And the winner is...

Bottom Series 23, Episode 2.  Fandom.
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starring Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall.


Scene 1.  The Flat.
-------------------
[It's raining. Eddie turns the television on and settles down in front of it.]

Eddie: Blimey that was an awful experience.

Richie: What are you talking about, Eddie? It was me that got the restraining order from the BBC!

Eddie: Well, it's your own fault, stalking Fiona Bruce like that.

Richie: How dare you, young man! I was the perfect gentleman.

Eddie: They arrested you with her windscreen wipers down your Y-fronts!

Richie: There was a perfectly reasonable explanation...

Eddie: The police didn't think so.

Richie: Damn you, Edward Hitler, I was cleaning her windscreen with my nob! For charity! It's a facebook page and everything!

Eddie: That'll be why they've kept your laptop for evidence, then.

Richie: Pfff! You may hate me, Eddie..

Eddie: Yes, I do. Now shut up, there's something fantastic on telly tonight. I've been looking forward to this for ages!

[Richie switches it off.]

Richie: You can't watch that, actually.

Eddie: And why not?

Richie: 'Cause there's something I want to watch on the other side. It's my favourite programme.

[Richie switches the television back on.]

Eddie: ...this is your favourite programme?

Richie: Yeah.

Eddie: What is it?

Richie: An international news update. And there's a graph. Great. Yeah look, it's a man called Krud who's running to be Prime Minister of Australia.

Eddie: You don't care about the politics of Australia!

Richie: Well, that just shows how little you know about me, doesn't it, Eddie!

Eddie: You don't even know who's the Prime Minister of Britain.

Richie: Neither do you!

Eddie: No, no, no, Richie. I don't care. There's a fundamental difference.

Richie: And no wonder the country's in such a state. We need to tear our gaze off the porn youtube archives and the photoshopped lesbian jam-Swede databases and focus on what really matters!

Eddie: The Kardasians?

Richie: Yes, the... No! Honestly, Eddie! The media is trying to desensitize us all!

Eddie: Well it's worked, Richie. Now, let's watch something better than that albino panda-faced child-molester trying to gain control over a land of convicts, immigrants and marsupials!

Richie: No!

Eddie: You don't even know what I want to watch!

Richie: Oh, no, I'm sure you're after a particularly edifying programme this evening...

Eddie: I am actually.

Richie: Well, what is it - given that I not going to let us watch it anyway?

Eddie: "The Next Doctor!"

Richie: ...the what?

Eddie: The epic reality spectacular revealing in stultifyingly unnecessary detail about which loser is going to ruin their entire life and career to take over from Matt "the Twat" Smith!

Richie: "Smith"? Who?

Eddie: You know! Doctor Who!

Richie: I refuse to watch such lowbrow light entertainment like that!

Eddie: You buy every issue of "Doctor Who Adventures".

Richie: No I don't! Why would I do that?

Eddie: Because it's cheapier than trying to download a sex tape of Karen Gillan!

[A long pause.]

Richie: How do you KNOW these things?

Eddie: Because, Richie, over our years together, I am used to the wheezing groaning sounds emerging from your bedroom. Don't deny it, Rich! Remember when Billie Piper was running away from that Dalek with a white top and no brow! That show is a full-blown jug-o-rama!

Richie: Which is, when you think about it, quite odd considering how many gay blokes make it.

Eddie: Well, there you see, Richie, your own prejudice and stereotypical blinkedness blinds you the truth.

Richie: Yes.

Eddie: Yes.

Richie: Mmm.

Eddie: Is that enough of the tedious patronizing moralizing for BBC standards?

Richie: Oh, ample. Ample. Anyway, young man, I don't want to see this "Next Doctor" revealed in full anorak-o-vision, even if that Jenna Louise Coleman bird is there... [eyes glaze over] pressing herself against the TARDIS... [sing-song] coz Clara's got a secret and I know what it is and she doesn't know that I know it...

Eddie: Richie, we've already got one exclusion order from the Beeb this week.

Richie: Hmph! Fine. But I want to see what happens in Australian politics.

Eddie: Yes. What thrills. What excitement. Oh, what amazing statistics.

Richie: Apparently some violent bald midget is going up against him. He a relative of yours, Eddie?

Eddie: As if I'd pollute my genepool with that colonial scum!

Richie: Yes. You would.

Eddie: Well, yes. Angry Anderson Hitler. The black sheep of the family.

Richie: I thought the rest of the family would have been culled for foot and mouth long ago.

Eddie: At least mine weren't all massacred by the anti-terrorist squad.

Richie: It wasn't their fault they were mistaken for paparrazi trying to break into the labor ward with Kate Middleton. They were only trying to swap babies. Imagine it, Eddie! A Richard on the throne!

Eddie: I am imagining it.

Richie: Are you?

Eddie: It's revolting.

Richie: [dreamy] Can you see that noble brow, those wise eyes, that kind smile...

Eddie: ...that hairy palm fiddling with himself on the toilet!

Richie: No, not that sort of throne, Eddie! Ooh, speaking of which, has Mad Ken Stalin downloaded the next series of Game of Thrones yet?

Eddie: If he has, he won't let you near it. You actually broke the DVD player with all pausing to get a look at the Khaleesi's norks.

Richie: Not my fault! The stupid bint kept getting one of the dragons covering her nipples...

[Eddie gets up, switches over to "The Next Doctor", and sits back down again.]

Eddie: Right, good, they're still doing the intros.

[Richie gets up and switches back. Eddie switches back. They keep changing the channel, faster and faster, until the television gets knocked over.]

Richie: Right, that's it, get out of my house.

Eddie: I beg your pardon?

Richie: You heard.

Eddie: No I didn't.

Richie: Well I'm not saying something like that twice, young man!

Eddie: Well I can't do anything about it then, can I?

[He switches the TV back on. Richie joins him on the couch.]

Richie: Why are they even still making this show? I prefered Torchwood.

Eddie: Why?

Richie: They actually get their clothes off in that.

Eddie: But it was only blokes. It took five years an an American takeover bid before you saw a bird without a top on, and even that was interspersed with Captain Jack Bollocks getting blowjobs off random tourists!

Richie: Isn't that a bit homophobic?

Eddie: Nah, mate. It's the Gay Agenda. Now, Richard, I'm warning you. If you don't shut up and let me watch this I'm going to shove my hand down your throat, rip your tonsils out, then shove them up your bum attached to a length barbed wire! Understood?

[Richie nods. They watch the TV.]

Richie: Oh great - they've got some companions back. Cor, cracking birds aren't they? Do you know how many birds the Doctor's had as companions on TV?

Eddie: Yeah, about thirty or something.

Richie: Do you know how many of these I've slept with?

Eddie: Yep.

Richie: None.

Eddie: Yeah, I know.

Richie: I mean, statistically that's really quite phenomenal, isn't it?

Eddie: Not for an ugly fat bastard like you.

Richie: I wonder what sort of great bird'd suit me if I was the Doctor?

Eddie: Blind one. Well, blind deaf masochist really. Look, that one.

Richie: That's Bonnie Langford, Eddie.

Eddie: Aim low as you can, Richie, it's your only chance.

Richie: Oh god I'm lonely. It's the twenty-first century, Eddie! It's when everything changes and everyone turns out to be bissexual! I should have twice as much a chance of getting my leg over!

Eddie: You do. Trouble is, twice zero is still zero.

Richie: I suppose so. God, this is going on forever! Get on with it! We know all this! You think they're going to discuss John Hurt?

Eddie: Richie, they skipped Colon Baker. I don't think Hurt is getting a look in.

Richie: Oh, god! This is as bad as that last one! The last three minutes tell you who it is and the first forty-seven are this sub-wikipedia-crap! JULIAN LASSANGE DIED FOR THIS!

Eddie: Well, his credibility, anyway.

Richie: Why are they going through this rigmarole, Eddie? In the good old days you got one cover of DWM and were lucky if the comic strip noticed for a month. Not this conveyor belt of B-listers waffling on about how gritty and Northern Christopher Ek-kles-tan was!

Eddie: All publicity, Rich. They're trying to stretch this out. Remember the last couple of times there was a new Doctor? Six months flat of people wondering about it. This time, we got maybe four days and everyone banging on that they should cast a black, blind, educationally-sub-normal pregnant woman in her late fifties with a criminal record for some reason...

Richie: Tch. As if they would.

Eddie: Course not! Everyone's saying "Ooh, the first bird to play the Doctor! The first bird Doctor!" Actually, it would be the first trannie Doctor, that's all there is to it! Hello, boys and girls! You can only be cool if you have a sex-change like me and give into peer pressure! Yay!

Richie: That's a highly erudite outburst, Eddie.

Eddie: Was it?

Richie: No, not particularly. Mind you, it'd be amazing to regenerate into a bird. You'd have a pair of jugs all day and all night, and you could still be a lesbian and it wouldn't matter... gwaaooghhh... I bet I'd be great as a bird.

Eddie: Well you're halfway there already, Rich. Those jugs, that long hair, the sweaty hormones. You could just get someone to cut your todger off and be there already. No surgeon would greedy enough to charge for something that small, you'd probably get paid to do it...

Richie: And I'd be a bird! A bird with money and jugs! Oh god, I'd finally be able to do something about being horny all the time... Oh yes, oh yes...

Eddie: Richie! Richie! Stop! Stop! The sofa can't take another stain!

Richie: Sorry, old bean. Woo. Nealy got carried away again. Oh, why are we watching this? It'll be on the news anyway, without any of this sad old claptrap from Rich Hall...

Eddie: That's Steven Moffat, Richie.

Richie: Yes. Yes I knew that. But why do you want to watch this?

Eddie: Oh, sod off you stupid fat git!

Richie: Don't try to wriggle out of it by being all grown up!

Eddie: All right, I put a bet on "The Next Doctor".

Richie: What? Who did you bet on? Which one's ours, old chum?

Eddie: Trevor Eve.

Richie: Trevor Eve? Eddie, you haven't put our money on that old fart have you? The richest-paid actor in this part of the solar system who has a vendetta against Doctor Who for costing him up to three pee a century?! Eddie, he hates the show, he'd never do it! Eddie, what on earth possessed you to put our money on that raddled old tit who can't even outact the speaking clock?

Eddie: I got odds of a million to one! If he's the Twelfth Doctor we stand to make ten million quid!

Richie: Oh Eddie. Why couldn't you put our money on something decent like, like Peter Capaldi?

Eddie: Oh, pointless Richie. The odds were two to one on. We'd have only made two quid.

Richie: Yeah, but two quid in the hand's better than a tenner down the lav! I mean, off you go, gallivanting around the countryside, squandering all our money on Welsh casting decisions, and then you come swanning in here and expect me to happy with it? God what am I going to feed the children on now?

Eddie: We haven't got any children.

Richie: Yes, I know, I know, I was talking metaphorically.

Eddie: You're talking bollocks!

Richie: Don't you go using language like that in my house, my lad.

Eddie: What? English?

Richie: The language of the guttersnipe. The language of the, of the toilet. The language of the, of the little green things you get when you yank too hard and get a big yellow dangly thing..

Eddie: Oh, shut up! Every day, yakkety bloody yak, on and on and on! Day in, day out - slime in this ear, slime in that ear. JUST STOP TALKING!

[They keep watching in silence.]

Announcer: "Of course, a Twelfth Doctor played by Peter Capaldi would be mould-breaking in and of itself..."

Capaldi: "Where the fuck is he? Where the fuck is that time-travelling twat, that's the fucking question, in'it?"

Clara: "Who are you looking for?"

Capaldi: "I'm looking for the cock-sucking Face of Boe - WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK?!"

Clara: "Um, you're looking for the Master?"

Capaldi: "Oh, congratu-ma-fucking-lations. You're so smart, you'll get elected Cyberleader in no time!"

Clara: "Cybermen don't have elections..."

Capaldi: "Well that's not the fuckity-fucking-point, is it? The Master's been working with the cunt-sucking Daleks; he's so deep in lubricated Dalek-cock he probably doesn't know what's his dick and what's his laser screwdriver..."

Richie: Oh well, he'd be better than Patterson Joseph at any rate.

Eddie: No risk of him - the casting is done by the blokes from Midsomer Murders.

Richie: Blimey! Even Enoch Powell thought they were reactionary...

[The picture and sound on the television start to break up.]

Richie: What's wrong with the reception?

Eddie: It's your fault for knocking the telly over, you stupid git, there's ten hundred grand riding on this!

Richie: Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry.

[Eddie hits the top of the television, there is a loud explosion, all the lights go out, smoke pours out of the television.]

Eddie: Richie! Are you all right? Where are you?

Richie: I'm over the other side of the room.

Eddie: Over here?

Richie: Yeah, this is me here.

Eddie: Right.

[Eddie punches him hard. Richie flies across the room.]

Eddie: Oh God, there's no fuse wire in here.  Richie!

Richie: What?

Eddie: Hold this.

Richie: What?

[The lights come back on.  Richie is standing on a chair holding a screwdriver to bridge the fuses.  He can't hold it and the lights go out again.]

Eddie: Stick it back in, stick it back in!

Richie: No, Eddie, please!

Announcer: "And beating such expected contenders as Olivia Colman, Rory Kinnear, Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Russell Tovey, Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, Daniel Rigby and Peter Capaldi..."

Eddie: Hey!  Richie! They didn't pick Capaldi, the favourite! We're in with a chance!

Richie: I think I'm going to faint.

Eddie: Yeah, it's pretty exiting, isn't it!

Richie: Eddie, I can't hold it much longer!

Eddie: Oh, shut your cakehole! Just another ten seconds!

Announcer: "And the twelfth Doctor is..."

Richie: Eddie! Please!!

Eddie: Here it comes!

Announcer: "..none other than, it IS Peter Capaldi after all!"

Eddie: I don't believe it, it's a fix!

[Eddie puts his foot through the television, which explodes.]

Richie: Did we win?

Eddie: No, we lost.

Richie: Hh.  Knackers!

[Richie lets go of the screwdriver and is thrown off the chair.]

Eddie: Richie, are you okay?

Richie: Am I... okay? No I'm not bloody okay! Ten grand down the toilet and that, that lobotomized baboon as the new Doctor! Why does fate treat me like this? Oh, well at least things can't get any worse.  Hwoo wooo waaargh...

[He falls out of the kitchen window with a fading cry and a crash from below. A dog barks. Eddie punches out a number on the phone.]

Eddie: Hello, ITV! Yes, put me through to the "Next Doctor" programme - I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms! First of all you cast that vast, shrunken Glaswegian testicle as the new Doctor and then you, yes YOU, made me break my telly! Yeah, well put me through to BBC Wales then! Hello? Hello!

[He slams the phone down.]

Eddie: Would you believe it? It's just typical, isn't it? We're on the brink of winning ten million pounds and some ugly grey-haired git scoops up all our hopes in his limp-wristed claw and discards them like some used haggis! Ten million quid! I could finally get away from that great blotchy white walrus blathering on and on about himself!

[Richie climbs back through the window.]

Richie: Oh sod off! Go on, sod off!  Get to soddery! It's all your fault!

Eddie: Sod off yourself, you great fat git! It's me that just lost ten million quid!

Richie: Well half of it was mine.

Eddie: It bloody well was not!

Richie: Well thank you very much Edward. You learn something every day, don't you? And today I learnt that you're a complete bastard. Well, I think I might turn in now, I feel so enriched. Nighty-night, Eddie!

[He picks up a letter and fastidiously opens it.]

Eddie: What's that?

Richie: Oh, it's just a press statement. [reads it] Blah-de-blah-de-blah-blah-blah... Hang on, you remember the BBC re-commissioning us last year? According to this they've changed their minds! Why can't we ever bloody win anything?

Eddie: Richie... if we haven't been re-commissioned, then what the hell are we doing here?

[Richie looks at Eddie, then they both vanish in a puff of logic. Freeze-frame, the titles roll.]