Sunday 8 January 2023

Nineteen plots from David Bowie's Outside

For David Bowie’s birthday, his 1995 album Outside has enough tracks for a long TV season if you include the Segue tracks. And a plot. Which I’ll use a bit of.

After album titles, , The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours and Earthling, adventures based on the album’s song titles...

Leon Takes Us Outside
A group of friends meet a mysterious man, each of them sure that someone else in the group knows him, and go with him to a party...

Outside
... on the moon.

The Hearts Filthy Lesson
A Time Lord gives up one of her hearts for a transplant into a human ally. But now he can feel the turn of time.

A Small Plot Of Land
The travellers meet a group of amateur metal detectorists, about to unearth a long buried Sontaran cloning barrack ship.

Segue – Baby Grace (A Horrid Cassette)
A modern Earthling companion visits his sister and her new baby, and sees something on the baby monitor that shouldn’t be there.

Hallo Spaceboy
If Donna Noble can’t remember her time in the TARDIS, who wrote this tell-all book about it?

The Motel
A dingy backroads motel in 1950s America, where all attempts to drive away lead back to it.

I Have Not Been To Oxford Town
A medieval pilgrimage, well organised as a package holiday, taking in all the sacred sites of southeast England... and one that shouldn’t be there.

No Control
The TARDIS answers a call from an unknown outside source. Something important, and dangerous, is going to happen here and now. But what, and who could summon the travellers to it?

Segue – Algeria Touchshriek
The travellers accidentally become a support act for a 1980s shock rock superstar.

The Voyeur Of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)
An intergalactic tourist cruise to see black holes, supernovas, and the ultimate fireworks show of the end of a solar system. But this solar system isn’t supposed to end for another million years. And there are people in it.

Segue – Ramona A. Stone / I Am With Name
A “found footage” episode charting someone attempting to find an explanation for the disappearance of a friend - one of the companions.

Wishful Beginnings
Make a wish and throw a coin into this particular fountain and it might just come true.

We Prick You
Can the travellers escape a witch hunt?

Segue – Nathan Adler
A detective in a small Oxford town tries to solve a murder. But one of the travellers knows this story, it's just a TV show, Isn’t it?

I’m Deranged
The Stranger’s previous incarnations come back to haunt her when an alien spy hits her with a mental regression beam.

Thru’ These Architects Eyes
(With apologies to Douglas Adams and Alan Moore)
A planned community spells something out in an alien language.

Segue – Nathan Adler
The travellers meet the creator of the Nathan Adler mysteries, who turns out to be - that would be telling.

Strangers When We Meet
The Stranger meets a future incarnation. Or does she?

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