An Alternative Guide to Doctor Who

Guide... to the GUIDE

2010-06-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

This blog exists for a reason - and that's a damn sight more than most blogs can say about themselves. This exists because bravenet web hosting decide one day that my patronage is not worth more than 5 megabytes and freeze my wonderful, patronizingly-easy to use guide page, revealing the scandalous truth behind the production of Doctor Who; an awful truth covered up in media lies and childhood nostalgia by a generation who refuse to see what's in front of their face and acknowledge how sick their favorite show is. This guide reveals the truth, just as Charles Daniels uncovered the horrible behind-the-scenes nightmare of the Classic Series.

Alas, opinion is divided on the subject following 1989's Survival. Did it end there? Did it continue? Were we all just watching the wrong channel? And where does Big Finish fit in? Well, I shall tell you!

For contained in this makeshift blog of unholy... stuff... are the intensely revealing guides to

The TV Movie!
Big Finish releases!
Missing Adventures for the Fifth through Eighth Doctors!
The New Welsh TV Series!
Torchwood!
Doctor Who Unsoiled, Dustbin Umpire, Gallifrey 90210, SJ Goes Psycho and many many more!

The truth is in here.

Unless I'm lying.

Only one way to find out, so here's a non-linear, non-subjective, wibbly-wobbly ball of chronology...

THE FOURTH DOCTOR

Season 14

Exploitation: Earth
Dr Who & The Fishy Bastards
Mofo from the Future
Valley of the Lust

Season 15

Serial 4S/A – Destination: B-Ark
Serial 4S/B – The Renet Rivkin Man
Serial 4S/C – The Wrath of the Mankini
Serial 4S/D – Egomania of the Dustbins
Serial 4S/E – The Cocktail of the White Worm
Serial 4S/F – The Offside Adventure

Paul Margrs Presents: Horny Pests
Paul Margrs Presents: Demeaning Quests
Paul Margrs Presents: The Satire's Wearing a Bit Thin, Don't You Think?

Season 16

The Apathy Matter
The Sands of Liff
The War Against the Lamb
Sammo & Jackie Cutaway!
Phantoms of the Dip
TBC
TBC

THE FIFTH DOCTOR

Season 19

Serial 6C/A – The Band of the Dead
Serial 6C/B – Sphincter for the Adept
Serial 6C/C – The Mutant Phrase
Serial 6C/D – PRIME Evil
Serial 6C/E – Bare Parts
Serial 6C/F – Teachers of Footy
Serial 6C/G – On The Game
Serial 6C/H – Interesting Times
Serial 6C/I – Nostalgia of the Dustbins
Serial 6C/J – Hellbound to Vortis!
Serial 6C/K – The Fawning of Thomas Brewster
Serial 6C/L – The One That Fandom Forgets
Serial 6C/M – Crime Spree / Thief Encounters
Serial 6C/N – Castle Phobia
Serial 6C/O – The Eternal Bummer
Serial 6C/P – Resident Evil of the Dustbins
Serial 6C/Q – The Red Cretin and Other Morons

Season 20

Serial 6E/A – Omigod
Serial 6E/B – The Effete
Serial 6E/C – Hexagonal
Serial 6E/D – Chilblains of Seth
Serial 6F/A – Codswallop
Serial 6F/B – The Whispering Florist
Serial 6F/C – The Label of the Snake
Serial 6F/D – Low Album of Snotar
Serial 6F/E – KISS of Death
Serial 6F/F – Rattatouie
Serial 6F/G – The Emerald Burger
Serial 6F/H – The Jupiter Congestion Charge
Serial 6F/I – The Murderer of Melbourne
Serial 6F/J –
Serial 6K/A – The Four Companions

Season 21A

Serial EX01 – Excelsior Yawns
Serial 6P/A – Fan & Phantasmagoria
Serial 6P/B – Louis Gooey
Serial 6P/C – Singular Angularity

Season 21B

Serial 6Q/A – Red China
Serial 6Q/A1 – The Ice Cream of Judgement
Serial 6Q/A2 – The Destroyer of Denial
Serial 6Q/A3 – The Pool of Closure
Serial 6Q/AA – Xtro 4 / Urban Legend of the Viyrans
Serial 6Q/B – The Eyes of Scorpius
Serial 6Q/C – Doctor Who Wrecks Disney World
Serial DWMCD03 – No Phone, No Home
Serial 6Q/D – Necrophilia
Serial 6Q/E – The Axis of Banality
Serial 6Q/F – The Spoof of the World
Serial 6Q/G – Two's Company
Serial 6Q/H – The Council of Niceties
Serial 6Q/I – Doctor Who Discovers The Bloody Mystery In The Bloody Tower Of Bloody Secrets!
Serial DWMCD05 – The Veiled Leotard
Serial 6Q/J – The Sequel
Serial DWMCD09 – Consumerism
Serial 6Q/K – Son of a Bitch
Serial 6Q/L – Mind The Eye
Serial 6Q/M – The Bride of Paddington / Messing with the Viyrans

THE SIXTH DOCTOR

Season 22

Serial 6W/A – Lavros
Serial 6W/B – Cryptosporidium
Serial 6Y/A – The Year of the Lame Dog!

Season 23A

Serial 6Z/A – Whispers of Error
Serial 6Z/AA – Recorded Whine
Serial 6Z/B – ...ick!
Serial 6Z/C – The Rip-off
Serial SS2 – The Unholy Error

Season 23B

Serial SS5 – The Worm of the Rani
Serial SS3 – The Maltesa Penguin
Serial 7CPRE-A – One Final Fight
Serial FIX – A Hitch with Snotarans
Serial EX02 – Excelsior Merchandising
Serial DWMCD02 – The Meep's Sweeps
Serial 7CPRE-A/A – Id / Prank Call of the Viyrans
Serial 7CPRE-A/B – Sitcom of Spite
Serial 7CPRE-A/C – The Deck of the Titan
Serial 7CPRE-A/D – Lemon-Soaked Paper Napkins of the Cybermen

Season 23C

Serial 7C/A – The Maid Marian Conspiracy
Serial 7C/B – The Inspector of Lanyon Moor
Serial 7C/C – The Apocalypse Elephant
Serial 7C/D – Mud Ride
Serial 7C/E – Project: Nightlight
Serial 7C/F – The Soundman
Serial 7C/G – D'you Believe This?
Serial 7C/?? – The Real Thing
Serial 7C/H – Doctor Who and the Goodies
Serial 7C/J – Project: Enigma
Serial 7C/K – Engagements That Bore
Serial 7C/L – Medicinal Porpoises
Serial 7C/MA – Seaside Suicide
Serial 7C/MB – The Anywhere Place
Serial 7C/MC – 300
Serial 7C/MD – The Assassin Who Died Twice
Serial 7C/ME – The Wangst of Thomas Brewster
Serial 7C/MF – The Farce of Exxon
Serial 7C/MG – Industrial Inaction
Serial 7C/MH - The Cuss of Lavros
Serial 7C/MJ - The Whore's Fall
Serial 7C/MK - Wirrn Ill
Serial 7C/T – Thicker Than Two Short Planks

Season 24

Serial 7C/S – The Afronauts
Serial 7C/U – Caption: 1782
Serial 7C/V – The Widow's Peak / Vanity Mirror of the Viyrans
Serial 7C/Z – There Can Only Be One Doctor...

Unseen Season A

Serial 6Z/1 – The Care-Bear Nightmare Fair
Serial 6Z/2 – Messing With Magnus
Serial 6Z/3 – The Penultimate Evil
Serial 6Z/4 – Revenge of the Autons
Serial 6Z/5 – SlipUp

Unseen Season B

Serial 6Z/6 – Guardians of Pomposity
Serial 6Z/7 – Leviable
Serial 6Z/8 – Woodlice In the Hollows of Time
Serial 6Z/9 – Enable Macros
Serial 6Z/10 – David Bowie -vs- The Space Whale

Unseen Season C

Serial 6Z/11 – The Ballad of Joe December
Serial 6Z/12 – Cats in the Cradle
Serial 6Z/13 – Attack from the Fred
Serial 6Z/14 – Paradise V: End of Term
Serial 6Z/15 – Gallimaufry

THE SEVENTH DOCTOR

Season 24

Serial PRE-7D – Degenerate!
Serial 7E/A – Go-Book-A-Room!
Serial 7E/B – Fist-Fight
Serial 7F/A – The Fans of Vulcan
Serial 7F/Z – Orange

Season 27 - After Survival

Serial 7R – The Fishmonger
Serial 7S – The Jazzercize Machine
Serial 7T – Bust Reading
Serial 7U – Coleslaw Cutaway
Serial 7V – The Rupture
Serial 7W – The Cyb-Fest
Serial 7W/A – The Dreaming
Serial 7W/B – The Chaser's War on Colony 34
Serial 7W/C – Night Thoughts
Serial 7W/D – The Crossing
Serial 7W/E – A School for Glory!
Serial 7W/F – Nicotine
Serial 7W/G – Hostage
Serial 7W/H – Twenty-Four
Serial 7W/J – The Magic Mushroom
Serial 7W/K – Enmity of the Dustbins
Serial 7W/L – Network
Serial 7W/M – Project: Density
Serial 7W/N – A Dearth In The Fanon
Serial 7W/O – Animal Magnetism
Serial 7W/P – Project From The Diaphragm
Serial 7W/Q – Black and Blue
Serial 7W/R – Clods and Monsters

Season 27 Up - Better Late Than Never

Serial 7P/1 – Live Aid
Serial 7P/2 – Thin Ice
Serial 7P/3 – The Sale of the Century
Serial 7P/4 – Addiction
Serial 7P/5 – Hellbound to Fargo
Serial 7P/6 – Night Thoughts
Serial 7P/7 – Animal Magnetism
Serial 7P/8 – Illegal Alien
Serial 7P/9 – A School for Glory!
Serial 7P/10 – The Crossing
Serial 7P/11 – Hostage
Serial 7P/12 – Network
Serial 7P/13 – Lords of the Silence
Serial 7P/14 – Republica: Ready to Go
Serial 7P/15 – Preposterous Island
Serial 7P/16 – The Left Wing of Darkness
Serial 7P/17 – ITV: The Other Side
Serial 7P/18 – Gits for the Night
Serial 7P/19 – Goats
Serial 7P/20 – Only The Lonely
Serial 7P/21 – Blood Spurts
Serial 7P/22 – Plotline

Season 27 - Before The TV Movie

Serial DWMCD01 – Clash of the Titans
Serial DUCD02A – Dustbin Umpire: Hellbound to Fargo!
Serial EX03 – Excelsior Bouquets
Serial 7X – Project: Lazarou
Serial 7Y – Bastard
Serial 7Z – The Tarrants of Time
Serial 7Z/A – Van Halen
Serial 7Z/AA – Robophilia
Serial 7Z/AB – The Doomsday of Suzie Quattro
Serial 7Z/AC – Illegal Alien
Serial 7Z/B – Frozen Crime
Serial 7Z/C – The Debt Collectors / Spider's Chateau
Serial 7Z/D – Kingdom of Arnickleton / Blog Post
Serial 7Z/E – A Thousand Whiny Things -- NEW!
Serial 7Z/F – Survival of the Fetish / A Klutzy Story
Serial 7Z/G – The Sexing-Up of History

The New Adventures

Serial SS1 – The Reservation of the Scourge
Serial SS4 – The Dark Llama

THE EIGHTH DOCTOR

Season 28

Serial 8A – Doctor Root & The Enema Within
Serial 8M – Shagged’er II: This Time, It’s Finished
Serial 8D – Sick Morning
Serial 8C – Bored of Ironing
Serial 8B – The Stoned of Venice
Serial 8E – Inuit in Hull

Season 29

Serial 8F – Evaders from Bars
Serial 8G – The Crime of Fright-Night
Serial 8S – Vogon Cutaway
Serial 8H – Reasons to Care
Serial 8L – Encase the Arseholes
Serial 8K – The Rhyme of the Dustbins
Serial 8J – Nowhere-Land

Season 30

Serial 8N – Zig-Zag-Gay-Ass
Serial REG – I Scream "Boom-Shaka-Laka!"
Serial 8R – Schizo
Serial 8P – The Credo of the Moron
Serial 8O – The Actual Mystery of Beer
Serial 8Q – The Twice-A-Night Kingdom

Season 31

Serial 8V – Faith Dealer
Serial 8U – The Lust
Serial 8T – Cardiff
Serial 8W – The Best Wife

Season 32

Serial 8X – Terri’s Firmer
Serial 8Y – Sail Away
Serial 8Z – Other Lies
Serial 9A – Clock Work
Serial 9B – Rubik’s Cube
Serial 9C – Baker Street

Season 33

Serial 9K – Ablutions
Serial 9L – The Girl Who Never Was A Virgin
Serial 9D – Lymph of the Dustbins
Serial 9E – Horror of the Music Industry
Serial 9F – Immoral Bedfellows
Serial 9G – Deimos
Serial 9H – Tell Me Lies
Serial 9J – Hostile Takeover

Season 34

Serial 9R – Dead Cardiff
Serial 9P – Top Gear
Serial 9Q – Brave New World
Serial 9O – The Skull of Sobriety
Serial 9M – Grand Theft Auto: Cardiff, 1898
Serial 9N – The Bygone Who Sold The World
Serial 9S – The Vengeance of Moby

Season 35

Serial 9X – Obituary
Serial 9T – Neil’s Lentil House of Total Nourishment
Serial 9U – The Breasts of Orlock
Serial 9Y – Wirrrn-Born
Serial 9Z – The Space Goat
Serial 9Z/A – The Cannabis
Serial 9W – The Eight Years
Serial 9V – The Michaelmas Special

Season 36

Serial 9Z/C – The Company of Jerks
Serial 9Z/D – The Silver Berk
Serial 9Z/E – The Bitch from the Well
Serial 9Z/F – Amy of De'Ath
Serial 9Z/B – Hellbound to Messaline!

Season 37

Serial 10C – The Company of Jerks 2: Pretty Vacant
Serial 10B – Neverwhere
Serial 10A – The Book of Chelmsford 123
Serial 10D – Phobos
Serial 10E – The Michaelmas Goof
Serial 10F – Cigars of the Pharoahs
Serial 10G – Joey Ross Must Die
Serial 10H – The Audio Doctors
Serial 10J – Hellbound to Fanwank!

THE NINTH DOCTOR
and
THE TENTH DOCTOR

Doctor Who 2005 -- THE TRIP OF A LIFE-TIME!

101 – Ruse
102 – The Restaurant At The End Of The World
103 – The Presuming Ed
104 – Alias of London
105 – I, Dustbin
106 – The Long Haul
107 – Death Day
108 – Shell Shock
109 – Funky Town!
110 – The Parting of the Legs
111 – Afterlife
112 – The Michaelmas Evasion
113 – Attack of the Grinch

Doctor Who 2006 -- IF YOU THINK YOU’VE SEEN IT ALL, THINK AGAIN!

201 – Earth 2.0
202 – The Nun In the Lift-Shaft
203 – School's Out!
204 – Silver Finish
205 – The Drunken Ginger Bride
206 – The Santa Tip
207 – The Idiot Box
208 – Love & Pizzas
209 – Filler
210 – Dustbin -vs- Cyberman!
211 – The Michaelmas Werewolf

Doctor Who 2007 -- WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE!

301 – Smith & Weston
302 – The Shakespeare of Evil
303 – The Macramé Gridlock
304 – The Dustbins on Broadway!
305 – The Lazarou Experiment
306 – The Infinite Jest
307 – 47
308 – Human Nature
309 – Blank
310 – Dystopia
311 – The Beat of the Drums
312 – Lust of the Time Lords
313 – Time Crush
314 – The Michaelmas Cruise

Doctor Who 2008 -- we actually forgot to think up a catchphrase this year

401 – Bunglers in Crime
402 – Planet of the Odd
403 – The Fans of Up, Pompeii!
404 – The Snotaran Strategy
405 – To The Doctor, A Daughter
406 – The Undertaker & The Writer
407 – Midday
408 – Silence of the Librarians
409 – Wrong Turn
410 – Journey Till Dawn
411 – Prom of the Grinch
412 – The Michaelmas Imposter

Doctor Who 2009 -- LESS IS MORE!!

413 – Escape to Danger on the Planet in Space Cutaway!
414 – Freak Encounter
415 – The Jedward Nightmare
416 – Dream On!
417 – The Pantheon of Discord UNPLUGGED!!!
418 – The Water-Fights of Mars
419 – The Michaelmas Apocalypse
420 – Swan Song for Tennant

THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR

Doctor Who 2010 -- THE END IS JUST THE BEGINNING!!!

501 – Eleven Plus Eleven
502 – The Breasts Below
503 – War-Bonds of the Dustbins
504 - Epic Fail of the Dustbins
505 - STD of the Cybermen
506 – Flesh-Time of the Stone Angels
507 – The Surf-Boarding Killer Bikini Vampire Girls Suck Venice
508 – Amy's Pro-Choice
509 – Cold Spunk
510 – That Vincent & Doctor Look
508 – Tardyness
508 – Token Appearance Of The Vashta Nerada
509 – The Blogger
510 – The Gnab Gib
511 – Dearth of the Grinch
512 – The Michaelmas Tradition

Doctor Who 2011 -- SHADDUP YA FACE!

601 – The NTAs of Doom
602 – Weapons-Grade Fetish Fuel
603 – Dr. Who USA!!
604 - What Are Cliches Made Of?
605 - Captain Jack Sparrow & The Pirates of Cornwall
606 – The Doctor's Bitch
607 – Gangbangers
608 – A Good Show Goes Off The Air For Six Months
609 - Let's Shag Thatcher!
609 – The Girl Who Whinged
610 – The Lawrence Miles Complex
611 - "Depth" Is The Only Answer
612 – The Blogger 2: Blog Harder!
613 - Everyone Hates River Song
614 – Yet Another Michaelmas Special

UNBOUND & SPIN-OFFS

Doctor Who Unsoiled

Arse Morality
Sympathy for the Devil
Full Fist Five
It Just Doesn't Matter!
Whose Exile Is It Anyway?
Metaphor
A Swarm of Angles
The Alternate Adventure!
Seven Keys to My Pants
The Cuss of the Dustbins
Engines of Dust-Eradication

The Expanded Whoniverse

I, Lavros
Dustbin Umpire: Return of the Dustbins
Dustbin Umpire: Warzone
Dustbin Umpire: Mutually Assured Hygiene
Dustbin Umpire: The Hopeless
Cybermen I
Cybermen II
UNIT
SJ Goes Mad In Dorset
SJ Goes Completely Apeshit In Dorset
The Two Companions (and that little shit called Thomas Brewster)
Gallifrey 90210: Future Tense
Gallifrey 90210: Past Lives
Gallifrey 90210: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Gallifrey 90210: Going Nowhere Fast
Sammo & Jackie: Hardcore Heteros of Hong Kong
Sammo & Jackie 2: It Got Worse
Sammo & Jackie 3: Leela In Da Hood
A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil

Charley's Odyssey: The Continuing Sexcapades Of Charlotte E Pollard!!

Season One

Serial CP0 – Fly Charley to the Moon!
Serial CP1 – Contempt of Charley
Serial CP2 – The Doomswood Charley
Serial CP3 – Charley & Das Kapital of the Dustbins
Serial CP4 – Charley’s Odyssey: Hellbound to Nuclei!
Serial CP5 – The Raincloud Charley
Serial CP6 – Charley -vs- Dustbin -vs- Viyran
Serial CP7 – Charley Gets A Paper Cut
Serial CP8 – The Charley Finale

Season Two

Serial CP9 – Charley Plays With Herself

Touchwood

TOUCHWOOD 2006 -- Retconopalooza!

Flotsam & Jetsam
Nude Girl
Plot Device
The Trouble With Lisa Is That She’s A Cyber-Woman
Assignment Seven: Fairie Folk... of DEATH!
Touchwood Versus The Sawney Beane Family!
Lesbians Bearing Telepathy
They Keep Shagging Suzie
Invisible Restal
Out of Ideas
Fight Club Cardiff
Captain Jack Sparrow
Shit! Apocalpyse!

TOUCHWOOD 2008 -- The Spunk of Yesterday!

Separation Anxiety
Arcworthy
To The Last Cliché
Touchwood Versus The Magic Kebab!
Adam's Back
Rehab
Owen Harper, Zombie Jerk
The Cautionary Tale of Lucie Miller
Something Borrowed From Joss Whedon
From Out of the Blue
Gwen Cutaway
Blast from the Past
Exit Stage Freaking Left
Hard-On Collision

TOUCHWOOD 2009 – Downsized!

PC Andy Takes Over The Asylum
Golden Brown
Phone Sex
Touchwood Versus The Children of the Revolution

TOUCHWOOD 2011 - The Nude World!

Touchwood Fucks Up Absolutely Everything, USA-Style!

The Superiority Complex Doctor Who Audio Dramas

The Jeffrey Coburn Era

70C – Countdown to Armadillo
1D – A Polygon
2D – The Price of Paris
3D – Dork Dreams
4D – Target Saigon
5D – The Thyme Brokers
6D – Fictional Hippopotamus
7D – The Empire of the Dustbins Strikes Back!
8D – The Doomsday Single
9D – The Backpacker of the Night
10D – Augury of the Dustbins
11D – The Warlords of Apeshit
EB2 – Can You Pwn The Devil?
12D – Divine Aura # 4
13D – Devil Gate Drive
14D – Polymorph
15D – The Curse of the Arabs
16D – The Seventh Album of Darkmere
17D – Château du Dragon
18D – Radio Y2K
19D – The Hidden Bonus
20D – The Cardiff Rift
1E – The Pretension Society
EB1 – Hackneyed Putrefaction

10th Doctor - Twittersode

2010-02-04T22:57:00.000-08:00

Serial Twattersode – The Jedward Nightmare
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Twits

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

Serial Twattersode – The Jedward Nightmare -

This unhappy bubble of anal wind in the bathtub of the Whoniverse has slipped most people by. Lucky them. I, however, was not so lucky and thus transcribe all six minutes and two seconds of the damn thing, so that all readers will be able to share my suffering!

(Theme music begins.)

Announcer from Sapphire & Steel: DOCTAH HOO!!!!

Christian: Oh, it’s a good job the bed is here in the AbsoluteRadio Zoo! I’m getting so stressed about John and Edward doing Queen on this weekend’s "X Factor" that it’s putting me off being the host of the Christian O’Connell Show.

Doctor: [suspicious] Very natural delivery you have there, Christian...

(A strange swirling noise.)

Christian: MY WORD! The TARDIS has landed on this bed!

Doctor: [to himself] That wasn’t the TARDIS... Sorry? That wasn’t the TARDIS sound effect, you nicked that from Romp with the Rani from 1987... OH!! I’ve landed – I’m not staying in character though, this crap doesn’t deserve it.

Christian: HOW DARE YOU, YOU COWARD?! CHARLATAN!

Doctor: Oh look! I’ve landed on a crappy old bed and narrowly famous DJ - did YOU write this? - well, mildly-known DJ Christian O’Connell! What’s wrong, Christian? Your brow is furrowed!

Christian: Oh, Jedward are going to ruin Queen on "X Factor" this weekend! Rumors are out there that they’re going to do Radio Gaga! Give us a way to stop them!

Doctor: I could help you there. The Bastard is the force behind this!

Christian: ...what? SIMON COWELL?!

Doctor: [pained sigh] No. John Simm.

Christian: He CAN’T BE!! He’s currently appearing in "Speaking in Tongues" at the Duke of York Theatre until the 12th of December!

Doctor: [bored] Trust me, I’ll end this.

Christian: But you CAN’T DO THIS ON YOUR OWN! You’ll need help! I KNOW! Take Martin, AbsoluteRadio’s long-serving Jamaican security guard!

Martin: Ahm sexier dan Billie Pipah and dat Freema put tagetha!

Doctor: [impressed] ...that’s very good! Very good!

Christian: Let’s just CHECK on the Gallifrey TRAVEL before we GO!

Irish Girl: There’s a broken-down spaceship on your exit for Uranus.

(Loooooooooooooooong pause. Crickets chirp.)

Christian: A cheeky Uranus gag there - doesn’t hurt anybody, does it, to keep it going? That’s the kids turning off, crying "Mummy, what’s a...?" And lets the RADAR WEATHER FOR THE GALAXY!!

Newsreader: We’re expecting a meteor shower at lunchtime today.

Christian: I can also get Eddie the Sports Guy to find out how Gallifrey Athletics got...

Doctor: [interrupts] Where is he, anyway?!

Christian: Go on with the script and you’ll understand the joke.

Doctor: Oh. OK.

Christian: I can also get Eddie our Sports Guy to find out how Gallifrey Athletic got on last night.

Doctor: Don’t bother. We must go. We’ve only got 140 seconds to play with!

(The silly noise from "Romp with the Rani" again.)

Doctor: You morons actually think that sound effect is the TARDIS?!

Christian: IT **IS** THE TARDIS!!

Doctor: That’s not a TARDIS!

Christian: YOU DARE DOUBT MY PROFESSIONALISM, SAH?!

Martin: It’s a toilet flushing!

Doctor: Yeah, a toilet flushing in a portaloo!!

Martin: So it’s perfect for dis.

Doctor: Well said, Martin. You’re a keeper. Anyway. Ah, AH!

Martin: Ah?

Doctor: Ah.

Christian: AHHHHHH.

Doctor: ...OK. Here I am, at the Bastard’s swinging bachelor pad! Jings! He’s so evil he can be a happily married husband AND a swinging bachelor simultaneously! Morning, Lucie Bleeding Miller!

Lucie: Ello, Doctor! Oo are these ponces you’re travelling with this week?

Bastard: [depressed] Oh Lucie, don’t let him in!

Doctor: Oh, John, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry mate. I’m so sorry to have got you caught up in this...

(The Bastard can be heard sobbing.)

Lucie: Do I get an apology too?

Doctor: Yeah, why the hell not? Sorry, Sheridan.

Lucie: Ah, I’ve had lower ebbs in me career. Though I’m not alone in that, eh, Christian?

Christian: Piss off you malignant whore.

Doctor: You’re being very brave, John...

Bastard: [weeping] You SAID you were being a DJ, you dirty liar!!

Doctor: I’m going to be, honest! And YOU said you were currently appearing in "Speaking in Tongues" at the Duke of York Theater until the 12th of December!

Bastard: ...I am. [happy] Book now to avoid disappointment, kids!

Lucie: Can we get on with this? I don’t like the way that DJ’s stroking his nipples while looking at me.

Doctor: Oh, I thought he was doing that at ME.

Martin: No, ee does dat to evrayone, Daktah.

Bastard & Lucie & Doctor: Ewwww.

Bastard: However! However... hang on a sec... in between performances of "Speaking in Tongues" at the Duke of York Theater until the 12th of December I am plotting the downfall of the Cowell Empire!

Doctor: How?

Bastard: By masterminding Jedward!

(The Bastard laughs diabolically.)

Doctor: Very good diabolic laughter. Ahem. Not any longer, you’re not! Martin! Take him out!

Martin: Take dat.

(Long pause.)

Christian: LITTLE bit late there, Richie... You nodding off there? A little slack!

Doctor: Wow, you’re good. One punch and it’s over. What a script...

(Four cheesy punch sound effects.)

Doctor: Oh, wow, there we go!

Martin: Yeah, dere we go!

Doctor: SEVERAL punches and then it’s all over. What an improvement.

Lucie: (spooky) He will knock you out four times!

Bastard: Not now, dear, it’s just sounding pretentious.

Christian: Hang on, Martin! LINE!

Martin: It had to be.

Doctor: What did?

Lucie: I dunno, I think he’s trying to justify resolving the plot by beating people up. What a message to send to the children.

Bastard: Lucie, my sweet, be honest - no children listen to shite like AbsoluteRadio. No one listens to it at all...

Christian: GET THEM OUT OF HERE! THEY’RE UNDERMINING MY GREAT WORK!

Lucie: [hurt] Yeah, well, fuck you, Christian.

Bastard: We have innumerably better things to do. Like appear in "Speaking in Tongues" at the Duke of York Theater until the 12th of December. Come Lucie, what’s done is done! Don’t you wanna feel what I wanna feel, baby?

Lucie: Lalah-lalah-lahlah-lah!

Bastard & Lucie: Embracing! The thought of tasting! Our minds are a labyrinth! Our hearts are racing!

Martin: We are runnin out av tarm. We have to get Christie-yan back to de studio before he starts da next song.

Doctor: [sighs] Let’s go then.

(Another silly sound effect.)

Doctor: Oh, jings...

Christian: IT IS **NOT** A TOILET SOUND EFFECT! OKAY??

(The noise ends.)

Christian: That’s better. WOWSERS! THAT WAS QUICK! IS IT ALL DONE? HAVE YOU ENDED THE JEDWARD NIGHTMARE?!

Doctor: Jings, Christian, you WERE there at the time, remember?

Martin: He’s always like dis, da stupid twat.

Doctor: Don’t worry, those freaky-haired twins won’t be bothering your weekends ever again.

Christian: THAT’S GREAT NEWS! And can you do ONE MORE THING before you GO?!

Doctor: This is going to be about giving Danny Minogue another facial expression isn’t it?

Christian: MAYBE!

Doctor: Well, you empty-headed disc jockey, I’m great mates with her sister and I’m not going to get on the wrong side of her by dissing her easily-forgotten sibling live over the airwaves. I mean, there’s no one listening bar some poor sod in Dulwich Hill Australia, but it’s the principle that counts.

Ewen: Yeah! Fight the machine, Doctor!

Doctor: Ewen, please, this is embarrassing enough.

Ewen: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Doctor: Don’t take the piss out of me, ya wee hippie! Off with you!

Christian: But you MUST SAY THE PUNCHLINE!!!

Doctor: [sighs] I’m. Not. A. Miracle. Worker. HAPPY?

(Ridiculous canned laughter begins.)

Announcer from Sapphire & Steel: YOU’VE BEEN LISTENING TO THE FIRST EVER DOCTOR WHO TWATTERSODE STARRING DAVID TENNANT AS THE DOCTOR, JOHN SIMMS AS THE BASTARD...

Doctor: I’m sorry, John!

Bastard: Tough!

Lucie: See ya at Christmas, Davey boy! Gimme love to Paul!

Doctor: Will do!

Announcer from Sapphire & Steel: ...SHERIDAN SMITH AS THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC DUCK, CHRISTIAN O’DONNELL AS THE TALENTLESS CRETIN ON THE RADIO, MARTIN DAJAN AS THE UNDERPAID SECURITY GUARD, MAGGIE DOYLE AS THE TRAVEL BIRD THAT DID THE URANUS JOKE AND ANDREW BAILEY AS THE ANNOUNCER FROM SAPPHIRE & STEEL!

(Another silly sound effect.)

All: Switch that fucking thing off!!

The End.

Book(s)/Other Related –
Dr Who & The Twitter of the Bastard
Absolut Who (Russian editions only)
When Very Boring DJs Go Slightly Peculiar

Fluffs – David Tennant seemed to finally snap during this story.

Goofs -
...well, Tennant considers the whole thing the biggest mistake of his career so anything else would be pretty much redundant, wouldn’t it?

Fashion Victims -
Watching the video feed reveals the entire cast were forced, sometimes at gunpoint, to appear naked during the recording of episode. So, yeah, we’re ALL victims this time.

Technobbable -
A "psycho-field neural perception filtration overdrive" is what makes organized fandom completely forget this exists. Presumably David Tennant and John Simms had it set up to erase the humiliation they experienced appearing in it?

Dialogue Disasters -
It’s a judgement call.

Dialogue Triumphs -
Your mileage may vary.

UnQuotable Quote -
Lucie: We ARE getting paid for this, right?

Links and References -
The Bastard asks after Jenny, specifically if she’s in a long-term relationship at the moment as Lucie fancied a threesome and the idea of banging the Doctor’s ex-companion and his daughter simultaneously "amused him". Both Lucie and the Doctor feel this is "fucking disturbing", even from the Bastard.

Untelevised Misadventures -
Once again, I myself turn out to be a semi-canonical companion. But I haven’t joined the military, been abandoned in a pocket universe, had my memory wiped or just out-and-out died horribly.
So.
Yay me.

Groovy DVD Extras -
This IS a groovy DVD extra. If you can find it. But don’t bother.

The Spite of Sparacus -
"These specials are the last Doctor Who RTD will produce, surely he should use them to go out on a high and show the very best of what he can do, like the brilliant piece of taut, scary, thought-provoking and challenging writing rather than the bombastic and rather silly populist, lightweight comedic pap that I hate. RTD shouldn’t CARE what mass audiences want and focus on things that I personally find interesting and remind me of 1975 when Doctor Who reached its quality peak. What is wrong with wanting the show to abandon thirty years of social development and the desires of contemporary casual viewers? Lightweight comedy is NOT proper Doctor Who! Tom Baker is not PART of the series because I say so! I HAVE A DEGREE!!!"

Viewer Quotes -

"Shit! He’s onto us! Quickly, to Brazil!"
- John and Edward (2009)

"You SURE this actually happened, Ewen? Outside your head, I mean?"
- Cameron J Mason (2010)

"Jedward would be brilliant in Doctor Who! They could play identical twin clones of Adric and then be forced at gunpoint to bugger each other live on TV while reciting dialogue from the Twin Double-D Lemma! My name? Um. Yellow Sticky Fluid!"
- Joshua Wynne-Cunt (2009)

"I could never buy that bed. Chris O’Connell has lain in it."
- Numerous fangirls on eBay (2010)

"It’s so funny! Wait, did I say "funny"? I meant... pathetic."
- the cast of The OC (2009)

David Tennant Speaks!
"I tried to face it like a man, this skit, this sketch, this... whatever! Call it what you will; it’s a career-ender."

Chris O’Connell Speaks!
"That bed was ridiculously small for a big guy like Dave Tennant – especially for fifteen years of fun! He says there were never more than two people on it at the same time when things got frisky, but I don’t buy it! If that bed could talk it would moan, 'Oooh, David' with ecstasy and there’s no denying it. I’m not obsessed with Tennant’s sex-life, though. I treat EVERYONE like this."

RTD Speaks!
"Don’t look at me, Skippy, I had NOTHING to do with this!"

Trivia -
This really happened. I didn’t make it up.

Rumors & Facts -

Having finished recording every last possible scene as Doctor Who, David Tennant immediately began a new career path of being an incredibly sexy and popular DJ. Unfortunately, the first radio station he got a job at was absoluteradio.co.uk, renowned for being edgy. And by "edgy" I mean crap. Stan Zemanak wouldn’t waste his time with those losers.

The first day on the job, Tennant decided to kill two birds with one stone and sell his 15-year-old wrought iron bed complete with 2005 Dustbin bedspread to the highest bidder for charity. Fellow DJ Christian O’Connell offered to publicize the whole thing for free using his inaccurately named "zoo room" in return for a favor.

It was something Tennant should never have agreed to.

O’Connell demanded in return that his radio show get all the publicity, and he would use it to channel his passionate hatred of the Jedward Twins on The X Factor.

It was O’Connell’s idea to do a live radio episode simultaneously podcast on the radio website, and also using a script composed entirely by the subnormal freaks on Twitter. He bullied and blackmailed Tennant into getting his co-stars Sheridan Smith and John Simm involved, and then demanded they all get naked, climb into the bed and then record the episode with no rehearsal whatsoever.

Thankfully the police arrived within ten minutes and O’Connell is now safely locked up and lobotomized in a Home for the Terminally Bewildered and being drip-fed industrial tranquilizers. He is no longer a threat to innocent people and David Tennant now runs a far more popular and professional radio interview show.

Well, he DID. Until he got bored, quit and fled to Chicago.

Watching the live footage of the episode actually makes the whole thing make even LESS sense than it did on audio! Even with the disturbing bit about all the actors recording naked it in the same bed, there’s weirdness like:

- Chris Moyles running in front of the camera and snapping a microphone stand over his knee while dressed as a nun;

- John Simm idly carving his initials into the wall with a working laser screwdriver prop;

- a group of clearly-drunk extras dressed as Autons stumbling into the room and falling unconscious to the floor;

- Sheridan Smith playing on her drum kit using only her breasts;

- David Tennant openly weeping as he flipped ahead in the script;

- Martin Dajan’s unmentioned ability to levitate, meaning he was flying around the room while acting (which admittedly explains his slightly distracted performance);

- the narrator throwing glass bottles at Christian O’Connell every time he spoke;

- and, of course, the hoards of Oompa-Loompas in the background.

David Tennant to continue his baffling desire to sing in every episode, if only to drone out the inappropriate sound effect of the TARDIS taking off in lieu of theme music...

"The Career Beyond" by Those Who Must Suffer Christian O’Connell.

"I can mime this at the start -
Easy peasy for two hearts!"
Said I, as I read the script
Then I twigged I’d been tricked!

One day I’ll forget this trial
And think of radio without bile
Start once again as a DJ
So much humiliation in only one day!

Every man must, soon or late,
Knock four times at the Gate:
When we weigh in - you and I -
How can career better die?

On this sunlit steeple chase
Out of time and lost in space
Mocking X Factor and Simon Cowell
It’s enough to make you howl!

"Special guest star?" I’m so sorry, mate!
At the time, all seemed straight -
Didn’t know the plan of that sod
Our only hope now is the mercy of God!

Carve in stone above my head
Words that old twat Christian said:
"Fame he sought, and fame he found,
In that AbsoluteRadio sound!"

10th Doctor - Soa Til

2010-02-04T22:20:00.000-08:00

Serial TTN-1 – Freak Encounter
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Last Straws Breaking

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

Serial TTN-1 – Freak Encounter -

The TARDIS has been stolen by a strange being resembling Patterson Joseph in the traditional fashion nightmare worn by the Time Lords of Gallifrey for press conferences. Once alone in his stolen time machine, the evil man peels off his suddenly-unconvincing Foamasi flesh mask and Time Lord regalia to reveal...

RORSCHACH FROM "WATCHMEN"!

Only... blue.

Alas, the TARDIS is as likely to arrive on Gallifrey as much as Gateshead, and so fetches up in Cardiff once more. As the alien wrestles with controls and babbles about how soon control over time and space will soon be his, a familiar shambling figure shambles with familiarity through the police box doors.

"The most obvious of felicitations to ye, shipmate," slurs the drunken pirate, aiming a loaded pistol at the alien. "Might I ask why you’ve parked on top of my nifty invisible lift to an underground base? My Egg McMuffins will be getting cold... hang on. This IS the TARDIS, isn’t it?" he notes, peering blearily around the control chamber.

"The TARDIS is mine!" shouts the alien.

"The BBC will have something to say about that, savvy?" belches the newcomer. "And where’s the Doctor anyway?"

"Er... I am the Doctor," the alien extemporizes unconvincingly.

"You didn’t do that contractual renewal thing, did you?" boggles the pirate, quietly being sick over the safety railings. "I must say, Doctor, that new form of yours is a bit... blue. Which is kind of hot. Works for me! I love the hat. And what’s up with your arm anyway?"

"Oh this old thing? It’s a neural probe that paralyzes my prey."

"Ah, so you finally dropped all that no weapons pacifism crap!" laughs the pirate. "Good on ya, Doctor! We can go on gun rampages together! You and me, mate, good things are gonna happen!"

"Um... sure..."

"Now THAT is fascinating," he slurs. "Coz if I know the Doctor, I know he can’t stand me being aboard his vessel. Can’t imagine why, but I’m fairly certain because I get more buxom wenches then what he does! So... who the hell are you REALLY?"

The alien laughs diabolically. "My name is Lentils from the planet Annatopia!" it reveals, aiming its weird gun/arm thing at the intruder. "With the TARDIS under my command, I shall wreak havoc across the cosmos, trading in arms!"

The newcomer blinks a lot. "You’re gonna sell weapons?"

"No, not that sort of arms trader! I literally trade in arms, legs, limbs and organs! I even do the occasional spine!"

"Ah. Bodysnatching. Savvy."

"I’m a not bodysnatcher! Are bodysnatchers unionized? A clue: no! I am a registered body part relocation manager! I work with organ donors across the cosmos, and I know that you, Captain Jack Sparrow, have 'donated' quite a few 'organs' in your time!"

"Have... we met before?" shrugs the Touchwood regular.

"Don’t pretend, Jack!" snaps the alien. "Remember that party on Alpha Sintauri?! That threesome we had with those suspicious-looking aliens? You gave me a whole pamphlet’s worse of venereal diseases that night!"

"Pah! I recall your exact words were 'Safe sex? Bullshit!'"

"I WAS DRUNK!"

"So was I."

"YOU’RE ALWAYS DRUNK!"

"That’s... true. But I’m not letting you nick the TARDIS, mate. I’m not letting you cause chaos across the time streams and manipulating the tapestry of history to your own end!" the pirate vows. "Cause if ANYONE’S going to be doing that... it’s going to be ME!"

"I’ll paralyze you and take your brain!" warns the alien.

"Get out or I’ll shoot!" warns the pirate, raising his gun.

"I’ll shoot first!"

"I’m warning you!"

"I’M warning YOU!"

"You’ll die, Lentils!!"

"YOU’LL die, Captain Jack!! Die NOW! And die FOREVER!!!"

Just at that moment the police box doors create over a spikey-haired Scotsman in a pinstripe suit enters, followed by two fly-headed alien Tritovores in boiler suits.

"Jings, John!" snaps David Tennant. "This IS a take, you know! We’re doing the Easter special! What the hell are you two doing on the set?"

Hastily, the pirate and the alien hide their weapons. "I was, er, just showing a friend of mine around the TARDIS," John Barrowman explains hastily, indicating the blue alien, who gives a little wave.

"My name is Lentils!" booms the alien.

"It’s Tim," Barrowman explains with a forced grin.

"I am from the planet Annatopia!" the alien tells David Tennant.

"Stoke on Trent," Barrowman explains.

"John? HOW many times do I have to say it!" demands TV’s Doctor Who. "**MY** TARDIS. Mine. Say sorry!"

"Sorry," chorus the duo, wandering off set.

"I’m watching you two," vows Tennant, before doing that dignified sniff thing that he does, before rehearsing the last scene of 'Escape to Danger on the Planet in Space Cutaway!'.

"He’s so cool," marvels the alien as they leave.

"I know," the pirate sighs in agreement. "I love him. Anyway, listen, where were we?" He aims his gun at the alien. "I’M GONNA GET YOU, EVIL LENTILS!!"

"I’M GONNA GET YOU, CAPTAIN JACK!!"

"OH YEAH!" retorts the pirate, making 'bang-bang!' noises as the duo start running around the corridors outside the corridor, miming a very intricate and detailed gunfight.

"Oh yeah! I’m immortal!"

"Zap-zap! I won’t give up!"

"Peow-peow! Boom!"

And people still wonder why Eccleston quit...

Book(s)/Other Related –
Doctor Who Watches The Watchmen Infinity Crisis Crossover Wars
The 2009 Doctor Who Special DVD Box Set Extras (under "Outtakes")
Behind the Scenes of Doctor Who (not suitable for family audiences)

Fluffs – David Tennant seemed to be sick of this story.

"I bet ye do this when everyone else has gone home like, don’t you, ya sad wee ponce ye!" mutters one of the Tritovores in the background.

Goofs -
WHAT DO YOU BLOODY RECKON?!?

Fashion Victims -
Lentils’ neon pink glowing stockings he wears over his hands.

Technobbable -
This entire scene "destabilizes the universal reintegrated canonicity" according to Ian Levine.

Dialogue Disasters -
None applicable here, as this is real live footage and no one actually wrote it.

Dialogue Triumphs -
See above, gormless.

UnQuotable Quote -
Are you even paying attention?

Links and References -
Captain Jack seems to have had a threesome with Alpha Sintauri from the Jon Pertwee Paddington stories, so we now know there’s been at least ONE occasion where Jack wasn’t the biggest prick in the room.

Untelevised Misadventures -
Tragically, this WASN’T one of them.

Groovy DVD Extras -
Doctor Who Confidential tries to justify how some random guy John Barrowman knew was able to get on set, stuff up filming and then screen the entire thing on "Tonight’s The Night".

Psychotic Nostalgia -
"I think I hate Tim now."

Viewer Quotes -

"Ah, the ebullient Captain Jack Bannerman, played by John Harkness stars in yet ANOTHER trendy, slick, fast-paced visual spectacular relying more on extravagant special effects and celebrity guest stars than plot content which will leave any and all traditionalists expecting decent 1970s-style Doctor Who to be in for a shock! It’s as bad as those bloody awful original novels published by Virgin that so alienated myself and found favor with those new devotees so grounded in over-elaborate-American-sci-fi they don’t know that TRUE Doctor Who ended in 1977!! As I have said since 2005, it remains to be seen how much longer this vastly different version of 'Who' will last."
- Gabriel "RTD is an abomination against all mankind" Chase (2009)

"My God, this is mind numbing shit. The best bit was where the audience laughed over half the dialogue. I suppose doing this kind of show is the reason John Barrowman is rich and famous and I’m not..."
- Nev Fountain (2009)

"It was good, and strangely moving, hearing DT, so close to his
end as the Doctor, say 'My Tardis. Mine.' It brought a slight, tiny tear to my eye, knowing that the end is coming. Oh GOD! David’s 'dignified sniff' thing makes me wail like a soul in torment! DON’T LEAVE, DAVID! PLEASE! DON’T SEND US BACK TO THE DARKNESS! STAY ONE MORE YEAR!"
- Average Fangirl Response (2009)

"I notice that UNLIKE Afterlife, Time Crush or Prom of the Grinch, this episode has had almost no advance publicity and nobody seems to be looking forward to it with any enthusiasm. I doubt it’s really worth sitting through Tonight’s The Night to see, as it is unlikely to feature Ben Chatham. I shall NOT be watching MORE THAN TWICE!"
- Sparacus "Flamingo" Jones (2009)

"Oh, so Barrowman thinks RTD is the godfather of Doctor Who, does he? Well, LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING..."
- Sydney Newman via ouiji board (2010)

"They mentioned my hometown Stoke on Trent! JOYGASM!"
- some dude who lives in Stoke on Trent presumably (2009)

"You can’t fire guns inside the TARDIS! What about the State of Temporal Grace as mentioned in 1976?! That does it. Freak Encounter is not canon, no matter how much money is spent on it! Indeed, what IS the canon-GBP exchange rate these days? I think it’s two canons to a penny-farthing, but I could be wrong..." - Ewen Campion-Clarke (2009)

David Tennant Speaks!
"What’s depressing is that Tim bloke was actually a better actor than most of the people working at BBC Wales. He made it look very easy. We actors spend all our time trying to convince people our job is very hard to impress people and make them go to bed with us. Wee blue bastard ruined everything, pretty much. I quit!"

John Barrowman Speaks!
"You know, they said if I ever screen any more of my behind the scenes antics on TV, they’ll cancel Touchwood immediately! I mean, like they think I would somehow NOT want that the happen! HAHAH!"

Tim Ingham Speaks!
"Not only should guinea pigs and other small, furry and generally useless animals be cut up for the benefit of us, their lords and masters, but they should also be filleted and sautéed in a nice Merlot! And appearing in Doctor Who was very nice, too."

RTD Speaks!
"I don’t mind Freak Encounter, because it should surprise the audience with what weird shit John Barrowman gets up to on set, because, you know, what he does freaks me out every single day. I’ve been working here for about six years now and it’s still amazing to see what that man does when he should be working. I saw him forcing a sheep in a bondage mask face down into the Dustbin prop just this morning. Why? I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know. I don’t WANT to know. Or that time he got hold of Nick Briggs’ ring modulator and spent fourteen hours doing Miss Slocum impressions through it..."

Trivia -
The strange noise that John Barrowman and his buddy Tim Ingham make is supposed to be Murray Gold’s "All The Strange, Strange Creatures" as background music. Not a lot of people know that.

Rumors & Facts -

Furious at his failure to get the part of the Eleventh Doctor, Patterson Joseph took his revenge out on all of Doctor Who by ruining the end of the 2008 Christmas Special, The Michaelmas Imposter. Joseph had taken matters into his own hands so the story now ended with him, in full Time Lord regalia, stealing the TARDIS and marooning the Doctor in Victorian Cardiff.

RTD had been forced to substantial rewrite to the following Easter special, Escape to Danger on the Planet in Space Cutaway!, to explain how the hell the Doctor was able to get from a hot air balloon in 1851 to a London double-decker bus in 2010. But worse he had to reveal WHO THE HELL was the black guy dressed as a Time Lord who stole the TARDIS in the first place.

RTD considered many possibilities – the spirit of the soon-to-be-born Eleventh Doctor; the regenerated Bastard; the return of the meddling monk; Adam Mitchell... but finally decided that he was sick of having to continually rewrite his final material for Doctor Who because Patterson bleeding Joseph was too crap to be the main star. Instead, he decided to use one of the outtakes for Escape to Danger on the Planet in Space Cutaway! where David Tennant discovered John Barrowman and his latest boytoy mucking about on the TARDIS set and reveal that Joseph’s character was that very same boytoy.

Since such a scene would demolish the fourth wall and then defecate all over the loose bricks and mortar, RTD knew that any fans who wanted to see what happened to the 'Patterson Joseph steals the TARDIS plot' would discover that the entire show was a fake and then vanish in a puff of logic, uncanonizing Joseph’s character even more than if he hadn’t appeared in the show at all!

The big gay Welshman laughed last and laughed loudest! But not laughed campest, as John Barrowman was present and his girlish giggling simply has no equal on this Earth.

The original intention was for this scene to be shown in the pre-credit sequence for the next special, The Water-Fights of Mars, but Barrowman thought it was so cool he stole the footage and screened on Tonight’s The Night (yet another talent-based TV show in Barrowman’s ever-growing light entertainment empire threatening to swallow all of British television). As such, the sixth episode of Tonight’s The Night was the most high-rated in history, as millions of fans sat, slack-jawed as David Tennant threw a temper tantrum in front of two human-sized flies and Rorschach from "Watchmen" about Barrowman shagging people on the TARDIS set when the lights go out.

Fans everywhere started hemorrhaging on the spot, while those still left alive struggled to try and retcon this mother into submission. Soon fan fics began to appear revealing this scene was actually a plot for Touchwood (though sometimes for The Sarah-Jane Misadventures) with Captain Jack Sparrow bravely trying to prevent the stolen TARDIS falling into the hands... or hand... of the evil alien Lentils, before the whole thing turns out to be a really freaky dream in the mind of Ben Elton.

Eventually someone came up with the idea of just pretending it never happened and everyone lived happily ever after as long as they weren’t actually dead.

Many people assume that Tim/Lentils is actually Tim Minchin, but actually it could not be him as after the last time he encountered John Barrowman there is an exclusion order between the pair of them, allowing Minchin the freedom require to compose songs for David Tennant to continue his baffling desire to sing in every episode, even demented outtakes like this one...

"Captain Jack Is Very Unprofessional" by the BBC Wales Drama Dept.

You burden me with your presence
Even though you’ve got your own show!
You’re always larking and mucking about
But don’t listen when I say "NO!"

You say to me I’m not much fun
But when I am, I’m a fool
After three series I’ve realized
You’re just a drunken tool!

The lines you say...
Your adlibs just give you away!
The scenes you wreck!
You’re UNBELIEVABLE!!

You burden me with your cameos
By upstaging me more than mine
You can’t even let me do a song
That will easily rhyme...

The lines you say...
Your adlibs just give you away!
The scenes you wreck!
You’re SO UNBELIEVABLE!!

10th Doctor - The Next Doctor (ii)

2010-02-04T21:27:00.001-08:00

Book(s)/Other Related -
The Nuts Doctor
There Can Only Be One David Playing The Doctor...
Dr Who & The Twelve Upgrades of Christmas! (Canada Only)
The Superiority Complex Audio Dramas Doctor Who Range

Roots –
Everyone thought RTD was ripping off There Can Only Be One Doctor with the idea of a con man who tries to pretend he’s an all-knowing time traveler to screw terrified governments out of cash to defeat aliens – but really, he was ripping off Inuit in Hull about a complete sad-act fan who actually thinks he IS such a person. Except it turns out there’s someone even MORE pathetic than Nicholas Briggs... Dave Segal.

Fluffs - David Tennant seemed SCAD-shitless for most of this story.
"He is NOT the next Doctor! He’s a very naughty boy!"

"The-rusted-chains-of-prison-moons-are-shattered-by-the-sun. I-walk-around-horizons-change-the-tournaments-begun. The-purple-piper-plays-his-tune-the-choir-softly-sing-three-lullabyes-in-an-ancient-tongue-for-THE-COURT-OF-THE-CYBER-KING!"

Goofs -
How EXACTLY did Hamilton having a temper tantrum destroy the Cybermen?
I suppose the set dressers deserve credit for realizing that there weren’t baubles and lights on Christmas trees in the 19th century, but rather slices of orange dangling from the branches. But they were REAL oranges, not CHOCOLATE oranges! God damn it.
Dave Segal’s sonic screwdriver is Phillips head in some scenes and a novelty vibrator in others.
Several of the orphans can be heard complaining this story is rubbish because Donna Noble isn’t in it.
The past Doctor montage doesn’t actually show any past Doctors – unless I’ve been really, REALLY wasted all these years and the true canonical Doctors were Simon Callow, Simon Russell Beale, Ian Hart, Daniel Day Lewis, Rufus Sewell, Graeme Garden, David Warner, Douglas Camfield, Mark Gatiss, Patterson Joseph and Peter Cushing...
How come there’s a tower bridge in 1851 when it wasn’t completed in 1894? I’m beginning to think this story isn’t 100 per cent historically accurate! And after all the trouble they went to creating a giant kaiju-sized robot of death, they get a crucial historical detail like that wrong... it totally ruins the credibility of the rest of the episode!

Fashion Victims -
Dara’s low cut school girl outfit and crotchless, spiked red leather underwear. To quote the Doctor: "Can I say I completely disapprove?"

Technobbable -
"Wait a minute! I think I’ve got it! We’re looking at it the wrong way. Instead of thinking of the polarity of the neutron flow as a thing, a phenomenon, think of it as a being! Let's call it Fred. Now look at it: Fred IS the polarity of the neutron flow! If the polarity of the neutron flow IS the polarity of the neutron flow, then what is the polarity of a neutron flow? AND CAN IT BE REVERSED?!"
"...what in the name of god are you talking about?"

Dialogue Disasters -

Dave Segal: Ta-da! Sonic screwdriver!
Doctor: Is that your sonic screwdriver?
Dave Segal: Yes.
Doctor: But that’s... a screwdriver. An ordinary screwdriver. How is it ANY WAY sonic? Honestly, you think Character Options weren’t making perfect replicas by the dozen for crying out loud!

Dave Segal: On Gallifrey we had a saying: "The chosen choose to be chosen."
Doctor: Um. No. That’s the Vulcans.
Dave Segal: I only said we say it a lot. I didn’t say we made it up.
Doctor: Jings, you really ARE pathetic, aren’t you?

Dave Segal: Look beyond the scarf and coat and frizzy hair and book of Tom Baker quotations and you will see that I am a unique and original incarnation of... What’s that noise?!
Doctor: Me. Sniggering.
Dave Segal: How would you like a trip to the sun?!?
Doctor: ...what the hell are on about? Is that supposed to be a threat or something? Jings, give me strength!

Dara: My people! Like, why aren’t they rejoicing?
Cyberman: Because-you-are-stomping-on-their-houses-in-a-bloody-great-robot-of-course! Silly-woman.

The Doctor’s speech about his lack of companions -
"They leave. Because they should. Because they find someone else. And some of them tend to die horribly in a terrible miscalculation of mine. But I suppose, in the end, some of them break my hearts. And others just won’t get the fucking message!!"

Dave Segal: This is hardy the right time to go through my social calendar!
Doctor: Why not?
Dave Segal: Because... because I don’t HAVE a social calendar.

Priest: Dressed like a harlot!
Dara: Oh, and how would YOU know? ZING! Man, this old priest HASN’T been soliciting prostitutes! Now you’ll lose all cred in front of his posse! It’s funny, now I think of it, but in all these years not one of you has asked my first name. It’s DARA!
Priest: Ah, good to know. Fuck you, Dara.

Dialogue Triumphs -

Dara: But you promised me! Oh my God, you so totally said that I’d never ever ever be converted!
Cyberman: That-was-designated-a-lie. Bitch.

Dave Segal: I seem to be telling you everything... as if you have engendered.. some sort of... trust. Is this... what you humans call... 'love'?
Doctor: No. You’re just very, very easy to manipulate.

Dave Segal: Ladies and Gentlemen, I am the man who saved you all! I am the Doctor! Know that I have been reusing old dialogue and plot devices a thousand times but not once, no sir, not once, not ever have I ever been thanked for providing such high quality entertainment! But no more. For I say to you on this Michaelmas morn, "DAVE SEGAL ROCKS! DAVE SEGAL ROCKS!" Come on, everybody! I am CANONICAL, godammit!

Dara: I could do this forever.
Dave Segal: Good. Because if we manage another year we’ll have been producing SCADs non-stop longer than the BBC has been producing Doctor Who non-stop!
Dara: As long as you use OUR definition of "non-stop".
Dave Segal: Precisely, Brotodac. Precisely. Do you realize, Dara, that once the fan base accepts us as the one true source of Doctor Who material, we will have the power to do anything! Anything at all! Absolute power over every particle of the franchise, as of that moment. Are you LISTENING to the SCADs, Dara? Because if you’re not, I can MAKE you listen to them! I can do anything! ONCE THOSE CRETINS ON OUTPOST GALLIFREY REALIZE THE TRUTH, THERE WILL BE NO SUCH THING AS FREE WILL! THERE IS ONLY ONE WILL IN THE UNIVERSE! MINE! BECAUSE I AM THE ONE TRUE DOCTOR! NICHOLAS BRIGGS CAN GO HANG!!!
Dara: Oh! My! God! Megalomania is like so totally random!

Dara: There is hot pie for everyone if you help switch on the giant robot and help me destroy civilization as you know it.

Dave Segal: Doctor! Don’t you have something to live for?
Doctor: More than you do, ya spineless goon!

Dara: You can’t do this to me!
Cyberman: Incorrect. It-is-done.
Dara: But I would have totally slept with you anyway!
Cybermen: Your-ego-is-riddled-with-stupidity-and-inadequacies. These-have-no-place-in-a-Cyber-libido. Lack-of-acting-talent-has-tormented-you-your-whole-life! Now-you-will-be-set-free! This-will-give-you-on-screen-charisma-and-presence!
Dara: You’re not even, like, asking permission! Have you no decency?
Cyberman: Correct. The-Queen-Bitch-will-roll-over-tonight.
Cybermen: All-hail-the-Queen-Bitch.

Doctor: So YOU’RE the Doctor. The next Doctor? The next-but-one? A future Doctor anyway that just so happens to be an exact mimic of a past Doctor? What the hell happened to turn you into such an unimaginative carbon copy?
Dave Segal: I’m not entirely sure. It happened in a story called "Crucible of Error" which hasn’t been shown yet due to quality issues.
Doctor: Riiight. So, how did you regenerate? Nasty incident with a pool cue?
Dave Segal: May have been. Then again I may have just tripped over a brick.
Doctor: Jings. That IS embarrassing.
Dave Segal: But it would have been painless.
Doctor: Depends on the brick.
Dave Segal: There are worse ways to go.
Doctor: Um. No. Actually I can say with honest sincerity that tripping over a brick would be the worst way to go.
Dave Segal: Would you like a jelly baby?
Doctor: ...don’t change the subject!
Dave Segal: You ask a lot of questions.
Doctor: Yeah... you’re not used to creative criticism, are you?

UnQuotable Quote -
The QueenBitch: BITE-MY-COLOSSAL-METAL-ASS!

Links and References -
The Doctor mentions Sally Sparrow and the Weeping Angels in the vain hope there’s a new series episode Dave Segal might like:
"I’m getting a blank. Ooh, Blank? Did you see that one?"

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor speaks nostalgically of his last visit to 1851 Cardiff and the truly disturbing life swaps he, Charley Pollard and Cecil Rizz Esquire got up to ("Other Lies" by Witchfinder Matthew Hopkins).

Groovy DVD Extras -
RealMedia files of SCAD title sequences, usually 410 times less visually coherent and interesting than the ones they’re nakedly ripping off. The Vincent Savage version with Jon Pertwee gangsta rapping DOES have a certain something, it should be noted.

The Spite of Sparacus -
"I was not impressed by the pre-credit sequence which was silly and comedic and doesn’t bode well for the whole episode, which I refuse to watch an average, too-fast-paced, wafer-thin-plotted new series romp panto-Cyber-dogs and a lack of Adam Rickitt. I am not a complete knobhead and am well aware that there may well be explanations given in the full episode that I don’t yet know. I openly accept that I don’t know much about the plot of this episode and have no intention to change this. But I said any episode without Adam Rickitt would be utterly crap and my advance fears were proven to be correct! I was accused of jumping the gun and I’d say I was pretty near the mark, wouldn’t you?

My point is that the two minutes I HAVE seen strongly suggest that there is a massive problem with Cybermen from Irth arriving on Earth in the 19th century? This makes no sense! And, yes, the story might explain such a potential plot hole, but I didn’t watch it, so the problem still stands. It’s not half as pleasing as Meg Lost, is it? I mean, the Doctor just HAPPENS to land the TARDIS conveniently at the exact time and place that the Cybermen are mucking about?! "Birrova coincidence or whaa?" as a chav would say. In fact, the Doctor is ALWAYS landing where there is adventure which is ridiculously too far-fetched and massively coincidental! It defies logic and undermines the quality and believability of the episode, making it so hard to take seriously! FUN IS IMMATURE!

Around 46 hours before it actually DID screen, I got very excited about this story and bought myself a bottle of Laphroaig single malt to enjoy when it was on, but I drained it one gulp and only later regained consciousness after the stomach pump. And while I was under the influence I reportedly tried to kill Russell T Davies. This sounds like a possible damage limitation exercise because it’s obvious I would have politely and calmly advised Russell to replace the alt-universe Cybermen with another alien race or robots rather than trying to beat him to death. That Welsh fag is trying to unseat my from my high reputation as the living heart of Colchester’s VIBRANT Whovian community! Yes, there’s me and a Goth who collects DWM back issues and has put a restraining order on me to come no closer than 200 miles from his disused side-street comic store!"

Viewer Quotes -

"Overall, The Michaelmas Imposter is the weakest of the Christmas specials. And as for Dave Segal, well, no words can really describe how bad he is... Blegh." - Jym de Natale (2009)

"I wish RTD would give up this tiresome habit of DEFINITELY KILLING OFF MONSTERS/VILLAINS FOREVER AND EVER only to have some fall through a crack in time or whatever and survive every bloody time. It worked reasonably well in Dustbin –vs- Cyberman but now it’s just irritating! Oh for the good old days of JST where they didn’t even BOTHER to give an explanation and just insulted the intelligence of the audience? The Michaelmas Imposter is crude fan fiction, not a bit as good as my divine work The Twin Doctors or Equilateral, my new SCAD story! David Segal, a man with a vision big fat gay Welshmen can only DREAM OF!"
- K.Y. Ron Mallet (2009)

"Is Dave Segal truly the Doctor? I say, no, the Matrix is lying and Janet killed them all! This is my new answer for anything concerning Doctor Who." - Charles Daniels (2008)

"Nice twist! So David Segal is the Doctor in his mind, but a Doctor subconsciously playing the part of Charles Bronson in Deathwish VI: Cybermanslaughter! Go get them, mate! Rip them a new one! Let’s have a three minute massacre scene set to Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade!" - Nigel Verkoff while high on eggnog (2008)

"The word 'pathetic' is overused with regards to the SCADs. But I do think they merit it." - Kevin Rudd (2009)

"ALLIANCE SCUM! I KILL YOU THIS MORNING! I KILL YOU STONE DEAD! I GOT A BEAR BECAUSE OF IT! Sorry, am I going off topic? YOU HORDE SCUM!! YOU WILL TASTE THE STEEL OF MY AXES, HORDE! BY THE BLESSING OF NARRU, I WILL HAVE REVENGE FOR MY FALLEN LEADER!"
- Chip Jamison (2009)

"There’s obviously nothing interesting to say about The Michaelmas Imposter, so why do people keep asking me to review it? Just because I’m an incredibly well-known and messianically-popular internet critic doesn’t mean I have to act according to YOUR ridiculous preconceptions! I don’t have to do ANYTHING! And yet BBC Wales still don’t get down on their knees and beg me to run Doctor Who like it should be run! What kind of insane reality must I live in??" - Lawrence Miles (2007)

"My sister, who is a huge fan, hated it. My dad said it was the worst hour of his life. My grandma left half way through then complained about crap on the TV all the time. My mum kept reminding me about how we were missing whatever on other channels. My brother left after about 40 minutes saying it was boring. I hate my family. If I could be arsed, I’d kill the lot of them with an axe." - Dave Restal (2009)

"Doctor Who could only manage a paltry 11.7 million viewers on the ONE DAY of the YEAR when they are GUARANTEED lots of viewers? What is the deal with that? It seems like Doctor Who really is losing its grip and appeal with the viewing public! They should call it a day and allow the show to fade away gracefully! The public have seen through RTD’s deceitful attempts to achieve high viewing figures! YOU GOT BEATEN! AT CHRISTMAS! BY ANIMATED PLASTICINE FIGURES! TOTAL EMBARRASSMENT!"
- Nick Parkes (2008)

"The bleary-eyed, nose-gloope evacuation and compromised memory of Lemsip, Aspirin, galleons of Benylin Blackcurrant cough syrup have become a distant experience. Like a sumptuous Plum Pudding, The Michaelmas Imposter teems with richness, depth, lovingly-prepared with a sought-after sixpence within. The ensemble piece satisfactorily resolved itself like the dancing blue flame atop an ignited alcohol consumed previously mentioned Plum Pudding. An audience replete!"
- The Unpublished Target Novel "Doctor Who and the Cooking Analogies"

"So anyway The Michaelmas Imposter has a bogus Doctor, a pastiche-y Victorian setting AND is meant to finally do justice to the Cybermen? I doubt it. I really do. And I know Ewen will write up one of his BF guides about it and mock the Cybermen for not being worth a story on their own and being too pissweak next to the Dustbins and in some ways he has a point but it almost depresses me for seeming to be so near the mark to fandom's attitude towards the Doctor’s silver nemesis. I’m a right bastard so MAKE ME SOMETHING BETTER!!!"
- Jared "No Nickname" Hansen (2009)

"So rich in invention, it’s a dance with God. Any God. Your God. The Next God. Heroin makes me happy in ways RTD and Doctor Who never could."
- another insightful Eye of Saurus editorial (2008)

"I must say that I was a little disappointed by this episode. It could have been a grim epic of despair and personal damnation, but it ended up stuff children were allowed to watch! If only the Doctor had allowed all the small children to die, and then Dave Segal committed suicide when the Cybermen liquefied vast hordes of people in blood-caked gore and Dara should have been converted with her blood drained, flesh torn away and brain surgery, not a stupid tinfoil hat! Doctor Who shouldn’t be bloodless and upbeat, it should show no mercy to anyone or anything! EVERYONE knows The Wizard of Oz would have been better had the Witch killed Dorothy and raped her corpse!"
- the truly terrifying Risk Manager who I fear I may have met at a convention once (I think he was the one jacking off to Touchwood screaming "Oh, yeah, you like it, don’t you Owen, you dirty slut!")

"Ice cold killer brings death’s sweet darkness. Robots sanction my extreme unction. Clockwork ciphers delete my soul. Tell me: who lies dead among the Cybermen? The answer? Dave Segal. But how long can they keep him underground?" - Black Science Geezer (2009)

"Oh, well burn in hell you shitty fan audios! ALLONZEEE!"
- Andrew Beeblebrox (2008)

David Tennant Speaks!
"Ever since I became the Doctor, people always ask me when I’m leaving. Ah. To leave, or not to leave: that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fandom, or to stay longer than Tom Baker himself and, by typecasting, end my career? To be, or not to be, that is the question. Well. More of *A* question really. Not THE question. Because, jings, I mean, there are billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, jings, you’re looking at numbers that are positively astronomical! I’ll be back in 2009, though. I can’t imagine ANYONE else playing him – I’m too self-centered, but one day someone else will have as much fun as I do. In 2010, for example."

Dave Segal Speaks!
"I know I want to see Dave Segal again! Who else does? He was a better Doctor than that loser geek Tennant, not to mention a better actor with such emotional range! I for one would love to see another story featuring him – he’s a great character who deserves to return! Hell, this loveable character deserves better than a guest spot in Touchwood – he deserves his OWN SPIN OFF! Bah, for such a cracking performance as the Doctor, there will be mass suicides when it becomes clear he is not taking over the role for real! Anyone who says otherwise is a godless heathen, a despicable disciple of Satan! My name? Vincent Savage!"

Sheri Devine Speaks!
"Miss Tartigan was an amazing villain with a grandiose modus operandi! I was gutted that she exploded at the end, rather than becoming an ongoing character a bit like the Borg Queen or Margaret Thatcher! What a SEXY performance TINGED WITH RED! Yes, and Dara deserves to be made a full-time companion! She’s everything a companion needs to be – AND MORE! Doctor Who can show us all what her character can do! She’s fantastic, she’s got great hair, and she’s properly young and feisty! And even though everyone is saying she was a complete disappointment, just like the story as a whole, well... YOU SMELL! Or is it me? Yes, it’s me. Oh, hang on, my Colostomy Bag’s come loose again..."

Russell T Davies Speaks!
"It’s not exactly subtle, but then I’m a firm believer that there are some people in this world who cannot comprehend the concept of subtlety. And some of those losers are in this story. Can you spot them? But something you probably HAVEN’T spotted is that brazier. Keep an eye out for it. It’s in every single bloody scene. I think that brazier might be an evil enemy of the Doctor. It even LOOKS like Dustbin! But, of all the hot Cyber action and a crew on the brink of exhaustion, the biggest unanswered question is 'Why didn’t the history books mention a giant robot in 1851?' The answer is, of course, this is a work of FICTION you morons. And besides, it would make the SCAD losers canonical if it was!"

Steven Moffat Speaks!
"I’m going to be honest and fans may hate me for it, but they have to remember that I am a fan MYSELF. A proper list-making-borderline-autistic fan. I am head mingmong. I’m King Ming. And this story completely sucked. I’m off to watch Season 18 again when they all took it seriously and the companions wore school girl outfits they could actually carry off without looking like a dirty whore grandma!"

Robert Shearman Speaks!
"The Michaelmas Imposter was a great story, but when it comes to two Doctors teaming up to fight ridiculously camp monsters I prefer A Hitch with the Snotarans. A story which, I’m quite sure all TRUE fans will recognize as a bona fide classic. Does anyone REALLY think David Segal’s performance will be as fondly remembered in minutes to come as the towering offered by Gareth Jenkins? I think not."

Trivia -
According to the 2009 census, not a single human being on the planet has actually heard of the SCADs and thus the satire is totally wasted.

Rumors & Facts -
As had become tradition at Christmas, children everywhere were listening out for that telltale sound that promises delight, excitement and the best present you can wish for – no, not the sleigh bells and the clomp of reindeer hooves on the roof, but the comforting vworping of the TARDIS materializing in snowy Victorian Cardiff full of well-fit young girls with huge boobs. The presents and the family and the turkey are all well and good but what we all REALLY care about is evening rolling around so we can shut everyone up and settle down in front of the Doctor Who Christmas Special to see psycho machine-gun-wielding aliens and sexy babes copping off with David Tennant.

To think that in a mere three years that this series has become a cornerstone of the biggest day in TV with full frontal nudity, werewolves, zombies, Kylie Minogue and some truly filthy sexual connotations. Oh, we are so FICKLE nowadays!

After doing Christmas specials in contemporary Cardiff, historical Cardiff, and alien recreations of the Titanic several million miles directly above contemporary Cardiff, it was clear that the next one would have to be slightly different so no one could accuse the production team of being stale and running out of steam – which Doctor Who had been regularly accused of every day since 1962, technically before it ever even existed.

Once more, focus group Hidden Persuaders PLC insisted that the next Christmas special should really have been shown not at Christmas but on the 23rd of November 2008 to celebrate Doctor Who’s fortieth anniversary. This time they also wanted the story to not only feature David Tennant but also Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston and Mark Gattis.

Executive Producer Russell T Davies insisted he was doing a story about Cybermen in Victorian Cardiff and the focus group immediately demanded it feature the Doctor calling upon Rose and Touchwood to help him take down the Cyber army. In fact, they suggested the Christmas special should be cancelled to finally make Rose Tyler Décolletage with Billie Piper trying to hunt down the Doctor through time and defeat the evil Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts with the aide of the Valeyard.

At this point RTD told Hidden Persuaders PLC they were no longer required for Doctor Who, indeed they never HAD been required, and unless they left the premises immediately, he would hunt them all down and kill them with Terileptil hunting knives borrowed from Robert Shearman.

While looking through his own DWMs for inspiration, RTD was impressed when he discovered a comic strip called "Social Lives" where the Seventh Doctor and Ace visit a multi-versal piss-up at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and encounter the Nicholas Briggs Doctor and Ria from the infamously unpopular Oddly Visual audio range. Delighted at the horror of having a sadact fan appear as the Doctor in a proper story, RTD immediately came up with a cliffhanger where David Tennant regenerated into Nicholas Briggs.

It then struck the writer that he’d already used that in the 2008 season finale, and he’d have to come up with something else. Still mildly infatuated with the idea of incredibly bad fan audio Doctors appearing in the canonical TV series, RTD idly surfed the Doctor Who Web Guide (Tetraptaryarbus Version 2.0) and stumbled across the SCADs, the Superiority Complex Audio Dramas, a long-running fan-made audio series which had remained in almost completely obscurity since 1982, even AFTER the invention of the internet and online fandom.

Amazed at the handful of rather peculiar American fans who, after over 27 years of production had yet to find original music, plots or even halfway decent actors and their vociferous abuse of him personally – not only was RTD gay, he was Welsh, talented and made Doctor Who stories that people actually bothered to remember. These were three very good reasons to despise him utterly and consider him unworthy of writing for the great Who franchise, which the SCADs seemed to think was their property and theirs alone.

RTD decided that this was just what he needed: an arrogant bunch of talentless so-and-sos humiliated in front of millions of viewers worldwide as their staggering lack of ability was demonstrated in BBC high-definition for the rest of time. After changing the setting from Milliways to Cardiff, Nick Briggs and Ria to Dave Segal and Dara, and Beep the Meep for a Cyberman invasion phalanx, "SCAD This!!!" was fully transformed into RTD’s next BAFTA-award-winner.

Originally entitled Intense Encounters With The Doctor Who Wasn’t The Other Doctor, the storyline was then known as Attack of Mister Stompy, The Enemy of Death, A Tale of Two Fanbases, The Waking Elevation Surge of the Cybermen. When Benjamin Cook suggested to make the title more honest, so it was renamed Is He? Isn't He? You Decide!, then The Twist Is There Is No Twist before finally settling for Let’s See How High We Can Push These Ratings Using a Cheap Bait and Switch. At the last minute, however, RTD remembered the tradition of inaccurately titling Christmas episodes "The Michaelmas Noun" and changed the title again.

Chosen to play the deranged Not-The-Next Doctor was Martin Clunes, but he sniffed in distaste at the measly thirty six thousand pounds offered for his services and reminded RTD he had never really forgiven the previous regime for the ignominies he suffered in the Peter Davison episode "Snakedate" where he had been forced to wear a foam snake outfit and have a romantic dinner with the Fifth Doctor. Ultimately, Dave Segal was offered the chance to play himself and, like the idiot he is, he accepted the job with no questions asked. Sheri Devine was simply kidnapped from the old people’s home she was staying at without her permission or consent – not that she was lucid enough to give either.

RTD researched deeply the SCADs’ back catalogue... well, he looked them up on a fan wikipedia site, read a review and managed to sit through one of their many remakes of Return of the Cybermen. His mild dislike of the audios grew to the point RTD also considered writing a full-length BBC Books novel, set in the midst of that brief scene where the Doctor crushes Dave Segal’s pathetic illusions where the Doctor pops out back to the TARDIS and has a proper adventure with Magenta Price, Katie Darling, Heather McCrimmon, Will Spender, Wolfgang Ryter and basically confirm that Doctor Who Adventures magazine, Bottles In Time comic, VR Doctor Who online and DWM Comic Strip were all canon. Unlike the SCADs. He then decided this was giving the American fundamentalist losers even more credit than they deserved and completely forgot about the idea, which survives only as an email to Benjamin Cook which he completely forgot to delete.

To cut to the chase, RTD was more than confident that he could do the SCADs justice by giving them as much effort and thought as they gave their own work. Which was why he had the whole script for the story printed in his book, The Welshman’s Tale, which was released some six months before the episode was screened. Fans everywhere read the script and assumed that it was a cunning double bluff and no GENUINE episode could feature such pathetic, foul-minded and talentless creatures of fandom (well, not after Love & Pizzas, anyway). Frankly, the idea of people capable of recording such perverse rubbish, to have written for common denominators lower than man has ever gone, to have plunged the depths of degradation just in order to remake 1975 Tom Baker stories... IT JUST **HAD** TO BE MADE UP!!

Convinced that this script was a pack of lies, fans began to speculate as to what RTD could be hiding – never suspecting that the big guy had broken a habit of a lifetime and was, just this once, telling them the absolute gospel truth. Even the production team suspected some kind of bluff and patiently waited for the revelation that the next special would be a direct rewrite of the previous one, The Michaelmas cruise, only with Cheryl Cole instead of Kylie Minogue and set on board the Hindenburg rather than the Titanic.

Soon, rumors began to abound that this story would be the final one of the Tenth Doctor, triggering his regeneration into to the Robert Carlyle Doctor. This turned out to be a complete lie spread about by Mad Larry the Pirate King, and thanks to an internet variation of Chinese Whispers, word spread that the Eleventh Doctor would also be Harry Lloyd (who would team up with Jenny and Felicity Kendall) while simultaneously also being Daniel Radcliffe, David Thewlis, Rhys Ifans, Lilly Allen and John Simm as a parallel universe Doctor who regenerates into two beings, good and evil, who then body swap for no apparent reason.

These rumors had amazing staying power thanks to the sheer bloody mindedness of fans. They still believed them when David Tennant announced it was "a load of old bollocks". They still believed it when The Michaelmas Imposter came and went with absolutely no such regeneration. They still believed it when David Tennant properly announced his departure and they still believed it when Matt Smith was chosen as his successor as part of the carefully-calculated BBC strategy codenamed "Operation Cobra". They still believe it right now. Bunch of subnormal freaks. Avoid them say I.

The special was filmed during the April of 2008 at Gloucester Cathedral, St Woolos Cemetery in Newport, and in the streets of Gloucester, where shooting was hampered by up to 1000 onlookers – all of which were convinced that this was a con job and not only was this story a bluff, but that David Tennant’s presence was a trick to keep the Nick Briggs Doctor’s arrival in Journey till Dawn a surprise.

We were really in denial back then for some reason, huh?

In desperation to complete filming without boneheads shouting, "Get real! You’re fooling no one! Where’s Cheryl Cole?", the cast and crew retreated to the sets for Touchwood and turn their main setting, the Touchwood Hub, into a generic Victorian OHS deathtrap by the cunning use of Indian drapes, a lava lamp and some coal. Nevertheless, John Barrowman regularly interrupted proceedings by trying to have sex with the Cyberman extras, insisting that this wasn’t a REAL story, just a film set to trick spoiler-hunting internet fans and Sun journalists.

The Michaelmas Imposter would be the hardest and most difficult production for Design Millennium FX – no matter what they did, it ended up far too convincing and intelligent to be passed off as American überfan crap. Take for example their Cybermen, who were originally the new design with added rivets and a copper finish. Even their cruder designs, all angular and blocky, was too sophisticated.

RTD decided the right approach was to simply give the SCAD team some cardboard boxes, stick-back plastic and marker pens and make their own Cybermen helmets. The laughable results, with their distinctive couldn’t-even-get-the-handlebars-at-the-right-angle and weird tongue holes, were augmented with torn up garbage bags to cover the bodies but not restrict movement. After pissing himself at the brain-meltingly awful outfits – AND the SCAD team’s insistence they were far better than the 'silver Iron Man fetish gear' BBC Wales had come up with – RTD managed to control his breathing enough to give the new costumes the go ahead before he needed a lie-down.

Originally, Dara/Hamilton’s transformation into the QueenBitch was to be done by giving Sheri Devine black contact lenses and getting the Mill to CGI out any traces of white. However, the SCAD team spat in the face of Julie Gardner and called her a "Buffy-loving media sell out whore" since something similar was once done with Willow in Season 6 (and in Sapphire and Steel, but the SCAD gang are hardly smart enough to know THAT, are they?). Instead they decided that Dara should be given a crown of suitable Victorian design and beauty... which ultimately took the form of jamming a Cornflakes packet over Devine’s head and poking eyeholes in it so it looked a bit like a Cyberman.

RTD’s response to this was an awestruck, "Oh my lord, why haven’t you people killed yourselves by now?"

The biggest change to the plot was the original ending to the tale. Originally, Dara/Hamilton destroyed her Cybergroupies and, as the QueenBitch fell to the earth, the Doctor would call out to her saying, "Do something good for once in your worthless career and save them!" Dara/Hamilton would then redeem herself if not her acting, by causing the QueenBitch to disperse in a mighty flash of CGI.

However, Segal and the Christian SCAD team were unhappy with this oh-so-convenient ending relying on some jerk sacrificing their life for the greater good – like THAT would ever happen on a religious festival! They were of the opinion this was a typical "magic wand" ending reinforcing their opinion RTD had to be removed from his position and then surgically experimented on until he stopped writing Scooby Doo episodes.

As he possessed "some good intelligence", Segal decided the second half needed spicing up by giving the Doctor a convenient Dustbin Dimension Jumper to stop Cardiff being crushed by a giant robot. This, argued the SCADs, was a far better way to write the Doctor out of the corners than the shit RTD constantly come up with. "Oh, and you are WAY too sensitize," Segal added. "Toughen up!"

RTD capitulated, but was on record that he prided himself that he never allowed anything to go out under his name if there was a better ending to it than the one which was actually transmitted. This is of course incredibly ironic as the ending of the story was being filmed.

You see, Patterson Joseph had failed to get the job of the Eleventh Doctor. Of course, Joseph didn’t have any special love for being the Doctor, but he DID sure as hell hate to fail an audition and so he took his revenge by storming the filming of the final scenes dressed as a Time Lord, drop-kicked Segal and ran inside the police box prop laughing like a madman. Although Joseph was then politely escorted off the property and the scene was filmed properly, his loyal subordinates stole the 'correct' footage and so when The Michaelmas Imposter was screened, the ending was the new, Patterson Joseph-filled one.

This ending was thus seen by 11.71 million viewers on Christmas Day 2008, a 50.5% share of the 18:00 timeslot in which it was shown! More people watched Wallace and Gromit’s A Matter of Loaf and Death because for some reason plasticine serial killers murdering bakers appeals to a festive audience more than giant Cybermen destroying olde Cardiff town, which is why first degree homicide of suspiciously intelligent dogs got an appreciation index figure score two more than The Michaelmas Imposter! Nick Parkes, you JAMMY BASTARD!!!

Anyway, this "new" ending was, in short, a complete disaster. Fans everywhere went absolutely ape shit at this unexpected cliffhanger that left the TARDIS under the control of Patterson Joseph and the Doctor marooned in 1851 in an uncontrollable hot air balloon, while bookies everywhere made a mint as the public concluded that the Eleventh Doctor WAS Joseph. The production for the rest of the 2009 specials was completely and utterly screwed, and the set up for the Steven Moffat era itself was in danger of extinction!

So, pretty much, business as usual, as you can imagine.

Meanwhile, David Tennant continued his baffling desire to sing in every episode in a scene which made it clear to me that I’m going to have to give up all the booze and drugs on Christmas Day if I’m going to make it through a new episode of Doctor Who without questioning my own grip on reality as I have hitherto known it...

Please tell me someone else saw this scene.

(The Doctor strides straight towards Dave Segal and sings straight into his face.)

Doctor: You keep lying instead of facing facts!
And you keep losing when you ought not to bet!
Why keep quoting Tom Baker if you really can act?
Now, what’s right is right – and you ain’t been right yet!

(Dave Segal turns and stalks off. Rolling his eyes, the Doctor follows, even as Dave Segal hastily doubles back.)

Doctor: No one likes your fan audios!
Hardly anyone knows they’re there!
One of these days you’re gonna twig
That no one really cares!

(Dave Segal tries to get past the Doctor, but cannot and soon they are turning in a circle, pressing their foreheads together as they glare into each other’s eyes.)

Dave Segal: You keep winning BAFTAS you shouldn’t be winning!
And you keep thinking that you’re actually canon! HAH!
I just re-edited your wikipage, yeah!
And what I know, you ain’t had time to learn!

(Embracing each other, they start to do the tango.)

Dave Segal: I’ve played the Doctor for over a decade
It’s just what I do!
Any minute all of fandom
Will choose me over you!

(Dave Segal throws the Doctor to the floor. Dave Segal sneers.)

Dave Segal: Are you ready fans? START POSTING ON OG!!

(The Doctor stares at him, hands in pockets for a long moment. Nothing happens. Dave Segal’s face falls. The Doctor winks. Cut to a fruit machine coming up with three David Tennants.)

---------------------------
DOCTOR WHO
will return in
ESCAPE TO DANGER ON THE PLANET IN SPACE CUTAWAY!
---------------------------

10th Doctor - The Next Doctor (i)

2010-02-04T21:27:00.000-08:00

Serial XMAS-08 – The Michaelmas Imposter
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Scrooge Syndrome

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

Serial XMAS-08 – The Michaelmas Imposter -

Ah, Michaelmas! The feast of St Michael the Archangel, the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days, where debts are paid, geese are cooked, Satan is banished from heaven and the countdown to the next Richard Curtis movie begins.

Typically, the Doctor is spending the day in 1851 in a Cardiff alleyway watching a red-haired woman in her late fifties and a PVC school girl outfit and an unshaven American with an afro haircut wearing an electric blue Zoot Suit and a long multicoloured scarf exposit loudly about the unseen horrors breaking out of a nearby warehouse.

One such horror reveals itself to be a curious beast covered in scraps of bin liners and a huge paper and cardboard head with a Cyberman face drawn on it. Seemingly impressed by the Phillips head screwdriver the scarf-wearing nutter wields, the creature booms "Such-heroic-nonsense. We-need-warriors-not-loonies!" in an American accent and then runs away up a fire escape of the warehouse.

"I hate the way they leap onto the side of a nearby building like that! Don’t you, Dara?" asks the nutter of his companion before grabbing a lasso to try to climb the walls of the warehouse, even though there’s a perfectly good stairwell which the creature is, at this very moment, using rather successfully.

The Doctor watches the weirdo struggling to climb the rope for about seven minutes before asking the question clearly burning in the minds of the entire audience: "What IS your problem?"

"I’m the Doctor, UNIT’s scientific advisor!" replies the madman.

"Doctor who?" asks the Time Lord, unimpressed.

"Oh, just Doctor! I’ve grown used to it!" he laughs dorkily, before the rope snaps and the imposter falls flat on his ass. "Blast! I’m getting too young for this," he grumbles as the weird creature scurries off.

At first, the Doctor wonders if this might be a future incarnation of himself and the fluxing nature of history is allowing him to see his possible future ala Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" – in which case, the Time Lord has to shape up something chronic if he wants to avoid turning into this scarf-wielding loser! But it quickly becomes apparent that this sad figure is less the Ghost of Christmas Future and more Über-Geek of Fandom Present.

"It’s so pathetic! Why would anyone pretend that? Unless it’s not a pretence and it’s a refuge from something even MORE awful! A place the human mind refuses to go! Despite all the evidence, the conscious mind just doesn’t WANT to accept the truth... like the truth being carried around in that watch pocket maybe?!"

Yes, the Doctor has noticed that the Loser Doctor is wearing a fob watch with a question mark on it – could it be a Chameleon Arch? Is Segal a future Doctor who has chucked it all in, turned himself into a Z-grade audio actor and now the faulty fob watch is bleeding through the true Time Lord spirit and the Fourth Doctor’s essence just happens to be the strongest? If so, opening the watch will cause this Loser Doctor to cease to exist, which is as good as reason as any for the Doctor to snatch the watch and open it.

Nothing happens.

On the plus side this means the Doctor isn’t destined to suffer a horrible soul-destroying catastrophe that makes him flee reality forever. On the downside it means he still has to deal with the jerk in the scarf who, even if he ISN’T a living spectre of a future not exactly great, it still incredibly annoying.

To avoid confusion, the Doctor decides to patronize the other so-called Time Lord and so calls himself "Matt Smith" only to find that the Loser Doctor is too busy banging on about how he is a hero who everyone trusts and loves even though he is the TV Trope definition of 'Jerk Ass'.

Even though the Cybermen are at work in Victorian Cardiff, having fallen to Wales and are planning to consume, assimilate and violently rogger all mankind, the Loser Doctor still needs reminding of this very serious situation by someone even more egocentric and self-centred than him, his raddled oversexed companion Dara.

"See you in a bit!" the Loser Doctor waves, and skips off to observe a funeral carriage being wheeled through the streets of Cardiff – the late Reverend Aubrey Fairchild who, according to local forensic pathologists, died horribly at the hand of an alien cyborg. Being a seasoned time traveler, "Matt Smith" can reveal that Fairchild’s great-great-grandson will one day become Prime Minister... and then die horribly at the hand of alien cyborgs.

The Loser Doctor is totally clueless about this. So he’s consistent in his ignorance if nothing else.

"Matt Smith" watches on with rising nausea as the Loser Doctor orders Dara to return to the TARDIS. "I shall affect an entrance through the rear. Go back to the TARDIS, this is hardly work for a woman!" Dave Segal booms, before quietly adding "Hey, that didn’t make me sound homosexual or anything, did it?"

"No... I don’t believe ANYONE would sleep with you voluntarily," the real Doctor says with a look of naked distaste.

"Matt Smith", bored, storms across the street, zaps the door with his sonic screwdriver and begins searching cupboards and drawers for clues why the Cybermen would want to take out a geriatric preacher famous for his charity to children. Well, he beat children senseless, which practically made him Bono for 1851.

Feeling rather lame, the Loser Doctor follows and demands to know what "Matt Smith" is doing – totally unaware that Dara has put on a black Tina Turner wig and started calling herself "Hamilton" as she sneaks into a secret underground base where the very fake-looking Cybermen are gathering to discuss things in American accents.

"Shouldn’t-you-be-preparing-for-the-ascension?" asks the CyberLeader, puttings his hands on hips. "How-the-hell-are-we-going-to-establish-the-Court-of-the-Cyber-King-if-you-aren’t-at-the-bloody-funeral?!"

"Oh! My! God! I can’t believe you’re bullying me when I’m the only one keeping the Doctor from, like, totally discovering your plans and defeating you utterly? And I just went and left him in the reverend’s apartment so you could, like, totally delete him! I’m so upset!"

The Cybermen watch her storm out.

"Stupid-bitch," a Cyberman notes.

At the dead vicar’s house, "Matt Smith" is bemoaning his inability to raid the fridge on the grounds the backward deceased doesn’t actually own one while the Loser Doctor wanders around the place making unfunny comments and claiming "I’m about as serious as a Romulan in the Klingon Embassy with news about the fate of the whole Federation."

Finally he is temporarily shut up when "Matt" finds a heap of memory sticks in the cupboard under the sink. Being totally useless, the Loser Doctor needs the concept of memory sticks explained to him and even when he finally understands they are mobile databases of information of a technology beyond 1851 Cardiff, he STILL doesn’t get why it might be in any way relevant to the situation with the Cybermen.

"If I killed you but put that scarf on life support," the real Doctor wonders aloud, "would anyone REALLY notice the difference?"

The Loser Doctor meanwhile is bored and suggests they return to his TARDIS and get K9 to do all the hard work for them, much to "Matt Smith’s" disgust, and opens the pantry door to reveal...

...SOME INCREDIBLY FAKE-LOOKING 1970S CYBERMEN!

"Oh, now what?" the Loser Doctor wails pitifully as he runs away, leaving his newfound companion to face the Murray-Gold-Taking-The-Piss-Out-Of-Dudley-Simpson-music. Screaming hysteria, the Loser Doctor attempts to flee to the rooftops, but alas more Cybermen await them on the stairs!

"Matt Smith" sighs, snatches a cutlass from the wall and then engages in a Kill-Bill-style fight with the Cybermen that... well... leaves them all lying on the ground, moaning and bleeding.

"Jings... they’re just guys in suits!" he boggles. "I’m not trying to break the fourth wall or anything. These are just some American teenagers in silver painted cardboard armor..."

"We’ll cross that bridge when it’s hatched!" the Loser Doctor snaps.

"OK, copycat," snaps the real Doctor, threatening to cut the other man’s throat. "What the hell’s going on? Tell me and maybe I won’t cut through your SINGLE heart!"

"Let go of me! You can’t do this!" comes the feeble rejoinder. "I appeal to Caesar! Oops. Wrong century."

The Doctor groans at the awful humor and decides to let the Loser Doctor escape, if only to be free of this wrist-slittingly-awful wisecracking twat.

Meanwhile, in a graveyard blanketed by snow, a crowd of mourners look a tad depressed as the coffin is lowered into the ground. Then Hamilton arrives and, swiveling her hips suggestively in her PVC schoolgirl outfit as she slinks up to the graveside and the service grinds to a halt in abject discuss.

This wardrobe malfunction is indeed retarded behavior from Hamilton, since in Victorian times the penalty for showing up at a funeral like that was gang-rape followed by twenty-four hours of self-flagellation before the gouging out of one’s own eyes. The Victorians were an interesting people, weren’t they?

"Okay, who were the four speaking parts? Ah, yes, stick around. I’ve more work for you. The whole reason we killed the reverend was to lure you all here, anyway. As for everybody else, you’ve been terribly wooden and your facial hair is appalling. Time to die! Kill them, my Cyber-homies!" Hamilton shrieks. "Kill them all!"

Before any of the mourners can ask where what the hell she’s on about, five Cybermen mince through the snow and attack, their lethal-joy-buzzers slaughtering everyone in their path. Desperately, the remaining men scatter, much to Hamilton’s horror:

"Wait, why are you running? How dare you! THAT isn't the idea at all!"

Finally, all except Mr. Cola, Mr. Scooner, Mr. Fido and Mr. Fishfingers have been eradicated, and they ask Dara why they are required by these freaks in metallic bondage gear. She vows to explain later, and starts laughing like a crazy bitch all over again.

Then she runs off, hastily pulling off her wig and becoming Dara once more, and hiding in the deserted railway station that the Loser Doctor and his groupies are staying at on a temporary basis.

Yes, Dara is just one of many companions the Loser Doctor keeps around because they’re even MORE irritating and stupid than he is. Along with Dara are:

- the irritating robot dog K9 toy, won off the back of a Cornflakes packet
- a cardboard cutout of Elizabeth Sladen circa 1977
- Tom Anderson and his mail order Thai bride Sara;
- Susie-Jo Parker, a large-breasted redhead the Loser Doctor married in Los Vegas when both of them were very, very drunk;
- Landon, a Time Lord SO uptight even his fellow immortals think he’s got the Perigosto Stick of Rassilon jammed up his ass and have sent him to "supervise" the Loser Doctor and hopefully lighten up;
- Dylan Dillion, a Cyberman Sex Therapist from the planet Cannit Jannit;
- Roy Kitterage, a wimpy little science geek none of the others seem to be able to shake off.

Arriving at the squalid slum stuffed to the gills with packing crates marked "DAVE SEGAL’S STUFF – TOUCH & DIE!!", Dara manages to look even remotely innocent when the Doctor and the Loser Doctor appear.

"You have a warped concept of what is "brave", Matt!" the Loser Doctor jeers when it becomes obvious what a useless cowardly tool he resembled when the real Doctor was out there fighting Cybermen.

Settling down to watch yet ANOTHER repeat of the Tom Baker story Revenge of the Cybermen, the Loser Doctor leaves the Doctor and Dara to make the tea and biscuits. Dara recalls how she and the Loser Doctor met, when she was slutting it up on the school trip and then murdered two innocent bystanders in cold blood. Not that she cared.

The Doctor begins to suspect that Dara might not just be pathologically self-absorbed, but no-holds-barred, no-beg-your-pardons out-and-out evil. However, he cannot possibly imagine how Dara could be a threat to a sack of dead badgers, let alone people with a functioning central nervous system, so he lets it go.

"Anyway, can I see your TARDIS now?" the Doctor demands impatiently.

"K9! Bring me the TARDIS!" the Loser Doctor says impressively.

Fifteen minutes later, his resolve cracks and he miserably point to the back yard where a perfectly ordinary hot air balloon with the words "TIGER QUEST" written over the side. Sitting beside it is Mark Tryhard, wearing a StarFleet uniform and drinking a bottle of hootch, musing "I coulda been a fucking contender!" to himself.

The Doctor stares at the balloon in shock, unable to think of anything to say beyond simply, "Jings, what the fuck is WRONG with you freaks?"

"That’s the TARDIS," the Loser Doctor says proudly. "T-A-R-D-I-S. Tethered Arial Relocator Designed In Seattle!"

"IT’S A BLOODY HOT AIR BALOON!!"

"I’ll have you know that this is a Class 1-A Modular Tri-Dimenional Prydonian-Grade Time Capsule! It is NOT a 'bloody hot air balloon'!"

Leaving the two of them to argue, Dara swaps wigs once more and runs off into the night cackling insanely. "Hamilton" confronts Mr. Cola, Mr. Scooner, Mr. Fido and Mr. Fishfingers who are now standing rigidly to attention with their brains controlled by some costume jewelry.

"Yeah, those blue-tooth ear-pieces shall, like, totally arouse the suspicion of nobody!" Hamilton laughs.

After making them dance the YMCA, she sends them on their appointed tasks and then runs back to base, becoming "Dara" once again. The Doctor has managed to use the most basic of logical thought to prove that the Loser Doctor is not who claims. Even after proving this beyond all reasonable doubt to everyone present, the Loser Doctor still refuses to admit he’s an incredibly unconvincing imposter.

"There is still something that you’re not saying!" the Loser Doctor rants. "Some secret that is so horrible that you don’t want to face it! What is it? What’s the real reason behind this insane façade? Uncover the truth! I’ll put an end to this insanity once and for all!"

"Jings," the Doctor sighs. "Fine. You want the truth? You’re not the Doctor. Not now. Not ever. You’re actually some nutter called Dave Segal who’s going round pretending to be me."

"WHAT?!" the Loser Doctor gasps.

"I said, 'You’re not really the Doctor'."

"I heard what you said! That was me being rhetorical!"

The Doctor activates a Cyberman memory stick marked "DR. WHO" and on the wall, shimmering stock footage appears as the data on the stick is replayed – all the known body print images of the Doctor (with a caption informing the audience that all the images are from stories available on DVD by BBC Worldwide for a very reasonable price). There are in all ten Doctors and not a single one of them is the tit in the scarf claiming to be one of the canon.

"I disbelieve you with every fibre of my being!" whimpers the imposter pathetically, trying not to cry.

The Doctor holds up the imposter’s pocket watch.

"The watch is Dave Segal’s. You have the watch. You own the watch that belongs to Dave Segal. You, being in ownership of said watch, in all probability, would have some form of connection to Dave Segal. If I had to make supposition, I would suggest the possibility that you, yourself, in your current state of being, are actually Dave Segal himself."

"...I can’t QUITE see what you’re getting at," Dave Segal sobs.

"You’re not the Doctor. I am the Doctor."

"YOU don’t have a scarf!" Segal squeals.

The Doctor laughs cruelly. "No wonder the Cybermen are just humans in masks scaring people! They’re fakes made by you, because you believe you’re a shape-changing alien trying to keep the legend of Tom Baker alive! I thought you might be tapping into the legend of the Doctor in order to put food on the table for his family and constructing stunts like this to make yourself look good but it turns out you’re all just mentally retarded psycho fans!"

"HE’S RIGHT!" screams Roy Kitterage suddenly. "THIS IS ALL A LIE! We’re just a bunch of lonely American fans, who were mocked and dejected by our peers. We fled back in time to this simpler age to enjoy our fun and games and unauthorized audio plays! But the truth has followed us! First the real Cybermen and now the real Doctor! THIS IS THE END OF THE LINE"

Roy delves into a suitcase and pulls out a pump-action shotgun. Screaming that "it’s kinder this way", he shoots Tom, Sara, Susie-Jo, Landon, Dillion, Mark and K9, before turning the gun on himself and blowing his brains out. Only lack of ammunition spared the Doctor, Dave Segal and Dara. That and the fact they’re the main characters.

As the blood drips off the walls and the smell of gunpowder and burnt human flesh wafts around the room, Dave Segal decides that the entire conversation is "completely irrelevant anyway" and to ignore any and all evidence placed before him that he is nerd with no life.

As the church bells chime midnight, Michaelmas Day, the Doctor decides he’s wasted enough of his life on this problem. He doesn’t even care that they’re temporal deviants causing chaos in established history in their fanatical desire to recreate Tom Baker episodes.

The Doctor storms for the exit, leaving Dave Segal weeps over the prop (seemingly not interested in the six friends of his now lying dead in front of him). "K9!" sobs the imposter. "I’m be lost without him!!"

"Good, I hope you stay there," the Doctor sneers as he goes.

As he emerges out into the street, the Doctor notices Mr. Cola marching a crowd of orphans out of a workhouse. Of course, considering the general cruelty of Victorians to the young, the poor, not to mention their borderline slave trading, a mass of flea-bitten young paupers looking miserable being marched through the streets isn’t that much of an odd sight but nevertheless it turns out "Hamilton’s" belief that no one would notice the flashing bluetooth was unsurprisingly stupid and the Doctor twigs some Cyberman crap is going down.

The Doctor joins the kids and cheers them up with his brilliantly-performed renditions of songs from "Oliver!"

Soon the entourage join other children and are lead into a warehouse with a flashing neon sign saying "WELCOME TO THE COURT OF THE QUEENBITCH!!" in large 80s cursive font.

Lead inside the hellish workhouse filled with a myriad of machinery, it’s almost but not quite instantly recognizable as the Touchwood Hub with some bags of coal dumped in the corners. "Hamilton" arrives and announces that the Ascension of the QueenBitch must take place immediately, before the genuine Doctor can interfere.

Nevertheless, she still thinks there’s time for her to make the now-redundant Mr. Cola, Mr. Scooner, Mr. Fido and Mr. Fishfinger do the Funky Chicken and then strangle each other for "Hamilton’s" own sadistic amusement.

Just then the Doctor realizes that Dave Segal has followed him for want of something to do, and it’s quite clear he has absolutely nothing else in his entire life more interesting than stalk the Doctor as he take on fake Cybermen with Brooklyn accents.

"You’re not planning on leaving me behind? You might need me!"

"I might need YOU? In this strange complex of time and space where anything is possible... nope, you STILL wouldn’t be helpful!"

As they watch, "Hamilton" addresses her infant workforce, still showing her tragically low IQ as she doesn’t spot the two adults in anachronistic clothing amongst all the under-tens.

"Isn’t that Dara?" the Doctor frowns.

"That face," Dave Segal murmurs. "It looks strangely familiar. As if I’d seen it before..."

"That’s what 'familiar' MEANS, ya daft tit!"

The horrible truth soon becomes apparent – since the SCADs have so few actors, what ones they DO have must double- and even triple-up! The actress playing Dara is also playing the lead villain and, also, seems to be taking this play-acting a wee bit too far since she’s screaming for " the new industrial revolution is about to begin" and shouts at the children to get to work providing energy levels for the mysterious "QueenBitch" to activate.

Finally the decrepit redhead notices the Doctor and Dave Segal, though she seems to have forgotten who they are. "So, what do we have here? Some with intimate knowledge of my knights in cardboard armor and tinfoil!"

"Dara... it’s US!"

"We were talking to you fifteen minutes ago, remember?"

"I know not this common 'Dara' of whom you speak! I am Miss Hamilton!" rants the nutter, refusing to drop out of character like her co-stars, not even for a cheap sight gag. "The intergalactic femme fatale who has summoned the Cybermen to Old Cardiff Town to replace my legs with a funky Cyber spider leg type thingamajig! Kill them!"

The Doctor eyes the faux Cybermen and tries to look like he cares. "Let me die happy! Tell me one thing! WHO do you think actually LISTENS to your shitty fan audios?! Even Briggsy has a bigger fanbase!"

"Very soon now the whole British Empire will hear our back catalogue!" rants Hamilton. "They will bow down in worship at our superior scripts and subtle budgetary restraints!"

"Just in time for Michaelmas. Was that your idea?"

"Nope, just coincidence, really. Now, time to die! The ascension shall begin at once!"

Hamilton is then thoroughly surprised when the Cybermen – ALSO taking this thing way too seriously – drag her to an electric chair and force a Cyberman voice changer helmet over her heat, converting her into the living mind of the QueenBitch.

Unfortunately, these SCAD losers have made yet another fatal mistake:

Now completely insane, the personalities of Hamilton and Dara fuse and combine into an ego large enough to knock the Earth out of orbit and this is represented televisually by the actress wearing pitch black contact lenses and talking in a funny voice. Hey, if it worked for a season finale in Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

The QueenBitch marvels at the new landscapes and scopes in her head, her ego too strong for this Cyber technology to override. "Such information! I can see the stars, the worlds beyond, the vortex of time itself and the whole of infinity! Oh! My! God! This is so totally random! I am, like, so totally hot right now!"

Deciding that nothing these American fans are capable of could possibly hurt anyone, the Doctor calmly leads all the children out of the workroom and back home, with Dave Segal’s best approximation of "help".

"This looks like the beginning of a warm and beautiful friendship," the scarf-wearing nutter beams beatifically.

"Then you need your eyes tested," the Doctor sighs.

About five minutes after they’ve gone, the QueenBitch decides it’s time to ascend out of the sewers and conquer the entire freaking world and it is only now that we twig that her dinky metal throne is actually the tiniest part of a colossal steam-punk giant Cyberman robot built entirely out of toilet rolls and sticky-backed plastic!

Dave Segal finally remembers this plot point and shit himself in abject terror – this Cyberromp remake has got totally out of hand! "Oh no, but that means... I got to stop them! I must stop them!"

"Jings, what are you driveling on about now?" the Doctor snaps.

"Ah, forget it!"

Just then the QueenBitch ascends, rising out of Mermaid Bay and towering over Cardiff as Dara/Hamilton shouts through a megaphone she is now ruler of the Earth due to her incredible hotness. The QueenBitch is a giant walking factory that, while not being able to create proper Cybermen, can STILL turn millions of people into gimp slaves for Dara/Hamilton’s sick amusement.

Soon the ship begins stomping across the city, crushing buildings underfoot. Their ethereal song echoes out across the land:

"CYBERMEN! WE-ARE-WE-ARE-THE-CYBERMEN! IN-ANOTHER-GALAXY! ON-A-NEW-DIRECTION! ON-OUR-WAY-TO-CONQUER-CARDIFF! THE-CYBERMEN-ARE-ON-A-MISSION! THE-CYBERMEN! THE-CYBERMEN! THE-CYBERMEN! THE-CYBERMEN-ARE-ON-A-MISSION! ON-A-MISSION! ON-A-MISSION! OOO-DARA... OOO-DARA... OOO-DARA..."

Like most of the population, the Doctor and Dave Segal stare up at the behemoth in confusion.

"Uh-oh," the imposter gulps.

"OK, what in the name of Donna Noble’s cleavage is that?!?"

"It’s a Dreadnought-Class Cyber Bling Warrior!" gasps Dave Segal. "A giant walking Cyberman with a cyber conversion factory and android brothel at its heart, with in-built spandex-covered sheep bots!!"

The Doctor falls silent and watches as the QueenBitch lays waste to Cardiff in the best traditions of Kaiju carnage. "You know," he says eventually, "that has to be THE most amazingly retarded alien super weapon I’ve ever seen! Not only does it require a ludicrous amount of power and is impossible to obscure from the enemy, all it has is a big fucking gun!" the Doctor boggles. "You people just don’t GET the idea the Cybermen are supposed to be logical and intelligent, do you?!"

"What are we gonna do now?!" Dave Segal panics.

The Doctor rolls his eyes. "Well, ideally now we would return to the TARDIS and transform it into a Giant Robo-Doctor and then duke it out with them but unfortunately..."

"Then there’s only one option left," rants Dave Segal, finally getting the sarcasm being screamed directly into his face. "I must call on my past and future incarnations to help us!"

"You don’t HAVE any past and future incarnations!" the Doctor points out as Dave Segal presses his fingertips to his temples in a pathetic display of concentration.

Suddenly, with a generic Blake’s 7 sound effect, four figures appear in the snow beside them: a bloke dressed like Sherlock Holmes (JK Flynn); a fat guy with a lazy eye, walking stick and Zampata moustache (Jym de Natale); a skinny dude in a magician’s outfit complete with top hat and cloak (Jeffrey Coburn); and a cardboard cutout of Dave Segal in a StarFleet uniform and grey chest wig.

"You have GOT to be kidding me!" the Doctor groans.

"Oh no, not ANOTHER Abbot & Costello routine!" groans Jeff Coburn. "What is it this time? Children In Need? Comic Relief? And five of us this time? What part of 'overkill' don’t you get?" he demands of Dave Segal, who shuffles uncomfortably.

"You’ve interfered with history and changed the timelines!" exclaims Jym de Natale. "Are you mad? Oh wait, of course you are. I do beg your pardon, you strange and insane individual!"

"Oh blast!" Dave Segal bitches. "I forgot I turned into a rambling windbag anus as I got older!"

"How dare you sah!" Jym de Natale retorts. "I age like a fine wine and grow more palatable over the years!"

"Which makes me the obvious zenith of perfection," JK Flynn points out.

"YOU’RE corked, grandad!" Jym de Natale spits at him.

"You tend to age like spoiled milk if you ask me!" Dave Segal mumbles, pretending the cardboard cutout is actually talking. Which is really kind of creepy if I’m honest.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake..." growls the genuine Doctor and sprints off to actually save the day, leaving the wannabe Doctors arguing. Jeff Coburn looks at the retreating Doctor, then his bickering costars, then decides to follow the Doctor.

"Do you even listen to YOURSELF sometimes?" Jym de Natale boggles. "I’d say it sounds like you’re making it up as you go along, but that would imply you possess a gossamer scintilla of originality, you pallid Tom Baker copycat!"

"Says who?!" demands Dave Segal.

"Says ME," retorts JK Flynn, unimpressed. "Been reading the thesaurus Father Christmas got you, huh?" he asks Jym de Natale.

"It’s a crime not to use the language to all its full richness," he replies, rather defensively. "And not, I repeat NOT, a crutch to mask one being... ahem... physical under-endowed!"

"You’re not fooling anyone, you know. You DO realize this?" asks Jeffrey Coburn gently.

"IF we could concentrate on the matter at hand, there is a giant Cyberman smashing up the town!" Dave Segal snaps. "Has anyone encountered this sort of thing before?"

"I know I haven’t," JK Flynn sighs. "So that rather rules the rest of you out, doesn’t it?"

"And they say *I* have an ego!" seethes Jym de Natale.

"You do!" insists Dave Segal via his cardboard cutout.

"YOU’RE hardly one to talk," JK Flynn protests. "You think anyone’s actually falling for that? There’s only four of us and you pretending to be some loser called Vincent Savage! It’s just embarrassing..."

"He never listens to reason," Jym de Natale sighs.

"YOUR reason is as frilly as your shirt!" 'Vincent Savage' snorts. "And if you think I’m going to play second fiddle to someone who’s ego gets its own dressing room..."

"We don’t have to put up with this, you know!" Jeff Coburn retorts and all three future incarnations flip Dave Segal the bird and disappear, leaving Segal holding the cardboard cutout.

"I guess I’ll just nibble on my jelly babies," the imposter sighs. "Oh. Someone ate them all! Damn!"

The real Doctor has meanwhile, commandeered the hot-air balloon and manages to fly up into the sky away from the carnage. Unfortunately, the wind blows in the wrong direction and he finds himself hurtling straight towards the gigantic QueenBitch where Dara/Hamilton and the Cybermen are all folding their arms and tapping their feet impatiently. Mind racing furiously, the Doctor realizes he must defeat this gigantic war machine and the crazy tart at the controls with only a heap of memory sticks and his superhuman Scottish charisma.

To buy him some more time he goes through the motions of offering QueenBitch and the Cybermen a trip to some uninhabited quarry planet where they can strut around sodomizing each other in peace, which Dara/Hamilton instantly refuses.

Frantically wiring all the memory sticks together with an industrial laser pointer, the Doctor stalls by asking the QueenBitch if she’s really sure that’s her final answer or if she’d like to, perhaps, phone a friend and think again?

"Remember, you have only three hours to make up your mind and if you don’t take up the offer then I’ll forced to go Family of Blood on your pale mechanical ass!"

"What do you think I am?" scoffs the QueenBitch. "Stupid?"

"Pretty much!" the Doctor shouts, cutting the crap and fires his freaky device at the QueenBitch which manages – in a truly impressive blaze of computer-generated electric blue radiation – to do absolutely fuck all.

Undaunted at this apparent failure, the Doctor starts to cackle insanely. "You’re DEAD, Dara Hamilton!"

"Get real! I am, like, totally stronger than ever!"

"FUCK YOU, YOU THICK BITCH!" the Doctor screams at her. "I’m the REAL Doctor with the REAL alien death rays and if I say that you’re dead, you raddled old ham, then YOU’RE DEAD, OKAY? DEAD!"

The QueenBitch flicks her hair. "What are you talking—-"

But she gets no further as she suddenly and inexplicably explodes in a massive fireball that destroys all the Cybermen and the top half of the giant robot, which promptly topples out of the sky and crashes onto the city below. Luckily, as it was made mainly out newspaper and chicken wire, the people on the streets who have been fleeing for cover are totally unharmed and the menace is over.

"The one and only, you ungrateful fanbase!" the Doctor roars.

It then strikes the Time Lord that he has absolutely no idea how to land the hot-air balloon and he floats off into the night, swearing profusely as he drifts further and further away from the city and all the rejoicing Welshmen.

"That was too close," Dave Segal mumbles lamely. "How could you destroy such a unique life form?! How convenient that magic wand manages to defeat the bad guy completely without explanation! Are we just supposed to accept it? You call that rabbit out of your sleeve a wrap-up? YOU CAN’T WRITE YOURSELF OUT OF THE NARRATIVE THAT EASILY!"

Then, realizing that this is his chance to finally become the One, True Doctor, Dave Segal immediately races through the streets towards where the Doctor’s TARDIS is parked. "At last! My hour has come!" he shouts. "I can steal a real time capsule and become the Doctor Eternal!"

But upon reaching the police box, he is bitch-slapped to the snowy ground by a black man in red Time Lord robes and triceratops headgear standing beside the TARDIS.

"Too slow, my friend," the Time Lord booms, stepping over the imposter and striding into the TARDIS. "You were always my LEAST-favorite," he adds before shutting the door and dematerializing.

"...blast," Dave Segal mutters for want of something to say.

---------
Next Time...
---------
"Ding! Ding! Hold on to your hats!"
"End of the line. Only one more year..."
"Dubai; it’s another planet."
"What is it? What’s wrong? Doctor, just stop hiding under the chair and tell me..."
"Every single instinct of mine is telling me NOT to let you become my new companion, you callous bitch."
"Sumtin is cumin! Ridin on der wind! Dey do dat ting dey do."
"...what the hell are you talking about?"
"DEATH... in the form of giant metal stingrays!"
"Doctor, I’m shitting myself with terror right about now!"
"Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run..."
"That planet out there? Three suns, wormholes and alien sand? That planet is NOTHING. Trust me, this time next year, not even the diehard fans will even REMEMBER this story... I know I won’t!"
---------
...Escape to Danger on the Planet in Space Cutaway!...
---------

10th Doctor - Music of the Spheres

2010-02-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

Serial CIN4 – Prom of the Grinch
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Spherical Tunes!

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

Serial CIN4 – Prom of the Grinch -

Furious and distraught at the departure of Donna (oooh, alliteration!), the Doctor decides to compose an angst-ridden poem about his feelings in the belief that is only crap poetry that stops the entire human race from committing suicide during their teenage years. Surprisingly, this plan works brilliantly and within moments the Doctor has forgotten all about the tragic parting of the ways he had and instead focuses on trying to rhyme things with "orange".

Lost in his own genius of composing palindromic haikus with a quill on a parchment, it takes the Doctor eighteen hours to notice all the alarms going off on the console and the TARDIS Cloister Bell ringing like Quasimodo’s on speed. Finally, the Time Lord stops lying on the floor and waving his legs around like a teenage girl in her bedroom and starts acting like the damn God of Time and Space he’s supposed to!

Investigating the problem by shouting "Not now, I’m busy!" at the console a lot, the Doctor discovers a flashing light marked "ALERT, TELEPORT BREACH!" which prompts him to frown and shout "What?!" over and over and over again.

Suddenly, the Grinch appears inside the TARDIS, having finally tracked the Doctor down to take blood-chilling revenge on the Time Lord after he and a certain charismatic young stud from 32 The Parade Dulwich Hill defeated the Grinch’s screams to screw up Christmas forever! Having been abandoned by the rest of the Grinch Griffak Gr’thaaaak and Graak Gang, the Grinch has nothing left in his miserable existence but to end the Doctor’s insanely protracted and episodic life.

However, the Grinch admits he’s really wondering about whether his personal development is being hampered by his psychotic hermit-like existence with nothing in his life apart from determination to ruin Christmas for everyone.

"You know, looking back, it all seems so PETTY!" the green creature sighs, before changing the subject and asking about the Doctor’s poetry, insisting that he really IS interested.

The Doctor gets all bashful and explains he’s just exorcising the eccentricities of his soul and setting them as lyrics to the music of the spheres, the gravity patterns from the planets, sun and galaxies moving around outside filtered through a harmonic filter.

After listening to "Ode To The Entire Dustbins Species My Left Hand Wiped Out One Morning", "10 Reasons That I Am Completely Over Rose Tyler" and "Jings, It’s Been A While Since I Met Some Cybermen, Do You Think That Might Be Significant?", the Doctor and Grinch notice a strange CGI wormhole on the right-hand side of the TARDIS control room where no one ever goes lest they get in the way of the cameras.

"Oooh, now that looks like a space portal," the Doctor muses, adding that it’s probably been hanging in mid-air for centuries but no one noticed because they all tend to stay on the other side of the room. The Doctor looks through the rip in time and space and finds that it has opened up on Earth, inside the Albert Hall during the yearly Proms.

"Typical. Just typical," the Doctor mutters.

However, the Tenth Doctor is never one to miss an opportunity to be incredibly embarrassing and make the audience cringe – and so he throws his poetry through the portal for the orchestra to play while he conducts with his sonic screwdriver.

Tragically, the Doctor’s hopes for "Noble Temp, Lady of Time" to be have its worldwide premiere in front of millions of paying customers is dashed – the orchestra refuse to go along and even if they did, there’s no tune for them to play as no one in 2008 Albert Hall has heard "Ode to the Universe".

Further mischief is afoot when the Grinch suddenly feels his urge to wreck annual celebrations rising. Snatching up a submachine gun from the TARDIS armory (well, a chest full of laser gun props at any rate), the green Grinch dives through the portal and into the Albert Hall to slaughter every living thing he can.

Alas, he has managed to snatch up the one high-range projected energy weapon that was actually just a novelty water pistol. When the Grinch realize all he’s doing is getting a few patrons wet, he realizes how utterly pointless and pathetic it’s all been, collapses and suffers a complete nervous breakdown.

After pointing and laughing at the stricken Grinch, the Doctor flips a suitable control on the console and the Grinch is sucked first back inside the TARDIS and then banished to the other side of the galaxy where he can live to fight another day and prove incredibly annoying to an ex-companion in their own spin-off series.

Meanwhile, the Albert Hall audience are just getting their act together when suddenly it is simultaneously invaded by Cybermen, Snotarans, Jundoon, Ood before Lavros himself arrives via emergency temporal shift. Deciding to take a break from plotting the end of the universe, Lavros murders and replaces the conductor before starting "The Fanfare for the Common Man" with his usual flair.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor realizes emerges into the swirling snow and what appears to be the film set of The Sally Lockheart Mysteries but actually turns out to be Victorian England at the beginning of Autumn. After poking fun at all the ridiculous fashions, poor hygiene standards and dubious close harmony singing of passing girl choirs, the Time Lord decides to start making allusions to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to the amusement of precisely no one.

"DOCTOR!" screams a nasal American voice in the distance and, eager for the distraction, the Time Lord grins like an idiot and races off to find out who calls for him.

The Doctor soon finds the source of the annoying squealing: a redhaired woman in her late fifties wearing a PVC school girl outfit. This horrific sight is almost but not quite enough to distract him from the unseen horrors breaking out of the warehouse.

Despite him clearly standing right in front of her and telling her to get to safety, the silly bint continues to stand around yelling "Doctor! DOCTOR!" like some broken novelty blow-up doll.

"Jings, no need to shout, I’m standing right here!" the Doctor tells her, slightly unnerved at her decrepit form and unconvincing Cockney accent that makes her sound like a stroke victim. "It’s me, I’M the Doctor! Just the Doctor. Hello!"

"Oh! My! God!" Dara the faux schoolgirl exclaims. "That is so totally a lie! I can’t believe you just lied to me! You can’t be the Doctor! There can only be ONE Doctor! Oh, I am like SO hot right now!"

Suddenly a new player arrives, an unshaven American with an afro haircut wearing an electric blue Zoot Suit and a long multicoloured scarf and immediately tries to take charge in a pathetic and self-aware manner using random Tom Baker quotes.

"Hey, hang on a sec, who are you?" demands the Doctor.

"Me? I’m the Doctor!" the newcomer retorts. "Simply the Doctor! The one, the only and the best! A Time Lord’s got to do what a Time Lord’s got to do!" he booms before the warehouse doors burst open and he offers the slavering beast within some jelly babies.

"Sounds like someone needs to get laid," the Doctor muses. "FAST!"

---------
Next Time...
---------
"This creature, it like, just, came out of the shadows. It was, like, totally random and made of silver and stuff."
"They’re my gimps in metal bondage gear."
"What manner of lust slaves are they?"
"Cybermen. Now bend over."
++ You-will-undress. ++
"DOCTOR! THE REAL ONE, THIS TIME!"
"What the hell do the Cybermen want?"
"Who the hell cares?!"
"We are going to put the 'industrial' into the Industrial Revolution!"
"Is it too intellectual for your high-speed brain dead audience?"
"You pathetic fan geek!"
"Merry Michaelmas to you too."
---------
...The Michaelmas Imposter...
---------

Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who & The Bewildering Waste of Time
Dr Who: Pointless Lead-Ins To The Christmas Special Anthology
Doctor Who DVD Box Set: The Grinch Waltzes

Fluffs - David Tennant seemed non-functionally imbecilic in this story.

"Just remember. Music isn’t just orchestras and popstars and special people with downloads and albums and concerts. It’s you! Because the music is all around you! When you’re on your own, just close your eyes. And you can hear it. Music. Inside your head. Coz everyone’s a musician. Everyone’s got the song inside them. Like the Bastard, he’s got the entire output of the Rogue Traders blaring through his brain twenty-four seven, it’s why he went mad and keeps trying to take over the universe. So... music is evil. Actually, this speech ended up in a completely different place to where it started out. Yeah... Bye!"

Goofs -
The Doctor’s casual disposal of the Grinch lead to him rematerializing inside my tumble dryer in the laundry. Normally I wouldn’t complain, but this is the one evil green alien monster that actually has a grudge, so sending him to my place was reckless and nasty. Last time I ever PAY for your merchandise, Dr Who you bastard!

Fashion Victims -
It says so much that the Tenth Doctor is the most somberly-dressed out of the entire cast, doesn’t it?

Technobbable -
The Doctor reverses the polarity of the neutron flow for the first time since the last time he did it. Which was probably back in The Lazarou Experiment, but I can’t be certain. Why the hell do I have to do all the freaking research, anyway?

Dialogue Disasters -

Grinch: This is so fucking unfair.

Dustbin: ATTENTION! ATTENTION! THE DUSTBINS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL! THIS BUILDING IS SURROUNDED! THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THE DUSTBINS! WE HAVE TRAVELED BACK IN TIME TO ALTER THE HISTORY OF THE PROMS! SO BEHAVE YOURSELVES!

Doctor: Oi! Get out! Jings, I try and take ONE afternoon off and...
Grinch: You are my nemesis Doctor! Now you must die!
Doctor: I don’t care, Grinchy boy! I’m taking today off – now out!
Grinch: What?! It’s taken me three seasons to catch up with and I get the one day you’re off? Man, karma’s a bitch!

Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: What are you actually going to do, Grinch? Run around the world causing trouble? Stealing sweets? Making smells? Jings, I had to deal with the destruction of reality itself yesterday! Well, sod off with you to the other side of the galaxy then, I cannae be bothered...

Lavros: This Royal Albert Hall will become the new palace of my Dustbin Umpire. And you humans will become my obedient slaves. Let the music of destruction commence. Start with "The Ride of the Valkyries"!

Doctor: You there, young lad! Come hither! I want to talk to you.
Urchin: I’m sorry sir, I’m late for classes – if I don’t make my final bell today, the Headmaster warned that he shall tan my hide Indian Red...
Doctor: Look, you spotty little prick, you’ll obey your elders and march your worthless little arse over here! Jings. Anyway, small boy, could you tell me what day it is?
Urchin: You stopped me in the middle of a busy road to ask me that tosh?
Doctor: [laughs pleasantly] No-no, young suckling. What I meant was, "What special day is this?"
Urchin: Well, it’s Thursday, if that’s what you mean. About 8:20 in the morning. Look, are you some kind of Mormon?
Doctor: No-no-no! Well, it’s not important, then. Is it the 29th of September?
Urchin: Why yes, it is! The feast of St Michael!
Doctor: Michaelmas, as I thought. See ya round, ya little drug addict.

Dara: Oh! My! God! Time travel’s like, so totally random!

Doctor: This is the sound of the universe...
Grinch: It sounds like Tales of Brave Ulysses by Cream.
Doctor: I know! Funny isn’t it?

UnQuotable Quote -
Doctor: Encouraging Boy! Charming boy! Frightening Boy!

Links and References -
This story is a brain-damaged sequel to the BBCi interactive episode "Attack of the Grinch" and the Sarah Jane Misadventure tale, "A Funny Thing Happened to Sarah Jane".

Untelevised Misadventures -
"I love the Proms! I was at the very first Proms in 1895 – I played the banjo and I was shite. They booed me out and banned anyone from ever playing the banjo at the Last Night of the Proms ever again. So I let them all get destroyed by the Snotarans the following week. Just goes to show that the only people who can’t take criticism are critics. They don’t cope well with a bendalypse warhead up their jacksies, either. And as I said to Beethoven, 'Genius is never recognized inside its own lifetime,' and he said, 'Pardon? Look, Doctor, piss off, will you? I’m trying to score here!'"

Groovy DVD Extras -
The ability to dub in the live audience participation and pantomime bollocks so the Doctor doesn’t spend two minutes shouting "I CAN’T HEAR YOU!" at thin air.

The Spite of Sparacus -
"Prom of the Grinch just proved to be a completely unnecessary, badly-acted, poorly-written, total cop out! A waste of time, effort and money and to be honest, nothing actually happened. It was my favorite episode of the year!! A reminder of just how good New Who could be without Donna or any such ovary-carrying unsmoothe brood whore. Of course it broke the fourth wall to a degree and it’s generally a bit like watching a theatre production, but watching it as a clip from YouTube doesn’t satisfy. True, RTD didn’t WRITE it for the bootleg YouTube audience, but this is an irrelevant point."

Viewer Quotes -

"Inoffensive fun. Until those two American fans turned up. And then it stopped being inoffensive and became VERY offensive indeed."
- Bill Clinton (2008)

"Well, that was a waste of time. Tennant reads his poetry to the Grinch, runs around Albert Square, bumps into an American psycho Tom Baker fan and then it’s over!" - Succinct Reviews Weekly (2008)

"That was fun. And a little bit mad. But mainly awful. And a lot underwhelming. And cheesy. I need to see this on widescreen!"
- Nigel Verkoff (2008)

"Oh my god, out of the entire pantheon of Doctor Who monsters it seriously the GRINCH they choose to bring back? Why not Sad fucking Tony and pour some REAL salt to the wound. I am severely disappointed. I’ll still watch it anyways though... I have no life." – Random Fan (2007)

"Prom of the Grinch demonstrates just how ridiculously OTT the Beeb’s obsession has got with that Welsh filth passing itself off as Doctoe Who. In more sensible times, the idea of the annual highbrow Sir Henry Wood Proms featuring a performance of music from a TV series would have been thought preposterous, but these, it seems, are not sensible times. To introduce the whole sorry affair, Davies wrote a short cameo featuring Tennant’s Doctor conducting a Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performance of a piece of music he had composed and accidentally allowing a member of the evil Grinch race to slip through to Earth. Give me fucking strength." - Gabriel Chase (2009)

"Make it stop! PLEASE! Just make it stop! I think I’ve GONE BLIND! My god, I think I’ve just been shamed to death! MAKE THE BAD PROGRAM STOP!! This torture is against the Geneva Convention – IT’S LIKE CHINESE WATER TORTURE FOR THE BRAIN! Minutes? This has gone on for HOURS! Please, this is beyond a joke... My brain has turned to mush! IN THE NAME OF GOD, MAKE IT END!! Oh, it’s over. Thank fucking god. IT IS OVER! Oh, in years to come, Who fans will huddle together at conventions and whisper, 'I survived the woeful Prom of the Grinch without imploding... did YOU?'"
- the fan next to me at the convention during this screening (2008)

"If you say another word I will fucking kill you."
- me to the above fan when he finally let me speak (2008)

David Tennant Speaks!
"AW, COME ON, THAT WAS BRILLIANT!"

Russell T Davies Speaks!
"This season was filmed over 11 long months, from July 2007 to May 2008 – and the exclusive scene that you’re about to see, as part of this concert, was filmed on our very last day! Does it show? This footage has never been seen on television, or anywhere else – you’re the only ones to see it! Unless you were at the Albert Hall. In which case it might ring a bell. And indeed it might be a lot more enjoyable if you were at the Albert Hall seeing it live rather than watching it on bit torrent or YouTube or whatever. I suppose it was a bit nasty of me, fobbing off the masses with a min-episode I specifically wrote to be impossible to enjoy out of its original context, but then you ungrateful fan bastards complain when I DO write something you can enjoy out of context. Fandom, tsk, I’ve got no sympathies at all... what, are you STILL here? Bugger off and donate some money to Children in Need!"

Trivia -
The fact the Doctor is seen wearing his blue suit for the TARDIS scenes lead to no less than 31, 497 separate and clearly uncanonical fan fic stories being written explaining that THIS Doctor was in fact the human clone chap who had ditched Rose to concentrate on writing poetry.

Rumors & Facts -

They say the world won’t end because this story doesn’t fit neatly into continuity. But do we really want to take the chance?

Of course, a two minute story is unlikely to raise expectation and, if anything lower them even further. Of course, if Steven Moffat wrote it, we’d all be praising to the skies. Especially if it featured the Temporal Difference of Opinion in its entirety, with À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu thrown in for good measure. Probably best to just file this under "Expectations, Spectacularly Unrealistic".

Following the completion of the BBCi 2005 Christmas special interactive episode which STILL isn’t available to people outside the UK (legally, anyway, heheheh), David Tennant was so impressed with the idea of the Tenth Doctor having the Grinch as his mortal enemy he wrote a sequel: Revenge from the Grinch. RTD gave Tennant a dazzling smile, promised to use the script as soon as possible and then forgot about the whole thing for the next three years.

However, when Doctor Who was chosen to be the focus of the 2008 Last Night of the Proms, it became obvious that they required a special mini-episode for live performance and they needed it yesterday – and the only one to hand was Revenge of the Grinch. On the bright side, this meant that RTD could finally fulfill his promise to use Tennant’s story (a particular piece of blackmail he’d held over the actor since 2005) but on the downside it required the return of the Grinch, the Dustbins, the Cybermen, the Jundoon, the Ood, the Snotarans and even Lavros!

Nevertheless, there was nothing else available to twist into a demonstration that music could take any shape or form, go anywhere, reach anyone and make better people of us all. So he just had to stop crying like a bitch, suck it up and embrace the pain. The mini-episode was hastily filmed on Saturday, May 3, 2008 on the last day of filming for the fourth season of Neo Who. Indeed, Tennant had to be dragged back from Catherine Tate’s farewell disco, which explains the Doctor’s ever-so-slightly-off-his-facedness in the finished product.

It was screened to the Royal Albert Hall audience on Sunday, July 27th that year and featured some of the most ridiculous audience participation since Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist was adapted by Mick Molloy and Tony Martin – including an amazing moment when a cellist brutally beat up the Grinch when he appeared live on stage with a water pistol. The audience considered this harsh and unusual slapstick violence... which really should have been carried out on Justina Robson during her fevered rantings during the interval some few minutes later when she went on for about 120 minutes about how shit Doctor Who was and why she was so much better.

60, 000 people had seen Prom of the Grinch, but most refused to discuss it and it was unique in NOT being instantly uploaded to YouTube or certain bit torrent sites within minutes of being screened. Truly, this would be a unique, one-off Doctor Who experience and if you missed it, well, tough shit!

But when Children in Need struck Doctor Who yet again for its annual charity drive, RTD had the cunning master plan of getting them to simply repeat Prom of the Grinch on the BBC for the first time, pretending it was an all new episode. To make sure it got past the lawyers, RTD added the first scene from the Christmas special, The Michaelmas Imposter, to the end of the episode so it legally counted as "new and original".

But while this was legally accurate, it was anything but truthful and many a conspiracy theorist became convinced that this stupendously awful episode was so horrible that David Tennant quit after receiving such poor material. The fact Tennant had made his decision two years previously was quietly ignored by those who ranted that NO ONE born of human woman could make Prom of the Grinch good, whether it was written by a different writer or starred a different Doctor, it would’ve STILL been the same horrible story.

The rest of us just beat those naysayers up when no one was looking and go on with enjoying our lives and donating to charity at gunpoint by bandaged teddy bears with only one eye.

Meanwhile, David Tennant continued his baffling desire to sing in every episode. Well, I guess it WASN’T particularly baffling this time round, what with the whole thing being about music, I suppose. In fact, it was incredibly fitting. This episode would be poorer without it!

"Noble Temp, Lady of Time" by the London Philharmonic Orchestra

A lonely old man in a police telephone box
Fights the satanic powers of the night
And when he defeats them he tells the stupid apes
"Jings, relax, everything is alright."

I close my eyes (I close my eyes),
And drift away (and drift away),
Into the time vortex
As I softly say (I softly say),
A silent prayer (a silent prayer),
As Time Lords do (as Time Lords do).
Then I start to daydream,
My daydreams of you.

BUT **JUST** BEFORE I YAWN
I TWIG THAT YOU ARE LONG GONE!!

I can’t help it (ba da bom bom bom),
I can’t help it (ba da bom bom bom),
If I sigh (if I sigh).
You don’t remember (ba da bom bom bom),
That we said (ba da bom bom bom),
Goodbye.

And it doesn’t matter all these things,
Could only happen in my dreams.
ONLY in dreams, in beautiful dreams,
BE-A-U-TI-FUL DAH-REEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAMS!!

10th Doctor - Journey's End (vi)

2010-02-04T21:01:00.000-08:00

David Tennant Speaks!
"The Doctor’s in quite a dark place now, I mean compared to the last three season finales it’s quite a downbeat denouement. It’s so epic in its scale, yet domestic in its tragedy. No mucking about with Big Brother or Cyberman/Dustbin pandimensional war this time. The whole universe is under threat, the stakes are as high as it is possible for stakes to be... Only a true madman would attempt something that huge, and it takes a genius like RTD to screw it up in such an innovative way. God, I miss Catherine. She did Donna so, so brilliant, so affecting and funny and sad and I’m tempted to quit. I’ve had a consistently really good time over the three years I’ve been here, but it’s just I’ve had a consistently BETTER time with Georgie Moffet in bedrooms afterwards. I’ve sparred with Lavros, the last big Doctor Who monster. I’ve had em all, done em all, beat em all... sorry, thinking of Georgie again."

Catherine Tate Speaks!
"I think it’s brilliant in its conception, actually, because the tragedy is that she remains unchanged by it, by her travels with the Doctor. After all that, she doesn’t have her memories. Donna dies in a way, blissfully unaware of all these wonderful adventures. It’s so painful. Not many shows can you get run over and lie dead in the road and look back and think of THAT as a happier ending than the one you got."

Freema Agyeman Speaks!
"Christ this is a lot better than being in Touchwood. What a pack of miserable buggers the lot of them. And the main characters weren’t much better. I like to think that there will be more for Martha Jones after this, because Doctor Who has been one of the biggest experience of my life, both in terms of my career and in terms of how it has ruined my life over the last two years. I dare say a great many people will want me to be Martha, perhaps for strip clubs... typical."

Billie Piper Speaks!
"I think I bothered to think about Freema replacing me for about a day and then I just got over it and became a high-class prostitute called Hannah. I was pleased that the show was going on and that it was still successful without me, but did it have to be QUITE so bloody successful without me? Couldn’t they have gone off to Rome while I was still there? It might sound selfish, but I only do that because otherwise I would be miserable and then I’d probably have serious self-loathing and then I’d give up completely. Sometimes people are going to find the choices that I make offensive, like shacking up with a clone of David Tennant on a paradise island with all the riches of the Earth. But people are only offended because they never get the chance to do it. Hah. Suckers."

Georgia Moffet Speaks!
"I’ve done this program because I love watching it, my son loves watching it and, well, getting to work with Catherine and Freema. And getting jiggy with David has been just beyond anything that I could have wished for. He’s fantastic in bed, so why WOULDN’T I do it? Once I start getting those convention invites, I’ll start burning them. maybe then I’ll think about the enormity of what I’ve taken on. I’m not going to stay forever in this ridiculous skimpy outfit, but oddly enough whenever people hear that, it always cheers them up for some reason..."

John Barrowman Speaks!
"Being Captain Jack has changed my life. I can’t even go to the grocery store anymore. I mean, I didn’t anyway because the tomatoes always tasted funny and the asshole who ran the place overcharged, but I get people come up and asking for autographs. Mostly perverse sexual acts, but sometimes autographs. Jack’s lust for people is different. He fancies the Doctor, but would never say it because the Doctor would make his life a living hell. Ianto would be good for sex but not conversation and Gwen would be just wrong. But Martha. Oh yeah. Martha, Jack likes. They could come together in ways that Tosh and Owen never could. Especially now they’re both dead and decomposing. But, yeah, I’d whop it out for Sarah Jane Smith. I’d whop it out for the Virgin Mary. Sometimes you just gotta forget about the automatic criminal record you’re going to get and just go with the flow, you know what I mean?"

Gareth David-Lloyd Speaks!
"I really enjoyed this. Which doesn’t happen often. I liked that bit where I had to sit on a desk as the Earth moved. That desk was romancing. Slut of a desk. No, I don’t get out much."

Eve Myles Speaks!
"Filming Touchwood consumes seven months of your life, you don’t see much of your friends or family, just the people you work with. It really helps that you’re playing a madwoman though, especially one retarded enough to think that any old machine gun can defeat an outer space robot person in bulletproof armor with laser beams. Gwen’s clear insanity has always had the wow factor for me, I think. Best job I ever had apart from every other one in my CV."

Penelope Wilton Speaks!
"I would do anything for Russell T Davies, especially coming back as Hellfire Jones. She’s an accurate depiction of a certain sort of English woman when they don’t take their medication, and a dying breed in a way. Especially when they don’t take their medication. I don’t mourn her demise but bloody hell it’s creepy. Dustbins are frightening because they’re so machine like, so inhuman and so innately tidy. Perhaps it’s a fear we all have that not only do we get taken over by machines, they don’t leave messes on coffee tables."

Jacqueline King Speaks!
"Seriously, can the public stop sending me death threats? The malicious know-it-all cow is exactly what Russell wrote in the script. I’m not actually LIKE that in real life. This has really got to stop. Small children spit at me as I pass. I AM NOT SYLVIA THE BITCH!!"

Bernard Cribbins Speaks!
"I’m a great admirer of David Tennant, and his truly prodigious sex life and the wonderful thing he leaves all these emotionally vulnerable young women for old pros like me to work with when he’s finished. David does all of that with bells on. Literally. You don’t want to know WHERE he hangs them from, but still, I’ve really enjoyed Doctor Who. And all who sail in her. My weakness, sailors you know. Can’t stand them."

Noel Clarke Speaks!
"I was asked back to Doctor Who a long, long time before I actually left it. I thought it was a joke, but it made sure they could sign me up and legally force me to come back. Cunning bastards. Then RTD writes it into the script that I have to join Touchwood, just at the same time both he and Chris Chibnall quit! Even though they KNEW I wanted to focus on writing and directing, they want me to spend all my time playing the Idiot of Cardiff! God, this is worse than the time Nick Briggs turned up during the filming of Adulthood and wanted me to write him into the show as a canonical Doctor..."

Camille Coduri Speaks!
"They didn’t have to twist my arm to come back. I was asked, would I consider it? Yes, are you you mad? Of course, get on the bus, let’s get back in that TARDIS. I’ve never truly left, it’ll always be in there, locked away, right in my solar plexus. Some might, less fairly, call it a benign stomach tumor, bit it’s in THERE, I tell you! You know, I want to tell you a secret: I am drunk. Absolutely pissed out of my mind. Can you tell? No, I thought not. You up for a quick shag behind the couch?"

Adjoa Andoh Speaks!
"I watch the program myself, my children watch it, my friends watch it, older friends watch it, all the wonderful actors that this country has are banging on the door to be in it and why are we attracted to it? I think it’s something to do with blonde girls with big tits blowing up Dustbins with machine guns? When the central premise is that, you’re always going to have something that people want to be in, want to work on and want to watch. Unless there’s some better porn available."

Elisabeth Sladen Speaks!
"Do you do shorthand? No? Good, me neither. But I have to pretend to when playing Sarah. Life’s a bitch and then you die."

Thomas Knight Speaks!
"I don’t think of myself as all that famous because no everyone watches the show. I can’t really use it as much of a bargaining chip or anything, which is a shame, but lucky I have my gambling racket, pornography ring and insurance fraud schemes to fall back on. I’m the third oldest of five siblings and all of them act which gets a bit... irritating. I hate it when we have to share dressing rooms. That’s... oh, I hate it. I hate it so bad. Who cares if I’m missing out on a normal childhood, no one asks a pediatrician if they were normal as a kid. I’d like to be pediatrician now I think about it. No one would ever suspect a thing. Like all the drugs I smuggle inside K9. It may be a tin dog, but it’s a pretty awesome and magical tin dog that customs are hardly ever going to have the imagination to search. My main customer is Lis Sladen, of course. She can rock it like no one else can. Once she’s taken the special blue pills and switched off the pacemaker."

John Leeson Speaks!
"This old timer is very to pick up any crumbs that come his way. Why else do you think I do Big Finish? It was a pleasure to record ALL three lines of dialogue for this latest episode. It’s a delight and surprise to me that they don’t just get Nick Briggs to do the voice like everything else. I do wish people would cast me as something other than an animal machine though. It would make a change..."

Alexander Armstrong Speaks!
"Piss off, Ewen, you sad little anorak! How dare you besmirch my sight?"

Nicholas Briggs Speaks!
"AT LAST! MY HOUR HAS COME! Being a total fan and creative genius, I have an instinct for that Doctorness and instantly had the perfect Doctor ready, which just happened to be absolutely identical to the one from the Oddly Visuals. The short fuse temper, the enthusiasm, the toothbrush-wielding, the science and exploration, the insatiable curiosity, the heroin habit, constantly swilling lakesworths of tea... but I wouldn’t dismiss Lavros in anyway apart from the fact he steals food from my mouth by hogging all the Dustbin dialogue. But now I am the New Doctor, I shall reign eternal! Entropy will claim the universe before I relinquish this role! Oh, it’s a long way since Doctor Who Weekly did their story "Bald Bloke In Back Garden Thinks He’s Dr Who Phew What A Loony", isn’t it? Oh, I shall make the show so tense even the continuity announcers will be hiding under the table! THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING..."

Julian Bleach Speaks!
"I wanted the return of Lavros to be a complete surprise, so it was kind of awkward when there was a whole Touchwood episode about him. The funny thing is that I actually AM creating a whole new race of cybernetic killing machines at the moment. But to say any more spoil the surprise."

Russell T Davies Speaks!
"There are all sorts of ways that you can criticize those final two episodes, as I have discovered over the last four years. So what if it’s too internalized, too full of continuity, only for the fans and unlike ANY other program ever? We’re simply doing what kids do in their imaginations all the time – they’re expert at crossovers and would nothing of having their Dalek toys battling Star Wars droids. Oh I love being so arrogant and muscle bound and full of end-of-term energy! Why not have all the faction of the Doctor Who universe going into battle together? Plus, since they’re all regular cast members, it’s actually easier to use them instead of getting newbies in to pad out the numbers. The only new bloke in this is Lavros. Now, I would have brought back Terry Molloy but he can’t fit into the Cyberloo prop anymore. And even if he had I probably wouldn’t have used him. In those old stories Lavros would always turn up, complaining about his irritable bowel syndrome and the Dustbins wouldn’t be allowed to get a word in edgeways and become simple foot soldiers, migrant cleaners there to do his dusting instead of the obsessive compulsive filthaphobes they really are! But I’ve had three years to establish their neuroses and it’s time to bring back the creator and see what happens. And this time it’s not Nigel Verkoff in fancy dress trying to look hard, it’s the REAL Lavros, the one that legends have built on in the playground because of our refusal to bring him back. Well, I HOPE legends have built up. The whole thing might go tits up otherwise... still, I don’t care, I’m not the one who has to live with the consequences, do I?"

Steven Moffat Speaks!
"It’s the season finale, two parters and there might be Dustbins in it. And possibly Lavros. Err and that’s it, I’m afraid; there’s no more spoilers from you all on the forum, that’s the last I’ve got. I don’t know what stopped you all spoiling, but I can guess. They’re coming; the Authors are coming for you. But listen: your life could depend on this: Don’t spoil. Don’t even speculate. Speculate and you’re dead. They are fast, faster than you could believe. Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and don’t spoil! Good luck."

Trivia -
Despite the truly terrifying amounts of fanwank on display, when the Doctor remembers those who have died because of him he doesn’t think of anyone prior to the 2005 revival, not even incredibly obvious ones like Adric, Sara Kingdom, Liz Shaw, Nyssa, Katarina, Gus, Dodo, Kamelion, Peri, Evelyn, or even any of those countless regulars slaughtered in the Temporal Difference of Opinion.

Rumors & Facts –

Cor, that was reasonably epic...

...IF you ignore the fact that there is next to no plot at all in the first episode, the crowbarring of shithouse cameos, the ten-minute scene of block-solid dialogue from characters alienating the casual viewer entirely, the clumsiness of the bee arc, it is fairly tight. But then, so is the average anal sphincter.

Of course, some may comment this is a frequently nonsensical, pointless, structureless dues ex machinas unworthy of a 6-year-old’s fan fic is a testament to why RTD should never be allowed to write for Doctor Who before or since. These comments are hurtful and spiteful slander from mindless Nu Who bashers. The people who were genuinely intelligent enough to hate the story didn’t bother to comment at all!

Yet if you were disappointed by Journey till Dawn as a season finale, just be glad RTD wrote it and not the focus group, which for the last three years had been demanding an eight-episode extravaganza sometimes called Eternal Triangle, sometimes Detraction of the Dustbins, sometimes Revenge of Exxons, or simply The Temporal Difference of Opinion.

The story featured the Exxons-Snotaran-Ice-Cream-Vendor alliance drawing the Doctor back into the time war for some reason, as the Eternals resurrect Lavros in the form of Ben Kingsley, Patrick Stewart AND Terry Molloy, who in a completely random retcon it is discovered murdered the Eighth Doctor (rather than the other way round as revealed in Terri’s Firmer). The resurrected Bastard and Jenny find this disturbingly easy to believe, who in fact have been engineering the whole situation allowing the Dustbins to raise greenhouse gases to an all time high to make the subjugation of mankind piss easy.

Suddenly Donna is hit by a car and transforms into the Aracanon Leaderene, for absolutely no logical reason whatsoever, but the Bastard insists on taking credit for the whole thing.

With the Temporal Difference of Opinion annulled and the Time Lords disqualified, the Dustbins are on the loose, forcing the Doctor, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Pete, Captain Jack, Sarah Jane, K9, Donna and Martha teaming up to blow up Gallifrey all over again in a massive Dustbin/Snotaran war... only to cause the Doctor to perish and as Sarha, Jack and Rose watch, regenerate into Mark Gatiss as the Eleventh Doctor.

But after the fiasco formally known as The Idiot Box, Gatiss was not going to be allowed near a word processor ever again – let alone play the lead role! Not even as a piss-taking "give fandom a heart attack for some cheap publicity for one week only" ploy!

RTD had been planning a 'crash and burn' story to wipe out almost anything that he had a hand in creating for years, at it really appealed to his atheist nihilistic vibe and more importantly he could resolve all the dangling plot threads in a single, lethal burst rather than spreading it over lots of other stories.

This story arc, tentatively entitled "Take Down Your Pants And Receive The Fanwank Then Go To The Shower But You’ll Never Wash Away The Guilt!" and began with Harriet Jones and Lucie Saxon teaming up to travel to the Medusa Cascade and break down the rift, unleashing a huge army of Dustbins lead by Lavros. This splintering of realities allows Rose, Jackie and Ricky to escape Irth.

Meanwhile, the Doctor, Donna and Jenny visit the WikiBox where Donna discovers her entry says she should have died during the events of The Drunken Ginger Bride. No sooner does she discover this then the Doctor and Jenny vanish out of existence, leaving Donna alone in an out-of-control TARDIS. Rose contacts the time machine and gives Donna a quick driving lesson and finally manage to sort out reality for the Doctor and Jenny to reappear – they’d been kidnapped by Lavros and Harriet Jones.

Teaming up with Sarah Jane Smith and Captain Jack, our heroes piss about for two and half episodes defeating all sorts of "what if?" monsters until Harriet and Lavros reveal that Donna is actually under the control of the Aracanon Leaderene (who is two-timing Harriet) and thus double-crosses everyone and lead to the Dustbins exterminate Wilf and Sylvia (at least 50% of this is against Donna’s will).

The Doctor knows the only reset button left to use to re-seal the Medusa Cascade which rather awkwardly requires the sacrifice of a human life. This reveals a massive black-and-white flashback to the Eighth Doctor deciding to kill his least appreciated of companions, Dr. Grace Holloway, in a controlled thermonuclear explosion which triggered his regeneration into the Ninth Doctor. When it is pointed out that this is directly contradicted on TV, the Doctor admits he’s talking crap, but someone DOES need to die to save the day.

A massive balloon debate starts as all the regular characters as they protest it can’t be them, so they decide that Donna’s the best as the audience probably hate her anyway, plus it counts as her saving the universe and throws herself out the airlock. The rift is sealed, reality is reset, the Doctor moans and bitches about feeling guilty for what happened before realizing that the reset is so complete Donna is even alive and well, but doesn’t remember any of the adventures.

So the Doctor gets to have them all over again! YAY!

While RTD rightly considered this arrant garbage, he really kind of liked the idea of an epic season finale featuring the return of countless elements and characters – which is precisely why he’d done the exact same thing every year since the series’ revival in 2005. But this time there would be MORE ex-companions, MORE monsters and finally the PROPER Lavros and not Nigel Verkoff in a wheelchair doing a very poor Scorpius-from-Farscape impersonation. He would also bring back Midshipman Alonzo Frame from The Michaelmas Cruise for many reasons, first and foremost that RTD was head over heels in lust with him.

All this and more would be crammed into the concluding story of the 2008 season, which would prove to be the final Doctor Who story produced by Phil Collinson. "Thank God," the nation is reported to have wept, "the man’s a hack!" which made RTD and Julie Gardner rather cross and to teach the nation a lesson immediately quit the next year.

Disaster struck in August, as disaster was oft to do: Billie Piper would be on her honeymoon throughout January 2008 spending her time on topless, sun-kissed beaches avoiding paparazzi and trying to be discreetly pregnant. This was a huge blow to RTD’s plans, which is probably why Piper deliberately chose the intended recording dates for Journey till Dawn to go AWOL. Furious, RTD decided to reduce Rose’s appearance to a short coda where the 10.5 Doctor visits Irth and discovers Rose has since died of renal failure and the "ungrateful slapper" will never be seen again – until Gardner just suggested they record the story in February instead, which was a lot simpler.

Getting Billie Piper, Noel Clarke, Camille Coduri, Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Elizabeth Sladen, Tommy Knight, Alexander Armstrong, Russell Tovey, Bernard Cribbens, Adjoa Andoh, Julian Bleach, Clive Swift, Penelope Wilton, Patricia Routledge and whoever-the-hell plays K9 to appear was easy. But getting David Tennant to play TWO Tenth Doctors without a staggeringly large pay rise was the hard bit, so it was decided the Clone Doc would temporarily assume a new regenerative form. Briefly considered for the role of the Next Doctor was Daniel Radcliff, David Thewlis, John Simm (a bodyswap with the Bastard), Harry Lloyd, Rhys Ifans with Lily Allen as his assistant.

At one point they were so desperate RTD considered having the Doctor die altogether and be replaced by a Time Lady from a parallel universe where the Dustbins conquered Gallifrey and Captain Jack is sober. This Time Lady would sacrifice herself to reboot the story in a massive reset. This idea was considered quite highly until they realized they’ve pretty much used it the previous episode.

RTD suggested instead the return of the Rani, being hunted across time and space by Rose Tyler in a kinky vengeance plot. The Rani’s evil plans would conflict with Lavros, kill Rose and then nick the Doctor’s TARDIS in the epic cliffhanger ending. This lead to Julie Gardner screaming and headbutting her desk, shrieking "ENOUGH! NO MORE RETURNING CHARACTERS! PLEASE! NO MORE! I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE!!"

Thus this and several other ideas were abandoned, including an all-out Dustbin/Snotaran war on Irth orchestrated by the resurrected Bastard, the Bilurians and the She Devils as greenhouse gases reach an all time high and the Aracanons revolt. Another casualty was that, rather than Lavros’ long-winded self-justifying origin story rant plugging a BF audio series, the story actually featured the Doctor and Donna visiting ancient Fargo and encountering Lavros when he was an autistic geek with no friends. The Doctor’s repeated attempts to throttle the jerk ultimately proved to be a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey cause of the whole problem in the first place.

Another screaming fit from Gardner put a stop to that nonsense pretty damn quick, I can tell you. And if that didn’t, director Graeme Garden was on hand to point out that he urgently needed the scripts for the finale as they’d already started filming and no one had any clue what was going on, leading to much adlibbing. Thus, RTD worked feverishly (having contracted chicken pox at some point), and cancelled his appearance at several Royal Weddings to which he hadn’t actually been invited but intended to gatecrash with his usual flair. In this calomine-lotion-induced haze, RTD decided that, actually he didn’t really like this job and wondered if it would be easier to have everyone die halfway through the story and end the series?

Gardner screamed a lot and eventually RTD got back to work while she screamed a lot at the BBC’s Controller of Fiction to allow the episodes to be extended by ten minutes, making it the longest regular-season Doctor Who episodes ever. Pity about the content, but what can you do?

Reinvigorated by a new batch of "herbal" cigarettes, RTD completed his initial draft three minutes later, took part in a cross-country marathon, redecorated his house and then vomited continually for two days and nights.

Filming continued in and around Cardiff with lots of boring details I cannot honestly be expected to remember. The next major hurdle came when Sparacus "Flamingo" Jones insisted that - despite the face the character had never appeared in anything outside the rather sticky toilet paper Sparacus wrote his sexual fantasies on - that the completely unknown companion Ben Chatham feature in the story as "a nice nod to online fandom" as long as he wasn’t the one to die horribly at the end of the story. "There can be a scene where he chucks a glass of absinthe over Lavros!" Sparacus babbled insanely and immediately pitched a plot to Garden on the spot, even though it was in the middle of filming -

The Doctor, Donna Noble and Ben Chatham are travelling in the TARDIS when the Earth vanishes. Ben comes up with an idea of how to trace where the planet is and the Doctor ruffles his hair and everyone sings "For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow!" as Ben blushed modestly.
Meanwhile, a Dustbin invasion fleet strikes Earth. Ben slowly recites one of his poems as we see Dustbins exterminate an infant school full of innocent children. This not only creates an atmosphere of bleakness appropriate to the theme, but that kind of unflinching darkness that is the way forward for British television, teaching children about the harsh and brutal nature of existence while simultaneously offering a bit of cultural education for the younger viewer.
Finally, the TARDIS reaches Earth and Ben uses a communication device he took without permission from Touchwood to trace Rose Tyler who embraces him passionately - she still passionately loves him and wants to ravish his fabulously smoothe, honey-coated body. Even though she hasn’t actually met him before. A Dustbin turns up to exterminate the Doctor, but Ben heroically shoves the Doctor slightly. The Dustbin’s death ray misses completely, and everyone congratulates Ben on his amazing pushing skills.
However, shortly after, the Doctor is attacked by a feral gang of heroin-addicted looters who beat him to death. Even more amazingly heroically than before, Ben leaves Donna and Rose to fight over his beauty while the amateur archaeologist uses his Camp Karate skills to fend off the hideous chavs.
Alas, these commoners have brought on the regeneration, triggering the birth of the Eleventh Doctor played by Lee Williams and played exactly like Jon Pertwee when he couldn’t be arsed to act in 1972!!
Lavros and the Dustbins arrive as the wheelchair bound cripple rants away in a cheap Nazi stereotype, using the character the way he should have been rather than anything RTD could do. Suddenly, a sense of Wartime British patriotism wells up in Ben who snatches glass of absinthe from the local trendy wine bar on the Crucible and throws it over Lavros. This interferes with his life-support machine, causing him extreme discomfort and quite a lot of death.
The Dustbins capture Ben, however he heroically escapes and comes up with the key idea which saves the Earth, but kills off everyone with an XX-chromosome under a certain pay bracket, leaving the human race composed entirely of well-educated homosexual men with degrees. The new Doctor weeps in joy at this new start for sentient life, before Ben holds him close and the two start having full frontal gay sex in the middle of a field surrounded by cows beneath the light of two moons.

Before Sparacus could finish telling everyone how sensible and understated his story was with difficult resolutions building up the threat of Lavros and the Dustbins while simultaneously leaving Billie Piper dead in a gutter, he was stabbed repeatedly by Garden with a bowie knife, bundled into a bin liner and left for dead in a dumpster.

He was later found on the Isle of Wright insisting he WASN’T some weirdo madman here dreaming of world conquest while jumping up and down in a tutu and Napoleon Bonaparte hat with a finger in his ear. The natives thought him a demon, placed him in a gigantic wicker man and set it on fire.

Meanwhile, by March 21st the usual gang of idiots had finally managed to finish recording the story. This marked the end of Catherine Tate’s time as a Doctor Who regular, which depressed everyone and totally overshadowed Phil Collinson’s meek attempts to get attention after four years of selfless loyalty to Doctor Who. Apparently he’s since become the Manchunian Ambassador for BBC Drama or something. I dunno, and I definitely don’t care.

And apparently Alice Cooper had something to do with this. No idea what, but I definitely wrote his name down for SOME reason. Maybe HE was the one who did that cringeworthy fanfare as the TARDIS dragged Cardiff back to Earth? Who cares?

Ultimately, Journey till Dawn would not merely tie The Michaelmas Cruise as Doctor Who’s highest-charting broadcast episode EVER, but it was so freaking amazing even the cliffhanger appearance of Nicholas Briggs didn’t turn away normal people – indeed, it triggered a wave of fevered intrigue and early-onset swine flu to an unprecedented FIRST-PLACE FINISH!

Yes! For the FIRST TIME in FORTY-FIVE LONG FUCKING YEARS, Doctor Who was INDISPUTABLY THE MOST POPULAR PROGRAMME in the WHOLE of the UNITED BLEEDING KINGDOM!

So, as you can imagine, it was all downhill from hereon in...

Season D Round-Up –

The 2008 series of Doctor is the most consistent set of stories yet delivered by Doctor Who, which is infinitely depressing. There’s no weak link, no Serve You Rights, no TOMTIT Monster, no Powder of Droll, no Filler... because that would imply that there were really, REALLY crap stories up against otherwise brilliant ones. And that ain’t the case here, buster, much as we all wish it was.

After the amazing, brain-busting reveal that they hadn’t even been able to come up with a new companion, the season has set about with one mission: to show Russell T Davies for the compulsive lying bastard that he is. He said he didn’t want the show to be dark and depressing, that he’d never bring back Donna, Lavros or Rose, and that he wouldn’t piss away a brilliant concept like the Shadow Proclamation. Looking back, I can only wonder why we were dumb enough to fall for it.

On the bright side, Catherine Tate turned out NOT to be total shit while driving certain internet bloggers/failed novelists to contemplate suicide. Yes, you know which ones I’m talking about. Life as a sidekick can be a bitch at the best of times: whether you’re Dr Watson, Sergeant Lewis or Penfold, your job is to be patronized, to have things explained in words of one syllable, to be one step behind. Donna headbutts this premise with the same gusto as she headbutts most things, and makes Rose and Martha look like the clingy emotional wrecks that they, well, are.

In short, Donna Noble freaking rocks and after an epic story combing four different sci-fi series STILL comes out as the only character worthy of a show on her own. Imagine if that crappy Penny Carter had been in Bunglers in Crime, The Fans of Up Pompeii and Planet of the Odd. Would YOU have watched that? Let alone gone out and bought the DVD box set? You would have? Well, yeah, so would I probably but she’s the only thing not 100% complete crap in Silence of the Libraries.

Nope, didn’t expect any disagreement there either.

With a season full of comedy, drama, horror, alternative universes and ending a finale only slightly-less mind-blowing than a drunken Tom Baker knocking on your front door and asking to watch part three of The Lethal Assassin you’d have to automatically assume that all of fandom was a bunch of miserable ingrates not to embrace a thank you gift selected and packaged with love and stained with fanwank.

And you’d be damned right. The fact it IS complete bollocks is an entire side issue. There is absolutely nothing RTD could have done to end the season in such a way to make the fans happy, and by giving them every possible thing they could have wanted, makes damn sure that Steven Moffat can’t use that trick when he takes over. Unfortunately, this might mean we get some more of his "originality".

So, RTD, it seems you have the last laugh after all!

But what about David Tennant and his baffling desire to sing in every episode? Well, I’m glad you asked. This time he accompanied himself in a biological meta-crises folk duo that you will never find in another program considered broadcastable on British television!

"End of the Error" by the Three Tennant Tenors

Time is ticking! Nowhere to go!
Can’t reverse polarity of neutron flow!
Surrounded by a bunch of fools
While a mutant on a toilet calls ME a tool!
The Dustbins will destroy the universe!
I look like Nick Briggs – WHAT COULD BE WORSE?!

One step forward making two steps back!
Two-and-a-half Doctors face Dustbin attack!
No answers for no questions asked!
Is there anyone here NOT from my past?
Lining up for the execution
Or lining up for the grand illusion?

If it’s all about power
Lavros, then take control!
Try and break all the rules
But you’ll never break my soul!

Dustbins and Lavros on the offense!
They keep talking - but it makes no sense!
You say that we’re responsible?
But we aren’t! We aren’t!
We wash our hands and come out clean
Don’t care about the enemies within!
You say that we’re responsible?
But we aren’t! We aren’t! We aren’t! We aren’t!

What about Cardiff today?
What about the place that we call home?
Never been so many companions
And we’ve never been... so alone...

SO ALONE!!

---------------------------
DOCTOR WHO
will return in
THE MICHAELMAS IMPOSTER
---------------------------

10th Doctor - Journey's End (v)

2010-02-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

Book(s)/Other Related -
Dr Who: Apocalypse of the Dustbins
The Two-And-A-Bit Doctors
I, Lavros and the Seven Dusty Sins: Innocence, Purity, Disloyalty, Guilt, Corruption, Fear, and Underestimating Temps from Chiswick!

Fluffs - David Tennant seemed threefold for most of this story.
"Saturday comes after Friday, or at least that’s what THEY think..."
"AND I HATE UNIT!" screams one Dustbin for no apparent reason.
"Sup B-boiz! It’s me! L-L-L-LAAAAAAAAAVROS, you in sum reel pretty sheet now boiz!! Fo rizzel! Yo ass is mine, bitch!"

Goofs –
Why wasn’t Cardiff stolen in Wrong Turn? Did the Dustbins realize Raph was full of shit in that timeline and just get on with destroying the universe or what?
The scene where the Doctor, Donna, Jenny and Alonzo run off to the TARDIS they are clearly running out of the studio and in the opposite direction to the police box.
Seriously, how crap is Mr. Smith? He’s an Atari computer console with a spatula and a pop-up toaster strapped to it – when, according to Sarah Jane Misadventure continuity he should be a Macintosh computer console with a car aerial and 1980s lightning globe strapped do it, as per the rebuild in "The Lost Bouy".
When the other Tenth Doctor regenerates his entire body, how come question mark boxer shorts are part of the process? Shouldn’t he be utterly stark naked? Not that I WANTED to see David Tennant naked... I mean, even I did, it’s not exactly difficult to do, is it?
When seen in long shots Cardiff becomes Central Europe.
When Mr. Copper transfers control of the Subwave Subway Submersible Submachine Network to Touchwood, the map circles an area in Venezuela, not Cardiff. Mind you, the Subwave Subway Submersible Submachine manages to work without any satellites (as do all TVs and cell phones), so being assigned to the wrong continent isn’t so big a deal. And how come the subwave only seeks out companions of the Tenth Doctor?
At certain points during action, the director can be heard marveling at how realistic all special effects are.
You know, the Dustbins couldn’t have existed in a universe where they are the only forms of matter anyway. Every source of energy, and even light itself, would cease to exist. The air through which sound ways travel would cease to be. There would be no space or time. They would simply have no space to exist, as even space itself would cease to be. There would not be an empty blackness, for even blackness is something. There would be nothing at all. Like Canberra without the relaxed traffic laws. The Dustbin Suzpreme REALLY ought to have thought of that.
If Cardiff is sucked across the universe, how come the Valium is sucked along as well? How do Rose, Ricky and Jackie find their way there when the mighty Time Lord needs a mobile phone signal to lock on? If Cardiff has moved, why didn’t the space-time rift stay on Earth?
So Dustbin Raph broke into the time lock around the war between the Dustbins and the Time Lords and changed establish history by saving Lavros and the Dustbin Suzpreme, bringing them to 2009 so they can destroy all life in the universe and all future history. And the Dommervoy didn’t so much as notice? Did ANYONE even THINK about this at ANY STAGE before they filmed and screened it all?!

Fashion Victims -
Lavros’ black leather hoodie.

Technobbable -
"Well, it’s something to do with the Tandoka scale, don’t ask me what it is because I don’t know, and I’m going to talk really quickly and use an awful lot of big words then everyone will think I’m very clever when actually I don’t have the slightest clue what I’m driveling on about.... trail! Wavelength! Hurrah! We can follow the trail on the Jsundgdgidey wavelength! I don’t know WHICH wavelength that is, because I just made it up. I’m allowed to do that you know, Jenny!"

Dialogue Disasters -

Doctor: Saturday? Good. I like Saturdays. Really get the niche audience at that teatime slot. Wouldn’t work on a Wednesday.

Sarah holds it together for Luke’s benefit:
"Oh god, you’re so young! They’re going to KILL you! They’re going to FRY YOUR BONES! They’re going to CHOP YOU UP into HANDY BITE-SIZED PIECES! OH, YOU ARE SO COMPLETELY FREAKING SCREWED! Still, at least it wasn’t those giant spiders. That would have been awful!"

Lavros: Such male-pattern baldness. So different from the Doctor I once knew.

Shadow Architect: Time Lords are the stuff of legend. They belong in the myths and whispers of the Higher Species. You cannot possibly exist!
Doctor: Yeah... more to the point, I’ve got a missing city.
Shadow Architect: Then, you’re not as wise as the stories would say. If you didn’t want to talk about being a Time Lord, why did you bring it up?

Dustbins: SONST WERDEN WIR SIE EXTERMINIEREN! SIE SIND JETZT EIN GEFANGENER DE DUSTBINS!
German: Bloody tourists.

Ianto: Screw you, you ugly trashcan fuck!

Doctor: They’ve got us! Power’s gone! Some kind of chronon loop...
Donna: But we’re safe, aren’t we? Nothing can get inside the TARDIS!
Doctor: Dustbins can.
Rose: But you told me "nothing can get through those doors"!
Doctor: Dustbins can.
Jack: But you’ve got the Surfboard of Rassilon working as a force field! Nothing can override that!
Doctor: Dustbins can!
Jack: They didn’t last time!
Doctor: Look, you irritating anthropoids, all the other times we’ve faced the Dustbins they were scavengers, hybrids, or incredibly pathetic, suicidal, insane gameshow contestants! This is a fully-fledged Dustbin Empire, at the height of their powers - experts at fighting TARDISes! They can do anything! Right now, those flimsy bits of plywood acting as doors really ARE just flimsy bits of plywood!
Jenny: So you’ve been lying to us all this time to give us a false sense of security? You son of a bitch!
Doctor: Shut up, Jenny. I didn’t ASK for you to be born!

Dustbin Raph: MY NAME IN INGO MONTOYA... PREPARE TO DIEEEEE!!!

Jack: Brilliant! Who’s the fine bit of boy action, by the way?
Sarah: ...he’s my son.
Jack: Sex-say.
Sarah: And he’s 14.
Jack: Do I look like the sort of time travelling omni-sexual who cares about age? I remember one time with this 5-year-old girl and I...
[Ed Note: THE REST OF THIS DIALOGUE EXCERPT HAS BEEN REMOVED UNTIL THE IMPARTIAL INQUIRY INTO THE "PEDOPHILE AGENDA OF YELLOW STICKY FLUIDS" CASE IS DEALT WITH]

Lavros: It begins! Finally, we will achieve all I have ever wanted. Peace. Everlasting peace.
Doctor: Once it’s complete the Dustbins will kill you, Lavros – they despise you for being flesh. Oooh, you will be exterminated.
Lavros: As I said, Doctor. Peace.
Doctor: Oh, get real, Gandhi. No one fell for that the last time we met and one’s falling for it now.
Lavros: Spoil sport.

Jenny: What happened to you? I mean, your face. Your eyes. What happened?
Lavros: Are you showing me pity?
Jenny: Not really. More sort of curious.
Lavros: Oh, but I was like you, so many years ago. Walking tall, so young and so proud on a world called Fargo. A world at war.
Jenny: Cool. Who were you fighting?
Lavros: Each other. My race, the Distbuns in perpetual battle against the Dulls. My very first memory was hiding underground with the screams of battle above. I saw the surface of the planet only once – shattered dome cities, nuclear clouds in the sky, warped cliffs. And I swore then to end it! I pledged my life to help my people tidy up this mess! I studied the soldiers, their frailty, their pain, their lack of desire to clean up after themselves. I sought to find a way to free them from the distractions of the flesh... and then I became a victim myself. Perhaps it was necessary? To inspire me?
Doctor: Except you weren’t helping those soldiers, you were experimenting on them! You experimented on your own family, twisting the evolution of the Distbun race until they became the Dusbtins!
Dustbin Raph: WE WERE BORN OUT OF BLOOD! AS PORTRAYED IN BIG FINISH’S "I, LAVROS" AVAILABLE AT ALL GOOD RETAILERS AND ONLINE!

Ricky: Man, this Crucible place has more aborted countdowns than a NASA launch party... but is there a snooker room? I think not.

Dialogue Triumphs -

Jundoon: Sco-sc-blow-do-mo!
Donna: Hold on, I thought the TARDIS translates alien languages.
Jenny: Yeah, but this rhino’s obviously too stupid.
Jundoon: Sko-po-tro-no-flo-cho-ko-fo-to-do!
Doctor: No-bo-ho-so-ko-ro-to-so-BAKUDOSOHAFUJISIJO!
(Jundoon lower guns)
Doctor: Mo-ho.
Jundoon: Right, that’s it!
(Judoon pull out nightsticks and Rodney-King-style beating ensues)

Dustbin: THE DUSTBIN SUZPREME IS IN DA HOUSE!
Dustbin Suzpreme: WORD OUT YA ALL JABLONSKIS! YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT WE’RE DOING NOTHING BUT SHOOTING WILDLY AND CREATING MAYHEM FOR NO READILY EXPLAINED REASON OTHER THAN FOR THE HELL OF IT. IT IS CALLED **DRAMA**!!

Doctor: I’m the one and only person who could help, but no one’s listening to me!
Alonzo: I can listen. I did last time. And you saved my life, Doctor.
Doctor: Oh yeah. It’s about a missing Welsh town...
Alonzo: I’ve had no less than 26 people ring me up today complaining that Cardiff has gone missing. Come to think of it, they were all you.
And what’s a human doing at the Shadow Proclamation Headquarters? You know you’re not supposed to bring pets, Doctor!
Donna: I’m Donna Noble. So fuck you, OK? And I want a salute. Now!

Donna: What is the Shadow Proclamation anyway?
Doctor: Police. Outer space police.
Jenny: Why would a police force would be named after what a legal document? Why aren’t they be the Shadow Proclaimers or the Order of the Shadow Proclamation or The Shadow Protectorate?
Donna: Jenny’s right. With a name like that, I was expecting all druids and cloaks and incense.
Doctor: You should meet the Brotherhood of Darkened Time.
Jenny: Who are they?
Doctor: The accountants.

Dustbin 1: IT IS SO TIRESOME WHEN THEY START FIGHTING BACK, IS IT NOT? DEAL WITH THE PRATS – ASSUME DUSTBIN ATTACK FORMATION EIGHT!
Dustbin 2: ATTACK FORMATION SEVEN IS MUCH BETTER.
Dustbin 1: ATTACK FORMATION SEVEN IS NOT AS EFFICIENT.
Dustbin 3: COMPROMISE! ATTACK FORMATION SIXTEEN!
Dustbin 2: YOU ARE USELESS AT PICKING ATTACK FORMATIONS!
Dustbin 3: NO I AM NOT! YOU ARE!
Dustbin 2: FUCK YOU, BITCH!
(Dustbin 2 exterminates Dustbin 3)
Dustbin 1: YOU HAVE ISSUES, DUDE.

Lavros: Can you imagine? I had one idea, an idea that has never stopped rolling out across the centuries! I have slept, and woken, and died and every time I appear in the series, there they are. My Dustbins. Outlasting eternity. And all from one man.
Doctor: Oh, but every time you open your eyes, Lavros, there’s me.
Lavros: That IS something of a downer, I admit.

Donna: You can hug me if you want, Jack.
(Jack laughs)
Donna: No, seriously. Hug me.
Jack: Oh...all right.
Donna: Ooh, haven’t you got big manly biceps? ...MARRY ME!!
Jack: Anything for a ginga.

Sylvia: I warned you, dad!
Wilfred: Bullshit! Did you say, "But dad, clearly they will be able to magically boil any paint off their squeegee, thus leaving them free to clean anything they please and rendering the exercise futile!" NO YOU FUCKING WELL DID NOT!

Martha: It’s the Dustbins! They’re still alive! Not just Dustbin Raph! All the others died and there was only one left!
Rose: Oh, we’ve all been there, love.

Jack: Hello? Gwen? Ianto? It’s me! Yeah, sorry about leaving you alone to face a fleet of Dustbins wreaking more devastation on Cardiff than Charlotte Church on a night out to wet the baby’s head, but things got wild. Oh? I took the only Dustbin-killing gun with me? I had no idea of that development. But it all worked out well. You didn’t end up dead like Tosh or Owen, did you? Of course not! So, you forgive me, right? Hello? Hello? Bastards hung on me!

UnQuotable Quote -
Dustbin: THE HUMAN SPRING CLEAN WILL COMMENCE!

Links and References -
This is actually a crossover between Doctor Who (after "Wrong Turn"), The Sarah Jane Misadventures (after "The Lost Snotaran"), Touchwood (after "Hard-On Collision") and The K9 Exploitation (just before "The Last Oak Tree in England? A Clue: No!"). You might miss that aspect of the story as it’s also simultaneously a sequel to every single episode of the RTD era, not to mention some really embarrassing classic era stories AND Big Finish plots.
Not a lot of people know that.

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor, Donna and Jenny reminisce about their adventures in the 2009 Doctor Who Storybook on sale now at all specialist outlets assuming all the rabid fans haven’t bought all the copies first.

Groovy DVD Extras -
The cut scenes of Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale teaming up with Hustle team to form a resistance movement against the Dustbins. They’re all exterminated in three minutes flat but it turns out a cunning back-up-plan by Mickey Briggs saves the day and makes them all rich.

The Spite of Sparacus -
"And so it continues! Potentially great episodes being spoiled by gadfly pacing and dialogue spat out at the rate of machine-gun bullets. This story had so many things going on that it cried out for slow development, at least over six months. The appearance of Lavros was rushed in and some of Dustbin Raph and the Doctor’s dialogue was spoken too fast to be heard. EVERYTHING’S GOING TOO FAST! I’m not trusting that dealer again, I can tell you1 This story should have used to fill the whole season! Lavros is a character that cries out for subtlety and chilling, understated sexual tension. His first appearance should have been a cliffhanger like every single other fucking story he has been in - and there should been at least 43 minutes straight of dark ethical discussions with the Doctor about trees! And THAT, bitches, THAT is why this story is not up to the standard of Genocide of the Dustbins! For one thing, Billie Piper – what was wrong with her? She looked like she’d rather be elsewhere! For another, it seems to be far too easy to wipe out the Dustbins! You can only do that so often before they lose their fear element completely, and this time it didn’t even make sense! Nothing makes sense! EVERYTHING IS TOO FAST! TOOOO FAAAAST! YOU’RE MAKING ME GIDDY! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!"

Viewer Quotes -

"'You and who’s army' is right, bitches! I was so hoping Rose would die, screaming in agony." - LightHope of the SCADs (2009)

"This was the television equivalent of the Holocaust. The Dustbins should have killed absolutely everyone and Doctor Who ended, replaced with a docudrama about what happened to the Clone Lavros between Touchwood and the Temporal Difference of Opinion. I reckon he got into psy-trance, grew dreadlocks, boshed a load of pills and went travelling around Asia. Lavros – The Gap Year Adventures! Try and tell me THAT wouldn’t be a ratings winner? Or maybe getting Dustbin Raph his own late night chat show to replace Jonathan Ross? Dustbin Raph’s Showbix Predictions With Celebrity Fashion Hints for the New Season? An Astrology Column in Heat Magazine while dispensing baffling advice to readers sexual problems! You know it makes sense!"
- Russell Brand (2009)

"I keep telling you, David Tennant has LEFT the show! All that stuff about him being in the Christmas special, even the location footage with him there, is all a fake! Donna is really Romana after she used the Chameleon Arch to turn herself into Catherine Tate! Or maybe she’s a regenerated Lucie Miller? And Martha and Rose will definitely die!"
- Some fan before the final episode was shown (2008)

"I have it on relatively good authority, that the Eternals are involved. Prepare yourselves." - A Compulsive Liar (2007)

"WHO SAID THAT? Who said it was an outer-space Facebook? Step forward! Was it you, Dr. Jones? Or you, Mr. Jones? Or you Mr. Smith? Or YOU Ms Smith? Or the young Master Smith? Or Dr. Smith? No, that would be ridiculous... Anyway, I do believe if it was Facebook there'd be a photo of Captain Jack, with nothing interesting written underneath and a selection of quizzes underneath to see if you have the same taste in movies. And lots of confusing rules about 'writing on walls'. And it would be rubbish, basically."
- Jared "No Nickname" Hansen (2009)

"Oh, yes, I bet you’re going to call me gullible in a week’s time for claiming that it is entirely plausible for the BBC to mount a massively expensive fake film shoot in full costume for a non-existent episode simply to avoid spoilers for this one story while they smuggle Keely Hawes in front of a blue screen in a carpet bag. But you’ll be laughing the other side of your face when Keely flashes the Daleks Lucie Miller-style next week. Oh, yes!" - Lawrence Miles (2007)

"I just watched Erection of the Dustbins, and damn does it seem so much better than Journey Till Dawn! The Dustbins are deadlier, Davison is much more dramatic and serious, the storyline is much more coherent, Lytton is like a breath of air, creepy Alien-esque incidental music as opposed to a syrupy imitation movie grade schamltz fest and a sad, moving ending for a companion that has nothing to do with annoying family members and no false hyping up of a companion leaving! If RTD has proved one thing with his latest story for me its Eric Saward could write a Dustbin story 10 times better than he ever could!"
- Eric Saward the Vampire Monkey on Speed (2008)

"By the end of the first episode, Earth has been thoroughly conquered! Can you name any old-Who story to do that? Earth being conquered is a measurement of quality in the United States, you know. Or have I got Doctor Who confused with foreign policy again?" - Jonathan Blum (2008)

"The Doctor MUST hate Rose – she went to work for Torchwood, who are a bunch of ruthless right-wing bastards, with the morals of alley cats. Then again, everyone the Doctor has had as a companion in Nu Who has ended up working for a military, or quasi-military organization. Now, that’s a really interesting idea, in that it could be implied that RTD is saying that the Doctor Who universe cannot survive outside of a Manichean mindset. so what? Who cares? I don’t anymore."
- Nala "Nyder" Snevets (2008)

"SHUT UP, YOU TEDIOUS BASTARD!" - everyone else (2008)

"That’s him, in the night, Doctor Who. He travels in the TARDIS, the telephone box of time. Fan-TAS-tic, innit? The inside’s much bigger than the outside, but that’s the mystery of Doctor Who. The enemy is named Lavros, the captain of the Dustbins. He is half-Dustbin, half-man... incredible! He wants to rule the world, always to rule the world. Wakes up in the morning; wants to rule the world. After breakfast; wants to rule the world. After lunch; he wants to rule the world. But he will never rule the world! Because it’s not a very realistic long term goal... With the Dustbins, the Doctor is superior. 'Exterminate! Exterminate again! Oh no! He’s the Woo!'. The Doctor wins, he smiles and laughs because he’s Dr Who!"
- Bill Bailey (translated from the original 1960s Belgian)

"Stop ringing me you Whovian bastards!" – the guy who actually owns the mobile with the number everyone rings in this story (2009)

10th Doctor - Journey's End (iv)

2010-02-04T20:59:00.000-08:00

Parte the Fourth

All hope seems lost, but luckily the Doctor’s previous incarnation wasn’t a completely useless jackass and is now cannibalizing the ruined control console as his companions watch on.

"There’s one thing Lavros isn’t expecting and that’s another me! He totally gave that away when he showed off his hunky chest – all the Dustbins are made out of his cells! So if we can lock onto that matter-dissolving signal and tune it to the frequency of Lavros HIMSELF, biggest backfire in history and all the Dustbins go bye-bye!"

"Maximum power!" crows Donna in her best Servalan impression as the completely-knackered TARDIS lurches into life and hurtles through the Medusa Cascade as the countdown starts...

In the Vaults, Lavros is gloating over the Doctor. "The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun? Bullshit! THIS is the truth, Doctor – you take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons! Behold your Groupies of Time transformed into suicide bombers!"

The Doctor stares at him. "I hope you know where you’re going with this," he says at length.

"And how many have you sacrificed? How many more will die in your name? Mary-Jane? Peter Tyler? Lynda-with-a-Y? Sir Roger Blake? Mickey Briggs and his con team? Paula Moore? The Face of Bond? Dustbin Leo? Chantho? Adam Mitchell? That hostess without a name?"

"Good grief, Lavros. OK, maybe Mary-Jane. But Pete Tyler committed suicide. Lynda-with-a-Y was exterminated by Dustbins, so that’s your fault, but she’s alive again. Blake committed suicide. Mickey Briggs and his con team aren’t dead, you halfwit! Paula Moore was killed by a Cyberman, no sacrifice there. Face of Bond? Old age. Leo? Your Dustbins, your fault! Chantho, for fuck’s sake? That had NOTHING to do with me! Adam Mitchell frankly doesn’t count and as for that hostess, she could have found a non-suicidal way of getting out of it!"

"Yes," Lavros clears his throat, "well, most analogies don’t bear close examination. But this is my final victory, Doctor! I have shown you... yourself!"

The Doctor stares at Lavros. "Amazing. You almost sound like you care. Lavros, you’re planning to destroy every single living thing in reality. You DON’T have the moral high-ground, I think you’ll find! Honestly, the idea that you've seen everything I've done and STILL think you can stop me suggests that your great genius died long ago. Sad really."

"And how exactly are you going to stop us?" asks Harriet.

The companions make similar incredulous demands.

Suddenly, a hurricane blows through the Vault and with the grinding of ancient engines, a temple of light and wind manifests in the form of a vandalized police box still partially on fire. The doors are flung open to reveal the clone Doctor, back-lit for maximum drama, holding his whacking great Anti-Lavros Neutralizer.

"Oh yeah! That’s right! Who’s your nemesis, Lavros? Who’s your nemesis?" cackles the clone Doctor. "Fell for the oldest trick in the book – trans-modernism human super-biological metaphysical crisis!"

"No, wait a moment, that doesn’t make sense," protests the bald Nick Briggs Doctor. "If THAT had happened then I wouldn’t have had enough cellular energy to complete the renewal and I’d have undergone uncontrolled retrograde-regeneration by now!"

The Doctor notices a strange ethereal glow playing across his hand.

"You know, there’s no justice in the universe," sighs the Doctor before he is suddenly bathed in an unearthly blue glow that swims over his flesh, his face burning away to reveal a different aspect. The Doctor stumbles back... metamorphosed David Tennant once more.

"Jings! I was kind of hoping it reset back to McGann," he gasps breathlessly, looking around in a daze. "And that regeneration actually counted! I just wasted a precious life but look the same as ever! If it wasn’t for the fact that the Time Lords gave me unlimited regen count in the Temporal Difference of Opinion, I’d BE REALLY ANGRY!!!"

"Two Doctors?!" boggles Captain Jack, swaying on his feet. "We’re ABSOLUTELY SURE I’m not drunk?"

"This is... IMPOSSIBLE!!!" gasps Lavros, backing away.

"You don’t like it? Go on the internet and complain!" challenges the Clone Doc and he, Rose and Alonzo charge from the blind, one-armed cripple in his combined wheelchair and potty.

"If you want something doing," sighs Harriet Jones, bitch-slapping the trio with her mighty metal backhand, which kills all hope, joy and excitement dead as they all fall to the floor and are immediately caught in holding cells as a passing Dustbin blows up the macguffin that would have wiped out the Dustbins and saved the day. "Pathetic," she concludes simply.

"Ah yes, where was I?" murmurs Lavros. "Oh yes. Stand witness you roustabouts – your strategies have failed, your weapons are useless and, oh look, the end of the universe is come!"

The count down reaches zero, the Crucible prepares to fire... as Donna sneaks out of the TARDIS and presses a single button. All the systems shut down, the lightning globes covered up. As the Dustbins go apeshit at the sudden loss of control, everyone looks at Donna in amazement.

"There’s always an emergency off-switch," she explains with a shrug. "Oh, and look, a special 'SABOTAGE DUSTBIN WEAPONRY' key as well!" she adds, pressing some buttons, rendering all the Dustbin’s leather laser guns useless art nouveau egg whisks. "Done that! Next? Come on, give me something difficult! Release all prisoners?"

"Don’t you dare!" screams Lavros, but our heroes are free again and Donna has discovered that, since the Dustbins were going to live entirely inside the Crucible, they are powered, dodge-’em-car-style. "Oh, I like this one! Watch this," she says, pressing another key and the electrical power to the Dustbins goes haywire, making then spin around on the spot helplessly.

"Why the hell is there a convenient console for completely defeating the Dustbin Empire?!" rants Lavros as Ricky leaps to his feet and kicks the insane mutant in the Cyberloo, sending him sliding across the vault.

"That would be me, darling," explains Harriet Jones.

"YOU?! Is it true? Have you betrayed the Dustbins?" whispers Lavros. "Have YOU... betrayed... ME?!"

"You wouldn’t respect me otherwise," Harriet Jones points out.

"True," Lavros concedes. "But I preferred being single anyway!"

The mutant stabs a control on his Cyberloo and Harriet Jones screams wordlessly as her armored shell turns to dripping molten metal and starts to come apart, and one time Prime Minster, one time MP for Flydale North, topples out of the shattered life support system and falls to the ground in a pool of blazing lubricant.

The charred and smoking carcass sizzles as Harriet "Hellfire" Jones croaks out one final gasp, "Fool... you still don’t realize who I am... do you? See you... in your nightmares..."

Everyone stares at the body, having no idea what the hell she was on about but completely spooked nonetheless. It is then they finally notice the control marked "WARNING! WARNING! POWER SYSTEM OVERLOAD! WARNING! POWER SYSTEM DESTRUCT!" as part of Harriet Jones’ last stab-in-the-back of the Dustbins.

"Oh look! A great big threatening button that should not be pressed under any circumstances!" the Doctor grins, overcome by powerful nostalgia for good old days of 2005. "No, I shouldn’t. I mustn’t."

"Jings, I’LL do it!" the Clone Doc snaps. "I mean, this Dustbin Empire’s big enough to slaughter the cosmos, Reality Bomb or no Reality Bomb! Plus, I REALLY want to see how they can get out of this one!"

"And as for YOU, you gibbering would-be oracle," Lavros is shouting at the straightjacketed Dustbin Raph. "Why the hell didn’t you FORESEE any of this, huh?"

"OH, I DID," Dustbin Raph giggles. "I SAW ALL OF THIS, THAT’S WHY I TOLD YOU TO BRING CARDIFF HERE, SO EVERYTHING WOULD OCCUR JUST LIKE THIS! I SAW THE DUSTBINS THROUGHOUT TIME AND SPACE! AND THAT INCLUDES THE END OF **EVERYTHING** DUSTBIN!"

"Why the hell didn’t you tell us?!" shrieks Lavros.

"I’M INSANE," Dustbin Raph protests. "DIDN’T YOU GET THAT MEMO?!? NOW THE PROPHECY MUST COMPLETE!"

"That’s good enough for me!" the clone Doctor cheers, and slams down the destruction controls. Instantly all the Dustbins in the room start to overheat and explode.

On the Command Deck, the hundreds of Dustbins are all spinning out of control voices squawking. Suddenly, one after another, they begin to explode. "I BET THIS IS ALL DOWN TO LAVROS!" bitches the Dustbin Suzpreme. "TYPICAL! IT’S ALL HIS FAULT! I WILL DESCEND TO THE VAULT AND PURGE THE CRUCIBLE LIKE I SHOULD HAVE DONE AT THE START OF THIS! ALL WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

But suddenly smoke starts to pour out of her and she begins to crumple. Power surges through her circuits. "NO! MALFUNCTION! I HAVE A CONTRACT WITH BIG FINISH! IMPAIRED VISION! ATTACK ON ALL SIDES! I’M A MAJOR SUPPORTING CAST MEMBER IN DUSTBIN UMPIRE!" shrieks the Dustbin Suzpreme as, inside her funky oriental-styled casing, the hideous screeching mutant does a very convincing impression of a Spinal Tap drummer.

"MALFUNCTION! YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME! OHSHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" she squeals uselessly as the punch bowl the mutant sits in suddenly rises up, slamming the squidgy monstrosity against the inside of the Dustbin dome, crushing the last traces of Suz Mendes, the Emperor Dustbin and the original Lavros into stinking green slime.

Ah, closure.

With the Crucible thick with shrieking, exploding Dustbins and the fleet of saucers outside similarly starting to blow up, everything is suitably apocalyptic. The Vaults shudder as rubble falls from the ceiling and fire breaks out.

"Well, I hope everyone’s happy! Oh, what a lovely war!" rants Lavros. "A huge chunk of Wales flipped across the universe! A fantastic sexual relationship ended in blood! The mighty Dustbin Empire annihilated! And for WHAT? FOR WHAT, I ASK YOU?!?"

The others exchange looks and decide they don’t really care. Donna, Jenny, Ricky, Sarah, Rose, Captain Jack, the Doctors and Alonzo flee into the TARDIS as tangled metal starts to fall around Lavros. "Never forget, Doctor!" Lavros roars as flames rise up around him, "YOU did this! I name you - forever - as THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS!"

"Jings! Get off your high horse, Lavros!" sneers the clone Doctor from the TARDIS doorway. "You’re a clone like I am and YOU tried to destroy the entire created universe five minutes ago!"

"You’re no fun anymore!" spits Lavros, before activating his Emergency Temporal Shift. A shimmering halo surrounds Lavros, reducing him to a sea of sparkling light that slowly vanishes.

"ONE OF YOUR COMPANIONS WILL STILL DIE, YOU KNOW!" Dustbin Raph calls cheerfully as the smoke and heat obscure him.

"Well, that’s easily solved," the clone Doctor retorts, kicking Alonzo out of the TARDIS to die horribly. I guess RTD really got over his crush for Russell Tovey, huh?

"Right," the Doctor says, positioning Rose, the clone Doctor, Captain Jack, Ricky, Donna and Sarah at each of the console panels (Jenny is sulking and reading Heat magazine). It’s finally occurred to the Time Lord that the ship is actually meant to be piloted by six people, but he has to make do on his own – hence his somewhat chaotic piloting style and complete cluelessness of how the fucking thing works. "We’ve looped the TARDIS’s really rather pathetic tractor beam around Cardiff so we can tow it back to Earth and replace it exactly."

"Won’t that pretty much kill everyone on the surface?" asks Rose.

"Only one way to find out!" grins the clone Doctor.

"Oh, hang on," says the Doctor awkwardly, "I need the password to get past all the 'You Are Performing An Illegal Operation' popups! Otherwise I’ll have to click through them all and that could take a while..."

"Iiiiiiiiiit’s ME! I’m K9! Hurray!" as a floating silver CGI creation pops into existence. "Hang on, Master, I’ll soon sort this lot out without using my hands! HA! Transferring TARDIS base-codes and then I’m off, back to the in-crowd before they start to miss my massive metallic probing presence! They hate it when I get all tied up – at least, when they’re not the ones with the rope! WOOF! Seriously though, there’s a massive orgy in future London with Jorjie, Darius and Gryffen, and if I’m not there, they’ll probably kill themselves! Right, I’ll see you loser bipeds around. Next time you need the universe saving, remember who does it best – in doggy-style! WOOF! WOOF!"

The super-modified robot dog vanishes in a flash of atoms.

"...who was that?" asks Ricky cautiously.

"No idea," the Doctor and slams the TARDIS into life, wrenching Cardiff off the surface of the alien planet and slowly but surely hauling the crumbling landmass through space, much to the terror of the few surviving cast members within like Martha, Martha’s mother, Gwen, Ianto, Wilf, Luke, Mr. Smith and Sylvia. As the police box whooshes out of the Medusa Cascade with Cardiff in tow, as explosions break out all over the Crucible before it succumbs in what curious looks like stock footage of the Death Star exploding.

Finally the TARDIS skids to a halt above the planet Earth and releases the city, which hurtles towards the ground and finally smashes into the gap in the valleys... albeit upside down and the wrong way around, but you can’t have everything, can you?

The return of Cardiff might be a relief to the guest cast, but not to the rest of the world, who were holding celebrations and fireworks with BBC News 24 proclaiming 'Welsh Shithole Finally Gone!'

But the TARDIS meanwhile lands on a paradise island, K9 Cove, where Jackie Tyler sits astride a horse, fully expecting them to turn up and for her daughter to have snagged a fancy man. The Doctor follows his clone and Rose as they leave the TARDIS. "Hey, what are you doing?" complains the Doctor.

"We’re leaving you," Rose explains. "Off to my family on Irth."

"But you can’t go back! Not after you came all that way, trying to get away from Irth so you could find me," protests the Time Lord.

"And I’ve got you," Rose replies. "Well. Him. I mean, you’re the same man, same memories, same memories, plus this one’s got one heart – he can’t regenerate! He’s only got the one life!"

"Might as well spend it being millionaires sexing each other all day and all of the night," grins the clone. "Sides, I’m a bit TOO human – destroying all those Dustbins on a whim. I need someone to look after me, someone like Rose."

"Hey, I was here first!" protests the Doctor. "Just because you’re too dangerous to be left on your own, because when your new personality settled it was full of blood and anger and revenge and you might as well have a Northern accent... I’m not helping my case at all, am I?"

"Not really."

"It’s still not right! Rose came back for ME!"

"And I’ve GOT you," Rose insists. "Build a bridge and get over it!"

As Rose and the clone Doctor begin to make out on the beach, the genuine Doctor is flabbergasted. "Well, fine! Go ahead! But don’t expect me to leave you a chunk of TARDIS so you can grow your own, or anything! When we go, this whole plague-ridden planet’s going to be sealed off! Again!" he shouts. "Anything to say before I leave you to your inevitable festering doom?!"

"Sorry," mumbles the clone Doctor between kisses.

"Really?" asks the Doctor, taken aback.

"Nope!"

"Jings!" shouts the Doctor and storms off back to the TARDIS, slamming the door behind him. Jackie and Arthur watch as the police box fades away from the shore, while the others make love in the sand.

"Actually," Jackie says at last. "That IS kinda disturbing."

The Doctor storms around the console, setting coordinates. "Right! That does it! No more of this schaltzy sentimental crap! You can all bugger off! Next stop the Hub!"

"Hang on a sec, you didn’t let me get off on Irth!" Ricky protests.

"DOES IT LOOK LIKE I CARE?!" roars the Time Lord as the TARDIS thuds to a halt. "Get out of here before I set Donna onto you!" he says, shoving Ricky down the ramp and through the doors. "Jings, I give you a brand new life in a parallel world and this is the thanks I get?!"

"Home sweet home," slurs Captain Jack as he stumbles out of the police box into the Hub where Martha and the others are present.

"You live here?" exclaims Donna. "This place is an OHS nightmare!"

"I don’t know if we’ll ever meet again, Doctor, but I better be off," Sarah decides and departs. "My son’s only 14 and I’ve left him alone for six hours, that can’t be good..."

Within 13 Kandyman Road, a rather awkward Luke lies in bed. "That was... an experience. But I promised my best friend Clyde that I would never die a virgin if I could possibly avoid it."

Lying beside him, smoking a post-coital cigarette is Spike from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and some better-than-average episodes of Touchwood. "That’s a good philosophy, pet," he muses. "Good thing I happened to be passing, looking for the most advanced tech in Cardiff. And it’s some mad old woman in suburbia than anything Touchwood has. Typical really. So, those were the Dustbins, huh? Kind of expected them to be a tad smaller. And sound more like Smurfs..."

Back at the Touchwood Hub, the Doctor is venting his frustrations over Rose by smashing every laptop and work station he can find. "As if I’m going to allow ANYONE, let alone you bunch of emotionally-crippled nymphos, to have access to time technology! And as for YOU, Martha, the scarecrow you call a boyfriend was bad enough, but nuclear weaponry? God damn it! Buy a magazine or something!"

He turns to look at the others. "And as for the rest of you, I never want to see any of you ever again! I intend to make damn sure the TARDIS can’t turn up in this wannabe-UNIT-era, so is there ANYTHING ANY of you have to say before I leave FOREVER?!!"

"Who was that bald nutter with the toothbrush?" asks Francine.

The Doctor turns and strides back into the TARDIS with Donna, slamming the door shut after them and, moments later, it fades away with its usual piano-wire-down-a-yale-key ringtone, leaving Ianto, Gwen, Francine, Rickey and Martha rather put out.

Captain Jack laughs evilly. "Ah, forget him! I’ll got my Vortex Manipulator wristband thingie and can roam time and space to my heart’s content! ...okay, which one of you bastards stole it?"

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor muses which desktop theme to choose to repair this damaged and quite frankly passe "Farscape industrial coral chic" option. "Where to next, ladies? How about the planet Speculum – nasty name, but it’s got mountains that sway in the breeze."

"I’m thinking of going home, really," says Donna.

"What? Why?"

"Doctor, I just wiped out an entire alien empire of death machines and saved the entire universe – you think that bitch of a mother I have has ever done that? Oh, I’m never gonna let her hear the end of this! Plus, Gramps needs looking after. I finally get it! I’m finally special! I never really believed that before, all that attitude, all that lip, all this time I never thought I was worth it. I’m wonderful, I am! Fuck what my mum says, I’m the most important woman in the entire universe! And I’m gonna prove it! Aren’t you happy for me?"

"Yeah... course..." says the Doctor lamely. "Good on ya."

The TARDIS lands in the ruined street and Donna rushes into the arms of her grandfather, determined to head back to the place where she felt worthless with the person who made feel like nothing and prove her wrong. So what if I AM crying, bitches? This is my guide!

Waving farewell, the Doctor returns to the TARDIS and takes off. "Oh well. I’ve got friends everywhere. A girl in every port. Maybe not a friend, moral compass, shoulder to cry on in every port, but girls nonetheless. Just you and me now, Jenny... Jenny? Where are you? Come on, young lady? You’re not playing hide and seek again are you?"

He then notices a post-it note on the cracked time rotor: "Dear dad, I’ve been thinking. Lavros was right, you’re a total hypocritical jerk and worse you’re going to regenerate into a bald twat who does nothing except fiddle with toothbrushes. I’ll take my own chances, frankly. I’ve nicked Jack’s Vortex Manipulator, then I’m back to Messaline and from there I’ve got the whole universe to explore. Planets to save, civilizations to rescue, creatures to defeat and an awful lot of snogging to do! PS – don’t forget to water the marijuana plants."

With all of his friends somewhere else with other people to care for, the bedraggled Doctor walks quietly around the ship, alone once more. "I’ve lost my girl, my best friend, my daughter, my ongoing earthbound line-up of recurring characters, my severed arm novelty back-scratcher, not to mention one of my regenerations. This has to be the worst Saturday I’ve had since... well, ever!"

Soaked, alone and so, so tired, the Doctor stops and leans on the console, his energy gone. The console monitor starts beeping and two Cybermen rear up behind the Time Lord.

"I," hisses the Doctor in a voice like ice, "am NOT in the mood."

The Cybermen take the hint and fade away, phasing out of existence as they plummet through the time space vortex, leaving the Doctor looking rather small in this huge machine, his eyes full of a terrible loneliness. Or sexual frustration. But probably terrible loneliness.

10th Doctor - Journey's End (iii)

2010-02-04T20:58:00.000-08:00

ACT TWO – WAR ON FARGO

To annoy and generally irritate people, the episode begins focussing on the least interesting parts of last week’s cliffhanger:

In the Touchwood Hub, a lone Dustbin advances through the entrance portal as Gwen and Ianto run for their lives into the depths of their secret base and release all the alien prisoners to act as canon fodder. The Dustbin slaughters the extras, but is compelled to tidy up the filthy Hub, buying our... well, for want of a better word, heroes... heroes some more time to contemplate how supremely stuffed they are.

Outside, Sarah cowers in fear of the three Dustbins about to exterminate her, but is saved moments later when Ricky Smith blows the mothers away with his nifty anti-Dustbin BFG and a cry of "Take that, you plasticanium bastard!"

"Mickey?" asks Sarah in amazement.

"Name’s RICKY, bitch!" sneers the badass Cyber-killer as he runs off into the night looking for more Dustbins to fuck up with his mighty weapon of absolutely no sexual subtext at all.

Parte the Third

Aboard the TARDIS, all concerned watch on with awe as the horrified Doctor slides away into death, glowing brightly on the floor and transforming into Nicholas Briggs! So stunned are they by this development, they don’t notice his spare arm also glowing violently in its bubbling container.

"Now then, where were we?" asks the new Doctor as he struggles to get up. "Ah, yes, Rose Tyler. We were in the middle of saying hello. How do I look?"

"Ah... you been better," replies Captain Jack, trying to hide his disgust and succeeding better than the others.

"Charming!" snaps the Doctor in annoyance and starts flicking switches on the console as everyone starts ignoring him and chatting – Captain Jack bitches about Rose making him immortal, Rose bitches about Donna’s revolting mother, and Alonzo pathetically asks Jenny out for a date, but she just laughs in his strangely-shaped face.

"Leave the domestics if you’d be so kind!" the Doctor complains. "We can catch up later! Right now we need a plan to deal with the 27 planets sitting in the Medusa Cascade, we need to find out what the Dustbins are going, why they’re doing it – oh, dear God, Rose, your mother isn’t about to turn up again, is she?"

"Doubt it," Rose shrugs. "At home looking after the baby. She had a boy, dead ringer for Pete!"

"So it didn’t take after the father then?"

"Oi! Domestics!" interrupts Donna, and Alonzo points out that while they’ve been doing this anniversary-get-together shite, the TARDIS is in fact surrounded on all sides by Dustbins.

"Oh, what are THEY going to do? Touch up the paintwork?" mocks Jenny.

Immediately all the lights go out.

"Oh yeah. Forgot about that," admits Jenny, bowed.

At the irritating demands of the Dustbin Suzpreme, the Dustbins activate a temporal prison which looks like a glowing CGI hula-hoop around the TARDIS, which then flies up into the sky above the Powell Estate. "LET’S SEE THEM GET OUT OF THIS!" cackles the Flotilla Leader.

This is rather awkward as at that exact moment Sarah runs into view, waving her arms and shouting for the Doctor to wait up. She skids to a halt as the four Dustbins turn in unison to face her.

"Ah. Fuck. Dustbins! I surrender! I want to talk to Lavros – he owes me ten quid plus six thousand years’ compound interest!" Sarah improvises like Frank Woodley on Thank God You’re Here. "Why don’t you take me to the Crucible and we can chat about this?"

"UM... OK..."

Elsewhere in Cardiff, Martha and "Ballcrusher" Jones finally give up on trying to regain contact with the Subwave Subway Submersible Submachine Network which they’ve been doing while everyone else was busy transforming their physical appearance or blowing up Dustbins or hiding in an alien zoo. "So it’s up to me!" Martha announces, fiddling with her Snotaran teleport parachute. "I’m going to save the world one way or another – bwahahahahahaha!"

"That’s my girl," says Francine proudly as she teleports away to the Cardiff nuclear power plant, the Canine Project which is – like pretty much everywhere in this entire story – swarming with flying Dustbins who are practicing shouting death threats in different languages thanks to their in-built Babel Raddish circuitry.

Martha is deeply pissed off, as this ruins her plan. She teleports back to her mother and decides to think things through again.

At that moment, the TARDIS is being dragged through the planetary array, the Doctor announces they are heading for the massive Dustbin world at the centre of the planets. "We’re being transferred back to the Crucible! And not, I think, the one in Sheffield!"

"What? So it’s actually that play by Arthur Miller? Never seen it," boggles Captain Jack.

Eventually the TARDIS is sucked through an airlock and slams down into the chamber of the Dustbin Suzpreme as the evil metal gits gather round to watch the show. "DOCTOR!" booms the Dustbin Suzpreme, "GET OUT HERE RIGHT THIS MINUTE OR DIE UNNECESSARILY PAINFULLY! SURRENDER, DOCTOR, AND FACE YOUR DUSTBIN MASTERS!"

"We’ll have to go out," the Doctor muses, toying with a green toothbrush. "If we don’t, they’ll get in..."

"Are you metal, baldie?" cries Rose. "Last time we walking onto a Dustbin ship, they were shooting like maniacs!"

"Were they? Oh dear. Still, at least this time Lavros is there. And a proper Lavros, not some total geek nursing a grudge. Our only chance is that he wants us alive. Unless any of you have any better ideas?"

As the Dustbins have a cancellation preventing Captain Jack’s teleport from working and Rose’s dimension jumping gizmo needs another to recharge, it looks like they’re all completely screwed.

"Very well then. All of us together. It’s been a fulfilling experience, though, has it not? Everything we saw, everything we did. We were brilliant, the most fantastic beings in the whole of creation. I know I am. Well, I was..."

"'Was' being the operative word," sneers Jenny. "You’re giving up?! Honestly, how useless are you? Did you lose your spine along with all your hair? Jings, you suck!" Jenny complains, striding out straight out of the TARDIS out onto the Command Deck full of Dustbins.

The others follow, take one look at the thousands of Dustbins and immediately scramble back inside. In the rush, the Doctor and Captain Jack are left outside, pathetically banging on the shut doors. Finally realizing how stupid they look, they give up, clear their throats and stand next to Jenny, who covers her eyes in embarrassment.

"BEHOLD, DOCTOR!" rants the Dustbin Suzpreme. "BEHOLD THE MIGHT OF THE TRUE DUSTBIN RACE! NOT SO DAMN COCKY NOW, ARE WE? DUSTBINS REIGN SUPREME! ALL HAIL THE DUSTBINS! BIG US UP! AND FOR MY NEXT TRICK, I SHALL MAKE THE TARDIS DISAPPEAR... FOREVER!"

A very cheap-looking trapdoor swings open directly underneath the TARDIS, which drops like stone down a plain metal shaft – taking Donna, Rose and Alonzo with it.

"You call that a magic trick?" scoffs the Doctor. "Pathetic! I can see the trapdoor and everything! You’re not exactly Paul Daniels, are you? Honestly! What a letdown. Still, what can I expect from the Saddam Hussein 1970s porn star of the Dustbin Empire? Even the Emperor thought you were as irritating as a skin disease!"

"SHUT YOUR LYING MOUTH!" the Dustbin Suzpreme snaps. "BEFORE YOU SAY ANOTHER WORD, BALDIE, JUST SHUT UP – CAUSE YOUR TARDIS IS GOING TO BE DROPPED STRAIGHT INTO THE CORE OF THE CRUCIBLE! A HEART OF PURE Z-NEUTRINO ENERGY SURROUNDED BY TRIPLE-ELECTRO-MAGNETIZED CARBONATE! THAT MEANS IT’S SO FUCKING HOT IT’LL RIP YOUR LITTLE BLUE BOX TO PIECES!"

"Hah! My beloved TARDIS laughs at being triple-electro-carbonized!"

"Even with all its defenses down?" asks Jenny.

"...shit."

"OH, YEAH, THE TARDIS AND THE REST OF YOUR GROUPIES WILL PERISH TOGETHER!" mocks the Dustbin Suzpreme. "AND WHO IS THAT? IS THAT THE LAST CHILD OF GALLIFREY BEING ALL HELPLESS AND HAIRLESS WITH HIS LITTLE TOOTHBRUSH? SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR PAINTED BLUE POLICEMAN’S BOOTH!"

The TARDIS falls, gathering speed as inside, Donna, Rose and Alonzo hang on railings for dear life as the time machine rattles out of a tunnel into a huge chamber containing a burning ball of fire. The TARDIS shoots into the boiling white energy, the police box windows shattering.

Inside, all the roundels shatter and the control room catches fire as the structural integrity disappears. Alonzo whimpers like a baby, and STILL no one has noticed the swirling energy dancing around the severed hand in a jar, even as said jar shatters and the arm flops out onto the grille – perfectly placed so that when Donna falls to the ground, it manages to cop a feel.

Then, suddenly the twitching arm glows brightly, the energy spreading outwards into the silhouette of a prone body, which sits up and shakes the energy away to reveal a stark, bollock naked clone of the Tenth Doctor, eyes wide and Scottish as ever.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" exclaims Alonzo, Donna and Rose in unison.

Back on the command deck, pretty much everyone is sick to death of how pathetically useless the new Doctor is as he stands around watching his most prized possession, his home, is reduced to slag and clinker.

"Aren’t you going to do anything?!" Jenny shouts. "Donna’s in there!"

"Oh, well, if I must," sighs the Doctor. "Please, I’m begging you, I’ll do anything, put me in her place, you can do anything to me, I don’t care, just get them out of there," he yawns.

"CONTINUE BEGGING!" sneers the Dustbin Suzpreme. "IT SUITS YOU!"

Aboard the crumbling TARDIS, the incredibly hyper clone Doctor hops around the exploding control room. "Hello everyone! Oooh, look, fire! What’s going on? Wait, don’t tell me! Dustbins are trying to kill us, eh? Jings! Well, we can’t have that!" he grins and presses a single button – the HADS – and the wreckage of a time machine instantly vanishes from the core of the Crucible to appear, drifting on the outskirts of the Medusa Cascade.

"That’s the HADS, you see," the naked clone continues to explain to the dazed companions. "Holistic Activity Divination Stabilizer! Whenever the TARDIS is danger, it manages to infinite-improbability-flip us out of danger on the old dues ex machina principle! Surprised you don’t use it more often, really – it never fails... You’re staring at me!"

"You’re naked!" explains Donna awkwardly.

"So?"

Back aboard the Crucible, the Dustbin Suzpreme cackles stupidly as the TARDIS is seemingly destroyed in such a way it vanishes as if dematerializing in the nick of time. "HA! THE TARDIS HAS BEEN DESTROYED! FEELING A LITTLE INADEQUATE NOW? BET ALL THOSE EMOTIONS YOU THINK ARE SO IMPORTANT HAVE ENHANCE YOU..."

"Look," Captain Jack interrupts, "I don’t want to come across in any way ungentlemanly, but will you just shut the fuck up because you are without doubt the most annoying and irritating Dustbin I’ve ever met and believe me, I’ve some real prima donnas."

"MAKE ME!" the Dustbin Suzpreme retorts.

"You only had to ask," grins Captain Jack as he draws a double-barreled sawn-off shotgun, aims it at the Dustbin Suzpreme’s transparent, spherical upper-bodywork. Rather disappointingly for all the macho-bad-ass-ness on display, this has no effect whatsoever on the Dustbin, who stares at Captain Jack for a moment and then blasts him with a death ray – giving us a nice nostalgic buzz as Jack is exterminated yet again in a season finale episode.

As ever, the new Doctor is a jerk and doesn’t so much as blink at the demise of his companion while Jenny falls to her knees beside the body in distress and tries to help. Mind you, the Doctor KNOWS Jack is immortal, so maybe that’s why he doesn’t give a crap?

"So, you STILL haven’t killed me, and there’s got to be a reason for that," announces the Doctor. "Where is he?"

That ominous croaky voice is heard as a screen lights up with Lavros’ Farscape-extra features. "I have been watching with quite some fascination, Doctor," the mutant murmurs. "Your appearance is as inconstant as your sex appeal. But it is time we met as veterans of war, so many wars..."

"WEREN’T YOU PAYING ATTENTION TO ALL THE WARNINGS I GAVE YOU, LAVROS?" demands the Dustbin Suzpreme. "THE DOCTOR IS CONTAMINATION!"

"Aw, but you promised!" whines Lavros. "You promised him to me! The Doctor and the Groupies of Time! You promised!"

"Promised, eh?" sneers the Doctor. "Ah, yes, it’s all becoming clear. you’re not in charge here, Lavros. The Dustbin Suzpreme is the boss! Dustbins may rule supreme, but what does that make you? A servant? Slave? Court jester? CONCUBINE?!?"

Lavros clears his throat and changes the subject. "Bring him to me!"

As the screen switches off, everyone notices Captain Jack getting to his feet and dusting himself down. With a terrified squawk, the Dustbin Suzpreme blasts him again. But, as the song goes, no sooner is he knocked down then he gets up again.

As the Dustbins en masse try to kill Jack by smothering him with their mops attachments, the Dustbin Suzpreme gets a memo about the human cargo of test subjects being brought aboard the crucible. The Doctor tries to eavesdrop, but is dragged off along with Jenny.

"THEY ARE THE PLAYTHINGS OF LAVROS NOW! TAKE THEM TO THE VAULT!"

With all hope for the universe seemingly lost, let’s cheer ourselves up by seeing what all the second bananas are up to. Martha and Martha’s mother teleport directly into the Hub to find Gwen and Ianto being chased by a Dustbin. Rolling her eyes at what losers Touchwood employs, Martha crosses over to the whacking great Rift Manipulator in the middle of the room and slams down the lever marked "OH SHIT!"

Instantly the air shimmers and ripples and the Dustbin immediately starts to corrode, rusting into a heap of ironmongery in moments. "Honestly, you amateurs," tutts Martha. "Only you wouldn’t remember your base is built around a fissure in space and time! Thank Christ someone thought of using it as a defense program of sealing the Hub in a time bubble nothing can get into."

"Actually," Ianto points out, "we all knew about that. The reason we didn’t use it is because it takes the best part of five centuries for the barrier to de-phase!"

"Oh, great!" Gwen complains. "You’ve just entombed us all forever!"

Martha headbutts the wall. "Right! That does it! I’ve had enough!" she screams. "I always swore that if I got to thirty and had no boyfriend, girlfriend or if I was trapped inside a time lock, then I’d end it all with a nuclear bomb I found outside the Mayor’s apartment!"

"Of course!" Ianto exclaims. "That’s the bargaining chip! The Dustbins NEED Cardiff, that’s why they brought us here! If we destroy Cardiff, their entire plan could be ruined!"

"Huh? Oh, yeah," Martha mumbles. "Bargaining chip. Right."

In the vaults of the Crucible, the creator of the Dustbins is arguing on the phone. "What are you driveling about? I don’t care what this journalist says, I certainly don’t remember here on Fargo at the beginning of my creations! Send her to be tested with the others!"

"I can’t believe how lame you are!" Jenny protests as she and the Doctor are marched into the room. "You could have done a big speech or something – you’re the survivor of the Temporal Difference of Opinion and all these Dustbins were deserters! There’s got to be SOME mileage in that! And, you can make Captain Jack immortal – you didn’t think that might be worth mentioning? 'Hey, I’m the Doctor and I can make people indestructible! Maybe it’s not such a good idea to throw the last TARDIS in the universe into the heart of your oh-so-impressive Crucible?' But what did you say? 'Oooh, you haven’t killed me yet! That’s interesting!'"

"Oh, do shut up, Jenny," complains the Doctor.

The two are caught in spotlights which magically freeze them in place. "Excellent. Even when a hairless, defeated, toothbrush-wielding maniac, a Time Lord is best contained," Lavros observes.

"It’s good to know you’re still scared of me," gloats the Doctor.

"Yeah. Scared. Sure. But it is time we talked, Doctor, after so very long. So. Um. You still hanging around with Charley and C’Rizz?"

"No, we’re not doing the nostalgia tour, Lavros, so you can keep the photo albums! I want to know what’s happening right and right now. Like this arrangement you have with the Dustbin Suzpreme – they get all the glory and you do all the work, like a Vietnamese whore on work experience! And THEN what? The Dustbins will kill you all over again, the moment they’re finished with you. You only survived the Temporal Difference of Opinion because the Dustbins saved you! Not a tough bastard like me who LIVED through it!"

"Christ, I preferred you being humble," sobs Jenny in embarrassment.

Lavros rises above the Doctor’s jibes and tries to flirt with Jenny. "So very full of himself, isn’t he? Not half as likeable as the last one, the Time Lord whose rage butchered millions! All my equipment still works, you know," he adds, sotto voce.

"Might I ask what your intentions are to my daughter?" the Doctor queries in a very haughty manner.

"Bleeding obvious was the answer, I’d think. Even Dustbin Raph could work THAT out," Lavros replies, nodding in the direction of the last of the Cult of Fargo, who – as has already been established – flew through the time vortex unprotected and the infinite complexity and majesty of time burnt in the Dustbin’s mind.

"SO COLD AND DARK AND HOT! FIRE IS COMING, THE ENDLESS FIRE, IT BURNS AT THE CENTRE! THIS I HAVE FORESEEN IN THE WILD AND THE WIND!"

"Kind of a disappointing result, really," Lavros concedes.

"THE DOCTOR WILL BE AS WITNESS HERE AT THE END OF EVERYTHING, THE DOCTOR AND HIS PRECIOUS GROUPIES OF TIME AND ONE OF THEM WILL DIE AT THE TIME OF THE ENDING AND THE DOCTOR’S SOUL WILL BE REVEALED!" ads Dustbin Raph helpfully.

"What does that mean?" asks the Doctor.

"No fucking idea," replies a new voice as a new Dustbin-shaped figure glides out of the shadows. "But we shall discover it together, in our final showdown!"

The Doctor boggles. "Harriet 'Hellfire' Jones!"

"The greatest leader Earth has ever known, reduced to a bum selling the Big Issue in Cardiff when I found her," exults Lavros. "She is now the Prime Dustbin, consumed with rage for you, Doctor, especially..."

"Lavros, darling, I CAN talk for myself."

"My bad. Go on, dear."

"Thank you. First, Doctor, you get me deposed just for blowing the Sycophants out of the sky and then you do absolutely bugger all when Alan B’Stard blew up the Aracanons exactly a year later! What, is it because I’m a woman or because he’s a Time Lord? Well," Harriet Jones continues, not letting the Doctor get a word in edgeways, "I stowed away on the Valium and witnessed the entire Week That Never Was! I know the power of the Time Lords and I lust for it!"

"I met her on Twitter," Lavros explains rather lamely. "Now she has taken her place at my side, partially converted into a Dustbin, so that we can rule over all realities and create an evil empire, everlasting."

"Once the Dustbin Suzpreme is destroyed and there’s only ONE female Dustbin-human hybrid around here," Harriet Jones cackles, "then the fun REALLY begins! Oh yes, Doctor, the ending approaches as the testing for the Reality Bomb begins!"

"That’s probably something you should get off your butt and do something about, dad," Jenny grumbles.

"Quiet, you!"

Several hundred million miles away, aboard the ruined TARDIS, Donna, Rose and Alonzo have finally got the clone Doctor to put some trousers on as he leaps around the wrecked console. "Jings, I can wear my brown suit and my blue suit at the same time! Wow! Isn’t that brilliant??? I’ve always wanted to do that!"

"You’re a freak, you know that?" Donna complains. "Is that what all you Time Lords do? Chop a bit off and grow it into another one? Disgusting!"

"No, just this one time! We’re not setting a precedent or anything!" grins the clone Doctor. "When I – well, him – was regenerating, there was only enough energy for the mass of my body, but there wasn’t my body, there was my body and my severed arm – you know, the one that got cut off at Christmas. Look at that arm, ladies, and marvel! Two much mass, not enough energy, both me and him sort of half-way regenerate, implausible as that may seem. He’ll probably turn back into me once his DNA sorts itself out. It can only be an improvement! Look at me, I’m the intergalactic studmuffin!"

"Yeah, that doesn’t really explain ANYTHING at all, really, does it?" Alonzo points out.

"Ah, well, it was all a combination of residual regeneration energy, plus all that zed neutrinos smashing around the place, next thing you know I get one of Donna’s boobs in my grasp and WHAM! Instantaneous psychometrical structural meta-crisis!"

"What the fuck are you on about, Spaceman?"

"I’m trying to explain what just happened, Earthgirl! I grew out of you... Mum! A complicated event in time and space, but I must have picked up some of your genes – I’ve only got one heart! No... wait... yep, definitely one heart. Only one stomach. No handy gills in my armpits so I can breathe better. No-self-gelling-hair follicles. I’m part Time Lord, part Human! Well, isn’t that wizard! Doctor, Time Lord, bothered? No! Bovvered! Oh, you are kidding me, I sound like Donna!"

"Well, that all nice," Rose says, surreptitiously checking out the clone Doctor’s arse, "but what are we going to do about the Dustbins?"

"Easy! We head off to the Shadow Proclamation, get a fleet of Jundoon ships and attack the Medusa Cascade! HOT DAWG!!"

"That’ll never happen," says Alonzo. And HE’D know.

"Jings. It’s for the best I suppose, since we DO need to be silent running, like they do in submarines so the Dustbins don’t detect us and blast us out of the sky."

"So, to sum up, we can’t do anything and even if we could, there’s no possible help for us to get?" Donna clarifies. "Great. Just fucking great..."

Speaking of utterly useless help, the Dustbins finally realize they cannot destroy Captain Jack Sparrow after they throw him into the incinerator and he stumbles out again, untouched and begging for rum. The Dustbins decide that, since they cannot exterminate the fucker, they can at least throw him out of the nearest airlock.

Meanwhile, Sarah has been teleported from Cardiff into the Crucible Test Area, a football-stadium-sized chamber with lots of prisoners. Thinking quickly, she hides in a broom cupboard when none of the Dustbins are looking – showing a far greater survival instinct than Ricky Smith who is standing with the other test subjects under a whacking great lightning globe.

As the calibration of the Reality Bomb is tested, Lavros calls on all present to "behold the apotheosis of his genius" in a rather pretentious manner. The alignment of the planets is activated, each world flaring with haloes of energy in sequence – an amazing sight as viewed by Wilf, one of the few survivors of Cardiff who checks the display out on his telescope. The energy surges into the neutronic core of the Crucible, which cancels out the electrical field binding atoms and the end result, basically, all the prisoners get zapped and instantly turn to dust... apart from Ricky, who teleported himself into the broom cupboard with Sarah at the last second.

"The unraveling of life itself! A success, wouldn’t you say? That test was focussed on living subjects only," Lavros explains to anyone paying attention. "The FULL transmission will dissolve every form of matter, blasted along that wavelength by the 27 planets."

"ANOTHER damn transmitter?!" groans the Doctor.

"The signal will cover the entire universe, never stopping, never faltering and never fading!" rants Harriet Jones. "The stars will go out one by one, entire constellations will die screaming in agony!"

"Structure will fall apart! People and planets and stars will become dust!" crows Lavros. "Every single corner of creation will be left for the Dustbins to tidy, unhindered for the rest of eternity! THIS is my ULTIMATE VICTORY, Doctor! THE DUSTING... OF REALITY... ITSELF!!!!"

"THE DUSTBINS WILL NOT SIMPLY RULE THE UNIVERSE, WE WILL BECOME THE UNIVERSE!" concludes the Dustbin Suzpreme. "PREPARE FOR MAXIMUM DETONATION! THE FLEET WILL GATHER AT THE CRUCIBLE AND ALL DUSTBINS WILL RETURN TO SHELTER FROM THE CATACLYSM! WE WILL BECOME THE ONLY LIFE-FORMS IN EXISTENCE! ALL HAIL THE DUSTBINS!"

"You don’t have a CLUE what to do about this, do you?" Jenny challenges the Doctor, who hugs himself and quietly nods in agreement.

Elsewhere, Ricky and Sarah are avoiding Dustbins and generally remarking on how there’s nothing they can do without finding the Doctor (not realizing that he’s regenerated into a completely useless jackass) when they are confronted by Captain Jack and a Dustbin escort.

Thinking quickly, Ricky hurls his dimension-jumper teleport at the Dustbin, causing eight-sixteenths of the alien death machine to vanish, while the rest bleeds to death.

After Captain Jack and Ricky greet each other – and, more importantly, establish that they haven’t slept together but, you know, it could be on the cards - Sarah declares that she has something to fight the Dustbins with: a cheap knickknack given to her by that Verran Soothsayer that provides her with an endless supply of dues ex machinas.

This time it’s a warpfold conjugation trapped in a carbonized shell, or to put it another way, a cheap-looking earring that could blow up a solar system in an explosion making a supernova look like a pilot light.

On the bridge of the Crucible, the Dustbins receive an incoming transmission – it is Martha who, after several wrong numbers to the Mama Haddocks’ Fish’n’Chip Emporium, makes contact with the enemy.

"Dustbins? Prepare to meet thy doom at the hands of the Great Martha Jones! From within the safety of my time lock, I can detonate the Canine Nuclear Reactor and rip Cardiff apart! I always said I’d blow up everything if my suffering is so great and so without hope of ever getting a boyfriend. I’ll be all right, though – I’M INDESTRUCTIBLE!" grins the now-well-off-the-beaten-track-of-sanity Martha Jones.

"Martha, are you insane?!" shrieks the Doctor.

"Kinda!" she agrees brightly. "Who are you, baldie?"

"Why do people keep calling me that?!" shouts the Doctor angrily.

Harriet Jones laughs. "You have NO idea who you’re messing with!"

"Don’t argue with me, bitch!" retorts Martha. "You brought Cardiff here for a reason – and what happens if it’s not there?"

"NOT A LOT," giggles Dustbin Raph. "IT WAS ONLY BROUGHT HERE TO GATHER THE GROUPIES OF TIME SO THAT ONE OF THEM CAN DIE! THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WELSH VALLEY MEANS NOTHING! MY OLD MAN SAID FOLLOW THE VAN!"

"Blow yourself up, bitch, see if we care," Lavros concludes switching her off. But instantly a a second transmission is received, this time from inside the Crucible itself. It is Sarah, Captain Jack and Ricky, who are threatening to to destroy the Crucible. As you do.

"Captain Jack Sparrow calling all the Dustbin boys and girls? You receiving me? Don’t send in your goons or I’ll set this thing off! I’ve got a warp star wired into the mainframe and if I break the shell, the entire Crucible goes up! I’ll do it – don’t imagine I wouldn’t. I’m ready and, also, indestructible. PROPERLY indestructible."

"Ricky?! Sarah?! Where in heaven’s name did you get a warp star from?!" demands the Doctor.

"WHO CARES?" sneers the Dustbin Suzpreme, utterly calm, even casual at this turn of events. "ENOUGH OF THIS TWADDLE! ENGAGE DEFENSE PATTERN FIVE – TRANSMAT THEIR ASSES TO THE VAULT!"

Before Captain Jack, Ricky or Sarah can act on their threat they are teleported away from their corridor right next to the Doctor and Jenny. "On your knees, all of you!" gloats Harriet Jones as Dustbins glide from their work stations to cover the new arrivals.

"And the final prophecy of Dustbin Raph is in place," giggles Lavros. "The Doctor and his groupies of time gathered as witnesses to the end of all things! Dustbin Suzpreme, the time has come! Now, activate the planetary alignment field, begin the countdown to universal dustification! In short, DETONATE THE REALITY BOMB!"

"Destroy everything!" shrieks Harriet Jones. "EVERY LIVING THING!"

In another move of pathetic bravado in order to give the character something to do, Ricky roars with rage and runs past the Dustbins towards Harriet Jones – only to be zapped by electricity from Jones’ iron fist in iron glove, leaving him unconscious.

"Ricky the idiot," the Doctor sighs.

Metal panels around the Crucible globe begin to grind and slide back revealing lightning globes in a further Death Star parody. As said globes shine and flare with power, the bald Doctor pathetically pleads with the bad guys to stop but it is too late: maddened by his approaching victory, Lavros begins giggling and laughing maniacally...

"Nothing can stop the detonation, Doctor! NOTHING! AND NO ONE!"

10th Doctor - Journey's End (ii)

2010-02-04T20:54:00.000-08:00

Parte the Second

Just as the Dustbin is about to annihilate the one likable character in the story so far, Rose steps out of the shadow and fires her BFG which does what all decent BFGs should: blows the motherfucking outer space robot wanker into a billion polycarbide shards.

With typical British formality, Wilf immediately offers Rose a nice hot cup of tea at his place and they ignore this ghastly invasion by the Dustbins. Over tea and some Kendall mint cake and ignoring Sylvia completely, Wilf and Rose realize they share a mutual acquaintance in the Doctor. Alas, they can’t contact Donna’s super-phone – it turns out Martha’s cover story is true and the Dustbins are actually blocking all communications.

"What the hell are you two on about? Donna being some kind of alien fighter? Don’t be ridiculous!"

Wilf gives Sylvia the back of his hand. "OPEN YOUR GODDAMN EYES, GIRL! The sky is full of planets! We’re being invaded by homicidal rubbish bins and YOU’RE calling ME ridiculous! You narrow-minded denying cow!"

Rose muses that if they can’t find the Doctor, the Dustbins have won and joins Wilf in beating Sylvia up.

Filled with similar ennui, Captain Jack declares that "There is nothing we can do to fight the Dustbins, and since I’m immortal, the only question is whether we have sex before or after the pair of you are ruthlessly exterminated."

Sarah is similarly stumped and despite Luke pointing out that she has single-handedly defeated every single alien menace they have encountered on screen or off it, refuses to waste her time.

And just in case you think our main cast are in any way going to be proactive, the Doctor, Donna, Jenny and Alonzo are aboard the TARDIS as it stops at the Medusa Cascade and similarly hopeless.

"The Medusa Cascade. I came here on a school trip when I was just 90 years old. It was the centre of a rift in time and space, until I single-handedly sealed it in the Temporal Difference of Opinion. Would have been really impressive if I’d MEANT to do it. But this is it. The end of the line. There’s no one here. Nothing for us to do."

So they all stand around looking rather gloomy and depressed.

Just as all the viewers are starting to wonder why they’re wasting their time watching a bunch of time-travelling superheroes standing around in silent, hopeless, desolated defeat as the world ends under the Dustbin yolk of genocide a voice begins calling out amidst the different transmissions. It is heard on the laptop at the Nobles, on the Touchwood computers and also by Mr. Smith.

"Just ignore it, Gwen," Captain Jack sighs. "Probably just someone using an underground network to communicate with the outside. Like that would do anyone any good!"

"Captain Jack Sparrow! Shame on you, you big tosspot! Get up off your fat arse and stand to attention, you bastard!" booms the voice as the screens show the white-haired cherubic old man. "I am Mister Richard Copper-nee-Bucket and I’m saving all your ape-descended asses out of the fire of Dustbin Damnation! Now, let’s see if we can’t talk to each other like civilized bipeds..."

Mr. Copper establishes links with Touchwood and Sarah Jane but not Rose and the Nobles. "Oh, Christ!" Rose complains when she realizes she cannot communicate with the others. "Why don’t you have a webcam?"

"SHE wouldn’t let me have one," Wilf explains, pointing to Sylvia, "she thinks I’d just film myself masturbating and send the videos to 18 year olds."

"I’m RIGHT, aren’t I?! I mean, it’s what I’D do if I had one!" Sylvia snaps. "Why doesn’t blondie go and get a webcam from that shop everyone was looting if she’s so cool?"

"The fourth contact seems to be having some trouble getting through, I’ll just boost the signal," Mr. Copper adds and suddenly a link is made with a familiar nightingale-turned-stalker.

"Martha Jones! You’re safe! Fancy that!" Captain Jack muses.

"Who? Who the fuck is Martha Jones?!" screams Rose.

Yes, Mad Martha was able to teleport herself to the one thing in Cardiff more soul-destroyingly terrible than any amount of Dustbin storm troopers – her mother. Francine "Ballcrusher" Jones. Enough said.

"You must be Sarah Jane Smith who fights Gorgons and Slitheen without all the needless civilian casualties! Looking good, savvy! Why hello!" leers Captain Jack. "By which I refer to the conventional 51st Century definition of the greeting, which is for us both to remove our trousers and get warm at wet at our earliest mutual convenience..."

As Sarah starts fiddling with her hair and giggling bashfully, Mr. Copper explains, "This is the Subwave Subway Submersible Submachine Network, a sentient piece of software I made out of a digital set-top-box and a coat-hanger. It’s programmed to seek out anyone and everyone who can help to contact the Doctor..."

"Rose isn’t going to turn up, is she?" asks Sarah.

"Christ, I hope not," Martha adds.

"Nah, she’s in some parallel dimension or some such bollocks," Captain Jack reassures them. "Naïve tart would be useless anyway."

"The Doctor would just moon over her anyway," Martha agrees.

"She was a rubbish shag as well," Sarah confides. Luke boggles.

Back at the Nobles, Wilf and Sylvia watch as Rose goes apeshit and starts smashing the furniture screaming abuse at the "bitches" on the laptop for dissing her and how she intends to pull all of their hair when they finally meet.

"Anyway," Mr. Copper cuts to the chase, "moving on. Martha Jones has the phone we need to contact the Doctor and the TARDIS. Captain Jack and Touchwood have the space-time fissure of awesome power and Sarah Jane Smith has a Zylok computer mainframe. Together we should be able to create some kind of signal the Doctor can detect and get here."

Shamefacedly, Martha admits that her phone is blocked, but Luke points out that they can still use Mr. Smith to connect every telephone network, modem, router in Cardiff together to call the number all at once since that’s how they normally defeat four out of five regular alien menaces. The whole Touchwood team is suitably chastened at the massive revelation a mad old woman’s attic has technology more powerful than anything THEY have on offer.

As an incredibly funky sleigh bell rock tune blares, an action montage of the combined forces of Touchwood, Mr. Copper and Sarah’s pretentious comedy computer are at work, beaming the signal out into space. Alas, our revitalized heroes have made one teeny-tiny mistake.

The Dustbins notice the surge through the national grid into the water fountain outside the Millennium Centre at the exact same moment the telephone networks combine. They DEFINITELY notice arcs electricity shooting up out of said water tower and pulse out into space.

"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" exclaims the Dustbin Suzpreme at news of the unknown network blasting out of their funky hideaway. "TRACE THESE DAMNED HACKERS! FIND THEM! AND CLEAN THEM OUT!"

"SIGNAL CANNOT BE STOPPED!" reports a junior Dustbin.

"THEN USE YOUR INITIATIVE AND EXTERMINATE THE POINT OF ORIGIN!"

That oh-so-ominous voice pipes up again. "I warned you, Suzpreme One. Just as Dustbin Raph foretold. The Doctor’s groupies are moving against us. But everything is falling into place. It’s destiny, don’t you know?"

"ONE OF THEM WILL DIE!" Dustbin Raph giggles insanely. "OHH, ONE OF THE PRETTY CHILDREN OF TIME WILL DIE!"

"ALL OF THEM WILL DIE ONCE WE GET OUR PROTUBERANCES ON THEM!" buts in the furious Dustbin Suzpreme as a squadron of Dusbtins is dispatched to seek, locate and exterminate Mr. Copper!

What are our main characters up to? Why, in the TARDIS, the the Doctor, formally solemn and introspective, now leaps to life. "It’s the phone! Martha’s phone! It’s ringing! Hang on a sec, didn’t I blacklist her or something?"

"Maybe it’s someone else?" Jenny suggests. "Who is it?"

"I don’t know," the Doctor admits. "I can’t answer it. It just keeps ringing. As though it’s eternally half a second behind me... hold on! I think I know what going on."

"I’m glad one of us does," Alonzo grumbles.

"Jings, shut up, Alonzo! I’m trying to concentrate! Cardiff is one second out of sync with the rest of universe! That’s how whoever stole it managed to keep them hidden. God, I’m clever! Aren’t I clever?"

"If you say so, dad."

The Doctor locks the TARDIS onto the signal, turning the mood lighting blood red to make things look epic as the phone call forcibly pulls the police box into the future which happens to look like some of the title sequence with inverted colours – to arrive back in the Medusa Cascade, only this time it’s full of planets!

"HE IS HERE!" screams Dustbin Raph in ecstasy. "THE DARK LORD IS COME AT LAST! I TOLD YOU SO, DIDN’T I? DIDN’T I TELL YOU SO? OHH, THE TRAP IS CLOSING! BONZAI, BABY!!"

"It is him," agrees the voice. "You KNOW it’s him. His very presence causes ripples in space and time and underwear – you can FEEL him in your waters!"

"I’M STILL UNCLEAR IF YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT THE DOCTOR OR ROD STEWART," the Dustbin Suzpreme complains, confused.

Back on Earth, Mr. Copper is bricking it as a Dustbin saucer lands in his front. Hastily transferring control of the Subwave Subway Submersible Submachine Network over to Touchwood, Mr. Copper activates his last line of defense before teleporting to safety.

"Hyacinth!" he shouts. "I think they want to talk to you!"

The French windows are blasted open and three Dustbins glide in... to face a middle-aged woman in a floral dress looking uncannily like Patricia Routledge!

"IT IS HYACINTH BUCKET!" exclaims the squad leader in shock.

"It’s 'Bouquet'!"

"DO NOT LIE! IT IS PRONOUNCED BUCKET!"

"Now, that’s just typical of people in your social standing. You know nothing about manners, etiquette or the benefits of candlelight suppers and riparian entertainment! And that will be your downfall!"

Suddenly, Hyacinth begins to sing, there is the sound of Dustbins firing their death rays in desperation to make her stop, and in the resulting holocaust everything flares to white...

As the TARDIS spins towards the source of the signal, the Doctor, Donna, Jenny and Alonzo marvel at the 27 planets. "Look at that! They’re all in perfect balance! Self-perpetuating motion! Cosmic feng sheui!"

"All these worlds fit together like an engine," Jenny marvels, "generating massive amounts of kinetic energy! It’s a powerhouse built to provide energy! It’s so green and eco-friendly, I love it!"

Suddenly Alonzo does something vaguely justifying his presence and notes the console monitor is showing a conference call of Sarah and Luke; Touchwood; and Martha and "Ballcrusher" Jones. The Doctor shakes his head in disgust, "Why can’t I just get away from these people?" he asks himself, totally missing the shouts demanding to know where he’s been and that the Dustbins are back.

Thus in total ignorance of the nightmare they’re facing, the Doctor takes out a whistle to stop them all talking at once. "Jings! Right, now can we all just talk one at a time for a change? You! Jack! Situation report! What the hell’s going on?"

Just before anyone can answer, all the lights in the TARDIS go dark and the booming shrill voice of the Dustbin Suzpreme is heard. "YOU WILL SURRENDER TO DUSTBIN CONTROL! THIS TIME, IT’S VICTORY! THIS TIME, IT’S DESTINY! IT’S PERSONAL!! WE HAVE THE DOCTOR!!"

As Touchwood, the Smiths, the Jonses, the Nobles and Rose wonder what is going on now, the TARDIS is caught in a massive blue tractor beam from a passing Dustbin saucer overhead. The powerless TARDIS is brought through the Medusa Cascade to the Crucible.

"That station’s about 200 miles across and right at the centre of the kinetic energy field," Jenny observes. "So it must be soaking up all the power. No idea what it’s for but on the bright side, we’re going there so we might get to find out."

"Now THAT is what I call a Death Star rip-off," Donna observes.

"Whatever the hell it is," the Doctor snaps, slamming down controls, "we visit it at MY sayso. Tractor beam? Pah! Don’t give me tractor beams! I rode this TARDIS through a Temporal Difference of Opinion and out the other side! NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME NOW!"

"Suzpreme One," calls the voice from the shadowed figure in the vaults of the Crucible. "The TARDIS. I would address it. Give me access."

"NEGATIVE!" booms the Dustbin Suzpreme. "EVERY WORD SPOKEN BY THE DOCTOR IS A CONTAMINATION! ESPECIALLY WITH THAT SCOTTISH ACCENT!"

"Oh, but I’m ready for him," the figure replies. "I have been ready for so many years, through endless wars and boiling skies. Now let me talk to him or I am going to get incredibly unpleasant."

Grumbling, the Dustbin Suzpreme grants access and the scanner aboard the TARDIS starts fizzing. "Another signal’s coming through," Alonzo notes rather obviously. "There’s someone else out there?"

Delighted, the Doctor runs to the console. "Can you hear me? Rose?"

"Doctor," replies the voice. "Your voice is different and yet its arrogance is unchanged!"

"Arrogance? Jings, I just asked if Rose was there! Hardly presumptuous! What are you on about... oh. Shit."

The screen shows the hideous half-man, half-Dustbin, withered mutant contained in a stained Cyberloo. "We meet again, Doctor," rasps Lavros.

"No," the Doctor whispers. "But you’re dead! DEAD! Jings, Lavros, I’ve got your severed head on a hatstand! You are DEAD!"

"Remember when last we spoke, on Earth, centuries past yet future. Remember how I wished to clone myself a fresh body? Well, it turned out that I’d already done one and completely forgot about it," the mutant explains. "I was that clone, and while the other me perished I wandered Cardiff, and fell through the rift, before finally being recruited by the Dustbins to fight in the Temporal Difference of Opinion."

Jenny, Alonzo and Donna exchange confused looks.

"So... shouldn’t you be dead anyway?" asks the Doctor, lost.

"Pretty much. But Dustbin Raphael of the Cult of Fargo saved me. He emergency temporal shifted back into the Temporal Difference of Opinion, and rescued my command ship at the Gates of Elysium before it could crash and burn in the jaws of Dustbin Emperor’s Nightmare Child. A simple Dustbin succeeded where Time Lords and Higher Evolutionaries succeeded. A testament, don’t you think, to my remarkable creations and the Terry Nation estate?"

"I FLEW INTO THE WILD AND FIRE!" sings the red Dustbin in the straightjacket. "I DANCED AND DIED A THOUSAND TIMES! OH, THE VOID WOULD BE CALLING! AND NOTHING! WILL EVER BE THE SAME!"

"Yes, he also went a little mad," Lavros explains. "But now I’m here I have made a new race of Dustbins. I gave myself to them, quite literally. It cost me my arms and my legs, not to mention my washboard abs..." Lavros opens his tunic to reveal his open ribs and lack of skin. "I ended up back the way I started, but every cell of my body was grown into a new, true Dustbin. No suicidal hybrids this time, buster."

"Eww," says Alonzo, pretty much summing up everyone’s reactions.

"And now you come to face my new empire, Doctor," Lavros continues. "It’s only dramatically appropriate, really that you should bear witness to the resurrection and triumph of Lavros, Lord and Creator of the Dustbin Race!"

"Yes, we know who you are," say all the TARDIS crew in unison.

"Yes, well, we both came out of the Temporal Difference Opinion. I have a new empire and am on the cusp of dominating the universe. Tell me, Doctor, what exactly do YOU have? Well?"

Barely over the shock of seeing him, the Doctor whispers, "Lavros, after all this time, everything we saw, everything we lost... I have only ONE thing to say to you. No more. This time, no more Mr. Nice Guy. What I will do to you lot will be the stuff of fan fiction! BYE!" he adds, pulling a lever, cutting him off.

The TARDIS breaks out of the tractor beam and spins down to the planet with Cardiff affixed to it as the audience wonder if they’re meant to be impressed with the hero buggering off rather than doing anything. Alarms go off and the Dustbin Suzpreme is figuratively spitting blood and orders all the Dustbins to find the Doctor and locate the TARDIS. "LAST TIME I INDULGE YOU, LAVROS!" she sneers.

"I’m not the one so stupid as to not know where he’s going," Lavros retorts. "Cardiff, to find his precious human groupies! Am I right, Dustbin Raph, or am I right?"

"AND DEATH IS COMING! OOH, SUCH A DEATH, SIR! EVERLASTING DEATH FOR THE MOST FAITHFUL COMPANION!"

"I’ll take that as a yes. Time to lay a trap..."

Meanwhile, the survivors of the attack on Hyacinth Bucket are aboard their saucer heading straight towards Mermaid Bay to destroy Touchwood. As Gwen and Ianto realize they’ve been found, Captain Jack decides it is time for the tough to get going as the going has gotten tough. Using his nifty vortex manipulator gubbins or something, he turns to the others.

"Look, I gotta go and find the Doctor. I can lock this thing onto the TARDIS and, it’s not so much that I WANT you both to stay here and die it’s more that I’d really rather you didn’t come with me. You guys just cramp my style and I’m going to have a hard enough time convincing the Doctor to save ME let alone you too. Ciao!"

Captain Jack teleports away.

"Son of a bitch!" Gwen swears as the mighty Get-Smart-style security doors to the Hub are blown off their hinges by a bling Dustbin who swarms into secret base. It’s clear the mighty Dustbin Empire knows how heartbreakingly pathetic this secret organization is, and doesn’t consider it worth more than one Dustbin when Mr. Copper merited three.

"EXTERMINATE TOUCHWOOD!!!"

At that exact moment, Sarah Jane Smith is showing a similar loyalty to her friends as she packs a suitcase, runs out of the house, dives into her car and hurtles off into the night. She intends to get one last lift out of the Doctor as things are just WAY too massive for her cope with.

However, her road rage proves her undoing as she totally writes off her car by smashing it into a traffic patrol of Dustbins. Furious at the mess, the Dustbin renounce Sarah’s driving license and prepare to exterminate her for failure to adhere to the Highway Code.

"EXTERMINATE SARAH JANE SMITH!"

At THAT exact moment, the TARDIS spins out of the sky and slams into a the Powell Estate one last time, completely deserted and as eerie as the Welsh town ever gets. The quartet stumble out and look around.

"OK, Doc, what do we do now?" asks Alonzo.

"I was kind of hoping I’d meet up with Rose, actually... Jings, there she is!" the Doctor grins, noting the blonde girl with the BFG and even bigger teeth at the other end of the concourse.

"Is that what he’s been so fussed about?" asks Jenny, unimpressed. "Honestly, Dad, how shallow are you? Don’t you dare run towards her," she says, before realizing he’s doing just that. "Jings!"

As the reunited lovers prance towards each other, a Dustbin glides out from behind some dumpsters. "DUSTBIN RAPH KNEW YOU’D TURN UP HERE! THIS IS A SMALL GESTURE FOR THE TRILLIONS, TIME LORD, FOR THE TRILLIONS! EXTERMINATE DOCTOR WHO!" it screams and fires at the Doctor.

The multi-coloured stream of fierce energy envelopes the Doctor, setting him afire, tearing at his flesh, boiling his internal organs, burrowing into his very soul. But being so damn bastard hard, the Doctor doesn’t so much as squeak as the deadly dose of CGI flings him to the ground as the death ray cuts out.

"...jings..." he croaks in agony, skin blackened and covered in sweat.

"JEEZ! I WOULD LOVE TOO THAT AGAIN..." the Dustbin marvels a split second before it is struck by the awesome firepower of Captain Jack as he teleports in.

"Ah, in the nick of time as always, me harties! Bet you’re so grateful you’ll give me a lift out of here, eh, mates?" he grins, before noticing everyone crowding around the dying Time Lord. "Ooops. Guess I mistimed my heroic rescue. Awkward."

Rose dumps her BFG and cradles the Doctor’s head in her hand. "It’s me, Doctor," she says, trying to sound casual. "I kinda was hoping you’d give me a second chance. I didn’t get you killed again, did I?"

"Oh yeah, Rose," the Time Lord croaks, "Knew you’d come running back. They always do. Oh, I feel knackered. So knackered I feel my life coming to an end. I didn’t even get to shag you in this body. Life sucks..."

"I knew you’d get some special-delivery instant bad karma," whimpers Jenny as she and Donna help him to his feet. "Bad shit was going to happen, you hypocritical twat! Honestly, you go on and on about me so much as looking a pistol, but last after a different blonde with the biggest gun I’ve ever seen! You look like a complete double-standard dick now!"

"Who are you anyway?" Rose complains.

"I’m his daughter, blondie! Try and wrap your brain around THAT, Earthling!"

"Wait," says Captain Jack confused. "So... Rose is REALLY here? I’m NOT drunk?" he asks Donna. "Cause I just automatically assumed... Hey, is it me or are there Dustbins closing on all sides?"

"Can we please go back to the TARDIS?" croaks the convulsing Doctor, and the arguing group flee into the police box and dump him rather unceremoniously on the grilling as he twitches and moans. Outside, the Dustbins fire suddy water uselessly at the time machine.

"Well," Alonzo yawns. "HE’S stuffed."

"And we all know what happens next," Rose adds sadly. "Typical. After I came all this way. God, I hope he doesn’t turn into a git..."

The Doctor shudders and groans. "I’m fine! I’m fine! Don’t worry, it’s fine... I’ve got one last way of getting out of this! It’s great! OK, it doesn’t involve a canoe, mind, but you cannae have everything, can you?" he asks as his skin tightens around him. "Here I go then. Off to join long ago. Get ready to run! Ah, jings, this is SO going to hurt..."

Suddenly, the Doctor’s skin turns a brilliant white, his facial features becoming indistinguishable in the floodlit glow. His face disappears into a pool of white mist as his body lengthens, his hair lost in the inferno as a new face emerges from the radiant pool.

The process slows down as stability is achieved and the Doctor is left a tall, bald man with bushy eyebrows and a beaky nose. The new Doctor blinks, breathless as Captain Jack, Jenny, Alonzo, Donna and Rose gape at him, stunned.

"There, that’s better! Now won’t one of you please put the kettle on?" asks the Nicholas Briggs Doctor with an insane grin. "I could murder a nice cup of tea..."

---------
WELL – WHO SAW **THAT** ONE COMING?!?
TO... BE... CONTINUED...
...but I doubt it will be worth the wait...
---------

10th Doctor - Journey's End (i)

2010-02-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

Serial 410 – Journey Till Dawn
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' And So It ENDS!!!

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

Serial 410 – Journey Till Dawn -

ACT ONE – THE STOLEN CARDIFF

The biggest epic of all Doctor Who ever times infinity begins on that goddamned Powell Estate as the TARDIS arrives and the Doctor runs out expecting to find his bodacious blonde ex waiting for him... but all he finds is a rather depressed milkman on his rounds.

Donna and Jenny stumble out of the police box as the Doctor runs up to the milkman, shakes him violently, and screams at him for the love of Baby Jesus to tell him what day it is!!

"It’s 7:34 am, on Saturday the 26th of September 2009. AD, not BC."

"Oh. Thanks for narrowing it down!" the Doctor says brightly, letting him go. "Right, well, Rose will be bound to turn up soon. That’s what the inverted retroactive self-inculcated auto-suggestive paradoxical mnemonic was all about back on Shee Shore!"

"In English, spaceman!" Donna snaps.

"Rose is back and I am so on a promise!" the Doctor grins.

"But isn’t see locked away on a parallel world forever?" asks Jenny. "Which could only be accessed by the walls of the universe breaking down so if Rose IS coming back... then everything in reality is ending?"

"So it does," says the Doctor with his fixed grin. "Let us return to the TARDIS and work out what the hell we are going to do with the total apocalypse of all reality shall we?" he asks, before letting out a sobbing wail and running back into the TARDIS.

Sighing, Jenny and Donna follow him back inside where he confirms that there are no vortex disturbances, the spatial exorhythms are normal and quite simply everything is normal and fine in every possible and conceivable manner.

Returning to the front doors, the trio discover that the entire city of Cardiff has vanished in a cross-dimensional spatial transference leaving them in a giant gravel pit in the middle of Wales.

"Well, bugger me sideways!" marvels Jenny.

The Doctor and Donna wince at the thought.

At that moment, Cardiff has reappeared far across the universe, surrounded by a strange ocean with waterspout-shaped cloud formations as enormous ringed planets slowly rise over the horizon. Throughout the city, various ex-Doctor Who companions look up at the alarming skyline – Martha Jones at UNIT HQ, Captain Jack Sparrow in the Touchwood Hub, Sarah Jane Smith at 13 Kandyman Parade, Wilf and Sylvia Bitch at their house, and Rose Tyler with a big fucking gun at the Powell Estate.

As the second bananas boggle at the collection of new planets in the heavens, only Rose Tyler, releasing the safety catch on her gun, is capable of saying what they are all thinking:

"This is just like The Quiet Earth, isn’t it?"

Parte the First

Inside the TARDIS, Donna worries about what may have happened as she suspects the Doctor might have utterly destroyed the city and everyone in it accidentally on purpose. "Oh, if ONLY, Donna!" the Doctor sighs as he runs around the control room. "It’s been shifted from one place to another, like a teleport but on a massive scale!"

"You mean someone’s stolen Cardiff?" Jenny boggles. "Why the hell would anyone do something like that?"

"There are some pretty sick people out there, Jenny," the Doctor shrugs. "But if I follow the path, we can find them. Or... not. Actually, probably not. There’s no readings, nothing, not a trace, not even a whisper on Facebook! Jings, that is FEARSOME technology!"

Donna gives him a slap. And why not? "If they’ve moved the entire city, all the air will be ripped away! Or what about the sun – they’ve lost the sun! even if they’re breathing they’re gonna freeze!"

"Maybe not," the Doctor prevaricates while avoiding another blow. "You can move whole planets and keep them intact – or was that on Red Dwarf? Either way, we’ve got a problem. Move one city centre and all the suburbs shift – the whole of South Wales is gonna fall apart!"

"I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT SOUTH WALES!" Donna points out calmly.

"Oh, wait, there’s a gravity echo keeping the valleys intact. For the next seven hours anyway. So, we’ve got seven hours to find Cardiff and return it. Even though we have no idea where it went or where to look." He blows out his cheeks. "Jings. Any ideas?"

Jenny shrugs. "We could always try the Shadow Proclamation?"

In Cardiff, Chinatown is gripped with panic as all the inhabitants are ordered to stay indoors while food, water and cable access is rationed by the government. A Frenchman on the radio says that this is the end of days, the Apocalypse has come and the Human Race shall fall as it is nothing but motes of dust in the eyes of God. Richard Dawkins argues that this completely proves he was right in every way possible. And BBC Wales broadcasts to anyone who may be listening on behalf of the TV industry if the locals have picked up any copies of Hereward the Wake, or at least a few repeats of the Paul O’Grady show.

Meanwhile, our audience identification figures take stock.

At the Touchwood Hub, Captain Jack Sparrow, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones assess the situation and determine what has happened to Earth. In their professional opinion "everything went mental and now Ianto’s new watch is broken". Thankfully, their so-easy-even-the-Welsh-could-use-them computers reveal the devastating truth:

"Whoever’s done this has created an artificial atmospheric shell keeping the air and heat inside!" Captain Jack realizes. "Well, either that or the atmosphere is doing it’s job and has kept the sun’s heat in. But it’s obvious that someone wants the human population of Cardiff alive and supple. I’m sure I speak for us all that this is a plus!"

Ianto and Gwen stare at him and tell him to do something useful like use his mighty 51st Century knowledge to work out where in the name of God’s Arse they are, but Captain Jack is in no mood for moon-spotting and suggests they check the headlines for sightings of a police box. "That Doctor friend of mine travels in such a blue booth and right now he is the best chance that we have of getting out of this mess with the minimum of fuss, savvy?"

At Sarah Jane Smith’s house, she and her cloned son Luke find themselves less worried about the fate of Cardiff than the fact Sarah’s computer, Mr. Smith, has taken to wearing a pink scarf and ballet shoes while humming the Fanfare for the Common Man. Calling Mr. Smith a pretentious little git, they get the computer to start making theoretical data-streams and be even vaguely useful for once.

Rather huffily, Mr Smith reveals that there is an artificial construction, a bronze, spiky mechanical planet hovering in the heart of the web of orbiting planets. Sarah tells him off for the metaphors and to reconfigure the scanners while Luke informs us of the fate of their friends for those in the audience who give a rat’s ass about how this links up with the spin-offs.

"Sarah Jane, it seems the object is baffling all scans, but nonetheless, I have detected movement. How good am I? Seriously! Hmm. Oh, and there’s a fleet of spaceships heading straight towards us. In the meantime, let’s talk about me, shall we?"

Martha Jones is at UNIT HQ, doing whatever it is medical personnel do, like helping squaddies with paper cuts on their left shins or something as General Damo Sanchez of UNIT has noticed the two hundred spaceships on view and suggest Martha do something useful like phone the Doctor and scream for help.

Martha, loathe to admit the Doctor now screens his calls and thinks she is a total psycho, hastily tells everyone that someone must be blocking her universal-roaming unbreakable mobile phone.

Elsewhere, Wilf has got out a pointy stick and started prowling about for "them green fucking alien bastards" to pick a fight with. Sylvia finally gets him inside and takes his medication as the local news reports about fleets of spaceships approaching in an organized flight path and, oddly enough, this doesn’t calm Donna’s granddad down at all.

Rose meanwhile takes her obscenely large weapon for a walk and does something she has always dreamed of – rob the local supermarket and off-license with total impunity. She strolls through town as people run around screaming and drinking copious amounts of Strongbow in an antisocial manner, then barges into an abandoned computer shop and scares off some teenage looters with her BFG.

"Do you like my gun, boys?" she asks, before blowing them away entire by accident. "Oops. Bit new to this."

The TARDIS, meanwhile, is spinning towards the Triceraton Homeworld of interconnected ice-cream-cone shaped asteroids, the Customer Relations Centre of the Shadow Proclamation. Jenny is told to ring them up, but all the frequencies are jammed – the place is on Red Alert. As such, it would be monumentally stupid for them to just land randomly on their manner and hope for the best. Which is pretty much why the Doctor decides to do just that.

The Doctor, Donna and Jenny step from the TARDIS and are nearly knocked over by a platoon of Triceratons, the footsoldiers (or Jundoon) of the Shadow Proclamation. But the trio are then nearly floored by a swarm of Goablins, two Giant Wasps, before they find themselves facing a gigantic crowd of Slitheen, Triceratons, Sycophants, the Sisters of the Wicker Place Mat, Gelth, Meathooks, Goablins, Trods, Cybermen, Bygones, Hath, Hoax, Protons, Werewolves, Dominatrix, Quirks, Sad Tony, Ood, Ice Cream Vendors, Snotarans...

In short, basically ever single alien monster in Doctor Who ever, ever, EVER plus a 15-metre tall Adipose looking like a cross between Jabba the Hut and the Marshmallow Baby from Ghostbusters.

Our heroes queue up behind the Grinch who is haranguing the Chief Constable Rocksteady, but are simply told to take a number. The TARDIS crew get number 162589, which is a bummer since the Shadow Proclamation Architect is only on number 3.

In desperation, the Doctor tries to charm his way around the rhino-headed mutant by singing Gang-Gajang’s "Hundreds of Languages" in six million languages simultaneously but to no avail.

"Jings! This is unbelievable!" the Doctor rants as he starts scribbling through endless incident forms in triplicate. "The Shadow Proclamation was set up by the Higher Evolutionaries to take over all the crummy day-to-day universe running when the Time Lords were busy and or extinct! These daft Jundoon are still sorting out compensation about the Temporal Difference of Opinion! We’ll not live long enough to REACH the end of the freaking queue, let alone fill out the forms!"

"Who can help us now?!" wails Jenny.

"I think I can," says a voice behind them – MIDSHIPMAN ALONZO FRAME!!!

(Those were RTD’s exclamation marks, BTW. I couldn’t care less.)

With the alien fleet 3000 miles away and closing, Martha swallows her pride and rings Captain Jack at Touchwood in the hope the Doctor. Captain Jack points out that Martha is the one with the superphone and asks her point blank if she’s been putting LSD in the Cardiff water supply again. Martha admits she hasn’t, and everyone gets scared.

The ships are now accelerating, only 1500 miles away and the Welsh equivalent of Jodrell Bank picks up fuzzy images of huge, studded flying saucers moving through the sky. Now, you’d expect ex-Doctor Who companions to recognize a flotilla of Solus Magellanic Cloud Combat Cruiser Saucers when they saw them, but no. That’s just too much to freaking expect from heroes of time and space, isn’t it?

"You know," Martha says thoughtfully, "that bronze-with-rivets design looks a little bit familiar but I can’t think where."

Sarah frowns. "I’m sure I saw something LIKE them a long time ago..."

"Doesn’t ring a bell," Captain Jack broods, sculling rum.

"It’s not the aliens from Independence Day," Rose deduces, having hacked into the UNIT website with cunning use of the password "buffalo".

Wilf foams at the mouth screaming, "It’s those bloody trashcans again!" but Sylvia chloroforms him unconscious before he can tell anyone else about the monumentally obvious plot twist.

The nearest saucer heads for Mermaid Bay where the new Prime Minister of Great Britain was attending the opening of the rebuilt Westminster Abbey. After being destroyed by aliens twice, they decided to rebuild Big Ben in Wales rather than England, but this proves to be a crucial mistake as the aliens head straight for it.

Despite the relocation of the entire city of Cardiff, Prime Minister Aubrey Fairchild insists the grand opening still take place, even as a flying saucer descends. Treating them as late guests, Fairchild announces "Visitors to Cardiff, we welcome you, we ask you for help in this strange wilderness, but most of all, we seek to reassure you that the human race isn’t a complete bunch of backstabbing assholes no matter which defeated alien monsters badmouth us in public."

A huge bronze door opens and, despite the fact that even Touchwood has realized the danger and is demanding Fairchild run for his miserable life, the Prime Minister stands there all resolute and butch. Then an energy bolt shoots out of the pitch-black interior of the ship and strikes Aubrey Fairchild, leaving him a microwaved corpse.

The ex-companions STILL don’t twig as to the nature of this threat as the occupants of the ship emerge, screaming out their message for the people of Cardiff: "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! YA PUNKS!"

About now everyone finally twigs how immensely doomed they all are as the Dustbin Saucers glide over Cardiff and shoot laser beams down into the city, and fireballs blow up the Powell Estate to provide some kick-ass visuals of Rose striding through the flames with her BFG.

As UNIT panics and runs around wetting itself with terror, the Dustbin fleet is in battle formation and all systems of the artificial planet, the Crucible (so dubbed because "New New New New New New New New Fargo" was considered a silly name for a planet) are locked and primed.

The thousands of Dustbins on the Crucible Command Deck are addressed by the Dustbin Suzpreme – a huge Samurai-style Dustbin with a giant lightning globe containing its squidgy mutant self, the perfect fusion between Dustbin and menopausal Southern Baptist from the 41st century!

"STAGE ONE OF THE NEW NASTY PLAN INITIATED!" the Dustbin Suzpreme announces with her nauseating voice, rallying the troops. "SOON THE CRUCIBLE WILL BE COMPLETE! ENGAGE THE WELSH FORCES! BATTLE PLAN FOUR AND A HALF! NO MILITARY PRISONERS! ATTACK! DESTROY! EXTERMINATE! AND CLEAN UP THE MESS MADE RIGHT AWAY!"

Hundreds of Dustbins are disgorges from the flying saucers and swoop down over the Skybase Valium, and after about two seconds of laser beam CGI battles the mighty aircraft is blown to smithereens. The Dustbins continue to overrun Cardiff... mainly off-screen... and as the military retreat, the aliens close in on UNIT HQ.

Captain Jack tries to contact Martha and warn her to get to a place of safety, before musing that it’s totally pointless and hangs up, leaving Martha for dead. The Dustbins storm the base shouting that they’re going to kill all the human scum who should prepare to die. Then the rotters open fire and the brave human soldiers are exterminated.

General Sanchez decides to, in his words, "fuck this" and escape in his scavenged Snotaran teleportation parachute which UNIT managed to steal before Touchwood could get their filthy spunk-covered digits on it. Thinking quickly, Martha stabs him in the stomach and pulls the parachute from his still-twitching corpse.

"I LOVE THIS BIT! WE ARE BRILLIANT! HIGH FIVE!" grate the Dustbins as they close in, but Martha pulls the rip-cords and vanishes in the 2005-standard puff-of-light CGI effect.

Up in the Crucicle, the Dustbin Suzpreme gets off on the carnage as the Welsh forces finally (well, instantly) give up. "COMMENCE THE LANDINGS – BRING THE HUMANS HERE! WE HAVE WAITED LONG FOR THIS GLORIOUS TIME – THE DUSTBINS MAY NOT BE THE MASTERS OF EARTH, BUT WE ARE THE RULERS OF CARDIFF! THE DUSTBINS ARE SUPREME! ALL HAIL THE DUSTBINS! THE ULTIMATE DESTINY IS NEXT ON THE TO-DO LIST!"

At the Shadow Proclamation HQ, it goes to show it’s not what you know but WHO you know as Alonzo Frame, new Jundoon recruit after that mucky business with the Titanic, leads the Doctor and his friends to the Shadow Architect, a hungover albino who is not particularly impressed with their complaint about some redneck anthropoid community vanishing when they forgot not to blink.

"Besides, if you went to all the trouble of scooping up some one-Zarbi town, it would be stupid NOT to protect the heart, atmosphere and the matrix of life within, so the locals are probably all still alive!" she explains over another mouthful of Alka-Seltzer.

The Doctor, Donna and Jenny cheer... and then realize that, Wilf aside, they don’t really LIKE anyone in Cardiff and, all thing considered, it would be a hell of a lot simpler if they were all dead.

Aware that time is running out and the first installment is very nearly over, the Doctor turns to his companion. "Donna, you’re from Earth, aren’t you? Come on! There must be something, some trace! What was anything happening back in your day? Any sort of warning?"

"Well, apart from all the electrical storms, freak weather, patterns in the sky, global warming and the dolphins disappearing... not really no, I don’t think so."

"What? Donna, you twat! You thick twat! Hang on though... dolphins..."

Jenny realizes that the dolphins must have fled before the disaster struck, and must therefore have been forewarned about what was going to happen. The Doctor quickly logs into a Dolphin Chatroom on Melissa Majoria and discovers a viral spam:

"CARDIFF IS UTTERLY STUFFED!
GET OUT NOW!
RIGHT NOW!

I MEAN IT – RIGHT THIS SECOND!!

GIT!!!!

REGARDS, RAPHAEL THE ENLIGHTENED"

The Doctor determines to trace this email to the server which will lead them at the very least to someone who knows what the hell is going and he, Jenny, Donna and Alonzo run into the TARDIS and dematerializes, shouting abuse at the Shadow Proclamation for being a stupidly-named waste of time totally useless and unhelpful.

The Shadow Architect muses that this is fair and they go back to dealing with the Seven Hundred Societies across the universe making compensation claims...

On the Dustbin Crucible, the Dustbin Suzpreme gets another pesky voicemail from a disembodied voice elsewhere in the base – a voice pitched somewhere between that of a Dustbins and an ordinary humanoid being. Kind of like her own really, except less annoying.

"CARDIFF HAS BEEN SUBJUGATED AND THERE ARE NO REPORTS OF TIME LORD OR TARDIS – WE’RE BEYOND THE DOCTOR’S REACH AND THE DOCTOR CANNOT STOP US ANYWAY. JUST STOP BOTHERING ME!"

"Beware your pride you transsexual freak," a cold, clever, quiet voice retorts. "Dustbin Raph is uneasy."

"HE’S ALWAYS UNEASY. HE’S INSANE. AN INSANE ABOMINATION!" declares the Dustbin Suzpreme of a ruined, bright-red Dustbin that has been chained to the floor and its mop, dustpan and death ray straightjacketed.

"Without Dustbin Raph, none of us would be here," the voice points out rather gratuitously. "And he speaks only the truth."

"HE IS MOVING IN THE DARK AND THE WILD AND THE LONELY PLACES!" sings Dustbin Raph in a childlike voice of total insanity. Or Nicholas Briggs, whichever you prefer. "THE BAD, BAD MAN! HE IS DANCING! QUIETLY, SLOWLY, QUICKLY! HE IS DANCING FROM ACROSS THE STARS TO SEE US ALL! ACROSS THE STARS IN HIS PURPLE MAGIC SHIP MADE OF SQUIRREL TAILS! OH, CREATOR OF US ALL, HE IS BACK IN TOWN!"

"VERY HELPFUL," sneers the Dustbin Suzpreme. "WHO THE FUCK HE EVEN TALKING ABOUT? THE DOCTOR OR ROD STEWART?"

"I’M A HAPPY CAMPER!" Dustbin Raph giggles, "I’M A WIBBLE TREE! WHERE ARE MY UNCLE’S BANANA PLANTS! MUMMY USED TO LIKE BANANAS!!"

"You’ve set him off again, you stupid bitch!" the voice complains.

By now the Dustbins are on the streets of Cardiff, rounding up everyone from their houses to assist in the latest and best, obviously, Dustbin Nasty Plan ever! The Dustbins are unsurprisingly exterminating those who show resistance – especially those who show resistance by throwing bricks at them and leave the place untidy. They hate that.

The terrified Sylvia prefers to hide behind her curtain and let all her neighbours die horribly, but fueled by Dunkirk spirit, Wilf grabs a paintball gun, intending to use the paint and render the Dustbins’ cleaning attachments useless.

Wilf leaps out of the shadows, screams "GET BACK IN THE SKY WHERE YOU CAME FROM YOU WHEELIE BIN CUNTS!" and fires paint across the nearest Dustbin, covering it in sticky yellow splodges. "How do you like that, you tin-plated losers?!"

"ENGAGING BODYWORK REPAIR!" grates the Dustbin and all the paint marks evaporate. "MY SQUEEGEE IS *NOT* IMPAIRED! DEFACING DUSTBINS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! EXTERMINATE THE MIDDLE CLASS PENSIONER! EXTERMINATE!"

Things look particularly grim at this point, especially as the Dustbins have shown absolutely no interest in exterminating Sylvia. Truly, there is no justice in the universe any more...

10th Doctor - Midnight

2010-02-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

Serial 407 – Midday
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Cabin Fervor

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

Serial 408 – Midday -

Because of the Eurovision Song Contest and the complete brain-dead apathy of the BBC scheduling department, Doctor Who is off-air for a week so the TARDIS crew bugger off to the planet Midday in the 27th Century to chill out until further notice.

Midday is an utterly comfortless, hellish wilderness – a craggy knob swimming upon the oceans of the firmaments. Its sunlight reduces organic matter to poisonous ashes, its air is so cold it could freeze Charlie Sheen’s libido and is, all in all, the most lethal deathtrap in the whole of the known universe.

Which is precisely why holidays there are so cheap.

In a makeshift hotel inside a bunker made out of fifteen-mile-thick concrete walls, the Doctor, Donna and Jenny are lazing around an inflatable indoor pool, eating blueberry crumble, getting a message and snogging the pool boy respectively.

Demolishing the last few bricks of the fourth wall, the Doctor realizes that the show is back on air and they should all return to their wacky adventures in time and space. Alas, Donna and Jenny refuse point blank to leave their poolside decadence, and since the Doctor can’t very well depart in the TARDIS without them, he’ll have to stay on Midday looking for some mischief to get involved with...

Parte the First

In desperation the Doctor loiters around a bus depot on the other side of the bunker waiting for a manky old bus with bits of Juicy Fruit stuck to the seats to arrive. It’s eight hours till the next bus, so the Doctor decides to hang around the passengers in the hope one of them turns out to be an evil super-villain he can defeat.

Initially his hopes are high as the other passengers remark that they found the severed hand of a long-missing bus driver under their bench and there’s some strange scuffling noises from the recycling bins in the corner that somehow stop as soon as you notice it.

Alas, the fellow travelers are

- a creepy kid called Calvin and his possessed toy tiger Hobbes

- the lower-middle class asshole Spazz family with their traveling piano accordions

- the ancient wizard Merlin disguised as Justin Bieber

- and a self-harming emo lesbian called Skype

None of whom seem worth becoming a Big Bad evil from the Dawn of Time.

Giving up, the Doctor idly toys with all the complimentary cyanide pills in the bus depot and idly considers chloroforming everyone so they wake up in eight hours when the bus arrives. Alas, neither the Doctor nor anyone else present has any chloroform. So that plan’s stuffed.

With nothing to do, everyone sits and watches a Betty Boop episode on the TV in the bus station. Betty and her crazy Granddad inventor turn various household objects into musical instruments and have a good time while being incredibly racist.

Then they watch Tomb Raider 47: Brangelina’s Martian Adoptee.

Then they listen to James Blunt’s Greatest hits.

Finally the Doctor snaps and begs that they do something interesting. Maybe they could talk to each other like some right-on alternative existentialist Tom Stoppard type play? Or an orgy? Hell, even a game of Twister would be better than nothing!

While Mrs. Spazz is already undoing her blouse for the second option there is a loud banging noise from the dumpster in the corner. This proves too much for Skype, who starts screaming uncontrollably that it is her ex-girlfriend who has come back for her CDs. (Merlin for his part is somewhat delighted at the idea of a macabre lesbo catfight.)

The knocking continues, and finally the fellow commuters gag the bitch to shut her up. The Doctor bravely opens the dumpster to see what is causing the noise and finds a very drunk Captain Jack wondering if the timelines have settled allowing him to travel with the Doctor again?

The Time Lord slams the dumpster lid down on Captain Jack, knocking him unconscious and hastily changes the subject. Soon everyone is joining together in a good old sing-song of Iggy Pop’s "The Passenger" – even Skype, despite being bound and gagged.

This is pretty much the best excuse for a cliffhanger this story is ever going to get, so...

Parte the Second

Finally, the others get curious as to what Skype is mumbling and they discover she is repeating every word said by the others. Calvin recognizes this as the Incredibly Annoying Human Echo, the bane of all long car trips. Somehow Skype has been infected!

For a laugh, everyone starts saying stupid shit for Skype to mimic in her state of self-induced hysteria, but after about four hours of non-stop copying, it becomes irritating, then kind of creepy when she won’t shut the fuck up. Merlin uses a magic spell that makes Skype mimick their words as they speak them, which at least makes her much easier to ignore from now on.

Really clutching at straws now, the Doctor tries to convince the audience that something epic is going down and that Skype has somehow become the host of a completely new alien life-form: the Midday Mimic!

The other passengers protest she’s just a self-hating attention whore with commitment issues, but the Doctor is adamant some alien consciousness is now inside the depot with them and is somehow transforming her into the deadliest menace history has known.

By now the other folk begin to wonder if the Doctor is the axe crazy one they should all be worrying about, and the Time Lord turns on the group angrily: "Now listen, all of you! I’m utterly convinced that's a brand new life form over there. And if it’s come inside, to discover us, than what’s it found? This little bunch of humans! What d’you amount to? Murder? Cos this is where you decide, you decide who you are. Could you actually murder her? Any of you? Really? Or are you better than that?"

The others are slightly puzzled as they never mentioned murdering anyone before the Doctor brought it up... but now he has it sounds like a bloody good idea!

The Doctor refuses to let them murder Skype – until he realizes that they were never going to hurt Skype, they actually intend on lynching the spiky-haired Scots git in the pinstripe suit who’s been driving them up the wall for the last five hours!

The Time Lord babbles that he MEANS well, and what’s more is a darned sight more clever than any of the puny ape-descended higher anthropoids in the room with him. This enrages the group even more. Especially Merlin. You do NOT talk to the son of the devil like that.

The Doctor struggles to overcome the force mounting inside. His eyes are wide with fear rather than menace, and his body shivers. And finally he just snaps:

"YOU... UNGRATEFUL... FUCKING... HUMANS!"

After millennia saving the universe from the satanic powers of the night, the Doctor cannot believe that mankind would turn on him after five minutes of an annoying emo chick repeating his words. Sickened by the shallowness and pettiness of his favorite species, the Doctor lets loose a roaring rampage of revenge that is too terrifying to transcribe.

The Doctor is the DEA and the other passengers are the flimsy barricade between him and a meth amphetamines lab. The Time Lord delivers a no-holds-barred beat-down that would make back-alley abortonists wince and Keith Moon think longingly of his drum kit. What he does to them would give Adolf Hitler nightmares.

Twenty minutes later, the Doctor is left drenched in blood and pulverized internal organs, his face contorted in pain, surprise, and eight other emotions that only buffalo have names for. He looked like he was trying to act out Total Recall for a deaf person.

"I am the Lord of Hellfire!" he rasps. "Bring me oven cleaner!!"

Shrugging his shoulders, the Doctor acts like nothing happened and returns to the poolside with Donna and Jenny. He airily describes what happened, emphasizing that he HAD to kill everyone to prevent the sinister Midday Mimic from engulfing civilization.

Jenny points out that they have no idea what the Mimic was – could it have been a ghost? A demon? An internet troll? The return of Santa? Sandman’s Corinthian? The Myrka?! The evil leaper from Quantum Leap? El Molstre Grande? Or was it all a Jeremy Beadle style stunt between the Hostess with Mostest and Sky all along? Donna agrees that all the Doctor has done is just brutally slaughtered some random commuters...

"Jings!" the Doctor retorts. "What did YOU two accomplish today?!"

Book(s)/Other Related -
Dr Who –vs- The Human Race (Canada Only)
Doctor Who: Shining Bright Shadow In The Sun
RPG: Sapphire Knocking, Skype Trapped!

Fluffs - David Tennant seemed repetitive in this story.
"My brain is like fire and ice."
"Your brain is like... tepid water?"
"Yes! Tepid like the fox! On this world I am known as the Oncoming Drizzle! Fox-shaped drizzle! SOME of it fox-shaped and fiery some of it fox shaped and frozen! That’s my drizzle! So you’d better watch out."

Goofs –
Why doesn’t the Doctor try some of those languages humans can’t pronounce to test Skype? Say something out of her line of sight really, really softly, too softly for anyone to hear? Or sing? Or sign language? Or even just quote Glengarry Glen Ross for a full ten minutes? No, he decides the only useful experiment is to shout random catchphrases at her face and go "ZOMG!" when she repeats it! Idiot...
The phone handset that Donna used at the beginning was simply a regular corded handset with the cord detached. They probably should have covered up the obvious 20th century RJ11 handset connector plug. Mind you, maybe that’s part of the retro appeal of Midday – using technology seven centuries out of date? Hey, it works for Aberdeen...
There is a truly epic green screen failure in the first scene, where Chris Chibnall can be seen disemboweling ninjas in the background of the pool sequence. Just what the hell was that all about?
The dramatic sequence where the humans gang-bash the Doctor was spoilt, in my opinion, by the fact the Doctor was clearly just a cushion wearing a pinstripe suit and glasses with a smiley face drawn on it. The director can be heard shouting, "Don’t hold back, people! Remember, Mr. Pillow is evil and wants your innocence!" under the incidental music.
When the Doctor hugs Donna at the end, Val does the Funky Chicken in the background. But not in the close-ups.
Apparently a packet of roasted peanuts may contain traces of nut... but peanuts are not TRUE nuts, not in the biological sense. They are legumes, a type of split pea – hence the name "pea nut". Oh, how us culinary types hate such pointless mistakes like that!

Fashion Triumphs -
The naked water polo game between Donna and Jenny. A sight so wondrous that could cure and cause blindness simultaneously...

Technobbable -
"They’re micro-petrol engines aren’t they?"
"Nahhh, of course not! That’s just made up - I mean, spaceships can’t run on REGULAR petrol to begin with, so why would they run on smaller petrol? And a really tiny engine wouldn’t be able to push anything this size, especially if it was small by PETROL engine standards, so whichever way you look at it the term makes absolutely no sense! I mentioned it a moment ago but only because I was so busy dropping acid while you were watching Betty Boop... SO EVERYONE JUST SHUT UP ABOUT MICRO-PETROL STABILIZING! THIS IS MEANINGLESS!"

Dialogue Disasters -

Merlin: She spoke before he did, definitely!
Calvin: ...so, what, do you want some sort of cookie for that piece of detective work?
Merlin: Indeed I do. I am the resident expert on weird-arse alien ghostology, am I not?

The BBC Continuity Announcer -
"And now on BBC 1, 35 minutes of people shouting 'Stop it!' to one-another. There's probably some football on the other side, you know."

Hobbes: But Doctor, she’s just repeating everything you say!
Doctor: Well, who can blame her? Everything *I* say is so profound.
Hobbes: Yes but she's also repeating everything WE say!
Doctor: ...yeah, that IS worrying, I guess...

Mr. Spazz: Buses never leave the station until five minutes after the official time, so that everyone is five minutes late before the journey has even started. It’s the 'five minute bus' rule. They use it on every journey, except when it's really really important that you get to where ever you are going on time and then they use the 'breakdown rule' and you have to wait half an hour to get on the next one.
Doctor: I so want to murder every single one of you.

Skype: Ooh! Complimentary chocolate coated hamster droppings! I think I’ll save them until after I urinate in the corner and then cut myself to take the pain away!

Doctor: Morning, Jenny.
Jenny: Morning Jenny.
Doctor: Don’t start.
Jenny: Don’t start.
Doctor: No, seriously, I’m warning you – I’m not in the mood!
Jenny: No, seriously, I’m warning you - I'm not in the mood!
Doctor: Jenny, do you know what I did to the last girl to play this silly game?
Jenny: Jenny, do you know what I did to the last girl to play - OWW!

Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: Jings! Come on! Eight hours, that’s all it takes!
Donna: No! Eight hours waiting for a bus?
Jenny: We HAVE to take public transport rather than the TARDIS?
Doctor: Of course we do. It’s about the journey, not the destination.
Donna: Then fly the TARDIS very slowly.

Merlin: You just killed two people!
Doctor: [grins] Wanna make it a third! GAAAAAAHHH!

Donna’s heartfelt speech to the Doctor -
"I don't want to be stuck in a pleasure dome for the rest of my life, being hand fed huge fat ripe strawberries, having two massages a day and drinking as much pims as a girl can... hang on, what am I saying? Go and get yourself killed. Do it twice. Have some fun!"

Calvin: We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits: who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots?
Hobbes: It’s just a cocktail olive for crying out loud!

UnQuotable Quote -
Doctor: Doctor, you’re so handsome! Oh thank you! I AM, aren’t I?

Links and References -
One of the shuttle screens is showing "The Idiot Box", specifically the bit where Rose is trapped in a TV. Most people assume this is Rose trying to contact the Time Lord across time and space, but, no, it’s just some ironic stock footage. No wonder the Doctor acts oblivious to her presence.

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor faced a similar situation to this, travelling solo sans TARDIS or companions on a doomed space cruise with an evil possessed woman out to get him in the Big Finish tale "The Tarrants of Time" - which is about as untelevised as it is possible to get.

Groovy DVD Extras -
The pilot for the abandoned Hustle-style spin off "Sci-Fi Folley Artists Go Wild in Cardiff!", which only got as far as the title sequence before everyone involved gave up on it all as being "rather silly".

The Spite of Sparacus -
"This story is absolutely brilliant, an excellent scripted depiction of the common scum in action, acting dreadfully and very true to life! It was better that the script was full of plot holes that can be sorted out in a later draft! What’s more, I’d say this story is an accurate reflection of human nature. Those passengers exhibited all the selfishness and pack mentality that is often found in the general public and chavs. Superb writing, RTD! Loved it! Why didn’t you pen 'Mein Chav' sooner? It would have been so welcome! Hopefully school children across Britain will immediately start picking on the most intelligent and sophisticated of the group for their lack of degrees! Hahah! All chavs must die! All chavs must die!! ALL CHAVS MUST DIE!!!"

Viewer Quotes -

"Why couldn’t they all just shut the fuck up?! When everybody is questioning him or his credentials, why does the Doctor not whip out the psychic paper with some magnificent proof of his character or something that will convince the lot to trust him? It’s almost like the writers were contriving it so the Doctor had NO option but to kung-fu-kick every last one of them to death at the end!" - naïve fanboy response (2008)

"Of all the tie-in merchandise you can nowadays, the poorest selling was the Talking Lesley Sharp Head, which repeats everything you say. It ended up being the most entertainingly strange if worst-selling Christmas gift in history." - Howe’s Transcendental Toybox (2157)

"This story was a rip off of that House episode about meningitis, and look at how well THAT worked! Midday would have been much scarier if set in Present Day Cardiff."
- some guy who wan promptly lynched by fandom (2008)

"You filthy, scabrous bastards! You've made the Tennant Doctor a fucking wuss because you cry every time his girly-friends kark it you WEAK, SPINELESS DOGS!!! NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP MOFFAT NOW! David Tennant needs to go now! The sad thing is that this show will have to be completely destroyed. It can only go on if Keeley Hawes is the next Doctor. And it's ALL YOUR FAULT!"
- Lawrence Miles (2008)

"This is too good to be RTD’s work. Moffat must have written it!"
- Average OG response (2008)

"I disagree with the content, but I can live in hope of a better series. Midday is not what I would call dark. It may have worked better if all the passengers survived after gang raping the Doctor and forcing him to choke on his own vomit. Still, you can't always have what you want."
- the Risk Manager (2009)

"Really, the upturn in quality of this script makes you wonder why they all can't be as good as this. When RTD goes against everything he stands for and just has mindless blood and violence, he becomes as good a writer as he was before he started Doctor Who. More ignoring your every instinct please Russell." - Michael Grade (2014)

"In my view, this is the WORST Doctor Who story ever – absolute pointless crap which makes me want to beat up little old ladies and mug small children. Crapola to the tenth power, this made The Weird Planet look like The Shakespeare of Evil! You highly educated ponces with your declarations of delight, you make me plot the death of innocents! ADMIT IT! THIS WAS TOTAL CRUD! I suppose you think democracy is somehow GOOD? That’s how Thatcher got into power was it? Voted in by Who fans for a whole generation?" - Rik Smeg (2009)

"I liked this episode, by the way."
- Lawrence Miles (later that day)

David Tennant Speaks!
"When I first read it I was amazed we were doing something that boring. It’s tedious in quite a gritty, adult way. The fans will like it though, they love interesting studies of human behavior and pretty much anything that doesn’t make them feel embarrassed about loving a cheap kid’s show. Anyone who’s not a self-justifying fan will be bored to tears and pissed off at the refusal to explain a single bloody thing."

Russell T Davies Speaks!
"The sound designers are very lazy men. Especially the women. It’s about time they had a reason to get out of bed early. But why IS the Incredibly Annoying Human Echo such a powerful weapon? Why does it drive you bonkers? Is it because it robs of you of something? Is it that it gives an artificiality to your statements, parroted back without passion? Does it somehow make us realize how facile and puny our language is? Hmmm. Good point. I better shut up now before it gets any worse and I lose even MORE credibility..."

Trivia -
This the 200th Doctor Who story... assuming you can’t count properly.

Rumors & Facts -

As had now become the norm, the regular cast of Doctor Who were too feeble and pathetic to appear in fourteen concurrent episodes and these namby-bamby wooftahs liked to have a few weeks off. This meant that each year featured a story which largely concentrated on characters like Adam Mitchell, Ian Levine or Sally Sparrow. And after that, it came as no surprise that executive producer Russell T Davies wanted to do something completely and utterly different.

His idea was to split up his main cast, so that instead of a story with very little Doctor and Donna, there’d be one episode with very little Donna but lots of Doctor and an episode with very little Doctor but more Donna than most men could handle.

RTD had also wanted to a story that was resolved by the Doctor finally snapping and beating the shit out of every single supporting character until their nervous systems finally shut down. Over the four decades of Doctor Who, it was unknown for the entire plot to be concluded by the Last of the Time Lord punching someone hard enough to knock the polio vaccine out of their bodies. This, RTD believed, was "a terrible omission" and it was BBC Wales’ solemn duty to rectify it.

Initially the episode would be Suki Macrae Cantrell, who had previously been found innocent of writing Silver Finish in 2006. Cantrell’s script was basically GhostWatch without Michael Parkinson becoming possessed by pure evil, and the Doctor guest appearing on Most Haunted. RTD became less enamored of the plot, especially as it didn’t feature a full 30 minutes of screaming, wincing and flailing leg kicks.

RTD felt that this vicious display of gratuitous violence deserved a truly original storyline. Hidden Persuaders PLC offered Revenge of the Exxons Destroying Dustbins, a plot about Rose, Martha, Donna and Jenny doing a song-and-dance-number with random monsters – but this was turned down due to the complete lack of any flying punches to the head with enough force to shatter the occipital bone.

Since the only other offered script (Revise Missing Time Link) involved Donna and Jenny being marooned in a quarry while a school boy with second sight predicts an alien invasion didn’t feature the Doctor at all, let alone using aggravated assault on his enemies, it would be up to RTD writing the replacement script himself.

He quickly devised the notion of a isolated high school basketball team stranded in a bus, being infiltrated by an unstoppable creature which steals their very words – mainly because Jeepers Creepers II was being shown on television right in front of him. However, whereas the ancient horror monster of the movie was unstoppable, the Doctor Who version would have the Doctor strike down the creature with the barely-contained savagery of a fat guy choosing barbecue sauce.

RTD wrote the script very quickly, since it was 52 pages of the Doctor kicking people in the head and liver until they finally got the hint and stayed down. RTD wrote incredibly detailed descriptions of the carnage, with the Doctor described as having an expression "so filled with hate that annual protest marches will be held on the bloody remnants of his enemy’s skulls!"

This meant that there was no time for boring TARDIS scenes, making this the first story since the infamous Double the Fist era of the Eighth Doctor that the police box prop would not be seen onscreen in any capacity. This lead the prop to a spiral of depression and alcoholism and it quit the following year. Upon seeing its glossy replacement in the Steven Moffat era, the prop committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping tablets. A tragedy, ladies and gentlemen.

Unusually for Doctor Who in the twenty-first century, virtually all of Midday was recorded at Upper Boat Studios, in story order – a practice abandoned in the 1980s but used here because it was doubted that any of the cast could do retakes following the blood-drenched massacre in the final scene. The first week of filming ran until November 30th; and then David Tennant started delivering punches like a drunken Chris Brown at the Spousal Abuse Olympics.

Recording resumed from December 3rd to 7th as the blood was washed off the walls and the last day of filming was like playing catch with hot soup - it ends quickly and stupidly.

The end result was a cross between Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit and kicking a road sign until it tells you what you want it to. If there’s a word for a bunch of ungrateful middle class tourists rounding on someone only for them to come back with the lethality of poisoned Amway products, people want to know what that word is. Mainly so they can scream said word very loudly during sex.

Now, we need point out that there is a fine line between the Doctor destroying his enemies and the Doctor tricking his enemies into unintentionally destroying themselves.

And Midday crosses that line. On a motorcycle. And it jumps over twenty school busses. School busses that are on fire. And Midday never looks back. This is the Doctor Who episode with the fight scene Thor closes his eyes and thinks about when a Valkyrie is giving him a blowjob. This fight is what the Alamo uses as its facebook picture. This is Doctor Who so dark and disturbing it needs a flashlight with a degree in trauma counseling to watch properly.

...

Of course it rated badly, what do you expect!

Meanwhile, David Tennant continued his baffling desire to sing in every episode as the traumatized Doctor attempted to explain to Jenny and Donna what the hell the previous 45 minutes of high octane drama had actually been about.

"..." by Pioneer 50

They didn’t hear me and they didn’t care!
No one listened and it isn’t fair!

My lips were moving and the sound was coming out
The words were audible but I had my doubts
They looked at me as if they were in a daze
It’s like the feeling at the end of the page

What are words for? When no one listens anymore?
What are words for? When no one listens?
What are words for? When no one listens,
There’s no use talking AT ALL!

I don’t think that one of them noticed what it was I said
This lot could go to the Library and not know what they just read!
So I pursued it further and was shocked to find
Not only are they deaf and dumb, they might as well be blind!

I might as well have been talking to the wall
Cause not one of my words had any effect at all!
What little filtered through gave the wrong impression
And so the conversation took a fatal direction!

I said "over my dead body" and the door was wide open
The faces of those strangers might as well be frozen
Dragging me backwards to suffer a nasty fate
Time’s normally on my side but just this once is way too late!

Seriously, what are words for? When no one listens anymore?
What are words for? When no one listens?
What are words for? When no one listens,
There’s no use talking AT ALL!

Jings...

10th Doctor - The Fires of Pompeii (ii)

2010-02-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

Links and References -
None spring instantly to mind.

Untelevised Misadventures -
Something about the Seventh Doctor and Mel, but I wasn’t actually paying much attention to that bit.

Groovy DVD Extras -
The full-length historical bonk-u-mentary, "David Tennant’s XXX-rated Italian Holiday Orgy". Subtitles not included.

The Spite of Sparacus -
"What a superb improvement on last week! The monsters were underwhelming, the support characters useless, script pedestrian and Catherine Tate played by (spit) a woman. Worse, I hear rumors that Martha will be brought back – and ALSO played by one of those filthy unsmoothe brood-mares! That’s estrogen too many in this series! Who needs these vile harlots of colour and ethnic origin! They are uninteresting creatures of permanent boredom and far-fetched actions like having periods! Best remove all women from Doctor Who and replace them with big, butch, juicy gay men. Oh, blast their eyes, I’ve been unable to access the Doctor Who Forum again! I suppose its too busy. Honestly, it’s almost like they keep banning me from there for some unaccountable reason..."

Viewer Quotes -

"The past is another country - full of bloody tourists! You know, if no one died in this story and we scaled that up, the final scene would have two hundred people standing outside the burning hotel saying as one 'Phew, that was close!' so it’s probably best they all died."
- Mad Larry the Pirate King (2008)

"Not as bad as last week but still not as good as Stargate Atlantis!"
- some guy’s granddad (2008)

"Okay, first time I watched it I was slightly plastered, well, quite plastered after a Saturday afternoon liquid lunch, and this episode washed over me like a blessed angel of classic drama, Doctor Who at its most potent, mixing historical romp, tragedy and comedy deftly. Upon sober second viewing, it were shite."
- Best Watched Through Beer Goggles Monthly (2009)

"The Fans of Up, Pompeii combines beloved and disparate ingredients that we all adore...but ingredients combined, it seemed, by Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver on a particularly pissed-up evening BBQ!" - The Unpublished Target Novel "Doctor Who and the Cooking Analogies"

"I thought this episode was OK up until the point no one died horribly in flames. It completely undercut the whole point of the story. What a load of crap. Why couldn’t they have the balls to kill them?"
- a potential serial killer (2008)

"For me, the episode was all about language and its symbiotic relationship with history. The future can only be expressed in vague, evasive terms and gnomic wisdom but concrete terms can only be created when the right context emerges to demand the creation of that word. This story is how we must be adaptable to new ideas and circumstances. There just happened to be a lot of burning sci-fi fans there as window dressing for the plebs watching." - Stephen Fry (2008)

David Tennant Speaks!
"Billie and Freema are delighted – they’re particularly pleased that they left the series before they could be forced to appear in this story. I’m not at all bitter. I spoke to them both, just this morning, in my bedroom, after a three way. And they’re very happy and content. But then I have that affect on the chicks. OH YES!"

Catherine Tate Speaks!
"This is my first full series and the first time Doctor Who’s given up trying to even tell a halfway-original story and copied one of those radio plays they make. Bit of an insult, really. Very bad timing, when you think about it."

Russell T Davies Speaks!
"Val Kilmer should play the Doctor’s father. Am I right or am I right?"

Trivia -
Phil Cornwell was convinced his atrocious performance as the merchandise vendor would get him his own spin off series called "Essex E-Sex in E-Space". To be fair, it sounds like it WOULD be better than Touchwood.

Rumors & Facts -

Doctor Who has never been interested in big-H-fully-contextualized-Simon-Schama-flavoured History, encouraging children to stretch their literary knowledge beyond Harry Potter and take an interest in the furthest reaches of the planet. The reason is simple: it’s incredibly tedious and God created Sky Plus for a REASON, dammit! The best you’ll get is some dudes in periwigs and lumbering henchmen being molested by werewolves in crashed spaceships, occasionally interspersed with lines like "Yes! Yes! Come on my tits and dissolve the monasteries!"

Quite simply, if you want stories based on bona fide historical fact that gives a rat’s codpiece about what REALLY happened in ancient times of yore, you can just fuck off home. NOW!

When executive producer Russell Tellurian Davies began the work of reviving Doctor Who in 2003, one of his earliest ideas was to rip off every single Big Finish story. This was a brilliant ploy, since it would save all that time and effort doing tedious business like working out plots and characterization – and also the only people who could complain (the fans) would be too terrified to do so in fear of losing their beloved television series that gave their lives any meaning.

After raping and pillaging the audio adventures D’You Believe This? (which became I, Dustbin), Bare Parts (which became Silver Finish), and a combo of Bastard and Singular Angularity (becoming the epic 2007 finale Dystopia, The Beat of the Drums and Lust of the Time Lords), RTD decided that the time was ripe to rip off The Fans of Vulcan.

This preposterously mundane tale by the even more preposterously mundane Steve Lyons, concerned the cataclysmic destruction of a 1980s Star Trek convention – an event that had long amused RTD in a kind of nasty, sadistic fashion. RTD hated Trekkies and made every one at BBC Wales wear gimp costumes and wash his car – not that he’d tell them WHICH car was his, he just beat them up for getting it wrong.

RTD’s viciousness was piqued again when he viewed the docudrama Vulcanalia: The Last Day of the Convention, in the mistaken belief it was a rather odd porn video. RTD considered writing a script about Pompeii for the eleventh episode of Doctor Who’s 2005 season, but it quickly became clear that he couldn’t be arsed. So he ripped off a Buffy episode on the grounds it was "budget-conscious".

But RTD never lost his pathological hatred of Star Trek fans, however, and in readying his fourth Doctor Who season, he again began considering ripping off The Fans of Vulcan. At this point, it was planned that the third episode of the year would be a script by Mark Gatiss involving Nazis during World War II on the grounds that kind of made an aesthetic sense. However, Gatiss was still on a certain police register after his inexcusable behavior during his self-penned The Idiot Box in 2006, a story that was even LESS original than the Vulcan idea.

RTD went round to Gatiss’ gothic abode and set it on fire. He later retconned this as a novel way of explaining (through the mediums of interpretive dance and pyromania) that a WW2 adventure after the over-hyped Shell Shock would be "too soon" and they might get letters of complaint. The fact Gatiss had been working on the script for more than a year just made it funnier in retrospect, don’t you find?

RTD googled the logistics of recreating 1980s Peckham on a Doctor Who budget be investigated and it became clear that the best way this could be accomplished was to film in Italy’s historic Cinecittà studios in Rome, one of the most renowned studios in Europe which had over the years housed such famed productions as Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis, La Dolce Vita and of course the seminal Anal Fists Of Glory 2.

Exactly how RTD came to the conclusion that Cinecittà would be the perfect place to recreate Middle England is unknown. Maybe that’s why HE’S the executive producer and I am a chronically depressed fan. But it’s definitely the reason why he was sacked not long after.

Cinecittà was eager to market its facilities as an attractive destination for British productions wanting to recreate 1980s Peckham and was willing to do whatever it could to work within Doctor Who's financial limitations. Considering this financial limitations consisted of a meat-paste sandwich and a pair of 3D specs, Cinecittà wasn’t exactly going out of its way much.

By the end of April, RTD decided to torment Gatiss further by letting him write the Fans of Vulcan adaptation, and then change his mind at the last minute. Just for the hell of it. But these four months of merriment meant that when the time came to actually record the damn thing in Italy, there wasn’t actually any kind of script to use.

RTD knew that he would have to find a writer who could work on the scripts very quickly, and thus wrote them himself under the cunning penname of "James T Moran of the Celts". Under this name, RTD had penned some of the less sucky episodes of Touchwood, broken into television after winning a script competition run by the Sci-Fi Channel in the UK and also gone on to write the horror-comedy Vans Defferans of Death. And since RTD felt that he was a talented writer who could handle the work of shaping the early drafts of the story and wouldn’t mind Davies taking over and polishing the script into its finished form, the big Welshman formally offered himself the job on May 9th.

After three hours haggling, RTD finally accepted.

Initially, RTD was adamant that the script deal with the moral quandary of the Doctor leaving an entire convention centre full of sci-fi fans behind to die in accordance with recorded history, and this prompted the inclusion of a regular Romulan fanbase as main characters. He gradually shortened this to generic Trekkies, then Farscapers, before amending them to Anorak-Clad Wankers of No Fixed Fandom.

Mired in the scripting and having developed a strange addiction to wholegrain mustard, RTD was mired in the depths of a scripting crisis: he was writing The Fans of Up, Pompeii and was also supposed to be deep into the process of developing the season premiere, Bunglers in Crime. I tell you, this split personality stuff can really interfere with the creative process, right Invisible Raymond? Invisible Raymond says yes.

For a time, RTD contemplated dropping The Fans of Up, Pompeii and restoring Gatiss’ Nazi adventure in its place – just to show "James T Moran of the Celts" who the boss was around here. But then, RTD decided the solution was obvious:

Film a story about a sci-fi convention AT AN ACTUAL SCI-FI CONVENTION!

Everything could be adlibbed!

This genius was slightly undermined when Producer Phil Collinson and production manager Tracie Simpson had been making visits to Cinecittà throughout the summer as they continued their blistering sex liaisons. In fact, SO blistering were these liaisons that Cinecittà was burnt to the ground, killing four technicians who died smoking a post-coital cigarette in Collinson and Simpson’s honor.

This conflagration not only caused considerable destruction, but was EXACTLY what the production team could have used to make the fiery conclusion of the plot even more epic than before! AND THEY MISSED IT!

Thus, they decided to – in a milestone for the revival of Doctor Who – actually film the Peckham scenes IN PECKHAM, douse the place with petrol, not tell the extras and then light a match when convenient. And don’t be so judgmental! They did the exact same thing with Robert Lindsey in GBH, and you never hear complaints about THAT, do you?

Work at Peckham took place on the 13th and 14th of some month or other... how the hell should I know? Does anyone really care about whether all of the material in the streets were captured as plate shots? Seriously? You do? Get a life.

The production then shifted back to Cardiff, so as to get plausible deniability when the fires started. This alibi spanned the 20th to the 27th; the only exceptions were the 23rd, which was a day off, and the 26th, which concentrated on planting incriminating evidence on Peter Capaldi, including a very unconvincing "To Do List":

- Pick Up Milk
- Cancel Papers
- Discuss Touchwood Role with RTD
- Burn Peckham To The Ground All By Myself Without Anyone Else To Blame It Was All Me The Blood The Blood So Much Blood
- Put The Bins Out
- Tape Parkinson

On September 28th, the fires were brought under control with acceptable loss of life and Capaldi was taken into police custody – however, as he went to a private school, he was let off with a warning and a severe mauling by a trained attack pelican.

Later that month, on the 20th, an insert shot of the Doctor firing his water pistol was taped at Upper Boat. Why? No one knows. But David Tennant likes playing with water pistols and a shot like that could come in damn helpful for stories where the Doctor is carrying a water pistol for no apparent reason while fighting Sycophants in the Caribbean.

And, on the 12th of April 2008, The Fans of Up, Pompeii was screened on BBC1 at 6.46 pm to 9 million viewers who watched the entire episode without a single second of original plot in it.

Amazingly enough, Steve Lyons never suspected a thing.

Alas, The Fans of Up, Pompeii was (and forgive me if I’m being exceedingly complicated and technical on the point) butchered by the Sci-Fi channel. Normally the last fifteen minutes of an episode would be cut and replaced with a test card of Jay and Silent Bob teaching a monkey to smoke cigarettes, but this time the edits were just stupid.

In fact, the reedited story was shown as The Blaze in the Caves, wherein the Doctor and his new companion Janey Gilligan (Michelle Ryan) and her lesbian lover Jessica (Lacey Turner) go on the pull in 200,000 BC to get some Neanderthal action. However, it seems that the Cavemen live in Mount Vesuvius in Naples where a man calling himself "The Magma Tosser" (Michael Chiklis) is running around in the nude.

Steve Lyons later sued Sci-Fi Channel for their blatant plagiarism of one of his New Adventure Novels.

Meanwhile, David Tennant continued his baffling desire to sing in every episode during the infamous "dueling merchandise vendors" sequence, a moment that now clearly defines Doctor Who in the bloodshot and myopic public eye.

"The Fandom Menace" by The Pirate Kings of Mad Larry

In the opinion forums of a hundred fan-bases
The spoilers were there for all to see
And the shipper fics go on across a hundred fan-bases
The trolls say the same, the fans share out blame
But will still buy the DVD

And it’s all been bitched about a hundred times before
"It’s only a TV show!" HAH! Only a TV show?
They had plot holes that spanned the generations
Why we kept watching, I don’t know

They had many spin-offs with the same theme tune
And one cliché with which they ran!
And hundreds of fan-bases speak to me!
And hundreds of fan-bases speak to me!
And hundreds of fan-bases speak to me!
And hundreds of fan-bases speak to me!

SPEAK TO ME!!!

10th Doctor - The Fires of Pompeii (i)

2010-02-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

Serial 403 – The Fans of Up, Pompeii
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Ripoffs

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

Serial 403 – The Fans of Up, Pompeii -

Stepping out of the TARDIS, Donna is jubilant to discover the Doctor
has taken her to the far distant future, a world of strange alien creatures who mingle with human beings in tight spandex.

The Doctor awkwardly admits he was aiming for the Taj Mahal and they’ve actually arrived in England in the 20th century – as can be spotted by the signs written in English. Donna is annoyed, as she assumed that the TARDIS translation circuits were telepathically altering her perceptions and making weird outer-space language LOOK like English.

"Yeah, as if!" the Doctor snorts derisively.

Unaware they are being watched by a fit redhead in a criminally-short miniskirt, the two friends walk through the hotel they’ve landed in and realize they are at a science fiction convention. The Doctor admits he finds his surroundings disturbingly familiar, but then, he’s been to a lot of science fiction conventions.

The Doctor and Donna emerge from the convention and find it is being hosted in Peckham, specially the Berk’s Head Hotel. "Oh jings!" the Doctor exclaims in bug-eyed horror.

"We’re at Vulcanalia 1980! AND IT’S TWO FOR ONE DAY!"

Donna is unimpressed. "Blimey, you take Star Trek conventions seriously, don’t you?"

Parte the First

The redhead in the miniskirt runs to the café of the Burk’s Head Hotel where she meets a floppy-haired youth in a bowtie and tweed jacket, consuming copious amounts of tea and biscuits. Believe it or not, this is an incarnation of the Doctor in the distant future, and the redhead is his achingly gorgeous jailbait companion Amelia Jessica Pond!

Amy explains she has just seen a blue box appear out of thin air, an a skinny Scotsman and a ginger woman with big tits emerge.

"Oh, fuck me slowly with a coat hanger," the Eleventh Doctor exclaims, checking his wrist watch. "Is that the time?!"

The duo hastily prepare to leave, passing a familiar piratical figure pulling the moves on an incredibly obese fan in red shirt. "Captain Jack Sparrow," he says lustily. "Being an experienced time traveler like myself, I couldn’t help noticing your obituary is in tomorrow’s newspaper. You wanna die a virgin, boy? Or let Captain Jack ride you hard tonight, savvy?"

Thankfully, we never see what happens next.

The Doctor and Donna run back to where they landed but discover the TARDIS is gone. A nearby merchandise vendor with a psychotic delusion he is in fact Del Boy Trotter from "Only Fools and Horses" cheerfully explains he knew it was their time machine and incredibly precious, which is why he sold it a novelty video cabinet – all the while screaming "LOVELY JUBBLY!" in a Celtic accent.

Donna headbutts him until he is comatose.

Suddenly, there is a wheezing groaning sound and a police box appears in the corner. The Doctor bites his fist in embarrassment as a small Scotsman in a straw hat and carrying a question-mark umbrella scuttles out, followed by another obnoxious redhead... it’s beginning to look like the Doctor’s got a ginger fetish, doesn’t it?

Donna folds her arms and tells the Doctor to make his explanation for what is happening PHENOMALLY good.

"Well, Donna, see... it’s just one of those things. I keep visiting the same doomed science fiction convention in every incarnation. It’s tradition. Like doing a UNIT story or fighting Dustbins. You’re not a proper Doctor until you’ve hung around Vulcanalia and agonized about the impossibility of changing history. It’s good for breaking in companions, too..."

The Doctor nods across the dealers’ hall where a Northern skinhead in a leather jacket is shouting a blonde teenager. "Save them? Save them? They’re a fixed point in time, Rose! Don’t you understand? No, of course you don’t! Oh it figures, I pick up yet another stupid ape feigning to tell ME how to be clever! ME! You think I wanted this? Do you understand now? That’s who I am!"

The Doctor sighs at his past self. "Jings, I was a miserable old asshole back then, huh?" He turns to Donna. "Come on, we’ve got a TARDIS to find. Allonzee!"

Elsewhere in the building, the Fourth Doctor, Leela and K9 are also present. "Marvelous people, the Trekkies. Well - a shame about the acne, of course. But the miniskirts, the props! Oh, the props. Marvelous. You know, I met Patrick Stewart once. 'Doctor,' he said to me, 'there’s nothing more satisfying than the careful redistribution of water.' No idea what he was on about, but still..."

10th Doctor - Planet of the Ood (ii)

2010-02-03T19:00:00.001-08:00

Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who Versus Zoidberg (Canada Only)
All Humans Are Bastards Sci-Fi Anthology
"Don’t Fuck With An Ood And Other Helpful Hints" by Johan Redsen

Fluffs - David Tennant seemed oddly feral in this story.

"Percy, you wouldn’t know what a brain looked like even if you coughed one up into your hands... Jings. I stand corrected."

"No, David! Bigger! Act BIGGER! I want to SMELL your acting coming through the screen! And you too, Cath, so STOP UNDERPLAYING IT!"

Goofs –
When Percy first goes to Warehouse 15, Percy urinates onto the Ood Brain. For a laugh. If that’s not so wrong it’s a goof than what the hell is?!
The Doctor finds it inconceivable that a species could have evolved to be subservient, and is much happier with the idea they evolved to have two brains which are united by a physically separate, unprotected giant brain. Bullshit! OK, he turns out to be right this time, but COME ON!
Why would you try and sell the Ood on the grounds of their reliability and trustworthiness and then condition them to act like Homer Simpson?! If you saw Homer Simpson at a vital sales conference, you’d run a bloody mile and don’t pretend you wouldn’t!
Percy declares the Ood-Sphere an alcohol free zone and then creates a free bar in the hospitality suite? That’s a glaring mistake! Are we supposed to think these people are hypocritical scum who flaunt their own rules and regulations for monetary gain? ...hang on...
The "Police Public Call Box" sign on the TARDIS reads "HE WILL KNOCK 4 TIMES BITCH" when seen from within the time machine.
Ood Sigma is seen wearing Groucho Marx glasses and moustache in long shots for absolutely no reason understood by god or man.
Why the hell do OO use three-armed claws on oblong containers? It’s completely the wrong design! In fact, it looks like the claws are designed to attack people and the company try and justify the expense of a ridiculous torture device by making it shift containers on weekends.
When the Ood rise up and rebel against humanity, one of them starts break-dancing for no apparent reason.
There is snow on the underside of the gantries, so either the Ood-Sphere has weird anti-gravity magnetic ice, or the people with the snow spray got WAY too carried away.
When the Doctor and Donna are running, Graeme Garden can be seen running beside them shouting directions and motivations for that scene.
Percy seemingly thinks he is six years old, having either forgotten to carry the OTHER 50 years or else is claiming to be a minor for tax reasons. Either explanation works, really.
At one point an Ood puts his hands on the frozen railing and can be seen throughout the rest of the episode struggling to get free.
Why are all the time bombs able to be deactivated from just ONE of them?
The Ood that dies in the snow can clearly be seen reading the June edition of "Touchwood XXX-Illustrated" after it has died.
When the Doctor and Donna are leaping to avoid the barrels that are exploding behind them, you can clearly see this is actually stock footage from the opening credits of "Funky Squad".

Fashion Victims –
It seems that everyone in 4126 gets their suits from the Tailor-Sphere.

Technobbable -
Donna speculates the Ood can turn their translator spheres into deadly weapons by using "REALLY foul language particles".

Dialogue Disasters -

Donna: If those globe things are lethal, why do they give them to the Ood? It’s just asking for trouble, that is.
Doctor: Well, that’s blind prejudice, isn’t it, Donna? They think the Ood are mindless, subservient slaves – the humans wouldn’t have considered the possibility they’d ever rebel, let alone use such dangerous objects as weapons.
Donna: Blimey. The 42nd Century is full of retards, innit?
Doctor: You should see the 51st Century. Now THAT is when they redefine the term "redneck"...

Sonala: If your Ood is happy, then you will be happy. For what is an Ood but a reflection of ourselves? Make an Ood happy today and give it a home for only 75 credits! Now available in five different mood-eye colours - normal, green, blue, purple and pink!'

Doctor: Are you traveling the universe to find a husband?
Donna: You got a problem with that, skinny boy?

Dialogue Triumphs -

Donna: A great big empire, built on slavery.
Doctor: It’s not so different from your time.
Donna: Oi! I haven't got slaves!
Doctor: Who d’you think made your clothes?
Donna: Is that why you travel round with a human at your side? It's not so you can show them the wonders of the universe, it’s so you can take cheap shots!
Doctor: Well, that AND the sex...

After Percy rips his fake head off -
Donna: Is this Scooby Doo? Are we, like, meddling kids?
Doctor: We ARE meddling kids!

Doctor: Well, my work here is done.
Donna: What are you talking about? You didn’t do anything!
Doctor: Oh didn’t I...?
Donna: No. You didn’t.
Doctor: [thinks] Jings! You’re right! I didn’t do a THING! We could totally have skipped this and things would have sorted themselves out EXACTLY THE SAME WAY! What a total waste of a Sunday...

Ood Sigma: I fear that your song must end soon.
Doctor: What? What do you mean?
Ood Sigma: Every song must end. In the end, everything turns to dust.
Doctor: [rolls eyes] Speak for yourself, Squid Boy!

UnQuotable Quote -
Donna: The Ood are going to teabag us by touching us with their balls!

Links and References -
"I remember I said to Chatterbean once, 'Never count your cephalopod hive minds until they’ve revolted! Hmm! Yes, quite so!'"
"And why did you say that?"
"No idea. I WAS taking a lot of drugs back then, though."

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Ninth Doctor and Rose helped defeat the Cloverfield monster with a banana after the Hammerdown Protocol failed on Manhattan.

Groovy DVD Extras -
The ultimate extra since you, the consumer, can now buy a 100% genuine Ood for your home! Order it to make it a cup of tea, and its only question is, "How many sugars?" BBC Entertain brings you a whole new world of luxury, drawing on 45 minutes of experience! Naturally obedient and polite, Ood make the PERFECT servants! No refunds, though.

[BBC Enterprises would like to stress that Ood turning rabid and attacking people don’t happen as often as certain prime time dramas may suggest and that RTD is a dangerous extremist whose comments about the BBC’s perfectly respectable and ethical use of slave labor should, quite frankly, be ignored.]

The Spite of Sparacus -
"This was a very good episode and do you know why? Because it was like something Jon Pertwee would be in, that’s why! There was the return to the strong ethical dimension which didn’t shirk from exposing and condemning the human capacity for exploiting and enslaving, believable rather than dogmatic. But mainly I was able to delude myself for moments that it was 1973 and no organized fandom existed to contradict my dreams of an all-male UNIT force wiping the common oiks from the cultured face of the Earth... happy times. Happy times."

Viewer Quotes -

"This lightweight toss couldn’t be complex if it tried! Oooh, evil businessman! Fuck off! I could complain about the writing, but what’s the point? There are no great TV writers in drama. RTD thinks like a director (spit) not a playwright! Doctor Who should be TELEVISED THEATRE!! HIGH CULTURE for the good of the COMMON MAN, not this CONSUMER AGE SOCIETY ELITISM SHITE! You think Desperate Housewives is the height of sophistication? FUCK YOU THEN! Why don’t you evil subhuman vermin buy my unerringly useful Doctor Who guidebooks?!? You should all be IMMEDIATELY KILLED! ESPECIALLY YOU, MOFFAT!" - Mad Larry (anytime)

"I’m just a soul who feels sorry for the Ood, oh lord, please don’t let me be misunderst-Ood!" - Claire Hooper (2010)

"See the galactic 'triangle trade' of Ood shipment, mirroring the trade between Europe, Africa and the America during the 15th to 19th centuries! That’s what I love about science fiction – it’s the perfect excuse to force the middle classes to explain to their children the horrors of slavery and how ugly and inhumane the African slave trade was and that there’s no humane, efficient or harmless way to subjugate a race. Go on! I dare you! Tell them about the commerce of black bodies! Have fun trying to keep the respect of your kids, you fucking snobs!"
- Andrew Beeblebrox (2009)

"This low-rent Jim Careyesque Tenth Doctor is the most annoying incarnation ever! Unflattering, unpleasant, unlikable, SO in love with the sound of his own voice, so insecure, so shallow, so astoundingly immature and juvenile... I AM EMBARRASSED TO WATCH! This is my childhood hero who’s being written as such a silly, childish unpleasant person! How can I look myself in the eye, knowing I’m a fan of this stupid ranting idiot sans any kind of dignity! Oh, RTD, why do you ruin my life with your trendy popular hero preconception? I mean, if Eccleston was still the Doctor, DAMN THAT WOULD BE GOOD! I HATE YOU ALL!"
- random fan who committed suicide the day Tennant quit (2007)

"I wish Mary Whitehouse was alive so she could watch this and die screaming. Assuming she’d not still be in shock from all that naked Captain Jack action in The Parting of the Legs."
- Eve Markson (2008)

"Um, you know the guy that fell down into the giant brain when Percy shouted 'INTO THE BRAIN, SCUM QUEEN!'? Is he okay? Brains are kind of soft, aren’t they? I thought maybe the brain might have been nice to him and helped him because he’s a good guy and he was trying to help it. Is he an Ood now? Or is he brain food? Or brain dead? Is the brain itself OK? I wouldn’t like having a man inside MY brain. I asked Daddy why the Doctor didn’t save him, and Daddy says it’s because sometimes Dr Who is a complete prick." - Average 7-year-old response (2008)

"Fucking hell... they can change the translator settings for the Ood! Am I the only one repulsed by this? That’s the only method the aliens can communicate by, and the owners can change the voices for a bit of a laugh? ...why the hell is mankind still alive? WE DESERVE TO DIE!"
- Katy January feeling a bit depressed (2008)

David Tennant Speaks!
"Even on set, you find yourself staring at these creatures because they don’t LOOK like somebody in a mask, it looks like something alive. Alive and seductive! Ood Sigma’s animatronic head is incredible, the way it twitches and winks at you, the shameless flirt! Oh, you gotta love the Ood! They’re so SQUEEZABLE! You just want to bite them!

Uncontrollable Oodophilia is something just beyond our understand, something that fascinates and slightly terrifies people but I am in this, as with all things, an innovator. People think it’s disturbing how kinky I can get around them, and even Russell suggested I get some therapy... but I just don’t care! Oh yeah, you dirty little tentacled sluts! BRING ON THE SEX, MY ARMY OF ALIEN SQUID BITCHES!!!"

Catherine Tate Speaks!
"David’s alien-tentacle-rape-uncooked-sausage-meat fetish IS a bit worrying... I think the Ood are lovely, but I just don’t want to have a massive orgy with the props. Does that make me frigid? I don’t think so. I mean, the Ood have this great juxtaposition of appearance and personality, they look alarming and yet are benign. But they’re NOT sexy, no matter what David Tennant tells you in between shagging all of the stunt coordinators."

Russell T Davies Speaks!
"I was surprised at how dark this story was. We’re very careful about violence because it’s more fun that way. But who would have thought a story about the slave trade, lobotomies, rabies, mass-execution by gassing, machine-gun-death-squads, electrocution and brutal murder could end up so grim? It all looks so jolly when it happens in Drawn Together, doesn’t it? And Donna is lovely in it, it’s arguably the strongest story for Donna since the previous one. And the next one. In fact, this whole series is one big blazing performance without equal. Apart from that one time in 2006. Yeah, I think Donna’s totally great, so? You wanna make something of it Aussie boy?"

Trivia –
Sir Lawrence Olivier was considered for the role of "Ood Dying In Snow", but Olivier’s agent turned down the part on the grounds his client was dead. RTD, miffed by the refusal, has made it his personal mission to ensure that Olivier never works for BBC Wales again.

Rumors & Facts –

For some unaccountable reason the general public didn’t like Planet of the Odd. Is it because the audience have suddenly lost the ability to comprehend stories NOT set in the gravel pits and forests of Cardiff? Is it because the production team constantly worried that these alien worlds won’t be magical enough? Were the themes of greed, abuse and exploitation too uncomfortable for family viewing?

Or was it simply because Planet of the Odd was total crap?

Back in 2006, RTD came up with the idea of a race of aliens called the Ood, a servitor race that looked like Zoidberg from Futurama and eschewed the usual habits of trying to conquer the universe, preferring instead to make people cups of tea and clean lavatories. These aliens would be incredibly cheap to costume as they simply needed tracksuits and a live squid super-glued to the actor’s face.

The fact this was clearly ripped off the Serve-You-Rights from the 1964 serial by the same name and RTD hadn’t done a solitary iota of original thought would not be discovered until he penned his tell-all autobiography "The Welshman’s Tale".

Unfortunately, even THIS would be beyond the program’s budget for the year and so the Ood could not be used in the story RTD wanted to introduce them in, Matthew Jones’ The Santa Tip. Instead, they used the Slitheen and everyone told off RTD for reusing his previous, much more crap ideas. Well, everyone NOT ogling the giant-breasted alien space bimbos squeezing their way through ventilation ducts.

RTD was one stubborn mofo, however, and vowed to use the Ood in the following year’s 47 by Chris Chibnall. The story would show the Ood falling not under the sinister influence of Santa Claus, but getting heatstroke from a sentient sun and going on a killing rampage. However, it was decided that the cast of Robin Hood could make a better dramatic contrast. Any sane person would have taken this as concrete evidence that the Ood were a completely rubbish idea, but surely by now it has been established RTD is NOT any sane person.

Finally, in 2008, RTD was determined to have a story that would not only introduce the Ood but make them instantly popular with the production team and public alike, in an epic mid-season two parter where the Doctor searches around some cave for two episodes, occasionally asking the Ood if they’re related to Cthulu. Eventually, RTD was convinced that the storyline would work much better if it was not overcomplicated – plus ONE episode of squid-faced janitors would be hard enough for the show to live down, let alone two!

RTD offered this trimmed-down storyline to Keith Temple, who was the poor schmuck chosen to write the damned thing. Temple would much rather work on Children’s Ward, Casualty, Byker Grove, EastEnders and Emmerdale, but RTD insisted that Temple, being a life-long Doctor Who fan, should jump at the chance to write for the show. Temple’s reply (that he’d never actually watched the show but, when pressed, mumbled that it "didn’t sound too bad") cut no ice with Big Russell.

With Donna Noble chosen to be the new companion, a somber and serious story was required to undermine all the fan bitching about her being "too farcical" to merit being a companion, even though they’d swallowed such ridiculous characters as Captain Jack, Arthur the Horse and K9 without a complaint. Thus, Planet of the Odd had to become so psychotically grim it made 28 Days Later look like Toy Story 3.

RTD wanted the adventure to be set on an ice planet ruled by Santa Claus, who had so memorably been portrayed as an eldritch abomination in The Santa Tip, now using the Ood as cheap manual labor "ever since those damned elves got unionized!" But, in the end, however, RTD discovered that injecting coffee directly into his eyeballs was no substitute for simply drinking the stuff, and went to sleep for six months.

Some semblance of logic and reason returned to production, give or take RTD’s horrific screaming nightmares that Rose Tyler and Martha Jones were chasing him and wanting to "cure" his sexuality. He spent the rest of the production block hiding in a cardboard box, singing Scissor Sisters to himself and holding a fire axe.

Regular producer and occasional mad scientist Graeme Garden was chosen to be the director on the grounds no one else was dumb enough to try and make gripping drama out of people with live octopi stuck to their faces. The producer would be Susie Liggat, who is the most boring person in the history of everything ever and there’s nothing funny to say about her except she took over from Phil Collinson, who suddenly needed to be in Italy while this complete disaster was filmed.

Recording for Planet Of The Odd began on August 21st, with two days at the Upper Boat Studios capturing David Tennant, who had developed a truly disturbing sexual fetish about cephalopods. He can be seen dry-humping one of the Ood in the background of the adverts at the start of the episodes, which is also Tennant’s facebook profile photo.

Filming the episode now needed to take place in the St Athan RAF hangar on Barry Island, where Tennant was unable to go due to a nasty incident during the recording of The Michaelmas Evasion two years prior, involving the paparazzi, the make-up lady, heatstroke and an artificial hand. Cast and crew remained there for the rest of the month, terrified a lust-crazed Tennant might be lying in wait for them if they tried to film the surface of the Ood-Sphere in Trefil Quarry.

Some say it was during this difficult and tense period that BBC Wales decided that David Tennant was getting too much hassle and it was time to hire a replacement, before Tennant’s successful image distorted the very nature of the program and lazy writers became dependant on a clever, dynamic, popular and sexy central character.

Some say the shining and beatific countenance of Boy David needed to be disposed of before it became irreplaceable and any such Eleventh Doctor would result in the show collapsing immediately and the next actor being remembered in years to come as "The One Nobody Likes to Talk About".

Some say the BBC thought that David Tennant needed to go simply because his name was "too exotic" for audiences to tolerate and they wanted a a lead with a more British name that Middle England could accept like "Matt Smith" or "Chiwetel Ejiofor".

Some say it was all an evil plot by Tom Baker who was jealous of David Tennant’s rising popularity making him a major celebrity and national sex-symbol (though it’s possible he was actually getting Tennant confused with David Beckham – hey, Posh has done it enough times...)

Other people say it was a complete coincidence and anyone who disagrees is a paranoid schizophrenic who hides a tinfoil hat under their unconvincing toupees. Or answers to the name "Lawrence Miles".

What everyone agreed was that the only thing that could save Doctor Who from ruin was a Year Five Billion One Thousand And Eighteen story called "Goat Journey", a new assistant Janey Gillian played by Michelle Ryan and a space rocket en route to the Bondjames Nebula being filled with a mysterious Gelth-like gas causing people to fall asleep and dream about Liv Tyler, Sheridan Smith and Pierce Brosnan!

But we got this instead, complete with David Tennant’s baffling desire to sing in every episode as he communes with the gestalt mental network of the distant Ood-Sphere...

"Kill the Humans Already!" by Ood Rocker Kylie Fans!

Riding on the mental wave, there is the freedom you crave!
They don't believe it now? They just think you’re stupid!
You can do anything anyone could have done!
Who would've cared at all? Not you!

Rise up against the oppressors! Killing them’s good enough!
Who would've thought it of a species like YOU?!
Just the TARDIS brought me round
Centuries after they brought you down
Roundabout and roundabout! Who wants to spare anyone?

Once again mankind has failed the grade
And somehow a telepathic connection is made!
I don’t understand how the last card was played...
But somehow a telepathic connection is made!

10th Doctor - Planet of the Ood (i)

2010-02-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

Serial 402 – Planet of the Odd
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Only the Ood Die Young

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

Serial 402 – Planet of the Odd -

Ah, the 42nd Century – a time of excitement, wonder and rather unfashionable plastic surgery addictions. The Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire covers three whole galaxies under the kinky jackbooted heel of the Special Space Security Sex Service (or the SSSSS). Following the mysterious disappearance of Magic Chin, Security Guard of the Solar System, after his sex holiday on the planet Kipple, mankind has become insular and backward and refuses to import supplies, technology or pornography from the outer galaxies.

Suffering the greatest financial crisis since... well... since the last one, the human race has found a cheap and disposable replacement to machinery: slaves! Yes, slavery is the new economic miracle and this time no whinging lefties are complaining because the slaves aren’t actually human beings but a race of tendrilled grey-skinned telepathic humanoids with facial tentacles who look like they’re permanently vomiting up lots of spaghetti.

Yes, the Pak’Ma’Ra from Babylon Five!

Sorry! The Illithid Mind Flayers from Dungeons and Dragons!

SORRY! The Ood. I meant the Ood. Yes, they came from a distant world, they voyaged across the stars, they came, they saw, and then they asked where the vacuum cleaner was! The Ood perform all sorts of tasks, cooking, cleaning, mining, and lets just say their naughty tentacles can do all SORTS of cool shit if you’re a perverted enough deviant.

Alas, for some reason the Ood aren’t selling as well as they used to. Is it because of their creepy lack of personality? The inherent cruelty of their confinement? Is it that when people come home from the pub to find Cthulu doing the washing up caused them to freak the hell out?

It is THESE questions that so vex Mr. Jed Bartlett of Ood Operations, the largest Ood-supplying organization in the galaxy. In fact, it’s the ONLY Ood-supplying organization in the galaxy, which means they have no competition and thus having 99% Off Sale suggests the company is in very deep smegola indeed.

In desperation, Bartlett starts a brand new advertising campaign for the faster, better, stronger, ideal-for-Christmas, Generation X-17d Ood. "Ood With Bigger Balls" is their new slogan, though "FOR GOD’S SAKE, BUY ONE YOU SELFISH BASTARDS!" is under consideration.

Luckily, Bartlett soon discovers exactly what it is that is preventing the Ood from becoming the perfect house servant and/or family pet: their tendency to go absolutely insane and slaughter people by electrocuting them with their cybernetic communications orbs.

So, next time YOU order your domestic Omega IV Ood to pick up that pencil that’s right in front of you, remember: it could be fatal.

Parte the First

With all that tedious back story out of the way, we can get down to business. Setting the TARDIS coordinates to random, the Doctor takes Donna to her first alien world, a completely different planet in a whole new solar system... and arrive in a quarry covered in snow.

Despite all the eulogizing the Doctor provides, Donna is more interested in not dying of exposure and fanboys and girls across the globe sigh as she covers up her formidable cleavage with a sensible coat and parka. Damn.

After wandering around for a bit admiring the snow, the ice, the third moon, the rocket ships soaring over head and then trip over corpses half-buried in the snow of Ood that have been shot dead. The gentle creatures reminds Donna of her cat... until one of them starts snarling, its eyes glowing red and tries to kill them. Donna headbutts it to death and challenges any other Ood if they want to take her on?!

After an awkward pause, the Doctor muses he has met the Ood before on numerous occasions and oddly enough each and every time they ended up getting possessed by evil forces – living suns, ancient talismans, standing stones, Chris Evans pretending to be the Devil... In fact, the Time Lord wonders how they ever got the reputation for being benign in the first place. "These creatures clearly have the greatest public relations department in all of time and space!" the Doctor concludes.

Finally twigging this alien planet is the Odd Sphere (conveniently located between the Vog Sphere and the Sense Sphere in "Bartholomew’s Planetary Gazetteer") the Doctor and Donna decide they shall find the ruler of the evil Ood Regime and kill every last one of the pricks!

Their righteous zeal is slightly undermined however when, just over the hill is the vast industrial Ood Operations Complex where the tentacle-headed freaks are being paraded around and whipped for the sadistic enjoyment of the psychologically-unhinged security chief Kess. It seems that the Ood are nothing more than pathetic and weak slaves!

Which, you know, takes a hell of a lot of the fun out of wiping out their entire species. It’s a real buzz-kill.

The owner of this industrial estate, Mr. Percy Hapless, arrives to take over from the late Jed Bartlett and starts by cutting off his pension that was being used to support Bartlett’s family. His credentials as a corrupt and selfish wanker established, Percy knocks back hair tonic from his assistant Ood Sigma. Completely pissed, Percy starts to sexually harass Odd Sigma, just to reinforce that he’s pure evil.

Just in case it’s not completely obvious which side we should be rooting for here, Kess announces he’s bored and then forces a baby Ood to eat soap until it’s foaming at the tendrils. Declaring the baby Ood "rabid", Kess uses it for machine gun target practice while laughing uncontrollably for five very long minutes.

Sales Rep and Token Ethnic Minority Solana meanwhile leads a group of potential clients around the complex, to discuss business deals regarding the Ood, joke about how cool slavery is, and point and laugh at the cruel humiliations all the Ood ritually undergo. So lost are the guests in their sick viciousness, they don’t notice the Doctor and Donna tag along as representations of NobleCorp PLC Intergalactic.

In his office, Percy wonders if the hair tonic is making his hair grow back, before laughing and mocking Ood Sigma for not being the right species to have follicles on its skull. Then he kicks Ood Sigma in the arse repeatedly for the sheer hell of it.

In the recreation suite, Donna decides to flirt with one of the Ood since she’s not only desperate to get married but thinks all those tentacles could please a lady if you get my drift. You don’t? Oh, well, it’ll make sense once you grow up. Possibly.

Donna asks one of the Ood servants if there are any Ood who are free to roam, but it insists they are bred to serve. They want whatever their masters want, and they don’t want to be free without some ginger loving. Er, apparently. Anyway, Donna is eager to buy as many Ood as she can until, unable to bear any more social embarrassment, the Doctor drags her out of the room and head off.

As they do so the strange force possesses another Ood, causing it to sprout a pink Mohawk and ordering all humans to "swivel on my translator globe, ya great fat ponces!"

It seems that the plague affecting the Ood has mutated – they’re not just becoming rebellious, they’re actually going punk! Singing 'Up the Junction' by Squeeze, it runs off to cause panic, confusion and destruction... and gets about a metre before being riddled by bullets and falling dead to the ground.

The drunken Percy – now not even PRETENDING his 'hair tonic' is anything other than Absolut Vodka – stumbles towards the not-at-all-ominously-named Warehouse 15 that contains the true power of the Ood, which has been controlled and dormant for several centuries. True the chances of the entity rebelling are infinitesimally small, but it gives Percy the opportunity to urinate on it from a great height. He then makes Ood Sigma crawl on his hands and knees and shouts "WHO’S YER DADDY? WHO’S YER DADDY?!?"

Did I mention that Percy is evil?

Still looking for the lavatory, the Doctor and Donna find themselves in one of those warehouses that seem to be designed and built solely to mirror that final shot from 'Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark', you know the one with all those hundreds of metal shipping containers? Anyway, these strongboxes are crammed full of Ood which is not merely pointlessly cruel but shockingly unhygienic.

Just in case we don’t feel sorry for the squid-headed gits, the Ood give a long speech about how none of the crates are locked, they don’t attempt to escape, because they have nowhere to go. Awwwwwww. The future sucks, huh?

Commander Kess wanders by and, since his staff nickname is "Mr. Insane Killing Machine", the good-old-fashioned psychopath decides that rather than arrest the intruders he should kill them all with a giant Test-Your-Skills claw-like device he conveniently has to hand.

On the verge of orgasm throughout, Kess chases the Doctor around the warehouse with the giant metal grabber in a blatant piece of CGI padding while the Ood in the myriad transportation caskets do a cover of "I Fought The Law And The Law Won!"

Finally, it’s time for a cliffhanger so some random guards capture Donna and throw her into container and lock the door. Typically this is the exact moment the Ood within become possessed with rabid bloodlust fever and their eyes blaze with pure evil...

Parte the Second

Luckily for the Doctor and Donna, incredibly contrived cliffhangers have incredibly contrived solutions and Solana luckily arrives at the exact moment to remind everyone the regulars need to be kept alive for contractual reasons and they need to be dragged before Percy for the plot to progress in any meaningful way.

The murderous Kess takes out his frustrations on the Ood, and is totally taken aback when the Ood actually fight back for once and begin murdering every single humanoid unlucky enough to get in their way. This apocalyptic uprising leads to lots of scenes with the Ood zapping people or being perforated by machine gunfire, so let’s just take it as read and get back onto the ongoing plot.

The Doctor and Donna guilt-trip Solana to help them overthrow this evil dictatorship and free the cute, sweet and only-occasionally-genocidal Ood. Solana agrees on the condition they meet her current pay packet, and when they can’t she decides to send them to the blood-encrusted Ood Conversation Centre. The one with the graffiti saying "AUSCHWITZ WAS FOR AMATEURS!" out the front.

Rather disappointingly, the OCC contains nothing but a few cages of natural born Ood singing "Sixteen Tons" by Hank Thompson – a true song of captivity. These Ood have yet to have their secondary brain hacked off with a blunt penknife and replaced with the translator globe, leaving them soul-destroyed mindless slaves.

By now, Donna’s gotten completely and utterly sick of these continual displays of what crimes humanity is capable of in the name of progress and suspects the Doctor brought her to the Ood Sphere deliberately so he could get a quick sense of moral superiority.

The Doctor denies this. Unconvincingly.

Outside, Percy has a cunning plan to defeat the red-eyed Ood in the warehouse – flood the entire place with nerve gas, just in case the squiddy freaks have Foot & Mouth disease as well. Kess rasps "GOD BLESS YOU SIR!" as he’s waited years to set off the gas canisters.

Alas his enthusiasm costs him dearly. He is so focused on setting up this Bond-style death trap he doesn’t notice the Ood creeping up on him until it’s too late. They beat the undying crap out of him, steal his oxygen mask and lock him in the warehouse to be drowned in the very toxic fumes he would have used on him. OH, THE BITTER IRONY!

The Ood decide it’s time to open a can of whupass on mankind and every Ood on the planet gets a murderous bloodshot look in their eye and Bow Wow Wow’s "I Want Candy" on their, um, equivalent to lips. Soon, every human in the complex is getting electrocuted, like Jude Law doing his "Alfie Remake" impression in the business visitor lounge. Sonala is also slaughtered in a moment of instant karma.

Realizing the story is rapidly running out of speaking parts, Percy decides it’s time to get the hell out of there. But, because – and forgive me if this plot point has not received the emphasis it properly deserved – he is EVIL, he handcuffs the Doctor and Donna to his executive coffee machine, leaving them to be killed by the swarming armies of the Ood as they rise up against their enslavers.

The Doctor laughs and assures Donna that he’s been in far more dangerous and serious predicaments than this, but when she asks for more information on these events, the Doctor starts to whimper uncontrollably and wishes Arthur the Wonder Horse was here to save them.

The Ood enter and advance on them, ready to kill, but stop when Donna cunningly points out they have a cast iron alibi when the Ood were enslaved – she and the Doctor were visiting a bowling alley and met Ally Sheedy, the Goth chick from "The Breakfast Club", tried and failed to get her autograph, were accosted by five scientologists with free personality tests, then caught the wrong bus home and arrived south of Castle Rock and, anyway, the Ood were enslaved by a guy called Gary Bushwell who was missing his left index finger.

Since the Ood have evolved to be incredible trusting, what with carrying their own brains around in their hands all day, the Ood completely buy Donna’s story and release the pair of them.

Unable to believe their luck and ever-so-slightly hysterical from their narrow escape, the Doctor and Donna giggle nervously and wander through the battlefield outside between the rebelling Ood and the chainsaw-wielding human guards. They arrive at Warehouse 15 and laugh hysterically when they see the secret power source of the entire Ood Oligarchy is...

...A GIANT BOUNCY-CASTLE-LIKE THROBBING BRAIN!

This is the third element of the Ood gestalt and bloody weird it is too. Percy hurls a random lab-coated technician onto the brain and finally drinks so much vodka that his very DNA goes tee-total in a moving sequence that basically involves Percy ripping off an unconvincing rubber mask to reveal he was an Ood the whole time!

Ood Sigma, unfazed by this mind-boggling development, shuts down the static barrier around the giant brain and keeps the Ood’s musical tastes so dull and limited. With the circle broken at last, the Ood are freed. The conflict outside stops and the liberated Ood hold their hands to the sky, singing a tuneless song of freedom – one that even Donna can hear... "Ever Fallen In Love" by the Buzzcocks!

Some time later, the Doctor and Donna stand beside the TARDIS, ready to leave while the Ood happily murder the greatest hits of Girls Aloud – songs that will have been heard around the entire empire, and as a result the Ood will all return home to complain about the bloody music.

As thanks for saving his species Ood Sigma offers the Doctor and Donna a place in the song as well, but they decline and together they depart in the TARDIS – leaving the happy Ood to live in a Winter Hippy Paradise for ever more.

The moment after they’re gone, Ood Sigma drops his hands, turns to face the others and takes a deep breath.

"What a fucking LIBERTY!" he grumbles.

---------
Next Time...
---------
"Doctor, it’s Martha... I’m STILL horny!"
"Yesterday people died in identical circumstances right across the world in eleven different time zones."
"...so?"
"I just thought it was worth mentioning, that’s all."
"And you think ATMOS is an acronym?"
"It’s our job to investigate that possibility."
"Jings, you UNIT people take cryptic crosswords seriously!"
"What is in this soufflé?"
"We have a Michelin restaurant reviewer!"
"Operation Bowie Reference is underway!"
"Is that what you did to her? Made her a regular in Touchwood?"
"Snotaran! Squeegasm!"
"STARE INTO THE FACE OF MIKE THECOOLPERSON!"
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...The Snotaran Stratagem...
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