Tachyon TV

Only Fools and Star Destroyers

Following the news that George Lucas is hiring writers for the new, live action Star Wars TV series, spin-off thing, several British writers have pitched format ideas. Chief among these is 'Only Fools and Horses' creator John Sullivan:

The Brown, Brown Sand of Tatooine features the second-hand droid dealer Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru and their petulant teenage nephew, Luke, who move to a brand new moisture farm in the country to escape the oppressive Imperial Forces.

Tachyon TV is proud to present an exclusive extract from the pilot script:

OWEN: For gawd's sake, Beru, for the final time, no you cannot phone your mother. If the Empire traces the signal they might discover we're hiding the last hope for freedom in the Galaxy.

LUKE: I don't wanna be anyone's hope. I hate it here. You can't skateboard on sand!

Later episodes will feature cameos from C3P0, R2D2 and Uncle Ben Kenobi, who is forever going on about how he used to be a Jedi Knight ('During the Clone Wars'), as they drive around in their three-wheeled landspeeder trying to sell Russian-made Lightsabres with no instructions.

Reported by Richard Ward

Reluctant Executive Producer Sells Stuff. Again

Unbridled excitement rippled through the thinning (in so many ways) ranks of Babylon 5 fans today as JMS announced that the scripts for the entire series will be available for just $500 in trade paperback form.

A whole series of extras are planned, including the unedited menu from the hotel where the original series 5 storyline was lost, the never- before-seen charity accounts from the same convention in the North of England, all the fan mail JMS has received from the editors of SFX, the uncensored letters from TNT asking for something interesting to happen in Crusade, unexpurgated behind-the-scenes photos of his cat and anything else that can be dreamed up between now and the publication date that might distract from the appalling dialogue.

Canny British fans are already speculating whether the eBay price in a couple of years will be £10 or £15 for the set.

Reported by Canine Watcher

Doctor Who Season 2 Spoilers (part two)

Continuing Tachyon TV's exclusive look at Doctor Who's second season:

7 Ginger-pubes: Wanting a break from the hot'n'horny antics of the Cybermen, the Doctor and Rose finally escape to an alien world for the first time in this new series and end up in a freakishly-coloured moist jungle. Guest starring Chris Evans as Hieronymus Pube, a Leader.

8 & 9 Ice in the Pints: Following a drunken conversation in the pub the previous night, the Doctor and Rose, who were reminiscing about things that you don't see any more, set off to discover just what happened to those little blue three wheeler invalid carriages and stumble upon a trans-temporal smuggling ring who are remove all signs of white dog poo from the streets of Britain for shipment into a distant star system. Guest starring the entire cast of 'Two Pints and a Packet of Crisps' being minced to death in a blender.

10 Currying Favours: Somewhere on the remote planet of Trafanica, Rose wakes up in a fast food restaurant to find herself working as a short order chef specializing in deep fried brokao burgers. Unsure of how she got there she eventually stumbles upon a secret portal to the Bigg Market in Newcastle and manages to free the Doctor from the clutches of Lord Harpole of the Ru'Pali People. Guest starring Ricky Gervais as himself.

11 Moab: The Doctor and Rose descend into the fictional twisted world of a comedy duo and are lumbered with "the one who's not a big star in the States" and have to fight the frightening Pork Bellies to win their freedom from Mostyn the Magnificent. Guest starring Stephen Fry as Hugh Laurie.

12 & 13 Who's Cyron Now?: Having humped their way around the Universe the Cybermen become a race of placid, laid back creatures. After all these years of the Doctor fighting menacing and wound-up Cybermen it appears all they really wanted was a shag. Seizing on the opportunity to get one over on the tin men, the original inhabitants of Telos, the Cyrons, formulate a plan to over throw them and regain control. The Doctor is then placed in the difficult position of needing to save the Cyber race from destruction. He does this by attempting to make them fizz with sexual jealousy by performing many lewd acts with various pieces of electrical equipment in the Bromsgrove branch of Rumbelows. Oh, and then Rose dies.

Reported by Damon Querry

Doctor Who: Season 2 Spoilers (part one)

With production on the second and/or 28th series of Doctor Who (depending on your level of anality) well underway, Tachyon TV is able to give you a full run down on the stories forming the second trip of a lifetime.

Christmas Special: The 'Ever Decreasing Circles' crossover episode. Following his hastily written regeneration, the Doctor believes he's Martin Bryce, a character from an 80's BBC sitcom. Guest starring Penelope Wilton as Richard Briers and Brian Blessed as Santa Claus.

1 Strictly Time Travel: The "you were expecting this sooner rather than later" musical episode of Who that's been coming ever since Buffy put on her tap-shoes. An intergalactic song and dance competition is held on prehistoric Earth. Featuring Graham Norton as the compare Tyrannosaurs Rex and songs written by Ian Levine and choreographed by Arlene Philips.

2 The Ru'Pali: The Doctor and Rose cause a big stink on Earth in the year 3245 where the populous are cowering under the oppressive rule of a foul smelling regime. The Doctor accidentally stabs their leader to death 19 times and he, on his death bed, vows his brother will avenge his death. All the parts will be played by David Tennant.

3 Enemies Reunited: K9's reappearance in 'Doctor Who' is curtailed as he gets crushed to the size of a tin of beans when Sarah Jane Smith takes her Metro Cabriolet to a scrap dealer and leaves the metal mutt on the back seat. Meanwhile. while inexplicably working in a school as a Maths teacher, Sarah Jane must help the Doctor best Anthony Stewart Head's Rani and her plans to make A-levels even easier to pass.

4 The Something of Something Else: Formulaic old-skool 'Who' as the Doctor and Rose end up in a base under siege story reusing sets and costumes from the BBC store. Guest starring John Actor as the shin of Omega.

5 & 6 CyberNob: The men of metal are finally back as the Cybermen go in search of realistic sexual organs to enhance their already powerful physic. Guest starring David Banks as George the Cybermat

Part Two coming tomorrow...

Reported by Damon Querry

Caption Competition 4

Post your caption by using the comment link below. The best entry will receive a free Tachyon TV mousemat.

Last months winner was Matt K with: 'The extras, fed up at the end of a long week's filming, decide to annoy Spielberg by looking in every direction except the one where the SFX will be put in.'

Could Matt please send his address to me via email. Your prize will be winging its way to you soon.

Doctor Who DVD News

'The Web Planet' DVD has been delayed for a month. This is because of clearance and classification problems at the BBFC; the panel couldn't stop laughing long enough to write their report.

Tachyon TV can also exclusively reveal the final details for the long-awaited Doctor Who 2005 boxset:

• Commentaries on all the episodes by every single member of the production team, except the one you want.
• Billie Piper's home-movie sex video (with Chris Evans): 3 mins
• 'Thinking up Fart Gags' Featurette: 24 mins
• 'Keeping the Doctor Gay' Featurette: 24 mins
• 'Locating the Logo Designers (drama-documentary): 42 mins
• 'Andrew Pixely Stalks the Production Team' (poor quality shaky-cam): 90 mins
• 'Parting of the Ways' alternative ending when it wasn't planned like that from the start: 3 minutes
• 'Shaun Lyon has a lie-down': (a few minutes)
• 'Murray Gold drops some cymbals': (often)
• 'Jack Barrowman Gushes Uncontrollably': 1 hour
• 'Christopher Eccleston Interview': 37 seconds
• Deleted scenes: including the one where 'Bad Wolf' makes sense.
• All the BBC pre-publicity trailers and various crew appearances on a variety of naff chat-shows: seventeen hours over four discs
• Easter Eggs: 'Eccleston threatens to lamp Keith Boak' and 'Jack's Glorious Arse': (20 seconds each)
• TK Max Catalogue (PDF file)

Missing, Presumed Rubbish

The BBC have discovered two "missing" episodes of Doctor Who sitting in a cupboard at Television Centre.

The cupboard, which was "hidden" in a room called 'The Doctor Who Room - Beware of the Leopard', was found to contain two episodes from 'The Faceless Ones'. Bizarrely, fans are still said to be ecstatic.

This discovery (by a cleaner) is only marred by Ian Levine's recent admission that he left a copy of 'The Power of the Daleks' on a bus in the late 1970s.

To Boldly Go Into Virginity

Thousands of angry middle-aged Star Trek fans across America have stormed Universal Pictures offices demanding a refund after they'd sat through screenings of The 40 Year Old Virgin and were deeply disappointed and upset that the film wasn't a heart warming bio-pic of a Trek fan.

Reported by Damon Querry

News In Brief

• To celebrate the acquisition of 'Profiler', 'Code Name: Eternity' and 'Roswell', Sky TV have insisted that channel 130 rename itself 'The Sci-Fi Cancelled'.
• Nicol Kidman is to star in a remake of 'Invasion of the Bodysnatchers'. She will play a journalist who fails to notice that the inhabitants of a small Californian town are being taken over by aliens until it's too late, mainly because she's living in Cockfosters at the time.
• Michael Sheard wows mourners by signing autographs for over five hours at his own funeral! All science fictions conventions will now run approx 12% faster but, unfortunately, they'll be about 40% as much fun.
• William Shatner agrees to attend James Doohan's funeral after the church promises to perform the burial in half the time.
• Roger Corman is officially no longer the producer of the world's worst 'Fantastic Four' movie.
• Ricky Gervais will appear as second-Sontaran-on-the-left in series 2 of 'Extras'.
• 'V for Vendetta' is shelved because it could cause offence to the British public. Especially Alan Moore.

Reported by Tachyon TV and Steve Wilson