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Serial 201 – Earth 2.0
An Alternate Program Guide by Ewen Campion Clarke
From An Entry In The EC Unauthorized Guide O' Body Swap Shops

"Hey kids, guess what? You have a reason to live again! Yes, the show that undermines your entire existence on planet Earth and beyond has returned! Isn't that super-duper? You honestly don't deserve to ever see anything this good but now on BBC ONE... Doctor Who..."

It’s 10 in the morning on Boxing Day, and at the Powell Estate Mickey and Jackie have starting heavy-petting in the middle of breakfast, in front of the horrified Doctor, Rose and Cousin Mo. The Doctor decides this has put him off his sausages and Rose gets to her feet, screaming that she can’t take this any more and wants to get as far away from her mother and ex-boyfriend copulating as possible.

As she runs out of the flat, the Doctor blinks and realizes he doesn’t particularly want to stay either and hurries off after her. Mo stays to finish their untouched breakfasts before she leaves, quite indifferent to the copulating couple on the kitchen table.

The Doctor enters the TARDIS and begins to activate various controls, while Rose vandalizes Mickey’s beetle and sprays DIE SCUM on his imitation leopard-skin seats. Soon she joins her friend inside the craft and in no time at all they are spinning through the time vortex. When Rose inquires as to where they are going, the Doctor explains excitedly: "No idea! I can’t remember how this bloody thing works at all! I managed to fluke it the first few times, but, hell, I was living in denial!"

The ship soon lands and the two travellers find themselves on a windy hillside before a grand city where the grass smells of pine air fresheners. The Doctor explains that it is the year 5,000,000,023 AD and the planet is Earth 2.0, the next Earth, New Earth even - a new world on which the remains of humanity settled after the original Earth was destroyed by the expanding sun. The city before them is New New Cardiff.

Rose points out that there is rather large sign saying "WELCOME TO THE CITY STATE CRAFE TEC HEYDRA ON THE PLANET COFFRA" which makes the Doctor blink a few times, shove his hands deeper into his pocket, suck air through his teeth, tilt his head from side to side and sigh.

"Well... obviously... it’s a time share. Next year this place will be swarming with humans, mark my words, you won’t be able to tell the difference between this and Cardiff."

The Doctor then pretends to become very fascinated with the contents of his pockets and then notes something odd with his handy-dandy-all-purpose-telepathic-psychic-paper: words are appearing on it, as if someone is trying to contact them, someone supremely all-powerful projecting their thoughts across time and space!

0010234 00000001-
00110001 000000 00
123456156756662--------1
>I
546002646 0000000000000000001111
11111111011234864100000
cfx-103268631-3151643k;jaj
PLEASE, WHERE AM I?
******** 015154122 124
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 7773
HELP ME
244+56030000 12346843333
AS PART OF THE MACHINE, WE KNOW THE MACHINE
54637896 00000110000000001111
111111110112346864100000
cfx-103268631-3151643k;jaj
I DON'T WANT TO DIE
cfx-103268631-3151643k;jaj
11111111011978864100000
>2 >4>6 >8
WARD 26. PLEASE COME.

The Doctor and Rose decide that it is some scrambled text message and not worth wasting their time on, so instead they’ll do what all tourists do in Crafe Tec Heydra and get their holographs taken in front of the Temporal Difference of Opinion Memorial in the centre of town.

The TARDIS travelers soon admire the carvings on the monolith, with artwork showing a race of metal beings and a race of flesh being clashing in a fearsome explosion and solitary survivor in a frock coat and long girly hair walking away from the wreckage. Under this is a phrase scratched into the stone: "YOU ARE NOT ALONE".

The Doctor buys a T-shirt with that slogan while Rose gets a purple Bob Dylan cap with the words I SAW THE CRUDE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE INVISIBLE WAR AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID HAT, and they discuss whether or not the artist got the Eighth Doctor’s nose the right size.

It is now the Doctor notices the huge, dark and monastic Hospital of Evergreen Days in the middle of the sci-fi high-towered city full of whizzing shuttles like Coruscant in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The travellers enter the hospital via the foyer and find it filled with feline-like nurses, who busy themselves with their visitors and patients. The Doctor explains that these are the Sister of Plentitude who run a hospice for the Face of Bond, the ancient creature that made numerous self-conscious cameos in the first series.

Rose questions why they are doing this incredibly pointless thing, and the Doctor explains there are countless dubious stories and urban legends surrounding the Face of Bond, in particular the prophecy that moments before his death Boe will impart his final secret to one like himself – the wanderer, the man with out a home, the Lonely God.

"Eh? Course not me, what would be the odds of that?!" the Doctor retorts. "Everyone knows the final secret will be four little words and everyone’s been guessing what they are for centuries! That’s why the Sisters are keeping an eye on him so when the big-headed poser finally karks it, there’ll definitely be someone there to hear them!"

The Doctor heads for the lift, noting that he’s always suspected the infamous four words will be "The Butler Did It" though the clever money is on either "I Am Your Father" or "You Are My Mother". So lost is he in guessing the stunning revelations the Face of Bond might make if he could ever be bothered, the Doctor does not notice a scrawny albino dwarf covered in henna patterns watching them in wide-eyed amazement.

And to be honest, a scrawny albino dwarf covered in henna patterns watching them in wide-eyed amazement bouncing up and down gasping "Human! Pureblood human! Bugger me sideways! She must be the ONLY pureblood human in the ENTIRE BLOODY UNIVERSE!" as he points at Rose is KIND of noticeable... However at that moment, the Doctor and Rose are distracted when the Duke of New New York, a legendary descendant of Isaac Hayes, is rushed into the Hospital after choking on a cocktail olive. His lawyer, Krau Flovis, threatens to sue absolutely everyone for allowing this to happen until the Doctor sighs, sets his sonic screwdriver to "Heimlich Maneuver", and saves the Duke’s life instantly.

Flovis continues to threaten the Doctor with legal action for interfering with her client, so the Doctor kicks Flovis in the shin and runs away very quickly into a lift and escapes, forgetting to take Rose with him. Thus, she has to get another lift with the scrawny albino dwarf who nervously introduces himself as Chip "Zaggit" Jamison before the lift’s automatic cleansing system soaks them in disinfectant – leading to Doctor Who’s first High-Def wet T-shirt scene.

The rather damp, sticky and, most-important, transparently-clad Rose gets out of the lift in the cellars of the hospital and when Chip follows her, Rose picking up a discarded metal bar and threatens to beat him to death unless he stops stalking her. Then she whimpers and runs away. Chip follows and there is a predictable Benny Hill chase sequence ending with Rose running into a dungeon where she finds...

The no-longer-humanoid sheet of skin is sitting in a corner, watching a projector film playing an endless home movie of an acid house rave party. Rose is shocked and disturbed at this for many reasons, least of all that during their last encounter at Milliways, Collins was set alight and melted into a puddle.

Joan Collins explains that her brain survived... somehow... and the Face of Bond offered her remains a lift on the back of space truck. However, Collins’ insurance policy didn’t cover third party murder and she has used all her cash to reconstruct her trampoline-like body with the remaining skin from her ancient, original buttocks.

"And thanks to you, you dirty blonde assassin, I’m just desiccating in my pit, letting the memories play! Oh, I remember that night. Speed cocktails from the Ambassador of Stoatgobbler. That was the last time anyone told me I was beautiful. It was a pivotal moment, looking back on it, and changed the entire course of my life... but now you’re here! This is beyond coincidence! This is destiny! At last I can be revenged you, DOCTOR!"

Rose remembers that due to a slight misunderstanding, everyone at the Restaurant at the End of the World thought SHE was the Doctor and the Northern bloke with the big ears and the leather jacket was actually Rose Tyler. Awkwardly, she explains the situation to Joan Collins, who proves to be surprisingly understanding about the whole thing.

She then has Chip pull a lever on a nearby control panel and Rose’s arms are grabbed by two chains of light, emitted from nearby run-down machinery. Upon his mistress’ orders the clone then activates the psycho-graft, causing a cage of light to descend on the trapped Earthling. There is a flash and the light surrounding Rose vanishes leaving Rose sly and foxy and with a strange American accent.

"Result!" 'Rose' laughs as she marvels at once again having arms, fingers and hair, ignoring the hysterical screams of "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED THERE?!?" from 'Joan Collins'.

Cue completely gratuitous scenes of Billie Piper in a wet T-shirt fondling herself in front of a full-length mirror as a tattooed albino dwarf watched on... GOD DAMN IT, I LOVE THIS FREAKING SHOW!!

The Doctor, meanwhile, makes his way to the Face of Bond Ward in the upper levels of the hospital while he and Sister Jatt, one of the hospital’s cat nurses, exchange ideas on what Bond’s last message will be and the bookies odds on said ideas.

On the way they meet Flovis and the Duke of New New York, the former of which starts having a go at performing surgery on the Duke without written permission and official from the senate. The Doctor notes that the Duke is turning to stone – Petrifold Regression, a nasty STD carried by silicon-based lifeforms the Duke caught during his lifetime of charity and abstinence with a hooker called Granite Gretel.

Sister Jatt is confident that the Duke will "be up and about screwing prostitutes in no time" but the Doctor has known many a statue to have once played the field with similar hopeless optimism. Jatt bitches that the Hospital is waging an ongoing war against STDs, but somehow humanity continues to find ways to spread genital diseases...

"When we said we were taking a lifelong vow to heal and mend, we thought we were just finding a way to pass the time..."

The duo finally reach the Face of Bond sitting in the corner, and the Doctor kneels before the tank and laughs: "Bet you didn’t expect to see ME again, did you? I look a bit different, but it's me... it's the Doctor... and I survived that business with the Dustbins – total fluke, huh? So, anyway, you dead yet?"

Just then the Duke of New New York arrives with a bottle of champagne, having been miraculously cured of all diseases despite the Doctor knowing that Petrifold Regression is completely and utterly incurable – but, somehow, the Sisters of Plentitude have found a cure with the tender application of science and two minutes in Intensive Care.

The Doctor turns to the attending nurse, Matron Casp, and delicately raises the matter by grabbing her by the wimple and screaming "HOW THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?!" at the top of his voice.

Matron Casp explains such matters are covered by patient confidentially and tells him to piss off. Scowling, the Doctor stalks the wards of the hospital and finds all the patients cured of infirmities and diseases which are normally considered "extinction-level catastrophes", all in a matter of minutes. When Joan Collins arrives wearing Rose’s body and searching for the leather-clad Northerner she now intends to kill, the Doctor greets her and the two remain totally unaware they are actually mortal enemies. As you do.

"There you are! Have you seen these patients? Look at that bloke with the red skin? He’s got Marconi’s Disease – you hear that beeping? Morse code for 'Let Me Cure You'. Nasty thing, Marconi’s Disease, it makes you generate ironic Morse Code messages, and it should take years to recover. He’s due out tomorrow! I’ve never seen anything like it! And that guy, the one completely white? Pallidome Pancrosis. Kills you in ten minutes, and he’s fine! How the hell do they do it? Some kind of cell washing cascade? Hypnosis? Placebos? HOW?!?"

"Because they’re not telling me! I HATE NOT KNOWING! I LIKE SPOILERS!" The Doctor glances at Rose and notices her shirt is completely unbuttoned and she’s no longer wearing a bra. "Is it getting hot in here?" he asks hopefully.

Joan Collins very suddenly pulls his face towards her and plants a smacking kiss on his lips. When she finally pulls away, he looks extremely shocked and she’s slightly breathless. He stares at her as she wipes her mouthj like she’s eaten fried chicken.

She walks off. The Doctor watches her go looking extremely dazed and tousled. "Yep!" he grins, smoothing his hair down. "I still got it! And this time I’m NOT going to die right afterwards! Yee-HAH!"

The Doctor, invigorated, heads off through the hospital to search for Intensive Care to find out the truth behind this curiously innovative level of treatment in the hospital and the reason why the nurses have kept it a secret from the outside world. Failing that, a secret passage will do him just fine.

The Face of Bond sends his personal masseuse, Novice Hame, to go and fetch the Doctor, and if she accidentally throws him down some stairs, well, then that’s perfectly all right with him. Hame heads off into the depths of the Hospital and finds the Doctor and Rose sneaking behind a tapestry marked "GO BACK! YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY!"

Creeping down a long, dark corridor, the Doctor and Joan Collins find an endless industrial passageway lined with identical, glass-fronted booths glowing an unfriendly green colour – Borg chic by anyone’s standards. "Odd how the cellar of this hospital looks like that paper mill the Nestle Consciousness was in way back at the start, eh, Rose?" the Doctor asks her. "It’s so distinctive! Odd to find it over five billion years in the future, like those gravel pits I keep ending up in come what may..."

The Doctor opens one of the cell chambers and finds, inside... the Duke of New New York, sobbing and turning to stone as they watch. In the next cell are the other patients the Doctor’s seen, all diseased and drooling like zombies. Joan Collins notes that there must be millions of cells, for all the patients who have ever visited the hospital, all linked by psycho-graft body swappers.

"Hmmmm. The patients come here and get linked up to this machinery, and somehow a copy of them with all their memories and personality is let loose in their stead. Jings, if I were paranoid, Rose, I’d say the nurses were up to something dodgy and not curing people at all!"

"Does it? Oh yeah, so it does! The Nuns, being unable to cure all the diseases in the Galaxy, have resorted to cloning healthy duplicates of their patients. They transfer the patient’s minds into those new bodies and claim to have cured the illness and imprison the original sick bodies in these green cells! Brilliant! I’ve seen it tried a few times by the NHS but never on a scale like this. Think of it! Plague carriers hidden away with hideous diseases whilst the patients in the public eye were healthy... just like The Picture of Dorian Gray!" the Doctor gasps. "Deliberate, or a coincidence?"

Novice Hame finally catches up with them and immediately starts reciting their prepared statement abdicating all possible responsibility: "It’s for the greater cause! The Sisterhood has sworn to help! Mankind needed us when it was their turn on the time share, and they caught so many disgusting diseases! We couldn't cope! We did try! We tried everything! We tried growing clones and using it as a plague farm for cures, but it was felt too Gothic by every focus group we tried! So the Sisterhood came up with a scheme to make patients better without curing them! It’s all perfectly legal!"

The Doctor bugs out his eyes with a psychotic zeal. "I say it’s perfectly reasonable, because I AM THE DOCTOR! And if YOU don’t like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, well there isn’t one! Patrick Moore notwithstanding, IT STOPS WITH ME! And I will NOT be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered!! You’ll do it MY way, because I LIKE it my way! I’m better than you, I’m more powerful than you SO DO AS YOU’RE TOLD!!!!"

"Oh, was I being dictatorial again?" the Doctor asks suddenly. "I suppose saying your own authority is absolute is just a small step away from being a dictator... Is that the sort of person I am now? Am I megalomaniacal tyrant? A deranged psycho control freak? And NOT ginger?"

"Wait a minute," Joan Collins snaps. "YOU are the Doctor? THE Doctor? From Milliways? The SAME Doctor with a NEW face? And you have a go at ME for having plastic surgery? YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITE!!!"

"I’m being very, very calm. You want to beware of that - very, very calm. And the only reason I’m being so very, very calm is that the brain is a delicate thing. And I might smash yours in UNLESS you tell me what the hell you’re talking about?"

"Jings, forty years of outstanding villains out for my blood, and a one-note non-entity satirical piece of skin is the one that comes back?! That’s just wrong!"

Furious, Joan Collins takes out Rose’s perfume and sprays it in the Doctor’s face – and he immediately keels over at the incredible potency of Divine Aura # 4!!

Novice Hame decides this all getting way to weird for her and decides to get someone else to deal with it. She hits the alarm button and runs for her life as fast as she can, passing Chip who has been wandering around the place looking for something to do.

Chip approaches and gets shouted at by Joan Collins to tie the unconscious Doctor up while she plans to blackmail the hell out of the Sisters of Plentitude by revealing their dark secrets to the rest of the planet, especially Today Tonight. Matron Casp arrives with Sister Jatt and point out they are a charity and don’t have the funds.

"Now I’ve discovered your private health care scheme, we’ve got business to discuss! The clients pay you a fortune. And that's exactly what I need!" Joan Collins laughs. "A one-off payment, that's all I want... oh, and perhaps a yacht. With lots of drugs and oiled musclemen. In return for which, I shall tell the City nothing of your institutional murder."

"But these aren’t real people any more," Matron Casp says smugly. "Legally, they have no proper existence!"

"Bet your life?" snarls Jatt, and claws burst out of her gloves, Wolverine-style. "TIME TO DIE!"

"What? You’re nurses for Christ sake!" Joan Collins wails. "You take lifelong vows to heal! And now you’re trying to kill me? Am I the only one here who finds this just a little bit contradictory?"

"You have no official existence," laughs Casp. "We can do what we like, you peroxide blonde slut!"

"What we need now is an outrageously contrived escape!" the Doctor shouts – and immediately Chip sneezes into a fuse box. There is a short circuit and all the cells suddenly pop open as the zombie-like patients lurch out of the cells, between the Cat Nuns and the fugitives.

It seems that the body-swapping hasn’t QUITE worked out on the dying clones, and they aren’t totally mindless – and knowing they’ve been condemned to death en mass has left a mass of very angry zombified plague victims unleashed. "Probably the Gelth pissing about again," the Doctor confides to the audience, assuming they have the faintest idea what the hell he’s talking about.

"We understood what you did to us!" moans the Zombie Duke. "And we will end it! As part of the machine, we know the machine!"

"Oh. So YOU were the ones who were texting me!" the Doctor notes. "That’s an integral plot point tied up right there! Jings, didn’t expect that. But there’s a misunderstanding, I’m fully booked today trying to guess the Face of Bond’s last words. No zombie hoards until tomorrow!"

The zombies take this remarkably reasonably, then turn on the cat nuns and rip them limb from limb and feast on their entrails. Despite their huge adamantium claws, all the cat nuns can do is hiss and threaten to scratch them like actual feline domesticus... and unsurprisingly are mercilessly slaughtered by the brain-munching zombies.

As more and more cells are opened and more zombies shuffle out, the Doctor spots a great big threatening button marked "Maximum Quarantine" and presses it, sending the whole hospital into lock down. Shutters seal off every entrance and exit to the hospital, causing alarm amongst the patients, staff and visitors, who are all still betting what the final words of the Face of Bond will be.

Joan Collins screams angrily at the Doctor he’s trapped them inside a building now crawling with thousands of flesh-eating zombies even now staggering slowly towards them, muttering 'stop the pain...' and reaching out to them!

"It’s more fun this way! Don’t worry," the Doctor says soothingly. "I’ve got a history with dealing with zombie plagues. This is just another day in the office for me – admittedly with more cat nun entrails, but still..."

Joan Collins and Chip notice the hordes of zombies, scream and runaway and the Doctor skips after them, laughing like a loon, as they flee deeper into the building. The zombies meanwhile make their way into the various wards and start slaughtering non-speaking extras. No, I tell a lie, one woman does scream "Help me!" before they rip her arms off.

Krau Flovis is having an illegal smoke and bitching at everyone when the walking dead arrive and she screams like a girl and runs for it, only to find Novice Hame has hidden in a cardboard box. The zombies press themselves against a glass window in a cheap Romero homage of death and we cut back to the main plot:

Since the Doctor’s thoughtful quarantine has jammed all the lifts, Joan Collins, Chip and the Doctor are forced to flee down numerous flights of steps until they get ambushed by another roaming mob of zombies. They back up the stairs as the undead advance, before the Doctor and Joan Collins toss the whimpering Chip to the zombies. The plague victims look at the duo with that "You BASTARDS!" expression as Chip is handed back down the zombie line and the others retreat.

Somehow Chip escapes having his flesh stripped from his puny little body and hides in the hospital’s septic tank. The zombies aren’t prepared to wade into that shit to feast on him, but it’s arguable it would be a lot easier to exit via their stomachs.

The Doctor and Joan Collins meanwhile lock themselves into the dungeon Collins was using as her base of operations earlier. Meanwhile, Rose furiously hurls abuse at the Doctor, wanting to know what the hell he’s been up doing while she has been trapped in trampoline-form!

The Time Lord, however, is too busy critiquing the architecture to respond. "So this is where you were hiding. Sitting right on top of the secret you needed to blackmail the nurses all the time, and you never even noticed! Honestly, how thick are you?"

"Oh, excuse me, I’m not the one who unleashed a horde of flesh-eating zombies to liven up the mood!"

"Don’t judge me, little madam!" the Doctor shouts at her. "You hacked into their body-swapping bollocks and stole Rose’s body! Why the hell did you do that?"

"Well, I was sick of the old me. It was rubbish at corners. So what are we going to do, fleetingly returning to the whole 'zombies all clambering to get inside this room and kill us all?"

"Still not seeing a problem here," the Doctor shrugs and crosses to the psycho-graft machinery.

"Aren’t you getting a little TIRED of killing me?!" Joan Collins screams hysterically as the pounding outside the doors increases. "What did I ever do to you anyway?"

"You did it all to yourself?" the Doctor suggests. "Life is suffering? Maybe I’m just a complete bastard who doesn’t know when to stop? All of the above? Who can say?" He zaps the machinery with the sonic screwdriver. "Don’t worry, Rose, I’m a Time Lord. I know all about psycho-tele-bio-genetic transmission thingamajigs like this..."

"Oh, my," says the spiky-haired Scotsman incredibly camply. "This is... different. Goodness me, I'm a man. Yum. So many parts! And hardly used... Ah.. ah! Two hearts! Oh, baby, I'm beating out a samba!"

Yep, the Doctor has swapped bodies with Rose, and Rose has swapped bodies with Joan Collins, so Rose is back to normal, the Doctor is now stuck in the corner and Joan Collins is wiggling around crazily.

As the Doctor bitches about not having enough psycho-graft energy to try again, Rose demands Joan Collins help swap them back before further comedic hi-jinks occur. "Lesson in logic," Joan Collins retorts, "the Doctor keeps trying to kill us all. Little Rose Tyler does not. Ergo, I keep the Doctor’s body – temporarily, though, because frankly, this nose needs work – and the Doctor is stuck in mine where he can’t KILL ME!"

"And how exactly do you intend to save us when those zombie people suddenly burst through the doors?" Joan Collins demands.

"Well..." the Doctor flounders. "Jings. No idea. Of course, we could always just make an even MORE outrageously contrived escape from certain death than we did last time!"

"How?" Rose asks, punching a wall – and immediately a secret passageway opens, revealing a ladder heading upwards.

"Am I good or what?" the Doctor marvels as the diseased patients storm the dungeon. Rose and Joan Collins flee up the ladder as the zombies lurch and lumber around the trapped Doctor. He mutters to himself quietly as the zombies stare at him.

"Don’t panic. Never panic. Om mane padme hum. Karma moves in mysterious ways. No endings. Only new beginnings. Sense the act of creation, the touch of a divine sculpture. The Great Circle of Life maintains the balance. Harmony in movement is life itself. Clear the mind of all negative thought. No fear. No negativity. Just peace. ARGGGHH! I CAN’T STAND THIS! SOMEBODY SAVE MEEEEEEEE!"

In the lift shaft Rose and Joan Collins make their escape but are stopped when Matron Casp bursts out of the shadows like the spring-loaded cats of yore and tries to scratch Rose’s eyes out, only for Rose to clothesline her and send her plummeting to her doom – even though she lands on her feet, she is ripped apart by the waiting zombies.

Rose and Joan Collins manage to make their way to the top of the shaft only to find the secret panel won’t open and neither of them now how to use the sonic screwdriver to actually open the bloody thing.

Suddenly there is a flash and the Doctor is suddenly back in his own body, bragging about how he managed to kick the psycho-graft to bodyswap... only to realize that "Rose" is now Joan Collins and the real Rose is back in Collins’ body in the dungeon below. And since the Doctor cannot get to the psycho-graft, they’re stuck the way they are until further notice.

"Oh well. Win some, lose some," he notes and zaps the hatch with the screwdriver as the zombies start climbing up the ladder towards them. The Doctor and Joan Collins escape through it, slamming the hatch as diseased hands start banging it.

The Doctor and Joan Collins emerge into Ward 26 where Novice Hame, the Face of Bond, the Duke of New New York and Krau Flovis are present. Gripped with zombiephobia, Flovis attacks them with a chair while roaring like a wild animal.

Staring at her for a long moment, the Doctor and Joan Collins quietly shuffle around her and chat to Hame and the others. It seems that the zombies have slaughtered everyone else in the Hospital of Evergreen Days, but the Duke insists they get up onto the roof and get the police to try and save them.

"You can’t do that!" the Doctor shouts at them. "If they forced entry, they’d break quarantine. We can't let a zombie get out - there is ten million people in the city, they'd all be at risk! Didn’t you WATCH '28 Weeks Later'?!"

"And do you have a better plan, Mr. Highest Authority?" Novice Hame demands, folding her arms.

"Get me intravenous palliatives for every disease you’ve got!" the Doctor screams back at her. "Move it! If I know one thing... apart from psycho-tele-bio-genetic transmissions... it’s biochemistry against evil greed-based schemes of suffering and misery! As the Venusian proverb has it, never put your threshwart in a bandersnatch! I’ve no idea what it means, but it’s probably ironic! ALLONZEE!"

With all the available drip feeds strapped to his jacket, the Doctor opens the lift-shaft with the screwdriver and jumps onto the lift cables and attaches a botched zip line to it which he happened to have in his pocket for just this sort of emergency. "Come on, I need another pair of hands!" he shouts over his shoulder at Joan Collins.

"Why should I? You keep threatening me and you’re so rude and horrible plus you almost killed me three times!"

"Well, if you’re SO desperate to stay alive, then why don’t you live a little?" the Doctor jeers. "Yellow chicken!"

Joan Collins finally agrees, mainly to shut the jerk up for a moment, and grabs onto the Doctor’s back. He activates the zip line and they rapidly descend to the roof of the lift capsule on the ground floor. By the time they do so, his trousers have been vaporized and smoke is pouring out of his crotch.

"Jings! Shoulda thought of that earlier, really!" squeaks the Doctor as he hobbles over to the lift disinfectant system which seemed like one-gag padding at the start but turned out to be an incredibly important plot point. Opening up the container for the disinfectant system, the Doctor rips the tops of the packets of each solution with his teeth and squirts them inside. "I'm cooking up a cocktail. I know a bit about medicine myself!"

Joan Collins points out that mixing all the different drugs together randomly is bound to lead to complications and worse the drugs are INTRAVENOUS drugs - even when mixed with other intravenous drugs and disinfectant, they shouldn’t have any effect when passed on through touch. The Doctor retorts that super-duper Year Five Billion technology should sort that out for him and when he links it to the hitherto-unmentioned hospital-wide fire sprinkler system.

"Cure them?!" the Doctor laughs, zapping the mixture with his sonic screwdriver. "How the hell am I supposed to cure them? This hospital doesn’t have any general cures, and these IVs are full of dishwashing liquid! Which, if using a bio-standard vector, should become a completely lethal nerve gas! You know what they say, Joan? Fight germs with bio-warfare!"

"No, I’m going to sterilize the hospital. Sounds MUCH nicer!" The Doctor laughs like a madman and uses his sonic screwdriver to activate the sprinklers. "EAT DISINFECTANT, YOU DISEASED MONGREL LEPERS!"

The infect zombies milling about in the foyer are soaked with mixture, and the numerous boils, bleeding eyes and granite infections start to disappear... Within minutes the ex-patients doused in the muck are cured, and every trace of disease is gone from the Hospital.

"Jings, the stuff actually cured them!" the Doctor exclaims. "Well, fancy that! Life will out and nature finds a way, eh? Who would have thought a few bottles of oven cleaner and saline solution could prove the ultimate cure for all diseases in the entire universe? I mean, seriously, what ARE the odds of that?"

Only two hours since the TARDIS arrived on Coffra, the Doctor had created a whole new race of people and caused the total collapse of the Hospital of Evergreen Days, not to mention completely screwing up a whole galaxy’s health service for ever while simultaneously giving the clues that eternal life can be found in the cleaning products aisle of your local supermarket.

As Novice Hame is lead off by police officers screaming, "NEXT TIME, DOCTOR! NEXT TIME! RRROWWWLLL!!", the Doctor, Joan Collins and Rose are trying to fix the broken psycho-graft.

"Now, I’m fairly certain I know what I’m doing this time," the Doctor promises as he reverses the polarity of the neutron flow and there is a huge flash. The Doctor’s and Rose’s bodies sway for a moment as they regain their balance.

The human trampoline looks around in confusion. "What the hell happened there?" it asks in a monotonous whine. "Why is everything so flat!"

"But if that’s not Joan Collins, she must have body-swapped with someone!" Rose points out for anyone so damn stupid as to have not already worked this out for themselves.

"Oh, sweet Lord!" complains the body of Chip as he enters. "I’ve been turned into Joe Pasquale! Talk about from class to brass..."

Just then, the loudspeaker booms: "THE FACE OF BOND IS ABOUT TO REVEAL HIS FINAL SECRET. ALL LIFE FORMS WILL PRESENT THEMSELVES TO THE BETTING SHOPS FOR THE MESSAGE!"

The Doctor, Rose and Joan dash off to Ward 26 as they wonder what the message might be: "I Listen To Dylan"? "I Like Red Herrings"? "I am the Walrus!"? "Look Out! Behind You!"? "Your Fly Is Undone"? "Got any loose change?"? "I Will Explain Later"? "Where Is My Body?"? "Please Pull My Finger"? "What’s Six Times Seven?"? "Oh No, Not Again"? "I Liked Eccleston Better"? "Butch It Up Mary!"? "That Logo Is Crap"? "I Prefer Star Trek"? "Use Vimto Recipes Wisely"? "Seriously, Elvis IS Dead"? "I Shot JR"? "They’re My Own Teeth"? "I Shagged Paris Hilton"?

The Face of Bond falls out of his tank as it shatters. "I have grown tired of this universe, and I have lived for millions of years. I have seen worlds born and die, stars collide, and the heavens burn. But in all my existence, I never saved more than when I switched my car insurance to Geico! It may SOUND impossible, but..."

"Hmm? No, the great secret, the four last words..." the Face of Boe has a violent coughing fit and manages to whisper something to the Doctor before slumping still.

The Doctor looks at the giant severed head and mutters, "You’re making my soul shed tears of pain, you’re aware of that, right?"

"You Are Not Alone. That’s all he said. You Are Not Alone." The Doctor turns to look down at the dead Bond and kicks him repeatedly. "YOU SELFISH PIECE OF SHIT! YOU BIG, FAT, SELFISH, BALD-AS-A-BILLIARD-BALL, HEAD-SHAPED, TEXTBOOK-ENIGMATIC FUCKER!"

"He chose the four words on the memorial right outside! How utterly unimaginative!" shouts Joan Collins and kicks the head as well.

"And that’s why NO ONE bet on him saying it! GOD DAMN!" adds the Duke, shooting the corpse full of holes with a handy sub-machine gun.

"Wow. Five billion years of spite," Rose observes, and she, the Doctor and Joan Collins walk away as the mob tear the ex-Face of Bond apart, in scenes clearly meant to be a direct and ironic counterpoint to all those zombie massacres earlier on in the story.

The Doctor turns to face Joan Collins. "And now for you, you dirty, conniving bitch!"

"But everything’s happy! Everything’s fine! Can’t you just leave me alone and trying to commit cold-blooded murder?"

"Oh, wait," says Joan Collins, thinking quickly. "I’ve just suffered a lethal heart failure! I’m going to drop dead here and now! I’m dying! You can sod off now you’ve destroyed the health system!"

"Oh, no, you’re not getting away THAT easily," the Doctor laughs and he and Rose drag her out of the hospital, as the Duke of New New York and his lawyer muse over the heap of shit the Doctor’s left in.

"What are we supposed to do with these technologically-dependant, emotionally-stunted zombie creatures with no immune systems whatsoever and rapidly decreasing life spans?" Krau Flovis complains. "What are they going to do with their lives on a planet identical in every way to Earth? And now the Hospital of Evergreen Days is collapsed, what do we do when people get ill or old? How will we stay alive?"

"Well," the Duke muses, "we could medically implant them and stuff with machines to replace their failing organs and make them immortal and immune to all sicknesses?"

"Honest, Rose," the Doctor notes as they return to the TARDIS, "this gets renamed Earth 2.0. and lasts another billion years. Then humanity moves on, another planet Earth. Then another. Then another."

"Dunno. Milliways? Maybe it never does? No one sees it all, especially not Joan Collins! HAH!" the Doctor laughs cruelly. "Life goes on though. For some. Sucked in!"

"My heart’s slowing, I’ll be dead in no time, you can leave me here," Joan Collins protests as she is thrown through the doors of the police box by the Doctor and Rose.

Just then, a familiar shambling figure lurches over the pine-grass towards them, waving his hands and groaning, "Hey, Doctor! Man overboard! It’s me, Captain Jack Sparrow! Remember?"

Whistling innocently, the Doctor throws Rose inside the TARDIS, follows and slams the door shut. "Don’t think I’ve forgiven you for 'Dynasty', Joan. People cancelled their subscriptions to Playboy because of you! But I think you can make one last trip," he adds, crossing to the console and slamming down controls. "We’ve been invited to an acid rave party at the Sunshine Camp!"

Captain Jack sighs as the police box fades away. "This is becoming depressingly predictable," he mutters, swigging from an IV drip.

Elsewhere, elsetime, the TARDIS lands as the Doctor explains that he watched her home movie and has thus taken Joan back in time so she can meet her past self, tell her she’s beautiful and trigger this whole ontological paradox. He then opens the doors to let Joan loose in her own past and telling her "not to look back and die like the trampoline-shaped motherfucker you are".

"Aren’t you worried she might be about to change history or something?" asks Rose. "What if she’s just faking and isn’t about to die?"

"Rose Tyler!" the Doctor shouts are her. "How many times do I have to say it? I’m the Doctor. I’m a Time Lord. I’m from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I’ve been mucking about with time and space for nine hundred and three years, and I’m the man who’s going to let a psycho-mass-murderess loose in her own timestream out of total confidence I know what I’m doing. You got a problem with that?"

Joan-Collins-as-Chip kicks the Doctor violently in the groin until he collapses and then runs out of the TARDIS laughing diabolically. Rose looks down at the pathetic sight of the Doctor writhing in agony, saddened by what she sees. She walks off into the TARDIS interior, leaving the Doctor to sob in pain alone.

---------
Next Time...
---------
"We’re under attack! There are creatures! We can’t stop them! We are doomed! Et cetera!"
"I need to know what they’re looking for, and there’s only one way I can do that, so close your eyes and try not to fidget."
"You’re inside my pants."
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!?!"
"A spaceship from the fifty-first century stalking a woman from the eighteenth! HAH! It’s funny because it’s true..."
"They must have found the right phone number, so they’re sending in the orders for lunch!"
"ARTHUR!"
"The clock on the mantel is broken! I’ve missed Eastenders! Doctor! DOCTOR! HELLO?! I’M TALKING TO YOU!!!"
"Hmm? Wazzat?"
---------
...The Nun In The Lift-Shaft...
---------

Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who Visits The Sunshine Camp
Doctor Who: Joan Collins - Fear Her!!
Doctor Who and the Nun’s Diseased Pussy
David Tennant - Alien Slayer, Time Traveler, Lady Killer

Fluffs - David seemed out of his skull in this story.
Whoopi Goldberg’s performance as the Face of Bond is awful – although, admittedly, at least we were spared Nick Briggs’ attempt.
Graham Norton can be heard during the zombie scenes muttering, "I hope they turned my microphone off this time! Let's have a screeching contest! OH GOD I’M A CHAV!!!!!!"
Similar sound difficulties ruin the Doctor’s catch-up in the final scenes of the story: "Wow, wasn't that great with the BEEEEP! in the BEEEEP! with all of 'em BEEEEP!s running around, and BEEEEP! giving BEEP! BEEEEP!, and the BEEEEP! taking the piss out of BEEEEP! by BEEEEP!, and when BEEEEP! gets killed and when BEEEEP! gets chased by zombies, and when the BEEEEP! uses the sonic screwdriver, and when we see the Face of Bond’s BEEEEP!."

Goofs –
When Rose runs out of the flat, Mickey and Jackie are screwing on the floor naked. When the Doctor steps out, they’re on the table and still clothed. How perverted ARE those two?
Why does Joan Collins’ entire DVD collection just disappear when she swaps with Rose?
Where does the stuffed panda on the ladder come from? It wasn’t in the gift shop when the Doctor and Rose arrived!
Why does Chip's voice become even VAGUELY normal between Joan Collins taking him over and the trip to The Sunshine Camp?
The Duke of New New York and the Face of Bond are actually in a Cardiff bedsit which has been edited into shot.
Why was the Doctor so ignorant of Joan Collins’ position when he ostensibly had murdered her before? And why didn’t they admit they were at that orgy in the Pegasus Galaxy?
The Cat Nuns can cure sedimentary social diseases, but not eyesight? How come Krau Flovis hasn’t had corrective surgery? Does she just think those glasses make her look sexy? CAUSE THEY DON’T!
While the explanation for Chip’s tattoos works, where did the purple hat come from?
The Doctor’s eyebrows are left in the grass outside the TARDIS, but he has them with him when Jack turns up.
According to the credits there is a character called "Camille Coduri" played by Jackie Tyler.

Fashion Victims -
The Doctor’s red "YOU ARE NOT ALONE" T-shirt shirt with a collar so huge it acts as a mini-cape.
The Duke of New New York’s double helix bib.

Technobabble -
The brain swap technology works by reconfiguring alpha matrixes in series. This works better on Tuesdays for some reason.

Rose: If the cats are all running a hospital... where are the dogs?
Doctor: In the pub, all sitting round playing poker.

Joan Collins: Is your brain broken?
Rose: Is yours? Cause the part dealing with social interaction looks like it’s missing!

Duke: Doctor! It's that man again! He's my good luck charm! Come in!
Flovis: Any friendship expressed by the Duke of Manhattan does not constitute a form of legal contract.
Duke: Get the Doctor a drink already...
Flovis: Any statements made by the Duke of Manhattan may not be made public without official clearance.
Duke: You’re fired, Flovis!
Flovis: Any attempt to terminate my employment without warning will result in the payment of massive compensation, so thank you very much!
Duke: ...shit.

The Tenth Doctor’s catchphrase is confirmed:
Doctor: Uh... you had Petrifold Regression, right?
Duke: "Had" being the operative word! Past tense! Completely cured!
Doctor: Mmm. That’s weird.

Joan Collins: This body is horrible! It’s disgusting fat!
Doctor: Well, you know how it is. Back in Rose’s time hearing pelvis bones shattering in mid sex wasn’t popular, so a layer of body fat was positively encouraged.
Joan Collins: Guh. Barbarians!

Doctor: You think I couldn’t pull more birds than you?
Jack: Brains and beauty, mate - you haven’t a hope!

Flovis: Excuse me! Members of the public may only gaze upon the Duke of New New York with written permission from the Senate of New New Manhattan. You cant talk to the Duke! NOBODY GETS TO TALK TO THE DUKE!!

Doctor: Now, do you really think I can’t take you on, Joan Collins? You’ve met me before. You know I won’t stop. You violated 1980s TV and I won’t allow it to go unpunished!
Joan Collins: One step closer, Doctor... and the body gets it!

UnQuotable Quote –
Doctor: You know, Bond, ol fellah, I used to think you were the Bad Wolf. And your body – what’s that all about?

Links and References -
There is the apparently reference to The Restaurant at the End of the World, but I didn’t spot any. The Face of Bond finally karks it after acting like the world’s biggest Bonehead throughout the last series.

Untelevised Misadventures -
During the opening credits, the Doctor and Rose visited the ice world of Serac where the Snotaran empire had set up a theme restaurant called The Betrothal of Snotty, and the Doctor got a full-on French Kiss from a Snotaran called Colonel Snasal. This is clearly a cynical merchandizing-oriented tie-in with Doctor Who Magazine’s comic strip so more people waste their precious time and money finding out exactly what those glib references refer to! Cunning BBC bastards!

Groovy DVD Extras -
The recipe for the Dr Who punch (AKA the Intravenous Solution for Every Disease) involving Grenadine, Pink Gin, Green Chartreuse, Peach Schnapps, Blue Curaçao, more Peach Schnaps, more Pink Gin, Brandy, Southern Comfort, Banana Liqueur, Absinthe, Blueberry liqueur and Catnip to taste. "That should get you to a different planet!" promises RTD.

Introducing two NEW Segments!
In order to try and prove how media-savvy and clever the BBC were, and also to pester even MORE of the population with Doctor Who material, it was decided to record special prequel footage for each story which could be available by mobile phones, with such shitty audio and sound quality hardly anyone understood what the hell there were on about...
Vortext –
Novice Hame appears in a daytime TV infomercial about the Hospital of Evergreen Days: "Welcome to Coffra. Let us cure you. We can cure anything! Charles Hawtrey Syndrome? Terminal – or is it? Wrong! We never lose a patient. They can run, they can hide, but never lose them! We're here to help you. Donations welcome. Come to us and be cured. Don’t mind the screams, though, they’re totally irrelevant."

Frustrated at the lack of official recognition by the production team, Sparacus "Flamingo" Jones has insisted that thew New Series cannot be accurately detailed WITHOUT his keen insights, creative genius and nonspecific Oxford degree. The fan reaction forum I have presented the lonely fishlike creature with is thus called "The Spite Of Sparacus"!
The Spite of Sparacus –
"I threw a party for the new season and got some drinks in with hummus, greek salad & barbecue sticks. Unfortunately no one was willing to watch it with me but who cares? Joan Collins is NOT a snobby character, simply someone with standards who obviously had a good education who has had massive problems in her life to overcome. I imagine. It is occasionally acceptable for the higher classes to use lowbrow language - like when the Princess Royal tells reporters to 'Ferk orf'. It’s a sign of breeding, you know. Of course, the perfect Dr Who episode would involve Servalan, Avon, the Doctor and Joan Collins. And Ben Chatham."

"RTD should never be allowed to write another Doctor Who story again and Billie Piper should just not ever be allowed to just be again, anywhere, full stop! It’s a dumbed-down, over-budgeted, sex-romp through space with convoluted plots almost made me vomit and every dribbled word that issued from Piper’s mouth, actually did make me dry-reach. If Rose's menopausal and cheap mother and her socially retarded ex-boyfriend aren't annoying enough as characters we now seem to have a Doctor who looks like a private school prefect with the charisma of a dog. Why do they use these stinking Tom Baker groupies rather than Colin Baker! They should put someone in charge who would employ somebody who can and is allowed to, write real science fiction and they televised it. Like ME! My story 'The Hidden City' where the Sixth Doctor and Peri find a tiny city full of tiny people and Peri steps on it out of spite is the case in point! Stop calling me deluded you knobheads!" - Ron Mallet (five minutes before he saw the episode)

"Just took a look at the DVD cover! God it's terrible! I couldn't stop laughing my ass off at its awfulness! It’s awful... beyond awful in fact... just... nasty! Ha ha ha ha ha! Who designed it, a blind coma patient? No only are Piper and Tennant standing in totally unnatural, uncomfortable and ridiculous poses, but it looks a kaleidoscope threw up all over them, creating a nasty 1980s café kid show retro day-glo effect surround! THE ULTIMATE IN CHEESE! Billie Piper looks like a soccer mom! And Tennant completely looks like Keanu Reeves, stunned at the awfulness of this cover! I think I may get a seizure! It’s the worst DVD cover ever! Well definitely up there with 'The Beginning's' shot of Hartnell stroking his tit. That was pretty grotesque..." - Lee Binding (2006)

"I don't know if I'm a hedonist or just vacuous, but this is great!" - Charles Daniels (2006)

"You know what I think? Novice Hame is the Bastard, who possessed Lynda-with-a-Y and regenerated in The Parting of the Legs, and went to the Face of Bond in order to hear his secret! There are plenty of clues in the messages Murray Gold sends us through the music! MURRAY GOLD REPRESENTS THE ULTIMATE TRUTH IN THE UNIVERSE!" - Keff McCulloch (2008)

"That can say you, however. And nothing carefully to starts, no immediately wham. Unfortunately was possible I it all this way do not heal well to understand. Must still what to get used to their fast way of speaking. Therefore this information is what gone along me gone. For me of the peaks of this delivery. Phew, just as recover and then come the rest of the responses themselves, however. That promises, however, much good for in the future or must I in the past say? Generally a very entertaining tale that be originally is not." - Some Dutch Guy (2006)

"Five RTD episodes in a row! Damn it, guy, stop trotting around astride your sci-fi pony let someone else have a turn – preferably someone who knows how to write! It’s not as if it will ever be as good as Star Trek, anyway! Or Quantum Leap... Music’s too loud, Tennant is shit is superficially amateur compared to Eccleston (May His Name Be Blessed) and the little tryhard plain sucked! This is rubbish, attention-seeking rubbish trying to be cooler than the last series. Like any of the retards involved in this could even EQUAL that!" - a typically upbeat review by eyeofsauros.com.uk (2006)

"I can’t stand David Tennant’s version of the Doctor. He’s an arrogant, swaggering, sarcastic, self-righteous cunt in bitching glasses living in a loveless relationship of convenience with naive young girls, lusted after by a worried Charlotte Church... He’s more like ME than I am!" - Nigel Verkoff (2006)

"Earth 2.0. is a welcome new direction away from that stomach churning 'human emotion' rot in series one and the show is all the better for it! This is a story medical ethics and personal esteem problems. Maybe I’m just a cynical self-absorbed and deluded arse, but I suspect that everyone who tuned in expecting the drivel-ridden mindless soap-opera of 2005 and instead faced with something quite though-provoking so they all turned off! They are all worthless masturbating scum! KILL THEM ALL!! RTD IS GOD!!" - Ron Mallet (five minutes after he saw the episode)

"Does anyone else find the Cat Nuns and their wonderful feline grace to be totally and utterly sexy? Their beautiful eyes and lovely feminine features are quite enchanting, their voices soooo pretty. Purr, purr, PURR!! Terribly, terribly sexy kitties. Oh yeah, I would have... Right, I'm off to molest the neighbor’s tortoiseshell feline." - Cat Molester Jones (2006)

"I am most certainly not fan of animal experiments and it seems to me that the morality of vivisection must have struck a chord with RTD and inspired some of the ideas in this story. Which also has got Billie Piper admiring her own boobs. Even the Talons Of Wong-Jing didn't have anything as great as that!" - Dave Restal (2007)

David Tennant Speaks!
"One of the great things about this job is that you get to do stuff you that you don’t get to do in normal dramas; variety being the spice of life and all that. Like fighting evil cat nuns and zombies on alien planets. I’m not a cat person, particularly. I’m not into animals much. They do nothing for me. Shower a cat in love and it says 'sod you' and wander off. I don’t get squishly at the thought of them like some total fools do, and I really wanted to bring that across to the character of the Doctor. Of course this story is all about body swapping, and if I could inhabit someone else’s body for a day, well... I always want to say something terribly pure like 'get George Bush to reverse some policies' but I’d probably go for the dirty option first. It’s where one’s mind initially swings – or maybe it’s just me? Is my mind a sewer? Jings, this has all gotten very Zen, hasn’t it?"

Billie Piper Speaks!
"OOH! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me! I like cold showers – do you need to wet me down a bit? Do I look damp enough? Are you happy with the wetness? You are? WOO-HOOOO! I can’t believe I just said that. Out aloud, anyway."

Russell T Davies Speaks!
"This is very much a fun episode. I thought about opening the series with a dark story, but that would mean I couldn’t get Billie and David dowsed in public until they look like drowned rats and empty cake mix over their heads! Last time I tried that I won the Comedy Writer of the year and the entire room looked at me and demanded, 'WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? BUGGER OFF BEFORE WE SET THE DOGS ON YA!' Why did I write this story? Why do I write anything? I just adore the sound of invading a vacuum! Who the hell says adore, anyway? I’ve never said adore in my life before. Oh my god, I can’t stop! I’m an adorer!"

Trivia -
The past Joan Collins speech goes: "Oh don’t, now stop it, stop it, that’s simply not true. That wasn’t me! That’s a vile rumor! Well, all right, maybe it was me but for Bodley’s sake, don’t tell the Princess, she’d be livid! Oh, she’d be fuming!Hello, how are you? I haven’t seen you in such a long time! You’re such a funny boy, oh yes you are! I can tell! Where did you get your costume? It’s ghastly! I’ve had this dress made especially. It’s marvelous here. I’m so bored. Someone come and say something intelligent to me GOD DAMN IT!"

Rumors & Facts -
Anticipation is a terrible thing. For instance, if I locked you in a room and calmly informed you through a hatch in the door that I planned to return in an unspecified period of time and beat you insensible with a car jack, chances are you wouldn’t enjoy the intervening hours very much, even if I left you a couple of porn mags and some cake. The anticipation of what was to come would cast too much of a pall. You wouldn’t even NOTICE the lovely vase of daffodils I thoughtfully placed on the table, would you? You self-obsessed BASTARD!!

Anyway, my anticipation gland was bursting as I settled down to watch the series opener Earth 2.0, and it left like a used tissue in a Vietnamese whorehouse. With its jarring tonal shifts leaping from high camp, to straight horror, to oleaginous sentimentality without warning as David Tennant popping his eyes out and shouting too much.

I’m not saying it’s a jumbled let-down 10,000 times worse than 98% of the rest of the joyless Formica drizzle-plop you get on the box guaranteed to make easily-spooked kiddy viewers crap their own spines through their bumholes. I’m not saying that. But it’s true.

But to be fair, this story COULD have been brilliant. If only Mr. T had appeared as a guest star.

One of the only successes of Doctor Who’s first season back on the air was The Restaurant At End Of The World. Considerable word of mouth was excited by its vastly far-future setting and plethora of alien creatures, and in particular how it totally ripped off the work of Douglas Adams until powerful laxatives were required.

For the program’s next season, Executive Producer Russell Tiberius Davies was eager to write a sequel since he could simply cut and paste the first script and expect no one to notice the way both begin with Rose abandoning Mickey and Jackie for the TARDIS, followed by flirtatious banter with the Doctor about where they’re going, arrive at a luxurious Alpha Class facility in the far future to meet cosmopolitan collection of characters and aliens including Joan Collins and the Face of Bond; the Doctor’s inexplicable desire to murder Joan Collins, involving undertaking a perilous and pointless journey through the (archaic) inner workings of the luxury facility which comes under seige but the Doctor uses part of the inner workings to 'reset' things, despite fear of legal action, ending with a coda where the Doctor and Rose go on a short journey back in time which proves to be completely gratuitous and camp but contains vital info dumps for the future.

RTD was insanely confident that he could catch lightning in a bottle twice, and also that his script (tentatively entitled "Cat Nun Zombie Body Swap Bond Fest") would be rather good. He also wanted to reinforce for the benefit of any particularly stupid donkey viewers that the change in lead actor from Christopher Eccleston to David Tennant had not fundamentally altered the show, apart from it becoming lightweight children’s TV entertainment with no emotional depth whatsoever. Somehow the Christmas Special having the Prime Minister of Great Britain deposed after a nutter in a dressing gown shouts "Thatcher!" at her didn’t sufficiently reinforce this aspect.

RTD therefore came up with an idea originally called "Faster Pussycat - Cure! Cure!", and decided to bring back the characters of Joan Collins and the Face of Bond and then ruthlessly slaughter the pair of them. This is part of RTD’s British Cultural Agenda to, in his words, "bathe in the blood of our enemies who would dare mock Queer As Folk!"

He also came up with the idea of the Face of Bond (who, it had been implied in the first season’s The Long Haul, was incredibly long-winded) would impart a secret to the Doctor. Since he wanted an excuse to shout at the BBC to keep making Doctor Who, he decided that the secret would not actually be revealed by the Face of Bond, but he would instead keep changing the subject. Thus, the series could not end until Bond revealed the secret, and since he never would, the show would go on and on and on for ever and ever and ever.

Steven Moffat, who had written Shellshock for the 2005 season, observed that Davies was a complete moron and to cut the crap. Thus the Face of Bond actually DID die in the episode rather than leave a contemptibly-predictable plot thread hanging for the next few years. The original scene can still be found somewhere between the jigsaws on the BBC cult website -

Bond: Doctor, you wanted to know what my secret is...
Doctor: Yes?
Bond: Well, come closer...
Doctor: Yes?
Bond: Come closer still...
Doctor: Yes?
Bond: Closer...
Doctor: Yes!?
(The Face of Bond laughs in the Doctor’s hear very loudly and teleports himself away.)
Doctor: You goit! YOU GOIT!!! You’re ALL goits! I’m surrounded by goits! Rose Tyler, you’re a goit!!!
Rose: I’m a WHAT!?
Doctor: You heard!

The first draft of "Intensive Scare At St. Somewherelsewhere" was set in an exclusive private clinic outside Southern Spain, where the Doctor and Rose spy Posh Spice and David Beckham requiring cosmetic surgery. It turns out that Joan Collins herself is behind the clinic, using genetic manipulation for her own naughty ends. Collins captures the Doctor and Rose and intends to eat them when Posh saves them engaging in a bitch fight to the death with Joan Collins until the villa itself explodes in a pointless denouement.

As for Joan Collins herself, RTD intentionally kept her appearances as a stretched skin to a minimum, because these scenes were grueling to computer-animate. Instead, Davies came up with Collins’ ability to take over the bodies of others, which also fulfilled promises to Billie Piper that she would be given a comic role in the new season, and David Tennant’s longstanding desire to play a woman without wearing a dress.

"Escape from New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New Cardiff" formed part of the first production block for the new Doctor Who programme’s second season, which was incredibly appropriate since it was the first story written and set in that same season. They couldn’t have timed it better to be honest, all things considered.

The first sequences filmed for "The Unfrozen Ice Pop Medicine Incident" (as it was quickly renamed) were all those featuring Zoe Wanamaker in person; Wanamaker had thoroughly enjoyed shagging Christopher Eccleston in The Restaurant At The End Of The World and was happy to take an on-camera role in the sequel, but also had very limited availability to the numerous ninja assassins continually attempting to assassinate her.

The Sunshine Camp LSD rave was actually held at the Bar Orient restaurant on Cardiff Bay, until the owner found out about it, whereupon the final pick-up shots were taken at Cardiff Central Police Station where the cast and crew were charged with breaking and entering, disturbing the peace, recording an LSD rave and time paradox in a built up area during the hours of darkness, and contravening the Not In Front Of The Children Act of 1976.

The same day, the departure of the TARDIS from London was recorded elsewhere in Cardiff, at Loudoun Square in Gabalfa before a bunch of white supremacists could set fire to the police box prop or murder Billie Piper for flirting with a coloured gentleman.

Production did not resume until August 22nd, because everyone was recovering from the "Dr Who Cocktail" that RTD had devised (see Groovy DVD Extras), not realizing that RTD suffered from numerous medical conditions that meant it was possible for him to drink an entire wine cellar without getting hungover. The rest of the production team were mere flesh and blood and by the time they were able to recover sufficiently to remain upright, it was well into September the recording block as a whole had fallen badly behind schedule.

As a result, several scenes were dropped from Hawes' plans. Many of these concerned the Duke of New New York and Krau Flovis dispatching zombies with cricket bats and becoming crime-fighting vigilantes who could possibly get their own brand new TV spin-off.

Material in the hospital foyer was performed on September 5th, at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff. Just like pretty much all material in New Doctor Who, really. This is often why scenes from other episodes can be spotted in the background, leading the awkward moment where the Doctor and Rose accidentally walk into shot from an episode of Touchwood, and so Captain Jack’s cameo had to be hastily written into the already-hastily-written plot of "The Sisters of The Plague Hospital of Terror!"

The only work carried out on "The Incredibly Strange Mixed-up Zombies Who Started Living and Became The New Cybermen" over the next two days involved smoke effects at the BBC Model Unit in London. This smoke turned out to be of an illegal narcotic nature, leading to the entire crew being taken to the police station once more!

Finally, after Julie Gardner set herself up as bail guarantor for the entire film crew, recording proper continued in a disused Ely paper mill in Cardiff, which everyone hoped and prayed (ultimately in vain) that no one would notice was the Nestle lair in Ruse. Finally, cast and crew returned to the main Doctor Who studio space, Unit Q2 in Newport, for a week until they found their way out again and exchanged phone numbers. At one point, work had to be interrupted so that repairs could be made to the Face of Bond prop, which had been inadvertently damaged by Piper’s boyfriend. Despite all the 'evidence' in his autobiography, "It’s A Sex God Thing, You Wouldn’t Understand", said boyfriend was not and never will be Nigel Verkoff.

Verkoff however WAS present during filming as he insisted his one-man "Bring Back Adam Mitchell" campaign insisting that if they can bring back a human trampoline after it was set alight and melted into scrap, they could bring back someone turned to dust by the powers of the time vortex! When ignored he set off the sprinklers in the Millennium Centre so he could see Billie Piper in a wet T-shirt, necessitating ANOTHER change of script to explain why Rose was suddenly soaking. When Billie Piper discovered who was responsible, she had a quiet word with Verkoff – and, though no one knows what was actually said, we do know that upon hearing it Verkoff hyperventilated, his nose started bleeding and he promptly hid in a darkened room with a cup of tea, not emerging for a full ten days.

Another remount was required when it was discovered that the Cat Nun costumes simply weren’t working out, and the actresses were often abandoning the script entirely for shouting things like, "AAAAAAAAHH! Get me out of here! I CAN’T BREATHE!" The ultra-realistic practice the design department had come up with involved the actresses putting on balaclavas with live kittens shoved inside so their heads were poking out the top. A more actor-friendly, less cheap and unrealistic cat mask method would be required, but this wasn’t the end of their trouble...

Tragedy struck when the final exterior scenes to be recorded were those hampered by high winds and rain, another attack by the white supremacist and a sudden plague of zombies when Hell became overbooked and the dead were forced to walk the Earth for a long weekend. Not only did this force the zombie hoards to be hastily written into the plot to explain all the milling undead extras, this uncooperative event was not the only misfortune to befall the day's recording: it was belatedly discovered that a camera had malfunctioned during the shoot, resulting in the loss of every bit of footage so far and James Hawes’ screams of fury attracted those pesky KKK members again. Thus, the presence of white-clad figures wrestling with zombies required yet ANOTHER rewrite.

By this point, RTD was uncertain where "Bet You Can’t Stop Looking At Billie’s Tits" should be placed in the season schedule. It was quickly decided that it might be better to begin the season with a story that was actually finished and able to be broadcast, so it was decided to swap it with The Nun In The Lift-Shaft and that "Body Swap Frenzy Of Hissing Cat Nuns Colliding With Diseased Zombies" should be told as a flashback story, possibly over a cup of coffee and some biscuits. Closer to transmission, there was discussion of running The Michaelmas Werewolf first and having the ENTIRE SEASON told in flashback. In the end, however, it was felt that such a move would necessitate too many changes to the BBC paperwork, and so the adventure was kept in the pole position no matter how utterly rubbish it was.

Five minutes before its broadcast, Producer Phil Collinson requested changes to some of the computer-generated effects shots of the hospital exterior, particularly the way it was depicted as being next door to the Powell Estate, which was over five billion years in the past on another planet in a different galaxy. Also, the red cross on the side of the hospitals was replaced with the red crescent from Muslim countries – another symbol of RTD’s fiendish Islamist Agenda.

Finally, on Saturday 15 April 2006, the new series of Doctor Who debuted with Earth 2.0. and kicked the crap out of ITV’s pathetic pretence at opposition, Harry Potter and The Horrifically Naughty Things of Voldemort. Reviews of the episode were generally enthusiastic and sycophantic but in moments the entirety of Who fandom had damned the series as a cheap, confused, childish knock-off of a once great institution, despite the fact it was the exact same cast and crew they’d been applauding four months previously.

Undaunted by the backlash, RTD immediately set to work on yet another story set in the year Five Billion where the Doctor arrives in Knielwos, the prison of New New York where the governor is the Rani and her wardens are in fact the Slitheen! Only Novice Hame (now a convicted cat burglar called Cat Woman) can save the Doctor from the Computerized Mafia!!

Meanwhile, David Tennant continued his baffling desire to sing in every episode, despite the reams and reams of mail asking, begging, pleading and screaming for him to stop as it was unbearably camp and broke the fourth wall completely, ruining everything. Tennant cut through the opposition by pointing out that he could always quit and leave them alone like the last guy they annoyed.

It’s the tenth chance you’ll get
Think you’ve seen it all?
You ain’t seen nothing yet!
In the TARDIS you try to fly
To be a hero, to be the Lord of Time!

IT’S THE TENTH CHANCE YOU’VE HAD
CAN YOU STILL STAND THE HEAT?
CAUSE YOU’LL FACE DEFEAT!
YOUR LIFE WILL BE SO SAD, OH SO SAD!

Do you want to be the Doctor, Doctor? Doctor?
Do you want to be the Doctor, Doctor? Doctor?
You’ll see some parallel worlds
Cybermen, Sarah Jane, and Touchwood
Travel to the very edge of space
And STILL remember:
To save the human race!

IT’S THE TENTH CHANCE YOU’VE HAD
CAN YOU STILL STAND THE HEAT?
CAUSE YOU’LL FACE DEFEAT!
YOUR LIFE WILL BE SO SAD, OH SO SAD!

Do you want to be the Doctor, Doctor? HUH?!
Do you want to be the Doctor, Doctor? HUH?!
Do you want to be the Doctor, Doctor? HUH?!
Do you want to be the Doctor, Doctor? HUH?!