What you could find at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Chatham before the hysterical screams of "DELETE THIS CRAP!" and the interference of Ben Chatham's creator got it deleted...
Ben Chatham is a fan-created companion character by the one-time poster "Sparacus" on the American Doctor Who fan website forum, Outpost Gallifrey. He was 'portrayed' by Adam Rickitt, an actor who Sparacus greatly desires appear in Doctor Who. Despite the mixture of contempt and apathy from the few fans who knew of his existence, Sparacus insisted the character is both popular and canonical and pretended that Big Finish were interested in making adventures for him. Ben 'existed' from June 2005 to April 2008 and has been described as "to Doctor Who what Jack the Ripper is to Women's Rights".
Character History
"Sorry Ben, I don't just take the best - I take the frankly mediocre as well, but you're such an insipid, obnoxious twat you shouldn't even be inflicted on Middle England, let alone the whole of Time and Space!" - The Tenth Doctor (attributed)
Initially, Benjamin Sebastian Chatham (pronounced "Chay-theem" apparently) was born in 1982 to Daphne and Alistair Chatham. Daphne was senior librarian at Magdeline Library while Alistair was a professor of ancient history at Cambridge. Later, Sparacus revised the origins of Ben, making his middle name James, having him born on June 18 1980 (despite the fact Ben is 25 in 2007). Sparacus also changed Ben's parents to Davina (editor of an international journal for orchid growers) and James (a conductor with the philharmonic orchestra). Despite this, it was later revealed that Ben was not an only child, but had an elder sister Nicola Annabel Chatham - known as Nikki - who became addicted to drugs and promiscuous (much the same way Ben developed). Ben's father tried to cope with seeing "his little girl turn into a lowbrow slut" before she left, driven out by Ben envious of the attention she was recieving. She made several attempts to contact the family, but Ben destroys her letters automatically, assuming she wants money for drugs. When he sees her in a rehab clinic, he ignores her, even when she tries to talk to him and ultimately lets her die. There is inherited manic depression and suicidal tendencies in the Chatham line, which apparently explained Ben's lack of concern for the fate of his own relatives as they tend to die rapidly anyway. Ironically, it was Ben himself who succumbed to this, attempting to get so drunk on red wine he will be brave enough to slit his own wrists (but, alas, is unsuccessful... on the first attempt. In the final story, Ben was infected with a lethal virus and chose to be executed quickly and cleanly rather than have a long lingering exit - ironically, minutes before a cure was found.)
Ben became introverted and ashamed of his homosexuality which he rather unlikely claims is due to his upbringing by "stern" parents (who had no problem with Ben's flamboyantly gay uncle Harry) and, which he hides from them to this day. He once pretended to come out to emotionally blackmail a boyfriend who dumped him, and has never spent any time with his parents 'on screen' - indeed they seem to avoid him. The Chatham family motto is apparently Marc Aimait Prendre La Graisse De Porc Des Bouches Des Autres Hommes ("I Have A Hunger That No Amount Of Beans Could Satisfy"). The Chathams lived in the Vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire near the Salisbury Plains site. This, and trips to Stonehenge, Avebury and West Kennet Long Barrow inspired Ben's love for archaelogy. A holiday in Athens in 1994 lead a young Ben's fascination with Ancient Greek mythology, in which he showed no interest ever since.
Ben attended King Edward VI preparatory school in Berkshire, followed by Marlborough School. He achieved a first class with honours at King's College Cambridge in archaelogy (a fact he continually boasts about and believes earns him automatic respect), and became a trainee in the field. He was a researcher with the Cambridge Archaeological Trust and lives at 14A Lime Tree Court Cambridge.
Ben claimed to play the violin, piano and guitar but shows no evidence of this. However, he spent most of his time listening to the works of "classical artists" including Radiohead, Morrissey, David Bowie, ABBA, Philip Glass, Stravinsky, Webern and The Pet Shop Boys (it is not a coincidence Sparacus also rates these artists highly). Ben also enjoyed the theatre (amateur dramatics) and "fine literature" - and despite his claims to be a great science fiction fan, rarely read it or showed any imagination. Ben had a love for ancient and medieval history, with a special interests in the Knights Templar. He did not understand the concept of an xbox, his favorite film was Silent Running and he fancied Orlando Bloom and Jude Law. He was an alcoholic, and regularly drank himself asleep at night. Later in his adventures, he discovered Fox's Glacier Mints, breath mints which appeared to be incredibly powerful hardcore hallucinogenic drugs - he often rendered himself so calm as to be comatose by taking one of these, and others who tried the mints complained of 'visions' and often passed out. Ben was also an incredible snob and disapproved of anyone in the lower classes who he believed were automatically unable or unwilling to better themselves. He had no sympathy for chavs, though what he defined as a chav changed quite a lot. Indeed, as a selfish, materialistic layabout called Chatham, Ben himself qualified as a chav.
Ben claimed to have skinny-dipped with Rose, the Doctor and a Lethargian Oxoid in Rutland Water, shortly before he left the TARDIS (the two incidents may be connected). Ben has also had several romantic entanglements. In the Sparacus stories, Rose Tyler fell completely in love with him to the point where Ben found her obsession stifling and broke off the relationship and left the TARDIS. He is bitter about this and (incorrectly) believes Rose merely saw Ben as a chance to improve her social standing and escape her council estate origins. He also had a male lover at university called Steve Best (who was the one that seduced Ben with a carbon dating essay), and after Steve's death tried to seduce his grieving girlfriend then, the next day, Corrine Shaw. He later became obsessed with Charles Broxby who did not return the same intense feelings and later, seemingly dumped him. He now spends his time with the crude, homophobic Katie Ryan, who wishes to 'turn him straight' - triple timing her with a Scottish teenager called Jamie and Jake Simmonds. He later fell in love with an Oxford history graduate called James who dateraped him, and then was eaten by a giant rat. Ben next fell for Carl, another graduate who turned out to still be in the closet and dumped him for 'acting so obviously gay', then an emotionally vulnerable woman called Tara, before trying to conquer his inhibitions and sleep with a lower class mugger called Kyle. His latest conquest was an emotionally-vulnerable young aristocrat named Anselm, who was involved in a doomsday cult and thus perfect for Ben to seduce, but ditched him after a week and refused to respond to texts, then came back, two-timed him and then dumped him yet again. Ben also tried and failed to seduce Robin Hood by insisting that Maid Marion would never be faithful to him, and was also turned down by his own doppelganger, a Manchester dole bludger called Nik. His final attempt at a boyfriend was to steal the lover of his father's French mistress, but Ben perished before Piers could dump him or truly discover what a horrible person Ben was. Some believed Piers was Ben's half-brother, adding incest to Ben's freakishly-long list of vices.
The character of Ben Chatham first appeared in one of Sparacus' short synopses for potential Doctor Who episodes. The first of these was named The Christmas Invasion and, though it was set after The Parting of the Ways and purported to feature the newly-regenerated Tenth Doctor, shared little with the genuine episode by Russell T Davies. The Doctor and Rose in particularly held him in high regard. He remained with the Doctor for a further fourteen 'episodes' before departing off-screen to return to his life at Cambridge. The Doctor later sent Ben the gift of a K9 unit (something which only happened in the official canon once, in K9 and Company). After three solo adventures, Ben encountered the Doctor again and this time he was accompanied by a ludicrously out-of-character Martha Jones. Ben continued for several more solo adventures before rejoining the TARDIS yet again to become similarly held in high esteem by Donna. After a season of adventures, Ben quit the TARDIS to see a Bowie concert, and remained living in Cambridge with a succession of one off lovers. He later, in undisclosed circumstances, temporarily rejoined the TARDIS crew, but simply used it as a means of transport from Cambridge to Wales and Manchester, since he has no interest in the unhygenic past or the uninteresting future. In 2010 at the time of the General Election, he was killed off for real and given a state funeral - ostensibly for services rendered.
Ben often removed his shirt in stories, often on the flimsiest of pretexts to allow Sparacus to describe his 'smoothe' chest, often with more detail than the rest of the plot. Since getting his own spin off adventures, Ben often showered and was sent into danger stark naked on many occasions.
Sparacus requested Ben Chatham (and Adam Rickitt) join Doctor Who, suggesting that School Reunion could easily have been written to introduce him as a new male companion in place of Mickey Smith, and he should have played the character of Jake Simmonds in the Cybermen episodes of Series Two. The continuing lack of Adam Rickitt in Doctor Who lead him to speculate that the current production team have an agenda to keep Rickitt out of the show, but now believes Rickitt is more concerned on his political career. Nevertheless, he claimed Ben Chatham is a massively popular character - more so than other non-TV companions like Bernice Summerfield, Charley Pollard or Frobisher the penguin. Moreover, he believed that his works are canonical and that the Doctor Who production team should alter their production in order to fit his vision. When Sparacus wrote to Doctor Who Magazine demanding more coverage of Ben Chatham, he considered the reply from the editors ("Er, who?") as a request for more information of what was clearly a brilliant invention.
All criticism of these works is usually ignored by the author who, rather than actually address the problems, prefers to say "Anyway, moving on!" or "Untrue!" in the hope that they'll go away. Sparacus maintained that the concerns of his critics carried little weight when compared to the thousands who read and enjoyed his stories but prefered not to comment on them - his thinking being that because only a dozen or so of the 17,000-odd Outpost Gallifrey members ever critiqued his work, the others would have all read and enjoyed the stories (in his own words, 'silence indicates acceptance or agreement'). This was not the case.
These non-existent fans (or 'silent majority' as they have come to be known) never made themselves heard.
The Sparacus Season
(Sparacus maintains the following series of stories occurs between the Christmas special written by RTD and New Earth. An unwritten adventure ostensibly occurs after Goodbye Is Never Easy where Jackie is revealed to be alive, her death faked by aliens for unexplored reasons. He later conceded that the events of Series One to Three completely contradicted the season, but that as they were only 'first drafts', his point still stood.)
2.0 - The Christmas Invasion
This story sees the Tenth Doctor and Rose arrive in a small rural village called Little Balcome on Christmas Eve to discover a series of violent, bloody murders seemingly committed by the Devil. They also meet Ben Chatham, who has discovered that an alien spaceship is built underneath the town church. The ship is crewed by Lucifarians, alien beings who resemble the mythological devil and have been inexplicably masquerading as the Radon Corporation, trying to buy land around the church for unknown reasons. Rose falls in love with Ben. The Doctor activates a control in the TARDIS, causing the Lucifarian ship to explode, killing the aliens and destroying the church. The Doctor invites Ben aboard the TARDIS, ostensibly because he is impressed with the young man's education and culture but, others suggest, mainly to keep Rose happy.
2.1 - War & Peace
The TARDIS is drawn off-course and arrives at Stonehenge where an archaeological excavation is underway. Two parties of school children arrive, one from Sloan Comprehensive in Dagenham and the other from the private school St Anselms. A strange boy named James uses a hand-held device to turn the school children violent and they start attacking each other. The only teacher to escape this affect is the St Anselms' Head of History Sarah Jane Smith. The fighting suddenly stops as the Doctor arrives and greets Sarah. Ben learns from the radio that fighting has broken out across the world, and the TARDIS crew decide to go to the local hotel rather than investigate. Strange lights are seen at Stonehenge and Ben decides to investigate with Rose in tow. The boy James is revealed as a half-human alien spore using the powers of Stonehenge to trigger wars on Earth that will destroy mankind and leave the planet for aliens to invade. The Doctor, Sarah, Rose and Ben "combine their mental powers" and reduce James to "a stream of cosmic energy" and banish him to his home planet.
Inspired by information that Elizabeth Sladen would be returning to the show as Sarah, War and Peace was heavily criticized for the idea that Sarah would become a history teacher despite her lack of interest in either history or children. Since Sparacus is a history teacher, it is clear this is a weak bit of transference on his part.
2.2 - Fool's Errand
In order to show Rose the future of space travel, the Doctor pilots the TARDIS to a space freighter in 6455. The ship's crew have been killed by a virus and in short order a group of space pirates lead by the eccentric Bannam arrive. They work for the company that sent the ship and wiped out the crew so its cargo could be looted and then the ship's insurance claimed. However, before the pirates can carry out their plan they start to vaporize. The company is a front of the non-corporeal gaseous alien Zelans who use the cargo to become real and murder the witnesses. The Doctor and Ben decide to leave the Zelans to carry out their plan as, despite Rose's protests, they 'are not righteous avengers.'
The cop-out cowardice of the Doctor in this story was jeered at, as was the strong similarity between the Zelans and the Gelth (gaseous aliens in the television story The Unquiet Dead).
2.3 - The Love Generation
The TARDIS crew decide to visit the 1969 Melstock Festival of Love and Peace in rural berkshire. Although Rose is delighted to visit the past and see rock legend Matt Vacant, Ben is disgusted by the ugly hippies and the music not being as good as Will Young. Ben and Rose head off to "get into the 60s free-love spirit" and find a mutilated girl's corpse - Sue Spandex, Matt Vacant's girlfriend. Although the police are called for they do not arrive, and the Doctor realizes the band Valhalla are not wearing lizard people outfits but are reptillian aliens called the Cressells. Although the evidence points to Vacant being the murderer, the Doctor realizes the entire concert is an elaborate trap set up by the Cressells to brainwash the audience and turn them into foot soldiers for the Cressells. Ben suggests the Doctor to "loop-land-materialize-drive" the TARDIS and wreck the festival's electrical system. This foils the Cressells' plan and when the audience storm the stage, they flee.
According to the synopsis, Matt Vacant was to be played by James Blunt and Groovy Jake by David Crosby. This story also shows Rose as behaving in a far stupider and bigamous manner to her TV counterpart, flirting with the entire male cast of the story.
2.4 - Starman
The Doctor lands the TARDIS in Cornwall so Rose and Ben can visit an archaeological site there, only to learn it must close because of an expansion of the Farnwell Nuclear Power Complex. Sea animals are being found dead and the power station staff are seen kidnapping people. The Doctor and his companions break into the complex via the TARDIS and find Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart is there, now retired and head of the local council's planning committee. Despite the Doctor's protests, the Brigadier agrees to let the plant owner, Andrews, expand the complex. The TARDIS crew turn to a group of environmentalists lead by Adam Mitchell, a former companion of the Doctor who has had a 'change of heart'. (This is almost as hard to believe as Adam being in 2005, a full seven years before the Doctor abandons him in The Long Game). Adam organizes a protest, allowing the Doctor to break into the complex and discovers Andrew is a space pirate intending to use the nuclear power plant to recharge his space ship with the ultimate aim of conquering Earth and exploiting its natural resources. The protesters break into the complex and Andrew flees, only to be eaten by one of the mutated sea creatures the plant's pollution has created.
This was, until the release of Death in the Cloisters, the most hated of Sparacus' authored stories. In particular note was the poor characterization of the Brigadier, the paradox of Adam's presence in 2005 not to mention his different personality, and the fact the plot was clearly based on RTD's Boomtown despite Sparacus' continual condemnation of the episode. Unsurprisingly given the title, Andrews would have been played by David Bowie.
2.5 - A Time For Love
The Doctor removes the implant from Adam's head and allows him to rejoin the TARDIS crew. They go for a holiday on a near-deserted island off the coast of New Guinea. That night, Rose has a nightmare of Ben murdering her mother Jackie and, after further visions, demands to return to London to see her mother. Jackie (who bafflingly does not recognize the Doctor) is alive and well, and Rose breaks the news to Mickey she never loved him the way she loves Ben. The Doctor, Ben and Adam go to a wine bar then return to New Guinea to discover that an alien psychic energy (a Phalanx) has taken over Rose. The Doctor can only cure her by forcing her to look into the TARDIS's Eye of Harmony, and transferring the Phalanx in Jackie's pet hamster, who the Doctor then crushes underfoot, insisting the sacrifice was necessary.
The poor reception to brutal murder of defenceless hamsters later prompted Sparacus to suggest it was really a spider in disguise. Despite the fact other stories insist RTD's Christmas Invasion is considered canon, this story shows Mickey and Jackie have not seen the regenerated Doctor before.
2.6 - Loyalty Binds Me
Ben wants to know if Richard III really did murder the princes in the tower and the Doctor pilots the TARDIS to 1483 London to discover the answer. Arriving behind the old Saint Paul's Cathedral, the TARDIS crew (dressed in medieval clothes) follow the Duke of Buckingham inside, and the Duke offers the crown to the Duke of Gloucester, Richard III (who does not have a hunchback). A fortune teller called Wise Nellie wants Ben to beware a humble figure, who Rose deduces is Richard. Using the TARDIS, the crew enter the Tower of London and are immediately captured and thrown into a cell containing the son of the Duke of Clarence. The prisoner explains Richard is being manipulated by those around him, perverting his good intentions. The TARDIS crew escape and Rose, mistaken for a foreign princess, is kidnapped by Buckingham so he can marry her. The drunken Duke reveals his evil plan to set up Richard to take the blame for the death of the princes and then discard him in favor for Henry Tudor. The TARDIS crew attempt to stop this happening, but fail. Ben uses the TARDIS to warn Richard about his future, but is ignored.
Richard was credited as David Sylvian, while the Duke was "played by the actor who plays Chris Finch in The Office". Exactly why the Doctor allows Ben to continually attempt to change history is unknown, or why he cares so much about Richard III in the first place. Sparacus later claims that his plot was stolen by the Big Finish story The Kingmaker by Nev Fountain, despite the fact that The Kingmaker had been written and recorded months before Loyalty Binds Me emerged from Sparacus' brain. Also, Loyalty Binds Me's plot was based on Justin Richard's Sometime Never....
2.7 - World on the Edge
Rose wishes to visit another planet and the Doctor pilots the TARDIS to the verdant planet of Zetar 3 in Andromeda. The TARDIS crew emerge to find, despite the neolithic natives, a large futuristic domed city. A strange futuristic tank chases the crew and some blonde men in gowns. Hiding in cave, the men reveal that they are part of the Crell tribe who are being hunted down by the tank-like harvesters who are run by the dog-like alien Vishtars. The TARDIS crew attempt to break into the city and are captured and placed in a cell with another prisoner - Captain Jack Harkness. Adam frees the others as the Vishtars examine Jack's new spaceship and unwittingly set off the self-destruct mechanism. The entire city of Vishtars (and presumably, their Crell prisones) are wiped out and Jack agrees to rejoin the TARDIS.
This story was originally titled World on the Edge of Forever, a homage to the Star Trek episode City on the Edge of Forever. Much criticism was recieved for the casual genocide, and the increasing gender imbalance of the TARDIS crew.
2.8/2.9 - Hospital of the Damned/Fire & Judgement
Returning to present day London, Rose and Ben go to see Jackie while the Doctor, Adam and Jack go for a walk. A bitter Mickey explains Jackie has been rushed to Albion Hospital with a suspected brain tumor. Odd events are occuring at the hospital and so the Doctor, Adam and Jack pretend to be hospital staff and discover the mysterious operations are being carried out by Professor Bernard Starr who plans to implant control chips into patients' brains and use them as suicide bombers to wipe out all power stations in Britain, forcing humanity to abandon technology. Conveniently, Adam overhears this entire plan and the revelation of Starr's brain implants is provided by the alien, shape-changing Cragora who have infiltrated the hospital staff and promptly attack the TARDIS crew...
Rose manages to defeat the Cragora by covering them in fire extinguisher foam. The Doctor, Adam and Jack escape to the TARDIS while Ben and Rose stay at the hospital with Jackie and are taken prisoner. The Doctor contacts Brigadier Harry Andrews of UNIT and gets them to attack Albion Hospital, and in the confusion, uses the TARDIS to enter the hospital to rescue Ben, Rose and Jackie. Starr activates the brain implants but UNIT destroys the hospital, the Cragora and lots of innocent patients, preventing the plan from being carried out. The Doctor sadistically breaks Starr's faith in the Cragora by revealing their evil intentions, and insists the slaughter of the innocent patients was - like the hamster - for the greater good.
This story is the final in a trilogy of two-part stories set in Albion Hospital. Once again, events are said to be occuring in 2005, nearly two years before The Christmas Invasion, which they are set after. Jackie's terminal brain tumor is based on the death of Joyce Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, leading many OG posters to accurately predict Jackie's demise in the season finale. Sparacus later claimed the Cragora were involved in the Time War, as if that justified the plot.
2.10/2.11 - Not Alone/Child of Destruction
The TARDIS crew are enjoying themselves in London, when the Doctor senses someone nearby is attempting to travel in time. Ben wishes to visit his old university professor Bernard Levinson, but finds he is working with physics Professor Simon Crenbourne to build a time machine to allow them to go back in time and murder the baby that will grow up to be Adolf Hitler. As Crenbourne is sent back into the past, hee is revealed to be a regenerated Master who survived the Time War by escaping into another dimension. However, upon returning to the presnt the Master begins to evaporate and so intends to survive by summoning the Reapers - and to do that he has given Levinson the chance to change human history by murdering Hitler...
Adam and Jack rescue the Doctor, Ben and Rose and they travel to Braunau Am Inn in Austria during the spring of 1889 to investigate the nearby kierkeller where Ben's "superior knowledge" allows them to locate 'old Shickelgruber', Alois Hitler, who is returning home to beat his wife Klara. The TARDIS crew catch Levinson before he can strangle the baby Adolf, and the Doctor insists the baby is innocent and cannot be killed in revenge. Levinson backs down, having given the Hitler family a grudge against the Jewish people. Returning to the present, the Master realizes he is foiled and disintegrates.
The title to the first episode was based on what is widely assumed to be the last message of the Face of Boe to the Doctor: "You are not alone." At the end of this story, the Doctor is. The story opens with Doctor insisting "one of the key laws of time" is not to change things, a lesson Ben doesn't seem to have realised (nor the Doctor appear to have enforced) in his attempts to save Richard III. The Master/Simon Crenbourne is credited as Martin Kemp. Rose is shown to be both incredibly stupid and envious of people with intelligence. Sparacus refused a modern spin on this involving the September 11 disaster on the grounds it would be "tasteless".
2.12/2.13 - Web of Lies/Goodbye Is Never Easy
Jackie has successfully had her brain tumor removed, and Ben and Rose are dropped off at the estate to spend some time with her. The others head to Scotland as Adam wishes to join the protests against the genetically-modified food research company Nantento Plant. Arriving in Rossyle Morach, the trio encounters a dying rabbit that is able to speak and begs to be killed. Heading for the nearby village, the Doctor learns the village rarely receives visitors as they have been scared off by the sight of 'silver knights' stalking the moors, and leaving lots of dead animals around. The Doctor and Jack decide to join Adam at the protest and they break into the plant as Adam and other environmentalists are allowed in to negotiate with the plant's director, Robert Bloch. The Doctor and Jack are captured and dragged to the controllers of the company - Cybermen...
The Cybermen have somehow survived the Time War and reveal they have tampered with GM food so any humans that eat it will transform into mutants, causing chaos and allowing the Cybermen to conquer the world, then convert the mutants with nanogenes. These have been provided by Van Statten (having survived the events of Dalek unscathed, but also having miraculously moved several years into his own past) who has allied himself with the Cybermen because of his hitherto-unmentioned hatred of mankind. The Doctor saves the day by ringing up UNIT and getting them to attack the complex. In the confusion, the TARDIS crew head back to 1944 to collect all the nanogenes used in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances and use them to reverse all the damage the Cybermen has wraught. As UNIT attack, the Cybermen flee and Van Statten commits suicide. Back at the estate, Ben is disgusted at Jackie's lower class ways and how she is getting paid to test GM food. As animals go on a rampage, Jackie collapses and is rushed back to hospital. She has suffered a blood clot following her cancer treatment and dies that night. Emotionally shattered, Rose decides to remain on Earth, leaving Ben and the others to travel on in the TARDIS.
No one was surprised at the death of Jackie, who Sparacus regularly complained was a chav unsuitable to appear in Doctor Who. Eco protestor Paul Nicholls is credited as playing Alistair Vaughn while Billy Connelly is Robert Bloch. Despite this bleak ending, the next story ignored it entirely and this is not Rose's departure story but is the depature for Adam and Jack.
The Shadows of Christmas
Adam and Jack have left the TARDIS to join up with Torchwood, and the Doctor, Ben and Rose travel on alone. Arriving at the Powell Estate, Rose plans to remove Jackie's possessions from her flat when Mickey's sister Sheena arrives (he is an only child in the TV series). Sheena blames Rose for Mickey having a nervous breakdown and joining a cult known as the Shadows of the Lord. The TARDIS crew head for the local community centre to speak with the cult recruiter, a man named Jules, as various people in alleyways are wiped out by a mysterious dehydrating force. Jules proves to be no help, so the crew use the TARDIS to travel to the cult's headquarters in Langnoc Grange. There they meet Isaac and a cold, uninterested Mickey who does not want to leave. The crew head back to the TARDIS when one of the cultists is attacked and fatally dehydrated by a black shadow. The Doctor uses the TARDIS to materialize in the cellar and, after stealing some rare wines, the Doctor and Ben discover a strange brainwashing device...
This story is unfinished.
Bizarrely, the Doctor knows all about Torchwood and supports the operation, even having it on speeddial on his mobile when he childishly decides to keep Harriet Jones in the dark about the cult, but inform UNIT and Torchwood instead. Bernard Hill plays Isaac and Joe Absolom plays a monk who dies before he gets any dialogue.
At some point after this, Ben and Rose go to Paris and split up. Jackie is found alive and well and the Doctor and Rose continue their adventures in New Earth while Ben returns to Cambridge. The lack of references to Ben are, according to Sparacus, a fault of the production team rather than him.
The Ben Chatham Spin-Off Adventures
1 # Operation: Delta
1: New Age
"Put down the phone - you are both under arrest!"
At his flat, Ben is getting drunk when his old friend Steve Best rings him and begs to see him urgently. Ben ignores this and the next day, Steve's girlfriend phones him and reveals Steve has been stabbed to death. Ben evenutally decides to investigate the murder scene and meets Corrine Shaw, one half of the organization known as Operation Delta with the exact same remit as UNIT and Torchwood. For some reason she tells him everything she knows about the murders and mysterious events happening there. After a car chase, Corrine introduces Ben to Paul Farraday, her superior. Ben leaves unimpressed and, after insulting the owners of a local bookstore, then heads to barrow where some hooded figures beat him up. He awakes in hospital where Corrine and Paul are desperately worried about him. Returning to occult bookstore, Ben and Corrine find the owners and a cat lying dead. The local police inspector Peniman arrives and arrests them.
2: Power of Illusion
"Do you think we murder our own earth brothers and sisters?"
Since the police have absolutely no evidence to hold them, Ben and Corrine are released. They go to Paul and get drunk, musing the bookshop owners were part of a neo-pagan cult called Sons of the Dawn. The next day, Ben goes to see Professor Scott, a member of the cult who ignores Ben's accusations. This makes Ben weep. Meanwhile, Corrine has a hallucinogenic episode and passes out. Paul crashes a car when he sees a figure covered in fur. Ben goes home and has a shower and is then attacked by a gun-wielding creature with nine fingers.
3: Labyrinth
"Hello? Carly?"
Corrine and Paul escape the exploding car, go to their flat, get drunk and 'succumb to their desires' rather than contact their superiors. This does not impress Steve's girlfriend Carly who demands they investigate Steve's death. Meanwhile, the naked, hallucinating Ben awakes in a meadow. There he meets Corrine, who drives him to the nearby Birchwood house to meet Carly, but it is deserted. Wandering off alone, the still-naked Ben gets locked in a room and freaks out.
4: Mindbender
"The fact is that I believe that Operation Delta is involved in a covert plan to convince the authorities and locals here that Wiltshire is awash with alien abductions, strange phenomena of all manner of description and general craziness."
Peniman finds him in the room and gives him a dressing gown and some more alcohol. Peniman reveals that he believes the unusual happenings here are all a hoaxe and Operation Delta is an unwitting part of it. Ben pig-headedly refuses to believe Corrine and Paul could have tricked him, but decides to stay with Carly who promptly tries to seduce him. Ben instead reveals he slept with Steve during university. Upset, Carly runs out into the night. Paul starts speaking in tongues. Ben decides to look for Carly and eventually discovers her mutilated corpse.
5: Dark Shadows
"Hello again collegues. It seems we are about to come to the end of your tern of employment..."
At Corrine's flat, Paul reveals that Mickey Smith provides Operation Delta with most of its intelligence and indicates Ashtar Electronics, who are sponsoring the the dig, have made advances in technology with alien assistance. Ben decides to visit the company tomorrow. Tricking their way inside, they are promptly captured and thrown in a cell until the leader of conspiracy arrives. It is John Prentice, the head of Operation Delta, and ruler of the cult that now runs Britain thanks to a mixture of hallucinatory drugs and alien technology - with the monsters actually animals injected with alien DNA. The incompetent Paul and Corrine were employed solely because they could not threaten his master plan, and so plans to sacrifice them tonight. Ben is stripped naked, thrown on a sacrificial stone and Prentice moves to slash his throat...
6: Nemesis
"The new golden dawn awaits and you will all perish like vermin - ha ha ha ha ha ha."
At the last second Sarah Jane Smith and K9 arrive and stun all the cultists, allowing Ben, Corrine and Paul to escape. Sarah reveals she was informed by Mickey about the events and came to the rescue. The next day, Ben explains the situation to UNIT and gets them to deal with Ashtar Electronics. Corrine seduces Ben and insists that Rose took advantage of him. K9, and UNIT defeat Prentice and Sarah and Paul agree that Ben was the one that saved the day. The next morning, Ben prepares to return to Cambridge and everyone sings "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow".
Paul Farraday is played by Michael French and Corrine Shaw by "Karen from Corrination Street". Part four was written in script form, and the ending was totally rewritten to show paganists in a better life after several posters complained about the crude and sinister stereotyping. Despite the fact he met Sarah in War & Peace, Ben has no idea who she is in this story. Also, Mickey cannot have warned Sarah because he left Earth after they first met and never returned. The penultimate cliffhanger lead to all eleven readers requesting Ben die. They were ignored.
2 # Doppelganger
1: Shadows of the Past
"Well I'm blown - I've not seen anything like this before. No idea what the Dickens it is. And no idea what it's made of. And it seems to have some kind of gadget attached to the inside so its not an artifact."
Ben recieves a parcel sent to him from a friend called Genna Miles, having found a strange helmet during construction work at the college where she works. Ben does not recognize the type and so sends it to his former teacher, Professor Sir Archibald Broxby (after he has a shower). At King's College, Ben meets a Broxby's son, Charles, and falls in love with him immediately. When the old Professor arrives and does not recognize Ben, Ben starts to cry. Broxby does not recognize the helmet either and wanders off. Ben reluctantly leaves Charles to meet Genna, get drunk and listen to Marc Almond. That night, Charles arrives with the police to reveal that Broxby has been brutally murdered and the helmet has been stolen.
2: Hidden Dangers
"I'm not involved with the English Archaeological Preservation Trust for nothing. I'll simply threaten them with legal action if they carry on..."
Ben is more upset about Broxby's death than his own son. He, Charles and Genna get drunk and Ben vows to use his links with the English Archaeological Preservation Trust to threaten the college with legal action unless he allows Ben to investigate. This will put Genna's job at risk, but Ben doesn't care then decides complain to the local council, who ignore him. Meanwhile, Genna and Charles are kidnapped. Ben is unconcerned and instead heads for the college and tries to blackmail the Principal, who takes Ben to the construction site. Ben takes off his shirt, looks around, and then a JCB fills the hole in the ground, burying Ben.
3: Conspiracy of Terror
"How dare you accuse me of making this up - I saw them change. I have a first from Cambridge - you don't respect me do you?"
Ben climbs out of danger and beats up the driver of the JCB, causing him to transform into a silver-suited green-skinned alien. Ben runs to the Principal and begs him to help, and the Principal changes into a green alien as well. The burial was just meant to scare Ben, who tries to tell Charles and Genna, but they don't believe his tales of green alien shape changers. The Principal reveals himself as Zentar of the Zeton Empire, sent to Earth to hunt down notorious and ancient war criminal Kracos who tends to possess a society's leader and trigger self-destructive wars. Ben announces that Kracos has possessed George Bush.
4: Power and Lies
"I do think that the President looks strange - and he never seems to string a logical sentence together."
"Can we have the salt please?"
Ben, Genna and Charles go to dinner. Ben decides to simply warn the Prime Minister Harriet Jones and Paul Farraday and let them sort it out. The next day, birds attack the trio and although Charles and Genna are nearly killed, they are both too concerned about Ben, who they have simultaneously fallen in love with. Kracos appears to have the power to control animals. Arriving at Downing Street, Harriet Jones listens to their story and believes them. However, it is discovered that Harriet Jones is the one possessed by Kracos, not George Bush.
5: Love & Danger
“Well that settles it - we have only 2 days to save the President of the USA from either assassination , duplication or both."
Returning to Cambridge, Ben has a shower when he is attacked by cats. He survives, but in the attack his brand new towel from Harrods was ruined, making the fight between him and Kracos so much more personal. The Principal/Zentar rings up Ben when he is attacked and eaten by wild dogs. At a loss, Ben rings Operation Delta and gets no answer. He rings Rose who reveals she is now back with Mickey and they are currently fighting Cybermen. The Doctor takes the phone and insists that Harriet Jones must be possessed by Kracos, hence her casual murder of the Sycorax. Ben announces they must save the life of George Bush.
6: Revelation
“Charles...look I really want to be with you but...she looks good on my arms and my parents...well they’d approve of her...”
Zentar and his allies arrive to save Ben and the others, despite the fact Zentar was killed by dogs in the previous installment. Ben Chatham rings UNIT, who believe his wild story simple because of who he is. Meeting with Colonel Brixby-Hunt, the group are attacked by Kracos who transforms into a bullet-proof Lovecraftian squid monster. It is about to consume Ben when his aftershave, Ocean Musk, proves lethal to Kracos who dies. Zentar vows that Ben will be worshipped by the Zeton Empire, and the real Harriet Jones wants Ben to meet George Bush and be publically thanked for saving the whole world. That night, Ben reveals he is really gay and only hangs around with women to keep his purititanical parents at bay. The story ends with Ben and Charles consumating their 'evil' relationship.
Martin Kemp played the Principal, and Mark Benton plays the unhelpful man with the computer. A super computer called Urac and a woman called Genna appear in this story, a crude reference to Blake's 7. Despite the Doctor's actions in the televised Christmas Invasion, Harriet Jones is still Prime Minister, and her cowardly actions are entirely down to alien influence, one of the more blatant retcons in this series. There is also the suggestion that Ben can ring alternate universes during the events of The Age of Steel. The ending was rightly decried as pro-homopbic and numerous alternate endings were suggested where Genna discovers the truth and beats Ben to death.
3 # Earth Span
1: Shadows and Impressions
"They often shriek - it is important to ignore this. Would you like a nice cup of tea and a homemade scone?"
At the tate modern, Ben has a strange vision of medieval knights. He is more worried about Charles's lack of despair when he learns Ben is off to a Saxon burial site for the next month. Ben is disgusted that Charles is not more upset about this. The next day, he heads for Tellbury and takes up residence at a bed and breakfast run by the bizarrely formal Margot. There are also a boy and girl that threaten to stab guests and hurl abuse at him until Margot shouts a spell at them and they become polite and friendly. Later that day, Ben's car breaks down and he is attacked by a medieval knight on horseback.
2: Sign of the Cross
"This is irregular. I find it strange."
The knight vanishes before he can harm Ben who immediately starts scrumping for ripe blackberries. He is found by Katie Ryan, the project manager of the Saxon burial site. There they meet the local vicar who insists that disturbing the site will allow the forces of evil and an army of knights to emerge into the world and trigger the apocalypse. Ben is the only person to listen to him, but isn't interested. In an attempt to impress Katie, Ben tells her all about his life in the TARDIS, but she is more interested if he is single as she believes no gay men are capable of fidelity. Ben storms out, resisting her attempt at seduction, and returns to the hotel to find a crate has been left there for him. Inside is K9 mk five.
3: Deadly Experiment
“Look I’m paying to stay here, surely this entitles me to decide what to have for breakfast. And I wasn’t going to say but all of this is swimming in grease - it looks disgusting.”
The Doctor has apparently sent Ben a K9 unit because it is capable of carbon analysis and all archaelogical knowledge on Earth. Ben complains to Margot about the breakfast and when the children start throwing cutlery at him and saying they hate him and want to die, he decides to leave with his robot dog. Katie is organizing the popular TV archaeology program Windows to the Past to do a show on the Saxon site and Professor Martin Brysdale insists the nearby Techfield Research Centre is being very suspcious and unhelpful, which is causing more anti-vivisectionists to attack them. Ben ignores this and goes to lunch, passing a bleeding man insisting that the research centre is evil and 'Blunt must be stopped'. The man is then kidnapped in a van and Ben wanders into the pub to tend the cut lip he got in the fight. The landlord in the pub has the same pedantic manner as Margot and abruptly transforms into a strange monster which attacks Ben.
4: Into the Laboratory
“So let me get this clear; you travelled with an alien in a time machine who sent you a robotic dog which claims that there are creatures roaming around the area which are half-human half-animal and one attacked you in the pub toilet?”
At the last moment, K9 kills the monster and announces the creature is a strange hybrid of various terrestrial animals. Ben goes to Katie for help but she doesn't believe him and so Ben has K9 wreck her house to prove his story. Katie deduces the 'Blunt' the man mentioned is Colin Blunt, Managing Director of TRC. The trio break into the centre and find tanks containing distorted humanoid shapes suspended in liquid.
5: Conspiracy of Terror (not to be confused with Doppelganger: Conspiracy of Terror)
"I take an animal and augment it with the DNA of a human being. I won’t bore you with the details but the process - Enhanced DNA reproduction augmentation- is unbelievably difficult."
Katie screams at the sight, attracting security guards who capture them. They meet Colin Blunt and all have a drink. Blunt explains he plans to cure the "illness of original sin" and reduce mankind to the state of animals and elevate Earth to the Garden of Eden. Using alien technology, Blunt is creating new animal-human hybrids superior to all other life. Blunt intends to use Ben to get the Doctor and use the TARDIS to change history, by sending the new animals into the past and save the Earth. Unless Ben cooperates, Katie will be infected with cancer.
6: Rage and Deliverance
"Arm a tiger with a developed brain & guns and it will go on a killing spree.”
Ben points out the animal hybrids are unstable and the plan won't work, but Blunt ignores him. K9 (having gained the ability to fly) smashes through the window and stuns Ben's captors. The trio flee and Ben rings UNIT HQ and tells them to attack TRC. Ben is more concerned about Charles, who has switched off his mobile. Blunt releases the hybrid animals and Ben sends K9 out to kill them. Blunt arrives with a gun and is about to kill them when Katie punches him. The UNIT Commander arrives and all three get drunk and marvel at how Ben has saved the world again. Katie seduces Ben, this time successfully.
This is the first and only appearance of K9 in the original BCSPOAs, immediately being forgotten. Ben reveals he admitted his homosexuality to his parents, just for Charles' sake - another hasty addition to the plot when the audience turned nasty. Many of the complaints at how female characters were portrayed in the story lead Sparacus to write about new companion Martha Jones as a strong character he believed the audience would like...
Death In The Cloisters
(This is not a BCSOA per se, but rather a proposed story for Series Three, however it occurs in the same continuity)
Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is trying to get on with his snobbish, alcoholic and very aggressive companion Martha Jones, who eschews the chance to travel through time and space and instead return to Cambridge. Arriving there, they meet Ben Chatham who is about to investigate an archaeological dig near a monastery a few miles away. After arguing mindlessly, Martha agrees to join them. Immediately they are attacked by men in black in a car, which the Doctor forces off the road, causing it to explode. This is never referred to again.
The trio arrive at the monastery of Benedictan monks where they are forced to dress up as two monks and a nun respectively. There the Doctor meets Jake Simmonds, who has been sucked into this reality by some fearsome extra-dimensional monster. This is never referred to again. The Abbot warns the TARDIS crew about attacks from the Black Monk, an evil ghost said to roam the monastery. They ignore him, despite the fact the Black Monk repeatedly attacks them and then forces a passing teenage girl to fall off a tower and die horribly in a greenhouse. Katie Ryan arrives to visit the archaeological dig and flirt with Ben. There is an explosion.
The Doctor deduces that the extra-dimensional beast is an alien criminal called Gravas, who has escaped from his prison and is possing the bodies of cats which Ben then kills with his bare hands. The group then decide to have dinner and complain at the quality of monastic food before realizing it contains severed human fingers. The Doctor announces that the Abbot himself is Gravas, who then kills some monks before the Doctor feeds him a jelly baby. Gravas dies from poisoning. Ben takes the credit for this because he thought the monk food was terrible. Martha demands to be taken to the cultured Greek Islands.
Despite stiff competition, this story is without doubt the least enjoyed of all Sparacus' work. The characterization of 'Spartha Jones' (as she was dubbed) and Sparacus' insistance that his vision of the character was worth more than RTD's, created more mockery and jeering than the original Ben Chatham adventures altogether. The continual digs at Rose Tyler and 'uncultured' societies being left to rot were not unexpected.
Halloween Special: Witchbone
Ben spends Halloween alone, getting drunk and watching horror movies. He refuses to give sweets to trick or treators and shouts abuse at them to leave him alone. The children respond by leaving the severed head of a cat on his doorstep. Horrified at the thought there might be Satanists abroard, Ben meets up with Katie and they flee into the woods. There, Katie reveals she is a vampire and kills Ben...
...however, this was all an absinthe-induced nightmare.
Bafflingly, the working title for this was "Firestarter". The ending recieved much derision until it was pointed out it implied that ALL of Ben's adventures had been part of the same nightmare. Tragically, this proved not to be the case.
Bonfire Night Special: Firestarter
Ben recieves a phone call from Torchwood begging him to investigate a mysterious fireball heading for Cambridge. He ignores it and goes to bed. Katie arrives and seduces him. When it finally becomes clear Ben feels nothing for her, she storms out. Ben sobs. Meanwhile, a being composed of living fire storms Cambridge, destroying buildings and killing hundreds. Ben is too busy pining over Charles. It rains and that destroys the fire being.
Words alone cannot describe the sheer venom it was felt for this story.
Valentine's Day Special: Crimebuster
Ben tries to stop a bank robbery and discovers the lone robber was an android. He is kidnapped by goons and dragged to the wheelchair bound Alistair Miles who offers Ben a drink and explains the android is the next phase of organized crime: robot criminals. Ben escapes and returns home to find Charles, who calls him a boring obsessed loser who was crap even at sex. Charles dumped him months ago, but has only returned to demand Ben stop Katie from sending him abusive phone calls. Furious, Ben picks up a book and throws it at Charles' head... but he misses and strikes the robot bank robber. The indestructible robot collapses just as Torchwood arrives. Ben takes the credit for stopping the robot.
The readership gave up at this point, despite the interesting characterization of Ben (in particular his refusal to get drunk when mysteries were afoot).
Christmas Special: Dark Yuletide
A strange power failure strikes London on Christmas Eve and Ben meets in short order, Operation Delta, Katie and Jake Simmonds. It appears that some kind of massive disturbance is occuring at Glastonbury, as if something was materializing from another dimension. Everyone gets drunk and Ben seduces Jake while Katie shouts homophobic abuse at them both. Then, a liquid metal UFO and a Dalek appear... but these are just illusions. A bearded man calling himself Merlin appears and explains that he is the cause of all of this. He vanishes. The others return to getting drunk and the next day, Ben spends it alone watching TV before having dinner with Jake, who promptly dumps him.
The parts of the story counting as plot are wholesale stolen from the last series of Stargate and directly contradict Battlefield. K9 makes his second appearance, in one scene where Ben ignores him.
Stangeness (sic)
(This is not a BCSOA per se, but rather a proposed story for Series Three, however it occurs in the same continuity)
Following the events of Death in the Cloisters, Ben decides to drive to Scotland with Katie to visit his uncle (or rather grand-uncle) Harry, who lives near the village of Stange Ness. Katie just wants to visit the "new seahenge monument" for its archaeological import. That night, the car crashes in a ditch. Ben is furious as the rain will ruin his ridiculously expensive jacket. Walking the rest of the way, they find another parked car with a couple seemingly having sex in it. Ben voyeuristically peers inside and finds the couple are not having sex but dying from gunshot wounds. The woman dies mumbling about Strange Ness electronics. Heading for the Stag Inn, a deserted local pub, Ben and Katie decide to get drunk and forget about the murders. The landlord, Angus McGannon rambles insanely about the howling wind causing people to disappear and monsters are seen near 'Loch Crag', but Ben and Katie just think he's insane. Ben's uncle Harry conveniently enters at this point to collect French absinthe (as, like all Chathams, Harry is a morbid alcoholic) who takes Ben and Katie to his estate and pass a group of identical bald men in white pyjamas. Katie suggests this is odd, and Ben decides to contact the Doctor and get him to sort it out - but Katie refuses on the grounds she wants Ben to herself. Ben ignores her and forces her to drink absinthe. She then sees a face staring at the window and freaks out.
The TARDIS materializes nearby and the Doctor and Martha arrive, unimpressed that Ben needs their help and they promptly leave. Ben takes a bath and flirts with the servant Jamie who just happens to share Ben's love of Bowie and booze. Katie walks in to to find a naked Ben chatting with the dark-eyed Scotsman and is disgusted at his wavering sexuality which she believed turned Harry into 'an obvious, sad old poof'. At that moment, two armed MIBs enter the house, shoot Harry and (allowing Ben to get dressed) drag away Ben and Katie. The Doctor and Martha, understandably, do not get involved until all the weapons and sinister men have left and it is safe. Ben and Katie are driven to Stangeness Electronics and meet the eccentric Simon Brett, son of the Professor Brett who built the original WOTAN in 1996. Simon Brett has constructed a new plasma-screen (but just as idiotic) version which intends to conquer the world and replace all of humanity with cyborgs. Ben yells and stamps his foot and WOTAN instantly brainwashes him, but Ben is faking. Fleeing the complex, he encounters some strange humanoids in the loch and runs away.
The Doctor and Martha speak with Jamie and travel to Stangeness Electronics in the TARDIS and capture the hypnotized Katie and return to the mansion. There they meet Ben, who caught a lift from a gay 50-year-old Scotsman called Hamish who gropes him a lot. As Hamish was a close friend of Harry, Ben does not tell him about Harry's death. The Doctor muses over the situation and tries to sleep with Martha, who refuses. Meanwhile, Ben seduces Jamie with some bagpipes and luckily the frequency of the music jams the brains of all the attacking Cyborgs. The Doctor smashes Brett's head against a mantlepiece until he is dead. Then, UNIT arrive to 'deal with everything' and the resident Brigadier makes a long speech congratulating Ben Chatham.
Although ostensibly a sequel to 1966's 'The War Machines', Stangeness (sic) has proved the least enjoyed on OG with all bar one poster demanding Sparacus stop writing these - the crude stereotyping of the Scottish even worse than Web of Lies. It was widely assumed that watching The War Machines and the anticipation of new tv series 'Torchwood' has done untold damage to Sparacus' brain - as proved below:
Showing of the ‘diversity’ of Ben, Sparacus has also started writing an adventure which sees Ben getting involved with Torchwood...
Alien Seed (Set during(!) Everything Changes)
Ben rings up Torchwood, disturbing the staff's various sexual activities, telling them to go to a disused warehouse off Cliff Street. After killing an 'alien' (a small furry creature with large eyes, most likely another hamster), Jack, Toshiko and Suzie are about to engage in an orgy when two ‘Men in Black’ enter the warehouse and thank Jack for killing Xrexl, a war criminal intent on taking over the galaxy. Toshiko has her suspicions about the MiBs.
The three return to Torchwood HQ (disturbing Gwen and Ianto), but before Toshiko can research further on the MiBs, a pulse hypnotises the team and cracks open a specimen jar. The jar contains a tall, blond, muscular alien, which then starts choking Suzie. Just then a phone rings, breaking the team from their trance. Jack answers the phone, while the Suzie and Toshiko lust after the alien. It's Ben on the phone; he's on his way to the Tochwood. The alien is taken to the cells and Ben arrives with information. Before he can tell them, Suzie and Gwen begin having sex (something that disgusts Ben), but Ben carries on and tells the rest of Torchwood that Operation Delta has learnt that aliens disguised as MiBs are trying to add the Earth to their empire. Jack swears...
Sparacus' attempts to involve the Torchwood cast are somewhat hindered by the fact that he began writing this story several days before seeing any complete episode of that series. This story is, as yet, unfinished. Hopefully it will remain so.
Harvest of Evil
(This is not a BCSOA per se, but rather a proposed story for Series Three, however it occurs in the same continuity)
Ben drops Katie off at a retirement home to recover from the mental strain of being taken over by WOTAN. Three weeks later, he checks on her and discovers she has vanished and the staff claim never to have heard of her. Determined to prove himself right, Ben breaks into the home and pesters a senile old lady who claims all 'useful' people have been kidnapped by lizards. Ben flees when security guards arrive, and accidentally runs over Nick, a patient from a rival rest cure. Ben tries to seduce Nick by calling him "flakey". It doesn't work.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Martha are enjoying a health spa on an alien planet. Despite Martha's disapproval of constantly rushing to Ben's aide, the Doctor cuts short the month long holiday and returns to Earth at Ben's request and tries to break into the retirement home by faking Martha as a patient. Ben discovers that the Limes Clinic is sponsored by a noted television historian and the Doctor suspects that Katie is dead. Meanwhile, Martha explores the silent rest home and finds, in a locked basement, a sleeping man from the time of the Crusades who suddenly awakes.
This story is so far unfinished, however, in order to compose a DVD cover for a competition (the belated prize was revealed to be a free copy of the story if the BBC ever released it - ie, nothing), the story was given a resolution by several readers:
it is revealed the Limes Clinic actually holds hundreds of Crusaders in suspended animation, being revived by draining the life forces of the Clinic's patients. The Doctor reverses the process and restores the patients to life while the Crusades wither and die. Katie is found and reveals she is pregnant with Ben Chatham's child. Nick ditches Ben and the distraut amateur archaeologist is left alone as Katie demands he marry her and give up his bachelor life style. As the Doctor and Martha leave in the TARDIS, Ben shoots himself dead.
The readers declared the ending "true canon" and that Ben Chatham was dead. Sparacus declared the winner of the competition the author of the ending, presumably making it official. There was then a drought of further Ben Chatham stories written, suggesting the character was well and truly dead. Tragically, this was not the case.
The Season 4 Pitch
Sparacus abandoned his ongoing attempts to chronicle Ben's adventures, and returned to claiming creative superiority over the rest of the english-speaking world. The outline was made for his own thirteen episode season, attempting as ever to shoehorn Ben Chatham into an acceptable version of events. The ongoing story arc would involve a man named Stephen Poole who exists in numerous time periods, not unlike Scaroth in City of Death, or Captain Jack Harkness.
4.1 Fields of Death
Teaming up with Donna Noble and Ben Chatham, the Tenth Doctor investigates the savage deaths of anti-genetic-modification protestors. It transpires they have been consumed by aliens called Xanto Worms, so the Doctor slaughters them with incense (the smell being lethal to the worms).
4.2 Dissolution
The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Ben and Donna to an abbey as Henry VIII orders all monasteries destroyed for his own ends - specifically financial ones. Ben and Donna help some monks escape, but the Doctor forbids them from doing anything else.
4.3 Road Rage
Returning to the present day, the TARDIS crew encounter more savage deaths of anti-roadworks protestors. It transpires they have been consumed by living vegetation. Ben calls in UNIT to destroy the vegetation. They do so. It turns out Stephen Poole, the man running the New World Enterprises company from Fields of Death is the same man who was conning Henry VIII in Dissolution. Nothing comes of this.
4.4 - 4.5 From the Depths/Reptilian Dawn
After visiting Norwich Cathedral for a pointless lecture on Gothic architecture, a mad tramp leads the TARDIS crew to Hunstanton where the NWE has been illegally dumping chemicals in the sea. This has annoyed the Sea Devils and together with the Silurians attack Hunstanton. Ben calls in UNIT to destroy the monsters, but the NWE flood the town with nerve gas and kill everyone in it, before telling UNIT that they own the media and can do what they please. The Doctor decides to let them get away with it.
4.6 Cavaliers
Attempting to reach Torchwood Three, the TARDIS instead arrives during the English Civil War, where the crew discover the boy prince Charles II in hiding and about to be betrayed to the roundheads thanks to Poole. The TARDIS crew kidnap Charles II and take him to safety in France.
4.7 Acorn Man
Ben and Donna are tormented in a strange nightmare world where a scruffy young man with bad teeth chases after them, saying he is "the Acorn Man". Suddenly, Ben and Donna awake in the TARDIS to discover it was a dream. The Doctor explains they were being attacked by the UK's leading expert in black magic and the TARDIS lands at the magician's house. He is dead, and the TARDIS crew stand around uselessly as Stephen Poole runs away from the house. The Doctor decides to let him get away with it.
4.8 The Imperfect
Ben demands to see the aliens that inspired humanity according to von Daniken. Arriving in Andromeda, the TARDIS crew discover a Big Brother-style society of oppression. The Doctor meets some rebels and uses a computer virus to overthrow the rulers of the planet.
4.9 - 4.10 The Rats of Tenbury/Lair
Ben demands to see a Saxon burial site. Going there, Ben discovers a lecturer of his has died in mysterious circumstances, gets drunk, and picks a fight with a barman who has a degree and ends up sleeping with him. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Donna discover NWE has dumped chemicals and created a race of giant man-eating mice that go on a rampage, killing most of the UK population and Ben's new boyfriend. With UNIT and some nerve gas from the TARDIS, the rat plague is stopped but the new Prime Minister refuses to let the public know about NWE's part in the disaster. The Doctor decides to let him get away with it.
4.11 Conscience
Prime Minister Deerman takes an overdose of pills and whiskey, and as he dies his life flashes before his eyes including the deal he made with NWE. One Deerman is dead, the TARDIS arrives in his office.
4.12 Cyborg
The Doctor attempts to use the TARDIS to head for the NWE base, but it arrives off course at a nearby farm where Ben meets a stablehand who has a degree and falls in love with him. The farmers stage a protest against NWE and the corrupt police beat up the protestors while Ben watches on intrigued, and the Doctor and Donna scale the fence and enter the building. There they discover the computer running the whole operation is BOSS from The Green Death who was rescued by the Meddling Monk, now regenerated and calling himself Stephen Poole. He explains he survived the Time War by entering another universe and has returned, bringing back an army of Cyberman. It is their intention that BOSS will take over the world and allow the Cybermen to convert humanity, and in the meantime the Cybermen are running around the countryside wearing cloaks and shooting livestock with laser guns.
Seriously, that's what happens in this episode.
4.13 All Things Must Pass
The Meddling Monk leaves Earth to its fate when a strange wave of psychotic violence overcomes the human race, and the Cybermen and BOSS are destroyed in minutes. The Doctor tracks the source of the madness to Silbury Hill, and is accompanied by Ben, Donna and Martha Jones (the latter two indulging in a violent cat fight). An alien race who inspired humanity (who AREN'T the Andromedan Elians from The Imperfect) have left a race memory to destroy their technology should the Earth become too polluted. The Doctor uses a tuning fork and shuts down the process. Ben takes full credit for the success and abandons the Doctor to shack up with the stablehand and go to a Bowie concert. The season ends with Bowie personally thanking Ben for saving the entire world and flirting with him.
The End. Thank fucking Christ.
The Ben Chatham Annual 2008
After an abortive start to the previous annual, its sequel was the usual collection of stories and comic strips except all the stories were just summaries and the comic strips were computer drawn. The content focussed on Ben after leaving the Doctor in All Things Must Pass.
1: The Living Picture
Ben goes to visit Carl's parents and discovers he is still in the closet due to his homophobic relatives. While there, faceless wraiths emerge from portraits and murder the maids and Ben texts Torchwood and the Doctor for help. Via phone, the Doctor explains the creatures in the paintings are the indestructible Seers and then seals them into the walls of the house. Ben has a tantrum at Carl and then runs away.
2: The Sun Goblet of Sacrosan
Ben is magically transported to an alien planet by the sorcer Chiang, who wants Ben to take an army of hot young men in quasi-Egyptian garb on a magical quest to collect the all-powerful Sun Goblet. Despite all credibility, Ben succeeds, which annoys Chiang since he was hoping Ben would panic and text the Doctor for help, so Chiang could steal his TARDIS. Chiang is then killed by a totally random bolt of lightning, and Ben is instantly returned to Earth as if nothing had happened.
3: The Zranti Beast
The first ever full length comic strip, this story sees a former fellow student of Ben ring him up and beg for help. Ben dismisses it as a prank, and the next day discovers the student has been burned to death. Visiting the crime scene, Ben meets the student's distraut girlfriend, and together they discover a completely pointless intergalactic microwave transmitter the student was building has unleashed a deadly energy creature onto Earth. After letting it slaughter half of London, Ben reverses the polarity of the transmitter, destroys the creature and seduces the berieved girlfriend. This story introduced two new and very important elements to the Chatham canon - his love for Fox Glacier Mints (which act as hardcore hallucinagens) and his vintage antique car, the Chathamobile (from the comic strip, which had a special end sequence where the girlfriend brutally stabs Ben through the heart after he tries to seduce her.)
4: The Zombie Kids of Death
Katie Ryan inexplicably returns to plague Ben, and together they go to a local college where Ben is holding a lecture on archaeology. The unimpressed, stereotypical yobos that are the students are then transformed into flesh-eating zombies by wierd energy that explodes out of televisions and projectors. As half of London is slaughtered, Ben and Katie hide in his appartment and get drunk. Finally, all the zombies wander into football stadiums to be harvested by strange aliens. Ben, having once encountered a similar but completely different alien race in World on the Edge, texts UNIT, who fill all the football stadiums with senile pensioners. The harvesters refuse to collect the elderly and leave. Ben gets lots of adoration.
5: The Cult of Quexecostal
Refusing to spend any time with the various girlfriends he's acquired through the annual, Ben goes on the pull at a gay disco and meets a straight woman called Chiara and a young man called Milo, who turns out to be a cultist worshiping the alien bird god Quexecostal, who intends to suck the life out of Ben. Chiara, who is stalking Ben, follows them to Milo's apartment and kung-fu-kicks all the cultists and smashes the Quexecostal statue to pieces, saving the universe. Ben STILL gets lots of adoration.
6: The Lindig Valley Mystery
(This story was intended to be a comic strip, but no one would draw it) Ben decides to stalk Katie for a change and, together with Chiara, heads to Cardiff where strange monks slaughter offensive Welsh stereotypes with laser eyes. It appears that a Z-named alien has convinced a local monastery that its is the fish-faced reincarnation of Jesus, then calls in its alien battle fleet to wipe out half of Wales. Ben texts UNIT and gets them to use anti-fish biological warfare to kill all the aliens. Katie is certain that Ben is flirting with Chiara, despite the fact Chiara is the only person in known history he HASN'T tried to sleep with.
7: The Lords of Ancrazar
A four-part epic. Ben is mugged by a hoodie-clad thug called Kyle, and together they are kidapped by a strange medieval alien race who based their entire culture on the Knights of the Round Table, and wish Ben to pretend to be their King so they can reclaim their planet Ancrazar. In order to appeal to Ben, they offer him a woman to marry, but he refuses and when the Knights' enemy storms the castle, Ben and Kyle (or "ASBO boy" as Ben calls him) escape using a teleport, leaving the Knights to be killed. Ben takes Kyle to a wine bar to show him how civilized people live, and then arranges a seemingly pointless trip to "Torchwood Tower".
8:Nemesis
Starting off as a parody of Douglas Adams' Shada and Dirk Gently novels, this story shows the irritating love triangle of Ben, Kyle and Katie discovering a strange 'android replacement' scheme underway in Cambridge University, aided by Professor Hoffman, a secret Nazi supporter. After pointlessly heading to Cornwall, the trio discover several mutilated corpses and a Nazi base containing the cryogenically frozen Hitler, which Kyle accidentally revives. Hitler and Ben get on surprisingly badly, Ben escapes, contacts UNIT who arrive to destroy the Nazis just as the alien owners of the cryogenic capsule arrive to attack. The Nazis destroy the aliens, defeat UNIT, before more UNIT troops arrive. Realizing he's beaten, Hitler teleports to an unknown destination to become a recurring villain.
The story is notable for the cameo of OG poster Leonard Hatred who appears at the end of the story, spills a drink on Ben, gets shouted at by Ben and then molested by Katie after being told Ben is gay for the six hundredth time. This was a reward for Hatred, who "cast" Rory Jennings as Kyle. Every single reviewer noticed that the plot was a line by line plagiarisim of a Tomorrow People story. Sparacus ignored them.
The "2009" Ben Chatham Specials
In order to mirror Doctor Who's hiatus in 2009, Sparacus announced he would pen three specials in 2007. This news was met with the same enthusiasm of testicular cancer. The specials were linked to the BC Annual via some 'exclusive' blog short stories even briefer and more pathetic than the usual standard, indeed Sparacus managed to get the WRONG NUMBER of specials. This would prove to be the last of his work to appear on Outpost Gallifrey or his blog.
Halloween Special: The Curse of the Vampire Skull
Ben and Katie are in a car when it crashes. After insulting Katie's driving skills, Ben heads into the nearby woods to get help and finds a maggot-covered skull and a vampire. He is attacked by a wolf... and suddenly it was all a dream and there was noone there. Ben goes to a Little Chef.
Bonfire Night Special: Mirror, Mirror On The Wall
Ben awakes from a nightmare about the Nimon of all things, to then be suddenly sucked through his bathroom mirror into a strange void. He sees images of Kyle and Katie in torment and then a golden being claiming to be the guardian of dreams. Ben announces this is a plot by the occult to kill him and wakes up in his apartment, telling Kyle (who he has forced to sleep on the sofa) to text Katie. He has decided he must rejoin the TARDIS...
Special 1: The Ben Chatham 2007 (sic) Christmas Special - Winter of the Lost
A sequel to Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Winter of the Lost begins with Ben getting corrupt bribery from a landowner to deny any archaeological evidence on his land that can prevent his garden construction. Getting Katie and Kyle to do the hard work while he sucks up to the aristocracy, Ben meets Kylie Minogue and, despite the insults he throws at her, immediately falls in love with him. Ben, however, has sex with Anselm Ashford-Ashworth on the river (who Ben has only just met). Anselm explains he is a member of the Cult of the Sun, a group intending to reverse history on Christmas Day back to the Iron Age. Ben immediately joins up, so in love with Anselm, is he, and discovers that the cult leader is Mike Yates (a truly ridiculous development to anyone who knows the history of the character). Rapidly changing the plot to avoid more complaints, Sparacus reveals Mike was merely the unwilling dupe of Kylie Minogue, the true leader of the evil cult, who in turn was quickly revealed to be a shape-shifting alien. Ben, Kyle and Katie escape, are recaptured and then Katie shoots Kylie through the head screaming "Die, bitch!" and is stunned when it turns out it wasn't really her. Ben announces on absolutely no evidence whatsoever there is ancient alien technology built under the nearby hill and decides to get UNIT to sort it all out, while he, in a moment of shocking generosity, proposes a toast to someone other than him for saving the whole world. As the story ends, Anselm is now Ben's new lover and Kylie is on Top of the Pops.
This story's plot twists and turns in reaction to the complaints of the audience. When they complained that Kylie Minogue was being treated poorly, she became first the villain of the piece, then a passing alien shape shifter and not the real Kylie at all. Similarly, when Mike Yates - the last person who would ever be involved in a doomsday cult - was introduced, it was quickly revealed that he had been brainwashedand was not responsible for his actions. Like many, many BC stories, the title is meaningless.
New Year's Eve Special: Wolf
Ben prepares an expensive and alcolohic party where Professor Halbutt arrives and begs for Ben's help since he knows the phone number for Torchwood. Apparently a mummified skeleton has transformed into a giant wolf-like creature which is on the prowl. Kyle, Katie and Anselm arrive with even more booze and Ben tells them that he has texted Torchwood and got them to deal with it. Marvelling at his sensible bravery, everyone toasts Ben's brilliance.
Special 2: Lord of the Reedy River
A crossover with Robin Hood starring Jonas Armstrong as the titular outlaw. The Doctor and Donna arrive in Cambridge and decide to allow Ben and Kyle to join them in the TARDIS (apparently contradicting Mirror, Mirror On The Wall where Ben summons the Doctor out of paranoia) for a random journey that leaves them in Sherwood Forrest during the Crusades. Here, the Sherrif of Nottingham tells Sir Guy of Guisborne to blame a recent chain of supernatural murders on Robin Hood to turn the peasants against him. Little do they realize however, Robin Hood has access to Catweazle the Magician. They soon discover the murders are the work of a strange stoat-like creature, while a criminal "Tasmerleptil" and its android servant arrive at Nottingham to acquire "oafish vassals" to help their shuttle out of the nearby river. The Doctor realizes the "Tasmerleptil" is the vanguard of a full-scale invasion force. When the Doctor sprains his ankle, Kyle volunteers to use a bomb to destroy the alien shuttle, but ends up injured. Ben - in a suicidally insane display of heroics - runs into the fray, saves Kyle and destroys the ship. The "Tasmerleptil" teleports away (begging the question of why it needed a space craft at all) and when the Merry Men want to toast Ben for saving mankind, he insists Kyle get a share of the glory.
This story is notable for the incredibly poor (even by Sparacus' standards) characterization of established TV characters - the Doctor is rude and mysoginistic, Donna is a posh intellectual, and the Sherrif is ranting madman, completely unlike their TV personas. Robin Hood proves to be a blurred amalgam of different versions, as Robin is friends with a wizard despite the canonical version's disbelief in magic, and the appearance of Friar Tuck played by Johnny Vegas, with the rest of the Merry Men calling him a "fat bastard" or "fat slug" which the Doctor finds endearing. The fact the story was a plagarized "sequel" to The Visitation impressed few readers but nevertheless the sudden redeeming ending was lauded.
Special 3: The Ghosts of Weatherfield
A crossover with Coronation Street. The Doctor and Donna head for Manchester to investigate ghost sightings, and inexplicably Ben and Katie Ryan tag along. Once there, Ben and Katie head for the local pub, insulting and mocking every single person they meet. Soon it becomes obvious that the 'ghosts' are an alien entity causing chaos for its own nourishment. After letting the entity assume the form of a famous serial killer and incinerate busses full of children, the Doctor collects a convenient device from the TARDIS and Ben pulls a lever, destroying the entity. Later at local pub, Ben meets his doppelganger Nick (a character played by Adam Rickitt before his dismissal) and promptly begins to flirt with him.
Despite the skewed logic of a Doctor Who special sidelining the Doctor in favor of a Coronation Street clipshow, this story's first installment was well recieved due to the continued rehabilitation of Ben in his defense of Kyle. However, his old self soon surfaced with his disgust at the commoners of Weatherfield. It was clear to everyone that Sparacus' grasp of Coronation Street characters was just as bad as his grasp of Doctor Who. However, after the fourth installment the Outpost Gallifrey thread containing the story was deleted. This was part of the infamous "2008 Sparacus Cull" where he and all but two of his readers were permanently banned from Outpost Gallifrey, and further discussion rendered illegal. An "enhanced" version appeared on his blog.
Special 4: Crystal
The Doctor and Donna drop Ben, Kyle and Katie off at a rehabilitation clinic where Kyle's aged mother is finally attempting to overcome her drug habit. While Katie is rude to everyone, the Doctor and Donna investigate a series of violent murders caused by possessed animals. This leads them to team up with Torchwood Cardiff, and discover that the attacks are caused by a Queen Spider from Metabelis Three using a red crystal (this is, for anyone who knows the plot of Planet of the Spiders completely impossible). Meanwhile, Ben discovers his unnamed longlost sister in the clinic, and refuses to acknowledge her. When she is randomly killed in the climax, Ben realizes how terribly he's behaved and sinks into despair - especially when he is left legal guardian of his orphaned nephew, Craig. The series ends with a cliffhanger as Ben's bachelor lifestyle comes grinding to a halt.
Originally to be set on an alien planet, this is another ill-thought out plagiarism/sequel, this time to Planet of the Spiders. After his work colleagues became aware of the time and effort he was putting into writing these stories, Sparacus decided to make Crystal the final ever Ben Chatham adventure. He was never to write another story for the character, and the ultimate fate of Ben - or how he could fit into mainstream continuity, would never be resolved. Well, that's what he said. Within hours he had also come up with...
The Stolen Earth/Journey's End Re-Write
This was a rather odd insistance that the TV episode was not canonical and RTD had failed to provide the audience with the genuine article, which did not feature Rose or the characters from The Sarah Jane Adventures or Torchwood. With the aide of LBC, Sparacus described a new version...
Although basically the same, this features Ben travelling with the Doctor and Donna; Ben who comes up with the idea of how to trace where the Earth actually is. When Earth is reached, Ben uses a communication device borrowed from Torchwood to trace Rose Tyler who (for some reason) still loves him, not the Doctor. Ben would then heroically pushes the Doctor out of the way of the Dalek ray to save his life, only for the Time Lord to be attacked by a "feral gang of heroin addict looters who beat him up", which makes the Doctor regenerate anyway.
The second episode would focus entirely on Ben who would throw a glass of absinthe over the ranting Davros (his Nazi ideals causing "a sense of Wartime British patriotism" to wells up in the smooth scumbag), which would cause Davros' life support to break down and kill him. Ben would then effortlessly escape the Daleks and single-handedly come up with the solution to save the entire universe, alas at the cost of the lives of Donna, Rose, Martha, Sarah Jane, Captain Jack and Torchwood. The new Doctor would be "comforted" by Ben.
Throughout both episodes, a "bleak atmosphere" was created by having Craig Chatham recite his poetry over a montage of Daleks exterminating civilians. Sparacu's shaky support of this, claiming Genesis of the Daleks as a precedent got the reply: "Funny, but I don't remember the bit in Genesis where Davros orders the Daleks to blow up a primary school whilst some teenage emo stereotype reads out poorly-written poetry." and Sparacus abandoned the whole project.
Ultimately, LBC's support for the rewrite did more harm than good as he soon began to rant that there was a global media conspiracy to destroy Ben Chatham and deprive LBC himself from sex. Soon even moderators were asking if LBC had gone "stark, staring mad", which LBC responded by accusing RTD of promoting pedophilia and that 'not enough innocent infants were seen to die on screen'. These demands for child sacrifices, 'unrelenting darkness' and 'cultural education' were soon being made of real life rather than just on television finally made Arnold T Blumberg himself storm the thread, which prompted even Sparacus to denounce LBC's mental state before he too joined the ranks of the OG banned.
The Lemon Bloody Cola Fiasco of 2008
"Lemon Bloody Cola", a yellow sticky fluid and head of the "Joshua Wynne is a Cunt" FaceBook society took over the writing duties of the Chathamverse with a level of verbosity it is truly hard to describe. Pretentious, illogical and totally vacuous, all agreed that this longterm stalker of Sparacus was a worthy heir to his unwanted throne.
LBC: The Claws of Time
Picking up from the cliffhanger ending of Crystal, Captain Jack Harkness arrives to bully Ben into returning to his former "heroic" lifestyle as Katie and Kyle discover that Craig is a good friend of Kyle thanks to a time paradox at Craig's school. Further investigation unleashes a hoarde of reapers and ninja doomsday cultists who worship the reptillian Apocalypse Chaser, an emotional vampire disturbingly resembling a Ninja Turtle who is promptly eaten by a reaper before he can actually do anything. It is discovered that Craig's love object Isobel is in fact an alien in hiding on Earth after the events of the Time War. Ben tells off Jack for being rude and decides to return to Anselm, while Isobel is placed in detention at the Touchwood Hub. The story is ostensibly happy as another undeserved success restores Ben's monumental ego.
This story introduced LBC's favorite characters - the ridiculous and easily-defeated Apocalypse Chaser and the naive and virginal Isobel who would suffer underage abuse, humiliation and pain as part of a misogynistic erotica theme to his work, which is why he cast Skins-actress Hannah Murray as the part. Dario Coates was chosen to play Craig. Spartha Jones makes a cameo appearance when she refuses to take part in the plot. Inspired by the critical panning Claws of Time recieved, Sparacus returned to write for the Chathamverse.
May Day Bank Holiday Special: Peace in Our Time
Captain Jack and Operation: Delta return to pester Ben's gang on the eve of an international peace conference in Versailles. Suspecting alien intervention, Ben is sent to Paris to investigate along with Katie, Kyle, Craig and the foul-tempered Anselm. Ben's world fame (he is deeply respected by the American President Roberts even though they've never met before) allows him to take control of the conference and Craig discovers the American Vice President is... for some reason... a Zygon. With this one agent captured, the entire scheme to conquer the Earth is defeated and the American President personally thanks Ben over a beer, even though he took no part in the operation.
LBC: The Sisyphean Planet
Returning to Cardiff, Ben meets up with the Doctor and Donna once more when the TARDIS suddenly takes off along with Craig and Isobel who happened to be aboard. Drawn by an unknown source, the TARDIS lands in an underground Zinikclod mining complex on the planet Sisyphus 5 where a race of alien walruses is attempting to defeat a rebellion of their workers orchestrated by the mysterious "Angel of Sisyphus". Ben, Craig and the Doctor encounter the Angel who controls the workers by telepathically leaving them in a state of ecstasy and Ben hypocritically damns the rebels for their addiction to mind-altering substances. Mistaken for their own spies, the walruses escort the trio to meet their leader, the classist General Carnage who is attempting to rape Donna and Isobel, and the Doctor is surprised that such feeble women are able to save themselves without his help. The Doctor then unmasks the Angel as actually being General Carnage himself in an unconvincing rubber mask, who is ensuring the rebels never actually revolt against the walruses. Craig goes on a machine gun rampage and slaughters countless walruses and then they all flee in the TARDIS to leave the society on Sisyphus 5 to collapse while they "happily drink a toast to Ben, Craig, the joys of clean living and responsible alcohol consumption".
LBC returned to the fold writing a painfully obvious plagiarism of The Doctor's Daughter with disturbing scenes of violence, drug use and an alien walrus attempting to rape an underage schoolgirl. This epic was nevertheless deemed a success by Sparacus.
LBC: Black Swan
After being forced to be without Isobel for a few days, Craig starts cutting himself and needs to be rushed to the hospital while at the Torchwood Hub, Jack, Ianto and Gwen discover that Isobel herself is a vessel for two conflicting godlike alien forces, one good and one evil. Jack believes that it may be necessary to kill Isobel before the evil force manifests but everyone from Kyle to Ianto rounds on him to preventing Isobel since they all have fallen in love with her. Ben decides that Jack is right and, after beating Gwen and Katie unconscious for disagreeing with him, and betrays Isobel to UNIT. Alas, this causes the evil force, the Black Swan, to take over Isobel's body and puts on a leather bikini as she begins to destory countless innocent people. After the required amount of drinking in wine bars, the Black Swan kidnaps Kyle and orders him to 'punish and ravish' her on the moon while an alien war fleet prepare to destroy Earth in the belief it will annihilate the Black Swan, their old enemy, with it. Craig manages to appeal to Isobel and restore her personality, while Ben teams up with Colonel Mace and wipes out all the aliens with a stolen superweapon. The story ends on a cliffhanger as a second Ianto Jones arrives and kills the first, revealing it was a shape-changing Skrull. Utau the Watcher arrives and tells Ben to summon the Doctor...
LBC ultimately apologized for what he dubbed "a Dark Phoenix rip-off", before doing it again.
LBC: The Ultimate Crossover Event
As Dalek Caan teams up with Dr. Doom, Ben decides to ignore the Watcher's warning and get drunk. Suddenly the Silver Surfer appears with the Doctor who drags Ben to join the New Avengers. As Clyde Langer turns into a Skrull and attacks Sarah Jane Smith, the Doctor and Ben meet Dr Strange, SHEILD and lets Ben get attacked by Wolverine but miraculously defeats him, earning the friendship of Iron Man before the God of War steals Ben's absinthe. Larry Nightingale is also revealed to be a Skrull in the middle of sex with Sally Sparrow.
This story is unfinished and barely recieved any recognition even from Sparacus, but it features the beginnings of LBC's disturbing fetish for humiliating a half-naked Sally Sparrow, which he would explore further... and repeatedly in his next epic project.
The Season 5 Pitch
In a deliberate homage of Sparacus, LBC decided plan out a whole season of stories to "save Doctor Who from itself" in the belief it was becoming too lightweight and no longer challenging the audience. By now, LBC was publically sliding into insanity as his girlfriend left him for his disturbing Sparacus obsession and went off with a dope-smoking hippie instead. Suffering violent mood swings and memory loss, LBC channelled his pain into his work with varying degrees of subtlety. These virtually plotless massacres were given strong support by Sparacus, but even he could see that LBC wasn't exactly all right in the head when he wrote this...
5.1 - The Bachelor of Bullets
When Ben Chatham discovers that Sally Sparrow is interested in "left-wing hippie conservationist subversion", he decides to shop her and her friends to the authorities. Sally's friends are all slaughtered in merciless agony by a race of alien plant-creatures called Magikrunk who are visiting Earth to deal with anachronisms. As they are about to kill Sally, the Doctor arrives and the aliens flee. The Doctor and Ben bully and insult Sally for her social stupidity, and Sally immediately falls in love with Ben and abandons her life with Larry to travel with both of them in the TARDIS.
5.2 - On The Road (To Oblivion)
For Sally's first trip in time, she wishes to meet the legendary Jack Kerouac on his road trip of America. Alas, Jack is a brain-fried drug-addled alcoholic and loses control of his bodily functions when Sally tries to sleep with him, crushing her spirit even further. Meanwhile, a race of alien tumbleweeds called the Parasiti (survivors of the Time War) slaughter some homeless people and are about to attack the travellers when a random rainstorm causes them to dissolve. The TARDIS crew leave, only to discover they have changed history and Kerouac did not die but lived for years and told everyone about this adventure.
5.3 - The Apocalypse Chaser Triumphant!
Returning to contemporary Cambridge, Ben is horrified to discover his companions Katie, Kyle and Craig have had their memories altered so they are all useless and riddled with despair as an alien invasion begins. The Apocalypse Chaser arrives, nearly gets killed by an alien, and then kidnaps Sally, strips her naked and tortures her for its own pleasure. The episode ends with the Chaser breaking the fourth wall and revealing it has been tormenting everyone with their nightmares as revenge...
5.4 - The Dawn of the Mara
Ben realizes that the alien invasion is an illusion and everyone's memories return. Sally is left to the mercy of the Apocalypse Chaser's creator, the Mara (from Kinda and Snakedance) who tortures Sally by reminding her of when she killed her abusive grandfather when she was 12 years old to stop him sexually molesting her. Taking over Sally's body, the Mara attempts to kill the Doctor but Kyle and Ben beat her up while the Doctor erases her mind, leaving her braindead. Then, an invasion force of Apocalypse Chasers storm Cambridge and slaughter everyone they meet...
5.5 - The Vally (sic) of Nightmares
While UNIT is massacred by the Apocalypse Chasers, Sally is left in a void full of monsters that torment her at the bidding of the Mara, who also takes over Kyle who engages with an epic kung-fu battle with Ben that Ben miraculously wins and is about to snap Kyle's neck in bloodlust when the Doctor stops him and surrounds them all with mirrors to cast out the Mara influence. Two Sallys appear, one normal and one comatose and Ben starts to punch the comatose one until the fake Sally vanishes. The real one is so grateful for the beatings she has recieved she kisses Ben passionately, much to his own disgust. Meanwhile, Isobel suddenly arrives, turns into the White Swan and effortlessly destroys the Apocalypse Chasers and Ben is thanked for saving the world.
5.6 - Attack of the Demon Yobs
Kyle accompanies the TARDIS crew to Kent to examine a new archaeological dig which is being terrorized by young working class men who worship the demonic alien Diabolico who is working to conquer the Earth using its cult of yobs. Sally is kidnapped, beaten up and stripped naked by the yobs who go on the rampage. The Doctor deduces the Diabolico's power can be destroyed with champagne and Ben whips the old-age pensioners of the village into wiping out all the possessed yobs with champagne-filled fire extinguishers, slaughtering them all in agony. Ben beats up Kyle when he objects, and then leads the cast in singing Land of Hope and Glory as they compare young hooligans to the Nazis.
5.7 - Divided
The Doctor-lite story as Ben, Katie and Isobel discover Ben's longlost dog Poppy in another dimension.
5.8 - Lakes of Blood
The Doctor, Ben and Sally go to the Lake District for Halloween and Sally falls in love with a loser poet called Joss. As is traditional in Halloween stories, a white supremacist and an army of skinheads is on hand to cause problems when "Michael Puffin" and his KKK pals open "a transdimensional gulf" by sacrificing Sally (though all they do is strip her, make her wear a white bikini and sexually assault her). Ben and the Doctor instantly give Sally up for dead as Zombie Vikings emerge from the lakes (which turn to blood for some reason) and kill everyone who isn't white. Luckily, that means the regulars are safe and Joss rescues Sally in an action that (somehow) causes him to drop dead and all the Zombie Vikings to get bored and kill the skinheads before wandering off, bored. Sally is so upset that Ben doesn't get thanked for saving the world at all.
5.9 - BEASTS OF DEATH
The Doctor, Ben and Sally arrive in a quiet English village where only the eccentric bloodthirsty fox hunters have noticed that wild animals are murdering young girls. When a group of hippie protestors arrive to complain about the fox hunting, they are all slaughtered by sabre-tooth tigers except for the idiotic Daisy (Hannah Murray). The police finally sit up and take notice, and slaughter all the prehistoric animals - including a wooly mammoth - which have been grown by a mad scientist who happens to be the father of the lead fox hunter. The mad scientist abandons his scheme and is locked up in a lunatic asylum.
5.10 - The Mines of Acreala
In a barely-legible rewrite of The Sisyphean Planet (itself ripping off The Doctor's Daughter), the TARDIS crew arrive in the mines of an alien planet and meet some stupid, hypocritical freedom fighters and a perverted mercenary called "the Scar" who intend to free the eflen Meglaphumps from their bondage. Sally is disgusted at this hypocrisy, then falls and sprains her ankle. She is rescued by the Meglaphumps and discovers they are not slaves and their "control collars" allow them to survive in oxygen. Meanwhile, after several gun battles, the ignorant rebels (and the even MORE ignorant Doctor and Ben) switch off the control collars and slaughter all the innocent aliens. When Sally tries to stop them, the Scar beats her up. The Doctor makes a long speech about how the working classes deserve what they get for the best interests of society.
5.11 thru 5.13 - Another Shameless Dark Phoenix Rip-Off
These episodes would reveal the random changes to history were orchestrated by Jenny, the Doctor's Daughter, who had begun a debauched relationship with the regenerated Master (played by Garry Oldman). It is soon discovered Jenny's time alterations were made at the request of the half-human clone Doctor, 10.5. The 10.5 Doctor, horrified at his inability to regenerate, is determined to summon the Bad Wolf again so he can become immortal. Ultimately, he would succeed in turning Rose into a Time Goddess and she and Isobel would fight an epic cosmic battle which Rose loses.
Ben decides that Rose must die to prevent this happening again and bullies the Doctor into shooting her through the head with a gun. Ben walks off, leaving the weeping Doctor to sob and hug Rose's corpse while one of Craig's nihilistic poems is read. Meanwhile, Sally would fall in love with Jenny and they would begin a lesbian affair in graphic detail.
LBC was finally revealed to have gone completely insane and was unable to finish the season. Convinced he was fighting "the dark side of his psyche", he retreated from the forums altogether in shame and humiliation. He later assumed the title of "Mutie" and became even more obssessed with Hannah Murray, repeatedly daydreaming of her character Cassie stabbing him to death because "it would be worth it". Sparacus reluctantly became head writer of the Chatham adventures again, declaring the entire pitch null and void.
Vampire Planet
A fleet of strange metallic cylinders land all over the planet and an unusually Ben proactively asks Torchwood to help him identify one that has landed on the M25. Ianto and Kyle are teleported to the planet of the Hax, who intend to drain the energy out of Earth to fuel their own civilization. Meanwhile, Jack and Gwen introduce Ben to "Shakey Jake", reputedly the finest genius on Earth but is in fact a stoned, drug-peddling geriatric with no attention span who forces Craig to get high to cheer up. Shakey Jake proves utterly useless and when the cylinders are activated they cause power loss and earthquakes. Pausing only to watch the DVD of The Third Man, Ben bullies all the world's presidents into bombing the cylinders... but the cylinders are indestructible and all Ben's achieved is to help wipe out 2 million civilians. Torchwood manage to switch off one of the cylinders with sound waves, while Ianto and Kyle threaten the Hax chairman into abandoning the plan and reversing all the damage. The duo are then returned to Earth where Ianto finds himself lusting after Kyle rather than Jack and feeling very, very ashamed.
As part of the "restoration of order", Sparacus used this story to heavily plagiarize William Emms' unmade Season 7 story, The Vampire Planet in title and plot. The story also introduces two characters who would become regulars when it was clear how unpopular they were: Shakey Jake and Barry Tuck, who would sexually molest Katie regularly while swearing to the sound of canned laughter.
The Case of the Twelve Gold Crosses
Determined to further improve Kyle's education, Ben orders the Doctor to return to Earth, travel back to 1898 and hand over the psychic paper so they can stalk Sherlock Holmes (who isn't fictional in this story). After giving a highly inaccurate and biased tour of Victorian London, Ben barges into 22A Baker Street to demand Holmes do an exclusive interview for a magazine called The Blue Lamp. Holmes is thankfully saved at the last minute as Oscar Wilde arrives and falls immediately in love with Ben who is attractive, gay and drinks far too much absinthe. His companion Lady Arabella has recieved anonymous presents every birthday of gold crosses, but this year recieved a severed hand, which turns out to be the calling guard of a socialist revolutionary group called the Green Hand.
This adventure proved surprisingly popular, and so Sparacus immediately abandoned the story halfway through, concentrating on a far greater sights - the movie industry! (see below)
Christmas Special: Dark Yuletide (aka Deadly Yuletide)
Following the events of the film The Face of Death, Ben has been placed in a Norfolk nursing home by his so-called friends, and only Katie and Shakey Jake bothering to visit him (and Katie is only there because she fancies a therapist who believes orgiastic sex can cure anything). Another patient reveals she is, in fact, a private detective and the therapists reveal they are glowing-eyed evil aliens and another patient also reveals he is undercover - Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart! Meanwhile, Ben starts claiming he sees UFOs at a nearby private hospital and causes a nasty scene in the waiting room. Returning to his sanitarium, Katie has the Brigadier fake a heart attack as a diversion and it is discovered the aliens are the barren Cheon race who are trying to breed a new generation with Earth women (before wiping out the whole breeding stock with a virus for some reason). UNIT troops and then more aliens arrive, and Shakey Jake defeats the alien invasion by offering them all a cake laced with drugs. The story ends with the Brigadier ruffling Ben's hair and giving him Bessie (an event never referred to again).
Even by Sparacus standards, this story is something of a continuity nightmare - Ben has never met the Brigadier before, or told his parents are gay, yet makes references to Anselm and Operation: Delta. The author even couldn't make up his mind what the story's title was, or if he'd already used it. The Brigadier's presence was a transparent attempt to boost Ben's profile after Nicholas Courtney's genuine appearance in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Ben Goes To Hollywood
As 2009 began, rumors circulated about the future of Doctor Who and David Tennant, and Sparacus became increasingly obsessed with trying to create film pitches that would get the character of Ben Chatham (and the increasingly-obscure and forgotten Adam Rickitt) international success and stardom. These summaries rapidly were forgotten and abandoned, but the film series is outlined:
New Dawn
The Doctor and Donna arrive in Death Valley within spitting distant of a junkie Vietnam Vet called Chuck (Jack Nicholson) who claims the governments of the world are being controlled by aliens. Ben Chatham phones to declare that World War III has broken out and Cerne Abbas figure is glowing from an alien device built into the hill (yes, ANOTHER one). A woman called Jade mysteriously appears and agrees with Chuck about the alien conspiracy and she's proved right when the aliens themselves arrive and confess everything - they are the evil Gantonians. Ben Chatham interrupts the glowing alien device and dies horribly, but this allows Jade and some guy to have sex in Death Valley, causing "earth energy" to overload and destroy the aliens and restore Ben to life. Somehow.
This thoroughly-derivative tale, which Sparacus admitted was ripped off The X-Files, would begin with the Doctor restoring Donna Noble's memories so they could travel again - Sparacus having conceded to the character's popularity, but still proving unable to actually have her do anything. Sparacus' desire for a heavy-weight science fiction drama to give Doctor Who "credibility" was ridiculed, but New Dawn is achieved brief and incredible popularity when it killed off Ben. When it brought him back, it was completely forgotten.
The Face of Death
Juggling his relationship with Anselm, his connections to Torchwood and his parental concern for Craig, Ben finds himself involved in an investigation for an insane serial killer in a clown's mask who is randomly killing people with a machete. With the hinderance of Torchwood, Katie, Anselm, Kyle, Craig and Isobel, it becomes clear that the killer was driven insane after falling through the Cardiff Rift. After much running around and random gorey deaths, Kyle finally kills the murderer and the movie ends on a cliffhanger: no sooner has Ben turned his gang of losers into a new branch of Operation: Delta, he finds Anselm has been cheating on him. Again. What-ever.
With the only recognizeable plot stolen from Torchwood: Adrift (and seeing the episode would be required to in any way understand the story), The Face of Death was one of the longest Chatham stories written and featured yet another return of Barry Tuck and his Canned Laughter. Probably the most interesting scene is Ben threatening to close Torchwood down and then stealing a plane - both justified on the grounds he is Ben Chatham, rather than any kind of moral argument.
Day of Deliverence (sic)
The Eleventh Doctor and Amy arrive in deserted 2011 Brighton to discover every human being apart from Ben Chatham has been miniaturized by the Master and placed in a tiny spaceship that will then be exploded. The Doctor tricks the Master into miniaturizing himself and thus is unable to complete the plan.
This tale, brief even by Chatham standards, is another rip-off of Invasion of the Dinosaurs with the Master using prehistoric wood voles to cause chaos before the movie began. Spara suggested this movie be the Summer hit between Matt Smith's first and second series, and ostensibly is much darker than his usual work. Well, that's what he says...
Deliverence (sic)
Kyle is under threat from a criminal gang who kidnap Katie, forcing Kyle and Ben to rescue her. They then encounter insane transvestite ex-rock-star Zeno Valiant who believes he is an alien sent to uplift the consciousness of humanity with magic mushrooms. After lots of female nudity, pointless break ins and police raids, Zeno is shot dead by gangsters and his body turns into butterflies... so maybe he was an alien after all.
This disconcertingly heterosexual film borrows heavily from only one prior Chatham tale, which makes it the most original story Sparacus has written for years. Interestingly, Kyle is the main character and Ben and Katie make only cameo appearances, and there is no connection whatsoever with Doctor Who.
The Shameful Treatment of Bernie Fishnotes
Despite the horrific truth of Lemon Bloody Cola, Sparacus was still loathe to remain the sole writer of Ben Chatham stories. Not only were his employers still suspicious of the time he was wasting writing them, but the fact that out of the two official writers for the Chathamverse one publicly outed himself as simply doing it for a laugh, damaging the reputation of Ben Chatham irrevocably. In desperation, Sparacus ultimately decided to choose a replacement as main co-writer. He promised these stories would be canon and, within certain guidelines (including forbidding killing off characters), the co-writer would have complete creative control of their work which would continue on from the “cliffhanger” to Face of Death.
After an exhausting screening process with candidates judged on their opinions of Morrisey and The Green Death, Sparacus challenged them to pen a Ben Chatham story set in some South Wales caves featuring two characters from Eastenders. With only one story (featuring Ben’s nemesis, Spongebob Squarepants) obviously taking the piss, Sparacus revealed another challenge: to write a completely original story. The winner was judged by public appeal and was unanimously declared to be Bernie Fishnotes – a popular figure in internet fandom capable of everything from amazing photoshop skills to building action figures.
With Spara’s blessing Bernie Fishnotes created a blogspot to house the new Chathamological Canon and began to archive his stories there and simultaneously on Outpost Gallifrey. However, as was to be expected, imaginative stories written properly did not garner the pages of incredulous responses like the incoherent rants of Sparacus and Lemon Bloody Cola. While popular with readers, Sparacus gave less and less time to Bernie Fishnotes, dismissing the author’s attempts to set up a strong story arc and then deliberately ignoring the “canon” altogether. Within a few months, Sparacus was claiming to be the sole author of the Ben Chatham canon and – when necessity forced Outpost Gallifrey to close, Sparacus deliberately avoided the replacement forum created by Bernie Fishnotes with its own special BC section.
Cave of the Coblynau
Ben, Katie, Kyle, Craig and Anselm meet up with Katie’s university friend Liz Bevan and her assistant Steve to investigate strange cave paintings in Wales that perfectly mirror Aboriginal rock art. Heading deeper into the caves, all bar Kyle and Craig are trapped by a rock fall and soon Ben is drunkenly mocking Katie’s attempt to love him, prompting a massive row that draws in Anselm, Steve and Liz. Suddenly, they encounter a yokel-sounding goblin called Fwynyr, a friendly mining gnome from Welsh folklore who owns the cave system. In return for promising his people, the Coblynau, will be left in peace, Fwynwr helps the humans return to the surface. However, it seems that Steve was far from an innocent bystander and indeed was luring Ben into a trap.
This story was Bernie Fishnotes’ entry into the original competition, fulfilling Sparacus’ standards to the letter and not featuring Spongebob Squarepants at all. Although he approved of the dramatic content, Sparacus was incredibly critical of the character of Fwynwr.
Nothing Happens Tomorrow
Recovering from a hangover, Ben starts to suffer strange déjà vu and slowly realizes it has been so long since he saw anyone outside his own flat, while simultaneously guessing what is about to happen. Then, the Tenth Doctor arrives via the unusual method of breaking into the flat through the fridge and reveals that Operation: Delta has tampered with an alien artifact from Zolfa Thura (in Meglos) which has unexpectedly placed Ben in a time loop for over a month. It transpires that the real Ben Chatham has already escaped from the loop, and the current Ben is a temporal echo, doomed to live an endlessly-reset life like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
This story single-handedly won the support of the entire OG Chatham fanbase, who unanimously chose the author worthy of continuing Sparacus’ vision. It reveals that Ben likes indecently exposing himself to his neighbor, a little old lady, is an avid Trekkie, and uses the pseudonym “N. Tilsey” (the name of Rickitt’s character in Coronation Street) for tax reasons.
Shadows in the Dark
Investigate strange happenings at a barrow, Ben and Kyle discover a strange glass marble. Retiring to the local hotel for the night, Kyle discovers it is reputed to be haunted – and is proved correct when a strange shadow creature paralyzes the pair and attempts to smother them, before suddenly collecting marble and fleeing the hotel. The "Night Strangler" is guarding the marble, using lethal force on humans who try to claim it for their own.
This spooky story received huge praise, even from Sparacus and LBC, and was described as "the first great Chatham story", an accolade no other serious work has gained.
Beneath the Stone
The reluctant Doctor is summoned back to Earth by Ben Chatham, and is disgusted to discover that Ben wants him to fix a dodgy geophys machine. The problem turns out to be a suspiciously large stone that is covering the geophys anomaly. Intrigued, the Doctor and Ben travel back in time to the year 100 AD, where the rock was originally a monolith, an alien teleport terminal to park space craft underground. They return to the present, where the EMP from the geophys machine activates an ancient abandoned spaceship under the rock, and Katie and Kyle are teleported inside. The alien there is a Dalmanite, a peaceful historian who concludes that Earth’s historic treasures are too valuable to risk being destroyed in warfare and decides to take all the monuments for preservation at a museum, if necessary by force. The Doctor parlays with the Dalmanite, and ultimately entombs the ship again, returning the Dalmanite to stasis for millions of years, ensuring he is no longer a danger.
The Doctor’s realistic behavior around Ben (he points and laughs at the archaeologist in the final episode, a reference to Silence in the Library) proved the last straw and Sparacus renounced all involvement with Bernie Fishnotes.
Two Become One
At St. Cedds, Ben discovers a four-thousand-year-old alien artifact, unaware a desperate alien is on Earth searching for it. The creature, Lanyon, hunts for Ben and Katie at the Mermaid Winebar, beating up Barry Tuck in the process. Lanyon reveals he is an alien scientist suffering from Jekyll-and-Hyde-style personality changes that only the artifact can reverse, but both good and evil Lanyon want to use the device so their personality is one that remains. However, the device is damaged and destroys Lanyon instead of curing him. Ben is relieved at the close call, unaware that he is being watched by none other than Chiara...
Unsung Heroes
With Ben and Anselm out at a conference, so when Torchwood get a report of a weevil outbreak in Cambridge, it is up to Kyle, Katie and Craig to deal with it. Their amateur attempts are instantly ten times more effective than Ben could have managed and within ten minutes the alien is back at Cardiff with no loss of life. Alas, they are unaware the weevil was deliberately released in Cambridge by Steve to draw out Ben Chatham, and thus a new plan must be made...
This story reinforced the intended story arc, about a secret society obsessed with Ben Chatham, but Sparacus refused to use the idea in his own work.
The Ultimate Solution
For the first time we meet Ben’s revolting parents, James and Davina, who are immediately murdered in the prologue when a mail bomb destroys them and their country house. At the funeral, Ben eagerly awaits the reading of the will, convinced he will inherit everything and when he meets Chiara at the memorial service, Anselm overhears Ben bitching about him and dumps the smoothe scumbag in public. Ben gets hideously drunk and the next day, while hungover, is stunned when the will is read: his parents have left everything to Craig to make amends for the treatment of his mother. When Craig discovers Ben refused to let his parents take care of Craig, and instead forced him into continued life or death situations, Ben’s nephew disowns him and decides to move in with Isobel. Furious, Ben becomes violent, only for Isobel to use her powers to disable him. Ben storms back to his department, determined to take his frustrations out on Katie via sex, only to finally discover she is having a relationship with Kyle. Disgusted, he throws the pair of them out. The next day, when Shaky Jake returns to collect Kyle’s things, Ben realizes he has lost all his friends and family. He thus immediately calls Chiara round, intending to have sex with her if she likes it or not...
This story is sadly incomplete at the time of writing. Bernie understandably lost enthusiasm at the repeated and blatant way Sparacus was ignoring the canon to maintain his own control over the “franchise”, which had not developed in any way, shape or form bar the introduction of Isobel, since Sparacus had ended his full-time writing some two years earlier.
Sparacus has refused to acknowledge anything to do with Bernie Fishnotes, but as 2009 dawned, even his attention was drawn away from Ben Chatham to the momentous revelation that David Tennant was quitting as the Tenth Doctor, and all of fandom was swept up in excitement over potential replacements. Despite mindlessly insisting (on no proof whatsoever) that Patterson Joseph would be the Eleventh Doctor, the true result would change everything...
The Skins Doctor!
"I'm, like, young again! Yay!" -
Sparacus' prediction of the first words of the new Doctor.
Sparacus was utterly delighted when the attractive and young Matt Smith was chosen to be the Eleventh Doctor and indeed his enthusiasm bordered on the disturbing - suggesting a range of Matt Smith underwear, sex dolls and lubricants, for example. When it became clear Smith was not homosexual and indeed had a girlfriend, Sparacus was utterly disgusted and declared the actor "wooden, deadpan and rather lost" who would ruin Doctor Who forever.
Sparacus then created "SparaDoc 11", which he predicted would be what the Eleventh Doctor would be like - a useless sex-obsessed teenager unable to do anything without filming it on a mobile and more interested in getting laid than fighting monsters. This was far from what Sparacus wanted from the character (he'd demanded Smith play the role exactly like Jon Pertwee) and indeed Sparacus soon began to distance Ben Chatham from the Doctor Who franchise, believing it was become too low-brow and common under Moffat's control even though no one had seen a single frame.
The Sparacus Doctor was more likely to be found listening to the Scissor Sisters on his iPod than fighting monsters, and was oddly enough treated with absolute contempt by all characters in the story (though they all note that this new Doctor is more physically attractive than David Tennant). Most irritating was the new Doctor's inability to say a single sentence without the random insertion of the word "like", followed closely by his crude innuendo, laziness and abject stupidity.
The Regeneration Scene
Fleeing android soldiers sent by the Master, the Doctor, Donna and Wilf flee into Soho. After Wilf tries to seduce two prostitutes simultaneously, the Doctor drags his companions into a gay bar and, on a whim, kisses a completely random young man who just happens to be an assassin. Stabbed in the stomach, Donna drags the Doctor to the toilets, but all the gay men in the pub are more interested in anal sex than helping him. The Doctor regenerates into a form all the gay men prefer, and the new Doctor dubs this situation "heaven".
Challeneged to write a regeneration story, Sparacus came up with two scenes that managed to insult the young, the elderly, the military, prostitutes, gay men and straight portraying all as selfish, untrustworthy hedonists who will either kill you or let you die.
New Morning
Martha is sent by UNIT to investigate mysterious deaths in a Cornish fishing village and, after three weeks of doing nothing, is surprised when the newly-regenerated Eleventh Doctor arrives and repeatedly tries to have sex with her. Two French Greenpeace activists are conveniently present to reveal the murders are down to mutant sea monsters created by pointless and illegal toxic dumps from a Russian criminal sect (all of whom are called "Ivan"). The new Doctor and Martha prove so useless that Operation: Delta finally have to be brought in to save the day, but when the Doctor discovers that the Russians intend to sell artificial blood he suddenly decides he cannot put up with such evil (?!?) and activates a fire alarm that summons UNIT rather than the fire brigade.
Originally entitled New Dawn until he was reminded he'd already used that title, this story impressively managed four episodes without Ben Chatham before descending into a racist retelling of The Green Death. Universally panned throughout, it managed to get even WORSE when the Doctor announced that in a crossover with 1960s sci-fi, Doomwatch would solve all the problems he couldn't be bothered to.
Planet Waves
The new Doctor takes Ben, Katie and Martha to an alien planet to see an archaeological dig when a time disturbance draws the TARDIS to Hampton Court. There they discover unknown forces are trying to drive out all the tourists with gas leaks and accidents, and this force is using Gallifreyan time technology to summon Henry VIII from the past. The revolting despot immediately has people executed and tries to rape Ben, but he is mercifully saved by Henry's manservant Nathanial, with whom Ben falls immediately in love. The Doctor learns that Henry VIII has been saved from death by two insane Time Lord children who intend to use a Delta wave to destroy humanity and let Henry rule the ruined planet. Operation: Delta is once more summoned in because the new Doctor is too useless and in the confusion the Doctor sabotages the time equipment, sending all the Tudor time travellers back to where they came from. Ben is furious as this means he has been deprived Nathanial. Meanwhile, the Doctor takes the two Gallifreyan children to a cruel boarding school to have sanity beaten back into them by sadistic aliens.
By now, signs were clear that Sparacus was running low on anything approaching originality or enjoyment and when the middle episodes - where the Doctor is brutally tortured at the whim of the insane Time Tots - recieved rave reviews, he lost all enthusiasm for the story and ended it right away. The criticism for the story reached new heights (particularly at the bits where Sparacus seemingly forgot which Doctor he was writing for) and Spara bowed to public opinion and began to write stories specifically to please his audience...
Summer Special: The Creeping Sand
Ben is feeling chronically depressed again, and isn't interested when a beach seemingly comes to life and tries to kill people, or even when it turns out to be part of a new sci-fi TV show called Earthwatch.
This 'amusing' tale was written mainly to justify Ben's depression as it is revealed the Doctor took Ben back in time to see Nathanial again, but he refused to abandon his family to live with Ben. The critics all complained that Ben's self-pity was pointless otherwise.
Caves of Oblivion
Ben is summoned by an old college friend to a cave system where an archaeological dig has been hampered by two boys going missing, and it is hoped Ben can use his influence to call off the search and allow the dig to continue, even though it condemns two boys to death. Teaming up with the other branch of O:D, it is discovered that the Clanac Empire conquered Earth in prehistoric time using blue crystals that affect the mind, but when exposed to the surface cause chaos and death. Eventually Ben realizes the blindingly obvious solution is to put the damn things back down the mine, but only after lots of civillian casualties.
This story, very much a "Ben Chatham greatest hits" using cliches from every prior tale, was written around criticism and complaints, from bringing back K9 to giving Katie a new boyfriend other than Ben, and an alternate ending exists where the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond (revised as a lustful chav after Ben's body) arrive to solve the plot and simultaneously dub Ben "canon". Interestingly, Spara ignored the version and ultimately decided to abandon Ben Chatham altogether. LBC (now calling himself "Mutie" in the belief he was an X-Man mutant) took up the baton once more, but in a curious parallel ignored the Eleventh Doctor continuity, featuring only Ben Chatham and David Tennant's Doctor. He made an attempt at writing the rest of his Season 5 pitch, only to break down at the poor reaction and publically begged Sparacus to kill him right there and then before fleeing the forum (ostensibly forever). Sparacus later announced he was "saddened" by the loss of Mutie, whom he has not acknowledged before or since.
Season 6 Pitches
The tragic destruction of Outpost Gallifrey/The Doctor Who Forum means that the original documents are lost but Sparacus came up with several ideas for Matt Smith's second year. The first was the idea (featuring the Tenth Doctor and Donna) to spend thirteen episodes as tourists throughout the Wars of the Roses, with random Shakespearian quotes, fourthwall breakages and every episode ending with the Doctor telling Donna that they cannot change history.
The Wars of the Roses idea bombed utterly and Sparacus attempted a more conventional pitch, that sadly does not exist but would feature the Eleventh Doctor travelling only with Ben Chatham...
6.1 - Sci Fi Adventure Set In Dorset
In a complete reset for the Chathamverse, Ben would meet the Doctor for the first time while excavating a Long Barrow. His fellow archaeologists are "attacked by an unseen energy force". Apparently Ben joins the Doctor in this story but he isn't mentioned again until the series is over.
6.2 - Historical
The Doctor meets King Stephen and becomes involved in the war with Matilda.
6.3 - Sci Fi
The Doctor travels to an alien planet where the humanoid inhabitants are secretly being taken over by the Wirrn. The fact Spara suggested it within a month of Big Finish's Wirrn Dawn is not a coincidence.
6.4/6.5 - The Reign of Richard III
A rebooted version of Loyalty Binds Me with the Tenth Doctor, Rose, Adam and Captain Jack removed - further emphasizing Sparacus' mounting desire to abandon the rigidity of an established continuity
6.6 - Sci Fi
The Doctor visits a French monastery which is the centre of the gormless cult of St Athelran who turns out to be an alien.
6.7 - Sci Fi
While carrying out an archaeological dig in the Valley of the Kings, several people are found dead... unsurprisingly. Locals blame the curse of Rameses II.
6.7 (sic) - Historical
A "right-on socially-aware story" as the Doctor fights against the slave trade in colonial Africa.
6.8/6.9 (sic) - Sci Fi
The Doctor fights invasion by the Rutans who are trying to use earth as a base against the Sontarans.
6.10 (sic) - Sci Fi
The TARDIS vanishes without trace. "A strange alien force is responsible".
6.11 (sic) - Sci Fi
Gripped by a sudden fondness for the DWM comic strip, Spara wanted the TV debut for Beep the Meep as kills several worthless children in East London and starts a drive for world conquest.
6.12/6.13 (sic) - Season Finale
The Daleks invade assisted by the Master.
The Children in Need special
Ben and the Doctor are trapped in a virtual reality world based on the film 'The Wizard of Oz'.
Christmas Special: The Journey of the Inner Steps
Ben joins a Buddhist monastery on a remote Scottish Island where there have been reports of strange seal-human creatures stealing children from the local villages. The Doctor investigates, and not much else.
This pitch was mocked for, amongst other things, featuring TWO episode 7s and suggested that someone who couldn't count to 13 shouldn't be allowed to write for the show. Sparacus later became interested in a season comprising SOLELY of sequels to The Web Planet, The Celestian Toymaker (sic) and Invasion of the Dinosaurs for the simple aim of boosting DVD sales. Another (though quickly abandoned) idea was for an adaptation of the Tom Baker audio Hornet's Nest for the Eleventh Doctor, and a story exploring what occured to the character of Major Tom in David Bowie's songs (Sparacus envisaged Adam Rickitt and David Bowie himself playing Tom before and after the astronaut is kidnapped by aliens and transformed into a semi-human junkie as part of the invasion of Earth).
A later idea was for a "humor-free" series of Doctor Who filmed and set entirely in Germany (just following Sparacus' brief visit and rapid expulsion from Berlin) simply because he didn't like subtitles. This soon developed into a 'fresh and surprising' German-only version of Doctor Who starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor with an entirely German cast filmed entirely in Berlin which, surprisingly, didn't feature Ben Chatham in any way, shape or form...
- The Doctor foils an attempt by Zygon shapechangers to replace the German cabinet in Berlin and start another war in order to destroy UNIT. There are battles down the Unter Den Linden and a showdown in the Reichstag building.
- The Doctor travels back and meets Frederick the Great in Potsdam whom he helps beat the Austrians.
- The Doctor is attending the Octoberfest in Bavaria when he uncovers a plot by the Master who has built a base in the Bavarian mountains. A group of English tourists vanish and the Doctor investigates, encountering evasion from Bavarians. He discovers that the Master has put chemicals in Bavarian beer which enables him to control the minds of those who drink it. For some reason.
- The Master's "sonic screwdriver" is disguised as a knockwurst, and the Doctor and several Germans must find it in a plot Spara publically revealed was stolen from Allo Allo.
- Aliens invade Berlin in parallel with the events of 1945.
- The Doctor could travel back to the Cold War and realise that the Master is behind the building of the Berlin Wall to "sow discord between East & West to cover up his own attempts to takeover humanity" or something similarly meaningless
This German Who idea was soon abandoned for a more "downbeat and stoical" Russian Who, repleat with nihlistic violence against women and post-Soviet cliches. The pilot is reproduced here exclusively:
The TARDIS lands in Siberia where the Doctor and Amy find the inhabitants of a remote mining community all dead. Strange burns cover their bodies. The authorities arrive and express disinterest: "Who cares about this. There are plenty more miners to take their place" the police chief says. However he arrests the Doctor and Amy anyway and has them beaten up before accepting 500 roubles from the Doctor to secure release. The Doctor asks Siberian locals about what happened however they shrug their shoulders: "It is just the burdens we must bear" one says. However one local, Ivan, tells the Doctor that the miners were attacked by monsters with green scales and that the mining company, based in Moscow, know the truth.
The Doctor & Amy travel to Moscow in the TARDIS. Walking through the city, they are offered vodka by a tramp and nearly knocked down by a drunken bus driver, partly due to none of the traffic lights working. "Its just the burdens we must bear" a passer by observes. Arriving at Noblobov Industries they enter the building wherby they are beaten up by the criminal gang who own the firm. The manager admits that they are allowing aliens to experiment on miners for a huge bribe. "It is legitimate business" one says as he pistol whips the Doctor. Just in time the police arrive and shoot all the criminals dead.
Sparacus also went to great lengths coming up with an epic story where the Doctor and Amy travel back in time to see Michael Jackson in his Thriller period, then take him to the moon. This idea was universally damned as tasteless and crowd-pleasing, so Sparacus considered "retooling" it as a Ben Chatham story that involved Ben seducing Jackson and also Bubbles the Chimp. The end result was merely a scene at the end of Caves of Oblivion where Ben recalls a time Jackson gave a personal rendition of "Ben" to the smoothe scumbag. The fact the song is about an insane, ferocious rat the singer hates is never addressed.
Another mooted idea was a sequel to the least-popular Doctor Who story of all time, The Twin Dilemma, solely so Sparacus could use the underage and blond "Jedward" twins from The X Factor of 2009 in his work, casting them as the grown up Romulus and Remus Sylvest, who would have an incestuous sexual relationship with full frontal gay sex. With Adric. Thankfully, details of this blatant and borderline illegal erotica were never made clear. Interestingly, within the month David Tennant appeared as the Tenth Doctor roundly dismissing "the ginger-haired freaks" as evil and boring dupes of the Master.
The realization that sci-fi filmmaker Duncan Jones was related to David Bowie inspired Sparacus to demand he be made part of the Doctor Who production team to write episodes based solely on Sparacus' suggestion of (yet another) sequel to Planet of the Spiders. This two parter (Return of the Spiders/Evolution of the Spiders) would feature random giant spiders from Mars being killed by the Doctor and mullet-wearing groupies, with a subplot involving Ziggy Stardust, Major Tom and Duke fighting UNIT in Berlin. It would also reveal that Amy Pond was the Eleventh Doctor's lodger, as he despises women out of misogynistic heterophobia.
The End of Ben
As 2010 dawned it became clearer and clearer there was no place for Ben Chatham in Doctor Who fandom, with Sparacus himself becoming more interesting and popular than his character. Readership and comments had hit new lows - no one was interested in Ben Chatham, or Adam Rickitt, any more.
Rebirth
Drunk and suicidal, Ben is rescued by the Eleventh Doctor, sobered up and sent to deal with some mysterious goings-on at an orphanage along with Kyle - the only person willing to spend time with him. It soon transpires some corrupt Germanic scientists have managed to capture the Immortality Gate and use it to download their minds into the orphans. When Ben and Kyle discover this, they are saved at the last second by Katie and Shakey Jake, who reverse the Immortality Gate and restore the orphans' minds.
The title of this story proved horrendously inaccurate, as it took many months to be complete and was almost totally ignored by fans and critics alike - the hoped-for DWM review never happend. The most notable aspect was Sparacus deliberately rendering the previous Eleventh Doctor stories non-canon.
The Operation Delta Interviews
Ben fires Anselm for cheating on him and decides to interview potential replacements. Drunk, emotional and completely dictatorial, he takes total charge of Operation Delta and interviews the following candidates:
- Adam Wooten, a young History gradute with no skills (Ben immediately falls in love with him and only interviews others for a formality)
- Keith Smith, an eccentric middle-aged UFO spotter working with UNIT (he storms off after Katie calls him a "mediocre geek")
- Barry Tuck, who only applies because he's been fired from the Mermaid wine bar for sexually assaulting patrons (Operation Delta has him thrown out by security)
- Chiara Hennings, a charity worker and ally of Ben in The Cult of Quexacotl (Ben doesn't remember who she is at all)
- Anselm Ashford, applying for the job he was fired from (Ben has a nervous breakdown and tries to kill him)
- Rajiv Patel, a highly-qualified scientist (Katie accuses him of being a terrorist and he walks out)
- Chris Framton, a student and competent computer hacker (Ben throws him out for not liking Bowie)
- Johnstone McGukian, a poster on GB whose critical skills make him borderline psychic (Ben and Katie try and bully him into walking out, but to no avail)
- Roland Horsfal, a historical expert and snob (Ben is impressed)
- Joshua Wynne, AKA Mutie AKA Lemon Bloody Cola (everyone hates him, and even Barry Tuck beats him up)
- Júlíus Indriði Aðalsteinsson, an Icelandic scientist and polymath whose family were butchered by the Cybermen (Ben throws him out because he's "boring" - ie, teetotal)
- Lisa Clark, the Operation Delta receptionist hitherto unmentioned (thrown out for being a woman)
At the last minute David Cameron approves a budget increase, forcing Ben to hire every single applicant - even the ones that didn't turn up for the job interview. Ben collapses into an alcohol-induced coma.
This story was intended to be "interactive", with readers submitting their own candidates and voting on the outcome. Sparacus quickly regretted this when the votes all favored new characters, and thus ignored the democratic process for the "everybody wins" ending, where every single nominee was never seen again. Even Sparacus' staunchest supporters were disgusted by such hypocrisy. The end was clearly nigh...
Chateau of DEATH
To help them recover from recent events, Shakey Jake takes Ben, Katie, Kyle, Craig and Isobel to France for a vacation. Spotting Charles Broxby leaves Ben an emotional wreck and he retreats to the chateau of Madame Giselle Camboux, who he discovers was not only on good terms with the Fourth Doctor and Romana and has an alien cat called Sebastian, she also bore a love child from her numerous affairs with Ben's father. Ben is disgusted and gets revenge by seducing Piers, Camboux's latest lover. Meanwhile, the others encounter some androids who want a bottle of wine for some unknown reason. It turns out the androids are working for an alien warlord who happens to be Napoleon Bonaparte. Choosing to make Katie his new bride and guillotine everyone else, he is accidentally shot by his own androids.
This blatant rip-off of City of Death took even longer to complete, with interest only maintained by Sebastian the Space Cat. When a non-speaking character who does nothing gets more praise than the story itself, it is clear something was wrong. Thus, with Ben on one final petty and hypocritical vendetta against his own family and the 2010 series of Doctor Who imminent, it was time for a showdown...
New Dawn
Ben and Piers return to England to confront Ben's parents over his father's affair, but are sidetracked by a mysterious spate of scandals ruining most of the political parties running for the general election. Operation Delta soon discovers that the United Britian Party is responsible, run by a man called John Smith who is physically identical to the Eleventh Doctor. Smith is, in fact, a botched clone of the Doctor created by the Master intending to conquer England - and to keep Ben out of the way, infects the smoothe scumbag with a lethal 24-hour virus. Ben rapidly succumbs to its debilitating effects and, unable to face the agonizing paralysis, begs Kyle to put him out of his misery. Kyle does so, while Smith perishes from his faulty genetic makeup, allowing David Cameron to become Prime Minister. His first act is to organize a state funeral for Ben, in which the real Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory attend. Operation Delta go their separate ways: Craig and Isobel move in with Ben's parents; Katie and Barry Tuck go to Greece; Piers returns to France; and Kyle and Shakey Jake continue to assist Paul and Corrinne.
Yet another story entitled New Dawn, it was finally concluded six weeks after the General Election took place, making it the least topical of all Ben Chatham stories. The shocking denoument of the story was recieved with much congratulations at Sparacus putting aside a dead horse and trying new things. There are numerous attempts to give the story a 'happy' ending, including the idea that Smith was a Zygon duplicate, or the entire scandal business being a test from the real Doctor, but these were never taken seriously.
Sparacus' first attempt in the post-Chatham era, The Shakey Jake Adventures was not successful, nor the follow ups The Piers Dupont Adventures or The Adam Wooten Adventures, all of which concluded following their first adventures. Similarly abandoned was his attempt at Doomwatch: 2010 - a thematic sequel to Ben Chatham, featuring several of his one-off exes in the sequel to the 1970s TV series.
He finally discarded Chatham altogether in favor of his own Missing Adventures, a pitch returning him to his original basis of Doctor Who stories, a 'Fnarg B' if you will, featuring the Eleventh Doctor and Amy's unseen stories between The Big Bang and the 2011 series. With his usual care for detail, neither were in character and he completely forgot to include Rory.
Sparacus has of late completely abandoned Doctor Who fiction (particularly offended at the lack of reception to his idea the series be filmed in different languages because normal people can't cope with dubbing or subtitles) and has been working on a play entitled Orchids in June about a family of Chathamesque effeminate snobs who become suspected of murder when chavs start being poisoned. Convinced a play where the audience literally has horse shit thrown at them from the stage is a winner, Sparacus is confident that this play will increase his profile in ways Ben Chatham never could.
The impossible venture continues...
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
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