from the department of whooey

[mr_squiddle]

EXT. SCOTLAND

J. RANDOM BOY and his SISTER are WANDERING ABOUT. SHE crams her ear up against STONEHENGE'S FIFTEENTH COUSIN.

J. RANDOM BOY
Judy Judy, oh Judy Judy!

JUDY
Hush! I'm listening to old rock music!

J. RANDOM BOY
Older than the Beach Boys of 1962?

JUDY
Much!

J. RANDOM BOY
What's it sound like?

JUDY
The theme from Doctor Who played on bagpipes!


TITLES: DOCTOR WHO — HOW TO GET EATEN BY MONSTERS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING


EXT. SCOTLAND (CONT.)

A. PASSING CROW
DOC-TOR! DOC-TOR!

J. RANDOM BOY
We're going to be eaten, you know that.

JUDY
No, this stone has a carving of the whole episode on it and we definitely survive.

THEY SIT DOWN AND WATCH.


EXT. SCOTLAND — THE PAST

The TARDIS is here. BILL and NARDIL and the DOCTOR get out.

NARDIL
Why am I here?

DOCTOR
Because I'm in desperate need of antidepressants.

NARDIL
Oh, comic relief. Why is Bill here?

BILL
Amy Pond wasn't available.

STEVEN MOFFAT
Look, this totally isn't a story that I failed to get produced before Karen Gillan quit. Bill here has a perfectly normal, natural and valid interest in Roman soldiers of the 2nd century AD. Get on with exploring that interest, Bill!

BILL STUMBLES OVER 5,000 DEAD SOLDIERS.

DOCTOR
My God, something's turned the Ninth Legion into EMPTY BEER BOTTLES.

NARDIL
What could turn 5,000 soldiers into empty beer bottles?

DOCTOR
A total absence of sunlight!

NARDIL
Really?

DOCTOR
On Doctor Who, anything is possible — except when it would make sense. Bill, don't wander off.

NARDIL
She already wandered off.

DOCTOR
Well, to what possible harm could she come in 2nd century Britain?


CUT TO:

EXT. DARK WOODS.

BILL RUNS THROUGH THE SCENE CHASED BY A SCREAMING SWORD-WIELDING ASHILDR

BILL
You're not in this episode! You're not in this episode!!


CUT TO:

EXT. MOORLAND

The DOCTOR and NARDIL are WANDERING ABOUT.

A. PASSING CROW
Dark Doctor! Dark Doctor!

NARDIL
The birds are calling your name.

DOCTOR
Pure coincidence.

A. PASSING CROW
Valeyard! Valeyard!

NARDIL
Is that coincidence?

DOCTOR
According to the Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide To Crows, yes. Just ignore it and it'll leave in a huff.

NARDIL
What if I don't ignore it?

DOCTOR
Then it'll leave in a minute and a huff. Come along, let's find the plot to this episode. It's probably in that cairn over there, the one marked STARGATE in Pictish.


CUT TO:

INT. DEEP DARK HOLE.

A ROMAN SOLDIER named SIMON is here. After a BEAT, BILL FALLS IN ON HIM.

BILL
Oh, I wish we both spoke Martian Ice Warrior so we could understand each other.

SIMON
I beg your pardon?

BILL
Excellent! We DO both speak Martian Ice Warrior. What are you doing in this deep dark hole?

SIMON
Starting to like it. Most of my legion got drunk.

BILL
What's so wrong about that?

SIMON
You ask a bottle of beer.


CUT TO:

EXT. MOORLAND.

NARDIL and the DOCTOR have been CAPTURED by PICTS.

DOCTOR
I swear, they're as bad as Vikings in the sneaking up department.


CUT TO:

EXT. DEEP DARK WOODS.

BILL and SIMON are WANDERING.

SIMON
Keep an eye out for a cave marked with a carving of a fish. If it's full of Romans, that'll be me mates what fled the drinking monster, the ones who lived to run another day. Stick close to me, or the monster will get you.

THE MONSTER GETS HIM.


CUT TO:

EXT. SCOTLAND — PRESENT DAY.

JUDY
I knew that would happen.

J. RANDOM BOY
D'you think the fish symbol is, like, symbolic?

JUDY
Well, if we were still on Matt Smith it might be.

J. RANDOM BOY
(sings)
Here's to you, Mrs Riversong, Jesus loves you more than you will know...whoa whoa whoa...

STEVEN MOFFAT
(weeping openly)
Matt! Matt! Why did you have to leave me...?! It was going to be so clever!!!!


CUT TO:

INT. CAVE — 2nd CENTURY.

A COLLECTION OF HOT ITALIANS IS HERE.
BILL FALLS ONTO THEM.

BILL
Oh, hello, anyone speak Martian Ice Warrior?

LUSCIOUS LUCIUS
We all do, sweetie! Fancy a shag?

BILL
My barn door swings the other way.

LUSCIOUS LUCIUS
Oh, we swing every which way, baby! Yeah!

BILL
I never read that in my history book...

THROBBING THRACIUS
Did you see our friend, Simon? We sent him out for coffee and unguents.

BILL
A monster got him.

ALL
Ah, pity, pity.

A SMALL ROMAN
Lucky monster...

BILL
(with horrified realization)
Oh, no, I've got oil from the X-Files all over my body!

SHE FAINTS.

ALL
Unguents! Yay!


CUT TO:

INT. PICTISH ROUND HOUSE.

The DOCTOR and NARDIL are here at POINTPOINT. The POINTS are wielded by PICTS.

DOCTOR
Are we waiting for something?

BAN THE PICT
We're waiting for my sister Kaw. Then we'll have dinner. Dinner, that's you, get it?

DOCTOR
What's for dessert?

BAN
Pease a la Roma.

HIS SISTER ENTERS.

KAW
I am the Gatekeeper.

DOCTOR
Has anyone seen the Keymaster?

KAW
The Romans killed him. I killed the Romans.

DOCTOR
With some form of slimy monster?

KAW
How'd you know?

DOCTOR
It was an inspired guess. I also infer that you've lost control of the slimy monster, judging by the tentacle prints up your back.

KAW
...Maybe...

DOCTOR
So, did your slimy monster come through a dimensional gateway in the cairn across from this hut?

KAW
Yes.

DOCTOR
(sighs)
Back in the day we'd have stretched all this out over ninety minutes. Now it's straight from premise to conclusion. Hold on whilst I investigate.

HE LEAVES.

NARDIL
So...

BAN
...yes?

NARDIL
I've got a pocket Scrabble set.

DISSOLVE TO: THE SAME SCENE
CAPTION: TWO DAYS LATER

NARDIL
No, no, Q scores ten, you see, and it's on a triple word score...

The DOCTOR RETURNS.

DOCTOR
I'm back. According to the temporal anomalizer on my sonic screwdriver it's been two days, eight hours, five minutes out here, though only ten seconds in the rift.

NARDIL
That's supposed to be my line!

DOCTOR
(sighs)
I know.


CUT TO:

INT. CAVERN

UNCONSCIOUS BILL is here, now LESS UNCONSCIOUS.

LUSCIOUS LUCIUS
Wakey wakey, egg and bakey! You've been unconscious for two days.

BILL
Has the plot advanced any?

LUSCIOUS LUCIUS
Nopers!


CUT TO:

INT. ROUNDHOUSE

KAW
We call it the Eater of Light.

DOCTOR
Why? Does it make the very days dark with its presence?

KAW
Possibly. It's hard to tell.

THEY ALL LOOK AROUND AT THE LARGELY INVISIBLE SET.

NARDIL
Do you suppose the BBC hired Marvin Rush as lighting director?

KAW
Anyway, once a generation the new Gatekeeper goes into the cairn and fights the monster to the death to keep it in there.

DOCTOR
And time is faster out here by a factor of 192, so...he must take an awful lot of food and water with him to last 57 days before being killed and eaten. Maybe I was only in there...a third of a second...?

There is a SCREAM from OUTSIDE.

A. PASSING CROW
Plot! Plot!


CUT TO:

EXT. OUTSIDE.

The PICTS and the ROMANS MEET over a CORPSE.

DOCTOR
Well isn't this normal! Except of course that this poor chap was killed by an alien to this world, rather than a filthy human. Now why don't you all kiss and make up.

LUSCIOUS LUCIUS
Hath anyone any unguents?

BAN
(shyly)
Er...I might...

SUDDENLY THE LIGHTING GETS EVEN DIMMER.

DOCTOR
Ah, it must be the Eater of Light.

NARDIL
Having a light snack!

DOCTOR
The comedy relief at last.

NARDIL
If it's solar powered why's it attack people? I mean, you'd think it'd predate on trees, they're its major competition.

DOCTOR
Pay no attention to him. Pay attention to me. There's only one way this can end rationally. First, we need the monster back in its hole. Second, we need someone who can keep it in there by fighting it off until the Earth is destroyed in the year five billion, which is to say someone who can reasonably survive 2,604,167 years in that cairn without food or water. Hands?

ALL THE PICTS AND ROMANS RAISE THEIR HANDS.

DOCTOR
Are you all idiots?

BILL
It's their fight, Doctor! It's their world! It's their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor! I know not what course others may take, but for them, give them death in a hole or give them death right here!

NARDIL
I think that's a yes on all idiots.

DOCTOR
You are! All you of Earth are idiots! Your stupid minds! You're stupid! stupid! stupid!

BILL HITS THE DOCTOR OVER THE HEAD WITH A ROCK.


DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. OUTDOORS — SAME SCENE
CAPTION: TWENTY MINUTES LATER.

The DOCTOR WAKES UP.

BILL
Everyone went in to fight. It was very inspiring! They took a piper!

NARDIL
She played like Billie-O.

DOCTOR
(staggering to his feet)
It's because of people like you, Bill, that all will be destroyed. That cairn is full of light-eating locusts, looking for rents and cracks between worlds to let themselves into dimensions of light. Once they break through, which I calculate will be — hm, no water, no air, pitched battle, time dilation — about four years from now, they will eat. They will eat the sun, and then they will eat the stars. And they will keep eating until there are no stars left.

NARDIL
What do they poo?

DOCTOR
...right, let's go.

The DOCTOR SONICS THE CAIRN.

NARDIL
What was that?

DOCTOR
I adjusted the resonance of the chronic flow to cause a self-reinforcing feedback loop. It'll stretch the time differential by a factor of one thousand, so the Eaters of Light will emerge just in time to gobble the solar flares that caused the human evacuation of the Earth. Not only will they save the sleeping Silurians from cooking, they'll get tummy-aches and I'll have a chance to solve the problem while they're curled up in little balls.


CUT TO:

EXT. TARDIS.

MISSY OPENS THE DOOR.

MISSY
Hello, Sweetie! Everything all right?

DOCTOR
Peachy.

NARDIL
Oi! What's she doing here?

DOCTOR
Getting in some TARDIS practice in advance of the finale.

MISSY
I fixed the Chameleon Circuit!

NARDIL
Finale?

DOCTOR
I'm probably going to regenerate into her in a shocking twist...or she'll regenerate into me...or John Simm will cut his own hands off and regenerate into all of us including Bill.

STEVEN MOFFAT
Exciting, isn't it!!

DOCTOR
Tired...so very tired...


EVERYONE PILES INTO THE TARDIS.
FX: VWORP VWORP


CUT TO:

EXT. SCOTLAND — PRESENT DAY

JUDY and her BROTHER get up from watching DOCTOR WHO.

JUDY
Well that was, um...

FX: VWORP VWORP
A GINGERBREAD HOUSE MATERIALIZES next to them.

DOCTOR
(o/s)
What have I told you about this sort of thing?

MISSY
(o/s)
Party pooper.

THE TARDIS DEMATERIALIZES AGAIN.

A. PASSING CROW
Cwap! Cwap!

JUDY
That's it!

CREDITS.

DOCTOR
Bill, where's that essay on Albert Camus I assigned you?

BILL
It's like pushing a stone uphill, can I have an extension?

DOCTOR
All right, but only two weeks. I gave my last companion an indefinite extension and it didn't work out terribly well.