Six plots from David Bowie's Station to Station

For David Bowie’s birthday and now monthly, adventures based on his studio albums’ song titles, working backwards.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside The Buddha Of Suburbia, Black Tie White Noise, Never Let Me Down, Labyrinth. Tonight, Let’s Dance, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), Lodger, “Heroes”, Low...

Station to Station (1976) (Wikipedia)

Bowie recorded Station To Station before moving to another continent to get clean as he later said he hardly remembered making it.

It was the vehicle for the Thin White Duke, one of Bowie’s regenerations and the villain of the piece.

Station to Station

The travellers attend a pilgrimage to a church claiming to hold a piece of the True Cross. What is it really?

Golden Years

Visiting a spa planet, the travellers revert to their physical prime. For the Stranger this could mean almost anything. (Is this a Stephen King reference to a David Bowie reference? Possibly.)

Word on a Wing

The TARDIS door opens and a paper plane flies in, with a message written inside it, a request for help. This is doubly odd since the TARDIS is in space.

TVC 15

The song’s about a television eating someone. Sometimes these write themselves.

Stay

A travellers hovers at the brink of death. Can someone who loves him talk him back? (Yes this is a Shakespears Sister reference. This video should be the heart of a julebox musical.)

Wild is the Wind

A violent storm threatening a traveller’s home, and it’s not a natural one.

Bonus: The Thin White Duke

The Stranger recognises another of her order of travellers. Or is it another version of her? Whoever he is, he’s been here for months, maybe years, tweaking this world to be just what he needs to spring the trap.

Eleven plots from David Bowie’s Low

For David Bowie’s birthday and now monthly, adventures based on his studio albums’ song titles, working backwards.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside The Buddha Of Suburbia, Black Tie White Noise, Never Let Me Down, Labyrinth. Tonight, Let’s Dance, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), Lodger, “Heroes”...

Low playlist

Low from 1977 is the first of the Berlin trilogy, Bowie working with Iggy Pop and Brian Eno among others after he and Pop moved to get clean, and some of the songs reflect on that directly.

Although the album before “Heroes”, started at the Chateau d’Hérouville in France, which is probably not an influence but I’ve always wondered.

Speed Of Life

One of the travellers gets to attend his own funeral. And it’s not at a grand old age.

Breaking Glass

A solar power satellite threatened by robot assassins sent by the backers of a rival power source.

What In The World

The TARDIS lands and everybody around notices. It and the travellers are regarded with a natural level of curiosity for how odd they are instead of being casually shrugged off by most people as usual. What’s that about?

Sound And Vision

October 1955 and someone is trying to stop the broadcast of Quatermass II. It couldn’t be an alien conspiracy worried about being uncovered, could it? Hint: Yes it could be that.

Always Crashing In The Same Car

How do you save someone who seems fated to die, reality shifting to make it happen again and again? (It reflects the song’s feeling of making the same mistake and having to break the cycle, while of course I make it way more literal.)

Be My Wife

The Stranger finds herself in a vital diplomatic marriage between two space civilisations. How long can she stick out being a queen?

Or

The travellers help a Victorian family with an interdimensional monster problem, and the eldest son is quite taken with one of the travellers.

A New Career In A New Town

The travellers have to get jobs in a publishing office to make sure a world-changing book gets published.

Warszawa

Poland 1981, with the Solidarity union and movement already active in the shadow of the USSR and threatened by both modern and future forces wanting to crush freedom before it starts.

Art Decade

1920s Berlin, the Weimar Republic, a hotbed of artistic and political activity about to be snuffed out by history, but attracting art enthusiasts from across time and space. A chance to go behind the scenes of a great lost Expressionist film, and maybe save a copy when you stop some time travelling art thieves stealing it.

Weeping Wall

An isolated house in the country and a haunting effect that focuses on one part of one wall. Is it a Stone Tape recording or something else? (Optionally a Celebrity Historical with Charlotte Perkins Gilman.)

Subterraneans

Silurian episode! Maybe with pale blind Sea Devils. And a scene of the travellers having to stay quiet to avoid detection. But ending up helping them.

Ten plots from David Bowie's "Heroes"

For David Bowie’s birthday and now monthly, adventures based on his studio albums’ song titles, working backwards.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside The Buddha Of Suburbia, Black Tie White Noise, Never Let Me Down, Labyrinth. Tonight, Let’s Dance, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), Lodger...

“Heroes”, from 1977, second of the Berlin trilogy, is of course one of the icons here. Largely extemporised in the studio and half instrumental mood pieces, it was still a big hit, and the title track became possibly Bowie’s most beloved song.

Beauty and the Beast

Tale as old as time, as the Disney version puts it. I also rambled about the tale and the 1980s TV series on ye main blog. Doctor Who has done riffs on this legend a few times, from the Jean Cocteau references in Warrior’s Gate to companions dealing with Doctors transformed by regeneration. But have we had someone trapped by a seeming monster hoping for love to break a curse and going about it badly?

Joe the Lion

Ringling Bros. Greatest Show On Earth is on tour in the 1890s, and one of the animal acts has a problem: a locked room mystery where the room is a lion’s cage, how did he get out?

“Heroes”

An alien probe shot down by the Berlin Wall on the eve of President Kennedy’s speech. Can the travellers and people from both sides get the visitor to safety?

Sons of the Silent Age

The late 1920s, and the talkie is taking over from the silent movie. But as seen in Singin’ In The Rain, switching from silent to talkie brings a host of problems. And in this case a group of aliens who would prefer no to have their voices recorded...

Or

Two generation after the Wall of Sound used in the Seventh World War, some grandchildren of the original victims are being born with hearing intact. And raised by deaf parents and grandparents, they don’t know that they shouldn’t be able to hear that.

Blackout

A refugee colony on a planet with very little sunlight, and a solar storm about to plunge it into darkness for weeks... and someone hunting them.

V-2 Schneider

The V-2 was the first ballistic missile, and a lot of German scientists got into the US space program(me) after working on it. So it would mess up the Space Race if somebody came back in time and stole one.

Sense of Doubt

A psychic shockwave hits modern London, leaving everyone unable to make guesses. Society comes to a halt as everybody stops to analyse everything just to be on the safe side.

Moss Garden

One of the breadbaskets of the Eleventh Great And Bountiful Human Empire, a planet they really don’t want taken over by Daleks.

Neuköln

Neukölln (two Ls) is a Berlin district, West Berlin at the time of the recording, home to a number of visitors, artists, spies for various nations...

The Secret Life of Arabia

The travellers find themselves in another folktale as they have to keep a king entertained through a long night...

Regeneration time again

Charlie Jane Anders on some ways to make Doctor Who new again. And not just posted because she agrees wth me about one major reason the 1996 version failed and the 2005 version succeeded.

Ten plots from David Bowie's Lodger

For David Bowie’s birthday and now monthly, adventures based on his studio albums’ song titles, working backwards.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside The Buddha Of Suburbia, Black Tie White Noise, Never Let Me Down, Labyrinth. Tonight, Let’s Dance, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)...

Lodger from 1979 concludes the Berlin trilogy with some experiments like two songs with basically the same chord structure.

Fantastic Voyage

Well this has to be about miniaturisation, doesn’t it?

“How can we be in here? How do we fit?”

“Miniaturisation ray.”

“How would you know that?”

“Well, there was a ray, and then we were miniaturised.”

Amy and Rory, Let’s Kill Hitler

Doctor Who has done this a few times, including going all-in on the submarining through a body with a Dalek. The Master uses a version of it to kill people and turn them into action figures.

So maybe shrink the travellers down to the size of toys - or miniatures, to be even more meta - and make them get around a house much like the one you’re playing in.

African Night Flight

The travellers visit 1920s Nairobi and the opening celebrations for a flying school. A dashing veteran scout pilot, some romantic complications, and a time travelling saboteur.

Move On

One of the travellers has a bad break-up, and the Stranger suggests speed dating through time travel.

Yassassin

The title comes from the Turkish Yaşasın, meaning ”Long Live”, so the spelling to echo assassin adds to the joke. And now rather than in 1979, “Yass” is a purposely camp positive. So... a secret agent in the Manchester Village?

Red Sails

Pirates! And probably some aliens as well.

D.J.

The travellers have to save a pirate radio station in 1963 from censors and music-hating aliens.

Look Back in Anger

The Stranger has to stop her last incarnation doing something disastrous..

Boys Keep Swinging

The travellers have to help evacuate an underground swing club in 1930s Berlin.

Repetition

One of the travellers finds himself living through the same disastrous day, can he change the ending?

Red Money

(Recycling a Relics item) The Chinese tradition of giving money in red envelopes promises good luck and prosperity for new year and other occasions like weddings. And this year every envelope given pays out double. What’s going on, and who wants to profit from it?

Ten plots from David Bowie's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

For David Bowie’s birthday and now monthly, adventures based on his studio albums’ song titles, working backwards.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside The Buddha Of Suburbia, Black Tie White Noise, Never Let Me Down, Labyrinth. Tonight, Let’s Dance...

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) from 1980 provides the title for the second of the Gene Hunt time warp police series, Ashes To Ashes, as well as an X Files episode named after the title song. And he once performed it on The Jack Docherty Show backed by the show’s mouse mascot.

It’s No Game (No. 1)

The travellers investigate disappearances and get trapped in an alien VR game, or an escape room, or possibly an RPG. Nah, silly idea. Maybe a LARP because the monsters from Rogue were larpers rather than cosplayers. Or a game against the Toymaker. Or a chess match with Fenric. Or a football match with invaders. There’s a lot of this kind of thing, you know?

Up The Hill Backwards

The travellers are caught in an avalanche, which doesn’t seem to be natural.

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

The Stranger finds herself the subject of a horror film about a shapeshifting kidnapper who can appear out of any door. This seems a tad unfair. Who made it?

Ashes To Ashes

One of the companions gets to attend his own funeral. And the date says he should be dead already.

Fashion

The travellers discover a sinister conspiracy pushing youth fashion and other trends wait that’s Josie And The Pussycats oh well do it anyway.

Teenage Wildlife

Young people being targeted by alien big game hunters. How close these are to (a) Predator or (b) fox hunters depends on the point we want to make.

Scream Like A Baby

A baby monster emerges and starts calling for its parents. Given the baby is ten feet long that could be a health hazard. Yes that’s The Abominable Snow Baby oh well do it anyway.

Kingdom Come

A Biblical apocalypse. Angels and demons fighting in the skies over the Earth. And this definitely didn’t happen in the year 1999, so what’s that about?

Because You're Young

A circle of rich old men using an alien medical device to siphon the youth out of people.

It’s No Game (No. 2)

The second round of whatever that game ended up being. But now it’s Sudden Death!

Eight plots from David Bowie's Let's Dance

For David Bowie’s birthday and now monthly, adventures based on his studio albums’ song titles, working backwards.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside The Buddha Of Suburbia, Black Tie White Noise, Never Let Me Down, Labyrinth. Tonight...

Or is it more than eight?

Let’s Dance from 1983 is a big crossover pop hit with songs to dance to and songs about dancing.

I could go for a season throughline here, but I'll mostly swerve dance plots. I did one last time, and having the travellers appear on Strictly might be a bit too much like The Interstellar Song Contest.

Modern Love

Internet dating, can you trust what you see on screen? Buffy and Angel did this with demons. Did Doctor Who do it with aliens?

China Girl

Why is there a beautifully made figurine of the Stranger in the window of that antique shop?

Let’s Dance

An alien diplomatic envoy and entourage arrive in modern London and they expect the reception to include (a) representatives of other alien visitors in the area like the Stranger and (b) formalities. And then there’s a murder attempt.

Without You

A few years before a companion’s home time and she bumps into - or gets a chance to see - a lost love.

Or, a sequel to Within You from Labyrinth?

Ricochet

The travellers in the Wild West face another time machine crew, here to steal precious metals ahead of a Gold Rush mining disaster. Cybermen optional.

Or, slingshot around a sun.

Criminal World

The Galactic Federation has just outlawed an entire planet? Crime planets appear in a lot of space opera settings, but does this one deserve it?

Cat People (Putting Out Fire)

Hollywood, 1942, and the travellers have to get help from filmmaker Val Lewton against, well, you can guess.

Shake It

An artificial earthquake threatening a future colony.

Or, the travellers have to staff a malt shop in 1950s California.

Nine plots from David Bowie's Tonight

For David Bowie’s birthday, adventures based on his studio albums’ song titles.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside The Buddha Of Suburbia, Black Tie White Noise, Never Let Me Down, Labyrinth...

Tonight (1984) is a short album, largely covers with some of the new tracks co-written by Iggy Pop.

Loving The Alien

Well, there are plenty of ways to use this title, with or without Doctors and companions having emotional investments. So let’s say... The travellers return to their home time and find an alien visitor has become a celebrity.

Don’t Look Down

Sabotage in a future flying city! - or - A monster lurking in people’s shadows.

God Only Knows

Tome around the time Christianity should be going mainstream, and another religion seems to be gaining favour instead.

Tonight

After saving the world, the travellers find themselves guests on a late night talk show.

Neighbourhood Threat

A suburb in the heights of the Cold War, and the travellers have to help the “monsters” due on Maple Street.

Blue Jean

A second encounter with the Jean Genie, troublesome avatar of not-quite-understood American pop culture, only this time he’s nursing a broken heart.

Tumble And Twirl

Mavity has failed on a 26th century space station!

I Keep Forgettin’

Was there someone with us just now? I’m sure there were three of us in the TARDIS...

Dancing With The Big Boys

So to save the world the travellers have to make sure a teenager gets to compete in a dance contest. Life’s like that sometimes.

World Book Day

Happy World Book Day!

Twelve plots from David Bowie's soundtrack for Labyrinth

For David Bowie’s birthday, adventure hooks based on his studio albums’ song titles.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside The Buddha Of Suburbia, Black Tie White Noise, Never Let Me Down, moving to a monthly feature...

Labyrinth from 1986 was a musical collaboration between Bowie and composer Trevor Jones, as well as Bowie’s starring role in the film as Jareth the Goblin King.

The film has its own story game, so I’ll try not to re-enact it in my title ideas.

Not to be confused with any other musical Goblins and their king that we might have seen in Doctor Who (though I did use them for one) or the times Bowie played a vampire, a mage, a ghost, a demon...

Opening Titles

The travellers are guests of honour at the premiere of a new film / play / opera / installation / holoshow / other popular entertainment or baffling art piece about a previous visit by the Stranger - but someone wants to make it her final curtain!

Into The Labyrinth

An ancient/future weapon of the Time War strikes the TARDIS, randomising its internal structure. How do you get back to the control room?

(I would have done a Minotaur but they did that in The God Complex.)

Magic Dance

The travellers have to recruit the Smothers Brothers to win a dance-off with an avant-garde troupe from Alpha Centauri.

Sarah

The travellers receive a letter from Sarah Jane Smith, an investigation she could never complete.

Chilly Down

A plan to restore the polar ice, threatened by an energy corporation and a thing escaped from the ice.

Hallucination

The travellers fall into illusory worlds designed as perfect traps for each of them. Almost perfect, anyway. (Hey, I’m allowed one, right?)

As The World Falls Down

One of the travellers is newly heartbroken, and a world with a Pathetic Fallacy interface locks on to his feelings.

The Goblin Battle

Since the death of the Goblin King there are now a Prince and Princess trying to claim the throne, fighting above modern London in their air galleons.

Within You

The Stranger takes a blast from a memory thief’s weapon and the travellers fall into fragments of her past. Can they save her from her darkest moments?

Thirteen O’clock

A secret hour where impossible things happen.

Home At Last

The TARDIS lands without warning on Gallifrey, and the Stranger finds herself face to face with her family.

Underground

The map of the London Underground is a masterpiece of simplifying a complex system. The agents of chaos want to undo that. And as they do, it will cause more than a few delays...

Eleven plots from David Bowie's Never Let Me Down

For David Bowie’s birthday, adventure hooks based on his studio albums’ song titles.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside, The Buddha Of Suburbia, Black Tie White Noise, that’s ten years and there are seventeen more to go, so moving to a monthly feature...

Never Let Me Down (1987)

Day-In Day-Out

The travellers arrive in a future where people can trade days of their lifespan. There are safeguards to prevent overtrading, but of course the time trade takes a small cut, even in donations. But someone is taking a minute here and there off the books...

Time Will Crawl

The travellers have to stop a disastrous time engine failure, and the TARDIS is badly damaged. Now its localised spacetime is out of synch with where it lands. The travellers find themselves losing minutes as time speeds up to correct around them, or having to wait as everything slows. The Stranger will have to take it to a time machine repair facility to get it working again, and the fix involves flying through a Blackstar.

Beat Of Your Drum

The travellers have to help a punk band after someone steals their drum kit. Optional crossover with We Are Lady Parts.

Never Let Me Down

A 30th Century colony built on platforms over a lava planet, and a youth gang daring each other to

hang and swing off the underside.

Never Let Me Down (original idea)

The Stranger never makes promises. “I should be able to stop the Daleks, but you never know...” So when she promises to save a dying companion, you know she means it.

Zeroes

Anybody lacking a certified ID does not exist. Psychic paper will get the Stranger through doors but not past human double-checking. And when the travellers are separated, one of the others will have to find their own way back to the TARDIS through a sprawling city of locked doors, certified citizens who won’t help and whatever hunts the unrecognised Zeroes.

Glass Spider

An ancient rival of the Time Lords, imprisoned in the unseen web for millennia, now free. But did it deserve to be locked away?

Shining Star (Makin’ My Love)

Where did the idea of wishing on a star come from? A living star that can grant wishes. And nowadays has interstellar travellers trying to get her attention.

New York’s In Love

The travellers find an entire city in a good mood. Why not, it’s a lovely sunny spring day, and... is that a spontaneous musical number? Maybe it’s a flashmob thing.

87 And Cry

(The album was released in 1987)

A city where north-south streets are numbered and east-west streets are... a lot more poetic and maudlin than they should be.

Too Dizzy

A terraformed planet with fluctuating gravity. Can the travellers stabilise it before it breaks down completely?

Bang Bang

The travellers land in a gold rush town and one of them is on a Wanted poster, for a pretty hefty reward. What did he do? And when will he do it, because from his perspective he hasn’t done it yet?

Thirteen plots from David Bowie's Black Tie White Noise

For David Bowie’s birthday, adventure hooks based on his studio albums’ song titles.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling, Outside, The Buddha Of Suburbia...

Black Tie White Noise from 1993 has enough for a regular BBC season...

The Wedding

The Stranger is asked to officiate at a wedding that will unite two galactic civilisations. Or to be the groom. Or the bride. Or something. The invitation’s rather vague.

You’ve Been Around

The travellers arrive on a new world to find people waving and saying “good morning” and addressing them by name and chatting amiably like they’re neighbours. Have they been here before?

(Or: The travellers arrive to find the TARDIS surrounded by police and news crews within minutes of arriving. It seems they saved the planet last week.)

I Feel Free

The travellers are sent to a 77th Century prison planet for a crime they absolutely did commit but which was legal when they did it four thousand years earlier. How do they escape, who was responsible for this miscarriage of justice, and how many of their old enemies are here too?

Black Tie White Noise

The travellers attend a jazz show in Weimar Berlin and have to save the trumpeter from an alien art thief trying to collect him which would rewrite 20th Century Western music.

Jump They Say

Something sinister living under the streets, best not to walk across the road too slowly.

Nite Flights

A plane sets off with two hundred and thirty-three people on board and lands with two hundred and thirty-four. And then another like it, and another. Always on night flights taking off and landing after dark.

Pallas Athena

An ancient city’s patron god reappears, over a thousand years and a move to a new religion after she was last seen.

Miracle Goodnight

A children’s hospital sees a dramatic rise in recoveries from serious conditions. What could be behind this, and why?

Don’t Let Me Down & Down

The travellers have to spelunk into an ancient cave complex to look for a missing group of explorers. Comments from a modern companion about dungeons and/or dragons will become slightly awkward once they spot something watching from the dark...

Looking For Lester

One day, everyone with a certain fairly-common name in London disappears for forty minutes.

I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday

One of the travellers meets the love of their life. Who really shouldn’t be on this planet or in this century.

The Wedding Song

The travellers are invited to one of River Song’s weddings, and not one of the ones the Stranger remembers happening.

Special: Lucy Can’t Dance

The travellers find themselves backstage at Strictly Come Dancing, and have to make sure one of the contestants makes it through to round two.

Doctor Who scripts online

Via Reactor, You can now read a whole lot of Doctor Who scripts courtesy of the BBC Writers’ Script Library. Over two hundred, including the recent specials, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Class, and the audition piece for the Fifteenth Doctor.

ROBIN We’ve got 100 seconds?!

THE DOCTOR And I will get you out.  You will go home.  And see your mum.  And your brother.  Okay?

ROBIN How d’you know about them?

THE DOCTOR They’re in your eyes.

101 TARDIS Quirks

101 TARDIS Quirks on RPGnet, more than 10% mine for the initial number but carrying on.

Started bizarrely with the thing where it needs to be given a puma, but most are milder. from the same poster, 7 (unpleasantly organic) is disturbing while 8 (really likes neutron stars) is adorable.

Nine plots from David Bowie's The Buddha Of Suburbia

For David Bowie’s birthday, adventure hooks based on his studio albums’ song titles.

After album titles, ★, The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling and Outside...

If I do these annually I will retire before I get to the end. So since The Buddha Of Suburbia from 1993 is under ten titles, expect another soon...

And as the soundtrack to the TV version of Hanif Kureishi’s novel it’s already been a BBC drama, so dodging that plot. (And Naveen Andrews would make a great Doctor.)

Buddha of Suburbia

The travellers return to find a philosopher as mayor of their home town and people coming from far and wide to learn from him. Oh, and it’s one of the travellers, about five years older than he is currently.

Sex and the Church

The travellers have to help Abelard and Heloise escape some very disapproving church authorities backed by the Censors seeking to stifle inappropriate artistic expression throughout human history.

South Horizon

The sun rises in the south. This is concerning.

The Mysteries

A production of a new murder mystery play is interrupted by an actual murder. By laser beam.

Bleed Like a Craze, Dad

1981, and the most famous band in the world is Theda Bara, led by a self-proclaimed immortal vampire queen.

Strangers When We Meet

The Stranger meets an incarnation of herself that she doesn’t recognise.

Dead Against It

A new bypass goes too close to a stone circle and workers start dying horribly. Dangerously zealous protesters or disturbed ghosts?

Untitled No. 1

The travellers have to team up with the Dadaists to stop the Censors wiping out the 1920s.

Ian Fish, U.K. Heir

The travellers return to the present and the person on all the money looks totally unfamiliar. Who altered the line of succession and why? Also, if we have a King Ian, is this the Ianian era?

Imagine Russell T Davies

Alan Yentob talked to Russell T Davies on BBC One arts series Imagine, even with a moment on Dark Season. And a new to me bit about what the 60s episode next year is going to be about.

The Nobles

Caroline Siede of Girl Culture and formerly the A.V. Club on The Star Beast, the Doctor’s feelings, and the Nobles in particular.

When Rose Met Doctor

Caroline Siede, former AV Club “When Romance Met Comedy” columnist, has a substack for general media talk, Girl Culture, and this week starts a Davies era Doctor Who rewatch!

Inside Man

Inside Man, Steven Moffat’s new miniseries starring David Tennant, starts tonight. Sounds dark. Doesn’t have any spaceships so I’ve hardly seen anybody talking about it.

Fire the canon

Morgan Davie on how to present canon in licensed RPGs and specifically Doctor Who.