10th Doctor - The Runaway Bride (i)

Serial 205 – The Drunken Ginger Bride
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' No, I HAVEN’T Mixed Up The Running Order, How Dare You Doubt Me!

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


Serial 205 – The Drunken Ginger Bride -

A hungover, red-haired bride begins to make her way up the aisle of a church. Under the glare of a room full of people she progresses, but all is not well. Suddenly she begins to illuminate with a golden glow and as an alien whine rings out she screams. Her body reduces to a glowing cloud of gas, flying up through the roof and then out into space.

"OH MAH GAW! AH TOL YOO, OUR BOY WUZ MARRYIN’ A GOTDAMN SUCCUBUS!" shouts the mother of the groom, much to the agreement of all concerned.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is trying to cheer Rose up by parking the TARDIS besides a supernova. For some reason his delectable debutante is all bummed out that she’s managed to get her ex-boyfriend killed rather than winning him back from her mother, in one of the most messed up family love triangle you’re likely to see in a BBC Children’s Program.

Suddenly a human shape forms at the top of the exit ramp and manifests as what at first seems to be Kari but Mythbusters but Rose quickly recognizes as someone else entirely.

"It’s Catherine Tate!" she boggles.

"What?" the Doctor splutters. "What... WHAT?!?"


Parte the First

The Doctor splutters that it is physically impossible for Catherine Tate to have made her way inside and aggressively moan at them. "But I don’t understand it and I understand everything!" he gabbles. "This-- this can’t happen! There is no way a human being can lock itself onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside. It must be some sort of subatomic connection? Something in the temporal field? Maybe something pulling you into alignment with the Chronon shell? Maybe something macro mining your DNA within the interior matrix?"

Rose notes she’s been leaning on a button on the console. "Um, Doctor," she says, pointing to the flashing lamp marked TELEPORT.

"Oh," the Doctor notes lamely. "Just randomly teleported some schmuck aboard. Well, that explains everything. Still, least it wasn’t Tegan this time..."

They turn their attention to the redhead as she aggressively moans that they are making this up, before theorizing that her friend Paris Hilton must have hired them to kidnap her. She has no idea where Arthur the Horse comes in, though.

"Hold on, wait a minute," the Doctor protests, "What’re you dressed like that for?"

"I’m going ten pin bowling. WHY DO YOU THINK, DUMBO?! I was halfway up the aisle! I’ve been waiting all my life for this. I was just seconds away! And then you - I dunno, you drugged me or something!"

"We haven’t done anything!" Rose protests. "Mind you, that might be a good idea..."

"You’re safe," the Doctor tells her. "I promise you. Don’t be scared, I promise you, you’re completely safe—-"

"We’re having the police on you! Me and my husband - as soon as he IS my husband - we're gonna sue the living backside off ya!"

"JUST SHUT UP!" the Doctor shouts at her as he operates the controls. "Honestly, Catherine, just because you appear in Bleak House does NOT give you the right to..."

"MY NAME IS DONNA!" roars the redhead before she runs to the doors across the gangway and thrusts them open. To a mixture of relief and tragedy, Donna is neither sucked out into the freezing vacuum nor fried by unfiltered light from the supernova. The Doctor has left the force wall up which has saved himself and Rose, but annoyingly Donna as well.

The Doctor and Rose discuss the fact that Catherine Tate has clearly gone insane and started believing she is one of her own comic characters, but are cut short when Donna starts bitch-slapping the pair of them, Three-Stooges-style.

"GET ME TO THE CHURCH!" she roars insanely.

Becoming defensive, the Doctor sets the controls for Chiswick, despite the fact Donna claims to be getting married in Wales. But the obviously deranged bride just gets worse and worse as she finds a pile of Rose’s discarded underwear draped over a handrail nearby.

"I knew it!" she accuses him. "Acting all innocent! I’m not the first, am I? How many women have you abducted?"

"Um... those are mine," Rose points out.

"Yeah, that’s my friend’s!" the Doctor agrees.

"Where is she, then? Popped out for a space walk?" suggests Donna to Arthur the Horse, ignoring the others.

"I’m right in front of you, you insane bitch!" Rose snaps.

The Doctor looks up at Donna darkly and decides he has had enough of this crap. "OK, Rose, Arthur, new word for today. 'Spaced': colloquial verb, to throw someone into space without a space suit, often referring to murder or illegal dumping of bodies. Let’s demonstrate!"

Rose and the Doctor snatch Donna and try to hurl her out the doors, but tragically, the TARDIS has materialized back on Earth and in a back street in Cardiff, which seems to be being rebuilt from ruins after some massive catastrophe blasted the town to rubble. Rose and the Doctor comment on this as Donna starts freaking out when she finally realizes she’s been travelling inside a dimensionally-transcendental phone box.

Finally Donna runs off screaming she wants to be left alone and also has her own wedding to get to. The Doctor and Rose, mildly curious about the calamity that demolished Cardiff, ride after her on Arthur in the incredibly vain hope she might be able to illuminate them.

"It was the big Cyber war thing... and what do you care anyway?"

"Well," the Doctor shrugs, "there’s gotta be SOMETHING. I mean, you don’t reconstruct a whole city for nothing..."

"You’re not dissecting me! KEEP YOUR ALIEN PROBES TO YOURSELF! No Martians on horseback is going to ruin my big day!" Donna rants.

"Well, we’re not FROM Mars, so that’s you stuffed then," Rose notes.

Donna desperately tries to hail a taxi, but everyone assumes she is either in fancy dress, drunk, in drag, or recording a skit for the Catherine Tate Show Christmas Special. This, coupled with the giant inflatable snowmen, Christmas decorations, Christmas carols being sung by carolers, the wandering Santa band and the Christmas trees everywhere lead the experienced time travelers to begin to suspect that it is, in fact, Christmas.

Rose notices the sinister presence of masked Santas playing sinister Christmas carols on brass instruments and seem to be closing in from all sides. Bizarrely, it’s the DOCTOR who realizes these are the sinister evil bastards from an earlier Christmas episode, which is remarkable when he not only didn’t meet them on that occasion, his brain was so fried from regenerative trauma he was barely able to speak in a Scottish accent, let alone possess a long-term memory.

Realizing this mysterious evil creatures will soon cause motiveless mayhem, the Doctor suggests they continue their agenda of cheering themselves up... by robbing a bank in the ensuing confusion!

Rose is all psyched up to ride Arthur into the bank with a sawn-off shotgun and an empty sack, but the Doctor is explaining he’ll just use his sonic screwdriver to empty the nearest cash point. Rose is deflated: that’s what they do EVERYWHERE they go. "And it’s not keeping in with the Christmas spirit, is it?" she points out.

"You mean being so selfish you force a woman in labor to give birth in a barn because you don’t feel like giving up a room?" asks the Doctor, baffled, but accepts her point. "MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU WELSH BASTARDS!" he shouts at the top of his voice and uses his screwdriver to make the cash machine spew out money to the passers-by, who immediately scrabble for banknotes like the greedy sons of bitches they are.

The Doctor and Rose ride off when they see Donna is grabbed by two Santas who car-jack a taxi cab and drive off while even more Santa’s are preparing to blast the duo with their cunningly-disguised brass instruments of infernal death!

Thinking quickly, Rose uses her high-heeled boots to puncture one of the giant inflatable snowmen, who sags on top of the Santas, distracting them long enough for the Doctor, Rose and Arthur to make good their escape. But as they reach the TARDIS, the Doctor asks, "Seriously, who ARE those freaks? Do you know? I don’t. Do you?"

In the cab, Donna is left screaming at her mechanical kidnappers: "What the hell are you doing? I’m late for the wedding! My OWN wedding! Do you get that? You are dead! You are SO dead! Oy! I’m talking to you! Turn around! Turn this cab around right now! Are you deaf or what?!"

Finally, it penetrates even Donna’s self-absorption that she is incredibly deep smelly-stuff right out of Silent Night, Deadly Night. I myself was gripped with terror throughout this sequence, and now live in permanent terror that at any minute guys dressed as Father Christmas drags me into a taxi and drive down a highway to a horrible fate known only to those who suffer near-eternal punishment.

However, when a flying police box hurtles down the motorway towards the taxi, and a horse leans out to grab hold of the bumper bar, I start to wonder if people have slipped hallucinogenics into my lemon-flavored mineral water. And then I remember I’m watching Doctor Who and all my fears of Santa-related kidnap and murder melt like the walls around me. Ah. Maybe they DID spike my drink anyway. Ya...

As the TARDIS hovers alongside the taxi as it speeds along the tarmac. The Doctor urges Donna to jump from the speeding vehicle onto his horse and climb over the saddle into his flying time machine. Even as the Doctor shouts such advice to Donna, the console starts sending out showers of sparks and generally makes the bride reconsider staying with her evil kidnappers since it seems a lot safer.

Finally, other passengers in passing cars get caught up in pantomime spirit and urge Donna to jump. "I’m in my wedding dress!" she squawks unhappily, much to the bafflement of the Doctor and Rose who wonder what the hell that has to do with anything.

The Doctor explains that for whatever reason the Robot Santas needs Donna will not be good, though when pressed admits he has absolutely no freaking idea what the Santas are up to and was kind of hoping that Donna could fill them in on that point. Luckily, Rose is on hand and with some crude reverse psychology – involving calling Donna a 'yellow chicken' and blows raspberries at her – Donna leaps atop Arthur like some tragically-clothed Lady Godiva and they escape, the TARDIS hurtling up into the sky as the extras applaud wildly.

Moments later, the TARDIS plunges out the sky like a model shot where the strings accidentally snapped as the time machine slams into the top of the ruins of Canary Wharf Tower, which was torn apart in that massive battle Donna casually mentions but frustratingly is never more detailed about it. Not that the Doctor and Rose are particularly fussed that she might, say, know something about Cardiff’s future that might bite them in the ass. I mean, that’s just be ridiculous.

Leaving Arthur to cool the console down with a fire extinguisher attached to his harness, the Doctor and Rose meet up with Donna. "I’ve just missed my own wedding and been kidnapped by Father Christmas. Sympathy is limited!" she snaps.

The Doctor retorts that she can always book another date, enjoy the honeymoon, stop being an irritating palsied harridan... and maybe she can explain why mysterious robotic Santa Clauses are after her, an weak, pathetic, unconnected, stupid, unimportant bint in a wedding dress? Said weak, pathetic, unconnected, stupid, unimportant bint in a wedding dress then punches the Time Lord in the face.

Rose tries a slightly less idiotic course of questioning and discovers that Donna works as a secretary. "I’m at TO Uchwood. It’s where I met Lance. I was temping. I mean, it was all a bit hardcore really. I’d spent the last two years at a double glazing firm. Well, I thought – I’m never gonna fit in here with all these bastards shooting each other and scavenging alien technology. And then he made me a coffee. I mean, that just doesn't happen. Nobody gets the secretaries a coffee. Not without using pheromone date rape sprays, anyway. And Lance – he was nice, he was funny. And it turns out he thought everyone else was really oversexed and bipolar too. So that’s how it started, me and him – one cup of coffee. Six months ago. Anyway, enough of my CV. Come on, it's time to face the consequences. Oh, this is gonna be so shaming. We booked the honeymoon suite and everything. I had this great big reception all planned. Now, after all that time planning it, it’s canceled! Everyone’s gonna be heartbroken!"

However, it quickly comes apparent to the Doctor and Rose that Donna’s family and friends really, fundamentally, don’t give a shit about her and at the reception venue everyone is dancing to Slade, and Lance and Paris Hilton are going the bump and grind! When Donna freaks out that the wedding reception is held without the bride, her revolting mother Sylvia Noble hurls abuse at Donna for expecting them to waste time, effort and money trying to find her when they could be enjoying themselves. Soon Donna starts to sob and the rest of the family applause and Mexican Waves at the Christmas tradition of Sylvia crushing her daughter’s self-esteem.

Immediately the music resumes as the Doctor and Rose get sloshed and realize that "TO Uchwood" looks a bit like "Touchwood" if you write it down incorrectly. However as Rose looks on at the dancing couples she is reminded of Mickey who – in case you missed it, died horribly – and her eyes begin to well up. The Doctor reminds her that the late Mr. Smith was actually two-timing Rose with her own mother and they should all be grateful he died alone and silent.

Soon Rose is completely plastered and gleefully happy once more, and cheerfully hugs the Doctor and tells him that he is her bestest, bestest friend in the whole wide world and even though she doesn’t for a moment believe they actually shagged each other after the whole 'Time Goddess' incident, she can’t think of anyone else she’d like to bonk more.

The Doctor has never been happier and immediately drags Rose to the Manchester Suite to get all sweaty when, of course, three sinister figures in Santa Claus outfits arrive. "Maybe they’re just three old guys dressed up as Santa and not evil at all?" offers Rose woozily.

And, bugger me sideways, she’s absolutely right!

Nevertheless, these old guys are the first to die when the REAL Robo-Santas arrive in force to do... whatever the hell it is that the Robo-Santas do. The Time Lord swears loudly and tries to remember exactly how the hell he defeated them last time.

Rose belches and explains he managed it by setting up a Bill-and-Ted-style time trick by laying a retrospective trap involving killer Christmas Trees. The Doctor agrees and points out that at any moment the Christmas Trees lining the dance floor should activate at this moment and kill all the Santas.

Tragically, it becomes obvious that the drunken Doctor from ten minutes into the future hasn’t programmed the Christmas Trees correctly, as instead of turning into Tasmanian Devil death machines, the Christmas decorations float up into the middle of the disbelieving crowd and explode violently. The Doctor unsteadily concludes his future self must have decided he hated Donna’s family more than the Santas, before falling face down in the wedding cake.

The Santas break into the room and prepare to open fire with their lethally-percussive instruments when the Doctor and Rose, completely pissed, start messing with the sound system and the mixing desk. Their attempts to karioke "Lust Don’t Rust" create piercing screeches that destroys the robotic assailants.

"Ah, JINGS! Now we’ll NEVER know what the hell they were up to!"

Disappointed and miserable, the Doctor and Rose stumble away out of the hotel as it transpires that Sylvia managed to survive both attacks and berates Donna for daring to bring her so-called friends to her wedding. Donna decides in a sulk to grab Lance and storm out.

"They’ll all laugh at you!" Sylvia shrieks after them, stamping her foot in announce, before a Christmas tree falls flat on her head.

Outside, the Doctor and Rose are trying to steal Lance’s painfully-small Smart Car. As Lance and Donna arrive and try to first understand and then help the would be time traveling joyriders, none of them notice a giant star-shaped object made out of spider’s web floating in the sky above and inside a rasping voice makes all sorts of pointless and ominous statements clearly there simply for the trailers.

"Clever, clever, clever boy, little travelling man! He shall come to me and beautiful bride. Am I bovvered? I aint even bovvered though. Such secrets to unlock! Have a guess! I shall descend this night, I can do that! I shall descend upon this Earth and SHINE, you dirty, evil, lactose-intolerant BASTARDS!! If you don’t believe me, log onto the website. WHAT A FARKIN LIBAHTEE!"



Parte the Second

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Rose are crunched up in the back of the car as Donna and Lance drive down the road at a brain-bleedingly cautious 20 mph. "Isn’t exactly a chase is it?" Rose grumbles.

"Oy! There’s a speed limit!"

"Yeah, a LIMIT, not something to aspire to!"

"I’m not going to jail in my wedding dress!" Donna retorts.

The Doctor moans that anything must be better than riding in the back of the hairdryer as Donna spots speed bumps ahead and slows to 10 mph to creep over the sleeping policemen (by which I mean a couple of dozing coppers, it’s not slang or anything). "That’s all right," the Time Lord sobs with boredom. "No rush, is there?"

Finally, the Doctor and Rose can take no more and decide to get out and catch a bus, but feeling at a loose end, Donna and Lance hop on one after them. Unfortunately Rose meets a neighbor, the decrepit Mrs. Coot who immediately assumes that Rose and Donna have got engaged in a huge statement of lesbian pride. "Congratulations! Oh, you make a lovely couple!" she chirps.

"Yes we do, Mrs. Coot," Rose replies through gritted teeth, telling Donna to 'go with it' lest the old bag start talking about her past girlfriends and what they got up to back in the 1930s.

Donna then turns to Lance and warns him, "Don’t get any ideas!"

Unsurprisingly, the Doctor and Rose jump off the bus the first chance they get and find themselves by an astonishing coincidence outside Donna’s office at TO Uchwood. The Doctor bets Rose five quid that there’s a secret underground basement facility beneath the office being run by the oversexed and highly immoral Touchwood Institute. Rose doesn’t accept as it’s too easy, and instead they break into the lift.

Together with Donna and Lance – "Are you stalking us or something?" demands Rose at various points - they descend down in the lift and finally in desperation to get away, the Doctor and Rose jump on motorized transporter segues to hurtle away down a corridor. Finally, the Doctor, Rose and Donna realize how utterly stupid this all is and laugh uncontrollably for eleven minutes straight.

Meanwhile, that sinister creature thingamabob monitors their progress in a suitably ominous manner. "The drunken bride approaches. She is my key!! But I wouldn’t want that to come between us, pet!"

Finally, the Doctor, Rose, Donna and Lance arrive in the Touchwood Four Hub, the branch of the organization that not even its own leaders knew about... or at least, were too drunk, drugged and sex-crazed to actually try to find. This particular major landmark this secret underground base happens to be directly beneath is the Thames Flood Barrier, though what the hell that is doing in Cardiff I cannot say. Geography is clearly not a strong point with the new series.

As soon as they enter the main Hub, a rasping voice so curiously identical to the sinister observing monster I have painstakingly obscured the identity of throughout this synopsis so far starts shooting her mouth off. Upon hearing it, Lance shits himself and runs for his life as the voice begins to rant:

"Such a sweet couple. I have waited so long, hibernating at the edge of the universe until the secret heart was uncovered and called out to waken! Now I am high in the sky, floating so high on Christmas Night! It – is – MENTAL!"

The Doctor and Rose quickly get bored and discuss an enormous round hole in the floor and wonder if it is some kind of communal latrine, dug by laser. Finally, the Time Lord gets sick of the ranting disembodied voice with its poor Catherine Tate impersonations and demands she turn up and face them before the audience lose interest completely.

Suddenly an enormous spider-like creature, blood red with sharp fangs and a face dotted with inhuman eyes, hissing and spitting and bearing its long legs materializes before them.

Donna looks at this living LSD freakout and, refusing to be impressed, simply grunts, "Christ I hate spiders!"

"Prepare your best medicines, doctorman," rants the monster, "for you will be sick at heart!" snarls the creature. "BEHOLD! THINE EYES DAZZLE! Am I bovvered though? Am I? Is this the face of bovvered? I am the Leaderene of the Aracanons! Last of my kind!"

The Doctor yawns loudly. "Oh, bor-ring! You know how many last surviving members of once-great ancient civilizations I’ve had to meet, chat to and then mercilessly slaughter? No? Well, neither do I! I lost count and there were so many! Go on then, how did YOU survive the Temporal Difference of Opinion. Go on. Impress me."

"Oh, my pitiful hibernation! I fled to the edge of the universe and drifted in silence in the cold, in the dark but then! OH, BUT THEN! These oh-so-kinky humans detected something, they went digging down and down and down and awoke me! WHAT A FARKING LIBAHTEE!! So here’s to me and all that sails in me!"

"...so what’s with the catchphrases?" Rose asks, confused.

"Catchphrases? Who, dear? Me, dear? Catchphrases, dear? No, dear! The Bride is so feisty," rants the Leaderene unhelpfully.

At this minute Lance arrives in a posing pouch and immediately gives the Leaderene a long, sophisticated kiss. The Doctor apologizes to Donna but she can’t understand, and Rose impatiently explains that her fiancé is clearly bonking giant red spiders behind her back.

A dumbfounded Donna listens as Lance gets off his chest his pent-up hatred for Donna, the trivial life she has led him into in the run up to the wedding, stripping away all the lies Donna’s told herself to pretend she’s happy in loved in one of the cruelest scenes Doctor Who has ever done and I AM NOT CRYING, FUCK IT!!

"She still doesn’t get it, does she? God, she’s thick! Months I had to put up with her! MONTHS! A woman who can’t even point to Germany on a map! She didn’t even realize she was working for Touchwood! Course, I had to marry her to make sure she was the one - and then I was stuck with a woman who thinks the height of excitement is a new flavor Pringle! Oh, I had to sit there and listen to all that yap yap yap! Oh, Brad and Angelina! He’s gay and she’s an alien! Is Posh a Slitheen? And I think you’ll find it’s Lotto, not 'Lottery'! Big Brother’s Big Mouth X Factor, Atkins Diet, Feng Shui, split ends, text me, text me, text me, dear God, the never ending fountain of FAT, STUPID TRIVIA!!! I DESERVE A BLOODY MEDAL!!"

"Oh, is that what she's offered you? The Leaderene of the Aracanons? What are you? Her court jester? Or her consort?"

"It’s better than a night with her! She’s crap!"

"That’s what made it easy. There I was, working in the City, working hard, every day... I was climbing the ladder. And then it happened. Cybermen. Dustbins in the sky. Everything I’d spent my life doing was so small. The Leaderene isn’t gonna give power or money. That’s done there with all the small stuff. What’s the point of it all if the Human Race is nothing? That’s what the Empress can give me. The chance to... go out there. To see it. The size of it all. I think you understand that, don’t you, Doctor?"

"I do!" says Rose brightly, and gets a clip behind the ear.

"The bride shall join her groom!" shrieks the monster. "What a wedding there shall be! Listen to this! She is close! The holy bride in white. Find her! Bind her! You will consider this a privilege – YOU will unlock the Sacred Heart! Shut up! No, you shut up!"

At this point I accidentally slammed my fist through the TV at her appalling acting, so I’ll have to hastily gloss over any material I may have missed after all the broken glass and blood and screaming and electrocution stuff occurred.

Basically...

In a parallel reality inhabited solely by the characters from The Catherine Tate Show have gotten completely sick of their routine, catchphrase-led existence which they have been trapped in ever since Catherine Tate herself ended the show. The characters banded together and managed to break into reality, only to be downloaded into the spidery brain of the Leaderene which has driven her stark raving bonkers. And she wasn’t exactly what you’d call stable to start with.

For the sake of their collectively-fragile sanity, the Catherine Tate Cast have driven the Leaderene to seek out the real Catherine Tate with the intention of forcing her to restart the series and continue the show and give variety to their lives.

One problem: they’ve mistaken Donna for Catherine Tate and assumed she’s actually filming a Christmas special rather than a random ginger bride having a Welsh wedding. This causes feedback inside the Leaderene, driving her completely nuts once again, which just adds to the trouble.

The Leaderene summons her giant web-space ship, the Christmas star to descend onto the Earth and zaps bolts of energy at the defenceless Welsh, wrecking the unfinished city and the Doctor decides that this is getting way too freaky for him and at that moment...

...Arthur the horse nibbles the teleport control on the TARDIS console and snatches Rose to safety!

Unfortunately, it leaves the Doctor and Donna exactly where they were, trapped beneath the Thames with a giant man-eating spider and her disturbing love slave. And now I can replace the TV and continue transcribing the rest of the story! Yay!

"Oh, sod this for a game of soldiers," the Doctor snaps and throws some exploding Christmas decorations he pocketed at the reception around the base. The shitty Welsh workmanship of the secret Touchwood base is blasted open, letting the water of the Thames flood in, washing the screaming Lance down into the pit as the Doctor and Donna leg it.

As the water continues to flood, the Leaderene beams back to the Webstar, and decides to nuke Wales off the face of the Earth. Tragically, she doesn’t even get a chance to try.

Without Touchwood’s famed Belgrano Device to blow the alien smeggers to oblivion like LAST Christmas, it’s up the mysterious and enigmatic Alan B’Stard, Leader of the Saxon Political Party takes the initiative and orders a fleet of gigantic tanks he subcontracted for a profit to open fire at the giant Christmas decoration. Amazingly enough, this particular alien invasion is COMPLETELY vulnerable to bullets and thus the Aracanon Web Star Ship unravels in a fiery explosion that in moments leaves the sky empty once more after the first shot.

Following this spectacularly unimpressive anti-climax, the Doctor and Donna find themselves back out in the open air on top of the Flood Barrier, with only one problem remaining; they have drained the Thames dry in a major ecological catastrophe.

"Jings," the Doctor muses. "Nothing for Londoners to flush with, or generate electricity or heat radiators. All the city’s water supply will turn to steam when it hits the white-hot core of the Earth!"

"Won’t that, like, crack the planet open?" asks Donna, worried.

"Hell no! It won’t evaporate all in go, remember, and the Thames isn’t much water when you think about it. And then the steam will float up here again and re-condense into water, so it’ll all be back eventually. No, Donna Noble, we haven’t doomed the Earth, but we HAVE made the biggest whistle in the universe! Honestly, ‘crack the planet’ open... anyone would think this was 1967!"

Donna sighs, having lost her job, missed her wedding and almost become a widow all in the same day. "And Lance deserved it!" she bitches, but sighs, "No, he didn’t," unable to condemn even the two-timing, double-faced traitor who planned to kill her and destroy the entire Earth. Some people would say this proves Donna’s inherent stupidity, but most are too busy crying at this beautiful and self aware moment. But not me. I don’t cry. I’m macho. Get used to it.

Donna decides to go back to her parents and see how many of her possessions they have systematically smashed to pieces as they do every Christmas, but she reveals that thanks to the Doctor’s full-fisted example of genocide, she intends to move out and hire Bolivian assassins to kill them for insurance money.

"Will I ever see you again?" asks Donna.

"If I’m lucky," the Doctor grins at the woman who has never before had ANYBODY tell her that she was worth knowing. It just gets me every time. And it’s MY fucking guide so I can get misty-eyed if I want, OK?

The Doctor meets up with Rose and Arthur in the TARDIS and they set off to find what those Santa thingamajigs are once and for all...

...unless something more interesting takes their fancy.

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Next Time...
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"We’ve gone beyond the reach of Lance Parkin’s 'A History Of The Universe' – not a good move!"
"ENTERING YULETIDE SEASON."
"This writing is bad. Implausibly bad."
"People! Look at that! Real people!"
"That’s us! Hurray!"
"Are you all really stoned or something?"
"Saint Nicholas and his Armies will leave the Tip as they found it."
"Jings! The TARDIS is screwed! I’ve trapped myself here! Oh, and you too, Rose."
"Whatever it is down there, it’s not a natural phenomenon."
"We could revolutionize modern science!"
"We could use it to fuel the Empire!"
"But only as long as you’ve been good all year..."
"SOME MAY CALL HIM SANTA!"
"We’re at the North Pole!"
"We can’t be... that’s IMPLAUSIBLE!"
"You have been naughty!!"
"WE ARE THE LEGIONS OF KRIS KRINGLE!"
"I am tax free! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!"
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...The Santa Tip...
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