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The Auntie Matter

Released January 2013. 2 episodes.

Writer: Jonathan Morris
Director: Ken Bentley

Roots: P G Wodehouse (Reggie as Bertie, and if he were called Bertie then he'd be... Bertie Basset? A reference to Granville seeming to be on wheels may be a nod to Jeeves.) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ("I'm harmless. Well, mostly" "bang the rocks together") Upstairs Downstairs (Mr Meadows). The Doctor mentions George and Ira Gershwin, Hemmingway, F Scott Fitzgerald and flappers. Poe's The Tomb of Ligeia. The Young Ones ("Our place is to serve and don't you forget it") Reggie refers to "those Martian chaps" (). The Importance of Being Ernest. Granville quotes 'the Bard' ("If it were done..."- Macbeth Act I, vii)

Technobabble: An etheric field disturbance detector.

Dialogue Triumphs: "Call me 'Doctor'. Try not to scream, trip over or wander off and we should get along admirably"

"Young, pretty, and with brains enough for two. She must eat a lot of raw fish!"

"You have some explaining to do, dear"

Double Entendres: Romana on the Doctor going out with her...

'She might not mind being manacled to a chap who was mentally negligible once she's seen the size of his country estate!'

Continuity: 'Lady Florence' Reggie's 'Aunt', aka the alien Xenobia Brabason, last of the Valjax (the Doctor hasn't heard of them) is the sole survivor of a species whose world was ravaged a few years from now by a space-borne virus. Her ship crashed on Earth, and allowing her to take human form has accelerated Xenobia's ageing process. She has had over a dozen forms with Reggie's assistance- always female (the bodies have to be similar to her female template). It's possible that Reggie's mother was Xenobia's first victim. Her ship is unfamiliar to the Doctor, is powered by a fusion drive and its defence system is based on a sonic disruption field.

Granville (and gamesman Diggory) is an android with a crystalline circuitry powered by a neutron cell.

The Doctor says K9 likes to look up subjects on the TARDIS Databank. The randomiser has been set on automatic and connected to the Ship's guidance systems, leaving the TARDIS to take a short series of trips around the universe while the Doctor and Romana relax on Earth.

The Doctor drinks gunpowder green tea and has been building an etheric field disturbance detector (its temporal analysers need calibrating).

Links: "Leave the man, it's the girl I want!" is, of course, an inversion of the Rani's opening line from Time and the Rani.

Location: London and Basset-on-the-Hamble, Hampshire (the seat of Basset Hall), the Roaring Twenties [1929 according to The Sands of Life]

The Bottom Line: 'Homicidal tendencies above and beyond the norm! Even by Aunt's standards!'

Simple, uncomplicated fun. It's surprising nobody's done a [performed] Wodehouse pastiche in Doctor Who until now, and Morris' version here is a seemingly effortless bash- certainly, two episodes' worth is enough to ensure the spoof doesn't overstay its welcome.

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