Si Hart's What If... Game

[SiHart]

Which I've stolen from Andrew Curnow, obviously.

Basically the game goes like this. Every day (or when I remember) I shall name and New Series story and an era from the original run of the show. All you clever, clever people have to do is to tell me all about how that episode of the show would have been in that particular era.
Be creative! Tell me what were the memorable moments, which bits didn't work because of the era, the casting, the miscasting. This one could run and run!

Maybe.

Anyway, I shall start us off with that Barry Letts Era classic: 42 (chosen at random by Mr McCow.



Si xx

[Si Hunt]

Well, every time you get a view of the sun, there would be yellow-fringe-a-rama, and a CSO'd picture of a christmas tree bauble. For the Spacewalk sequence one need look no further than "Frontier in Space" - Pertwee gurning, Margaret Hayhoe holding up a hairdryer just out of shot and Dudley farting away on the kazoo for accompaniment.

Possessed people would undoubtedly have bright blue stick on eyes, and the crew would consist of Louis Mahoney, Talfryn Thomas, Joanna Lumley and Terry Walsh. Jo Grant would, naturally, have no-one to phone but she would adlib about her Uncle and the Master for ten minutes while the capsule plumetted into the sun. And for the moment when the 'possessed' Doctor gets frozen, the "Planet of the Daleks" frosted icing pot would be whipped out the freezer. Finally, Pertwee would provide a moral before the day was out - "You know, you people really should learn that trivia questions to open vital doors to the engine room is a very stupid idea indeed!"

And it would last for six episodes. Just imagine that.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

Which I've stolen from Andrew Curnow, obviously

You're giving me far too much credit, Si. Unless this is a huge mega-success, in which case the idea was absolutely 100% mine, no question oh yes.

And it would last for six episodes. Just imagine that.

Oh the humanity.

Can I just add, the story would be cleverly set in the year 2573. Also, one of the crew would fall for Jo but she would still leave him behind at the end, the cruel minx.

Oh and that working title, 42, that would definitely change - something really exciting like The Sun in Space would be far better!

[Andrew Curnow]

Also, the tapes would have been long since wiped, so we can only glimpse the fiery reds & yellows & crimsons of BBC FX's sun model as a murky grey smudge on a black & white film print.

[Si Hunt]

Although they'd have restored "The Sun In Space" in the early nineties, in subtle shades of pink and bleached red, so the whole thing would now look like it had got accidentally washed in with Barry Letts' long johns and probably go for £20 on VHS via Ebay.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

I wonder who they can get for the DVD commentary? And what tenuously-linked extras 2E can conjure up...

[shada pavlova]

Which I've stolen from Andrew Curnow, obviously.

Actually, you (indirectly) stole it from me.

Do you think that, had it been written today, would Image of the Fendahl work as a two-parter in the new series?

That was posted a whole FOURTEEN MINUTES before Curnow pciked up on it.

But I'll let you off, this time.

[Rob McCow]

And it would last for six episodes. Just imagine that.

If they played it all out in real time, then that would mean 22x6 minutes - the episode could be called 132! Although it may be a bit shorter than that because you'd have the inevitable cameo from the Brig in the first and last scenes. 'Doctor? Drat! He's probably gone off for a holiday in the sun!'

I honestly don't know how they could fill it out to 132 minutes. I don't know how they filled 42 minutes! You'd need five cliffhangers -
1 - We're going to crash into the sun!
2 - Somebody becomes possessed and is about to attack Jo!
3 - We're still falling into the sun!
4 - Jo gets ejected in the space capsule.
5 - The Doctor is possessed!

And the possession theme could all be solved with the help of a little blue crystal.

[Si Hunt]

The answer is a new element would be inserted into Episode 5 to pad it out.

"Don't you know your morse code Jo? 42 dots and 42 dashes! Spells.... MASTER!"

Si.

[SiHart]

I think Barry Letts' decision to make some of the trivia questions based around the Buddhist religion was very educational, though how Jo was suddenly an expert on this was a bit of a mystery.

The highlight for me was when Jo got on the Space-Time Telegraph to the Brigadier and asked him the question about Gilbert and Sullivan- the bemused look of exasperation on his face was a joy to see!

Si xx

[shada pavlova]

I once had a serious think about how to stretch 42 out to six episodes.

Basically, all the "sun's alive and we're all infected" stuff goes on for four episodes, and everything seems fine at the end, and the Doctor and Jo leave. However, in the TARDIS, the Doctor detects some sun-particles still on board (end of part 4 there), so he hits the fast-return switch. Unfortunately, it plonks them down on the ship but three months into the future, when the ship has already returned to Earth, and the last two episodes are about trying to prevent the infection from spreading throughout the whole of Central City.

Any thoughts?

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Yes. Why does the fast return switch take them into the future?

[Dirk Gently]

Because the TARDIS is infected with sun particles & its trajectory is nudged in to the future.
Obvious isn't it?

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Why use the fast return switch at all though? WHERE'S THE LOGIC!!

[Dirk Gently]

WHY NOT~!

[Rob McCow]

BUT WHY >?

[Andrew Curnow]

The highlight for me was when Jo got on the Space-Time Telegraph to the Brigadier and asked him the question about Gilbert and Sullivan- the bemused look of exasperation on his face was a joy to see!

I am the very model of a much-belittled Brigadier/I often rue the day that UNIT invited the Doctor here...

[Andrew Curnow]

In terms of padding it out, I'd guess that the whole of episode 1 (possible even episode 2) would involve the Doctor & Jo being locked up by the crew and not getting involved with the action for at least half an hour.

And on the cliffhanger front, I don't think there's much of a problem:

Part 1 - "We're being dragged into the sun!"
Part 2 - "We're being dragged into the sun!"
Part 3 - "Burn with me!" (Jo menaced by a man in a mask)
Part 4 - "We're being dragged into the sun!"
Part 5 - "Hooray, the ship's moving forward again-- No, wait. We're being dragged into the sun!!!"

[Si Hunt]

Is anyone else actually pining for this as a Pertwee story now?

Si.

[SiHart]

It sounds much better, doesn't it? I can only imagine the joys of watching Pertwee doing possessed acting though, sadly.

Si xx

[Jon Masters]

I think he'd spend at least one episode in a self-induced trauma before coming round though.

And once he'd worked out what was going on - "It was your own greed that brought disaster to your ship. Your own ignorance and greed, Madam. You did it to yourselves !"

[Andrew Curnow]

I think we should start an internet rumour that 42 was based on an ultimately-unused Pertwee script.

[Dirk Gently]

You mean it wasn't?

[Andrew Curnow]

"...Hulke did in fact submit a storyline for season 9 which was advanced to quite a late stage before the decision to shelve it was taken. In place of what became The Sea Devils, would originally have been a story called The Sun Death (or The Sun of Death in an early warning synopsis dated 27th August 1971). Edwin Richfield and June Murphy were both contracted for the story, which contracts were later transferred over to The Sea Devils for budgetary reasons. They would have played members of the crew of a ship which found itself unable to escape the titular Sun..."

From the third gospel of Pixley, pp 177

[SiHart]

"I don't remember ever rejecting a Mac Hulke story," says Terrance Dicks, "except the one about a space ship plunging into the heart of a sun. Barry thought it just beyond our capabilities and I was forced to agree. Besides which he'd just got a reply from a letter he'd sent to the Royal Navy, so our script priorities went in a different direction."

Si xx