The Doctor's Tardis is out of action, and he's renting a flat in Notting Hill. It looks quite small but behind the blue door it is in fact flipping enormous. Unfortunately he attracts the attention of the neighbours when they spot his assistant, Mr Bean, dancing around the front room in his underpants.
The neighbours — get this! — aren't people at all, but half human, half mallard types who the doctor nicknames "duckface". The doctor only realises this when he has a dream and oversleeps. He wakes up yelling: "Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck!" Well, it is a family show.
The duckfaces, who arrived on earth in a very wobbly space craft (the alien ship that rocked, since you ask) are rapidly turning the whole of middle class west London quackers. If the doctor doesn't act soon then the key demographic for his next film is going to be decimated!
Wearing a pair of diving goggles, which for some reason makes him resistant to the aliens' incessant quacking, the doctor confronts the monsters with his sonic stammer.
"Ehm... look. Sorry, sorry, I just, er... well, this is a very stupid question, but I just wondered, by any chance, er... I mean obviously not because I guess I've only killed 900 different alien races, but I just wondered... er. I really feel, er... in short, to recap it slightly in a clearer version, er... the words of David Cassidy in fact, er... while he was still with the Partridge family, er... GET THE HELL OFF THIS PLANET!"
The episode then cuts to an entirely different story – about an alien trying to get a Christmas number one – and then another – about an alien in a cafe – and then another, the No.1 Duckface Detective Agency, only a couple of which are remotely interesting, and certainly not the one about an alien in 10 Downing Street starring Martine McCutcheon.
Then Dawn French turns up as the Alien Killer of Dibley.
The doctor finds the secret to the end of the universe in Bridget Jones's Diary, and it turns out it is all to do with this other time travelling chap who turned up in medieval, Elizabethan, Edwardian and early 20th century times. He's the spitting image of Blackadder but it's definitely not him – they said they wouldn't do another one – and anyway he's a tall guy, much taller than Rowan Atkinson. Best not take it too seriously, though. It's only a bit of comic relief.
