'The Interstellar Song Contest' (Story Code 2.06) by Juno Dawson

“Welcome to the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest!” - Rylan

“Did I just fly through space on a confetti cannon?” - The Doctor

Deep in outer space, at the Harmony Arena space station in 2925, television celebrity Rylan Clarke is defrosted from cryo-sleep to host the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest. As Rylan and his fellow compare, cat-lady Sabine, kick-off the event in front of a live audience of a hundred-thousand exited life-forms, the TARDIS materialises in a VIP pod overlooking the stage. After the Doctor takes another reading with the Vindicator, he and a very excited Belinda settle in to watch the contest… In the gallery control room, director Nina coordinates the prestigious show, which is sponsored by ‘Poppy Honey’ and transmitting live to three-trillion life-forms across the universe. Also in the station’s audience is Mrs Flood, who spies on the Doctor as he takes the final reading required to prime the Vindicator and get Belinda home. Meanwhile, Mike and Gary, the couple with tickets for the seats the Doctor and Belinda are currently using, find themselves locked out of their VIP pod; Gary asks a robot drone for assistance, but it just mentions a ‘Phase One’ before striding away. In the gallery, Nina and her crew are surprised to hear shots fired, then drones burst in and take over the control room at gunpoint. They are led by a horned Hellion named Kid, who orders the drones to lock up the production team. Director Nina is kept behind, along with another of the crew, Wynn, who is secretly Kid’s girlfriend. To Nina’s dismay Kid and Wynn switch the Contest’s live transmission to a recording of the dress rehearsal, attributing Ryan’s absence to food poisoning. As the first song begins, Kid starts Phase Two of his plan by turning off the station’s safety protocols and opening the roof of the arena. As the air shield collapses, the audience is sucked out into the cold vacuum of space, along with the Doctor and the TARDIS. Seeing a monitor showing one of the contestants, Cora Saint Bavier, facing imminent death, Wynn surreptitiously closes the VIP pods, inadvertently saving Belinda’s life as she struggles against the vacuum. Floating out in space amongst the ice-clad bodies, Rylan freezes once again… After Wynn closes the roof shield to maintain the station’s integrity, Kid orders the start of ‘Phase Three’, and drones bring a cuboid delta-wave device into the control room. Belinda stumbles into the station corridor, where she meets fellow survivor Cora, and her manager, Len. Learning that they can’t call for help because comms are locked down to prevent gambling tip-offs, Belinda panics, realising that without the Doctor she has no idea of where she is or how to get home. While Cora calms her down, Len uses his tech skills to check a computer panel; he discovers that the system is being rewritten - Kid has connected his delta-wave device. As the Doctor hangs in space, his body quickly freezing, he sees a vision of his granddaughter Susan inside the TARDIS, encouraging him to live. Spurred into action, the Doctor grabs a nearby confetti cannon and uses it to blast himself towards a station airlock; he is rescued by Gary and Mike, the latter using his nursing skills and a medical kit to revive the Doctor. Knowing that the audience is not dead, just frozen and held in mavitic suspension, the Doctor access the station computer to find a way to save them. But as her spots the Hellion code overwriting the system, an agonising blast of sound waves hits him, Mike, and Gary. As they struggle in pain, the Doctor manages to use his sonic screwdriver to blow up the system panel, cutting off the signal. The Doctor realises that the blast was a primitive delta wave - and if added to the contest’s transmission it will kill every person watching… Having identified the invading code, Len explains to Belinda how the Hellions are despised and feared by everyone in the galaxy, a view Cora doesn’t share. The Doctor, Mike and Gary reach the arena’s museum of the Interstellar Song Contest, whose holograms Gary helped create, including one of Graham Norton. Worried about Belinda and his visions of Susan, the Doctor tries accessing the arena’s system hyperlink, only to be detected by Kid. Their conversation is seen by Belinda, who is elated to see her friend still alive - until the terrorist threatens to open the station’s airlocks, and a furious Doctor vows to kill him. In response, Kid despatches drones to kill the Doctor. Cora confesses to Belinda and Len that she is secretly a Hellion, having cut off her own horns in fear that she too will be persecuted. Cora explains that the Hellions’ home world, Helia, was devastated by the Corporation just to harvest the Hell Poppy, used as flavouring in ‘Poppy Honey’; now Kid wants to use the Corporation’s sponsorship of the song contest to get his revenge on them and their viewers. Cora asks Len for his help, and even though he is angry about the lies she told him, he unlocks the lift to take them to the Doctor. In the museum, the Doctor explodes the approaching drones with his sonic, then elicits Gary’s help with his new plan. In the gallery, Nina tries in vain to stop Kid’s scheme as the delta wave reaches 99% completion, ready to piggyback in the recording of Cora’s song. When the Doctor suddenly appears in the gallery Kid shoots him - but the bullet passes through: this Doctor is a hologram, allowing the real one to deactivate the delta device and render it and Kid’s gun harmless. Donning a special glove, the Doctor activates a hard-light hologram of himself, which he uses to electrocute Kid to within an inch of his life. The enraged Doctor ignores the entreaties of another vision of Susan, and it is only the arrival of Belinda that finally makes him come to his senses. Nina overrides the Hellion code and regains control of the station, while Cora speaks to her sister, Wynn; but Wynn and Kid regret nothing, glad that they tried to expose the corrupt Corporation for its crimes. After drones take Kid and Wynn into custody, the Doctor gets an idea to save the audience: he instructs Gary to turn the hard light hologram into a tractor beam, which they use to pull Rylan back to the station. Gary then turns Rylan’s cryogenic chamber into a revival booth, allowing them to successfully revive the host, much to fangirl Belinda’s delight. Leaving Gary and Mike to repeat the process for the rest of the audience, the Doctor utilises Len’s skills to turn the VIP pods into higher capacity revival booths, speeding up the process. As the audience returns to the arena and the transmission resumes, Rylan and Sabine announce that although the Contest has been declared null and void, Cora will still perform. This time Cora changes her song, to one in remembrance of Helia and its destruction by the Corporation; it wins over the audience, who erupt into applause. Listening in from captivity, Wynn and Kid realise that Cora had a better plan than theirs all along. A while later, a steward takes the Doctor and Belinda to the TARDIS, now safely recovered from an asteroid field. When Belinda voices her concern at her friend’s actions, the Doctor confesses that Kid’s attack on the audience triggered him into remembering the deaths of all his fellow Time Lords. When the Doctor mentions taking Belinda home to Earth, the Norton hologram activates and provides the information that the planet and its entire population died on May 24th 2025, cause unknown. Racing back to the TARDIS with Belinda, the Doctor plugs the Vindicator into the console and sets the controls for Earth; but alarms blare out - and then the TARDIS doors are blasted inwards by a huge explosion…

Back on the Harmony Arena space station, Gary and Mike save the last person, Mrs Flood. After remarking how her experience has affected her Time Lady body, Mrs Flood bi-regenerates into a second person. This new woman identifies herself as the Rani, then sets off with Mrs Flood to bring terror to the Doctor…

Ncuti Gatwa (The Doctor), Varada Sethu (Belinda Chandra), Julia Dray (Sabine), Rylan Clark (Himself), Imogen Kingsley-Smith (Runner), Kiruna Stamwell (Nina Maxwell), Iona Anderson (Wynn Aura-Kin), Anita Dobson (Mrs Flood), Charlie Condou (Gary Gabbastone), Kadiff Kirwan (Mike Gabbastone), Freddie Fox (Kid), Miriam-Teak Lee (Cora Saint Bavier), Akemnji Ndifornyen (Len Kazah), Christina Rotondo (Liz Lizardine), Graham Norton (Himself), Abdul Seesay (Jeddy Kine), Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman), Archie Panjabi (The Rani)

Directed by Ben A. Williams

Produced by Vicki Delow
Executive Producers Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter, Joel Collins and Phil Collinson
A Bad Wolf / BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
17th May 2025 @ 7.10 am


Notes:
*Featuring the Fifteenth Doctor and Belinda

*This episode premiered in the UK on the BBC's iPlayer in Ultra-High Definition (UHD) at 08.00 on the morning of 17th May 2025, and was simultaneously streamed on Disney+ outside the UK and Ireland

*The end-credits are interrupted by the final sequence with the two Ranis, after which they resume; there was also next episode preview

*The music used over the reviving of the frozen audience is 'Making Your Mind Up' by Eurovision winners Buck's Fizz

*The episode was followed by the live transmission of the real 'Eurovision Song Contest', which was also hosted by Rylan Clark