New Who stories done in the classic era style.

[burrunjor]

I thought just for fun, try and rewrite some new who stories into the style of classic era adventures and with classic doctors.

Cut out any Doctor/Companion romance.

Cut out any soap opera.

Stretch the story out to four episodes, or if it's a two parter, into a six parter.

Monsters done in the old style of effects, characterisation and played by old actors.

Match it to a classic era Doctor.

GO

I'll start with one.

The Magician's Apprentice/ The Witch's Familiar.

First broadcast in 1986 as part of season 23 (in this reality Michael Grade's father thankfully wore a condom that night.)

Starring Colin Baker and Nicola Byrant.

(3 parter with each part being 45 mins.)

Part 1

The Doctor and Peri land on Skaro and become caught up in a raid on a village and help a small family escape some thal soldiers into the countryside. The Doctor, Peri and the family take refuge in an old abandoned house as the Mutos come out at night. When the Doctor finds out that the boy who has remained quiet so far is named Davros, the Doctor and Peri leave in the middle of the night. She protests, but the Doctor is firm. Davros' family are then snatched not long after the Doctor and Peri leave, as the Thals find out where they are through spotting the Doctor when he leaves because Peri screams when a Muto attacks the 6th Doctor and she is forced to kill it. Davros escapes his family's slaughter thanks to the unintentional intervention of a muto (a guy in a hood with some bits on his face) who mauls the Thal sodiler, though the Thal still mortally wounds the Muto before he dies. This earns the muto Davros respect in some ways and he sits with it as it dies, before vowing revenge on the Thals.

The Doctor and Peri next land on Orions belt, where the Doctor wants to visit an old friend we've never heard of before. He needs to talk to his friend about his guilt over leaving Davros, but it turns out his friend is...... The Master in disguise (having killed his real friend) played by Anthony Ainley, who captures the Doctor and Peri and hands them over to the Daleks and laughs about how the Doctor will suffer.

Typically however the Daleks betray the Master and capture him too. Skaro looks like an old quarry on the outside, and a disused factory on the inside. Davros' Daleks are white and gold, and there is a black dalek supreme below him. They all sound like Zippy.

Davros is dying from the movellan virus (with his cure that allowed him to survive in Revelation having only delayed his symptoms) and he demands the Doctor cure him, stating the Time Lord owes him as he now recognizes through his new face that the Doctor was the man who abandoned him. The 6th Doctor arrogantly refuses and so Davros demonstrates that a bathe in the lake of mutations that runs outside and beneath the city, will transform any life form into a hideous monster its so polluted and dumps a human prisoner of the Daleks in there. We see them turn into a horrible slug like monster in a scene of body horror that provokes a shit ton of complaints and is used as proof of why 80s who should have finished long before now. Davros then threatens to do the same to Peri who screams and cries, we then get a shot of Colin flaring his nostrils and looking scared followed by the iconic theme.

Part 2

The Master is locked in a cell with a mercenary guy straight out of 2000AD , similar to Absolam Daak who he cuts a deal with. The mercenary guy says that there is one prisoner that can help them escape that they need to find. Meanwhile the Doctor gives into Davros' demands and is sent to work on a cure with some Daleks. Peri meanwhile escapes thanks to some Daleks who don't follow Davros shooting at each other and she makes her way through some dark tunnels. She is menaced by a another mutation, a snake creature (which looks like a puppet and is perhaps unintentionally phallic shaped) that was once the last of the Thals on Skaro, Colony Sarf, but Davros made him take a dip in the lake of mutations to punish the last of the Thals. Peri narrowly escapes from him.
Meanwhile the Doctor upstairs is able to capture a sample of the Movellan virus from Davros when he operates on him and attempts to use it to force the Daleks to help him. He demands that all of the Daleks prisoners in the mines be released and he and Peri be allowed too go, though he tells them they can do what they want with the Master. In the fight the virus breaks and several Daleks are consumed by it as the Doctor attempts to escape and the Daleks try to shut off the area.

Meanwhile in the confusion the Master and the mercenary guy escape and soon meet up with Peri. The mercenary guy blasts the shit out of several Daleks until they make their way to the special prisoner who is, the black Dalek. The mercenary guy explains that there is a Dalek civil war and the black dalek is being held here, with the one upstairs being an impostor. The reason they have kept the original alive, is as a bargaining chip in case they are ever found out. The Dalek civil war threatened to rip the planet apart and end their race after the Movellan war, and only the supposed alliance of Davros and the Dalek supreme stopped it.

The Master plans to find a way to hack into the Daleks main frame and broadcast the news that the Dalek supreme is an impostor. Meanwhile the Daleks completely destroy the area of the city infected with the virus, killing even their workers which horrifies the Doctor. He is then captured by Davros who says they will have to use the Mind Probe on him to find a cure. Even though it may kill him, with time running out for Davros they have to take that risk. Cliff hanger of a close up of Colin's face as he writhes in pain
.
Part 3

The Master, Peri, Dalek supreme and Mercenary guy (who wants to shag Peri.) Have to make their way past part of the lake of mutations that runs underground. They are menaced by Colony Sarff who the Master kills, but in the confusion, mercenary guy is seemingly killed. Once they reach above, the Master helps the Dalek supreme broadcast a message. A civil war erupts between Davros loyalists and Dalek Supreme loyalists as the city is torn apart. The Dalek Supreme turns on Peri and the Master stating it no longer needs them. The Master uses a weapon that temporarily blinds it, and the Master then abandons Peri. She convinces the Dalek supreme to spare her as she knows the Doctor. The black Dalek then takes her with it as it searches for him.
Davros meanwhile is cured thanks to information gleaned from the Doctors mind, but he is forced to flee. The Doctor meanwhile apparently died on the table. In the ensuing civil war in the city (which takes the form of a few Daleks facing each other and despite only being a few feet apart, they keep missing each other when firing and shouting "OBEY EXTERMINATE STAY WHERE YOU ARE OBEY!" before one blows up. Peri escapes from the black dalek and meets up with mercenary guy who survived. She then finds the Doctors body and has a cry before he wakes up. He apparently escaped dying by putting his mind in a trance or something like that and is fine.

The black Dalek meanwhile regains control over Skaro, and Davros and the Master are cornered as they try to escape, only for the Doctor to rescue them. The Doctor forms a plan to hack into the Dalek mainframe and free all of their prisoners in the camps, like the Mercenary guy's crew. The Master reluctantly agrees and pretends to hand the Doctor over to the Daleks, allowing him to get in deep, whilst the mercenary guy and Davros' Daleks keep them distracted, the Master then frees the Doctor who releases all of their prisoners and some of their experiments who have not been conditioned to obey them yet. All of Skaro is caught in a war, and in the cross fire, the Doctor and Peri bid farewell to the mercenery guy who goes to help his ship mates. Meanwhile The Master attempts to double cross the Doctor, but he and Davros are soon cornered again. Davros begs the Doctor for help and states that he owes him for abandoning him, but the 6th Doctor states that Davros isn't that little boy anymore and leaves him.

He and Peri then escape into the TARDIS and flee, whilst the Master and Davros are taken away to be exterminated by the black Dalek who has regained Skaro though we see there are still some Davros loyalists in his ranks, though the mercenary guy and a few others escaped with knowledge that can help humanity against the Daleks. The Doctor meanwhile promises to take Peri somewhere nice.

[rushy]

There's not a whole lot left of the original story, I see

[burrunjor]

Jul 29, 2023 17:26:18 GMT rushy said:

There's not a whole lot left of the original story, I see

Well I think I kept the  basic outline. Master on Skaro working with the companion to survive, Doctor meets Davros as a young boy, Davros dying, Dalek civil war, Dalek sewers, I basically just padded everything out as was the style of classic who LOL. 

This wasn't intended as an anti new who post. I mean it could be seen that way, but I was more just trying to throw in as many Saward era cliches into an existing story as much as I could. 

Body horror and someone being turned into an animal. 

Some guy wanting to shag Peri. 

A mercenary guy takes over as the main hero because Saward hated Colin and Peter in the role. 

The Master with a pointless disguise. 

Dalek civil war. 

Cliff hanger with a close up of Colin looking worried or pained LOL. 

The only Saward cliche I wasn'tn able to ape was his tendency to have the first episode be the story setting itself up, whilst the Doctor and Peri walk slowly toward the action. Timelash, Revelation, Attack of the Cybermen etc all follow that pattern. It was an odd but sometimes effective way to write DW stories. 

[Deleted]

I reckon The Impossible Planet could have been done in the style of the classic series. Definitely starring Tom Baker and Liz Sladen (or Louise Jameson, preferably). A lot of the story is set bound and the stuff that is outdoors is shot ironically in a quarry so I reckon they would have been able to do it. I'd have it be mostly the same, but removing all the insufferably smug dialogue and the mawkish NuWho rubbish.

[burrunjor]

Jul 29, 2023 18:05:51 GMT @kengrubshaw said:

I reckon The Impossible Planet could have been done in the style of the classic series. Definitely starring Tom Baker and Liz Sladen (or Louise Jameson, preferably). A lot of the story is set bound and the stuff that is outdoors is shot ironically in a quarry so I reckon they would have been able to do it. I'd have it be mostly the same, but removing all the insufferably smug dialogue and the mawkish NuWho rubbish.

Challenge accepted LOL. 

I'm also thinking about how the Snowmen would work as a classic era story. I can see it being in season 27 with McCoy and Ace and perhaps being Ace's departure story. I believe that one scene in Fenric suggested that she was going to stay in Victorian times after leaving the Doctor? 

Barmaid Clara would have to be reimagined as Ace's mate she meets in a pub who of course develops a lesbian subtext with her like Mags, the Happiness Patrol girl, the Chinese babe from Battlefield, Kara LOL. If there is one thing you can be sure of in 80s who is the female guest character wants to shag Ace and the guest male character wants to shag Peri.

Obviously Yeti instead of Snowmen. It's a shame that Kevin Lindsay had passed on by then as I would have LOVED to have seen his take on Strax. I just watched the two Sontaran stories he did an my god was he fabulous in them. Easily one of the best actors the show ever had. Him, the guy who played the Ice Lords in their last three stories, Michael Wisher as Davros, Roy Skelton and Peter Hawkins, David Graham as the Dalek voices and David Banks as the Cyber leader are the best monster performances in the series.

[burrunjor]

The Snowmen

Broadcast in 1990. This was part of Sylvester McCoy's last season as the Doctor, before handing the reigns over to Rik Mayall (whose popularity helped lead to a new age of mainstream success.)

Written by Ben Aaronovitch.

Part 1

We see a young barmaid named Clara (played by Julia Swahala) looking after two children when suddenly the lights in the mansion are drained. Electricity is not common in the city, being used by only the rich. As the barmaid goes to inspect she is attacked by the previous nanny for the kids named Jenny who was Clara's friend and went missing. Jenny is now crazed though she soon recognizes Clara and breaks down crying.

We then see The TARDIS land in the very late Victorian era. The Doctor and Ace head towards a pub where they hear about mysterious disappearances and the sighting of a creature near the underground. Meanwhile Ace get's to know the barmaid who is Clara working two jobs to make ends meet. She explains what happened with her friend Jenny (who it is hinted was her loved years ago.) Jenny has been consigned to an insane asylum after her attack on the kids house. Ace decides to go with Clara to visit her.

The 7th Doctor meanwhile after having an argument with a short, brutish ugly guy in a hood decides to follow him to the London underground. Whilst there however he becomes lost and the Doctor is chased by a Silurian.

Meanwhile Clara and Ace visit a big creepy insane asylum. There Jenny babbles about this creature being the devil and having no body. Clara believes her in spite of her state. Soon however the power is drained from the asylum, leaving Clara and Ace trapped in a sea of lunatics.

Part 2

The Doctor is attacked and chased by the Silurian creature (who is of the Pertwee design.) However both are knocked out by the short figure who without his hood is revealed to be a Sontaran using a special kind of nerve gas. They both then wake up in the Sontarans ship where he demands answers.

Meanwhile Ace and Clara and Jenny fight their way through the lunatics, until large Yeti like creatures show up and restrain the escaped patients and kidnap the three women.

The Doctor meanwhile escapes the Sontaran, thanks to the Silurian who isn't as easily knocked out as it claimed to be. The Doctor takes control of the Sontaran ship in the fight and demands to know what both are doing here. The Sontaran named Strax crashed here in the 1700s. He was defective, experiencing fear to the point where he fled a battlfield. As a result of this he was forced to flee from the Sontarans who would have killed him, and eventually crashed on our planet. At first he tried to adapt to the culture, but found that impossible and has been living in isolation for years with his ship unable to take him to a more advanced planet. Now however after centuries of loneliness he has sought to prove his worth and protect his adopted world.

The Silurian, named Vastra was in hibernation, but her chamber was recently drained of energy, which killed all of her sisters and brothers. She was the only one that was barely able to survive and has since attacked anyone that comes near their graves.

The Doctor realises neither are responsible for the disappearances and that there must be something else here that is draining the power from the Silurians base. He proposes they join forces and they reluctantly agree.

Ace, Jenny and Clara soon arrive at the badguys base and meet Walter Simeon, who performs horrific experiments on the inmates, some of whom are killed. Ace screams at Simeon that he is a "toerag".

It is revealed that Simeon is a servant of the Great Intelligence, who had an unseen battle with the Doctor in space, until the Doctor let him possess him and then flushed the Intelligence into the time vortex. The Intelligence spent thousands of years trapped and alone, until he was able to reach Simeon as a child, and guide him into building a machine that could contain it in this reality. However the Intelligence needs an extra boost in order to people to possess a body and live in this dimension permanently. That's what Simeon's experiments are. He is draining the few power sources he has available in London from the mansion with electricity to the Silurian base to power this machine to try and fuse the Intelligence to human bodies. The poor, the insane and the otherwise dispossessed are used as test subjects, with most of them dying or being driven insane by Simeon's machine that hacks into their minds. Jenny was one of the test subjects which very nearly broke her mind.

The Intelligence decides to use Clara. Jenny and the other girl who has begun to regain her senses however try and fight their way through, and Ace steals a weapon that she uses to slice up several Yeti.

The Doctor meanwhile finds Vastra's base which is filled with Silurian corpses that she mourns over and he briefly revives the bases power. He then uses its power to track where the drain is coming from across London.

Meanwhile Ace and the girl fight their way to where Clara is kept, but are cornered by Yeti's.

Part 3

In the fight Ace smashes up the Intelligence's computer and it screams and seemingly vanishes whilst Simeon gets on his knees and cries. The Yeti's start to go beserk and kill several of Simeon's test subjects and guards, whilst he hides himself in a safe room that he seals off. Ace again shouts "YOU TOERAG". Ace, Clara who is seemingly okay and Jenny then try to get the other test subjects and prisoners to safety.

The Doctor, Vastra and Strax soon arrive and rescue them and they all retreat to Clara's pub. There the Doctor tries to formulate a plan, whilst Clara and Ace go to bed. (Obvs no kissing, but they share the same bed which is the most they can get away with in 90s tv LOL.)

Meanwhile the Yeti break their way into Simeon's base and he is very nearly killed until suddenly the monsters stop for some reason and head out into London. They begin to kill scores of people using their web guns, which leads to large parts of London looking as though it is covered in snow.

The Yeti's soon converse around the pub and the Sontaran agrees to hold it off, whilst the others flee into the sewers. The Sontaran is overpowered and very nearly killed, whilst the Yeti follow them through the sewers to the Silurian base.

Vastra soon releases another prehistoric monster that was kept in cryo and whose chamber wasn't affected. (The reason for that is because she was its trainer and so they were frozen together. The extra bit of power for both is the only reason that Vastra survived unlike the others) This prehistoric creature is basically a Tyrannosaurus and is kept hidden for the most part like the Pertwee one. It still looks crap however, and is often hailed as the worst part of the story. Still the Tyrannosaur kills several Yeti and defends the base, but suddenly Vastra, Jenny and Ace are trapped in a room where the air is being cut off by Clara. The Doctor confronts Clara who now speaks in the Intelligence's voice and states.

"This time you have lost Time Lord."

Part 4

There's a bit where the Intelligence and the Doctor talk, and the Intelligence mentions that when it was possessing him, it saw the deepest secrets hidden deep in its mind, and that it does not want to posses him again, merely eliminate him as the Doctor scares even it. Before anything else can be revealed however, Ace in desperation smashes her way through the Silurian wall with the weapon she used against the Yeti. McCoy shouts AAACCCCEEEE in the hammiest way possible, but it's too late. Ace's action disrupts the base and threatens to cause it to explode. The Intelligence flees with Clara and seals the Doctor and the others in.

The Tyrannosaur meanwhile starts to panic and goes wild. The Doctor whilst barely avoiding the Dinosaur, is able to shut the base down with Vastra's help.

Across London, the Intelligence confronts Simeon who is happy that the Intelligence is alive, and they prepare to complete the operation as Clara's body can barely contain it. As a result of this several more Yeti start going wild across London, and the Doctor and the others whilst trying to contain them run back into Strax, and they agree to launch another attack against the base, which the 7th Doctor guides.

In the confusion Ace confronts Clara alongside Jenny and the convince her to fight it off, which she does, but the Intelligence is able to survive outside of her now, thanks to Clara giving it a link to this world. The Intelligence then kills Simeon having no need for him, but the Doctor defeats it by using Simeon's own machine to trap it again. This time however he uses the machines own ability to drain power to further trap it, preventing it from influence the world. The Yeti all die.

Sadly however in the conflict, Clara is killed whilst saving Ace from one of the Yeti, whilst Strax saves the Doctors life. Ace mourns Clara as does Jenny who was very fond of her too.

Vastra, Jenny and Strax soon form an agency to deal with other threats, whilst the Doctor and Ace leave. In the next story Ace leaves the Doctor to join the Time Lords, whilst after that in the finale, the seventh Doctor meets Clara's distant relative in the 90s, the cat burglar woman Raven. McCoy regenerates in the second story of the next season.

[Monster X]

Jul 30, 2023 16:19:34 GMT Brian MK.II said:

I could easily see Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone being a Troughton story (No less to Smith channeling Troughton).

Obviously, I find the final version if it to be a rare shining spot for NuWho but all you'd have to do is cut out the ending with the Doctor and Amy kissing, cut out a few pop culture references and re-tool the character of River or junk her completely and it'd blend in with Season 5 circa 1967/68

I'd go with 'junk her completely'.

[rushy]

But Amy is hawt

[burrunjor]

One that I think that might be interesting is The Next Doctor done in the Hinchcliff era, with Peter Cushing as Jackson Lake.

[rushy]

Aug 8, 2023 8:50:59 GMT burrunjor said:

One that I think that might be interesting is The Next Doctor done in the Hinchcliff era, with Peter Cushing as Jackson Lake.

Speaking of Next Doctor, I'm still sad David Morrissey never became the Doctor. He's such a cool actor, and his bombastic colourfully dressed Victorian Doctor feels like the Sixth Doctor done better. 

"Cybermen! Masters of that hellish wall-scuttler and old enemies of mine, now at work in London town!"