CiN Special

A MASSIVE LOST OPPORTUNITY

The Tenth Doctor, Donna and Abby are taking Geri Halliwell back to the Earth after a terrifying offscreen adventure with the Wondarks from the Wateh Galaxy, a race of aliens resembling packets of rice crispies flying around through space in craft resembling used squeegee bottles. You might have managed to catch a glimpse of this had you not all been rushing to the toilet after John Barrowman's rendition of Pedophile Classics like "Come Up The Years And Love Me", "Young Girl My Love For You Is Way Out Of Line", "She Was Asking For It" and "You Can Touch This! Or Can You?". On the bright side, it was either this or a special Torchwood episode whose cost would outweight any funds generated.

However, the TARDIS is caught in an unstable time field and crashlands in a quarry surrounded by some woods. There is no one around, which does not concern the Time Lord or his companions because expecting disused quarries to be a hive of social activity is just stupid.

Leaving Geri in the TARDIS because the author has no idea what to do with her, the Doctor and his pals Donna and Abby move through the creepy wood. After five minutes, however, nothing has happened. No strange corpses, suicides, spaceship, nothing. And so they wander out into the verdant English countryside and there is STILL nothing to see or do, and the time travellers idly discuss their footwear and the Doctor bemoans having to change his shoesize every time he regenerates. This leads to a completely pointless lecture on the biomechanics of regeneration, which fills another fifteen minutes.

Somehow this is supposed to inspire people to donate money to Children in Need.

Which they probably do, along with comments like "STOP THIS STUPID RUBBISH!"

However, there is still another twenty long minutes left, so the Doctor realizes that even the Doctor Who fans viewing will be switching off in droves. Donna suggests they get something all the anoraks will HAVE to stay and watch to get ratings of 10 million rather than cause some comedic skit surrounded by the likes of Terry Wogan and the Spice Girls.

The Doctor announces the time has come for the ultimate ratings ploy -

...he's going to have a proper episode explaining the Time War!

Luckily, the Eighth Doctor happens to be loitering with intent in a disused farm building nearby to shed some light on things, but he's busy playing poker with his companions Charley Pollard and Cecil Rizz Esquire. The trio make inappropriate comments about Doctor Who fandom - in particular one "psycho cunt" called Mark Goacher - as they deal cards.

The Tenth Doctor awkwardly tries to interrupt the game and suggests he and his previous self reminice about the horrible war that one has gone through, and the other is going through, perhaps over an amicable spot of tea and some jovial cucumber sandwiches.

The Eighth Doctor tells the lot of them to piss off and go and find a good, high profile proper story to hoick in more viewers - rather than pestering him, they could find some alien clones of Hitler leading Nazis and beat the shit out of them for the remaining 40 minutes of the special.

Abby points out the whole world seems to be completely deserted in a homage to Night of the Comet, so the exasperated Eighth Doctor suggests she go and fight Dracula if she's SO bothered about grabbing the audience's attention with high profile enemies. C'Rizz suggests they could always bring in the Daleks, whereupon Charley grabs his head and slams it against the table seventeen times for daring to show signs of independent thought.

The Eighth Doctor agrees to participate as long as they get it over with damn quick:

"Hello, Doctor!"

"Hello... do I know you?"

"Yes, it's me. Your future incarnation."

"So it is. That means we got through the time war!"

"Indeed. Perhaps you could explain it for the audience at home."

"Uh... explain what?"

"The time war."

"Well, it was a war."

"Yes."

"In time."

"And?"

"Well, it was the Daleks versus the Time Lords."

"And?"

"We're losing?"

"And?"

"And what? Isn't that all you need to know?"

"No, we need to know lots of things! Like, what does the Fall of Arcadia mean, what is the cruciform, how exactly did you end the war?"

"Well, I haven't ended the war yet, have I?"

"Oh. My mistake. Well, for anyone interested, I used the Hand of Omega on Gallifrey's sun, sent it nova, wiped out the Dalek fleet, the shockwave went into the time vortex, battabim battaboom! Leather jackets and Northern accents galore!"

"Oh, you've spoiled it now!"

"Have I?"

"Yes."

"Don't worry, Blinovitch, timeywimey stuff. You'll forget all about it."

"The audience won't. They'll never be arsed to film it now. Oh well, I'm off back to BBC7 to shag... er, record a new series of plays with Sheridan Smith."

"Aw, can I come?"

"No."

"You still haven't explained where Acadia is?"

"Small comic retailer in Brigadoon."

"And the cruciform?"

"Like a protractor, only REALLY big. BYE!"

"Oh. Guess that's it. Over to you, Terry."

The Tenth Doctor broods that, on second thoughts, having the entire Doctor Who production team give up all their free time, bring in McGann against his will to produce a two-and-a-half hour Time War story for CiN that two or three people on the face of the Earth would understand or give a damn about MAY have been a useless waste of everyone's time.

Donna suggests that they go the whole hog and bring back Christopher Eccleston... again... and use it to explain the McGann/Eccleston regeneration! If THAT doesn't pull in more viewers and raised more donations, then what in the name of the holy fucking trinity will?

The Ninth Doctor enters, muttering something about "finally scraping the bottom of the barrel so much you burst through and land in the gutter" and "it's almost the same as stealing food directly from starving children's mouths" and "damn Russell T Davies and his team to hell!"

Annoyed, the Tenth Doctor rounds on his past self and is told, "Yeah, cause if CiN rates lower than 10 million, that can ONLY be down to the fact we didn't explain the entire bleeding Time War! I thought tonight was for Children In Need, not us! We're helping THEM, not busking for an extra episode! Sides, there's only 7 minutes left, are you REALLY going to do justice to a battle that shook the cornerstones of creation in that time?!"

"Well, what's YOUR idea then, Big Ears?!" the Tenth Doctor retorts.

"Have some fun! Fun doesn't undermine the world, you know! Or do you lot want to try to encapsulate the essence of an improved ouvre by discussing philosophy in an oh-so-serious manner and deal with series issues? Who wants a dark, dismay, joyless, full length wankfest interspersed with Little Britain sketches? There's always something better than that!"

"Such as?" the Eighth Doctor prompts.

"Well, maybe, just maybe we could do something vaguely interesting like defeat, I dunno, an ALIEN INVASION?!"

"But there aren't any aliens invading!" Abby protests.

"Oh, ye of little faith," the Ninth Doctor retorts and points outside, to where three extras in boiler suits and plastic Nicholas Briggs masks are stumbling around blindly.

"Blimey!" the Tenth Doctor explains. "Autons!"

"Yes," the Ninth Doctor sighs. "Autons. Now, go sick 'em, Rex!"

In a matter of minutes, the Doctors have used their Sonic Screwdrivers to build a Deplasticine Disintegrator, and destroy the Autons and instantly restoring the population of Earth.

"Well... that was anti-climactic," Abby observes.

"Yeah, let's get out of here."

The Tenth Doctor, Abby and Donna leave, and moments later Ben Chatham barges in.

"Hello everyone, I'm Ben Chatham! Aren't I striking! Aren't I strapping! Admire my smootheness and inherent gravitas as I instantly gain your respect - what a perfect companion I am!"

"Piss off, Britney!" the Eighth Doctor says, shoving her out the window. "Hang on a second, we never did get round to showing the regeneration."

"Oh yeah, mind like a seive," the Ninth Doctor says, shooting the Eighth Doctor through the head. He falls to the ground and instantly implodes to become an identical Ninth Doctor. The other Ninth Doctor turns to face the audience. "Happy now? He's dead. So now you can put this up on youtube, take down all those crappy fanmade sequences, eat your beans on toast, be average. Oh, and donate to Children in Need or I'll rip your bloody arms off."

He turns and leaves as the newly-regenerated Ninth Doctor starts clutching his head and screaming, "OH GOD IT'S LIKE A KOALA CRAPPED A RAINBOW INSIDE MY BRAIN!!"

The End