It’s here! The final round to determine BOTH the best of the losers of the original Monster Mash, and the ultimate loser – the weakest, most fan-forsaken monster in the Death Zone. Without further ado let’s go to the Aggro-Dome and meet them:

Vying for Best of the Worst: JUDOON versus SILURIANS
Both teams didn’t get off to a great start, with the Sycorax pulling their blood magic and the Rutans being electric jellyfish respectively, but second time may prove the charm for one team today. So, bereft of giant dinosaurs and body-scanning technology it comes down to a quick-draw of blasters versus head thingies!

Vying for Worst of the Worst:

As Jamas says, the Krotons were probably always going to be here, whether they deserved to be or not. The question would be who would they face? Last night the bout between Vervoids and Terileptils ended in a draw – panic! Someone had to lose to meet the crystalline menace. Our touch-judge (right) said ‘Vervoids’. But then Foo arrived with a late vote – and it’s Terileptils!

So: scintillating silica-based scientists versus terribly technical terileptils it is. Neither are particularly manoeuvrable – who wins then?

Okay so. Only four teams remain in either the Upper or Lower field, leaving two bouts apiece to get us closer to determining simultaneously who is the better team of the losing pack, and which team is the outright plonker of them all. Let’s deal to the Upper field first, and its not-so rubbish combatants:

UPPER FIELD

Location: The Slough
Two teams trudge their way through the mire of this round – ancient Earth Reptiles the Silurians and the swimmers of the blood seas, the Haemovores. Man’s earliest nightmare meets his ultimate destiny. Will the future vampires find cold blood to their taste, or will the racial convictions of the Lizard Kings be enough to repel the horrors of the deep? At right, an uninvolved spectator.

Location: The Great Wall
There’s little the Krillitanes could gain genetically from beating the Slitheen last round apart from a zip-top head and occasional flatulence, so their Tetrap-donated advantages still apply. Their opponents this round however are the mighty martial Judoon and their flesh-disintegrating blasters. Who wins?  Don’t ask the Gastropod at left, it’d blow his heart, and his mind.

And those are the Upper Field’s teams! Now to the real contenders for the loser’s crown…

LOWER FIELD

Location: The Concrete Jungle
The losers of round three assemble for another flappy fight, and the first two of the four are parallel universe were-men the Primords and silicon IQ-vores the Krotons. Watch and marvel as unarmed beast-men rumble with teetering metal petrol bowsers with frontal cannons. Our watchful Jacondan touch-judge at right thinks the Primords have it in the bag – is he on the money, or just a bird-brain?

Location: The Thermal Baths
As steam wafts about this final battleground of the round, two teams emerge from the mist. The Vervoids are for the most part silent, only the rustling of their leaves and the occasional squeak of trainers gives them away. The Terileptils are also in their element, with small laser arms and hunting knives, their history as mining slaves means they’ll not shrink from rough and ready brawling. It’s cat and mouse in the hothouse, and only this Pipe Person (at left) thinks he knows who’ll walk away from this bout, and the ignominy of the Lower Field…

Place your bets, and let the best worst teams win!

Ookaay… to borrow the phrase that last year’s big trend made popular, it’s Business Time.
All sixteen teams from Rounds One and Two have re-entered the bout and are now in two divisions. Upper division consists of the winners to date, and lower division needs no further explanation. Also, Round Three is Joker Round, so there may be some surprises in this week’s bouts. Let’s see how they shape up:

UPPER DIVISION
Silurians versus Macra (Location: The Castellan’s Caves)
It’s the undergound battle of all time, and just when you thought it couldn’t get any weirder, the Silurians finally get to play their Joker – a tame T-Rex (or is it an Allosaur? Perhaps we’ll call it… a Speleosaur, given that it lives in a cave?). Never mind, the “most fearsome mammal of all time” faces off against the crafty crustaceans.

Zygons versus Judoon (Location: Valley of the Shobogans)
No Jokers in this bout as the Zygons used their Skarasen in the big game, but it might be worth pointing out again (as the Rutan match-up went so well… sigh) that the Judoon are equipped with their handy dandy bio-scanners, so shape-changing may not have the advantage it did last time.

Slitheen versus Krill-traps (Location: Rassilon’s Orangery)
Yes! Another Joker invoked as Rusty’s new monsters go head to head. The Slitheen of course are fast, devious and vicious, while the Krillitanes are fast and vicious AND since their victory over the Tetraps gain their Joker – the better race traits of their last victims. So: quadroscopic vision, poison bites and backwards talking for them then. Will it be enough to tip the balance?

Haemovores versus Vogans (Location: Flavia’s Boneyard)
Did I mention it’s Joker round?
And that the Haemovores have brought the seven-foot tall Ancient One as their big gun? Eek – I can’t watch! Let’s move instead to…

LOWER DIVISION
BRING OUT YOUR LOSERS!

Tetraps versus Primords (Location: Borusa’s Folly)
Will the power of flight and small arms fire be enough to get the Tetraps through this round? Or are the Primords made of tougher stuff than the Tetrap bullets, and force the match to be played on terra firma?

Cryons versus Vervoids (Location: Spandrell’s Storehouses)
Cold-loving ice maidens with guns versus plant-men who probably like north-facing positions and well-drained soil. Will the Cryons be disadvantaged by their setting? Or will the Vervoids turn out to be frost-tender?

Krotons versus Voord (Location: Omega’s Labyrinth)
At this stage things just look too weird with a match-up of these proportions. Cannon-carrying silicates the Krotons meet rubbery saboteurs the Voord, who get to play their Joker – a Voord Leader with telepathic connections (as seen in The Fishmen of Kandalinga). Will empathic links be enough to turn Marinus’ frogmen’s losing streak?

Nimon versus Terileptils (Location: Kellner’s Steppes)
Neither team is ignorant of how it pays to increase your brain-power, both come armed, although the Nimon are the physically stronger group – arguably. However, the Terileptils get to play their Joker, and it’s a weird one. Plague Rats.

And that’s Round Three done. Don’t forget to vote!

Well that has to be it – July 2008 is a dead cert to being the swiftest July on record. Where did it go? Probably stoled. Maybe by Davros and his minions, that scallywag. Anyway, things moved quickly last month, so you may have missed these happenings…

X-TENDED! X-MAS TRAILER! X-CITEMENT!
Hmm. They’re really keeping things under wraps, aren’t they? Anyway, it appears an extra ten seconds or so gives us but a very confident young urchin, the likely companion of the piece, more David Morrissey and an evil Dirvla Kerwin. And Cyber-Wraiths, or robot Taran Beasts or something. Are we excited? Well, lots of this stuff was to be had in the set photos section of the DW Forum (if you could bear the trudge through the squeeing that is). But at the moment? mm. We’ve been disappointed before with a huge build-up. Scare us this time, Mister Davies!

MOST IMPROVED WHO-BLOG?
Why, it’s Kasterborous! We may have bagged them slightly earlier in the year for getting a bit huffy with the more outrageous rumours (and some which came true… ahem), but hey – a new look, lots of intelligent, up-to-date content devoid of the sort of fannish speculation which makes the DW Forum a chore to read these days, and great editorials. We’ve been away a while, but it’s nice to be back. Well done, Christian and Co!

MEANWHILE ON THE DOCTOR WHO FORUM…
Yes yes, that’s two bags full so far in one installment. So what’s got up our goat this month? Apart from the ennui of it all over there with the youngsters and their shipping and squeeing and Janto-ing. Well, nothing outrageous. And maybe that’s the problem. But just as it appears young Rusty gets the gist of hiding spoliers from us (until the inevitable leak to the tabs that is), young fandom runs out of new series facts to talk about and, say, starts to create their own series five. And you get this…

and…

Eee-yikes.

DALEK-MASKED WOULD-BE ABDUCTOR FOILED BY CAR HEADLIGHTS?
Words fail us.

POLISHING UP THE SILVER?
Aaand it’s twenty years now since Silver Nemesis was unleashed onto an unsuspecting world (insert obligatory ‘NZ got an episode before everyone else’ note – Ed.) There’s precious little McCoy left to release, and going by the stories remaining one does get the feeling 2Entertain have their own impressions as to what’s going to sell quickly or not (a clue: Battlefield is next) . Anyhoo – that wouldn’t stop the interested fan from frustrating the forum administrators bringing up the topic of format and version on the Doctor Who Technical Forum. And what a discussion! Special Edition or standard, slightly wonky edition? Add the documentaries, or delete the rubbish bits? Worth a little extra in the budget to give punters the choice via a two version double disc like Fenric and 5 Doctors, or a blight on potential resources for other, probably less-vanilla-bound stories? Phew! Good job it’s not on the schedule yet…

DWM COMIC STRIP FINDS ITS MOJO ONCE MORE.
Now, ’tis true that we’ve been a bit harsh on DWM lately, perhaps not on this blog, but behind the back of the series’ esteemed organ. but to be fair, despite a whole internet of spoiler potentials and interviews and what have you, the Official Magazine sees to be doing alright for itself. Particularly quite recently in the comic strip department. There was a time, your loyal Rapid Returner must confess, when this was the first and sometimes only thing he turned to with the mag in the new series, most other content being either already old by the time it got to these shores, or a bit… fluffy. But we’re loving Rob Davis’ The Widow’s Curse (spoiler-tastic panels here) right now. Lovely artwork by Martin Geraghty, solid nods to the new series’ history, what could well be Donna’s only comic strip outing (we’ll see, maybe) and bets of all a story that seeks to build on the recent past. A one-off monter race gets fleshed-out (if you could say that) is a quite respectful and very effective way.

THE ‘QUEEN’S BUM’ AWARD
As in… we believe it occupies physical space, but we’ve not actually seen proof of its existence. And it goes this month to the Time Meddler DVD. Has anyone actually seen a copy here, let alone bought one? From a terrestrial shop?