Originally
published in
Celestial Toyroom Issue 348
These
days, it seems, Doctor
Who Confidential
has decided to follow the “hook 'em young”
principle and provide
the kids with their very own gateway drug: Totally
Doctor
Who, which
manages the amazing
feat of being even more superficial than the average episode of
Confidential. So, in
the interests of hooking 'em young, we're providing a children's
edition of the Confidential
Drinking Game.
Unfortunately,
in this edition the drinks aren't likely to numb the pain much, as,
since this is a children's programme, you're limited to non-alcoholic
drinks: try Ribena, lemonade, or, for the daring, cocoa. Intelligence
suggests, however, that Totally
has a large undergraduate following; for the student edition, drink
Red Bull and watch with a sense of sophisticated irony.
And now, the game! Take a drink whenever:
- A “Totally
Exclusive” turns out to
be a piece recycled and/or rejected outright from an earlier episode
of Confidential
- The
presenters themselves get into makeup/flying harness/costume/whatever
as part of the behind-the-scenes segment (drink once if it's the
female presenter, twice if it's the male).
- Some task on the
“Companion Academy”/ “Team
Totally” segment is built up as
amazingly difficult and sophisticated, yet turns out to be an utter
piece of cake. Chug if the participants manage to screw it up somehow
anyway.
- The
camera focuses on one of the abovementioned reality-segment
participants looking slightly more goggle-eyed and nervous than
usual.
- The
judges on one of the abovementioned reality segment visibly struggle
to find something positive to say about the contestants' efforts.
- Clayton
Hickman appears.
- Nick
Briggs appears.
- A
guest star from the previous episode appears. Take two if they look
nothing like their onscreen role. Take three if they're Paul Kasey
and/or Freema Agyeman, and chug the lot if they're American.
- In
any episode where RTD appears, drink once when he appears, then take
a drink any time he:
- tries
to give the impression of being a busy and successful important man
- tries
to play down his encyclopaedic knowledge of the programme
- flirts
with the male presenter
- Any
of the following words or phrases appear:
- “Win a Totally
Doctor Who
mug/sweatshirt”
- “Have we got a
treat in store for you today”
- “A
Totally Exclusive”
- “All
the
children/teams have done really, really
well...”
- “Whooo
Goooes Therrrre...”
- Someone
makes a faintly misogynist remark about the female presenter. Take
two if she responds in kind, and chug if someone makes a sexist
remark about the male presenter for a change.
- You
spot a classic-series reference in the cartoon. Take two if you can
identify the episode. Take three: you'll need it to get through the
wretched thing. Chug when it finishes.
- Somebody
makes an appalling Doctor
Who-related
pun.
- You
get the answer to a question in the quiz before the child does. Take
two if the reverse happens. Take three if you're ashamed.
- The
presenters make a caricatured attempt to weasel spoiler information
out of the guest star, while making it simultaneously perfectly
obvious that they haven't a hope in hell of getting anything
interesting.
- The
trailer for the forthcoming episode of DW follows the Totally Rule
(i.e.: if the trailer on Totally looks good, the episode will be
terrible; if it looks bad, the episode will be correspondingly
fantastic)
For
those of you who can't make it through without alcoholic drinks,
there is, however, a simpler version: start drinking the moment you
feel like murdering the presenters, take a drink every time you find
them a touch more annoying, and hopefully you should be insensible
before the episode is over. Or, even more simply: take a drink every
time Billie Piper doesn't appear as a guest.
Next Issue:
absolutely nothing. We're
finished with this. For now!
Next
month, provided we sober up in time, Doctor
Who
Confidential Drinking Game part II: This Time, It's Smug.
