Truth or Consequences (short story)

On 13 January 2016, the Doctor Who Facebook page released a video where "the writing team of Series 9 play a game of Truth or Consequences." It was subsequently released to YouTube, as well.

You may wish to consult Truth or Consequences for other, similarly-named pages.

Aside from "lead writer" Steven Moffat, each writer contributed one passage to the narrative, with only the previous passage for reference. In other words, Mark Gatiss had no idea what anybody had written prior to Catherine Tregenna's segment, and so on. Steven Moffat both opened and closed the story, and thus was the only writer to have contributed two distinct passages to this exercise.

At the end of the video, viewers are encouraged to carry on the story in the comments, with the words "Over To You", leading to many fan-made continuations.

Synopsis[[edit] | [edit source]]

A phone call brings the Doctor to an unusual restaurant...

Text[[edit] | [edit source]]

Steven Moffat (1)[[edit] | [edit source]]

The creature disguised as words fired its deadly ray at the unsuspecting reader out of this full stop.

Catherine Tregenna (2)[[edit] | [edit source]]

The one-eyed reader, hellbent on revenge, knew it was time to call the TARDIS. Words ran out in the darkness.

Mark Gatiss (3)[[edit] | [edit source]]

And the TARDIS listened. Listened so hard that the Doctor could hear it thinking, deciding between hope and glory, nirvana or oblivion. "We've arrived."

Sarah Dollard (4)[[edit] | [edit source]]

The moment the Doctor put his hand to the door it was caught by a gust of wind, and blew back in on him, bringing with it the stench of death.

Peter Harness (5)[[edit] | [edit source]]

In the room beyond, a table was set for dinner: candles, cut glass, and decayed dusty food, mouldy and rotten. The Doctor sat himself down at the head of the table, and called expectantly into the darkness.

Toby Whithouse (6)[[edit] | [edit source]]

"Hello! Can I speak to the manager? I want to make a complaint." Silence stretched in the air. Then came a shuffling of feet as the waiter appeared. Or at least, his clothes did. There was no body inside them, just a shell of cloth hanging about an empty fame of air.

Jamie Mathieson (7)[[edit] | [edit source]]

Determined not to be fazed, I made my complaint. The ghost waiter clicked his heels and left. I then realised that the skin on my soup had a belly button.

Steven Moffat (8)[[edit] | [edit source]]

I thought for a moment what the Doctor would do in this situation, and then realised something: the belly button was mine. I ate it.

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Story notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Due to the inherently ridiculous nature of the story's construction, it is riddled with inconsistencies; the piece switches from third-person to first-person narrative partway through, and the role of protagonist seems to switch, without explanation, from the Doctor to an unidentified individual who refers to the Doctor as a separate entity — though this is mirrored by many passages of first-person narration by incarnations of the Doctor in Moffat's own novelisation of The Day of the Doctor, with the various Doctors speaking about "the Doctor" in the third person as the person they would like to be and "play-act" as.
Before beginning to read, Steven Moffat says of the story as written, "This is a weird story; this is really quite disgusting."
He also states that "this is the world's shortest Doctor Who story", though this is not in fact the case. The very short story Vrs, from Short Trips and Side Steps, includes only 17 words, in one sentence, with all vowels removed. The second shortest story, an untitled piece from The Panda Book of Horror, comprised of 20 words. This piece totals 237 words.
The opening line bears a strong resemblance to a microfiction piece published by Moffat on Twitter in 2012: "The worm became an idea, which hid itself in words, until it could climb, devouring all, through the eye of the reader of this tweet."^[1]