From: jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: The Doctor Who Formula...?
Date: 6 Jan 93 05:09:49 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

Has anyone out there read David Gerrold's spoof ST:TOS story treatment
"Green Priestesses of the Cosmic Computer", an attempt at writing the
ultimate formula Star Trek story?  It's got every creaky plot device
that the original series ever (over)used, from Scotty having technobabble
problems with the doubletalk generators to Kirk confusing the Cosmic Computer
to death with illogic.  It's a hoot.

That said... does anyone want to try their hand at helping assemble the
ultimate formula Doctor Who story?  So far, I've already come up with a
couple of distinct elements / approaches:

(1) The Doctor and Generic Female Companion land on a planet and discover
that the general population lives under the thumb of an evil dictatorship
/ alien force.  The Doc hooks up with the local resistance forces, infiltrates
the baddies' Fortified Underground Defence Installation, and with the help
of a young male hero-figure and a misguided puppet-leader who the Doctor shows
the truth to, manages to drive away / destroy the bad guys.  The companion
tends to get captured and scream a lot.  Classic examples of this formula
include "Underworld", "The Pirate Planet", "The Twin Dilemma", "The Web
Planet", "The Sunmakers", "The Face of Evil" (with the twist that the subjects
are in two factions), "The Macra Terror", and about half the Dalek stories.

(2) The isolated-outpost story.  A military/scientific installation is
beseiged by an Evil Alien Force.  At first, only a few mysterious things
are going wrong, and of course the Doctor and Generic Companion are suspected.
However, gradually even the paranoiac leader of the outpost realizes that
only the Doctor knows what's going on -- by which point the base is already
surrounded / being invaded by an army of the Alien Menace.  On top of that,
a couple of humans in the base are either spying for the Menace, or working
from motives of their own which play into the Menace's hands.  In the last
five minutes, the Doctor pulls something out of his bag of tricks and saves
the day, but usually only after all the appropriate people have been killed
off.  Examples par excellance: "The Moonbase", "The Abominable Snowmen",
"The Ice Warriors", "The Web Of Fear" (well, OK, the Brig wasn't paranoid),
"Fury From The Deep", "The Wheel In Space", "Earthshock", "Warriors of the
Deep" (sorry, Johnny... *grin*), "The Horror of Fang Rock", and "The Power
Of Kroll".

(3) Additional element which MUST be worked into either formula:  "But we're
NOT spies!  We're... uh... travellers.  Yeah, that's it."

And of course each of the individual Doctors has his own formula bits.
Troughton spends the first two thirds of the story running in terror.  McCoy
turns out to have planned it this way all along.  Hartnell hmmphs and hums
while his companions feed him lines.  And so forth.

Any of the warped minds who helped with the Most Annoying War want to pitch
in on this one?  We could get a great comedy going here.  Or maybe I should
just ring up Graeme "The Happiness Patrol" Curry...