Halloween wine tale 2017: Dr. Who vs. the Daleks

This year’s annual Halloween post: Dr. Who and his brown-hatted companion must stop the Daleks from exterminating all the cheap wine in the universe

I was sleeping, which seemed like the best thing to be doing in the middle of the night, when someone nudged me. Hard. And then harder.

“Aren’t you up yet? We’re already late.”

I rolled over, reached for my glasses in the nightstand. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, with his too curly hair, too floppy hat, too long scarf, and the too annoyed look that I knew all too well.

“Some of us can’t negotiate the vastness of time and space without sleeping every night,” I said. “I’ve always wondered how you put up with that failing of ours, Doctor.”

“Sleep? Who was talking about sleep? I was talking about the gravest threat possible to the safety of the universe. Why else would I interrupt my holiday in Brighton to come get you?”

“I didn’t know you liked Brighton, Doctor.” I really didn’t.

“You’re missing the point!” and his voice rose and became quicker and faster. “This is the stuff of nightmares, of pure evil, a blasphemy toward all forms of life. It’s the end of time and space.”

That woke me up. The Daleks will do that.

•

The TARDIS was making its usual belching and whirring noises, and the Doctor was turning knobs and punching panels to make it stop.

“I don’t know why it does that every time I flip a blue switch,” he said. “I don’t even like blue switches.”

“Doctor, will you forget about the blue switches? What about the Daleks?”

He got up from the control panel, rearranged his scarf, paced around the TARDIS. “It’s Skaro.”

“Skaro?” I asked. “Didn’t we already do that? I mean, not we, me and you, but we, that is, you and Sarah Jane and Harry?”

“You’ll never understand space and time, will you? Just because we did something once doesn’t mean we can’t do it again. Or more than again. I think.

“Of course, to be fair to you, it took me three or four regenerations to figure that out. Or was it five or six?”

“Doctor,” I said, “but… what… about… the Daleks?”

He stopped pacing, turned, looked at me. “They’re back on Skaro. Or they’ve just gotten there. Whatever. And they’re being even more abominable than even they can be. It’s so hideous that I don’t even understand what they’re doing. And it’s not like I haven’t spent eight or nine regenerations trying to figure them out. Or is it 10 or 11?”

“Doctor!”

“They’re destroying every bottle of cheap wine in the universe. Gascon white blends, all those wonderful roses, Sicilian grillos, $5 Chiantis, cavas and crianzas from Spain. Everything. There isn’t a cheap bottle left in Tesco or ASDA, let alone in Aldi or Lidl.”

“Cheap wine? I don’t understand. What’s the point?”

“That’s what we’re going to find on Skaro,” he said, moving back to the controls. “Those blue switches are so boring.”

The TARDIS shook, shook again, wobbled, throbbed, bumped. The Doctor went through his pockets, walked to the door. “Aren’t you coming?”

Skaro hadn’t changed much – still the same rocky wasteland, fossilized trees, sulphuric rain clouds. One other thing hadn’t changed, either.

“Let me get my bearings,” said the Doctor, stepping out of the TARDIS. “Excuse me,” he said, as something approached him through the haze. “Is the Dalek capital city just over that ridge?”

“It is, Doctor,” said a metallic voice, and a squat figure rolled toward us. “We will take you and your companion to the city. And then you will be exterminated!”

•

“It’s always a pleasure to see old friends,” said the Doctor. “Would you like a jelly baby?”

“Enough, Doctor,” said the leader, as a dozen others rolled into position around us. “There is only one form of life that matters: Dalek life. Obey your orders and follow us.”

We started walking to the ridge, the Doctor and I surrounded by the Daleks.

“Remind me why I never quite seem able to destroy you?” said the Doctor. “I know I’ve had any number of opportunities over the years, but something always seems to happen, doesn’t it?”

“No power in the universe can stop the Daleks. Doctor. Not even the last of the Time Lords and his companion in the brown hat.”

At the top of the ridge, we could see the dark spires of the city. I shivered. “Doctor, I hope you have a plan.”

“No. It’s a thing, it’s like a plan but there’s more greyness.” And then he tripped on his scarf.

“Run,” he said, and I ran down the ridge the way we had come, trying to get to the TARDIS. The Doctor, meanwhile, kept tripping over his scarf. And then tripping over it again. And tripping over it some more. This kept the Daleks from hitting him with their beam gun bursts; in fact, several bursts hit other Daleks instead of the Doctor, and the ridge was littered with Dalek cannisters in various stages of disarray, the sound of “You will be exterminated” echoing down the valley.

I stopped short, out of breath, looked around. But I didn’t see the TARDIS, and I must have lost my bearings running down the ridge. I didn’t see anything except more rocky wasteland, and the sulphuric clouds were moving my way. How nice: Escape from the Daleks only to run into an acid rain storm.

Except, of course, I hadn’t escaped.

“You will be exterminated,” said a Dalek, who had come up from behind me while I was looking at the clouds and wondering if the Doctor had ever had a plan that had worked. “But first, we will use you to exterminate the Doctor.”

•

The Dalek city seemed eerily familiar, which shouldn’t have been possible since I hadn’t been there before. On the other hand, maybe I was finally catching on to this time and space thing. Maybe it was familiar because I would be there again. Which made me shiver.

I was locked in a room that seemed to have steel walls, no windows, and no door. There was a speaker and view screen built into one of the walls, though, and the voice coming through it was too familiar.

“You will be exterminated, Doctor, but we will spare your companion if you surrender immediately.”

I banged the steel walls, but all I did was bruise my hand.

I saw the Doctor in the view screen, though he was flickering in and out. And then the Doctor’s voice: “Trust a Dalek? Trust a Dalek? Trust a Dalek? Hummph. I learned not to do that even before my first regeneration.”

“Then your companion will die,” said the Dalek, and the ceiling of the room started moving slowly to the floor. “In 12 minutes, your companion will be crushed and his remains recycled to aid the Daleks’ unstoppable conquest of the universe. You have that long to decide whether you want to prevent his death.”

Lovely, I thought, and I could hear the ceiling lowering itself in my direction – too quickly in my direction. There’s a first: a companion pancake.

“All right, I’ll surrender,” said the Doctor. I started banging the walls again, screaming, “Doctor, no, you can’t. You have to stop the Daleks.”

“Very well, Doctor. Walk slowly toward us.”

Which he did, and I watched the view screen in horror. The Doctor, his image flickering, walked toward the Daleks, who were revving and circling around him, their shouts of “You are the Doctor! You are the enemy of the Daleks!” resounding with what seemed to be a machine-like glee.

But he wasn’t stopping. He just kept walking, and the Daleks kept revving and circling, and I just kept watching. “Doctor.. slow down.. they’ll blast you.”

And I then I heard a high-pitched whirring sound, and the door to my cell opened. “You don’t have to shout,” said the Doctor.

•

“What?” I was so surprised I couldn’t move.

“For someone who is always asking me if I have a plan, you don’t seem very happy when I do have one,” said the Doctor. “Are we going to get out of here, or do you want to stay and let the Daleks catch us again?”

“How?”

“I finally figured out what the blue switches on the TARDIS do,” he said. “They control the holographic generator. At this moment, the Daleks are chasing a holographic me around Skaro. Their depth perception has never been very good.”

We moved down one corridor, then another, through a third, and then one more. We saw a single Dalek standing guard in front of a double doorway. The Doctor walked toward him.

“Could you tell me where the control room for your conquest of the universe is?” he asked.

The Dalek whirred to face him, leveled its blaster arm. Then I heard the sonic screwdriver again, and the Dalek stopped and almost sighed. “Brilliant,” said the Doctor. “One of those chaps from the states taught me that – a Dalek neck pinch.”

The control room was lined with view screens and computer consoles. On one screen, the Daleks were still chasing the holographic Doctor.

“Now, where is what we’re looking for?” The doctor sat at a console, started punching buttons. “There it is,” and a Dalek, wearing a sort of purplish casing with the letters W and S on it, came on the screen.

“To all Daleks everywhere,” said the figure. “This is only the beginning. We will prepare, we will grow stronger. When the time is right, we will emerge and take our rightful place as the supreme power of the universe! We must destroy all the cheap wine in the universe!”

And then, somehow, we heard a huge roar – not just from the Daleks on Skaro, who had stopped chasing the Doctor’s holographic image, but from everywhere there were Daleks: “We obey!”

“I don’t think I meant to do that,” said the Doctor, and he started punching buttons again. “Where are the blue switches when you need them?”

“Are you telling me you did this, Doctor, that you turned on that purple Dalek?”

“Well, actually, no. It was already on. I just made it possible for it to communicate with every Dalek in the universe. It was cut off from the rest of the Daleks, locked away behind several very powerful force fields. I’m not sure, but I think I locked it away when I was here before? Or maybe I’ll do it when I’m here later?”

The Doctor kept punching buttons, but he couldn’t stop the voice. It was growing stronger – so strong, in fact, that the Dalek who had been guarding the control room was reviving.

“Doctor, it’s not locked away now. Do something, before the Dalek outside the door figures out we’re in here.”

The Doctor kept punching buttons, but to no avail.

“First, destroy the cheap wine,” said the voice. “And then, wine drinkers won’t know what to drink. They will be forced to listen to critics and their scores and ratings. But who has taken over the critics? Who has taken over the Winestream Media? Who will tell them what to drink? And then who will tell them what to eat? What to wear? How to live? How to serve us!!!!!!”

The untold millions of Daleks screamed as one: “We are Daleks. We will control them. It is our purpose! It is our destiny!!!!!”

“Now I know I didn’t mean to do that,” said the Doctor. He took out the sonic screwdriver, started touching some of the controls, and then fell off his chair while rolling under the console. I heard the screwdriver stop and start.

“Ah,” said the Doctor. “That’s much better.”

The figure on the screen started to fade. “No, this can’t be happening. Hear me, Daleks… ” But the voice was growing fainter, and the image was fading. “Destroy the cheap wine.. destroy.. destroy.. destroy….” and then the screen went blank.

The Daleks, without the voice, seemed numb. The one in the hall started moving in small circles, but not going anywhere, just circling and circling around itself.

“All locked up again,” said the Doctor. “Remember how I did that, so you can remind me how I did it when I have to do it again. When I’m here next. Or before.”

•

The TARDIS was belching and whirring, and I could feel the evil that was Skaro falling away from us.

“So the universe’s cheap wine is safe, Doctor?”

He unscrewed a bottle of rose from the Luberon in France, and poured us each a glass. “I’ve been hearing a lot about this place called the Hamptons. Is it like Brighton?”

I took a sip of the wine, realized how well made it was, and understood that there was still cheap wine to drink. The Daleks had been defeated.

“I’m not quite sure the Hamptons is ready for you, Doctor.”

“Why not? Don’t they like bow ties?”

A tip o’ the Curmudgeon’s fedora to the BBC’s Dr. Who, which started some 50 years ago as a children’s show but has become so much more. And an especial tip to the late Elisabeth Sladen, whose Sarah Jane Smith – the ultimate Dr. Who companion – still makes me smile.

For more Halloween wine tales:
• A Halloween wine tale 2016: Kolchak
• A Halloween wine tale 2015: I am Legend
• A Halloween wine tale 2014: Frankenstein