In a move which stunned many in the scifi community into numbed silence, Jay O’Connell was named by the BBC as the new Doctor Who, the 12th doctor in the long-running British SF franchise which is ironically enough exactly as old as Mr. O’Connell himself.
“First of all, I want to apologize to all the fans,” said a visibly distraught Mr. O’Connell. “I’m fifty. I’m baldish. I have no acting experience per, se. I’m a fan too, and had the same reaction you did when they called me. Really? I mean? Really?
“Another guy? Another white guy? another straight white guy? An old straight white guy who isn’t even hot? Wow. I mean. Wow.”
“But when I was told, that there would be no sexy co-stars this season, and the entire series would be shot on a shoestring budget as a nod to the show’s humble beginnings it started to make sense.
In a meeting with the show’s writer’s and producers, it emerged that many were sick of the fan’s demands that the Dr consummate his relationships with his many absurdly attractive companions, finally, for god’s sake, alien or no. Also, the endless ‘Love conquers all,” trope was getting a bit shopworn.
“Then it occurred to us… who inspires less sexual feelings, less sense that love conquers all, than a balding middle-aged white man? We knew we were onto something.”
Software designed to ferret out the individual least likely to inspire fan lust located Mr. O’Connell via his facebook page, and the rest, as they say, was history.
“You couldn’t have someone like Amy Pond fall in love with me,” Mr O’Connell said. “I mean, eww. People would hate that. Not to mention the actress. So I’m to be surrounded by robot characters made out of cardboard boxes.”
“Most of the seasons will be shot in a few deserted quarries, with the climax occurring in that brewery which JJ Abrams keeps using as the guts of the enterprise. We’re going old school. There will be big paper mache rocks. Stock footage of nazis. I’ll be wearing one of Shatner’s vintage toupes. Spaceships will have seating made from office chairs with wheels on them. We’re going to have models, real models, small plastic ones, hanging from fishing line with sparklers stuck in them.
My warddrobe will consist of my own set of aging, stained t-shirts and shorts. I’ll wear birkenstocks, and run oddly in them, in that way you have to run in birkestocks so they don’t fly off your feet.
“Birkenstocks are cool!” I might say, as I gasp for breath. I can’t run very fast. I have asthma.
In important scenes, my glasses might fly off, leaving me effectively blind. “Time out!” I’ll say. “I can’t see anything!”
I’ll engage in witty banter with my robot companions. “Good prostate morning,” I might say. “Pretty easy to get the stream going. Glad it still works after 500 years.”
In my first season, I will talk several computer based civilizations into self-destructing, I’ll defeat a matriarchy of women wearing steel brassiers, I’ll teach a hive mind the wonders of individuality, and I’ll travel back in time to create the universe, and then, travel back, and uncreate the universe. I’ll do this over and over again until I’d told by the robots to knock it off. I’m old! I’m 500! Who knows what I’ll do!
I will slaughter an entire planet of conservative republicans, and then realize, that ironically enough, this wasn’t the best way to handle this kind of thing. Remorse! I’ll travel back in time and stop the universe again. The robots will start it up and I’ll come back, wearing a different toupee, and new sandals.
“Vibram five fingers are cool!”
Don’t worry! I’m Dr. Who! I can never die!
And that’s a good thing!
Perfect.