For the Dr. Who Fans Out There...

...That is, those Dr. Who fans who don't mind a little British-style Naughty Humor....

So I was poking around these internets some time ago, and came across some story somewhere about a BBC-produced spoof of the older Dr. Who television series.

Now, back in the days when I still watched TV, I managed somehow to get hooked on Dr. Who. I knew a bunch of people in college who were into it, and they sucked me in. My wife probably saw more episodes than I did, but I did see enough to "get" it.

And part of the charm of Dr. Who is precisely that it is (was?) a low-budget affair, with props and sets that were made of cardboard, with special effects that rarely rise above the level of crude models and cheap camera tricks. But you know, the stories and episodes were fun.

Now being a TV-less household, and one that doesn't have time for much DVD watching, we don't keep up with the series anymore. I understand that they've relaunched and rebranded the franchise in the last decade or so. If so, I have no connection to the new stuff. But it's pretty apparent that there's still a fairly sizable fan base for the older series, even when it hasn't been burning up the airwaves much lately.

Well, back in 1999 the BBC put together a spoof entitled Dr Who: The Curse of Fatal Death. I'd vaguely heard something about this when it came out: it starred Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean, Blackadder) as the Doctor and Jonathan Price (Pirates of the Carribean) as his most dangerous recurring villian, The Master.

A couple of days ago, I discovered that the whole thing was on youtube.

Soooo... After my wife and I put the kids in bed last night, I got online, and we started watching.

And being big fans of the original series, we laughed ourselves silly. It is in fact a pretty silly bit of filmmaking, with a fair amount of slapstick and British naughty humor and Bill & Ted-type jokes thrown in, but they pulled it off beautifully. And it nails Dr. Who--the cheesy dialogue, the cheap sets, the contrived storylines, the running gags...

So, I thought I'd post it here for you, in the unlikely event there are any Dr. Who fans out there who haven't seen it yet (and who don't mind the occasional fart joke. Actually, these are pretty funny, so far as fart jokes go).

Here's the first clip:


And the second:


And the third:


And the fourth:


Enjoy. Or not, if it's not your thing.