A Pitch For Season 4 By Someone With Talent

1: You Are What You Eat
2: Dissolve, Suppres and Reform!
3: Two Birds, One Stone
4: Out of the Blue
5: Into the Black
6: Cavalier Attitudes
7: Dreams of Reality
8: Fight the Power
9: Evolution Isn't What It Used To Be
10: Old Man River
11: Showdown
12: Dark Solitaire
13: No More Second Chances



Episode One: You Are What You Eat

Donna Noble is returning home through the countryside after her sabbatical around the world. She quickly realizes that she's stuck in some kind of quarantine zone - the whole town is deserted, as is the surrounding farms. Newspapers and the like suggest the area has been evacuated and cordoned off. Donna being Donna didn't notice this and is now wandering around in an area designated "biohazard".

As she wanders around in a thematic rip off of '28 Days Later'/Invasion of the Dinosaurs (take your pick), she senses she is being followed. In a field, she sees something just below the surface of the ground straight towards her....

At the last moment, two security guards with boomboxes arrive. The boomboxes are placed at the ground as Split Endz greatest hits begin to play - the vibrations passing through the soil and 'scaring off' the creature below. Donna's awkward thanks (she was going to save herself, thank you very much) are cut short when they handcuff her and drag her off.

She is taken to a GM crops factory, now run down and boarded up. She meets the few staff there who were the only survivors of the creatures below the soil. The town is cut off from the outside world, and there is no hope of rescue. The leader of this little community is desperate that salvation will come from their mysterious Chief Executive.

Donna is thrown in a cell until her fate can be decided. She is shocked to discover in the next cell is her old pal... THE DOCTOR!

The Doctor cheerfully explains he was in the area when he saw some orbital pods crash into the fields outside and be taken to the factory for analysis. When he tried to investigate, he was locked up and then the creatures attacked. He explains that the creatures aren't evil, merely wild animals caught outside their own eco-system. However, that COULD be the way out...

Now he has Donna to help him, the Doctor performs a cunning escape plan and they flee to the village, where he gets all the joss sticks he can find. If they lure the creatures up into the atmosphere, the incense will act like chloroform, and they can sort out something to end the quarantine.

However, they are captured by the security guards. The leader decides to adapt the plan, but overdose the aliens and kill them with insence. The Doctor and Donna are locked up again while the leader sets up a sound wave that will attract all the creatures so they can then be killed.

The Doctor and Donna escape Donna sabotages the incense machinery. The leader screams that they are all doomed as the creatures arrive at the factory...

But the creature's don't attack. One of the worm creatures explodes out of the ground and starts squeaking - and the Doctor and Donna (sharing TARDIS telepathy) understand what it says. The creatures absorb and assimilate the food they eat, which has mainly been human beings. They are now more intelligent and realize that they were wrong to eat the protestors, villagers and farmers. They have in fact been struggling to communicate with the surviving humans and apologize.

The Doctor is delighted, saying if you can't trust a giant alien earth worm gestalt then who CAN you trust?

The creatures promise to stay underground and not harm further human beings, and in return the Doctor forces the leader to make sure humanity never realize their new 'guests'. The worms chirp their thanks and swim away...

As the quarantine is lowered and emergency services storm the village, the Doctor offers Donna a lift back to her place in the TARDIS. Donna agrees, suggesting they might make a detour or two before that...

The End.


Episode Two: Dissolve, Supress and Reform!

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor decides first off Donna could use a trip back in time - not as far back as her first voyage, but something closer to home. Donna's unimpressed by boring history, assuming to be full of people so stupid they hadn't invented digital watches. The Doctor muses that every sentient being seems to believe that of their ancestors.

To impress her, he sets the TARDIS to travel back in time to encounter the Knights Templar!

The TARDIS arrives outside a nice building in the countryside, where the Doctor and Donna emerge to hear two monks panicking - Reginald Pole has exiled himself to France rather than appease the King. This means the main opposition to the King's plans to form a Catholic State has just caught the first boat out and left the Church to face the music.

The Doctor grimly realizes he's forgotten to carry a three and they've arrived in the mid-sixteenth century, a time when religious tolerance was not the order of the day. Donna is alarmed to learn they have arrived at an 'Alien Priory', but the Doctor assures her it's the local lingo for 'French abbeys'. All in all, it would be very sensible to leave in the TARDIS, but then, this could be VERY educational...

At his court, Henry VIII (Russell Crowe) is shouting that they can no longer tolerate alien priories in England - since the English and the French are fighting all the time, and the priories are giving their money to the French King, they are trading with the enemy. He points out that his ancestors Edward I, and Edward III showed the way bu sequesting the assets of the monasteries. What's more the buildings can then be sold off at profit.

He reminds his doubting followers that two years ago he was declared the Supreme Head of the Church of England! He gets very annoyed when a Duke points out Henry declared HIMSELF that, and since his new act of parliament has eliminated the right of appeal to Roman tribunals, he thus authorizes his man Thomas Cromwell to 'visit' all the monasteries. They will dissolve these priories, supress other faiths and reform the English Church!

At the priory, the Doctor and Donna bump into a wild-looking man called Maurice who starts spouting propaganda about all the monks and nuns there being sorcerers and hypocrites. The Doctor tells him to shut up, since he knows Maurice doesn't even believe it. It's just a smear campaign - Maurice and dozens of others are running round England stirring up feeling against the monasteries so that no one will object to their dissolution.

Maurice grumbles he is a "preacher" not a spin-doctor, then realizes for the Doctor to have worked it out then HE must also be in on the plan. He thus runs through the reports he's sent back to the court - all fake - claiming the monks live like kings with lots of kinky orgies. Donna can't believe it. The monastery is just a monastery - an old building filled by boring people not doing much.

"Details, details," Maurice shrugs off.

At that moment, Cromwell arrives with his men. He announces he wishes to ensure the monks are instructed in their new rules - now, King Henry VIII runs the Church, not the Pope. Despite the Abbot's attempts to be cooperative, Cromwell storms through the monastery and even Donna realizes he's not here for a pep talk but simply being a bailiff to nick all the good stuff in the building.

Cromwell becomes annoyed at the lack of goods, and the Doctor reminds him not to believe his own smear campaign - monastic life's been in decline for years, they simply don't have resources for all the naughty things they claimed. Cromwell decides to consficate the entire monastery and not pension off the inhabitants in order to recoup some losses. There's lead in the roof, the statues might be worth something...

Troopers arrive and Cromwell decides to have the Abbot executed. The Abbot insists he followed all the rules (unlike all the other Abbots who were executed) but Cromwell dubs him a traitor to the state. As the ransacking is about to begin, the Doctor orders a halt.

Using the psychic paper, he explains he is a visiting dignitary from Gallifrey and his friend is Donna Noble. He has urgent business with King Henry VIII and if this particular monastery is destroyed, that business will be ruined and Cromwell will be responsible.

Beaten, Cromwell cancels the demolition... for now... and escorts the duo back to London.

On the way, the Doctor explains that Henry VIII had six wives - never easy to please. The point is, the one he had at the moment he was never happy with: Catherine of Aragon. He effectively saw her myspace page and married her on the spot, not realizing she was not as drop-dead gorgeous as her portrait, and he didn't love her for her mind, either. Henry wanted a divorce, the church said no, so Henry is venting his spleen on the church instead.

Donna doesn't know much about history, but rapidly works out the Doctor's plan...

...he intends for HER to be the next wife of Henry VIII!

They arrive at court where the Doctor spins a yarn that he can cheat the legislature of the church. Basically, he can swap Catherine for Donna and they'll call it quits. Henry for his part, is attracted to Donna, but insists he remain the master of the church. The Doctor is disgusted, realizing that Henry just wants his cake and eat it too. Angrilly, the Time Lord points out it's all worthless. The monasteries won't make the fortunes he desires, and all he'll do is kill peaceful monks and nuns. The local equivalents of hospitals and soup kitchens will disappear and more people will die!

Henry VIII insists that the fortune he makes from dissolving the monasteries will mean he will never have to tax his people ever again, but Donna tricks him into revealing he will do it anyway. The Doctor is full of contempt and points out that Henry may be the King of England but Kings only survive through their heirs. Henry will never live long enough to enjoy the fruits of his hypocracy.

Suddenly, Henry goes into a trance. The Doctor realizes the King has been conditioned to become suggestible whenever he hears the phrase "the future is now". Donna quizzes Henry. He still wants all the cash for himself, but has been hypnotized to believe that the monastic suppression will actually work. The Doctor tries to work out who is behind the hypnosis, when suddenly the Chamberlain arrives and calls the guards.

The guards too seem to have been hypnotized and attack in a manner more suited to Bruce Lee ninjas than 16th century pikemen. The Doctor and Donna run for it, as Henry VIII revives from his trance and orders Cromwell to wipe out the monastery.

Running down into the depths of the castle, Donna notes they will never be able to escape the guards AND get back to the monastery in time to stop a massacre. The Doctor grimly agrees, and summons the TARDIS with his sonic screwdriver. But the reason he hasn't done this before is that it damages a lot of the repair work to the coordinate systems. The Doctor stabs the fast return switch and it flips back to the monastery...

...just as the King's forces arrive.

The Abbot confronts the men, buying time as the Doctor and Donna get the other inhabitants running for the hills. As Cromwell has the abbot hanged, the time travellers arrive and claim to be witches who are the real diabolic force. The troopers are scared back and watch in horror as the 'witches' and the blue box vanish...

Aboard the TARDIS, Donna is upset that they could not save the Abbot. The Doctor nods sadly, pointing out at least they saved the other monks. They'll probably head for Yorkshire and join the Pilgramige of Grace - a rebellion against Henry VIII by the survivors of Louth Abbey, where they occupied York for a brief time.

The Doctor admits the rebellion failed but not totally, they got rid of Cromwell, brought back Queen Mary and ultimately restored some of their rights within the century. However, they cannot help, hinder or even WATCH that happen - or find out just who or what was manipulating the King. The coordinate system is fried, and the TARDIS is now lost in time as well as space. There's no knowing where they'll arrive to next...

The End.


Episode Three: Two Birds, One Stone

The Doctor hits the fast return switch in the hope of returning the TARDIS back to 2009 England, but overshoots by several months and a few hundred miles. Nevertheless, Donna is skeptical they're even on Earth as they arrive in a dark wood at night.

A horrible stench assails their nostrils and, moving through the woods, they find an abandoned campsite where a heap of composted material lies near the fire. The burnt, rotting vegetation was the cause of the smell. The Doctor kicks at the pile... and a human skull rolls out.

Something growls in the shadows and the Doctor and Donna flee back to the TARDIS, only to get lost. They finally emerge out into a huge encampment that is blocking countless construction machines and the like. Protestors are being interveiwed for TV and the Neo Terra Enterprise spokesperson Greta Adams is struggling to convince the protestors that the development will not severely harm the local wildlife or environment.

The Doctor wields his psychic paper and after namedropping a few secret organizations he has links with, tells everyone to run for their lives. There is some kind of monster at loose in the woods and they are all in danger.

No one believes him - the developers think he's a nutter, the protestors think he's actually working for the developers. Furious, the Doctor realizes that they will stay where they are and become a finger buffet for the creature.

Parker, a journalist, agrees to hear out Donna's claims of the campsite. When they arrive however, the campsite has vanished - and there is no sign of the skull, merely the stench of compost. A van is heard driving off, and the Doctor runs after it, but spots a logo on the side, an infinity-symbol that suggests it is part of NTE. Clearly there is more than one creature, and it died when it tried to consume a human and on fire at the same time. Donna brightens, suggesting they get a flame thrower and go Sigourney Weaver on this thing's ass...

DONNA: Let's a get a flame thrower and go Sigourney Weaver on it!
DOCTOR: Who?
DONNA: Sigourney Weaver.
DOCTOR: What's she in?
DONNA: You know. Aliens.
DOCTOR: She's an alien?!
DONNA: No. This film, Aliens, she's in it. And she's got a flamethrower. And she uses it. On the aliens.
(Doctor stares at her for a long moment.)
DOCTOR: Not helping.

The Doctor points out they'd end up causing a forest fire. Which would be mean.

Donna decides its best for her to get the hell out of the woods and head for the nearest town. The Doctor heads back to the TARDIS where three of the protestors are waiting for him - they are undercover UNIT operatives and they recognize a Code 9 when a police box appears out of thin air on their patch. UNIT have been investigating NTE for undisclosed reasons for a while, and decided to try and use public opinion to help them contain the developers until further information comes to light.

The Doctor insists the operation has to be called off - innocent lives are in danger. At that moment, Donna runs back through the woods, being chased by something that can't clearly be seen oozing through the trees towards them. They head back to the camp, and this time the creature follows. The UNIT operatives are loathe to call in reinforcements and blow their cover. Rolling his eyes, the Doctor heads for one of the TV crews and shouts live on TV "UNIT? You're NEEDED!!" as the creature explodes out of the trees and consumes Parker.

As more of protestors are swallowed up, others flee. Donna jumps onto a bulldozer and manages to flatten the monster, only for it to reinflate - its vegetative tissue can stand a lot more than an animal's could, and there are no bones to break or organs to damage. The Doctor spots its roots sinking into the ground, and knows if they try and burn it it will cause an inferno.

One protestor suggests trying to drown it instead and the various water supplies are thrown onto the creature. It immediately soaks up all the moisture, making it larger, heavier and clumsier. As dawn breaks, the Doctor sees the 'brain' part at the trunk of the creature and the UNIT operative shoots that part. The creature lets out a strange chirping and collapses, deflating to sludge.

The Doctor is more disturbed than the others. He and Donna recognize the sound of the monster - it was a Xanto Worm screaming. Somehow, it had been reingineered. But why? And by whom? And what are they doing at NTE.

At the corporate offices of that very institution, Adams reports to her CEO. The genetic experiments with the Xanto Worms were a failure, and merely transformed the survivors into psychotically violent, inedible vegetation. They were of no use to NTE's genetic modification campaign. However, by letting them loose on the protestors, knowing UNIT would ultimately wipe out the monster, NTE has killed two birds with one stone.

"There is another bird left to kill," muses the CEO, and replays the TV broadcast where the Doctor appeared in front of the nation.

The End.


Episode Four: Out of the Blue

The TARDIS materializes on a hillside shrouded in a strange, odd-smelling fog. The Doctor is delighted to discover they are now in 2109, 100 years after Donna's time. Technology is now advanced enough for him to get some spare parts and repair the coordinate systems, so he can finally steer the TARDIS again.

The Doctor and Donna emerge out into the fog, which seems familiar to the Time Lord - despite the odd smell, he is certain it is safe and heads out to explore. Donna tries to follow, but loses him in the mist. She spots a silhouette and runs up to it, expecting it to be the Doctor.

It is in fact a three-eyed reptile man that grabs her with its sharp claws...

The Doctor rushes through the fog, hearing Donna's screams and quickly calms the situation. The creature is just as lost as they are and means no harm, but Donna is terrified of it. The creature introduces itself as J'ruci, and that it got lost on the hills when a strange fog drifted up from the sea. The Doctor warmly introduces himself and Donna to J'ruci and together they find their way down to the lights of the coastal town Brancaster Bay. J'ruci invites the time travelers for a drink at the village pub she runs. Donna is even more disturbed to see similar creatures wandering the village, mingling with humans and other, turtle-faced creatures. The Doctor couldn't be happier.

Out on the waters, hidden by the thick mist a boat marked with the Neo Terra Enterprizes logo, Captain Veitch is confirming a successful mission. The cannister was dropped on cue and has detonated perfectly. The chemical reactions are underway. The unseen CEO announces that the operation is coming to a head perfectly. There is no room for any error of any sort.

At the pub, the Doctor explains that when mankind were still swinging from trees, intelligent dinosaurs had evolved into humanoid form, the Silurian race, and they dominated the planet. Then, they went into hibernation and soon all trace of their occupation of Earth vanished. They revived in the 1970s, and understandably were annoyed to find vermin had taken over the planet. It was several attempts before the race was successfully revived and agreed to live in peace with humanity, keeping to their own territories. In the enlightened twenty-second century, however, mammal and reptile live together in peace.

Donna is still unnerved by all the "great big lizards", feeling certain they are going to hurt her. The Doctor pooh-poohs the suggestion. The pub regulars wonder where N'umdt, the fisherman, has got to, when he should normally have come back with a salmon for the Friday Night feast. Delighted at the thought of a Silurian fisherman (or Sea Dweller, to be specific), the Doctor heads down to docks to check it out. J'ruci follows and sends out a signal for N'umdt to react to, but there is nothing. Donna panics as a turtle-headed corpse washes up on the shore, smothered in green slime. The Doctor orders everyone to keep back from the body - which is liquefying thanks to exposure to pure hexachromite.

The villagers are disgusted. Hexachromite was banned years ago, and the pure stuff should never be let anywhere near civilization. The Doctor realizes that the hexachromite has been dumped in the water, killing any marine life in it, and is causing the strange mist. The reptile villagers are terrified and head home while the humans call for emergency services. The Doctor and Donna rush back to the TARDIS to analyze the air - it is polluted with a strange chemical residue from the water, but it isn't dangerous to either man or reptile. So why, the Doctor wonders, release it into the air at all?

At the pub, news comes over from the radio that a Silurian suicide bomber destroyed a large chunk of Gatwick airport and killed thousands - of both races - screaming that the Earth must be purged of warm-blooded vermin. The human patrons of the village immediately start to get mad until J'ruci reminds them humans are not blameless either. The villagers agree to remain loyal to each other, but now all the reptiles are getting evil looks from the humans.

The Doctor examines the remains of N'umdt and realizes it is not hexachromite, but something meant to look like hexachromite. Since humans are the only race that could create normal hexachromite, they are either being set up for this catastrophe... or they really ARE behind it. Donna is told to head back to the TARDIS and look through the databank. By now, the UN has become the UR (united races) and they have evolved UNIT into the Foreign Hazard Duty. This kind of conspiracy is too big for the Doctor to uncover alone. Well, he could do it alone, but it would take time, and he's not sure how much he has of that.

Out on the boat, Veitch prepares another cannister for dumping. The toxins affect on the oxygen is not taking hold fast enough. Another one will speed the effect. On the news, an animal zealot group have stormed the London zoo, specifically the section turned over to reanimated dinosaurs - claiming this is a blasphemy against nature by keeping creatures that should be extinct alive. The mini Jurassic Park is blown to smithereens before anyone can stop them.

At the pub, the latest news is causing more unrest. Dinosaurs are cute. The Doctor arrives and explains he needs a human fisherman to help him explore the bay. J'ruci takes offense, even though the Doctor explains a Silurian fisherman would be doomed if they attempted. Some of the Sea Dweller Silurians are furious at this, believing that will never be allowed to return to the ocean and be forced to stay on land and drown in the air. The villagers protest that this is not some sort of betrayal, but it becomes obvious some of them are starting to wish it was. The Doctor is disgusted and remind them all they are a village, a concept that transcends time. He and a friend of N'umdt, a woman called April, take a boat out onto the moors.

Using the video phone in the TARDIS, Donna finally bullies her way into talking to Commander McVee of the FHD. But the terrorist attacks today have pushed them to the limit, and can only spare a small force to investigate. More and more reports are coming in that the reptile people are "showing their true colours" and are turning on humanity, despite all the efforts of the government to keep the situation in perspective.

The CEO watches on digital television as the Prime Minister calls short a press conference and retires into Number 10, her pleas to stop automatically blaming Silurians for attacks they had nothing to do ruined when it is discovered a Silurian on dino-back has stormed the New York prison for the criminally insane, releasing the inmates into the city around them.

The Doctor and April set sail, noting the rotting corpses of fish drifting up through the water. Luckily, the tides are keeping the chemicals in the bay, rather than seeping out into the ocean. There's a chance it can purified if the old Martian atmosphere scrubbers are deployed on the area. April suddenly becomes violently angry, knowing her livelihood has been ruined forever. The Doctor tries to calm her, resorting to hypnotism. But the chemicals around them are affecing her more and more. The Doctor realizes the fumes have smothered the village by now, but before he can do anything, he sees the NTE boat.

Donna returns to the village to find a massive pub brawl has broken out, and the furious Silurians are attacking the humans with pain rays from their third eyes. Donna shouts at them to stop, but the brief pause ends when news comes in that all flights are grounded, effectively isolating every country as more disasters strike. The world is under seige and Silurians are being blamed - and there are plenty of witnesses to Silurians furious at events against them, taking revenge.

The humans go ape and a Sea Dweller is killed with a broken beer bottle. The horror of it stuns the crowd, but the Silurians are not in a forgiving mood and order the humans to get out of the bay or else. Donna, being human, is thrown out with the rest of the others into the streets. Suddenly, a Silurian appears, shouting anti-human propaganda. The mob attacks it and Donna watches helplessly as it is torn apart, revealing...

...the Silurian is an android.

On the boat, the Doctor is met by Vietch and refuses to give an account of himself. This callous dumping of chemicals could wipe out Norfolk and start another war been the reptiles and mankind. Vietch does not care, insisting it will all work out in the end. The Doctor demands to speak with someone in charge, but Vietch explains they have standing orders.

Another Sea Dweller is brought out, wearing a kind of oxygen mask. If it wants the humans to keep it alive, it must kill and mutilate the Doctor with its bare claws. Thus, when his body is found, there will be irrefutable evidence that the reptiles have gone mad. The Doctor begs the Sea Dweller to fight, but it can only profusely apologize and promise to make it as quick and as painless as it can.

The CEO watches as, on TV, troops are deployed to the streets of the sieged countries and countless reptiles are arrested or shot down while attempting to escape. A group of Silurians with pterodactyls have already fled for their sky bases, and the bases are being ordered to surrender at once. The President of China declares war on the Silurian race.

"And so it ends," the CEO chuckles happily.

To Be Continued...


Episode Five: Into the Black

As the Sea Dweller moves to kill the Doctor, the boat rocks. Sparks dance over the hull and the computer systems crash. Vietch and the others are totally taken aback as, through the rolling fog, a familiar groaning noise is heard. The Doctor remembers why there is a high reptile population in Norfolk - this was the site of one our their bunkers, and they didn't just keep reptile people there...

At the village, the humans are storming the pub gripped with insane paranoia that Silurians are just alien robots set to dominate mankind. There is the sound of electric jeeps of the FHD pulling up, lead by another Silurian. The villagers are united in their disgust - the Silurians for one of their number cooperating with the apes, the humans revolted at the soldiers following the orders of a venomous reptile.

Captain E'cais places the village under martial law. The BBC has gone off air after a human suicide bomber destroyed a late night chat show for Silurians. With TV stations off the air, the whole of London is in chaos. As such anyone disobeying a direct order - ape or reptile - will be executed. The smoke is already getting to the lungs of the FHD, who detect the substance in the air.

Something huge has broken free of the sea bed and is circling the boat. With the electrics ruined, there is no way to teleport off the boat, so they are stranded. The Doctor offers his services to save them, but Vietch refuses. Two of his men cut their losses and steal April's boat, only for a huge serpent head to break the surface. The creature merely roars but the two men drop dead. The creature rises up, revealing a dragon like body bigger than the boat. The Doctor realizes that it is a Myrka - not only are they in dreadful danger of being killed, they'll die at the claws of something that looks unbelievably stupid.

The arrival of the Myrka stops the village as E'cais examines the android Silurian. J'ruci is stunned. She'd been told about the Myrka living under the sea when she was a child, but never believed it. The creature is there, and if not programmed correctly, will kill everything in the village. The humans are terrified, demanding to know why the Myrka has been awoken. E'cais can only conclude the Caller has been used... but by whom?

At NTE headquarters, the CEO chuckles as he examines a Silurian artefact. The Myrka will destroy all evidence of the chemical dumping and the idea that the Silurians are using their monsters of mass destruction will be the last straw. The peace between Homo Sapiens and the Silurians will never recover from this.

The Doctor and the Sea Dweller instinctively hide in the middle of the boat, away from the surface. The lashing tail of the Myrka electrocutes half the NTE staff. Another one dies from seeing the creature, as if dying of fright. Dying of laughter, the Doctor could understand, but fright? As Vietch tries to swim for it (and is then eaten), the Doctor tries to repair the damage to the boat engines, but succeeds in causing a gust of breeze that temporarily clears the atmosphere.

The Myrka's organic components are rotting away from the exposure to the chemicals in the water, causing the cybernetic parts to malfunction. The creature sees the village and starts to charge through the water towards the shore. The Doctor realizes the Myrka is going to destroy everything it can before it dies. Desperately, he orders the Sea Dweller to take April onto the boat and use that to get to shore. He starts to attack the engine with the sonic screwdriver.

On the shore, the Silurians consider fleeing, but the Myrka is amphibious and will follow them (they are unaware it's dying). It might be possible for the Silurians to use their mental powers on the Myrka implants, but the right codes are needed. As the FHD troopers gather their weapons, growing more rebellious at every moment, J'ruci runs off. Suspicious, Donna races after her, hurling lizard-based abuse at the fleeing Silurian.

As a Silurian shelter is firebombed by humans in the Middle East, the CEO advises the media to head for Norfolk. Civilian mobs are rife across the planet, and most of them are being lead by androids controlled from NTE central. The CEO orders the Prime Minister to be assassinated at the next press conference by a squad of Silurian androids who well then suicide bomb the area before any witnesses can realize their nature. He also authorizes the use of the special gas compounds in England, Australia, South America and Russia. Anti-Silurian hate will now go off the scale.

Donna chases J'ruci into her flat above the pub, apparently trying to collect something before she flees. Donna gets to it first - a strange white object. J'ruci becomes furious at Donna touching it and Donna, equally furious, threatens to smash it. Terrified, J'ruci sinks to her knees and begs Donna not too. Donna prepares to do so anyway, demanding J'ruci talk. But J'ruci protests her innocence and Donna is about to smash the object when it seems to shift slightly in her hand. She realizes what she is holding - an egg. Donna has unwittingly been threatening to murder J'ruci's unborn baby. Horrified and disgusted at what she nearly did, Donna hands over the egg to the mother and calmly heads to the bathroom to be copiously and violently sick.

The FHD have prepared an X-ray laser which will blind the Myrka, but as it grows closer they realize the Myrka's eyes have melted away, so it is effectively invulnerable. The troopers ignore E'cais orders and fire the laser at the Myrka... and only succeed in pissing off the sea monster even more. Everyone starts to flee as the monster bursts out of the sea onto the shore.

At the boast, the Doctor gets the engine working and a shrill noise emerges from the dury-rigged circuits. The Myrka, hearing the Caller signal, heads back to the boat. The creature arrives and quickly realizes the signal is a fake, but is too far gone to do anything about it. The Doctor dives off the boat as the dying Myrka falls heavily onto it, triggering a massive explosion. The Doctor, stunned unconscious, sinks into the water...

The apparent destruction of the Myrka does not alleviate tensions between the villagers. The humans think it was a trick, the Silurians act like the last unicorn has just died. E'cais tries to restore order but fails - his men no longer trust him and relieve him from command.

The Doctor awakes on the shore. The Sea Dweller dived into the water and saved him, but in doing so has been contaminated by the chemicals and will be dead in hours. It could not live with itself, knowing it had left the Doctor to die after he saved the reptile's life. The Doctor insists if they can get to the TARDIS, he might be able to heal the Sea Dweller. Suddenly, April recovers consciousness. Not seemingly totally insane, she throttles the Doctor and when the Sea Dweller tries to stop her, April lashes out and snaps the reptile's weakened neck. The Doctor stares at her in horror, unable to believe what she's done. April collapses.

At NTEHQ, the CEO is alarmed when the media converging on Norfolk report the Myrka's death. All the attacks and tricks have been part of a careful strategy to whip up humanity into a xenophobic frenzy. The death of the Prime Minister will not have the same impact now. He orders a crack team to storm the town, kill all witnesses and plant evidence of a Silurian uprising. Time is running out...

E'cais snaps and uses his third eye to send pain into the mutinous sergeant, but the others shoot him down. This causes an all out fight between humans and reptiles, and this time nothing can stop them.

Until the Doctor arrives carrying April and says simply "Stop".

Everyone stops, entranced.

The Doctor explains he does not normally use the telepathic potential to take over human minds. Or Silurian ones. But this is important. When the Silurians first ruled the Earth, they thought of apes as pests and tormented them. When apes evolved into man, they kept a race memory of Silurians, a memory of fear and hate, which has been the main factor against peaceful coexistence between them. In unbalanced minds, the mear sight of a Silurian causes a total nervous breakdown. But humanity has overcome that instinctive, primal fear.

Until the chemicals released into the waters by Neo Terra Enterprizes started to affect human brain chemistry. That is why all the humans are turning against the Silurians who have been friends and family for years - the gas is making them fear and hate the reptiles. Too much causes total psychosis, to the point seeing anything scaly proves fatal. April is dying from an overdose of the gas, but that means they can scan her biology and get proof. E'cais agrees and the FHD men obey him and prepare a scan.

The media arrive en masse and Donna is only too happy to give them a piece of her mind, revealing a third party is trying to cause war and showing them the android as proof. The CEO orders a scamble to blot out all transmissions from the area, but it's too late: the NTE troops have arrived on film, and they immediately attack. An all out battle between the FHD and the NTE begins, with the Silurians adding their third eye firepower to the battle, but the villagers are being hunted down.

The Doctor examines the android and realizes it had an advanced wireless interconnection with the NTE systems. He gets E'cais to wire up the scanner to the android, which transmits the information about the mind-altering gas through the NTE system and into every news system on the planet. The Doctor punches in some data to reveal the scale of the situation, and NTE's precise involvement.

Realizing what's happening, the CEO desperately orders the final solution - a microwave beam aimed straight at the bay, obliterating all evidence and stopping the Doctor's broadcast. But the connection is two-way, and the Doctor overhears the order to firestorm the town.

By now, only a few villagers are still alive. E'cais volunteers to stay behind and hold off the NTE while the others flee to the TARDIS. However, a volley of gunfire kills J'ruci, and she collapses. Donna manages to catch the egg and, hugging it, runs into the TARDIS with the Doctor. The NTE troops fire on the police box.

Inside, the Doctor sets the controls for takeoff. He doesn't want to watch what happens next. The TARDIS fades away as suddenly the whole bay is filled with a boiling red light. The town, the inhabitants and everything else evaporate, and as the red glow fades, a scorched valley is left behind.

The CEO is furious - but more and more people know about NTE's involvement, and the information data keeps multiplying itself like a giant chain letter. Security services are already on their way to him. The CEO orders the remaining Silurian and human androids to use their suicide bombs, but the data also has reprogrammed them to instead tell everyone they meet the atrocity that NTE has done. The CEO prepares to leave. War between the species has been narrowly averted, but is he defeated? A clue: no.

The Doctor muses on what he knows. If history runs to its old shape, then there will be a massive alien invasion of Earth in fifty years' time when a lethal plague decimates humanity. It would do worse, if the Silurians were not there to help combat it. If the invasion of Earth was changed, then the future history of the galaxy would change as well... but into what? The Doctor realizes that NTE's actions in the past were specifically to let the organization become powerful enough to pull off this stunt. But what was their ultimate aim? Since he has been unable to get the spare parts, the TARDIS is still aimless.

Donna places J'ruci's egg in a humidicrib. The Doctor notes it will be another week before it hatches, and Donna weeps at the thought the mother will never see it and reveals she nearly killed a baby. The Doctor points out that she didn't. And the fact she was able to feel horrified by it when she was full of chemical anti-Silurian rage shows she is no monster, and J'ruci recognized that, which is why she let Donna take the child.

"I swear to you," he says. "J'ruci is the last person NTE or whatever is behind it will ever hurt. You have nightmares about monsters. But monsters have nightmares about me."

The End


Episode Six: Cavalier Attitudes

The TARDIS materializes outside a country house. Inside, the Doctor irritably gives up on his makeshift repair work, noting all he's managed to do is break the internal heating mechanisms. Now the systems have to be manually controlled. Donna wonders why that is such a big problem, but the Doctor points out J'ruci's egg needs to be kept warm so it can incubate.

Bored with repair work, the Doctor wants to explore where they've landed. Donna knows he'll get into trouble without her, but she has to stay in the TARDIS and adjust the heating for the egg. When Donna asks if there's another way, the Doctor suggests she stuff the egg down her shirt and let her body heat take over. Donna refuses to wander around with an egg larger than a basketball down her shirt and, not bothering to ask why, the Doctor heads off, leaving Donna in the ship.

Outside the ship, the Doctor spots the architecture and quickly deduces they are still in England, in the 1640s. As he struggles to remember what was happening then, a beam of light slams down and teleports the TARDIS away, marooning the Doctor. He realizes there are people in the woods watching him and, realizing he's arrived during the English Civil War shouts, "Long live the Roundheads!"

He then discovers he is surrounded by royalist Cavaliers, and has made something of a mistake...

Aboard the TARDIS, Donna clutches the console as the time machine shakes violently before growing still once again. The TARDIS now stands in a rocky desert near a collection of small buildings. Mist wafts over the scene. Donna realizes she'll have to look around if only to find out what has drawn the TARDIS there and, accepting she cannot leave the egg behind, tucks it into her overalls and heads out.

Exploring outside, Donna is troubled by the eerie silence and heads for the nearest building, getting the impression she is being watched. The building is a kind of road cafe where several strange and eccentric locals are idly getting drunk. After going through a long tedious explanation that she isn't pregnant, just has a reptile woman's unhatched egg down her front, Donna gets introduced to the locals.

The bartender, Nika, explains that this planet, Kapolicheo, is supposed to be the site for the Intergalactic Battle of the Bands competition with the Electrodes acting as comperes, but after three hundred years, none of the bands have turned up and the groupies that set up camp there have been sorely disappointed. Their moods drop further when they discover Donna is not part of the organizer management.

Donna explains she has been mysteriously brought to the planet, and the natives grumble it happens quite a lot. Passing travellers just drop by, have a chat, go to the House with the Laughing Windows and inevitably never return. The natives used to follow them at first, but it just got tedious after the fifteenth hundred time. Apart from telling her not to go to the house, there's not much they can do. They know from long experience that the House is what stops their ships from leaving, and the only way to try and fix it is to go into the House. She's damned either way.

Donna sets off over the hill, and soon spots a huge domed building with red-lipped grinning mouths painted around all the windows. An antennae above the building pulses with a pale light. Donna deduces the antennae is the cause of the problem and destroying that will fix her problem. But as she heads to get a closer look, she starts to spot shadowy shapes moving in the corner of her eyes. Unnerved, she heads back to the 'village' and finds a building that was once a merchandise store full of T-shirts and recordings of the Electrodes' Greatest Hits.

From the brain-fried insect hippy that lives there, Donna learns that Kapolicheo is the legendary home of the Artist of Pain, a near mythical figure some say is older than the Face of Boe. The insect takes Donna down into the valley (with a long explanation again that she is not pregnant, just with an egg down her front) and shows her some of the murals painted there.

According to "Nasty Great Rotters of the Cosmos", the Artist was a being that become so obsessed with painting a portrait of her husband she accidentally made her man starve to death before it finished. The portrait was so good, however, everyone believed that the husband's spirit somehow was transferred into the painting. The Artist let it go to her head, and she started trying to repeat the achievement and ostensibly used the entire population of the planet to experiment with. Some were tortured to speed up the process, and the Artists' obsession became to become immortal. Murals of the natives dying in agony, their suffering recorded forever, can be found all over the planet. The Artist retreated inside the House with the Laughing Windows and was never found by the Judoon troops that searched everywhere for this criminal.

"Anyway, ya wanna buy a T-shirt?" asks the insect hopefully.

Donna retreats back to the TARDIS to think things through, and tries to explain her problem to the egg. The egg doesn't reply, but seems understanding. Donna could try and take off, but she might never find the Doctor again. But if she tackles the House with the Laughing Windows, she's screwed. And even if she stops that, it may not allow her to return to get the Doctor.

A strange sighing voice starts to whisper Donna's name, and that she should 'stay with them'. Rapidly scared out of her wits, Donna snatches the egg and opens the TARDIS doors. Shapes in the mist, some human, some alien, some unrecognizable, loom to grab her and she runs off, chased by the phantoms as they cry out to stop her. Finally she hides in Nika's bar, where the locals shrug off the phantoms. They don't bother the groupies, and never have much to say. Donna's temper frays as she is teased by the others in the bar, and snaps at least she's not so pathetic she's been hanging around for three hundred years waiting for a crap pop band to turn up. She angrilly kicks an alien iPod-like jukebox which suddenly starts playing a horrible throaty voice as it babbles about colours and purification and "death coming for you".

The patrons shut up. They've never heard that before.

Donna sees the phantoms approaching the village and as the insect hippy tries to sell them some posters, decides she's had enough and she's heading for the House with the Laughing Windows - and the groupies are coming with her! The aliens aren't keen, but Nika points out that they can't just let a pregnant woman walk into unknowable danger like this (prompting yet another "it's an egg!" conversation).

Donna and the groupies hurry up the hill towards the house, chased on all sides by the ghosts who are now screaming for Donna to stay with them. Approaching the pictogram-covered front door, it slides open to let the group inside a large hall. The walls are covered with portraits of people, aliens, things, no too alike, but all by the same artist. They are not the tormented, sick victims painted on the murals outside, but proper portraits. Donna muses that all the creatures sit in the same position and all seem to have the same cold expression on their respective faces.

Cautiously, the group explore the House, but all they find are more and more paintings. It would have taken thousands of years to paint all these by hand, and all the signs are that was how they were done. Nika, spooked, suggests they leave, but the door is locked and besides, through the Laughing Windows they can see thousands of ghosts blocking their path.

Donna leads the group upstairs and finally finds a huge circular chamber, the top of the antennae. A tiny, doll-like creature, incredibly old and withered lies in a beam of light. Weakly, it calls for "the Doctor" to come closer, and is disgusted to learn the Doctor was not aboard the TARDIS when it was drawn to Kapolicheo. The creature needed the Doctor to come here.

Donna realizes the creature is in fact the Artist of Pain. The Artist explains she discovered the ability to use a portrait of a person to wipe their soul clean and allow the Artist to replace it, so she has been hopping from body to body for centuries - each of the paintings is one of the Artists' temporary forms. Each time the soul is removed, it becomes a ghost outside, helpless and intangible. Now the Artist must keep getting new bodies or die and face punishment from the thousands of phantoms outside.

Donna refuses to let the Artist claim anyone else, but the Artist insists if Donna believes in saving life, she must save the Artist from a fate worse than death. Suddenly the groupies force Donna to sit in a chair before the Artist, having been used as servants for the last three hundred years in order to help trick the Artist's victims. It was hoping for the Doctor's body, but Donna will just have to do.

Paint starts to smear across a blank canvas, forming into a perfect portrait of Donna. However, nothing happens. The Artist is still in its ancient, failing body and too weak to try anything else. Donna realizes the painting of her was not right - it painted her as pregnant, when she (altogether now) had an egg down her shirt. Thus, the process did not affect her. The Artist begs for mercy, but slumps dead. The ghosts outside cheer and then disperse, leaving the dazed groupies to release her.

With the egg in hand, Donna returns to the TARDIS as the groupies use the machinery in the House with Laughing Windows to reverse the process. The police box fades away and the groupies decide to become art dealers and make a mint selling exclusive artwork to gullible tourists.

Donna has just replaced the egg in the crib when the Doctor bursts into the TARDIS, dressed in Roundhead armour and also a huge Cavalier hat because he's always loved those. He slams the doors behind him as muskets are fired at the police box.

Breathlessly, the Doctor explains the house outside is owned by Sir Philip Blanchet who was actually hiding future King of England, Prince Charles the Second from the Roundheads, but it turned out Blanchet was a parliamentarian traitor. The Doctor easily rescued the boy Charles before the Roundheads could arrive, lead by a man the Doctor is certain he's seen before somewhere. However, he has a nasty suspicion that someone is trying to change history, like with Henry VIII, though how ransacking monasteries and killing off the royal line could help them, he has no idea.

The Doctor sets the TARDIS in motion and remembers his manners, asking what Donna has been up to in the meantime. She shrugs and says, "Nothing major."

The End.


Episode Seven: Dreams of Reality

The Doctor opens his eyes to find himself standing in the corridors of the TARDIS. Looking around for Donna, he spots someone moving further down the passage and runs after them, chasing them throughout the ship, and finally the Time Lord ends back at the console room, with no sign of Donna or whoever he was chasing. As he wonders what to do next, he hears a distant chuckling that is joined by another and another.

Soon the muffled sound of crowds shouting with laughter can be heard and the unnerved Doctor turns, realizing the sound comes from behind the police box doors. In a trance he seems drawn down the ramp towards the doors as the laughter gets louder and louder.

Suddenly, the Doctor snaps out of it and runs over to the console and activates the scanner to show what lies outside the TARDIS. Staring at the screen, he backs away as suddenly the doors burst open of their own accord to reveal a sea of faces laughing hysterically. As if open to space, a vacuum drags the Doctor down towards the doorway as the faces laugh louder and louder.

The Doctor is sucked out of the TARDIS as the faces of Martha, Captain Jack, Sally Sparrow, the Master, Mickey, Adam, Ida Scott, Jackie and Pete Tyler spin around him. The face become angry and start to scream at him, spinning faster and faster and blurring into one face screaming "Doctor!" over and over again.

The face is that of Rose Tyler.

The Doctor screams and finds himself lying on the floor of the TARDIS with Rose crouched over him. The Doctor, almost hysterical, scrambles away from her, insisting she is not real, she cannot be real! But Rose insists she is genuine and convinces the Doctor to calm down.

The Doctor demands to know where Donna is, and Rose shrugs, saying she's back on Earth. The Doctor argues this proves Rose is not genuine because she never met Donna... or did she? The Doctor suddenly remembers comforting Rose at the wedding reception as she realizes she will never see Mickey or her parents again. The Doctor shakes his head, insisting he saw her sucked into another universe. But Rose points out that that never happened. Again, the Doctor remembers that final time in Torchwood Tower, as Rose fell from her lever into the void... but the void closed just before it could claim her.

Rose is more worried about the fact the TARDIS is still and silent. All the energy in the craft is being sucked away and there is barely enough for life support. If the TARDIS was attacked as all the evidence seems to show, it's possible she telepathically communicated her agony to the Doctor, making him dream he'd lost Rose. The girl herself is touched that her absence is the Doctor's worst nightmare, but promises the Doctor she's not going anywhere. The problem is to focus on the TARDIS.

The Doctor nods, realizing how dizzy he feels. Whatever is training the energy from the TARDIS is also effecting him and Rose. Suddenly the control room lurches, as if the TARDIS is being shaken violently. The Doctor collapses and hits his head against his flight chair.

The Doctor is suddenly alone in the TARDIS, its doors open out onto a No Man's Land of explosions. Alien tanks and war machines sweep over the hill and desperately the Doctor tries to close the doors but they're jammed. He then sees Donna shouting in the mist and realizes he can't leave without her. He runs out of the TARDIS before her, but becomes hopelessly lost. He is ambushed by the tanks who open fire...

Rose smacks the Doctor awake. He passed out when he hit his head. The TARDIS is now darker than before as the energy continues to run out. They should be starting to freeze, but the temperature hasn't changed much - which means they are somewhere reasonably warm, with some kind of atmosphere. The Doctor and Rose remember the TARDIS travelling deep in intergalactic void when something huge struck them, but what?

Feeling increasingly weak, the Doctor and Rose haul open the doors to see a wall of flesh covered in oily suckers clinging to the outside of the TARDIS. They slam the doors, realizing the time machine is inside some giant living creature that is sucking the life out of them. Rose stumbles and nearly collapses. The Doctor apologizes to her and stumbles off into the depths of the TARDIS to get the medical kit. He drops it and collapses trying to pick it up again.

Suddenly Donna grabs his shoulders and roughly shakes him. He can't just fall asleep now. The Doctor looks around and realizes they in London, and he clutches a ramshackle piece of equipment rather than a medical kit. A familiar screech shows the Slitheen are storming the capital. The Doctor picks up the equipment, realizing it is a calicium-decay blaster, which will wipe out the Slitheen in one go... but if it is set too high it will kill the humans as well. As a green baby-faced monster charges down the street towards them, the Doctor stabs the control. But nothing happens. He presses it again and again and...

The Doctor wakes up on the floor of the TARDIS, and stumbles back to the console room. With failing strength, he injects Rose with a solution, then himself. Now both of them are sweaty and feverish but no longer on the point of collapse. The Doctor explains he has injected them both with an incredibly powerful steroid drug. However, all that new energy is being drained from them by the monster, leaving them just enough to survive.

The Doctor and Rose open up the TARDIS engines, sacrificing the last of their energy, then open the doors and charge out into the wall of flesh. They find themselves in a slimy wet cavern lined with abandoned space craft and ancient skeletal remains. Promising each other that they will not let alone else end up here, the TARDIS crew head for the source of the gigantic heartbeat.

Suddenly, the muscular folds around them close in, andt the Doctor is slowly crushed between two fleshy walls. Trapped, the Doctor is smothered, unable to get free. Everything goes black.

The Doctor is hiding in an alcove in a Dalek base as the metallic forms glide back and forth searching for him. One stands guard by the TARDIS. A PA system announces the reactors are going critical in one minute. Beside the Doctor, Donna urges him to wake up and move before it's too late. They have only seconds left before it ends. But the Daleks are there and the Doctor refuses to break cover. The PA counts down to zero...

The Doctor coughs violently, suddenly free from the muscle walls. Rose explains she managed to find a nerve centre in the muscle and kicked it until the muscle walls spasmed and released the Doctor. Now they are both starting to feel dizzy as their captor sucks hungrily on their energy.

They hurry into another cavern, only Rose has been replaced by Donna, begging him to wake up and that the creature they are in is telepathic and it's altering what they are seeing and hearing. Suddenly Rose is behind him again, and the uncertain Doctor staggers out into a huge cavern where a massive heart pumps.

The Doctor realizes this creature is in suspended animation, like a caterpillar mutating into a butterfly. They've stumbled across it at it's most vulnerable, which is worrying when you think about what the creature might be at full strength. Which means it must have some way of ensuring it cannot be harmed, an auto-defense function. Rose realizes that it must be messing with their heads, making them hallucinate, to keep them occupied until their energy is drained.

The cavern shakes and the heartbeat fluctuates. The Doctor agrees with Rose. Generating those illusions is the creature releasing energy, and the open TARDIS engines are sucking all that energy up. The TARDIS will soon drain the creature dry, and it cannot risk ending its illusion lest the Doctor continues the attack.

Suddenly, Donna appears insisting the Doctor is talking to thin air. The Doctor looks at Rose, then Donna, wondering which of them is real and which of them is an illusion. Rose muses that if she was the fake, she would have done something to stop the Doctor instead of encouraging him, but Donna insists the Doctor lost Rose long ago. She's been watching him talk to someone who isn't there, and every so often he would become confused and register he was with Donna, but never for long enough.

Sadly, the Doctor realizes that Rose is the illusion. To prevent the Doctor becoming suspicious, the creature created a perfect copy of his best friend, so perfect that she actually helped him defeat the creature. Rose Tyler wins even now, from beyond the universe. The Doctor tells Donna to run back to the TARDIS and set the controls for take off. The heart stops and starts beating and Rose starts to fade and pale.

The Doctor awkwardly starts to say goodbye to her, but he's still no good at it. He's tempted to stay here with her, even if she isn't real, but Rose insists he get on with his life. He's done her proud, he really has. The Doctor takes a deep breath. "Rose," he begins.

"I know," she says with a smile.

Then, she fades from sight, leaving the Doctor alone. He turns and sprints back to the TARDIS as spasms wrack the creature and the heart stops beating altogether. The cavern starts to collapse as he enters the time machine and slams the doors. Moments later the TARDIS takes off.

In a spaceship in the darkness, a computer scans the dying creature and sends a report to central. All indications show the TARDIS has escaped. At central, the CEO muses that other methods must be employed to rid them of the Doctor once and for all.

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor muses that the energy supplies are low, so he must try and steer the TARDIS towards a source of temporal radiation to recharge. Donna confirms the egg is still alive, having snatched some of the Doctor's drugs to inject her and it to keep them both alive, but she's worried what effect it might have on the unborn Silurian. The Doctor checks the syringe and laughs - it was empty, he was hallucinating it ever contained any drug!

Donna asks the Doctor if he's all right after seeing Rose. The Doctor smiles and muses he's feeling a lot better now than he has in a very, very long time.

The End


Episode Eight: Fight the Power!

The TARDIS fetches up on the planet D'Hoonib, where the Doctor hopes to find sufficient replacement parts to finally repair the navigation controls. Emerging out into a rather squalid city of curved buildings and numerous aliens, the Doctor and Donna (with her egg in a carry bag) head for an underground bar where most of the space crews arrive, and there get information about the technological black market.

As they head there, Donna notices the various news screens reminding citizens of the new curfew. Hundreds of people have gone missing of late, and the authorities haven't a clue how to fix it. The TARDIS crew head down into the bar where the Doctor orders eighteen banana daquiries. They head into a booth and muse over what to do once the TARDIS is working again. A tall figure enters the booth and announces "You will be upgraded!"

The Doctor and Donna realize that while they have been talking, a phalanx of Cybermen have stormed the bar and all the clientelle are made prisoners, warned that resistance will be met with deletion. The Doctor is unsure what is worse - the threat of the Cybermen or the fact these models should not be in this universe since they were all sucked into the void. They are marched out into a van which flies off into one of the massive forrests that cover the planet.

The Cybermen announce that this intake will be the last as the conversion machinery is running low on raw materials. A Cyberman with two handheld buzz-saw-slicing things prepare to deal with the non-humanoid aliens and the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to damage the Cybermen, allowing the aliens to escape. The Cybermen follow, chanting delete. The remaining humans are marched into a crude factory, and Donna, spotting an unattended console, starts to muck around with the settings. Before the Cybermen can stop her, the whirring blades go out of control and start decapitating Cybermen.

The Doctor and some of the aliens hide behind a conversion unit and find it connected to cables dug into the ground. The Cybermen have their own internal power supply, but are hooked up to the planetary energy grid when it comes to using their laser guns. The Doctor sets it to overload and several Cybermen are blown apart while the rest are left losing their hands when their lasers explode.

The authorities detect the Cybermen and storm the plantation in a massive battle. Finally, the Doctor sets the conversion factory to explode and the Cybermen are defeated. The Doctor and Donna flee into the bushes to escape the conflaguration, but the Doctor is troubled as they trudge back to the city. The Cybermen would have had, at best a few hundred units if their plan had succeeded. Donna points out they'd run out of spare parts for the process, but the Doctor points out D'Hoonib isn't exactly short of technology. Why not simply restock first?

As they return to the city, the Doctor finds a hardware shop full of what he needs. Since the proprietor was kidnapped, the Doctor decides to nick what he needs in lieu of reward for saving the planet from the Cybermen. As they reach the TARDIS a strange blue light washes over the city. The Doctor looks around. Everything except him is suddenly frozen. Grabbing Donna, he hauls her back into the TARDIS.

D'Hoonib is being cloaked in a crude stasis beam that has stopped the flow of time. The Doctor and Donna watch on the scanner as a floating van in a blue force field emerges and a Cyberman emerges, collecting the passers-by and dragging them inside. The Doctor realizes the Cybermen have constructed a time weapon, freezing everything except themselves. They can now convert the population one by one for as long as it takes before the stasis beam is shut down, making the Cybermen conquest of D'Hoonib to occur in a split second before the rest of the galaxy can mount any rescue attempt.

The Doctor hastily dury-riggs the replacements and pilots the TARDIS to a sky scraper in the heart of the city. There the main force of Cybermen are restocking a conversion unit. The Doctor emerges, telling Donna to activate the red button when he gives the word. The Cybermen, shocked at the Doctor's ability to resist the flow of time take him captive. The Cyberleader explains the Cybermen are specially built to be immune to the stasis field created.

It transpires the military of D'Hoonib discovered detailed computer records of the Cyber conversion process in the archives of Neo Terra Enterprizes and built conversion machinery to that design. The plan was to make ultimate warriors, but they unwittingly recreated the Cyber intelligence, so the soldiers refused to obey orders and instead rebuilt their forces and planned to create a standard force of three hundred Cybermen before engaging their time-stasis plan and turn D'Hoonib into Cyberworld.

The Doctor orders them to abandon their plans or else. The Cybermen refuse. The Doctor shouts out to Donna to press the button. The TARDIS starts to dematerialize, then rematerialize. A hurricane breeze blows through the chamber, knocking the Cybermen over as the ground begins to shake. The Doctor runs against the wind towards the TARDIS and, timing it, prepares to enter when the Cyberleader grabs him by the shoulders. The force gets worse and worse until the Cyberleader loses its grip. The Doctor scrambles inside as the Cybermen slowly fade from sight.

Outside, everyone unfreezes, unaware that anything was wrong. The Doctor and Donna relocate the TARDIS into the bar and collect the egg. The Doctor explains that she activated her own stasis beam on the reverse frequency to the Cyberman stasis beam. The two beams canceled themselves out and the Cybermen were caught in the middle, frozen in one second, unable to exist outside it. This particular outcrop of the Cybermen won't bother anyone again. As they return to the TARDIS, the Doctor insists he'll have to repair the repair work he just damaged with that gamble.


Episode Nine: Evolution Isn't What It Used To Be

A polluted industrial city on a planet with no moons. Beneath the massive landing pads of the space port runs a slugging river. There, three children idly pick through the junk washed up on the shore and muse on why the area is forbidden to them. Is it the pollution? Or the ghost which has been seen there so often? The children find some strange carvings on a rock wall - apparently older than humanity, but some of the carvings are fresh... including those of a box with a light on top.

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is running in all the repair work on his craft as he sets the time machine to head for the planet Shade, on the outskirts of the galactic neighborhood in the far future. Following the collapse of the Earth Empire in the 201st century, the colonies were left to fend for themselves. It'd be interesting to know how they're going.

The children explore the caves on the other side of the river, apparently a burial ground to the aboriginal life forms of the planet and where the ghost is often sighted. They are more worried, however, when they find a corpse, barely recognizable and drained of blood. A figure starts to lurch through the silt towards them and the trio of children hide. For a moment they think they are safe, and then the figure appears behind them, dressed as a law enforcer and silhouetted against the smog.

The enforcer announces that they are trespassing on his river and thus he can do with them as he wishes. The children gasp as the figure steps into the light revealing itself to be a humanoid slug-like being with flat, snake-like head folded over with six black eyes. It is a giant anthropomorphic bloodsucking leech, and after killing the enforcer whose uniform it now wears, now intends to drain the boys and turn Shade into its own private blood bank. The children are saved as the TARDIS arrives on the shore. Sniffing the potential of the Doctor, the leech creature charges as Donna takes the children to safety.

The Doctor leads the creature a chase through the polluted landscape, tricking it into getting its head stuck in some of the junk under the water. But the creature hasn't finished evolving and, growing larger and more powerful, hauls a heap of metal framework and uprooted tree and hurls it at the Doctor, knocking him unconscious and sending him to the bottom of the river. The creature heads off, knowing once the Doctor has drowned, his blood can be drained at its liesure.

Donna and the children find Jaims, the chief law enforcer, at the space port above the river demanding protection money from a freighter crew. When they refuse, he arrests them on no charge and forces them into a teleport that dumps them straight in the cell. He does not believe the childrens' claims of monsters and arrests the three of them and Donna for trespassing on the river. When she struggles, the Silurian egg is discovered and, amused at her panic, Jaims hurls the egg over into the river, promising her it will be found... one day. Desperately, one of the freighter crew, Kong, takes his chances and jumps from the top of the port and down into the water. His landing dislodges some of the junk covering the Doctor and together they manage to swim ashore.

But there, however, the leech creature is waiting, having drained the blood from all the animals that it has found surviving in the filthy water. The Doctor tries to fight it and loses a pint of blood as the creature's tentacle-like fingers encircle his neck. He passes out as metal arrows slice into the invertibrate monster, causing it to drop the Time Lord and round on its enemy. Another volley of metal allows slash into the creature, tearing it to shreds. The attacker moves over the rocks to where the bodies of Kong and the Doctor lie unconscious...

Donna furiously demands to be released from her cell, as do the children, but to no avail. Jaims floods their cell with mutovapor that renders all of them dum and takes a private call to the man who runs the colony, Savanti Romero. The unseen Savanti is alarmed but not surprised to hear of giant leeches and blue boxes appearing out of nowhere, and orders Donna and the kids to remain in custody until the problem is left. Jaims leaves the detention centre unguarded, but since fewer and fewer people are living on Shade, there is little chance that they'll be rescued.

However, they can still escape and using the children's fishing rods, they are able to ruin the door lock and free themselves and the freighter crew. Donna is still confused - if the city, the only habited spot on the planet is running down, why are more and more people arriving? The freighter crew explain all the adverts and such claim that this planet is a verdant paradise, but that doesn't explain why everyone is staying there.

The Doctor recovers consciousness and discovers that he has been rescued by a grey skinned, hairless creature called Kaysarn. Kaysarn is one of the last aboriginal aliens who lived on shade before humanity arrived. The aliens welcomed humanity until Commander Romero used his personal army to take over the main continent of the planet, using the sacred burial ground as the foundations for hydro factories and the space port. All the aliens were either dead or fled the planet.

Returning to the surface, the Doctor discovers the remains of the leech creature have gone - it was not completely dead and has reformed. It is hiding somewhere. As he looks around, he finds the carving of the TARDIS and Kaysarn explains it recieves vivid dreams of times in the future, apparently given to him by the Sacred Heart. The Doctor is curious, when suddenly the larger, less humanoid leech creature drops from an overhang and attacks them. This time, Kaysarn's arrows are not enough to stop it and the Doctor, Kaysarn and Kong are forced to flee into the depths of the caves.

In the penthouse atop the factory, the unseen Romero demands that all law enforcers abandon their current duties and head down into the river. The mutant creatures must be destroyed and evidence planted that the alien natives were somehow responsible. The ghost has haunted the city for over seven generations and enough is enough. If the new Terran Federation discovers the illegal practises of Romero's factory, they will arrive on Shade in force. Romero also wants all witnesses liquedated.

Up top, Donna and the others discover the rest of the law enforcers are stealing the fuel from the parked space ships, effectively marooning everyone and trapping them on the planet. If they want to leave, they'll need fuel from the factories which is now ridiculously expensive, which means they must stay in the city and replace those who have already escaped. The freighter crew are caught while Donna and the children run through the space port and now out into the factory. As they reach an area of caves, the Doctor, Kong and Kaysarn arrive.

Suddenly a strange, angry red glow pulses through the river, turning the whole city blood red. In the factory, Romero and Jaims look around them, at a loss while the Doctor and Kaysarn slowly fade out of existence, leaving the others alone as enforcers head towards Donna, Kong and the children. They run out into the open and finally see the factory complex for the first time.

"You are kidding me," Donna gasps.

The factories belong to the Neo Terra Enterprizes corporation.

To be continued...


Episode Ten: Old Man River

The Doctor snaps out of his daze to find he is gigantic, standing over a tiny landscape identical to that of Shade. Beside him is Martha Jones, who quietly reminds the Doctor he has forgotten something - that not even he, the Last of the Time Lords, knows everything. The breeze that ruffles their hair, the water lapping in the rivers, the storm clouds, the grass... they have secrets too.

The Doctor sees a huge tree smothered in tiny insects that are eating away at the trunk, and realizes that time is running out. He runs over to help, but finds himself getting smaller and smaller. As Martha points out, he's just a man when all is said and done. He must accept his own insignificance. For once.

The now tiny Doctor looks up in barely-disguised trepidation as the giant leech looms up out of the sky and charges towards him...

The Doctor awakes with a start to find himself lying in a lowland swamp with Keysarn. Keysarn realizes they have somehow travelled towards the source of all the rivers and water on Shade. But why? And who brought them there? The Doctor is certain something is waiting for them at the place where the rivers are truly born, and starts to trudge through the stagnant water against the current and Keysarn, helpless, decides to follow him.

Back in the industrial city, Donna and the children flee through the streets as the enforcers continue to search for witnesses. They hurry down into the sewers and realize that something else is down there. The leech monster, now looking more and more humanoid and laughing like a madman. The fugitives flee out through the pipes and find themselves on the polluted banks of the river as the enforcers hunt the leech monster. For a moment, they are screwed but then the leech attacks the enforcers and drains them all dry. Donna and the kids flee through the burial grounds as the others are slaughtered.

The Doctor and Kaysarn move through tangled thickets at the edge of the swamps as Kaysarn explains their mythology believes that the world is a great tree being slowly consumed by insects and when the tree collapses, the world ends. Of course, they always thought they could delay the collapse to the far future, but it looks like humanity has accelerated the process. The Doctor muses humanity has its good side, and in general they would side with Kaysarn over the companies that run Shayde. Plus, there's technology which could easily sort out the pollution, but Kaysarn knows it is intention that matters. Not chemicals.

Meanwhile, Savanti Romero discovers that all the enforcer teams have been wiped out and now something is stalking the streets of the city. Romero is delighted, since all the citizens will flee into the factory for protection and thus all witnesses will be in one spot to be liquedated. Jaims is horrified, but Romero points out that if the leech has nothing to eat, it will certainly die. Romero has always ensured he has access to a small personal army of security robots, but lets slip he's always done so ever since he first claimed Shayde. Jaims begins to wonder if Romero isn't the descendant of the founder... maybe he IS the founder?

The Doctor and Kaysarn wade through a gorge beyond the marshes, which Kaysarn has seen in his dreams, as he saw the TARDIS. The Doctor muses that the gorge is a good place for an ambush, since the overhanging trees could hide their worst enemy. But although he thinks he sees something watching them, nothing happens and they wade out onto a huge lake, a vertiable lagoon from which all the water on Shayde emerges.

Donna and the children slow to a halt as they enter a huge underground cavern where the underground well is now polluted by chemicals that emerge from a huge, rusty pipe that is crudely bolted on the side of the overhang above. The children can't understand why the company would do this, but Donna does - it's cheap, nasty and none of the authorities will notice then pumping sludge into a natural spring. Donna and the children resolve to stop it somehow, and try to find a way to follow the pipe up to the surface.

Meanwhile, a lone figure stalks the now deserted space port, resembling the Doctor with yellow, translucent flesh. He has the blood of a Time Lord and his evolution continues. He can regenerate the cells of his body, see other colours, and control his physical form. He knows the only humans are now inside the factory, and so there he shall go to feast, and from there on use the ships to travel to new planets and start all over again.

Romero decides to use the freighter crew as bait to lure the creature in. He injects them all with poison, so when the creature drains their blood, it will poison itself and be weakened enough for the robot army to stop it. Jaims protests, and so he too is added to the group. The creature is already in the compound...

The Doctor and Keysarn are startled when fish appear in the water all around them, and then seem to charge. But the fish simply arrange themselves into sleds on which the duo can stand, and then swim away, carrying them towards the waterfall at the edge of the lagoon and then the fish jump in formation, carrying the two of them to the top of the falls. There the two of them are carried up onto a single island. Keysarn notes how cold it is up here, while the Doctor can smell electricity building up all around them. But there is no one else there... at least not ready to show themselves just yet.

Donna and the children are climbing the rickety ladders that follow the pipe up into the factory. The children suggest they block the pipe and force all the toxic muck back to where it came from. Though Donna's no plumber, the fact tools have been left near the pipe controls are a good sign...

As the creature enters the main building, the robots detect movement in the main pipeshaft, and Romero realizes they might be under attack on two fronts. The creature loses the form of the Doctor and smothers the freighter crew, before releases them and secreting a black ooze. It drained all their blood, filtered out the poison and then returned it. It has more important things to do than feed.

Donna turns the wheels on the pipe, confident it is now plugged. It's time for them to leave right away - they only have to avoid the monster long enough to hide inside the TARDIS. They hurry back down towards the cave as needles on the dials start to creep up.

The Doctor looks around, suddenly seeing the rivers they pass through the city and out towards the oceans. Something is at the other end. Something wicked and horrible and hideous is out there, and it is heading straight for them. Distance is no obstacle as it contorts through the water towards the source. There's nowhere to run.

The robots charge the creature and a pitched battle begins, but in moments the androids are overwhelmed and torn to pieces. The auto-defences cannot stop the creature that simply regenerates its wounds. Romero turns and realizes that the main pipe is blocked and the sludge is backing up. Because he's saved costs by using cheap machinery, none of the failsafes will work. Smiling suddenly, Romero retreats up against a door as the monster approaches. At the last second, Romero dives out of the way as the door is blown off its hinges as a torrent of slime bursts out and washes the creature down into the main factory. Laughing, Romero runs for it.

Donna and the children are now on the riverbank, Donna looking hopefully for a Silurian egg as she and the others head for the TARDIS. The streets of the city are overflowing with ooze as more pipes in the factory burst. Meanwhile, the exhausted freighter crew escape, along with the handful of surviving citizens and head for the spaceport before it is smothered.

Keysarn senses that something has changed and then a vortex of light appears in the middle of the island, reforming into an ancient almost mummified creature similar to Keysarn. It is a native of Shayde, who millions of years ago achieved evolution into pure energy that bonded with the rivers, conduits of planetary energy. Over thousands of years, it has become master of the physical world.

The Doctor finds it odd that such a powerful being didn't so much as lift a finger when the companies ravaged the planet. Which would be stupid... unless the old creature chose deliberately to allow it to happen. Amused, the old man notes it long ago passed such concepts as 'good' or 'evil'. Reality presents opportunities, and thus the arrival of humanity, something new, was worth studying.

Now, the old man has engineered the creation of the mutant leech to wipe out humanity, but the arrival of the Doctor was a real surprise. The old man wishes to study the last of the Lord of Time and when the Doctor tries to fight him off, he is frozen in place as the old man uses his telepathy, honed by aeons.

Suddenly, Romero appears on the island, and Romero immediately shoots down the old creature, but to no avail. The old man simply rearranges his molecules to heal his body faster than Romero can damage it. Suddenly, the mutant leach attacks Romero and tries to kill him, but to no avail... Romero is not human. Or even alive. Just a mass of biological protoplasm held in suspension. Romero laughs in the creature's face before turning to sludge.

Amused, the old man has the creature turn on the Doctor, to act as a living laboratory to study the Time Lord's DNA. Keysarn protests, realizing that the old man is not the tree of the world, but the parasite destroying it. Irritated, the ancient figure fires a thunder bolt straight at Keysarn, but instead the leech creature dives on the old man.

The attack frees the Doctor and in a dazed, is left in the dreamscape with Martha, who reminds the Time Lord the rivers are not just living things, but a dance of life from plant to animal to soil, and that the world itself is another even larger living thing. There is no spirit, just the force of life itself. The Doctor realizes in the confusion, he has been given the reigns to the old man's power. The Doctor muses that he doesn't give second chance and focusses his attention on the old man.

The creature ravages the leech, removing all taint of the Doctor from its cells - and with it any sense of morality, and the mutant becomes a mindless, muscle-bound bloodsucker once more. But then a bolt of energy swarms around the old man, and he collapses. The Doctor glances at the monster, which reverts back to an ordinary harmless leech.

The old creature struggles to crawl away from the Doctor, who reveals he has cut off the parasite from the power of the planet - and he no longer able to restore the cells of his body. He's feeling his age as his body disintegrates from within. The Doctor announces he has little use for Shade's energy and hands it to the one person who deserves a go - Kaysarn.

The old creature refuses to die, and glows brightly, using the last of his power to reverse the age of his body. The Doctor tuts, pointing out that's a dangerous tactic, but the creature stands up, growing younger and healthier. The young man turns to kill the duo and retake his power, but realizes the process is going too fast. The creature is dwindling back to boyhood and desperately begs Kaysarn to help, but the tiny baby can no longer hold onto the wet rocks of the island and vanishes into the water, now an embryo getting smaller and smaller, before disappearing as a leech shuffles over it.

Federation ships appear above the slime drenched city as environmental control teams storm the area. The Doctor and Kaysarn materialize by the TARDIS as Donna and the children emerge. Kaysarn makes the children promise not to make the mistakes of their ancestors and ensure that humanity leaves Shade for its true people. The Doctor and Donna re enter the TARDIS.

As the time machine takes off, the Doctor spins it forward a few years and sees Shade now repopulated by Kaysarn's people, and all the water clean. A happy ending, but Donna is heartbroken that she lost the Silurian egg. The Doctor delves into his pocket and shows Donna the egg, which the old man stole for future examination. The unborn Silurian is fine, but that's not what's worrying him.

The NTE stretches throughout all time and space, and who knows how many puppets like Romero are scattered across the universe. But the Doctor's little dabble in telepathy showed him the line that connected Romero to the source. And that is where they shall now head.

Elsewhere, the CEO laughs. Everything is happening as planned, as events cause different events, and pattern is set. The Doctor is heading for his destiny and nothing and no one can now stop it!

The End.

To be continued...