Yesterday, Richard and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary by getting married.
It was wonderful, and we’re incredibly happy.
Thank you to all the many lovely people who came to celebrate with us – and many who couldn’t.
Among the huge highlights for us was a reading performed by our lovely friends Nick and Simon. Like the TARDIS, it was something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue – we wrote it ourselves, but over thirty other writers had written it first, before we assembled nearly ninety quotations from Doctor Who into something uniquely us. How many can you identify?
As I can’t be online much for a couple of weeks to say all the things I’d like to about our wedding and my husband, here to keep you busy in the meantime is our reading, which we carefully scheduled for the middle of the wedding breakfast, when people had already had something to eat and drink and were sitting down. You’ll be able to see how the two readers alternated lines as they went along.
Before I get back online, how about putting your guesses in the comments section? Though if you’re like Richard and can place every single one at once, please don’t take the lot (though you can email me to show off if you like. That’s what I’d do).
Oh, and before I go – you were wonderful. And because we were wonderful too, please send us your photos and videos, by email, website, memory stick for the big ones and carrier pigeon (if my Dad’s not eaten them all). We’ve nicked some photos to start with.
Master of Ceremonies: Peoples of the Universe, please attend carefully. The message that follows is vital to the future of you all. Here are Simon Fernandes and Nicholas Campbell with tonight’s reading.
Richard and Alex in an Exciting Adventure with Doctor Who
Of course we’re getting married. Oh, but there’s another man. Always. The Doctor.
The Doctor is impulsive, idealistic, ready to risk his life for a worthy cause. He hates tyranny and oppression and anything that is anti-life. He never gives in and he never gives up, however overwhelming the odds against him.
The Doctor believes in good and fights evil. Though often caught up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly.
In fact, to put it simply, the Doctor is a hero. These days there aren’t so many of them around.
Thank you for this. Thank you for my life, for my wedding, and my husband.
By the way, did I mention – it also travels in time?
Have you ever thought what it’s like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles? Susan and I are cut off from our own planet, without friends or protection. But one day, we shall get back. Yes, one day. One day…
You had to pick a Sunday, didn’t you? You bring me back to ‘Boredom Capitol of the Universe’; you pick the one day of the week you can’t even get a decent television programme.
So what’s so terrible about Stockport?
Nothing ever happens here.
Nothing for you but pitiless damnation for the rest of your lives! Think on it!
The two Silurians were now hot on the Pakhars’ heels, their big clawed feet making good speed along the cobbles. They kept glancing over their shoulders and squealing. ‘Barbarians!’ yelled Jacquilian at the mob behind them. ‘You’d think it was the twenty-first century!’
‘It is the twenty-first century!’ Sanki told him. ‘So let’s not have any of that Earth Reptile Pride rubbish – let’s just find a barn or something and hide!’
I think you’ve been listening to some very bad advice. Well, it’s just possible that you’ve been given a series of orders while you’ve been asleep. You know – do this, do that, do the other thing. My advice to you is don’t do anything of the sort. Don’t just be obedient. Always make up your own mind.
In the end, we all want the same thing; an ordered society, with everyone happy, well-fed… What’s best for Global Chemicals is best for the world – is best for you!
Such as a little touch of brain-washing.
Freedom from fear, freedom from pain…
Freedom from freedom!
I can hear the sound of empires toppling.
Everything is history, if you look at it from the right perspective.
I used to think – ‘I’ll never get married’… But now I’m not so sure.
That was over twenty years ago. Why must you remind me? I offer you – everything.
Still – the future lies this way.
’Pon my Sam – I may have had a bang on the head, but this is a dashed queer story.
Oh, corks!
Why can’t you talk normally?
What? And be just like everyone else?
Redvers has the whole Universe to explore for his catalogue. New horizons, wondrous beasts, light years from Zanzibar!
Doctor, something tells me you are not in our catalogue – nor will you ever be.
‘What’s that?’ Miles asked as she held the paper up.
Piper remembered what the Doctor had told her, and suddenly grinned.
‘Hope,’ she said, as the powder was carried away from them, like a flurry of sparks, upon the wind.
Now that’s much better. I can believe that.
There was a sudden intensity in his eyes. Ace sensed that he wanted to say something.
Mike offered her the bacon sandwich instead.
Vivien is making some sausage sandwiches. Nothing like sausage sandwiches when you’re working something out.
Personally, I have never seen the necessity for starting a meal with a – what was your word?
Hors d’oeuvres.
Ah! Quite unnecessary, in my opinion. Eight – or nine – main dishes are quite enough.
Unlimited rice pudding, et cetera, et cetera!
The only other solution she could think of was impossible — Daleks didn’t and never, ever had eaten crunchy brown finger biscuits.
Let’s try the pub!
Five rounds rapid.
‘What do you want to drink?’
‘What have you got?’ asked Roz.
‘Hey,’ said the table smugly. ‘You name it we’ve got it.’
‘In that case,’ said Bernice, ‘I’ll have an exaggerated sexual innuendo with a dash of patriot’s spirit and extra mushrooms. Roz?’
‘I’ll have the same,’ said Roz, ‘but with an umbrella in it.’
‘Coming right up,’ said the table.
‘The sky appears to be reflective,’ Holmes replied, more hesitantly than usual. ‘Perhaps, like Dante’s inner circle of Hell, we have ice above us. If you look closely, you will see a reflected glow from something over the horizon. The nearest Earthly equivalent would be the lights of a town or city.’ He coughed. ‘I am merely speculating, of course. It could be an incandescent chicken the size of the North Riding for all I know.’
Jamie, I’m being stared at. Is there something wrong with me?
You mean up here, Doctor?
Is my hair in disarray?
What, no more than usual.
Do I look strange or bizarre?
Aye, well, maybe I’m used to you.
You really ought to come and join me, Pex. It’d do you the world of good. There’s really nothing to be frightened of. …Help!
Doctor, look, here what approaches?!
Oh no, run! It is a Taran Beast!
We’ll meet elsewhere. Now flee with haste
You go West, me East!
Exeunt at different sides, pursued by Taran Beast.
I imagine the whole business caused quite a stir.
No, the Cabinet’s accepted my report and the whole affair’s now completely closed.
You mean it never happened.
Well, a fifty-foot monster can’t swim up the Thames and attack a large building without some people noticing – er, but you know what politicians are like.
And even if it did come after him, the Doctor wasn’t too worried. He didn’t have a very high opinion of monsters, however large and powerful.
Doctor, you – you’re being childish.
Well of course I am. There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes. Are you coming?
Am I naked in front of millions of viewers?
Victory should be naked! Rejoice in it. Your body is – magnificent.
Ladies – your viewing figures just went up.
Look, Brigadier! It’s growing!
Look, Brigadier – look. I think it’s started.
Well, here we go again.
Men out there – young men – are dying for it!
Thou craggy knob!
David said, ‘Well, then.’
‘Well then,’ said Chris.
At the far end of the street, hostile armed men came to party, and twenty minutes passed.
Was that bang big enough for you, Brigadier?
No, no, the Zigma Experiment was a success! A brilliant, total success!
In many ways, we have the same mind.
Time’s roses are scented with memory. There was a garden where they once grew. Cuttings from the past grafted on to the present. Perfumes that recalled things long gone or echoed memories yet to come.
Listen to me, both of you. I want you to remember. I want you to remember everything. Every single day with me. Every single second. Because your memories are more powerful than anything else on this planet. Just think of it. Remember it. But properly. Properly. Give the Memory Weave everything. Every – planet, every face, every madman, every loss, every sunset, every scent, every terror, every joy, every Doctor.
My father Sidney was a – a watchmaker from Nottingham, and my mother Verity was – erm – well, she was a nurse, actually.
Oh! We make such good wives.
You probably can’t remember your family.
Oh yes, I can when I want to. And that’s the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they – they sleep in my mind, and I forget. And so will you. Oh yes, you will. You’ll find there’s so much else to think about, to remember.
Our lives are different to anybody else’s. That’s the exciting thing. Nobody in the Universe can do what we’re doing.
You know, when you’re a kid, they tell you it’s all, ‘Grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid’, and that’s it. Oh… But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It’s so much darker, and so much madder. And so much better.
Two birds circled each other in the sky above the Lincolnshire marshes. They were owls in love, as much as owls could love.
Are you ready?
If you are.
What? Well, I’d feel more confident if you just said ‘Yes’.
Yes.
Good. Here we go, then.
You look wonderful.
You’d best give me some warning. Um, can you actually dance?
Um… I’m not certain.
There’s a surprise. Is there anything you’re certain about?
Yes. Yes.
And where do you think you’re going?
Well, we’ll have to find out for ourselves, won’t we?
Happy days, my dear.
The happiest of my life, dear heart. Was ever such a potion brewed? In bliss is quenched my thirsty heart.
Very prettily put, my dear.
Oh, sweet, favoured man, you have declared your love for me. And I acknowledge and accept your gentle proposal.
Oh, no, they’re not gonna – oh, people are eating! Nobody over 22 should be doing that in public. Actually, at all.
You see before you the complete killing machine – as beautiful as you, and as deadly as the plague. If only she were real, I’d marry her.
You deserve each other.
Hah! And is not Grendel a faméd coward?
Is the Archimandrite’s hat not silly?
Why then, be gay and deck the hall with spog!
You shall have a husband great or none.
If all the stars were silver, and the sky a giant purse in my fist, I couldn’t be happier than I am tonight.
‘Indeed, Doctor,’ growled the Master. ‘I merely required some time to finish my experiments. I didn’t anticipate the arrival of this maladjusted couple and their wedding plans. I have learnt to be only mildly surprised when you arrive to disrupt my work. But this time you bring with you a full platoon of UNIT troops, numerous armed aliens, an Ice Warrior battlecraft, a couple of Time Lords and Sherlock Holmes! You have excelled yourself!’
I always drezz for the occasion!
Already the Time Lords are gathering, donning seldom-worn robes with their colourful collar insignia. The scarlet and orange of the Prydonians, the green of the Arcalians, and the heliotrope of the Patrexes – and so on.
The latest batch of guests included an upright four-armed blue elephant, who was looking around nervously. ‘Anybody else I know, coming to this wedding?’ he asked.
‘Bestwishesforyourfuturetogetherbut youwillfallbeforethemightofourinvasionforcebythewaywhat
sortofringsarethose?’
Love, the Cybercontroller, Telos.
Don’t mind me. I’m just toasting the happy couple.
Now, remember – enjoy yourselves. Happiness will prevail!
Build high for happiness!
I’m glad you’re happy.
And I’m happy you’re glad.
Sixty million robots danced through the streets of Milky-Pink City. They had never been programmed with dance lessons but what they lacked in style they made up for with enthusiasm. All around, metal limbs twisted with abandon. Tall robots did something that looked like a rumba, lifting robots did the Mashed Potato. And weaving in and out between them raced the Doctor and Martha Jones.
For one vertiginous moment the Dalek Supreme wanted to skip.
Just remember. The future. No looking back, that’s our motto. We’re heading towards a new life… Drive off into the sunset. The future. Adventure. The open road and whatever it might bring.
The sphere experienced, for the first time in its history, the glories of a full cinemascope Technicolor sunset.
Just so Chris and Dep could fly off into it.
So what happens now, then? Tell me what happens now.
In the mid Twenty-First Century, humankind starts creeping off into the stars, spreads its way through the galaxy to the very edges of the Universe. And it endures ’til the end of time. And it does all that because one day in the year 2014, when it had stopped thinking about going to the stars, something occurred that make it look up, not down. It looked out there into the blackness and it saw something beautiful, something – wonderful, that for once it didn’t want to destroy. And in that one moment, the whole course of history was changed.
Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It’s only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless bipeds. They’ve survived flood, famine and plague. They’ve survived cosmic wars and holocausts, and now – here they are out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life, ready to out-sit eternity. They’re indomitable. Indomitable!
In case there is any fear in your heart and doubt in your mind at this awesome moment, let me remind you that you take with you all our pasts. You carry the torch that has been handed down from generation to generation.
The challenge is vast, the task enormous, but let nothing daunt you.
During all the years I’ve been taking care of you, you in return have been taking care of me.
One day, I shall come back – yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.
There are worlds out there where the sky is burning. Where the sea is asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there’s danger. Somewhere there’s injustice. And somewhere else, the tea is getting cold.
Come on, Ace – we’ve got work to do.
The light on the TARDIS flashed like a bright idea.
The TARDIS was on its way to new adventures.
It’s far from being all over!
It’s the end. But the moment has been prepared for.
It’s a new beginning. And the moment has been prepared for.
"‘What’s that?’ Miles asked as she held the paper up.
ReplyDeletePiper remembered what the Doctor had told her, and suddenly grinned.
‘Hope,’ she said, as the powder was carried away from them, like a flurry of sparks, upon the wind."
That's the end of Lucifer Rising, by Andy Lane and Jim Mortimore.
Hurrah!
ReplyDeleteThank you, David, and you are absolutely right.
I'm especially glad that the first guess on here is one of the more obscure ones – probably my favourite New Adventure, and an ending that still makes me tear up.
I can get most of them, and I love that you included sections from The Trials of Tara. There are a few I don't know, and some I can place to a few possibilities. I should let other people guess first, though.
ReplyDeleteOh, changing 'Perivale' to 'Stockport' in the Survival quote could be said to be cheating. ;-)
What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it (topically, transmitted this very day on the Horror Channel)?
ReplyDeleteWe love The Trials of Tara. It's hysterical. And obviously we're very New Adventurey.
Still, we thought "Stockport" was a good gag for both Doctor Who and local guests, and it's not the only bit of cheating – just the most obvious!
Feel free to guess away, as long as you don't do the lot in one go. You seem to be the only one playing here ;)
Incidentally, we're sorting through wedding photos, and having inflicted them on the neighbours at the weekend, one of you got the reaction "Who's he? He's very dashing. He's got the look of a '30s film star."
Well, OK, I'll have a go a chunk at a time. Anyone else, feel free to step in any time. From memory, and without resorting to Google:
ReplyDelete"Of course we’re getting married. Oh, but there’s another man. Always. The Doctor."
Bad start - this seems familiar, but I can't place it.
"The Doctor is impulsive, idealistic, ready to risk his life for a worthy cause. He hates tyranny and oppression and anything that is anti-life. He never gives in and he never gives up, however overwhelming the odds against him.
The Doctor believes in good and fights evil. Though often caught up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly.
In fact, to put it simply, the Doctor is a hero. These days there aren’t so many of them around."
Terrence Dicks's summary of the Doctor, much quoted from by others. I think the last bit's part of the original, but wouldn't be shocked to discover it was a separate line added later by someone else.
"Thank you for this. Thank you for my life, for my wedding, and my husband."
I'm also not sure about this one. Is it Bernice in Happy Endings?
"By the way, did I mention – it also travels in time?"
The Doctor to Rose, in Rose by Russell T Davies.
"Have you ever thought what it’s like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles? Susan and I are cut off from our own planet, without friends or protection. But one day, we shall get back. Yes, one day. One day…"
The Doctor to Ian and Barbara in An Unearthly Child by Anthony Coburn (although it's possible that that bit was by David Whitaker, of course).
"You had to pick a Sunday, didn’t you? You bring me back to ‘Boredom Capitol of the Universe’; you pick the one day of the week you can’t even get a decent television programme.
So what’s so terrible about Stockport?
Nothing ever happens here."
Ace and the Doctor in Survival (about Perivale) by Rona Munro
"Nothing for you but pitiless damnation for the rest of your lives! Think on it!"
Miss Hardacre(?) in The Curse of Fenric by Ian Briggs
"The two Silurians were now hot on the Pakhars’ heels, their big clawed feet making good speed along the cobbles. They kept glancing over their shoulders and squealing. ‘Barbarians!’ yelled Jacquilian at the mob behind them. ‘You’d think it was the twenty-first century!’
‘It is the twenty-first century!’ Sanki told him. ‘So let’s not have any of that Earth Reptile Pride rubbish – let’s just find a barn or something and hide!’"
That is Happy Endings, by Paul Cornell.
Excellent bunch (though you missed the title!). The first is indeed familiar but difficult: it's one of those where, if I hadn't picked it myself, I'd go through stories in my head and still be clueless – then kick myself when I found out where it came from. If in doubt, go sideways, as Jo would say.
ReplyDeleteExcellent question on (correct, of course) Terrance Dicks' famous "never cruel or cowardly" description. I strongly suspect the original was the 1976 edition of The Making of Doctor Who; I've just checked, and it's in there, but not The Doctor Who Monster Book, so that's strong evidence. I also notice that the punctuation I've used is slightly different, so I think I got my quote from a piece by Terrance online quoting himself. But it was all there in 1976.
You're right about both quotes from Happy Endings – including your guess (and note that 'Let's forget about Pride and hide in a barn' is immediately identified as "very bad advice" in our narrative). Well, I say both – both that you've identified. There may be others ;)
And you got all the others right, too (I believe it's "Miss Hardaker"). Thank you!
"though you missed the title!"
ReplyDelete"Peoples of the Universe, please attend carefully. The message that follows is vital to the future of you all."
The Master's message in Logopolis, by Christopher H Bidmead
"Richard and Alex in an Exciting Adventure with Doctor Who"
That's a riff on Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, which is the original Armada Book title of the first Dr Who book by David Whitaker.
"If in doubt, go sideways, as Jo would say."
Hmmm. It's not from The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, is it? "If in doubt, go sideways" is from Carnival of Monsters, for possible bonus pooint. ;-)
Next chunk:
ReplyDelete"I think you’ve been listening to some very bad advice. Well, it’s just possible that you’ve been given a series of orders while you’ve been asleep. You know – do this, do that, do the other thing. My advice to you is don’t do anything of the sort. Don’t just be obedient. Always make up your own mind."
This is a great quote from The Macra Terror by Ian Stuart Black
"In the end, we all want the same thing; an ordered society, with everyone happy, well-fed… What’s best for Global Chemicals is best for the world – is best for you!
Such as a little touch of brain-washing.
Freedom from fear, freedom from pain…
Freedom from freedom!"
The first exchange is between BOSS and the Doctor in The Green Death by Robert Sloman. I think the second bit is, too, but this might be a mash-up with another story.
"I can hear the sound of empires toppling."
Not completely sure, but the Doctor says something like this in The Happiness Patrol by Graeme Curry.
"Everything is history, if you look at it from the right perspective."
I recognise this one, but have no idea where it's from.
"I used to think – ‘I’ll never get married’… But now I’m not so sure."
Ace to her grandmother in Curse of Fenric by Ian Briggs
"That was over twenty years ago. Why must you remind me? I offer you – everything."
Commander Millington to Dr Judson in The Curse of Fenric
"Still – the future lies this way."
The newly-regenerated Fifth doctor to faux-Adric in Castrovalva, by Christopher H Bidmead. Oh ... is that where the 'everything is history' quote's from, too?
"’Pon my Sam – I may have had a bang on the head, but this is a dashed queer story.
Oh, corks!"
Talons of Weng Chiang by Robert Holmes. I think they're both Henry Gordon Jago at different points in the story.
"Why can’t you talk normally?"
"What? And be just like everyone else?"
This one has me stumped. Something very like the first line is said by the Doctor in Deep Breath, but I don't recall that exchange, so unless this is another mash-up, it's from something else.
"Redvers has the whole Universe to explore for his catalogue. New horizons, wondrous beasts, light years from Zanzibar!
Doctor, something tells me you are not in our catalogue – nor will you ever be."
Redvers Fenn-Cooper at the end of Ghost Light by Mark Platt. The second line may be spoken by Control - I can't remember.
When we read through it at home, I got three or four, I think, and David got A Lot. I will try and remember the ones I guessed right (or at least, the ones David thought I'd guessed right).
ReplyDeleteA few more:
ReplyDelete"Now that’s much better. I can believe that."
Borusa in The Deadly Assassin by Robert Holmes
"There was a sudden intensity in his eyes. Ace sensed that he wanted to say something.
Mike offered her the bacon sandwich instead."
I assume this is from the novelisation of Remembrance of the Daleks by Ben Aaronovitch, but I am guessing there.
"Vivien is making some sausage sandwiches. Nothing like sausage sandwiches when you’re working something out."
Stones of Blood by David Fisher
"Personally, I have never seen the necessity for starting a meal with a – what was your word?
Hors d’oeuvres.
Ah! Quite unnecessary, in my opinion. Eight – or nine – main dishes are quite enough."
The Two Doctors by Robert Holmes
"Unlimited rice pudding, et cetera, et cetera!"
Remembrance of the Daleks again
"The only other solution she could think of was impossible — Daleks didn’t and never, ever had eaten crunchy brown finger biscuits."
I've no idea. It reads like Bernice coming round from a dream or having been knocked out. I'm going to take a wild guess at SLEEPY by Kate Orman, but I'm fascinated to know what it really is.
"Let’s try the pub!"
The Doctor in Android Invasion by Terry Nation, I think. May be in other stories
"Five rounds rapid."
The Brig in episode 5 of the Daemons by "Guy Leopold", but much referenced elsewhere. I think it crops up in No Future at least - certainly 'Chap with Wings' does.
"‘What do you want to drink?’
‘What have you got?’ asked Roz.
‘Hey,’ said the table smugly. ‘You name it we’ve got it.’
‘In that case,’ said Bernice, ‘I’ll have an exaggerated sexual innuendo with a dash of patriot’s spirit and extra mushrooms. Roz?’
‘I’ll have the same,’ said Roz, ‘but with an umbrella in it.’
‘Coming right up,’ said the table."
The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch, a book that far, far more people should have read.
"‘The sky appears to be reflective,’ Holmes replied, more hesitantly than usual. ‘Perhaps, like Dante’s inner circle of Hell, we have ice above us. If you look closely, you will see a reflected glow from something over the horizon. The nearest Earthly equivalent would be the lights of a town or city.’ He coughed. ‘I am merely speculating, of course. It could be an incandescent chicken the size of the North Riding for all I know.’"
All Consuming Fire, by Andy Lane
"Jamie, I’m being stared at. Is there something wrong with me?
You mean up here, Doctor?
Is my hair in disarray?
What, no more than usual.
Do I look strange or bizarre?
Aye, well, maybe I’m used to you."
I can't place this one, although it feels like the conversation in The Macra Terror when the Doctor's just stepped out of the person-polisher. Not sure it is, though.
"You really ought to come and join me, Pex. It’d do you the world of good. There’s really nothing to be frightened of. …Help!"
Melanie Bush in the swimming pool in Paradise Towers by Steven (Stephen?) Wyatt.
"Doctor, look, here what approaches?!
ReplyDeleteOh no, run! It is a Taran Beast!
We’ll meet elsewhere. Now flee with haste
You go West, me East!
Exeunt at different sides, pursued by Taran Beast."
The Trials of Tara, by Paul Cornell
"I imagine the whole business caused quite a stir.
No, the Cabinet’s accepted my report and the whole affair’s now completely closed.
You mean it never happened.
Well, a fifty-foot monster can’t swim up the Thames and attack a large building without some people noticing – er, but you know what politicians are like."
Terror of the Zygons, by Robert Banks Stewart
"And even if it did come after him, the Doctor wasn’t too worried. He didn’t have a very high opinion of monsters, however large and powerful."
I feel I should know this one, but I don't.
"Doctor, you – you’re being childish.
Well of course I am. There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes. Are you coming?"
Robot, by Terrence Dicks
"Am I naked in front of millions of viewers?
Victory should be naked! Rejoice in it. Your body is – magnificent.
Ladies – your viewing figures just went up."
Two quotes from Bad Wolf bracketing one from World War Three, all by Russell T Davies
"Look, Brigadier! It’s growing!"
Robot, again
"Look, Brigadier – look. I think it’s started.
Well, here we go again."
One story earlier - Planet of the Spiders, by Robert Sloman
"Men out there – young men – are dying for it!"
Propaganda video at the start of The Armageddon Factor, by Bob Baker and Dave Martin
"Thou craggy knob!"
The Sixth Doctor going well over the top in The Twin Dilemma by, well, Anthony Steven in theory, but that bit's unsubtle enough to be Eric Saward.
"David said, ‘Well, then.’
‘Well then,’ said Chris.
At the far end of the street, hostile armed men came to party, and twenty minutes passed."
The first two lines are from Damaged Goods by Russell T Davies. I suspect the third is as well, but it's the first two I remember.
Apologies for keeping you waiting (the spam filter holds comments over a month old); the last couple of days have been a little trying.
ReplyDeleteWell done, David, for spotting the big clue on the next post, which other readers might go ‘Ahh’ at (or possibly ‘Eh?’) and which also has a video of the performance of the whole thing on the night. Another clue might be that if you’re going through lists of all the TV Doctor Who stories in your head and are still stumped, additional series with the word “Adventures” in the title are particularly worth a look. Well, as fair as I’m concerned, that’s true generally.
I’ll have to do your comments in some detail, which will take a while. Block by block, then:
Quite right on Logopolis, and the riff on the first novelisation. I notice that my Jo line is from the Carnival of Monsters novelisation (a favourite) rather than the TV, too, though not deliberately. But you get the bonus point, and a point for your spot-on guess at The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith!
“This is a great quote from The Macra Terror by Ian Stuart Black” – yay! Bonus Liberal point. Don’t worry, I’ll arbitrarily dock some later. And from The Green Death: actually, it’s not one we tampered with at all. That’s all one big quote, though we did consider replacing the words “Global Chemicals” with “Labour Party”. Probably should’ve. Right on The Happiness Patrol, on both together from The Curse of Fenric (actually very close together on TV, too, and they seemed incredibly appropriate as lines from Richard’s favourite story – and one of mine – for our twentieth anniversary and wedding), and on Redvers Fenn-Cooper and Control from Marc Platt’s Ghost Light (our car’s named after Redvers!).
There were a few in that bundle that you didn’t quite get. “Everything is history…” is from a story that has another quote above (the story itself also quotes Gladstone, and we nearly picked that as well). “Still – the future lies this way” is very close, but no. And I can only give you half a point on The Talons of Weng-Chiang, though you’re right they’re from different points in the story: we wanted Jago and Litefoot and, not finding the perfect quotes from them as a pair (and not having time to listen again to all the audios, as I can skim-read far faster than I can listen and concentrate), fashioned a mash-up. The first line is actually George rather than Henry, but they’re both reacting to the Doctor. That leaves “And be just like everyone else?” for me to come up with a clue to. The most obvious is one that you, alone of all our wedding guests, would know instantly, so I can’t have that! OK, then… There are lots of quotes from the Target novelisations in general, and original novels that are all for one line and one Doctor, but this is from the only featured novel that is neither. And it’s not the only quote from it, with the other fortunately far more distinctive.
I hope you make some guesses, too, Sharon, and thank you!
Now back to David… And you’re right about a line from my favourite story. Neatly guessed on one of my favourite three novelisations, too. Also the next two food quotes, and the three pub quotes – I always think of “Let’s try the pub” as more Tom’s than Terry’s, and the “rounds” wasn’t a trick answer, though one of the other quotes that appears in more than one story probably is. The table is from one of my favourite two New Adventures, and you’ve got the other above, too, so you’re doing well!
ReplyDeleteNow, what’s left? The rice pudding quote we thought was funny in the ‘food section’, but it also has the distinction of being one of two quotes chosen because the episodes from which they’re taken have the same anniversary as we do, and so landed on the same day as our wedding – and Stephen Wyatt’s for Mel is the other. The All-Consuming Fire quote is one we use a lot and always makes us laugh, and we also wanted to give it to Nick to read out – he’s a published Sherlock Holmes author, in an anthology with more Andy Lane, too, and they’re two of the best three stories in it.
The two you didn’t get in that batch? We lost all our Kate Ormans in getting this down from the original 13,000 words, sadly, but you’ve got the right range for the finger biscuits, and from an author you’ve already thought of above. The other isn’t the person-polisher, but your Doctor and Jamie guess is almost as close a miss as your Doctor and Adric above. It won’t help, but the Doctor and Adric is from Richard’s second-favourite story, and the Doctor and Jamie is from my second-favourite story!
Phew.
As above, we really do love The Trials of Tara. And with our audience, we couldn’t resist that Terror of the Zygons you’ve identified; the next one that you don’t know is actually very close. I like its more uplifting political message if you read it right, and though, again, this won’t help, it’s the book I always took on holiday with me when I was a boy. You’re right with Robot, of course – first story I ever saw, aged three, and responsible for everything and Richard too!
Dead right on three sexual innuendos, Armageddon Factor, Twin Dilemma – probably right about the author, as well (for most drafts as we were cutting it down that line was followed by “Oh look, rocks!” which similarly is more likely to be the script editor than credited writer) – and Damaged Goods. Again, that is all one piece and not a mash-up: it’s not an innuendo of course but an inference in context. We thought while most of the rude-sounding lines weren’t actually about sex it was appropriate to have an excerpt that sounded much less suggestive but was in fact a blow-job scene.
And at last I’ve caught up with you to hand out some more half marks for the complicated ones. “Two quotes from Bad Wolf bracketing one from World War Three” is actually two bracketing two that we mashed up, even though we made them one line for the reader. “Look, Brigadier! It’s growing!” is from Robot, sort of, but neither in the script nor quite in the novelisation – it heads the back blurb of Doctor Who and the Giant Robot (and as Robot was my first story, though “Look, Brigadier…” technically first appeared at the end of Robert Sloman and Barry Letts’ Spiders, it was the other way round for me. Yes, it was a trick question, but I’m giving you half marks for naming half the writers, even though you got the one who was credited!).
ReplyDeleteA mean note on which to end. Sorry. Thank you for all your hard work in making so many guesses, and congratulations in getting such a mountain of them right. Anyone else want to have a go before David gets more and leaves only the really arcane ones?
Sorry you've had trying times.
ReplyDeleteOK, here are my feeble efforts (and apologies if I try for any David's already answered: it's hard to cross-reference it all).
Why can’t you talk normally?
What? And be just like everyone else?
This sounds like Nine and Rose to me, but I expect it's not.
Jamie, I’m being stared at. Is there something wrong with me?
You mean up here, Doctor?
Is my hair in disarray?
What, no more than usual.
Do I look strange or bizarre?
Aye, well, maybe I’m used to you.
Enemy of the World?
Look, Brigadier! It’s growing!
Robot?
Don’t mind me. I’m just toasting the happy couple.
Eleven at Amy and Rory's wedding?
The sphere experienced, for the first time in its history, the glories of a full cinemascope Technicolor sunset.
Just so Chris and Dep could fly off into it.
This smells of Douglas Adams.
In the mid Twenty-First Century, humankind starts creeping off into the stars, spreads its way through the galaxy to the very edges of the Universe. And it endures ’til the end of time. And it does all that because one day in the year 2014, when it had stopped thinking about going to the stars, something occurred that make it look up, not down. It looked out there into the blackness and it saw something beautiful, something – wonderful, that for once it didn’t want to destroy. And in that one moment, the whole course of history was changed.
Kill the Moon?
Thanks! I've now got a couple of the ones I've missed from the clues, but I'll let other people have a crack before going back and re-doing them.
ReplyDeleteSome of the later ones are clearly from books I haven't read, so it's possible that a couple of the ones I'm missing are, too, of course.
Pressing on with the next batch (feel free to delay unscreening this to give others a chance):
ReplyDelete"Was that bang big enough for you, Brigadier?"
Terror of the Zygons, by Robert Banks Stewart, just after the Doctor's blown up the Zygon craft.
"No, no, the Zigma Experiment was a success! A brilliant, total success!"
Magnus Greel in The Talons of Weng Chiang by Robert Holmes.
In many ways, we have the same mind.
The Doctor, about the Master, in Logopolis by Christopher H Bidmead
"Time’s roses are scented with memory. There was a garden where they once grew. Cuttings from the past grafted on to the present. Perfumes that recalled things long gone or echoed memories yet to come."
I have no idea on this one; sounds a but Paul-Cornell-like, but I confess to not recognising it.
"Listen to me, both of you. I want you to remember. I want you to remember everything. Every single day with me. Every single second. Because your memories are more powerful than anything else on this planet. Just think of it. Remember it. But properly. Properly. Give the Memory Weave everything. Every – planet, every face, every madman, every loss, every sunset, every scent, every terror, every joy, every Doctor."
This is the Doctor to Sarah Jane and Jo in the Sarah Jane Adventure with the vulture people by Russell T Davies that I've forgotten the name of but with might be called The Funeral of Doctor Who or something like that.
"My father Sidney was a – a watchmaker from Nottingham, and my mother Verity was – erm – well, she was a nurse, actually.
Oh! We make such good wives."
John Smith and Joan in the book of Human Nature, by Paul Cornell. Sidney and Verity, of course, refer to Sidney Newman and Verity Lambert, the series's 'parents'.
"You probably can’t remember your family.
Oh yes, I can when I want to. And that’s the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they – they sleep in my mind, and I forget. And so will you. Oh yes, you will. You’ll find there’s so much else to think about, to remember.
Our lives are different to anybody else’s. That’s the exciting thing. Nobody in the Universe can do what we’re doing."
Victoria and the Doctor from The Tomb of the Cyberment by Gerry Davies.
"You know, when you’re a kid, they tell you it’s all, ‘Grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid’, and that’s it. Oh… But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It’s so much darker, and so much madder. And so much better."
No, that one's got me stumped, as well.
"Two birds circled each other in the sky above the Lincolnshire marshes. They were owls in love, as much as owls could love."
Well, that's Paul Cornell. It's Lincolnshire, so it's probably not one of the Cheldon Boniface (sp?) books, so I'll guess at Human Nature, but it is a guess.
"Are you ready?
If you are.
What? Well, I’d feel more confident if you just said ‘Yes’.
Yes.
Good. Here we go, then."
I nearly tripped up on this one, because I was convinced that it was the Doctor and Romana II. But then I remembered - it's the Doctor and Adric in Logopolis, just as the Doctor is about to execute a plan of truly cyberman-like nonsensicality and open the Tardis doors underwater to try to flush out the Master's Tardis.
Thanks, Sharon, and thanks for guessing. Hooray!
ReplyDeleteThe quotes span – in our more limited calendar than the show’s – from November 1963 to October 2014, and I’m very pleased you’ve identified the very latest one. Particularly as it’s one of those where we cheated and changed a bit. “…And in that one moment, the whole course of history was changed” is, you’re right, Kill the Moon.
“Look, Brigadier! It’s growing!” is indeed from the back cover blurb of Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, though I’m afraid David already got that in the great mass above – you’re right, there’s a lot between us!
The others aren’t quite there, but some are very close. “Why can’t you talk normally?” isn’t Nine and Rose, but you’re, let’s say, one out in each case (I always think “What? And be just like everyone else?” could easily be Troughton, but it’s forty years later). David was slightly too early with his guess for “Jamie, I’m being stared at…” but I’m afraid you’re slightly too later. Narrows it down! “I’m just toasting the happy couple” isn’t from a wedding story (we have several wedding stories, but don’t much care for that one): it is a Twenty-first Century Doctor, and a story we love beyond measure, but a slightly more sarcastic moment. And finally, the “cinemascope Technicolor sunset” isn’t Douglas Adams, but it is someone else (and there aren’t many) who wrote Doctor Who for TV and later (in this case much later) became a best-selling novelist. This is from one of the two novels of his that are in my view his best, both quoted above but neither, inevitably, from his hugely successful best-selling series.
One of the cases where I can't tell the difference between Douglas Adams and Ben Aaronovitch?
ReplyDeleteOoh, you're wise, Sharon!
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks again David. It’s lovely to have yours as well, and I hope I’m not pressing you! You can always email me about which clues tipped you off…
ReplyDelete“Was that bang big enough for you, Brigadier?” is, quite right, the punchline to all the sexual innuendo. And Terror of the Zygons. “A brilliant, total success!” is what we shriek defiantly in our flat when we burn the cooking, and you’re absolutely right that it’s Talons – so it’s the ‘us’ connection that’s why we followed it with Logopolis’ “In many ways, we have the same mind.”
“Time’s roses are scented with memory…” does sound a bit Paul-Cornell-like, but not enough to be Paul Cornell. It’s from an author who’s already given you a problem earlier (and another tiny one), plus one solved and one still to go! You get half a mark for “every terror, every joy, every Doctor” from Matt and Russell in Death of the Doctor, and another half for Sidney and Verity from not the novel but the TV version of Human Nature (they are indeed his diegetic and extra-diegetic parents, but the Verity in the novel is a more complex figure). There is a quote from the book above, but it’s drifting about outside the reading itself, just to make things more confusing.
“Our lives are different to anybody else’s” is, quite right, The Tomb of the Cybermen, and as well as having a particular meaning for us in this context is one of those hypnotic Troughton moment where he stares into someone’s eyes and breathes a charge into them in such a low voice it makes me shiver and stays with me forever. There’s another like that in The Box of Delights, which we’ve started watching again in the run-up to Christmas.
Two that stump you are from two favourite writers in different media: “the world is so much stranger than that” isn’t to a companion, but to all of us through the camera, and is arguably the author’s manifesto; “owls in love” must be Paul Cornell, surely, and it’s not a double bluff – it is Paul Cornell. You’re right that it’s not Cheldon Bonniface (I think a Timewyrm: Revelation line was one of the last we took out when we were slaying favourites on the way down from a 13,000-word impossible reading, though of course quite a few of the lines that survived are from another novel set there, so it’s a good bet), but I think Human Nature’s set somewhere in Norfolk, too – the book, at least – so it isn’t that. If I were you I’d not be misdirected in the slightest by the mention of “Lincolnshire,” which really won’t help you.
And yay! You’re right on all levels about “I’d feel more confident if you just said ‘Yes’.” I’ve loved Logopolis since I was nine, and also since I was nine that’s the one moment where I just go, ‘What?!‽’ The novelisation is brilliant as well, but the plan makes even less sense there because the Doctor thinks it up himself – at least on screen it’s inspired by something Adric says, which does start to make a sort of weird sense by seizing on a random element to try to out-think someone with “the same mind”.
Oh, yes, of course, it's at the end of Love and War. Benny and the Doctor take a pair of owls from Heaven and release them in (I assume) Lincolnshire. I'd forgotten that bit (and I can't remember exactly why they do it, either).
ReplyDeleteI can run through the rest if you like - we're into a section where there are a lot I don't know - but I wasn't sure what the likelihood of anyone else guessing was.
The lines are actually from the very beginning of Love and War, but I won't be mean - the owls circle back at the end, of course, you're absolutely right. I think they do it because Paul likes owls (Benny asks, and that's pretty much what the Doctor's answer boils down to)...
ReplyDeleteI think by this stage the likelihood of anyone else guessing is low, so please feel free. I appreciate it!
I suspect no-one else on Earth could get them all. Though, as in many ways we have the same mind, when I gave Richard the very first draft when I was in hospital in the summer and feebly asked if there were any he didn't know, it was the one moment that week when my endlessly loving lovely gave me a withering look.
OK, then (done in sections because character limit):
ReplyDelete"You look wonderful.
You’d best give me some warning. Um, can you actually dance?
Um… I’m not certain.
There’s a surprise. Is there anything you’re certain about?
Yes. Yes."
I don't think know this one. Is it a single chunk of dialogue, or several different bits?
"And where do you think you’re going?
Well, we’ll have to find out for ourselves, won’t we?"
Well, the first line, or something like it is said by any of a number of UNIT staff about five seconds before being zapped by someone, usually the Master. And the second line sounds petulant enough to be the Fifth Doctor - I can sort-of hear Davison's pitch raising as he says it, even if it's not actually him. But as an exchange, I don't recognise it.
"Happy days, my dear.
The happiest of my life, dear heart. Was ever such a potion brewed? In bliss is quenched my thirsty heart.
Very prettily put, my dear.
Oh, sweet, favoured man, you have declared your love for me. And I acknowledge and accept your gentle proposal."
The Doctor and Cameca flirting in The Aztecs by John Lucarotti.
"Oh, no, they’re not gonna – oh, people are eating! Nobody over 22 should be doing that in public. Actually, at all."
Could be Happy Endings by Paul Cornell, but I'm not convinced.
"You see before you the complete killing machine – as beautiful as you, and as deadly as the plague. If only she were real, I’d marry her.
You deserve each other."
The Androids of Tara by David Fisher.
"Hah! And is not Grendel a faméd coward?
Is the Archimandrite’s hat not silly?
Why then, be gay and deck the hall with spog!
You shall have a husband great or none."
The Trials of Tara, by Paul Cornell. I see what you did there.
"If all the stars were silver, and the sky a giant purse in my fist, I couldn’t be happier than I am tonight."
Again, I nearly tripped up on this one, because it sounds as though it should be The Gatherer in The Sunmakers. But it's not, it's Tremas in The Keeper of Traken by Johnny Byrne
"‘Indeed, Doctor,’ growled the Master. ‘I merely required some time to finish my experiments. I didn’t anticipate the arrival of this maladjusted couple and their wedding plans. I have learnt to be only mildly surprised when you arrive to disrupt my work. But this time you bring with you a full platoon of UNIT troops, numerous armed aliens, an Ice Warrior battlecraft, a couple of Time Lords and Sherlock Holmes! You have excelled yourself!’"
Happy Endings, by Paul Cornell
"I always drezz for the occasion!"
The Master in The Enemy Within, Grace 1999 or whatever the hell we're calling the McGann TV movie these days. Matthew Jacobs, although the intonation is pure TV's Eric Roberts.
"Already the Time Lords are gathering, donning seldom-worn robes with their colourful collar insignia. The scarlet and orange of the Prydonians, the green of the Arcalians, and the heliotrope of the Patrexes – and so on."
Runcible in The Deadly Assassin, by Robert Holmes.
"The latest batch of guests included an upright four-armed blue elephant, who was looking around nervously. ‘Anybody else I know, coming to this wedding?’ he asked.
‘Bestwishesforyourfuturetogetherbut youwillfallbeforethemightofourinvasionforcebythewaywhat
sortofringsarethose?’
Love, the Cybercontroller, Telos."
Both of these are from Happy Endings, by Paul Cornell, although I think both are from the chapter that everyone else pitched in to, so it's possible that the first is by Andy Lane and the second by David Banks.
"Don’t mind me. I’m just toasting the happy couple."
Your reply to Sharon has confirmed that I don't know this one.
"Now, remember – enjoy yourselves. Happiness will prevail!"
ReplyDeleteThe Happiness Patrol by Graeme Curry
"Build high for happiness!"
Paradise Towers by Stephen Wyatt
"I’m glad you’re happy.
And I’m happy you’re glad."
...and back to The Happiness Patrol.
"Sixty million robots danced through the streets of Milky-Pink City. They had never been programmed with dance lessons but what they lacked in style they made up for with enthusiasm. All around, metal limbs twisted with abandon. Tall robots did something that looked like a rumba, lifting robots did the Mashed Potato. And weaving in and out between them raced the Doctor and Martha Jones."
I haven't read anything since the new series returned, so I shouldn't know this. Except ... it seems familiar. Hmm. And I have listened to an audio of The Pirate Loop by Simon Guerrier, and he's one of the authors on your list, so I'm going to take a wild guess at that. It's probably something completely different.
"For one vertiginous moment the Dalek Supreme wanted to skip."
I don't know where this is from, but I want to. ;-)
"Just remember. The future. No looking back, that’s our motto. We’re heading towards a new life… Drive off into the sunset. The future. Adventure. The open road and whatever it might bring."
It's not a million miles away from the ending of Queer As Folk, but I don't know it.
"The sphere experienced, for the first time in its history, the glories of a full cinemascope Technicolor sunset.
Just so Chris and Dep could fly off into it."
The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch. An entity that can make the sun set in a Dyson sphere is an entity worthy of the title of God, IMO.
"So what happens now, then? Tell me what happens now.
In the mid Twenty-First Century, humankind starts creeping off into the stars, spreads its way through the galaxy to the very edges of the Universe. And it endures ’til the end of time. And it does all that because one day in the year 2014, when it had stopped thinking about going to the stars, something occurred that make it look up, not down. It looked out there into the blackness and it saw something beautiful, something – wonderful, that for once it didn’t want to destroy. And in that one moment, the whole course of history was changed."
Sharon already got this one. ;-)
"Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It’s only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless bipeds. They’ve survived flood, famine and plague. They’ve survived cosmic wars and holocausts, and now – here they are out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life, ready to out-sit eternity. They’re indomitable. Indomitable!"
One of Tom's most-quoted speeches, from The Ark in Space, by Robert Holmes.
"In case there is any fear in your heart and doubt in your mind at this awesome moment, let me remind you that you take with you all our pasts. You carry the torch that has been handed down from generation to generation.
The challenge is vast, the task enormous, but let nothing daunt you."
A message from beyond the grave from the President of Earth in The Ark In Space.
"During all the years I’ve been taking care of you, you in return have been taking care of me.
One day, I shall come back – yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."
The Doctor to his granddaughter at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, nominally by Terry Nation but surely actually by David Whitaker. I promise I wrote that quote in your book of the wedding before the dinner.
"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning. Where the sea is asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there’s danger. Somewhere there’s injustice. And somewhere else, the tea is getting cold.
ReplyDeleteCome on, Ace – we’ve got work to do."
The coda of the original series, in Survival, and tacked on by Andrew Cartmel rather than Rona Munro.
"The light on the TARDIS flashed like a bright idea.
The TARDIS was on its way to new adventures."
The first line's Lungbarrow by Marc Platt - are they both?
"It’s far from being all over!"
The first Doctor, just before regenerating in The Tenth Planet by Kit Pedlar and Gerry Davis (not Davies as I had earlier).
"It’s the end. But the moment has been prepared for."
The fourth Doctor, just before regenerating in Logopolis by Christopher Hamilton Bidmead.
"It’s a new beginning. And the moment has been prepared for."
I'm sure that's been used as a tagline to launch something Who-related. I assume it's an actual quote, but (falling at the last hurdle) I can't place it.
Thank you, again.
ReplyDelete“Um, can you actually dance?” is a single chunk of dialogue, and if it helps, another from a story you’ve already identified. On the other hand, “And where do you think you’re going?” / “Well, we’ll have to find out for ourselves, won’t we?” are a mash-up from very different early periods – or, depending on how you count them, much later than what you’d think of as UNIT era and much earlier than Davison. Both from series regulars being sensible in their own ways, and one of them I’ve raved about a while ago on this blog for its own special meaning to us. Probably among the most difficult to spot!
There are a lot of quotes from Happy Endings, but “Nobody over 22” isn’t one of them (the age, however, might be a clue, as it’s a slightly random choice for the character but I suspect an in-joke written for the actor. As well as an in-joke for us on the night, obviously, as we snogged rather less decorously than the couple on TV). But you were totally correct that “You deserve each other” is The Androids of Tara – another wedding story, and our favourite. It’s gorgeous. As is its sequel (right again), which is by Paul Cornell.
I love your thought processes about some of the quotes, and I’d probably be thinking in very similar ways. Tremas’ fancy probably would work better in the ‘wedding’ section, but I wouldn’t resist putting it with the Master quotes along with, of course you’re right, more Paul and TV’s Eric Roberts (we always call it ‘Time Waits For No Man’, as that was on the posters). And then that ‘wedding’ section: you’ve found my guilty secret, that I can’t be certain who the authors are for those bits of Happy Endings (I’ll have to ask Paul). But I thought the elephant line appropriate on several levels.
“Don’t mind me. I’m just toasting the happy couple.” I’ll have to think of a clue for that. It’s another that fits the ‘very early periods’...
I’m happy you found all my happiness. And happier still that you took a wild swing and guessed both author and book for The Pirate Loop! So that might help with another one… We thought “For one vertiginous moment the Dalek Supreme wanted to skip,” an absolute favourite line, sounded perfectly like it was part of that, though it’s from another book that’s got more than one line above. “The future. Adventure…” does sound like the ending of Queer As Folk, and that’s one of the reasons we chose it – another is that it’s the only Doctor Who story we were reasonably confident is set in October 2014, though probably not on the actual day!
ReplyDeleteYou got The Also People, fabulous, Sharon got Kill the Moon, which was shown in but which isn’t set in October 2014, and there are actually three quotes from The Ark In Space – the High Minister’s blessing, with all its religious overtones, is in fact a mash-up of her two different speeches. And possibly the most famous of all Doctor Who benedictions, which we did indeed notice in our guest book (and was the first Who quote I ever used in a speech, my farewell to LDYS and one of my two standing ovations, though probably not for Doctor Who).
And finally today (probably), for the ‘and finally’ section: you are right that the closing lines of Survival are by Andrew Cartmel rather than Rona Munro, but I’ve already had lines from each of them, and so the authors’ order is preserved ;)
ReplyDelete“The light on the TARDIS flashed like a bright idea.” / “The TARDIS was on its way to new adventures.” The first is indeed from Lungbarrow, but it’s another mash-up despite being written to be delivered as one line – the second is from a much earlier (and less celebrated / talked about) book. I chose the first because I love the description, and it feels like it should be (but isn’t) the last line of the New Adventures, while I went looking for something like the second and whooped when I found one that fitted like a dream. And further into the ‘finally…’ stretch, yes to Kit Pedlar, though I suspect it’s Pedler (I’m not quite sure, as it’s one of those names that’s spelt two ways even on screen), and it’s certainly Logopolis, another line graven deep in our hearts, and – because it’s not the end, but it is a new beginning, and because that’s a pun on the box set that we call The Master’s Doctor Plan…
“It’s a new beginning. And the moment has been prepared for.”
I'm sure that's been used as a tagline to launch something Who-related. I assume it's an actual quote, but (falling at the last hurdle) I can't place it.
It was a tagline created to launch something Who-related. Our wedding :D