Review Doctor Who: Scratchman!

Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, also sometimes titled Doctor Who and the Big Game, was a planned movie written by Tom Baker and Ian Marter.

The story was to feature the Doctor, Harry and Sarah as they faced the Devil known as "Scratchman". Other enemies which were to appear were Scarecrows which came alive, the Daleksand a small cameo of the Cybermen. The finale was to take place on a giant pinball table.

The movie was to have Vincent Price and Twiggy involved and to be written and directed by James Hill.

An article including a synopsis by Marcus Hearn of the film was featured in DWM 379.

Plot

Two Americans, Griffin and his younger colleague Potts, are in the Space Records Bureau in a room with the door marked "Time Lords". They're looking through a section labelled "Dr. Who" intent on finding any information about him.

At present day London Airport, a crowd of journalists, teenagers and dignitaries surround the area with policeman struggling to maintain order. Beyond the runway the TARDIS materialises lopsidedly on a small dip in the ground. The Doctor looks out to see the spectacle in the distance believing it's probably for him but is in fact for a pop star who's arrived there. The Doctor, Sarah and Harry then set off headed for Scotland in 1924 whilst singing the song "Yes, We Have No Bananas". When they arrive, a shepherd tending to his sheep sees the TARDIS materialise and quickly scurries away. The three then step out, where they see an ideal spot to have a picnic. They find a place on the beach and start to play a game of cricket with Sarah throwing the ball, overshooting the target and the three head out to search for the ball. The Doctor, searching through a nearby field for the ball, hears a strange sound of bones crackling in the distance. He finds an unusually well-dressed scarecrow in the middle of the field, holding the ball. He retrieves the ball and heads back to the picnic, only to find that everything has been wrecked, with a tractor and trailer driving away in the distance at fast speed. The three find an ancient motorbike with sidecar and pursue the tractor to a deserted farmyard. There they approach the black barn to investigate and head up the ladder to the dark loft with the echoing sound of bones crackling. Once up there, they peak through a crack in the floor to the room below and see what appear to be scarecrows ripping open bags of fertiliser and covering their clothes in it, which supposedly brings them to life. Then the scarecrows start to pursue them as they escape via the motorbike and sidecar which got them there.

Once on the road they arrive in a deserted village. While there, they explore the empty post office and then return to the empty road with the Doctor thinking of a plan to stop the scarecrows. He then comes up with one involving moths to eat away their clothes and find out what's behind all this. Sarah and Harry search for moth larvae all through the night with the Doctor constructing a sprawling contraption. The Doctor sends Harry to fetch some glucose and sugar and Sarah to sew some canvas together, but outside in the dusk the shape of a long shadow sweeps over the ground, giving off a low threatening rasp.

High above in the sky what appears to be a bright star is the Sky Plateau, home of the mysterious black shadow creature. The creature addresses rows of Cybors, metallic robots which are roughly the shape of humans which stand motionless towards the creature. As the creature speaks to them, it's shape changes according to the strength of what it's saying. In the back comets explode and an image of the Doctor's face appears with the Cybors hissing at it. The black shadow creature sends two Cybors to destroy the Doctor and they jump off the plateau to the ground.

As Harry searchs for the ingredients in the post office, he's nearly grabbed by a scarecrow that looks as if it were dressed for a funeral. Harry closes the door, catching the scarecrow's arm between the door and the frame. The door rips the scarecrow's coat off and it crumbles into a heap of dust, bones and wood. Leaving the room with the needed items in a wheelbarrow, including a jar of jelly babies, he closes the door unaware of another scarecrow with the door catching it's cloak and it collapsing to a pile. Oblivious that yet another scarecrow with a sheep's skull is about to attack with his scythe, the wheelbarrow catches on it's cloak and it disintegrates, with Harry unaware about all this as he leaves. The shepherd from earlier, drunk on the beach, sees the two Cybors emerge from the water and then scan the area, which they then leave into the darkness with the shepherd throwing the empty bottle he has into the water.

In the village hall, the Doctor explains to Sarah the contraption which he's built, which he calls a "High Velocity Moth Machine" with the motorbike outside being used to power it. Harry puts the ingredients in before being told by the Doctor to not put the jelly babies in, as he then takes one. The Doctor turns it on and one of the moths starts to hatch and the three start cheering and dancing around it. As it starts to slow down the Doctor gives Harry a can of petrol to fill the bike with. Harry heads to the bike outside but stops when he sees scarecrows surrounding the bike holding gardening tools and a blunderbuss. Harry rushes back in and the Doctor locks the door, stopping them from coming in. He wraps his scarf around the tank with the moths to keep it warm, tells the others that he'll be heading back to the barn with the tank and tells Sarah to head to the TARDIS to bring back the P2 which is a power source. He tells Harry to try to divert the scarecrows and gives him a fur coat and straw hat. Harry leaves and heads for the moors as the sun starts to rise.

By dawn Sarah reaches the TARDIS and heads to the workshop to find the P2. The workshop is enormous and seems to stretch to infinity. She finds it and as she's about to head out through the console room, the way is blocked by a scarecrow with steel teeth in a cadaverous skull wearing a German helmet. It chases Sarah through to the workshop and past a couple of rooms, including one containing a 50 yard jigsaw puzzle, and through an immense rococo ballroom until they reach a hall of mirrors. Sarah sees a giant grandfather clock which she climbs up into. Inside, like the TARDIS, it's bigger on the inside and as large as Big Ben. As she slips through the mechanisms, the scarecrow gets caught between two cogs and as the clock starts to chime at six, Sarah watches as the scarecrow is crushed into tiny pieces.


The God Pan in the TARDIS. (DWM 379)

The three meet back at the black barn. Sarah gives the Doctor the P2, but then the barn explodes and as the smoke clears the two Cybors emerge, lower their weapons and grab Harry. A Cybor ship emerges from the sea and the two Cybors report back to their leader. Their leader reveals his knowledge of the scarecrow experiment and say they no longer want to participate in it. The shepherd appears as one of the Cybor's prisoners and as he lurches towards one of them it brushes him off and in a flash he screams as he is disintergrated into dust and his dog runs off. Suddenly, as the Cybors are about to take the Doctor to their ship, a loud warning signal is heard. The two suddenly go past him and back to their ship. As it rises into the air, it suddenly explodes, with the three shielding their eyes from the blast. The Doctor is confused. The Black Shadow appears behind them and it starts to get cold. They suddenly hear a slow and strange melody played in the distance on reed pipes. They reach the TARDIS, where the music is coming from, and see emerge from behind it a familiar horned figure with cloven feet. Unable to believe their eyes, playing a set of reed pipes is the god Pan, while the tune he is playing represents a set of galactic co-ordinates. Understood by what he played, Pan vanishes and inside the TARDIS the Doctor sets the co-ordinates from the tune. As the TARDIS dematerialises, Pan sits atop the TARDIS and then too disappears in mid-air.


The Doctor battles the Black Knight. (DWM 379)
 
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Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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After travelling through the vortex, the TARDIS materialises on it's side. As the Doctor climbs out he sees a blasted volcanic landscape around him and the sound of pipes in the air. The three follow the music as they reach a dark river where a ferry is waiting for them. Standing on it is a cloaked figure who, in a small glimpse under the hood, is revealed to be Pan. As they head down the river, it starts to get rough with the raft being hammered by the waves and plunging into the waves. The three head to the shore with Harry pulling Sarah onto the bank and the Doctor grabbing a cactus as he's hanging over the river, watching as the raft goes down and, suddenly, the river turning calm. The Doctor can't find the ferryman or Harry and Sarah anywhere. The Doctor starts to explore as he heads towards a vast plain with a severe sun. Ahead he sees what he thinks is a mirage. A black knight on a horse, carrying a spiked ball and chain, charges towards him with the Doctor dodging the attack. The Doctor's foot is tangled in some roots and unable to move. Before the knight makes its attack, the Doctor gets two rocks and ties them to the ends of his scarf, creating a makeshift bolas which he throws at the knight, hitting him in neck, which crashes him off his horse and hangs him from a gallows tree. The Doctor frees his foot and walks over to the knight. He opens it's visor, but the armour is empty and then crashes into a heap of rusted metal. The Doctor then retrieves his scarf and mounts the horse. He rides the horse across the plain as the pan music changes. The Black Shadow travels behind the horse and he reaches what appears to be a giant egg with scarecrows staring at it. A crack appears to reveal a guillotine with a victim in it having their head sliced off. The victim is later shown to be a scarecrow. As the music stops, the horse halts.


The Daleks enter. (DWM 279)

Arriving at his destination, the Doctor enters an opulent, oval office and the horse disappears. Inside the office, at the centre of a table, sits a man in a double-cuffed shirt and a pin-striped suit with radiant light sitting on his shoulders as his head. Six other men on either side have similar but different coloured lights. Paintings of them hang behind each with about 50 red telephones on the desk. The man introduces himself to the Doctor as Harry Scratch, listing his other aliases and floats as if weightless. Scratch tries to make a deal with the Doctor, saying if they teamed up they would be invincible, which of course the Doctor refuses as he swings a yo-yo. The Doctor tells Scratch he wants him annihilated. A lift arrives and the Doctor steps in to look for Sarah and Harry. The lift rushes down the shaft at immense speed until it finally stops and the doors open. He finds Harry and Sarah well until they see they're on a giant pinball table. The scores are seen on the side with Scratch's head dominating the middle. A bell sound is heard and the game begins with Harry, Sarah and the Doctor dodging and sliding balls and flippers with the score getting higher and higher and Scratch's head getting brighter. Then the three start scoring themselves, pivoting the balls and reaching a score of five million. Scratch then retaliates as Daleks start coming from the sides. The three dodge their attacks but, with the smooth surface to their advantage, they could push the Daleks into each other. The Doctor then chooses to let Scratch hit the jackpot by using his scarf to hold the flipper back and letting it hit the ball at the precise moment. Scratch explodes into millions of pieces and the trio head to the top of the table and back to the oval office. Scratch and the headless men's suits are empty with their lights not glowing anymore. A ball rolls out of Scratch's trousers and the Doctor tells Harry to grab it for the cricket game.

Back at the mull in Scotland the three continue their game of cricket. Harry bowls the ball as the Doctor hits it and it breaks into tiny fragments. Inside one of the fragments can be seen a ball and seen inside it is Harry Scratch, but with a lizard's body and a tiny glowing head making unearthly noises. However neither the Doctor, Harry or Sarah notice it.


References
  • Doctor Who Meets Scratchman was often listed by fans of Big Finish as a story which would be interesting to produce. In an recent interview, Baker noted the interest, [1] and at the Folkestone Film TV and Comic Con mentioned that the audio company was looking into adapting recently discovered scripts, but Baker expected copyright issues with the BBC and the estate of James Hill.
 
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