8th Doctor - The Vengeance of Morbius (ii)

ACT TWO – FEELING KIDNAPPED? TRY VENGEANCE!

Parte the Third

As the Doctor and Lucie are forced into the dispersal chamber, the Doctor falls back on the tried-and-trusted method of getting his captors to explain their evil plan to him in unnecessary detail in the vain hope the Doctor can either escape while they’re distracted or work out a flaw in said plan that can only be fixed by NOT killing him there and then. Besides which, in the Doctor’s distant and mysterious youth he was a proud supporter of the Sisterhood of Korn and their fellow lesbian alliances throughout the Constellation of Kasterborus.

Karen accepts this, looking nostalgically at a polaroid of a strange man in a silly scarf and the Loch Ness Monster taking part in a Gay Pride for Gallifrey March. Karen thus reveals that the Goodies are the sole surviving members of the Cult of Moby!

Amazingly enough this explanation doesn’t quite make much sense to the Doctor, who has no idea why this is relevant to his execution, or to Lucie, who has no idea why the Goodies would like a American born-again Christian electropop singer.

"You see, Lucie, Moby went on a tour of Gallifrey in the year 2000 and his insanely loyal fanbase became full of members of thousands of god-like temporal aliens. Moby became an honorary Time Lord (2nd Class) and became a cosmic super villain and tried to take over the universe with his musical invasion!" the Doctor explains, pretty much spoiling all of the thrilling Moby film franchise – especially ones like 'Brains of Fury', 'Bloodbath on the Ship of Death', 'Base Under Siege 3: Fatal Death', 'Vortex Fighter 2: No Surrender' and 'Vortex Fighter 4: Showdown on Korn!'

"But... Moby’s dead. Right?" asks Lucie.

"Well, yes, but in my experience, super evil people like Moby never die. They just come back in sillier clothes and more contrived circumstances. But what does this have to do with the Goodies?"

Karen explains that the Sisterhood of the Flame is no longer based on Korn, which the Goodies won in a bet with Karen over who could play darts better. The Sisterhood have found themselves a new location, but one they refuse to reveal on the grounds they’d have to change their email address "sistazofkorn9078@hotmail.com/kasterborus".

Since then the Goodies have scoured the surface of Korn seeking for whatever remains of Moby were left after the Fourth Doctor and John Inman had their nasty ways with the evil Time Lord. The Goodies intend to use these remains to revive Moby!

"Pretty obvious, isn’t it?" asks the Doctor, unimpressed. "I mean, what sort of cult of personality lets the death of the leader get in the way of things if they could possibly help it? I’d be more worried if they DIDN’T plan to revive him, to be honest..."

Meantime, Sister Hampshire’s ship has been drawn to the surface of Korn by the Goodies’ pet Robot who immediately starts to headbutt the airlock hatch until it collapses. Inside are Smelly Ed and the Magician, who laugh uncontrollably at the ludicrous trash-can-like android with its big cartoon eyes.

At least until a vacuum attachment emerges from the Robot and hoovers up Smelly Ed, sucking the helpless Gelth to its doom. The Magician cries out to his long-lost Yamaha keyboard for help as the ruthless metal git closes in on him...

In their railway-station-cum-mobile-office, the Goodies are marveling at what Bill has managed to collect: a wrinkled bit of old jerky that seems to have gone green. "Is that it?" demands Tim, disgusted. "Ugh! It looks like something the cat would throw up!"

"Oh, that’s what I call gratitude!" Bill complains. "You know how long I took to get that molecular-sealed specimen? A long time, mate, that’s how long. I nearly did my back in. Why can’t we get the bleedin’ robot to do these jobs for us, that’s what I want to know!"

"You wanted to help fulfill the life-long vision of the Cult of Moby, remember?" Graeme intercedes as he wires the bit of dried meet up to an operating table. "With this extracted, we just need a fresh Time Lord with a few regenerations left, plug them into the Gene-tro-tron and our fearless leader shall return from the grave."

"Well, he better be damn well grateful for all the trouble we’ve gone to, that’s all I’m saying," Bill grumbles as the door to the office opens and the Robot marches in, dragging the Magician after him.

"LOOK-EE WHAT I HAVE FOUND!" the Robot brightly.

The Goodies let out a happy cheer and, fully of delight, grab the Time Lord and strap him to the operating table and start attaching electrodes, restraints and bits of garnish to.

"Whatever you’re doing here, your current activity, your present operation is forbidden, unaccepted, totally rejected by the High Council of Time Lords!" the Magician challenges them.

"Is that the same High Council of Time Lords who are currently hiding away on Gallifrey?" Tim jeers. "The same High Council doing everything in their power to Time Scoop every last Time Lord they can get hold of just to stop us? The same High Council we don’t give a fig about? Is that the High Council of Time Lords you’re referring to?"

"Indeed, it is!"

"Thought so!" Tim confirms. "Let’s get to work!"

Back in the ever-so-secret-lair of the Sisterhood, Karen cuts the crap and summarizes what we already know: the Goodies are searching for a Time Lord so they can bring Moby back to life. Karen herself sent a letter of some concern to the Time Lords of Gallifrey. "The Time Lords may be able to defeat the Dustbins, and they may triumph over Moby, but they sure as hell can’t do both at the same time!" she explains. "That is why Gallifrey is under quarantine and all TARDISes have been recalled, the war effort abandoned."

This is why the Doctor’s TARDIS was being chased by the Time Scoop, but the Doctor himself is still pissed off as they could have sent him a memo or something instead of just walking all over his civil rights.

"But as you, Doctor, are now the only Time Lord still at liberty," Hampshire explains, "you must be executed before the Goodies track you down and use your flesh to resurrect Moby!"

The Doctor tries to think up a brilliant reason for the Sisters to spare their lives, but he can’t and Hampshire starts to power up the dispersal chamber, giving our heroes a mere 37 seconds to pull a brilliant escape out of their ass or die horribly.

With just 9 seconds left, the Doctor finally notices Lucie is wearing the Magician’s Time Bling, grabs it and activates the controls. "Wherever it takes us HAS to be better than here! DAMN IT, I JUST LOVE TIME-TRAVELING FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS!!" the Doctor shouts as he and Lucie blur and disappear...

...to reappear instantly outside the dispersal chamber.

So the Sisters beat them up, snatch the Time Bling, throw them inside the dispersal chamber one more time and power it up AGAIN. "Well," the Doctor sighs to Lucie. "Dunno about you, but I’M out of ideas."

The temperature in the chamber grows hotter as their molecules start to be agitated, and all looks lost! But, at the last second (what a surprise) the Sisterhood change their mind.

"This Time Bling is personalized to the Magician!" Karen realizes. "And if that bimbo has the Time Bling, then the Magician must have been left behind on Hampshire’s ship! Which was on Korn! Which is ruled by the Goodies! Who now have the Time Lord they need!"

"Now see what you’ve done!" the Doctor shouts at Lucie and smacks her over the head for her lack of foresight, so she knees him in the happy-sacks in retaliation.

Hampshire insists they kill the Doctor and Lucie anyway just to be sure, and kill Lucie twice as she is frankly giving the whole CONCEPT of sisterhood a bad name. However, as everyone is listing all the countless reasons that they simply cannot abide the anthropomorphic duck with the loose morals and visibly no understanding of contraception, the Doctor and Lucie spot the TARDIS in the corner and escape into it in less time that it takes to type it.

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor starts pulling controls on the console, setting the coordinates for Korn so they can rescue the Magician or at least put a bullet through his head before Moby can be reborn. But before Lucie can even suggest which calibre rifle for the job, suddenly the TARDIS jolts as it is swallowed by a cheap animated black triangle.

"It’s the Time Scoop! Sneaky bastard disabled the controls while we were too busy escaping from the jaws of death," the Doctor explains as the TARDIS is dumped in the ruins of the Panopticon on Gallifrey.

The Doctor isn’t exactly pleased at how the place has gone downhill since he was last there with all the "FREE TIME" graffiti, fried Matrix terminals converted into latrines and time fridges being converted into transdimensional prison ships to capture whole planet-worth’s of Dustbins. "Seriously, WHERE are the pastels?" the Doctor demands.

Just then, ex-President of the Time Lord and tough-assed bitch Romanadrovratrelundar strides into view along with her bodyguard Leela and her bodyguard’s guide dog K9 Mk II. "You took your damn time, you irresponsible byronic gimp!" she says, punching the Doctor.

"Aw, come on, Romana, it’s not like I’m not the only errant child of Gallifrey to be dragged back to the fold, is it?" the Doctor protests. "What about... er... the Bastard? No, wait, he’s dead. Or the Rani? Straxus? Bulek? Or Drax? Or Magnus? Braxiatel?"

"Everyone else returned to Gallifrey to help with the war effort, except for you!" Romana snaps. "Honestly, the biggest expert on Dustbins and you can’t even be bothered to turn up the final battle against them! What do you instead? Loiter around the cosmos with deranged pregnant Earth girls!"

"It’s lifestyle choice!" the Doctor protests.

"Your lifestyle choices could help bring Moby back from the dead!"

"No, I think you’ll find that’s the Magician you sent out," Lucie adds for no other reason that she hates being ignored and often butts into the arguments of complete strangers to get attention. "He’s the one caught by the Cult of Moby or whatever. So are you going to sit round here crying into your adrenaline and somas, or are you gonna DO SUMFIN ABOUT IT?!"

Back in the Goodies’ HQ, the Magician is fully wired up to the Gene-tro-tron as Graeme prepares to upload the tiny, rotten, decayed remnant of Moby’s brain onto a bit torrent site and then download it into the Magician’s living Time Lord DNA. "I suppose you might consider it to be internet piracy and therefore a crime, but when you’re trying to resurrect a deranged super villain to lay waste the universe, the little things just get easier to cope with," Graeme concedes.

"Which particular Time Lord is this one?" asks Bill.

"Oh, doesn’t matter, does it?" shrugs Tim. "They’re all weak, defenseless losers who have never fulfilled their potential or put their greatness to any use. They’re like the House of Lords, really."

"How could you three, you trio, you troika have fallen so far from what is good, righteous, laudable?!" the Magician protests. "The Goodies stand for truth and love and helping people! How can helping bring Moby back to life possibly achieve such an end?!"

"That’s quite simple, really," Tim reveals, rubbing his hands with glee. "We’re NOT the Goodies!"

Laughing evilly, the trio in unison pull their rubber flesh masks off and shed their Union Jack waistcoat, tweed suit and flares to reveal...

...EVIL MIME ARTISTS FROM EPISODE ONE!

The stripy-shirted, face-painted, tight-wearing beings immediately start miming their evil plan as they activate the Gene-tro-tron and begin to splice the DNA.

The Evil Mime Goodies flinch as twisting golden energy explodes out of the wrinkled bit of jerky and transfixes the shuddering Magician in a light-storm. Swathed in light, the blurring Time Lord splays out his arms and throws his head back, his facial features disappearing into a golden inferno as more energy blasts out of his body. The volcano of golden energy suddenly rips away to reveal, a Caucasian-Negro-Oriental-Fully-Authenticated-Red-Indian figure in the Magician’s robes!

"I am Moby!" shouts the newcomer. "And this time, it’s PERSONAL!"


Parte the Fourth

Back on Gallifrey, a fleet of Dustbin saucers sweeps into view and massacre some chunky ships in orbit. Only the amazing chewing-gun-powered transduction barriers keep the Dustbins at bay, and the Supreme Dustbin (that really geeky-looking friction drive one from Dustbin Umpire 3 with the voice like Margaret Thatcher) is cussing like there’s no tomorrow about the stalemate.

In the Panopticon, the Doctor is having to listen to a tedious lecture on the death toll in the Temporal Difference of Opinion that could have been reduced if he wasn’t such a bone idle coward. "Ever since we began quarantine, the Dustbins have taken out Thoros Beta, the Warpsmiths of Fido and the Nestle Consciousness! That’s three civilizations just two days!" Romana despairs.

"That is time travel for you," Leela deadpans.

Suddenly there is a crackle an a huge hologram appears in the chamber of a spectacled bald man in a brown suit. At first it appears to be none other than Big Finish script editor Eddie Hitler, but it is in fact the fully-regenerated Lord Moby, live from Korn!

"I am Moby and I have returned to show the Time Lords the same lack of mercy as they afforded me! The vengeance shall consume the entire cosmos and the Time Lord won’t be able to do a thing about it! Huh? You got anything to say to that, you cringing cowards?"

"Is this going to be long?" the Doctor asks, yawning. "We’re in the middle of a jigsaw and it’s a lot more interesting than you, Moby. Push off and let us deal with some PROPER time warrior monsters, will you?"

"I’M NOT TALKING TO YOU, DOCTOR!" Moby roars. "I want to talk to the High Council of the Time Lords!"

"They’re not interested," the Doctor retorts, ignoring the "Ixnay! Ixnay!" pleadings of everyone else in the Panopticon. "Nor is President Matthias, who’s busy having his potty emptied. Look, we’re all frightfully busy, you know? There IS a Temporal Difference of Opinion on, so just give it up, Moby! You’ve been out of circulation too long! You’ve had your day, all that galactic conquest and MTV stuff, it’s so-pre 2005! All that time on Korn, your brain’s turned to Doritos! Go on then. Try blowing up Gallifrey and conquering the universe with your music. You won’t succeed, and you’ll just end up looking a right tit while trying!"

"SHUT! UP!" Romana screams at the Doctor. "YOU ARE **NOT** HELPING!!"

"Oh, like he’s actually a threat!" the Doctor jeers. "All he does, give or take singing, is strut around and talk about his impending glory. We’ve only got Moby’s word he’s a major threat, based on a reputation aeons ago. He’s surrounded himself with Yes-Men and Evil Mime Artists, and you expect me to take him seriously?"

"You should," Moby replies calmly and holds up a nifty medallion with groovy Time Lord graphics on it. "This is my remote activator for my sexual manipulator, a device that can use sexual energy to customize the physical universe. I call it –- THE HANDJOB OF MOBY!! Ciao!"

Suddenly the hologram cuts out and the lights in the Citadel start to dim as the mighty power of the 57 Chevy of Rassilon, the source of all Time Lord energy and technology, is drawn into the Hanjob of Moby. All the technology shuts down and the mighty transduction barrier disperse, exposing Gallifrey to the rest of the universe. The Time Lords have lost all their ability to time travel and are at the mercy of ten million warships with quantum torpedoes.

Aboard the Command Saucer, all the Supreme Dustbin’s Christmases have come at once and screams, "THE DUSTBINS WILL SWEEP GALLIFREY CLEAN AND TIDY ITS IMPOTENT FORUM OF TIME LORDS OUT OF EXISTENCE!"

As the fleet descends, the Doctor realizes that HIS TARDIS runs on Panasonic Batteries and thus is the only functional time machine on the planet. Thus, he and Lucie immediately flee for it, promising to go to Korn, stop Moby and save the whole universe from the Dustbins.

To make absolutely damn sure he does this, Leela follows.

The Doctor can be heard swearing mightily as the TARDIS takes off and the Citadel of the Time Lords is blown to smithereens under the bombardment from Ajax missiles. Back on Korn, Moby watches as the Dustbins scrub Gallifrey back to the Stone Age and destroy all the Time Lords in a tide of suddy water.

"Mmm. I best deal with you lot as well," Moby reflects and activates his Handjob of Moby once more, and the surface of Gallifrey ripples and collapses, forming a black hole that consumes the entire Dustbin fleet in a gigantic fireball which implodes into nothing.

Moby turns to face the Evil Mime Goodies. "Now, we can begin afresh!"

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is slamming down levers as the control room shakes violently around him, Lucie and Leela. "Can’t we just go back in time, land inside Hampshire’s ship before it reached Korn and save the Magician?" asks Lucie as she clings to the pilot seat. "That way, none of this would happen!"

"That would mean crossing my own timeline, Lucie!" the Doctor shouts over the engines. "That’s-a NO good! There would be consequences and repercussions and Dommervoy tearing their way through causality... Apart from anything else, it’d be taking the easy way out!"

"That has never stopped you before, Doctor," Leela points out.

"Good point!" the Doctor shrugs. "All right then, next stop: breaking the Laws of Time, stopping the Evil Mime Goodies and defeating Moby retrospectively!" He pulls a lever, causing a shudder that sends them both falling all over the place again as sparks fly from the console.

The TARDIS re-materializes in a grubby dungeon and the battered Doctor, the bruised Leela and the increasingly bloated Lucie exit the TARDIS and look around. As Lucie complains that the smell is bringing on her nausea, the Doctor spots a metallic shape lurching down the steps towards the dungeon.

Finally it falls flat on its face, revealing itself to be the very rusty and neglected Goodies Robot, and a strange pink smoke starts to emerge from the android’s gut – which, remarkably, Lucie actually recognizes as Smelly Ed from the first act, but has become catatonic and unresponsive after years of captivity. Mind you, Lucie has that effect on lots of people.

Suddenly, a booming voice not dissimilar to Graeme Garden announces, "IT IS THE HOUR. OUR LORD AND MASTER MOBY RETURN FROM BATTLE. HE RETURNS FROM VICTORY. PEOPLE OF KORN WILL REJOICE. REJOICE. REJOICE. OUR LORD AND MASTER STANDS ON HIGH... PLAYING TRACK THREE OF TAH-DAH BY THE SCISSOR SISTERS!"

Across the planet, 'I Can’t Decide' rings out in a scene that can only be described in the English language as "incredibly familiar to anyone who saw Lust of the Time Lords".

"This can only mean one thing," the Doctor announces darkly. "We’ve slipped forward in time ten years, ten years AFTER Moby was reborn!"

"Why does that song mean we are in the future?" asks Leela.

"Yeah, show yer working, mate," Lucie agrees.

"We don’t have time for that now," the Doctor says, waving away their laudable attempts to introduce some logic into the narrative. "For over a decade, Moby has been going about his conquering ways through the music circuit and we are in his palace, built on the remnants of a thousand worlds, all of which happened entirely off screen with no sense of scale and just Moby’s claims he’s a major threat. Maybe it’s all just some big psychological ploy?"

In his opulent dining room full of exquisite artworks with the lift music playing in the background, Lord Emperor Moby arrives and is met by his fawning Evil Mime Goodie servants who gesticulate exaggeratedly at how happy they are to see him. "I am fatigued by battle, but it was a good fight," Moby says as he sits down to his Bucks Fizz and vegan nibbles as the mimes watch on adoringly.

"My empire continues to grow and the more it grows, the more fear itself becomes our greatest weapon! Whole star systems are now surrendering at the mere sight of my touring posters, but there are still occasional challenges to enjoy. Which makes it all worthwhile, I find. Like Earth, the humans were very tenacious for a while at least. My human groupies, if trained and conditioned, might make good roadies for my musical empire!" Moby sighs. "Still so many races yet to tour with. Did I mention I brought back the Statue of Liberty as a trophy?"

Back in the dungeon, the Doctor runs back into the TARDIS and – to the intense surprise of Lucie, Leela and Smelly Ed – does NOT immediately take off and leave them to their fate. Instead, the Doctor activates the TARDIS telepathic circuits and tune them to the frequency of the Sisterhood of Korn’s exclusive podcasts.

"Surely the Sisters would have been one of Moby’s first targets for vengeance?" Leela points out, idly playing with her knife.

"No one’s ever bothered to find out true extent of the Sisterhood’s
psychic reach," the Doctor explains. "I need to send out a message to Karen so she can teleport me to safety once we confront Moby and nick that silly sexual manipulator off him!"

The voice of Hampshire floats across the room, whispering "What have the Time Lords ever done for us?! We’re safe in out hideout and don’t owe the universe a damn! Fight your own freaking battles!"

The Doctor angrily switches off the telepathic circuits shouting very loudly that he doesn’t need a bunch of feminazi witches with cakes on their heads to help him defeat a galactic emperor which what he’s just about to do with no help of any kind WHATSOEVER!!!!

In the dining room, Moby leans on an artwork and looks out over the canyon where John Inman once threw his lifeless body to its doom and, on reflection, maybe it was just asking for trouble building his palace right next to such a death trap. The overwrought Moby looks down over the canyon again and wonders, "Is where my career ultimately lies?"

Suddenly, the Evil Mime Goodies are writhing in agony as they mime choking on the mysterious pink cloud that has enveloped them. Even as Moby realizes that Smelly Ed is finally having his revenges, Leela bursts through the door and impales the three Goodies with her hunting knives, killing them all instantly.

The Doctor strides in and boggles. "What the hell is that?"

"The Statue of Liberty, Doctor!" sneers Moby. "Just one of countless trophies of my aeons of musical universal domination!"

The Time Lord picks up the 'Statue' and examines it. "It’s a novelty cigarette lighter! The real thing’s five thousand times bigger than this! Come to think of it, this 'palace' of yours is suspiciously similar to a disused railway station with some new wallpaper!"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" shrieks Moby, clutching his head in a curious mockery of Edvard Munch’s "The Scream". "I’m not imagining it all! I have a thousand slaves to transport the Statue of Liberty! I single-handedly wiped out the Snotaran Empire! I conquered the Howling Halls of the Shadow Dimension! And I’m still popular!"

"Bloody hell, he’s out of his skull, ain’t he?" marvels Lucie.

"Probably getting nostalgic for the good old days," the Doctor says and snatches Moby’s remote control medallion. "I’ll take that if I may, it’s the perfect reset button to undo the few, the VERY FEW things you’ve actually achieved!"

"Get lost! It’s mine!" shouts Moby, fighting over the activator.

Moby forces the Doctor out onto the balcony, but the Time Lord is too quick and grabs Moby’s remote and clicks the "UNDO: ALL" control, and the Handjob of Moby automatically un-destroys the Dustbins who find themselves unable to destroy Gallifrey and the Time Lords as the 57 Chevy of Rassilon is restored to full power.

"The Time Lords are back!" the Doctor shouts in triumph. "And they’re in a MEEEAAAN mood! Any minute they’ll cross the timelines and write you out of history completely – what have you got to say to that?!"

Moby finally realizes that – like so many other American musical super villains before him - he has no future and is determined that at least he can force the Doctor to join him in his oblivion.

"Plain talking take us so far! Broken down cars like strung-out old stars!"

"Stop that, stop that!" complains the Doctor. "You’re not going to do a song while I’m here."

"Plain talking served us so well as we traveled trough hell! We know how it felt!"

"Cut that out! " the Doctor shouts.

"Plain talking making us bold, so strung out and cold, feeling so old!"

"Stop! Stop it!"

"Plain talking has ruined us now! You never know how I’m sweeter than thou!"

"No, stop it! SHUT UP!"

With the last of his strength, Moby grabs hold of the Doctor and the two of them fall over the edge of the balcony, disappearing from sight, deep into the canyon below as Moby’s ever-so-slightly ironic chorus:

"LIFT ME UP! LIFT ME UP! HIGHER NOW, AMA!
LIFT ME UP! LIFT ME UP! OOH-LA-LA-LAH!
LIFT ME UP! LIFT ME UP! HIGHER NOW, AMA!
LIFT ME UP! LIFT ME UP! OOH-LA-LA-LAH......."

Lucie, Smelly Ed and Leela move out onto the balcony, expecting to find the Doctor clinging onto the underside of the edge. But he isn’t and the truth dawns on all concerned the Doctor is screwed.

"I did not expect this," Leela admits. "I bet Narvin eighty pandaks that he would not die at least until after the Moxx of Baloon ends the Temporal Difference of Opinion."

With the Time Lord opening a can of whup-ass, everything Moby’s done is unraveled, and since Moby’s conquest of the universe never happened, history is rewritten all around the three companions, leaving them next to the TARDIS on a deserted cliff top.

Romana and K9 emerge from Romana’s TARDIS, currently in the inconspicuous form of a giant upturned flower pot. "Welcome to Korn, many years before the Goodies came here. Thanks to the Doctor, we’ve been able to totally retcon Moby out of reality and correct the flow of history while remaining completely under budget. There was never an empire, and the universe was never conquered and Moby is back where he belongs – dead at the bottom of a canyon."

"What of the Doctor?" asks Leela.

"Him falling off the cliff is part of the vital nexus point that made the repairing of history possible – his actions are the centre of things, so we cannot alter them. His death is time-locked."

"But is the Doctor dead?" asks Lucie.

"No idea, and I don’t particularly care. He was more trouble than he was worth, and even if he’s alive he won’t raise a single finger to help us fight the Dustbins. In fact, if he hadn’t been killed, I’ve half a mind I would have killed him anyway," says Romana.

"You are wise, Time Lady," Leela agrees, and the three recurring characters return to Romana’s TARDIS. "Should we not return Lucie Miller to her correct timeline? Or would it be best if I threw her over the cliff to join the Doctor?"

"Don’t bother with his latest bimbo, Leela," Romana tells her. "We’ve got a Temporal Difference of Opinion to win and we need the perfect warrior now the Doctor’s out of the running. Any suggestions, K9?"

"Negative, mistress. We do, however, require a Time Lord who is a complete and utter bastard..."

Romana’s TARDIS takes off, leaving Lucie and Smelly Ed alone.

"He was my mate and a good-looking bloke. And he saved the universe. I never want to forget that. But I probably will. Yeah, I lost him to the Goodies but I knew it wasn’t over, I knew it deep down, I knew it. He found me again. I thought everything was going to be cool, that it was going to carry on the way it was, the Doctor having the greatest time of his life being with me. But, deep down, I know it’s over. And I’ll never forget you, Doctor. Never."

A very long pause.

"OK, I’m over it. Let’s get out of here."

Putting this down to her hormones rather than the simpler explanation that, say, she’s a completely insensitive bitch who cares for nothing and no one bar herself, Lucie waddles back to the TARDIS. There she is gobsmacked to find her old foe, Ace the Headhunter, at the control console slamming down switches and levers.

"Blimey! What the bloody hell are you doing here?" demands Lucie as she moves up the ramp.

Ace raises a baseball bat dangerously. "If you annoy me, I’ll kill you," she warns Lucie.

"Get stuffed!"

"SPEAKING counts as annoying me, Lucie Miller," Ace snaps and, ignoring Lucie’s protests starts to beat her up with the baseball bat as her Lucie screams and the sound of her voice echoes in the control room and then fades away...

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Coming Soon... actually not... still...
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"Do you WANT to help me save the Doctor, Lucie?"
"Not particularly, no..."
"We’ve got to find the TARDIS in the next ten minutes or we’re on the menu. And not the wine list!"
"You jammy bugger! You just won’t turn into Chris Eccleston, will you?!"
"Please, let it go, Lucie..."
"You jammy bugger! You jammy bugger! You jammy bugger!"
"The monsters were near. No one knows why they kept bringing back also-rans from the 1970s..."
"You’re in drag now, so what’s going to be the queen’s speech? Benefit reform? Tax cuts? Mercy to all crossdressers, that’s ALWAYS a winner!"
"They’re expecting somebody."
"Yes, but not especially us. What kind of press conference is this? Let’s stick to the story arc anyway, it may still work."
"Not that this series has much else..."
"Doctor, what is that smell?"
"A blue dildo. Look deep into it."
"We bonk each other, I mean, like, in a sort of way I’ve never bonked anyone before. He’s different. He’s more annoying than the rest of us."
"Once I had a ship. A ship of time. Bigger on the inside than the out... Haven’t we covered this already?"
"You can do one more year, Paul, I know you can!!"
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...Season 35...
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