Past Time Catching is a short story written by Dave Stone. Released in 1999, it is part of the Doctor Who anthology Perfect Timing 2 and tells of Benny and Chris being trapped in the pages of a magazine.
Characters[]
- Seventh Doctor/John Smith
- Bernice Summerfield
- Chris Cwej
Plot[]
While in the TARDIS, the Doctor reads from the pulp magazine Astonishing Stories of Unmitigated Science! and makes a cryptic proclamation that "the time has come for action".
Selections from the magazine are then shown. The first of these is a brief letter from the editor ('Jolly' John F. McMacraken) that Astonishing Stories has been bought by a new publisher.
The first major selection is a short story called "Snail Women from Uranus".
In the town of Kitchen Falls, a young man named Norman Mailey watches an alien spaceship crash and gets his body taken over by an alien named Queegvogel Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Seven. Due to this, he (or Queegvogel) marries his friend Bernice Summerfield. Right before they consumate the marriage, Queegvogel reveals himself. Bernice then reveals that she is a being from another planet, seemingly with the goal of civilizing the human man. Queegvogel flees, leaving Norman behind with his new wife.
There is then a brief ad for "Fun with your NEW KA!!", a device created by the FIRST EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF PRACTIBRANTICISM (a non-religious organization that has set itself up as a religion to skip out of paying taxes and that was co-founded by "John Smith".) to swap bodies with another person. Next comes a selection of letters to the editor. The second major selection is another short story, this one called "Termination on Golgotha".
Chris Cwej lands on the planet Golgotha to kill a being named Volok who has exterminated his entire family. Once at Volok's abode, he is answered by "Volok" (or Delbert)'s father, who reprimands his son for "turning the skies black with the bodies of the burning dead".
The final selection is an advertisement for two books, the first being The Best of Astonishing!, which was apparently pulped en masse shortly before this edition of the magazine was written. The second is a book written by Dr. John Smith dubbed "Future Impact: The Apocalyptic Backlash" which predicts the end of the world through literally falling into the floor of time. To solve this, Smith has implemented a plan to make the Earth into a giant pendulum.
Inside of the TARDIS, Benny and Chris have been saved from the pages of Astonishing! - having been put there by mysterious beings which the Doctor only calls Entities. He reveals that he stopped them by purposefully feeding them garbage ideas, although he states that he may get charged with inventing " incredibly pretentious bog-postmodernism" if he is ever put on trial (again).
In-author names[]
- Several names within this story have appeared in various other works by Dave Stone, each describing different (?) concepts.
- Queegvogel appears in the Doctor Who Missing Adventures novel Burning Heart, where it is used by an alien the Sixth Doctor rescues from bullying humans.
- "The Golgotha Project" is a terrorist organization in the Past Doctor Adventures novel Heart of TARDIS.
- Snippets from this short story are later mentioned/appear in Heart of TARDIS.