Massive Spoiler Warnings!! Those who do not want Spoilers...RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!! It's - The One Hundred and Sixty-Eighth Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Maleficent Scottish Terrier Episode 1.06 - Dustbin - The Doctor is desperate to impress Rose. How desperate? Horny schoolboy desperate to impress the girl of his dreams. The Doctor realises that it will take something more than playing the spoons or showering gifts of tacky robot dogs. He needs to prove to Rose that he is a man of power - "Now I told you that the TARDIS can go anywhere in time and space. It can materialize in the heart of a blazing sun or in the event horizon of a black hole." "But then....wouldn't we die or something?" "Well...yeah. BUT! It can also materialize UNDERGROUND. Deep underground. Through earth, through concrete, deep down into the hidden abyss that time itself has forgotten, to reveal to us secrets never before shared with human eyes. WANNA SEE???" "Not really. But, hey, go for it." "FANTASTIC! You're gunna love this Rose!" The TARDIS lands in an underground bunker in Utah in the year 2012. The Doctor emerges smugly from the ship, and leans against the doorframe extending his arm outward as Rose walks by. Rose sees that they are in a giant room full of display cabinets containing alien artefacts; broken Mars probes, canisters of TANG, the in-flight magazine from the Roswell spaceship, some curious artefact that appears to be either a death ray gun or some devilishly complex sex toy, and the head of a Cyberman. Again, desperate to impress Rose, the TARDIS explains the true purpose and history of the items before them, looks into the middle distance and says - "Somewhere, something in this collection is alive, Rose. It's alive and calling for help. I can sense it. I can feel it crying out to me. And you know how? Because I'm alien Rose. A-L-I-E-N. I'm as alien as they come." "But, wait. You've just landed us in someone's ultra-secret alien collection. Are you a moron? That whole feeling an alien presence bollocks is probably just something they've set up to trap aliens. You've just volunteered to be the prime exhibit!" Immediately the Doctor and Rose are surrounded by armed guards. The Doctor grins widely "Don't worry Rose, this means we get to escape. I love escaping. It'll be fun. You'll see." (Opening credits - The TARDIS whizzes through time and space at momentous speed, takes a breather to have a fag, and then continues...) Henry van Statten arrives at the bunker to view his collection. Statten is formulating a new television series "Alien Antiques Roadshow". Unfortunately the only person with the experience to host the show is him, and when he does get potential experts he always ends up having to wipe their minds or kill them - "That's the ONLY thing holding back this show!" Statten is surrounded by a gang of high powered lackeys. In passing, Statten orders that the US President be replaced with a potato; when his personal assistant, George Noory, politely questions the feasibility of this order, van Statten fires him on the spot, and his guards drag Noory away to erase his memory and dump him on the side of the road somewhere. Statten finishes his Mint Mocha Chip Frappaccino With Whipped Cream and Caramel and tosses it into a receptacle that immediately screams in intense pain - "Hey, and someone should look at this space trash can. It's acting all funny again." The Doctor and Rose are brought before van Statten, who is examining the new alien artefacts bought at auction by another of two of his employees, David Dickinson and a young man named Adam. The Doctor shows van Statten how to use one of the artefacts, a complex and intricate toaster oven from the planet Mechanus, but van Statten then tosses it aside and demands to know how the Doctor managed to get into his vault. As he questions the Doctor he finishes off the last of his Supersized Chicken McNuggets and tosses crumpled up paper into the same receptacle which gushes out with long, mournful sighs of agony. The Doctor is stunned "Wait a minute. You're throwing your rubbish into that thing?" "Yeah. It's a space trash can. I'd be careful though Doctor. Notice how I always toss the trash in from a safe distance? It's not to practice my basketball moves. I'm a master at hoops. It's just that the last person to touch the 'Metaltron' burst into flames." "Metaltron?" "I was a HUGE Voltron fan when I was a kid Doctor. I call my desk The Woodentron. I call my windows The Glassytrons. I call my peni-" "YEAH! Okay. I get the idea." The Doctor looks closely at the rubbish bin, it is surrounded by old McDonald's coffee cups, candy wrappers, and tissues - obviously Statten isn't quite the basketball pro he claims. The Doctor isn't entirely sure, until he sees the giant flashing lights on top - it IS a Dustbin. A living Dustbin. An incredibly DIRTY living Dustbin. The Dustbin also recognises the Doctor and it tries to exterminate its enemy, but after a moment of blind panic, the Doctor realises that its squeegee isn’t working. Simultaneously relieved and enraged, the Doctor viciously lashes out at the powerless Dustbin - "There you are! The LAST of your kind. You pathetic creature! You can't even clean YOURSELF! Oh the torture, the AGONY of having things bounced off you, all this rubbish surrounding you, HUH!? It must be unbearable. FAN-TAS-TIC! Soon you'll be covered, in a mountain of rubbish, by a very rich man who can not play basketball to save his life! An ironic destiny for the last of a species devoted entirely to cleanliness! And no one will EVER help you. WHY? Because I've KILLED every single last Dustbin in existence!" The Doctor then falls silent, as if he’s only just realising what he’s done or perhaps just running out of breath from the shouting. When the Dustbin questions him about the Time Lords, the Doctor is forced to admit that they are a bit more toasty and dead than he'd like, victims of the Time War. The Doctor and the Dustbin are the last of their kinds in the Universe. When the Dustbin points out that this gives them something in common, and maybe they should go out for a coffee sometime, the Doctor is briefly confused and then deeply infuriated. "What?! Go on a date? WITH YOU!?" Filled with rage the Doctor finds a packet of ketchup on the floor, rips it open, and sprays it all over the Dustbin. "TAKE THAT! CLEAN FREAK!" Van Statten stands up in shock and orders his guards to drag the Doctor out - "NOBODY! AND I MEAN NO-BODY messes with a Van Statten Space Collectible!" The Doctor demands that they destroy the Dustbin before it’s too late. Van Statten ignores him and addresses the Dustbin, pointing out that he’s saved its life and demanding that it speak to him. Just then David Dickinson walks in with a fresh gourmet coffee and sees his boss on his hands and knees, begging his rubbish bin to talk to him -- he immediately turns out of the room again. Adam shows Rose his bedroom, it's cluttered from floor to ceiling and Adam tries to pass off every object in the room as mysterious unclassified alien artefacts. When Rose stumbles on a 4 foot long replica of the Liberator, Adam finally confesses - "Okay, this is actually my prop collection. That strange Laser Cannon I said was from the planet Algernon, was actually a bazookoid from Red Dwarf, and that 'statue depicting an alien from the planet Arkanax', was actually just my Lorne action figure. Ummm....do you like Angel or Buffy or anything?" Bored, Rose asks to be taken back to the Doctor. On the way back to Van Statten's office, Adam explains that he was a child prodigy; his boyhood heroes were astronauts and Spike. Van Statten’s agents found him at a Cult TV festival and put him to work here, "You just won't believe how much alien technology actually matches PERFECTLY with human science fiction. My encyclopaedic knowledge of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica made me INVALUABLE to their investigations and back engineering work." The Doctor tries to convince van Statten that the Dustbin poses a terrible threat. Like all Dustbins, it has been genetically engineered to have no emotions but hatred for anything it perceives as untidy. "And Human beings are just about the most untidy thing you can imagine. Breathing in and out, spreading germs, flaking off skin, dandruff, belly button lint, those insanely long hairs that come off in the shower and you just stand there in amazement thinking - 'Wait, my hair isn't THAT long. Did bigfoot use my shower this morning?' For humans, a strange enigma, but to the Dustbins, it spells out your death warrant." Van Statten carefully considers the Doctor's input and then replies - "Dude. It's a trash can." Bored, Van Statten orders that the Doctor be medically examined in painful and humiliating ways - "Passes the time. Way better than just watching TV." The Doctor is stripped down and placed in a device that scans his body whilst causing needless pain. Eventually it makes a strange bleeping noise as it determines that the Doctor has two hearts. Van Statten explains that he has made his money by scavenging alien technology and patenting the reverse-engineered results - a really neat idea he picked up from watching his favourite show, Babylon 5. The Doctor makes another heartfelt attempt to convince him that the Dustbin must be destroyed; now that it knows the Doctor is here, it has a reason to break free, and if it does, nobody on the planet will be safe and worse of all, it MIGHT have just been serious when it asked him out on that date. van Statten ignores him, and continues the scan. Adam uses his emergency pass to get Rose into Van Statten's office. Knowing only that it’s been tortured, Rose tells the Dustbin that her friend, the Doctor, can help it. The Dustbin, reacting to the Doctor’s name, asks Rose if she is involved romantically with the Doctor. "Not in the traditional sense. Why?" "Umm...arhhh...j-ust cur-i-ous." Replies the Dustbin. The Dustbin quickly changes the topic and tells Rose that it is in terrible pain, and claims to welcome death now that it’s met one human who does not secretly fear it. Before Adam can stop her, Rose rests her hand on the Dustbin’s shell out of pity... The Dustbin absorbs DNA from her handprint, extrapolates her genetic material, begins a cellular regeneration process, heals itself, and calls up for a pizza delivery before Rose even realises what has happened. Rose backs away as the Dustbin moves for the first time in 50 years. David Dickinson storms into the office, and scoffs when the Dustbin' raises its brush towards him...until the brush lunges forward, smacks him in the face, and crushes his skull. Rose and Adam flee from the office. Adam seals the door behind them and announces a red alert. Upstairs, van Statten and the Doctor hear the alarms blaring. The Doctor orders the stunned van Statten to free him if he wants to live. Van Statten's personal army is pumping countless rounds of ammo into the Dustbin, however bullets have little effect on it. The Dustbin trundles over to a computer and smashes its dustpan through the screen, drawing energy and data directly into its body. Within seconds the Dustbin has downloaded the entire internet and begins to have awkwardly conflicting emotions about humanity. After consulting the full stream of recorded human experience it finds that it agrees most with the blog entry of one MiseryRose - "It's like the whole universe sucks. And I kind of want it to go away sometimes. But puppies are cute." Rose and Adam continue their stratagem of running in the opposite direction as fast as possible as more guards rush forward to surround the Dustbin. The guards open fire on the Dustbin, but van Statten orders them to stop, insisting that his "One-of-a-kind living space-trash-can" must not be harmed. The order is pointless however as the Dustbin has a force field that melts the bullets before they so much as scratch its armour. The Dustbin swivels about in place, its top and torso moving independently from its base, shooting steaming hot cleaning liquid at its victims until it has slaughtered every single guard in the now spotless corridor. Van Statten wants to negotiate but the Doctor informs him - "The only thing it wants is to clean us to death, and then tidy up the corpses." Rose and Adam have actually used the time wasted by the Dustbin as it tidies up it's victims, to run pretty far away. However the Dustbin, annoyed by the deep grime covering the floor decides to return to it later after everyone else is dead. It also decides it does not want to come into contact with the unclean surfaces -- so it hovers. The Doctor now has no choice but to seal the vault. The Doctor calls Rose on her cellphone - "Hello Rose. Look, I need to seal you in at level 46. That thing is hovering around, and frankly, it's starting to freak me out. Remember, use Adam as a human body shield, and I hope to see you in a few hours. Cheers!" Adam manages to slide under the bulkhead as it descends, but Rose is still fiddling with her phone and therefore trapped on the other side. As the Dustbin closes in on her, Rose picks up her mobile, calls the Doctor, and begins to scream obscenities - blaming him for just about everything - mostly because it's actually all his fault. The horrified Doctor hears the Dustbin start up its power hoover. But Rose is in fact still alive, and sweaty from the running - NOT CLEAN AT ALL. The Dustbin is as surprised as she is. It scrubs the entire area to either side of her, but for some reason it can’t bring itself to kill her, for it finds that it comprehends her fear. When it took her DNA, it took much more than just some hot babe building proteins... The Dustbin uses Rose's mobile to contact the Doctor. It reveals that Rose is still alive and filthy -- but she won’t be for long unless the Doctor opens the vault and lets the Dustbin out. The Doctor agrees and frees the Dustbin. Immediately the Doctor runs to Adam's room to search through his "alien weapons collection". Not realising that they are actually just props, the Doctor grabs the Red Dwarf bazookoid and strides off to confront the advancing Dustbin. As the Dustbin approaches van Statten’s office, Rose begs it not to clean him, but it doesn’t understand why it shouldn’t; its function is to clean everything in the universe, to make it sanitary, to bring it to perfection. But at the same time it has no idea why it’s allowing Rose to stand next to it, while she's so disgustingly grimy. The Dustbin confronts van Statten and demands to know why he tortured it - "GET THIS THROUGH YOUR THICK LITTLE DOME -- I, THOUGHT, YOU, WERE, A, TRASH, CAN!" Rose stops the Dustbin from mopping van Statten, insisting that there must be something else that it wants, and after a moment, the Dustbin admits that it wants a Flake. "A Flake?" "YES-I-CR-AVE-ITS-CHOC-LAT-E-LY-GOOD-NESS!" Van Statten is stunned - "What the hell have you been doing to my cool killer trash can from outerspace?! You've completely sissified it!" Rose accompanies the Dustbin to the upper level of the bunker, where it blows a hole in a vending machine. The Dustbin opens up its battle armour to reveal the mutant inside, a pathetic, tentacled, one-eyed blob that paws feebly at a Flake wrapper. Eventually, out of pity, Rose unwraps the Flake and hands it to the Dustbin. The Doctor arrives and raises his gun, ordering Rose to step aside - but she refuses, pointing out that the Dustbin has held back from killing and is now enjoying a Flake. The Doctor is completely baffled. In fact he is so confused that he drops the Bazookoid, with a plastic crash. The Dustbin can’t cope with the changes it’s experiencing; the Flake is living up to its name and chocolate flakes are falling everywhere AND it doesn't give a damn. The Dustbins believe themselves to be the supreme beings in the Universe, and since this Dustbin is changing, it’s no longer a pure Dustbin. "I-AM-EAT-ING-CHOC-O-LATE. I-SEN-SE-PLEAS-URE. I-MAKE-A-MESS-WITH-CRUM-BLY-BITS-OF-CHOC-O-LATE. I-CAN-NOT-BE-ARS-ED-TO-TIDY-IT-UP. THIS-IS-NOT-LIFE. THIS-IS-SICK-NESS." The Dustbin begs Rose to order its destruction, and she eventually does so. The Dustbin closes up its battle armour and rises into the air. The Doctor and Rose watch from a safe distance as the bumps on the Dustbin's base separate from its armour, encircle it in a sphere of energy, detonate and shrink away to nothing. The last of the Dustbins is dead. Either that or it's just teleported itself to a nice vacation spot in Spain. We will never know. The Doctor and Rose return to the TARDIS, where the Doctor sadly ponders his status as the last survivor of the Time War; now he’s truly alone, apart from Rose. The Doctor brushes Rose's hair tenderly, looks into her eyes, and before he can speak, Rose asks - "Can I bring Adam along? He seems really nice. And I think he might be looking for a shag." The Doctor looks deeply disappointed and pissed off when he gives in to Rose’s pleas and invites Adam aboard. Book(s)/Other Related - Area 51: How The Amateurs Do It, by Henry Van Statten The Dustbins Big Collectible Book Of Crap Links and References - The Doctor claims that he has faced the Dustbins on no less than 5,083 occasions and he's killed their entire race forever and ever on most of those adventures. (See any previous Dustbin story) Untelevised Misadventures - The Dustbin seems to have some past relationship with the Doctor involving a nightclub, the mafia, and Albert Einstein. Groovy DVD Extras - The most annoying commentary in history - as done by the Dustbin voice. Dialogue Disasters - ---- Adam: When I was eight I logged onto the US defence system, nearly caused World War Three. Rose: Actually, that was a movie called 'War Games' Adam: OHH! OH YEAH! Sorry. I always get my life and movies mixed up. ---- Dialogue Triumphs - ----- Doctor: I'm gunna wipe the floor with you! Dustbin: YOU-WOULD-MAKE-A-GOOD-DUST-BIN. ----- Doctor: What's the nearest town? Statten: Salt Lake City. Doctor: Population? Statten: One million. Doctor: All dead. Statten: All of them? Doctor: Well, fine. Not ALL of them. There's always the freak survivor. But "All dead" was so dramatic and catchy. Couldn't help myself. Sorry. ------ Doctor (mockingly): Awww, look at the cute little Dustbin frozen in the corner. Why, you even have a teeny tiny little name tag right on your silly little face. Now what's the name of the last Dustbin in the universe? (The Doctor stands back in shock and horror!) CHAVROS! I should have known! It explains the Puff Daddy look. Chavros. Of course. You've got an Asbo on every civilized world. ------------------------------------------------------------ Viewer Quotes - "I cried like a monkey." - Emotional Reviewer (2005) "I watched this when it was accidentally streamed by the BBC. There was some pixelization, and distortion, and audio loss... but I still cried my freaking eyes out." - American Reviewer (2005) "A classic of Doctor Who! I've already got a quote from it in my sig, I've designed a t-shirt based around it, and I've voted it as my favourite episode of all time -- all I have to do now is watch it!" - Fanboy37, (Briefly aftering seeing the trailer) "That Dustbin just faked his own death, like Elvis!" - Fan theory I saw online somewhere (2005) Russell T Davies Speaks! "Dustbin has a lot of serious and gritty drama, but I can't yet see us doing a hard sci-fi episode. The essence of an early Saturday slot is to keep it simple; something a distracted child or incredibly drunk teen could follow. Dustbin really benefits from that. It's completely pure and simple. It was written in about 2 hours on a laptop and then never proofread, and because of that, massively strong with plenty of typos. Underneath the simplicity is a whole storm of complex emotions and ideas, which we can't really explore adequately in 45 minutes so we tend to ignore them, and just cut to the Dustbin killing the bejeebus out of people -- everyone loves that." Christopher Eccleston speaks! "The Dustbins are a very potent and special foe of the Doctor's. Other monsters can maim him, or kill him, but the Dustbins are the only ones that can make him cry. They have a very psychological relationship going on there. I talked with Russell about it, and we decided that the Dustbins were like childhood bullies to the Doctor. They'd steal his lunch money and pull down his trousers, kick him up the arse, that sort of stuff. They are pretty frightening." Rumours & Facts - RTD knew that if Doctor Who was going to have a successful first series, he'd have to exploit the living hell out of the Dustbins. It was very important that the Dustbins LOOKED exactly like the classic Doctor Who Dustbin design, but were still different enough that you could market a noticeably different toy. Unfortunately, Davies' plans were crippled with the announcement on July 2nd, 2004 that negotiations between the BBC and the estate of Dustbin creator Terry Nation for the use of the monsters had drawn to an unsuccessful conclusion. The BBC claimed that the Nation estate was demanding actual money, which the BBC was reluctant to pay out on principal. The Doctor Who production team began devising a new monster -- Billy. Billy was described as a sadistic child who kills for pleasure. This idea eventually fell on its face when scripts came in with lines like - Doctor: We've got to stop Billy before he kills us all! and Rose: Who's that cute little boy, Doctor? Doctor: Billy...my oldest nemesis. Fortunately, the situation was resolved a month later due to the hard work and dedication of The Sun Newspaper. Sure, my actual source for this was The Sun Newspaper itself, but their page 3 spread was two naked women hugging a Dustbin...so who am I to question them? The episode met with some controversy when released on DVD. The British Board of Film Classification refused a PG certificate to the DVD release because they thought that the Dustbin had been treated unfairly in the story. Instead of repeatedly shooting the murderous mutant, the BBFC suggested a new edit which would show the Dustbin being taken to counselling where he could discuss his OCD in a positive forum of self-enrichment. The BBFC also ruled that the episode offers a bad example to children; Worrying that children would bully and demean a robotic killing machine should they ever encounter one on the playground. A spokesman for the board said: “However cross one might be with a Dustbin, for killing hundreds of people, being cruel is not the way to deal with the issue. Some children might attack their fellow cybernetic pupils. It is this form of racism we wish to stamp out.” The BBFC are incredibly vocal on his issue, having given the same reasons for ruling a 12 certificate for the film Terminator 3. Truly, no other institution on earth is so dedicated to the health and well being of our robotic masters.