Alternative Soundtracks – The Edge of Destruction

I’m slightly apprehensive about mentioning our other ‘alternative’ versions of Doctor Who as they were even more bizarre than our earlier tape-recorded efforts, but they were just as amusing (and in some cases even more so), and so deserve inclusion in my recollections of growing up with the series. These interesting creations involved us watching a regular Doctor Who story on video with the sound on the television turned down whilst simultaneously recording our own soundtrack to the story onto a separate audio cassette (i.e. applying our own dialogue in time with the various actors saying their lines on screen). We then made a copy of the original video and dubbed the new soundtrack over the copy so we could view our masterpieces. This may sound rather strange, and indeed it was, but I sometimes wonder if we’re not the only fans of the show to have done this. I’m not entirely sure why we decided to make these recordings; as I’ve already mentioned, Andrew and I were prolific in making all kinds of bizarre Who-related recordings so I suppose it was just another natural progression. These late night sessions on a Friday or Saturday night were also accompanied by large quantities of lager; in fact the more we had to drink the better and funnier they were, and indeed if we ever tried to record a story when completely sober it never worked at all. We managed to get through eleven stories over the three years that we shared a flat together, namely The Edge of Destruction, Spearhead from Space, Day of the Daleks, The Three Doctors, Terror of the Zygons, Pyramids of Mars, The Robots of Death, Logopolis, The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors and Time and the Rani. I can’t say that they were all side-splittingly funny all the way through (although a couple of them really are) but there are lots of individual scenes or lines of dialogue which are incredibly funny and which I’d like to share with you.

I can’t recall the exact order in which we recorded the different stories, so for the sake of establishing some sort of formality I’ll put them in the order of their original transmission on television. The Edge of Destruction was one of the funniest stories that we chose to crucify, though it took a little time to get going with very little dialogue in the first 10 minutes or so, but was doubly enjoyable for us as it featured our favourite characters to impersonate. The scene where Barbara and Susan are in the living quarters with Susan violently stabbing one of the beds with a huge pair of scissors loses all it’s dramatic qualities, as in our version they decide to crack one-line jokes that contain some sort of reference to religion (I think this was something to do with the fact that Susan bore a slight resemblance to a nun when Barbara laid a towel over her forehead). Where in the real story the Doctor hands out drinks to everybody laced with a sleeping potion, in our version it’s four cups of Brandy in order to get everyone drunk, and he seems to find it incredibly funny that he’s letting his teenage grand daughter drink alcohol. The Doctor then reprimands Ian for wearing black and white clothes and demands that he go and put some coloured ones on, and towards the end of the original story where Barbara recoils at seeing the melted clock face in the TARDIS, our version has her looking into a mirror and gasping, ‘Oh, my hair!’ as she sees her reflection, and puts her head in her hands as she turns away.

Towards the end of the real story the Doctor stands in front of the console and delivers his passionate monologue about the stars and the universe, but in our version he excitedly reveals the precise ingredients for the perfect Victoria sponge, though for some silly but I assume deliberate reason I pronounced it ‘spon-gee’, a fact which the other characters immediately start to question. The Doctor continues his strange behaviour during the scene where he’s sitting on the sofa next to Barbara. Whilst in the original story he’s apologising to her for his recent patronising and rude behaviour, in this version he compliments her on her nice jumper but asks if she can take it off so he can see her tits again.

Next Episode: Alternative Soundtracks - Spearhead From Space!