10th Doctor - Rise of the Cybermen (ii)

While we wait with baited breath to find out how the cliffhanger is resolved, the plot cuts away to a Monty Python-style Gilliamation as animated skeletons are hacked up and poured into photos of Cyber-suits in locations across a map of the world, then march out in all directions. Glenn Quagmire narrates with his usual flair:

"This an order from JR to every continent on the planet. Production order follows for all locations. Ultimate Upgrade reaches maximum velocity. All Cyber factories will begin conversion to cyber-form - commence production now. Upgrade from flesh. Upgrade now. Incompatible versions will be deleted. Once Cyberworld is established, the endless orgy of the damned will begin. Dear Diary: JACKPOT! Allll right, non-stop international orgasms ahead – giggety-giggety-giggety! Let’s all have CYBERSEX!!"



ACT TWO – THE AGE OF CONSENT

Parte the Third

As the proto-Cyber-homeless-bums prepare to attack the Doctor pulls a glowing orb from his pocket. He aims it at the steel warriors and immediately a beam of energy flies out at them. They are each hit by the beam and vanish in a cheap CGI flash.

"What the hell was that?" demands Esme.

"I have absolutely no fucking idea," the Doctor marvels. "But boy did it work! It annihilated them so utterly they were slam-dunked into another part of time and space altogether! Jings, I have a newfound respect for free cereal box collector’s items!"

"You defeated a phalanx of Cybermen with a toy from a Cornflake’s packet?!" exclaimed Mickey in absolute and utter disbelief.

The Doctor stares at the others, bug eyed, before screaming "And Muhammad says run!" before leaping atop the waiting Arthur as the rest of the Cybermen start to march slowly towards them.

The Preachers and Mickey retreat to the van, but Pete can only stare at the gutted Buckingham Palace in horror. "Anyone inside that house is dead!" the Doctor reminds the audience at home as he collects Rose. "Now, what did we learn today? She’s not your real mother."

"I know!" says Rose defensively. "Serves her right, the bitch."

As they gallop off, Pete finally joins the Preachers in their van, realizing that Jackie, his wife, the woman who taught him the value of monogamy, is most likely gone, joy-buzzed by the Cyberman, now and forever.

"Wait a tick," Pete exclaims as they drive off, "that means I’m single again! OH YEA BABY!"

Meanwhile, we discover that fate has meant that Jackie has managed to escape the Cybermen thanks to the sheer amount of silicon in her body causing her to show up as another prototype Cyberman. Desperately, she flees into the interior of the house and hides in the cellar. Baffled, the Cybermen assume Jackie has absent-mindedly forgotten her upgraded body no longer needs bathroom breaks.

Back in the van, the Preachers consider their next move and finally conclude that they should machine gun the Doctor, Rose, Pete and Mickey to death. "Yeah, since our weapons only work on human beings, we might as well use them before those metal things kills us," Jake suggests.

"What’ve we done wrong?" demands Rose in a shrill voice.

"Oh, you know - just laid a trap that’s wiped out the government and left JR Ewing in charge," Esme shrugs, loading her gun.

"If I was part of all that, do you think I’d leave my wife inside?" Pete demands. "OK, I would, I hate the bitch, but do you think I’d have to run away? Not everyone is as brain dead and stupid as you lot!"

"Still gives us the right to execute you, though," Ricky agrees.

"Yeah, we’ve got all the evidence we need," Paula Moore explains. "We met a government mole on FaceBook who feeds us information. JR’s private files, his South American operations... the lot. Secret broadcasts twice a week. Sometimes we even read them."

"Wait," says Pete with mounting horror. "Broadcast from Janus? YOU’RE the Preachers? You mean, I worked for JR Ewing to get information, risking my life broadcasting to the only people that can help. But are the Preachers some secret security service? No, they’re a bunch of idiots in their van! Scooby Doo and his gang would have been better Preachers than you oversexed morons! That’s really going to stop JR Ewing from turning every living thing into those S&M zombies..."

"Hold on a minute," says Mickey, still two chapters behind everyone else in this story, "d’you mean YOU are Janus?"

The Doctor ignores him and suggest they simply use the tinfoil hats to tell the world that JR Ewing just assassinated the President of Great Britain and let the proper authorities end this derivative plot line TONIGHT!

Esme points out that JR has control of the tinfoil hat system and they’ll have to deal with this psychotic businessman and his army of hybridized borg monsters on their own.

"Jings," the Doctor mutters. "I hate fighting Cybermen on a Thursday. Never get the hang of Thursdays..."

At Albion Hospital, JR Ewing marvels at his brand new improved metallic children – as so often is the case, no sooner do you get used to the latest model then there’s on better.

These Cybermen aren’t simply extras in strange bondage gear with leather restraints and metal implants, but instead something far more fetishistic – a race of identical sterile, medical, corpse-like androgynous figures with fluid circulating through opaque-white tubes connected to a backpack, while the joints are chrome-plated and a head rests atop an articulated neck unit. The face between those baffling jug handles shows no trace of the former identity, so Paul Casey can play five hundred of the bastards without ever causing a continuity glitch!

"Tell me," he asks them. "How does it feel? You know... to 'do it'? What does it feel like? Is it sticky? Hot? Erotic? As if every part of your body is touched and ravished with wild abandon no one could ever have imagined in their wildest dreams? What does it feel like?"

++ We-feel-nothing. ++ replies one of the creatures.

"But in your mind? What do you THINK when you’re doing it?"

++ We-think-the-same. We-are-uniform. ++

"Yeah, I’m obviously not making myself clear here. But you think thoughts of... WHAT exactly?"

++ We-think-of-the-humans. We-think-of-their-warm-moist-silkiness-wrapped-about-our-hardness. We-think-of-riding-them-in-sexual-ecstasy-and-pounding-into-them-like-a-pile-driver-again-and-again-each-thrust-driving-us-deeper-than-the-last. When-they-can-suffer-no-more-in-the-skin-they-must-become-like-us. They-must-be-upgraded. ++

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiight," says JR Ewing. "Oh, well, I guess I’ll get used to it. But what shall you be called? Not mere human beings, but Cybernetically-Enhanced Mobile Arousal Nymphomaniacs..."

++ How-about-'Cyber-M.A.N.'-for-short? ++ suggests one at the back.

"Cyberman... Yes, I like that. It’s terribly simple, it combines the power of the Cyber Industries brand identity with the powerful image of your appearance, and it scores the highest approval rating so far! You shall be the CYBERMEN!!"

++ Excellent. ++ says the one at the back, punching the air.

JR Ewing turns to a curious bit of technology marked 'ACME BRAINWAVE CONTROLLER 3.1' and hauls down a lever. "Active the Primary Brainwashing Sequence for all tinfoil hats in Night City! I’ve just declared the population to be swingers! BEGIN TRANSMISSION! You will all come to me, my immortal cyber-concubines! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Throughout Night City there is the sound of techno rave music and everyone wearing a tinfoil hat gets up, leaves their homes and starts to march robotically towards Albion Hospital, herded by the Cyber-Police on their Cyber-steeds. Even Jackie Tyler is left an expressionless zombie following the herd... so no change there, then.

In the hospital canteen, Mr. Lilt manages to rip free his tinfoil hat before his mind can be taken over. "Oh no you don’t, you son of a bitch," he growls before noticing Mr. Takis is already wandering off. "Mr. Takis? What’s happening? What’s he done? What’s JR done? He’s not trying to take over the world AGAIN is he?"

"Time I went freelance," Mr. Lilt bitches and heads for the exit only to be confronted by two waiting Cybermen. "Fuck," he muses as they drag him away into the depths of the hospital as the natives walk through the front door and over the PA system, Nick Briggs can be heard pissing about and saying that all unconvertible material must be incinerated in a variety of different intonations before finally remarking that Mr. Bellpit’s leg is "all swollen".

Completely ignoring the news report by a panicking Richard Pritchard about armies of bondage freaks taking over the whole of Night City, the Preachers and company pull up at the heart of Cardiff. After watching everyone march off in unison, the Doctor uses his amazing computer-like powers of deduction to realize that JR is using the tinfoil hats to take control of the people.

"Using the plain man’s defense against alien mind domination FOR alien mind domination – oh, the irony!" the Doctor muses. "Human Race - for such an intelligent lot, you aren’t half susceptible. Give anyone a chance to take control and you submit. Sometimes I think you like it. Easy life. Or maybe you just do it deliberately so I have to go round saving you. I’ve got half a mind to let you all die. That’ll teach you to take the kindness of strangers for granted..."

"Where are they all going?" Rose asks, returning to the plot.

"Albion Hospital," Pete replies. "It’s the only recognizeable landmark in Night City. Plus, that’s where the was building his prototypes."

"Why’s he doing it?" asks Rose.

"He’s over fifty and still a virgin. He’s dying to get some. This all started out as a way of getting his end away in a red hot orgy of Satyricon proportions. At any cost."

"So he reverse engineered the Cybermen to try and get around the whacking great copyright violation," the Doctor concludes. "They’ll probably betray him, consume everything on Irth and swarm across the galaxy for an illicit weekend rendezvous with the other Cyber Factions."

"What the hell are you two on about?" Rickey demands. "Who cares about if this makes sense to the fans?"

"Come on, we need to get out of the City," Esme reminds everyone as they see a squad of completed Cybermen are fast-approaching down the street towards them. "Everyone for themselves!"

The group split up and Mickey takes one last chance and gives Rose a long, drawn-out kiss goodbye in the hope that she will finally give him the sugar he’s wanted since the 2005 relaunch.

Her reaction is the less-than-enthusiastic, "Ewwwww! He stuck his tongue in!"

Giving up on Rose Tyler for good, Mickey sprints down a street, pursued by the Cybermen. Mickey finds himself with Mickey at a fork in the road and take different routes as more patrols of Cybermen approach from all direction. Thanks to the fact they are identical in appearance, it is impossible to tell which is Ricky and which is Mickey unless you read the script or watch the episode closely enough to see which one is wearing an eyepatch.

One of the characters Noel Clarke is playing this week runs down the back streets from hordes of Cybermen, only to become trapped in an alleyway by a chain-link fence. Another Noel Clarke figure appears on the other side and mocks the other for being so slow.

Suddenly, one of the Cybermen reaches forward and grabs the leg of the Noel Clarke who... ah, it’s Mickey. OK? MICKEY! Mickey is the one trying to climb the fence and Ricky is the one laughing at him. And therefore Mickey is the one who is blasted by an orgasmic bolt of electrical energy as his rigid, body falls to the ground. Ricky stares looks
up at the emotionless killers for a long moment.

++ Hang on, ++ says the Cyberleader. ++ We just eradicated you! ++

"I’m a ghost!" Ricky moans. "BOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA!"

The Cybermen flinch and the Preacher laughs at their stupidity before running off. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Rose, Pete and Paula Moore are hiding behind a crowd of bins as more Cybermen walk past their hiding
place but at the last second, the Doctor uses that weird glowing thing to blast them out of existence.

"It just doesn’t get old," he grins at the others.

At that moment, Jake arrives, riding Arthur who returns to the plot the moment the author remembers to include him in the story. "I found him when I was running past the river. You should’ve seen it, the whole City’s on the watch. Hundreds of Cybermen all down the Thames! Pity we didn’t have the budget to film it this year, huh?"

Just then, Ricky runs down the street towards him and notes that things will be a lot less confusing now that Mickey is now stiff as a board, bright green and beginning to smell. "Don’t even talk about him," snaps Rose. "He’s nothing, he is. Serves him right for banging my mum."

"Some would say he’s suffered enough," the Doctor shrugs. "Still, we can celebrate he’s gone when Night City is safe. But now, we move on with the rest of the plot."

At the control room in Albion Hospital, JR Ewing finally notes the Cybermen operating consoles and generally acting like they own the place. "What are you up to?" he demands.

++ That-is-no-longer-any-of-your-business. ++ replies the nearest Cyberman. ++ This-world-now-belongs-to-us. ++

"What?!"

++ We-are-the-strongest-and-most-intelligent-life-forms-on-this-planet. Therefore-we-should-rule-over-it-not-you. ++

"I am your superior!" JR Ewing screams. "Now RECOGNIZE ME!"

++ You-are-a-humanoid-virgin-who-feels-fear-of-rejection-due-to-sexual-inexperience. ++ retorts another Cyberman.

"I am your creator!" JR Ewing rants, now frothing at the mouth.

++ Oh-get-over-yourself. You-reverse-engineered-the-technology-from-that-crashed-Cybership-that-landed-here-in-1.986. Stop-lying-to-yourself. ++

"I am still your superior, you augmented bondage freaks!"

++ You-are-inferior. If-you-do-not-become-like-us-you-have-no-desire-for-sexual-ecstasy-and-therefore-no-desire-to-survive. ++ booms another Cyberman. ++ We-are-now-the-controllers-of-mankind. Those-who-do-not-submit-to-us-will-die. ++

"You want a piece of me, huh? Is that it?" challenges JR.

"DIE, YOU SICK WANKING FUCK!!!" roars Mr. Lilt as he is dragged in by two Cybermen, pulling out a handy sawn-off shotgun and blowing a hole in JR Ewing’s non-artificial chest. As the Cybermen joy-buzzer the remaining half of the double act to death, JR falls to the ground.

"Who was that who shot JR?" he croaks as Mr. Lilt’s corpse is taken off to the conversion factory.

++ You-will-die-a-virgin. ++ obverses the Cyberleader. ++ We-can-make-you-live-forever-with-an-incredibly-sex-life. What-is-weak-in-you-shall-be-changed. What-is-strong-in-you-shall-only-get-stronger. Surrender-your-virginity-to-us. ++

"No! Not yet! I’m not ready," chokes JR on his own blood. "I’ve changed my mind! I don’t want to be a tinfoil zombie with no conversation."

++ You-should-have-thought-of-that-earlier-bitch. ++

The Cybermen drag the dying man out of the room, ignoring his protests that "no means no" and that he’ll scream rape. As he is dumped into a conversion unit, he manages to shriek "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?" before the hatch slams closed.

The whole population of Night City are being taken inside Albion Hospital to be converted, and Cybermen are now stalking the streets for any stragglers – including those who are now dead. As the Doctor, Rose, Pete, Arthur and the surviving Preachers watch on, Mickey’s smiling carcass is carried in to the hospital.

Suddenly, a Cyberman lurches up behind them out of the shadows. ++ You are not upgraded. ++ it observes as everyone panics. Foolishly, Pete and Rose hastily put on tinfoil hats to disguise themselves, only for them to instantly be brainwashed and march off towards Albion Hospital.

"Jings!" the Doctor bitches and Paula Moore hurls a handy bottle of Vitex at the Cyberman – and the health drink sticks to its chest, causing it to spark, shake and jerk, then slumps to the ground.

"Of course! Soda pop! The only known weakness of the Cybermen!" grins the Doctor delighted. "Apart from their own weapons. And cheese. And other people’s weapons. And the cold. And ion disruption. And this weird glowing shiny paperweight thing I happen to have..."

++ Why am I so cold? ++ the Cyberman moans suddenly. ++ Why so cold? No more flesh. No more threesomes. No more lesbian spank infernos. Got a headache. Can’t we just go out to dinner for once? ++

"Must have switched off the emotional inhibition system that stops them wanting relationships," the Doctor explains for the benefit of the audience. "Since they still have human brains they need to cut out emotions to stop them wanting meaningful conversation and comfort, otherwise they’d go insane. Imagine though, if we can find some incredibly contrived way to shut down the emotional inhibitor for every Cybermen, it’d be like the final reel of V for Vendetta!" The Doctor’s brow furrows suddenly. "Could we do that? Without pissing off Alan Moore, I mean?"

"We’ve got to," says Esme. "There’s no choice, Doctor. It’s got to be done or this will end up as a three parter!"

Meanwhile, the brainwashed Pete and Rose join the brain-dead locals marching into the hospital as the humans are escorted by Cybermen to be converted. These scenes are probably the best in the story if you get off on Billie Piper acting like a mindless zombie surrounded by sex-obsessed cyborg bastards. If not, they probably come across as padding.

After having looking up a map of the hospital on its webpage, Paula Moore discovers that underneath the building are cooling ducts big enough to walk through, so she and the Doctor will use them to get into the conversion factories and save Rose.

Esme, Ricky and Jake meanwhile will head atop the hospital to where JR Ewing has parked his zeppelin in a cheap homage to a Pink Floyd album. What’s more, the device attached to the blimp clearly marked ACME BRAINWAVE CONTROLLER 3.1 TRANSMITTER shows them how to take out the signal controlling the humans.

As they split up, Rose and Pete enter the hospital where we see a perpetually-looped-bit-of-footage as Cybermen lead humans into giant tanks, where they step inside and are bombarded by spinning knives and other blades, scratching away the flesh before the Cyberman helmet is lowered into the tank, and the creature is complete. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

By the time the booming voice of Nick Briggs announces that 6500 Cybermen have now been created by the dozens of buzzing tanks, we’ll believe anything just as long as we get on with the episode.

As the unwitting father and daughter queue up for a fate worse than a fate worse than death, we cut to the Doctor and Paula Moore crawling down the cooling ducts of the factory, to find themselves passing an endless line of silent, dormant and patently empty Cybersuits. Either these new Cybermen have been placed on ice to await orders or else the extras have gone on strike. Either way, the Doctor and Paula Moore has to find their way through the tunnels before the Cybermen come to life and slaughter them to death!

After five minutes, however, absolutely nothing happens and the Doctor and Paula Moore relax and stand around by the exit waiting for them to reactivate. They idly swap anecdotes and Paula Moore reveals she is using a fake name provided by a guy called Eric Saward; her real name is Annie Lennox. The Doctor gets her to do a chorus of "Missionary Man", and does not realize that one of the Cybermen behind them has activated, and is watching them sing out of key.

On the roof of the complex, Esme, Jake and Ricky find that two proto-Cyber-guards are cover the entrance to the zeppelin, and Esme reveals she has customized her machine gun to fire cans of Vitex and is thus lethal to cyberized life forms.

"If you kill them, what’s the difference between you and a Cyberman?" asks Ricky in a token moment of humanitarianism.

"Nothing, I guess!" Esme grins and opens fire.

In the cooling duct, the Cybermen finally start to move but the Doctor and Paula Moore easily flee down the tunnel from the metal warriors before they can catch them. They climb up an escape hatch and with not a second to spare they scramble onto the floor above, and the Doctor seals the hatch shut again, trapping the Cybermen below.

"Good team, Paula Moore!" he says to his companion.

"Good team, Doctor," she replies before we realize they have emerged right beside a Cyberman who has noticed them and, in less time than it takes to read this, has grabbed Paula Moore by the neck and joy-buzzes her, loosening its grip only to let her dead body fall to the floor.

"No! No! You didn't have to kill her! The Eurhythmics are brilliant in every reality!" the Doctor yells in disgust as the steel monster looms over him...

However, the episode is running short so we cut to the Preachers setting out to look for anything marked "ACME BRAINWAVE CONTROLLER 3.1 TRANSMITTER CONTROLS" in the cockpit of the zeppelin, only to turn to find a Cybermen backed up against the wall and blatantly not active in any way, shape or form!!!!


Parte the Fourth

It appears that this Cyberman is just an empty, lifeless display model but Ricky is certain any moment it will come to life and try to eradicate them based on the previous scenes where similarly empty, lifeless Cybermen came to life for no apparent reason.

So, rather than trying to find the transmitter controls or setting the airship to automatically crash into Albion Hospital, they just stand there, arms folded, patiently waiting for the Cyberman to activate and try to kill them.

After ten minutes, it springs to life and pursues the Preachers who engage in a pantomime chase ending with Ricky tricking the Cyberman into smashing the conveniently marked "ACME BRAINWAVE CONTROLLER 3.1 TRANSMITTER CONTROLS". The Cyberman electrocutes itself and there is the truly disturbing sight of the metal behemoth writhing on the floor as white ooze emerges from its high-content iron will...

However, this disgustingly pornographic scene has advanced the plot... what there is of it. All across the factory floor of Albion Hospital, people’s tin-foil hats to stop controlling them and they begin to realize trouble is afoot what with all spinning blades culling hundreds of people and the like. (Remember, this IS the Welsh, so their reaction time is surprisingly quick, all things considered.)

Finally, the very few human beings left start screaming and run in terror, only for the Cybermen to joy-buzzer them to death. Meanwhile, Pete and Rose regain their senses and Pete babbles that he is so relieved that it wasn’t a dream and Jackie really IS dead!

++I-recognize-you-from-somewhere.++ notes the nearest Cyberman. ++Have-we-met-before? My-name-was-Jacqueline-Tyler.++

"You’re lying," Pete snaps. "You’re not her, you’re not my Jackie, even SHE would recognize her husband!"

++You-mean-you-are-Peter-Tyler?++ asks the Cyberman.

"Of course I am!" Pete wails, knowing in his heart that, yes, his wife really IS that stupid.

++I-am-Cyber-form. Once-I-was-Jacqueline-Tyler. Her-brain-is-inside-this-body. I-still-demand-alimony-payments. My-lawyers-have-you-by-the-balls.++

"Jacks!" Pete sobs, finally knowing this is his wife. "I hoped you were dead and now you’re immortal! I’m never going to be free of you!"

Cyber-Jackie turns to the other Cybermen. ++This-man-worked-with-Cyber-Industries-to-create-our-species. He-will-be-given-a-pay-raise-to-finally-buy-me-a-zeppelin-for-my-birthday. Take-them-to-Cyber-Control.++

Rose and Pete are grabbed from behind and marched away. "Why couldn’t they just kill her? Is it so damned difficult to just take her away and kill her?" Pete demands.

We cut back to the Doctor as he and the Cybermen are still carrying out their own plot thread over the cold corpse of Paula Moore. I believe that the Cyberman in question was actually a converted Dave Stewart, mainly because it’s such a dark, twisted and sick idea.

The Cyber-Stewart detects the Doctor’s binary vascular system and decides to take him for analysis, so the Doctor uses his funky power-paperweight to blast Cyber-Stewart out of existence and skips away, laughing like a madman as he continues to zap more and more Cybermen...

Finally, in the heart of Cyber Control (or That Room The OND and The Face Of Bond Were Always Using In Shell Shock), the Doctor bursts in to find Pete and Rose as glum prisoners. Cyber-Jackie stomps up and down behind them, giving an even more boring speech than the one at her birthday party a few hours ago.

++You-will-be-upgraded. Disruptive-elements-will-be-eradicated. Do-not-resist. Do-not-fear. Cybermen-will-remove-fear. We-will-use-you-and-abuse-you-until-your-genitals-and-then-we-shall-replace-them. You-will-all-be-turned-into-Cybermen.++

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" the Doctor laughs, sweeping into the room and doing a poor impersonation of a flurry of trumpets. "I’m the Doctor! HURRAY!"

"Hurray!" chorus Rose and Pete completely forgetting their doldrums.

"Hang on, Rosie, I’ll soon sort this out!" cheers the Doctor and points his glowy doohicky at Cyber-Jackie. "HAH! Eat vortex, Cybs!" he shouts.

Nothing happens.

"Ah. Must have flattened the battery," the Doctor sighs, pocketing the now-useless bauble. "Anywhere, where is the madman behind all this? The famous loony Lavros-wannabe? Don’t we get the chance to meet our Lord and Master?"

++He-has-become-like-us.++ explains Cyber-Jackie. ++For-true-drammatic-irony-we-mocked-his-superiority-complex-and-made-him-our-Controller.++

"Oh? And how’s that working out for him?" asks the Doctor.

There is a thunderous clanging sound and everyone turns to see the wall before them dent inwards. Another loud clang and the wall begins to tear. Another clang and the metal war rips open like paiper mache (for that is what it is to reveal a new, vast, glowing-eyed Cyberman – seven metres tall, four metres wide, with none of those ridiculous jug-handles but instead the top of its helmet rises up into a large, translucent red dome running with internal veins and glowing with an inner light. JR Ewing’s Cyberman is truly a celebration of the phallic symbol!!

"Shoulda really put a door there, huh?" offers the Doctor.

++TODAY-THE-AGE-OF-CONSENT-IS-A-THING-OF-THE-PAST!++ announces the Controller in a booming voice which keeps some of JR’s old voice, some of the emotion, the power, the contempt but above all, the accent! ++AND-I-SHALL-FINALLY-GET-LAID!++ it adds, stroking his pet Cyberbrat. Just in case the whole 'evil villain in secret lair with army of unquestioning henchman wants to take over the world and captures dashing tuxedo-clad gadget-wielding Scottish hero with sexy heroine' didn’t scream James Bond film franchise enough already...

"You mean this all about your sex life?" exclaims the Doctor in disgust. "You decide to lose your virginity by turning the human race against their will into Cybermen rather than, oh, say, checking out a speed dating service? Jings, see a sex therapist ya freak!"

++WHEN-YOU-BECOME-LIKE-US-YOU-WILL-FEEL-DIFFERENTLY!++

"I’ll feel nothing at all! I’m quite capable of getting birds without augmenting my flesh with steel armor and reprogramming my own brain, and so are most people – that’s why all your prospective customers legged it the moment they had a choice. Yeah, you turn the human race into sexbot prostidroids and you STILL can’t get any action!"

The Cyber Controller looms over the Doctor. ++I-HAVE-ORGIES-WAITING-ON-SEVEN-CONTINENTS. IF-LUST-HAS-FAILED-THE-CYBERMEN-WILL-TAKE-HUMANITY-BY-FORCE! NIGHT-CITY-HAS-ACCEPTED-OUR-ADVANCES-AND-SO-WILL-THE-WORLD!++

The Doctor stares at him. "SEVEN continents? What, are you converting the locals in Antarctica as well then, eh? Tell it to the marines!"

++IRTH-IS-BARREN! THE-BIRD-FLU-EPIDEMICS-DRASTICALLY-DECREASED-THE-POPULATION-OF-THE-WORLD-AND-ANOTHER-PANDEMIC-IS-ON-ITS-WAY-FROM-THE-EAST! THIS-TIME-THERE-WILL-BE-NO-ESCAPE-FROM-THE-INFECTION! THE-AIRSHIPS-CANNOT-SAVE-THE-RICH-AND-POWERFUL-AGAIN! MANKIND-WILL-BE-WIPED-OUT-FOREVER-UNLESS-THEY-BECOME-LIKE-US! BUT-WE-WILL-SURVIVE! I-WILL-BRING-EVERLASTING-PEACE-AND-UNITY-AND-UNIFORMITY-TO-THIS-WORLD! NOT-TO-MENTION-ALL-BLISTERING-RED-HOT-SEX-RAMPAGE-OF-MIND-BLOWING-ORGASMS...++

"And what about love?" asks the Doctor, unimpressed. "What about that? The one thing that lead you here. Romance – you’re killing it, dead! I assume it IS all about never finding the right girl, otherwise this just gets disturbing and Freudian..."

++YEAH-WELL-ENOUGH-ABOUT-THAT!++ interrupts the Controller hastily. ++WHAT-IS-YOUR-NAME-YOU-STRANGE-SCOTTISH-PINGU-TYPE-CREATURE?++

"I’m the Doctor."

++A-REDUNDANT-TITLE. CYBERMEN-NEVER-SICKEN. DOCTORS-NEED-NOT-EXIST. SO-YOU-CAN-JUST-PISS-OFF.++

"Yeah, but that’s it! That’s exactly the point! Everything you’ve invented, you did to get yourself noticed by all genders and seduced - and that’s brilliant, that is SO human - but once you get everyone having sex all the time, then what’s there to strive for? Eh? What’s the point in having a nice shag and a cup of tea in front of the telly if you’re buggering each other, day and night, for the rest of eternity? The Cybermen won’t enjoy themselves. You’ll just stop when you realize you’ve done all the positions you can think off, and end up interlocked in a sex-conga, and you’ll stay like that forever. A metal Irth with metal men and metal shagging. Lacking the one thing that makes this planet SO alive! Flirting! Ordinary, stupid, brilliant flirting! Sex needs danger and passion and you want to feel like there’s a loaded gun at your temple – metaphorically, of course, but there’s always the odd customer – as you wonder whether you’ve found true love or a few seconds of ecstasy that requires the sheets to be washed. Without that, there’s nothing!"

All the Cybermen stare at him like he’s a nutter.

++YOU-ARE-PROUD-OF-YOUR-SEDUCTIONS?++ asks the Controller.

"Oh, yes!"

++THEN-TELL-ME-DOCTOR. HAVE-YOU-KNOWN-REJECTION? AND-LONELINESS? AND-PREMATURE-EJACULATION?++

"Yes. Yes I have."

++AND-THEY-MAKE-YOU-SAD?++

"More or less."

++I-COULD-SET-YOU-FREE. WOULD-YOU-NOT-WANT-THAT? A-LIFE-WITHOUT-HOT-GIRLS-TURNING-YOU-DOWN-IN-PUBLIC-IN-FRONT-OF-ALL-YOUR-MATES?++

"Are you even LISTENING? Yes, I like it you moron! Take away all the cool stuff in life and you might as well kill me!"

++THEN-I-TAKE-THAT-OPTION!++

"It’s not yours to take, you stupid Welsh imbecile! Who actually gave you permission to go round transforming human beings into sex slaves cause it sure as hell wasn’t me! You’re a sad 40-year-old virgin wanking loser with no friends and no life who’s turned into a steel-plated evil poisonous megalomaniac... IF THERE’S A DIFFERENCE!"

++YOU-WILL-OBEY-ME! I-AM-THE-CONTROLLER!!++

"Yeah," sneers the Doctor. "A CYBERMAN Controller. You don’t control me or anything with blood in its heart! Nobody wants your ultimate upgrade, nobody needs it and nobody cares! Even if Irth is about to die from plagues and diseases, there must be at least some Welsh tart out there who’d drop her standards for you without YOU removing her brain? Or is that why you takes out their brains huh? Because you think you’ll have a better chance with their mindless bodies?"

Back in the zeppelin, the Preachers discover that JR Ewing wrote his password on the underside of his mouse mat and easily hack into the Cyber-Central-Computer. After saving JR’s porn to disc for proper examination later, they set to work...

++SCREW-YOU-YOU-SCOTS-BASTARD!++ responds the Controller. ++I-HAVE-AN-ARMY! A-SPECIES-OF-MY-OWN! WHAT-DO-YOU-HAVE-HUH? I’LL-TELL-YOU! NOTHING! AND-WHEN-WE-UNITE-IN-THE-ULTIMATE-CYBER-ORGY-WE’LL-THINK-OF-YOU-AND-LAUGH! WELL-WE-WOULD-IF-WE-HAD-EMOTIONS! BUT-YOU-GET-THE-IDEA! YOUR-WORDS-ARE-IRRELEVANT-SO-YOU-CAN-JUST-SHUT-THE-HELL-UP!++

"Make me, virgin!" challenges the Doctor, flicking the Cyber Controller V-signs with both hands.

At that point, all hell breaks loose.

The Preachers have managed to disengage the Cyber Control Computer’s Spam Filter, and millions of ads fly into every Cyberman’s head and drives them all insane with offers for ostrich farms, penis enlargements, viagra, crippling mortgage loans, and hardcore alien bondage website trial offers. As all the Cybermen clutch onto their metal skulls with their metal hands, moaning, crying out and twitching, Ricky and Jake gleefully start typing in demands...

++WHAT-HAVE-YOU-DONE? WHAT-THE-FUCK-HAVE-YOU-DONE??++ demands the Controller furiously.

Cyber-Jackie has caught sight of their reflection in a piece of metal and is whimpering, touching its face and fingering its reflection. ++No-more-parties-and-talking-on-the-phone! My-huge-breasts-are-no-more! I-wonder-how-much-compensation-I-can-get?++ it wonders, before its head explodes trying to calculate the amount.

"Sorry, JR," the Doctor laughs as he, Pete and Rose run for the exit. "Looks like this system’s about to crash! Guess this is one 'illegal operation' their operating system won’t be able to recover from, forcing them to shut down their machine for ten seconds and restart it, or they’ll have to reinstall Windows in order to repair the corrupted registry files! HAHA!"

++AFTER-THEM-YOU-METAL-BASTARDS!++ screams the Controller to its underlings, who are far too busy staggering around in agony and emotional torture to do anything. ++FATAL-ERROR-DOCTOR! FATAL-ERROR!++

As more of the Cybermen overload, keel over, explode or sometimes all three, fires spread throughout the hospital. It seems that Ricky has programmed them all to self-destruct like Austin-Powers-style Fembots for his own sadistic amusement, and the Doctor, Rose and Pete find the way out blocked by a group of Cybermen doing 80s Robotic Dancing.

Back in the ruins of Cyber Control, the not-so-much-emotionless-more-enraged Controller roars with fury and stomps off, screaming ++DO-I-HAVE-TO-DO-EVERY-FUCKING-THING-MYSELF?!?++

On the roof above, the Preachers attempt to fly the zeppelin away to safety, but the cliché demands that the heroes escape in an airship before the defeated villain’s lair explodes, so the Doctor, Rose and Pete miraculously make their way out of the fiery hospital and its random-yet-lethal bursts of flame and make it across the roof and up a convenient rope ladder.

Alas, at the last second, the Cyber Controller somehow manages to edit himself so he’s done the impossible and managed to climb onto the rope ladder right behind them without ANYONE noticing them. Just like Matron Casp several episodes earlier. It’s not just padding, it’s completely unoriginal padding!

++YOU-DESTROY-MY-ARMY! YOU-DOOM-HUMANITY-TO-EXTINCTION! YOU-RUIN-MY-DREAMS-OF-CONQUEST! AND-NOW-YOU-STEAL-MY-BLOODY-ZEPPELIN! WHAT-THE-HELL-DID-I-EVER-DO-TO-YOU?!++

"Jings, now THAT is chutzpah, that is textbook chutzpah," the Doctor muses. "Oh, and by the way, you’re not cute when I’m angry."

++YOU-PATHETIC-LITTLE-SCOTTISH-ANARCHIST!!++

"Hey, I’m not little!"

++THAT-IS-EXACTLY-WHAT-YOU-ARE! YOU-ARE-MINISCULE-COMPARED-TO-THE-CYBER-RACE! WE-ARE-PURE! WE-BELIEVE-IN-THE-LIBIDO-WHILE-OTHERS-ARE-CONFUSED-TIRED-AND-EMOTIONAL! THAT-IS-WHY-WE-ARE-SUPERIOR! THAT-IS-WHY-WE-WILL-PROLIFERATE! WE-POSSESS-THE-MOST-POWERFUL-THING-ON-IRTH... CARNAL-LUST!++

The Doctor shrugs. "Mercy is much more powerful than carnal lust, JR. Problem is, we’re fresh out!" he giggles, and uses the sonic screwdriver through the rope ladder between them, and the detached segment plunges down into the fiery abyss below, taking the Cyber Controller with it.

++I-REGRET-NOTHING! WELL-ACTUALLY-I-REGRET-A-FEW-THIIIIIINGS...++

As the Cyber Controller falls in slow motion into the flames just as Albion Hospital explodes spectacularly, the zeppelin flies away.

Some time later, the Doctor meets up with Arthur outside the TARDIS as Pete, Jake and Rose are talking. "You see, Mr. Tyler, my real name isn’t Jake Simmonds... it’s Ross. Ross Tyler," Jake reveals.

"My long-lost son!" Pete exclaims.

They burst into tears and embrace.

"Um, I’m actually your daughter?" Rose points out. "Imagine there are different worlds. Parallel worlds. Worlds with another Pete Tyler, Jackie Tyler’s still alive and their daughter... that’s ME!"

The estranged father and son are too busy sobbing to notice.

"Fine!" Rose snaps. "That’s it! The whole Irth can go to hell! I was going to offer to stay here and stop all the Cybermen in storage in all of JR’s factories and help restore order, but you can all die horribly from bird-flu!"

"Now then, Ricky," the Doctor is saying as Rose storms past, grabs him by the tie and drags him into the TARDIS, "one more thing; Paula Moore. Her real name was Annie Lennox. She’s got a husband out there, so find them and tell them how she died saving the world. Since they think she’s already dead, it might be a bit upsetting to have it confirmed but..."

The police box doors slam and the TARDIS fades away with a roar of engines to reappear in the Tyler household back on the Powell Estate, where Jackie is desperately awaiting the return of her lover Mickey.

"Well, he’s dead, bitch," Rose shouts at her.

"There IS a perfect duplicate on another world," the Doctor notes, "but I used the TARDIS to generate an impenetrable force field around Irth so we can never return there."

"That’ll teach you to steal my boyfriends! And stop dying your hair and pretending to be my sister!" Rose continues. "It fools NOONE!"

Jackie collapses in painful howling screams of grief.

"Oh, well, moving on, turns out this wee macguffin I’ve been blasting Cybermen with turns out to be a power coil from an Utrom Translocation Matrix," the Doctor explains cheerfully. "All those Cybermen didn’t actually disintegrate, they were all just teleported somewhere!"

"Where do you think they went?" asks Rose.

"Who can tell?" the Doctor shrugs. "It’s not like we’re ever likely to bump into them ever again, is it?"

Meanwhile, at that moment, on the pyramidal roof of Canary Wharf Tower, a halo of golden light appears and spins into a whirlwind. Skeletal forms begins to materialize in the whirlwind, building up and filling out, coalescing into a small army of rather baffled and surprised Cybermen as the wind fades.

Cyber-Harriet Jones look around them for a moment.

"Blimey. That ~ was ~ a ~ bit ~ anarchic. All ~ right ~ you ~ gonads," she drawls to the other Cybermen. "We ~ have ~ much ~ to ~ do. We ~ shall ~ begin ~ again. This ~ world ~ will ~ be ~ ours. We ~ shall ~ convert ~ the ~ oppressed ~ workers ~ of ~ this ~ planet. Then ~ we ~ shall ~ incite ~ them ~ to ~ rise ~ up ~ and ~ burn ~ down ~ Harrods. And ~ then ~ hey ~ presto ~ REVOLUTION!!!"

---------
Next Time...
---------
"Jings! We’re in flight, so that is just plain rude!"
"Tell me where I am, gormless!"
"Inside the TARDIS! Durr!"
"This can’t happen! There is no way a human being can lock itself onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside! Not without ringing ahead!"
"GET ME TO THE CHURCH!"
"Listen to me! You’ve GOT to sober up!"
"Touchwood. Again. Wonders will never cease."
"Whatever that thing is, it needs you for the punchline!"
"Wot a farkin libahty!"
"Donna! SHUT UP!!"
"Jings - you’re Catherine Tate!"
"How very dare you?!"
"We need to find out if she’s actually has any new material... welcome to the creation of a new comic character!"
"This night I shall descend upon this Earth and SHINE!!"
"Am I bovvered tho?"
---------
...The Drunken Ginger Bride...
---------