From "The Confusions" to "Dr. When"

WARNING: This is something completely off-track (but sort of original and hopefully amusing, if only slightly). BUT, unless you have more than just a passing familiarity with Doctor Who, and are familiar with the Beatles' and their lineup (including original drummer, Pete Best), you may find this whole thing somewhat annoying -- or worse, highly intractable. You have been warned, and there is still have time to escape. Still here? You're willing to go on with it? Well, it's all on you then. Here we go.... This whole thing started with a Michael Jantze quote (originally posted here):

Sometimes I wake up and don't know Who or What or When or Where. These are the members of that fab four: The Confusions. "Who" is the cute one, always searching for identity. "What" is the cynical one, forcing us to think about the realities of life. "Where" is the quiet one, the one thinking about place and places and where we're all going in life. And "When?" He's just back there keeping the beat, making the rest of us unaware of the magic of time.

I figured my coworker, Loki, would get a kick out of it. We throw things back and forth via Instant Message (IM) all the time. So last week, I sent him the text of the above quote. In an obvious referral to the last line, he responded, "It's Ringo, Master Of Time!" I laughed, but then inspiration quickly seized me. Before I knew it, I was filling our IM dialogue with the following:

Nah. Pete Best is the Master of Time. He gave up his drumming gig with the Beatles so that he could be a Time Lord. Oh, sure, Ringo claims that the other three fired Pete in favor of Ringo's skills. But Pete left on his own and became a Time Lord working with Doctor Who. In fact, ol' Pete is ultimately responsible for the Beatles conquering the world. Yeah, Pete manipulated their big break, arranged a few well-placed opportunities, and ... viola! .... the Beatles are "bigger than Jesus." And, get this ... His Time Lord title is ... Doctor Best? No! DOCTOR WHEN!

I can hear Loki's laughter wafting through the cube farm (er, office). His response to my revelation is: "Instead of a phone booth, make his TARDIS something like? hmm.....a parrot cage." To which I responded:

No, some really small car ... a Renault! That's right, his TARDIS is a Renault. It moves through time and space ... and space! I mean, over land. Once he's arrived, his TARDIS can travel across the countryside. (Albeit not too terribly well, particularly if there are no roads.)

I'm thinking I have a great pilot to pitch for the next Doctor Who revival.

TARDIS Console

Update: The content of this post was updated per comments from my e-pal Jessamyn, who knows nothing about Doctor Who and couldn't care less about it ... or this post ... but she was a real sport about it.


Copyright/Disclaimer -- Just in case anyone is actually reading this ... 

"Doctor When: Pete Best, the Beatles, and Dr. Who" story concept copyright by brainwise (that's me!) on this date (3-5-2005); Doctor Who and the TARDIS are owned by BBC television, etc., etc., so I need their permission in order to actually produce anything based on this idea; and Pete Best and the Beatles are real people, celebrities  but this is a work of historical/science fiction, so I think it is OK to have people portray them. At least on paper. Not certain what to do for TV/film. [Note to self, look into the copyright issues of presenting fictionalized versions of real people]. And, finally, "The Confusions" were mentioned by Michael Jantze ... and Loki sparked this insane story idea with his Ringo comment, so I have to give them both credit for the inspiration.