It’s been a while since I kicked off a forum game. In this one we look at the possibility that Doctor Who will have to go ahead with a drastically reduced budget and we imagine how past stories might need to be retitled to accommodate the budget cuts. I’ll do a couple to start us off, so you get the idea.
Mild Blue Inter
Rob Bot
The Time Worrier
Pyramid of Mars Bars
Survivors of the Flicks
The Irate Plan Net
Last of the Time CBEs
County of Decay
Trespass of the Superannuated (Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
I’m sure greater minds than mine can cut the budget of other well known stories to the bone.
You could honestly just add ‘Junior’ or ‘Trainee’ infront of the word Doctor in any episode, since they get paid less
Day of the Junior Doctor
Power of the Trainee Doctor
“The Little Bang”: The Pandorica is a cardboard box on string, a balloon of paint explodes against a black canvas, and the Doctor is shoddily superimposed into pre-existing footage, as if this were an 00s YouTube review.
“Factory of the Ood”: No more disgusting transformation. Halpern collapses, and rises an Ood.
“The Hiatus of Time”: The Master Race are people wearing paper masks of John Simm.
“The Moment of the Doctor”: Where do we begin?
“The Robot Strike”: It’s just standing there… menacingly!
Season 16:The Keys to Time. The production asks cast and crew to bring in any keys they have at home that they don’t know what they go to anymore, and picks the coolest looking ones to be the Keys. The Rib Operation. Romana uses her sudden knowledge of Gallifreyan surgery to mend the Doctor’s broken rib. While doing so, she finds one of the keys inside him, for no good reason. The Pirate Plan. A single pirate works on a piratical plan, and he is glad to accept the Doctor and Roman offer of help, because he is just one person. All the scenes take place at night, when no one was using the very small boat they serreptitiously film on. The same boat is used for the boat the pirate wants to sneak onto. That boat has a larger fridge, and the pirate is hungry. That’s his plan - get a sandwich. One of the keys is also there, for no good reason. The Stone of Blood. This is filmed in a crew member’s back yard, where a pile of boxes is painted red to look like an eerie monolith. There are no aliens. It is just a rock. There is a key taped to it. The Androids of Tar. They are just crew members covered in black paint who talk in robot voices - the feared Tar Androids. They are wearing normal clothes, and one of them has a key ring hanging from his belt. Guess what? The Powerlessness of Kroll. Filmed right after filming the above, with green paint poured over the black paint. Kroll is a sock puppet. It carries a key around for no reason. The Armageddon Fact. This story happens after the titular armageddon. There’s just a key lying around somewhere.
I literally just finished watching this season, for the first time, so I couldn’t resist!
An Earthly Child - Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton follow their student home, have a nice chat with her grandfather, and reassure themselves that Susan is just an ordinary, kind of weird kid. Then they all go home and to bed.
