TARDIS Stolen! (short story)
TARDIS Stolen! was one of the three prose stories in The Doctor Who Fun Book. Largely a parody, it was framed as an article in the "Gallifrey Gazette" reporting on the theft of an old TARDIS by some long-haired renegade and provided a humorous look at the Doctor's previous life on Gallifrey in the process.
Summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
This just in from Gallifrey's time-active reporters: a TARDIS will have been stolen tomorrow! Gasp! With interviews from such people as his contemporary and fellow Academy student Cuthbert Windbottom (who "prefers to be known — and who can blame him? — as the Master"), the article attempts to build a profile of the dastardly criminal who did the deed.
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
A youngish Time Lord going by the nom de plume "Doctor Wat Who" is reported by the Gallifrey Gazette to have stolen a TARDIS tomorrow. A Governing Body spokesman is interviewed and speculates that, being a graduate of Music and Performing Arts, "Doctor Who" may be intending to use the TARDIS to tour a revue he had been trying to set up.
The Doctor's contemporary at the Academy, Cuthbert Windbottom, alias "the Master", has other ideas. He testifies that he saw the Doctor very excited the previous month about a call from something called the BB Corporations. According to the Master, this may well have been Gallifrey's oldest and most infamous enemies, the Bed and Breakfast Corps, instructing the Doctor to begin an insurrection to undermine the Gallifreyan government.
The Master points out that there exists a prophecy in the Book of Rassilon which goes as follows: "Beware men in white wigs..."
Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The TARDIS was stolen from Sector 5 Zero X.
- The thief is "in his early centuries", and his daughter Susan is identified as being 98.
- Gallifrey knows that the Doctor has used, or will use in the future, the aliases of Doctor Spock, Mister Mann and Terry McNation.
- The Doctor graduated in Music and Performing Arts from the Academy and thought about putting together a revue called The Who Revue; while at the Academy, he starred in a performance of The Army Game.
- Timex are watchmakers influential enough to cut an advertising deal with the Governing Board of Gallifrey.
- The Gallifrey Gazette reports on a sports match between a team of Cybermen and a team of Daleks, known respectively as Mondas United and Skaro City.
- Borusa's Boutique sells "silly headwear for all occasions".
- Leela, somehow already active on Gallifrey, has placed a classified ad looking for "a good home for a dog".
- The Master also placed a classified ad, advertising lifelike dolls.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Roberta Tovey's search for "her grandfather, who answers to the name of Van Helsing" is a sly, roundabout reference to Dr. Who from the 1960s Dalek movies, who was played by Peter Cushing (better known for his role as Van Helsing in Hammer's Dracula pictures) and whose version of Susan was played by the real-life Roberta Tovey.
- The illustration of a younger First Doctor playing a part in The Army Game at the Time Lord Academy is traced from a famous photograph of First Doctor actor William Hartnell playing just such a part, one of his more famous pre-Doctor Who roles.
- The existence of the Book of Rassilon, mentioned in this story for the first time, would later be acknowledged in Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark [+]Loading...["Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark (novel)"].
