MiSTed: "Doctor, Samuel Beckett" 2/5

[The Clown]

Continued from Part 1...

>
> Part Two
> ~~~~~~~~
>
> Al walked into the Waiting Room with a certain amount of
>trepidation.

Mike: Would there be a new "Reader's Digest"? He couldn't dare to hope.

>With no idea of where Sam had gone, they could not tell who (or what)
>would
>be in there. Ziggy had never had any problems in finding Sam before,
>except
>when he and Sam had somehow changed places after the shock treatment
>leap.

Tom: And the continuity references begin coming fast and furious.

>Perhaps that had happened again... a freak accident had left Sam out of
>the
>normal time range. Gooshie was working on it, but their best source of
>information, as usual, would be from whoever had changed places with
>Sam.

Crow: Musta been helpful during that episode with the chimp.

> The door slid upwards, and Al entered the Waiting Room. He didn't
>know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't what he saw. The
>tall,
>well built man seemed very uncomfortable in the white body suit, but
>was
>otherwise very sure of himself. The huge head of frizzy curly hair gave
>him the appearance of being friendly, but at the moment he seemed far
>from friendly.

Mike: And all possible suspension of belief is flushed straight down the
toliet with one paragraph.

> "Just what in the universe do you think you're doing?" asked the Man.
> "Please, calm down," said Al, "you're bound to be a little confused
>at first."

Crow: [Nurse] Just relax and don't tense up. The doctor will see you now.
Tom: [Husky doctor] All right, son, turn your head and cough.

> "Don't patronise me, it doesn't suit you," the Man replied. "I want
>to know just where and when I am."
> "Where, I can't tell you. Why do you ask about the when?"
> "Believe me, when you've been time travelling as long as I have you
>begin to recognise the signs."

Mike: The typical stuff, y'know, blue lightning, phone boothes, wibbly
swirly things. And if you're really lucky, an arch!

> "Who are you?" asked Al, at a bit of a loss before this formidable
>man.
> "I am the Doctor, and I'm also very angry. I demand to see whoever is
>in charge here."
> "I'm afraid that..."

Tom: Mr Clinton's in, ahem, "conference" at the moment.

> "Oh, don't give me any of that nonsense. Is that the door? Good."
> The Doctor walked boldly to the exit from the Waiting Room, and
>stepped outside.

Crow: First "The Happiness Patrol," and now this.

>
>
> This is a very strange leap indeed,

Crow: Starring Peter Davison in "A Very Peculiar Leap"!

>Sam thought to himself. He had been
>exploring the maze of corridors outside the lab control room, and refused
>to admit he had become thoroughly lost.
> "Al, where the _hell_ are you?" he shouted into the distance. He was
>sitting in what appeared to be a conservatory, with pillars covered in ivy
>and some stone benches. The bell was extremely loud here - that was
>what had
>led him to this place. Between tolls, he heard a whirring noise. Looking
>round he saw a small robotic dog, about the size of a Yorkshire Terrier,
>roll into... wherever he was.

Tom: With thoughts like these, you can tell Sam *really* earned those
doctorates.

> "Greetings, Master," said the robot.
> "Master?" Sam thought aloud.
> "Doctor...?" K9 repeated.

Crow: McCloud?
Tom: Chief?
Mike: Kenny?

> Doctor, thought Sam. Perhaps this is a hospital. "Hello...

Crow: ...Sexy.

>K9," said
>Sam, looking at the side of the robot and taking a fairly good guess at it's
>name, "Can you take me back to the laboratory?"
> "The laboratory, Master? Are you feeling alright, Master?" K9 asked.
> "Yes, fine, thank you," Sam replied, feeling strange talking to a
>robot. Still, he used to talk to... to...

Mike: ...Whimsy, his invisible puppy.

>he couldn't remember the name of his
>computer which was supposed to control Project Quantum Leap. Oh, he
>wished Al would turn up... "To the control room, then."
> "Affirmative, Master." said the robotic dog, and led Sam back
>towards the console room.

Tom: Ho ho! The joke's on Sam! He wants to go to the *control* room. And
K9's taking him to the *console* room. You are a tricky one, K9!

>
>
> "...and so we've been trying to get him back ever since," Gooshie
>finished explaining the Project to the Doctor.

Mike: But what does this have to do with aliens repopulating the Earth
through a massive government conspiracy?

> "I see. Do you have any ideas why he has leapt into me?" asked the
>Doctor.

Crow: Your stunning good looks and daring wardrobe?

> "I don't know, and Ziggy has no predictions either. Can you tell us
>what you were doing immediately before you and Sam changed places?"

Mike: That's kinda personal.

> "Well, I had just left Gallifrey..."
> "Gallifrey?" asked Al, bemused.

Crow: Ireland, knuckleknob! Jeez!

>The Doctor continued.
> "Yes, where I'd just left Leela and K9..."
> "K9? Is that some sort of dog or something?" asked Tina, who hadn't
>really been listening to what was going on.
> "Yes. Do you want me to explain or what?"

All: What!

> "Sorry..." said Tina, who then returned to her work, leaving Al and
>Gooshie to question the Doctor.
> The Doctor went on to explain that he was a Time Lord from the
>planet
>Gallifrey, who had left the planet of his origin in his TARDIS and been
>putting wrongs to right ever since.

Tom: And in one sentence Harman manages to summarize the concept
behind one of the most complex characters ever created.

> "A Time Machine, eh? Well, it's not so impossible, I suppose. I expect
>Sam would have managed to invent one eventually, had he not been caught
>in the accelerator those five years ago..."

Mike: If it hadn't been for the thresher accident, Timmy might have led a
normal life...

>Gooshie was thinking aloud. "Could it
>be possible that your, er, TARDIS is shielding the signals?"
> "Very likely. It has numerous protection circuits to avoid spurious
>energies from entering the craft."
> "And where is this TARDIS now?" asked Gooshie.
> "I don't know. That's the problem with her, she's a little erratic..."

Crow: You know her! Poor thing'll show up at the back door in a few days
looking all tired and hungry and you just won't be able to say "no."

> "Her?" said Al, "I thought this thing was a machine!"
> "So? Ziggy's a machine, no?"
> "That's different..." said Al, taking out one of his famous cigars.

Tom: Big Al's Famous Cigars, for hobnobbing with the stars.

> "You shouldn't smoke, young man," said the Doctor, "It destroys your
>lung tissue and blocks your arteries."

Mike: [Valley girl] And it's rilly gross and yucky and stuff.

> "Hey, I don't need a lecture from you..." he said, storming into the
>Imaging Chamber.

Tom: Look what you've done! You've upset Al! Now we'll have to set out a
can of tuna and sing the British anthem in a tea chest. I hope you're
happy!

> "So you don't know where it is." Gooshie repeated.
> "No, I don't. And if your Doctor Beckett can't get the TARDIS back
>to me, or if we don't change back, then I'm trapped here. A prospect I don't
>relish." The Doctor was silent for a moment, remembering the time he
>was
>sentenced to being virtually imprisoned on Earth by the Time Lords. That
>set a thought in motion.

Crow: First one in centuries...

> "Hang on... the TARDIS is pre-programmed to return to Gallifrey
>automatically if I am unexplainedly removed from it while it's in motion.

Tom: And so the deus ex machina wedges itself into the flow events.

>So, in theory, that's where it is."
> "But where, exactly, is Gallifrey?"
> "The coordinates are 017 438 000 EX 21 47" said the Doctor.

Mike: Hey, isn't that the BBC's phone number?
Crow: Mike, do you ever watch something else?

> "I'm _sorry_?" said Gooshie.

Tom: [Huffy] *Well*, you *should* be.

> "Hmmm... never mind. Do you have a star chart?"

Mike: I've got "The Illustrated Junior Encyclopedia of Space." Does that
help?

>
>
> Sam had returned to the console room of what K9 had told him was
>"The
>TARDIS". Frankly, Sam thought that K9 was getting suspicious and he
>realised
>that there was definately something very weird about this leap. Could he
>be in a top-secret military base?

Crow: Ah yes, the low-budget version of Area 51.

> The central column in the mushroom-like console had stopped
>moving,
>and was no longer alight. Sam wasn't sure if that was for the best, or not.
>Certainly it meant something important had happened.
> "If only I could get those doors open!" he mumbled to himself.

Tom: [Sam] Then I could get out of this lousy story!

> "Doors inoperable, probable cause: door control jammed." asked K9.
> "What door control?" said Sam, looking with dismay at the myriad of
>buttons and switches on the control board.
> "The red plunger, Master" said K9 informatively.
> Sam spotted the control, and pressed it down.

Crow: Fwuuuuuusssshhhh! (That's a toliet flushing, folks).

>There was a loud whirring
>from behind him, and he turned to watch the huge doors open. Outside
>were a number of guards, dressed in a very theatrical way.

Tom: o/~ We're men/We're men in arrrrmor... o/~

> "Back so soon, Doctor?" asked one.
> "Oh, boy..." Sam whispered.
>
>
>

Tom: Autobots, roll out!
[They speed out of the theatre, going "Vroom! Vroom!"]

[Commercials.]

[1...2...3...4...5...6...*]

[SOL Bridge. No one's in sight, but we can hear what sounds like a very
good attempt at weepy sniffling. Mike enters from the left.]
Mike: Hello? Where is everyone? Who's crying?
Crow: [Voice only, still sniffly] I am, Mike. I'm down here.
[As Mike moves to the right of the screen, Cambot pans down and to the
right; he stops at about two feet above floor level. Crow's half in, half out
of the service hatch set in the floor. Around him are photos tacked helter-
skelter to the wall and there are several photo albums on the floor; the
photos generally seem to depict life on the SOL. Mike kneels down to get
into Cambot's range.]
Mike: Crow, what's the matter, hon?
Crow: Well, Mike, I'm...homesick.
Mike: [Unable to keep some amusement out of his voice] Homesick? For
where, Crow? You've never lived anywhere besides here on the SOL.
Crow: [Scornfully] Well, there was that time when I spent five years in
Wisconsin cutting cheese before you guys figured out you had to
bring me back to become my future self.
Mike: Granted, but still, how could you be homesick? Isn't that against
your programming or something?
Crow: Kinda, yeah. I mean, gimme a break, Mike! At least I'm *trying* to
evolve beyond my programming. All Tom does is...weird robot-y
things. So I figured, why not try to be homesick for the SOL?
Mike: [Failing to be convinced] Okay, sure. So how are you trying to be
homesick?
Crow: I thought I'd start by looking at some old stills from Cambot's
records. See? [He gestures at the photos.]
Mike: [Picking one up] Oh yeah. Look, here's that time when you chased Tom
with your "Rock-in-a-Sock."
Crow: [Nostalgically] Yeah, from the good ol' days with the Invention
Exchange.
Mike: And here's that time when you had Thanksgiving with the Forresters!
Crow: Nobody does Turkey Surprise like Pearl, Mike. Nobody.
Mike: Amen. [Points to another photo] Hey, here's a picture of us trapped on
board the Radford University Experimental Internetlink Satellite.
[Pauses] Wait a minute, how did you get a picture of a text-based
environment?
Crow: You know, Mike, there are ways...ways. Many...ways. Yes...*ways*.
Mike: [Flips through the photo album] Aww, here's that date of yours from
the year 5000.
Crow: Thank you, Mike. As if I needed to be reminded.
Mike: Sorry, Crow. [Flips some more] Crow? Why aren't I in any of these
pictures?
Crow: [Surprised] You're not? [Looks] Well I'll be the male sibling of a
simian's paternal progenitor! You aren't! Huh. Weird. [Exhales briskly]
Well, best forgotten about, Mike.
Mike: [Indignantly] Now wait a minute, Crow --
[Buzzers, and sirens, and lights, oh my!]
Crow: Sorry, Mike! We've got FANFIC SIIIIIIIIGN!!!
[Cambot pans back up to and through the doors.]

[6...5...4...3...2...1...*]

[Our tremulous trio enters.]
Mike: [Grumbling] You couldn't take a single picture? Not one? Am I that
ugly?
Crow: Now that you mention it...
Tom: Hey, knock it off, Mickey Finn.

> Part Three
> ~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Gooshie looked up from the computer screen that he was studying.

Crow: [Gooshie] Let's see, am I at least 18 years of age? Click "Yes."

> "This Gallifrey of yours, Doctor," he began.

Mike: What kind of mileage does it get?

>The Doctor had a hand on his temple, and seemed to be in a little pain.
> "Doctor...?" Gooshie asked. The Doctor looked up, and shook his head.
> "Sorry, what? Oh, yes."
> "I'm not sure we have the sort of energy required to send the
>brainwave transmissions that far."

Crow: Men, prepare your tinfoil pyramids!

> "Rubbish!" shouted th Doctor, then his hand shot to his head. Tina
>stepped towards him, but the Doctor shook her off. "It's nothing, just a
>Venusian migrain coming on, that's all. Where was I? Oh, yes - surely you
>can tap the power from that fusion reactor over there?" he said, waving
>towards the Quantum Accelerator.
> "Well, not really. You see, it functions quite differently..."

Tom: What with the conversion from AC to DC and whatnot.

> Ah, I wish I had my TARDIS with me... er, how long could you
>sustain the projection?"
> "For about five minutes, give or take, before we burn out all our
>power cables."
> "That's long enough!" the Doctor replied. "We can use the TARDIS as a
>bridge."

Tom: o/~ Like a bridge over troubled waters... o/~

>
>
> "So, Doctor, are you going to join us?" asked the tallish man, dressed
>in black and gold.

Crow: C'mon! Strip Eighth Man Bound is fun!

> "Don't rush the would-be President, Castellan!" jested one of the
>guards.

Mike: [Stiff and Shakespearean] Ha ha! 'Tis good and verily a merry jest! Ha
ha!

> "President?" Sam thought. "Follow me, K9." he said.
> "Negative, Master. I remain."
> "Fair enough. Keep the fort!" Sam strode boldly out of the TARDIS, the
>effect of which was greatly reduced as the doors closed on the monstrous
>scarf, tripping him up.

Crow: At long last the fate of the fifth Marx Brother is discovered.

>
>
> "I have a fix on Dcotor Beckett!" said Ziggy. "It is faint. Without the
>Doctor's co-ordinates, I owuld not have spotted it."

Mike: Owuld, son Beowulf, son of Hjerkeld, son of Sven, son of...
Crow: Yeah, we get the idea, Mike.

> Al was already half-way to the Imaging Chamber when the Doctor
>called out.

Tom: Watch out for the -- ! Whoops, too late!

> "Al- wait! I'm coming too."
> "You won't be able to see very much." Al replied.
> "I thought this room was supposed to be hologrammatic!" the Doctor
>exclaimed,

Mike: Yeah, well, once the Great Bird got done with it, no one recognized
real holograms any more, so they just use the term to cover anything
that's computer generated.

>looking around at the bare blue walls, an indeterminate distance away.
> "That's not quite how it works: it's more a neat transmission into my

Crow: Yeah, really keen stuff.

>brain's 'sight' centre. Don't ask _me_ how it works, Sam did it."
> "Bother. However, you may need my help."
> Al seemed somewhat distracted, and so the Doctor wandered about
>the
>featureless walls. Silently, something appeared and the Doctor caught it
>out of
>the corner of his eye. Performing a comical double-take, he turned to look
>at
>the figure. A gentleman with a grey beard, dressed in a white lounge-suit
>and a white wide-brimmed hat, sitting in a wickerwork chair was staring
>at him.

Mike: [Old man] My God, is that the biggest boogie you have ever seen or
what?

> "Doctor..." he began.

Tom: You gotta help me! I can't play the violin!

>
>
> Sam looked at the craft which he had just left: a tall blue box,
>seemingly an old telephone box of some kind. He frowned, trying to match
>the
>memories of endless corridors with... this. "Impossible..." he thought. He
>walked around to the back of the craft to check. No, it wasn't there.
> "It's smaller on the outside than inside..." he whispered.

Tom: With seven simple words Sam fulfills that most precious fanboy
tradition.

> "Are you coming, Doctor?" the Castellan asked. "Or do you wish to
>delay Chancellor Flavia further by studying that... primitive craft you
>seem to love so much."
> "I'm coming..." Sam replied, still trying to work out how what he had
>seen inside the box had actually _been_ inside the box. "Some sort of
>hyperspace warp, perhaps..." the physicist inside him thought.

Mike: Don't drag "Babylon 5" into this, fella.
Crow: Are we to believe Sam is not only a physicist, but a schizophrenic
physicist as well?
Tom: Easily!

>"This is going to be one hell of a difficult leap!"

Mike: Considering that you haven't actually done anything, yes.

>
>
>
> Part Four
> ~~~~~~~~~
>
> The Castellan led Sam through the corridors of the Capitol on
>Gallifrey, and Sam was having increasing trouble in working out what
>was going
>on. The best he could manage was that either it was a secret society,

Tom: The Illuminati?
Crow: The Unitatus?
Mike: The Freemasons?
Crow: [Disgusted] Mike, how could you suspect them of all people...

>or
>somehow he had been warped into an alternative reality through some
>sort of
>hyperspace gate. The physicist in him was trying to puzzle it out, when
>he
>heard his salvation: the door to the Imaging Chamber opening. Sam
>remained silent, but his hopes leapt up.

Tom: o/~ Higher and higher... o/~

> "Sam, you're never going to believe this..." said Al. Sam grunted.

Crow: Oog. Make fire. Hurg. Get bit part in Mel Brooks flick. Ahg.

>He
>whispered quietly under his breath "Where the hell have you been?"
> "Look, Sam - we haven't got long. You've got to go back to the TARDIS
>and..."
> "Is that the blue box thing?" Sam asked.
> "That's right."
> "How?" Sam asked.

Mike: Well, Sam, the traditional method is to lift one foot, move it
forward, then move the other, and so on.

>Al seemed to be talking to someone else in the
>Imaging Chamber. "Who's there with you?" he asked.
> "It's the leapee. Just get back there, bluff your way through. Say,
>oh I don't know..." Al seemed to listen to something. "I can't say _that_!"
>Al said to nothing. "Okay, then." he said, turning back to Sam. "I feel really
>stupid saying this... Say you've left your Sonic Screwdriver behind and it's
>terribly urgent you get it."

Tom: You may need to mix up some Martian Martinis.

> "Okay Al, but..." Sam began, but the image of Al was crackling. It
>went
>two dimensional for a second, flashed and then disappeared altogether.
> "Al..." Sam said.

Crow: Yes...? What...? Hello...?

>
>
> "It's no good, we've lost him." Al said, and turned to walk out of the
>Imaging Chamber. "Are you coming, Doctor?" he asked. The Doctor seemed
>to be
>distracted himself, and was also massaging the right-hand side of his
>chest,
>as if he were in pain. "Probably indigestion," Al thought, and left the
>Doctor alone.

Mike: Those Venusian Burrito Supremes'll get you every time.

> "Sir..." the Doctor said to the gentleman in white. "I wasn't
>expecting to see you..."

Crow: [Doctor] I thought we agreed to see other omnipotent beings.

> "No," he replied. "You remember me then, as the White Guardian."
> "I remember having to do... or maybe I don't." he said, more to
>himself than the Guardian. "I'm having future echoes, I think..." he
>muttered. "It must be something to do with this Beckett..."

Tom: What about that Pinter?

> "Doctor, are you in pain?" the Guardian asked.
> "No, just a twinge of cosmic angst."
> "Good - then I have an important task for you to perform, and also
>some information which may help you. You know that I have an interest in
>time travellers, and from time to time I ask them for their help. Well, for
>some earth years now, I have been guiding one such traveller in his quest
>to right wrongs."

Mike: To left corrections, up downs, back fronts, and unrule the world!

> "You have been interfering with his life, his destiny!" the Doctor
>shouted to the Guardian. "Sorry, sorry..." he said, backing down a little.

Crow: Jeez, this Guardian is a real pri --
Mike: Stop right there.

> "In the narrow sense, that may be true" the Guardian replied, "but
>the traveller does not appear to upset by this. At least, not until
>recently. However, a short time ago I met him in person, posing as a
>figure
>he could understand, and he said he would like to return home. However,
>at that point he made the wrong decision. Now I have offered him another
>chance. You, Doctor, are that chance."

Crow: That's it, Sammy's doomed.

> "What is happening?" the Doctor replied.
> "The traveller in question, Doctor Samuel Beckett, travels through
>time by exchanging minds with someone in history. When the task is done,
>he swaps out and into someone else. This time, he has swapped into you.
>You
>may experience a few ill effects as your mind is not in it's customary
>body. Do not be slack in returning Doctor Beckett, Doctor. I can give you
>no further help in this matter, or I will be observed by the Black
>Guardian. Beware the Black Guardian."

Tom: [Guardian] Yes, beware. He'll show up once at the end of the season
and only for about five minutes, but beware...

> The White Guardian faded from the Doctor's view, and so he left the
>Imaging chamber. However, as he walked out of the chamber a great pain
>seized his chest on the right hand side, and he collapsed onto the floor.
> "Could it be a heart attack?" Tina asked.
> "I don't know... I just don't know." Al replied.

Mike: No change there.

>
>

[Commercials]

Continued in Part 3...

--
Tyler Dion E-mail: Clo...@sprynet.com
?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?_?
"You *are* a fool, aren't you?"
"Only when I get paid. My free-time definition is 'chump.'"
-- from "Doctor Who: Time's Children" on a.dw.c