10th Doctor - The Sound of the Drums (i)

Serial 311 – The Beat of the Drums
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Guitar Solos

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


Serial 311 – The Beat of the Drums -


{Previously on Doctor Who – Dystopia}
Once again the Doctor finds himself stuck with Captain Jack "Sparrow" Harkness, and they both end up at the combined Heat Death and Big Crunch of the physical universe. With Martha Jones tagging along, the time travelers find themselves in a curious Blake’s 7 plot with an old scientist working in a secret base underneath a quarry filled with savage barbarians.
When the last of the human race leave Malcassairo in a rocket to a nasty fate involving flying soccer ball cyborg psychopaths, the Doctor discovers that the elderly Sir Derek Jacobi is, in fact, his old enemy the Bastard in a more-convincing-than-usual disguise.
Unmasked, the Bastard steals the Doctor’s TARDIS and leaves the Doctor, Martha and Captain Jack to face the end of the universe – as well as a slightly-more-tangible threat in the form of an army of ferocious mutated cannibals with big teeth!
{And now on Doctor Who – The Beat of the Drums}


In the Malcassairo silo, Captain Jack and Martha Jones are unable the hold closed the door again a hundred bloodthirsty Futurekind who swarm in and... DON’T immediately kill our heroes right away. The tatooed, pierced Futurekind Chieftain looks around and, finding a large empty space in the room where a police box once stood, swears mightily.

"Missed the Bastard!" he growls.

"What ho, chaps?" asks one of a more ferocious cannibals. "I see those bumpkins have dashed off on that contraptions of theirs! Frightful mess!"

"Yes, that Jacobi chap was leading them up the garden path the whole time if you ask me! Dystopia indeed!" agrees another. "We kept trying to tell them to come with us in OUR ship instead of just hurtling off into the void till they asphyxiate but, no, they had to be all 'show us your teeth'! Bloody rude, if you ask me!"

"This just goes to show what I always say," says the Doctor smugly. "Never judge by appearances."

"What? You knew they wouldn’t hurt us?!" exclaims Martha, furious.

"Ah, course not! Look who their leader is!"

"That’s right, gorgeous," says the Chieftain with a toothy grin. "Captain Jack Sparrow at your service!"

"You’re ME?" boggles the original Captain Jack.

"100 Squillion Years later, but yeah," the Chieftain notes. "It’s all very paradoxical. Basically, when I was you, I remembered having this conversation that we were having now, then went off to spend the rest of eternity waiting until it was my turn to have the other half of the conversation. Since I already knows how it goes, I can cut through the crap and explain that, yes, the Bastard’s escaped, but luckily he left his TARDIS behind, cunningly disguised as that suspicious blue reel-to-reel computer yonder."

"Jings! The Total Automatic Rotation Directive Instinct Synthesizer! T-A-R-D-I-S! Why didn’t I think of that earlier!" the Doctor groans, smacking his forehead. He rushes over to the computer bank and tries to break into it using his sonic screwdriver and a kebab skewer.

"Well then, lads and lassie," the Futurekind says in a jolly voice, "since you’re johnny on the spot, so to speak, why don't you join us for tea on our starliner?"

"Sorry, must dash!" the Doctor shouts. "Nice to see you all, yes, you’re not evil, that’s wonderful, brilliant, but the Bastard’s free and he’ll be back to his old ways without a second thought. I’m beginning to think my way of stopping him from nicking the TARDIS may have been a teensy bit of a bad idea."

"Of course it was a bad idea," Martha grumbles as she and Jack follow the Doctor through into the alcove in the side of computer bank. "It didn’t work, did it? He got away! Now he could be anywhere!"

The trio enter the Bastard’s TARDIS with all its extra space, circular bowl-like back-lit roundels, cool overhead monitors, sporty auxiliary consoles and the go-faster-stripes typical of a Type 47. The Doctor immediately sets controls, "I fused the TARDIS’s coordinates, locked it permanently – it can only go to Cardiff 2008 and Malcassairo 100 Squillion, give or take eighteen months either side, tops, so we know exactly where he’s gone."

"You sent him to Earth?!" boggles Martha. "Isn’t that risky?"

"Not really. What harm can he do in that time?" the Doctor shrugs, setting the time machine in motion. The metallic tower of the central time rotor does its up-and-down funk groove and everything goes blue and purple and cold and confusing.

In the inconspicuous form of a front-loading tumble dryer, the Bastard’s TARDIS rematerializes in a grimy, gritty, frost-rimmed Cardiff alleyway, just off Roald Dahl Plass moments after the Doctor’s TARDIS took off with Captain Jack clinging to it. The Doctor, Martha and Jack awkwardly crawl out the hatch.

Emerging into the plaza, they idly note lots of people in "I VOTED B’STARD" T-shirts handing out flyers, and lots of "VOTE B’STARD" posters everywhere along with "VOTE B’STARD – ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING IT!", "BSTARD IS TEH WINS!!", "VOTE B’STARD AND THE SKIES WILL RAIN ICE CREAM TREATS!", "THE OTHER GUY WEARS A TOUPEE AND SMELLS OF GIN!", "VOTE ALAN OR THE PUPPY GETS IT!" and "VOTE ALAN B’STARD – JUST... BECAUSE!" posters.

"I still don’t get what happened back there," Martha notes. "Who was that voice? That wasn’t Sir Derek Jacobi! And how can Sir Derek Jacobi be the Bastard anyway?"

"Ah well, he’s regenerated," Captain Jack explains. "When I first met him, he looked like Simon Pegg. But he must have died and come back to life, changing his face, voice, body, everything. New man. The Doctor does it all the time."

Martha points out that since the Bastard has completely transformed his physical appearance, they have no way of knowing what he looks like and thus have no chance in hell of finding him.

"I’ll know him," the Doctor assures her. "Moment I see him. Time Lords always do. And no matter where the Bastard goes, no matter where he’s trapped, he always comes out on top. Especially in bed."

Just then it becomes clear that the results of the general election are coming in on the massive television screens set up around the plaza, turned to InfoDump24: the B’Stard Victory Channel:

"Alan Beresford B’Stard has sent the Queen back to the palace and is greeting the crowd inside the New Patriotic Party after the legally-appointed Prime Minister, Aubrey Fairchild, was arrested and the previous PM, Harriet "Hellfire" Jones, stole a helicopter and apparently fled to Cuba. In only a short few months, Alan B’Stard was able to sweep to victory after the convenient splits in the Tory and Labour parties thanks to a rise of anti-European feeling, the taxing of all off-shore savings accounts, the new anti-Trade-Union laws, and the mistaken impression that the French were invading the channel islands and the resultant nationalist backlash now mean he is the first Lord Protector of Great Britain since Oliver Cromwell who Mr. B’Stard described as 'a close personal friend'..."

"I said I knew that voice! When he spoke inside the TARDIS! I’ve heard that voice hundreds of times, I’ve seen him, we all have! That was the voice of Alan B’Stard!" Martha wails.

"Yes. Nice of you to point it out now rather than when it was useful," Jack points out, stealing a bottle of hootch off a homeless guy humming Rogue Traders songs to himself.

The Doctor boggles at the sight on the TVs. "Jings! The Bastard is the Prime Minister of Great Britain?!" he exclaims.

"And Northern Island," Martha points out.

"Jings! The Bastard is the Prime Minister of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland?!" the Time Lord gasps in absolute amazement.

"And Lord Protectorate," Jack notes.

"Jings! The Bastard is the Prime Minister AND Lord Protectorate of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland?!" the Time Lord exclaims.

"If you wanna ask me what is wrong, I can’t say," 'Alan B’Stard' admits in what sounds suspiciously quoting Rogue Traders lyrics. "Feeling bad has never felt this good, it’s fair to say and I’ll get by cause you remind me that that’s the price we pay for love!" he adds, before giving an incredibly lengthy and passionate snog with the black-and-gold-clad woman beside him.

"Jings! The Bastard is the Prime Minister AND Lord Protectorate of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland AND he has a wife?" the Doctor gawps, struggling to keep up.

'B’Stard' finally comes up for air, revealing his wife’s face with its kiss-swollen lips and lustful, adoring expression of pride.

"JINGS! Lucie Miller! The Bastard is the Prime Minister AND Lord Protectorate of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland AND he has a wife AND that wife is one of my most supremely annoying past companions ever?!"

"This country has been sick," the new Prime Minister announces. "This country needs healing! Medicine! What this country really needs, right now, is a doctor!"

The Doctor shakes his head in disgust. "All right, NOW he’s just taking the piss..."


Parte the First

Since its thermonuclear destruction in 2006, 10 Downing Street has been painstakingly rebuilt exactly according to the details found in the DVD extras of "Yes, Prime Minster" – not that you’d know it now, since the armed siege that forced ex-PM Harriet "Hellfire" Jones out of office left lots of blown-out windows, smashed up doors and laser burns on portraits of McMillan, Heath and Thatcher. Nevertheless, the new occupant of the building really rather likes it since it shows that the work of government rarely runs smoothly.

Fighting his way through back benchers hurling finance reports, EEC directives, annual budgets, military protocols, parliament recommendations – most of which being thrown at him by Tish Jones, who has really dived into her new role of Parliamentary Assistant Crawler. She doesn’t even let the fact that the new PM was christening his desk by screwing his wife on it deter her from her new duties, nor the fact that she was working for a mad scientist the previous night and her career path is rather suspicious when looked at objectively.

"Honestly, you squishy ape, can a man not bang his missus in his own palace on this wretched planet?" 'Alan B’Stard' complains. "And for the sake of all the Gods, would you silly primates stop calling me 'sir'? The correct form of address is 'Supreme Ruler of All Creation'!"

Tish smiles stupidly and takes no interest or offence.

"People skills," 'B’Stard' notes to Lucie. "They can accuse me of many things, but never that I’m not a people-person! Tish, YOU know I’m brilliant, *I* know I’m brilliant, so just have an ice-cream cake or whatever it is you give your children on this planet to keep them fat and docile and stand there and look gorgeous."

Finishing up with his wife, 'B’Stard' strides into the Cabinet Room – still doing up his flies and cheerfully greets his fourteen ministers. "Glorious day, isn’t it? Oh, go on, you lot, crack a smile! You, Chancellor of the Exchequer, what’s your name? Albert? Jings, lighten up! What a pitiful attempt at a smile!"

Albert meekly points out that 'B’Stard' really needs to work out his election policies now he’s in power, but the new PM refuses to be "showered in boredom". "No, no, no, while you monkeys with your obviously false toupees, over-starched shirts have your adrenal glands positively weeping with expectance, I’d just like to point something out before we go on."

"Yes, Prime Minister?"

"You are ALL a bunch of ugly, fat-faced, wet, sniveling traitors. Yes you are. Especially YOU, Albert, surprised-tortoise features! As soon as you saw the votes swinging my way, you abandoned your parties and you jumped on the B’Stard Bandwagon. And how, my darlings, HOW can I possibly trust a Cabinet of traitors with YOUR track records, mmm? I may be insane but I am NOT stupid. So, Stuffie Albie, just give me a reason NOT to gas the lot of you like badgers?"

The Cabinet look at 'B’Stard' with stupefied, pleasant expressions which are on their faces when the conference phones in the desk of the Cabinet spring up and pump Saran Gas into the Cabinet Room, instantly killing everyone in the room not wearing a patented Lazarou Labs gas mask. Specifically, the Prime Minister, to be exact.

"Yeah, that’s right," 'B’Stard' laughs cruelly. "Choke for air, why don’t you? Silently implore your impotent human gods for mercy! THIS is what I call a 'cabinet reshuffle'! HAH!"

Surrounded by the dead and dying, 'Alan B’Stard' starts to beat out an Elvis Costello beat on the table top: tap, tap, tap-tap-tap, tap, tap, tap-tap-tap, tap, tap, tap-tap-tap...

Meanwhile, at Martha Jones’ bachelorette pad, a bottle bank materializes in her living room and out emerge the Doctor, Captain Jack and Martha herself in order to look up 'Alan B’Stard' on wikipedia and find out what in tarnation is going on. As Martha boots up her laptop, the Doctor notes that Captain Jack is using Martha’s phone.

"Jings, Jack! Who are you phoning?! You can’t tell anyone we’re here!" the Doctor protests.

"I was just going to order a pizza," the Captain shrugs.

As they log on to the B’Stard Broadband website and internet cubist pornography forum, Martha boggles that it has only been four days since she met the Doctor, and thus this has to be without doubt THE most intense and freaky week Cardiff has ever known with vanishing hospitals, ravenous black and white minstrels and now an alien becoming Prime Minister! What’s more, it turns out the Bastard was here all the time while she and the Doctor were flying all around the universe.

"That’s not just dramatic irony, that’s FOUR-DIMENSIONAL irony!"

The B’Stard website is full of campaign commercials and testimonials from diverse celebrities – from Lenny Henry to Sharon Osborne to McFly, and a google search for "B’Stard" always leads straight to The New Statesman program guide.

"He’s pretending to be one of Rik Mayall’s less-memorable satirical comic creations!" the Doctor boggles. "He didn’t even come up with his OWN new identity! Lazy git! I bet he would have been Quadruple Professor Adonis Cnut except for the nifty 'Bastard' connection! Surely Lawrence Marks and Maurice Gran should have noticed by now, if no one else? Jings, how has he managed all this? I mean, yeah, evil hypnotist, uncontested, but he’s convinced the whole world that he is an eminent politician using a very unfunny pun-nickname from a 1980s ITV series! Not even the WELSH would fall for that!"

"They fell for Paris Hilton as Mayor," Captain Jack points out.

"MUST you remind me of that?!" the Doctor shouts angrily. "Jings! Seriously, Martha Jones, would YOU accept a Prime Minister who signs his paperwork with 'A. B’Stard'?"

"I WAS gonna vote for him," Martha admits awkwardly. "But it was before I even met you. And I liked him! Not sure what his policies were, or what he stood for, or if he really WAS funnier than Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross’ Prank Calls Explosion, but he always sounded...good. Like you could trust him. Just nice. He spoke about... I can’t really remember, but it was good. Just the sound of his voice," she trails off dreamily, before starting to hum to herself.

"I just thought he looked good stripped to the waist," Jack shrugs.

"What’s that?" the Time Lord demands of Martha. "You’re humming the tune to Voodoo Child by the Rogue Traders! You are NOT telling me that you being under mesmeric influence and humming Voodoo Child is a coincidence!"

"It’s a catchy song," Captain Jack points out. "That old tramp we found trying to urinate on the Bastard’s TARDIS was humming it too..."

"And NONE of you thought this was suspicious?!" the Doctor demands, tugging at his spiky hair. "JINGS!!!"

Back at 10 Downing Street, journalist Jean Rook with her strange nose, sails through security (and Tish, who gets the back of the journo’s hand) to interview B’Stard’s wife Lucie Miller-nee-B’Stard, bribing her with promises of a positive image in the morning papers. "Alan B’Stard, a modern Churchill, everyone’s talking about him, but I think what about that ugly Northern duck-voiced bint he’s shacked up with! The power behind the throne, Britain’s first lady – is she a stereotypical klepto slapper from up North?"

"Ere, you saying I sound like a duck?" asks Lucie, offended.

"You must have a brain like one," retorts Jean Rook. "You married a man who named himself after some godawful Young Ones character and in the one interview he actually described his life, was clearly describing Jeffrey Archer’s identity. Now, I ask you, how can anyone model themselves on Jeffrey Archer and NOT be a weapons-grade mentalist?"

"Oh, so I sound like a duck AND I’m stupid now, am I?"

"Look, are you really a crazed misanthropic chick or is this whole hot magician’s assistant groupie vibe you got owned an act?"

"I’ll give you a clue," says Lucie with a psychotic gleam in her wide, brown eyes. "It’s NOT an act."

"Oh. Shit," mumbles Jean Rook as the door to the Cabinet Room opens and 'Alan B’Stard' strides out, using his gasmask as a makeshift yoyo.

"Oh shit indeed!" he grins. "She made her choice, for better or worse, my oh-so-faithful companion. She’s not really my type of girl, but I’m her type of guy. Come a little closer, Lucie, and I’ll show you why..."

"You’re so good," says Lucie dreamily. "You make my world go around!"

"What’s done is done," 'B’Stard' croons, cutting across the journalist’s protests. "Why don’t you tell me what you’re on?"

"Why are you singing Rogue Traders songs?" asks Jean, baffled.

"The truth’s so hard to swallow. Suffice it to say, I am the Bastard and these... are my groupies!" the Bastard announces, holding out his hands as four floating miniature Death Stars appear in a blue lens flash and start floating around the room.

"Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear the echo? Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear the echo?" the evil Time Lord begs. "Don’t you want to feel what I want to feel, baby? La-la-la-la-la-la?! Are you mistaken? I won’t be taken, I really won’t and I promise I’m not faking!"

The reporter backs away in terror as the Bastard laughs like a madman... rather appropriate, really, when you think about it. Shouting for the spheres to "Search and Destroy!", the 'B’Stards' flee into the Cabinet Room and slam the door, the soundproofing blocking out Rook’s screams and the cold, inhuman, filtered voices of the spheres.

The Bastard nevertheless cannot resist peering through the door as the spheres extrude gleaming blades and set to work. "Jings! Blasted woman is STILL screaming!" he boggles in awe. "You know, I don’t remember teaching them to do THAT at all. And when I think it’s a bit too much? Definite overkill..."

"Bloomin heck, Al, she knew bleeding everything!" Lucie complains. "It’s a good thing your little Phantasm pals were around to slice her up, or she could have ruined the whole thing!"

"See, Lucie, that’s why I regard you much more highly than most of the other earthworms on this wretched rock. Now stop acting like you’re not ENTIRELY in my power, it’s such a turn-off."

"I thought you said the Archangel Network was 100% effective?!"

"Um, 99, 98?" the Bastard shrugs. "Don’t worry, though. We’ve only got to last till tomorrow morning and then we make history... end. Besides, the Doctor’s back in town and we’ve got fourteen gassed Cabinet ministers to blame him for!"

"Oh, good," Lucie cheers immediately and starts making out with the Bastard right there, right now. "I can’t wait to see the look on that frock-coated ponce’s face when he sees us!"

"Yeah, Lucie, about that... he looks a bit different now."

"What? He doesn’t look and dress like Casanova any more?"

"Well, he doesn’t DRESS like Casanova..."

One torrid sex session with over a dozen corpses quietly going stiff, bright green and beginning to smell later, the couple decide to make an announcement on national television and a simultaneous podcast on the B’Stard Bandwidth as the Bastard speaks to his new kingdom!

"Britain, Britain, Britain!" 'Alan B’Stard' muses in his best Tom Baker impression. "What extraordinary times we’ve had. Just a few years ago, this world was so small. And then they came, out of the unknown twilight zone’s outer limits, falling from the skies... You’ve seen it happen: Big Ben destroyed, a spaceship over London. Or was it Cardiff? All those ghosts and metal men. Again, mainly in Cardiff. The Christmas star that came to kill both London AND Cardiff. Time and time again the government told you nothing, assuming you’d just forget about it. And they were goddamned right, weren’t they? Well, I won’t patronize you little people like that, oh, no, not Alan Beresford B’Stard! Because my purpose here today is to tell you this – via FaceBook, I have been contacted by an alien race. A message, for humanity, from beyond the stars! A species identifying itself as the Toclafane..."

Watching this on Martha’s laptop, the Doctor suddenly rolls his eyes and shouts, "FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!" at the top of his voice.

There is then a very fake looking youtube vid of one of the spheres delivering the message. "People of the Earth, we come in peace. We bring great gifts. We bring technology and wisdom and protection. And all we ask in return is your friendship. Aren’t we cute and sweet and innocent? To Serve Man isn’t a cookbook as far as we are concerned..."

"And tomorrow morning they will appear. Not in secret, but to all of you on BBC Breakfast Television. Diplomatic relations with a new species will begin just in time for elevenses. Tomorrow, we take our place in the universe. Every man, woman and child; every teacher and chemist and lorry driver and farmer and every... oh, I don’t know... medical student? Called Martha Jones? Watching this right now on her laptop? Hello, Martha! You forgot to vote, didn’t you? That means consequences and repercussions, you know. EXPLOSIVE repercussions..."

In Martha’s flat, the time travelers ponder on this cryptic reference before Martha notices that a frying pan has been suspended from the ceiling with the words "I’VE PUT A BOMB IN YOUR FLAT, YOU IDIOTS!" carved into it.

First double, then triple, taking, the trio flee into the Bastard’s TARDIS as the apartment block is blasted into a million molten fragments in an eye-searing flash and a rolling fireball. The bottle bank is undamaged as the trio cautiously peer out over the wreckage.

"If the Bastard knows about me," Martha murmurs, frantically tapping at her mobile phone, "what about my family?"

She is supremely devastated when her mother Francine "Ballcrusher" Jones answers, safe and sound. If only Martha knew that Francine is surrounded by men in black carrying submachine guns, huh? Luckily, her father Clive is not a complete asshole and suggests she comes round and see MI6 in action against her bitch-whore of a mother.

"I have GOT to see this!" Martha boggles, running for her undamaged and hitherto-unmentioned car.

"Jings, Martha, that’s exactly what they want!" the Doctor protests. "It’s a trap as plain as Annie No Nuts Norris in the American version of Life on Mars!"

"I don't care!" says Martha with a dangerously deranged look on her face as she turns to face the man she lusts after. "Now am I going to have to choke a bitch Time Lord or are you two going to get into the goddamn motherfucking car?!"

Meekly, the Doctor and Captain Jack get into her car and she drives off, the ex-Time-Agent pointing out it would probably be quicker and safer for them to go via TARDIS. As ever, he’s ignored.

Arriving at Francine’s place, the trio watch on excitedly and munch popcorn as Clive Jones is forced into a black van by MIBs, his screams of "It’s your fault, all of you! You voted B’Stard! You did this!" not getting much reaction from the gawking neighbours.

When Francine is also taken prisoner, Martha decides that they’ve seen all the good stuff and drive off once more. The sinister armed troopers, expecting some kind of rescue attempt, are rather pissed off at this change of plan. They open fire on her car as it drives off, while Tish is similarly abducted inside Downing Street. Maybe if she hadn’t been phoning all her friends to tell them how she intended to seduce the new Prime Minister with nothing but a cocktail olive and her naked body, she might have stood a chance. Brother Leo is similarly captured in an action-packed cutaway cameo sequence.

"This just gets better and better!" Martha enthuses. "All I need know is to find Analisse has been shot dead by the SPG and this will be the best day of my ENTIRE life!"

Skidding to a halt beside the Bastard’s TARDIS, they leave the car and hide inside the time machine. However, the scanner screen shows the grinning face of Alan B’Stard. "Ooh, a nice little game of hide-and-seek! I love that! But I’ll find you - been a long time since we saw each other, huh? Must be, what, one hundred squillion years?"

"Jings, well look who it is," drawls the Doctor. "Captain Copycat. You don’t just nick my TARDIS, you need a bizarro-Rose replacement like Lucie Miller, then you get your own earthbound gang! What happened to you, Bastard? You used to be cool!"

"If you can’t beat him, be him!" beams the Bastard. "And, between you and me, Lucie Miller is something else entirely. When you live as long as I had, when you’ve sampled every kind of depravity and vice the universe had to offer, the thrill of discovery is in itself a delicious kind of pleasure I couldn’t HELP but want to prolong..."

The Doctor winces. "Psychiatrist’s field day."

"Jings, don’t be so damn sanctimonious!"

"Santimonious?! What the hell are you DOING here?! Prime Minister?! Talk about petty!"

"Just something to tide me over between the whole taking-over-the-world thing, which I’ve seriously been missing. Oh, and come on! I made myself indispensable in eight months without even having to kill an MP!"

"Why didn’t anyone notice it was you?!"

"Damn, I am a good actor. I deserved an Oscar for this!"

"And the Toclafane!? What next? You’re going to get an alliance with the Bogeymen of Rigel-4? The Jabberwocky of Zeta Reticuli? Arcturan David the Gnome? I mean, come on!"

"Well, I can hardly go round saying they’re the final descendants of humanity’s severed heads, can I?" the Bastard protests. "Why don’t you drop by Number 10? Bottle of red wine, chat about the old days on Gallifrey, get Lucie to do a striptease..."

"Are you asking me out on a date?" asks the Doctor cautiously.

"Might as well. Too late to do anything else."

"Why do you say that?"

"The Rogue Traders. I thought it would stop but it never does. Never ever stops. Inside my head, the Rogue Traders, Doctor. Their entire discography on a constant loop. THEY’RE EVERYWHERE! Listen, listen, listen. Here Come The Drums. Here Come The Drums. Better In The Dark. Here Come The Drums..."

"I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about."

"Oh look!" the Bastard says happily, changing the subject. "You’re on TV! Believe me when I say, you are in high demand! It seems you’ve been revealed to be part of An armed and extremely dangerous terrorist cell who slaughtered my Cabinet today, I was lucky to get out alive, I really was. And you, the unemployed medical practitioner with a history of corrupting teenage girls, with your trendy black warrior woman and bisexual military man... you’re ticking EVERY demographic box for me, Doctor! Congratulations for that! Public Enemies number one, two and three!"

"Don’t think you’re gonna get away with this conspiracy, Bastard," sneers Captain Jack. "Touchwood is still around and they’re going to stop you. Somehow. I assume."

"Touchwood, eh? OH YEAH, I DIDN’T THINK OF THAT!" the Bastard laughs. "That little gang of amateur sleuths and bisexual freaks who wouldn’t let you join are on a wild goose chase to the Himalayas, probably roggering yetis or something like that. So no help from them, Handsome Jack Sparrow! Now, you public menace, Earth’s out of bounds. Go away quickly before I set the dogs on you! Oh, just give me a reason, Doctor, any one will do!"

"...are you quoting lyrics again?"

"Look in the mirrorball, this is the day I see it all! Dancing under candy-coloured lights, just this once I think they’re hypnotized! This vibration feel it if you dare!"

"About the Rogue Traders I don’t care!" the Doctor shouts.

"Oooh, you timorous beastie!" the Bastard mocks. "But I’M the one who controls everything, so you better start running. Go on. Run! Run for your life, Doctor! Didn’t you hear what the Lord Protectorate said? Well, I said, 'RUN!'"

The Doctor flips the bird at the scanner. "You’re not the boss of me!"

Laughing insanely, the Bastard changes channels – switching from contact with his TARDIS to BBC24 with its report about Britain welcoming an extraterrestrial species in Cardiff; to CNNN where newly-elected President John McCain is furious that 'some Limey bastard' has taken unilateral action; and then to an episode of The Clangers.

"What is this shit?" the Time Lord complains to his floating Toclafane pal. "Bring back the Teletubbies!"

"Is the machine ready?" asks the floating ball of death. "We have to escape, because it’s coming, sir - the darkness, the never-ending darkness, the terrible, terrible cold! We have to run and run and run!"

The Bastard raises an eyebrow. "Yes, the destruction of the entire universe CAN creep up on your rather stealthily, can’t it? Look, the machine as you so crudely put it, reaches critical at 8:02 tomorrow morning precisely. Tell the rest of your kind that they get to meet their ancestors very soon! The world is waiting for the most demented family reunion outside a Jerry Springer musical!"