10th Doctor - Journey's End (iii)

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!"