Saturday, December 5, 2009

8th Doctor - Absolution (i)

Serial 9K – Ablutions
An Alternative Program Guide by Ewen Campion-Clarke
Thirtieth Entry in the EC Unauthorized Guide O' Atoms Infinite!

D O C T O R W H O

Serial 9K – Ablutions -


"Ablution... ablutions... ah, 'ablution'. 'Noun. A washing or cleansing of the body, especially as part of a religious rite. The liquid so used. A washing of the hands, body, etc. Also slang term for the remission of sins granted by a chosen emancipator of the Church of the Foundation. An emancipator hand picked from the Eutermesan masses and rewarded for obedience and total devotion, but governed by the laws of a timeless Universe to which, should he ever leave it, he may never ever return. Out here, amongst these wandering souls those laws no longer apply.' Yeah. Yeah, that fits for 29 Down. Jesus Christ, The Times’ crossword really is getting esoteric nowadays, isn’t it?"


Part One – Decent Disco Inferno!

The Last Great Temporal Difference of Opinion is under war between the Lords of Time and the Dustbins, and the whole of creation is at stake. Across different points throughout the history of the universe, time itself is used a weapon: pre-emptive strikes, time loops, temporal paradox, historical events reversed until not even Lance Parkin can make sense of what’s happening. And at the heart of it are two battle fleets, millions of time ships burning and screaming as the very concept of 'heavy battle losses' is redefined as whole civilizations mutate under temporal stress.

Despite the loss of 64 per cent of the main Dustbin battle group, the last of the determined metal bastards engaged the Temporal Powers at maximum speed and concentrated fire destroy the Pakistani command ship, pushing the war front a sector and a half closer to Gallifrey!

As the counterattack from the remaining Moaning Host cruisers gets under way, the question must be asked: where in the name of Rassilon’s bollocks is the man who STARTED this endless horrific temporal hell?

Well, the short answer is: running away very quickly.

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor reveals his last ditch attempt to escape carnage of the Temporal Difference of Opinion: they will shrink the TARDIS so small it will enter the strange realities inside a single atom, out of reach of Dustbins or Time Lords. There they can explore worlds as small as electrons revolving at enormous speeds in planetary orbits around nuclei in the chasms of creation, the universe and the infinite! They will face unrecognizable life in the strange universes of Inner Space, but at least they’ll be able to get back to their wacky hi-jinks without that annoying inevitability of BBC Wales continuity.

After the insanity he’s put them through over the last three seasons, Charley and C’Rizz can’t really object to the Doctor as he runs around the green-glowing organic console of the freaky and gigantic orange TARDIS control room to programs it for this strange journey.

In fact, C’Rizz is so unfazed by the whole thing he decides to crash out in his room for the duration, and as he writes another awful chapter of his romantic novel "Beset By Adversaries In The Lattice Of Memories Which Intertwine, In The Lattice Of Realities Which Interweave, Dreams Of A Legend On A Lonely World Isolated By Indifference" – the heart warming tale of a non-stop blistering sexual rampage betwixt a Eutermisan beatnik poet and Felicity Kendal – it strikes C’Rizz just how boring he really is. Succeeding in boring the shit out of even himself, he dozes off.

As he dreams of strange and deviant sexual practices with the female lead of The Good Life, a voice calls out to C’Rizz, beckoning the Eutermesan to come to them and be their salvation. C’Rizz reasonably assumes that this is the psychic equivalent of a wrong number, and therefore completely ignores it.

The voice continues to pester C’Rizz, explaining that a horrible natural disaster struck a world and transformed many of the survivors into hideously mutated freaks who were then hunted down and slaughtered by the Norms. C’Rizz shouts that if the voice IS going to pester him, can it at least talk dirty and erotic? He’s heard these doomsday sci-fi cliches all before, and caused a couple himself.

Offended, the voice tells C’Rizz he can go fuck himself, and the Eutermisan snaps awake as Charley kicks down the door. The TARDIS is plummeting down into the abyss of the subatomic cosmos and, frankly, the expressionist light show on the console monitor quickly gets boring. Thus, Charley has decided to entertain herself by barging into his room and take the piss out of his treasured possessions: the severed head of Lavros on the hatstand; the pretentious wall hangings of Goth Goddess Christina Ricci; the low Japanese-style furniture; the bead-curtain over his doorway; the sentient robot disguised as a Laz-E-Boy recliner chair; and the mess of Cerebus comics, half finished poems, comic strips, internet porn print outs.

Charley picks up an object that looks like either a strange Turkish bong or some Swedish penis enlarger pump, and C’Rizz immediately becomes uncomfortable. He asks for it back, but she playfully refuses unless he tells her what it is. C’Rizz becomes extremely anxious and goes to take it off her but before he can do so, she decides to smash it to pieces to see him cry.

Furiously, C’Rizz turns on Charley. "You ever wondered what it feels like to be an extra in one of Lucio Fulci’s gore flicks, Charley? Have you? You want to end up like those two idiots at the end of Seven Doors of Death, stumbling blindly through the heavy fog and awful stench, atheists trapped in the afterlife? DO YOU?!?!"

Charley tells him to calm down, admitting that he’s actually kind of sexy when he gets so passionate and furious. For a moment, Earth girl and Eutermisan look into each other’s eyes, titling their heads so their noses can avoid each other, moving in for a kiss...

However, at the last second, a miracle occurs as violent jolts strike the TARDIS and a ghostly voice warns them that this sort of this is just plain naughty and rude. The moment killed, Charley and C’Rizz head off back to the control room to see if they’ve finally landed on the nucleus of an atom.

When they get there, the Doctor is running frantically around the smoking console, flicking levers. "Ah, hello!" he shouts sarcastically. "Good of you two to finally turn up you’re just in time to witness either my masterful skill at saving their lives, or to experience the utter destruction of the TARDIS. Sorry I didn’t mention it earlier, but I just didn’t give a damn enough to tell you. The odds are several thousand to one of us surviving accelerating out of control into the sub-atomic microverse, so place your bets!"

The Doctor explains he needs to adjust their trajectory and trip the dimensional flow, but has no idea how he’s supposed to stabilize the runaway time machine. C’Rizz suggests they give the console a couple of solid whacks with a hammer he was planning to bludgeon Charley unconscious with, and the Doctor decides to give it a try.

Instantly, parts of the console explode and the Cloister Bell starts chiming at a painfully loud volume. The Doctor and Charley wordlessly turn to look at C’Rizz with pure hatred, as he helplessly grins and shrugs. "Oops?" he offers.

Suddenly there is a massive jolt as the TARDIS comes to a halt, having penetrated the strange voids within an atom. The Doctor checks the monitor jimmy-rigged to the console and sees the swirling lights of dancing electrons around the nucleus. It seems they’ve actually managed to successfully enter Inner Space and worse, far worse, C’Rizz has actually been proved absolutely right for once!

"Unprecedented!" Charley gasps fearfully.

"Diabolas il musica!" the Doctor agrees. "I think we’re in Limbo, Charley! Or Purgatory, trapped half way between Heaven and Hell! The agonized cries countless lost souls forever imprisoned within the shattered Hell of bleakness and despair... would be a lot easier on the ear than C’Rizz getting all smug."

"I can’t bear it, Doctor!" Charley wails.

"Hell. Tartarus. Hades. Take your pick. Whatever people call it, every culture everywhere in the galaxy has some equivalent and who’s to say all those stories didn’t all originate from the same point – C’Rizz being proved right?"

"Oh, get fucked the pair of you," C’Rizz sulks.

The Doctor and Charley continue to ignore him as he storms down the ramp to the police box exit doors and strides out into the void of the subatomic universe and finally disappears from sight.

The Doctor and Charley finally stop singing "Oranges and Lemons", check they are alone, then shake hands in congratulations. "We made it! Thought he’d never leave!" they laugh in unison.

C’Rizz steps from the TARDIS into a mountainous wasteland lit by a cold blue dwarf star and the dancing yellow electrons in the star-studded sky.

Apart from that, it’s not much different from Cardiff.

He hears that annoying voice again, this time from a strange black rubber palm tree nearby with coconut-sized teardrop-shaped bulbs hanging from the leaves.

As the voice chants religious gobbledygook, one of the bulb glows and a strange bald, pointy-eared face and a crazed grin appears inside the bulb and laughs. "Do not fear! We welcome the Chosen One to our lands on an Atom-Planet in the Uranium Universe! Victory shall be ours, no the gateway is open and salvation will be now!"

C’Rizz decides this is WAY too weird for him, he is suddenly surrounded by Looney Tunes type alien monsters: silver, scaly kangaroos with elephant heads, beaks, tusks and compound eyes.

Their appearance is so utterly ridiculous, C’Rizz bursts out laughing and collapses from oxygen starvation as the monsters drag him over to their Palm Tree-shaped ruler, Arboreal!

"Destiny has brought you here, C’Rizz! Your talent is the key to our world’s salvation!"

"Um, didn’t you say this world was already destroyed?"

"Did I? Well I was talking crap. This Atom-Planet is called Utebbadon-Tarria – stupid name, I know, but what can you do. There are thousands of lost souls on this world and YOU, C’Rizz will be their savior!"

"Oh-kaaaaaaaaaaay..."

"You possess the potential to create psychic conduits held together by the sheer force of your own poetry! Your knowledge of iambic pentameter and the art of haiku can change the very atmosphere you breathe! You have the ability to save this entire civilization with your creative genius, a genius from another universe!"

C’Rizz is still struggling to understand how incredibly popular his poetry is, so Arboreal explains very slowly and patiently that he has plan that will lead to C’Rizz ultimate fame and enrichment beyond his wildest dreams!

Lizard Boy has a near-total emotional collapse and starts humming Murray Gold scores. "Finally!" C’Rizz sobs in a girly way. "My talent will be recognized universally, as it was always destined to be!"



Part Two – Hell Welcomes Careful Drivers

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor and Charley prepare to take off before any trans-dimensional parasites who home in on chaotic eddies in
the probability stream. It’s never ever happened before, but it’s not worth risking a plague of gremlins, is it?

The Doctor presses buttons, flicks switches and powers up the engines so they can explore this universe, which the time travelers decides to call "Malcolm" after Ian McShane’s character in Lovejoy. Spinning a wheel on the console and stops it short, the Doctor pulls a lever up and twists a gear. The TARDIS engines grate and grind, the ship shakes, shudders and lurches until the Doctor reaches out and twists the gear back and the time machine lands again.

"That was quick," Charley notes.

"Well, it’s a small universe, isn’t it?" the Doctor replies. "Still, should be big enough to lose C’Rizz in once and for all."

Just as they are about to celebrate with a bit of make up sex, there is a loud banging. To Charley’s disappointment, it’s just someone trying to kick their way into the ship.

The Doctor opens the doors and Jay and Silent Bob burst in, armed with
pitchforks. Momentarily fazed at the whole bigger on the inside business and the hot blonde chick lying topless on the pilot seat. Jay accuses the duo of being demons and Charley tells the Doctor to let her do the talking to these medieval misfits.

"We are the King and Queen of Hell and this blue box is a magical travelling box powered by the souls of the wrongly-damned who we tricked into burning in fires for all eternity and your puny society will be destroyed by our glorious evil!"

Jay and Silent Bob subdue the struggling duo with a net and haul them out of the TARDIS as the Doctor hurls abuse at Charley for getting them into an even bigger mess then they were bound get caught up in already!

Jay and Silent Bob drag the Doctor and Charley through the frictionless highways and sky-scrapers of the futuristic Neo-Gothic Citadel, as the Doctor bemoans that even in the subatomic universe advanced civilizations dress in skirts and togas. "Why does everyone think fashions ended in Rome 64 AD?!" he complains.

Back in the quarry-like wastelands, Arboreal tells C’Rizz it’s now time he addressed the assembled abnormal creatures of this world. The Eutermisan doesn’t know what to say, so Arboreal tells him just to speak from his heart. With his usual misplaced confidence, C’Rizz turns to hordes of silver muppets and introduces himself.

"People of Utebbadon-Tarria, this is Cecil Rizz Esquire. My popularity here is not much of a surprise, and in many ways I foresaw this myself. I wish you to know that, according to your filthy pagan beliefs, the ghost of a hippy carpenter who got nailed to a crossbeam two thousand years ago - Jesuit Chris, I believe his name was? Yes, Mister Chris appeared to me and told me I was one of the few really, truly, totally, fully, 100 per cent, for real, actual good people left in the world. Of which there are only five, not counting Billie Piper. I want you to remember that I am one of the few special people in this universe. Ever. In the history of everything. And that’s official. Mister Chris said so. And after we discussed universal peace and I would be much better at making it happen rather than him, I spent five years pondering my next move in life. One who has seen and touched greatness such as I should send a message to ALL, across the universes, about the meaning of life! And here, on Utebbadon-Tarria, I shall fulfill my destiny and truly inspire people, starting with you!"

Having exorcised his massive insecurity complex, C’Rizz breaks wind in public in front of millions.

Who then applaud.

The Doctor and Charley are hauled into the foyer of a building that looks identical to the Cardiff Millennium Centre to meet the ruler of this Atom-Planet, High-as-a-Kite Overseer Coconut who is very impressed at the concept of a magic flying box that manages to penetrate the sub atomic and universe and begs his prisoners to "lay it on him, baby".

This time the Doctor doesn’t let Charley get a word in edgeways as he explains that "magic" is hardly a word to describe the TARDIS and changes the subject to how the locals treat witches. "You don’t have a penchant for burning them do you?"

The Overseer’s daughter Anthea arrives and dismisses her father
as a stoned, superstitious jukie tool, but her aggressive diction angers him. She greets the Doctor and Charley, apologizes for her loser dad and asks them if they had any trouble getting here.

The Doctor shrugs and notes the traffic could have been a bit better, but he was rather wondering if, perhaps, they could crash here for the duration of the final battles of the War in Heaven? Coconut is more than happy to let them stay and offers to take the Doctor on a mind-expanding tour of their idyllic city state. Before she leaves, Charley asks the Doctor whether he thinks C’Rizz is likely to turn up again.

"Who?" asks the Doctor, confused.

In fact, C’Rizz is returning to the TARDIS to rub the faces of his former companions in his newfound success, but finds the police box gone! C’Rizz swears loudly, noting the bastards have done a runner to the Citadel 70 leagues away. Arboreal is fascinated by C’Rizz’s ability to instinctively know where the Doctor and Charley are while simultaneously learning the geography of an atom’s nucleus – a talent which will surely make him incredibly famous.

"Yes!" the Eutermisan whispers. "Why should I let that horrid little pair Time Pussy and Super Slut ride on my coattails of brilliance? It’s outright gauche! They’ve served their purpose... whatever the hell that purpose was... anyway!"

"Your strength and ability grows with every passing minute!" Arboreal marvels. "You’re wonderful! You’re going to make everyone a star!"

Elsewhere, Coconut leads the Doctor high up onto the Citadel battlements parks, as the Doctor bitches that for a bunch of advances microcosmic people they haven’t worked out the principles of a lift, yet. Coconut explains that the idea was tossed around by himself around three millennia ago, but they never really got round to it.

The Doctor looks out beyond the outskirts of the Citadel to the volcanic wastelands filled with the freakish offspring of elephants and mice scuttling around under the light of the spinning electrons.

"It’s like that Metallica world tour poster," the Doctor observes as the Overseer offers him a silver needle to shoot up.

Meanwhile, Charley is bored and wanders to the outskirts of the Citadel to look for the nearest male brothel and spots C’Rizz on the other side of the fence, wearing a sharp suite and surrounded by an entourage demonic flunkies as winged paparazzi take photos of him.

Charley notes it was a vain hope that Lizard Boy would be dead when Arboreal approaches and tells Charley he’s C’Rizz’s new PR manager and has already made the Eutermisan the most popular and famous person on the Atom-Planet – but some suspect C’Rizz might be gay.

C’Rizz looks around for a prospective girlfriend and/or lover to help with his image, and realizes Charley is right in front of him.

"What a vision of loveliness!" C’Rizz gasps, staring at her in awe. "You are the one for me, Charley, the one I’ve searched for my entire life! The dedication and love she has shown me over the years is more than any Eutermisan could ask for! And her deep, heaving bosoms moving hypnotically... her lovely figure... her lips... the way her nose wrinkles when she brutally beats me. I can imagine no other mammal woman making me feel this way! God, just her pretty name! Charley! THE SOUND OF IT! LIKE MUSIC TO MY INTESTINES!"

C’Rizz explains to Charley that genes such as his must not be allowed to die and suggests he uses Charley to spread his seed. Charley points out he swore undying love to L’Da.

C’Rizz offers to flip a coin and decide who he should devote his life to, and the coin chooses L’Da. C’Rizz looks at Charley, looks at the coin, looks at Charley, looks at the coin, stares for a long time at Charley’s heaving bosom, throws the coin away and says, "Fuck it! Charley, will you do me the honor of being my bitch-stroke-wife?"

Seeing C’Rizz as a star somehow affects Charley’s higher brain functions in was so incredibly complicated that to explain them properly would take at least forty pages so:

Charley flips a coin, shrugs, and says "MARRY ME, ALIEN BOYAH!"

C’Rizz double takes, amazed. "It worked. She said yes. Bugger me!"


Part Three – Nuns of the Violent Age

C’Rizz is delighted, but suddenly becomes suspicious – is Charley merely USING him, trying to get back at her spurned former lover, the Doctor?

"I would like you to know, C’Rizz, that I resent the implication that I could have been dishonest!" Charley sniffs, smacking him in the face. "Really! How insulting and lower classish of you. And how high minded of myself to forgive you!"

C’Rizz stares blankly at her for a full minute before screaming, "How I loved you, Charlotte! How I want to spend the rest of my life with you! My future is looking wonderful! Just being married to me will make you the biggest star in Bartholomew’s Planetary Gazateer!"

Charley is not interested in being the 'biggest star in Bartholomew’s Planetary Gazateer', even for emotional, spectacular, touching and meaningful films about loving bull elephant sodomy with a possible Oscar award. However, the idea of being unable to leave the house without being stripped naked by mobs of hormone-crazed obsessive teenage fans convince her right away.

"Screw time travelling in horrid police boxes with inconsequential losers whose names I can’t recall," she decides. "My head is filled with thoughts of how I can touch people with my work! Surely a talented, handsome, giving, caring, lovely, gorgeous and magnetic personality such as myself can touch lives in a way that no one on this earthly plain has ever been able to do in all known history?! I mean, TV can reach at least *50* people!"

Arboreal starts to laugh evilly and the palm tree shudders in joy.

Charley and C’Rizz go off to tell the Doctor the happy news, punching Silent Bob as he spots Charley wandering around in the Wood of Suicides, no doubt looking for some sex.

The Doctor staggers back to the TARDIS, still slightly tripping and thus assumes that it is all an illusion inside his head when Charley and C’Rizz appear out of the gloom in front of him and explain they intend to stay on Utebbadon-Tarria as they have become media celebrities of unheard of proportions.

"This probably signifies something about me that I really don’t want to think about at the moment," the Doctor says, leaning against a wall to keep himself standing upright. "You know, I’d have thought after our way Double the Fist saga, we’d be sick of the media spotlight!"

"Fame has it’s price," Charley agrees. "I know we’ll be hounded by the press on a daily basis for years, and since I’m considered the most sexy woman in the entire created multiverse, the press will constantly try to obtain nude photos of me."

"That shouldn’t be difficult," the Doctor muses absently.

"Once, in my misspent youth, it would have," Charley shrugs. "But no more. I am a woman of class and will not pose for such photos unless the proceeds from sales go towards to curing cancer."

"Or bunions," C’Rizz suggests.

"Yes, bunions. Or some other such debilitating diseases."

"Yes, Doctor," the Eutermisan continues, "I know the pressures in the life of a star such as myself are great! Too great to be able to explain them all. But, as such a star, I know that you believe me more than you would your next door neighbor. And my dear Doctor, that's all that matters in this lifetime."

"C’Rizz," the Doctor smiles broadly, "you’re doing it again."

"What?" the Eutermisan asks.

"Mistaking me for someone who gives a shit. I’m off."

Charley grabs his arm before he can go and gently whispers, "Shall we have a final shag for old time’s sake?"

The Doctor shakes her loose. "Charley, I’ve got a headache. And will probably have a headache for the next 30 incarnations."

"You always get those headaches – it must be the stress of living with such a star as me, it’s gotten to you. Poor Doctor."

"Yeah," the Doctor calls over his shoulder. "Whatever. Bye."

He manages to walk about six paces before losing his balance and falling straight through a full-length mirrored part of the wall, plunging down a secret stairwell out of sight. He ends up sprawled in a basement, as Charley and C’Rizz laugh and note he has another seven years’ bad luck to add to his already miserable life.

Getting unsteadily to his feet, the Doctor notes he’s standing in front of a locked door, at least six inches thick, with a notice inviting him to either enter his Alpha Red security code or display his retinas for scan. Clearly the Doctor has uncovered something kept secret from the rest of the Citadel and effortlessly breaks in with his sonic screwdriver to discover...

...a mad scientist’s laboratory. Not the wine cellar, as the Doctor was hoping for so desperately. As the Time Lord himself notes, "Well. This just plain sucks."

Bored, the Doctor checks the equipment to see if any of it might be able to trigger apocalyptic disasters and discovers he’d be very lucky if any this junk might toast a slice of bread let alone trigger a cosmic disaster of sudden catastrophic darkness.

Coconut arrives and notices that the Doctor has broken into a forbidden part of the Citadel and messed around with profane technology with blasphemous thoughts. He accuses the Doctor of betraying their hospitality, but the Doctor explains he is always doing stuff like this. "After all," he concludes, "you told me to make myself at home."

Coconut cannot argue with that logic and so sits down next to the Time Lord and explains he’s a bit stressed since a runaway blue dwarf star is hurtling towards Utebbadon-Tarria will fry the entire Atom-planet to dust. Worse, the other atom-planets are mysteriously exploding for no apparent reason, aeons of progress wiped out in moments, and it is only a matter of time before Utebbadon-Tarria goes the same way.

"Still," Coconut smiles, "mustn’t grumble."

Charley and C’Rizz meanwhile return to Arboreal to make their wedding the biggest event of the sub atomic universe! Arboreal suggests they head for the Wood of Suicides for a really romantic occasion, since he’s already written the whole script for the thrilling event: bomb threats, jilted ex-lovers, the priest being an insane axe-wielding homicidal maniac. Arboreal has also single-handedly built all the sets and peeled a bowl of grapes for them. They are well on their way to becoming famous and this ceremony will make them all stars!

Charley wants the wedding guests arranged in a kind of naked human pyramid while C’Rizz has thought long and hard for who he wants as a best man and finally come up with the answer. "And it didn’t take nearly as much effort as I anticipated," he boasts to Arboreal, who realizes his mental powers are growing exponentially.

C’Rizz wants as his best man Borarus otherwise known as Borarus the Formless, the Great Beast of Athligar and the Omega of Time and Space, or "Barry" if you feel particularly and suicidally brave. Borarus is a Lorkal, a huge demonic creature whose clawed fists are the size of houses, squat legs the size of motorways, and its scaly, horned, tooth-filled head the size of an alarm clock. The only thing that lets down its awesome arm-wrestle-a-great-vampire "don’t piss me off" aura is its high pitched and girly voice which is hysterically shrill and pathetic.

Borarus has been on a tour of the orbiting electrons and is finally returning to the nucleus to get back to its roots as an unstoppable gigantic killing machine, and getting him to be at the wedding is an even bigger coup than Arboreal was hoping for – especially when he found out that David Dimbleby had a prior commitment.

Tragically, however, Borarus has just broken up from a long term relationship, and the thought of a wedding breaks his gigantic multi-ventricle hearts. Ashamed of blubbing in public, he runs out of the wood into the Citadel, onto to knock down lots of the buildings and crush the inhabitants by accident.

A few moments of the Lorkal blundering around the city destroying everything in sight, there is a pointless cliffhanger moment.



Part Four – Ablutions

C’Rizz calls out to Charley and pleads for her help – he has no idea how to arrange the guests for dinner and the wedding photographer is being unacceptably pressurizing on him. Charley is similarly frustrated, trying to ask for a white wedding dress without a tailor collapsing in fits of laughter at her nerve.

"If only the Doctor was here," Charley says wistfully. "He’d be able to use his sonic screwdriver or something and sort this out with some whacking great deus ex machina."

"Ah yes, my love, the Doctor," C’Rizz sighs. "I believe he had our best interests at heart and did not want a talent like myself tied to him for so long. What a beautiful soul!"

"Yes, remember how he took the news of us leaving him so badly at first, shouting and clapping his hands whilst pretending to smile. Telling us we could rot in hell or something of the sort. Poor Doctor, as ever, trying to be strong for us! How I treasure him!"

"Yes, well, I think he’s had his chance to show people he’s more than just our sidekick, shining away from my greatness," C’Rizz decides. "I’ll have him brought here to help us. He is, after all, the most loyal person in three universes."

So saying, C’Rizz uses his awesome mental powers to take over the Lorkal’s pea-sized brain. The giant demon picks up the baffled and hungover Doctor and in the voice of C’Rizz begs the Doctor to help him. He thought that he could handle his new social status, but he now knows it’s too much for his mind!

"Um... you seem to be possessing a giant horned monster and forcing him to do your evil bidding," the Doctor points out cautiously. "So your mind can’t be in THAT bad a state."

"Of course!" C’Rizz realizes. "Oh, Doctor, you never ceases to amaze me! Even in your time of ultimate grief, there's my Doctor trying to help me. You are so giving! If the body I was controlling had tear ducts, I'd cry tears of joy!!"

C’Rizz then offers the Doctor the chance to be the new Best Man. "It’s the least my oldest, most loyal and above all reasonably photogenic of friends deserve."

Back in the woods of suicide, Charley is pacing. "What does he say?"

"'For fuck’s sake'," C’Rizz relays to his bride.

"Yes, it must be an emotional moment for him."

Arboreal tells C’Rizz he’s doing fine, but the Eutermesan is worried that he nearly killed the guests. His mentor assures him that would never happen and he believes C’Rizz will have less bad publicity than any who have gone before him. C’Rizz realises Arboreal is holding something back and he says he needs to know everything if he’s going to help, but the black rubber palm tree tear drop guy remains strangely inscrutable. As much as a black rubber palm tree tear drop guy CAN be in any way inscrutable.

The Doctor is brought to the wedding reception with Jay and Silent Bob, followed by Coconut who is feeling incredibly melancholic since the entire Atom-Planet is bound to be obliterated in the next twenty four and a half minutes.

Worse, his decision to invite the Citadel Dwellers and the freaky reptile-elephant-kangaroo mutants to the same occasion has caused something of a faux pas between the unfortunate genetic misfits and the "filthy rotten stinking samelings" as terrible sense of personal insecurity and jealous resentment starts a huge fight.

As the huge battle takes place between the normals, the mutants and the gigantic Borarus, the Doctor and Coconut suggest that maybe the wedding should be called off what with the imminent Armageddon and all that jazz which will kill every living thing on Utebbadon-Tarria.

The Doctor snaps that this is just idiotic. Charley and C’Rizz are the same talentless losers they were yesterday and even if they DO achieve stardom, this atomic universe will self-destruct soon and destroy all possible witnesses. "Are you two COMPLETELY retarded?!?" he demands.

Arboreal tells the Eutermesan that he must order the Doctor to leave before the press get wind of it and make HIM famous for slagging off even MORE famous celebrities behind their backs!

"We stand on the verge of total victory and we can’t turn back now! Your public will NOT be denied!" Arboreal rants insanely.

The Doctor reminds him that all the other atom planets have been destroyed and quite possibly the Uranium Universe itself is doomed and there’s not a damn thing Arboreal’s photo shoot can do to stop it. Arboreal reminds C’Rizz that crap poetry is what he does best and urges him not to turn away from his duty.

Suddenly C’Rizz cries out in agony as his body begins to physically change – first colour, then shape. Charley wonders if her fiancé is being so like a common person of the lowest denominator by dying at the altar before they can get married.

Arboreal assures his clients C’Rizz isn’t dying, but evolving.

"How degrading! Oh, the horrors that are put upon me in the name of art!" Charley sobs, snapping her fingers and demanding more chilled champagne.

The Doctor desperately sets his sonic screwdriver to 'lumberjack mode' and tries to cut down Arboreal, but the palm tree swats him aside and then, for closure, is crushed as Jay and Silent Bob charge the tree. The teardrop containing Arboreal falls loose and bounces off the ground...

...only to be stepped on and crushed to pulp by the fully-transformed C’Rizz, whose entire body has been reshaped into the appearance of Felicity Kendal.

"I AM AS I SHOULD BE! THIS IS MY TRUE FORM!" booms C’Rizz in a voice exactly like that of Leonard Nimoy. "I HAVE REALIZED MY FULL POTENTIAL! ARBOREAL HAS CORRECTED THE DAMAGE YOU DID, DOCTOR!"

"Oh no," the Doctor laughs. "Don’t blame ME for your many personality defects and character flaws."

"I WAS ON MY WAY TO BECOMING A GOD WHEN YOU GOT INVOLVED IN DOUBLE THE FIST! MY ENTIRE DEVELOPMENT WAS PUT ON HOLD, TRAPPING ME IN AN AWKWARD FORM AND EVEN MORE AWKWARD MIND!"

"Now you’re blaming me for going through puberty! Get a grip!"

"YOU SHOW NO UNDERSTANDING OF MY TRUE PURPOSE, DOCTOR!"

"What is your real purpose?" the Time Lord shouts. "Did all the Eutermisans want to shag Felicity Kendal after they heard the tales told to them by Nicholas Briggs? Is that it?"

"NO, BUT THAT’S A MUCH BETTER EXPLANATION!"

Ominous rumblings shake the Wood of Suicide, showing that pretty much every guest cast member is now lying dead. "Uh oh," the Doctor notes. "The electrons out there are colliding! There’s only seconds until this whole world explodes!"

"That could end our lives as well," gasps Charley. "That would be quite tragic wouldn’t it?"

"DON’T BE SO SUPERSTITIOUS!" C’Rizz roars. "I AM UNDER GODLY PROTECTION NOW, AREN’T I? DIDN’T YOU SEE MY OPENING BROADCAST!"

The Doctor is already running for it, and the others are forced to chase after him to keep up with the conversation. "You useless bloody loonies! This is the Uranium Universe! What do humans use Uranium for? Atomic Power, that’s what! The power made by splitting atoms! This planet IS an atom! A Uranium atom that is split in nuclear fission! That’s why all the Uranium atom planets are exploding! That is why THIS one is bout to explode! AM I GETTING THIS THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS?!?"

There is another subterranean rumbling and the planet shakes, the sky filling with blinding light, and the ground starts to split open like paper, spilling forth molten lava.

"I think I’ve made a bit of a mistake," Charley concedes.

"No, you’ve made a bit of a fuck up of ginormous proportions!" the Doctor retorts as they reach the TARDIS.

"Doomed to destruction and taking all it could with it along the way! What a card to be drawn by fate? How to deal with this unfortunate situation?!" Charley exclaims.

"THIS – IS – DESTINY! EVERLASTING!!!" C’Rizz screams.

Suddenly the entire area is swamped by a wave of energy which passes over everyone and then disappears as quickly as it came. Everything is
quiet and Charley wonders whether they’ve all died and gone to hell – but C’Rizz suddenly reverts to his normal self.

"I stopped the fission!" he beams idiotically.

"How?" the Doctor gasps.

"Duh! Did you missed the whole 'I am a God' conversation?"

"Yes... but you’re not a God NOW, are you? You’ve gone back to normal. And even if humanity simply doesn’t try to split this atom again, you’ve probably annihilated your own genome!"

C’Rizz nods thoughtfully. "Is that bad?" he asks, confused and then slowly topples backwards to collapse onto the ground. "Oh great. I’m dying. And not during a steamy sex session with Felicity Kendal. Or even L’da. Just as the carpet burns were finally starting to heal, too. Oh fuck. I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do?"

"Ironically, even if there was, we’d probably just let you die."

"Fair enough..."

"When you die, I will dance on your grave," the Doctor promises.

"Hah... Good luck..." C’Rizz rasp. "I’m... being buried... at sea!"

"One last shag for good luck?" offers Charley, and begins making out with the dying lizard as the Doctor looks away, eyes full of tears (of nausea at the concept of interspecies sex).

"Only got... moments left... must complete... epic... poem..." C’Rizz chokes, arms and legs akimbo, flesh turning into wreaths of flame. "Felicity... Felicity... you fill me with... elec... tricity... Actually... that’s all I managed to write..."

"It was pretty derivative too," the Doctor admits.

"It was... original... in MY universe... That’s lovely, Charley... that’s wonderful... that’s exactly where I want it... not down there... up there... do it again... and again... and AHHH... BONZAI, BABY!!!"

The smoldering Eutermisan lets out one last orgasmic bellow before his spirit leaves and his empty corpse explodes outwards into a pile of dust underneath the writhing Charley.

"That was the single most revolting thing I have ever witnessed in over nine centuries of debauchery, debasement and debauchery in debasement," the Doctor notes, and he and Charley flee into the TARDIS and take off as the atom planet is split, nothingness bursting in to delete existence for all time.

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor runs around the console, frantically slamming down stiff levers as the time machines shudders and groans. "Oh well, say goodbye to another bolt hole. We’re running out of places to hide. Where to next? How about a spot of comedio de late? Any preference, Charley?"

"I’m not fussed," Charley grins. "C’Rizz is dead and things are back to the way they were before he turned up. Just me and the Time Lord who craves my fabulously sculpted body, hanging on my every word!"

The Doctor sniggers. "Charley, that’s just not true. I NEVER really cared for you, even before Lizard Boy arrived. Honestly, look at yourself, girl, carrying on like nothing has happened..."

"Oh, don’t lie!" Charley retorts. "You jumped me first chance you had and we’ve been at it like rabbits in THREE different universes by now. Time Lords do it in four dimensions, well I do it in FIVE!"

"Charley, Charley, Charley! Stop this! Stop this now!" the Doctor interrupts. "You overlooked the fact that when I met you, Lavros had wiped my memory – I forgot all the fantastic sex I had with the Olsen twins. I thought I’d been celibate for centuries. If it hadn’t been you there to bump uglies with until our pelvises snapped, I would have found someone else. Didn’t you notice those funny looks I was giving Serge at the time? Now I’ve got my own memory back, well... Let’s just say that between you and the TARDIS, I’ll take this wretched machine of mine every time."

Charley stares at him in horror. "I mud-wrestled Grace Holloway for you! Followed you into a completely new universe! AND didn’t screw you for child support!"

"True, but people come and go. In that order. It’s not that I actually give a damn about them any more than when I actually sleep with them. Everybody leaves – everybody. When it comes down to it, there’s just me, the TARDIS, and a sexually naive blonde teenage girl in ridiculously impractical clothing."

"Fine!" Charley shouts, folding her arms. "Take me home!"

The Doctor looks up at her so sharply he gets whiplash. "What?!"

"I’ve had enough. You’re not committed to this relationship. We’re finished. I can do better than you, so take me home!"

"'Home', if you’ll remember, is the sinking Titanic!"

"I’ll go down on the ship then! It won’t be the first time!"

"Sure, go ahead!" the Doctor snaps, slamming controls like a madman and the engines lurch again. "I don’t want you here. Everybody leaves. One step closer to Rose Tyler. AND YOU WERE CRAP IN BED ANYWAY!!!"

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