MR 027: The One Doctor

Mwhahaha, I control everything. You must surrender to my will. I own Park Place ANNNNDD Boardwalk. That'll be 2354 pounds rent please.

Oh my god, what is this and why do I love it so much. I absolutely remember adoring this one and with good reason. This is the second one I explicitly remember from when I listened to all of these years ago, after The Holy Terror. While that one was a comedy AND a tragedy, this one is JUST a comedy. And a very good one at that. It makes fun of the Doctor Who formula quite well, and specifically multi-Doctor stories.

The Doctor and Mel land in the system of... ehem... Generios where an invasion of the evil Skelloids has just taken place. It turns out, though, that that invasion has been coordinated and manipulated by a certain couple of con artists posing as the Doctor and his companion. Banto Zame and Sally-Anne.They're just here for the money. And they're madly in love. Naturally.

But there's a real invasion afoot as a giant cylinder in space (which I imagine looks very like the whale probe from Star Trek 4) demands the three treasures of Generios.

The treasures involve an infinite shelf that exists in multiple dimensions with instructions that you can never quite finish, a quiz bot that knows absolutely everything in the entire universe by sending versions of himself back in time playing the Weakest Link for all of eternity, and an incredibly valuable diamond guarded by a single celled organism called The Jelloid who signed a fifty million year contract to defend it. And has currently been waiting one and a half million years for his television set to arrive. They put him on hold for fourty three thousand years and then gave him a two million year window in which to have it delivered, you see.
Seriously, the jokes here are fantastic. Absolutely everyone is on perfect form with their timings. Colin, Bonnie, and the guest actors who play the imposters. It's also notable for having a pre-Nardole Matt Lucas and he's also quite hilarious.

There are all kinds of running jokes here making fun of Doctor Who in general. I almost don't want to ruin them and just encourage everyone to listen to it yourself.

Whenever I saw that it was written by Gareth Roberts I was a little worried that it was just going to be conservative all the way through. There was a little bit of that with the Doctor bemoaning people not being able to save themselves, followed by the people of Generios saying they were useless in the invasion of the Skelloids, but for the most part it wasn't conservative, it was just making fun of Doctor Who in general.

I whole heartedly recommend this one. This is amazing. If you're invested in Doctor Who at all you need to hear it. It's a joy from start to finish. Not to mention the six minutes of quiz show questions at the end.