and force myself out of bed. Gets breakfast – Coco Pops and Salt and Vinegar crisps. In the same bowl. 1.45: Checks my deluge of e-mails 1.46: Log into Second Life to see my Female avatar is still wearing the pink bra/knickers combo I bought for her last night. I’m no Mr Humphries, but even I can tell that they’re not worth the Linden Dollars I paid for them! 1.59: Checks out my EBay bid for the 11 Doctors figurine set (they’re not toys grown men don’t play with toys), I’m still winning, so I crack open a celebratory Sunny D. 2.02: Log onto Gallifrey Base to see the latest news and rumours. Looks like someone has spotted Katie Price eating/vomiting a sandwich in Bristol. She must be on her way to Cardiff. She must be in Doctor Who. She must be The Rani. 2.18: Argue with New Series Fans (I can tell who these are, because they all have David Tennant avatars) about Katie’s role. They seem to think that The Rani is some kind of regular villain in the Classic Series. She was only in it twice for goodness sake! (I don’t count Dimensions In Time because a man with a Tom Baker avatar said it wasn’t canon. And he MUST be a knowledgeable Classic Series fan to have that kind of avatar) 3.02: Tweets Paul Cornell after he posts an amusing comment on his Twitter feed. Also tweet Chris Moyles and Stephen Fry, despite me not having a clue what they do. 3.05: Log into LiveJournal to check out the latest slash fiction. My personal fave is K9 and Leela, but I get shouted down by those wanting a Jack/Doctor relationship. Have to endure looking at hand-drawn piccys of them ‘together’. 3.17: Return to computer after throwing up 3.18: Log back off again and spend the next few hours in my room, staring at my Karen Gillan posters 5.30: Changes underwear

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 5.31: Resumes Karen staring 6.01: Finishes and gets ready for Doctor Who. Phone is off the hook, popcorn is brought out of the microwave, cola and a packet of Haribo Tangfastics are sitting on the table 6.30: Watches Doctor Who 6.31: Stays watching and I chuckle to myself, at the thought of all these selfstyled ‘superfans’ who post DURING an episode! 7.15: The end credits roll, so I bolt to the computer as fast as I can to log on to Gallifrey Base to catch up with the reactions - I’m a REAL fan after all! Site is down so I go to Twitter to see what Doctor Who celebs think. They’re not posting. What’s going on? The episode has JUST finished! 9.30: Gallifrey Base is back up and I have some lengthy conversations about how Steven Moffat is way better than RTD. Everyone is saying it and laying into RTD at the same time, so they must be right. I tweet Steven to tell him all this. 10.00: Consider going to bed but I’m on MSN with someone who I don’t know from West Virginia. 10.36: Go to bed after saying goodbye to my Facebook Friend, who has just changed her relationship status to ‘Single’. I must be in with a chance then. I also make friends with a ‘Amy Pond’, who knows - she might be the real one and not some weirdo pretending to be her! 11.50: Wakes up after a dream about Karen Gillan, buying bananas in Tesco’s. 11.51: Write down a reminder on a space-themed post-it note – Buy new underwear. Some Doctor Who Jokes To Impress People With (Oh dear – Ed) What does Doctor Who have with his pizza? Dalek bread How does a Dalek keep its skin soft? Exfoliate! How many Doctor Who fans does it take to change a lightbulb? 10 - 1 to change the bulb and 9 others to complain that it's not as good as the last one Doctor, Doctor, My tooth is hurting! Is it your K-9? And finally…Knock, Knock…

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 Matt Smith IS The Doctor After reading the David Tennant Fangirls article in the last issue of Fish Fingers and Custard, I felt compelled to write a defence of Matt Smith. Okay, nothing particularly bad was said about him (bar one piece about how one fangirl said he made her skin crawl unnecessarily harsh), but not a lot of people have been sticking up for him lately. Let me start this rant by telling you, straight up, that I am a huge David Tennant fan. I loved his portrayal of the Doctor, I’ve loved him in everything I’ve seen him in, and yes, I think he’s gorgeous. I became a massive Doctor Who fan during his time on the show, and when he regenerated I cried buckets. I followed the stories of his replacement with interest, and remember when I first saw Matt Smith. After he was picked they featured a picture of him in the Metro newspaper, and I remember reading the article in outrage. How dare this floppy-haired 27 year old think he could step into Tennant’s shoes? Who the hell did he think he was? I muttered something about him looking like the lost Jedward triplet and vowed never to watch Doctor Who again. I did though, of course. April 3rd, 2010 I had beaten my family out of my way so I could have the TV to myself. I wanted to boo and hiss as this child tried to take my beloved David’s place. Imagine my surprise when I found myself warming to Smith in the first episode. Try as I might, I could not hate his interpretation. He was awkward, bumbling, alien, assertive, brave, energetic and intelligent, and all I could do was nod in agreement as he stepped through the hologram of the other Doctors and proclaimed who he was to the Atraxi. Some people have been harder to convince, and a lot of their reasons are basically retarded. Do a Google search of why people hate Matt Smith, and you get things like his forehead and nose are too big, or he’s too young, or, mainly, “OMFG he’s not David Tennant no-one can EVAR replace him looooooooooool.” You know the score. First off, looks shouldn’t matter in casting, it comes down to ability, and Smith has proved his acting ability in spades. He’s an acclaimed theatre and television actor. They hardly would have given arguably the most iconic Sci-Fi television role to someone they just dragged off the street. Secondly, his age. Here you can fuck right off. Peter Davison was only two years older when he landed the role, and he hardly messed things up. Age shouldn’t matter, the whole point of the Doctor regenerating is that it allows a new actor to come in and shake

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 things up. Would it really be better if they’d gotten someone older in? Watching Matt Smith and seeing the gravitas he brings to the character, I would disagree. There are times when you look into his eyes and you truly believe you are looking at someone who could be 907, with all the experiences and wisdom that would bring. That, again, comes down to acting ability, and has nothing to do with him being 27. Lastly, no, he’s not David Tennant. From the reaction of some fan girls you would seriously think that Matt Smith had personally dragged Tennant kicking and screaming from the BBC while Steven Moffat turned Russell T Davis on a spit. This was not the case. Tennant felt he’d taken his character as far as it could go, and frankly I agree with him. RTD had turned the series into its own fan fiction at the end and for either of them to stay any longer would have ruined what was a fantastic four years. But I digress. This is a defence of Smith, not a taking apart of the other series. The character of the Doctor is supposed to change. He’s supposed to be played by different actors with different ways of interpreting him. There are supposed to be new companions, new adventures. I freely admit that I am not the best person to write this defence; I only started watching Doctor Who in 2005 out of curiosity, I know nothing about the classic series, so I don’t know how Smith compares to the old Doctors. But I am fully qualified to talk about how he compares to Eccleston and Tennant. And the fact remains that any comparison between them all is nullified by the fact that these are all meant to be vastly different incarnations. It’s unbelievably shallow to hate Smith because he doesn’t conform to your idea of physical perfection; it’s short sighted to hate him because he’s young; it’s narrowminded to despise him because you were a huge fan of the actor who came before. Do you think Tennant wants all this hatred to be his legacy? We need to bear in mind that we have only seen Smith in one series. Yes, that’s the same amount as with Eccleston. He had a much more difficult job though, rebooting a character that had been out of the public eye for so long, and he did an amazing job of that. But we knew before his series started that he was leaving at the end, and it was hard to get emotionally invested. With Smith, we know he’s signed a three year contract with an option of a two more, and therefore we need to feel he’s the Doctor. And I would argue that we do. Yes, there were some crushing low points in his series, but not once did he come out looking bad. Not once did I look at the screen and think “Oh, Tennant would have managed that much better.” There was never a moment when I felt that a character and series that I love, passionately, were in the hands of the wrong man. Matt Smith has brought a new dimension to a show that millions of people adore, and I firmly believe that he deserves recognition for this from all people who call themselves Doctor Who fans.  EMMA DONOVAN

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4

Russell T. Davies: Genius, Madman or Both? He was the man who spearheaded the return of Doctor Who in 2003. When the first series of the new Doctor Who was screened 2 years later, RTD could do no wrong. Nowadays, Keyboard Warriors, Podcasters and Fanzines alike are spilt over his era. Was it good or bad? Did he go at the right time? Should he have gone sooner or even stayed on? Did he spoil the legacy of classic Doctor Who? In this article, I’m going to try and offer my thoughts on the matter! The Good No television producer could have brought Doctor Who back and made it such a success like RTD did. Anyone who doubts that just doesn’t know anything about British Television. Growing up for me was either spent playing on my computer or playing outside with a ball. I only really watched television when I came home from school, and even then it was imported American cartoons. British television was in a lull and it took the return of Doctor Who to set the bar for new and exciting 21st century television. Not just Science Fiction, but FAMILY television, programmes that all the family could sit down to watch and enjoy. I honestly can’t remember anything like it growing up. RTD was the hottest property in British telly at the time. His Channel 4 series ‘Queer as Folk’ set a standard and shocked dinosaur viewers with its ‘gay overtones'. I think most were shocked by how good it was actually! He went on to write and produce more great dramas, most notably ITV’s ‘The Second Coming’ which stared Christopher Eccleston, at a time when Channel 3 (I’ve always known it as Channel 3, never ITV1!) was investing in original drama, rather than making reality tat and giving jobs to rubbish ‘comedians’! The BBC, to their credit, saw this and wanted him to work for them. I don’t know RTD personally, but I don’t think he’s the kind of man to be driven by money. He’s driven by the desire to make his own television programmes – and he wanted Doctor Who. He’s a fan, a big fan. If you’re reading this fanzine then you are too. Can you just imagine what it’ll feel like to demand to the biggest and best Television Corporation in the world that you’ll work for them, ONLY if they’ll bring back your favourite programme from when you were a kid? Absolutely brilliant. He did it and we owe him a debt for doing so. Doctor Who was a success and suddenly more networks, not just the BBC, saw that there was something in this big-budget family drama. Most of them haven’t been great, but at

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 least they tried to get families around a television in an age where it’s too easy to do something else, separately. Then the series came along. I was instantly hooked by the first episode. It wasn’t like anything I have ever seen before. It was so well made, that I couldn’t even describe why it was! That was until I clasped eyes on Doctor Who Confidential, the ‘making of’ documentaries that are on BBC Three after the airing of an episode. Doctor Who nowadays is well known for being made by fans of the program. What a great concept it is to show young people (and older ones!) how a certain camera shot is done, how they do the effects, how Karen fits into those skirts etc. It’s educational and inspiring at the same time – how many kids will dream of being a director, writer or effects-maker after watching that and the cool stuff it entails? My guess – a lot more than before! Ironically, around the same time, ITV are pushing a number of reality shows that make the ‘dreams’ of people come true, by showing them that working hard for years isn’t the answer. Just turning up and belting out a cover song will make you realise it. Sorry, just me and my prejudices there, but I’m sure you can grasp what I’m saying! The Bad My biggest gripe with RTD’s writing is the constant bringing back of characters. For me, he rescued a somewhat average series 2 with those last 2 episodes. That ending with Rose was heartbreaking, it was great drama, and I was literally on the edge of my seat. Then he had to spoil it… The End of Time Part 2 is a vast improvement on Part 1 - but that scene with Rose at the end. How much emotional impact would that have had on a viewer when the last time we saw her was in Doomsday, living a life in the other Universe? Unfortunately, I had grown sick of seeing Rose by then, as she popped up in Series 4, with the rest of the cast from previous series, so it had no impact at all. It was needless and spoiled what was a great storyline. If I can work that out Russell, surely you can? People will say ‘Well, he wanted Rose to have a happy ending’. Wasn’t the fact that she was alive, with her family (including her father, who wasn’t technically her father!) and lived in a comfortable home, not a happy ending? We all can’t have we want in life and that was why that scene, with them both in different dimensions, touching the wall, was so heartbreaking and moved so many people. Those few seconds were as true to life as Doctor Who could be. It was the equivalent to building your dream house, getting it all nice and pretty, then knocking it all down because you wasn’t happy with the kitchen lino. I just didn’t like the way in which Rose was handled. My heart sank when ‘Doctor 10.5’ snogged Rose in Journey’s End - it didn’t need to be done. I felt the ending in Doomsday had been spoiled - the suggestion of what The Doctor apparently felt should have been enough. There is your wonderful but yet, heartbreaking ending. Look at Torchwood: Children of Earth episode 4 and then episode 5 - that is how a heartbreaking ending

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 SHOULD be done. No returns, no comebacks just the memory of how you felt whilst watching a scene from a piece of fiction. It may leave you happy or sad, but whichever it is, you just cannot recreate that feeling you get when you watch it unfolding. Imagine how you would feel if it was spoiled by a poorly-handled return to that story? Well we don’t need to imagine anymore, as a silly plot point (the ‘other Doctor’) was created just to give Rose a nice, cosy ending and something for fans to ‘aquee’ about. I’m sorry, I know some people reading this may love it, but I just feel uncomfortable every time I see it, it spoiled 4 years of Doctor Who for me - all that build-up, all that excitement, ruined by that moment. I personally think RTD just tried to please the fans too hard (or more likely, he had his ‘fan head’ on too much!) Every year saw the return of an old enemy that we all wanted back. Each year had to better than the next and it just got ridiculous. Saving the Earth in the future in Series 1, Series 2 was about saving two Earths in different Universes, Series 3 saving the Earth (and ultimately the Universe) in the present, Series 4 was about saving all the Universes. Then the Specials, all about saving time itself. Where could he go after that? I suppose he was a victim of his own success and now Steven Moffat has taken his lead. I’m not keen on this ‘event’ direction the show is going in at the moment. Each series HAS to be the best ever, the music NEEDS to be loud and brash (so you can’t hear the dialogue!) and you just CAN’T miss it! It’s just a shame it always ends up in disappointment, as everyone has got their own expectations of what makes an ‘event episode’. Doctor Who doesn’t need to be an ‘event’, families don’t need a gimmick to sit around the telly - just make decent drama and we’ll watch, love and remember it for years. It’s as simple as that. The Ugly Now I’m a football supporter. When I say that, I mean I’m a proper one who actually attends the matches, rather than one who pays my subscription to Rupert Murdoch, so Sky Sports can continue to ruin football. So when it comes to knowing about peoples reactions to fiercely-fought episodes, I know them. But I have never, ever, seen a fanbase so spilt over something than Doctor Who fans over RTD. I love how he winds us up. For example, the episode Love and Monsters was a pisstake out of fans, and in true RTD fashion, the fans are spilt over the quality of that episode too! I personally don’t mind it, Peter Kay apart, it’s a fun episode, just a bit of fluff (and I’ll have you know that an oral sex joke goes down well with the lads!). Even then, forums are awash with people venting their anger at it. It’s one episode for goodness sake, not a vital plot point that affects the whole of Doctor Who history! Grow up and spend some time with your friends/family instead of posting abuse for a writer on a internet forum! But that’s the ugly part, the split in fans. I love our fanbase, it’s by far the biggest and best television fanbase out there. But at times I just get frustrated, as they judge one man’s writing skills on a relatively-meaningless episode. The people who tried to boycott

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 Human Nature, because it was adapted from the book, by the SAME writer! The same people who abused James Moran about Ianto in Torchwood, despite him co-writing JUST episode 3! The same people who won’t give Matt Smith a chance. You’re not Doctor Who fans. Could that last sentence be applied to the critics of RTD? Of course not. Everyone is entitled to their view, some have got some good points (especially about the latter part of RTD’s era), but I just feel that some fans just revel in ripping into the man, now he’s departed. It’s fine if it’s constructive, but I do get the feeling that RTD didn’t care a jot about the ‘traditional’ fans of Doctor Who and went about his own business, taking digs at those ‘obsessive fans’ (or ‘Ming Mongs’, probably written by him in a playful way in his book The Writers Tale, but the word ‘Mong’ is hardly a flattering term where I come from – so I’m stunned when some Doctor Who fans seem to revel in it! Oh and Russell please don’t reference Victoria Wood ever again!) It was also interesting for me to learn that John Nathan-Turner got similar (if not more) criticism, despite him working with two hands tied behind his back, during his latter time as producer in the 1980’s. Funny that. Whoever takes the job of head writer/producer of Doctor Who is on a hiding to nothing by a small percentage of the people who supposedly love it. Just as long as they try their best to make decent drama, I couldn’t give a toss. And you what? RTD and Moffatt don’t give a toss what you abuse them with either. So cut it out and make your views constructive instead. Genius or Mad Man? RTD is definitely both. And knowing what I know of the man, I think he’ll be pleased to hear that!  DANIEL GEE

THE ‘T’ IS FOR ‘TELEVISION’ In writings about Doctor Who’s formative years, reference is often made to the television of the time - Play For Today, Coronation Street, Z Cars, Out of the Unknown, Compact; similarly each consecutive decade of the series is regularly mentioned in comparison to, or contrast with, such fare as Top of the Pops, Upstairs Downstairs, The Duchess of Duke Street, The A Team (god help us), The X Files, etc. Rarely however is the modern incarnation of the show considered in terms of its place within the landscape of modern TV (two important exceptions would be Andrew Pixley’s ‘Scheduled for Success’ series in DWM which examined the art of TV scheduling, and ‘Is Doctor Who Actually Any Good?’, again in DWM, which probed leading critics for their view on Who’s status as a contemporary classic). An obvious reason for this is its very newness - it is difficult to properly ascertain a cultural moment when you’re still currently living that moment. However, the RTD era is now over and done with, meaning that it can be sealed off, Time Lock-style, into its own little fan-friendly section of our internal archive. And with this archival trick of fan psychology the RTD era can begin to be understood within an historical context.

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 Series One didn’t so much blaze onto the screens as invite us in - the decidedly casual viewer-friendly look of ‘Rose’ was deliberate. The much-maligned Keith Boak was pilloried immediately for a directorial style that supposedly was more at home in tea-time soap Hollyoaks than Sci-Fi. And this is very true. The look of that first episode is domestic, ordinary, ‘normal’ because Rose’s life is so normal - even when the action begins it does so in tourist picture postcard fashion, with a run down Westminster and larks around the London Eye. It goes without saying that Hollyoaks was bandied around as an insult. But ‘Rose’ was just one episode - even when Boak returns for the Slitheen two-parter, that shiny shopping mall aesthetic is gone and we have the RTD era’s first self-reflexive referencing of contemporary television. But not its first aesthetic referencing of then-current telly. The Powell Estate, with its grim and grimy high rises, deserted playing fields, rows of lock-ups and garages, although there to sell us the everyday normality of the Tyler clan, also places us within the context of Shameless and its defiantly un-normal housing estate environment. From 2004 on, Paul Abbott’s sprawling and Dickensian series by turns played with, tore down and reinvented TV stereotypes of working class ‘normal’ British life in the same way that RTD-era Who does. Rose wakes up in a cramped bedroom, walks down the stairs (pointedly - do the lifts ever work in these sorts of series?) and out to her dull job in Henrick’s. After being dumped by the Doctor at the end of Series One, Rose contemplates her fate at the tacky table of a chip shop. It is not sufficient to merely state that these are recognisable environments which casual viewers would not be repelled by; these are recognisable television environments, the sorts of settings the viewers would watch in Eastenders, Shameless, even The Office with its famously grim and deadpan opening titles of an ageing concrete office block. The Powell Estate is the site for a family tea-time viewing version of Shameless; the chaos of Jackie Tyler’s flat during the ‘Aliens are here!’ scenes in ‘Aliens of London’ is the nearest RTD would be able to get to the hedonistic and drug-abusing environs of his friend Paul Abbott’s series - the different families wandering in and out, bored goth teenagers passing round unidentifiable cans, the chattering of different accents and languages spilling over each other, and in the corner the Doctor trying to ignore them and watch the telly… add someone blatantly off his tits and a couple nipping off for a shag in the bathroom and you’d have a scene from Shameless. ‘Love and Monsters’ almost makes that leap with Jackie’s outrageous and unsubtle flirting with Elton. Series One began modern Who’s fascination with how television interprets and packages the living world around it, with its rolling news channels and comical satires. Reality TV was the major boom during the Naughties and of course is parodied in ‘Bad Wolf’ but by Series Two the programme had something of the reality TV feel about it itself. Big Brother is important for many reasons, one of which was its spawning of spin-off shows -

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 Big Brother’s Little Brother, Big Brother’s Big Mouth, and that other one with the psychologists the name of which escapes me (Big Brother: On The Couch – Ed); the RTD era similarly jumped straight into this media landscape with para-texts such as the online Tardisodes, Doctor Who Confidential, Totally Doctor Who and the various primetime one-off specials such as the two ones that book-ended Series One and, latterly, the show that introduced Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor. These para-texts, alongside BBC Three repeats, iPlayer access, illegal downloading and even the launch of cheap ‘second-hand’ channels such as Watch help give Doctor Who the sense of being a rolling channel itself, part endless repeat, part brand. Just as Big Brother itself began to lose its appeal to the mass audience so did this relentless spin-offery, and Doctor Who’s own spin-offs trickled to just Doctor Who Confidential (albeit beefed-up to an improbable one hour). Series Four is perhaps the RTD series which plays most with recognisable televisual contexts. In the Naughties ‘Quality Television’ became the hip phrase amongst American TV pundits, a description meant to distance certain shows from the morass of soaps and action series that swamp US screens. And American Quality Television soon caught on here, from The Sopranos and House to Heroes and Lost. Britain responded to such fare with programmes like Spooks, Hustle, Life On Mars, even Torchwood - programmes designed to be carried on as ongoing series but programmes made with care behind the cameras and innovative flare in front of them. Series Four is the RTD era’s take on this. ‘Partners in Crime’, like the chaperoned Shameless of Series One, is Sex And The City; it’s all metropolitan japery, quick wit and repartee, body politics and dating (“I can do so much better” chirps an ex-fatty given confidence by Adipose Pills. This being Doctor Who, her body then dissolves into a hundred little alien creatures). ‘The Fires of Pompeii’ of course reflects the HBO/BBC co-production of Rome, a sadly short-lived TV sensation, and much was made in publicity about the filming on the same sets; never before had an historical Who story felt quite so authentic in its ancient geography. ‘Turn Left’ mixes the US series Heroes with a pessimistic British tradition - here, the sexy blonde chick who can zap between timelines is talking a temp from Chiswick out of a racist ghetto and into an act of suicide. Not so much ‘save the cheerleader, save the world’ as ‘kill the temp, save the timeline’. When the BBC wheeled out it’s big publicity cannons to give David Tennant and the RTD era a proper send-off, it employed such subtle but important tactics as newlycommissioned idents. The programme was by then established as a jewel in the nascent BBC HD’s crown, David Tennant and his TARDIS crashing to their end in glorious highdefinition. The Doctor was changing. Again. TV was changing. Again. The RTD era, as others before it, can be read on its own by fans who only want to see Doctor Who in isolation from a wider culture they perhaps hold in poor regard. Equally, and I think more interestingly, it can be seen as part of the wider culture, a utopia of experience in which television, music, art, theatre mix and blend with each other as seamlessly and yet at the same time as oddly as they do with our own daily lives and conversations. When we wonder what future Doctor Who will look like we are also wondering about the future of television.  DAVID MacGOWAN

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 Temporal Vertigo – A Dalek Empire Overview Apart from producing many Doctor Who audio adventures that kept us fans going during the Wilderness years, Big Finish also produced several Who-related spin-off series’ on CD. My favourite of these spinoffs was Dalek Empire. A series exclusively written and directed by Nick Briggs and inspired heavily by the 60’s Dalek Annuals that Nick had treasured as a young boy. The series takes place in the distant future and tells the story of a mass Dalek invasion of our galaxy, seen through the eyes of our main protagonists. Susan Mendes (Sarah Mowat) is a very driven, strong-willed geologist woman who is amongst the first to be captured and enslaved when the Daleks invade her colony world of Vega VI. The Daleks learn to use Susan Mendes as a tool for galvanising morale amongst their slaves with her speeches of hope for a better future, thus making their slave workforce more efficient and their war machine more devastatingly powerful. Out of guilt for her collaboration, Susan begins to plot a mass rebellion against the Daleks that she hopes will topple their expanding empire. Sarah Mowat’s performance is excellent, very expressive and passionate. You can almost read the look on her face from her vocal inflection alone. Susan’s a very believable character, a spontaneous, firey workaholic woman with a certain weakness for codependency. She lives for being there for the needy (but rather selfishly it’s more about her own needs than theirs). She can be aggressively obtuse when she doesn’t want to face uncomfortable truths. But despite which, she has tremendous iron-willed resilience and amazing courage. Alby Brook (Mark McDonnell) is a taxi driver who has long pursued Susan. When they’re both separated in the Dalek invasion, Alby goes against his cowardly nature and braves Dalek territory to find Susan again to tell her his feelings for her. Alby tends to be a fan favourite. He’s your man’s man, loves the women and the beer. He’s basically your working class hero with a good heart and provides good-humoured levity amidst the bleakness. Kalendorf (Gareth Thomas of Blakes’ 7) is the most fascinating character. A telepathic ambassador for the Knights of Veleyshaa who finds himself captured by the Daleks and forced to work with Susan. Initially he resents Susan’s collaboration, but over time a strong bond develops between them and eventually he’s willing to lay down his life for her. Kalendorf has strong shades of Orcini from Revelation of the Daleks- similar eloquence, commanding presence, deadly determination, shrewdness and ruthless pragmatism, willing to make any and all sacrifices for victory. Alby once said of Kalendorf that he’d “sell you all down the river for the sake of honour.” If this was Star Trek, then Kalendorf would be a peripheral, ‘savage’ alien warrior character, there to be

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 patronised and enlightened by the more ‘civilised’ humans. But instead Kalendorf gets to have authority over the humans and even criticises their poor moral fibre, and actually comes across as having the greater wisdom and dignity. Dalek Empire offers a compelling, haunting vision of the future, placing you firmly within its high-tech worlds of lush colony paradises and gleaming luxury star cruisers. An idyllic image of humanity at its most efficient, prosperous and progressive, where people seem to have been raised from an early age to be brave and strong and to possess almost superhuman resilience. This future feels real and populated, so populated in-fact that the Dalek war almost seems a necessary evil in bringing about some needed population control. The Daleks invade in their armadas of saucers and transsolar discs, reducing these beautiful worlds to dust. The atmosphere is intoxicatingly lurid, like suburbia gone sour. The series is thematically about the conflict between technology and nature, as the Daleks destroy entire eco-systems and humanity’s technological, military might is decimated, forcing our heroes to go back to basics, to natural gifts and instincts, to their collective manpower and fighting spirit and even looking back to pre-technological ancient strategies of history. There’s a real sense of nowhere-to-run horror, with no easy ways out. In TV stories like ‘Frontier in Space’, the Doctor always brought humanity back from the brink of war. Here there’s no Doctor, and there’s no getting out of this- there’s going to be war and it’s going to be long and enormously costly, and the series depicts the horrors of war in unflinching, explicit detail. Any Dalek fan will love the series’ exploration of the Dalek hierarchy. There’s the Dalek drones, here at their most volatile and homicidal. Special Weapons Daleks also make an appearance. Then there’s the Dalek Supreme, an especially nasty piece of work that’s poisonously manipulative and terrifyingly shrewd about human psychology and how to exploit it. Finally there’s the mighty Notorious B.I.G. Emperor Dalek with his perpetually ticking mind, always calculating the war’s direction and the Daleks’ destiny. Rob Shearman –never a big fan of Daleks- said in DWM that Dalek Empire was possibly Big Finish’s best production. He particularly praised its depiction of the relationship between tyrant and oppressed and the general power relations that define daily life. I think the series is very relevant to our modern world. We live in an increasingly aggressive, fast-paced, unstopping, work-dominated, anxiety-driven, confrontational society where social groups are becoming more savagely tribalistic, cliquey and petty and people seem to be adopting false happiness and consumerism as an aversion therapy, and trying their best to hold onto a sense of normality. Dalek Empire looks to a future of an overworked humanity where people are tested, intimidated, categorised and reduced day by day, but it also shows how people can have tremendous inner strength and can fight back with overwhelming force. After Dalek Empire’s success, Nick Briggs produced a sequel series Dalek Empire II- Dalek War, in which our heroes become caught between two warring Dalek factions, involving another race of Daleks from a parallel universe where the Daleks were created as a peacekeeping army of light by a woman called The Mentor. Initially Kalendorf and his friends ally themselves with the Mentor’s Daleks, but gradually they learn that the Mentor and her Daleks have a sinister agenda of their own.

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 Dalek Empire II is a more fluid, intense, fast-paced series, with more thematic density than its predecessor, and it has a lot to say about war, whether it’s a troop of human soldiers succumbing to infection by Varga plants, representing a metaphor for how war turns ordinary people into unthinking psychopaths, or when the Daleks hold a hopeless fort against overwhelming Earth forces because the Dalek Supreme refused them permission to withdraw, they’re panicking in their shells, knowing they’re going to die and yet they can’t disobey their orders, like the siege of Stalingrad. It’s a series where every decision made by our heroes can change the course of history and the tide of humanity in massive ways. It’s about moral complexity, the importance of history and how one man can make a difference, which was Doctor Who’s ethos in its classic years, before Tom Baker left and the series succumbed to the shallowing reductionism of the 80’s and the modern age. The story plays out organically, like a liveaction roleplaying game where each spontaneous action or decision shifts the entire power dynamic and makes the outcome truly unpredictable. Hence why the parallel universe angle where history followed a different path fits perfectly, and also emphasises that humanity faces the choice between two different streams. Given the eerie technological future seen here, the Daleks’ existence actually comes across as a technological inevitability, coupled with human ambition and lust for power, and so it makes sense that the Daleks must exist in some form in every parallel universe, even if their origins differ wildly. That’s why I think this series could standalone, independent of Doctor Who, just like ‘City of Death’ could. The Mentor (Hannah Smith) is a particularly fascinating character, and it’s her differences to her absent counterpart Davros that are most interesting. Like Davros, she is meticulously sharp when it comes to reading people and knowing instantly when someone is lying or feeling anxious or afraid. Unlike Davros however, she seems to genuinely empathise with people. She initially seems to have an almost spiritual aura of benevolence and compassion, and her hatred of the enemy Daleks certainly seems like a righteous one. She comes across very much as a beautiful avenging angel. However when she begins showing her true colours, it’s somehow expected. There was always a sense she was repressing an angry, darker streak, that she had certain perfectionist expectations of her human allies and that she was always suspicious of them. She’s basically a control freak with convictions in what she believes is right, but in a very absolutist way in which nothing is open for debate. She believes human nature itself makes her allies potentially dangerous and that peace is only possible through subjugation, and it seems so compulsive with her that you get the sense that she can’t stop herself being the tyrant she is. She basically has a narcissistic Mother-Earth complex and everything of her character and her long-lived history is consistent with that. Her final confrontation with Kalendorf is oddly poignant, because from her perspective she’s been betrayed and rejected by a close friend who she did everything to help and protect from the enemy Daleks, and she still can’t acknowledge anything wrong about her actions. It was hearing about the parallel universe Daleks and their own female Davros that first got me interested in Dalek Empire, and infact I skipped the first series and bought the first two chapters of Dalek Empire II straight away. I took a plunge without knowing the backstory, and I have to say I found it surprisingly easy to follow and understand. The predicament had immediacy, and the characters were so well-defined and selfexplanatory I just instinctively ‘got’ them. Much like watching The Empire Strikes Back the first time with no prior knowledge of Star Wars, the backstory didn’t matter because

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 I was caught up in the characters, the drama and the relentless chase. From the moment Susan Mendes let the Daleks know she’d commit martyrdom in order to defeat them, it was immediately clear why she was such a beloved beacon of hope and rebellion to the galaxy, and I pretty much fell in love with her character there and then. I was hooked right until the mind-blowing ending which was operatic in its devastation and I never saw it coming. Nick Briggs had intended that to be the end of the story. But despite which, in 2004 he wrote yet another sequel, Dalek Empire III, which was set 2000 years later, where the galaxy has long forgotten about the Daleks, but now the Daleks are preparing to invade again. Here the story introduces a completely new cast of characters. Siy Tarkov (Steven Elder) is a political envoy for the Galactic Union, and he is the first to discover the Dalek invasion plans. Having recently lost his wife and daughter in an accident, he is naturally feeling very fatalistic about the Dalek threat, and quite realistically for a bereaved father his main fear of this Dalek war is for the many youths who’ll get drafted to fight it, and the mechanised military culture they’ll be growing up in. As such he speaks for how many of us felt during the Iraq war. Georgi Selestru (William Gaunt) is the head of Galactic Union security. He’s stoic but also a rulebreaker when need be, and very much a pragmatist. Far shrewder and more cynical than his indolent, pig-headed fellow councillors. He plays very much a background role in the series but possesses the very nobility and determination that makes him a hero in his own way. Gallanar (David Tennant) is Georgi’s best agent, physiologically augmented to be the perfect superhuman warrior against the Daleks. Skilled at disguise, deception, manipulation and even invisibility, and with fighting energies that never seem to tire. The series focuses on the close friendship he develops with Siy Tarkov, which underpins the theme of finding peace of mind in bleak times. David Tennant’s performance, prior to playing the Tenth Doctor, exhibits the same effortless charm and determined optimism, sombre compassion, slippery unpredictability, and hints of a ruthless darker streak, but with a more seasoned maturity, and thankfully free of the cringeworthy Rose-moping that had me switching off midway through Series 3. Elaria (Claudia Elmhirst) has also been physiologically augmented, but something goes wrong and it is the Daleks who end up awakening her, and since she is programmed to imprint like a hatchling on whoever revives her (there’s that ‘nature’ theme again) she becomes the Daleks’ loyal servant and agent. Claudia Elmhirst’s performance as this duplicitous character is superb, mastering an intricate performance within a performance, and yet remains believable even when her character is lying. Elaria carries

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 much pathos as a confused character without any sense of identity. She’s like someone who’s had a messed up childhood, very fatalistic, very needy, very manipulative by necessity as a learned survival tool, able to easily get what she wants from people but never quite sure what it is she really wants. In that regard the Daleks, in exploiting her confusion and vulnerability, basically come to represent the destructive, detrimental power of cults. Then there’s the Graxis Wardens, a group of conservationists safeguarding the wildlife on the primitive world of Graxis Major. They’re led by Commander Frey Saxton (Ishia Benson), a woman of fierce convictions and guts with an infallible bullshit detector. Her closest bonds are with her first officer and long-time friend Dan Culver (Peter Forbes) who has a free licence to be frank and critical over her judgement, and then there’s trainee Kaymee Arnod (Laura Rees), an enthusiastic young girl who she develops something of a maternal bond with. Kaymee is an adorable character, like your typical chatty Anime fangirl with a soft spot for cute animals. However the Graxis Wardens are forced off-world when the Daleks invade and wreak havoc on Graxis Major. These kind of eco-themes often recur in Nick Briggs’ writing, particularly in his audio masterpiece Creatures of Beauty, and there’s an inspired moment of poetic irony where the Wardens realise the Daleks have been pursuing them all along by following their ship’s smog trail. Despite this strong character material, Dalek Empire III was considered a disappointment and was panned, somewhat unfairly, by fans. I don’t think a reasonably good story has gotten such undeserved flak since ‘Horns of Nimon’. The main complaints being that the series was too talky, padded and overblown, with lengthy, extraneous discussions between characters reiterating recent events and questioning the Daleks’ nature. I think those complaints miss the point. The dialogue is actually very naturalistic, and whilst the evil nature of the Daleks is familiar to us fans, the Daleks are something unfamiliar to these characters. So their shock reactions to the killings and their attempts to rationalise or even excuse what the Daleks have done because they just can’t believe anyone can be capable of such evil acts, is actually very realistic. If the Daleks represent Nazis, then Dalek Empire is about how ordinary people turned a blind eye, or were easily led and manipulated by Nazism, because it’s simply human nature to fall in line and trust in the best intentions, or to react to horrific events with an unregistering shock denial, or to aggressively blot out uncomfortable truths. But Dalek Empire III was always going to be a comedown after the stellar previous two series, and on those terms I think it’s far better than we might have expected. But there’s no shaking the feeling that it’s simply prolonging a story that already reached its natural conclusion in Dalek Empire II. Whilst Dalek Empire II was a very different series to its predecessor, Dalek Empire III just feels like more of the same, without the freshness it once had. The Daleks don’t inspire the same nightmarish dread or invincibility they used to, and each time they commit another atrocity or massacre, it becomes more numbing and desensitising to the point where it has little impact anymore. Gone are the days when these Dalek-occupied worlds felt honestly haunted by the dead. The pacing is decent, but the story still feels meandering and it’s only really in the final chapter that the series gets back to the high-density and relentless tension of its predecessors. The climax has a real sense of the ticking clock and not since ‘Logopolis’ have I believed the end of the universe was such a real possibility. Indeed I love how the deciding battle for the future of the galaxy basically comes down to a ruck on a derelict

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 council estate. However it all ends on an inconclusive, unresolved note which leaves the whole outcome ambiguous, and that can be judged as a good or bad thing I suppose. The strength of Dalek Empire was in treating the concept of the Daleks as an invincible, all-conquering nebulous evil force, with full respect. For me the main TV story that ruined the Daleks was ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’ (I’m not sure why I defended it in Issue 2, it’d be better off lost). Sure it nailed the Dalek fear factor and featured lots of exterminations, but its undisciplined excesses ultimately exhausted and diminished the Daleks into disposability, particularly when the Daleks got creamed at the end in a pornographic display of destruction (although its excesses would eventually be outdone by Journey’s End). But Dalek Empire really got the Daleks back to their classic glory days, and it carefully emphasised that ‘less is more’. Dalek Empire showed the full-scale Dalek wars for the first time, but without demystifying them. There was a lot going on during the story that wasn’t shown. Many devastating battles were relayed in spoken word after the fact. Instead the defining moments were the hyperbeam communications dialogues between Susan Mendes and the Dalek Supreme that at once established the Daleks as a far reaching, relentless single-minded threat, whilst simultaneously asserting humanity’s ceaseless spirit and courage and that we’ll never give up the fight against them. Seeing just one moment of Susan Mendes igniting the rage of rebellion as slaves smash down their Dalek guards in the onslaught was enough to convey the turning tide across the galaxy. And we always knew this was just an episode in the cycle of future history, with many future Dalek wars to come. That’s something cherishably rare these days when films like The Matrix explain their entire subtext to us and leave nothing imponderable. Overall Dalek Empire III didn’t really diminish this. It dealt in the microcosmic, it left imponderables and it preserved the Daleks as a nebulous evil concept, and so I think the open-ended conclusion worked. Dalek Empire IV- The Fearless was finally released in 2007, and currently stands as the last in the series. It was a prequel story, set during the first Dalek Empire series. Nick Briggs said he wanted to appeal to the new generation of fans (casting Noel Clarke as the hero), and that he felt it was necessary to restart the series on a clean slate as to avoid alienating first-time listeners, despite the fact that I’d found Dalek Empire II perfectly accessible first-time. Not only was this frustrating for those of us who wanted some follow-up to Dalek Empire III’s ending, but it took away from Dalek Empire’s great strength of making the future of the galaxy feel uncertain right to the end. This time we’d know the outcome in advance, rendering the story pointless. I think that became a big writing obstacle for Nick, in how to keep Dalek Empire IV’s story unpredictable, and the result is a contrived mess that keeps piling on

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 unsustainable twists and rewriting the characters and plot on a whim to the point where it all collapses. But what horrified me was how incredibly mean-spirited it was. It was simply a pointless, Noel Clarke star-vehicle where he played a reprehensible bully of a soldier. In going for a less talky, more populist, fast-paced action-orientated approach (written quite cynically to a very bored, adolescent mindset), we got no character development and nothing remotely sympathetic about the bullyboy ‘hero’. The treatment of female characters was particularly disgraceful, and although Susan Mendes was back, she seemed to be there in name only, with no sign of the empowering figure we all loved, making me feel supremely cheated. To me what made Dalek Empire work, despite its unrelenting nightmarish bleakness and astronomical body-count, was how its determined heroes never gave up hope. It was euphoric survival horror- the opposite of the mindless, nihilistic self-destruction of Season 21’s pointlessly contrived, soulless body-counts. Indeed Susan Mendes’ story of collaboration and rebellion was a welcome rebuttal of Warriors of the Deep’s twisted, suicidal appeasement message. Dalek Empire was actually a very forward-looking, optimistic sci-fi story about humanity’s endurance in the darkest times ahead. But more importantly our heroes were compassionate people- humanitarians, workingclass heroes, doctors, environmentalists and noblemen, people who believed in helping their fellow man and they gave the series a universal appeal. Even when Kalendorf did terrible things, he did them for what he saw as the greater good. But Dalek Empire IV was just heartless, regressive and devoid of compassion. Taking place in a universe of only bullies and victims- like a horrible throwback to Season 21’s twisted scorn on humanity and cold-hearted individualism, and even discarding the well-crafted, organic plotting of old in favour of forcing characters to commit ridiculous, out of character, destructive actions just to make some pretentious point about humanity being as evil as the Daleks, leaving no-one to root for anymore, and no reason to care. However, as with previous Dalek Empire series’, the production is faultless. It’s polished but not at the expense of its rawness and edge. From the moment you start listening, you are vividly there in that alien landscape with the heroes. The Dalek voices sound so harsh and terrifying, the atmosphere of the wilderness of space is so evocative. In the action sequences, the audio absolutely places you within the action and encloses you in it, with no way out. Those sequences are as nail-biting, and heart-racing as the epic raid on Lopra Minor in the first Dalek Empire series. If you view this simply as an action flick then it’s exemplary. But to me it just felt horribly cheap and dishonest, simply manipulative shock-tactics over substance. But Dalek Empire and Dalek Empire II are some of the best audio drama you’ll ever come across. If you’ve not heard them, you need to rectify this situation right now. Dalek Empire III is rather less essential but I’d recommend it anyway. Dalek Empire IV, I wouldn’t bother with unless you’re really curious. It was the Doctor Who we always wanted, with long-term consequences, no easy get-outs and no limits to its vision, and in which the Daleks could quite believably win. Unless maybe you’re snobbish about non-televised adventures, or you’re one of those sneery poser-type fans who finds it fashionable to dismiss this as ‘fanwank’ I can’t see how anyone could possibly hate on Dalek Empire.

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 If Dalek Empire was adapted for television, I believe it would have struck an instant chord with casual viewers and could even have been ‘event TV’ (in-fact, much like fellow Doctor Who audios, The Wormery or Terror Firma, it’d have made a fantastic Anime). I think people would be talking about the previous night’s episode at the bus stop or water cooler, “can you believe she did that?”, “Oh will they ever see each other again?”, teenagers would dream of being Kalendorf, Susan Mendes would be an inspirational hero to any woman who’s ever suffered an abusive relationship or sexual harassment, and the dads who remembered Dalekmania’s heyday would be reliving their youth.  THOMAS COOKSON

 LAUREN BLAKELY http://lauren-blakely.com

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 From The Archives: William Hartnell 1964 Interview This is a rare interview with William Hartnell, taken in-between filming of series 1 and 2, in 1964. (Taken from the excellent Doctor Who Interviews Blog, which can be found on Wordpress at http://drwhointerviews.wordpress.com ) Are you pleased with the way the series has been received? Very. We’re all very pleased and honoured that so many people seem to have taken it to their hearts. Are you surprised at how popular ‘Doctor Who’ is? In some ways yes, in some ways no. I always believed in the idea of it, but a good idea is no guarantee of success. I suppose it was with the second serial, where we meet the Daleks, that it really took off. I’m very pleased. They’re coming back, you know, in the new series. Are the Daleks your favourite monsters from the first series? Well I’m not sure that they weren’t the only monsters. All the other adversaries, were they really monsters? They were in many cases human, or human-like, and quite complicated in terms of their motivations. I think perhaps the Daleks were the only monsters. They were very good. I knew that from the moment I first saw them, I knew they had legs, if you’ll excuse the pun. Are there any other adversaries from the first series returning? No, I don’t think so. We don’t want to rest on our laurels, we want to create new adversaries. The Daleks we can’t ignore, they’re everywhere, they’ve invaded the high street. But I hope we don’t overuse them. I was very clear on that with the producers. I told them we must not let the series descend into constant Dalek battles. They must be used sparingly. Do you have much input when it comes to storylines? No, I keep my nose out. I dare say I could have more of a say, but we have very talented writers and I let them get on with their job, as I get on with mine. How much of the character of Doctor Who was present in the original script, and how much did you add? Most of it was there. I brought something of myself to it, I’m sure, but if he and I sat down together we would seem very different. I think he’s a wonderful character, very mysterious and enigmatic but very kind beneath the veneer of grumpiness. You’re filming a second series now. Will there be a third? I hope so. I think so. One never knows, but I think we’ll be back. I shall certainly be back if they let me.

Want to see YOUR work in the fanzine? Fish Fingers and Custard accepts ANYTHING Doctor Who. It can be essays, reviews, fiction, poems, spoofs, art, drawings, comics…the list is endless! Just e-mail us at fishcustardfanzine@googlemail.com anytime! 30

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 My Time With The Doctor, In America I first became aware of the Doctor when I was a kid. Our local PBS station in Grand Rapids, Michigan, WGVU, would show edited versions of Doctor Who on the weekends. My parents were split so I would watch the shows with my Father. Now at the time, the editing was done so that each part of a serial would be one episode. For example, the four parts of City of Death would be edited as one hour and a half show. The first Doctor I became familiar with was Tom Baker. When his episodes were shown was around the time Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered so being a kid, I didn’t appreciate what I was exactly watching at the time. Some of the villains were fun to watch of course (I’ve always loved the Daleks!) but I never really became a fan of the show. I watched as Tom Baker regenerated into Peter Davison, as Peter Davison regenerated into Colin Baker, and as Colin Baker regenerated into Sylvester McCoy. Then during the early 90’s, as the unaired in America episodes dried up, and the Doctor Who television movie failed on the Fox Network, my time with the Doctor ended for the moment. Years passed. I grew up and got my own place. I met a beautiful woman, got married, and became a Father to three wonderful children. Being the type of parent that wanted his children exposed to quality entertainment, I did my best to show them movies and television shows they would enjoy. One such movie was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I loved the books growing up but never knew until the Hollywood film came out that Douglas Adams, literary genius, worked as story editor on Doctor Who. I had to watch some of the episodes he was involved in so I went onto Netflix and re-watched the full episode and fell in love. I had heard of Doctor Who being remade and thought nothing of it. To me, I thought the BBC would pour as much money into the new show as they did the old one. But watching City of Death, I told myself I should give the new show a chance. I am glad I did. Murray Gold’s music grabbed me from the start. They took the basic song from the original show and gave it chutzpah. It was the kind of music that made you stand up, fist raised in the air, ready for some action. The effects of the new show were amazing too but unlike the American way of doing things, where special effects are used in place of good writing, the stories were given the most prominence on the new shows. I appreciated the fact that the new show was NOT a reboot but the continuing adventures of the Doctor. One thing I loved was the fact that my kids dug the show too. It was the perfect form of entertainment, a great story for the adults to love and great effects for the kids to have fun with. My kids went nuts when Christopher Eccleston regenerated into David Tennant. From there, the show was must see television in my house. When David Tennant had his final episode in The End of Time, there was not a dry eye in our home.

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 It’s not often as an American that I’m able to watch good television. Being reintroduced to the Doctor back in 2007 was an experience I will never forget. It gave me a chance to relive my youth, my children were introduced to an amazing character in the Doctor, and one of the best television shows ever made was able to rise like a phoenix and become greater than it ever was.  TIM JOUSMA Do you live outside the UK and the US and would like to share your story of how you got into Doctor Who? Feel free to e-mail us at fishcustardfanzine@googlemail.com

The Little Things We Like About Doctor Who No. 7406: BETH WILLIS

Any true fan knows that Doctor Who isn’t just about the actors, the people who write, produce and direct the show are just as, if not more, important. Lovely Beth (as she’s now known) has produced some great programmes, including Ashes To Ashes and more recently, the biographical film of two well-loved British comedians, Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. Lovely Beth came into the Doctor Who fold for Series 5 and the show went from strength to strength. Lovely Beth even doubled-up as a stunt woman during the filming of Vampires of Venice. If that isn’t dedication to your work, then I don’t know what is! I didn’t see Julie Gardner jumping in any icy water, so there!

PRODUCER OF DOCTOR WHO 2009-

Lovely Beth, we salute you and hope you continue to brighten up our favourite show for a while yet. The fact that you look beautiful too, has got nothing to do with the above praise!  STEVE JAMES

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(Yet More) DOCTOR WHO FIVES 5 Doctor Who Crisp Flavours • Ood and Vinegar • Cheesy Harkness • Smokey Ianto • Martha Munch • McCoys (that’s a real crisp company, you lazy bugger! – Ed)

5 Toys That Character Options Will Flog This Year • The 11th Doctor in a bath towel • The Rani, half-dressed in Mel’s clothes • Amy Pond, with removable outfit • The Kandy Man, in all his camp glory • A disposable Harry Sedgewick ‘Clown’ Doll

5 Doctor Who Presents I Received At Christmas (Thanks Love)

5 Hats For The Doctor

• Pen that makes TARDIS noises • K9 Toy • Dalek Keyring • 2011 Annual • TARDIS Money Box (that I can’t put together)

• Deer Stalker • Fedora • Beret • Flat Cap • One of those beer hats that Americans have 5 Doctor Who Holiday Destinations

5 Things We Spotted In The ‘Coming Soon…’ Series 6 Trailer • Rory looks like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in that bodywarmer • Matt Smith can grow a cracking false beard • River isn’t naked • That Ood has been drinking too much Absinthe • Every shot was from the same 3 episodes

5 …Of The Daleks • Teletubby of the Daleks • Overuseage of the Daleks • Overrated of the Daleks • Cash Cow of the Daleks • Sick of the Daleks

• Venice • New York • Lanzarote • Paris • Blackpool 5 Lovely Beth Willis Things • Ashes To Ashes • Poirot • Eric and Ernie • Testing the water during the filming of Vampires of Venice, by jumping into it. • Being lovely 5 Alternative Names For Series 6 • The New Series • 2011 Series Part 1 • 2nd Matt Smith Series • Seconds of Karen • Who f***ing cares?

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4

A Look at Big Finish: Project: Destiny & A Death in the

Family

It’s been opined recently that last year’s Big Finish releases have been the best ever, what with the return of the Fifth Doctor’s crowded TARDIS, the Eighth Doctor getting a new companion, and the release of The Four Doctors, the first time all four of the audio Doctors have been gathered together…and fighting Daleks! And then we come to some of their other releases, the first two of a Seventh Doctor trilogy, Project: Destiny and A Death in the Family. I had heard rumors of the pure awesomeness of these stories, and I’m not the type to anticipate savoring what everyone else reportedly enjoys, so it was with trepidation that I plugged my earphones in and plunged in. Project: Destiny begins right on the heels of The Angel of Scutari. Hex has been shot, and the Seventh Doctor and Ace drag him into the TARDIS and subsequently wind up at St. Gart’s Hospital in 2025. However, the streets are abandoned and London seems to be under marshal law. There has been an alien contamination, which causes humans to transform into bloodthirsty creatures. As Hex says, it’s like a zombie movie. The fun really ensues when they run into C4, an organization whose mission is to study and neutralize alien threats (yes, not unlike Torchwood), headed by none other than Sir William Abberton, otherwise known as Nimrod and with whom the Doctor is all too familiar. If the mention of a character named Nimrod makes you think this is a convoluted sequel to “Ghost Light,” then you’re not alone, because that was what I thought. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to realize that this is not the same character, but nevertheless I was a little clueless about the history of this character and his connection to Hex. Therein lies the problem I had with Project: Destiny: it makes a broad assumption that the listener has heard the prequels, Project: Twilight and Project: Lazarus. One shouldn’t let that get in the way of enjoying the story, but there wasn’t much of a story to enjoy outside Hex’s angst about his late mother and his resentment towards the Doctor for keeping the nature of her death secret from him. Project: Destiny is definitely recommended for anyone familiar with the Big Finish line, but give the previous two Nimrod stories a listen first. I cannot vouch for their virtues, but you would probably enjoy the sequel much more. And then there’s A Death in the Family. As mentioned earlier, I stepped into these stories with trepidation, and the things I head about this release sounded as if certain fanboys wanted to carry on a common law marriage with it. And now I know why. Regardless of the aloof “meh” I felt walking away from Project: Destiny, A Death in the Family is pure audio gold. It would be inappropriate to explain the plot, since there are

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 several twists and turns after the first episode, and each scene is dependent on what happens prior. The story begins as standard fare, with the return of the Word Lord, a brilliant concept of a villain who can create realities from the words of others (and I don’t think it was just the power of suggestion that made me think he sounded and acted oddly similar to the Dream Lord from “Amy’s Choice”). Our heroes, with the help of UNIT, also uncover an elderly version of the Seventh Doctor. One gets the impression that we’re in for a truly “timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly” adventure, and in no way does it disappoint. Although this is a “Doctor light” story, Sylvester McCoy is brilliant as ever, particularly when playing the older version of the Doctor. However, the true diamond on this gold band of a masterpiece is Sophie Aldred as Ace, who carries her own weight throughout almost half of the plot. This is not the same Ace we left at the conclusion of “Survival.” There are some extremely heart-wrenching moments here, one of which is her saying goodbye to the Doctor for what she thinks is the last time, and others which I don’t dare tell you without giving too much away. The plot is not an easy one to digest, but it’s still enjoyable; think “The Pandorica Opens” or “Blink.” I found myself listening to it a second time, just to make sure I understood everything, like smoothing out the wrinkles in the sheets of a bed that has just been made. The third time I listened to it was purely for the sake of enjoyment, and there’s only one other Big Finish release that I’ve done that with (the recently released Cobwebs). A Death in the Family also marks the return of Evelyn Smith, the Sixth Doctor’s stalwart companion. This should come as a surprise to most listeners, and it would have been nice if it was a surprise, but Big Finish elected to place her portrait on the CD cover. They get a slap on the wrist for that, but Evelyn’s return never comes across as contrived, and she serves a special purpose in the story. Others have said it, but I will say it again: A Death in the Family is possibly one of the best Big Finish stories ever. It’s unbelievably clever, funny, sad, and suspenseful. Then again, I’ve already admitted I haven’t listened to all of them, so you shouldn’t take my word for it. Log on to the Big Finish website and download it now. You will thank me later  SEAN HOMRIG.

Sean Homrig is the co-host of The TARDIS Tavern podcast, which mixes Doctor Who with the frivolities of libations. He exists in Austin, Texas, but does not own a cowboy hat or a pair of boots. He does, however, have a cat named Shada. You can reach him at seanhomrig@gmail.com. You can check out the TARDIS Tavern at www.tardistavern.libsyn.com

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4

The Scarecrow Gets Fancy Pants An original Doctor Who short story By John Lipponen The man’s voice floated towards the Doctor from what seemed like a far away place, like a whisper in a storm, he could barely make out the words. And his head; It felt like the inside of his head was on fire. Thinking hurt, comprehending these words hurt, his brain was burning up and the three words stung his skull like a thousand wasps. For the second time in his long life, he wanted to run. Just run away from the voice, the words, the pain behind his eyes. “It was time to begin your exile,” they’d said, time to change his face again. But they said earth - he remembered that. But this place, wherever he was, wherever the Time Lords had sent him was a new and cold reality. White, rocky landscape stretched as far as the eye could see. This new reality, wherever - whenever - it was, hurt. “I said what kept you?” This time the man’s voice was harder, like an angry schoolmaster demanding his pupil’s attention. The Doctor turned slowly, following the voice and opening his eyes little by little - even the light from whatever sun was overhead hurt. Like a cosmic hangover. The man was tall with a shock of white hair that glittered like a light bulb in the daylight. His deeply lined features contrasted sharply with the wide eyes; like a younger man’s eyes sketched onto an old man’s face. And he looked angry. The Doctor glared at him. “I’m expected?” he asked. “Yes, well we all are at some point.” And then something warm and dark and heavy fell over the Doctor. Maybe the Time Lords had lied to him. Wouldn’t be the first time. Exile could easily have meant exile from life as far as they were concerned. “Who are you and where am I?” he demanded. “One thing at a time, old chap. You‘ve got to go” With that the older man turned and walked away. For a brief moment the Doctor thought he had landed in the middle of a twisted Alice in Wonderland. Only he was Alice and this stranger was the rabbit. He hated rabbits: never did trust life forms without fingers.

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 And then he saw it. Tall and the brightest blue ever, the TARDIS stood defiant against the white alienscape. And then quite suddenly the Doctor was running. Without warning his legs just sort of took off and for a split and very odd moment, he felt very much like his top half was only along for the ride. The older man turned to see the little figure dashing across the sand. “Oh dear,” he muttered. Breathless, the Doctor patted the police box affectionately. Really, he thought, exile me to a desolate alien planet - with my TARDIS? Daft old Time Lords. It just meant he got to run away from them…again. He put the key in the lock… “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, old chap.” The Doctor swung around and the older man was standing behind him, arms folded. “Well you’re not me are you so you needn’t worry. ” said the Doctor. He turned the key and then…nothing. The key stopped halfway. The Doctor jiggled it, forced it, rattled it. Desperation fell over his face, sweat glistened on his lined forehead. He turned his rage to the older man behind him. “What have they done to my TARDIS!?” The other man chuckled, which only seemed to enrage the Doctor more. “What’s so funny?” This…this is intolerable. It’s…no, you know what it is? It’s criminal.” This is my TARDIS!” The older man looked at the Doctor sadly. It was always like this. Every time they came. Poor old souls. Had better tell him. “It’s not yours anymore.” he said carefully. “What do you mean, not mine anymore? Well of course it’s mine.” “But you did steal it…?” the older man whispered. “Well, yes, but, finder’s keeper’s. Still mine.” “Not anymore.” The Doctor studied the older man’s face…those eyes. Something in the eyes. He knew those eyes. He backed away. Fear in his own steps. “Who are you?’ he asked. The older man rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Well it’s a bit more complicated than a simple answer, old chap.” “Well then you’d better un-complicate it, ‘old chap’, because we’re running out of time.” The older man laughed. “Time is something we’ve plenty of. It’s not going anywhere. Just like you. You see we’re in what some would call fluxtime. Always changing yet staying the same. In flux until a path is decided. You see, here, we are the masters of time.” “I asked you who you were. Answer me sir.”

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 ”You’re sure you want the answer?” “I am sure.” the Doctor replied. The older man stepped forward a few steps, then clasped his hands behind his back, breathed in deeply and turned to the Doctor. “I am the Doctor.” The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. Anger flashed across his face. “You most certainly are not!” “Oh I am, I assure you, sir. Well, I will be once we get you sorted out and on your way.” “But you can’t be.” “And why can’t I be?” “Because I don’t like your nose.” The older Doctor laughed and then gestured behind him. The Doctor turned and saw a long line of men in black robes, heads bowed, walking slowly over the land, like ancient monks on a dark mission. “Who are they supposed to be?” asked the Doctor. “You, me, us. Doctors from the Maybe or NeverWere.” “Why don’t they look up, show their faces?” “They will not. They’re afraid they’ll see the future. And they’re not ready for that. Not yet.’ The Doctor sat and leaned against the TARDIS. It shook and grumbled a little. “She’s a bit angry with you. You’re being difficult.” But then, I was a bit difficult back then. I’ll grow out of it.’ The Doctor shot up, furious. “Now wait just a minute, Mr. Fancypants, or Doctor whoever you are…” “The Doctor…” the older man interjected. “Yes, yes, alright, whatever you want. From a purely scientific point of view, if you are who you say you are, and I’m not saying you are - but if you were…me - then how can you be here with me - how can any of them?” “I told you - fluxtime. Sort of a choose your own adventure novel come to life. Pick a path…any path and down you go.” said the older Doctor. “But you’re saying my path’s already been chosen. At some point I become Fancy pants…” The older Doctor smiled. “And I stop being the scarecrow!” Simple.” “And that time is now?” whispered the Doctor. “You heard the Time Lords. Time for me to begin my exile.” The Doctor’s shoulders fell. A long sigh escaped his lips. So this is what defeat felt like. Worse - defeated by yourself. The older Doctor put his hand on his younger selve’s shoulder. “You want to know what do you do now?” “Retire to a nice garden and raise begonias ?” “Sounds nice.”

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4 The older Doctor laughed. “Nah, you don’t wanna do that. The original guy’s been doing that for centuries since he got here. Believe me - that garden of his keeps getting him in trouble.” “So…what then?” asked the Doctor. “So…this.” The older Doctor waved his hand and another TARDIS materialized next to the other. The Doctor’s eyes lit up. “But that’s…it’s…” “Yes, impossible.” “But nothing’s impossible in fluxtime.” “Is it mine?” “More to the point, it’s yours right up until the point you encountered the Time Lords. You see, this is your TARDIS before you were caught. She’ll never take you to that space/time point again.” She’s…’ The Doctor cut him off excitedly. “She’s created my own time stream. My own little pocket of time to swim in forever.” He was jumping up and down now like a giddy schoolboy. “Precisely.” The new TARDIS shook and grumbled. “She’s ready for you.” “Time to go,” said the Doctor. The Doctor took out the key and inserted it into the lock and…it turned gently as the door swung open. He stepped into the police box like a child on Christmas morning opening the biggest present in the room. Then he turned back to the older Doctor. The new Doctor. His future. “Well, um, nice to meet me, well, you.” “Nice to remember me, too.” said the new Doctor. “Where will you go?” “To my exile. Probably save the planet every day. Sundays off.” The Doctor leaned in and stared into his future eyes. “You will take good care of me, won’t you?” “Don’t you worry old chap, you’ll have a ball.’ The Doctor smiled, stepped into the TARDIS, and then it was gone. And then the new Doctor stood alone on the white and silent landscape, gazing up at the dark sky. The galaxies, the stars, swirling overhead like a silent symphony of the heavens. Every one of their songs his to choose. All waiting to be heard. Right then, he thought, better get started. After all, finally, and about time too : He was the Doctor.

Fish Fingers and Custard Issue 4