Dr Who on Peasea Planet

1.

‘The thing I find it hard to get my head around,’ the handsome Oztralian, Orwell, was saying, having had the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver rammed none too gently up his kyber to cure him of the worst excesses of his absurd accent. ‘The thing I find it hard to get my head around is how come the Doctor could have regenerated reusing a beautiful woman’s body - ignoring any body snatcher concept for the nonce - and yet not actually be female. But that’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it, Pete.’

“Petty, you faggot - Petty! And don’t ask me how it all falls out. The Doctor is a Timelord so what we think of usual anatomy doesn’t apply to her. Least, as far as I know it doesn’t.’

‘Have you ever seen the Doctor naked?’

“What? Ummm.... mmmmm.... well, not completely. I only had to lift my kilt during my last prostrate examination...’

‘Not you, you faggot, I’m talking about the Doctor!’

‘I don’t recall her having had a prostrate check, now as you mention it... Mmm..... do women even have prostrates?’

‘How the hell would I know! No! Have you ever seen ‘the’ Doctor without any clothes on?’

‘Why would my doctor have his clothes off?’

‘I’m talking about ‘The’ Doctor!’

‘Oh! I see. You know, it would help a hell of a lot if you didn’t put your questions so ambiguously! And, no, I have not seen her without her clothes on.’

‘Ha! So you say ‘her’!’

‘Well, the Doctor does look remarkably like a woman. It’s really hard to discuss her in purely gender neutral terms.’

‘Just so... Now, let’s try and focus on her body again, which you seem to have some trouble doing. I don’t. I really don’t know what’s wrong with you! Now: If she took over a woman’s body then it must be purely reasonable to ask if her body is fully a woman’s body. Isn’t that the logical question to ask? Has she got a woman’s body?’

‘You do seem acutely interested in the Doctor’s body.’

‘Yes, I do. At heart, I’m a scientist, you see.Well, a biologist at least, if that’s the same thing. So has she got a woman’s body?’

‘You mean with or without her clothes on?’

‘Well, ummm...’ Orwell rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Well, technically, she would have a woman’s body, whether or not she has got clothes on... or not.’

‘Mmmm.... good point. And an obvious one to make you know, once you know... You know, I think it would definately be easier to assess her gender-mystery, so to speak, if she was naked. Mmmm...ummmm... mmmm... you know, the one thing I do know is, if she is a Timelord she will have two hearts. Mind, even if she was naked, you probably couldn’t tell.’

‘Not even if you really studied her closely; while she was naked, I mean? I mean, if i really, really stared with my full Oztralian focus?’

‘No. I wouldn’t think so. Not even then.’

‘A woman with two hearts,’ Orwell pondered aloud, while trying to imagine the Doctors two hearts rythymically beating. Then he gave Petty a sudden conspiratorial wink. ‘Can’t be a modern woman then, not if she’s got two hearts, modern women don’t have any. Ho ho ho, somebody stop me!’

Petty mused on that for a moment, failing to see what was so funny about the perfectly reasonable assertion Orwell had made. Then he said, ‘You know, I had never thought to inquire about whether or not she had two hearts, or none. Does every Timelord have two hearts, or do some have just the one, or none, or more.... If she has two, thinking forensically, she would probably have one under each breast. Otherwise she’d be lopsided... Or would she?’

‘Mmm...’ Orwell contemplated. ‘You know, I reckon she does have two breasts, hearts notwithstanding. Otherwise she has some peculiarly breast-like protuberances under her tank top this morning...two, to be exact.’

Just then, the Doctor came into the command centre of the Tardis. ‘Oh you two are still here,’ she drawled, seeming almost disappointed. ‘Shall I start calling your Tweedledum and Tweedledee?’ And she gave a sophiscated little laugh, condescending, though not patronising exactly, more matronising.

‘Don’t... err.. matronize me,’ Petty rebuked her, he being a little worn out by his conversation with Orwell, and feeling quite testy just then, even teste.

‘Why are you staring at my boobs, Petty?’ The Doctor asked with some curiousity. ‘You are usually far more circumspect when you’re doing that.’

‘Ha!’ Orwell exclaimed triumphantly. ‘I knew they were breasts!’

But then Orwell frowned as swiftly as he had laughed. ‘But if we’re ever to be absolutely sure... mmm.... Doctor, will you kindly remove that rather fetching tank top you’re wearing today. Will certainly clear up any possible misunderstandings, even if now things do seem more settled.’

‘Not now,’ the Doctor snapped back, suddenly distracted by a something on a monitor. ‘Good grief! Look at that! The Tardis is about to materialise on Planet Peasea...’

‘Planet P.C?’ Petty asked, immediately anxious.

‘Yes, Peasea. A size 3ZB-14 pea-green coloured water-planet in the Clam and Sausage Cluster.’

‘What a horrible kettle of fish!’ Petty emitted, his face a study in horror mixed with resignation.

‘I don’t know,’ Orwell smiled, hopefully. ‘Sounds like just the kind of galaxy an Oztralian could fit right in...’

To be continued..

‘Have you ever seen the Doctor naked?’

“What? Ummm.... mmmmm.... well, not completely. I only had to lift my kilt during my last prostrate examination...’

‘Not you, you faggot, I’m talking about the Doctor!’


{{You know Anon, I swear there at times I could kill you for this sort of brilliance! }}

I must admit, Petty, when I came to read that bit a few hours after Ol’ Anon wrote it, I cracked up. It’s not so much using old comedic tricks as it is getting away with old comedic tricks. If you get the sequences of words and imagery right, even if the reader kind of knows it’s coming, they kind of still get caught by surprise. I can tell you, as a close friend of Ol’ Anon, he truly loves getting away with this kind of stuff.

{That entire opening skit is a masterclass in comedic writing: the timing, pacing and letting the characters shine through the humour- you really should be writing the real thing!! And all built off a simple bit of wordplay and misunderstanding, the two oldest tricks in the book- I hate it when you do this sort of thing, all the more so as you make it seem to effortless and it reads so effortlessly!  }}

The older I get the more I realize the less you tell the better. Tell less trust the reader more. Let the reader be an observer who questions and imagines what is really going on. I think it kinda works. This is why Tolkien is such a great writer. People think he is a stylist and teller of simple tales, where James Joyce and the like are deep. I think the opposite, I’m afraid. One is deep and the other is just a little too clever, and ultimately, too shallow, for my liking.

Incidentally, I think the more you write the less you need a lot of words to convey ideas and control the flow. It is something I picked up early writing poetry. Again, Tolkien is the master. He writes elegantly and simply, though brilliantly. The literati don’t really have a fucking clue.

The best poetry (IMO) is the direct, simplest, most user friendly; that which allows the reader to wander on and decide what is and what isn’t, what’s real, the mundane, the bleeding obvious, but also makes you wonder what’s really happening deeper down or higher up.... Keep it simple; we are free to wonder how deep it really is, or how far we want to wander down that simple paved or unpaved road. Where the hell will that road take us? Well, do we want go on the fucking adventure or not? Tolkien knew these things.

He knew the story must be straightforward one to truly resonate, and that the imagination must be allowed to be freed, not constrained by ‘clever’ writing and ‘knowing’ deep and meaningful allusion-making. Allegory? What did he say about allegories? Tolkien knew!

2

Before the Doctor would condescend to open the Tardis door, she sat Petty and Orwell down and gave them a short lecture.

‘Now, all your talk of ‘is she’ or ‘is he’ is quite understandable. But I am going to continue to keep it slightly mysterious. I say slightly, because it’s surely bleeding obvious, even to you two, that if it looks like a woman, swivels it’s hips like a woman, smells like a woman, and loves shoes, it’s close enough to being a woman to be a woman, at least, for all practical purposes. But for god’s sake let’s try to keep things a tiny bit subtle and Whovian! Though that doesn’t mean - and I’m making this point for your particular benefit, Orwell! Pay attention. Now, I accept your mind will wander and you may make intimate explorations of the body I have wisely concealed from you, but that doesn’t mean you should ever think you can actually touch me up, not without my said or unsaid permission. With your imagination, of course you may - and what I say now in the Tardis stays in the Tardis, okay! - you may do whatever you damn well like with me. Not like I can’t do anything about it anyway. My view is, the thoughts of men will wander wherever they like. Providing their hands don’t, I see no reason to smash them with a hammer. I’m not a gyno supremacist, you know. Truth is, I am well aware I am the brilliantly scintillating object of any healthy man’s desire. And remember this, though I may be an object, you are an object too. As I am a proton of desire, you are an electron, an electron with a penis, or, if you like, an appliance with a penis, and providing you continue to perform your objective function, protecting my back, and mowing the lawn (metaphorically speaking), I am prepared to put up with your sexist rubbish. Do you understand that?’

‘Ummm... no, not really...’

‘Well, if I say, do what you’re told, behave with at least some decorum, and, you never know, I may even keep the candy store a wee bit open, even to you - figuratively and metaphorically, that is - but if you don’t behave yourself, I swear you’ll never get to lick the candy floss off your fingers. So don’t continue to give me the utter shits. You are a man, I accept you will you give me the shits more often than not with your penile proclivites, I know that.  Look, I know you can’t really help your biological proclivities. But if you continue to give me the shits with your biological proclivitizatory behaviour far too regular - all your puerile comments and wandering eyes - I will definitely get to the point where I will no longer resist this constant urge I have to ram my sonic screwdriver so far up your arse you’ll think Christmas is actually Easter, with or without the rabbit! And don’t think it will be a turn on for you either, because it won’t be. It’ll fucking hurt! Look, I’m sure you can be quite intelligent on those odd occasions when the brain in you head is functioning logically (somewhat) and your second brain is experiencing one its passive phases, so dig deep a bit more often, okay! Do you understand me!’

‘Umm.... err... Can you ask Petty that while I have a bit more time to think about it...’

‘Fuck off, she asked you first!’

‘Shut up! As to you Petty, by all means check out my boobs, I know you do, but, hell man, try to be less obvious about it! You know, women are more turned on by subtle perving than blatant perving. And never ever do it unless you’re wearing a nice shirt and expensive shoes! If you have a Mazzarati in your driveway, all the better. Have you ever wondered why men like Orwell never get their wick wet?’

‘I prefer not having to think about Orwell’s wick..’

‘Hell, man, I’m not asking you to! As soon as I walked into the command centre just now I knew Orwell had been in your ear. How often do you focus your whole attention on my boobs! Hardly ever. Surreptitiously man, surreptitiously! I’m really telling you this straight: women prefer the perving to be subtle. Admittedly, women prefer outright perving to no perving at all, but don’t make it a habit. And if you do forget to be surreptitious, you better hope it’s when you’re wearing your nicest kilt with real gold embosses on your sporran, or else you might know the painful upthrust of the sonic screwdriver too. Okay!’

‘But what about you and that damn fetching tank top,’ Orwell dared to complain. ‘Any self respecting man would focus on the wonderful display you have made here for us this morning.’

‘I displayed my boobs this way for me, not for you, you vain bastard!’ The Doctor clearly did not favour the slightly disbelieving look Petty and Orwell shot each other just then. ‘Hey, even a Timelord has the right t to feel sexy without being accused of making herself look sexy to tease her two trembling male Companions! Timelords have rights, too, you know!’

‘I have no idea what...’

‘Shut up, Petty! Anyway, I hope I have made myself clear about how I expect you to behave from now on. This is Peasea Planet. I don’t want you distracted with stupid ‘is she or isn’t she’ thoughts. This is a dangerous place. Who knows what disaster might elapse if you guys aren’t playing close attention to your environment.’

‘Ummm... I don’t quite...’

‘Shut up, Orwell! I’ll simplify, you stupid man: try and keep your hand off it while we are here!’

‘Figuratively or literally?’

‘I don’t expect miracles, you idiot. Just make sure you keep it behind your zipper if you really must fiddle! Now let’s put on our oil suits and head out...’

The Doctor went off to change.

While Petty and Orwell were stretching on their oil suits, Petty asked, ‘Did you understand anything about what the Doctor was saying?’

‘No, not really, but you do have to admit, the more agitated she got, the more her boobs wobbled. And very nicely too, if you ask me.’

‘I hardly noticed.’

‘You fucking liar.’

And they had a giggle then, as men often do if women are not around.


To be continued...





‘

Another masterwork!

{{{ Though I can't agree with you giving away the store so far as man-secrets are concerned. Women may already suspect our minds are constantly in the gutter, but you go and package it up and tie a bow on it. Suspect, yes, but they must never know. }}}

Too late
Women had you sussed long ago

3

In their sleek tight fitting navy blue oil suits, Petty and Orwell looked like wingless neatly bulging maggoteels but with arms and legs and webbed feet. Their artificial eyes, with their multi-dimensionional octogonal fog and soup shutters and radioplacid films, looked nothing in the least like March Fly eyes.

When the Doctor reappeared in her oil suit, vibrant red in colour (her black one was at the dry cleaners and she just had to hope she wasn’t going to clash with the planet) she deadset looked like the most vibrant and voluptuous amphibion you might ever imagine.

Once they had got the audio filters on their artificial mouthparts tuned, they had a brief exchange:

“Now, you two, we are about to enter the viscous and toxically fatal surface slurry of Peasea Planet. Now, you boobs, this is important, so fucking listen. We must stay in body contact until we reach the subsurface air envelope beneath the Peasea slurry. On penetration, we will float-fall, at various speeds, depending on the specific air pressure, and it does vary, down to solid ground. It is important we stay in close and firm physical contact because there are lots of holes on the planet and if you fall down one I’m not going to come looking for you; no point, the Goolygummages are sure to eat you before ever I can save you.”

“Goolygummages?” Petty moaned. ‘What kinda ridiculous...?’

‘Shut up. I know, I know, but I just can’t be bothered. Come along.”

The Tardis portal opened and Orwell and Petty made eager body contact with the Doctor, choosing their personally preferred hold-points.

Peasea Planet was covered in its entirety by a four foot seven inches film of that pea soup thick green ooze the Doctor had just mentioned only a moment ago, and once you had penetrated it there was anywhere between a forty foot to a twenty seven thousand foot drop to a solid orb surface covered by flora that looked like Earth flora and was biologically the same, except there was not one potato (Solanum genus) on the planet, just several planet-specific rice species (Poa genus) filling that niche. Not even the smartest scientists on the planetary research station that circled the planet knew why this was.

Once on the planet surface, Petty and Orwell closely watched the Doctor peel off her oil suit and presently emerge amid squeaky rubbery noises wearing a tight fitting pink safari suit and her favourite safari stilettos. Once she became aware of their careful scrutiny, she yelled at them, and they swiftly stripped down to their muscle shirts, snagfree shorts and sturdy non-stick tropical savannah thongs. Yes, Peasea Planet, at that particular latitude in it’s biosphere, was a tropical savannah.

“How come the heavens look like a normal Earth sky?” Orwell was curious to know. “And is that a sun up there?”

“Yes it is,” the Doctor answered. “While the laws of astrophysics apply to this world, both generally and incredibly vaguely speaking, other peculiar forces and universal warp factors apply too. You mustn’t think of the sky as purely an optical illusion but more so as a protomatter phenomenon where the laws of pyrodynamics are reversed to be fourty five degrees east of the vertical and one hundred and eleven degrees south of the norm.”

“Does that make any sense?”

“Not in any sense that you might understand, Petty. Anyway, there is no point questioning it. One sometimes needs to Stoically accept that there are just some things that just can’t be explained. Get used to it. Mmm.... I wonder what we are meant to be doing? Look around. Can you see anything that might suggest where the storyline might be heading?”

Dutifully, Petty and Orwell looked around. Then they looked around some more, and this time the Doctor joined them in looking around.  Nothing obvious came to mind just then... not a thing...


To be continued....

4

As it turned out, it did not take more than a few minutes for the Doctor to discover what her mission was on Planet Peasea. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Firstly, they made their way toward a lake that could be glimpsed between the savannah trees, about a hundred yards away. It looked picturesque and they had to begin their adventure somewhere.

“We might do some sight seeing,” the Doctor averred on the way. “Peasea Planet has many sights. A bit sanitised and Disney-like, but surely better than dealing with cheese-robots and veggie-Cybernen.”

On the bank on the lake, they discovered an inhabitant of the planet with a fishing rod. He was an interesting chap to look at. Jeans, Miller shirt and knee-high jigging boots, and a long beard.

“Well, Stone the crows,” Orwell averred. “If it’s not that irascible and sometimes friendly American, Dave Cramberry. Why, it’s been ages since I ran into him.”

Dave jumped up to face them, rod in hand, howdy-grin on his face. “Why if it’s not Orwell himself it’s definitately somebody else. Darn tootin’, what a fair pickle of peckles this is! And Petty! And the fabulous Julia Figg! ‘Tis truly a tiny Forumverse, it ‘tis!”

“That’d be ‘The Doctor’,” Petty put in. “Doctor Who has taken over Figgy’s body.”

“Well that’s good fortune if I ever heard it!” Dave gasped in admiration. ‘Intriduces a whole new dimension to masturbation according to the Who canon, buckaroos! ... Err... you did say ‘The’ Doctor?”

“Yes,” Orwell said, giving the Doctor a careful look over and no doubt contemplating all things masturbation.

With some excitement, Davy drawled: “Well, if that ain’t a strange pork barrel of chickens! Well, there must be two at the moment,” and Dave scratched his hairy scalp, clearly baffled but, nonetheless, pleased.

“Two Doctors?” the Doctor retorted through suddenly clenched teeth. “You must be talking about that Other Doctor! The one no one likes. Ha! I suddenly know what our mission is then!”

“Why, is that mission that help her defeat the cheese-robots and vegie-Cybermen?” Dave said in some excitement. “Once I have caught some trout for her dinner, i’ll take you straight to her operations base. That’s boot-scootin’ good luck, in my opinion. Yippee!” And Dave did a little jig in his jigger boots, which all excited Americans do, as we know.

...but Petty was not sure he liked the steely murderous glint he saw just then in the Doctor’s eyes...

And this is where it stops! Like the author suddenly ran out of ideas or something...or something... You know, I was really getting into this too.

{{ now you know how rest of us feel! (not that I can talk) }}

I wish my juices were still what they was... but that’s the trouble with age, I think, the juices...the juices just ain’t what the juices were...

{{ I have to sook mine up with a straw these days }}

You are a Scotshobbit, and I always try to take that into account in all my dealings with you, yet, that still does not make for a good mental image!

{{ think yourself lucky then you only have the mental image, I have the straw }}

Oh youuuuuu.....

He
5

An amazing thing occurred just then. The Doctor suddenly gripped her stomach and sighed, ‘Oh my goodness! I think I’m doing the Doctor changeover thing, I can’t remember what it’s called, and why it should happen just now - writer laziness notwithstanding - I have absolutely no idea. Ouch! Ow! I feel faint!’

The others rushed to her as she tottered in front of them. They tried to help her as she stumbled back to the Tardis. She reached the door and began to enter. The others tried to follow her but she turned her noble head, gave a flourish of her beautiful red hair, and mouthed the sweetest but saddest of ‘no’s’ and closed the Tardis door in their faces.

Those outside stood dumbfounded, or just dumb, which was only to be expected, while inside the Tardis the Doctor fell to the floor and in a trice, or a fourth, began to change; there was a lot of lights and electrical currents and mournful expressions, and maybe the sadly whispered refrain, ‘I do love Petty’; though no one was there to hear it and so it might not have happened. A figure, human like, began to form....

The end - and a new beginning? I don’t know yet... It has been a long time.



... as pasted here on behalf of the Archet Bugle...