29/30 - The Rats of Tenbury/Lair

4.9 - The Giant Rats of Satsuma!
4.10 - Liar

Aboard the time and relative dimension in space owned... well, kept... by Doctor Who, a smoothe-chested amateur archaeologist is tied to a spit and being slowly rotated over a fire by the ever-fiesty, full-breasted Donna Noble. Am I the only one here getting bored of the little twerp?

Obviously I'm not, as the Doctor cannot even summon up any enthusiasm for Chatham abuse and idly strolls around the control room doing double loops with his yoyo and mumbling "Cats in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin. He muses that perhaps they are going about this whole business dealing with their unwanted companion. Perhaps instead of trying to bugger him to deal with chainsaws, they could perhaps try to, you know, TALK to Ben, communicate and establish an understanding.

Donna, who is listening to this with growing alarm, worries that Doctor is losing his perspective over the fate of Chatham the Scumbag.

"No, Donna!" the Time Lord snaps. "No, I am WIDENING my perspective! That is what I do - that's what makes me me! And if all I can do to deal with this closeted, mysognistic alcoholic is beat him up, then something is VERY wrong!"

Grumbling, Donna nevertheless unties Ben and the Doctor cheerfully offers to indulge the archaeologist. For just one day, Ben is in charge and the TARDIS is his, to go wherever and wherever he wants.

The Doctor's twin hearts sink, however, when he learns that out of all time and space in the known universe, Ben wants to go to Suffolk in 2009 to visit a newly discovered site of a Saxon ship burial.

"Why?" asks the crestfallen Time Lord.

"This is potentially more important than Sutton Hoo!" Ben says snobbily as he drapes himself over the pilot chair and swigs from a bottle of absinthe.

"In what way?"

"Well... it might reveal something of historical significance."

"For Christ's sake," Donna groans, "YOU'RE IN A TIME MACHINE! You can see history in the making, you can see the burial actually happening not just the dirt-encrusted trash in the 21st century!"

The Doctor shrugs and sets coordinates, bitching that once his mighty time ship was more than just a bar capable of relocating itself from one dreary rural English locale to another dreary rural English locale.

The TARDIS arrives on the outskirts of Satsuma, a Suffolk village famous for the bands of intelligent, man-eating rats who regularly make cameo appearances in Doomwatch and also the Saxon burial ground, which has been fenced off with police tape because the BBC are filming an episode of Silent Witness.

The Doctor and Donna brighten immediately, but Ben decides that then the going gets tough, the tough get drunk and demands to go to the local pub, the Slug & Sandwich. There Ben is delighted to meet a man called Brian Ford, who was one of Ben's lecturers at Cambridge.

Upon seeing Ben, Brian screams and runs for it, only to accidentally impale himself on a saxon sword that a local named Pete was juggling with at the time.

As Brian is rushed away in an ambulance, Ben muses on the high mortality rate of his lecturers and, indeed, anyone involved in archaeology. Donna asks exactly why Ben is so interested in such a dangerous profession, but Ben shouts at her to shut her goddamed girl mouth and get him some booze.

The Doctor saves Ben's life by stopping Donna before she can slap him with enough force to break his neck, and buys a round of drinks. Ben drinks them all, then more and more and more.

Finally, the pub is dry and the barman James Deadmeat finally tells Ben if he drinks any more cognac he will turn into a wine bar. Ben replies by insulting James' family and trying to bite his firm young thighs.

James shakes him off screaming, "How dare you, sah! You think I'm just a common barman, do you? I'll have you know I have just finished my history degree at Oxford! I'm just doing bar work until I find a career, and also hide my homosexuality from the world lest my repressive parents find out."

Ben stands up and shouts, "That's realistic! I FIND MYSELF ATTRACTED TO YOU!!"

Unfortunately, he is shouting at the moose head hanging on the wall, and then falls over to be copiously and violently sick all over James, who responds with the classic school bully repeated kick to the head, before violently dragging Ben's body upstairs and out of sight.

The Doctor sighs miserably and turns to Donna. "You were right. We should have stuck to the chainsaw buggery."

Sick of Ben bloody Chatham, his drink problem and his sex life in general, the Doctor and Donna leave the Slug and Sandwich and leave Ben to his fate. Heading back to the TARDIS, they discover that by a curious coincidence Satsuma is in walking distance of a large chemical plant run by MEAPS and brighten immediately at the thought of meeting their old pal Damian Satan. They are then shouted at by a film crew that they are ruining their episode of Silent Witness: "Strange Goings On At The Dig Even Before The Mysterious Deaths".

The Doctor and Donna quickly leave the production team with their equity card-holding dark figures and shapes moving through the Satsuma woods. They then meet a local tramp who is a fully qualified neurosurgeon who prefers his own hours, idly dipping wood voles into a drum marked "HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS - MOST GROSSEST BIOLOGICAL DANGER - ON NO ACCOUNTS LEAVE NEAR TURTLES".

The Doctor notes the warning and points out to the tramp that shoving rodents into highly mutative chemical slime is just whacked.

The tramp's grunt of "What could POSSIBLY go wrong?" is interrupted as a clawed hand emerges from the drum and rips out his throat, spraying gore everywhere in slow motion and Donna screams - not cause she's a wimp, but if YOU got half a guy's face splattered over your shirt, you'd fucking scream as well.

A huge hairy monster hauls itself free from the barrel and the Doctor shakes his head as if confused. "Is it me," he asks Donna, "or is this all incredibly, stultifyingly predictable?"

Donna responds with the theological viewpoint: "SHUT IT AND RUN LIKE FUCK!"

The duo sprint through the trees as the gorillagram lurches through the bushes, CGI-red eyes glowing in a psuedo-credible manner. Luckily the Doctor and Donna are found by two big butch manly MEAPS security guard who bundle them into a landrover at gun point and speed over to the chemical plant.

The Doctor decides to ring Ben up and get him to rescue them. "Let's see how HE likes it!" the Time Lord grins, only to scowl when he finds the bastard has switched off his mobile and is being brutally sodomized by James Deadmeat the barman.

The Doctor and Donna are locked in a holding cell and, for want of something to do, start playing strip poker and are halfway arguing over whether the Doctor can count both his glasses AND hairgel as "double or quits" when suddenly the Plant Director bursts in, wearing an aviator cap and screaming in a foney Japanese accent that today they "make pact to smash enemy freet!" before two orderlies drag him out again.

A second Plant Director enters and explains that the previous Plant Director was some passing nutter and he, however, is a genuine Plant Director and offers his security swipe card to Donna to prove it. He explains that he is here to interrogate them, but as a show of trust, he wishes to make a bargain with them. Suddenly, the Director assumes a stupid Japanese accent and screams "we must smash the western freet at all cost!" before two more orderlies arrive and drag him out.

A third Plant Director arrives and apologizes profusely that the prisoners have been confronted by two passing looneys who happened to both impersonate Plant Directors. This Director not only shows off his swipe card but also his birth certificate, tax records and a letter to him from his mother, specifically mentioning the fact he is the Satmusa MEAPS Chemical Plant Director.

Finally convincing them of his credentials, the Director explains that the ravenous mammals roaming the woods eating tramps is very bad for the business and as the Doctor and Donna are witnesses to this, they must have their demises hastened. But the Plant Director is willing to give them one last chance for survival - if they embrace the People's Reblic of China and aid the Communists in destroying capitalism forever! At this point the Director starts talking in a fake Japanese accent until the orderlies arrive and drag him out as well.

"It's gonna be one of those days," Donna muses.

By now, it is the early hours of the morning and Ben awakes to find himself tied to a bed with various items of fruit forced down orifices he would normally not use. However, he has never been so violently dateraped by a firm-chested Oxford graduate and immediately falls in love with his abductor, who even now is tying the landlord to the bed as well.

There is a strangle rustling noise downstairs, and James fobs it off as just giant rats scampering through the pub, but goes to check on the off chance and is deeply disturbed to discover large animals by the bar and more dark shapes scurrying around the lane outside.

"All right, one drink, and you lot can piss off! It's chucking out time!" James tells the rats, who are his best and regular customers after he scared off all the others by date raping them.

Suddenly, for now apparent reason, Dustbin Khan of the Cult of Fargo materializes in the corner of the room in an emergency temporary shift!

To be continued!


However, the cyborg mutant has no immediate interest in exterminating, insisting he's just popped by for a stiff drink before it gets on with rebuilding the Dustbin Umpire and conquering all of known and unknown space. Over a pint of VB, Khan explains that he and the rest of the Cult had a few creative differences, before bitching he never trusted Leader Sex, who was obviously picking up acorns in the autumn if you know what I mean. After recording an amusing voicemail message for James in lieu of payment for the drinks, Khan temporal shifts to a hidden Dustbin factory in the outer edges of the asteroid belt - and a far cooler and more original story than the one the rest of us mortals have to deal with.

With THAT massive non sequiter out of the way, the plot such as it is goes on.

Ben, realizing giant rats are in the pub, manages to shout and whine and generally be so annoying that the landlord breaks free, releases Ben and hands over his mobile just to shut the blond cunt up for five minutes.

Ben immediately decides to call the police. However, since the Chief Superintendant is, himself, a giant rat, he is a bit put off at this offensive phone call and hangs up on Ben, who sticks to his usual plan of ringing UNIT and hoping they'll sort out the mess. Unfortunately, after the events with the Silly Lurian orgy massacre of episodes four and five, Ben's mobile is sent an insulting SMS message and a raspberry. Ben's eyes moisten with tears and, after removing a bee's nest from his anus, is massively incontinent.

The landlord shouts at him for a long time, the general gist being "I'M not the one who's going to clean up that mess!"

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Donna have dozed off next to each other as the twenty-ninth man claiming to be a Plant Director arrives in the holding cell to carry out an interrogation.

This Director explains that the local giant rats are in fact incredibly stupid eco terrorists who can watch 28 Days Later over and over again and STILL not realize that letting the rage-infected monkeys into the outside world is a bad move. As such, they have been stealing all the plants' waste drums before they can be safely disposed off and then dumping them into a river so they can change the name to Dead Man's Creek and have it all cool and accurate and stuff.

Unfortunately, all the fish, rats and watervoles are mutating into large, aggressive otters who are now rampaging towards the nearby town of Holmton and could kill hundreds, except of course the population of Holmton consists of three: a cow, the cow's split personality, and Allan Prior.

Suddenly, the Director starts screaming in a lame Japanese accent that Chairman Mao is still up to ruling China as long as he can still sing Uptown Girl without life support machinery required. As he demands the TARDIS help him "smash the enemy freet or die in the attempt" when two orderlies arrive and drag him out of the cell. At this point Damian Satan arrives and apologizes for the inconvenience, then realizes he's got a three o'clock golfing tournment to practise for and leaves.

The Doctor and Donna wake up for a moment, look around, then go back to sleep. Suddenly, a woman called Cooper turns up, looking like the Lipstick Librarian and Supernanny had an incredibly psychotic baby. She explains she is the real Plant Director and will prove it not by asking the Doctor and Donna to help her Chinese Communist Party from swarming across the planet, but instead by having them taken out to the delivery yard in plain sight of the Silent Witness film crew and then be shot dead.

The Doctor and Donna are marched up against a wall, the firing squad take aim and fire...

But they've forgotten to load ammunition and the TARDIS crew are thrown back into the cell until the ammo is found and the guards are ready for a second attempt. Tragically, however, this time the guards prove to have such poor aim they shoot each other instead and the Doctor and Donna are thrown back into the cell until Cooper has time to interview some replacements.

Ben meanwhile, has gone distinctly stalker over James who runs out of the village as Ben skips after him, already planning to get married or whatever it's called, and then introduce James to Ben's parents (assuming the private detectives can find them this time) and start up an ethnic cleansing service for chavs. James runs into Holmton, not realizing that it is a hotspot for hairy mutants and Allan Prior's just come up with a new Blake's 7 villain called the Star Otters, a bunch of interplanetary chavs who threaten the Federation because their bling could power an entire battlefleet for a thirteen episode season...

Meanwhile, the giant otters have already swept through Holmton and burst out from all the London sewers to attack everything they can. However, Londoners are one tough bunch of bastards and the bloody massacre that follows claims hundreds of otters but not one human being!

Several babies grab the otters, dragging them into their prams and devour them. The ravenous vermin that overun Starbucks brutally slaughter the giant otters when they try and get a cappucino to go. In one memorable sequence on the Powell Estate, a woman pegging out washing attacks a giant otter and bites off its lower flipper as the other mutants realize that all the hoodies are packing guns and this is WAY too dangerous.

The otters flee back into the town as Ben and James enter it!

Meanwhile, as the fourteenth consecutive attempt to execute the Doctor and Donna goes horribly, horribly wrong, shouts of panic have been heard. The giant rat eco terrorists are attacking the plant, and Cooper grimly admits she's only got herself to blame. If they didn't keep staffing the complex with insane morons who think they're kamikaze plant directors, they might actually have been prepared for this most predictable of disasters. However, they're not.

As the giant rats gnaw through the perimeter fences and run amok with loads and loads of toilet paper, the Doctor and Donna decide it's probably best for them to leave and never mention this again, as frankly, it has to be the most surreal and embarassing rescue ever since UNIT recruited Monty Python and had Terry Gilliam reverse the polarity of the spam flow on the Cybermens' collective metall ass.

As he and Donna reach the TARDIS, they hear a strange pinging sound - Ben is compulsively texting everyone that he has a new boyfriend and they are very much in love and will be together for ever and ever and ever and apparently he has a mouth like a hoover...

Meanwhile, Ben decides that despite his complete lack of any chemistry knowledge or industrial science, that he can create a compound that will revert all the otters into harmless, fluffy bunnies. As the virulent green gas floods the street, Ben embraces his date rapist lover and sobs, "At least we can die together!"

At which point James decides to empty a jar of bolognaise sauce over his body and runs into the middle of the street screaming, "EAT ME, YOU BASTARDS, I'M BEGGING YOU!"

Ben looks on as James is bloodily torn limb from limb by the giant otters who then, inexplicably turn into fluffy bunnies! However, this turns out to be some kind of psychological disorder on Ben's part as all the fluffy bunnies have the face of Jennifer Anniston and start singing at him.

Then, the TARDIS arrives and the Doctor and Donna emerge in no mood to piss about and drag Ben inside the police box, but he suddenly becomes incredibly upset: "Oh God! James is dead! And it's all my fault! It's always my fault! They always go and leave me alone again! And it's because I'm a drunken chav-hating loser who refuses to take any responsibility for my actions whatsoever just cause I've got a degree!"

Ben's eyes fill with tears yet, for some unfathomable reason, doesn't ask Donna to comfort him by stroking his lush blonde hair. Shaking with sobs, Ben turns and runs off into the night, while the Doctor walks off in the opposite direction, back to the TARDIS.

Donna concludes that all the different chemicals have somehow changed Ben's brain chemistry and made him realize he's not the centre of the universe and develop some kind empathy with surrounding humanity. "If he realizes what a fuckwit he's been, he might top himself," Donna exclaims.

The Doctor, ominously, just keeps walking and starts to sing to himself:

"And the cat's in the cradle
And the silver spoon!
Little Boy Blue
And the man on the moon!

When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when
But we'll get together then
You know we'll have a good time then..."

The End?