Chapter 28
Going Home
The "Yemaya and Yemaya etc..." quote, coming to Chris's
head live from the Doctor's overloaded brain, is a mangled
misquote of the "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" line from
Macbeth. Yemaya 4 was the planet visited by the Doctor, Chris,
Roz and Benny in Kate Orman's novel Sleepy.
The most obvious ways to get the TARDIS down from the
dustweb are either to throw things at it or get a ladder.
Naturally the Doctor comes up with his own inimitable solution
- a sort of victory by provocation, entirely in character for
both him and the antagonised House. Result: Doctor 1, House 0.
The Great Hall at Lungbarrow is big enough for several
scenes to be going on around it at once. So in this section,
the spotlight keeps switching from one group to another as the
inmates of the House gauge their reactions to the Doctor's
revelations. Very theatrical in a "compare and contrast" sort
of way. You throw the Doctor into a bucket of water and watch
all his Cousins and their agendas bobbing and slapping about
on the spreading ripples.
The claw marks on the TARDIS paintwork were acquired on the
Trans-Amazon Express and belong to one of the Loups-garoux.
The Who production office had already rejected my two-part
storyline for a werewolf story during the Davison era. But why
drop a good idea when it might be useful one day?
There was a little bonding scene between Badger and Ace in
the original script, but redundant here. The start of it ran:
(ACE IS SHOWING HER JACKET TO BADGER. SHE POINTS TO ONE OF THE
BADGES.)
ACE: And this is Houston Space Centre. I haven't
been there either.
(BADGER STUDIES THE BADGES UP AND DOWN
THE SLEEVE. THEN HE LOOKS UP)
BADGER: (PROUDLY) Then you
are a Badger too.
(HE STARTS TO BOOM WITH LAUGHTER AND ACE
JOINS IN.)
ACE: Yeah. Both Badgers!
(THE DOCTOR SMILES
HALF-HEARTEDLY THROUGH HIS EMBARRASSMENT.)
