33 - All Things Must Pass

4.13 - This Story Arc Is Fucked

The season finale begins as all season finales should: with Ben Chatham suffering the cruelest and most disgusting torture ever devised.

His face has been gnawed off by plague-carrying rats as drill bits pierce his skull. His smoothe torso has been scalded and peeled away by white hot barbed wire. His legs are cracked and rash-covered due to the allergic reaction of the UHU holding him to the seat. His peachy bubblebut is now nothing more than a collage of mincemeat and blood as an endless queue of villagers ram electric egg beaters between his legs and switch on. And his smoothe, delicate hands that haven't done a day's work in his life, are now in mini wooden stocks as they are pierced, burnt and removed in intriguingly different ways.

Worst of all, he's not had a drink for three minutes!

Meanwhile, the Doctor is extremely unimpressed at the sight of the Boord and challenges the Wine Peddler to explain what the hell he is doing.

"Oh, you are in no position to lecture me about interfering with humanity. All I am doing is helping them along to their destiny!"

"No, what you're doing is making an arse of yourself. You really think that a bunch of German bondage freaks can somehow stop the Great and Bountiful Human Empires!"

"Why not?" the Wine Peddler shrugs. "Sparthabot will coordinate this civilization!"

"She couldn't coordinate her outfit," Donna sneers. And headbuts Sparthabot again, for good measure, knocking her clean through the wall.

The Wine Peddler laughs camply. "Where did you find this one from? Anyway, you don't know about the incredible secret weapon we came up with!"

The Doctor doesn't even bother to change his expression. "A leather mask."

"Yes! When placed around the human head, it uses kinkytron energy to take over the brain and make them our slaves! We tried it out with a few of the villagers - and when the masks were removed, they were turned into insane, gibbering idiots."

The Doctor yawns. "Did this villagers happen to ALREADY be insane, gibbering idiots?"

"Might be," the Wine Peddler shrugs. "But no one will take the chance, and thus remain our slaves forever. You can't possibly stop me now, Doctor!"

"I could," the Time Lord shrugs. "Whether I can be bothered to is another matter."

Donna stomps forward. "Doctor, I don't care if this bloke was the biggest wanker at your school and seduced your sister! You're not going to let the human race get anal-raped by German S&M freaks to score point against Frankie Howard there! Right?"

The Doctor scowls uncomfortably. "Oh all right. But I want maximum kudos for this."

"All right, no slaps for a month."

The Doctor thinks for a moment. "Fair enough."

Meanwhile, the Wine Peddler delves into his desk and hauls out a plasma-screen TV - cutting edge for 1996, which is where he bought it. "All right, everyone, pull up a chair and watch the Root of Mankind begin!"

The Doctor waves and nods patronizingly at the Wine Peddler until he looks away and he and Donna run under the desk and find themselves in a TARDIS console room identical to the one the Doctor has used since that Big Finish audio with Daphne Ashbrook in it. The Wine Peddler is so occupied watching images of the Boord moonwalking out of MEAPS Enterprizes plants all over England, he doesn't notice his writing desk vanishing with a wheezing, groaning sound.

Meanwhile back at Rubberglove farm, the Boord formally known as Si Borg continues his campaign of equine extermination - Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, finally learns to say "No" to drugs moments before its head is blown clean off its shoulders by the Boord assassin's laser rifle.

Abby arrives back at the farm and finds the queue for tormenting Ben Chatham significantly reduced. She watches as Karl grabs Ben's mangled skull and booms, "Hey, Ben, I huff a sarprize for yoo. Two tickets to see Dafid Bowie live, next marnth, with backstage passes! But that is not your sarprize. This is."

Karl then punches Ben in the face and connects a red battery cable to Ben's tongue.

Just as Ben is about to be electrocuted, Si Borg runs out of horses to kill and he and the Boord legions storm the easily-forgettable, unsympathetic farming protestors, and shove kinky leather masks over their heads.

Suddenly, a horsebox materializes in the corner of the farm, saving Abby from a Boord warrior. The ramp drops down and the Doctor's head emerges. "Abby! Quick! Don't let them get you in a compromizing position!"

Abby pauses for a moment to look lustily at the Doctor in a moment you know was described by RTD in the tone meeting as "squee" and then runs inside, but this distraction has allowed Ben to haul his mutilated, almost zombie-like remains from the chair and, only pausing to pick up Karl's discarded tickets, drags himself into the Wine Peddler's TARDIS as it takes off.

Inside, the Doctor admits to Donna and Abby he doesn't actually have a plan, as he never in his wildest dreams ever thought he'd stumble across three more pathetic enemies than the Wine Peddler, WOMAN/Sparathabot and the Alien Boord. He then notices Ben bleeding in the corner and, disgusted, hits the Fast Return Switch and kicks Ben outside before taking off again.

Ben, half his flesh gnawed, burnt and scraped away, finds himself in the Wine Peddler's office and struggles to text Touchwood... but he is missing too many fingers to succeed! And too much of a drunken moron to remember how to DIAL, it seems that the world is doomed!

The Wine Peddler notices Ben and offers to supply him with some of his patended vinos of mass destruction, but even this Gallifreyan distiller is taken aback as the mortally wounded human croaks out his request:

"Finest... French... absinthe..."

"Hardcore," the Wine Peddler replies, impressed. "Respect!" he adds and smacks Ben on the shoulder in a gesture of solidarity that accidentally shatters Ben's collar bone.

Aboard the TARDIS, a brainstorming session is underway as the Doctor and Donna try to work out exactly who could possibly help them. After dismissing Captain Jack and Touchwood for fear they would join forces with the kinky alien Boord, and UNIT because they actually want some kind of limit to civilian casualties, it rapidly becomes obvious that all the other people that could help would lower their opinions of the Doctor and Donna that they couldn't sort it out themselves.

"If only there were some von Daniken space gods around that could help us out!" Abby wails, pouting cutely.

The Doctor's eyes widen and he realizes that Abby has come up with a bloody good way to tie up an integral story arc. Stealing some components from the Wine Peddler's TARDIS, the Doctor, Donna and Abby board the Doctor's time machine as the first one hurtles through time and space to return to its owner.

Unfortunately, the owner is in a bad way. Ben and the Wine Peddler are engaging in a game of Not the Nine O'Clock News Darts, which involves the players blindly grabbing three glasses from a table stocked with different alcoholic beverages and drinking them. The one who can get most pissed in fifteen minutes without throwing up is the winner. However, the Wine Peddler's Time Lord DNA cannot cope with all the triple vodkas, pints of mild, gin with ice and lemon, while Ben is using his breaks to drink more bottles of absinthe.

"What is WRONG with you?" the Wine Peddler slurs before falling over.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS reappears in New Atlantis, Milton Keynes. Immediately the native Elians flee in fear, until the Doctor emerges with a loudspeaker shouting "Don't panic! Ben Chatham is not here! You're safe! Nothing to worry about!"

Donna locates one of the bug-eyed Elians is Chairman Sugent and rugby tackles him.

Desperately, the Doctor explains that England is being overrun by oversexed bondage freaks and he is fresh out of ideas. Meanwhile, Abby goes through the motions of pointing at things and going, "That's an alien! That's a spaceship! That's a relative osmosis dampener!" but she is so damn cute, I forgive her her failings. She might be a Mary Sue, but at least she's a sweet Mary Sue.

Anyway, Sugent drums his freakishly long fingers against his lipless mouth. "Well," he muses. "There is one chance. You see, while we were shaping the destiny of mankind, we were worried that irresponsible greed and mindless technological advance would destroy the Earth, so we build a telepathic fail safe which would force humanity to en mass reject technology and concentrate on repairing the environment."

"Why hasn't it already kicked in?" Donna demands.

Sugent shrugs. "Well, we put the coin in, but nothing happened..."

"Never mind, I can fix anything," the Doctor says with his usual macho posturing as he suggestively waggles his sonic screwdriver in the camera lens. Subtext? What subtext? "Where is this failsafe?" he asks.

Sugent points to the battered Smeg fridge in the town square and the Doctor immediately runs over to it. "But you don't just kick it," he calls out after the trio. "It needs to be programmed properly... oh, fine. Don't listen to me. I just helped homo sapiens colonize Gondwana. I'm no one important. Stupid hominid bastards."

The Doctor rushes over to the fridge and examines it. It seems to be a perfectly ordinary refridgerator except for the inscription saying "Qui Me Tangit Turbat Mundum" where the brand logo should be.

"Whoever Touches Me Unbalances The World," the Doctor translates for any dumbasses in the audience who expect basic latin to be translated by the TARDIS telepathic circuits. He then starts violently kicking the fridge until Donna and Abby topple the thing over and smash it open with an axe. Coolant sprays everywhere.

"Right," the Doctor says happily. "THAT should sort everything out with no unwanted side effects. We better check up on the Wind Peddler."

As the trio return to the police box, Sugent stares at the wrecked fridge.

"WHY DOES NO ONE FUCKING LISTEN TO ME?" he screams at the heavens.

Meanwhile, the game of NTNON Darts has gone badly. Now completely pissed out of his skull and off his face, the Wine Peddler comes to the conclusion that the only way for him to win the game is to become human, since the apparently human Ben Chatham has a higher resistance to alcohol.

Working on this bent logic, the Wine Peddler plugs himself into a Chameleon Arch, but accidentally takes a bottle of Ol Janx Spirit with him, and the machinery malfunctions. Rather than transforming the Wine Peddler into a human being with a fake personality who just happens to be identical to his old body, the Wine Peddler is transformed into a giant bottle of Voxnic, which Ben stumbles across and then drinks dry before falling over.

Outside, the TARDIS emerges and the trio emerge. "You know," the Doctor muses, "as dues ex machinas go, this is pretty poor quality isn't it?"

"Like a hobnob when you've dunked in lukewarm tea for too long," Donna agrees.

"Exactly. What?"

"Well, it's nice at first, then it just turns to mush."

"Oh. Good metaphor," Abby opines.

Donna blushes. "Thanks. It's my first."

The Doctor, Abby and Donna stumble across the drunken, zombified remains of Ben Chatham hugging an empty industrial-sized bottle of Voxnic, and note with distate the useless layabout has gotten completely hammered yet again.

"Where's the Wine Peddler?" Donna asks.

The Doctor shrugs. "Dunno, don't care."

"But he's slipped away without any comeback!" Donna complains.

"He's still a natural born loser, what more comback do you need? I mean, two lonely survivors wandering the universe doesn't have the same ring to it, but I'll just keep saying I'm the Last of the Time Lords until the Rani shows up again..."

Donna shakes her head. "We've been building up to this for the whole season and he's pissed off in the first five minutes?!"

"This story arc is fucked," Abby agrees, politely using the story title in dialogue.

The Doctor pulls up a chair, using Ben as a makeshift footstool (and mixing in mud to all those open wounds), and decides to watch the total obliteration of the Boord, as the telepathic field makes humanity irresistable to alien influences, and finally agree to acknowledge life on other worlds and forget the whole racial intolerance thing. "Twenty-first century is when it all changes," Donna drawls.

The Doctor stares at her. "Is that supposed to sound like Captain Jack?" he asks.

"Yeah."

The Doctor returns to watching the screen. "Shithouse," he decides.

Ignoring the dying Ben Chatham's muffled sobs for medical attention, the trio watch the plasma TV as the Boord are wiped out as ordinary people all over England run out into the streets with hammers, spades and inflatable sex dolls - whatever they can get hold of - and, as if gripped by some force, kill the Boord en mass. Proving themselves the most pathetic monsters in Doctor Who, the amazingly ineffectual Boord are defeated in under a minute by spade-weilding rural folk.

"Right, under-used monsters killed off before they can shine, check," Abby notes.

However, the rampage doesn't stop and the mobs start to smash machinery and technology instead, and Abby picks up Ben and uses him to smash the plasma TV. She explains she has no idea why she did it, but a strange craving to smash up busses.

Donna sighs. "I suppose there isn't just the slightest chance that instead of making everyone open-minded, tolerant and hypnosis-proof, knackering that fridge hasn't just instead compelled them all to destroy all electrical possessions in a violent rage of anti-technology ludditism?"

The Doctor looks at Donna, then at out the window as the streets become filled with angry mobs intent on overturning vehicles, smashing electrical machinery and destroying buildings.

"Just the slightest chance," he decides after a while. "Maybe. Oh God, Peter Dickenson told me there would be days just like this..."

Ben tries to move things off his shattered back: "Doctor, the whole country is in the grip of this force..."

The Doctor glares down at him. "I know."

"OK, it's ended the Boord threat, but if it continues we''ll be thrown back into the stone age!"

"I know."

"All machinery is being destroyed!"

"I know!"

"Everyone is doing it!"

"I KNOW!"

"They're all at it in the courtyard!"

"Ooh er," says Abby helpfully.

Just then, the Sparthabot runs inside and bolts all the doors. "WUT SI HAPENNG??????!?? LOL" she screams. "THES SI MOST IR3GULAR!!11!11! OMG LOL I FIND IT STRANGA!!!!1111 WTF AVEN D3ATH HOLDS NO FEAR FOR TH3M!1!1111! OMG THES SI SUPREMELEY IENFICEINT!1!!1!!1 WTF"

It turns out the MEAPS hired goons have gone beserk, smashing equipment and fighting with invisible giraffes both armed and dangerous. As this rip off of Peter Dickinson's "The Changes" trilogy increases, the union reps are are thrown into a self-destructive orgy of self-hate.

"HOLEY SHIT!!1!!! OMG LOL" the Sparthabot exclaims. "THERE AL D3LATNG EACH OTHER IN A MAS MUTUAL SUICIED!!11! WTF LOL"

"Mutual suicide?" Abby groans. "That's called 'killing each other', actually."

"KINDLEY DO NOT INTERUPT NUMBNUTS!" the Sparthabot snarls, before miserably peering out the window. "WUT SI THIS?!!!!! WTF MAH PERF3CT RAEC OF SEX SLAEVS!1111!1!!!1!!!!!! LOL DESTROYNG ITSELF!!1!1!!11 OMG WTF LOL THES SI DOWNRIGHT INCONVENEINT!111111 OMG WTF!" The android sticks her head out the window and shouts, "KINDLEY GROW UP AND S2P BNG SO INSECURA!1!1!11!! OMG GAT BAK 2 WORK FOR ONC3 U TYPICAL AEP-DESC3NDAD MAELS!!1111 WTF"

Unfortunately, this man-hating heap of transistors has earned the ire of the rioting mob, who promptly charge the office with machine guns and start kicking down the door. Donna desperately suggests maybe Damian Satan could save them.

"Weren't you paying attention?" the Doctor snaps. "Satan was the Wine Peddler all along."

"Yeah, but that still don't make sense," Donna reminds him.

"Well, the guy was always cracked in the head. Mad Mortimus we called him at school, well, actually we didn't call him anything, just gave him wedgies, but still..."

The luddites break into the room and aim their machine guns at their former android employer, but the Doctor dives in front of the Sparthabot because on a level, he mistook her for Martha Jones, who he actually liked.

"Wait!" he shouts. "Those machine guns count as machinery! The clue is in the name!"

The mob look at their Uzi pistols, scream, drop them, and start to smash the guns apart instead, totally ignoring their prisoners as they run into the police box. By holding onto the Sparthabot's leg, Ben is hauled inside, losing another layer of skin in the process.

"Thank God that worked," the Doctor notes as he sets the time machine in motion. "That would have been a dreadful season cliffhanger."

As the TARDIS fades away, a huge fire starts in the research centre, and thanks to corporate cut backs, there are no sprinklers and the Sparthabot's computer empire is totally and utterly destroyed forever, no returns. Not even Faction Paradox could save this company from liquidation!

Aboard the time machine, the Doctor, Donna, Abby and the Sparthabot ignore the spreading pool of blood from Ben Chatham as he begins to shuffle off this mortal coil.

The Doctor decides to summarize events. "Right, so the Wine Peddler's unleashed a Boord invasion force, but now he's buggered off.."

"It was me," Ben wheezes. "I defeated him! It was all me! Ruffle my hair!"

"Seriously," Abby asks, "why do you think people queueing up to ruffle you hair anyway? Have you EVER known anyone do that in real life?"

"I live in hope," Ben sobs.

"NOT FOR LONG BUSTER!111! WTF LOL" says Sparthabot and grinds the heel of her boot through Ben's crotch until it pierces him and james in the grilled flooring of the control room.

Ow.

The Doctor ignores this as he runs around the control room in circles, talking at a hundred miles an hour. "Right, so this previously unmentioned alien artefact that has never even been hinted at before from Earth's prehistoric past planted by aliens has caused humans to turn on technology but a plus is that the Boord invaders have been destroyed by humans with machine guns and spades. Argh! This situation recognizes no logic whatsoever! Ergo, we've got to be totally illogical. Donna, Abby, think, what could be the most unlikely way out of this?"

"Uh, I dunno," Abby shrugs. "Maybe those aliens built a big off switch."

"YES!" the Doctor screams, running his hands through his hair. "That's it! And, where would be the last place we'd expect it to be?"

"Probably right here in Wiltshire," Donna suggests.

"BELLISIMO!" the Doctor shouts, bouncing up and down and reprograms the TARDIS computer to scan the countryside as Sparthabot hangs Ben on the hatstand and starts to use him as a punching bag.

"Oi! Tryna work!" Donna shouts over Ben's agonized screams of "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME, I HAVE A FIRST FROM CAMBRIDGE!"

"Crikey, would you Adam and Eve it me old apples and pears!" the Doctor mockneys in amazement. "Not only is this telepathic field being rerouted through a relay with an off switch, it's coming from Silbury Hill!"

"Where?" asks Abby, confused.

"Dunno, never heard of it before, but it's in Wiltshire of all places! I mean, for crying out loud, what are the odds of an invisible force emanating from a totally superfluous locale within walking distance!"

"If... whatever is causing... this is inside that hill... you're stuffed," Ben wretches. "Look at the size of it!"

The Doctor rolls his eyes. "Well, we either begin a frantic search or let the catastrophic chain of events set mankind back hundreds of years."

Ben groans. "Oh well, All Things Must Pass."

"Bollocks!" Donna shouts, and kicks him. "What a piece of defeatest crap! You're just gonna accept this, are you? Why fight it if you're gonna die? You're whole life is a total waste of time, and "All Things Must Pass" just about sums that up!"

The TARDIS materializes outside the hill and Donna and Abby run around looking for a way in while the Doctor orders the Sparthabot to remove Ben from the hatstands before he gets any more blood on the TARDIS floor. As the android does so, the Doctor spots some abandoned archaeology equipment and nicks it.

"Doctor," Ben wheezes desperately. "I'm an archaeologist... I am... aware... that there is an old shaft... round the other side of the hilll... dates back to the 1930s... Argh! Currently being... re-excavated! I visited here... only a few weeks ago..."

The Doctor stares at him. "Dur! What do you thing all that equipment is for?"

Abby and Donna run back into view. "Hey, Doctor! We found an entrance!"

"What?" Ben gurgles.

"Yeah," Abby adds, "it's not that big a hill. We just ran around and followed the earth movements to the excavation sites!"

"I wanted to do that!" Ben sobs in pain, but everyone ignores him.

The Doctor grins. "Abby, you're priceless! Come on!"

Ben is left to rot where he falls, whimpering at the fact no one has praised him. "What about me?" he moans.

"O U?!!???! OMG WTF UR WORTHLAS BN CHATHM!" the Sparthabot explains, and punches him in the head with enough force to break every bone in his body, then drags him off by his once-luminous blonde hair.

The group reach the other side of the hill and enter the open shaft with a wooden workmen entrance. Ben screams in pain as he is roughly dragged inside, leaving his intestines stuck on a rock, so his digestive tract acts as a ball of thread in a greek maze of dark, musty shaft.

"Do you think he's dead?" Abby asks.

"Hope so," Donna replies. "Mind you, it could be a bit more horrible, with Cybermen dancing on his corpse wearing top hats!"

"Or on fire so everyone he's ever met can walk past him and not even piss on him?" Abby suggests happily.

"Or, we could get a bikie in a leather jacket to do the Charleston on Ben's grave every year," the Doctor muses before shaking his head. "No time for merriment. World to save. As usual."

As they move, the Sparthabot occasionally kicks Donna and Abby in the head and pretends its accidental. "Spartha," says Donna after the third time, "please do the world a favour and fucking shoot yourself!"

"HOW RUDE!!!11 WTF" is the Sparthabot's winning retort.

"Christ, are you a bloody five-year-old or something?" Abby demands.

The mismatched group follow through a stone doorway as exactly described by Peter Dickinson in "The Weathermongers" and find a 1980s glowing lightning ball crackling with purple goodness. A huge hologram of a tanned Elian dressed in a blond wig, flowing robes and brown clogs corporealizes at the heart.

"Ooh!" the Doctor grins. "One of George Adamski's Space Brothers! I won't have seen them until the ninetieth century!"

"BEHOLD, HUMANITY! AT LEAST, I ASSUME THAT'S WHO'S SEEING THIS. I HOPE I REMEMBERED TO OPEN THE HILL SO THE WHOLE PLANET CAN SEE THIS RECORDING. OTHERWISE THINGS MUST JUST GET A LITTLE BIT CONFUSING... ANYWAY, I AM MESSAR OF THE SILKY-SMOOTH ELIAN RACE. BIG US UP. GO ON. BIG UP. TO YOUR ANCESTORS, WE WERE THE GODS FROM THE STARS. WE WERE LIKE THE FRICKEN FONZ, THAT'S HOW COOL WE ARE. SINCE WE HAD NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAT WEEKEND, WE IMPARTED WISDOM AND GAVE YOU KNOWLEDGE. COURSE, YOU MIGHT HAVE USED THAT KNOWLEDGE TO BE ALL GREEDY AND IRRESPOSIBLE, SINCE WE NEVER ACTUALLY TOLD YOU WHAT TO DO WITH THE INFO..."

"Can we fast forward through this bit?" asks Abby hopefully.

"WELL, ANYWAY, WE PLANTED WITHIN THIS INCREDIBLY CONVENIENT AND OVERLOOKED MOUND OF NO SACRED IMPORTANCE WHATSOEVER, THIS GROOVY LIGHTNING BALL. NOW, IF YOU ARE SEEING THIS, YOU HAVE EITHER BROUGHT YOUR ENVIRONMENT TO THE POINT OF IRREPRABLE DESTRUCTION OR ELSE SOME PRATT KNOCKED OVER THE FRIDGE IN NEW ATLANTIS..."

The Doctor realizes everyone is looked pointedly at him.

"What?!" he demands.

"... AND THIS PROTECTIVE DEVICE WILL ENSURE THE HUMAN RACE WILL NOT SURRENDER ITSELF TO MACHINE RULE AND ENSURE THAT YOU BACK TO THE START."

The Doctor sucks his teeth and scratches his ear. "Well, looking on the BRIGHT side... it's not actually make anyone forget how to build technology, does it? So it'd be a massive inconvenience for a few decades, but you'd be up and running again pretty quickly."

"Decades?!?" Donna exclaims.

"So? I mean, it's not like it's beyond anyone's lifespan, is it? Except maybe his," the Doctor shrugs and the Sparthabot body-slams Ben.

"IN SHORT," the hologram continues, "BASICALLY, I'M JUST A RANDOM ALIEN WHO'S ALL ANTI-TECH USING RANDOM TECH TO STOP RANDOM HUMANS USING TECH RANDOMLY. IT'S JUST RANDOM, BASICALLY."

"Yeah," Donna grunts. "Random to the point of stupidness."

"SO, JUST IN CASE THIS IS A WHOLE MISUNDERSTANDING AND YOU DON'T NEED A STERN TELLING OFF... SORRY, BUT WE JUST ASS-FUCKED YOUR CIVILIZATION. OOPS."

"What a useless bunch of demigod aliens!" Abby shouts.

"IT'S OK. YOU'RE UPSET, I'M NOT TAKING OFFENSE."

"It makes... perfect sense... to me," Ben wheezes. "It's a... powerful eco-message... within an entertaining context... and a mystery going back to neoilithic times..."

"What powerful eco-message?" asks the Doctor, lost.

"There... is only... one... eco-message... one plain... and simple eco-message... POLLUTION IS BAD!" Ben screams suddenly. "DON'T FUCK UP THE PLANET!!!"

"What, 'Give a hoot, don't pollute!? Damn you're easy to impress, Ben Chatham," Abby complains, shaking her head. "This thing won't stop until every machine has been smashed!"

"ONLY ENGLAND THOUGH, IF THAT HELPS," the hologram offers.

Ben is concerned, since the thought of potential armageddon can be slightly worrying to those with nervous dispositions. "Oh no," he croaks, "what about my Bowie CDs! I shall never... listen to them... again!"

"ULL NAVAR LISTEN 2 THEM ANYWAY CULTURA BOY!!111!1 WTF LOL" the Sparthabot jeers. "UR DYNG RAMEMBR?!?!!!?11!!!11 OMG LOL"

"Oh, yes, so I am," Ben sighs in as refined a way as he can with his lungs punctured.

"Stop panicking you lot," the Doctor reminds them. "For I have this!"

He holds up a strange device glowing with disco power.

"The Tuning Fork of Rassilon!"

Instantly the alien machinery stops dead and a quick montage shows everyone going back to normal. Inside the Hill, the hologram is shaking its head in abject disbelief. "THAT IS JUST FUCKING STUPID! I MEAN, A FORK?! OH, COME ON!!"

"Hey, is it my fault your technology is so heartbreakingly pathetic?"

"YEAH, GUESS I'M RUINING MY OWN STREET CRED AS ONE COOL ALIEN CAT IF I LET THE FACT MY ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY IS INSTANTLY DISABLED BY A FORK PHASE ME EVEN FOR A MOMENT."

"Don't worry," the Doctor consoles the hologram. "We won't let on."

"OH WELL. HOWEVER, LET THIS BE A LESSON TO ALL HUMANITY!"

"Humanity can't actually see you," Donna reminds the hologram.

"OH. WELL, PASS THIS ON, WILL YOU? USE YOUR TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE YOUR ENVIRONMENT BUT NOT TO DESTROY THAT ENVIRONMENT OR CHANGE THE CLIMATE! AND KEEP IT RESTRICTED, MRS THATCHER, OR IT COULD BE THE START OF A NUCLEAR WAR!"

"Thank you, People's Poet, we'd never actually work that out for ourselves," Abby laughs as the hologram of the glam rock alien finally disperses.

The Doctor throws the lightning globe up into the air and catches it. "One problem - we now have a surpless of energy that needs to be used or it will go critical and take half the Earth with it. So, how to dispose of the surpless? We could create a parallel universe, I suppose. Nah, not enough time, and pretty fiddly to do. I know, we can make Christmas Eve last for a whole week? I suppose I could just channel it through a dimensional portal into the time vortex to dissipate harmlessly..."

Stumbling to his stumpy feet, Ben grabs the lightning globe off the Doctor.

"Oi!" Donna complains.

"I know what to do with it!" Ben gurgles. "I'm not going to die like this... killed by a bunch of girls..."

"Y NOT?!?!! WTF SEMS PRETY APROPRIAET 2 ME!!1! WTF LOL" the Sparthabot chips in.

"I'm going to use... the excess energy... to save me..."

The Doctor shakes his head, rubbing his eyes. "That is really not a good idea."

The delirious Ben ignores him. "Still... if Lee Williams can be... young... and strong... then so can I..."

"You're playing with fire, Ben..."

"Benjamin... James... or was Sebastian? No, pretty sure it was James..."

"Seriously, you're gonna regret this for the rest of your life..."

"Anyway, Ben Chatham... reborn!"

"OK, go ahead, just don't come crying to me, though."

With a crash of thunder, lightning emerges from the globe and strikes Ben Chatham in the smoothe chest, again and again. Energy suffuses his being, his body stiffening as the rejuvenation takes hold, every cell in his body changing as he screams in an incredibly pathetic and girly fashion as he suffers the unimaginable agony of the process.

Unless, you know, you've accidentally stubbed your toe, then it's not so unimaginable agony.

Quite imaginable in fact.

Actually, stubbing your toe hurts worse than that, but we all know was a total wuss Ben Chatham is, so never mind that now.

As the Doctor, Donna, Abby and the Sparthabot watch on, Ben Chatham's eyes burn with power, as the old retinas (useless from eons of self abuse) are seared clean, hair pushing its way out of a fresh scalp, bones being ripped apart by a fire, before rearranging as muscles knitted over and around them. Violent muscular sparms and convulsions run through him - arguably the most exercise he's had in years, as his spine stretches, then telescopes, then lengthens again before the bone structures and features of his face go into a mad convulsion and reshape themselves into new positions with immensely painful and satisfying-sounding snaps and crunches as Ben seems to fall into an unravelling vortex of colour, shape and light, plunging into oblivion as his skin tingles and itches as the very essence of his being shifts and changes, the vortex expanding in an instant to flood every pore, every atom of his so-called existence, then his excuse for a mind.

Strange thoughts and desires flood the writhing Ben Chatham's consciousness, battling with each other until they get turned on as they all get sweaty, while some pop off for a shower and resurface later much refreshed. A momentary alien feeling of love and friendship; the familiar impulses to kill and to destroy all chavs; a sudden appreciation of gymnastics, of the Mickey Mouse club; and an obscure desire to wear a school girl uniform. Blinded by the pressure in his head, the pain reaches an overwhelming crescendo.

The fiery blaze disperses, and the rejuvenated Ben Chatham falls unconscious to the ground in undignified heap next to the empty glass sphere.

The others exchange looks and burst into uncontrollable, hysterical laughter.

"Well, then, all's well that ends well!" the Doctor crows. "Civilization saved, the Wine Peddler dealt with, the Boord destroyed, all the loose ends tied up!"

"AXCUES ME!111!11 WTF LOL" the Sparthabot rants. "MIGHT I REMIND U TAHT IM STIL AROUND!1!1!1!!! OMG U THRE SHUD S2P ACTNG SO IMATURE AND PAY ATENTION!11!!1! OMG"

The Doctor, Abby and Donna turn to face the Sparthabot and smile at her in a very VERY scary way.

We see a silhouette of Silbury Hill as we hear the sonic screwdriver buzzing, the Sparthabot scream "GROW UP!!!1!", a massive explosion and the sound of the English-speaking world rejoicing that the bitch is gone!

Fade to black.

...

Finally, Ben wakes up groggily, stark naked in the furthermost corner of the TARDIS control room as the Doctor and Donna plan a holiday trip to introduce Abby to the universe as she hangs the severed head of the Sparthabot on the wall to act as a dartboard.

Annoyed at the fact they're paying attention to a woman with no degree, Ben coughs very loudly. They all turn to the source of the noise and start giggling again. "Do you mind?" Ben asks, ignoring the strange new voice the amateur archaeologist now possesses. "Now, Doctor, since I have created a brand new physical form for myself, I think it's high time I went back the Cambridge rather than wasting frivolous time with you and Kebab face here."

"Oi!" Donna snaps.

"Besides, I have two tickets to see Bowie live, with backstage passes, next month. So, you three should propose a toast to me because of my incredible knowledge of the excavation work at Silbury. Go on. Raise your glasses to me. I'm better than you."

The Doctor stares at Ben. "You want to go and see Bowie?"

"Yes."

"You mean, seeing David Bowie far from the height of his powers somehow appeals more to you than travelling through time, space, death and reality in an alien spaceship that's bigger on the inside? You want to see that arrogant little ponce, whose real name was David Jones, perform Glass Spider rather than travel beyond the boundaries of the known continuum?!"

"This isn't very fair. Glass Spider is one of Bowie's most underrated 80s songs. Those lyrics work on several levels and can be read as a metaphor for growing up. The Glass Spider Tour isn't one that I remember fondly, and having viewed the recent DVD of it, in retrospect it was awfully Spinal Tap. However the song was superb. Not yuk heavy metal."

"What's wrong with heavy metal?" asks Abby, confused.

"It's not David Bowie, for a start," Ben sniffs.

"Excuse me," the Doctor growls with dangerous calm. "You want to abandon sailing the tides of time and exploring the universe to see David Robert Jones, an illegitimate Yorkshire git who changed his name to a lethally sharp knife just so people wouldn't mistake him for one of The Monkees? A cross-dressing, guitar-raping, cocaine-abusing mincing pratt who ruined 'Dancing in the Street' forever after he tried to out-camp Mick Jagger? You want to go and see him - not during a period of time when he was actually any good, but in 2009, when this paragon of rock spent thirty six thousand pounds on legal fees so he could sue a member of the audience for 'looking at him in a funny way' between guest appearances in 'Kath and Kim' and 'Roland the Rat: The Next Generation'?"

Ben avoids the issue. "I know I'm a very useful assistant to you because you're so busy..."

"YOU WANT TO SEE BOWIE RATHER THAN TRAVEL THROUGH TIME AND SPACE?!?" the Time Lord explodes.

"Yes!"

"FINE!" the Doctor roars, reprogramming the TARDIS.

"I know you'll be lost without me," Ben says smugly.

"You think I'm going to miss a drunken loser who would rather see David Bowie than go on the trip of a lifetime?" the Doctor roars.

"I know my role as your intermediary with Torchwood and UNIT is vital..."

"No it isn't!" the Doctor reminds us. "I've got the Brigadier and Captain Jack for that, I don't need an intermediary, and I certainly don't need to go running to them every time things get a bit hairy!"

"My knowledge of archaeology led you into Silbury Hill!" Ben protests.

"No, it didn't."

"Well, it would have if those two palsied harridans weren't stealing oxygen from more deserving people like me! I'm a major companion..."

"No, Rose was a major companion. You are a foot fungus! How could any "major companion" leave the TARDIS for Bowie of all people! For that nancy, mascara-wearing Nazi sympathizer, jumping from one bandwagon to another! I mean, Ozzy Osbourne I could have coped with, the frontsman of the band that SPAWNED heavy metal..."

"And he might bite Chatham's head off," Donna points out.

"It is absurd to place Ozzy Osbourne on the same level as Bowie," Ben snorts. "I've nothing against the guy but he's basically a run of the mill heavy metal type with an amusing personality wheras Bowie is a major cultural icon."

"Who is this Bowie, anyway?" asks Abby.

"SHUT UP!" Ben snaps. "Seeing Bowie will be great for me, as he is appropriately enough one of my musical heroes, and he has no doubt heard all the FABULOUS rumors circulating about me. And it will be a brilliant ratings draw. Yes, I think it will be an interesting and amusing experience that will really add to my characterisation, which is very important in my new body."

"So, you're not worried about it being crass, pointless, moronic waste of time then?" asks Abby, gnawing at her knuckles.

"No," Ben sneers, distasteful at being spoken to by a commoner.

"I don't think Bowie is going to happy to see you," Donna grunts. "Not the way you look now?"

"I still have luminous blonde locks, don't I?" Ben demands.

Donna and Abby giggle and nod.

"And rose petal lips?"

Donna and Abby giggle and nod.

"And a peachy bubblebut?"

Donna and Abby giggle and nod.

"And my smoothe chest?" Ben asks, before looking down and noticing that the chest is far from smoothe. Ben also proves how slow on the uptake he is as he notices that he is no longer a man, but a woman - albeit it a blonde one with rose petals lips and a peachy bubblebut - and has been strutting around the console room stark, bollock-less, naked for the whole scene without realizing it!

"No!" she queals in horror. "What the fuck happened to me?"

"Turns out you only needed a tiny bit of energy to fix your body," Abby explains happily, "and the rest of the energy got bored with nothing to do, so it... uh, made a few improvements."

"On the bright side, you don't have to hide being gay any more, since you're built for shagging blokes," Donna honks in his face.

Ben (or is that Benita) runs a hand through her long blonde hair, frantic. "But I can't meet Bowie like this! How is he going to ruffle my hair and thank me me for saving the world and tell me how special I am if I'm a useless, ovarie-carrying brood mare like the rest of this foul gender!"

The Doctor violently lands the TARDIS and rounds on the newly-discovered transsexual. "I've had enough of this, Ben Chatham. If you want to get anywhere in this universe, you don't need degrees from Cambridge or a freakish lack of body hair! You need intelligence, resourcefulness, compassion and an ability to be proactive if you want to save the day. Doing hardly anything that doesn't involve intelligence or thought won't get you heroic popularity!"

He crosses to Ben and jabs the graduate in the shoulder. "You, Ben Chatham are lame, unlikable, embarassing and pitible! You're a cold, arrogant, objectionable, supercilious, show-off, punchable little know-it-all gobshite scumbag! And anyone who says different is taking the piss! So, you can keep up your unnerving self-idolization as you ceaselessly salivate over your own impotence as you wander around stale and unexciting locales, but don't think I'm going to get involved in them EVER again! You DIDN'T save the world, you didn't do ANYTHING, so that is all the bloody credit you're ever going to get. I give up on you, Chatham. So go out there and enjoy the sound of Heroes and your backstage passes and start pickling your brand new liver, but you will never see me or the TARDIS ever again!!"

Ben is taken aback as the Doctor, Donna and Abby shove her out the TARDIS doors to emerge backstage at a Wiltshire outdoor concert. "But you can't let me wander around naked in public! They'll think I'm some kind of girl!"

"You are some kind of girl," Donna reminds her.

Ben looks around, frantic as the others re-enter the time machine. "Aren't you going stay to watch Boiwe kiss me and praise me for hours while we enmjoy hardcore gay sex between with his best hits playing over the background?"

"Oh no, we've got all of time and space to explore," the Doctor grins. "Can you imagine silver leaves waving above a pool of liquid gold containing singing fishes? Twin suns that circle and fall in a rainbow heaven, another world in another sky? And all of that will be the dullest part! Me, Donna and Abby are going to see wonders that no human has ever dreamt possible. You, however, will stay behind and regret it for the rest of your life!"

The police box doors slam in her face and the time machine loses substance and colour, its bleached, intangible form hurtling out of Earth's gravity well and into the depths of time and space.

Inside, the Doctor finishes setting coordinates. "Allonzee! Next stop, the Galea Galaxy, nice and interesting to get you used to time travel, eh, Abby?"

"Cool! Do we need spacesuits?"

"More sort of space anoraks..."

"You sure that's the last we've seen of Ben?" asks Donna worriedly.

"You betcha," the Doctor booms. "DNA profile logged, so from now on the TARDIS can only land where he isn't!"

"What do you think will happen to him?" asks Abby.

"Who cares?" the Doctor replies, resetting the console. "Now, promise me you two - no one refers to that bastard ever, ever again. Next stop, Freedom City!"

Back on Earth, Ben is having a temper tantrum at the spot the TARDIS stood. Curiously, as she adapts to her new body, some of her characteristics (like her incredibly pedantic speach patterns) start to fade, as if the new Ben Chatham is slowly but surely shaking off the old version...

"Fine!" she shouts a thin air. "It was ME who saved the day! The rest of you lot are complete redundant! You're only there to drink toasts to ME! To kiss ME! Applaud ME! And, you know, take ME to Bowie Concerts! You are MY worshippers, basically, you piles of offal! I am an intellectual GIANT in the body of a cute PUPPY, you loo-hoo-zer-hers!"

Ben strides up to a roadie who blinks in confusion, as if he recognizes her.

"I'm here to see Bowie personally so he can say, 'Hi, Ben, I'm so pleased that you could come to my show tonight! Thanks for saving the world! You really are special!' and then he can ruffle my hair and I can blush appreciatively."

The roadie blinks and shouts over his shoulder, "Hey, Dave, we got some mentally-handicapped young girl who's come to her first concert. You want to greet her, call her 'special' and ruffle her hair?"

"Yeah, why not?" replies Ziggy Stardust as he finishes his drink and leaves his dressing room with a dazzling smile.

"Hey," Ben complains. "I'm not some dumb mongoloid! How could my general demeanour make anyone think I'm two absinthes short of a Cambridge fraternity?!"

Bowie stares at the naked blonde girl in front of him and rolls his eyes. "Oh, for fuck's sake, Britney, piss off! You need help, girl! Talk about 'stupid blond twat who aint' all that!"

Ben, slow on the uptake as ever, realizes the body she now inhabits is identical to the one owned by Britney Spears, and his musical hero has mistaken Ben Chatham for that drunken, moronic, irresponsible noise polluter!

Easy mistake to make.

"Anyway, Brit, I'd appreciate your thoughts on a little something I've been working on," Bowie says and suddenly pulls out a gun and aims it between Ben's new breasts (technically where her heart should be). "DIE, SPEARS!" Bowie shouts and fires.

Ben takes the bullet and falls the ground, drenched in her new uncouth and vulgar blood and goes into shock. Bowie shoves the gun into Ben's jerking fingertips and turns to the roadie.

"Better tell security that Britney Spears has been on another nude bender and shot herself in alcoholic remorse," he says. "And if you'll excuse me missing you dying from blood loss, Brit, I have my 'Starman' number to do for my adoring fans."

Bowie and the roadie exit, leaving Ben Chatham to pass out from blood loss, trapped in the naked and badly injured body of a female American pop star more famous for her drinking binges than her songs.

What could possibly happen now?

BEN(ITA) CHATHAM WILL RETURN IN
"THE LIVING BITCHWHORE!"