And now, the production team of Joe Ogulin and Louis Singh proudly present the long-awaited, much coveted "Review of the JN-T Era," part 8! :-)

"JN-T resigns and resigns, take 4." --James Armstrong

We pick up with the Silver Anniversary of Doctor Who... aka, Season 25...

Remembrance of the Daleks

You know Who and Ace land the you know WHAT in 20th century London in an old, familiar place. Well, the salt-and-pepper shakers are at it again, except this time there's a real twist. Two "blob" factions are fighting each other and trying to recover the Hand of Omega, which you know Who already has. Well, after much fighting, a rather startling discovery that an old trick for escaping the salt-and-pepper shakers doesn't work any more, and a really funny argument with the giant roll-on, the Hand is "given" to one of the blob factions. Skaro's star ends up being destroyed, and all the salt-and-pepper shakers are destroyed, including one that blows itself up at the end due to a logical problem. Of course, the giant roll-on escapes (possibly to look for more underarm odor?)...

(Apologies to Emerson, Lake, and Palmer...) "Welcome here, my friends, to the show that never begins...." Holy $#!T! A real story with real cliffhangers! The story works well, and fits very nicely into four parts. This is the best written story since Caves of Androzani. A job well done, and we hope to see much of Ben's work in the future. Episode 1's cliffhanger is probably the best since Caves 3.

The Happiness Patrol

You know Who and Ace find themselves in a society in which being unhappy is illegal. The perfect utopia... or so you might think. (How would you like being candied to death? Or eating something that gives you so much pleasure that your senses overload and you die? ;-) ) Anyway, you know Who and Ace are caught and sentenced to death, doom, and the happiness patrol. (What else?) You know Who meets up with a census taker and argues about what his name is, then later meets up with Mr. Blues. Helen A (Mrs. T) eventually is overthrown, and discovers that to truly be happy, one must be allowed to cry every so often. (*yawn*)

If you can't figure what this one's about, ask a friend. If he (or you, for that matter) think that this is the best Who story ever written, forget about getting security clearance. There was some good stuff and some bad stuff in this one. Mind you, we might just stay away from lemonade for a while.

How to test your friend's political views

  1. Let him/her watch this story
  2. Ask him/her what s/he thinks of it
  3. Hate it = conservative; neutral = moderate; like it = liberal; love it = no security clearance.
(Guess who of us liked it and who didn't.)

Silver Nemesis

You know Who ends up fighting Cybermen to gain a five-week-old plot device (pardon the pun...) which he left you know where some large number of years ago (you can measure it in centuries, if you like...). Well, it's coming "home." Some medieval b*tch wants it, as do the Cybermen. You know Who ain't gonna let that happen. (How did you know?) Well, this device is activated, and finally "given" over to the Cybermen, at which time it's given new orders and asks if it understands them. Yes it does, but it doesn't obey them. (Consider the question... did you expect it to actually listen to the Cyberleader?) Well, the Cybermen go *poof* thanks to the device, and you know Who and Ace go merrily on their way.

Basically, pretty good. Basically, a pure chance happening. Two stories in the same season with the same plot device by two different writers working entirely independently. (Ever had one of those years?) The Cybermen could've been handled a bit better, but overall, a good story.

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

The most pretentious title for a story ever seen... it fits. Too confusing to summarize, though mixing the Beeb and upper-level fandom is kinda cute...............

Turnabout is fair play... what's good for the goose is good for the gander... time to bash the bashers (you all know who you are... this DEFINITELY takes our review out of the category of JN-T bashing... hello Ron buddy... care to give us more publicity? Please! Talk about us in your next Whovian Times... whatever year you decide to publish it... if ever...). A piece of $#!T... a plotless wonder... we love it. We haven't enjoyed something this silly since... uh... since what? umm... Shada... yeah... that's it... that's the ticket... do we get to audition now?

Louis: This story was so nasty to fandom and the Beeb it makes me wish I'd written it. :-(

Season overall

This is the best season since the last anniversary season. (20th, for those of you who can't count.) Lots of action, fun, silliness, adventure, messages, and precious little plot in some cases. Who cares? Not us... at least not this year (you know Who and who probably don't care either... not that you know who was around this time...).

Seasonal trivia

Addendum to our total era review

OK, so JN-T made another really good season... well, at least a far above average one (gee, you'd think we were bashing up until now... hi Ron buddy). Not much for the entire era by the way of drama, but we like a lot of it nonetheless. We got our gripes with things and we don't care what the fork others think of it. Everyone's entitled to an (and our, in this case) opinion... :-)

                           --The Two in the TARDIS

By the way, JN-T, would you like a parody of fandom written from a fan's point-of-view? Really... it would be fun... think of what we could do to us... er, them... :-)

First posted to rec.arts.drwho on 5 May 89

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