I was ordered to do this by RandomJoke
That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress
5/5
Polly is amazing this is the universe where Polly's life goes off the rails and into a swamp infested by man eating crocodiles and gin.
This starts off strong immediately with the line "I met God at a celebrity funeral" then explaining how she met God at the funeral making extremely funny and witty jokes all the way through then we get to meeting God (which lets be honest should be headcannoned to look like miriam margolyes) appears with a tinsel halo and sends polly through time cause they are bored. For you guessed it... a Dress! it starts with Lady Marian who looks like Polly and is rocking the most beautiful dress that polly wants. Then Ian and susan appear and try to get her out. They then leave and Ian comes back dressed as robin hood with robin hood kicking down the door, the sheriff appears everyone gets confused. A second susan appears then *BAMF* She's where susan gets taken from. This scene is ridiculous insane and absolutely hilarious at the same time with the writer Joseph making multiple references to big finish stories during this time

(Im going to skip foward to Fifth doctor also ps this book is absolutely insane in the membrane)

Polly lands on a cricket pitch in the 80's which reminds her of  husband #1. Who surprisingly is there with a pregnant Polly as peri and erimem run by her and herself. which her husband gets mad at. Polly ends up tackling peri and erimem getting into a fight with them both in which the doctor shows up questioning wth is going on and then one of the fielders misses a catch causing time and space to get unravelled because cricket is of course the most important sport on the planet as we all know (second place is snooker). Another fifth doctor appears and Erimem causes the 2 to touch ending the universe

Until it isnt, Polly lands on a boat with a sailor woman. They get drunk.  Polly reminisces about strip poker and what that did to her son causing her not to see him for 3 months. Its a bittersweet moment as Polly at first finds it funny but it becomes a sobering moment as she *BAMF*s through time seeing the look on her son's face and then *BAMF*.  She is then told it will be fixed as she lands back in the 1960's with Ben next to her. The Doctor and Jamie appear and they get drunk together play hide and seek, the doctor takes Jamie away to look at the stars. And as Louis Armstrong plays the saxophone Polly finally tells Ben  "I love you" and they share a final tear jerking kiss as the short trip ends.

Oh yeah My overall thoughts. This was something I did not expect, It was beautiful funny and extremely out of left field. If I had one single negative for this story it would be not enough Bernice Summerfield.

Not related to the Story itself, but what a Title!

And what a List of Characters, so many that you would think: "How do you even make this work in just 19 Pages?" And yet after finishing it, you realized: "Hey wait a Minute what a fun, creative, and touching Story?" In many Way is this Story a great Showcase for Lidster as a Writer, who I think delivered plenty of great Stories both on Audio and on Television. This one is no different. All our Characters are used well without losing the actual Focus of that Story, which is very rooted in only a few Characters.

Love it!

This kind of goes to what I was saying with the Tales of the TARDIS mini-series and just the whole showcasing the companions post travels living these wonderful lives, which is fine, I'm not against that, but I also think it's kind of cheesy that every companion of the Doctor leaves and become these great world leaders, setting up charities or travelling the world fighting injustice. So much so to the point where when I read a story like this, I find it kind of refreshing having the Second Doctor's first companions Ben & Polly leave and just go on to live either very normal and uneventful lives like Ben owning a pub, or very flawed lives like Polly becoming a model and then having a career in music, going from one marriage to another and becoming very vain about her looks. This short story focuses more on Polly as we her life decades after having left the Doctor and all the mistakes she's made and suddenly she's flung through different points in time, encountering different Doctors and changing history to such a cataclysmic extent all to find the perfect dress. The actual plot of the story isn't even that significant, it even has a quick fix solution that's dealt with "offscreen". It's just more about Polly and how much she's changed from the kind and innocent character from her early travels, and it has a wonderfully touching ending that gives a cool nod to the Season 6B whilst having Polly and Ben find one another again and so many years after their adventures and the lives they've lived, finally admit their feelings for one another. A great way to cap off the Past Tense collection of short trips