Embedded Files
This week, we're in Victorian times or something, so everyone is behaving in a peculiar and extravagant way, because everything was nuts then. For example, this guy is on stage at a theatre, making a lady float. That's not normal. But there he is, going, "Yeah, this is good - clap me."
I guess he's a magician or similar. That would explain the whole 'being weird on stage' thing, plus his ridiculous dress sense. These are clothes that even Doctor Who would think twice about wearing, and he once dressed as David Bowie from the Ashes to Ashes video.
Anyway, this is one of the bad guys, and so that's why he's here. The show hasn't just brought in a magician to entertain us when the story gets boring. Although that might have been a good idea sometimes.
The Magician Guy has also got an evil sentient Murder Doll, which he uses on stage to do a ventriloquist act. People seem fine with this and laugh, and say things like, "That was enjoyable ventriloquism," rather than running away screaming, "Arg! Oh no! Murder doll!"
It is unusual for the villains in Doctor Who to pass the time putting on light entertainment shows for everyone. Most just get straight on with their evil plan, and save all their spare energy for prancing about in their evil lair, laughing and saying things like, "We must destroy the humans!"
It's hard to see how it serves the villains to have a hit show as well as an evil plan, so we must assume that these guys just have it in their blood, and get twitchy unless they have chance to show off.
After the show Magician Guy chats to this man with a fine moustache, and an intimidatingly long cigar. Moustache guy is happy because people like the Murder Doll and keep coming back for more. He owns the theatre, and he's quite delightful, and only a little bit racist.
A lot of things in this story are a bit racist. They thought it was fine, in olden times, I think. Well, probably only the racist people thought it was fine. All the people who were having the racism done to them probably thought, "This is terrible, and I hope they all get killed by the Murder Doll."
They will, people of other cultures. They will.
Doctor Who and Leela are here too, which is a good thing, as otherwise this would just be a story about some evil guys having a very successful time doing a plan, with occasional breaks for musical hall skits.
Doctor Who has brought Leela here because he knows that Victorian times are full of horrible murders, and if there's one thing Leela loves, it's the sight of someone clutching a knife wound as they totter sadly to the floor.
He also claims to be a massive fan of Victorian snacks and light entertainment. It is, of course, a total coincidence that this era is also an unlimited source of great hats, massage parlours and opium.
Magician Guy and the Murder Doll are riding about town with this guy in the natty mask-and-hat combo. They're on a mission to find a magic cabinet - that's why the Mask Guy has the glowy thing. It tells him when they are nearby and he gets all excited.
Turns out Mask Guy is from The Future and has come back here to The Past by mistake, while he was playing with Time Travel. It went all wrong and now he can't get back without his cabinet, and also quite a lot of his face came off too, so all in all it was a pretty bad day.
Magician Guy isn't from the future. He's just an unconvincingly Chinese man who met Mask Guy and decided to hang out with him and help him do evil.
You have to wonder about Mask Guy's hat. Does he think it disguises how metal and weird his head looks? Or does he just enjoy a good hat? I hope it's the latter.
Doctor Who looks quite serious, doesn't he? He's trying to do proper detectiving, and thinks that maybe if this works out, people might start saying, "Oh good, here's Doctor Who, he'll sort it out!" instead of, "Who is this idiot child-man, and why is he laughing at the death of all my friends?"
The mystery that needs solving is, "Why are loads people going missing, and then turning up dead but with all their life sucked out of them, as if by a time travelling evil villain in a hat?"
Leela does some good detectiving, and finds out that Magician Guy keeps grabbing women and taking them down into the sewers.
Magician Guy is saying, "You'll like it down the sewer. I have an excellent murder doll, who you may play with if you promise to be careful. And then my evil master is going to suck out your life force for a bit. And then I'll need to get an early night because I've got two shows tomorrow and the theatre is a cruel mistress." The lady is saying nothing, because she is hypnotised.
Leela thinks he's a jerk, and bets he wouldn't be anywhere near as smooth if the lady was awake, and probably he can't even talk to girls, and also it's weird for a man his age to be friends with a massive doll, even if it is a cool one that can do stabbing.
Doctor Who and Leela go to the theatre and annoy Magician Guy by acting weird all the way through his performance. For all that he's dressed as a detective, it must be said that Doctor Who's strong suit is not really 'Patiently working things out.' He's far better at this - acting like a total jerk until the villain can't take it any longer and is forced to confront him.
Here we see him spoiling all Magic Guy's tricks, and laughing at the wrong bits, and shouting things like, "Done with mirrors!" and "Racism!" and "Your doll says he hates you."
Eventually Magician Guy can take it no more and tries to stab Doctor Who repeatedly to death. But it doesn't work, and instead he accidentally murders some other guy, on stage, in front of everyone.
Finally the audience reacts appropriately and runs away, screaming and being sick. Hopefully they all go home and have a good think about why they were fine with the xenophobia and the Sentient Evil Doll, but drew the line at 'A trick went wrong."
Eventually Doctor Who discovers the underground lair of Mask Guy and the Murder Doll.
Doctor Who tells Mask Guy that he's not allowed to play with Time Travel any more, and that this is all his fault, and he's the worst, and basically he's never met a bigger jerk. Doctor Who can be very mean sometimes.
Even though he's wearing a mask, you can kind of tell that Mask Guy is quite upset by Doctor Who's harsh words, and is trying quite hard not to cry.
Perhaps predictably, Mask Guy channels this angst into a pretty robust attempt to kill Doctor Who, featuring a massive pretend dragon that shoots lasers from its eyes.
This doesn't help, and everything explodes, and all the bad guys die. Doctor Who and Leela have won another huge victory over the forces of evil. They can be justly proud of themselves.
It is to be hoped, though, that whenever Doctor Who tells this story, he resists the urge to do the accents.
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