Unbound # 8 - The Ultimate Adventure (i)

An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Sky High

W H A T I F . . . THE DOCTOR EXISTED IN AN INCREDIBLY CHEESY UNIVERSE WITH COMPANIONS WHO SING LOTS OF 1980S POP MUSICAL NUMBERS?

A Panto Doctor – A Panto Dimension


Serial SP03 – The Alternate Adventure! -

On the planet Fargo, the Emperor Dustbin finalizes plans to conquer the Earth. Well, it passes the time, doesn’t it?

As part of the 1980s economy drive, the Dustbins have been forced to outsource their armies of tidying death and now their vast legions of destruction consist of a phalanx of Cybermen, and a fine band of cut-throat mercenaries lead by the mysterious Karl, a tall, dark-haired man in a beige leisure suit, fedora and truly tasteless Greanpeace shirt.

Despite having intercepted an emergency signal summoning the Doctor back to Earth, the Emperor turns down all the suggestions that they save some time and just destroy the Time Lord, insisting that they need him alive for unspecified reasons that will allow him to be humiliated before they exterminate him for his crimes against cleanliness!

"Oh, GOOOOOD!" chuckles Karl, rubbing his hands with glee.


ACT ONE


The Sixth Doctor, searching for a new, fit, male companion ideally as good looking as Grant Markham, has settles on Jason Donavon, a young attractive aristocrat he rescues from Madam Guillotine and the French Revolution. When the matter of rewriting the course of history is brought up, the Sixth Doctor can merely justify his actions by pointing at Jason and shouting, "GET THAT ARSE!!"

Suddenly, the TARDIS receives a message from the Super Outer Space Telephone Thingie Spiff-a-rinno, a special device he left Humanity to contact him if every they required his help in that nebulous time zone known only as "the UNIT era". The message summons the Time Lord to "Number 10" on a matter of "the most ridiculously contrived" of circumstances, and the Sixth Doctor gleefully sets course.

The time machine reappears in the office of 10 Downing Street where Prime Ministerial Ice Maiden Margaret Thatcher is drinking the blood of virgins to restore her strength and capacity for evil. As the Doctor and Jason cautiously enter, the Doctor notes Thatcher is working late... as usual for someone who cannot exist in the rays of the sun.

"What are YOU doing here, you flamboyantly-dressed homosexual?" she spits while cleaning her false human teeth with a letter opener. "You’re supposed to be at Number 10 the strip-club, brothel, opium den and centre of moral degradation!"

"...and that isn’t here?" asks the Sixth Doctor meekly.

Effortlessly crushing a walnut with her bare hand, Thatcher explains that the Doctor was supposed to arrive at the nightclub in Clarendon Square to act as bodyguard to the American Envoy (one Captain Jack Sparrow-nee-Harkness), a major player in the Achieve Mutual Disarmament Create Lasting World Peace And Not Make "Threads" and "The Day After" A Reality conference, only the fifth in Earth’s history. However, M15 have discovered unspecified and really rather unconvincing evidence of a plot from beyond this Earth to kidnap the envoy and blow the conference to smithereens during the opening speech.

"What form did this evidence take?" asks the Sixth Doctor.

"A post-it note reminding the owner the kidnap the envoy, blow the conference to smithereens during the opening speech and then cancel the papers before returning to Epsilon Four."

The Sixth Doctor wonders why, therefore, if Captain Jack is so freaking important to preventing thermonuclear global annihilation, why they’ve let him wander off to a strip club the night before the conference with such a clear and present danger against his person?

"Diplomatic immunity," Thatcher shrugs. "And after he slept with Dennis, he’s pretty much allowed to do what he wants."

Though the Sixth Doctor suspects that Captain Jack is so sick he deserves to die in an extraterrestrial kidnap, the Time Lord agrees to help out and Jason tags along in the hope of seeing strippers. He kisses Thatcher’s hand as they leave, only have his nose broken.

Meanwhile at the Number 10 Bordello of Ill-Repute, singer Kylie Minogue – fresh from her European Tour of "Neighbours" and accompanying the Doug Anthony All-Stars in their hit single "10 Reasons To Fuck Off Out of Ramsey Street" – is making her London debut. MC Hammer drops by for some unfathomable reason to tell her that the American peace envoy wants her to do a lap-dance if at all possible.

MC Hammer introduces Kylie to the envoy and his distinguished looking bodyguard in a frilly shirt, crushed velvet jacket and still bitching about how his last girlfriend dumped him. As the rest of the audience applauds, Kylie sings "I Should Be So Lucky". Under the cover of this pop sensation, a horde of Cybermen and mercenaries rush into view, fire totally randomly, grab Captain Jack and run away again.

The white-haired man in the frilly shirt emerges from the gents and wonders whether or not he missed anything, when the TARDIS materializes in the middle of the dance floor and the Sixth Doctor emerges, demanding to know what’s going on – and more importantly, why is his Third Incarnation loitering at a den of iniquity like this.

"Some of us are still heterosexual you know, old chap!" the Third Doctor retorts and asks the dying MC Hammer whether he’s seen a square-jawed American in a greatcoat and no pants anywhere.

At that moment, Karl pops out of the shadows mocks both Doctors for being too late and reveals that they are so clueless they didn’t even notice the mercenaries were from Deneb Three and regularly frequent the underground hangout and well-known outlaw/murderer/mercenary recruiting centre, the Bar Galactica on Sentros run by Madame Delilah.

After giving the Doctors the precise coordinates for the Bar Galactica and tips for how to get past the Bane bouncer on the front door, Karl tells them point blank to start their investigation there and on no accounts to ANYTHING else.

Then, with a peal of melodramatic laughter, Karl teleports away.

The two Doctors stare at the place where Karl once stood for a long moment, and then start arguing. With less than 12 hours before the peace conference starts, the Third Doctor suggests they use the TARDIS space radar to track down the kidnappers, while the Sixth suggests they interrogate MC Hammer in his native language of hiphop.

The Third Doctor huffs and storms off into the Sixth Doctor’s TARDIS to lock it onto the energy track of the Cybermen. Realizing his earlier self is stealing his time machine, the Sixth Doctor runs inside as well, followed by Jason and Kylie with whom he is putting on the French aristo moves at the time.

The TARDIS takes off with the two Doctors wrestling for control of the console as confused Kylie does all the "why is this police box bigger on the inside?" shtick I cannot be arsed to summarize. It’s not like she gets a different answer from all the others, is it?

When the Doctors realize Jason has brought Kylie aboard, they put aside their differences temporarily to slag off Jason. "This is scarcely the time and place for you to indulge in amorous pursuits," the Third Doctor snaps.

"What’s that tart doing in here, you French slut?!" demands the Sixth of Jason, shoving Kylie out of the way and into the arms of his younger/older self.

"Young lady," the Third continues, "we are on a very important mission that involves the safety of her planet, so be a good girl and return back to your excuse for a soap career."

"Pity you foolishly set the TARDIS in motion so we can’t just throw her back out then, isn’t it, old fruity?" sneers the Sixth.

"Tragic," the Third agrees and kicks the Sixth in the nuts and continues to work the controls. "It’s at times like this I hope I die before I turn into a curly-haired multicoloured psychopath..."

"You left it too late," the Sixth croaks. "TWICE!"

Leaving his future self and Jason to explain to Kylie that this isn’t some stage show illusion done with mirrors, the Third Doctor programs the TARDIS to follow the not-at-all-suspiciously clear energy trail to Atlantis III...

Back on Fargo, Karl throws Captain Jack to the base of the Emperor Dustbin and assures everyone that he left a false energy trail to Atlantis III to leave a trap for the Doctor... assuming he’s dumb enough to fall for it, though the Cybermen are insanely confident at this point and bitch that they’re doing all the work in this relationship and the Dustbins refuse to open up. The Emperor Dustbin insists that their evil master plan is a surprise they refuse to spoil.

Atlantis III, the super-advanced civilization built by the incredibly optimistic subterranean super humans who refuse to think the fates of the first two Atlantii are in any way ominous. The TARDIS materializes and Kylie bundles out the door... much to the annoyance of the Sixth Doctor, who was kind of hoping they hadn’t landed yet and she’d be scattered across the Time Winds.

The time travelers are now standing in an Aztec-style city made out of solid gold which proves too much for Kylie’s brain as prehistoric reptiles wheel in an alien sky and what’s more that the Doctor and Jason are not congenital liars and the whole alien/space travel/time machine stuff is actually true.

Suddenly some bug-eyed monsters in togas turn up and Kylie screams until she passes out from oxygen starvation. The Third Doctor is confident that by making some strange chicken noises he can communicate to the creatures in their own language, but the Sixth Doctor tells him to shut up while the more experienced Time Lord has an important conversation using the TARDIS translation circuits.

The Third Doctor bitches that HE was the one who saved Atlantis III from being wiped clean by the Dustbins with their pointlessly environmentally-unfriendly technology which had absolutely no function of any kind other than to remove the ozone layer, but the Sixth Doctor points out that the Dustbin chronology has been rewritten twice since then so that adventure doesn’t count in the post-Lavros era.

When the Atlanteans finally get a word in edgeways explain that the Cybermen have been and gone and were really quite rude about the lovely golden city. Jason bemoans that they have mere hours to rescue Captain Jack, before he realizes everyone is staring at him. "Oh yes, time machine. Silly me. Forget I said anything."

At that moment, Cybermen emerge from the shadows, aiming their massive phallic weaponry at the quartet to take them prisoner and/or kill them depending on whether or not they keep acting like the whipped bitches of the Dustbin Empire. "I think I shall refuse your fine invitation," the Third Doctor sneers. "Aren’t you all supposed to be allergic to gold or something like that?"

Gripped by a sudden and completely inexplicable fit of hypochondria, the Cybermen explode in a fit of pyrotechnics and the Third Doctor leads his companions back to the TARDIS, the Sixth Doctor muttering darkly under his breath that ANYONE could have done that and old fancy pants is just showing off. As they take off, the Sixth Doctor points out that there is no obvious reason why the Cybermen and mercenaries are working together.

"We could always do that that guy in the beige outfit said," suggests Kylie and the Sixth Doctor immediately hijacks the TARDIS and sends the time machine hurtling to the Bar Galactica to try and get information from Madame Delilah.

The Third Doctor wonders exactly HOW they are going to persuade Delilah to talk and the Sixth Doctor is at a loss. Laughing at his despair, the Third Doctor orders Jason and Kylie to collect his dressing-up chest for a suitable disguise.

Soon they are ready – the Third Doctor wearing a ridiculously long scarf and a spiked German helmet, the Sixth Doctor dressed as Dirk Turpin with a frilly shirt, Jason as a Mousketeer, and Kylie wearing a backwards baseball cap and a denim trouser suit. They don’t actually want Kylie to come with them, they just like watching her get changed into stupid outfits.

On Fargo, the Cyberleader tries and fails to make light of the fact the phalanx on Atlantis III blew up in a moment of gold-related paranoia, then tries to pass the buck onto the Emperor Dustbin for having too higher expectations. Karl tells his allies that there’s no point trying to recapture the Doctor as he is unlikely to be at the Bar Galactica and instead the Dusbtins and the Cybermen should blame each other instead. As they do so, he laughs evilly and mutters that his plan is unfolding perfectly!

The TARDIS arrives at Sentros where the time travelers watch on with horror as the S&M bondage-clad nightmare Madame Delilah terrifies the patrons with her off-tempo rendition of some obscure Jim Morrison song lyrics while alternating molesting and beating up her army of multi-species concubines. The Doctors, Jason and Kylie watch in horror as the whole band of lesser monsters assume poses from the title sequence of The Avengers lest they be flogged!

Finally, that bloody song ends and even MORE insanity begins as the various mercenaries start screaming kung fu shouts and trying to spar with the Sixth Doctor, who stares at them for a long moment before snapping the neck of the nearest disco-dancing Vervoid and getting on with the plot.

Madame Delilah has fallen head over high heels for the Third Doctor and immediately invites him for her hourly dominatrix session with her personal gimp slave, a small furry Magwai-like bartender from Deneb Four called Zog. Extremely interested, the Third Doctor vanishes with Delilah into her private booth and strange noises emerge from within as a Riverdancing Draconian captures Kylie to get an autograph and Jason manages to start a three-way bar fight with a hand-jiving Alpha Sintauri and a break-dancing Kraap. Luckily all these problems are easily solved by the Sixth Doctor declaring it happy hour and everyone getting very, very drunk. So drunk, in fact, the laws of gravity bend and break and everyone starts floating and spinning in mid air.

Because everyone is so utterly inebriated, no one notices the sinister black-cloaked figure sneaking into the Bar Galactica and generally being ominous and silent and sinister. Oh, this is caught so well over audio, isn’t it?

Finally, the very disheveled and dazed Third Doctor and Delilah emerge from the booth wearing each other’s clothes. Tired of the hairy barbarians she normally flays alive, Delilah has fallen for the mature, educated and civilized Doctor and how they both "make beautiful music together". Tutting at how easily his previous and straight self is distracted, the Sixth Doctor barges over and demands to know that, if they’ve finished screwing, could she provide some info about the big Cyberman caper thingamajig going on?

Delilah shrugs and suggests he speaks to Dr. Karl Sagan, the handsome, wicked young man in the fedora who is running the whole operation – and to the shock of everyone with stress-related nervous disorders everywhere, the sinister cloaked figure turns out to be the very same Karl in the very same fedora!

Karl orders everyone in the bar to be silent and asks if the most wanted man in the cosmos, a man with a bounty of a million credits on his head, the intergalactic master-criminal known as the Doctor, is here tonight. Not waiting for an answer, Karl assumes the Doctor isn’t there and walks out again, meaning that the two Doctors, Jason and Kylie escape back to the TARDIS in perfect safety.

To the surprise of the time travellers they discover Zog has smuggled itself aboard with a sign around its neck saying "WILL WORK IN RETURN FOR NOT BEING SEXUALLY ASSAULTED EVERY DAY" and starts to polish the Sixth Doctor’s boots and cleaning the console. The later Doctor is glad to finally have a useful companion around and the Third Doctor’s protests that this could be some kind of trap fall on deaf ears.

Jason and Kylie wonder if they learned ANYTHING of ANY value during this trip to a den of inadequacy, like for example how the Cybermen and Karl seemed to anticipate their very moves? Or indeed why Karl told them to go straight to Madame Delilah rather than go to Atlantis III, which would have spared them a lot of crap with bug eyed monsters?

The Third Doctor wonders if Karl might have his own agenda and is playing everyone else for fools, but for what end. The Sixth Doctor nods sagely before announcing he doesn’t care. The Third Doctor has made a pig’s ear of the whole thing and decided that from now on, the Sixth Doctor is in charge! He immediately lands the TARDIS in deep space to ponder his next move...

...which turns out to be screaming hysterically as the time machine goes out of control, caught in the tractor beam of a Dustbin Magellanic Cloud Cruiser. The Dustbins happened to be hanging in the area at the suggestion of Karl, and within moments the TARDIS is in their cargo hold with no way out.

"So, it wasn’t mercenaries, it wasn’t Cybermen, it was the Dustbins all along," the Third Doctor muses. "Quelle surprise."

Inside, the Sixth Doctor comes up with a truly brilliant plan – cower under the console in a humiliating panic attack and pray that the Third has the faintest idea of what to do now. The TARDIS is trapped within a force-field and the Black Dustbin announces that unless the Time Lord surrenders, they will fill the TARDIS with a brain-destroying screech known only as the love ballad "Sky High". Normally the TARDIS is completely impregnable to outside attack, but the Dustbins – thanks to some helpful tips from Karl – can exploit a flaw in the continuity and wiping out the lot of them.

It only takes the first verse to drive the time travelers, screaming, from the TARDIS and into the firing line of FIVE – yes, that many – Dustbins, who are not in the mood for the Doctor’s interference in their plans for conquest and getting in the way of their sterilizing of the universe.

By staggering coincidence, at this exact moment the Cruiser flies straight into a meteor storm and the Dustbins realize that if they are to stand a budgerigar-in-a-microwave’s chance of survival, they’re going to have to try and pilot the ship and leave a single, solitary, special-needs Dustbin in a crash helmet to guard the prisoners. Of course, ANY solitary Dustbin up against two Doctors, Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue would be completely stuffed, but this is just pathetic.

The drooling, slurred Dustbin tries assert its authority, only for the entire ship to helplessly spin out of control and the entire Dustbin force tumbles out of the door. The Third Doctor leaps into the fray and uses his sonic screwdriver to fuse the lock, trapping the Dustbins in the aft section. "Brilliant plan, my old Madeira cake," the Sixth Doctor observes, "except the TARDIS is still locked inside a force field and you just made sure the only things that can free it are sealed out of the ship and not only that but the Dustbins are the only ones who can possibly steer this ship before it gets smashed to pieces between asteroids!"

"So what’s YOUR brilliant idea then, Joseph of the technicolour dreamcoat?" the Third Doctor snaps. "Open the door, let the Dustbins back in and hope they DON’T immediately kill us?"

"I might just DO THAT, Scarecrow!" the Sixth spits and kicks down the aft door, even as the spaceship itself goes into a horizontal spin into the depths of the meteor storm.

As everyone hangs onto for their lives, the Dustbins swarm back in and, having discussed matters, decide to focus on exterminating the gang before worrying about piloting the ship out of danger.

"And you’re just going to blame ME for all this, I suppose!" grumbles the Sixth Doctor as death closes in on them all...


ACT TWO

Showing a level of stupidity that truly sets them apart from most genocidal cyborgs, the Dustbins decide to follow "Special" Zeg’s advice and exterminate the Doctors INSIDE their own TARDIS, as they will obviously have no way at all of escaping. But even as the gang are forced to march into the TARDIS, Karl appears and explains he has a message from the Emperor telling them to bring the Doctor to Fargo alive, no matter what.

Karl gives another mocking laugh and vanishes.

By now, the cruiser has managed to blindly smash its way out of the meteor storm and to pass the time and give "Special" Zeg something to do, the Black Dustbin tells the Doctor to reveal the secrets of time space mechanics to him while the others pilot the space ship.

The Third Doctor smugly points out that he doesn’t have do – they can’t kill him lest they majorly piss off the Emperor Dustbin, but the Sixth Doctor points out that the orders don’t apply to Jason, Kylie, Zog or even himself come to think of it. Desperately he agrees to show "Special" Zeg how the TARDIS works as long as all the companions are allowed to stay safe and sound inside the time machine and all the force fields and things turned off.

Ridiculously overconfident, the Black Dustbin allows this.

But the moment they are alone, "Special" Zeg reveals it’s actually a cunning and brilliant Dustbin scientist who simply PRETENDS to be an insane, radioactive idiot to deflect attention. Immediately, Zeg starts to dismantle the console to discover its secrets.

"Don’t you realize the harm you can do with this indiscriminate tinkering of yours with the TARDIS’ power sauce? You could destroy this entire battle cruiser of yours and reduce us all to subatomic particles!" the Third Doctor rants.

"EXCUSE ME, I AM A PROFESSIONAL!" Zeg grates and continues butchering the console with a special chainsaw attachment. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT SORT OF PROMOTION THIS COULD GET ME? I CAN’T BELIEVE I DIDN’T GET THAT JOB IN THE CULT OF FARGO..."

"YOU AMBITIOUS TRASHCAN-SHAPED SON OF A BITCH!" roars the Black Dustbin as it returns to the TARDIS. "I KNEW IT! ALL A PACK OF LIES! GO BACK TO YOUR PLAY AREA ON THE FLIGHT DECK AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO TELL THE SOCIAL SERVICES NOW THEY KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUBNORMAL! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!"

Zeg makes a rude gesture with its squeegee and glides out.

The Black Dustbin turns back to the Third Doctor and demands he get down to explaining everything, when the Sixth Doctor announces that he "is completely bloody sick of this", grabs a power cable and jams it inside the LITTER hatch on the Black Dustbin’s dome, killing the alien death machine. The Sixth Doctor kung fu kicks the Black Dustbin out of the TARDIS which he then dematerializes.

The Third Doctor points out that the Sixth has completely stuffed up the time machine much more than any lavatory-plunging egg-whisking pretend-subnormal Dustbin could ever have managed and soon the duo are caught in a fist-fight over who gets to pretend to be a mechanic and climb up the console to fix it.

In the meantime, Jason activated the CSL – the Contrived Scenario Locator, a kind of auto pilot that locates the least dangerous and most safe location available and pilots the TARDIS there. The Doctors stop their Greco-Venusian wrestling to wonder how the in the name of Vervoid peristalsis does he know about the inner workings of the TARDIS?

"That guy in the beige suit and Greenpeace T-shirt told me about it, and which button to activate it, and that I should do it once we left Madame Delilah’s," Jason shrugs.

The Doctors brood over this before deciding it isn’t important.

On Fargo, Karl cheerfully reviews at an email from the Dustbin battle cruiser that they let the TARDIS and its crew escape. Again. The Cyberleader bitches that Karl’s plan has failed, but Karl smugly points out that it wasn’t HIS plan. "I got them to go to Atlantis III, I set up an ambush at Bar Galactica, and made sure there was a battle cruiser waiting for them. It’s not me who’s screwing up, it’s you?"

The Emperor Dustbin agrees and decides that since they have Captain Jack and the peace conference is in danger, they can forget about the Doctor for the moment, and hastily Karl changes tune and convinces them to send out all patrols to capture the Time Lords alive.

When the Emperor Dustbin agrees, Karl laughs evilly and rubs his hands gleefully. "Just why do you keep doing that, mercenary?" asks the Cyberleader in confusion.

"Oh, nothing," Karl shrugs.

The TARDIS fetches up on an alien planet and since the Third and Sixth Doctors have been fighting to the death all the while, they haven’t started the repairs, let alone finished them. Leaving Zog to try and stop the duo from killing each other, Kylie and Jason run out into the zero-gravity world and start getting kinky.

"Oh, Sarah Jane," the Third Doctor calls. "I mean, er, Jo, um..."

"Kylie," the Sixth Doctor sighs.

"How am I supposed to remember a name like Kylie? Anyway, even though the place is supposed to be safe, ANY alien planet should be treated with respect!"

Outside, Kylie and Jason pause in their shagging... and singing... to admire the multicolored desert around them as they bounce up and down on each other like ping pong balls. Finally, sating their lusts, the duo return to the TARDIS, as the alien planet (which turns out to be alive and sentient) throws a major wobbly as Aussie soap stars using it as a make out point.

Inside the TARDIS, they find Zog trying to revive the Third Doctor from a strangling incident while the Sixth takes the TARDIS on another test run to a similarly perfectly safe landing point. But even as the Time Lord notices how disheveled his companions are and demands to know what the hell they’ve been doing behind his back, the TARDIS reappears on Earth in the dim and distant past.

Jason and Kylie immediately race out to get another interplanetary bonking session before the Third Doctor recovers and checks the controls and realizes they have arrived in France, 1789, right in the middle of the French Revolution. "You’ve brought poor Jason back to precisely the time and place where the people wanted to cut off his head!" the Third Doctor accuses his future self.

"Good!" the Sixth Doctor retorts. "The tart’s been rubbish as either companion or boyfriend. I’ve gone right off him!"

Outside, Jason is starting to think there’s something terribly familiar about this town square as the revolutionary guards force him into the guillotine. An old cockney crone scuttles up and asks to take a lock of Jason’s hair for a momento, and in the distraction tries to free Jason, revealing it to be the Third Doctor!

Soon the entire cast are engaged in a massive sword fight as the Third Doctor swings into view, throws a smoke bomb at the guillotine, effortlessly disarms all the revolutionary soldiers and leads his companions back to the TARDIS. "Can YOU do that?" sneers the Third Doctor to the Sixth.

The Sixth pulls out a flintlock and shoots the revolutionary guard commander – who was creeping up behind the Third, panto style, with a knife – through the heart, killing him instantly. "No, I think you’ll find that I can do BETTER!"

The group enter the TARDIS as the Sixth Doctor calmly explains why the CSL system has been taking them to the most dangerous spots it can find – the Third Doctor has reversed the polarity of the neutron flow so many times the TARDIS now works backwards! The Third Doctor responds to this by kicking the Sixth Doctor in the groin several times and programming the TARDIS to travel to the Bar Galactica so he can get some more sweet loving from Madame Delilah.

The Third Doctor leaves the police box to find Delilah half conscious on her couch with an empty bottle of champagne in the closed bar. "Ah, the notorious Madam Delilah, dear lady, I was hoping to continue our rudely interrupted canoodling..."

Madame Delilah smiles and pulls out a plasmatic spasm volatizer gun, revealing she knows that the Third Doctor is actually a Time Lord, one
of the aristocratic elite of the cosmos. "Ahem," notes the Sixth Doctor, "I prefer to think of myself as an individual; I am the cat who walks by itself, all places and times are alike to me!"

Everyone stares at him and after a moment, the plot resumes. Delilah reveals that, while he MAY be a renegade and a brilliant lover in bed, the Third Doctor’s worth a fortune if Delilah sells him over eBay to the Dustbin Empire.

"Business is business," Delilah sighs and starts another sing along.

Mercifully at that moment, Karl arrives with two Dustbins to stop the musical and take the Doctor captive. Things look grim when Karl suddenly tells the Dustbins NOT to hand over the cash to Delilah and instead lie and tell the Emperor they caught the Doctors on their own so they can cheat the mercenaries.

Delilah is rather bewildered at this development as this is the one way GUARANTEED to make everyone in the Bar Galactica start a rabid bloodlust orgy of violence and destruction and not the usual brand of cunning you’d associate with a ruthless backstabbing look-out-for-number-one hired killer like Karl.

"I’ll explain later," Karl promises

The Dustbins decide this gotten dull and open fire, exterminating the entire ensemble of alien mercenaries while the two Doctors, Kylie, Jason and Zog leg it back to the TARDIS. Finally running out of hard-bitten mercenaries to kill, the Dustbins turn to face the fugitives, but the quick thinking Sixth Doctor grabs Delilah and uses her as a human shield, so she is fried by radiation instead of him.

This doesn’t prove to be much help as the Dustbins just wait for the Sixth Doctor to let go of her corpse so they can fire again... but at the last moment Karl blasts both Dustbins with fire extinguishers, the freezing cold carbon dioxide shriveling up the naughty bits of the creatures within and leaving them completely stuffed.

As the Third Doctor weeps "Why, why, WHY, Delilah?!" over his ex, Karel comes over to and reveals to the others that he has a truly cunning plan allowing them revenge, profit and moral victory...

Moments later, in the Fargo City Cell Block H, the TARDIS materializes and out strides Karl followed by the two Doctors, Jason, Kylie and a Dustbin escort. Little do they realize that this all a ruse and the Dustbin guard is actually Zog sitting inside a Character Options’ remote control, the voice cunningly provided by Jon Pertwee holding his nose and talking into a ring modulator.

Still traumatized by Delilah’s death, the Third Doctor asks Kylie to stay behind in the TARDIS where she’s safe and can become his full time replacement companion, but the Sixth Doctor insists she see things through the end. "And if you happen to perish in the crossfire, leaving the devastated and emotionally vulnerable Jason in my care," the Sixth Doctor continues, "then that’s perfectly all right with me."

In the main headquarters of the Emperor, said Emperor begins to wonder whether or not the Doctor is likely to come to Fargo to collect Captain Jack or whether they’re all just doing exactly what Karl says and just hoping for the best. "Oh, you THINK?!" retorts the Cyberleader.

The Cyberleader sends a patrol to the Bar Galactica and quickly find all the dead bodies and quickly steal them for their own depraved purposes, reporting back that it’s obvious that Karl’s a traitor and the Doctor’s group is loose on Fargo, accompanied by an impostor Dustbin.

"OR IS THAT JUST WHAT HE *WANTS* US TO THINK?" ponders the Emperor.

In the high security area, the Sixth Doctor locates the kidnapped envoy trapped within a light cage showing 3D holograms of multi-species pornography like "Snow White & The Seven Nimon" or "Shaving Private Terileptils" and Captain Jack has absolutely no inclination to leave.

"That explains why there are no Dustbins on guard!" the Sixth Doctor exclaims. "They don’t NEED them! NOTHING can drag him away from that badly-filmed erotica, which is obviously being beamed straight from the Emperor Dustbin’s staggeringly vast internet porn collection! There’s nothing we can do! Absolutely nothing! It’s hopeless!"

Immediately convinced, everyone decides to bugger off home early through a base full of armed and angry Dustbins, Cybermen and mercenaries – Jason and Kylie decide to sneak back to the TARDIS for some more bonking, Zog decides to mingle with the Dustbins and the Sixth Doctor decides to act as a chaperone to Jason and Kylie.

Karl heads off to collect his fee, but before he goes he suggests to the Third Doctor that they might be able to free Captain Jack using a rather dangerous mixture of friction and temporal energy. Using a mood ring on a chain it might be possible to create a time tunnel which will break the flow of blue movies and dirty videos. In moments, Captain Jack will become bored and immediately leave the cell.

"I’m quite capable of working out my own brilliant and cunning plan, thank you very much," snaps the Third Doctor in annoyance.

Meanwhile, the Sixth Doctor finds Jason and Kylie heavy petting behind boxes and crates in the City Storage area when the Dustbins arrive to do a stocktaking check which involves lifting all the crates into mid air via a hoist and using them as target practice. Luckily, by an incredible coincidence, all three of them are bitter ex-lovers of Harry Houdini and are capable of somehow not only survive being blasted at point blank range with lethal laser light-shows, but able to wander off in full view of everyone without being stopped.

They then pass a curiously silent Dustbin who refuses to give the special code word and then is blown to smithereens by a suspicious Cyber patrol. Kylie barely has time to exclaim how much she liked their furry mascot, Karl and his mercenaries emerge from in front of the TARDIS and reveals that he has betrayed them all to the Dustbins as part of his overall terrible master plan thingy. On top of this, the Dustbins arrive in force and open fire on the TARDIS, which then explodes before our very eyes!

Oddly, the Doctor doesn’t seem remotely concerned and is more puzzled why the Dustbins blew it up after spending ages wanting him to explain how it worked to them.

Meanwhile, back in the high security area, the Third Doctor finally gives up trying to work out his own way of rescuing Captain Jack and uses the mood ring to create a time tunnel. Now with the incredibly dazed and incoherent American envoy at his side, the Third Doctor prepares to escape... only for the Dustbins, Cybermen and mercenaries to glide in with the Sixth Doctor, Kylie and Jason as prisoners.

It seems all is lost. Big time.

Suddenly, they notice for the first time that in the corner of the room no one was looking at sits the immense and obsessive compulsive Emperor Dustbin with wires and cables fixed to its casing in a hazardous manner, an enormous and unmistakable occupational health and safety nightmare.

The Emperor Dustbin tells the Doctors this is their ultimate defeat, but this just makes the Sixth Doctor laugh (out of sheer hysteria). The Third Doctor points out, "We’re not defeated until we’re dead and you have some strange desire not to kill us for some reason. May a humble prisoner ask a humble question: what the fuck are you doing?!"

"THAT WOULD BE TOO CLICHÉD A FATE OF YOU!" the Emperor Dustbin covers. "INSTEAD, WE SHALL FORCE YOU TO WITNESS THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR BELOVED PLANET EARTH AND *THEN* KILL YOU! NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG! YOU WILL BE A PRISONER OF THE DUSTBINS FOREVER!!"

"That’s what you said last time," the Sixth Doctor points out.

"And the time before that," the Third Doctor agrees.

"And the time before that," the Sixth Doctor adds.

"So many attempts to conquer the Earth, yet so many failures," the Third Doctor mocks. "And every time, you get us a ringside view of the Earth and expect us to be impressed when your collective metal botties get soundly smacked!"

"You know, humanity has taken out a restraining order on you," the Sixth Doctor laughs. "The Shadow Proclaimers take a very dim view of repeat offenders like you, you know. If it gets out you triggered thermonuclear war while still on probation, they’ll throw the book at you. And then the DVD. Followed by the New Alexandria Library, brick by brick! Got a clever plan for that?"

"Yes, they have," says Karl cheerfully. "That’s why the Dustbins are using Cybermen and mercenaries – they’ll be the scapegoats to be blamed by the space police! And even if they don’t, the Dustbins will use them all for target practice anyway!"

"INDEED!" booms the Emperor. "WHAT CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!"

"You just revealed your evil plan in front of us Cybermen and mercenaries for a start," notes the Cyberleader before a massive pitched battle between the three factions begins and in the unspeakable carnage that follows (imagine "Dustbin –vs- Cyberman" with some Wadifalayeen assassins caught in the middle and you pretty much have the picture), Karl easily leads the two Doctors, Kylie, Jason and Captain Jack out of the chamber to an ante room.

There stands the TARDIS, which everyone seems to have forgotten and everyone runs inside and take off as the Cyberleader punches a fist through TWO Dustbin casings, causing them to squeal in incomprehensible pain, and he then bashes them together, sending chunks of their casings flying through the air and pieces of their squelchy blue flesh and blood flying through the air. Flipping the Emperor Dustbin the bird with one steel hand, he then activates a big ominous threatening button which must never ever ever be pressed marked "THE END."

The much-abused Dustbin city on Fargo starts spewing out fountains of sparks and minor explosions as multiple fires break out as towers collapse in crackles and pops before the burning collection of buildings explode in a huge detonation and sends the top half of Dustbin Emperor flying through the air to explode in the middle of the petrified jungle!

The TARDIS reappears in Number 10 Downing Street much to the annoyance of Thatcher and Cecil Parkinson, who hastily pull on their trousers and flee before anyone emerges from the police box. "We won too easily," the Third Doctor broods as he steps out of the TARDIS. "There are so many times when we could have been killed but only survived through sheer blind luck!"

"Great Rassilon, HOW DUMB ARE YOU?!" demands Karl. "Don’t you see? It was me all along! I was the one who warned Thatcher about the Dustbin’s plans, I told you how to avoid a Cyberman ambush, I got you out of the Bar Galactica, made sure that the only Dustbins in a position to capture you were complete idiots, told you how to free the American envoy, came up with a plan to infiltrate Fargo, turned the Dustbins and the Cybermen and the mercenaries against each other... Just who did you think it was who saved the TARDIS from being destroyed?!"

"But you’re a gritty Saward-era mercenary!" the Sixth Doctor protests. "Why on Earth would you possibly want to go around setting up complicated chess game across time and space?"

"BECAUSE I’M YOU, YOU DENSE GIT!" shouts Karl. "I’m you, thankfully several regenerations and sexual preferences away from you! If you two had actually done what you were told, we would have dealt with all the Dustbins and Cybermen in no time and allowed me the chance to focus my energies on the REAL villain behind all this?"

"What? ANOTHER layer in this onion of evil?" gasps Captain Jack.

"Exactly! The Dustbins may have wanted to trigger war on Earth, little realizing that I was the one manipulating them, getting them to step on the toes of a completely DIFFERENT plan to trigger war on Earth! You, Captain, were planted with a neutron bomb, set to go off at the conference, get the survivors blaming each other and destroy humanity for the rest of time!"

Karl snatches a silver egg-shaped object from Captain Jack’s greatcoat and throws it into Thatcher’s abandoned Turkish hookah, defusing the weapon instantly.

"But who is the real enemy we’re facing here?" the Third Doctor asks.

"A creature of pure evil, forged in the infernal depths of hell itself," Karl the future Doctor says darkly. "A being of unimaginable cruelty and an obscene lust for power and suffering, creating death and destruction wherever its unspeakable foulness dare inflict itself!"

"You don’t mean..." gasps Kylie.

"YES!" the Future Doctor screams. "ZOG!!"

At that moment Margaret Thatcher bursts in, laughing insanely and drooling green slime as the furry bartender crawls out of her gaping mouth. "Gods damn you, Doctor! My oldest enemy, I will not rest until I have destroyed you and everything you hold dear!"

"Oh, for fuck’s sake!" the Sixth Doctor sighs, and stabs Zog through the heart with Thatcher’s letter opener. "I am sick and tired of these ontological paradoxes, bumping into future versions of myself and quite singularly FAILING to get any hot man-on-man action!"

"You only had to ask, Doc," Captain Jack says hopefully.

The Sixth Doctor turns to Captain Jack. "You can just sod off and give the speech of your life at the peace conference and pray, Handsome Jack that we NEVER meet again!" He turns to the Third Doctor. "You can get out of here, back to UNIT and develop a hopefully fatal addiction to disco!" He turns to the Future Doctor. "And, frankly, so can you for all I care!"

He turns to the remaining duo. "And as for you, Jason, it’s time you stopped hiding your true feelings. Are you really in love with this pop tart from the Antipodes? You’re from different countries, cultures, times, pay brackets, it’d never work. So you can either be like all the other sub-par companions and leave me in the vain quest for trying to find your OWN happiness, never find it, and spend every day for the rest of your life regretting it... or you can risk life and limb gallivanting through time and space with me!"

Jason looks at the Sixth Doctor, then at Kylie, then at the Sixth Doctor and says, "See you round, Doctor!" as he and the pint-sized starlet run off out of the room, leaving the Sixth Doctor alone with the corpse of Zog.

"FINE!" the Sixth Doctor shouts after them. "You were rubbish companions anyway! I’ll just off. To somewhere else. Somewhen else. Away from you! I’d rather travel with Mel! And her exercise bike! And carrot juice!"

The TARDIS dematerializes, as the Sixth Doctor’s grumbles of "Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice..." hanging in the air.