from the department of whooey
Dec. 27th, 2017 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mr_squiddleINT. OLD DOCTOR WHO EPISODE - DAY
STEVEN MOFFAT
709 episodes ago! Longest running sci fi series, baby!
PERRY RHODAN
Nicht wahr, my dude.
THEY DRAW PISTOLS ON EACH OTHER AND REMAIN AT GUNPOINT THE REST OF THE EPISODE.
BEN
Doctor! Wakey, wakey, it's all over now, here in this Antarctic base full of dead Cybermen.
FIRST DOCTOR
No. It isn't all over. It's far from being all over! I must get back to the TARDIS.
BEN
Why?
SECOND DOCTOR
(sticking his head into frame)
To regenerate! Renewal, it's a function of the TARDIS, without it I couldn't survive. If I wanted to die I certainly wouldn't need to run into the TARDIS, I could do it right here, I wouldn't stumble out into the snow.
STEVEN MOFFAT
Push off, you.
FIRST DOCTOR
I must stumble out into the snow to die.
HE STUMBLES OUT INTO THE ANTARCTIC.
NITE OWL AND RORSCHACH FLY BY ON HOVERSCOOTERS
RORSCHACH
Hrm. Tough bird. Old.
THE TARDIS MATERIALIZES AND THE TWELFTH DOCTOR STUMBLES OUT.
TWELFTH DOCTOR
I...will...not...CHANGE!
RASSILON
Good man! Now once more, with spittle.
STEVEN MOFFAT
And you!
FIRST DOCTOR
Hello? Who's that?
TWELFTH
Yes, quite right.
FIRST
My own catch phrase thrown back in my face. Dear, dear. This won't end well...
TITLES: DOCTOR WHO — TWILIGHT OF THE GOBS
TWELFTH
I'm the Doctor.
FIRST
Oh, I don't think so. No, dear me, no. You may be A Doctor, but I am THE Doctor. The original, you might say.
TWELFTH
The original! So you've already conceded there will be a next. Good, we can skip the rest of the episode.
FIRST
Certainly not. I have the courage and the right to live and die as myself. And what have you done to my TARDIS?! It's all purple and swollen.
ELEVENTH DOCTOR
(popping his head out of the TARDIS)
It's a size leak. The TARDIS is dying of a broken heart because you won't regenerate.
FIRST
All right, I'll regenerate! Can we get on with the story?
STEVEN MOFFAT
To be honest, there isn't one. I mean, there are any number of outstanding issues I could have taken up for resolution — I could have had you finally follow through on that promise you made to Susan! that would actually tie into you not wanting to regenerate, that lingering guilt, or rescue Katerina or something — but I can't be bothered, I'd rather just wind up the fanboys.
TWELFTH
Ow! I just took a snowflake to the eye. Look, it's just hanging there in midair.
FIRST
What, your eye?
TWELFTH
No, the snowflake. Time has stopped!
A SOLDIER STUMBLES INTO THE SCENE.
SOLDIER
Oh, hello! Is either of you a doctor?
TWELFTH
Do you need a doctor?
SOLDIER
Me? No.
TWELFTH
Then why do you ask?
SOLDIER
I think possibly I'm meant to be wanting a doctor for the German chap who was about to shoot me before I was torn out of time by a woman made of glass. At least I think she was made of glass. Perhaps it was ice. The night before Christmas, 40 below — it's possible. Perhaps she was made of glass with ice in it, in which case all I really need now is some brandy to go with.
FIRST
I can accommodate you, sir! Step into my parlor.
THEY ALL GET INTO THE TARDIS
FIRST
(horrified)
I've been vandalized — by a guitar group! They told me guitar groups were on the way out! And after watching the Beatles on the Time and Space Visualiser I could have sworn they were right.
TWELFTH
It's a long and winding road. You there, Snoopy — you say you were about to be shot by a German?
SOLDIER
Yes, just before he shouted "Merry Christmas, Mein Freund!" and hauled out a rather nice bottle of sparkling white wine.
FIRST
(sniffing audibly)
Do I detect the distinctive stench of damnable wog hemp?
TWELFTH
Oh god, I was so racist in the Sixties. And uptight. —Why did he need a doctor?
SOLDIER
Dreadful accident. Took a champagne cork to the knee.
FIRST
Is this an ultraviolet lamp? Who hung all these black velvet posters? Velvet Underground posters?
SOLDIER
Anyway, there I was behind enemy lines — quite the mix-up, you see, I thought I was signing up for self-defence classes and inadvertently joined the Army...
FIRST
Who is Jimi Hendrix? And what is a Frank Zappa?
SOLDIER
...which is a pity because I really wanted to become a scientist and leader of men. Science leads, as I always say!
FIRST
(staring into an empty hole in the wall)
And who's been drinking all my brandy?!
TWELFTH
River Song.
FIRST
Who?
TWELFTH
Yes, after I married her.
FIRST
What?!
TWELFTH
Made you say it!
SOLDIER
Anyway, there I was behind enemy lines when time stopped and I started being terrorised by some see-through sector of the softer sex biffing on about a Time Line Error.
THERE IS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR.
SOLDIER
I expect that's her now.
THEY OPEN THE DOOR. IT IS.
FIRST
I don't know why you're stalking this young man but this is Earth, a level five civilisation, and you're not allowed to invade it legally. Not that I expect that to stop you.
TWELFTH
That's what I'm for.
JACK BURTON
Everybody relax, I'm here.
GLASS
Exit this capsule — the Chamber of the Dead awaits you.
FIRST
Very well, very well, gives me a change to prop the doors open, let the place air out a bit. Woof! It's like an opium den of the heathen Chinee in here.
TWELFTH
(facepalming)
Happy Boxing Day Rebellion. I don't remember saying things like that when I was you!
FIRST
You didn't. The time lines are in flux, and besides I'm winding you up.
TWELFTH
And yet I feel run down, as if by a reindeer.
THE FIRST DOCTOR STEPS OUT INTO THE CHAMBER OF THE DEAD.
GLASS
You stand in the Chamber of the Dead.
FIRST
Heavens. I would never have guessed.
GLASS
You are known to all here, for you are the Doctor of War.
FIRST
Define "all here".
GLASS
The collected memory of the human race from its beginning to the year five billion and twelve.
THE GREAT INTELLIGENCE
What? Someone's been collecting human minds?
MISSY
And storing them?
BOTH TOGETHER
Ooh, someone's going to be in big trouble.
FIRST
Excuse me, I'm known to all mankind as the Doctor of War?
EIGHT-AND-A-HALFTH DOCTOR
Did someone call me?
TWELFTH
No, go back to sleep.
EIGHT-AND-A-HALFTH
Righto.
SOLDIER
Could I have that brandy now?
TWELFTH
How much would you like?
THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE AS ONE
Five rounds rapid.
GLASS
We offer you a bribe. Return to us the human on your TARDIS, and in exchange, you may speak with HER again.
TWELFTH
(pushing past First)
—CLARA?!
FIRST
(pushing past Twelfth)
—SUSAN?!
THIRD
(pushing past both of them)
LIZ??
FOURTH
(looming over them all)
Sarah? Romana? Leela?
FIFTH
(poking his head out from beneath)
...Adric?
TENTH
(mowing everyone else down)
MAH ROOOOOOOOOOOOHOHOHOSSSSSE
REINETTE POISSON
What am I, chopped liver?
NINTH
(coshing Tenth over the head with a sock full of sand)
Get a grip! I liked her too, but you're just embarrassing!
BILL POTTS
What's up, guys?
TWELFTH
Oh, it's you.
(scans her with the sonic screwdriver)
If it is you.
BILL
All that Bill Potts really was, is still a part of me.
TWELFTH
Meh.
FIRST
Who is this young lady?
TWELFTH
A duplicate of my friend Bill Potts, who was turned into a Cyberman. She gave her life so that people she barely knew could live.
BILL
No, I gave my life because you didn't think to shove me back in the TARDIS before I got a dirty great hole shot through my chest. Also, everyone got killed or cyberverted or both. Total fiasco, mate.
TWELFTH
Details, details. If you're Bill Potts, how are you here?
BILL
It's a long story.
GRAMS: "Merry Christmas, Everybody" by Slade
SANTA, IAN, WOLF, ASHLEY, BELLOWS, ALBERT, SHONA, EVERY MEMBER OF SLADE and RUDOLPH
(in chorus)
Don't you just hate Dream Crabs?
SILVER QUILL
CONTI-NUITY!
DREAM LORD
(peeling a tangerine)
What am I, chopped liver?
BILL
My omnipotent stalkery puddle-girl came for me. At least twice.
TWELFTH
And then what happened?
BILL
After we dropped you off in the TARDIS and all of us forgot to rescue Nardole and everybody else, we hung out, traveled all time and space, and went to a restaurant at the end of the universe where I expired of exhaustion in a tangle of limbs including those of Jane Austen and that chick from Game of Thrones and some girl I can't remember but I think she was the waitress.
TWELFTH
So you admit you died! You're not really Bill Potts!
BILL
Am too! How do I convince you I'm real?
RORY THE ROMAN
Punch him in the jaw, that usually works.
BILL PUNCHES THE TWELFTH DOCTOR IN THE JAW. HER GLASS HAND SHATTERS
BILL
...Ow...
RORY THE ROMAN
Sorry, usually it's his glass jaw does that.
FIRST SWEEPS UP THE BITS AND GIVES THEM ALL BACK BUT ONE, WHICH HE PUTS IN HIS POCKET.
BILL
Why'd you do that?
FIRST
I like a nice piece of glass as much as the next man.
TWELFTH
I am the next man! Give or take a regeneration cycle! Stop macking on my best friend's clone! My god, you're so sexist! But like it says on the tin, this is a Chamber of the Dead, so let me turn my attention to the Glass Ghoul.
STEVEN MOFFAT
The Scottish Agenda, everybody!
THE TWELFTH DOCTOR DONS HIS SONIC SUNGLASSES.
FIRST
You wear your sunglasses at night?
TWELFTH
So I can keep track of the visions in my eyes while she's deceiving me. Who are you really, demoness with a glass everything?
GLASS GHOUL
We are what awaits at the end of every life.
TESELECTA
What are we, chopped liver?
TORCHWOOD SUZIE
RUN! RUN WHILE YOU CAN!!! FLEE WHAT COMES FOR YOU IN THE COLD AND DARK AND SILENCE!!!!!
EVERYONE SPLITS FOR THE TARDIS BUT ACCIDENTALLY RUN INTO THE FIRST DOCTOR'S.
BILL
It's so BRIGHT! Why's the console room so BRIGHT?!
FIRST
It's supposed to look like this, young lady!
BILL
(to Twelfth)
What was the deal with yours?
TWELFTH
There was nothing wrong with mine!
FIRST
Every teenager wants to paint his bedroom black.
(to Twelfth)
What are YOU doing?
THE TWELFTH DOCTOR IS WORKING THE CONTROLS.
TWELFTH
I eventually found out about the telepathic circuits. It's what I get for pitching the manual into a supernova, all those years I could have been flying with pinpoint accuracy...
FX: LANDING BONG
FIRST
But — it didn't make the noise!
TWELFTH
Missy replaced the brake pads retroactively. I think she cut most of the way through the actual brake line, too, old habits die hard.
FIRST
Missy? Who is Missy?
TWELFTH
The Master, you remember the Master, our bestie from childhood, how we used to run up and down the red grassy slopes of Mount Perdition laughing through our tears?
FIRST
No.
TWELFTH
You remember, our friendship ended when he wouldn't let us cheat off him and we graduated with a 51%.
FIRST
Oh, the Wanker.
TWELFTH
Anyway, here we are — at the Villainous Banana Gardens, home of the Inforarium — the greatest source of illicit information in recorded history, until it ran out of venture capital and had to sell its database to Google. And then Google got exterminated by the Daleks! That was the best day ever, better than saving Gallifrey, oh, you should have been there. You lot wait here while I look up the face of the Glass Ghoul.
EVERYONE
We'll just wander out after you.
TWELFTH
Yeah, whatever. Mind the uncanned uncanny daleks, men, they're worse than pears.
THEY ALL WANDER OUT. A LOOSE DALEK MUTANT LATCHES ONTO THE SOLDIER AND THEY START SUCKING FACE.
FIRST
I can't help but feel that we should put some sort of stop to this.
TWELFTH
Oh, let him have his fun. I kissed a Zygon once.
HE LEAVES.
FIRST
Dear, dear. Only moments ago I was fending off Cybermen and going on about love and pride and now here I am watching a soldier from World War One pitching woo to a dalek.
What on earth are you doing with that pad of paper, young lady?
BILL
Sketching them for my art and music blog — hautbois.tumblr.com, "The O Face Of Oboe".
FIRST
I expect that means something in your time zone. Do separate them, would you? All that squishing, it's quite distracting.
BILL PULLS THE DALEK OFF THE SOLDIER WITH A 'SPOOP' NOISE
SOLDIER
I tell you what, these daleks are ever so good, aren't they?
FIRST
Never mind, put it back on him.
THE SOLDIER IS INUNDATED WITH DALEKS
SOLDIER
Splendid chaps, all of them. Oohoohoo!
FIRST
Now, I gather you're a member of some future race, occupying the memory space of a deceased person, for kicks as they say?
BILL
Yeah, at first we just wanted to put the soldier back where he belongs, but now we've taken an interest in you.
FIRST
Why am I of interest?
BILL
The Doctor has walked in blood through all of time and space. The Doctor has many names. The destroyer of the world, the goblin of the Pandorica, the Shadow of the Valeyard, the Beast of Trenzalore, the Butcher of Walmington-On-Sea, the Baker of Tom, the Candlestick-Maker of the Lost Moon of Poosh, the Never Actually Successful Destroyer of Skaro. He is the Doctor of War. We're sort of wondering why you do it.
FIRST
I haven't the faintest. I haven't started yet.
CUT TO:
INT. RANDOM SET - DAY
TWELFTH
Hello, my old friend Rusty the Dalek! Remember when I was in you? Up inside your hot, slimy interior?
RUSTY THE DALEK
OH! THOSE! ME-MOR-IES!
TWELFTH
They say there's no such thing as a good dalek, but R.T.D., you were a very good dalek.
RUSTY
I! AM! NOT! A! GOOD! DA!-LEK! YOU! ARE! A! GOOD! DA!-LEK!
TWELFTH
But then if I'm a good dalek, you must be a good Time Lord. Just sitting here at the center of the web of time, and all the villains coming to you to be exterminated. What a brilliant position. We should trade places. Or perhaps we did trade places, hahaha. Or perhaps it doesn't matter either way. But I'm here on business, and you're the master of the dalek path web — do you recognise this face?
HE SHOWS AN IMAGE OF THE GLASS GHOUL.
CUT TO:
EXT. INFORARIUM - DAY
BILL
You're the one who stole the TARDIS and ran away. Why did you do it? Why did you resign?
FIRST
Oh, I'm sure your Doctor has explained.
BILL
He's not sure any more. He thinks it was because of the hybrid.
FIRST
Hybrid? What hybrid?
BILL
You don't remember all the Time Lord prophecies about the hybrid?
FIRST
Prophecies, young lady, are magic. There is no such thing as magic.
BILL
The Doctor says there were suddenly all these Time Lord prophecies of the hybrid standing in the ruins of Gallifrey, and you scarpered immediately. And after about a thousand years of you running around doing odd jobs for the Time Lords, like when you caused the Genesis of the Daleks —
FIRST
I what?
BILL
— which led to the Time War and the extinction of countless species culminating in your invention of the Quantum Shade, which extends a person's experiential time to eternity while dissolving the nervous system. And then out of guilt for inventing Hell you stole the Ultimate Time Lord Weapon to end the war by blowing up everybody on both sides, until the Ultimate Time Lord Weapon decided she fancied you.
FIRST
Ah, I see: in the future I've completely lost my mind. It's to be expected from all the 'mary jean' and trock music.
BILL
We thought it was weird cos likes repel. Well, anyway, eventually the Time Lords decided that since you ran off immediately after those prophecies were made, you knew something about it, so they captured you and killed you and then tortured about a bajillion copies of you over a period of four and a half billion years...so...did you leave because of the hybrid?
FIRST
No no no. I left out of curiosity. There is good, and there is evil, and good is dumb. Why doesn't evil win? Whence all the loyalty, self-sacrifice and love required to let good prevail, or at least keep the universe balanced?
BILL
So far as we know, the universe ends in the year one hundred trillion with Gallifrey in ruins, the Daleks escaped in a void ship, and the human race dying in terror and silence in the freezing darkness. We were sort of hoping to change that. Have you ever seen "Quantum Leap"?
FIRST
Eh?
BILL
How about "MacGyver"?
FIRST
I have no idea what you're on about.
BILL
This is a library, there's got to be a media center. Come on, I'll show you what I mean.
CUT TO:
INT. RUSTY'S ROOM — DAY
TWELFTH
Professor Helen Clay. Hell In Clay. That sounds bad. A mad doctor from the year five billion. Helen CLAY, Bill POTTS...no, another red herring that will never pay off.
STEVEN MOFFAT
Eat my shorts, JJ Abrams.
TWELFTH
There's footage, can you run it?
CUT TO:
INT. MEDIA CENTER, INFORARIUM — DAY
A TELEVISION IS SHOWING THE LAST EPISODE OF QUANTUM LEAP. ITS SCREEN GOES BLACK.
TITLE: "Doctor Sam Beckett never went home."
FIRST
So you're suggesting that the mysterious force that keeps the universe propped up...
BILL
Is just a bloke Quantum Leaping about, MacGyvering solutions!
FIRST
I'd quite like to meet him.
BILL
You already have!
FIRST
I've got a bad feeling about this.
CUT TO:
RUSTY'S ROOM — DAY
IMAGE OF PROFESSOR HELEN CLAY
We of the Compurgation Corporation suck the brains of the near-dead through a time straw for infotainment purposes. Fortunately the Right To Be Forgotten no longer applies in the year five billion...
CUT TO:
MEDIA CENTER, INFORARIUM — DAY
THE TWELFTH DOCTOR ENTERS.
TWELFTH
I'm back, there's no problem, it's just that the former human race, which I think has mutated into trampolines, is cosplaying as their distant ancestors. And if they have to suck people's brains through a time straw to do it, well, after the Great Intelligence doing it and the Master doing it and probably a few other people doing it as well I don't even think it rates as an evil plan any more, at least I don't want to get involved, and anyway their whole planet's population gets pretty much exterminated by a virus in another 17 years so let's just turn over the soldier and we can go...
HE SUDDENLY NOTICES THE FIRST DOCTOR FLAT ON THE GROUND.
BILL
He's dying! What do we do?!
TWELFTH
What!
(he gets down on his knees)
The time lines are in flux, so I don't remember this — why are you refusing the regeneration?
FIRST
Fear. I'm afraid. Very, very afraid.
TWELFTH
Why?
FIRST
Look in a mirror for heaven's sake. Had I known you were coming I'd have stayed on Gallifrey. My future is in terrifying hands. So many lost to my arrogance and carelessness, and now I find my future offers only incomprehensibly greater magnitude for my sins. Nothing more need be said. Nothing more should be said!
HE DIES.
BILL
I don't understand, I just told him in detail what he had to look forward to.
TWELFTH
You spoiled him! If he dies the universe will never have existed past 1967. ... There's got to be something wrong with that. ... It'll come to me. Quick, help me get him into the TARDIS.
THEY CARRY THE FIRST DOCTOR INTO THE TARDIS.
BILL
I thought he was dead?
TWELFTH
Mostly yes — it's the end, but the moment has been prepared for. I am, after all, my own obstetrician.
THE TWELFTH DOCTOR LAUNCHES THE TARDIS.
BILL
Why'd you do that?
TWELFTH
At this point, tradition. Time for my famous last words.
(he starts to glow while thinking about them)
So, here I am on my past page. Last page. When I started out all those years ago I thought I could travel time and space questioning — asking what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out? I could have embodied, I could have been the three-fold mandate — to inform, to educate and to entertain. But I serve at the pleasure of the BBC and to a lesser extent its audience, and the rulers of my world are stupid and wicked and I can't bear it. So I'm clearing out. Next Doctor, start your countdown. The carnival of monsters awaits. Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen — lather, rinse, repeat. Welcome to the Doldrums, where nothing ever happens, and nothing ever changes, or if it does it changes back. Welcome to corridors and screaming death. Cruel and cowardly or nice and kind, hating or loving, fast or strong or wise or angry, fat or thin, young or old, man or woman — nameless Doctor, you're boned.
But I'm still the Doctor. I've still got a few things to say.
What is the purpose of a doctor? To restore the patient to status quo ante, modulo scars and missing limbs. Not to health! Health is the job of the patient, whether the patient can do the job or not.
(he pulls his Confession Dial from his pocket)
Remember this? A synecdoche of a universe that will outlast me because it recycles itself endlessly and perfectly. Except that I am part of the mechanism. Through me is restored the status quo ante — at the cost of my own despair, which will never become unendurable only because, if it did, it would change me into something qualitatively different...and that the universe cannot allow, as it would be progress, of a sort, and I cannot be allowed to progress, as I might start holding out for actual health. And the universe, well, it might seem to be the happiest sadist, but in fact it is the ultimate masochist. It prefers to suffer. Without me it dies, so it keeps me trapped on the Red Queen's treadmill, where I must run as fast as I can to stay in the same place. Question: Sarah Jane, how do you stop this crazy thing? The only answer: when I stand, and I fall.
HE LIES DOWN INSIDE AND MERGES WIDTH THE FIRST DOCTOR.
BILL
Doctor! This isn't how it's supposed to happen!
DOCTOR
There is no pain.
I am receding.
HE TURNS HIS HEAD TO THE TARDIS DOORS.
DOCTOR
Time to go. Where I came in...
HE DISSOLVES INTO JODIE WHITTAKER.
THE NEW DOCTOR LEAPS UP AND STARES EXCITEDLY AT THE TARDIS CONTROL PANEL.
DOCTOR
Now this is my idea of a spaceship! All gleaming white, flashing lights — ooh! I wonder what happens if I press this button?
THE DOCTOR PUSHES THE BUTTON. THE SCREEN GOES BLACK.
GRAMS: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000 END THEME (Mighty Science Theater)
ROLL CREDITS.
ELECTRIC GUITAR CHORD.
A BEAT, THEN:
STEVEN KING
It stops being funny when it starts being you.
STEVEN MOFFAT
709 episodes ago! Longest running sci fi series, baby!
PERRY RHODAN
Nicht wahr, my dude.
THEY DRAW PISTOLS ON EACH OTHER AND REMAIN AT GUNPOINT THE REST OF THE EPISODE.
BEN
Doctor! Wakey, wakey, it's all over now, here in this Antarctic base full of dead Cybermen.
FIRST DOCTOR
No. It isn't all over. It's far from being all over! I must get back to the TARDIS.
BEN
Why?
SECOND DOCTOR
(sticking his head into frame)
To regenerate! Renewal, it's a function of the TARDIS, without it I couldn't survive. If I wanted to die I certainly wouldn't need to run into the TARDIS, I could do it right here, I wouldn't stumble out into the snow.
STEVEN MOFFAT
Push off, you.
FIRST DOCTOR
I must stumble out into the snow to die.
HE STUMBLES OUT INTO THE ANTARCTIC.
NITE OWL AND RORSCHACH FLY BY ON HOVERSCOOTERS
RORSCHACH
Hrm. Tough bird. Old.
THE TARDIS MATERIALIZES AND THE TWELFTH DOCTOR STUMBLES OUT.
TWELFTH DOCTOR
I...will...not...CHANGE!
RASSILON
Good man! Now once more, with spittle.
STEVEN MOFFAT
And you!
FIRST DOCTOR
Hello? Who's that?
TWELFTH
Yes, quite right.
FIRST
My own catch phrase thrown back in my face. Dear, dear. This won't end well...
TITLES: DOCTOR WHO — TWILIGHT OF THE GOBS
TWELFTH
I'm the Doctor.
FIRST
Oh, I don't think so. No, dear me, no. You may be A Doctor, but I am THE Doctor. The original, you might say.
TWELFTH
The original! So you've already conceded there will be a next. Good, we can skip the rest of the episode.
FIRST
Certainly not. I have the courage and the right to live and die as myself. And what have you done to my TARDIS?! It's all purple and swollen.
ELEVENTH DOCTOR
(popping his head out of the TARDIS)
It's a size leak. The TARDIS is dying of a broken heart because you won't regenerate.
FIRST
All right, I'll regenerate! Can we get on with the story?
STEVEN MOFFAT
To be honest, there isn't one. I mean, there are any number of outstanding issues I could have taken up for resolution — I could have had you finally follow through on that promise you made to Susan! that would actually tie into you not wanting to regenerate, that lingering guilt, or rescue Katerina or something — but I can't be bothered, I'd rather just wind up the fanboys.
TWELFTH
Ow! I just took a snowflake to the eye. Look, it's just hanging there in midair.
FIRST
What, your eye?
TWELFTH
No, the snowflake. Time has stopped!
A SOLDIER STUMBLES INTO THE SCENE.
SOLDIER
Oh, hello! Is either of you a doctor?
TWELFTH
Do you need a doctor?
SOLDIER
Me? No.
TWELFTH
Then why do you ask?
SOLDIER
I think possibly I'm meant to be wanting a doctor for the German chap who was about to shoot me before I was torn out of time by a woman made of glass. At least I think she was made of glass. Perhaps it was ice. The night before Christmas, 40 below — it's possible. Perhaps she was made of glass with ice in it, in which case all I really need now is some brandy to go with.
FIRST
I can accommodate you, sir! Step into my parlor.
THEY ALL GET INTO THE TARDIS
FIRST
(horrified)
I've been vandalized — by a guitar group! They told me guitar groups were on the way out! And after watching the Beatles on the Time and Space Visualiser I could have sworn they were right.
TWELFTH
It's a long and winding road. You there, Snoopy — you say you were about to be shot by a German?
SOLDIER
Yes, just before he shouted "Merry Christmas, Mein Freund!" and hauled out a rather nice bottle of sparkling white wine.
FIRST
(sniffing audibly)
Do I detect the distinctive stench of damnable wog hemp?
TWELFTH
Oh god, I was so racist in the Sixties. And uptight. —Why did he need a doctor?
SOLDIER
Dreadful accident. Took a champagne cork to the knee.
FIRST
Is this an ultraviolet lamp? Who hung all these black velvet posters? Velvet Underground posters?
SOLDIER
Anyway, there I was behind enemy lines — quite the mix-up, you see, I thought I was signing up for self-defence classes and inadvertently joined the Army...
FIRST
Who is Jimi Hendrix? And what is a Frank Zappa?
SOLDIER
...which is a pity because I really wanted to become a scientist and leader of men. Science leads, as I always say!
FIRST
(staring into an empty hole in the wall)
And who's been drinking all my brandy?!
TWELFTH
River Song.
FIRST
Who?
TWELFTH
Yes, after I married her.
FIRST
What?!
TWELFTH
Made you say it!
SOLDIER
Anyway, there I was behind enemy lines when time stopped and I started being terrorised by some see-through sector of the softer sex biffing on about a Time Line Error.
THERE IS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR.
SOLDIER
I expect that's her now.
THEY OPEN THE DOOR. IT IS.
FIRST
I don't know why you're stalking this young man but this is Earth, a level five civilisation, and you're not allowed to invade it legally. Not that I expect that to stop you.
TWELFTH
That's what I'm for.
JACK BURTON
Everybody relax, I'm here.
GLASS
Exit this capsule — the Chamber of the Dead awaits you.
FIRST
Very well, very well, gives me a change to prop the doors open, let the place air out a bit. Woof! It's like an opium den of the heathen Chinee in here.
TWELFTH
(facepalming)
Happy Boxing Day Rebellion. I don't remember saying things like that when I was you!
FIRST
You didn't. The time lines are in flux, and besides I'm winding you up.
TWELFTH
And yet I feel run down, as if by a reindeer.
THE FIRST DOCTOR STEPS OUT INTO THE CHAMBER OF THE DEAD.
GLASS
You stand in the Chamber of the Dead.
FIRST
Heavens. I would never have guessed.
GLASS
You are known to all here, for you are the Doctor of War.
FIRST
Define "all here".
GLASS
The collected memory of the human race from its beginning to the year five billion and twelve.
THE GREAT INTELLIGENCE
What? Someone's been collecting human minds?
MISSY
And storing them?
BOTH TOGETHER
Ooh, someone's going to be in big trouble.
FIRST
Excuse me, I'm known to all mankind as the Doctor of War?
EIGHT-AND-A-HALFTH DOCTOR
Did someone call me?
TWELFTH
No, go back to sleep.
EIGHT-AND-A-HALFTH
Righto.
SOLDIER
Could I have that brandy now?
TWELFTH
How much would you like?
THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE AS ONE
Five rounds rapid.
GLASS
We offer you a bribe. Return to us the human on your TARDIS, and in exchange, you may speak with HER again.
TWELFTH
(pushing past First)
—CLARA?!
FIRST
(pushing past Twelfth)
—SUSAN?!
THIRD
(pushing past both of them)
LIZ??
FOURTH
(looming over them all)
Sarah? Romana? Leela?
FIFTH
(poking his head out from beneath)
...Adric?
TENTH
(mowing everyone else down)
MAH ROOOOOOOOOOOOHOHOHOSSSSSE
REINETTE POISSON
What am I, chopped liver?
NINTH
(coshing Tenth over the head with a sock full of sand)
Get a grip! I liked her too, but you're just embarrassing!
BILL POTTS
What's up, guys?
TWELFTH
Oh, it's you.
(scans her with the sonic screwdriver)
If it is you.
BILL
All that Bill Potts really was, is still a part of me.
TWELFTH
Meh.
FIRST
Who is this young lady?
TWELFTH
A duplicate of my friend Bill Potts, who was turned into a Cyberman. She gave her life so that people she barely knew could live.
BILL
No, I gave my life because you didn't think to shove me back in the TARDIS before I got a dirty great hole shot through my chest. Also, everyone got killed or cyberverted or both. Total fiasco, mate.
TWELFTH
Details, details. If you're Bill Potts, how are you here?
BILL
It's a long story.
GRAMS: "Merry Christmas, Everybody" by Slade
SANTA, IAN, WOLF, ASHLEY, BELLOWS, ALBERT, SHONA, EVERY MEMBER OF SLADE and RUDOLPH
(in chorus)
Don't you just hate Dream Crabs?
SILVER QUILL
CONTI-NUITY!
DREAM LORD
(peeling a tangerine)
What am I, chopped liver?
BILL
My omnipotent stalkery puddle-girl came for me. At least twice.
TWELFTH
And then what happened?
BILL
After we dropped you off in the TARDIS and all of us forgot to rescue Nardole and everybody else, we hung out, traveled all time and space, and went to a restaurant at the end of the universe where I expired of exhaustion in a tangle of limbs including those of Jane Austen and that chick from Game of Thrones and some girl I can't remember but I think she was the waitress.
TWELFTH
So you admit you died! You're not really Bill Potts!
BILL
Am too! How do I convince you I'm real?
RORY THE ROMAN
Punch him in the jaw, that usually works.
BILL PUNCHES THE TWELFTH DOCTOR IN THE JAW. HER GLASS HAND SHATTERS
BILL
...Ow...
RORY THE ROMAN
Sorry, usually it's his glass jaw does that.
FIRST SWEEPS UP THE BITS AND GIVES THEM ALL BACK BUT ONE, WHICH HE PUTS IN HIS POCKET.
BILL
Why'd you do that?
FIRST
I like a nice piece of glass as much as the next man.
TWELFTH
I am the next man! Give or take a regeneration cycle! Stop macking on my best friend's clone! My god, you're so sexist! But like it says on the tin, this is a Chamber of the Dead, so let me turn my attention to the Glass Ghoul.
STEVEN MOFFAT
The Scottish Agenda, everybody!
THE TWELFTH DOCTOR DONS HIS SONIC SUNGLASSES.
FIRST
You wear your sunglasses at night?
TWELFTH
So I can keep track of the visions in my eyes while she's deceiving me. Who are you really, demoness with a glass everything?
GLASS GHOUL
We are what awaits at the end of every life.
TESELECTA
What are we, chopped liver?
TORCHWOOD SUZIE
RUN! RUN WHILE YOU CAN!!! FLEE WHAT COMES FOR YOU IN THE COLD AND DARK AND SILENCE!!!!!
EVERYONE SPLITS FOR THE TARDIS BUT ACCIDENTALLY RUN INTO THE FIRST DOCTOR'S.
BILL
It's so BRIGHT! Why's the console room so BRIGHT?!
FIRST
It's supposed to look like this, young lady!
BILL
(to Twelfth)
What was the deal with yours?
TWELFTH
There was nothing wrong with mine!
FIRST
Every teenager wants to paint his bedroom black.
(to Twelfth)
What are YOU doing?
THE TWELFTH DOCTOR IS WORKING THE CONTROLS.
TWELFTH
I eventually found out about the telepathic circuits. It's what I get for pitching the manual into a supernova, all those years I could have been flying with pinpoint accuracy...
FX: LANDING BONG
FIRST
But — it didn't make the noise!
TWELFTH
Missy replaced the brake pads retroactively. I think she cut most of the way through the actual brake line, too, old habits die hard.
FIRST
Missy? Who is Missy?
TWELFTH
The Master, you remember the Master, our bestie from childhood, how we used to run up and down the red grassy slopes of Mount Perdition laughing through our tears?
FIRST
No.
TWELFTH
You remember, our friendship ended when he wouldn't let us cheat off him and we graduated with a 51%.
FIRST
Oh, the Wanker.
TWELFTH
Anyway, here we are — at the Villainous Banana Gardens, home of the Inforarium — the greatest source of illicit information in recorded history, until it ran out of venture capital and had to sell its database to Google. And then Google got exterminated by the Daleks! That was the best day ever, better than saving Gallifrey, oh, you should have been there. You lot wait here while I look up the face of the Glass Ghoul.
EVERYONE
We'll just wander out after you.
TWELFTH
Yeah, whatever. Mind the uncanned uncanny daleks, men, they're worse than pears.
THEY ALL WANDER OUT. A LOOSE DALEK MUTANT LATCHES ONTO THE SOLDIER AND THEY START SUCKING FACE.
FIRST
I can't help but feel that we should put some sort of stop to this.
TWELFTH
Oh, let him have his fun. I kissed a Zygon once.
HE LEAVES.
FIRST
Dear, dear. Only moments ago I was fending off Cybermen and going on about love and pride and now here I am watching a soldier from World War One pitching woo to a dalek.
What on earth are you doing with that pad of paper, young lady?
BILL
Sketching them for my art and music blog — hautbois.tumblr.com, "The O Face Of Oboe".
FIRST
I expect that means something in your time zone. Do separate them, would you? All that squishing, it's quite distracting.
BILL PULLS THE DALEK OFF THE SOLDIER WITH A 'SPOOP' NOISE
SOLDIER
I tell you what, these daleks are ever so good, aren't they?
FIRST
Never mind, put it back on him.
THE SOLDIER IS INUNDATED WITH DALEKS
SOLDIER
Splendid chaps, all of them. Oohoohoo!
FIRST
Now, I gather you're a member of some future race, occupying the memory space of a deceased person, for kicks as they say?
BILL
Yeah, at first we just wanted to put the soldier back where he belongs, but now we've taken an interest in you.
FIRST
Why am I of interest?
BILL
The Doctor has walked in blood through all of time and space. The Doctor has many names. The destroyer of the world, the goblin of the Pandorica, the Shadow of the Valeyard, the Beast of Trenzalore, the Butcher of Walmington-On-Sea, the Baker of Tom, the Candlestick-Maker of the Lost Moon of Poosh, the Never Actually Successful Destroyer of Skaro. He is the Doctor of War. We're sort of wondering why you do it.
FIRST
I haven't the faintest. I haven't started yet.
CUT TO:
INT. RANDOM SET - DAY
TWELFTH
Hello, my old friend Rusty the Dalek! Remember when I was in you? Up inside your hot, slimy interior?
RUSTY THE DALEK
OH! THOSE! ME-MOR-IES!
TWELFTH
They say there's no such thing as a good dalek, but R.T.D., you were a very good dalek.
RUSTY
I! AM! NOT! A! GOOD! DA!-LEK! YOU! ARE! A! GOOD! DA!-LEK!
TWELFTH
But then if I'm a good dalek, you must be a good Time Lord. Just sitting here at the center of the web of time, and all the villains coming to you to be exterminated. What a brilliant position. We should trade places. Or perhaps we did trade places, hahaha. Or perhaps it doesn't matter either way. But I'm here on business, and you're the master of the dalek path web — do you recognise this face?
HE SHOWS AN IMAGE OF THE GLASS GHOUL.
CUT TO:
EXT. INFORARIUM - DAY
BILL
You're the one who stole the TARDIS and ran away. Why did you do it? Why did you resign?
FIRST
Oh, I'm sure your Doctor has explained.
BILL
He's not sure any more. He thinks it was because of the hybrid.
FIRST
Hybrid? What hybrid?
BILL
You don't remember all the Time Lord prophecies about the hybrid?
FIRST
Prophecies, young lady, are magic. There is no such thing as magic.
BILL
The Doctor says there were suddenly all these Time Lord prophecies of the hybrid standing in the ruins of Gallifrey, and you scarpered immediately. And after about a thousand years of you running around doing odd jobs for the Time Lords, like when you caused the Genesis of the Daleks —
FIRST
I what?
BILL
— which led to the Time War and the extinction of countless species culminating in your invention of the Quantum Shade, which extends a person's experiential time to eternity while dissolving the nervous system. And then out of guilt for inventing Hell you stole the Ultimate Time Lord Weapon to end the war by blowing up everybody on both sides, until the Ultimate Time Lord Weapon decided she fancied you.
FIRST
Ah, I see: in the future I've completely lost my mind. It's to be expected from all the 'mary jean' and trock music.
BILL
We thought it was weird cos likes repel. Well, anyway, eventually the Time Lords decided that since you ran off immediately after those prophecies were made, you knew something about it, so they captured you and killed you and then tortured about a bajillion copies of you over a period of four and a half billion years...so...did you leave because of the hybrid?
FIRST
No no no. I left out of curiosity. There is good, and there is evil, and good is dumb. Why doesn't evil win? Whence all the loyalty, self-sacrifice and love required to let good prevail, or at least keep the universe balanced?
BILL
So far as we know, the universe ends in the year one hundred trillion with Gallifrey in ruins, the Daleks escaped in a void ship, and the human race dying in terror and silence in the freezing darkness. We were sort of hoping to change that. Have you ever seen "Quantum Leap"?
FIRST
Eh?
BILL
How about "MacGyver"?
FIRST
I have no idea what you're on about.
BILL
This is a library, there's got to be a media center. Come on, I'll show you what I mean.
CUT TO:
INT. RUSTY'S ROOM — DAY
TWELFTH
Professor Helen Clay. Hell In Clay. That sounds bad. A mad doctor from the year five billion. Helen CLAY, Bill POTTS...no, another red herring that will never pay off.
STEVEN MOFFAT
Eat my shorts, JJ Abrams.
TWELFTH
There's footage, can you run it?
CUT TO:
INT. MEDIA CENTER, INFORARIUM — DAY
A TELEVISION IS SHOWING THE LAST EPISODE OF QUANTUM LEAP. ITS SCREEN GOES BLACK.
TITLE: "Doctor Sam Beckett never went home."
FIRST
So you're suggesting that the mysterious force that keeps the universe propped up...
BILL
Is just a bloke Quantum Leaping about, MacGyvering solutions!
FIRST
I'd quite like to meet him.
BILL
You already have!
FIRST
I've got a bad feeling about this.
CUT TO:
RUSTY'S ROOM — DAY
IMAGE OF PROFESSOR HELEN CLAY
We of the Compurgation Corporation suck the brains of the near-dead through a time straw for infotainment purposes. Fortunately the Right To Be Forgotten no longer applies in the year five billion...
CUT TO:
MEDIA CENTER, INFORARIUM — DAY
THE TWELFTH DOCTOR ENTERS.
TWELFTH
I'm back, there's no problem, it's just that the former human race, which I think has mutated into trampolines, is cosplaying as their distant ancestors. And if they have to suck people's brains through a time straw to do it, well, after the Great Intelligence doing it and the Master doing it and probably a few other people doing it as well I don't even think it rates as an evil plan any more, at least I don't want to get involved, and anyway their whole planet's population gets pretty much exterminated by a virus in another 17 years so let's just turn over the soldier and we can go...
HE SUDDENLY NOTICES THE FIRST DOCTOR FLAT ON THE GROUND.
BILL
He's dying! What do we do?!
TWELFTH
What!
(he gets down on his knees)
The time lines are in flux, so I don't remember this — why are you refusing the regeneration?
FIRST
Fear. I'm afraid. Very, very afraid.
TWELFTH
Why?
FIRST
Look in a mirror for heaven's sake. Had I known you were coming I'd have stayed on Gallifrey. My future is in terrifying hands. So many lost to my arrogance and carelessness, and now I find my future offers only incomprehensibly greater magnitude for my sins. Nothing more need be said. Nothing more should be said!
HE DIES.
BILL
I don't understand, I just told him in detail what he had to look forward to.
TWELFTH
You spoiled him! If he dies the universe will never have existed past 1967. ... There's got to be something wrong with that. ... It'll come to me. Quick, help me get him into the TARDIS.
THEY CARRY THE FIRST DOCTOR INTO THE TARDIS.
BILL
I thought he was dead?
TWELFTH
Mostly yes — it's the end, but the moment has been prepared for. I am, after all, my own obstetrician.
THE TWELFTH DOCTOR LAUNCHES THE TARDIS.
BILL
Why'd you do that?
TWELFTH
At this point, tradition. Time for my famous last words.
(he starts to glow while thinking about them)
So, here I am on my past page. Last page. When I started out all those years ago I thought I could travel time and space questioning — asking what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out? I could have embodied, I could have been the three-fold mandate — to inform, to educate and to entertain. But I serve at the pleasure of the BBC and to a lesser extent its audience, and the rulers of my world are stupid and wicked and I can't bear it. So I'm clearing out. Next Doctor, start your countdown. The carnival of monsters awaits. Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen — lather, rinse, repeat. Welcome to the Doldrums, where nothing ever happens, and nothing ever changes, or if it does it changes back. Welcome to corridors and screaming death. Cruel and cowardly or nice and kind, hating or loving, fast or strong or wise or angry, fat or thin, young or old, man or woman — nameless Doctor, you're boned.
But I'm still the Doctor. I've still got a few things to say.
What is the purpose of a doctor? To restore the patient to status quo ante, modulo scars and missing limbs. Not to health! Health is the job of the patient, whether the patient can do the job or not.
(he pulls his Confession Dial from his pocket)
Remember this? A synecdoche of a universe that will outlast me because it recycles itself endlessly and perfectly. Except that I am part of the mechanism. Through me is restored the status quo ante — at the cost of my own despair, which will never become unendurable only because, if it did, it would change me into something qualitatively different...and that the universe cannot allow, as it would be progress, of a sort, and I cannot be allowed to progress, as I might start holding out for actual health. And the universe, well, it might seem to be the happiest sadist, but in fact it is the ultimate masochist. It prefers to suffer. Without me it dies, so it keeps me trapped on the Red Queen's treadmill, where I must run as fast as I can to stay in the same place. Question: Sarah Jane, how do you stop this crazy thing? The only answer: when I stand, and I fall.
HE LIES DOWN INSIDE AND MERGES WIDTH THE FIRST DOCTOR.
BILL
Doctor! This isn't how it's supposed to happen!
DOCTOR
There is no pain.
I am receding.
HE TURNS HIS HEAD TO THE TARDIS DOORS.
DOCTOR
Time to go. Where I came in...
HE DISSOLVES INTO JODIE WHITTAKER.
THE NEW DOCTOR LEAPS UP AND STARES EXCITEDLY AT THE TARDIS CONTROL PANEL.
DOCTOR
Now this is my idea of a spaceship! All gleaming white, flashing lights — ooh! I wonder what happens if I press this button?
THE DOCTOR PUSHES THE BUTTON. THE SCREEN GOES BLACK.
GRAMS: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000 END THEME (Mighty Science Theater)
ROLL CREDITS.
ELECTRIC GUITAR CHORD.
A BEAT, THEN:
STEVEN KING
It stops being funny when it starts being you.
