Editors: Adam Richards, Andy Thompson, Owen Richards with net facilities by Robbie Langton
THE SPICE DOCS!
By our Cynical Recycling Correspondent: Emphysemia Plantagenet-Boggebrusche
Up-to-the-minute as ever, the BBC has licensed the production of a brand-spanking-new Doctor Who TV special: a re-make of The Five Doctors, entitled The Spice Doctors. The special, which is being filmed in America, will see the first five favourite classic Time Lords magically transmogrified - via being snatched out of their rightful places in space and time - into an internationally famous, “Girl-Powered”, world-wide singing sensation!
Re-structure
Writer Terrance Dicks has reluctantly agreed to re-structure his original script for The Five Doctors to accomodate the new concept. “Well, it was either me or Robert Holmes, but I think he actually died quite a long while ago. And anyway, he hadn’t ever written a script about the five Doctors being taken out of time, called The Five Doctors. I apparently wrote that one, according to this book on my shelf here, funnily enough,” said the forgetful, cadaverous old trouper, last night.
Trendy
The BBC are keen to hype the new production, as always enthusiastic about anything that seems vaguely trendy at the moment. Last Saturday, the corporation threw a massive press conference, displaying the five Spice Doctors to the world, amid a gala multi-media celebration of the series, replete with free champagne, packets of jelly babies, and a huge cake shaped like a Dalek, out of which jumped ex-companion Nicola Bryant wearing a revealing Thal-thong costume. Reporters’ opinions of the event were mixed: “It was a bit like a Disco Holocaust,” said ace Guardian journalist Dempster McFargeon, “We were led into a hall, with these flashing lights, loud music and smoke everywhere. There was an explosion of flash powder, then the TARDIS appeared, out of which came the Spice Doctors... Or at least I think that’s what happened; after a while I started to bump into things and had to be taken outside for fresh air”. The Spice Doctors themselves made quite an impact with reporters, who described the fivesome as ‘charming, witty and erudite stunners’.
Girl-Power
Asked how the show will be presented, a BBC spokesman revealed, “It will take the series bravely into the ’nineties. We can show the world that Girl-Power, used sensibly, can save the earth from all the Intergalactic villains the Doctor Who universe can possibly vomit forth at it. This will be, undoubtedly, the most popular version of the ageing children’s science-fiction series yet!” Media speculation that the Spice Girls, on whom the new Doctor Who special is based, are “a spent force on the UK music scene” has evidently not yet reached the corporation.
Project
Hopeful of receiving some additional gossip on the project, we contacted the Spice Girls’ record company for their opinion, but the only response we got was, “Doctor who?”
Sydney Newman was rotting, yesterday.
[ED- Naa. Our boys in the office have come up with some names that are much more accurate:
"Slapper Doc", "Mutton Dressed As Lamb Doc", "Screeching Bug-Eyed Harridan Doc", "Jailbait Doc", and "Couldn’t Get A Shag Standing Outside A Brothel On A Saturday Night Doc"!!]