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With a flourish, Will clapped his laptop closed and set the device on the floor, propped against the plain end table next to him. He flopped back on the sofa and glanced over at David, who was curled up in the armchair, reading a thick tome in his lap. “Pizza’s on its way. Forty-five minutes.”
His friend didn’t look up. “Did you order one without tomato sauce?”
“Of course, mate. A small of that garlic and goat cheese thing you like, and a large pepperoni for me, for leftovers.” Will snagged his beer from the table and took a swig.
“Perfect. Thanks.” David closed his book and placed it on the table next to him, then laid his gold-rimmed specs on it. He pulled his phone from his pocket and began fiddling with it.
“Should be enough time to watch something before it gets here,” Will commented. “So, what d’you got for tonight?”
As David’s fingers danced over the screen of his mobile, the big flatscreen television turned on. “Something I think you’ll like. I hope you do.” He tapped a few more times. “Here we go.”
Will frowned. “Is your mobile controlling the telly?”
“Aye. I’ve got all my media on here.” David glanced at his friend. “It’s simple technology, even for Earth. I bet in five years, it’ll be common, putting programmes on your phone and transmitting it to your telly.”
“That’s brilliant, mate. Is that Bluetooth?”
David jiggled his mobile at Will. “No, it’s, well, it’s hard to explain. Gallifreyan tech, really.” He glanced at the device again. “But! It’s starting.” He laid the mobile on the arm of his chair and grinned at his friend. Will took another mouthful of beer and set the bottle down, then settled back to watch.
A high shot of the Earth from space blossomed on the screen, then the camera zoomed in closer, first toward Europe, then to England, and then to London. A scratchy beeping burst from the speakers, then a hand slapped an old digital alarm clock reading 7:30. The owner of the hand, a disheveled blond girl, dragged herself out of bed and slogged to work in the women’s clothing department of a Henrik’s in the city. After meeting her boyfriend for lunch, she returned to work, then later, after closing, found herself caught in the basement of the store, chased by animated shop window dummies. As they closed in on her, a man in a black leather jacket grabbed her hand and urged her to “Run!”
As the pair ran through narrow corridors to escape their pursuers, Will waved a hand at his friend’s mobile. “Stop it, mate. Stop the show.”
His friend, who had stretched out in his chair and settled back to watch like it was nothing particularly special, tapped the device and turned toward him. “What’s wrong?”
Will crossed his arms. “This is your programme, isn’t it? The one about the Doctor.”
“Aye.” David looked rather chuffed with himself. “It’s called Doctor Who.”
“I know what it’s called,” snapped Will. “You cut past the credits so I wouldn’t know what it was, didn’t you? Why are we watching this?”
“Thought you’d like it. Sci-fi, but decidedly British, not like Star Trek or Star Wars.”
“Obviously. Star Wars doesn’t have animated shop window dummies.”
“Aye, well, they’re a bit indicative of the special effects budget, aren’t they?” He picked up his beer and pointed it at the screen. “Lots of action and adventure, clever dialogue, cheesy monsters. You’ll love it,” he stated before taking a drink.
Will stared at David wide-eyed. “I don’t want to watch this.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, maybe because it’s weird?”
“No weirder than Red Dwarf, and you love that.”
Pushing himself up, Will set his hands on his thighs with an exasperated grunt. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. You said that this show mirrors the Doctor’s life, down to every word and detail, so what I’m about to see really happened, sometime, somewhere.”
“Aye, it did.”
“That is proper creepy, bordering on voyeuristic, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps, but I think it’s important for you to see this.” David pointed at the pair running for their lives from plastic monsters. “This is a part of your world and your life that you’re barely aware exists. You’ve seen a bit, like I know you saw the Sycorax ship over London and of course, there’s what happened here, but there’s so much more going on, and honestly, I don’t know if I’ll attract more of it into your life.”
“Mate, the Judoon coming here wasn’t your fault.”
“No, you’re right, it wasn’t, but who knows?” David paused, staring at the male figure on the screen with a faint glow in his eyes. “I might become as much of a trouble magnet as the Doctor, and they say forewarned is forearmed.”
Following his gaze, Will turned to the frozen image again, studying it as if it were a Powerpoint slide. “So you want me to watch this like a documentary.”
“No, not at all. I love this programme and I think you will, too, but you’ll also learn a lot about what’s out there.” David scratched at the back of his neck. “Okay, yes, maybe it’s a bit weird, but think of it like you’re watching a biopic.”
“But it’s not. Those are fiction. Well, fictionalised.” He jabbed a finger at the girl. “We just watched her get up in the morning and go to work, and she actually exists and actually did that, just like that. That’s weird, peeping in on her life like that.”
“Would it have been weird if you hadn’t known she existed?”
David had a point, and Will considered it carefully before conceding that it shouldn’t make a difference whether a character was real or fictional: either way, he was watching an actress, not the person. “No, I suppose not.”
“That’s about as intimate as the show ever got. Doctor Who’s pre-watershed, so it never got private.”
Will grabbed his beer and downed the last half in one gulp. “All right, all right,” he said as he blotted his lips on the back of his hand. “Go on. I’ll watch it.”
The man led the girl out of the department store, and as she fled, the top floor exploded. Back at home the next morning, the girl found the man snooping about her flat and followed him after a slapstick sequence and dummy arm attack.
“A bit camp, isn’t he?”
“Greatest understatement in the universe, that is.”
After visiting a conspiracy theorist to find out more about this “Doctor”, she went out for pizza with her boyfriend, who she hadn’t noticed had been replaced by a plastic copy, and escaped his attack by running off with the strange alien.
“All right. Self-absorbed, not the most observant.”
“No, not exactly her strong points.”
They found the plastic aliens’ secret base, but David had to pause at this point because the pizzas arrived. Will fetched new beers for them both then, once they’d both grabbed their slices, settled back for the rest of the episode. When the Doctor confronted the controller, a vat of intelligent molten plastic, it launched its invasion of the planet, including shop window dummies at the shopping centre at which the girl’s mother was shopping.
Will waved a hand at David to stop the playback and collapsed back on the sofa. “So you’re saying that there were shop window dummies walking around London not too long ago. Though I’d guess they weren’t quite as cheesy in real life.”
David nodded. “It makes you wonder how that works, though, doesn’t it? The Autons – that’s what they’re called – they existed and the Nestene Consciousness existed, and the Doctor really did encounter them, here and also back in the sixties, so is the script somehow dictated by what happens here, or does this universe adapt to whatever silly monsters and situations that the writers over there invent?”
“Mate, life is hard enough without that kind of existential rubbish.” A disturbing thought hit Will and his eyes snapped to his friend. "Does this mean that in your world, we're television characters, right now? Millions of people watching me order pizza and drink beer?"
David snorted. "An actor, crossing universes to become the character that he used to play? That's too much even for Doctor Who. That's the stuff of bad fan fiction, that is."
“I’m not sure that’s better, knowing that I only exist because some fangirl couldn’t handle the loss of her favourite Doctor and decided to turn his actor into a Time Lord.” Will grabbed his beer bottle and deflated when he found it empty. “I don’t think you have enough beer to drown that thought.” Chortling at his friend’s agitation, David started the playback again.
The Doctor faced down the sentient plastic and when he failed in his negotiations and the shop window dummies captured him, the girl swung on a chain and kicked them and the “anti-plastic” into the vat, destroying the consciousness and saving the world. The Doctor invited her to travel the universe with him and she accepted and ran into the blue police box.
“What do you think?” David asked as he paused the playback halfway through the electronic descending glissando that signaled the end of the episode.
Will shrugged. “That wasn’t bad.”
David speared him with a knowing look. “Not bad, or actually good?”
With an exaggerated sigh, Will admitted, “All right, mate. Surprisingly good. Solid story, hints at a deeper backstory for both of them and makes you want to know more. And I like the camp. I never really like it when the characters take themselves too seriously. And, I suppose…” He exhaled heavily. “Knowing it’s all true isn’t as hard to swallow as I thought.”
David grinned. “Good! Good! Yes! This is what my life’s all about, has been ever since I was three. I…” He paused, tugging at his ear, then shook his head. “I suppose I didn’t realise until now how important it was to me that you like it.”
“I do, and I’m not just saying that.” He nodded at his friend’s mobile. “This stuff is from your universe then. I mean, obviously.”
“Aye. I ripped it all from my collection back home. More than just the TV show. Audio plays, novels, comics, other stuff. I don’t have much from my old life, but this was important enough to me that I wanted to bring it with. It also serves as good reference material. Need to know what a Tereleptil is? It’s all right here.”
“So what is it then?”
“Fishlike reptilian aliens, from ‘The Visitation’, Fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan. Invaded Earth in 1666, London near Heathrow to be specific. Tried to wipe out humanity by genetically modifying plague bacteria. Didn’t cause the Great Fire. But never mind.” He jerked his chin toward his mobile. “To be honest, this is probably the most complete documentation of the Doctor’s life anywhere in time and space. I doubt I’ll ever need any of it, but it could come in handy.”
“For blackmail?”
David waggled his eyebrows. “At the very least.”
Will grinned back, though with a touch of malice in his eyes. “And when do I get to see you up there on the flatscreen?”
David turned a little yellow around the edges. “Second series of the revival, so thirteen episodes from now, and it goes on for three series, though I don’t have the specials, the extra episodes up to the regeneration.” He sighed, blowing his cheeks out. “I always hate this part, watching myself act. But after that, if you’re still interested, we’ll go back to the beginning with the First Doctor and go from there. That’s twenty-six seasons and a movie.”
“Er, yeah, we’ll see. That sounds like a year-long project and I’m not promising anything now. But for now, I want to see more of this. Go on, start the next episode.” He served himself another slice of pizza as David unpaused the credit roll.
At the very end, the BBC logo appeared on the screen. Will tapped the table with his beer bottle. “You know, mate, that theme music is epic.”
“Now I know you’re a real fan.”