Trumped (part one of one)

 

INSPIRATION

The original idea for this was as a fun, April Fool's Day adventure to be presented one page a day on the Outpost Doctor Who forum, the fore-runner of the current Gallifreybase, whose toy forums had long been a friendly place and where I made many friends that I'm proud to still know today.

I considered a couple of ideas before hitting upon this idea featuring the Trods - a monster ripe for a mickey-take.

SCRIPT

Having decided quite quickly what the point of the story was and where the comedy lay, the script came swiftly - a simple single scene, essentially. The fifth page with the Zygon twist came later but the script was completed on 28th March 2012.

CAST

The 4th Doctor/ Trod disguise is from City of Death while the Zygon's 4th Doctor disguise is from Pyramids of Mars. The Director is a Primeval Lester with a Cutter head, the Secretary is Jenny from Primeval. The Zygon is the basic original release of Broton.

The Trod was one of a pair made for an earlier story and is actually a plastic cup with a drinking straw gun and cardboard tank treads. The head is made of Super Sculpy with a paper clip aerial, while the arms and collar are made of tin foil, with more paperclips for claws.

SHOOTING

Shooting began immediately on 28th March 2012 and was a simple affair given that it only needed on set.

The set is very simple, made of white plastic envelope stiffeners, dressed with a few mini plants, a plastic yellow dome and furniture made from the same plastic as the walls.

The secretary's office was shot first, with the set dressed up with green plastic walls. She's using a red dolls house phone.

The main office was shot next. The Director's laptop is from the Buffy The Vampire Accessory pack.

Finally, I shot some greenscreen stuff of the Trod, Dalek, Cyberman and Sontaran for the cutaway shot on page 3.

EDITING

The edit was relatively simple too and completed on 29th March 2012. The only real effects were compositing the cutaway of the Trod attacking the other monsters and the transforming shots of the Doctor into the Trod, Director into the Doctor and the Doctor finally into the Zygon.

There was also the Top Trump screen shots where I was able to poke a bit of fun at some of the monsters that have been held in less regard: the Bandrils from Timelash (1985) Cassandra from The End of the World (2005) and New Earth (2006), Erato from The Creature From The Pit (1979) and the Siren from The Curse of the Black Spot (2011).

CONTINUITY

This is a little comedy aside, not really intended to be part of the Doctor Who/ AFT canon. Yet, here it is. If you want to make the leap that a Top Trumps corporation exists in the Whoniverse, please feel free.

TRANSMISSION

Trumped was posted exclusively on Outpost Doctor Who toy forums, posted one page per day between 1st and 5th April 2012.

It was posted generally on the Action Figure Theatre site on 24th March 2014.

It was reposted here on 1st April 2023.