Doctor Who and the Jelly Babies
Cast and crew
- Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor.
- TV’s Bradley Walsh as Graham.
- Tosin Cole as Thingy.
- Mandip Gill as Wotsit.
- Joey Essex as himself.
- Tom Baker as Tom Baker.
- Sacha Dawan as <Spoiler Removed>
Epilogue
A BUSY LONDON STREET
TOM BAKER: Ah, I say! Young man! Would you be so kind as to direct me to The Coach and Horses? I appear to have taken a short cut.
JOEY ESSEX: Yeah, course, mate! Down there, second on your right.
TOM BAKER: Thank you kindly, good sir! Would you care for a jelly baby?
TOM BAKER PROFFERS A WHITE PAPER BAG OF JELLY BABIES, JOEY ESSEX GOES TO TAKE ONE BUT RECOILS SHARPLY. THERE IS BLOOD ON HIS FINGER.
JOEY ESSEX: Ow! What happened there?
TOM BAKER: You appear to have been bitten. These jelly babies seem to be somewhat defective. Do you know? I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen that happen before. How delightfully mysterious.
JOEY ESSEX: Hang on a sec! I know you! You’re that guy on Doctor Who! What’s his name now …
TOM BAKER: The Doctor?
JOEY ESSEX: Yes, that’s you! The Doctor! You solve all those mysteries and weird stuff!
TOM BAKER: Well, I used to, you see. But I’m pushing a thousand these days, and well … it’s just not the same! I mean you have to get the whole thing done in 45 minutes, these days. And it’s hardly as if there’s any less running around in corridors to make up for it. Still! I’m sure there’s a younger and more aesthetically pleasing incarnation of myself ready to save the day. Charmed to have met you!
AS DVD SALES SOAR ON THE BACK OF TOM’S SUITABLY INSPIRING APPEARENCE, WE HAVE THE TITLE SEQUENCE LEADING TO
SCENE 1
THE TARDIS. THE DOCTOR AND THE FAM ARE SCATTERED AROUND THE CONSOLE ROOM. THE TARDIS MAKES MATERIALISATION NOISES.
THE DOCTOR: Right then, let’s see we’ve ended up. TURNS ON VIEWER. Oh, look! Sheffield! Not often I get to go to Sheffield. Look! Look! Everybody! That’s Sheffield! I love Sheffield, I do. It’s all kind of ooh! I don’t know! It makes me come over all David Tennanty. And it’s just brilliant! Come on, I’ll show you Sheffield!
GRAHAM: I think the rest of us are actually meant to be from Sheffield, Doc, even though my accent is Watford and yours is more Huddersfield.
THE DOCTOR: Well! You know! Twisty-wisty-spacey-wacey and all that. Let’s go and take a look. We’ll be running out of episode time if we don’t get a move on and find something to sort out. Now I wonder why we’ve ended up here …
Scene 2
THE DOCTOR AND THE FAM LEAVE THE TARDIS AND ENTER A QUIET RESIDENTIAL STREET. IT ACTUALLY LOOKS PRETTY MUCH LIKE THE STREET IN ‘FEAR HER’ OR ONE OF THOSE — WE CAN PROBABLY USE THE SAME ONE. A LITTLE GIRL APPROACHES THE DOCTOR, SHE IS SOBBING LOUDLY.
LITTLE GIRL: Help! Help! The sweetie ate my cat!
THE DOCTOR: The what ate your cat?
LITTLE GIRL: The sweetie ate my cat!
THE DOCTOR: It’s alright! I’m here to help. Now you just calm down and tell me what happened. There’s no need to hurry …
LITTLE GIRL: The sweetie ate my cat!
THE DOCTOR: There’s something rum going on, I’d better wave my screwdriver around. You can get them from Amazon for just £11.90, by the way.
THE DOCTOR WAVES HER SCREWDRIVER AROUND
THE DOCTOR: Aha! Alpha-siminal poxitenary distortions with plenitude-action liposomes, ve-ery interesting! The presence of some dissipating macrostitial static would suggest something of a spatio-temporal anomaly.
GRAHAM: What does that mean, Doc?
THE DOCTOR: It means that a sweetie ate this little girl’s cat.
LITTLE GIRL: WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Scene 2: Part 2
THE DOCTOR: Keep an eye out for anything large and gelatinous — especially if it looks hungry!
GRAHAM: No idea what you’re talking about, Doc, but how can a screwdriver tell you all that?
THE DOCTOR: No idea! It used to just be a screwdriver, bottle opener and lock-pick but then somebody watched too much Harry Potter. And then, somebody else saw a merchandising opportunity … Still, it’s a good job we’ve got it, otherwise we’d be halfway through the adventure and still have no clue what’s going on beyond what’s been clumsily given away in the title and the epilogue.
GRAHAM: Good point, Doc! So what have got? Wotsit-rays, liposomes, a dead cat, jelly babies and er, jelly babies! Yes, that’s it, isn’t it? A jelly baby ate the girl’s cat!
LITTLE GIRL: WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
GRAHAM: But hang on, a mo’! A jelly baby’s so big and a cat’s about that big! (MOVES ARMS AND FINGERS AROUND ACCORDINGLY)
DOCTOR: Yes, but a little dimensional engineering can go a long way. Just look at The Tardis!
GRAHAM: Got you! Some evil mastermind takes a jelly baby and turns it into a cat-eating monster!
LITTLE GIRL: WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
DOCTOR: Well it’s a bit more complicated than that because they’d somehow have to bring it to life, too but, hey! Honestly, we’re paying this scriptwriter peanuts and you do get what you pay for. Anyway, where are Thingy and Wotsit? It must nearly be time for their scene. Oh! There they are! Just behind those bushes.
GRAHAM: What? The bushes by the liquefied cat?
LITTLE GIRL: WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
THE DOCTOR AND GRAHAM WANDER OFF TO FIND THINGY AND WOTSIT. THEY LEAVE THE LITTLE GIRL BEHIND AS SHE WAS WAY TOO CHILD-ACTORY AND DIDN’T QUITE MASTER THE COMIC TIMING WITH THE WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHs IN THE PREVIOUS SCENE.
Scene 3
BEHIND THE BUSHES BY THE LIQUEFIED CAT
THINGY: You won’t believe this, Doctor! We just saw a giant jelly baby!
THE DOCTOR: Leave the plot development to me, sonny. Is there anything on your mind?
THINGY: Well, yes, Doc. Looking at that pool of cat I just get all sad, you know. I mean, like, there are kids starving to death in Africa and that, but that jelly baby just wasted so much of that cat! He didn’t even make any stock or save some for sandwiches.
WOTSIT: Yes, it’s all such a hideous waste and really not very sustainable, at all.
GRAHAM: You’re right, you two! People really can’t go on squandering the world’s resources the way that they do.
THE DOCTOR: Absolutely, if we were all a bit more careful we would have a far brighter future. Any road up, the phone lines are already melting, so let’s get on with the story. Which way did the jelly baby go?
THINGY: That way! POINTS UP A LONG CORRIDOR FORMED BY TWO FENCES.
Scene 4
MUCH RUNNING AROUND IN CORRIDORS
Scene 5
EVENTUALLY, THEY EMERGE ON THE ALLOTMENTS CONFRONTED BY A GIANT JELLY BABY. IT’S ABOUT 20 FEET TALL AND IT’S QUITE SURPRISING THAT NO-ONE SAW IT OVER THE FENCE.
THINGY: Blimey! It’s grown! It was smaller than me, the last time we saw it.
THE DOCTOR: Interdimensional instability! This could get ugly!
GRAHAM: And what if it’s not the only one! I mean if he can do it to one jelly baby …
THE DOCTOR: Yes, and there must be millions of jelly babies on Earth. I’ve no idea how many!
A VOICE EMERGES FROM BEHIND — IT IS NONE OTHER THAN THE MASTER
THE MASTER: You’re right about that, Doctor! Even I can’t find the answer to that one and my Google-Fu is far greater than yours. But. yes, to answer your forthcoming question, I do indeed have complete control over all of them! Every last one! Thanks to the sonic sugar-thermometer of Rassilon, which you so carelessly allowed me to purloin in the previous episode, I can now control every jelly baby on the planet. With my army of resizable sugary treats, I can finally conquer this accursed, little planet that you are so curiously fond of. Domination and dominion will be mine! All mine! And there is nothing you can do to stop me this time! Death and destruction will rain down on this miserable world! Admit it, Doctor — I have finally defeated you. I’m so, so good at being bad! Look behind you!
THERE ARE NOW A WHOLE HEAP OF GIANT JELLY BABIES OF VARIOUS COLOURS EDGING TOWARDS THE DOCTOR. THE MUSIC GETS OVERWHELMINGLY DRAMATIC AND THE SKY GETS MOODY.
THE DOCTOR STANDS, LARGELY MOTIONLESS. SHE GENTLY REMOVES THE CHRONIC SCREWDRIVER FROM HER POCKET AND ADJUSTS THE CONTROLS. SUDDENLY SHE TURNS AND POINTS THE DEVICE AT THE MASTER’S JACKET POCKET.
THE MASTER: What are you doing, Doctor? You and your human friends are about to be eaten in a highly unecological way and you point a screwdriver at me?
THE DOCTOR: I just happen to know that the thermometer is in that very pocket. I saw you toying with it earlier.
THE MASTER: What of it? It is the thermometer of Rassilon himself. You cannot harm it!
THE DOCTOR: Well, I can’t damage it, but I can change its readings. And what does a sonic thermometer do when it reaches one of the limits of its scale?
THE MASTER: Well, I don’t know. Let’s see … it would need to reverse the polarity of its neutron flow, I suppose. And that would change the direction of the demat/remat optimisation stream which in turn would lead to a feedback condition in the control circuit and the resultant energy flux would intensify at an exponential rate until … Noooo! Drat! Foiled again!
VEEP-VEEP-VEEP SOUND EFFECTS, FOCUS ON MONSTERS SHAKING, KABLAMMO! THE BURSTING JELLY BABIES SPEW UP A BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW INTO THE BLUE AND SUNNY SKY. RABBITS SKIP, MERRILY, ACROSS THE FIELDS.
SOME SOPPY EPILOGUE FOLLOWS BUT I’LL WRITE THAT NEARER THE SHOOTING DATE. USUAL STUFF: WE ARE FAMILY, WE LOVE EACH OTHER ETC., ETC., FOLLOWED BY A QUICK REVELATION THAT DAVROS IS REALLY A TIMELORD OR SOMETHING TO GET THE INTERNET TALKING.
CLOSING TITLES.
FIN
Well, there you go, Chibbers. Hope it’s everything you need. Nice low budget job, I’d have thought — you can always do a Hanna-Barbera number on the corridor scene. Feel free to sub Joey Essex with someone else if he’s too expensive. Is Trevor Scroggins still a thing? Think the Tom idea is good for a bloody stack of memorabilia and the Jodie bits really push the screwdriver merch. I got the preachy bit in there quite subtly, I thought. The Master only bangs on for half a day, too. So, it’s all good in the ‘hood! And thinking about it, there’s got to be scope for jelly baby action figures, too. Choking hazard, you say? Yes, I see the problem — well, we could always make edible jelly baby action figures. Just a thought. I know you said it was pay-on-commission but if you could see your way to an advance, only I’ve just acquired another bloody pterodactyl, long story — don’t ask, and it’s costing me a sodding fortune to feed the bugger. Must meet up soon … P.
Originally published at https://www.dailydistress.com on September 23, 2020.
