9th Doctor - Return of the Daleks (i)

Scene 1 – Dustbin Cell

[Blackness, just for a few seconds, long enough to make everyone get up to check the aerial’s not been disconnected from the TV again. During this, the sound of ragged breathing – something is turned on and the camera is from the point of view of this unseen, aroused creature. It shuffles out of the darkness into a doorway, and then into a room. We see it is in fact, a 60-year-old man called Simmons, apparently benign and grandfatherly, and panting with filthy lust. He looks hungrily at the glass tube in the corner of the cell, encased in a dark cover, just next to a large bank of electronic equipment. He presses a button and with an electronic hum, the cover slides away...]

SIMMONS: Good morning, rise and shine you metal bastard!

[We do not see what is inside, but we see from its point of view. It’s not like RTD is going to ruin the surprise just for his publicity juggernaut, is he? Its eyesight works differently from ours, it zooms in and then pulls out from the things it is scanning - fast, methodical, looking for a way out. It zooms in on Simmons apprehensively.]

SIMMONS: I trust you slept well. If you do, indeed, sleep. Either way, you won’t be doing it again any time soon. I want to play a new game called “sleep deprivation through high voltage current”. Won’t THAT be fun?

[Simmons’ breathing quickens a little as the hum of equipment begins to rise.]

SIMMONS: Now, you know there’s going to be a certain amount of pain. But I can stop it any time I want. The trouble is, I won’t want to, that’s where the theory falls down. Of course, I might change my mind if you speak. Don’t care what you say, whatever you like, as long as you call me “Sugar Daddy” and beg me more. You come up with that and I’ll down tools, and we can be friends, yes? [sniggers] Well, not friends. But I might use some lubricant this time.

[The eyesight looks around more frantically, trying to find a way out. Simmons grins and presses a control.]

SIMMONS: Really, if you think about it, you’re only hurting yourself. And I want to be the one hurting you!

[Simmons stabs down on the control, there is a flash of electricity, and the eyesight distorts horribly; we hear a squawk, we see red and Simmons starts moaning.]

SIMMONS: Oh God, this is SO working for me!


Scene 2 – Museum
[A room with a few glass cases and most of the lights off, giving the impression that’s a long, darkened museum rather a disused lounge room with some rather shitty props kept in less-than-pristine conditions. Suddenly something looms, a bulky shape with a pale yellow light flashing above it wobbles uncertainly, accompanied by a raucous groaning sound which gradually died away like distant thunder. The pulsing light shone brilliantly and the ghostly object grew more distinct, hovering, swaying precariously, then dropping heavily into the carpet, coming to rest at a steep angle. The
light was extinguished and excited human voices came from inside the shabby, blue-painted structure and several shadows moved across the frosted glass windows ranged along the top of each of its four sides, beneath the painted sign saying POLICE Public Call.... look, it’s just the bloody TARDIS! It lands! Do we REALLY need this level of detail? What the hell were the first five episodes for, huh?]


DOCTOR: Hello? Hello? Hello? Anybody there? Wey! It's a museum! I've always felt at home in museums! Voltron the giant robot! Beat you, cock! Cybermen! Beat you! Teletubbies! Beat you! Gundan Robot, Vervoid, She Devils, Ice Cream Vendors, Lew Grade! [sighs] I beat him as well. I was irresistible in those days, irresistible....

(The next one is Gunden Robot with an axe from Tom's "Warrior's Gate" - 1980)
Gunden Robot.
(This model has a stand with some information and with a button. TOM presses the button twice as it doesn't work the first time, and makes the Gunden Robot moves with the axe.)
No, no, no.
(He moves on down the line looking at each of the monsters. The next one is the Vervoids - Colin's "Terror Of The Vervoids - Trial Of A Time Lord III" - 1986)
Vervoid.
(Sea Devil - Peter's "Warriors Of The Deep" - 1984)
Sea Devil.
(Ice Warrior - Probably by the look - Jon's "Curse Of Peladon" - 1972)
Krarg.
(He passes the monster which stands in it's spot (and looks like it was made from coal ) just saying "Krarg" and then totally stops when he realises what he had just saw.)
Krarg?
(He remembered the story the Krargs appeared in. Slightly shouting.)

ROSE: [vo] And this is really 2014?

DOCTOR: [vo] For god’s sake, Rose, why do you keep asking that?!

[The chipped and weathered panelling of the ‘box’ creaks loudly as it sways alarmingly to and fro, and it all but topples over when a door suddenly flies open in the uppermost side and... forget it. The Doctor stalks out of the TARDIS and Rose follows.]

DOCTOR: Rose, we’ve been to the end of time and back again and no matter where we go, you always ask the same bloody question. “Is this 2014?” Why?!

ROSE: Well, 2014 is in the future.

DOCTOR: Oh, and the year 5 Billion ISN’T in the future?

ROSE: Yeah, but this is the proper future, isn’t it?

DOCTOR: “Proper” future? Have you been reading about Faction Paradox again?!

ROSE: I mean, it’s my future.

DOCTOR: Your future.

ROSE: Like, you know, I could live and see it.

DOCTOR: And this is somehow better than seeing futures you couldn’t live and see?

ROSE: I can’t see this future.

DOCTOR: Can’t you? Damn

ROSE: It’s dark.

DOCTOR: And it’s not your future. The year is 2005 and this is a torch.

[He grins at her stupidity and hands her a torch. The light plays across some of the cases, reflecting most of the cameramen and hopefully hiding how shoddy the exhibits are - odd fragments of metal, rocks, etc.]

ROSE: There’s nothing to say what anything is! This museum sucks!

DOCTOR: It’s probably not to the general public... one of those private museums owned by disturbingly rich people who collect things to take their minds off the fact life is a river of pain and misery that empties itself into an ocean of nothingness and all the collection is inherently worthless to start with.

[As he speaks, Rose’s torch picks out an alien skull, its features contorted. It’s horrifying. Rose gasps.]

ROSE: Is that Kate Moss?!

DOCTOR: A Slitheen skull. Very nasty. Probably one of the family we murdered in cold blood last week, remember, Rose? So this maniac who sticks things in glass cases must have a lot of money and power...

ROSE: Uh, show your working there?

DOCTOR: It’s 2005! Nobody really in aliens in 2005! Only a real sad-act would gather all this... I think we best tread very carefully, Rose Tyler, lest we turn into toads!

ROSE: ...you talk a lot of bollocks, you’re aware of that, right?

[And there is the sound of an alien scream - harsh, high-pitched and inhuman. It goes on for ten seconds.]

ROSE: Was that you?

DOCTOR: Mmm. Was what me?

ROSE: That harsh, high-pitched, inhuman scream of something in terrible pain!

DOCTOR: What harsh, high-pitched, inhuman scream of something in terrible pain?

[Another harsh, high-pitched, inhuman scream of something in terrible pain.]

DOCTOR: Oh. That harsh, high-pitched, inhuman scream of something in terrible pain! Come on, this way...

[He heads for the door with the EXIT light above them.]

ROSE: You said we had to be careful!

DOCTOR: No time for that! These episodes only have forty-five minutes to fill...



Scene 3 – Office

[Adam – in his early twenties, enthusiastic, bright, a little scruffy and a tower of attractiveness to women – is arguing with a prim secretary called Goddard who is composed like a glacier if a glacier had hair in a tight hard bun and remained infuriatingly calm.]

ADAM: Look, you repressed bitch, this is urgent, all right! Big important stuff!

[He slams a pile of papers onto her desk.]

ADAM: Can you get that through your frigid little brain, huh? Can you?

GODDARD: You need to make an appointment.

ADAM: Don’t tell me what to do, you glorified typist!

GODDARD: Everybody has to make an appointment.

ADAM: [losing it] Do you know who I am?!?!

GODDARD: Yes.

ADAM: Oh. Well, doesn’t that seem a good enough reason to cut the crap and let me in?

GODDARD: No.

ADAM: Do you have any kind of life at all, Goddard?

GODDARD: More than yours, asswipe.

ADAM: What did you call me??

GODDARD: I didn’t call you anything, Mr. Fairfax.

ADAM: You damn liar! You called me an asswipe!

GODDARD: A what?

ADAM: An asswipe... hang on a second, you’re just trying to get me to insult myself!

GODDARD: Duh.

[Adam grabs her by the collar.]

ADAM: You’re not irreplaceable, sweetheart! Try and keep that in your empty skull before I have Bolivian Assassins fire bullets through it at twice the speed of sound! Huh?

GODDARD: Still not getting any, eh, asswipe?

[Adam loses it entirely, grabs her by the throat and starts to haul her over the desk. He kicks out a leg, plants his foot on her chest and starts to try and rip her head from her shoulders.]

ADAM: I WILL NOT BE CALLED AN ASSWIPE BY A RECEPTIONIST!!

[He notices that in the doorway to a larger office stands two people watching his murder attempt – a 50 year old woman called Sue-Ellen who is the coldly efficient faded glamorous bitch used by many a writer with huge personal problems. Beside her is her aide, Gunther who like the Middle Ages is nasty, brutish, short and in his late 40s.]

ADAM: [startled] Oh! Hello, mother! How art thou!

[He lets go of Goddard who falls, choking over her desk.]

SUE-ELLEN: Why are you trying to kill my secretary, Adam?

ADAM: Just practicing industrial relations. The bitch tried to impede my genius.

SUE-ELLEN: It’s all right, Goddard.

GODDARD: [retches] Madam.

SUE-ELLEN: What is it now, Adam?

ADAM: This time I’ve done it! Just look!

[He smacks Goddard off the desk and starts to spread his papers over the now cleared space.]

ADAM: We can reroute all of our Eastern networks through this satellite here and here, and boost the signals there, [picks up another sheet of paper] we get a far better system. The costs saved will be billions!

SUE-ELLEN: And then what? You want some more money in your allowance.

ADAM: [trying and failing to be nonchalant] Well, now you put it like that... you betcha. What do you think?

SUE-ELLEN: It’s brilliant.

ADAM: Of course it’s brilliant...

SUE-ELLEN: But it’d slash our profits. Wouldn’t it, Gunther?

GUNTHER: Oh, yes, madam. It will save costs for the customers, not for us?

ADAM: Will it? Damn. Still, we have enough money already, surely?

[Gunther chuckles. Adam chuckles too. Then he stops laughing and punches Gunther in the face.]

SUE-ELLEN: You do want there to be an empire you can inherit, don’t you, Adam?

ADAM: Good point. Come to think of it, why haven’t I inherited it all ready? Where the hell is father anyway?

[Goddard steps up, now able to speak again.]

GODDARD: [throaty] Mr. Fairfax is away on a business trip, and is incommunicado until further notice.

ADAM: Listen, bimbo, when I want a parrot I’ll bloody buy one! Which brings me back to the topic of my allowance...

SUE-ELLEN: Get stuffed. Your father would say the same thing.

ADAM: No he wouldn’t!

SUE-ELLEN: Yes he would!

ADAM: Prove it! When is the old bastard going to get back?

SUE-ELLEN: [angrily] That’s up to him! And whilst he is gone, you defer to me!

ADAM: [sighs] Yes, madam. Deferring.

[Sue-Ellen kicks Gunther conscious and they return to the main office. Goddard smiles at Adam and shoves the paperwork at him. He stares at her.]

ADAM: As for you, you triumphant, officious, frigid little tart... you doing anything tonight?


Scene 4 – Dustbin Cell

[As before. Nothing interesting has happened, but we check anyway. Simmons is pretending to be a primary school teacher for his own kinky ends.]

SIMMONS: Screaming’s good! Well done. But I need conversation. Going to have to try a smidgen harder, all right?

[And there is another flash of electricity.]

SIMMONS: Oh, this just NEVER gets old!


Scene 5 – Outside the Dustbin Cell

[A guard in uniform, Bywater, stands by a television screen showing the previous scene in Dolby-digital surround sound, allowing the terrible screams to echo and reecho. Beside Bywater is a strange bald man in a shabby tuxedo and bow tie. There is a toothbrush clutched in his hand and another one in his breast pocket. This is Nicholas Briggs who gabbles to himself throughout the scene.]

BYWATER: Sadomasochism, that’s an improvement on trying to outstare it...

BRIGGS: Morning, Charles! Difficult crossword today. Have you seen the headline?

BYWATER: You know, Briggs, they say that if you watch a lot of violence, you get desensitized to it.

BRIGGS: Russell! How are you, old man? Good! New car? Excellent! I see Hardwick is up for promotion.

BYWATER: I suppose that says a lot about the nature of mankind, the dark side of the soul...

BRIGGS: Typical Trans-Urban line! If the city authorities spent less money on socially responsive campaigns, and more on getting the trains to arrive on time, well, we would all be a lot better off!

BYWATER: You’re a complete loon-bag, you know that?

BRIGGS: Oh yes.

BYWATER: Good.

BRIGGS: Profit margins up! Labour costs down! Six new cars on the way! Redecoration for the boardroom!

[The Doctor and Rose appear around a corner as more screams are heard.]

DOCTOR: Something in there is in the most dreadful pain! Am I right or am I right? Huh? I’m right, aren’t I?

[Taken by surprise, Bywater fumbles with his flintlock pistol.]

BYWATER: Who are you two?

DOCTOR: I’m the Doctor, this is Rose. She’s me bird.

BRIGGS: Look. Hones...honestly there's been a terrible mistake. I'm not a madman! Believe me!

BYWATER: Shut up, Briggs! You! Hands up!

[Rose does so, but the Doctor delves into his pocket and takes out a wallet.]

DOCTOR: No need for this, mate, here’s my authorization.

BYWATER: That’s a Top Trumps card for “Kate Tollinger – Cat Burglar”.

DOCTOR: Is it?! [checks] So it is! Been looking everywhere for this, me... Bugger, must have left me handy-dandy-all-purpose-telepathic-psychic-paper in the TARDIS! Oh well, we surrender!

BRIGGS: I could help these people! I should be helping these people! I’ve studied psychiatry! I know the techniques! Only... I forget them all.

BYWATER: Sweet Onion Chutney, I hate you, Briggs.


Scene 6 – ET Fairfax’s Room

[In a darkened, medical room stands a tinted glass coffin-like structure containing a humanoid body with a tube to the mouth. Lenny Kravitz’ “Fly Away” plays through a sound system. A nervous, middle aged scientist called Wolff stands in a corner, bouncing a ball on a paddle. Sue-Ellen arrives with a Happy Meal on a tray.]

SUE-ELLEN: Oi. You. Piss off.

WOLFF: I don’t have to do this, you know. I could be a ticket-inspector on British Rail except I prefer my own hours!

SUE-ELLEN: Leave us already!

WOLFF: Yeah, whatever. Frigid bint. I’ll let you get on feeding the corpse. Nutter.

[She leaves and Sue-Ellen warily approaches the coffin. She is annoyed. A lot. With pretty much everything except herself.]

SUE-ELLEN: Darling? It’s Ellie. Ellie’s here. Justify my existence, will you?

[The body inside the coffin shifts and thumps its hand against the lid, generally giving the impression that he would really rather NOT be in the glass coffin. Sue-Ellen, of course, is a self-absorbed tart and does not realize this.]

SUE-ELLEN: I’ve brought you some dinner. See? Big Macs. Rare, the way you like it.

[Anyone sane would notice the depressed groan from inside the coffin. Sue-Ellen picks up the burger, still inside its Styrofoam packet, into the tube, blocking the muffled protests.]

SUE-ELLEN: I want you back, ET. I need you back. I can’t do this... not on my own... I don’t have the hips for it!

[Her pager beeps and she assumes her usual cold bitchiness.]

SUE-ELLEN: What have I told you about interrupting me when I’m eulogizing?!?!


Scene 7 - Office

[The Doctor, Rose and Nicholas Briggs stand, the latter at a respectful distance and struggling to get out of a straight-jacket. Gunther is trying to shove Briggs out of the room as Sue-Ellen enters.]

BRIGGS: I live in reality! Good grief! I know what reality is!

GUNTHER: Shut the hell up!

[He knees Briggs in the bollocks and throws him through the door before he can scream.]

SUE-ELLEN: So. You are the intruders.

DOCTOR: Not intruders. Visitors. Visitors to that shitty museum you’ve got down there.

ROSE: Quite a collection of alien-related crap you’ve got down there.

DOCTOR: Absolutely. Mind you, you should know you’re displaying most of it upside down. And that half the stuff isn’t alien at all, but nicked from the MOMI Exhibition...

SUE-ELLEN: Ahem? Interrogating here, people.

DOCTOR: Sorry, my bad.

SUE-ELLEN: You can begin by telling me exactly how you managed to breach our security.

GUNTHER: And get into the lower vaults.

SUE-ELLEN: Yes, and exactly how did you get into the lower vaults? And then you can explain exactly how you found out the lower vaults even existed!

DOCTOR: Mmmm. And the survey said? “Get stuffed!” I’ll begin wherever I damn want to begin. Sorright?

ROSE: Sorright.

DOCTOR: You betcha. Now why have you imprisoned an alien, exactly? Do you even know what it is, exactly? And why do you keep saying word exactly like some incredibly anal retentive?

SUE-ELLEN: So what if we don’t exactly know what the hell we’re torturing? Do you know what it is?

ROSE: Yes. Well, not me. But the Doctor might.

GUNTHER: Don’t waste madam’s time, you peroxide whore.

DOCTOR: Yeah, Rose, I’m pretty sure madam can manage that all on her own.

SUE-ELLEN: Wait.

DOCTOR: For how long? We’ve only got forty minutes...

SUE-ELLEN: Are you the Doctor? The Doctor with the TARDIS? With two hearts? And the restraining order from Felicity Kendall?

[The Doctor is surprised. Rose is even more so, though slightly less obviously ashamed.]

ROSE: [softly] Felicity Kendall?


Scene 8 – Dustbin Cell

[Simmons is weeping now.]

SIMMONS: Please! Do you think I like doing this to you? Do you think I’m getting a vicarious sexual thrill from seeing you suffer unending torment? Do you? Am I enjoying this? ...Damn right I am!

[Laughing, Simmons presses a control and the prisoner screams. Simmons dances to the screams, then lights up a cigarette and puffs, contentedly.]


Scene 9 – Office

[Everything seems more rehearsed. The Doctor is sitting behind the desk with his feet up as Sue-Ellen camps it up as a grand hostess. Rose is looking at the unhappy and cautious Gunther struggling to keep the disturbed Briggs out of the office. The nutter continually bashes his bald head against the door.]

BRIGGS: And we’ll all dance on our naked bones! But you won’t catch me, you carrion crunchers!

GUNTHER: PISS OFF!

[Gunther finally slams the door shut.]

ROSE: Well, like I was saying, Miss Sue-Ellen, I can’t believe you’ve heard of us...

SUE-ELLEN: [smiling thinly] Maybe my husband and I aren’t quite as ignorant as you imagine.

DOCTOR: Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. You seem pretty ignorant to me. Hang on, what husband?

[Sue-Ellen turns to Goddard.]

SUE-ELLEN: Send my son in, please, Goddard. Mind the nutter on your way.

DOCTOR: Son?! [to Rose] Did we turn over two pages at once?

[Goddard crosses to the door, and opens it to reveal Briggs has managed to get one arm free and is holding the toothbrush high like a dagger.]

BRIGGS: [screaming] Lo, the serpent screams and the night wind moans! Ah ha ha ha!

[Goddard drop-kicks Briggs and walks past him. Sue-Ellen turns to the Doctor.]

SUE-ELLEN: No doubt you have worked out who I am, Doctor.

DOCTOR: Well, that’s where you’re wrong! I mean, I think my opening bid of “somebody very important and powerful with no sort of social life” stands though, I expect.

SUE-ELLEN: I am Sue-Ellen Fairfax.

DOCTOR: ...and?

SUE-ELLEN: Fairfax Telecommunications?

DOCTOR: ....aaaaaaaaaaand?

SUE-ELLEN: You’ve never heard of me?

DOCTOR: Would it shatter your emotional wellbeing permanently if we said “no”?

SUE-ELLEN: [thinks about it] Yes. Yes it would.

DOCTOR: No, we’ve never heard of you, have we, Rose?

[Rose shakes her head in lieu of dialogue.]

SUE-ELLEN: How extraordinary.

DOCTOR: Gosh, you’re easily pleased.

SUE-ELLEN: I don’t know whether to be insulted or amused. But I’m leaning heavily to the former.

DOCTOR: Take it anyway you like. Especially that way. But, in the meantime, can you just tell me where we are and what’s going on here? Exactly?

SUE-ELLEN: My husband built this base underground, in the Welsh desert, miles from anywhere.

ROSE: Is there a desert in Wales?

SUE-ELLEN: Who cares? The point is that the vaults here is where vaults we store the rarest things in the world.

DOCTOR: What? Like Action Comics issue 1?

SUE-ELLEN: More sort of the unexplained and unique.

DOCTOR: [sighs] If you mean “the extraterrestrial” can you just say it instead of being bleedin coy all the time? I’m an alien, for crying out loud, it’s not like I’m going to be impressed at the best of times, is it?

[Adam enters with Goddard. Briggs is holding onto his legs, terrified.]

BRIGGS: No! No! Oh, no! I can’t stand it! Th... the peanuts! They’re devouring my mind!!

ADAM: [kicks him away] Bugger off!

GODDARD: This is Adam.

DOCTOR: Never heard of him, neither.

ADAM: Oh, my heart breaks! [to Sue-Ellen] Yes, madam bitch? Have you come to your senses yet?

SUE-ELLEN: No. But by way of apology, here is a treat. You like aliens, don’t you, Adam?

ADAM: [sighs] No, I just live in an underground vault of aliens for the career prospects. What do you think?

SUE-ELLEN: This is my son.

DOCTOR: I’m sorry for you. I’m so sorry.

SUE-ELLEN: This is the Doctor and some blonde tart in a tight white singlet.

[Adam triple-takes.]

ADAM: [hushed] The Doctor?

SUE-ELLEN: This is Rose, she appears to be his latest companion.

DOCTOR: Look at her! Smart or what?

SUE-ELLEN: Show her around. Show off your trinkets and frightening magazines.

ADAM: Can I really?

SUE-ELLEN: Maybe not the magazines.

DOCTOR: [rises] Naughty parchments? Sounds intriguing...

SUE-ELLEN: Not you, Doctor.

DOCTOR: Aw. I wanted to check out his excuse for a pornography library. If it’s up to the quality of the rest of this place, it’ll be three swimsuit catalogues and Grey’s anatomy textbook! Oh well, it’s not like he’s not going to actually get anywhere with you, is it, Rose?

[Rose looks at the Doctor for a long time.]

ROSE: Huh? What do you mean?

DOCTOR: [sits back down, shaking his head] Rest me case.

[Adam sidles up to Rose, sickeningly charming.]

ADAM: Rose Tyler, was it? Enchanté! I’m Adam Fairfax. No doubt you’ve heard of me.

ROSE: Nope. Never.

ADAM: [deeply relieved] Oh, thank god for that. That’s brilliant. That whole incident with the sheep was a journalistic invention anyway... [leads her away] So, tell me, dearest, are you wearing a bra under there?

[They leave, pausing only to kick Nicholas Briggs unconscious when he starts to revive.]

BRIGGS: ...reality...is unreliable... only I am canon... ugh...

DOCTOR: [to Sue-Ellen] Well? What did you want me alone in your office with only your worthless, sexually-repressed spineless underlings as witnesses? [to repressed underlings] No offense. [to Sue-Ellen] So? Go on then? What do you want?

SUE-ELLEN: I have a proposition for you.

DOCTOR: I’m not that sort of Time Lord. This time round, anyway...

SUE-ELLEN: A business proposition, you Northern twat.

DOCTOR: Oh. Was just getting interesting there for a minute...


Scene 10 – Outside Office

[Adam and Rose head away from the office. Extras walk back and forth with bits of paper, not quite disguising the fact this is being filmed at the production offices of BBC Wales.]

ADAM: So, you’ve actually been in the TARDIS?

ROSE: Yup!

ADAM: Traveled through time and space?

ROSE: You bet.

ADAM: Met strange, strange creatures in the air, at sea and land?

ROSE: Quite a few, yeah.

ADAM: Visited other planets?

ROSE: [stops] Actually, now you come to mention it...

ADAM: That’s just... I mean. Can I ask you...

ROSE: We’ll trade.

ADAM: What?

ROSE: You tell me about 2014. And I’ll tell you about space and things.

ADAM: Actually, I was going to ask you to do a lap dance... [blinks] 2014? Why would I know about 2014? It’s 2005!

ROSE: Whatever.

[They stand before a lift and Adam uses his child genius to press the button.]

ROSE: First question, important. Is Gareth Gates still in the charts?

ADAM: [now totally lost] Gareth who? Never heard of him!

ROSE: That’s all I wanted to know!

ADAM: Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

[The lift arrives and the doors open.]

ROSE: Are we going up or going down?

ADAM: [struggling to keep control] Yes... well... These top floors are just the offices. Let me show you what makes this place really worthwhile. Me.


Scene 11 – Outside the Dustbin Cell

[Simmons is sulking by the corner as Bywater unlocks the door. Briggs is curled up in a fetal position on the floor, hugging his knees, rocking back and forth.]

SIMMONS: This is so unfair. I was climbing the walls of ecstasy in there!

BYWATER: I know. You really should change your pants.

SIMMONS: Shut up! I’m extremely agitated! And when I’m extremely agitated, people tend to lose blood... for hours!

BRIGGS: The Devil was a fiddler, and a fiddler, bold was he. He draws his bow of horror across the soft, wet back of your brains!

BYWATER: You wanna start with him, then?

SIMMONS: No. I like to have intelligent conversations with my victims.

[Sue-Ellen approaches with the Doctor and Gunther. The Doctor is quietly angry and rather frustrated.]

SUE-ELLEN: This is a very expensive secret, the prize of my husband’s collection.

DOCTOR: You bury your secrets deep. Along with your charm, good looks and social skills.

SUE-ELLEN: You are privileged, Doctor. Only a handful of guards are posted down here, and even fewer allowed near the creature. Certainly not as near as Simmons has been...

SIMMONS: Quite right, madam! In Texas, we’d be husband and wife after what I’ve done to it!

DOCTOR: And what is it, scary pedophile person?

SUE-ELLEN: It won’t tell us.

DOCTOR: [surprised and amused] ...well, that’s a fucking pathetic excuse if ever I heard one. How do you know it can talk in the first place?

SUE-ELLEN: Hmmm. Good point.

SIMMONS: Madam, is this wise? The creature knows me, it trusts me, it’s seen me naked... A stranger might upset it!

DOCTOR: What? By not sexually assaulting it with 4000 volt cattle prods?

SIMMONS: Exactly! I mean, would you respect someone unable to do that? A clue: no!

DOCTOR: Shouldn’t you be on some sort of register or something?

[The door to the cell opens.]

SUE-ELLEN: Returning to the topic at can, if we can’t make it talk, perhaps another alien can? In you go.

[The Doctor looks at her, then enters.]

DOCTOR: Ah, what the hell? It’s not like it’s going to be a psychotic killing machine or something...

SIMMONS: [sobs] Oh, if only!!


Scene 12 – Dustbin Cell

[The Doctor walks into a room then stops suddenly. He blinks and shakes his head, unaware that behind him the shutters over the glass tube are starting to unfold.]

DOCTOR: You know, I suddenly have the strangest feeling of déjà vu! This reminds me a lot of that time when me and Evelyn met President Grade and I got thrown into his tree house. Heh. I got locked in with an extremely rare and battered Dustbin that by a total fluke was too fragile to shoot me down like a dog...


Scene 13 – Outside the Dustbin Cell

[Sue-Eleen watching the screen, hungrily... while Gunther, Bywater, Briggs and Simmons are relaxing between takes and playing cards. Simmons is reading a newspaper with a headline: “MICHAEL GRADE CONTROLLER OF BBC – DR. WHO IS DEAD MEAT!!"]

DOCTOR: [vo] Still, what are the odds of that happening again? Eh? I ask ya...

[On the far side of the anteroom is the translucent figure in white, watching... and rubbings its pseudo-hansds in glee.]