No matter how early Hassan was, no matter how late Robyn was, he never ran out of theories. He had a lot for today’s episode. He’d heard from someone in confidence who’d heard from someone who didn’t actually work on the show but had seen something on the phone of someone who absolutely did and this meant that, if everything went according to plan, the club were all in for a surprise halfway through.

(Hassan didn’t like surprises he didn’t know in advance, but he could make an educated guess.)

HASSAN: It’ll be the Rani.

(It was always definitely going to be the Rani. It never was.)

Hassan asked to have the remote, checking for the third time that she’d absolutely turned motion smoothing off (this was, he still maintained, why they’d not ‘got’ Legend of the Sea Devils the first time).

Robyn had a bit of New Information. She’d heard the episode was being novelised by the guy who’d done The Giggle, which had been all right, Robyn said, but a bit playing up for company.

IIIIIIIIIII’M MR RING-A-DING! I’LL MAKE YOUR HEARTBELLS SING! PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH, JUST TAKE MY AUTOGRAPH! NOW DON’T BE CRAZY, PRETTY LADY, I KNOW JUST ONE THING! FOR I AM HE! OH YES! I’M MR RING-A-DING!

DOCTOR: The one place the TARDIS can’t reach is May the 24th! We bounce off!

BELINDA: Okay. You’re a doctor. What if you write me a sick note and I come back a day late on May the 25th?

DOCTOR: I can’t. Everything after the 24th is … bouncy!

BELINDA: All right then, Time Lord. Can’t we go to the planet Timelordia and get this thing fixed?

DOCTOR: They should’ve called it that.

BELINDA: What’s the actual name?

DOCTOR: Gallifrey.

BELINDA: Then let’s go home to Gallifrey! They must have garages.

The ship bounced again, bounced with the memory of her first swimming lesson; the taste of tapioca; the peeling sign of a barbershop called Omo’s Palace; the smile on a dying woman’s lips; the smell of pine disinfectant.

BELINDS: Oh my god! You actually want to investigate a spooky old cinema! You’re Scooby Doo!

DOCTOR: Honey, I’m Velma.

DOCTOR: I have toppled worlds. But sometimes I wait for the people to topple the world and, until then, I live in it. And I shine.

DOCTOR: Don’t think you’re better than history, babes. Your world is burning, so all those old hatreds are waking up. Everything that happens … happens again.

HASSAN: I mean, it’s sort of a base-under-siege episode, if the base is a cinema and the siege is a cartoon.

ROBYN: No.

HASSAN: I’m just filing it. I mean, come on, the episode is so Trope Aware. They’re making jokes about going into a haunted cinema.

The Doctor had faced down the God of the Daleks. He’d outstared the Weeping Angels. He’d been to the Lair of the Zarbi Supremo and lived to tell the tale. He’d run from the beginning of time to its end, saving reality as he went. He’d seen stars sigh and watched worlds collide. Yet. A singing cartoon. This was … New.

MR RING-A-DING: I’M NOT A FOOL BOW TIES ARE COOL!

MR RING-A-DING: Darn it. I was so big when I arrived. I should never have learned perspective!

DOCTOR: Oh, we’ve gone widescreen.

BELINDA: Look!

(The Doctor runs into her Medium Shot. Looking.)

DOCTOR: What is it?

BELINDA: Nothing, I just demanded a close-up.

BELINDS: How do we get out of here?!

THE DOCTOR: We’re stuck on a wide shot!

(Both JUMP, reaching UP, but on WIDE SHOT, they’re too small in the FRAME, they can’t reach the top of the picture.)

The Doctor and Belinda. The actual lead characters of her favourite television programme ever ever ever (apart from Heartstopper fortnight and don’t you go judging, okay, it was like a TV holiday). Babbling again. Doctor Who was her forever favourite show. Heartstopper was just a crush, a kiss at a bus stop. Doctor Who had the TARDIS and Daleks and Beep the Meep and Incidental Music by Murray Gold and the National Orchestra of Wales. Still. This was just as if Nick and Charlie had fallen out of the telly – I mean, they were even holding hands – only better, because this was actual Doctor Who.

LIZZIE: Belinda! Belinda Chandra! Like, Miss Belinda Chandra!

(Lizzie couldn’t help saying it. She’d learned the name, she’d learned everything about her, she’d watched her reveal show, she’d even mouthed along as she’d said, ‘Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the official Doctor Who YouTube Channel.’)

Then there were the DVDs, relegated to a horizontal pile near the door, the shelf space given over to the Blu-ray Collection and the Steelbooks. (She was worried she was getting old. There’d been a point when she’d thought being a fan of Seven was classic, but the other day she met a girl in FP who said she was a fan of Nine because he was so retro.)

(There’d been the thing where Lizzie’d opened the cupboard and the Doctor had seen her mug collection. He’d tapped the face on one of the mugs.)

DOCTOR: Isn’t that Matt Smith?

Once the situation had been explained to him, twice, the Doctor had said he’d like to drink out of Peter Capaldi, but Robyn had said it was her mug so he settled for one that said ‘Run You Clever Boy And Remember’, which he kept turning round.

(The Doctor spooned some sugar into his mug, which she knew was a detail Hassan would be adding to his spreadsheet of How The Doctors Drink Their Tea.)

DOCTOR: I mean, I’m careful with sugar, ever since—

LIZZIE: The Cybermen poisoned the sugar in The Moonbase!

(And they laughed, like they were sharing a joke. But then she spotted it. Mr Clever had done a clever thing to see if she was real. Had she passed?)

BELINDA: What happens in Blink?

(Hassan rolled his eyes, as if being asked what happened in Star Wars.)

HASSAN: It’s this story where you’re not allowed to blink.

BELINDA: Well, that sounds like an absolute epic. Never mind lightsabers! Or the Red Wedding. No, you can’t blink. Did I back the wrong horse?

They all screamed with joy because they were alive. And wasn’t that the magic of Doctor Who?