Scene: The office of Russell T Davies. In one corner of the room, a small television set, attached to a DVD player, is showing an episode from series three of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Russell T is leaning back in the very comfy chair behind his desk, facing away from the door, watching the television. On the screen, Buffy (in the middle of slaying vampires) drops a pop-cultural reference with adorable poise and timing. Russell T chortles appreciatively and reaches over to pick up the notebook and pencil on the desk behind him. At this moment, there is a knock on the door…

Russell T sighs, picks up the remote and presses a button. Buffy disappears from the screen, to be replaced by John Pertwee in an episode of Doctor Who and the Sea Devils. Disconcerting electronic music rattles the speakers of the small television set. Russell T winces and mutes the volume. He then turns to face the door of the office and barks “come!”.

A man with a ponytail, wearing spectacles and a Dream Theater T-shirt, enters the room in a hurry. “Sorry to bother you, Mister T, but…” “Yes, Derek, what is it?” “It’s the CGI render farm. We’ve got a problem. Some of the boys were watching Weird Science last night, and…er…one thing led to another, and now 98% of our grid computing resource is being sucked into a program to create a real-life replicant of Billie Piper only with bigger…ummm*…anyway, we’ve tried everything but we just can’t seem to shut it off. We’ll just have to let it run its course, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure that must be very tiresome for you, but what of it?”

“Well, you know those pulsating polydimensional chaotic tendrils of pure paradox that the Master was going to transform the remaining 6 billion members of the human race into, and then send them back in time to wipe out 10% of the human race (current population a little over 6.7 billion**) and turn the rest into pulsating polydimensional chaotic tendrils of pure paradox***?”

“Yayyyysss…”

“Well, they’re a bit computationally expensive, you see. With our current level of rendering power, we could probably do you about a half-dozen. But nowhere near the swarming billions required by your may-I-just-say-by-the-way magnificent and totally original script.”

“I see. Well, that’s very…disappointing. I’m very disappointed in you, Derek…[ominous pause]…Nevertheless, the show must go on. Pulsating polydimensional chaotic tendrils of pure paradox no longer feasible - I understand. Well, then, what can you give me?”

“Erm…well…we can do you a sphere. Maybe put some texture-mapping on it? There’s a couple of hundred old BBC micros in the basement we could probably rope in to help out…”

—

* I have to say, if I could change just one thing about Billie Piper, it wouldn’t be that. ** I confess to having got the, er, basic arithmetic of this spectacularly wrong in a previous draft of this post. Category theory? I might have to work on my addition first. *** I’m just guessing here.