Lily: Lily.
Inspector: Nice to meet you, Lily. Dash for your life!
Meet everygirl Lily Taylor: overprotective dad, Missing Mom, lousy job in a clothing store. As far as the production team is concerned, This Loser Is You (so we're all as good-looking as Bobbie Flutist).
One evening, Lily — who really should have watched more horror movies — visits the storeroom, alone, just after the store closes. The storeroom is full of old clothes, which hang around being musty and then attack. Lily is backed up to a wall, facing death by fabric, when her hand is grabbed by a stranger. Without introducing himself, the stranger yells, "DASH!" and they're into the first chase of the new series.
It ends sort of abruptly when the pair make it into a lift, followed so closely by a matching sweater and gloves that the stranger (oh, let's go ahead and identify him as "the Inspector"; it's not like no one saw it coming) can pull one of its gloves away. Lily's mad reasoning skills impress the Inspector enough that he asks her her name, introduces himself as the Inspector, and advises Lily to "dash" before the bomb he's going to plant goes off.
Lily happily obliges. Building goes up in flames.
Lily goes back home. Her dad Jack is enjoying the excitement perhaps a little too much: phoning everyone, assuring them he's still alive, and trying to get Lily interviews, preferably paid ones. Lily is angry. Her girlfriend Minnie turns up, and tries to take her almost-dead girlfriend out to the pub, presumably to comfort her, but really so she can watch cricket. What an amazingly sympathetic character. Lily asks her to get rid of the glove. Minnie chucks it in some random bin and calls it a night. It's not really her fault — it's only the series premiere, so she hasn't learned that random alien weirdness should be stomped into bits, drowned to death, and the soggy remains stomped into bits just in case.
Next morning, Lily doesn't have a job to go to, which is why she's home when the Inspector — having traced the fabric glove to their flat — turns up. Anyways, the Inspector talks to Lily and gets attacked by the fabric glove, which managed to find its way back in. Lily thinks he's kidding, until it tries to kill her.
Lily and the Inspector escape and start contemplating their navels. Apparently the fabric people want to do the same thing they do every night: try to take over the world. They make puns (or plays on words). Doctor leaves in the X-7 — or rather the "mysterious phone booth"; we're not meant to know what it is yet.
Lily goes to Minnie's house and hops on the Internet. With quite possibly the worst google-fu seen in modern TV history, she tries to find information on "The Inspector" and stumbles across some random conspiracy-theory website run by some random woman. Then she dragoons Minnie into driving her over to conspiracy theory girl's place, where they discover that she's a complete nutcase — even though she has a husband and kids — except for being somewhat normal. She tells Lily all sorts of things that we know to be true, but naturally Lily doesn't believe her, and she bails at the first opportunity.
Meanwhile, Minnie has been eaten by a giant pile of clothing, which spits out a fabric copy of her. Its acting style is slightly less wooden than original Minnie. They drive to an Italian place, badly.
They eat. Minnie is obsessed with the Inspector, and keeps repeating the same words, babe, glucose, toddler, sweetie-pie. The Inspector randomly appears which sends Fabric-Minnie into an insane rage, like if the Terminator was female. They escape into the X-7 Dimensioner, which actually pretty much looks the same as before. The Inspector tries to fly to fabric people headquarters, but fails. He and Lily have a half-angry, half-curious all-expository argument. They discover that the base is under the Millennium Domenote . They go down, and see the good lamb himself — the fabric controller; they call it the Homene Awareness. Minnie's there, freaking out. The Inspector tries to talk Homene out of it; Homene discovers the anti-fabric the Inspector has. Homene goes crazy and activates all the fabric people. Jack, who's out working, is attacked by evil fabric wedding dresses. Conspiracy woman gets killed, after having had all her theories confirmed.
With everything gone banana-shaped, Lily reveals that she has mad gymnastic skills. She knocks a fabric person into Homene, which sprinkles it with anti-fabric. It dies. Fabric people give up, just before the wedding dresses finish their lengthy transformation sequence. Lucky them. The Inspector, Lily and Minnie escape in the time booth. Base goes down into the water.
They arrive near home. Minnie goes into pseudo-PTSD. The Inspector offers to take Lily on his travels. She declines. He vanishes. Then he appears again and says "Did I mention, it also travels in time? So the question isn't where to go, it's when." That's right, a Columbo moment from across space and time.
Lily gives Minnie a kiss and this goodbye:
Minnie: For what?
Lily: Exactly.
And leaving her girlfriend in sadness and depression, she leaves to have happy-go-lucky adventures with the Inspector.
Tropes:
- Arm Cannon: The Clothons have this with those wonderful unfolding fabric sleeves of theirs.
- Come with Me If You Want to Live: The Inspector first meets Lily this way.
- Chekhov's Gun: The Millennium Dome appears for a split second near the beginning.
- Foreshadowing: When the Inspector grabs Lily's hand, his first word: "Dash!"
- Freudian Excuse: The Homene lost its fabrication planets in the Time Wave and mentions "constitutional rights" as it explains its invasion plans to the Inspector.
- Losing Your Head: Clothon!Minnie's head pops off, and she lampshades the trope:Minnie: "Well, that will totally stop me..."
- Killing Clothing: A whole army of 'em.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: Because of rights issues with classic series' creator of the Nylans, the Clothons are not referred to by name. They are referred to as Clothons in the credits, however.
- Oh, Crap!: The Inspector, upon realising that Clothon!Minnie's head is unraveling, which will stop him from tracing the signal back to the Homene Awareness.
- Shaped Like Itself:Inspector: So it needs a transmitter to boost the signal.
Lily: What does it look like?
Inspector: It looks like a word containing the letters i and t! - There Are No Girls on the Internet: It turns out the Conspiracy Guy is a Conspiracy Gal.
