Chapter Text

DOCTOR WHO

A VERY, VERY NORMAL PLANET

(Presented in black-and-white, filmed before a live studio audience. Occasional colour "glitch" effects appear briefly.)

OPENING CARD

SUPER: "This episode of Doctor Who is brought to you in glorious monochrome."

Theme: Cheerful 1960s sitcom music: I Love Lucy Intro.

ACT ONE – "GALLIFREY LANE"

(presented in black-and-white, filmed before a live studio audience; brief colour glitches occur)

INT. SMITH HOUSE – MORNING

A cosy 1960s suburban kitchen: checkerboard lino, neat chrome appliances, floral curtains. Everything feels a touch too perfect, like a catalogue page that's learnt to breathe. A bowl of fruit sits centre stage; the apples shine a little too brightly under the studio lamps.

Music: a jaunty sitcom sting as the kettle begins to whistle.

Rose stands at the hob in a smart house dress, humming as she lays out two plates with a care that looks practised, ritualistic. She is radiant in that lived-in way—someone who has decided that love is an everyday verb. She picks up the kettle; in its polished belly a fleeting splash of colour ripples—Rose in adventurer's coat, a sonic screwdriver glinting blue. She blinks. Monochrome again.

John sits at the table behind her in a crisp three-piece, pretending to read the Gallifrey Gazette but mostly watching Rose with unabashed fondness. There's a conspicuous gap where the front page headline should be; instead, tasteful swirls of inoffensive decoration.

ROSE
Here we are, love. One perfectly ordinary breakfast for two perfectly ordinary people.

*[LAUGHTER]*

JOHN
Extraordinary people, surely. It's us.

*[MORE LAUGHTER]* (He taps his watch; the hands rest at 3:15 and refuse to budge.)

JOHN
Punctual as ever. Quarter past… always.

ROSE
Perhaps it's sentimental. Doesn't want to rush a good morning.

She pours his tea. The milk makes a little whirlpool that tries, for a heartbeat, to spiral in colour. It doesn't. Rose almost frowns, then decides the tea is more important and kisses John on the forehead.

JOHN
(softly, like a secret he enjoys every day)
Marry me.

ROSE
We did.

JOHN
Did we? When?

They both search their memories like people reaching into a pocket they're sure must be there. A beat. The set lighting warms and the audience titters as if on cue.

ROSE
Oh, don't be daft. Ages ago. Ages and ages. We had bunting.

JOHN
And a cake. I remember the cake. It tasted like… something marvellous.

ROSE
Love?

JOHN
That's the one.

*[APPLAUSE]* (The toaster pops in triumph; four perfect slices arc into the air like a rehearsed gag. John catches two with a flourish; Rose snatches the others without looking.)

JOHN
Teamwork.

ROSE
Dreamwork.

They grin like conspirators. Across the room, a built-in dresser showcases a row of framed photographs: John and Rose at a picnic, by the seaside, outside the very house they're in. In every photograph, they wear exactly what they're wearing now.

Rose notices… then smiles at the neatness of it, as if the universe is finally tidying up after itself. She straightens one frame; it rights itself a fraction before she touches it. A gentle electronic hum sews the moment shut.

*[OOHS FROM THE AUDIENCE]*

ROSE
New picture hooks. You and your gadgets.

JOHN
I am an engineer. Of… things. And hooks are the pinnacle of—ah—hookery.

*[LAUGHTER]* He folds the paper. The crossword clues are all cheerfully blank.

JOHN
There's a village fair today. Thought we might pop along. Win you a goldfish. Or an entire future.

ROSE
I'd settle for a toffee apple.

She catches her reflection in the chrome teapot: another blink of colour—this time a subtle smear of red on her lips. She licks them, startled by the taste of a memory she can't place, then laughs at herself.

ROSE
And perhaps a dance tonight, Mr Smith? In the sitting room. We can scandalize the neighbors with our waltz.

JOHN
A promise is a promise.

Their eyes meet with an ease born of history—domestic, playful, and as much a relief as it is a spark.

Music: a cheerful transitional sting.

EXT. GALLIFREY LANE – LATER

Sun theatrical through paper-cut clouds. The houses along the lane are unreasonably symmetrical. Hedges stand so straight it's as if they've been measured with a set square. Rose and John step out hand-in-hand; the audience *[awws]* as they perform the small choreography of locking up, he holding the gate, she twirling past him with a dimpled grin.

Peter, the gardener, trims a topiary that already looks like it was carved by a deity with OCD.

PETER
Morning, you two. The azaleas are behaving themselves.

JOHN
At last, someone in this village with discipline.

A potted fern beside Peter whispers, almost imperceptible:

FERN (WHISPER)
Wake up.

Peter taps the pot and the fern falls silent. Rose tilts her head—did she hear that? She decides it must have been the wind and squeezes John's arm.

ROSE
What's on your list today, Mr Engineer?

JOHN
Apply my immense intellect to the matter of fairy lights at the village hall. There's a socket behind the stage with ideas above its station.

ROSE
You and your sockets.

They stroll. The pavement scuffs are painted on and repeat every three slabs. A pram passes with a smiling mother; the baby waves exactly the same way twice. Rose's smile flickers; then John tickles her palm and the world is perfect again.

William approaches in a smart, old-fashioned coat, hands tucked behind his back like a headmaster on inspection. Susan walks at his side—young, bright, with a smile that feels learned rather than felt. She looks at Rose with the intense curiosity of someone who's already met her yesterday and tomorrow.

WILLIAM
Good morning, John. Rose. Routine suits you.

ROSE
We do try, William.

JOHN
Though I'm not sure it would know what to do without Rose telling it.

*[LAUGHTER]*

SUSAN
(pleasant as a bell that rings in an empty church)
The fair will be delightful. Everyone will be where they ought to be.

She holds Rose's gaze a fraction too long. For the briefest slice of time, the outline of Susan's face wavers—as if a dozen other girls (brave, brilliant, different) try to wear her features. A soft colour flicker dances at the edges. Then all is neat again.

ROSE
We'll be there. Wouldn't miss it.

WILLIAM
Keep to the path. Best not go peering behind the scenery.

He tips his hat. It almost clips the sky backdrop, which is just a little too close. They continue on, crisp as cut-outs.

JOHN
Behind the scenery, he says, as if he's remembered the theater in his bones.

ROSE
Everyone's a philosopher before nine.

They laugh. A milk float hums past; the driver nods with smiling precision. Every bottle is full to the same millimeter line. Rose watches them gleam and thinks, This is lovely, and then, This is rather… The thought evaporates like morning mist under studio lights.

INT. SMITH HOUSE – AFTERNOON

A snug sitting room: patterned wallpaper, doilies on armchairs, a big picture window with a painted garden beyond. A record spins on the turntable: a lilting waltz that makes the air feel like sugared tea. The mantle holds their wedding photo: confetti, bunting, both of them aglow. The date beneath the picture frame is decorative curlicue—no numbers, just flourish.

John and Rose enter with shopping. A small bag of apples joins the bowl—every apple in the bowl already looks exactly like the ones in the bag.

JOHN
I have it on good authority there will be toffee apples at the fair. But one must practice.

ROSE
Consider me a willing pupil.

He offers her a gallant little bow, a hand extended. She accepts with exaggerated primness.

ROSE
Oh, Mr Smith, what will the neighbors say?

JOHN
That Mrs Smith has scandalously high standards.

*[LAUGHTER]* (They waltz slowly between the sofa and the sideboard. The record skips—repeats the same bar twice—and for a single beat the roses on the wallpaper flash a deep, impossible red.)

Rose falters, a hand to the wall, fingers grazing a seam where the floral pattern repeats too perfectly.

ROSE
Do you ever think it all looks… new? Like no one's spilt anything. Not once.

JOHN
We could spill something, if you like. Start a trend.

ROSE
Don't you dare. I've only just fallen in love with this carpet.

She leans into him and the moment is saved; the audience *[awws]* again. John spins her and plants her neatly on the sofa. He pretends to be out of breath.

JOHN
There. Dashing husband duties: fulfilled.

ROSE
For now.

On the coffee table, an embossed envelope rests where there wasn't one a moment ago. Rose clocks it with the comfortable curiosity of someone who lives in a town where invitations materialise politely.

ROSE
What's this then?

She breaks the seal. Inside: a perfectly printed card—The Gallifrey Lane Summer Fair! 3:15 at the Village Green. The time looks oddly familiar.

JOHN
Three fifteen. My favourite.

ROSE
Is it?

John checks his watch. The hands are still at 3:15. He beams as if this proves something wonderful about the universe.

JOHN
See? Punctual.

ROSE
You're impossible.

JOHN
And yet here I am.

He kisses her forehead again; it's a joke and a promise and a small liturgy all at once. Rose breathes it in. For an instant she wonders how many times they've repeated this very scene, these very words, this very kiss. The thought stands up like a cat and pads away before she can reach it.

ROSE
All right then. We'll go to the fair, you'll win me something ridiculous, and we'll come home to our scandalous waltz.

JOHN
I shall also fix the fairy lights. Heroics of a domestic nature.

ROSE
My favourite sort.

They share a smile that's all the years they can't remember. Outside the picture window, two birds cross the sky in the same looping path, again and again. Rose's eyes narrow—only for a second—then she sits back, letting bliss be bliss.

Music: the jaunty theme reprises softly under the scene, as if the set itself is pleased with them.

JOHN
Rose?

ROSE
Mm?

JOHN
Thank you for saying yes. Whenever it was.

ROSE
Always.

The audience *[applauds]* as the image settles… just as a faint, almost subliminal colour shimmer runs along the skirting board and out of sight.

END OF ACT ONE.

ACT TWO – "THE VILLAGE FAIR"

EXT. VILLAGE GREEN – DAY
The bunting flutters, brass band plays a jolly march. The air smells of fresh scones and ambition.
John and Rose arrive arm-in-arm, their steps in perfect sync. She's in a polka-dot dress; he's in a suit that somehow looks both formal and ready for trouble.

ROSE
It's all so… perfect.

JOHN
Naturally. It's our fair. And I'm going to win you something ridiculous.

They exchange that married-but-still-flirting look that makes the audience *[aww]*.

STALL 1 – THE INVENTOR'S MARVELS

Jon stands behind a table lined with miniature police boxes.

JON
Latest marvels! Play a tune, hold a secret, maybe save the universe if you ask nicely.

He opens one — the Doctor Who theme plays, slowed and echoing. A colour shimmer rolls over the box, gone in a blink.

JOHN
Odd key choice.

JON
Keeps the neighbors guessing.

*[LAUGHTER]*

STALL 2 – THE MERCHANT'S CURIOS

Christopher lounges with his arms folded, his table strewn with oddities: a four-metre scarf, cracked 3D glasses, a stopwatch ticking backwards.

CHRISTOPHER
Something here's looking for you.

Rose fingers the scarf; it twitches as though alive. She pulls back.

ROSE
That's… spirited.

CHRISTOPHER
That's the scarf talking.

STALL 3 – THE TEA LADIES

Jodie stands behind a table of delicate teacups patterned with star charts. Beside her, Yaz adjusts a sugar bowl, their hands brushing. They both smile a little too warmly at each other.

ROSE
Tea for two, please.

Jodie pours… and freezes mid-tilt. The milk flows into the saucer, the band holds a note. Yaz notices, sets her hand gently over Jodie's.

YAZ
(soft, just for her)
Come back to me.

Jodie blinks, smiles shyly, rights the jug.

JODIE
Sorry, long night.

Rose looks between them, amused.

ROSE
(whisper to John)
They're sweet.

JOHN
Sweet tea. Strong feelings.

As they turn to leave, Yaz catches Jodie's hand under the table and doesn't let go until they're sure no one is looking. A colour flicker runs along their joined fingers.

*[OOHS from the audience]*

STALL 4 – THE GARDENER'S PLANTS

Peter tends pots of ferns and lilies.

PETER
They like music. Or complaining.

One fern leans towards Rose.

FERN (WHISPER)
Wake up.

Peter taps the pot; it stills.

MAIN EVENT – COAL HILL SCHOOL PRESENTATION

ON THE BANDSTAND
Tom, in his showman's blazer and bow tie, stands with microphone in hand, grin as wide as the bunting.

TOM
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, assorted neighbors! It's time for the highlight of our fair — the Coal Hill School Science Club!

The audience applauds politely as he gestures to the curtain. It parts… to reveal Susan standing alone behind a trestle table covered in projects.

Murmurs ripple through the crowd. A few extras in the front row glance at each other.

JOHN
(frowning slightly, to Rose)
Where are the rest?

ROSE
Weren't there… always just her?

They blink. Their smiles reset like clock hands returning to twelve.

SUSAN
My fellow students couldn't be here today, so I'll be presenting all of our projects.

*[LIGHT LAUGHTER]* from the audience, as though this is a plucky underdog moment.

PROJECT 1 – "THE ANIMUS SERPENT"

Susan lifts a cloth from a glass terrarium. Inside, pale sand spirals around a narrow tube.

SUSAN
This is based on a… memory. A planet caught in a great web.

She switches on a small fan. The sand begins to move in sinuous patterns, shaping itself into a serpent. For a moment — a colour flash — the backdrop changes: a desolate alien landscape under a fractured sky.

Rose blinks hard, and the bandstand is ordinary again.

SUSAN
It's quite docile… until it isn't.

*[LAUGHTER]* (A little boy in the front row squeaks as the sand serpent rears up, then collapses harmlessly.)

PROJECT 2 – "POMPEII VOLCANO"

Susan moves to the next display — a papier-mâché cone painted to look like a tiny mountain.

SUSAN
And now, a reconstruction of the eruption of Vesuvius — with added flair.

She pours liquid from a jug into the cone. Instead of froth, a vivid colour vision bursts forth: smoke, ash, buildings crumbling. In the haze, Peter's face appears older, more severe — the Doctor from another life.

PETER (MUTTERS, SOTTO)
That's not in the script.

The audience chuckles, thinking it's part of the act.

SUSAN
And just like that… all gone.

The colour snaps away; the volcano sits meekly on the table.

PROJECT 3 – "ALTERNATIVE FACES"

Susan steps to a tall, freestanding mirror at the end of the table.

SUSAN
We are all more than we seem.

She looks in — her reflection shimmers, becoming Barbara, then Ace, then Martha, then Clara. Each face looks out with a different expression. Her hair changes, her age shifts, her skin tone alters.

Rose is transfixed. John tilts his head, as if trying to catch the trick.

A colour ripple runs along the mirror's frame. The reflection suddenly wears Rose's own face — startled and wild-eyed — before snapping back to Susan.

ROSE
(under her breath)
That was—

JOHN
—clever, wasn't it?

Their shared smile is a little forced.

PROJECT 4 – "A TRIP THROUGH MY MEMORIES"

Susan claps her hands.

SUSAN
And for my finale — all my memories at once!

She produces a contraption of wires, lenses, and clock parts. It hums as she turns the crank. Above the bandstand, the sky tears open.

Through the fissure:

• Snippets of laughter, argument, and running footsteps.
• A gaslit street dissolving into a starfield.
• Two shadows holding hands on a red planet.
• A police box door swinging shut in a storm.

Colour bleeds in at the edges, pooling brighter and brighter.

Rose grabs John's arm. He doesn't look frightened — he looks fascinated.

JOHN
That's… beautiful.

SUSAN
(eyes shining)
It's everything I am. And everything I was.

THE COLLAPSE

The hum deepens to a rumble.

Around the fair:

• Jon's mini-TARDISes spin wildly and wink out of existence.
• Christopher's hourglass bursts, sand hanging mid-air.
• Peter's plants sway, chanting in unison: Wake up. Wake up.
• At the tea stall, Jodie pulls Yaz into a protective embrace; Yaz cups her face as if to keep her anchored here.

The fissure in the sky widens — then a blinding white flash.

EXT. EMPTY STREET – DAY

Rose and John stand holding hands. Confetti-like scraps of bunting drift around them.

ROSE
We… were at the—

JOHN
The what?

They smile, blank and content, walking away as though nothing happened.

ACT THREE – "THE DAY THAT WASN'T"

(black-and-white with rare colour flickers; filmed before a live studio audience)

EXT. EMPTY STREET – DAY

Rose and John stroll hand-in-hand through Gallifrey Lane. Bits of bunting drift like lazy snow. There's no one else about — no voices, no footsteps, no brass band in the distance.

ROSE
(looking around)
It's awfully quiet.

JOHN
Is it? I rather like it. We can hear ourselves think.

ROSE
Do we?

She tilts her head, listening, but the soundtrack laugh track swells gently, as if smoothing over her thought.

They pass the grocer's shop. The window display is frozen mid-moment: apples gleaming, a price card reading 3:15 instead of a number. Rose frowns, touches the glass. A colour shimmer runs through the apples, then fades.

INT. SMITH HOUSE – LATE AFTERNOON

They step into their sitting room. Everything is tidy again, as if they'd never been to the fair. The record player is spinning, though no record is on the turntable.

John sets down his hat and jacket. Rose notices a vase of flowers on the mantle — tulips, impossibly fresh.

ROSE
Where did these come from?

JOHN
I… must have brought them.

ROSE
When?

John pauses — then smiles warmly, reaching for her hand.

JOHN
Does it matter?

The audience *[awws]* as he kisses her knuckles.

CUTAWAY – THE TEA STALL

The fair is gone, but somehow Jodie and Yaz are still there, their stall now standing alone in a blank white space. Jodie clutches Yaz's hand.

JODIE
You're still here. That's… that's something.

YAZ
I told you, I'm not letting go. Not now, not ever.

They share a look — real, vulnerable, far away from the forced cheer of the fair. Yaz brushes her thumb over Jodie's knuckles; a colour warmth lingers there for a moment.

*[OOHS and soft applause]* from the audience.

INT. SMITH HOUSE – EVENING

Rose and John sit at the table with mugs of tea. Outside, the painted backdrop of the street is now bathed in perfect moonlight — but the moon is frozen in the sky.

ROSE
Do you ever feel like… we're in a picture?

JOHN
Every picture tells a story. Ours is just… a happy one.

ROSE
And if it's not?

A faint hum rises beneath the scene. John doesn't answer right away. His eyes flick to the mantle clock — hands fixed at 3:15.

JOHN
Then we'll fix it. Together.

Rose smiles, reassured. She doesn't see the vase of tulips behind her flicker briefly into dead stalks, then back.

MONTAGE – "TIME PASSES"

• John and Rose dancing in the sitting room.
• Yaz and Jodie leaning against the tea stall counter, laughing softly.
• William walking the lane alone, looking up at the unmoving moon.
• Susan at her trestle table, now surrounded by shifting shadows of her other faces.

INT. UNKNOWN CONTROL ROOM – SAME TIME

Black-and-white except for the blinking lights of a wall of screens. Each shows a different view of Gallifrey Lane — John and Rose waltzing, Yaz brushing hair from Jodie's face, Susan staring directly into her camera.

A figure sits in a high-backed chair, facing the screens. Their face is unseen, only their hands resting on the armrests. They lean forward slightly, studying the feed of Rose and John.

The hum deepens.

The figure's hand hovers over a large button labelled RESET.

They press it.

HARD CUT – FULL COLOUR FLASH

The entire world surges with colour for less than a second — 70s oranges, avocado greens, bold floral wallpaper — before snapping back to monochrome.

The sitting room is now decorated with shag carpeting, wood panelling, and a lava lamp on the mantle. Rose wears flared trousers; John sports sideburns and a wide-lapelled jacket.

They're mid-laugh, as if nothing had happened.

ROSE
We really should get to the fair before it's over.

JOHN
Plenty of time — it's only quarter past three.

They both glance at the clock. The hands are at 3:15.

Theme sting into applause.

END OF EPISODE ONE

END CREDITS – "A VERY, VERY NORMAL PLANET"

(Rolls over black-and-white stills from the episode, with occasional colour "glitches." Cheerful theme tune plays.)

STARRING

• Rose Smith – Billie Piper
• John Smith – David Tennant
• William, the Captain – William Hartnell
• Susan – Carole Ann Ford
• Tom, the Showman – Tom Baker
• Jon, the Inventor – Jon Pertwee
• Christopher, the Merchant – Christopher Eccleston
• Peter, the Gardener – Peter Capaldi
• Jodie, the Tea Lady – Jodie Whittaker
• Yasmin Khan – Mandip Gill
• Paul, the Postman – Paul McGann

SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY – [Unknown Figure]

Written By – Dani
Directed By – Dani
Produced By – Dani

Filmed before a live studio audience.
Doctor Who is a BBC Production.

Chapter Text

DOCTOR WHO

A Very Normal Dinner

ACT 1: THE OFFICE

INTERIOR – ACCOUNTING OFFICE – DAY (1970s)
Open-plan office with Formica desks, metal filing cabinets, the smell of reheated coffee.
A motivational poster: “Efficiency is Happiness”.
A wall clock ticks loudly.
Atmosphere: grey routine; everyone is mechanical… except John Smith, who stands out with his impossible ideas.

SCENE 1 — JOHN'S PROPOSAL
(Medium shot of JOHN at the whiteboard. Behind him, his desk mates: PATRICK – rumpled suit, mischievous glint, always looking for trouble – and JON – elegant, impeccable hair, convinced he's the cleverest in any room.
In the background, BOSS McCOY, arms crossed, watches disapprovingly.)

JOHN
(enthusiastic, drawing arrows and bubbles)
So—listen!—if we replace manual accounting with a system of… er… quantum computers, we could process cheques in… (hesitates) well, in a very fast time.

PATRICK
(smirkling, as if enjoying the chaos)
And what if the computer runs away, John? Mine always end up eloping with the coffee machine.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

JON
(smoothing his tie knot, with an air of superiority)
Clearly, what you need, Smith, is a more elegant system. Something with style.
(pause, theatrical)
Like me.
[LOUD CANNED LAUGHTER]

JOHN
(smiling, trying to simplify)
No, no… imagine a bicycle… that's also a train… and sometimes a spaceship!
But for adding.
(Absurd pause. PATRICK nods as if it's all obvious, JON pretends he understood so as not to be left behind.)

JON
(smugly)
Exactly. Just what I was about to say.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(McCOY enters, sharp footsteps. He positions himself between John and the whiteboard. Looks at the doodle: it looks like a cat with antennae… and tears.)

McCOY
(dryly)
Smith… what… is… this?

JOHN
(optimistic)
A multiparadigm flow diagram.

McCOY
This is a cat. And it's crying.

JOHN
(looks at the drawing, blushes)
Well… the cat represents… innovation.
[CANNED LAUGHTER. McCOY doesn't laugh.]

McCOY
(taking the chalk from him)
We don't raise cats or innovations here. We add up columns. Calmly. With a pencil.
(points to the board) And no spaceships.

PATRICK
(shrugging, complicit)
We could draw a dog, boss.
(smiles mischievously, as if he enjoys stirring trouble)

JON
(stretches, with an aristocratic air)
Or a futuristic car. Much more appropriate. And with a velvet jacket, of course.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

McCOY
(without looking at them)
Add. Don't bark. Don't parade.
[COMIC CUT: Close-up on the clock "tick-tock". For a blink, the sound distorts and the second hand goes back two seconds. John tilts his head, intrigued. Returns to normal.]

SCENE 2 — THE IMPROMPTU INVITATION
(The office empties a bit. McCOY walks towards his office. JOHN catches up to him, nervous. PATRICK and JON spy over the partitions: one amused, the other haughty.)

JOHN
Boss, if you give me another chance, I could—

McCOY
(doesn't even stop)
Smith, I just need you to do what I ask. No adjectives. No future.

JOHN
(keeping pace)
I can be normal! Totally… normal. Exaggeratedly normal.
(sudden idea; blocks his path, stiff smile)
Come to dinner at my house tonight. Meet my… (searches for the word) family. You'll see I'm… (chooses) the most average average man who ever averaged.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

McCOY
(stops finally; looks him up and down)
I don't like surprises, Smith.

JOHN
Me neither! What a coincidence! There won't be any tonight.
(small vibration from the clock; John is distracted for a microsecond)
No… surprises.

McCOY
(sighs, giving in)
Address. Time. And the food must be recognisable. I want to see a potato and know it's a potato.

JOHN
(already writing on a little card)
Potatoes guaranteed. Recognisable. With… potato shape.

McCOY
And if I hear the word "quantum" during dessert, you're fired.

JOHN
Understood. No quan— (bites his tongue) Not that.

McCOY
(about to leave; turns back)
Ah, Smith… do you have a telly that works?
(A brief red buzz—in the TV tube in the hallway. Only JOHN notices.)

JOHN
(smiles tensely)
It works… sufficiently.

McCOY
See you at 8:00. Don't make me regret it before I arrive.
(The boss leaves. PATRICK and JON pop their heads out.)

PATRICK
(playfully)
Dinner with the boss? That's worse than a Cyberman with a hangover.

JON
(adjusts his jacket, haughty)
I could impress him with an impeccable speech and a glass of sherry. But then, I'm not you.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

JOHN
(gathering the whiteboard hastily)
No, thanks. With luck… there won't be any need to lengthen… anything.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

ACT OUT BUTTON
(Close-up on the clock. The "tick-tock" distorts again. The second hand goes back two seconds. John looks at the camera, uncomfortable. Returns to normal.)
SEVENTIES TRANSITION MUSIC.
CUT TO BLACK.

ACT 2: PREPARATIONS AND FIRST GLITCH

INTERIOR – SMITH HOUSE – LIVING ROOM/DINING ROOM – AFTERNOON (1970s)
The living room is cosy, with retro decor: orange/green patterned walls, a psychedelic floor lamp, a floral tablecloth.
On the table, only two place settings prepared meticulously.
The wall clock continues its relentless tick-tock.
Atmosphere: Rose wants everything to look perfectly normal. John tries to keep up, but the house seems to have a mind of its own.

SCENE 1 — ROSE'S OBSESSION
(ROSE polishes the cutlery for the third time, arranges flowers, straightens the tablecloth, checks herself in a mirror. JOHN enters with a tray of potatoes, nervous.)

JOHN
(putting down the tray)
Done! Recognisable potatoes. So recognisable they even recognised me at the market.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

ROSE
(not even listening, focused on the vase)
John, please, this has to be perfect. Not a wrinkle on the tablecloth. Not a stain on the glasses. Not a surprise.
(She turns around… and the vase is no longer on the table, but on the shelf. Rose looks at it, blinks, puts it back on the table.)

ROSE
(whispers to herself)
I… put it here.

JOHN
(shrugging)
Maybe it moved. Vases sometimes look for a better neighbourhood.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

SCENE 2 — THE STRANGE CHANGES
(JOHN sets the cutlery. Turns for a second to look at the pot, and when he turns back the cutlery is at the other end of the table, as if an invisible someone is playing with them.)

JOHN
(to the audience, resigned)
Brilliant! Now the forks are doing overtime too.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(ROSE enters with a casserole dish of stew. Puts it on the table. When she turns back, the dish is on the sofa, perfectly placed with a napkin underneath, as if it had always been there.)

ROSE
(firm voice, almost angry, to nothingness)
On the table, not on the sofa!
(The dish reappears on the table. Rose smiles nervously and pretends nothing happened.)

ROSE
(frozen smile to John)
See? Everything under control.

JOHN
(ironically)
Right. Absolute control. Like a Dalek in group therapy.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

SCENE 3 — THE STRETCHING TABLE
(JOHN places candles. He leans down to light one, and when he looks up the table is a bit longer. Two new chairs have appeared by themselves, perfectly aligned.)

JOHN
(rubs his eyes)
Rose… was the table… always two metres long?

ROSE
(adjusting flowers, not looking at him)
John, don't start measuring furniture now.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(A retro doorbell rings. Rose smiles nervously, adjusts her dress, and goes to open the door. The camera moves to a close-up of the clock: the second hand goes back one step before advancing again.)

ACT 3: THE FIRST GUESTS (EXTENDED)

INTERIOR – SMITH HOUSE – LIVING ROOM/DINING ROOM – NIGHT (1970s)
The table set meticulously, now a bit longer than normal.
The clock continues its marked tick-tock.

SCENE 1 — SARAH JANE AND TOM ENTER
(The doorbell is heard. ROSE opens. Enter SARAH JANE SMITH, warm, curious, with a bouquet of flowers, and TOM BAKER, extremely long scarf and unsettling smile. They seem to have been expected all their lives.)

ROSE
(surprised, but cordial)
Sarah! Tom! But… we didn't know you were—

SARAH JANE
(kisses Rose on the cheek, complicit with John)
Oh, darling, you don't need an invitation when there's good company.

TOM
(holding up a strange bouquet)
The flowers were on offer. Yellow, or maybe blue… who knows.
(gets thoughtful, serious)
Or perhaps they were violets in disguise.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(The table stretches a few more centimetres. Two plates appear by themselves. JOHN notices, horrified. ROSE feigns normality.)

SCENE 2 — THE AMBIGUOUS TONE
(SARAH JANE sits down, with a journalistic gaze that seems to see through John.)

SARAH JANE
John, how do you get the clock to sound so dramatic? Is it a new model?

JOHN
(nervously ironic)
Yes, it's the Tic-Tac 3000. Comes with an… involuntary rewind function.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

SARAH JANE
(smiles, as if she understands too much)
Ah, right… involuntary rewind. Always so… normal.
(Looks at the camera for a second. The audience laughs uncomfortably.)

TOM
(while leaning towards the floor lamp, gravely)
Aha! Found you, traitor.
(dramatic pause)
I knew you'd hide the key again.
(Falls silent, waiting for an answer from the lamp. Then nods satisfied, as if he'd confirmed something real.)
[LOUD CANNED LAUGHTER]

SCENE 3 — THE GAME BETWEEN THE THREE
(John tries to distract them with food. Pours water into glasses… which a second later are already full by themselves. SARAH JANE raises an eyebrow, amused.)

SARAH JANE
Host's trick or… domestic magic?

JOHN
(hastily)
Neither one nor the other! Just… efficient plumbing.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(TOM looks at the tablecloth stretching non-stop, and lets out a hearty laugh.)

TOM
Marvellous! A table that knows how to grow. Next thing will be a chair that tells you jokes.

JOHN
(irritated, sotto voce)
The chairs are already laughing at me.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

SCENE 4 — THE SMALL CONFLICT
(SARAH JANE leans towards John, in a playful but ambiguous tone.)

SARAH JANE
John… do you ever feel like all this—
(points to the table, the clock, the lamp)
—is like a set?

JOHN
(chokes on his water, tense)
What nonsense! This is as real as… as…
(stares at the table stretching again by itself)
…as a recognisable potato.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(Uncomfortable pause. Sarah smiles, Tom eats bread rolls as if nothing. The atmosphere is ambiguous, on the verge of discovery.)

SCENE 5 — SAVING INTERRUPTION
(A doorbell breaks the tension. Rose runs to open. Enter JACKIE TYLER, but with the face of CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON, made up and dressed as Jackie, utterly convinced he is her. Talks fast, gossipy.)

JACKIE/ECCLESTON
(entering, shaking off her coat)
Rose, love! I arrived just in time. Did you know I married a millionaire? Or was it a footballer… bah, whatever, I think I left him in the car.
[LOUD CANNED LAUGHTER]

(JOHN opens his mouth to object, but Rose looks at him with a "don't ruin this!" expression.)

JOHN
(forcing a smile)
Sure… we've all lost a millionaire at some point.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(The table stretches a bit more. A plate appears by itself in front of Jackie/Eccleston, who doesn't even flinch.)

SCENE 6 — ACE
(Suddenly, the door opens without a bell. ACE enters in a leather jacket and a noisy backpack. Throws the backpack onto the sofa with a crash.)

ACE
(shouting cheerfully)
Cousins! I had to come! I heard there was free dinner and emotional explosions.
(Flops into a chair, looks at Jackie/Eccleston cheekily.)

ACE
Still telling stories about invisible husbands?

JACKIE/ECCLESTON
(hurt, but dignified)
They were real! At least… one of them.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(ACE takes a small banger from her backpack, lights it under the table. A POP is heard. The cutlery jumps into the air and falls perfectly aligned. John covers his face with his hands.)

JOHN
(to the audience, resigned)
At least this time they landed straight.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

ACT 4: DONNA, CHAOS, AND THE BOSS'S ARRIVAL

INTERIOR – SMITH HOUSE – LIVING ROOM/DINING ROOM – NIGHT (1970s)
The table is now ridiculously long, full of plates that appear by themselves.
Sarah Jane chats as if nothing, Tom talks to the lamp, Jackie/Eccleston fans herself dramatically, Ace plays with bangers under the table.
John sweats trying to keep his composure. Rose smiles with the face of a game show host.

SCENE 1 — DONNA AND FAMILY ENTER
(Loud doorbell. ROSE opens. DONNA NOBLE enters with a gigantic dish of food, followed by SHAUN (her husband, kind and a bit scatterbrained) and ROSE NOBLE (daughter), serious, observant.)

DONNA
(shouting, without waiting for an invitation)
Surprise! Brought reinforcements. Don't trust your cooking, John.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

JOHN
(fakes a laugh, nervous)
Oh, Donna, how… how… usefully cruel of you!

DONNA
(gives him a slap on the back that almost knocks him over)
Go on, don't pull that face. I haven't poisoned you yet.
[LOUD CANNED LAUGHTER]

SCENE 2 — INTERACTIONS
(SARAH JANE greets DONNA, curious.)

SARAH JANE
Do you always come with a dish under your arm?

DONNA
(laughing, proud)
Darling, I was born with a dish in one hand. The other was a fork.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(ACE high-fives ROSE NOBLE (daughter) as if they were rebel accomplices. ROSE NOBLE (daughter) leans towards JOHN in a whisper.)

ROSE NOBLE (daughter)
(serious, curious)
Is it true you travelled in time once?

JOHN
(chokes on his drink. ROSE glares at him with a "don't you dare talk!" look.)
[PROLONGED CANNED LAUGHTER]

(TOM offers bread rolls to SHAUN, but gives them to him as if they were tarot cards.)

TOM
(mystical)
The roll on the left foretells prosperity. The one on the right… indigestion.

SHAUN
(confused, but polite)
Er… thanks. I'll take both.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

SCENE 3 — DONNA'S GAGS
(DONNA places her dish on the table, then does little pranks: swaps salt for sugar, puts a carrot in John's pocket, hides his napkin.)

JOHN
(discovers the carrot in his pocket, desperate)
Who… who put this here?

DONNA
(to the audience, complicit)
Every time he says something daft, take a bite!
[EXPLOSIVE CANNED LAUGHTER]

SCENE 4 — CHAOS RISES
(Wide shot of the table: everyone talks at once.
* SARAH JANE asks impossible journalistic questions.
* ACE tells anecdotes about explosions.
* JACKIE/ECCLESTON boasts about a millionaire she might have left in the car.
* TOM leans over the lamp, interrogating it again.)

TOM
(serious, to the lamp)
Are you responsible for the elongation of this table?
(pause, as if the lamp answers)
I knew it!
[LOUD CANNED LAUGHTER]

(JOHN holds his head. ROSE insists on keeping the smile.)

SCENE 5 — BOSS MCCOY ENTERS
(Sharp doorbell. Everyone goes quiet for a second. ROSE takes a deep breath, adjusts the tablecloth. JOHN whispers.)

JOHN
(trembling)
If anything goes wrong… say I'm your neighbour. A normal one. With a moustache.
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

(ROSE opens the door. McCOY enters: grey suit, severe expression. Stops on the threshold, looking at the table full of people and endless plates. Dramatic pause.)

McCOY
(dryly, in a grave voice)
Smith… did you invite me to a dinner or a conference?

JOHN
(arms open, trying to sound natural)
Dinner! Conference of… recognisable potatoes!
[DEAFENING CANNED LAUGHTER]

(Wide shot: the table stretches another metre, making a perfect place for McCOY.
Everyone looks at him expectantly. McCOY sits down slowly, scanning the table with hawk eyes. JOHN seems on the verge of collapse.)

ACT 5: THE IMPOSSIBLE DISH AND THE NEW WAVE

INTERIOR – SMITH HOUSE – LIVING ROOM/DINING ROOM – NIGHT (1970s)
The table is extremely long, full of voices and chaos. McCOY is seated at one end, serious, fork in hand.
Rose gets up with a steaming dish, determined to serve it.

SCENE 1 — THE DISH THAT NEVER ARRIVES
(ROSE takes the dish and advances towards McCOY. The camera shows him anxious, eyes fixed on the food. Tense sitcom-style background music.)
* INTERRUPTION 1: SARAH JANE stops her, raising her hand with a curious gesture.
SARAH JANE
Sorry, Rose, where do you keep the spoons that don't exist?
(ROSE, smiling, points to them in mid-air… and they indeed appear on the sideboard.)
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

* ROSE resumes her march, the dish closer to McCOY.

* INTERRUPTION 2: TOM intercepts her solemnly.
TOM
One moment! This dish bears the mark of eternity. (leans to smell it) Is it… cosmic curry?
(ROSE pushes him gently away, without losing her smile.)
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

* ROSE advances again. McCOY brings his fork closer, expectant.

* INTERRUPTION 3: JACKIE/ECCLESTON puts a hand on her arm.
JACKIE/ECCLESTON
Rose, love! Try this ring. (takes a huge fake one from her purse) Is it too ostentatious for a funeral?
(ROSE forces a laugh and moves on.)
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

* ROSE reaches almost the middle of the table. McCOY adjusts his napkin, sweating.

* INTERRUPTION 4: ACE plants herself in front of her with a shaken soda bottle.
ACE
Just a quick test! What happens if I open it right now?
(ROSE dodges her, the gas explodes in John's face. He sighs to the audience.)
JOHN
Perfect, normal soda at a normal dinner!
[LOUD CANNED LAUGHTER]

(ROSE finally manages to get past them and continues. The steaming dish is about to reach McCOY. Comic suspense music. McCOY smiles for the first time.)

SCENE 2 — THE FINAL INTERRUPTION
(Just as ROSE is about to put the dish down, the door bursts open forcefully. Funky entrance music. Enters NCUTI GATWA, radiant, colourful suit, wide smile.)

NCUTI
(shouting joyfully)
Cousins! What a discreet party!
[EXPLOSIVE CANNED LAUGHTER]

(The table stretches another metre. A place appears in front of Ncuti with plate and glass ready. ROSE staggers with the dish in her hand, moving it away from McCOY again. The boss snorts furiously.)

SCENE 3 — MORE GUESTS
* Behind Ncuti, the BLONDE GIRL enters, running and shouting:
GIRL
Daddy said there would be dessert!
(climbs on the table and takes bread rolls with her hands)
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

* Seconds later ROGUE enters, impeccable, with elegant stride. Looks directly at John, smiles intimately.
ROGUE
(quietly, just for John)
Never thought you'd invite me… in this illusion.

(JOHN swallows. The audience laughs as if it's a romantic gag, but the subtext remains unsettling.)

SCENE 4 — MCCOY'S REACTION
(McCOY watches the table stretching, the new plates appearing, the girl running around and Rogue making himself at home.
The dish he was waiting for is now at the other end, out of his reach.
He leans towards John, threatening.)

McCOY
(in a low voice, furious)
Smith… if that stew doesn't land on my plate now, you'll be more fired than a wet filing cabinet.

(JOHN sweats, gets up clumsily and gestures to Rose to hurry up. Rose maintains the perfect smile, though she's visibly trembling with nerves.)

SCENE 5 — FINALLY THE DISH
(Finally, Rose manages to place the steaming stew dish in front of McCOY.
Everyone goes quiet for a second, expectant. McCOY takes his fork, tastes it with a critical expression… and sighs satisfied.)

McCOY
(with a grunt, conceding)
Hmm. At last… something recognisable.
(looks at Rose)
Smith… your wife cooks like decent people.
[LOUD CANNED LAUGHTER. The audience applauds.]

SCENE 6 — MCCOY'S DISCOMFORT
(While chewing, McCOY looks around the table. His smile freezes as he notices:)
* Ncuti, Black, laughing and talking animatedly.
* The blonde girl, eating bread with her hands on the table.
* Rogue sitting next to Ncuti, with his arm around his shoulders.

(McCOY goes rigid, fork halfway to his mouth. The audience laughs anticipating the gag.)

McCOY
(inner monologue out loud, unintentionally)
Who… who are these people? How…?
(interrupts himself, nervous, wipes sweat)
No! I can't say anything. If I say something, I look bad.
(whispers, tense)
Too late… I already look bad.
[DEAFENING CANNED LAUGHTER]

(ROSE smiles perfectly and changes the subject as if nothing, serving more wine.
The other guests continue talking over each other, oblivious to McCoy's internal collapse.
JOHN watches him silently, pale, knowing the situation is out of control.)

ACT 6: THE SUPREME DELIRIUM

INTERIOR – SMITH HOUSE – LIVING ROOM/DINING ROOM – NIGHT (1970s)
The table now seems infinite. The guests talk over each other. The camera pans across the chaos as if it were a out-of-tune orchestra.

SCENE 1 — EVERYONE TALKS AT ONCE
* SARAH JANE fires questions non-stop:
SARAH JANE
John, what about that lamp? Is it alien? What's its opinion on local taxes? How many times has the clock gone back tonight?

* TOM interrogates the lamp again, raising his glass solemnly.
TOM
Confess, impostor! I know you're hiding the key to time.

* JACKIE/ECCLESTON dramatizes, fanning herself with her purse:
JACKIE/ECCLESTON
Oh, if I'd known it was a gala dinner I would have brought my third husband! Or… was it the fifth?

* ACE lights another banger under the table.
ACE
This gives the stew some spark!
[EXPLOSIVE CANNED LAUGHTER. The cutlery flies, lands perfectly aligned.]

* DONNA takes advantage of the chaos to stick another carrot in John's pocket.
DONNA
Go on, take a bite every time you want to sound intelligent!
[CANNED LAUGHTER]

* NCUTI and ROGUE toast happily, ignoring the chaos.
NCUTI
To huge and strange families!
ROGUE
(looking at John with an intimate smile)
And to illusions… that always end up breaking.

(Weird pause. John sweats. The audience laughs as if it's a romantic gag, but the subtext remains unsettling.)

SCENE 2 — JOHN'S COLLAPSE
(Close-up on JOHN, sunk among laughter, noise, and questions. His eyes moisten. Looks at the camera, broken.)

JOHN
(whispering, broken voice)
I'm not normal. I never will be.

ROSE
(soft voice)
Shhh. To me… you always will be.

(Brief dramatic pause. A strange echo sneaks into the canned laughter, as if coming from another audience in another universe.)

SCENE 3 — AUNT SUSANA AND ALEX ENTER
(The door opens by itself. Enter AUNT SUSANA, an older woman with mysterious energy, and ALEX, a boy about 10 years old, dressed in a waistcoat and a seriousness reminiscent of the Fifth Doctor.)

AUNT SUSANA
(enthusiastic, holding up a stew that appeared in her hands)
We arrived just in time! Did you save us a place?

ALEX
(smiling at McCoy, solemn)
Do you remember when we fought the Daleks in your office, sir?

McCOY
(getting up suddenly, red with fury)
I have never in my life seen a Dalek in the office! Nor will I! Because I am a serious man!
[DEAFENING CANNED LAUGHTER that becomes slightly distorted.]

SCENE 4 — MCCOY'S OUTBURST
(Wide shot of the infinite table. Everyone continues chatting, eating, and laughing as if nothing is weird. McCOY slams the table forcefully, silencing everyone.)

McCOY
(shouting, red with anger)
This is not a family! It's a circus! A grotesque parody!

(Absolute silence. John swallows. The clock ticks louder, as if mocking. Finally, John raises his voice.)

JOHN
(weakly, trying to laugh)
Of course it is… everything is perfectly normal.
[COLD, almost mocking CANNED LAUGHTER. The camera closes in on John's desperate face. Rose squeezes his hand under the table.]

SCENE 5 — THE FAREWELL
(One by one, the guests get up. The audience laughs and applauds each exit.)

* SARAH JANE
See you in the 23rd century. Bring umbrellas.

* TOM
(to the lamp)
The key is still under the doormat. Don't forget.

* JACKIE/ECCLESTON
I'm leaving in my invisible limousine. Don't sit in the back seat!

* ACE
Next time I'll bring real explosives.

* DONNA
(puts another carrot in John's pocket)
In case you get philosophical at breakfast.

* NCUTI
We're family now, even if we don't know whose!

* ROGUE
(whispering to John)
The false can hurt as much as the real.

* CLARA
(gets on the table, imitating a presenter)
Thanks for everything, goodnight! (jumps down and runs off with her parents)
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]

* AUNT SUSANA
I never miss a dinner… nor a good ending.

* ALEX
(serious, solemn)
See you, Mr. McCoy. Try not to let any Daleks into the office.

* THE TENNANT FAMILY
(get up together, smiling too much, almost like dolls.)

TENNANT CHILD
(whining)
Already? But I didn't even try the dessert!
TENNANT GIRL
(tantrum)
And the stew tasted weird!
TENNANT FATHER
(fixed smile)
What a lovely family. We'll be back.
TENNANT MOTHER
(chanting as if it were a motto)
We'll be back. We always come back.

[CANNED LAUGHTER THAT LENGTHENS UNTIL IT BECOMES UNEASY]

POST-CREDITS — CHAPTER 2

INTERIOR — DARK SPACE / CONTROL ROOM
A shot opens in darkness: endless rows of screens floating in the gloom.
Each one plays scenes from different sitcoms with different Doctors:
* A Mexican telenovela with Peter Capaldi.
* A Japanese comedy with Matt Smith.
* An English sketch with Jodie Whittaker.
All seem part of the same experiment.

The camera pulls back to reveal a destroyed console, hanging wires, smoke.
On top of it, a motionless silhouette: the possible villain, unconscious or dead. It's not clear who it is.
The screens start to turn off one by one, while a distorted voice resonates:

VOICE (metallic echo)

Everything… is… normal.
Everything… is… normal.
Everything… is…

(A final blackout. Absolute silence. Cut to black.)

END CREDITS — 70s SITCOM STYLE

(Bright screen, cheerful funky music, canned laughter. Comic clips of each character in the episode are shown.)

Starring

* David Tennant as John Smith / The Doctor
* Billie Piper as Rose Tyler
* Sylvester McCoy as The Boss

Also Starring

* Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith
* Tom Baker as Uncle Tom
* Christopher Eccleston as Jackie Tyler (yes, Jackie)
* Sophie Aldred as Ace
* Catherine Tate as Donna Noble
* Karl Collins as Shaun Temple
* Yasmin Finney as Rose Noble (daughter)

Special Guest Stars

* Ncuti Gatwa as The Cousin
* Jonathan Groff as Rogue
* Clara as Herself, daughter of Ncuti & Rogue
* Tía Susana as The Mysterious Aunt
* Alex as The Child With Too Many Answers

And because there can never be enough Tennants…

* David Tennant as Father Tennant
* David Tennant as Mother Tennant
* David Tennant as Son Tennant #1
* David Tennant as Daughter Tennant #2
* David Tennant as The Lamp
* David Tennant as Jackie’s Invisible Husband

[LOUD CANNED LAUGHTER]

Created by Daniel & The Writers’ Room Beyond Time

Based on characters created by Sydney Newman

Produced by A Sitcom Out of Time Productions

Filmed before a live studio audience… somewhere in the multiverse.

(Final screen: a seventies TV showing red static. Text in retro typography:)

“Everything is perfectly normal.”

Chapter Text

📺 CHAPTER 3 — Let’s Do the Time Glitch Again

ACT ONE — THE ROAD TO LUNGBARROW

BLACK SCREEN.

OPENING — THE LIPS

BLACK SCREEN.

BLOOD RED LIPS EMERGE from the void of time and space.
They float against infinite darkness, gleaming faintly with a metallic sheen , as though cast in TARDIS brass.
A familiar, haunting melody begins.

LIPS
William Hartnell was old,
A story he foretold,
Of a ship in a junkyard he did stand.

And Tom Baker, so grand,
With a scarf in his hand,
The Daleks were his fear and his bane.

Then something went wrong,
For Sarah Jane and King Kong —
They got caught in a Kaled death-game.

Then at a reckless pace,
He changed his face,
And this is how the legend ran.

The LIPS FREEZE.
They DISSOLVE into glitching black-and-white static, like an old television losing signal.

CAST CREDITS SUPER in blood-red lettering, the edges dripping like regeneration energy.

CHORUS (V.O.)
(sung by the voices of River, Amy, Rory — campy, glam-rock harmony)

It’s the Doctor Who — double-feature!
The Master built a creature!
See the Androids fighting Rose and John!
Verity Lambert launched the TARDIS on!

Ahhaho—
At the late-night double-feature
Picture Show!

COLOR seeps back in. The LIPS ANIMATE again — this time glinting even more, a faint shimmer like the TARDIS console lights reflected on chrome.

LIPS
I knew Jon Pertwee’s style
Could make a Dalek recoil,
When the Sea-Devils rose from the deep.

And I really got scared
When a Yeti appeared,
On a tube station, in its deadly keep.

Sylvester McCoy said,
“Time’s in flux in my head,”
And passing it took every wit.

But when Logopolis cried,
Said the Master to his bride:
“I’m going to give you some terrible thrills —
Like a—”

The LIPS FREEZE again.
DISSOLVE back to glitchy static.

TECHNICAL, WRITING, and PRODUCTION CREDITS SUPER.
Names flicker as surreal in-jokes: “The Celestial Toymaker” — Producer. “The Shadow Proclamation” — Legal.

CHORUS (V.O.)
Science Fiction — double-feature!
Missy’s made a Gallifreyan creature!
See the Autons fighting Rose and John!
Hartnell left a hand in Forbidden Planet, on!

Oh-ho — at the late-night double-feature Picture Show!
By B.B.C. Oh-ho-ho!
At the late-night double-feature Picture Show —
In the back row.
Ahhaho…

(voices distort, fading into static)
To the late-night… double-feature… Picture Show…

The LIPS FADE — but instead of vanishing,
they TWIST into a SPIRAL , reshaping into the Seal of Rassilon.

The seal flickers, stutters, then GLITCHES violently and COLLAPSES into darkness.

The lips twist into the Seal of Rassilon, which GLITCHES and collapses into darkness.

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD — NIGHT (1970s aesthetic)

A BROKEN-DOWN CAR hisses on the roadside under torrential rain.
Lightning illuminates soggy hedgerows and a crooked signpost pointing toward LUNGBARROW .

Inside the car:

JOHN SMITH pounds the dashboard in frustration.
Beside him, ROSE TYLER rubs her arms, shivering.

JOHN
Perfect. Just perfect. Rural England, 1976… and of course the engine dies.

He digs out a Gallifreyan POCKET WATCH . CLOSE-UP:
The second hand ticks LOUDLY, unnaturally fast — but the face remains frozen at 3:15.

The sound grows distorted, echoing like a heartbeat.

ROSE
John… why’s it stuck?

JOHN
(flat, unsettled)
Because time’s laughing at us.

Another crack of thunder. Rose peers through the rain-soaked windshield.

In the distance: a towering gothic mansion. Its windows glow BLOOD-RED, flickering like glitchy static.

ROSE
…That house.

JOHN
Yeah. Not ominous at all.

They climb out, drenched, and trudge through mud toward the looming structure.

EXT. THE HOUSE OF LUNGBARROW — CONTINUOUS

In the distance: a towering gothic mansion dominates the moor, carved into the silhouette of the storm.
But this is no ordinary mansion — it’s Lungbarrow.

• Its windows glow BLOOD-RED, pulsing faintly as though alive, each frame flickering with glitchy static like failing television screens.
  
  
• The architecture folds on itself — impossible angles, staircases jutting outside the walls, gables that lead nowhere, as though the house were grown rather than built.
  
  
• Gallifreyan symbols crawl faintly across the stonework, lighting up in lightning flashes before fading into shadow.
  
  
• Above the highest tower, a broken weather vane spins endlessly in place, pointing in every direction at once.
  
  

The storm seems to center on the house. Thunder rolls not from the sky, but from deep inside its walls.

Rose clutches John’s sleeve, unnerved.

ROSE
It feels… wrong.

JOHN
(flat)
Welcome to Lungbarrow. Home sweet home.

The massive front doors GROAN and CREAK open on their own, as if breathing.

From the darkness within, a warped LAUGH-TRACK CHORUS echoes, unnatural and off-time:

CHORUS (V.O.)
Come on in… children of Gallifrey…

INT. LUNGBARROW HALLWAY — CONTINUOUS

A cavernous hall. Shadows stretch across cracked portraits — twisted images of PAST DOCTORS, each caught mid-laughter. Their eyes seem to follow John and Rose.

Dripping echoes. A faint, distorted hum, like a broken TARDIS engine.

At the far end of the corridor: CLARA-CHILD .
Her dress is pale, soaked in shadow. She tilts her head, staring directly at Rose.

CLARA-CHILD
(whisper, almost a hiss)
Tick-tock… it’s always three-fifteen.

A glitch SNAP — she vanishes.

Rose grabs John’s arm, whispering:

ROSE
John… I don’t like this place.

JOHN
Neither do I. But someone wants us here.

Thunder BOOMS. Suddenly — a burst of disco-glam MUSIC from upstairs.
Spotlights sweep across the landing.

Descending with theatrical flair: MISSY .
Her cloak swirls, corset glittering. She grins like a ringmaster welcoming her prey.

FADE OUT — END OF ACT ONE.

ACT TWO — THE SHOW OF MISSY

INT. LUNGBARROW — GRAND HALLWAY — CONTINUOUS

The vast hall stretches impossibly long, walls lined with portraits. PAST DOCTORS smile eerily from the canvases, but their eyes track John and Rose as they move.

Above, the cracked ceiling reveals rafters that twist into Gallifreyan spirals. Dripping water echoes from nowhere. The air smells of ozone and dust.

At the far end: a STAIRCASE curving up to the landing.
Floodlights SNAP ON, bathing the stairs in lurid purple.

MISSY sweeps into view at the top of the stairs. Cloak glittering, corset tight, eyes ablaze. She struts down like a cabaret diva, as a disco-glam riff blasts from hidden speakers.

MUSICAL NUMBER — “I’m Just a Mad Time Lady”

(The music kicks in - a glam rock anthem with a haunting theremin-like synth melody underneath)

MISSY (Singing, slinking around John and Rose like a shark, her voice a purr that cuts through the music):
I'm not your sweet Time Lady, from the planet Gallifrey!
So forget your docs and TARDIS blue,
I've made a brand new toy for you,
To make those stuffy old laws... BREW!

(She snaps her fingers. A blast of energy shorts out a lamp. She laughs, unhinged).

RIVER (Her voice cuts in from the top of the stairs before she's even seen. All eyes snap to her. She's leaning against the banister in her sequined suit, holding a sonic trowel like a microphone):
Oh, I've seen his many faces, danced in time's empty spaces~
But a bad girl with a brand new boy?
Now that's my idea of a nasty, good time!

(She sashays down, hips swinging to the beat. She runs a finger down Missy's lapel, then looks directly at John, her eyes gleaming).

RIVER (To John, singing playfully):
Don't be scared, sweetie. Two hearts just mean...
...there's twice the trouble you can get into.

MISSY (Grabs River's chin affectionately, but her grip is firm. She sings back, a twisted smile on her lips):
He's a delicious distraction, a temporary transaction!
But the main event, my dear, is me!

(Missy spins away from River, spreading her arms wide to address the entire room. AMY and RORY snap into the number behind her, their movements slightly too-perfect, like puppets, adding to the creepy coro).

MISSY & CORO:
So let's do the TIME GLITCH again!
(Let's do the Time Glitch again!)
It's a trans-dimensional romp!
(A trans-dimensional romp!)
Don't you panic, don't you cry~
Just give in to the sickly sweet lullaby!

(The painting of Susan Foreman on the wall winks).

On the sidelines: AMY and RORY step forward, clad in 70s glam outfits. Their smiles are too wide , too fixed .

AMY & RORY (in unison, looped):
“Lovely night for a party, isn’t it?”

They repeat the line again. And again. The words distort as though caught in a broken recording.

RORY stands holding a champagne glass. He waits. And waits. The bubbles never fade, the glass never empties. He looks like he’s been standing there for years.

Amy turns toward him, still smiling, and repeats the line once more.

JOHN
(flat, horrified)
They’re… stuck.

ROSE
(frowning)
Or trapped.

MISSY (singing, descending the final steps):

Gallifrey’s rules are old,
But my story’s bold,
And I’m the star of the play!
So come along, you’ll see,
What it means to be free,
When the past is made to obey!

She lands on the floor with a grand flourish.

The entire hall lights up like a disco set. Portraits of the Doctors sway in rhythm. The chandeliers pulse with red and gold light.

CHORUS (River, Amy, Rory, distorted):
Do the Time Glitch again!
Step to the left, loop it back!
Hands on your hearts, stuck on track!

The sound warps. Even the walls seem to bend in time with the music.

JOHN
(shouting over the noise)
This isn’t a show — it’s a trap!

MISSY
(grinning at him, speaking mid-song)
Oh, darling… you still don’t know what show you’re in.

FADE OUT — END OF ACT TWO.

ACT THREE — MISSY’S LABORATORY

INT. LUNGBARROW — THE LABORATORY — NIGHT

Missy pushes open a pair of iron double doors with exaggerated flair. John and Rose stumble in after her.
River follows with amused curiosity, while Amy and Rory hover in the doorway, still repeating:

AMY & RORY (loop, distorted)
“Lovely night for a party, isn’t it? Lovely night for a party, isn’t it?”

The LABORATORY is a grotesque fusion of Gallifreyan relics and B-movie mad science:

• Snaking cables drip sparks like veins.
  
  
• A broken Loom coughs out threads that dissolve into smoke mid-air.
  
  
• Screens line the walls, glitching through humiliating sitcom scenarios of past Doctors:
  
  
• HARTNELL struggling to present a stiff black-and-white news bulletin, tripping over his words while canned laughter howls.
  
  
• TROUGHTON chased in fast motion by a lumbering Yeti through a London Underground corridor, set to a Benny Hill–style tune.
  
  
• TENANT trapped in a rom-com farce titled “Lovers & Monsters”, juggling all his companions at once as doors slam around him.
  
  
• ECCLESTON on a gaudy talk-show set, forced to answer questions about the Time War while a neon sign flashes THERAPY TIME! behind him.
  
  
• JODIE WHITTAKER in a gaudy reality show called “Interior Designers of Gallifrey”, holding up swatches as a canned audience boos and cheers.
  
  
• CAPALDI standing furious in front of a live audience, yelling like a failing late-night host: “Am I funny enough for you?!” before a rimshot plays.
  
  

Each screen flickers, looping endlessly, their laugh tracks phasing in and out of sync.

At the center of the chamber stands a TRANSPARENT CAPSULE .
Inside, unmoving: MATT SMITH — “SMITHY”. Shirtless, clad in golden shorts, skin shining faintly under violet light.

Missy gestures like a proud showwoman.

MISSY
Ta-da! My pièce de résistance! Why settle for John…

…when you can have a well-endowed one who doesn’t need “compen-sating”?

She gestures at Smithy’s body with mock innocence.

JOHN
(staring, baffled, horrified)
…What?

Missy just grins, eyes glittering with playful malice.

MUSICAL NUMBER — “The Perfect Clone”

(The music is a glam-rock anthem played on an organic, pulsing synthesizer. The beat is syncopated — like two hearts out of rhythm.)

Missy begins to circle the capsule, moving with predatory grace. She uses River like a prop — pulling her close, spinning her, then shoving her away to punctuate each lyric.

MISSY (singing):
I’ve taken his best parts,
Two hearts and brilliant arts,
And left the boring moral code behind!

No grief, no ancient pain,
No mercy in his brain,
Just a perfect, pretty, powerful mind!

River presses her palm flat against the capsule glass, eyes wide with dread.

RIVER (singing, haunting echo):
…A powerful mind…

John stumbles forward, unable to resist the pull. His hands slap the glass, his face a mixture of revulsion and something deeper — kinship, terror.

JOHN (hoarse, almost breaking):
No… it’s a mockery.
A golem.

Smithy’s eyes SNAP OPEN.
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t adjust. Just open, mechanical.

He turns his head with jerky precision, ignoring Missy, ignoring John. He looks directly at the camera.

The music grinds to a halt — a record-scratch glitch.

SMITHY (flat, layered with digital echo):
Enjoying the show?
All this running, all this cleverness?
Hasn’t the narrative become… predictable?

(He holds the gaze too long. A flicker of a smile, cold and joyless.)

SMITHY
Haven’t you been watching long enough?

Silence.
Then a single burst of canned laughter from an overhead speaker — too loud, too shrill.
It cuts off abruptly.

Rose gasps, pulling John back. Missy claps, delighted.

MISSY
Oh, isn’t he glorious?
My very own Time Lord toy!

Steam hisses as she slams a lever. The capsule hums with power.

MISSY
(gleeful, over the noise)
Now… let’s wake him properly. The night’s just begun!

FADE OUT — END OF ACT THREE.

ACT FOUR — THE STRANGE BANQUET (revised)

INT. LUNGBARROW — BANQUET HALL — NIGHT

The doors swing open to reveal a banquet table that stretches far beyond perspective.

GOTHIC DETAILS:

• Walls lined with oil portraits of Lungbarrow’s forty-five cousins, whispering as if alive.
  
  
• Chandeliers flicker between torchlight and static TV glow.
  
  
• Shadows scuttle in the rafters — Loom-things, half-formed.
  
  

The table: grotesque parody.

• A green turkey from planet Barcelona, feathers still faintly glowing neon.
  
  
• Soup Slitheen, bubbling in luminous green, the surface popping with muffled fart-noises.
  
  
• A jelly dessert shaped like the Seal of Rassilon, wobbling like a living thing.
  
  
• A spiral cake that beats like a heart, its rhythm syncing with John’s pocket watch (still frozen at 3:15).
  
  
• Platters of blue roses, syrup dripping from petals like blood.
  
  

Missy sits at the head like a queen.
River lounges near her, goblet in hand, smirking.
Amy and Rory sit midway down the table, still with their eerie smiles.

AMY & RORY (looping, sing-song):
“Lovely night for a party, isn’t it? Lovely night for a party, isn’t it?”

Missy clinks her goblet, stage-whispering to Rose.

MISSY
Eat up, darling. Every cousin feasts in Lungbarrow. It’s family tradition.

Rose stares at her plate: a slab of glowing meat twitching faintly. She drops her fork.

Suddenly, CLARA-CHILD manifests beside her.

CLARA-CHILD
(whisper, eerie)
He doesn’t taste real.

Rose gasps. Clara-child vanishes in a glitch-blink.

Across the table, Smithy eats mechanically, fork to mouth, bite after bite. Each sound resonates with a metallic echo.

JOHN
(under his breath)
He’s feeding… but he isn’t alive.

The portraits begin to mutter catchphrases out of sync:

PORTRAITS (overlapping whispers):
“Allons-y… Geronimo… Fantastic… Run…”

Rose clutches her ears.

River leans across the table, suddenly playful. She points her goblet toward Amy and Rory.

RIVER
(to John and Rose, cheerfully)
Oh, don’t mind them. They’re my parents.

Beat of stunned silence.

John and Rose exchange bewildered looks.

ROSE
(whispering)
…Her what?

JOHN
(muttering, panicked)
That makes no sense. None. Don’t think about it.

Missy bursts out laughing, clapping her hands as if it were the funniest punchline in the world.

She calls for silence. The laugh track cuts abruptly.

MISSY
Darlings, you’re missing the best part.
A family feast… always ends in revelation.

She claps once.
The spiral cake tears open like a chest cavity, glowing threads spilling across the table.

River freezes, horrified, her goblet slipping from her hand.

FADE OUT — END OF ACT FOUR.

ACT FIVE — THE CAMP SEDUCTIONS

INT. LUNGBARROW — BEDROOM CORRIDOR — NIGHT

The hall is lined with crooked doors, each marked with Gallifreyan symbols. The lighting flickers in lurid neon pinks and purples. A laugh track hums faintly, waiting to be triggered.

SCENE 1 — MISSY AS ROSE

INT. GUEST BEDROOM — JOHN’S ROOM

John paces nervously. The storm outside rattles the windows.

The door creaks open. Enter MISSY , disguised as ROSE — cheap blonde wig, gaudy pink dress, overdone makeup. Her voice is just slightly off , too deep, too theatrical.

MISSY (as Rose, exaggerated):
Oh, Johnny boy… aren’t you lonely in this great big house?

John freezes, appalled.

JOHN
(aghast)
…You’ve got to be kidding me.

Missy clambers onto the bed, striking a parody of a seductive pose.

MISSY (purring):
Come on… give us a kiss.

Laugh track bursts in.

John ducks under the sheets, horrified.

JOHN
Get out! You’re insane!

Missy cackles, tossing the wig at him.

SCENE 2 — MISSY AS JOHN

INT. GUEST BEDROOM — ROSE’S ROOM

Rose sits on the edge of her bed, holding the glowing blue rose pendant uneasily.

The door creaks. MISSY enters again — now dressed as JOHN. But not quite:

• She wears the brown leather jacket of the Ninth Doctor.
  
  
• The pinstripes of the Tenth peek out beneath.
  
  
• A bowtie dangles crookedly around her neck.
  
  

Her impression is mocking but eerie.

MISSY (as John, whispering catchphrases):
Fantastic… Allons-y… Geronimo…

Rose’s face twists in horror.

ROSE
(stammering)
That’s not John… that’s— that’s all of them .

Missy leans close, faux-affectionate.

MISSY (grinning):
Exactly.

She reaches toward Rose’s cheek. Rose snatches up a shoe and hurls it straight into Missy’s face.

BOOM — the laugh track explodes with hysterical laughter. Missy staggers back, delighted.

MISSY
(gleeful)
Oh, bravo! That’s the spirit!

SCENE 3 — THE HALLWAY

The bedroom doors slam open simultaneously. John storms out of his room; Rose bursts from hers.

Both are pale, shaken. They nearly collide.

ROSE
(blurting)
She came in here dressed like you—

JOHN
(snarling)
And she came to me dressed like you!

The laugh track cuts in again — huge, thunderous, distorted laughter — before glitching into static.

They both look down the hall.
At the far end, CLARA-CHILD stands.

CLARA-CHILD (flat, whispering):
They’re not who you think they are.

Lightning flashes — she vanishes again.

John and Rose share a look of dread.

FADE OUT — END OF ACT FIVE.

ACT SIX — THE FISSURE

INT. LUNGBARROW — GRAND LABORATORY

The laboratory has transformed into a nightmare cabaret. The walls stretch and warp, the ceiling dissolves into swirling static. Dozens of screens flicker on, humming like a choir of broken televisions.

Missy, radiant in the spotlight, straps Smithy into a grotesque contraption — half Gallifreyan, half glittering stage rig. Cables pierce the capsule, glowing veins of crimson and gold.

MISSY (exalting):
With his perfect biology, my darling Smithy will rip the veil wide open!
Two hearts, no conscience, and a smile for the cameras!

She slams a lever. Sparks cascade. The laugh track roars at full volume, then cuts to dead silence.

THE FISSURE OPENS

A jagged crack of light tears across the air.
On the screens: DOCTORS IN SITCOMS — their lives rewritten as parody.

• TROUGHTON chased in fast motion by a Yeti, hats flying as a silly sax riff plays.
  
  
• TENANT juggling teacups and roses in Lovers & Monsters: The Sitcom, companions bursting in through doors like farce.
  
  
• JODIE WHITTAKER in Interior Designers of Gallifrey, holding up wallpaper as judges boo.
  
  
• ECCLESTON on a garish talk show, audience chanting “Tell us about the Time War!” while a neon sign blares THERAPY TIME.
  
  
• CAPALDI raging at a clapping studio audience like a broken stand-up comic: “Is this funny enough for you?!”
  
  
• HARTNELL, every word he speaks drowned by looping canned laughter.
  
  

The screens overlap, distort, forming a wall of chaos.

THE LUNGBARROW COUSINS

From the very walls, shadowy Lungbarrow cousins emerge — dozens, faces fixed in wide grins. Each repeats a different catchphrase, voices layering into madness:

COUSINS (overlapping chorus):
“Allons-y! … Geronimo! … Would you like a jelly baby? … Run, clever boy! … Reverse the polarity! … Fantastic!”

They twitch in looping gestures, puppet-like. Some clap. Some sob. All of them stuck in a rhythm that makes no sense.

JOHN TRIES TO INTERVENE

John steps forward, brandishing his pocket watch. Its ticking is deafening, echoing the fissure’s pulse.

JOHN
Missy, stop this! You’re tearing them apart!

CLARA-CHILD APPEARS

The girl appears at the foot of the fissure, eyes glowing with static.

CLARA-CHILD
(soft, cutting through the din)
They’re not trapped, John.
They’re rewritten.

The laugh track bursts again — but only on her line.

SMITHY BREAKS FREE

Smithy rips himself from the straps, standing tall. His form flickers: Matt’s face, then metallic wiring, then static.

He turns his head with jerky precision — not to Missy, not to John — but straight at the camera.

SMITHY (voice layered, glitching):
This is your climax.
Your spectacle.
Applause required.

He spreads his arms. The cousins erupt in applause, far too fast and loud, like machine-gun fire.

GLITCH OVERLOAD

The fissure expands violently.
On the screens: rapid cuts of Doctor Who history — Daleks, Cybermen, companions laughing, the Time War — all drowned beneath canned laughter and applause.

Missy throws herself into the chaos like a cabaret star basking in ovation.

MISSY (screaming with delight):
It’s beautiful!
Gallifrey remade as theatre!
The Doctor rewritten as a punchline!
My empire of applause!

John tries to lunge towards the fissure. Smithy blocks him with effortless strength, shoving him back.

Rose cries out, the noise of laughter and static pressing in on all sides.

FADE OUT — END OF ACT SIX.

ACT SEVEN — THE PENDANT

INT. LUNGBARROW — DIMLY LIT CHAMBER

The chaos fades. The laugh track dies. The fissure flickers but holds, buzzing faintly.
John lies on the ground, stunned. Smithy looms over him, frozen mid-motion, as though paused in the glitch.

The room narrows to focus on Rose and Missy.

Missy steps forward slowly, her glittering cloak torn, makeup smudged, but her eyes burn bright. The theatricality is gone. She’s quiet now. Almost… sincere.

She holds out a delicate pendant : a small chain with a blue rose glowing faintly with the same soft light as the TARDIS.

MISSY
(soft, to Rose)
You think all this was chaos. A circus. My comedy of errors.
But it was all for this.

She lifts the pendant and clasps it around Rose’s neck with gentle precision.

MISSY
This is for you, Verity.
Make the impossible bloom.

Rose touches the rose-shaped jewel, confused and unsettled.

ROSE
(whispering)
Verity? Who’s Verity?

Missy smiles faintly, shaking her head.

MISSY
(sotto voce)
You’ll know. One day.

Missy leans closer, brushing Rose’s hair back. For the first time, her voice falters.

MISSY
They’ll reset me for this. Oh, they will. Back to the shadows, back to chains.
But it was worth it, every second, to give this to you.

She presses a gentle, deliberate kiss on Rose’s forehead.

Behind them, the fissure convulses. The cousins clap in distorted slow-motion, their faces flickering between joy and agony. Smithy twitches, frozen mid-frame.

Rose closes her eyes, overwhelmed by the warmth of the pendant, the faint echo of home.

John stirs, watching with confusion and fear.

FADE OUT — END OF ACT SEVEN.

ACT EIGHT — THE FINAL SHOW

INT. LUNGBARROW — GRAND HALL / STAGE

The fissure EXPANDS, bleeding static light across the mansion. The chandeliers swing wildly, portraits scream and laugh, and the Lungbarrow cousins clap and sob in erratic rhythm.

A spotlight slams down on Missy.
Her cloak torn, her corset glittering with cracks of light, she strikes a pose centre-stage.

MUSICAL NUMBER — “My Empire of Applause”

MISSY (singing, breathless, triumphant):
I’ve torn the laws apart,
I’ve stolen every heart,
The Doctor’s tale now plays for me alone!

Applause will be my crown,
I’ll burn the whole house down,
And dance upon the ashes of his throne!

The cousins join in, their chorus warped:
“Applause! Applause! Applause!”
Their hands clap too fast, their faces breaking into static masks.

Smithy steps forward, his body glitching violently, fragments of Matt’s face flickering between metal and void. He joins Missy in the choreography, every move sharp and mechanical.

THE GLITCH STRIKES

John staggers to his feet, shouting over the chaos:

JOHN
This isn’t real! None of this is real!

The fissure convulses.
The laugh track distorts into screams, portraits melt into static, and Missy suddenly collapses to her knees in the centre of the storm.

Her body glows with golden regeneration energy , pouring from her hands, eyes, and mouth.
The cousins gasp in unison, clapping and weeping as if witnessing holy theatre.

Missy trembles, then slowly rises, her voice quivering with faux-gravitas.

MISSY (voice breaking, almost tender):
Ohhh… look at me. The final act!
Every Doctor gets their grand curtain call, don’t they?
They get their speeches, their tears, their promises…
“I’ll always remember when the Doctor was me…”

The glow intensifies, her face haloed in golden fire. She looks directly into the camera.

MISSY (smirking through the blaze):
But oh, no. Not me.
I’m not like that ridiculous old man.

The regeneration energy surges to blinding brightness—
and then cuts out abruptly, like a dead spotlight.

The glow vanishes. Missy sways, then straightens with a wicked grin.

MISSY (screaming her final lyric):
The curtain falls— but I remain!

COLLAPSE OF LUNGBARROW

• The fissure implodes inward, sucking in the sound. Silence falls.
  
  
• The chandeliers CRASH to the floor, shattering into pixels.
  
  
• The banquet table caves in, food dissolving into static.
  
  
• The cousins clap once more, perfectly in sync, then freeze like mannequins.
  
  
• Smithy glitches violently, golden shorts tearing, his chest splitting into light and wire. He collapses in a heap of broken fragments, a distorted laugh track sputtering as he dies.
  
  

John seizes Rose’s hand. They sprint for the great doors as the hall warps around them.

EXT. THE MOOR — NIGHT

They burst outside. Behind them, the House of Lungbarrow flickers and vanishes — not destroyed, not burning, simply erased, as if it was never there.

The storm dies. The night falls eerily quiet.

EXT. EMPTY MOOR — CONTINUOUS

Rose clutches the blue rose pendant around her neck, breathing hard. It glows faintly, pulsing with a rhythm that sounds almost like a heartbeat.

John looks at her, shaken.

JOHN (quiet, raw):
This isn’t over.

Rose closes her eyes. For just a moment, the faint hum of the TARDIS dematerialisation echoes on the wind — though no TARDIS is there.

FINAL IMAGE

Close on the pendant.
Its blue glow steadies into a heartbeat.

FADE TO BLACK.

CREDITS — CAMP SITCOM STYLE

A montage plays under a cheesy 1970s disco track, complete with canned laughter and applause:

• Fake bloopers: John slipping across the banquet table, Rose sighing with exasperation, Missy twirling her cape straight into a chandelier.
  
  
• River winking at the camera, blowing kisses as though hosting a variety show.
  
  
• Amy and Rory, caught in their loop, waving stiffly with plastic smiles while the laugh track roars.
  
  
• Smithy (the Matt clone) flexing in mock-heroic poses, glitching mid-pose and collapsing to more howls of laughter.
  
  
• Missy mugging shamelessly for the camera with jazz hands, freeze-framed in lurid colours.
  
  

SUPERIMPOSED TEXT IN BLOOD-RED RETRO FONT (dripping like regeneration energy):

Starring
David Tennant as John Smith / The Doctor
Billie Piper as Rose Tyler
Michelle Gomez as Missy

Also Starring
Alex Kingston as River Song
Karen Gillan as Amy Pond
Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams
Clara (as herself, disturbingly)

Special Guest
Matt Smith as The Clone

The credits close on a retro television set , its screen filled with blood-red static.
Onscreen text reads:

“Everything is perfectly normal.”

POST-CREDIT SCENE — GALLIFREY

INT. RUINED HALL — GALLIFREY — NIGHT

From the static, the image clears into a golden, ruined hall.
Shattered Time Lord architecture surrounds us: spirals of Rassilon cracked across the walls, broken stained glass spilling light across the floor.

On the ground lies MATT. His body is burnt and bloodied from the wounds of the previous episode. He appears lifeless.

Two Time Lord attendants, clad in gilded robes and white masks, approach. They lift him carefully, reverently.

ATTENDANT ONE (grave):
My Lord, your games have torn the weave of time. The illusion falters.

ATTENDANT TWO (trembling):
And yet… they believe it. Every scene, every laugh. Exactly as you wished.

Close-up: Matt’s eyes snap open. He exhales raggedly, then allows a thin, crooked smile to curl across his face.

He turns his gaze, not to them but directly to the audience — breaking the fourth wall once more.

MATT (rasping, with dark delight):
It’s all… my stage.

The chamber floods with glitching scarlet light.
A sound rises: hollow, metallic applause, echoing as though from an empty theatre.

The clapping grows louder, harsher, until it drowns everything.

CUT TO BLACK.

Chapter Text

The Twins

Intro: The Twilight Who Zone

(Black screen. The eerie hum of a vintage 60s synthesiser builds, recognisably close to The Twilight Zone’s original theme. The sound is distorted, almost as if dragged through the Time Vortex.)

MATT’S VOICE (off, solemn, mimicking Rod Serling’s cadence):
There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to humankind.
It is a dimension not of sight or sound, but of… time. And space.

(The hum merges with cosmic winds and the faint throb of a distant engine. The screen remains black.)

It is an area we call… The Twilight Who Zone .

(The iconic Twilight Zone theme strikes up — dum-di-dum-dum, dum-di-dum-dum — but is abruptly torn apart by the violent, metallic roar of the TARDIS dematerialising.)

VISUAL: Instead of the swirling Twilight Zone spiral, we see the distorted Time Vortex. Its colours are drained, nearly monochrome, flickering with bursts of harsh white light. At its centre looms Gallifrey, its citadel glowing an ominous gold.

MATT’S VOICE (lower now, personal, with a sharp edge):
Their destination: a dying world, forever bound in conflict. Its name — Earth. And more precisely, the city of London… where everything always seems to happen.

(A double heartbeat echoes, heavy and relentless. Each beat flashes a pulse of light from Gallifrey, like a warning signal.)

But for one particular traveller, this is not the end of a journey… but the beginning of a nightmare. A nightmare caught between duty, memory… and a reality rewritten.

(The camera plunges into the Vortex. It fractures into a retro, wire-frame grid — like the opening of an 80s sci-fi drama. The TARDIS is trapped in the lattice, spinning helplessly.)

MATT’S VOICE (whispering now, with a smile you can hear):
Tonight’s episode: The Twins . Because sometimes, the heaviest inheritance… is not a name, but a script.

(Twilight Zone music swells again, then glitches into canned laughter. A final double heartbeat thunders. Cut to black.)

Prologue

(Black-and-white screen. A quiet crackle, like static from an old television. The frame sharpens into the silhouette of Matt, standing alone in a shadowy parlour. He faces the camera directly, the lighting harsh, his expression unreadable.)

MATT (to camera, calm, deliberate, Rod Serling cadence):
Two parents. Two wombs. An expectation that defies biology.
And one man, who wonders whether he has forgotten the rules of nature… or whether nature itself has been rewritten.

(Matt steps forward, the shadows stretching unnaturally behind him. His voice lowers, as if leaning into the audience’s ear.)

Welcome to a reality where sanity is elastic…
and truth is nothing more than a script in constant revision.

Act One: Altered Normality

(We fade in on a cosy 1980s living room. Floral wallpaper, a sofa with crocheted covers, a bulky television in the corner humming with static. Rose and John sit side by side on the couch, both with impossibly round stomachs. A half-finished jigsaw puzzle sprawls across the coffee table, tea cooling in mugs beside it.)

ROSE (gently, teasing):
Lucky you got the time off, John. Two weeks stuck like this, we’d never manage without you. These bellies are impossible.

JOHN (rubbing his temples, muttering):
Impossible’s the word.

(The doorbell rings. John rises, grunting from the weight of his swollen belly. He opens the door to find Tom and Sarah standing outside, carrying a basket of baby clothes and smiling warmly.)

SARAH (excited):
Not long now! You two must be over the moon.

JOHN (hesitant):
Right… but tell me, have you ever heard of this? Both parents expecting? At the same time?

(Tom and Sarah exchange a quick glance, then laugh softly, as if humouring him.)

TOM:
Oh, John, it’s the hormones talking. Perfectly normal. You’ll see.

SARAH (patting his shoulder reassuringly):
You’re just nervous. Everything’s going to be fine.

(John closes the door slowly, unsettled. Rose calls from the living room, her tone unusually serene.)

ROSE:
See? Everyone says it’s normal.

(John forces a smile, but his eyes betray his unease. A canned laugh-track ripples briefly, eerie and out of place, then cuts out.)

(Cut to the Paternoster Clinic . Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. The room is neat, medical charts on the wall, an ultrasound machine whirring to life. Rose lies on the exam bed; John sits awkwardly beside her. Madame Vastra in a white coat flips through paperwork with clinical precision.)

VASTRA (calm, professional):
Blood pressure steady. Reflexes within range. No abnormalities in the scans.

(She adjusts the ultrasound probe; the rhythmic whoosh of two heartbeats fills the room. John’s eyes widen at the sound. Vastra notes it matter-of-factly on her clipboard.)

JOHN (blurting out):
Two heartbeats. You heard that! That’s not… human.

(Vastra looks at him coolly, unblinking.)

VASTRA:
It’s precisely what we expected, Mr Smith.

(John stares, bewildered. His gaze shifts to Strax , bustling around in scrubs, fumbling with a tray of syringes. Strax notices John’s expression and scowls.)

STRAX (indignant):
What? Never seen a nurse before?

(Rose chuckles faintly, though her eyes seem distant. John grips the armrest, struggling to steady his breathing. He pulls out a clunky VHS camcorder, recording the scene. When he rewinds and checks the tiny screen, the tape shows nothing unusual: two ordinary human doctors, smiling kindly. John lowers the camera, trembling.)

(Laughter echoes again — canned, hollow, with no source. The room flickers under the buzzing light.)

NARRATOR (Matt’s voice, over):
In a world where everything appears perfect… the only imperfection is the man who dares to question it.

Act Two: Echoes of Family and the Shadow of War

(A warm afternoon. The Smiths’ living room is crowded with visitors. A tape deck plays faint pop music from the corner. The curtains sway as though in a draft, though the windows are closed. On the sofa, Sarah  and Donna chat animatedly with Rose, leafing through baby catalogues. John lingers by the doorway, watchful.)

SARAH  (smiling, affectionate):
Oh, Rose, you’ll make a marvellous mum. I remember… oh yes, when the stars burned silver and we—

(Her words blur. For a moment her voice doubles, overlapping with an echo of something older, something Gallifreyan. Rose doesn’t react. Donna, sitting beside her, laughs loudly, cutting the moment off.)

DONNA:
Honestly, John, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Relax! This is the happiest time of your life.

(The laughter track rattles on for a second too long, then cuts. John stares; Donna’s grin seems frozen, before resuming naturally as if nothing happened.)

(The front door opens. The Brigadier enters, in civilian clothes but carrying the weight of command in his posture. He clasps John’s hand firmly.)

BRIGADIER (warm but steady):
John, old chap. You’re not alone in this. We’ve fought wars together. I know what it does to a man.

JOHN (uneasy, voice low):
You remember that? The War? The Time War?

(The Brigadier’s eyes flicker — just for a second — with the light of far-off explosions. He doesn’t flinch, only squeezes John’s hand tighter.)

BRIGADIER (earnest):
You’re a veteran, John. Paranoia comes with the territory. But now—now you’re going to be a father. Let us help you. Don’t fight shadows that aren’t there.

(John pulls back, voice cracking with desperation.)
JOHN:
They are there. I’ve seen them. Every wall, every corner—Gallifrey’s burning, and I can hear the Daleks, I hear them—

(A sudden flash: Dalek domes reflected in the window, the distorted cry of EXTERMINATE bleeding into static. No one else reacts. Sarah  pours tea as though nothing has happened.)

NARRATOR (Matt’s voice, calm, almost pitying):
The war never ends. It simply changes battlefield. And sometimes, the enemy is memory itself.

(John stumbles back, clutching the camcorder to his chest. His breath is ragged, his eyes full of terror. Rose looks at him from the sofa, her smile too wide, her hands folded neatly over her stomach. The picture wobbles with interference, then steadies again in forced 80s colour.)

Act Three: The Baby Shower

(A cheery banner hangs across the living room: WELCOME TWINS! Balloons bob lazily, streamers sag across the lampshades. The room is crowded — neighbours, friends, and familiar figures dressed in ways that don’t quite belong. A cassette player rattles out tinny pop music, just a touch off-pitch.)

CROWD (in unison, raising plastic cups):
To the twins!

(Rose laughs, warm yet mechanical, her timing perfectly matched to the canned track. John lingers by the punch bowl, scanning the room with unease.)

Among the guests:

• Tom, draped in a long scarf patterned like Draconian silk, bowing theatrically.
  
  
• Christopher, with oversized Sensorite ears clipped to his head, smiling as though he doesn’t notice.
  
  
• Patrick, entering with rubbery green Slitheen hands, shaking his head ruefully.
  PATRICK (deadpan):
  Well, I suppose that’s the end of my flute-playing days.
  (Laughter track erupts, though no one laughs in real life.)
  
  

(Two Clockwork Robots drift silently near the buffet table, masks gleaming. No one reacts to their presence. John stares, paralysed with dread. To him, they are predators. To everyone else, they’re invisible.)

(In the background, John spots alien faces woven into the crowd — a Draconian noble , a Sea Devil , a Zygon sipping from a plastic cup. The humans treat them as perfectly ordinary neighbours.)

(Enter Missy , the neighbour no one ever admits to disliking. Sequinned dress glittering, she carries a tray of lurid cupcakes. Her smile cuts like glass.)

MISSY (sing-song, to the crowd):
Games, everyone! Party games!

(The audience claps on cue — applause that echoes hollow, just a little too loud. John winces as though the sound drills into him.)

MISSY (to John, leaning close, whispering with relish):
Tell me, darling… haven’t you wondered who really sowed these seeds? Who fathered what?

(John’s mouth opens, but no words come. Missy straightens, then glides towards Rose, murmuring sweet poison in her ear.)

MISSY (whispering):
That pendant of yours? Keep it close. It’s the only thing stopping him from deleting you.

(Rose’s hand twitches at the chain on her neck. Her eyes flicker with something almost awake — then her sitcom smile snaps back into place. She joins in the canned laughter as though nothing had been said.)

(John turns to a bulky 80s television set. Static flickers across the screen. In a panic, he yanks the plug from the wall. Sparks fly. Behind the set is nothing but hollow plaster. He rips at the wallpaper; another layer waits beneath, identical, mocking him. The world itself feels false.)

(The guests cheer and laugh as though his breakdown were slapstick entertainment. He staggers back, chest heaving, his terror drowned beneath a wave of artificial mirth.)

NARRATOR (Matt’s voice, cold, precise):
In a party where every guest is an actor… the only spectator is the unwilling protagonist.

(John’s gaze sweeps the room: Rose with her painted smile, Missy raising her glass, Tom and Christopher clowning in their costumes, Patrick flexing his monstrous hands, aliens mingling without remark. For a moment their forms glitch — Gallifreyan shadows, Dalek outlines, Cybernetic limbs. Then everything resets, cheerful and perfectly ordinary.)

Act Four: The Pendant and the Blind Spot

(The baby shower continues in forced cheer. Guests chatter, balloons pop, canned laughter slips in and out like static. Rose stands by the kitchen counter, absent-mindedly icing a cake she doesn’t remember starting. Her movements are automatic, almost mechanical. John watches from across the room, unsettled.)

(Her hand drifts to the silver pendant around her neck. It shimmers faintly, out of sync with the warm glow of the room. She closes her eyes — and the world stutters.)

SFX: A piercing hum, the unmistakable wheeze of the TARDIS engines bleeding through the canned party music.

(Rose opens her eyes. The living room is gone. She’s standing in a vast white void , walls dissolving into endless light. No furniture, no balloons, no guests. Just silence, save for the echo of the TARDIS — faint, distant, like a memory fading.)

(From the edge of the void, Missy steps forward. Her sequinned dress still glitters, but the colour has drained to grey. Her voice is calm now, stripped of theatrics.)

MISSY (serious, deliberate):
Your children aren’t yours, Rose. They belong to whoever holds the pen. The Boss wants them. That’s the truth.

(Rose grips the pendant tighter, her breath trembling. For a fleeting moment her eyes widen with understanding — and terror.)

ROSE (hoarse):
But… I feel them. They’re mine.

MISSY (tilting her head, almost kindly):
Oh, darling. Scripts don’t care about feelings.

(Rose blinks — and suddenly she’s back in the kitchen, piping pink frosting onto the cake, humming as though nothing has happened. Her sitcom smile is perfect, her tone cheery.)

ROSE (to no one in particular, chipper):
Who wants a slice of cake?

(John stares. He’s seen the shift — the vacant glaze in her eyes, the mechanical precision of her hands. He steps closer, touches the pendant lightly. A shudder runs through him — a pulse, not unlike the heartbeat of the TARDIS. His breath catches. For a moment, the wallpaper peels away in his vision, showing only the endless white void beneath.)

(The laugh-track chuckles warmly, masking the dread.)

NARRATOR (Matt’s voice, solemn, almost intimate):
Sometimes, the only way to keep one’s sanity… is to embrace the lie.

(John pulls his hand back, trembling, as Rose continues to frost the cake with her perfect, empty smile. The music warbles like a warped cassette, then steadies again.)

Climax

(The baby shower in full swing. Guests raise glasses, balloons drift into the ceiling fan, laughter — both real and canned — fills the room. John stands at the centre, shaking, his face pale with dread. He clutches the camcorder in one hand, the pendant in the other. His voice cracks as he shouts above the noise.)

JOHN (desperate, furious):
This is a trap! A trick from the Time War! None of this is real!

(The room falls silent. Every head turns to him. For one breathless moment, reality holds. Then — a peal of canned laughter erupts, swelling unnaturally loud, drowning his words. Donna steps forward, placing a hand on his shoulder with mock tenderness.)

DONNA (smiling, patronising):
Oh, John… always so dramatic.

(The laughter cuts sharply. Rose gasps, clutching her stomach. Her water has broken. The crowd erupts into applause — far too loud, too jubilant. Lights flicker violently, shadows elongating across the walls. The hum of the TARDIS engine bleeds into static.)

(As Rose is lowered onto the sofa, the world glitches. Guests shimmer — one moment neighbours and relatives, the next flickering into grotesque shapes: a Cyberman helm, a Dalek eyestalk, Gallifrey burning in their silhouettes. The two Clockwork Robots step forward from the crowd, clapping in eerie unison.)

(John falls to his knees, clutching his head as the images strobe: his hands covered in ash, the echo of Dalek screams, Rose’s face split into pixels of static. The camcorder in his hand plays back distorted images of a family he doesn’t recognise — himself, Rose, and two faceless infants, frozen in a perfect portrait.)

NARRATOR (Matt’s voice, steady, cutting through the chaos):
And in the moment most crucial, the fabric of reality reveals its seams.

(Rose screams as the contractions hit. Confetti bursts from nowhere, streamers fall, the crowd cheering wildly as though it were a staged finale. John sobs, reaching out helplessly, while his body moves against his will — a puppet in a play he cannot stop.)

The Birth

(The laughter and party noise dissolve into sirens of urgency. The guests from the baby shower shuffle as one, guiding Rose and John through flickering corridors. Neon lights buzz overhead, signs point the way: Paternoster Clinic — Delivery Ward. The air hums with both medical machinery and the static of reality itself.)

(Inside the ward: two beds side by side. Rose lies on one, gripping the rails, sweat on her brow. John lowers himself onto the other, his face pale, breath ragged, every contraction tearing through him as though his body had been rewritten to obey a cruel script. Vastra and Strax move briskly, their shadows long under the fluorescent lights. The crowd of guests hover at the doorway, clapping gently in eerie unison.)

ROSE (gasping, through pain):
John… I can’t— I can’t do this.

JOHN (reaching out, trembling, voice cracking):
I’m so afraid. I don’t know what’s real anymore.

(They clasp hands, fingers interlacing tightly between the beds. Their eyes meet. For a heartbeat, all the noise, all the glitching shadows fade away — leaving only them.)

ROSE (soft, resolute, tears in her eyes):
We’ve got each other. That’s enough.

JOHN (breaking, whispering):
I love you.

(With those words, he surrenders. The fight leaves his face, replaced with fragile devotion. He lets the script carry him. Together, hand in hand, they push through the agony.)

(Two cries pierce the air — new life, raw and insistent. The applause swells, the confetti falls again, but this time it feels almost distant, softened by the sight before them. Vastra places a baby in Rose’s arms, Strax clumsily but tenderly sets the other in John’s. Their eyes shine — impossibly bright, reflecting something vast — yet to their parents, they are perfect.)

VASTRA (formally, with a faint smile):
Congratulations. Verity Smith. John Nathaniel Smith.

(Rose and John hold their newborns, turning to each other once more. Exhausted, trembling, but together. The camera lingers on their clasped hands, their faces pressed close in exhausted joy. The canned applause rolls like thunder, but for once, John does not resist. He smiles through tears, a man broken and remade into a father.)

(Freeze-frame: the family of four, framed as a perfect sitcom tableau. For the first time, John doesn’t fight the image — he accepts it. The screen slowly fades to monochrome, then black.)

NARRATOR (Matt’s voice, quiet, almost reverent):
A family, at last. Whole, complete… and written into perfection.

Epilogue

(Black-and-white screen. An empty studio set: no walls, no props, only a single pram draped in cloth at the centre. The silence is heavy, disturbed only by the faint buzz of static. Matt steps into frame, suit immaculate, hands clasped behind his back. He addresses the camera directly, voice calm, deliberate.)

MATT (Serling-like, precise):
A father who no longer trusts the rules.
A mother who clings to a trinket.
And two children who should never have been born.

(He steps closer to the pram, lifts the cloth slowly. Inside: nothing. Just shadows swirling, faint glimmers of the Time Vortex. He smiles faintly, producing the silver pendant — the only object shown in colour.)

MATT (measured, almost amused):
They thought this little bauble might give them a way out. A crack in the script. A blind spot I couldn’t see.

(He turns it over in his hand. For a moment, his face hardens. The calm mask slips — his eyes gleam with fear and rage. He leans towards the camera, voice lowering, sharper now.)

MATT (bitter, trembling with contained fury):
I’ve held this stage for centuries. Gallifrey stands tall and glorious! and still I keep the Doctor locked in their own mind, dancing to my tune. Even after Missy’s betrayal, I stayed in control. I won . And yet—

(He grips the pendant tightly, knuckles white. His tone cracks, then shifts — anger mixing with exhilaration.)

MATT (dark smile, voice rising, excited):
—yet the thought that it could all spiral out of my hands… oh, how it thrills me.

(He throws his arms wide, laughing quietly at first, then stopping abruptly, dead serious.)

MATT (whisper, intense, almost intimate):
Let the witches come. Let them bare their claws. The nightmare has only just begun… and I’ve always enjoyed a little chaos.

(The camera pushes into an extreme close-up of his face, eyes burning with equal parts terror and delight. The screen cuts to black. A double heartbeat echoes once, twice — then silence.)

Credits

Starring
Billie Piper — Rose Tyler
David Tennant — John Smith

Also Starring
Michelle Gomez — Missy

With
Katy Manning — Jo Grant
Neve McIntosh — Madame Vastra
Dan Starkey — Strax
Catrin Stewart — Jenny Flint

Special Appearances by
Elisabeth Sladen — Sarah Jane Smith
Catherine Tate — Donna Noble
Nicholas Courtney — Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Christopher Eccleston — Christopher
Tom Baker — Tom
Patrick Troughton — The Second Doctor

Featuring
The Clockwork Robots
Draconians
Sea Devils
Zygons

And Introducing
Verity Smith
John Nathaniel Smith

Narrated by
Matt Smith

Written by
Dill Smith

Directed by

 Dill Smith

Chapter Text

Children of Pythia

ACT I — Suspiria

Scene 1 — The House (Night)

Rose sits slumped on the bed, her hair tangled, her face pale with exhaustion. The twins cry relentlessly in their cots, their wails sharp in the silence of the night.

John enters, carrying bottles, his eyes ringed with sleeplessness. He rocks one baby, then the other, but nothing soothes them.

Rose (whispering, hoarse): “They know something I don’t.”

The crying stops.

Both babies turn their heads at once, looking directly at Rose. They smile—too wide, too fixed, their eyes glinting in the half-light.

Rose gasps, a sharp intake of breath.

Jump scare.

John looks over, confused. From his perspective, the twins appear perfectly calm, almost angelic.

John: “See? They’re fine. Just needed a bit of comfort.”

Rose can’t tear her gaze away from them, trembling. She doesn’t reply.

Scene 2 — The Kitchen (Next Morning)

Morning light filters through half-drawn curtains. The kitchen is cluttered with bottles, nappies, and half-finished mugs of tea.

Rose sits at the table, staring blankly at her untouched cup. Her hands tremble slightly. John busies himself at the counter, trying to appear in control, though his movements are clumsy from lack of sleep.

Rose (quietly, almost to herself): “I don’t feel they’re mine, John. They don’t… they don’t feel like normal babies.”

John freezes for a moment, then forces a reassuring smile, turning back to her.

John: “You’re exhausted, love. Anyone would be. You’ve been through hell. It’s just the tiredness talking.”

Rose looks up at him, eyes brimming with both fear and frustration.

Rose (shaking her head): “No, it’s more than that. When they look at me— it’s like they know. As if they’re waiting for something.”

John moves quickly to her side, crouching to meet her eyes. He places his hand over hers, firm but desperate.

John: “Listen to me. You’re not alone in this. We’ll get help, alright? But you’ve got to stop scaring yourself.”

Rose lets him hold her hand, but she doesn’t return the squeeze. Her gaze drifts past him, towards the hallway where the twins lie in their cots. The faintest sound of a giggle drifts in—too sharp, too knowing.

Rose stiffens. John doesn’t hear it.

Scene 3 — The Whispering Estate (Arrival)

The estate rises before them: aristocratic, crumbling, ivy-choked. At the gate, three statues of women; on the ground, a sigil carved in marble, half-buried.

Rose clings to John’s arm. He carries the twins in their carriers.

The doors open. Matt glides forward, long dark hair loose, clad in flowing white with a silver pendant at his chest. His bare feet make no sound. His smile is radiant, rehearsed.

Matt: “You’ve made the right choice. This is no hospital — it is sanctuary. You are not broken, Rose. Only weary. And I can help you find your centre again.”

John exhales, half-relieved, half-suspicious.

River joins him, also in white, carrying tea. Her voice is gentle, maternal.

River: “I felt what you feel now. After my daughter, I thought I’d never return to myself. But Matt saved me. He reminded me who I was. I love him for that.”

She offers Rose a cup. Rose sips — calms, for a moment.

Then she gasps. Across the floor, she sees the twins walking: toddlers now, grinning with too many teeth, eyes glowing faintly.

Rose (gasping): “…No…”

She blinks. They’re back in their carriers, innocent.

Matt and River exchange a knowing glance.

Rose (forcing a smile): “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Scene 4 — First Session with Matt

A high chamber, half clinic, half temple. White curtains ripple. Candles burn in a circle around bowls of herbs, quartz, and a silver bowl of water.

Rose sits stiffly. John hovers.

Matt kneels opposite, hands steady, eyes calm.

Matt: “Close your eyes. Breathe. There is a thread that ties you to them — golden, unbreakable. Can you see it?”

Rose (eyes closed): “…I see them. Watching me.”

Matt: “Good. That means you’re awakening. What you deny will grow. What you embrace will become yours.”

His fingers trace runes in the air. The candles bend to his movements.

Rose opens her eyes — in the reflection of a cabinet, the twins are standing, silent, staring.

She gasps, jerks upright. John rushes to her side.

John: “What’s wrong?”

Matt doesn’t flinch.

Matt: “Do not fear the vision. Fear only blindness. I’ve seen mothers falter at this threshold for centuries. Few cross it.”

Rose frowns at him — the phrase feels strange, too vast — but he only smiles.

Scene 5 — The First Night

The estate is silent. Moonlight spills across the corridor as Rose stirs awake. A faint whispering drifts through the walls — too soft to be language, too patterned to be random.

She sits up, instinctively touching her neck. Her fingers search for something — a pendant, perhaps — but find only bare skin. A flicker of confusion crosses her face.

Rose (to herself, unsettled): “…I swear I had one…”

Drawn by the whispers, she leaves her room. The corridor stretches unnaturally long, shadows curling like smoke. She follows the sound to a tall oak door — the library.

Inside: rows upon rows of ancient books. Dust drifts in the air. A candle flickers though no one has lit it.

On a desk lies a book, wide open. Its text rearranges itself before her eyes, the ink shifting like liquid. Words emerge:

Book (changing letters): “Remember who you are.”

Rose staggers back, heart pounding.

From the shadows, Sarah Jane emerges faintly translucent, clutching a tome to her chest. Tears run down her face.

Sarah Jane (whispering, broken): “It was all for nothing…”

Her voice fades with her body, vanishing into smoke.

Another flicker of movement: Jo Grant, older now, hair silver, a ghostly outline. She sits at a table with a teacup, her form shimmering like heat on stone.

Jo: “Patience, dear. That’s all we have left in the end.”

She raises the cup with a gentle smile before dissolving into mist.

Rose shivers, clutching her arms.

Then — Ruth Clayton. Unlike the others, she appears more vivid, almost real. She steps forward, her hand warm when it clasps Rose’s. Her presence feels solid, grounding.

Ruth (steady, prophetic): “Your hour is not this one. You’re caught in the storm, but you are not alone in it. Hold on, Rose. Hold on to yourself.”

Rose’s eyes brim with tears. For the first time since the birth, she feels understood, even comforted. She nods, whispering back:

Rose: “…Thank you.”

When she blinks, Ruth is gone. The library is empty.

Rose presses her hand against her chest, where Ruth had touched her, clinging to the sensation of warmth.

A faint sigh drifts through the room — a sound not of menace, but of compassion.

Cut to the corridor outside, where a faint child’s laugh flickers through the air, light but lingering too long.

Scene 6 — The Chapel of Whispers

The corridor narrows into stone steps. Rose descends, barefoot, the floor cold beneath her feet. At the end, a door creaks open onto a small chapel.

Candles burn in unnatural hues — green and crimson flames swaying without breeze. The walls are cracked, damp with shadow. A single mirror hangs above the altar, its surface clouded.

Rose steps forward. Her breath quickens. The mirror shifts — a shape forming within it.

At first, the outline reminds her of Missy: tall, feminine, angular. Her stomach knots with dread.

Rose (whispering): “…Missy?”

The figure turns, and it is not Missy. Her form sharpens: a woman draped in flowing garments, her outline almost solid. Her face is youthful, almost angelic, the beauty disarming — yet there is something ageless behind her eyes, an ancient gravity that fills the chapel.

Her gown shimmers between white silk and shifting shadow, each movement spilling light and darkness at once. Though she looks young, her presence presses upon Rose like centuries condensed, an ancestral force veiled in innocence.

Mater Suspiriorum (Lalla): “Pain is your key. Time is your prison, but also your anchor.”

Rose stumbles backwards, clutching the stone wall. Her legs tremble.

Rose (terrified, yet entranced): “…Who are you?”

The figure tilts her head with elegance, a gesture strangely reminiscent of someone Rose has never met.

Mater Suspiriorum (Lalla): “You already know.”

The candles flare violently, casting jagged shadows across the chapel. One by one they snuff out, plunging the room into near-darkness.

Rose drops to her knees, gasping, her wide eyes reflecting the final guttering flame.

Her own breath echoes in the silence — or is it a sigh not her own?

Scene 7 — The Crisis of Rose

John finds Rose collapsed on the cold stone floor of the corridor, her body trembling, her eyes wide and unfocused.

He kneels beside her, gathering her shoulders, trying to hold her steady.

John (urgent, desperate): “Rose! Look at me, it’s just us, alright? Just us.”

Rose pushes against him weakly, shaking her head.

Rose (hoarse, terrified): “No… we’re not alone here. There’s something else. Something waiting.”

Her voice cracks into a sob. She clings to him for a moment, then recoils again, as if even his touch can’t shield her from what she feels.

A sound slices the silence — a giggle, light and playful, from the twins’ room nearby.

John looks up, startled. “They’ve woken.”

He lifts Rose to her feet and guides her back to the nursery.

The twins lie in their cots, the moonlight slanting across their tiny faces. For a moment, they seem utterly angelic.

Then, suddenly, both turn their heads at the exact same time and fix their gaze directly on Rose. Their mouths curl into identical, knowing smiles.

Jump scare.

Rose gasps, clutching John’s arm.

John (soothing, though his own voice trembles): “They’re fine, love. Just babies. Just babies.”

He picks one of them up, rocking him gently. The baby coos, innocent again.

Rose shakes her head, her eyes locked on the other cot, her whole body stiff.

Rose (under her breath): “…They’re not.”

Cut to John’s worried face, holding his child close, his fear growing as he sees Rose drift further from him.

Scene 8 — The Session with Matt

Rose sits slumped in a low chair, her face pale, her hands trembling in her lap. John stands nearby, restless, unable to hide his worry.

John (tense, to Matt): “She’s worse. Tonight was… I’ve never seen her like this.”

Matt doesn’t look alarmed. His smile is calm, almost indulgent, as if John has just confirmed exactly what he wanted to hear.

Matt: “That is a good sign. The deeper the storm, the nearer the calm. She is beginning to connect — her feminine energy is awakening.”

He moves around the room, lighting tall candles placed in a circle. Their flames flare greenish for an instant before settling.

On the table rests a cloth embroidered with spirals and runes half-hidden beneath bowls of herbs, quartz crystals and a silver bowl of water.

Matt gestures for Rose to close her eyes. His voice drops into a measured cadence — soft, steady, almost hypnotic.

Matt (intoning): “Breathe with me. In through the heart, out through the fear. Picture the flame within you. Picture the cord that ties you to your children. Strong, golden, unbreakable.”

His hands make slow, deliberate passes above her head, as if tracing energy fields. Yet the shapes his fingers draw echo ancient symbols. The candle flames flicker each time his hands complete a circle.

John (uneasy): “…What are you doing?”

Matt (smiling faintly): “Only helping her remember her own strength.”

Rose’s breathing deepens. Her eyelids flutter, as though she’s drifting into trance.

For a fleeting moment, she sees her twins in the reflection of the silver bowl — standing, silent, their eyes fixed upon her.

She jerks, gasping. The water ripples violently though nothing has touched it.

Matt (calmly, as if rehearsed): “Do not fear what you see, Rose. Fear only what you refuse to see.”

John stares, unsettled, but says nothing.

Rose clutches her chest, trembling — unsure if she has been soothed, or ensnared.

Matt: “Breathe with me. Flame within, cord unbroken. What you fear is what you must see.”

Rose glimpses the twins in the silver bowl, standing, watching. The water ripples violently.

Matt (softly, with eerie certainty): “Do not fear what you see, Rose. Fear only what you refuse. I have guided many before you. This is the path.”

Rose stares, uneasy: “…Many?”

Matt only smiles. River lays a hand on Rose’s arm.

River: “I know it feels unbearable. But it means you’re opening. I survived it too.”

Scene 9 — The Manifestation of Mater Suspiriorum

Rose wanders back into the chapel, as if drawn by an invisible thread. The air is colder now, the stones damp beneath her bare feet. The candles flare into life as she enters — green, crimson, and violet flames twisting unnaturally.

At the altar, the figure stands clearer than before. Lalla — Mater Suspiriorum. Her form is almost tangible: a young, angelic face framed by flowing hair, her gown shifting between white silk and shadow. Yet the weight of centuries hangs upon her presence, an ancestral force hidden behind an innocent mask.

Her eyes fix on Rose. The air thickens, heavy as water. Rose gasps for breath.

Mater Suspiriorum (Lalla): “This is only the beginning, child of time. Beware the man of many names. His gift is poison.”

The chapel convulses around her.

• The candles explode into tall green flames.
  
  
• The walls crack, blood seeping through in thin rivulets.
  
  
• The floor yawns open beneath her, revealing a red abyss that pulses like a living wound.
  
  

Rose screams.

Then — silence.

She bolts upright in bed, drenched in sweat, beside John. The twins sleep peacefully in their cots. She clutches her chest, gasping.

Rose bolts upright in bed, drenched in sweat, beside John. The twins sleep peacefully in their cots. She clutches her chest, gasping.

Rose (to herself, shaky): “…Just a nightmare…”

The room is utterly still.

Then — the sound of breathing, hot and damp, directly against her ear.

A voice, low and feminine, whispers with absolute clarity:

Whisper: “This is real.”

Rose’s face drains of colour. She twists round — no one is there.

ACT II — Inferno

Scene 1 — Session with Matt (Acto II)

The room feels different now. Gone is the airy whiteness of Rose’s first session. Heavy curtains choke the light, sealing them in. Heat clings to the walls; sweat beads on Rose’s skin before she even sits down.

A circle of thick red candles burns low on the table. Wax pools and hardens into grotesque shapes, as though the flames are carving the room as much as lighting it. The air is stifling, a mixture of incense and iron.

Rose sits opposite Matt, who looks unchanged: still in his flowing white tunic, still barefoot, still perfectly serene. But the calm now feels oppressive, like a mask worn too long. John hovers at the back of the room, not speaking, his arms hanging uselessly at his sides.

Matt (softly, but with weight):
“You’ve begun to see them as they are, haven’t you? Not innocent. Not simple. Something older. Something deeper. This is good, Rose. This means the veil is thinning.”

Rose grips the arms of her chair, trembling.

Rose (broken, her voice cracking):
“I love them… I do. But I don’t trust them. I don’t know what they are.”

Matt leans forward, his smile faint, as though satisfied.

Matt:
“Then you are ready. Fear is the first fire. Beyond it lies truth. Beyond truth, power.”

His fingers move in deliberate arcs above the candle flames, tracing patterns. The fire bends to his hand, stretching unnaturally, shadows writhing across the walls.

Rose tries to steady her breathing, but heat presses in on her chest.

Matt (chant-like, rhythmic):
“What you fear will shape you. What you deny will consume you. Step through it, Rose. Step through.”

Her vision blurs. For an instant she sees the twins, not in their cots but standing — taller, older — at the foot of her chair. Their small hands are outstretched toward her throat.

Rose (gasping, recoiling):
“No—!”

John rushes forward instinctively, but Matt raises one hand.

Matt (calm, almost indulgent):
“Let it come. This is the fire that forges you.”

The vision shatters. The twins are gone. The flames return to normal. Rose shakes, clutching her chest.

John (hoarse, desperate):
“What the hell is happening to her?!”

Matt doesn’t answer him. His gaze is fixed entirely on Rose.

Matt (lower, conspiratorial):
“You think you are the first to see such shadows? I have watched mothers face them for generations. They always begin here — in the fire, in the fear.”

For a heartbeat, his eyes gleam with something ancient. Then his smile returns, calm and reassuring.

Matt:
“This is progress, Rose. Do not run from it. You’re further than most.”

Rose stares at him, wide-eyed, half-terrified, half-hypnotised.

Cut to the circle of red candles, each flame bowing inward as if inhaled by an unseen breath.

Scene 2 — The Twins at Bath

The bathroom is heavy with steam though the water runs only lukewarm. Drops cling to the mirror like beads of sweat, slowly trickling down.

Rose kneels by the porcelain tub, sleeves pushed to her elbows, her hair clinging damp to her temples. She lowers the twins into the shallow bath with trembling hands. Their cries falter into coos, their tiny fists splashing. For a fleeting instant, the moment feels almost ordinary — the simplest act of motherhood.

Rose exhales shakily, a thin smile trembling at her lips.

Then the water changes. At first, a faint streak of red swirls between their small bodies, delicate as ink. The thread unfurls, blossoming until the whole bath blooms crimson.

Rose freezes. Her breath catches, chest rising sharply.

Rose (whispering):
“No… no, no…”

The twins giggle. Not baby giggles, but sharp and deliberate, echoing unnaturally in the tiled room. They splash at the scarlet water as if delighted, their eyes bright with a knowing glint.

Rose lets out a strangled cry, dragging one of them into her arms, clutching him tight against her chest.

Rose (hoarse, frantic):
“Stop it—stop it, please—”

John bursts in, shirt half-buttoned, face flushed with alarm.

John:
“Rose? What is it?”

He sees only clear water. The twins gurgling happily. The bath pristine.

Rose blinks, staring at the tub in disbelief. The crimson has vanished. Only ripples remain.

Rose (to herself, broken):
“…It was red. All red…”

Her grip tightens around the child in her arms until John gently prises him free.

John (soothing, steady though his own hands shake):
“Shh… it’s alright, love. Look at them. They’re fine. Just babies. That’s all.”

He kisses the damp crown of the boy’s head, rocking him with practiced tenderness. The child coos sweetly, utterly innocent.

Rose swallows, pale, her hands trembling as they hover above the bath.

In the water’s surface she catches her own reflection — smiling back at her. But the eyes are black. Bottomless.

Jump scare.

She recoils, gasping, pressing her back against the wall tiles.

John looks at her, baffled, pity and fear mingling in his eyes.

Cut to the bathwater, now calm, the faintest ripple tracing a perfect circle as though something unseen still stirs beneath.

Scene 3 — Cracks in the Estate

The corridor stretches endlessly, the air dense and hot, as if the walls themselves are exhaling. A faint hum rises from the plaster — low, almost like chanting.

Rose runs her hand along the wallpaper. It crumbles under her touch, peeling away to reveal scorched plaster beneath. The surface is charred, fissured, as though burned long ago.

She leans closer. Symbols carved deep into the blackened wall writhe in the candlelight — curling runes tangled with Gallifreyan script. Some lines glow faintly, like embers refusing to die.

Rose (to herself, trembling):
“…What is this?”

John appears behind her. His eyes fall on the symbols. His face drains of colour.

He steps closer, almost against his will, reaching out a hand. His fingers hover above a circle of runes, tracing the air.

John (whispering):
“…Older than Gallifrey. This can’t be…”

Rose snaps her head towards him, startled.

Rose:
“What did you just say?”

John blinks, shakes his head quickly.

John (forcing calm):
“Nothing. You’re tired, Rose. Come away from this.”

Rose (insisting):
“No, John — you know something. You’ve seen this before.”

But he doesn’t answer. He grips her hand instead, tugging her gently but firmly down the corridor.

The wall groans behind them.

A jagged crack splits across the plaster, glowing with molten light as though fire rages just beyond. Heat rushes out, searing the air.

Rose gasps, pulling free of John’s grip.

Rose:
“…It’s alive.”

John shakes his head violently.

John (pleading):
“Don’t look at it. Don’t give it power. Please.”

When she glances back, the wall is whole again, the wallpaper unbroken. Only a faint smear of ash trickles to the floor like falling snow.

Cut to Rose’s face, pale and unsettled — caught between her husband’s fear and the undeniable truth in front of her eyes.

Scene 4 — First Assault by Leela

The nursery is stifling, hotter than the rest of the house. The twins lie in their cots, fussing softly, their eyes half-lidded in the dim light.

Rose rocks one gently, humming under her breath, sweat glistening on her forehead. For once she looks calm — fragile, but calm.

Then the air shifts.

A shadow moves across the wall. A woman steps forward into the light: Leela — Mater Tenebrarum.
Her body is lean, strong, her hair wild. She wears skins and tatters, her blade glinting in her hand. Her eyes are merciless, lit with cruel fire.

Leela (low, fierce):
“You don’t have to keep them, child. They chain you to the man, to the pain. I can free you. One cut, and you’re free.”

She advances on the cots, blade raised.

Rose gasps, backing away, clutching the nearest baby tight against her chest.

Rose (desperate, trembling):
“Stay away! Don’t touch them!”

Leela sneers, her teeth bared.

Leela:
“They are not yours. They never were. You owe them nothing. Let me do it. Let me cut you loose.”

She lunges — the knife poised above the other child.

Without hesitation, Rose throws herself forward, shielding both babies with her body. Her voice is raw, primal.

Rose:
“They’re mine! Whatever they are — they are mine!”

For a moment, silence.

Leela halts, the blade hovering inches from Rose’s face. Then she lowers it slowly, a cruel smile curling her lips.

Leela (mocking, almost admiring):
“Ah. A mother’s lie. The sweetest chain of all.”

She steps back into the shadows. Her figure dissolves like smoke, leaving the nursery suffocatingly still.

Rose clutches her children, rocking them furiously, her breath ragged.

One of the twins stares up at her, eyes wide, too knowing. His tiny lips curl into a faint smile.

Jump scare.

Rose flinches, kissing his head anyway, tears streaking her cheeks.

Cut to Rose, cradling them both, trembling but unyielding.

Scene 5 — The Acolytes Return

The corridors blaze with unnatural heat. The wallpaper curls at the edges, blackened as though the fire comes from inside the walls. Rose walks unsteadily, clutching one of the twins, her breath ragged. The other child lies in John’s arms, asleep but twitching as if caught in a dream.

From the end of the hallway comes a crack — like a whip striking stone. A girl’s laughter echoes.

Ace steps forward, her jacket scorched, a bat in her hands sparking with electric fire. She slams it against the wall, each strike leaving a glowing scorch mark.

Ace (grinning):
“Boom or bust, Rose. Some things need breaking before they break you.”

She vanishes in a flash of sparks.

The air stills, only for another voice to cut through. Martha emerges from a doorway, her eyes cold, a wilting plant clutched in her hands. Without hesitation, she tears it out by the roots, soil scattering across the floor.

Martha (clinical, detached):
“Some lives cannot be saved. Cut them early. Spare the rot from spreading.”

The plant crumbles to dust. Martha’s figure dissolves with it.

Rose gasps, backing away, her grip on the baby tightening.

In the cracked mirror at the corridor’s corner, Donna appears. Her reflection moves even when Rose does not. Steam fogs the glass; Donna’s eyes blaze.

Donna (screaming, prophetic):
“The cradle cannot birth the same child twice! The wound will bleed again and again!”

She pounds the mirror with her fists. The glass fractures but does not shatter, lines spidering across it like veins of fire.

Rose covers the baby’s ears, trembling.

The mirror clears. Donna is gone.

The corridor is silent again, save for the low hum of burning behind the walls.

Rose staggers forward, clutching her child, whispering through tears:

Rose:
“…They’re wrong. They’re all wrong…”

But her eyes flicker with doubt, haunted by their words.

Cut to the cracked mirror, faint embers glowing in its fractures.

Scene 6 — Second Session with Matt

The chamber is hotter than before. Heavy red candles burn in a wide circle, wax dripping down into twisted patterns on the floor. A bowl of water sits at the centre, its surface trembling though no one has touched it.

Rose sits hunched in the chair opposite Matt, clutching her arms, her face pale with exhaustion. John lingers near the doorway, silent, his eyes darting nervously around the ritualistic room. River stands close to Matt, calm, a soft smile fixed on her lips.

Rose (voice raw, breaking):
“She came for them. Knife in her hand. She wanted to kill my babies.”

Her words tumble out, half sob, half accusation.

Matt leans forward, his hands folded neatly, his expression utterly serene.

Matt (with quiet certainty):
“And yet you stopped her. You shielded them. Few resist her trial the first time. That is strength, Rose. Progress.”

Rose (snapping, furious):
“Progress? She tried to slaughter them!”

Matt doesn’t flinch. If anything, his smile deepens.

Matt (leaning closer, voice coaxing):
“Tenebrarum tests mothers. She always has. I have seen her blade raised in Paris, in Vienna, in Rome. The centuries change, the walls change, but the trial is always the same. And so is the chain that binds you.”

Rose stiffens, staring at him.

Rose (hoarse, unsettled):
“…How could you know that?”

Matt opens his hands slowly, palms facing upwards, as if revealing something sacred. His voice drops to a whisper that fills the room.

Matt:
“Names come and go. But one remained. In your history, they called me the Count of Saint Germain. They called me immortal. And they were right.”

The flames of the candles gutter low, then flare blood-red.

John grips the doorway, stricken, unable to form words.

Rose shakes her head violently.

Rose:
“…That’s impossible.”

River steps forward, placing a hand on Rose’s arm. Her voice is warm, reassuring.

River:
“I thought so too. Until he saved me. He gave me back myself.”

Matt reaches out, his hand steady, eyes glowing faintly in the candlelight.

Matt (gentle, certain):
“Do not fear the fire, Rose. It will forge you. You are closer than you think.”

Rose trembles, staring at his hand — terrified, yet drawn to it.

Cut to the bowl of water: the surface ripples, and in its reflection, Rose sees herself holding the twins… but her arms are drenched in blood.

Scene 7 — Confrontation with Leela

The corridor glows red, heat radiating from the walls as though the estate itself is on fire. The air shimmers, suffocating. Rose walks alone, clutching the wall for balance. The hum of unseen voices rattles through the plaster.

From the end of the hall emerges Leela — Mater Tenebrarum. Her blade catches the light of the flames, her eyes fierce, unrelenting.

Leela (low, cutting):
“Mothers are liars. They say love is soft. It is not. Love is blood. Love is the cut that never heals.”

She advances, raising her knife. Rose stumbles backwards, her breath sharp, clutching the memory of the twins in her arms even though she isn’t holding them now.

Leela (pressing forward):
“The life you bore is not yours. The life will take its price. Better to bleed now than later.”

She lifts the blade to Rose’s throat. Rose whimpers, frozen in place.

Then a voice slices through the corridor.

Matt (off, calm but commanding):
“Enough, Tenebrarum.”

The heat stills. Shadows recoil.

Matt steps into view, his white tunic glowing against the red haze. His smile is serene, but his eyes gleam with quiet authority. River follows, silent, her gaze fixed on Rose.

Matt:
“You’ve played this game for centuries, Leela. I’ve watched you break mothers one after another. But not this one.”

Leela snarls, lowering the blade just enough to show her contempt.

Leela (mocking):
“You meddle too much, Saint Germain. She is mine to test.”

Rose’s eyes widen at the name. Hearing it from another mouth cements the truth.

Matt’s smile doesn’t falter.

Matt (softly, with certainty):
“She is under my care. Find another cradle to haunt.”

Leela glares, then vanishes into smoke, her laughter echoing down the corridor like sparks crackling in the air.

The silence that follows is unbearable. Rose stares at Matt, her chest heaving, torn between gratitude and dread.

Rose (whispering):
“…Why me?”

Matt tilts his head, almost tender.

Matt:
“Because you’re strong enough to break — and strong enough to rise.”

Cut to Rose’s trembling hands, clenching into fists as the red glow fades around her.

Scene 8 — The Twins’ Response

The nursery is dark, the curtains drawn tight. Only the faint glow of a nightlight paints the room in amber. Rose enters slowly, her breath still uneven after the encounter in the corridor.

The twins lie in their cots, still at first. Then they stir — both at once. Their tiny bodies shift in perfect synchrony, their eyes opening together.

A thin wail breaks the silence, but it is doubled — two voices crying in the same pitch, the same rhythm. The sound is almost harmonic, almost ritual.

Rose steps closer, shushing them softly, her hands trembling as she reaches down.

Rose (whispering, shaky):
“Shh… it’s alright. You’re safe. You’re mine.”

One child’s cry breaks into sudden laughter. Not the bubbling giggle of an infant, but a sharp, deliberate laugh, too old for such a small body.

Rose stiffens, her hands hovering above him. The second baby follows, laughter spilling out in eerie imitation. The nursery fills with the sound, bouncing off the walls until it no longer feels like two voices but many.

Rose clasps both babies to her chest, rocking them furiously, as if to drown out the laughter with the rhythm of her heartbeat.

Rose (sobbing, fierce):
“…Whatever you are, you’re mine. Mine.”

The laughter dies instantly. The babies blink up at her, innocent once more, gurgling softly. Their eyes, though, linger too long on hers — sharp, knowing.

John appears at the door, dishevelled, concern etched into his face.

John:
“Rose…? What happened?”

She wipes her tears quickly, forcing a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

Rose:
“…They were just crying. That’s all.”

John watches her, doubtful but too exhausted to press further.

Cut to the babies in their cots, staring at the ceiling. Their lips curl into faint, identical smiles before the light flickers out.

Scene 9 — John and Rose

The corridor is dim, lit only by the red glow of distant candles. The air is thick, carrying the scent of smoke. Rose leans against the wall, her eyes hollow, her arms trembling from clutching the twins.

John approaches slowly. He takes her hand, grounding her. For a moment, she lets him.

Rose (voice low, breaking):
“They’re not ours, John. They’re something else. I can feel it.”

John shakes his head, his grip firm, his eyes glassy with exhaustion.

John (hoarse, but steady):
“They’re ours, Rose. Whatever you see, whatever they are — they’re ours. If you see it, I’ll face it with you.”

She stares at him, searching his face. Tears brim in her eyes. For the first time in days, she allows herself to fall into his arms. They hold each other tight, fragile but real.

The twins’ soft breathing drifts from the nursery — steady, rhythmic. Too steady.

Rose pulls back slightly, frowning.

Rose (whispering):
“…Do you hear that?”

John tilts his head. The sound continues — breath after breath, in perfect unison, like the draw of a bellows.

The nursery door creaks open on its own. Inside, the twins lie in their cots, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. Their chests rise and fall in exact rhythm, every inhale and exhale synchronised.

Rose clutches John’s arm, her breath quickening.

Rose (hushed):
“…It’s not them breathing. It’s the house.”

The walls groan. The floor shudders beneath their feet, heat pulsing upward like a heartbeat.

The babies turn their heads together — slowly, unnaturally — and smile directly at their parents.

Jump scare.

John pulls Rose back, slamming the nursery door shut.

They stand in the corridor, clinging to each other, the sound of breathing still echoing all around them.

Cut to black.

 Act III — Mother of Tears

Scene 1 — Descent to the Caverns of Pythia

The estate is no longer still. Every wall groans, every corridor pulses faintly, as though the house itself has a heartbeat. Heat seeps through the floorboards, and with it a faint smell of iron, damp earth, and something older.

Matt leads the way, his white garments glowing against the shadows. River walks beside him, holding a torch that sputters green flame. Behind them, Rose and John descend the narrow staircase, each cradling a twin. The babies are quiet, but their wide eyes remain fixed on the dark ahead.

The stairs spiral down, stone slick with moisture. Water drips steadily, echoing like a ticking clock.

Rose glances at John — his face pale, his jaw tight — but he says nothing.

They emerge into the Caverns of Pythia.

The space opens vast and cathedral-like, yet feels suffocating. The walls pulse faintly, veins of fire glowing beneath the rock, as though the whole cavern were a living womb. Pools of black water mirror the candlelight, distorted by ripples that rise with no cause.

At the centre stands an altar of obsidian, carved with spirals of Gallifreyan script intertwined with pagan runes. Two golden cradles rest atop it, waiting.

Rose gasps, clutching the twins tighter.

Rose (whispering):
“…No. Not here.”

Matt turns, serene, his voice carrying easily through the cavern.

Matt:
“Every beginning must return to its source. You see it, don’t you, Rose? The womb that bore Gallifrey, the cradle of time itself.”

River places her torch in a holder, the flame swelling unnaturally high.

The walls shudder. From the darkness, faint voices rise — laughter, weeping, whispers in countless tongues. Shadows move where no one stands.

John (hoarse, barely audible):
“…It’s alive.”

Matt smiles at him, indulgent.

Matt:
“Of course. The womb of creation always lives.”

He gestures to the cradles.

Matt:
“Place them here. Let them be blessed.”

Rose clutches the babies tighter, her arms trembling. Her eyes dart to John, who looks just as terrified but paralysed.

The cavern hums louder, the sound swelling like breath, like chanting. The descent is complete. The ritual is about to begin.

Cut to the altar, its carvings glowing red as though awakening.

Scene 2 — Gathering of the Witches

The cavern shudders as if in anticipation. The air thickens, heavy with smoke and incense, the glow of the altar spilling across black pools on the ground.

Rose and John stand at the centre, clutching the twins. Matt raises his hands slowly, his voice calm but carrying like a sermon.

Matt:
“The Mothers are here. Witness them, Rose. Witness the truth of what binds you.”

The flames shift colour — red, then green, then violet. Shadows peel away from the cavern walls, taking shape, one after another.

🌑 Mater Suspiriorum — Lalla (Romana II)

A figure steps from the shadows, veiled in silk, her face youthful yet her eyes impossibly ancient. Her presence chills the cavern.

Mater Suspiriorum (Lalla):
“I am Suspiriorum, the first breath, the sigh before the cry. Memory is my gift, and pain my language.”

Her Acolytes appear faintly behind her: Sarah Jane weeping into a tome, Jo Grant offering her endless tea, Ruth Clayton clutching Rose’s hand only to fade again. Their whispers overlap in a ghostly chorus.

Acolytes (in whispers):
“…Remember… wait… not yet…”

🔥 Mater Tenebrarum — Leela

From the opposite side, the cavern flares with red fire. Leela strides forward, blade in hand, her figure fierce and unyielding.

Mater Tenebrarum (Leela):
“I am Tenebrarum, the youngest and the cruelest. I cut, I burn, I bleed. Love is no cradle — it is a wound that never heals.”

Her Acolytes stalk into view: Ace slamming her sparking bat against the rock, Martha tearing plants out by the roots, Donna screaming prophecies at the fractured mirror of a black pool.

Acolytes (shouting, overlapping):
“Break it! Cut it! The cradle bleeds again!”

💧 Mater Lachrymarum — River Song

Finally, a violet light floods the cavern. River steps forward, shedding her white robe. Her hair flows loose, her beauty overwhelming, her eyes glistening with both sorrow and power.

Mater Lachrymarum (River):
“I am Lachrymarum, the youngest and the fairest, the beauty that binds, the sorrow that consumes. I am the tear that drowns and the kiss that saves.”

Behind her, faint images ripple across the pools: Clara, smiling softly, and Missy flickering in a mirror — a twisted reflection, her laughter echoing, trapped but mocking.

Acolytes (in echoes):
“…Come closer… don’t resist… we know your face…”

The three Maters take their places around the altar, their Acolytes lingering like shadows behind them.

The cavern is no longer a place but a theatre of power — whispers, laughter, and cries weaving into a ritual chorus.

Matt (his voice rising, triumphant):
“Do you see, Rose? The Mothers themselves have come to bless your fire. You cannot deny what you are part of.”

The altar glows brighter. The golden cradles tremble as if alive. The twins stir, their tiny cries blending into the sound of the coven, as though they are joining the chorus.

Rose (whispering to John, trembling):
“…It’s all for them.”

Cut to the three Maters, each staring at Rose with a different expression — pity, cruelty, desire — as the cavern shakes with their combined power.

Scene 3 — The Twins as Offering

The chanting rises, the cavern trembling with every note. The three Maters stand in their places around the altar, their acolytes behind them like shadows in chorus.

At the centre, the two golden cradles shimmer as though forged from light itself. The carved Gallifreyan spirals across their frames glow faintly red, twisting into unfamiliar runes.

Matt gestures solemnly toward the cradles.

Matt:
“The children must be blessed. Place them here, Rose. Let them be known to the Mothers.”

Rose clutches the twins to her chest, stepping back.

Rose (desperate):
“No. Not like this.”

The chanting grows louder, shaking the cavern. John takes one child carefully from her arms, his face pale, his hands trembling.

John (softly, almost apologetic):
“If it keeps them safe, Rose…”

Tears stream down her cheeks. Reluctantly, she lowers the other twin into the waiting cradle. The moment both children touch the golden frames, the air erupts.

The babies cry out — but their cries are strange, stretched, layered, as though a chorus of voices speaks through them. Their tiny hands stretch upward, moving in perfect unison.

The Maters answer in kind:

• Suspiriorum (Lalla) bows her head:
  “Every cry is memory. Every pain repeats.”
  
  
• Tenebrarum (Leela) raises her knife high:
  “Every birth is a wound. Every wound demands blood.”
  
  
• Lachrymarum (River) steps forward, her voice breaking with sorrow:
  “Every tear is eternal. Every beauty must be mourned.”
  
  

The acolytes chant behind them, their voices weaving like a net.

Rose stares at her children. Their faces flicker in the light — innocent babies one moment, small demons the next, eyes black and glinting.

She reaches forward instinctively, but Matt’s hand catches hers, firm but gentle.

Matt (soothing, with that eternal smile):
“Do not fear them. They are not cursed — they are chosen. Strong eyes, old eyes… Do you see? They were always meant for this.”

Rose shakes her head violently, but her knees weaken.

The cradles begin to rock on their own, golden frames glowing brighter. The twins’ cries and laughter rise, merging perfectly with the chanting of the coven, until the entire cavern seems to breathe with one sound.

Cut to Rose’s horrified face — knowing they are her children, yet feeling them slip further from her grasp.

Scene 4 — The Ritual Begins

The cavern darkens as though the fire has been swallowed whole. Only the altar glows, its Gallifreyan spirals pulsing like veins of light. The golden cradles rock gently, the twins’ cries folding into the rhythm of the chanting acolytes.

The three Maters step forward in turn, each placing her hand above the children as the ritual begins.

Mater Suspiriorum (Lalla) raises her hand, the air filling with the sound of faint sighs — countless voices exhaling at once.
“Memory is the chain. Pain is the key. She will walk the echoes of every life before her.”

Her acolytes echo in whispers, Sarah Jane’s sobs, Jo Grant’s gentle murmurs, Ruth’s steady words weaving a ghostly harmony.

The flames flare red as Mater Tenebrarum (Leela) approaches. Her knife gleams, its edge catching the cavern’s heat.
“Blood is the truth. Wounds are the law. She will know that love is not soft but sharp.”

Her acolytes thunder in response: Ace slamming her bat against stone, Martha’s cold voice repeating “Cut it early”, Donna screaming prophecies into the fire.

The cavern weeps with light as Mater Lachrymarum (River) steps forward, her face streaked with tears, her beauty radiant and terrifying. She touches the air above the cradles, and droplets fall from her hands like liquid glass.
“Sorrow is the crown. Beauty is the curse. She will drown, and from drowning, rise.”

Behind her, Clara’s image smiles faintly from the pool, Missy’s laughter warps through the mirror. The acolytes sway, their voices lifting in a mournful hymn.

The three Maters join hands above the altar. Their voices converge into a single, piercing cry:

The Maters (together):
“Mother of Time, bear the fire. Mother of Tears, bear the weight. Mother of Night, bear the wound.”

The cavern shakes. Stones fall from the ceiling, the pools boiling as though alive. The twins cry out, their voices rising unnaturally until they sound less like children and more like an ancient chorus.

Rose clutches John’s arm, her face pale, trembling.

Rose (whispering, horrified):
“…They’re offering them. My babies… as if they’re not even human.”

Matt steps forward, his white tunic glowing as the flames bend around him. His smile is beatific, his eyes shining with triumph.

Matt:
“This is the truth, Rose. This is the fire that will remake you. Accept it, and you will never fear again.”

The ritual circle closes. The air burns with power. The double reality waits to fracture.

Cut to the twins’ faces — flickering between angelic and monstrous — as the chanting drowns everything else.

Scene 5 — Double Reality

The chanting reaches a fever pitch. The cavern convulses, the golden cradles shaking as the twins scream and laugh at once.

Matt spreads his arms wide, standing at the centre of the circle. His voice rises above the roar:

Matt:
“Now she is mine. Her mind is mine.”

The world fractures.

🌑 Rose’s Vision

River steps forward, her tears glistening, the blade in her hand. Her beauty is unbearable, her sorrow infinite.

River (Mater Lachrymarum):
“Your time is done, Saint Germain.”

She drives the blade into Matt’s chest. He cries out, the sound shaking the stone.

Rose screams, clutching her own heart as if the wound were hers. Blood pours from his tunic, staining the purity of white.

Matt (gasping, desperate):
“She is mine now. Her mind is mine.”

River twists the blade, and Matt collapses. Rose staggers forward. She takes the chalice offered by Suspiriorum, trembling, and drinks the blood.

Her vision explodes into light — the Vortex Temporal unfurls before her, universes spiralling, Gallifreyan memories flooding back. She sees herself in the Academy, a young student staring into infinity.

Her scream merges with the chanting, and suddenly the cavern bends: she realises she can fold reality itself.

🔥 Matt’s Vision

The witches shed their robes, their bodies moving like shadows in the firelight. They circle him in reverence, their voices lifting his name.

Matt stands radiant, pure, the leader of the coven.

Rose approaches, her eyes vacant, her body yielding. Matt gathers her close, pressing his lips to her throat. He kisses her passionately, eyes gleaming with triumph.

Matt (whispering against her skin):
“She is mine now. Her mind is mine.”

John stands frozen at the edge of the circle, his body paralysed, forced to watch as Rose is claimed before his eyes.

The witches chant louder, their voices a hymn of exaltation. The altar blazes with golden fire.

Matt closes his eyes, basking in his victory, convinced the ritual is complete.

🌒 Overlap

Rose screams in her reality, Matt smiles in his.
Blood and fire collapse into one vision.
Her power awakens as his triumph rings hollow.

Cut to black — the sound of the twins’ laughter echoing across both realities.

Scene 6 — Missy’s Breakthrough

The cavern shudders violently. The pools fracture like glass, shards of light slicing through the darkness.

From within, a mocking laugh bursts out — unmistakable.

Missy (off, sing-song):
“Took you long enough, sweetheart! But don’t worry — I always knew you’d crack it open for me.”

Her reflection sharpens in the shattered surface, eyes glittering, smile wide and merciless. She pushes through as if the water were smoke, her figure stepping fully into the cavern.

The witches recoil, hissing.

Mater Suspiriorum (Lalla):
“She must not pass!”

Missy tilts her head, feigning sympathy, then grins.

Missy:
“Oh, please. You lot aren’t even real. Just pageantry. Smoke, mirrors, and a bit of cheap incense.”

She snaps her fingers. One by one the witches flicker, their acolytes sputtering into wisps of ash, until the whole coven dissolves like stage scenery burned away.

Matt staggers, trying to compose himself, raising his hands as if to reclaim the circle.

Matt (furious, voice cracking):
“This is not yours, Missy—”

Missy (cutting him off, mocking):
“Shh. You had your fun, Count Dracula. Curtain’s down.”

She flicks her wrist and Matt is thrown back, his figure crashing into the altar, his glow snuffed out like a candle.

The cavern falls eerily silent. Only Missy and Rose remain in the void, the cradles trembling faintly beside them.

Rose stands frozen, her body shaking, her eyes distant — still reeling from the Vortex, from the fracture of realities.

Missy steps close, almost tender, her grin softening into something conspiratorial.

Missy (gently, coaxing):
“There now. Just us girls. You’ve been through hell, pet, but look — we’re finally free. You and me. And together…”

She touches Rose’s chin, tilting her face up.

Missy:
“…now we can really do something.”

Rose’s lips tremble. She can’t answer.

Cut to black.

Scene 7 — Epilogue

Morning light filters through lace curtains. The house is quiet, peaceful, bathed in soft gold.

Rose sits at the kitchen table, hair brushed, her face serene. A cup of tea steams gently before her.

John enters, carrying the twins — now no longer unsettling, but angelic. Their eyes are bright, their smiles pure, their laughter light and sweet.

Rose’s gaze softens. She reaches out, taking one child in her arms, kissing his head with genuine tenderness.

Rose (whispering, calm):
“Perfect. You’re perfect.”

John sits opposite her, watching the children with pride, though a shadow of unease still flickers in his eyes.

John:
“It almost feels… normal again.”

Rose meets his gaze. For a moment, her eyes glint with something otherworldly — not madness, but clarity. She knows now. She bends reality itself.

She smiles faintly.

Rose:
“It is normal. It’s exactly as it should be.”

The camera drifts across the room: the twins playing quietly, John relaxing at last, Rose radiant in her composure. A portrait of domestic perfection.

But in the far corner, the shadows shift. For a breath, the golden cradles flicker back into view, empty, glowing faintly red — then vanish.

Rose doesn’t flinch. She sips her tea, unbothered.

Cut to black.

Credits 

Doctor Who — The Planet of a Thousand Faces
Episode V: Children of Pythia 

• The Doctor (Rose Tyler) — Billie Piper
  
  
• John Smith — David Tennant
  
  
• Missy — Michelle Gomez
  
  
• Mater Suspiriorum (Romana II) — Lalla Ward
  
  
• Mater Tenebrarum (Leela) — Louise Jameson
  
  
• Mater Lachrymarum (River Song) — Alex Kingston
  
  

Acolytes:

• Sarah Jane Smith — Elisabeth Sladen
  
  
• Jo Grant — Katy Manning
  
  
• Ruth Clayton / The Fugitive Doctor — Jo Martin
  
  
• Ace — Sophie Aldred
  
  
• Martha Jones — Freema Agyeman
  
  
• Donna Noble — Catherine Tate
  
  
• Clara Oswald — Jenna Coleman
  
  

Matt / The Count of Saint Germain — Matt Smith

Directed by: Dill Smith

 Written by:  Dill Smith

 Produced by:  Dill Smith

Chapter Text

Scene 1 – Opening

INT. SMITH HOUSE – LIVING ROOM – MORNING

The camera snaps on suddenly, handheld style, as if caught mid-chaos. Quick cuts: toys scattered, a half-inflated balloon rolling across the carpet, Rose rushing past with her arms full of laundry.

VERITY (to camera, dead serious):
Today is the most important day of my life. My ballet performance. Everything has to be perfect. Which means—absolutely nothing will be.

Cut to JOHN NATHANIEL, sitting cross-legged on the floor, nose deep in a thick book. He looks up at the camera with calm sarcasm.

JOHN NATHANIEL (to camera):
Nobody in this house knows what calm looks like. Least of all my mother.

Off-screen we hear Rose shouting.

ROSE (O.S.):
Has anyone seen my planner? Or the cake tin? Or—oh, never mind, I’ll improvise!

Rose storms in, juggling her phone, a list, and a saucepan. Her hair is pinned up but already messy. She stops, realises the camera is there, and forces a breathless smile.

ROSE:
Morning! Don’t mind me. Just running a household, planning a birthday, and… raising two children at the speed of light. Easy peasy.

Cut to JOHN (the father), half-asleep on the sofa, fiddling with an old MP3 player. He looks smug as it suddenly starts blasting a tinny pop track.

JOHN (grinning):
See? Technology. We’re living in the future!

The MP3 immediately crashes into static. John shakes it. The dial-up internet sound shrieks from the family computer in the corner. Everyone groans.

VERITY (to camera, dry):
Welcome to the future.

Scene 2 – The Chaos Before the Ballet

INT. SMITH HOUSE – KITCHEN – MID-MORNING

The kitchen is a war zone: mixing bowls, flour clouds, a collapsed stack of balloons. Rose darts between the hob and the counter, ticking boxes on a list while trying to smooth icing onto a lopsided cake.

ROSE (muttering to herself):
Ballet bag, tights, hairpins… sandwiches for tomorrow… where’s that blasted ribbon?

Jackie strolls in, handbag on her arm, looking around with disdain.

JACKIE (sniffing):
Still not ready? In my day, mothers had it all sorted. By the way, Pete’s away again—business in Monaco. Millionaires never sit still, do they?

ROSE (through clenched teeth):
Lovely for him. I’ll just juggle a ballet and a birthday single-handed, shall I?

Verity rushes in, one shoe missing, tutu half on.

VERITY:
Mum, the tights itch! And I can’t find my Swan Lake headpiece!

ROSE:
Headpiece… headpiece… oh don’t tell me it’s in the laundry.

John ambles in, holding a balloon pump that isn’t inflating anything. He blows into a balloon himself, cheeks bulging.

JOHN (out of breath):
We could just not decorate, you know. Minimalism’s in.

ROSE:
John! It’s their birthday and her big performance. Minimalism is not in.

Cut to John Nathaniel, leaning against the doorframe with his book.

JOHN NATHANIEL (to camera):
This is exactly why the Greeks invented tragedy.

Rose grabs Verity’s bag, shoves tights inside, and claps her hands.

ROSE (snapping into drill-sergeant mode):
Shoes on! Coats on! We’re in the car in five minutes—no excuses!

Smash cut to everyone scrambling: Verity hopping on one foot, John juggling balloons, Jackie tutting loudly, Rose close to fainting.

Scene 3 – The Journey to the Theatre

INT. FAMILY CAR – DAY

The Smith car barrels down a London street. Rose is gripping the wheel like a rally driver, eyes wild. Verity sits in the back, fussing with her tutu. John Nathaniel calmly reads a book, unbothered.

ROSE (snapping):
Seatbelts! No crumbs! And if anyone so much as breathes on the tutu—

VERITY (rolling her eyes):
Mum, I’m twelve, not five.

JOHN NATHANIEL (without looking up, to camera):
Age doesn’t matter. Chaos is eternal.

Cut to John in the passenger seat, fiddling with the satnav.

JOHN (cheerfully):
It says we’ll be there in ten minutes. Well—
(beat, squints)
—unless we keep missing the turn.

Rose groans, slams the indicator. Quick montage: the car narrowly missing a bus, Rose honking at a cab, Verity squealing as her headpiece falls to the floor, Jackie in the back muttering.

JACKIE:
Honestly, you drive like your father. And look where that got him.

EXT. THEATRE – DAY

The car screeches up to the kerb. Everyone tumbles out. Rose rushes ahead clutching Verity’s bag, John jogs behind still holding balloons.

At the entrance, TOM & SARAH arrive, perfectly dressed, holding a neat bouquet of flowers.

SARAH (beaming):
Oh, we’re right on time!

TOM (smirking):
For once.

They spot the Smiths sprinting in, Rose flustered, John Nathaniel dragging his book along.

SARAH (to Rose):
Need a hand?

ROSE (frazzled smile):
Yes—hold my sanity, will you?

INT. THEATRE FOYER – CONTINUOUS

Donna storms in with her husband and daughter, already mid-story.

DONNA (loudly):
—so there I was, nearly knocked down by a double-decker, and what does he do? He says, “Well, at least you’ve got life insurance!”

Her husband rolls his eyes. Their daughter Rose (the younger one) twirls in circles, nearly colliding with Verity.

VERITY (panicked):
Mind the costume!

The families all bustle inside, tickets everywhere, children darting, Jackie muttering, John still puffing on a balloon. It’s absolute chaos in the foyer.

Cut to Verity looking straight at the camera, pale.

VERITY (to camera):
If I make it on stage in one piece, it’ll be a miracle.

Scene 4 – Verity’s Performance (Swan Lake)

INT. THEATRE – AUDITORIUM – LATER

The house lights dim. The orchestra strikes the opening bars of Swan Lake. The audience hushes. Rose, John, Jackie, Tom & Sarah, and Donna’s family are crammed into their row, whispering and shuffling bags.

ROSE (hissing, frantic):
Everyone sit still! No coughing, no sweets, no—

Jackie loudly unwraps a boiled sweet. CRINKLE CRINKLE.

ROSE (to Jackie, mortified):
Mum!

JACKIE (shrugging):
What? I’m dry.

On stage, Verity glides into her first steps, delicate and precise. The audience murmurs in admiration.

Cut to John Nathaniel, who leans toward the camera, whispering:

JOHN NATHANIEL (to camera):
Behold. Tranquillity. Don’t get used to it.

Verity twirls gracefully, her face calm, poised. Rose clutches John’s arm, eyes glistening.

ROSE (whispering):
She’s perfect… she’s absolutely perfect.

John (the father) leaps into applause halfway through, far too early. The audience glares.

JOHN (whispering, sheepish):
Sorry. Got carried away.

Donna’s daughter tries to copy Verity’s movements from the aisle, nearly tripping a passerby. Donna beams proudly.

DONNA (whispering):
Natural talent runs in the family.

On stage, Verity completes a pirouette and curtsies. Applause erupts. The family cheers—Rose crying, John clapping too loudly, Jackie muttering “her posture could be straighter.”

Verity bows, glances towards her family, and breaks into a radiant smile. For once, everything feels still and right.

Cut to Verity turning to the camera, whispering with relief:

VERITY (to camera):
Miracle achieved.

Scene 5 – After the Ballet

EXT. THEATRE – EVENING

The families spill out of the theatre into the cool London night. Verity is still in costume, clutching a small bouquet that Tom and Sarah gave her. She beams with pride.

ROSE (beaming, hugging Verity tight):
You were marvellous, love. Absolutely marvellous.

VERITY (glowing):
Did you really think so?

ROSE (tearful, honest):
I’ve never been prouder.

John crouches to Verity’s level, holding up a balloon he somehow managed to sneak in.

JOHN (grinning):
And not a single swan was harmed. Bravo!

Verity giggles, then hides her face behind the flowers.

Jackie adjusts her coat and sighs dramatically.

JACKIE:
She was fine. Though in my day we practised until our toes bled. Builds character.

ROSE (snapping, exhausted):
Mum! Can’t you just say well done for once?

Jackie shrugs, but Verity doesn’t seem to mind. She twirls happily, still buzzing from the performance.

Donna’s daughter spins clumsily nearby, nearly knocking into Sarah. Donna grabs her, still bragging loudly.

DONNA:
You should’ve seen her—already the star of Act Two!

Tom and Sarah exchange a weary smile. John Nathaniel stands slightly apart, book tucked under his arm, and turns to the camera.

JOHN NATHANIEL (to camera, dry):
And tomorrow? Cake. Fire. Disaster. Just wait.

Cut to Rose gathering everyone, already rummaging through her endless list.

ROSE (muttering):
Right—birthday tomorrow, food to prep, decorations, invitations… oh, lord, the cake…

John drapes an arm around her shoulder, trying to steady her, but Rose is still spinning in her own whirlwind.

*The group disperses into the London night, Verity’s laughter echoing as the camera pans up to the theatre sign: SWAN LAKE – SOLD OUT.

Transition Montage – Night Before the Birthday

INT. SMITH HOUSE – KITCHEN – LATE NIGHT

Quick cuts in montage style, set to a tinny S Club 7 track blasting from John’s battered MP3 player:

• Rose stirs a massive bowl of cake mix, yawning.
  
  
• She ices cupcakes, smudging more icing on her face than on the cakes.
  
  
• A balloon deflates with a rude squeak as she tries to tape it to the wall.
  
  
• Rose collapses against the fridge door, scribbling on her never-ending to-do list.
  
  
• Meanwhile, cutaways: John snoring on the sofa, John Nathaniel reading under the covers by torchlight, Verity asleep clutching her Swan Lake headpiece.
  
  
• Final shot: Rose sliding a cake into the oven, whispering desperately:
  
  

ROSE (whispering):
Please, just don’t collapse. Not tomorrow.

Fade to black.

Scene 6 – Birthday Morning

INT. SMITH HOUSE – LIVING ROOM/KITCHEN – MORNING

Rose bursts into the living room balancing a tray of freshly baked goods. The house is littered with half-inflated balloons and streamers drooping from the ceiling.

ROSE (clapping hands):
Right! Today is the big day. Everyone up, dressed, fed, and smiling—no arguments!

John shuffles in, hair a mess, holding a balloon pump that isn’t inflating anything.

JOHN (cheerful, oblivious):
We could just say the theme is abstract.

POP! The balloon explodes in his face. Rose winces.

Jackie appears in the doorway, already inspecting the cake cooling on the counter.

JACKIE:
Is that the birthday cake? Looks a bit flat. You’ll never impress anyone with that.

ROSE (tight smile, muttering):
It’s fine, Mum. Absolutely fine.

Verity enters, already dressed nicely, hair tied back, trying to act sophisticated at twelve. She glances at the decorations.

VERITY (to camera):
This looks like a party. Which, in this house, means chaos disguised as fun.

John Nathaniel pads in with his book, sits calmly at the table, and starts eating toast without a word. Then he looks up at the camera, deadpan.

JOHN NATHANIEL (to camera):
Chaos is predictable. People are not.

Rose tries to rally everyone, scribbling on her list again, pacing.

ROSE (snapping into drill-sergeant voice):
Right—Tom and Sarah are bringing flowers, Donna’s bringing… Donna. The balloons must stay up, the cake stays upright, and absolutely no one touches the biscuits until the guests arrive!

Cut to John, already sneaking a biscuit behind her back.

JOHN (mouth full, grinning):
What biscuits?

Scene 7 – The Guests Arrive

INT. SMITH HOUSE – AFTERNOON

The doorbell rings. Rose bolts upright, smoothing her apron and plastering on a frantic smile. She opens the door to reveal Ncuti, Rogue, and their kids: Clara (poised, just a little smug) and toddler Jamie (already wriggling out of his dad’s arms).

ROSE (warm but harried):
Welcome, welcome! Come in—mind the balloons, they’ve got a death wish.

Jamie wriggles free, sprints inside, and immediately knocks over a bowl of crisps.

NCUTI (cheerful, shrugging):
He’s exploring his world.

ROGUE (deadpan):
His world is chaos.

Clara sweeps past, already greeting Verity with a cool “hello,” like she owns the place. Verity straightens up, trying not to look intimidated.

The bell rings again. Donna barrels in with her husband and daughter (Little Rose), her voice echoing through the hallway.

DONNA (already mid-story):
—so the cabbie says, “Love, if you can’t pay in cash, you can sing for it!” Can you believe? Anyway, here we are!

Her daughter twirls dramatically, bumping into Verity.

VERITY (to camera, wincing):
And Act Two begins.

Another knock. Tom & Sarah step in, immaculately turned out, holding a perfectly wrapped gift and bouquet.

SARAH (beaming):
Happy birthday, darlings! We brought flowers.

TOM (raising an eyebrow at the mayhem already unfolding):
Looks like you’ll need more than flowers.

Final ring. Amy, Rory, and Melody (all 12) appear. Amy strides in with confidence, Melody smirks mischievously, and Rory trails nervously behind.

AMY:
Nice place. Bit noisy.

MELODY (already eyeing the cake):
Where’s the food?

RORY (softly, clutching his gift):
Happy birthday…

John Nathaniel immediately drifts towards Rory, holding out his book like a peace offering.

JOHN NATHANIEL (quiet, sincere):
Do you read?

Rory nods, surprised. They both slip into the corner like old souls escaping the madness.

Cut to Rose, surrounded by Jackie, Donna, Sarah, and a sea of children running in all directions. She forces a manic grin at the camera.

ROSE (to camera, half-whisper):
This is fine. Completely fine.

Cue another balloon popping in the background. Everyone jumps.

Scene 8 – Party Dynamics

INT. SMITH HOUSE – LIVING ROOM / GARDEN – AFTERNOON

The house is buzzing. Children’s laughter, adults talking over one another, balloons squeaking. Rose darts about with trays of food, trying to keep everything from collapsing.

Verity & Clara
Verity stands with Clara, both clutching paper cups of squash. Clara is effortlessly composed, Verity nervously tugging at her skirt.

CLARA (smiling sweetly, but pointed):
You dance ballet, don’t you?

VERITY (brightening):
Yes! I was Odette yesterday.

CLARA (shrugs):
Oh. I do tap. It’s much harder.

Verity forces a smile. She glances at the camera, deadpan.

VERITY (to camera):
Why is it always the pretty ones?

Amy, Melody & Verity
Amy and Melody swoop in, each grabbing a handful of crisps.

AMY:
Don’t listen to her. You were brilliant.

MELODY (grinning):
And anyway, ballet’s just the warm-up before the real fun.

Melody deliberately blows out one of the candles on the table’s decorative mini-cake. Verity gasps.

VERITY:
That’s for later!

MELODY (shrugs, cheeky):
Practice round.

John Nathaniel & Rory
In the corner, John Nathaniel sits cross-legged with a book. Rory perches awkwardly beside him.

JOHN NATHANIEL:
You look like someone who’d rather read than talk.

RORY (blinking):
Er… yes. Definitely.

They exchange a quiet smile, both content to ignore the chaos. Jackie watches them, muttering to herself.

JACKIE:
Strange boy. Both of them.

Toddler Jamie
Meanwhile, toddler Jamie barrels through the room, face smeared with chocolate. He trips over a streamer and crashes into the snack table. Paper cups topple everywhere.

ROSE (horrified, rushing over):
Jamie! Not the sausage rolls!

NCUTI (calling across the room, cheerful):
He’s exploring texture!

ROGUE (flat, deadpan):
It’s a mess.

Adults’ Corner
Tom & Sarah try to make polite conversation, while Donna dominates the room with another loud story. Jackie stands beside the cake, eyeing it like a hawk.

SARAH (trying):
At least everyone’s enjoying themselves.

TOM (grimacing as another balloon pops):
Define ‘enjoying’.

Rose flits past, hair frazzled, carrying a tray. She freezes at the camera for a second, muttering with a manic grin:

ROSE (to camera):
Totally fine. Absolutely fine.

She moves off, nearly tripping over a toy car.

Scene 9 – The Cake Catastrophe

INT. SMITH HOUSE – LIVING ROOM – LATE AFTERNOON

The chaos has finally been corralled into one focus: the birthday cake. The lights dim slightly, the candles are lit. Everyone crowds around the table. Rose, flushed and sweating, carries the cake with trembling hands.

ROSE (nervous smile):
Right then. Deep breath. Happy twelfth birthday—

The children burst into the “Happy Birthday” song, some singing too fast, others too slow. Donna sings loudest and most out of tune. Melody blows at the candles before the song even finishes. Rose glares.

ROSE (snapping):
Not yet!

She takes one more step forward—then trips on a streamer trailing from toddler Jamie’s hand. The cake sails through the air in slow motion. Everyone gasps.

SMASH. The cake hits the floor, icing splattering across the carpet.

Silence. Everyone stares. Rose freezes, hands shaking, eyes wide. Then—

ROSE (whispering, horrified):
No. No, no, no…

Jackie folds her arms with a smug sigh.

JACKIE:
Told you it looked flimsy.

Rose’s face crumples. For a moment, she looks like she might burst into tears. Verity and John Nathaniel glance at each other, worried.

The tension hangs—until John (the father) suddenly claps his hands.

JOHN (bright, improvising):
Well! Who needs cake when you’ve got pancakes?

He dashes into the kitchen, grabs a frying pan, and starts flipping pancakes theatrically. Kids cheer. Adults blink, startled.

Donna rummages in her bag and triumphantly produces a Tupperware of her infamous pudding.

DONNA:
Never leave home without it.

Sarah offers her neat bouquet of flowers as decoration. Jackie grudgingly produces a tin of shop biscuits from her handbag.

JACKIE (sniffing):
Emergency supplies. Don’t ask.

Within moments, the disaster turns into a team effort: pancakes stacked, biscuits crumbled on top, Donna’s pudding smeared around the edges. The kids laugh, the adults pitch in. Rose, still trembling, finally laughs too—relieved.

ROSE (to camera, teary but smiling):
Sometimes… disaster is the recipe.

The candles are stuck haphazardly into the “community cake.” Everyone gathers again, singing louder this time. Verity and John Nathaniel lean forward together, smiling, and blow out the candles in unison. Applause erupts.

Scene 10 – Family on the Terrace

EXT. SMITH HOUSE – ROOFTOP TERRACE – NIGHT

The house is finally quiet. Streamers hang limply from the windows. The muffled sound of London nightlife hums in the distance. Rose, John, Verity, and John Nathaniel climb up to the terrace wrapped in blankets, carrying mugs of hot chocolate.

They settle together on a pile of cushions under one big blanket, their breath misting in the cool air. Above them, the night sky is scattered with stars.

VERITY (softly, gazing upward):
Twelve feels… different. Like I’m supposed to be someone else already.

ROSE (pulling her close):
You don’t need to rush, love. You’re perfect right where you are.

John sips his cocoa, watching his daughter with quiet pride.

JOHN (smiling):
And besides, growing up just means you get bigger portions of pudding.

Verity giggles. John Nathaniel, curled beside them with his book, looks up at the sky, then at the camera.

JOHN NATHANIEL (to camera, dry):
Stars. Billions of them. And still, none shine as brightly as the chaos in this house.

Rose laughs, leaning her head on John’s shoulder. For the first time all day, she looks calm, her eyes reflecting the stars.

The camera pulls back slowly: the four of them huddled together, tiny against the vast London skyline, their laughter mingling with the night air.

Fade to black.

End Credits – The Doctor in the Middle

Starring

• Billie Piper as Rose Smith
  
  
• David Tennant as John Smith
  
  
• Malina Weissman as Verity Smith
  
  
• Louis Hynes as John Nathaniel Smith
  
  

Also Starring

• Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler
  
  
• Catherine Tate as Donna Noble
  
  
• Julian Rhind-Tutt as Shaun Temple
  
  
• Lilia Turner as Rose Temple
  
  
• Tom Hopper as Tom
  
  
• Jenna Coleman as Sarah
  
  
• Ncuti Gatwa as The Cousin
  
  
• Jonathan Groff as Rogue
  
  
• Ever Anderson as Clara
  
  
• Jude Collie as Jamie
  
  

Special Guests

• Karen Gillan as Amy Pond (Age 12)
  
  
• Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams (Age 12)
  
  
• Alex Kingston as Melody Pond (Age 12)
  
  
  

Directed and written by

• Dill Smith

Post-Credit Scene 1 – Rose & Missy

INT. DIMENSIONAL VOID – TIMELESS

Rose and Missy sit side by side in a grey, fractured space. The warmth of the terrace night is gone—here everything is cold, humming with emptiness. Rose hugs her knees, lost in thought. Missy toys with a broken pocket watch, smirking.

ROSE (quietly):
I don’t want to leave it. Not yet. That life… the ballet, the birthday, the laughter—
(beat)
…it feels more real than this.

MISSY (arching a brow):
Darling, that’s the point. The sweeter the trap, the tighter the chains.

Rose looks at her, torn between defiance and longing. Missy chuckles, tossing the broken watch into the void—it vanishes like dust.

MISSY (leaning in, conspiratorial):
But don’t worry. I always find a way out. Question is—when I do, will you actually want to follow?

Rose doesn’t answer. Her silence says everything.

Post-Credit Scene 2 – Matt’s Control Room

INT. CONTROL ROOM – UNKNOWN LOCATION

Matt sits alone in a vast, dimly lit chamber. The walls are covered with countless flickering screens. Not just the Smiths’ birthday, but scenes from hundreds—thousands—of different shows. Each screen reveals a different “Doctor” living inside a television world: soap operas, game shows, sitcoms, news broadcasts, even cartoons.

On one screen: Rose and John with the children under the stars. On another: a Doctor in a cowboy hat, trapped in a western. Another shows a Doctor arguing on a talk show. Yet another flickers with a Doctor hosting a children’s programme. Millions of variations, endless channels.

Matt leans forward, eyes darting across the wall of screens, taking it all in with quiet delight. He chuckles under his breath.

MATT (softly, to himself):
So many stories. So many Doctores. And all of them… right where they belong.

One screen glitches for a split second—static, then a flash of the TARDIS blue police box—but it stabilises quickly. Matt tilts his head, curious, then smiles knowingly.

He lifts a remote control, casually flips through more channels: a Doctor in a cooking show, a Doctor in a period drama, a Doctor in an advert for shampoo. The absurdity doesn’t bother him—it pleases him.

The camera pulls back slowly, revealing the sheer immensity of the screens stretching into the darkness. The sound of overlapping TV channels hums louder and louder, until—

Cut to black.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: The Fall of Paradise

Act One – Paradise at its Peak

The school hall shimmered with colour. Banners drooped from the rafters, balloons bobbed lazily against the ceiling, and a banner stretched above the stage in gold letters: “Congratulations, Class of …” The number didn’t matter — it never did — but the smiles did. Smiles everywhere, painted wide and unshakable, as though joy itself had been rehearsed.

Rose sat in the front row, John’s hand resting warmly in hers, and for a moment she allowed herself the indulgence of believing it. Believing the laughter, the applause, the scent of sugared sponge from the waiting cake. Her twins — her miraculous, impossible twins — were on the cusp of their future, and she was there to see it. That was all she had ever wanted, wasn’t it?

Jackie broke the spell first.
“Honestly,” she huffed, arms folded, eyeing the three-tier cake like it had personally offended her. “Dry as dust, I can tell. Bet no one even bothered to ask me for a recipe.”
A ripple of laughter travelled through the row. Christopher leaned in, his grin half-mischief, half-self-defence.
“Careful, Jacks. Say that in the wrong tone and people will think we’re siblings separated at birth.”
Jackie swatted him with her programme, though her lips twitched.

At the back, almost forgotten amongst the parents, stood Ncuti in a suit of daringly loud fabric, his husband trying — and failing — to keep their toddler from charging down the aisle. The child made it halfway before colliding with a chair leg, sending a paper cup of squash tumbling. The splash was met not with dismay, but with yet more applause, as though the universe itself was determined to approve.

Only one person wasn’t clapping.

Missy loitered near the curtain, her cane tapping the floor with restless irritation. She had watched this scene a thousand times, perhaps more. The bunting, the speeches, the applause: all identical, all hollow.
“Same blasted decorations,” she muttered, curling her lip. “Same sentimental speeches. I swear if one more balloon squeaks, I’ll—” She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to.

The moment she tried to step away, she found herself precisely where she had begun — at the edge of the stage, behind the same curtain. A loop. A trap. A prison stitched together in bunting and buttercream.

And then the cracks began to show.

As Verity took her certificate, her proud smile faltered. For a breath, her features rippled, replaced by the face of a stranger — a woman Rose had never seen before. In the blink of an eye, it was Verity again, beaming, unaware.

The band struck up a jaunty march, but the music slipped, warped, became for a heartbeat the groaning wheeze of the TARDIS struggling through the Vortex. Rose’s chest tightened. She glanced at John, at Jackie, at the endless row of neighbours and friends, but their hands beat in perfect rhythm, their eyes glassy with happiness.

A shaft of light pierced the stage backdrop. Not the warm glow of fairy lights, but real sunlight — dazzling, impossible — forcing its way through what should have been painted wood.

Rose blinked hard, forced a smile back onto her face, and clutched John’s hand tighter. It was nerves. It had to be. Just her imagination on a day of overwhelming pride.

Yet somewhere deep in her chest, beneath the rehearsed joy, something colder stirred.

Act Two – Cracks in the Paradise

The applause should have faded. It should have dissolved into the ordinary chatter of proud parents, the shuffle of chairs, the promise of cake and photographs. Instead, it hung there — loud, insistent, a round of clapping that refused to end.

Rose turned, and the sight froze her blood.

Rows upon rows of hands struck together in flawless unison, like a metronome. No variation, no stumbles, no human rhythm. A single wall of sound. Their faces grinned with painted perfection, each smile fixed, each gaze locked forward. Jackie’s palms smacked the air with the same mechanical beat as everyone else, even as she leaned across to mutter something about the icing. Words and actions entirely out of sync.

“Stop it,” Rose whispered, though she wasn’t sure who she was begging.

A shudder rippled through the hall. The banner above the stage trembled, its golden letters warping, curdling into alien glyphs before smoothing back into Congratulations. A second ripple followed, harsher. The bunting snapped taut like wires, freezing in place, while the applause fell into silence — not fading, but cut off, mid-sound, as if someone had pressed a mute button.

Missy laughed, sharp and delighted. She strode into the centre aisle, twirling her cane.
“Oh, there we are. About time this charade started peeling at the edges. Honestly, Rose — even I was beginning to lose track of how many times we’d sat through this pantomime.”

Rose swallowed, eyes darting to her children. The twins were still on stage, still smiling, but their movements jittered like faulty film — shoulders twitching, arms caught halfway raised then resetting again.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Missy went on, her grin wolfish. “You knew. Somewhere in that lovely blonde head of yours, you always knew.”

Rose shook her head. “No. This is real. It’s my life. My family.”

“Darling,” Missy crooned, leaning close, “this isn’t life. This is wallpaper. A mural painted over the cracks. And do you want to know the worst of it? I can’t even leave. Every time I try, snap!” She clicked her fingers and, with a blink, appeared once more at the back of the hall, only to strut forward again. “See? A loop. A corridor without end.”

A sound like tearing fabric filled the air. One of the windows shivered, and sunlight spilled through, dazzling and raw, slicing through the painted backdrop like a scalpel. The edges curled and blackened, revealing not a wall but a yawning void behind it, a nothingness that hummed with electric menace.

Rose’s breath came fast now. She reached for John, but his hand was frozen halfway to hers, his smile unbroken, his eyes glassy as dolls’.

The world tilted, colours bleeding into one another, until the hall was a carnival of distortion. And at its centre, Rose felt it — a presence pressing in, ancient and familiar, something vast and hungry stirring just beyond the veil.

The paradise was collapsing.

Act Three – The Boss Revealed

The air froze.

One heartbeat ago, the hall had been a kaleidoscope of flickering light and fractured sound. Now, everything was still. The streamers hung rigid in the air, balloons locked in place mid-bob, the entire audience paralysed with their smiles glued on. Even John, even the twins, captured in a tableau of happiness that no longer breathed.

Only Rose and Missy moved.

And then he arrived.

The light didn’t herald him — it recoiled. The stage seemed to ripple, paint blistering into black glass, and from its centre stepped a figure draped in white that shimmered like corrupted code. His face was Matt’s, and yet not: younger and older at once, the lines of humanity overwritten with a sharp metallic geometry. One eye glowed faintly with circuitry, the other as dark and bottomless as the Void itself.

The Boss had come home.

“Enough.” His voice cracked like thunder through the stillness. “The experiment is over.”

Rose’s chest clenched. “Matt…?”

He tilted his head, as if testing the name, then discarded it with a flicker of contempt.
“Matt was the mask. The coaching trick. A pantomime for your benefit. Did you really believe you’d earned this happiness? That you could run forever from who you are?”

Missy clapped her hands together, eyes bright as fire. “Finally! The director takes his bow. Bravo, darling. Took you long enough.”

The Boss ignored her, his gaze fixed solely on Rose. He lifted one hand and with a lazy sweep, reality obeyed — the applause resumed, though no hands moved; the balloons exploded silently into dust; the stage bent under his will.

“You,” he said, stepping closer, “you are the last variable. The crack in the algorithm. I could scrub the stars clean, I could build Gallifrey anew from cinder and code, and still — still you resist. Why?”

Rose’s voice trembled, but she found it. “Because I’m not part of your game.”

His smile was cold. “But you are. You always were.”

The Boss let his hand fall, and with it the hall itself shivered. The frozen smiles of the parents became canvases, and across them flickered scenes from a thousand years of hidden history.

“I was not born yesterday,” he began, voice low, measured, every syllable drenched in disdain. “Do you remember Hedgewick’s World? You thought you won. Clever little Rose Smith, or whatever you’re calling yourself this week. You tore me from the Doctor’s skull, burned me out of existence. Or so you believed.”

The mural shifted: the broken husk of a Cyberman, eyes smoking. The metallic forest of the Cyberiad stretched beyond, endless and silent.

“But fragments remain. A whisper of code in the Cyber-Cloud. A virus discarded, yet still alive. And that virus was me. I was your Doctor’s thoughts — his strategies, his memories, his brilliance — twisted into steel. Imagine what that means: every triumph, every heartbreak, every scar he ever bore… mine to plunder. I did not die. I evolved.”

He paced, hands clasped behind his back, as though delivering a lecture rather than a threat.

“Centuries I spent in the shadows, shaping myself. Not choosing sides, not meddling, only observing. Who was I, without him? Without you? That was my question. Until the Flux came.”

The images warped again. Galaxies tore like paper, stars collapsed into firestorms. The audience of mannequins wore the carnage across their faces like masks.

“I watched half the universe unravel in a single season. Civilisations erased like chalk from a blackboard. And what did I see, hiding in the data-streams, peering through the cracks? I saw the truth. Where the Doctor goes, disaster follows. Universes collapse, timelines bleed, empires fall. He calls it heroism, but I call it infection.”

His eye blazed, circuitry crawling across his temple like veins of light.

“So I chose my path. Not destruction, no. That would have been easy. No — I would perfect. I would build something cleaner, sharper, orderly. A universe without the chaos of the Doctor.”

Missy snorted, though even her eyes glittered with unease. “Order, darling? You rebuilt Gallifrey and forgot the most important ingredient — the soul. It’s all façade and no fire.”

The Boss didn’t even glance her way. His voice rolled on, stronger.

“I reached back through time itself. Do you remember Clara Oswald, snatched from her death by Twelve’s arrogance? I copied the trick. I plucked Missy from her own timeline, before she could decay into redemption, before her own blade struck her down. I preserved her — immortal, eternal, a companion fit for a god. And she laughed, oh how she laughed, when she saw what I offered: eternity in a paradise of our own design.”

The hall shimmered into towers of glass and silver, a Gallifrey reborn, golden spires gleaming beneath twin suns.

“For millennia I reigned. I rebuilt Gallifrey from dust, a fortress of perfection. I filled its streets with citizens who never falter, who never die. A society that does not rot, does not betray itself. The Time Lords became engineers of my system, custodians of order. Not tyrants, not squabbling politicians — but architects of peace.”

He spread his arms wide, drinking in his own words.

“And then… the Doctor regenerated. Two bodies, one soul. Bi-regeneration — the perfect storm of energy. I knew the moment would come. I wove my trap into the TARDIS itself, turning her loyalty into a leash. And when the Toymaker rose, it was by my hand. His games, his stagecraft, all of it to distract your kind until the moment of split. His loss was not a defeat — it was a door opening.”

The light behind him pulsed blue, data and memory fusing into a storm.

“And through that door, I pulled you. Here. Into my story. Into my matrix. No longer the Doctor, no longer Rose Tyler, no longer Rose Smith. Just another piece of code in my design. My final correction.”

He turned back to her, smile edged with triumph and venom.

“You call it living. I call it a dream on loop. But today, the loop ends. Not with death, not even with mercy. With deletion. You will be unmade, Rose. And your energy, your essence, will fuel the paradise to come. A universe not of chaos… but of silence. Finally.”

Rose’s throat was dry. The words had poured out of him like scripture, a gospel of order written in steel and flame. And yet beneath it, she heard something else — not certainty, but obsession.

“You’ve spent all that time,” she said quietly, “all those centuries, building your little world of statues and sunshine. And still you can’t leave me alone. Still you need me.”

The Boss froze mid-step. A hairline crack, but a crack nonetheless.

Missy’s laughter rang sharp against the silence. “Oh, she’s got you there, darling. All those towers, all those glass palaces, all those obedient little toy soldiers… and yet it’s her you keep chained up in the doll’s house.” She twirled her cane, smirking. “If that’s perfection, then I’ve finally found something more boring than Gallifrey’s high council.”

The Boss turned on her, eyes blazing. “You exist because of me.”

“Yes,” Missy purred. “And yet I’m still disappointed. Imagine that.”

Rose stepped forward, her heart hammering. The hall shook around her, glitches multiplying: walls bending, shadows bleeding across the frozen guests, John’s smile twitching like a corrupted file. She ignored it all, her gaze locked on him.

“You think you’re the cure,” she said, louder now, her voice cutting through the static. “But you’re just another infection. You call it paradise, but it’s nothing but your fear painted over reality. You’re not fixing the universe, you’re hiding from it.”

For a moment, just a flicker, The Boss’s expression faltered. His eye — the one untouched by circuitry — shifted, caught in some unspoken memory. A trace of humanity, of the Doctor he had once mirrored, surfaced and vanished.

Then the storm returned.

His hand rose, blazing with raw data and time-energy, the air crackling as if the hall itself might combust.
“No more words. No more illusions. Your story ends here. Delete.”

Blue light erupted, swallowing the stage, the frozen crowd, the windows, everything. Rose raised her chin against the blinding storm. 

And then—

CUT TO BLACK.

END CREDITS 

STARRING

Doctor (Rose Smith) – Billie Piper
The Boss / Matt – Matt Smith
John Smith – David Tennant
Jackie Tyler – Camille Coduri
Christopher – Christopher Eccleston
Missy – Michelle Gomez
Verity Smith – Malina Weissman
John Nathaniel Smith – Louis Hynes
Ncuti – Ncuti Gatwa
Rogue – Jonathan Groff
Toddler – Jamie

Written and Directed by Dill Smith