10th Doctor - Fear Her (i)

Serial 209 – Filler
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Tenth Aspect

"YOA's Discontinuity Guides - Inaccurate But Caring."


Serial 209 - Filler -

It is 2012 and due to various boring reasons like a partial global cyber apocalypse, the encroaching greenhouse crisis and the mysterious disappearance of JR Ewing the secret shadowy figure who actually runs mankind’s destiny, the London Olympics have been relocated to Mars.

Luckily, seven years earlier, BioSphere 3 was successfully established on the Red Planet after those annoying reptile aborigines had their asses handed to them by some hardcore Chinese midget astronauts (as told in the completely forgettable Big Finish tale "Red China"). Despite the fact that BioSphere 2 was a hideous failure which nearly wiped out all human life on Earth, the Martian Colonies have gone down a treat, especially since the Governor is Johnny Depp. In fact, the BioSphere has thrived to such a point not only can a decent Olympics be held on Mars, but it is surrounded by peaceful suburbia so much like that of Earth you could be forgiven for thinking it was just Brookside under a greenhouse with a dusty red sky superimposed.

Which, thanks to BBC Wales’ lack of budgeting acumen, is exactly what it is: they ACTUALLY expect us to see small boys kicking a football in the front garden of their house as a postman delivers letters and an octogenarian wanders around with her shopping trolly and think "WOW! Mars is AMAZING!!!!"

HOW FUCKING STUPID ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE?!?!

Oh well, at least it isn’t bloody Cardiff again.

Yet amidst this peaceful suburban life is an underlying threat! Not the risk of explosive decompression or Ice Cream Vendor attack or territorial disputes between the colonists and the human tourists or the Greenhouse Crisis or... you know, come to think of it, there are quite a lot of underlying threats amidst this peaceful suburban life. It’s probably safer walking down a Los Angeles back alleyway naked...

From an upstairs window... on MARS!!!... a young girl watches all that is going on and in the street and Maire Ross, a passing Irish Faerie, senses being watched and starts flapping her arms and screaming hysterically. A young woman asks Maire what the hell she’s on about, before telling her to piss off immediately as she’s bringing down the property prices.

"Pets! Get indoors! Get inside! Pack it in! Get them inside, I mean it! It’s happening again!" Maire wails, running over to the small boys in the front yard with their rabbit. "They’re not safe! That’s what it likes! It likes it when they’re playing. Get them inside, I’m begging you! WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH OUR DOMESTIC PETS??"

Maire’s fevered ranting soon draw the attention of the boys’ father, who looks at her with revulsion: "What’s that old trout doing poking around my yard, not minding her business? Telling me how to watch my children’s pets? You’d think the dotty old bird had put in the 10 to 20 years of child-rearing these kids herself! Get off out of it!"

During this ageism, sexism and classism, no one has noticed that the little girl has been drawing with unnatural on a piece of paper. And why would they? They’re in the goddamned street! She’s in her bedroom! They’re not Superman for the love of Split Endz! Mind you, to be fair, they should definitely have noticed the shadows engulf the rabbit and suck it out of reality as we know it. That’s really obvious.

The father takes out a shotgun to deal with Maire once and for all when they finally notice the rabbit has disappeared, and Maeve calls out to some unknown entity and asks what it wants. She is rather put out at the lack of response, as normally unknown entities are really much more polite than that.

Upstairs the girl completes her drawing of the now missing rabbit, which proceeds to begin to move, as if screaming out for help... or maybe miming to the theme music as we cut to the opening credits!!


Parte The First

Somewhere just beyond that very same street, any street, a Martian street, full of life and hope and crap poetry, the TARDIS comes into land. The Doctor opens the door but realizes he has materialized on the railroad tracks in front of an oncoming ATMOS-locomotive, so he dives back inside and the ship takes off again, a second before the train hurtles through the spot it once occupied.

The TARDIS reappears moments later and the Doctor and Rose emerge, riding on Arthur down the street. "Doctor," asks Rose as they clip-clop along, "why are we here?"

"Jings, Rose, why are ANY of us here?" the Doctor shrugs. "One of the benefits of our lifestyle, we can talk to different philosophers across time and space in those incredibly precious moments when they were sober enough to talk coherently. Course, my personal opinion is that..."

"I mean, why are we on MARS?"

"Oh. Well, I had a passing fancy," the Doctor explains. "Only it didn’t pass, it stopped. The Martian Colonies were humanity’s first steps towards Earth Empire and the Federation, and also the Galactic Olympic Games... Only seems like yesterday a few naked Greek blokes were tossing a discus about, wrestling each other in the sand with crowds stood about braying..."

"Er, Doctor, that was actually Club Med."

"Was it? Oh. Well, anyway we’re just in time for the opening doo dah - ceremony... tonight, I thought you'd like that. Last one they had in London was dynamite. Wembley, 1948. I loved it so much, I went back and got banned all over again. Fella carrying the torch... lovely chap, what was his name? Paul? John? Ringo? Jings, legs like pipe cleaners, but strong as a whippet, as he proved when he drop-kicked Lucie all the way to Albuquerque! And in those days, everybody had a tea party to go to, to get completely ratted and slag off Hitler! GREAT TIMES!"

"Hey," Rose laughs. "If it’s 2012, we can go see Adam!"

The Doctor looks at Rose. They pause. And then blurt out laughing at the top of their voices for a full thirty-five seconds until they experience breathing difficulties.

Rose looks on as small children put up "missing" posters for a lost puppy. She hops off Arthur and goes to look at it, making "Aw. Cute woof woof!" noises, and sees that there are three missing pets lost on the same day. "Snatching fluffy bunnies from a thoroughly ordinary street like this. Why would a person DO something like this?!" she agonizes.

The young time traveller turns back to the Doctor but finds he has got bored and wandered down the street, jumped off Arthur, walked into someone’s front yard and is using it as a public toilet. The owner of the house emerges to see the Doctor giggling and muttering the word "Tickles!" to himself.

"Oi, what’s your game?"

The Doctor spins around, hastily zipping up. "My... um..." he flounders. "Snakes and Ladders? Quite good at... Squash if not football. Reasonable. And I’m tasty at something called Per’chiang gatar which you play at a thousand miles an hour with luminous sticky gloves and this big ball about ten feet across..." The Doctor notices the look on the man’s face. "I’m... being facetious, aren’t I?"

"You’re pissing in my front yard!"

"I know. There’s no call for it."

Elsewhere in the street, Rose notices that a nearby council worker named Kel looks quite like Mickey and her eyes immediately dim with lust. She quickly snuggles up with the surprised man, whispering "I’m tougher than I look, honest!" in his ear, disturbing him further.

Before she can have her wicked way with him, Maire Ross arrives and starts trying to spook passers by saying, "It takes em when they’re playing and it always happens at night... AND during the day! Little bunnies, kittens, puppy dogs, snatched in the blink of an eye!"

"What takes them?" Rose snaps, annoyed at her interruption.

"You said 'what' not 'who'! What made you say that, young lady!"

At that moment, the Doctor runs into view and hides behind Rose as the owner of a certain front yard tries to beat him up. "You don’t have to get violent! I’m – I’m with UNIT! I’ve got a pass – and – and a sprightly yellow Edwardian roadster – I can – I can prove it! Just hold on!" He brandishes some plastic cards. "UNIT Scientific Advisor! Special instructions when dealing with the owner of the card! 'Accept all guises, do not ask how he arrived, and don’t victimize for passing water over your begonias'!"

"What the hell would a UNIT team be doing on fucking Mars?"

"Ah. Well. Good question. You see. We... see, this is my colleague, Fayette! Give them a wink, Fayette! She may not look like a member of international security observation, but she’s in training. New recruit. It was either that or hairdressing... PETS! We’re here, on Mars, eight million miles beyond our jurisdiction, without any warning, to look for pets. That have gone missing. Because otherwise, it’d be weird."

"What are you going to do?" asks Trish the young mum.

"The police told us to stop bugging them," Maire explains.

"Look, pets run off sometimes, all right? That’s what they do!" chips in the bloke who was trying to punch the Doctor’s lights out.

"That bunny rabbit vanished right in front of me, like he was never there!" Maire retorts. "There’s no need to look any further than this street! It’s right here amongst us!"

"Why don’t we..." the Doctor begins.

"Why don’t we start with him?" a passing neighbor says, pointing at Kel. "There’s been all sorts like him in this street, day and night!"

"Fixing things up for the Olympics!" Kel says defensively.

"Yeah, and taking an awful long time about it!" says the angry man.

"Well, I’m of the opinion," the Doctor tries again, "that all we’ve gotta do is just--"

"You don't say that!" Kel shouts back. "What you just said, that’s slander, you honky Martian housewife!"

"I don't care what it is!" replies said honky Martian housewife.

The Doctor tries yet again. "I think we need to just—"

"I want an apology off her!" Kel screams.

"Stop picking on him!" Maire agrees.

"Yeah, stop picking on me!"

"And stop pretending to be blind!" Maire continues. "It’s EEEvil!!"

"I don’t believe in evil!" the housewife retorts.

"Oh no, you just believe in maintenance workers with sack loads of kidnapped puppies in their van!" Kel shouts at her.

"Ay, ay, ay, that’s not what she’s saying!" says Angry Man. "Besides, the pound will find them all eventually."

"You’re all too scared to face the truth!" Maire hisses. "It’s got nothing to do with the Olympics! It’s just a subplot!"

"And I’ve been interviewed by the RSPCAOM twice this week!" adds Kel.

"We’re talking about the safety of out pets!" the housewife protests.

"Look, these two UNIT are here, right?" Angry Man points out. "They might look like a couple of window-dresser pinkos, but..."

"It’s here! In this street! And it’s EEEEEvil!" Maire babbles. "Ask Flopsy and cottontail!"

"You’re putting words in her mouth!" Angry Man accuses Kel. For some reason. I’ve kind lost track at this point.

"Would you stop ganging up on me?!" Kel squeaks in fury. "You’re giving me a complex!"

"Feeling guilty, are we?" the housewife retorts.

"Maybe they’re coppers - maybe you’re not," Maire rambles. "I don't care who they are as long as they can please help us?"

"And what’s she doing, asking total strangers to investigate the disappearances?!" complains the annoying bastard from the pre-credit sequence. "They probably hijacked those kids for some godawful Steven Spielberg film! Space Camp Five or some nonsense! Heck, she doesn't even live on our street, does she???"

"SHUT... THE FUCK.... UP!!!!" the Doctor screams over the noise, and glares around at them all as if daring them not to do so. Silence has fallen. "In the last six days, your children’s pets have been stolen. Snatched out of thin air, right? Well, I’m going to find them. And why? Because I am the LIVING DEITY! The final member of the God-King dynasty, of Rassilon, and Patrex, Archalia and Prydonius! Historians can lay a million deaths upon my name if they were brave enough to say it! MY POWER IS ABSOLUTE! Not that I like to go on about it or anything, but GOD DAMN IT, I KICK ASS! Your pets are as good as found, and all I ask return is free seats at the Olympic Games! IS IT A DEAL?!?!"

Everyone runs away from him as fast as they can.

"I’ll take that as a yes!" the Doctor says cockily, and climbs onto his horse and gallops down the street, sniffing for clues like a Cocaine addict in withdrawal as he enters the dim service passages below. For want of some screen time, Rose follows him.

"Right, now, Squirry the Squirrel went 'Neep! Neep! Neep!' in one end but never came out the other and if, Rose, you care to look at the hairs on the back of my manly hairy hand, you’ll see them standing on end! See? Reacting to the residual energy. And I’m utterly convinced based on NO evidence WHATSOEVER that it happened in ALL the spots the pets vanished. And whatever it was, it used an awful lot of power to do this. Probably some nutter who doesn’t like crap on the pavement and too much time on his hands..."

"How the hell do you KNOW all this?" Rose demands.

The Doctor shows off a handheld BBC prop available from Character Option before you’ve finished reading this sentence and fulfills more functions that a tool box full of sonic screwdrivers, vortex manipulators and R2D2 put together.

"I call it... THE PLOT DEVICE!" the Doctor laughs insanely.

Just then they see a ginger cat and the Time Lord looks on in distaste at his friend’s rapport with the creature, before admitting he is not a cat person, particularly after a failed attempt to sexually harass one wearing a nun’s wimple...

Suddenly, the shadows of the service duct condense into a silhouette of the cat, engulf said animal and vanishes.

"Jings," the Doctor notes, impressed. "See? What did I tell you? A living organism snatched out of space and time – must use huge reserves of ironic power to go around stealing fluffy animals, that takes some doing. Right, time we split up and wandered on our own to see what you can see. Keep 'em peeled, Fayette!"

The Doctor gallops off at top speed, leaving Rose in the gloomy tunnel.

In her bedroom overlooking the street, a freaky-looking little girl adds a drawing of the cat to the dozens and dozens of pictures stuck to her wall. Her mother, Trish, enters and tells her she must have used up half a rainforest in paper – a clear mockery of the Greenhouse Crisis that devastated Earth and lead to them having to evacuate to Mars in the first place! Maybe if she came down out of her room once in a while to breathe some artificial air from the bio-hives, maybe she’d actually get some friends rather than rotting away like the pathetic whiny brat she is at the moment!

But the girl ignores her.

Bored, Trish chats about Governor Johnny Depp heading for the grand Olympic Stadium and how much she fancies the bloke after "Pirates of the Caribbean 12: Mr. Cotton’s Parrot Takes On The Singh Brotherhood!" and then sods off to make a cup of tea.

The girl looks at her pictures on the wall and talks to them, and tells them they are lucky, they have each other and do not know what it is like to be alone with a social embarrassment like her mum.

Rose makes her way to the far end of the street near a row of
garages and flats. She hears a banging noise coming from one of the
garages then moves to open the door. Amidst more bangs and crashes
she slowly lifts open the sliding door and is attacked by a hoard of psychotic animal pets that tear at her flimsy white dress, reducing it to rags and showing off all that nubile young flesh...

...

Huh? What? Oh, right. The Doctor arrives and saves her. Somehow. I can’t be bothered to rewind and find out how. Probably used the sonic screwdriver or something, but the next scene is them in the TARDIS.

The Doctor checks the computers to find out exactly why all the cute little animals turned into pure evil and discovers that somehow their very souls had been drained from their bodies. However, he prefers his own explanation for this phenomenon:

"Some little punk is making insanity drugs with a home chemistry set and using the guinea pigs as, well, guinea pigs!" the Doctor rants. "It’s a domestic incident, I tell you, it happens every day! My first job with UNIT was fighting an army of tropical parrots and penguins turned into raving psychos by a school kid using magic potions! Or was it fighting Autons? Come to think of it, did that happen at all! I forget. Anyway, who would be the most likely suspect?"

"That girl?" Rose suggests.



The Doctor smacks his forehead. "Of COURSE! ... what girl?"

"I saw this 12-year-old girl. She was looking out of the window, gazing down upon the street like a pale and serious spirit of the dead, dark hair hanging like a drape..."

"All right, Faye Weldon, get on with it! What was up with her?"



"Something about her gave me the creeps... even her own mum looked scared of her."

"Jings," the Doctor marvels. "Sounds like a two-exorcisms-and-a-paternity-suit case to me! Shall we go around to their place and make a total nuisance of ourselves then?"



Less than an edit later, the travelers arrive at the girl’s house. Reluctantly Trish the mother opens the door and tells them they are atheists and not interested in joining the Sincere Repentist Church. The Doctor welcomes her response as he can’t stand the hypocritical cultists either and hopes there IS a hell just so they can all burn in it.

"Hello! I’m the Doctor and this is Rose. Can we see your daughter?"



"No! You can’t!"



"Okay! Bye!" the Doctor says cheerfully and prepares to walk away realization strikes and he spins around. "Wait a minute! There’s some freaky Edwards Scissorhands stuff going on in this street, and I want to pester your daughter about her involvement! Now, do you want to let two complete strangers into your house to interrogate your daughter or not?!"

"Can you help her?"

The Doctor grins like a madman. "I can do ANYTHING! Bwahahaaha!"

Inside the house, Trish explains what a nightmare her life has become: "She stays in her room, most of the time. I try talking to her, but it’s like trying to speak to a brick wall. She gives me nothing, just asks to be left alone. So, as you can imagine, my swinging bacherlorette lifestyle has never been happier."

"Well! Let's go and say hi!" says the Doctor with insane confidence.



"I want you to know before you see her that she’s really a great kid. She’s never been in trouble at school. You should see her report from last year. As and Bs. She’s in the choir. She's singing in an old folks home. Any mum would be proud. But I want you to know these things before you see her, Doctor. Because right now, she’s so sodding perfect she’s making ME look like a completely directionless wastrel!"

The Doctor tells Rose to start looking round for a clue and if she hears some loud and threatening noises from behind a door, open it and try not to get killed like last time. "Trish and I have intense grown up things to talk about!" the Doctor says darkly.

Being something of a slow learner, Rose wanders off to face unknown horror for the second time that day as the Doctor and Trish immediately start ripping each other’s clothes off...

Rose arrives upstairs and sees Chloe about to leave her room. She hides in the airing cupboard, intending to burst out and scare the hell out of the little girl... but she goes downstairs and the moment is lost. Annoyed, Rose decides to try again and makes her way into Chloe’s room.

She looks at the dozens of drawings lining the walls then gets bored and heads for the wardrobe, and opens it to see inside, amidst the hanging clothes is a blood red glow from the back of the wardrobe. She parts the clothes to see the huge picture of a giant drawing of an angry bearded man with his fists clenched, face is contorted with fury - the red light is coming from his glowing red eyes which narrow further as they focus on the intruder. Rose stands transfixed at the massive drawing before her, then slams the doors shut.

It seems that the "hiding in the wardrobe pretending to be a monster" thing is already being done in the house, and Rose will just have to think up her own pranks. Once she stops twitching with fear.

So freaked out is she, Rose does not notice the expressions of all the drawn faces have changed to outright contempt.

Downstairs Chloe finds the Doctor and Trish sprawled over the kitchen table, sharing a post-coital cigarette. "All right, there?" he calls, giving her the 'live long and phosphate' sign from Star Trek.

"I’m fine," she mutters as she fastidiously pours a glass of milk.

"Jings! Not even drinking right from the carton – truly this child is possessed!" the Time Lord whispers to Trish. "I’m the Doctor, by the way!" he says loudly, finally getting off the table.

"I’m busy," Chloe retorts. "I’m making something."

"What?"

"Friends."

"And with a sunny disposition like that, it MUST be easy!" he grins.

"They don’t stop moaning," Chloe complains.

"Sorry about that, Chloe," says Trish, pulling her shirt back on. "Got a bit vocal toward the end there..."

"Not YOU, my friends! I try to help them, but they don’t stop moaning."

"Fandom is just a byword for ingratitude," the Doctor says, breaking the fourth wall very deliberately to piss off the Tennant-haters on Outpost Gallifrey for the sheer hell of it.

Rose stumbles downstairs, noting once again the Doctor has taken out his sexual frustration on the nearest attractive bird – a vicious cycle that will only end when goes the whole way with the Doctor, causing all the fan shippers to squee so much the sky itself will crack asunder!

Yes, I actually DO find this episode rather tedious to transcribe, how ever did you guess?

"There’s this drawing," Rose reports shakily. "The face of a man. In the cupboard. I heard a voice. He spoke. I think therapy."



"I drew him yesterday," says Chloe proudly. "He’s my dad!"

Unpleasantly surprised and upset, Trish exclaims, "Your dad? But he’s long gone. Chloe, with all the lovely things in the world - why him? Why not a raccoon or something cute like that? Eh?"

"I’m trying to resurrect him as a character drawn from my subjective memories, to give a heartbreaking caricature of a screaming hate-filled beast, demonstrating that while real people don’t think of themselves as monsters, though that’s how they’re seen by others," says Chloe.

"How sad," says Rose tearfully.

"Hah! It works on you, too!"

"Tell us about the drawings, Chloe," asks the Doctor as he straightens his clothing. "Otherwise the plot won’t make much sense at all. Do they move when you can only see them out of the corner of your eye, causing you to dismiss them, because what choice do you have when you see something you can’t possibly explain, and if anyone mentions it, you get angry, so it’s never spoken of, ever again, and there’s no one to turn to, because who’s gonna believe the things you see out of the corner of your eye? Is it one of those?"

"Pretty much," Trish admits.

"Jings, I’m good," the Doctor marvels at his own brilliance.

With it now abundantly clear to even the meanest of intellects that Chloe has a power, capable of taking the missing pets, it is therefore time for this to be explained to everyone... again... very slowly.

It appears that, for some reason, Chloe is harnessing ironic energy to take domestic pets and place them in a shadow dimension holding pen of dramatic irony power, which is somehow connected to them being turned into drawings, and for some reason the pets are escaping – only to turn into psychotic killing machines.

"The dad thing’s probably just an art project like she says though," the Doctor points out.

"Doctor," asks Rose for the benefit of anyone composing trailers for the episode, "how can a twelve-year-old girl be doing any of this?"

"There’s only one way to find out!" the Doctor grins. "It’s a fantastic day for an EXORCISM!!"



Tubular Bell music plays as the Doctor bursts into Chloe’s bedroom to find find her sitting on her bed alone amidst her pictures.

"Playing the innocent, eh?" leers the Doctor, before throwing a bucket of Holy Water over Chloe. Who simply stares at him with no demonic fits whatsoever. "Oh, nice one. Very convincing. I’m speaking to you! The entity that is using this human child! In the name of the Russell, the Tiberius, and the Davies I CAST THEE OUT! BEGONE FROM THIS DAUGHTER OF EVE! THE POWER OF CRAYONS COMPELS YOU!!"

Absolutely nothing happens. After a few minutes, Chloe raises her hand and completes the Spock salute.

"Right," the Doctor says, rolling up his sleeves. "You want Star Trek? Let’s see how you cope with a VULCAN MIND MELD!!!!!" he shrieks as he reaches forward and touches the lobes of her head. Her eyes roll back in their sockets and pushes her back to lie on her bed.

Chloe speaks to him but with a harsh whispered voice, announcing she wants Chloe Webber, persisting to ask for Chloe, screaming for her over and over again...


Parte the Second

Eventually the strange possessed chanting from Chloe just gets dull, as it did the last time with that brat in a gasmask, but perhaps even quicker. Finally the Doctor tells the voice to cut the crap and identify itself already!

"What’s your name?"

"i have no name"

"Who are you?"

"i am myself"

"Identify yourself!"

"you havent asked me nicely enough"

"That does it! Rose! Get the electrodes!"

"okay okay okay i am one of many i travel with my brothers and sisters we take an endless journey a thousand of your lifetimes our journey began in the deep realms when we were a family but now i am alone"

"You’re not narrowing it down!"

"i hate it its not fair and i hate it"

"NAME YOURSELF!"

"ne ta nu"

The Doctor nods as if this explains everything. Which, in a way, it does. "You’re Ne ta’ nu. Of course! I went to the Ne ta’ nu art gallery on Planet 14 with Ace! Brilliant place, you get sucked into the paintings and forced to confront your own personal demons – it’s way cheaper than psychotherapy, and it did Ace the world of good... until that nasty business with the Battle of the Bulge."

The Time Lord turns to Rose and Trish who stare at him deadpan. "The Ne ta’ nu are a empathic beings of intense emotions who form a kind of hive mind, an encyclopedia universum, full of all the information they get. Of course, since they know nothing to start with, there’s so little to say, so they use ironic power to kidnap every living thing they can, copy their minds and put them back. Then they use the minds to spread information to their encyclopedia. As you can imagine, the section on sex is pretty large. If you printed it out, it’d stretch from here to Zebra Minor, and that’s WITHOUT the diagrams!"

"So it’s kidnapping the pets for their info?" asks Rose, confused.

"Yup. And the average canary doesn’t possess much in the way of brain power in the first place, so when they get released, their soul has already been sucked out! It’s a human tragedy. Only without actual humans involved. Well, you know what I mean. I hope. Why did you come to Earth?" he asks the possessed Chloe.

"the olympics"

"Fair enough."

"only i came to earth my brothers and sisters are left up there and i cannot reach them so alone i was drawn to chloe webber she was like me alone and anally retentive she needed me and i her i want my family its not fair"

"Yeah, yeah, we get it. So you’ve been stealing other people’s animals to keep yourself company? Dear God that is PATHETIC!"

Suddenly the wardrobe doors rattle and the voice of the drawing within begins to grumble. Quickly, the Doctor calls for Trish to starts singing the Kookaburra song. Immediately t he pounding on the wardrobe door stops and the voice fades, leaving the wardrobe doors to settle.

"Well, THAT was random," Trish notes.

Leaving Trish to confiscate all the pencils, and Chloe to watch the Olympics on her super-futuristic Apple Macintosh laptop, the Doctor and Rose decide to head back to the TARDIS. The Doctor reveals that all he needs is one ordinary roasted walnut and it will allow the Ne ta’ nu to leave Chloe Webber and return home.

"A walnut?" repeats Rose doubtfully.

"Maybe a chestnut?" the Doctor shrugs. "Amazing what you can do with a bowl of mixed nuts and a sonic screwdriver, isn’t it? No such thing as a quiet night in when you can map the human genome with some cashews and carbon paper..."

The Doctor is so busy lecturing Rose on his incandescent brilliance and unlocking the TARDIS to notice Chloe Webber has been watching them from a distance with her sinister beady eyes of alien evil.

"Of course, I know all about what it's like to travel a long way on your own," the Doctor is bragging, not letting Rose get a word in edgeways. "A lost, lonely mixed-up child desperate for small, cute animals to keep it company and having a temper tantrum because it can’t get its own way. Using human hosts and psychic energy. We’ve all been there, haven’t we, Rose? Fear. Loneliness. They’re the big ones, Rose. Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them. We’re not dealing with something that wants to conquer or destroy, sadly, but just something that wants a warm puppy. There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive, wormhole refractors, you know the thing you need most of all?"

Rose shakes her head.

"Nor do I," the Doctor complains. "JINGS!"

The Doctor and Rose emerge from the TARDIS, with the Doctor brandishing his Walnut of Rassilon which will somehow sort out the entire plot in one fell swoop, not realizing that Chloe is hastily scribbling a picture of the TARDIS, but has had to scrap it and start again three times because she can’t get the windows right. Yes, Trish has completely forgotten to remove the pencils from Chloe’s room!

As Rose heads down the street, the darkness gathers into a silhouette of the Doctor and swallows him whole in the middle of his tortuous rants, prompting his companion to sigh with relief at a bit of peace and quiet before realizing the Doctor is gone! AND the TARDIS!

Yes, Rose has been marooned in her own future at the mercy of a psychotic monster with no way out. Again. Some people just never learn, do they, boys and girls?

Rose barges past Trish and up the stairs despite the latter’s puny efforts to insist that she has got rid of all the pencils, definitely, no sir, no pencils left. This becomes even more pathetic when they arrive at Chloe’s bedroom to find her finishing the drawings of the Doctor and the TARDIS. With pencils.

"leave me alone i want to be with chloe webber i love chloe webber"

Rose tells the Ne ta’ nu to bring the Doctor back and let him help the stranded alien, but it turns out that this particular alien is a particularly stupid and stubborn one, so Rose storms out to get another roasted walnut and tells Trish, "Don’t leave her alone, no matter what."

"What if she starts drawing again?" asks Trish fearfully.

"Take away ALL the pens and pencils!"

"And if that doesn’t work?"

"THEN BREAK HER FUCKING ARMS AND BLUFF IT FROM THERE!"

Rose then leaves the room and, proving what an incredibly effective and strong-willed mother Trish is, she watches on passively as Chloe draws a picture of the Olympic Stadium, causing the capacity crowd of eighty thousand to be engulfed by shadowmen and vanish off the face of Mars.

"not enough furry animals" rasps the Ne ta’ nu, realizing that the giant animals at the stadium were actually men in suits. Thus, she starts to draw a picture of the Earth, in the desperate hope she’ll find enough warm and furry marsupials for her demented desires. "we wont be alone chloe webber we will have all of them and then we will never feel alone ever again"

Rose hastily returns, having managed to seduce Kel the council worker and got his lunch of roasted walnuts, but discovers that Trish has wandered off for coffee and left her possessed daughter to plot the entire destruction of mankind.

"Martian Social Services suck!" notes Rose before deciding it is time to abandon the subtle approach in favor for something more pro-active. How pro-active? Jack Nicholson in The Shining pro-active!

Rose swings a pick-axe and brings it crashing down on the door, splintering the wood as the terrified Chloe begins to draw faster, as if hurrying to finish it. Having made a large enough hole in the door to fit her arm through, Rose knocks the chair out of the way and opens the door and charges straight for the little girl.

The wardrobe doors rattle particularly violently to release a boiling red light and the hulking Gilliamation of Chloe’s demonic dad, moaning that he is coming to hurt them all, his massive shadow looming over the trio in the doorway, roaring.

Rose uses the pick-axe again and rips him in two and, without breaking stride crosses over to Chloe Webber and in a terrible voice whispers: "I... am... NOT... in the mood..."

The Ne ta’ nu meekly apologizes for the inconvenience, promises to return all it stole with ironic energy, and disperses out of Chloe to inhabit the roasted walnuts and fly off through the window into the sky, leaving the dazed Chloe finally back to normal.

"Firm parenting," says Rose, tossing the axe back to the terrified Kel. "Look it up in a dictionary, bimbo!"

Meanwhile, Dame Kelly Holmes OBE is carrying the Olympic Torch up the red carpeted stairs, followed by the spot light and as she moves to light the Olympic Flame...

...a swirling black porthole opens directly above her and the Doctor falls right on top of her head, slamming her to the floor!

"JINGS!" the Doctor shouts giddily. "THAT WAS A HOOT!"

Noticing the discarded Torch, the Time Lord picks it up and faces the crowds with a huge grin on his face, shouting "WHO’S YER DADDY? YOU KNOW WHO YER DADDY IS, BABY!" innumerable times, before whooping and lighting the Olympic Flame in a massive fireball.

As the Doctor descends the steps to face the screaming, cheering crowds, Dame Kelly Holmes struggles to get up. "My publicity... MY GLORY!" she chokes...

...as the portal disgorges a hissing, spitting bundle of cats, dogs, hamsters and birds down on the ex-athlete, who screams as she is horribly mutilated by the insane animals.

As her bload-choked cries are muffled, let us take a moment to reflect on the lessons of this story, which are... er... um... well, the lesson of Filler is that... ah... actually... the lesson is... that the entire hopes and dreams of mankind are UTTERLY unobtainable without the Doctor there to hold our hands!! Am I right or am I right?

Rose leaves Trish and Chloe to their own spin-off series and bumps into Maire who is very drunk and immediately tries to kiss her. "I don’t know who you are, or what you did, or if we’ve ever met before, or if I’ve just mixed up my medication again, or even if I’m not hallucinating but thank you, darling! And thank that man for me too! Tell him his arse is a lot firmer in this regeneration."

Rose looks at Maire with growing anxiety until Angry Bloke arrives and shouts, "Somebody tells Miss Marple there to shut her cakehole and get a move on. There’ll be a wheelchair waiting for her at the top of the stairs if she’s not careful..."

An edit later and the Doctor and Rose have reunited with another gratuitous hug scene, and wandering back towards the TARDIS. Fireworks explode overhead as the Doctor and Rose walk down the street.

"You ever thought that maybe you’re getting a bit big for your boots," Rose asks suddenly. "I mean, you go round saying you’re the biggest baddest Time Lord ever and anyone who tries to stop you won’t be able to sit down for a week afterwards, and it never QUITE works out, does it?"

The Doctor looks at her, coming to a halt. "What are you saying?"

"I mean, maybe if you didn’t keep barging in and babbling about how cool you are and being blaise and smug about everything, maybe things wouldn’t keep biting you in arse all the time. You don’t think, maybe, that you’re heading for some kind of life-shattering disaster because you’re so full of yourself? No matter how many times your safety blanket is yanked from under you, you never learn..."

"Jings, Rose, don’t be such a kill-joy."

"Seriously, you don’t think that the reason we keep getting separated and only like just escape at the last moment is down to you acting like a very shallow, verbally diarrheic, adolescent snob mocking aliens for being freaks and actually took things seriously for once?"

The Doctor rolls his eyes. "Honestly, Rose, cheer up! Might never happen... again. Today was just a one-off. Like all those other times. We’ll always be OK, you and me." He reflects for a moment. "Mind you, there is something in the air... something coming... It’s getting dark... because dark clouds are forming on the horizon! There’s a storm front approaching! A blizzard of bloodshed! I can feel it creeping in at the edges, the darkness, the impending doom growing ever closer! The timelines are growing dark, all the possibilities that I knows of the future merging together into the black... into the end of something! And it can’t be stopped!"

"My god... what are we gonna do?!" Rose wails.

"Ah, who cares," the Doctor shrugs. "Let’s just skydiving on Magrius Minor and land in the middle of a cloud field, or maybe see if we can find the best cup of java this side of the Crab Nebula! If that doesn’t get you in the mood, what will?"

Rose sighs.

---------
Next Time...
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"This is a season finale featuring war on Earth..."
"If I’M the enemy, does that mean I get to wear a bitching evil Ming-the-Merciless-style cloaks?"
"Oh yes."
"THE VIRGIN..."
"If it’s alien, we’ve shagged it."
"We’ve got a little bit of a problem down here. Just a little one. Sort of tiny 'Doomsday-Level Extinction Event' problem. Hello? Yvonne? Seriously, can you me!"
"The Doctor, lording it over us, assuming alien authority over the rights of man! Just because HE doesn’t let millions of innocents die needlessly while he roots and argues with coworkers... Well, you can’t seduce US, Doctor!"
"Welcome to Touchwood!"
"Duh! Been here dozens of times! Don’t you listen to Big Finish?"
"Don’t you shake your gory locks at me, sunshine!"
"They’re bleeding all over the carpet!"
"It’s for the good of the British Empire!"
"There ISN’T a British Empire!"
"Isn’t there? Fuck!"
"Eeeek!"
"It’s a Null-Sphere! Send that thing back to Taiwan!"
"Whatever’s inside it, it hasn’t reckoned on MICKEY SMITH! BWAHAHA!"
"This ongoing story arc is colliding with another... and I think I know which one."
"WE ARE THE CYBERMEN."
"What the hell are you?"
"Are you subnormal! THEY’RE CYBERMEN!"
"And that when it all ended. This is the last story I can be bothered to tell..."
---------
...Dustbin Vs. Cyberman!...
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