Beep the Meep
Beep the Meep, also known as Beep or simply the Meep interchangeably, was the leader of the Meeps and a galactic criminal who self-described as "the Most-High", also holding the title of "the Beep of All the Meeps".
Biography
Conflicting origins
Two distinct, but similar, accounts described "the Meep" as the last survivor of Meepkind after the entire species was driven to murderous cruelty by their sun going mad. Fleeing to Earth while pursued by the Wrarth Warriors, the Meep was then found by a young human, pretending to be a cute and harmless creature, only for the Doctor to get involved and uncover the creature's true identity and motivations. (COMIC: Doctor Who and the Star Beast; TV: The Star Beast)
Some accounts placed the Meep's initial landing in Blackcastle during 1980, and featured the Fourth Doctor and Sharon Davies, (COMIC: Doctor Who and the Star Beast; AUDIO: Doctor Who and the Star Beast) while other accounts place the Meep's landing to London during November 2023, and featured the Fourteenth Doctor and the Noble family. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"]; PROSE: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (novelisation)"]) Even the Meep's gender and personal pronouns were up for debate; in the Blackcastle account the Meep used he/him pronouns (PROSE: Beep the Meep gets 3000 years) and in the London account the Meep did not have human pronouns. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"])
The Blackcastle account
In 1980, (COMIC: Star Beast II) Beep led the Meep armada to conquer the galaxy, but they were defeated by the Wrarth Warriors. Fleeing, Beep was pursued to Earth, where his neutron drive star cruiser crashed at the Blackcastle steel mills. Beep was found by Sharon Davies and Fudge Higgins, who assumed the cute creature was harmless and took him back to Fudge's home. Beep used his ship's black orb to take control of the people of Blackcastle to make them repair the ship. The Fourth Doctor sabotaged the engines and Beep was captured by the Wrarth Warriors. (COMIC: Doctor Who and the Star Beast)
Beep was rude towards the jury during their trial and was sentenced by Judge "Stickler" Scraggs to three thousand years in a top security prison. (PROSE: Beep the Meep gets 3000 years) In 1995, Beep convinced the parole board that he had been rehabilitated, and he was released after only fifteen years. Beep returned to Blackcastle to retrieve his spare starship drive, but the Doctor trapped him in a Lassie film. (COMIC: Star Beast II) A copy of the film was kept at the Wrarth Institute. (AUDIO: The Ratings War)
After Blackcastle
In the early 21st century, Beep convinced a girl from the Wrarth Institute to release him from the film. Beep went to Earth and took over Roger Lowell, a television executive, who he forced to change his programming schedules to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Beep's goal was to gain a massive viewing audience and hypnotise them with subliminal messages on Audience Shares and commands to kill on Beep and Friends. The Sixth Doctor stopped Beep by confronting him and claiming he already had disabled the subliminal messages. This enraged Beep so much that he tried to kill Lucy and Todd, the contestants on Audience Shares. However, the Doctor had only disabled Beep's laser pistol, and the audience turned against him when the subliminal message went out and it looked like Beep was murdering the contestants. Beep was arrested by security and Beep and Friends was never broadcast. (AUDIO: The Ratings War)
Beep attended Bonjaxx's birthday party at Bonjaxx's Bar on Maruthea. In a drunken state and wielding a bottle of Blackcastle brown ale, Beep approached the Seventh Doctor and his future incarnation to claim a bounty made by Shaman Kahn. The Freefall Warriors attacked Beep and everyone began fighting each other, beginning a bar fight. (COMIC: Party Animals)
Beep was fleeing galactic police when he activated a dimensional warp, sucking him, the Eighth Doctor and Izzy Sinclair into a parallel universe, where they all arrived at the BBC Television Centre. Beep planned to use raw black star energy to enslave humanity, and ultimately the galaxy. Although Beep captured the Doctor, Izzy recruited Tom Baker to act as a distraction long enough for her to reprogram Beep's machines and defeat him. The authorities then took Beep away to a zoo. (COMIC: TV Action!)
The London account
After the Meeps' psychedelic sun "went mad" and turned Meepkind into "cruel beasts who live[d] for conquest", the Meep leader, being "the most cruel and despicable of all", led the Meep army in capturing the Galactic Council, who were beheaded and eaten by Meepkind, causing the Wrarth Warriors to be summoned to combat the Meeps, with all but the leader choosing death over surrender. Fleeing, the Meep was pursued to Earth, (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"]) during November 2023, (PROSE: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (novelisation)"]) where the Meep crash-landed into the London Millson Wagner Steelworks, but jettisoned from the Meep's ship in an escape pod. While planning to escape the Wrarth Warriors, the Meep was found by Rose Noble, (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"]) changing her life. (PROSE: We Are Family [+]Loading...{"page":"35","1":"We Are Family (short story)"}) The Meep convinced Rose that the Meep was a harmless alien being hunted by the "monsters", as the psychedelic sun with the Meep's ship placed UNIT soldiers under Solar Psychedelia and made them the Meep's Soldiers of the Psychedelic Sun. Needing to wait for the Meep's soldiers to retrieve the Meep, the Meep hid in Rose's shed until Donna Noble stumbled upon the Meep, and then the Fourteenth Doctor arrived. The Meep then tricked the Doctor and the Noble family into helping the Meep escape when the Wrarth Warriors interceded the Soldiers of the Psychedelic Sun.
However, the Doctor became suspicious when he realised that the Wrath Warriors were using non-lethal attacks, and he summoned Zogroth and Zreeg, who explained about the Meep's corrupted nature. Once the Meep's deception was exposed, the Meep killed Zogroth and Zreeg before preparing to escape using a double-bladed Dagger Drive, which would destroy all of London in the process. Following the Meep's defeat by the Doctor and the DoctorDonna, with Rose reversing the Meep's brainwashing of the soldiers, the Meep was taken into custody to be imprisoned for 10000 years for the Meep's litany of crimes. Before being teleported away, however, the Meep swore to escape and claim revenge, stating that "a creature with two hearts [such as the Doctor was] such a rare thing" and that the Meep would tell "the Boss" about him. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"])
References
When a Vortex parasite attacked the Eighth Doctor's TARDIS, it summoned images of the Doctor's enemies to menace the Doctor, including Beep. (COMIC: A Life of Matter and Death)
Personality
Beep was a sadist, enjoying inflicting pain on others for no real purpose. He resented being thought of as cute, but used it to his advantage when manipulating people. He also disliked other cute things and would go out of his way to destroy them. (AUDIO: The Ratings War) The Meep also liked to mock and insult those around it, once calling Donna Noble a "stupid woman" and Rose Noble a "weird child". (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"])
Aliases and nicknames
| Name | When used/given | Source | Etymology |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Most-High | The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"] | ||
| Martian | Given by Donna Noble. | The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"] | Meaning "from Mars". Donna's encounter with Beep is the first time in her memory that she has encountered an alien. She referred to the Doctor as "Martian" when they were the first alien she encountered in The Runaway Bride [+]Loading...["The Runaway Bride (TV story)"]. |
| Mad Paddington | Given by Donna Noble. | The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"] | Mad, meaning frenzied, followed by a reference to Paddington, likely based on the Meep's scared but cuddly appearance. |
Behind the scenes
Name
In Doctor Who and the Star Beast, the character is never explicitly named, instead self-describing themselves as "the supreme Beep of all the Meeps!", to which the drones respond, "Hail, Beep of all the Meeps!" This could imply "Beep" is a title, not a name of this specific Meep.
However, in nearly every subsequent appearance, the character is referred to as "Beep the Meep". Beep the Meep gets 3000 years uses "Beep the Meep", "Beep" and "the Meep" interchangeably. The Doctor refers to the individual as "Beep" in Star Beast II and "Beep the Meep" in TV Action!. The manifestation in A Life of Matter and Death is named as "Beep the Meep". In The Ratings War, Beep creates a show called Beep and Friends.
In the television adaptation, the Meep is only credited as "the Meep", who is again described as "the Beep of all the Meeps", as if Beep were a title.
Information from invalid sources
Beep was interviewed for Doctor Who Magazine by Ken Book, celebrating thirty years since the Meep's first appearance in The Star Beast. The interview contained a clipping from Gallifrey Guardian of Beep's trial after the events of The Star Beast. Beep hurled abuse at the jury and was given three thousand years imprisonment. Fifteen years later, Beep hacked off the judge's leg and beat the judge to death with it. At the end of the interview, the Meep tricked the interviewer into scratching behind Beep's ear, allowing Beep to grab the recorder the interview was taped on, used it to produce a burst a sound of ultra-high-frequency sound to release the Meep's cuffs and took out a laser pistol from beneath Beep's fur to kill the interviewer. Presumably, Beep escaped the prison after that. (PROSE: Who on Earth is... Beep the Meep [+]Loading...["Who on Earth is... Beep the Meep (short story)"])
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