Describe a failure that became amazing

I’m a terrible British geek. Outside of Red Dwarf, I never really bothered with most of our big institutions. It took me years until I bothered with Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. I never watched Dr Who and outside of a couple of cheap volumes, I’d not read much Judge Dredd. Terrible, I know.

Well, I started reading those lovely giant Judge Dredd tomes to undo that sin, and I started watching Dr Who after a massive endorsement from Antony and Ashly Burch on their podcast a few years back. It was just before Matt Smith’s run started and they were gushing about Waters of Mars. I caught up on all of the modern Dr Who over one winter, all while playing Assassin’s Creed 2 and Brotherhood. It was great and of course I did what happens whenever I see a media property I like. I bought the role-playing game and started planning.

The group were mostly fans as well, so we had a great time going through time and space in a TARDIS which looked like an ice cream van. They met Lovecraft, whose hometown had become phased into an alien menagerie, they fought autons in a fun fair, teamed up with David Bowie and fled from 31st century debt collectors.

The Student was our Time Lord and he had a long-suffering companion just called Parker, another player character. The group had found World War I soldiers dotted around space and time, all pretty perplexed about what had happened to them. In the finale, we found out. The players arrived in No Man’s Land shortly before The Battle of The Somme, underneath a bombed out church. They quickly identified that Weeping Angels were attacking the soldiers and stranding them earlier in the campaign. Luckily the players had their TARDIS in the basement. Unfortunately it was surrounded by Weeping Angels, lit only by the TARDIS’ headlights.

The players were playering their way with blinking alternation systems and such to make sure no one blinked and the statues stayed where they should be. Then Lee, the player of Parker, pressed the button on the TARDIS’ keys to switch off the car alarm. There was that typical ‘bip bip’ noise and the headlights… blinked. It was such a brilliantly unconscious action, which messed everything up.

The lights blinked. The Weeping Angels were gone, the doors of the TARDIS were open. Then is vanished, stranding the group in World War I, in No Man’s Land, with no TARDIS. Suddenly this was a two-part episode and the kind of event where the players present still haven’t forgiven Lee for losing the TARDIS, several years later.