Crossovers ahoy!

[thisbluespirit]

As anyone who knows me, one of my other loves in fanfic is a good crossover. It's the one thing you really can't have in the actual show (because of pesky rl considerations, like copyright, actors now being consideably older / dead etc.) and Doctor Who is built for it. Where other shows have to beat about the bush trying to explain the crossover, or just making it crack!fic to get away with it, all any DW fanficcer has to write is 'The TARDIS lands...' and we're away.

What crossovers would you like to see more of? Or those you'd just love to see? Are there any real crossover no-nos when it comes to Doctor Who? I've always been of the opinion that you can cross it with anything, but maybe there are limits.

What ideas does everyone have?

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Okay, the worst things anyone (including me) can say to me is you can't do X in a fic. I was sitting here, agreeing with you about the Watership Down thing, when three potential solutions presented themselves:

1. involving dreams and myths in some way (i.e. maybe the presence of the TARDIS getting into Fiver's dreams)
2. You have a central threat that the Doctor tries to stop that also affects the rabbit community and tell it in alternating sections where, like yr ST idea they interact ("I say, this wire's been chewed right through!") but obvious not knowingly. (And for some reason, it was clearly a crossover involving Four, Harry and Sarah.) That, I think, if someone could do it - and my WD memories are bit vague, and even though I've read the book, still clouded by the terror the mythical bits at the start of the film brought in - could be really clever and fun.
3. You try the slightly cracky approach and make it a double crossover also involving Dr Dolittle.

Actually, I think with the second problem, there are few examples where you can't use the historical get-out clause for some reason (importance, being too far in the future, fixed points, yadda yadda yadda) not being able to meddle. Same reason you can't bust Anne Boleyn out of the Tower of London... And Voyager is a bit of a bad example, because the show treats Voyager's ending up in the Delta Quadrant as a Signifcant Event (both in consequences of the trip, and in the disappearance being like the Titanic sinking), not to mention the incredible timey-wimey-ness that must surround it, especially when you even try to induce a headache by thinking about the ending. (I have a DW/Voyager WIP somewhere that doesn't even consider any of this because I assumed all that as read). Which brings me to your heroes at odds things, because if you can picture the scenario where the Doctor won't use his TARDIS, and Captain Janeway discovers that... well, heaven help the Doctor. Or the Doctor might end up trying to fix the tangle Admiral Janeway makes of time (which would have the same potential complication as above, plus the two Janeways probably on different sides of the argument), or, of course, you have the situation where he can take them home, but not the ship, and Janeway won't go without the ship (I think they did this somewhere along the line, I have a feeling). I'm waffling a lot, but hope that makes sense. In fact, a DW crossover that had the Doctor and Janeway head to head over her cavalier attitude to time travel, I would adore! With her popping his balloon of Time Lord pomposity as much as him putting her straight, obviously. :-)

As regards the two heroes not being needed, well, most shows (not so much DW, though), do tend to have a plot where they have to find someone to help them in some way - and the Doctor slots nicely into that role. Plus, it could be more a character piece, and then saving the day is an optional extra.

But crosses with companions are fun, your funny spoil=sport TNG crossover sounds v entertaining, and I agree about not making all villains connected. Except I think Wolfram & Hart, and Torchwood should enter into some sort of dodgy negotiations at some point.

On thinking about it, I wonder about crosses with things that are mentioned as fictional within DW (Harry Potter, Agatha CHristie) but it doesn't stop me writing things with Miss Marple in! (I think Miss Marple and Poirot just exist, like Sherlock Holmes... :-D)

I am v amused now that I could work a crossover for Watership Down! Mind you, I have to say, I'd have a problem with Redwall. ("Okay, we've found a lot of mice and badgers wearing armour, and building a fort... Is that normal?" And somehow, already this is a very weird fic with Eleven, Amy and Rory. See... anything, you can cross anything... :lol:)

[john_amend_all]

For your Watership Down point 1 crossover: Fiver meets the Dream Lord? That might work, since he (Fiver, I mean) has talked to humans while dreaming in canon. In fact, 'crossover characters get to share a dream with the Doctor and the Dream Lord' sounds like it's got potential to be a new sub-genre all by itself. And each Doctor would have to have their own Dream Lord. Five::Ronnie Barker, Seven::John Thaw?

When it comes to Voyager, I've only watched a handful of episodes so I'll readily accept the 'fixed point' explanation. Though it might be fun to see Janeway try to hijack the TARDIS; between her crew's unfamiliarity with the systems and the TARDIS's legendary unreliability, they could end up in some amusing places.

As for crosses with things that are fictional in the Whoniverse, there's the Literary Agent Hypothesis (already invoked to explain how the Doctor has met both Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes), there's the Land of Fiction, and if all else fails there's Storytime.

In general: Trying to come up with crossovers that won't work does seem to lead to a desire to make them work, doesn't it?

[thisbluespirit]

I have to ask... why is Five's Dream Lord Ronnie Barker? :-)

:lol: That does sound like fun. Mind you, if it's post-Seven of Nine's arrival, they'd probably fly it better than he does, and they'd still have a Doctor on board. He'd be annoyed.

*nods*

[john_amend_all]

Ronnie Barker... seemed like a good idea at the time. I was trying to picture someone who'd be very physically different from Peter Davison, and up popped the mental image of Barker in one of those 'spokesman' rôles.

[thisbluespirit]

It's a nice image. It just wouldn't have occurred to me. I love the idea of him now. I'm torn as to whether I'd really pick him for Four. There seems to be some strange thing that dictates that Five's Dream lord should be played be Robert Hardy! :lol: (I think I like your idea best...)

[john_amend_all]

I wonder about Fulton McKay for Four's Dream Lord (since legend has it he was a candidate for Four proper...)

I do like the idea of Robert Hardy as a Dream Lord, though.

[pedanther]

Mind you, I have to say, I'd have a problem with Redwall. ("Okay, we've found a lot of mice and badgers wearing armour, and building a fort... Is that normal?"

Since there aren't any humans around (there aren't, are there?), clearly it's an alien planet where the local intelligent life just happens to resemble Earth animals. Possibly in the same part of the galaxy the Judoon come from.

(Or somewhere near the planet my hypothetical Lion King crossover was set on.)

[thisbluespirit]

No, I don't think there are... but there's this sense it could be this whole world that is out of sight of humans. Mind you, it's got its own elaborate mythology and all. I lost track somewhere after about the first seven, which I read when I was a teen, and he was still going with the things last time I looked. (How many times can you write the mice and the Badgers fought the Nasty Weasel/Fox/Ferret and won? 8-o)

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

LOL, yeah, the last one I read was about number... twelve, I think. I just can't get behind some of the changes he's making to the mythology trying to cram more books in. And the first seven books were definitely the best.

(Can you tell I was a massively Srs Bisnes Redwall fan when I was younger? *g*)