10th Doctor - The Satan Pit (i)

Serial 206 – The Santa Tip
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Silent Night Deadly Night!

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


Serial 206 – The Santa Tip -

In a shining white office sits Captain Jack Sparrow as he drunkenly focuses his gaze an official-looking woman called Yvonne Hartman as she explains she wants him to head for the North Pole of the planet Earth. There he will locate Santa Claus and kidnap him. "Bring him back, Captain and you’ll be the man who saved Western Civilization!"

Jack peers blearily at her. "You want me to capture a fat jolly elf and use his magic toy-making abilities to heap with the Middle East fuel crisis?" he surmises. "That’s just crazy enough to work. But, my dearest, there have been innumerable attempts to capture Father Christmas. Finland is on constant alert for his overweight and highly-commercial presence. How do you know where he is?"

Yvonne hands over an ancient book of strange symbols, which turned up in the effects of a Goodie expedition in some episode the ABC never bothered to show. "All we have is the map and local myths of wikipedia," Yvonne explains before Jack can ask further. "But what mythical folklore archetype DOESN’T have some legendary evil attached to it? Don Quixote was supposed to be scary once! Sorry, I’d better chuck you out, I have a sex session with McMillen at 11. Good luck, Captain. Get yourself ready. It’s a big trip and I salute you and await your triumphant return."

"Sure thing, mate," says Jack, staggering out as his personal assistant, an alien supermodel sex slave called Jeanine, takes the book and dizzily smiles at Yvonne.

"The hearts of Touchwood go with you," Yvonne tells Jack.

"Hang your stockings and say your prayers!" Jeanine giggles. "Cause Santa Claus is coming tonight!"

"What?!" Yvonne demands.

Jeanine’s face falls. "Oh. Nothing. Never mind," she adds and hurries out after Jack. Yvonne watches her go and mutters under her breath:

"Stupid Slitheen..."


ACT ONE – THE IMPLAUSIBLE PREMISE


Parte the First

The TARDIS uneasily lands in a snowy ice-landscape at the northernmost point of the Earth, outside a jerry-built IKEA flat-pack research base built out of translucent polythene and plastic scaffolding. As the Doctor and Rose emerge leaving Arthur the Horse inside, the Time Lord comments that it is fucking freezing as if they were at the North Pole, which indeed they area.

They both think for a second then laugh at the wit behind that gag before fleeing inside the base, wiping their feet on the mat saying "WELCOME TO TOUCHWOOD!" The Doctor looks around, theorizing that they have landed inside an Arctic furniture showroom, and soon stumble into the canteen area with lots of tables and chairs, and lots of symbols scrawled across the wall.

"Hold on, what does that say?" the Doctor asks, peering at the text, but it remains stubbornly incomprehensible. "That’s weird. It won’t translate."

"But I thought narratorial convenience translated everything, writing as well," Rose nitpicks before the fans can complain. "We should see English!"

"Exactly," the Doctor agrees. "If that’s not working, then it means... this writing is bad. Very bad. Implausibly bad. Like a drunken chicken using the wrong claw to write cursive Chinese characters after its head had been cut off. Now THAT’s what I call implausible!"

Just then a bunch of large-breasted platinum blonde Amazonian Slitheen enter the kitchen areas from all sides, chanting the lyrics to "Carol of the Bells" over and over as they advance on the Doctor and Rose.

"Stay cool, Rose," the Doctor mutters as his companion picks up a chair to fend the creatures off. "I think they’re carol singers..."

"They’re horrible alien body snatchers!"

"But they’re very good at a capella, aren’t they?"

The Slitheen finish their Christmas carol and offer the Doctor and
Rose refreshment. Rose asks for some egg nog, but when they discover that the time travelers don’t have staff swipe cards Jeanine blinks in slow-witted amazement. "That’s implausible," she points out.

"Well, that’s us. Implausible," the Doctor grins.

"Oh yeah," says one of the Slitheen, twirling her hair around a finger. "We really better report unauthorized humans in the cafeteria."

"That’s a bit harsh," the Doctor retorts as the inevitable alarmed is raised. "'Unauthorized'? Why don’t you just call us visitors? No, tell you what, guests? Guests is good. Or, how about, friends? Friends you just haven’t met yet?"

A middle-aged badass called Jefferson enters flanked by two guards with no names of any kind whatsoever and is astounded by the Doctor and Rose’s very existence, philosophically speaking. "What the hell...? How did...? Who are you?" he demands, finally able to complete a question.

"They’re, like, friends you just haven’t met yet," explains Jeanine.

Jefferson rolls his eyes. "Captain?" he says into his funky blue tooth. "You’re not going to believe this. We’ve got people, out of nowhere. I mean, real people. I mean two... living... people. Just standing here, right in front of me, an affront to existentialists everywhere!"

"Don’t be stupid," replies the Captain over the communications system. "That’s implausible!"

The Doctor and Rose obviously don’t quite know what to make of this unusual reception. Or care. "It can’t be THAT implausible," Rose points out, and some of the Slitheen nod in agreement like the total airheads that they are.

"No idea," the Doctor shrugs. "But it’s not implausible and it’s not impossible it must, therefore, be very, very improbable. I liked improbable. More fun that way!"

Jefferson dismisses this as reprehensible self-actualization and ushers them along another polythene corridor, into a control room lined with computer banks and tables surrounded by people in the middle of a rather intricate sexual position known as the Siamese Human Knot, and look up to see the Doctor and Rose. They marvel at the sight of real people and put this down to oxygen starvation from their auto-erotic asphyxiation games carried out earlier.

Awkwardly, the Doctor and Rose stand around as the mass of bodies untangle themselves into a disheveled expedition of: Toshiko Sato - Feisty Science Officer; Owen Harper – Nervous Ethics and First Aide Consultant; Gwen Cooper – Cheeky Trainee Customer Relations Facilitator; Ianto Jones – The Guy Who Orders The Pizzas; and worst of all their leader Captain Jack Sparrow.

"Captain Jack!" gasps Rose amazed. "That’s SERIOUSLY implausible!"

"As indeed are most things, Rosie me dear!" says the naked drunk. "You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve been following you two after you abandoned in some backwater of time and space!"

"I thought you got shot by Dustbins and died," Rose protests.

"Nah, AFTER that, when the Doctor marooned me in Cardiff 1869! I’ve had to live through the whole 20th century to catch up with and to be completely honest, over the years I’ve forgotten the reason why and instead let myself descend into decadence and debauchery with no hint of overarching plot or characterization."

"What?" asks Rose, totally confused. "Are you saying the Doctor went back for you and then dumped you in the past two hundred years ago?!

"Did I do that?" asks the Doctor, mock amazed. "Jings. Busy life, huh? Moving on. What are you people even bonking each other at the North Pole of all places?!"

"Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?" slurs Jack. "Our underfunded, ill-thought-out and overall fool hardly mission is to seek, locate and capture the One They Call Santa."

"SANTA?!" Rose spits out.

"Yeah," Owen chips in. "Santa. Santa Claus. Saint Nicholas of Myra. Sinterklaas. Father Christmas. Kris Kringle. Big fat bloke in red with reindeers, gives out presents on December 25."

"Why?" asks the Doctor, staring at them in awe.

"Oil and petrol are running out," Tosh explains. "Natural resources will be used up at no time and there’s no possible way to replace them, so either we use a different fuel source for all our machinery or we force a kindly magical elf to use his powers for us at gunpoint."

"Yes, if Santa Claus can provide toys and gifts and consumer good around the entire world in a single night, a new source of fossil fuels should hardly be beyond his capabilities," Jack muses.

"The legends say that Santa’s main distribution centre is a complex, four million foot square, with a real-time warehouse system with interleaving tasks in a dynamic queue," enthuses Tosh like the dork she is. "To balance costs for transportation and order picking, his factory must be underground and we’re certain it’s just ten miles beneath this very room!"

".....and?" the Doctor prompts.

"What do you think, geek boy?" Owen retorts. "We’re drilling down. Then a commando raid, shoot a few elves and we get access to Santa Claus himself."

"We could revolutionize modern science!" Tosh enthuses.

"We could use it to fuel the British Empire!" Jefferson agrees.

"We could release a charity single," Ianto deadpans.

"So, when it comes right down to it," the Doctor muses, "why did you come here? Why did you do that? Why? I’ll tell you why. Because you’re all a bunch of useless bloody loonies too busy playing naked hide and seek to notice the obvious: THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS!"

"Yes there is!" Rose points out.

"Rose, how many times did we have to kill your father to prove that it was just him in a stupid hat and a false beard? There’s no such thing as Santa Claus, he’s just a filthy pagan belief useful for commercialistic propaganda by humans who are so stultifyingly repetitive they NEED stupid traditions like this! FATHER CHRISTMAS DOES NOT EXIST!"

There is a long pause where the only noise is the howling of the arctic wind against the translucent walls of the base.

"Prove it," challenges Jack flatly.

Without another word, the Doctor turns on his heel and dashes from the room, back down the corridor, Rose hot on his tail. They retrace their steps through the corridors and back to the front door, but it is too –late, the snow storm outside has built up around the base, trapping them within. They are, in other words, in a base UNDER SIEGE!!

"Jings..." the Doctor sighs, headbutting the door repeatedly. "It’s totally buried in the snow! And I need my ship, it’s all I've got! Literally the only thing!"

Rose coughs self consciously and folds her arms. The Doctor frowns, stares at her in confusion, then goes back to cursing the fickle finger of fate. "I’m trapped here! It’s SO UNFAIR!"

"No, don’t worry about me," says Rose, voice dripping with sarcasm. "We’re in a deranged expedition to the coldest place on Earth with no way out, at the mercy of the elements and forced to rely on Captain fucking Jack of all people for a chance of survival. But YOU’VE lost your blue box, so worry about that instead!"

The Doctor blinks. "Oh. Was I being selfish and insensitive again?" Rose nods. "Rough day. Hey, Jeanine?" he shouts to the passing Slitheen. "You got any decent coffee around here?"

"We have only Protein One, Protein Two or Protein Three," she replies.

"No coffee then. What does Protein One taste like?" asks Rose.

"Milk."

"And Protein Two?" the Doctor continues.

"Salt."

"Protein Three?" asks Rose hopefully.

"Sugar."

"Right, well, we’ll have a couple of cups of hot One with just a tiny bit of Three. Tiny bit. Thanks, simple yeoman," the Doctor beams and they head back to the cafeteria.

"Why are the Slitheen working for Captain Jack?" asks Rose, confused.

"We work, like, the mine shafts and all the drilling and stuff, supervision, and maintenance..." Jeanine explains.

"Are you Jack’s sex slaves or something?" the Doctor asks.

"We like being told what to do," Jeanine grins idiotically. "It’s all we crave, we’ve got like nothing else in our entire lives."

The Doctor grins. "I might get to like being marooned here!"

For maximum ironic impact, at that exact moment Ianto is walking through another corridor in the base what he hears a ghostly voice echoing down the corridor, calling his name. Then the sound of sleigh bells!

Ianto puts this down to Owen pissing about and ignores it.

The base computer announces that it is now the night shift and the
chosen music track for transition is Slade’s "Merry Xmas Everybody" and the Doctor and Rose try to explain their awkward situation to Jack, who laughs at their misery. "We have the resources to go out there, dig up the TARDIS, take it here, then put it back and bury it in the snow. Fifty-seven times. But you know what? FUCK YOU! It’ll give your superiority complex some good to be stuck in a backward era full of morons – I speak from tender experience."

The Doctor stares at him. "What do you mean, 'superiority complex'? I don’t have a superiority complex! I’M NATURALLY SUPERIOR! I’M THE STUFF OF LEGEND, SPARROW, AND DON’T FORGET IT!"

"Well, go and get your blue box back on your own and stop bitching to us about it," Owen says as he flips through a porn mag. "Otherwise accept your box is lost and stop crying into your latte."

The Doctor smiles sweetly and empties his piping-hot Protein One on Owen’s lap and storms off as Owen’s screams fill the air. However, Owen has his revenge as the Doctor and Rose are put on laundry duty – a truly cruel punishment considering the state Jack and his team leave the sheets.

As the Time Lord grimly tries to scrub off the ancient text-like stains on yet another duvet, Rose gets another basket of linen from a Slitheen who has helpfully added the brief tinfoil bikini she was wearing to the washing. Truly, this scene shows how gritty and realistic Doctor Who has become – for the Time Lord is so completely pissed off he doesn’t ogle the space babe like everyone watching at home.

"Sorry about the peanut butter stains," the Slitheen says cheerfully.

"How the hell did you get peanut butter on your underwear?" Rose asks incredulously. "And why am I even ASKING that question? I don’t want to know the answer! But tell us anyway..."

"And he smiled as he said with a twinkle in his eye 'Merry Christmas to all - now you're all gonna die!'" she replies politely.

"...I’m sorry?"

"I said, 'it was a messy orgy and I wasn’t paying attention'."

"No you didn’t!"

"Yes I did!"

"You did not, you said 'Merry Christmas, you’re all gonna die!'"

"Stop hallucinating, you junkie," the Slitheen snorts and wanders off.

Rose crosses to the Doctor as he complains that the mighty Jim Belushi civilization of the Scarlet Junction, spanning a billion years disappearing, would have its planets and suns consumed by the time they even get round to the ironing. He then briefly ponders the idea that maybe if there’s enough laundry, they’ll vanish like socks and escape to some other starch-free universe.

"Jings! Stuck in laundry duty for all eternity!" he wails. "Even if they do finish this plot against Santa, then what?! Live a life the same as the rest of the universe? Get a job? Train whippets? Learn to clog dance?! Settle down in a house or something, a proper house with... with... with... with doors and things. Carpets! Me! Living in a house! With a MORTGAGE! I am dying! That’s it, I’m dying, it’s all over!"

"You SURE you don’t have a superiority complex then?" asks Rose.

"Er, excuse me," the Doctor retorts. "This is the bit where you suggest you share a house with me and we live in domestic bliss for the rest of eternity, imagination our only limit, chronically-depressed budgerigars called Gerald our only concern?"

"Whatever," Rose mutters. Then her phone rings, and when she answers she hears a sinister "Ho-ho-ho!" in her ear and, startled flings the phone to the floor.

"Probably just Jack making an obscene phone call," the Doctor muses as he switches on a tumble dryer to block out the maniacal laughter.

In the control room Jack sits at his desk, watching the holographic display, which details the progress of the drilling. Suddenly, the picture changes from the net diagram of the planet to a picture of an imposing face with a white beard and glasses, which laughs evilly at him and then is gone in a flash.

Gwen pokes her head out from under the table. "What was that?"

Jack shrugs and swigs from a bottle. "Nothing. Keep going."

"Sure thing," Gwen replies and moves under the desk again.

In the recreation room, Owen is playing an arcade game called "Attack of the Fanged, Kick-Boxing, Nipple-Free Flying Vampire Bikini Babes". However, instead of shouting "FINISH THEM OFF!" it booms, "IT IS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS!" – but Owen has his iPod on full blast and doesn’t notice this incredibly obvious Harbinger of Doom.

Behind him, Ianto sits at the table trying to decipher the incredibly terrible handwriting of the booklet used in the pre-credit sequence. In the silence the ghostly voice from calls his name. "Piss off, Owen," Ianto replies, not even bothering to look up. The lights flicker and there is low, indistinct "ho-ho-ho" from no where in particular.

Once again the ghostly voice calls out to him but Ianto turns round. He looks behind him but there is noting there bar the sight of Owen doing his stupid victory dance as he disembowels some more mutant ninja zombies. Sighing, Ianto realizes he’s been leaning on the pages and all the inky characters have rubbed off the paper and onto his skin.

"Great," he mutters, not realizing that the characters have spread all over his skin and his eyes are glowing a sinister merciless red. Ianto slowly falls backwards flat on his arse, writhing in agony.

Owen, still listening to his iPod, dances out for sex with Toshiko, and not once notices as Ianto starts to growl "Ho! Ho! Ho!" to himself as a murderous look comes into his burning red eyes...

"I know who’s been NAUGHTY!!!"


Parte The Second

In the Slitheen Habitation, Owen arrives to ogle the slaves as they perform a worryingly kinky combined striptease and karioke and sing "Jingle Bell Rock" en masse. The Doctor and Rose arrive, specifically to complain at some truly disgusting stains on Owen’s underwear that THEY were left for two hours trying to clean off.

Owen isn’t interested in how the mysterious couple are settling and instead notes in a dictaphone he thinks Rose would be "Catholic But Grateful" in bed and "Pheromone Basic 60" should be enough to "spread those dimpled knees of hers".

"I’m right here!" Rose complains.

"Hmmm. Make that Pheromone Basic 100," Owen amends.

The Doctor notices that all the Slitheen have stopped singing and staring blankly at the trio; expression devoid of any spark of intellect, of minds completely empty. So, pretty much normal.

Owen thus ignores them and tells Rose she’d be better looking if she stopped the offended look. "You better not pout," he concludes.

"I’M TELLING YOU WHY!" the Slitheen chant as one.

"What the hell?!"

The Doctor turns to address the Slitheen. "Tell us why...?"

"SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN!"

"There is no Santa Claus!" the Doctor shouts at him.

"HE KNOWS WHEN YOU ARE SLEEPING! HE KNOWS WHEN YOU ARE AWAKE!"

Elsewhere, Gwen arrives in Ianto’s room to return his copy of the Karma Sutra: Zero-Gravity Edition, but he is nowhere to be seen. She hears the opening and closing of door and sees a sign saying "OUT TO CHECK LIST TWICE" on the door.

Gwen peers out the window into the freezing polar landscape and there, amongst the flowing snow clouds stands Ianto, embracing the freezing landscape before him. He turns to see Gwen through the window, his face alive with a manic grin framed by a long white beard and that stupid red hat with a bell on the end that no one knows a simple name for.

He beckons to her to join him outside and sit upon his knee and Gwen cheerfully skips out into the Arctic night wearing her brief leather uniform with as much exposed skin as possible.

"Hello, young lady," Ianto booms. "What would you like for Christmas?"

Gwen giggles idiotically. "I’d like my two front teeth to look normal!"

"I’ll see what I can do. But have you been a good little girl?"

"Yes, Santa!"

"All year?"

"Yes, Santa!"

Ianto bitch-slaps her and she flies into the snow. "DON’T LIE TO ME!" he roars insanely. "DON’T LIE TO SANTA! You’ve been a right little madam and not cleaned out the Weevil hutch or done the washing up when asked to – I’m VERY CROSS WITH YOU! You don’t DESERVE any presents AT ALL this year! I might even come round and take back the presents I gave you LAST year – I don’t care how much you love your Taiwanese sex balls, if I feel like it, I’m taking it away!"

Gwen yells in protest and his grin falls. "And it’s no use crying, I’M NOT GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND! I know whose been naughty! Good little children get rewarded! Bad little children used to get coal, but I get so furious just thinking about you, I think I’ll KILL YOU INSTEAD!"

Gwen screams and tries to run for it as the blizzard intensifies to total whiteout and Ianto chants the mystical incantation: "Let it snow, let it snow, LET IT SNOW!"

In the Slitheen habitation room the ground begins to shake. The Slitheen’s breasts act as mini-gyroscopes, allowing them to stay balanced while the others fall over. Or maybe the extras didn’t know they were supposed to fall over as well? Who directed this crap anyway?

From the control room Jack asks Tosh if "the Earth move for you too?"

The Doctor, Rose and Owen return to the cafeteria because frankly all the ominous chanting of Christmas Carols is getting irritating. There they meet the seeming-normal-in-all-things Ianto fastidiously making a cup of coffee. Well, Protein One With Just A Dash Of Three, but it’s Ianto, so we CALL it coffee and let it ride.

Just then they all note the sinister shadow looming up against the translucent wall of the living quarters. Everyone reels back in shock. Except Ianto, who rolls his eyes and continues his coffee making. The Doctor wipes away the condensation to reveal...

THE DEAD LIFELESS BODY OF GWEN COOPER FROZEN SOLID!!!!

Owen sighs through his disturbingly wide mouth. "I should have known the look of her face in death would be the same as when she..."

"ANYWAY," the Doctor says too-loudly, "shouldn’t we eulogize now?"

"Oh, well, er... see ya in hell?" Jack offers.

"You were totally lying about being only 20," Tosh shrugs.

"Isn’t she like a Welsh serving girl from 1869?" is all Rose has.

"Yeah, there IS a resemblance," the Doctor agrees.

"She was a lot sexier when she acted older than 14," Owen decides.

"Gwen Cooper is dead
And the suffering won’t stop
It is all pointless!" Jefferson laments via haiku.

Around them a noticeable whirring noise, which echoes around the entire base, comes to a halt and Tosh notes it has stopped just in case any complete morons were watching and never noticed.

"That’s quite implausible now I come to think about it," Jack opines. "We’re not scheduled to reach point zero for another two weeks. Unless all the rock conveniently gave way for the drill to break through. Which is still implausible."

"Oh well," says Owen, completely forgetting the frost-covered corpse outside. "Shall we go down? The mine shaft I mean. Or, we could have an orgy to discuss going down the mine shaft."

"Gwen welded half that drill head together," Tosh says, "it’s amazing it worked at all. What would she say now?"

"'Fuck me, I’m freezing?'" Rose suggests with a shrug.

"My point is, people died to get us here. And more people died when we had that pointlessly immature gunfight. If we abandon it now, we won’t have enough plot to fill up next week’s episode!" Tosh urges.

"Yeah, the Slitheen are really pissing me off at present. I think we should contain them in the pen and force them to mud-wrestle," mutters Owen to Jack sotto voce.

"That WOULD be an intriguingly macabre notion," Jack nods.

"Don’t you need them on the mineshaft or something?" asks Rose.

"Do not come between the dragon and his wrath," Jack whispers in reply. "And don’t get in the way of a Touchwood Standard Orgy. And WHAT AM I WHISPERING FOR? They’re just Slitheen for the love for the Prodigy, they don’t understand any words over two syllables. And why aren’t ANY of you showing me the due deference demanded by my rank!"

"It’d help if you were wearing clothes," Ianto points out.

Jack glances down and remembers he’s stark naked. "I knew that," he lies unconvincingly. "Right. Lock them up with an inflatable pool filled with baked beans. Except for Jeanine, Tosh and Scooti."

"Have we got an audio link with the drill head?" the Doctor asks.

Everyone stares at him.

"Why in the name of Weevil Sodomy would we have an audio link?" demands Owen. "It’s a mineshaft in the Arctic ten miles into the ground. What the fuck is there to listen to?"

With a jump cut, everyone is in the control room as the Doctor stands before a button marked AUTOMATIC DRILL HEAD RECEPTORS and presses it. Instantly "Winter Wonderland" fills the room.

The Doctor turns to look at the others, arms folded. "See?" he asks smugly. "That’ll teach you to doubt the word of the Last of the Time Lords, Keeper of the Legacy of Rassilon, and Defender of the Laws of Time and Space!"

"Doesn’t that mean there IS a Santa Claus down there?" Rose asks.

The Doctor turns and bangs his head repeatedly against the wall.

As all the Slitheen are gleefully rounded up by Owen, Jefferson and the hitherto unmentioned red shirt called Dai, Tosh prepares to enter the neo-Gothic cable car that will take her down below the surface and into the domain of Santa Claus where she will pose as IT support, gaining the trust of the elves there before she "goes Kill Bill on their asses" and seizes control of the Christmas Toy Factory.

The Doctor insists that he must accompany Tosh so he can laugh evilly at her disappointment when they find an empty underground tunnel and prove him right once and for all. Jack shakes his head in disgust.

"Doctor, this is breaking every single protocol," Captain Jack sighs. "Not that we actually HAVE any protocols here, but basically I’m just trying to find a way to make you suffer."

"Well, let me go down there and be proved wrong when your mission turns out to be a complete success?" the Doctor suggests.

Jack smiles idiotically. "Yeah, why not? She’s all yours."

"Thank you so much," the Doctor beams as Jack walks off.

Simultaneously, the Doctor and Jack glance at each other and mutter the word "Wanker!" under their respective breaths as they move off.

The Doctor and Tosh enter the creaky cable car which descends out of sight with a mechanical whir, just as Rose emerges from the bathroom and asks if she missed anything while she was out?

The Doctor and Tosh stand inside the shaking capsule in silence. Finally, the Time Lord speaks: "So... remember that time we met that space pig at Albion Hospital? Me in a leather jacket, you looks like a centre fold from Asian Babes? Jings, SUCH a long time ago..."

As the cable car reaches the bottom of the shaft, the Slitheen stop wrestling each other in bakes beans and turn in unison to stare at Owen and Dai, who in turn stare back as the beans dribble down their impressive and sweaty cleavage.

Finally the car touches bottom and an ominous silence is descended as Jack and Rose call out for the Doctor and Tosh to respond...

"It’s all right, we made it, I just wanted to scare the crap out of you!" the Doctor laughs over the comms. "And you can tell Handsome Jack that there’s no factory, no elves, no reindeer, sweet fuck all! Isn’t that right, Toshiko?"

"God, why couldn’t be that Northern git?" groans Dr Sato in response.

The shaft has opened into a gigantic cavern miles high and miles wide, with a vaulted ceiling held up by vast stone statues of strange figures with hockey masks and massive spears, interspersed with leering gargoyles and intricately carved tinsel.

"This is Santa’s grotto!" Tosh gasps.

"It’s just a bloody quarry with a roof!" the Doctor protests.

"This is gonna be best Christmas Walford’s ever had!" Tosh vows as they head through the cavern, as the Doctor rambles that they are all perception-challenged stubborn small-minded sex-obsessed bastards who should actually listen to god-like aliens once in a while.

Finally, the Doctor and Tosh discover a giant round metallic hatch engraved with a huge Christmas Tree silhouette sealing up a hole in the ground. "It’s like a trapdoor. I’ve got a nasty feeling the word might be 'manhole'. Not a good word, 'manhole'. Never known a manhole I liked. Well, there WAS that time with Grant Markham..."

"I wonder where it leads?" Tosh asks.

"I know where it leads," booms Ianto in a stereotypically distorted 'possessed' voice, to the surprise of Rose, Jefferson and another hitherto unmentioned red shirt, Bethan. He gets up from the floor to reveal that he is now once again covered in the ink marks and his eyes glow red once more. "It leads into the Grotto of Santa. The time of the new is passed and I shall rise. The Spirit of Christmas will be restored and sanctified in blood that will never cease. The heart of goodwill that beats in the darkness will rise!"

"Post-romantic fantasies of western decadence," Jefferson sneers.

"You’ve been very naughty this year," Ianto growls. "For good girls and boys I bring presents and toys... but if you are bad I will KILL you?"

"You and who’s army, tattoo boy?" Rose challenges.

The Slitheen in the background turn on the humans, eyes blazing as red as their lipstick, eyeliner and crotchless leather underwear!

"This ARMY, little madam!" Ianto roars.

"We are Santa’s little helpers," chants Jeanine the Slitheen.

"The worshippers of Santa shall be many," continues Tosh the Slitheen.

"And the enemies of Santa shall be few," agrees Scooti the Slitheen.

"By the night before Christmas not a creature will stir," concludes Ianto/Santa, "BECAUSE I KILLED THEM ALL!"

Ianto/Santa and his helpers close in on Rose, Jefferson and Bethan as they chant in unison: "I have been woven into the fabric of your life since the dawn of time – or the 1800s, take your pick. Some may call me Santa Claus. Some may call me Father Christmas. Some may call me Saint Nicholas or Pere Noel or Sinterklaas or Tomte or Nisse or Kriss Kringle or Odin or San Niccolo or Krampus or Yule Figure or Long Beard or The Friendly Saint or, on that time I got drunk on Vodka and wandered around Russia wearing a dress, Baboushka..."

"Yeah, you’re Santa Claus, WE GET IT!" Jack shouts over the comms, having popped back to control to get completely ratted on homemade rum.

Meanwhile, the Slitheen have started singing "Silent Night" as they stride up out of their habitat to close in on Owen and Dai, the latter of whom is smothered in the breasts of the closest alien babe. Dai’s uniform slaps to the floor, filled only with a wet, thick, jelly-like soup, all that remains of Dai.

"He came and went," Owen quips, before running away very quickly.

"This incredibly stupid expedition will set me free," Santa/Ianto rants insanely as his evil minions CONTINUE to walk very slowly towards the terrified human victims. "I shall become manifest. I shall walk in might. The naughty/nice laws will be inflicted on pain of death as my helpers SWARM across the world! Those who succumb to tin and temptation and desire shall suffer pain and loss and death! Coal just doesn’t cut it any more!"

In the cavern, the ground shakes and the manhole cover lifts up to reveal a cloud of steam and the Doctor and Tosh stare down into the tunnel, horror struck as a deafening voice is heard, echoing throughout the ancient underground world:

"I HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED FOR ETERNITY BUT NO MORE! THE TIP IS OPEN AND I AM FREE FOR THE HOLIDAY SEASON! HO-HO-HO! HO-HO-HO! HO-HO-HO!!!"

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Next Time...
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"It’s the Slitheen! They’ve gone naughty!"
"You will identify yourself!"
"You know my name! What’s mah name, bitch?"
"Uh, Doctor, are you there?"
"He’s gone to his happy place."
"Owen? Vote B’Stard!"
"'Gone to his happy place'?? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, sod this."
"Only the nice will remain!"
"That git is playing with very basic toys!"
"If you ARE Santa Claus, then answer me this: which department store do you visit to talk to small children?"
"All of them!"
"What? You’re the truth behind the false beard and wig?"
"This planet is your grave. You will die here, like all naughty boys and girls!"
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...even MORE of The Santa Tip...
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