Doctor Who Saves Lord of the Rings!

[Lalwendë]

Sticking this here because it's just so weird I can't think where else to put it.

Now I love Tolkien of course, and I love Doctor Who. We've already seen the Doctor meet with Charles Dickens and he meets with Shakespeare in the new series; so why can't he meet with Tolkien?

Except he has.

Doctor Who, like many other sci-fi cults, spawned spin-off novels, not terribly canonical, and allegedly never as good as the TV series anyway. One of these has the blurb as follows:

‘Grrrrr.’

The greatest book ever written.

Professor Reginald Tyler’s The True History of Planets was a twentieth-century classic; an epic of dwarves and swords and wizardry. And definitely no poodles. Or at least there weren’t when the Doctor read it.

Now it tells the true tale of how the Queen of the poodles was overthrown; it’s been made into a hit movie, and it’s going to cause a bloodbath on the Dogworld -- unless the Doctor, Fitz and Anji (and assorted friends) can sort it all out.

The Doctor infiltrates the Smudgelings, Tyler’s elite Cambridge writing set of the early twentieth century; Fitz falls for flamboyant torch singer Brenda Soobie in sixties Las Vegas, and Anji experiences some very special effects in seventies Hollywood. Their intention is to prevent the movie from ever being made. But there is a shadowy figure present in all three time zones who is just as determined to see it completed... so the poodle revolution can begin.

The synopsis for Mad Dogs and Englishmen just sounds mad! Some weird parody, it features not only Tolkien, but Edith, CS Lewis, Noel Coward, George Lucas and Ray Harryhausen. And Dogworld, a planet ruled by Poodles. A time traveller goes back in time and persuades Tolkien not to write about Elves, but about Poodles instead!

I think the best thing about this is that it shows Doctor Who to be a Tolkien fan - and one who saves Lord of the Rings from an horrific fate! And the worst is that I'll bet it's extreme silliness has dashed my hopes of a TV Tolkien/Who spectacular.

Could any of us come up with any better Who/JRR storylines?