Survivors of the Flux

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Jody Into Terror, the only Doctor Who flash cast that brought you word peril, space reasons, and the exposition coma.

So our lawyers will be calling Chris Chibnell in the morning.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Brendan.

And I'm Simon.

So we are here to talk about survivors of the flux, which screened on Monday morning hour time and Sunday evening in the UK, written by Chris Chibnell, and directed by Azure Salim, who directed once upon time.

What I thought we would do with this one, given that it is 4 plots, the B plot, the C plot, the D plot, and the E plot, I think.

We are going to, that's not my joke.

We're going to go through them in no particular order.

And let's start with the Bell and Vinder plot.

I want to call the Bender.

[01:01]

Is that their couple name, Brendan?

I like to refer to them as Belinda, but Bender, I think, works as well.

They're certainly gonna need a drink after all this.

So how did you think that that one went?

Brendan.

Um, I thought, you know, I thought we could have used a bit more screwball comedy with her sort of almost making it and then then having to fly off.

Um, but I continue to find her so charming and most of the stuff she's had to do is by herself.

And I feel she really carries those scenes with her little um, with her little uh, Tamagotchi sidekick.

Hey, I'm a boy child.

And her as yet, I'm going, oh, okay.

As for Vinder, um...

Well, look, he was there this week.

He was fine.

Um, He had a little bit more to do this week at least, but I'd like to see a lot more of both of them, frankly.

[02:07]

And I think the the, the flux arc would be a lot better if we were seeing a bit more of them.

I think they're great.

They're really a highlight of the series for me.

I think he's terribly cute and I think she is as well.

Um, but, they are, they do seem to be just sort of wandering around, you know, like, yeah.

There are a lot of scenes last week that didn't really kind of amount to anything and I think we got that a little bit here.

I mean, we pushed the plot forward a bit because, what, vinder meets die and um, and Bell meets Carvanista.

And so that's something.

But we don't know what's coming of that.

Yeah, that seems to have been pretty much what happened for them.

Yeah, in some, in some ways last week was a bit of a holding passion for them.

They were kind of in effective stasis.

They're just a couple of scenes just to remind us that they existed.

Perhaps it would have been more interesting if the content, their content from the last episode had been kind of brought into this one and it would have felt like we'd have gotten to know what's going on with them a bit more.

[03:12]

Yeah, I understand like there's a temptation, I think, to make the angels just a standalone, which would have been good.

It would have meant that we weren't interrupted by space things and we could have kind of kept a tight focus.

But I kind of get that we want this thing where we have interweaving plots.

If we have a kind of big event series, a big event season, you know, you kind of want to sell that in each episode.

So, you know, like I understand why that decision was made.

Yeah, I entirely agree.

I think it would have been better though, had they been a little bit more established before we got to that, and then they can kind of fade away and then come back.

Yes, you need to keep the ongoing through line.

You need them to appear, you know, in each episode, but, you know, you can still have the bell and vinder light episode, which is supposed to be effectively what we got last time.

You know, like I'm starting to see the effect of COVID more and more.

I mean, there was that hilarious scene last week where the crowd all had to stand one. 5 metres apart from one another so the transportation beam worked perfectly.

[04:20]

But there's a lot of scenes here where people speak to themselves, particularly Jody.

I mean, that's how this episode starts, and we've got Bell and Vinder, who are essentially meeting one other person or speaking to themselves a lot.

And, you know, it shows a bit, I think.

All right.

Yeah, Brendan.

I was just going to say on that scene with Jody talking to herself.

I have seen it suggested online, um, someone I follow on Twitter, and unfortunately, I can't remember who they were right now, kind of say, oh, you know, we could, we just could have had Jody arrive, and a bit of technobabble explained.

I'm like, I actually really loved Jody in that scene, not just as the doctor, but she's also the voice of the angels in that scene.

Yes.

I only picked that up the 2nd time I watched it actually.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And that was super effective.

And it's like, yeah, you can just gloss over this with a line of technobabble, or you can give Jody something interesting to do, which is something we complain doesn't always happen.

Look, I mean, the way the way that we got out of the cliffhanger from last week so quickly, you know, like, it was a, it was a little bit of a cheat.

[05:29]

It's half a step up from Yeah, it's hard to step up from someone walking in saying stop, basically.

Imagine how much worse it'd be if we didn't resolve the cliffhanger.

It would have been much worse.

And we would have been robbed of that beautiful, weird visual of the plane of angel stretching off into the distance under that sort of stormy sky, like the scenes last week with Claire.

And one of the things this episode does is put weird visuals on screen and I'm absolutely here for it.

Yes.

But I think it's not how they get out of the cliffhanger per se.

It's the fact that it happened straight away.

I think what was needed was for it to go to something else first.

So you have 3 minutes just of that suspension of tension before, you know, it's almost like, you know, okay, we don't do omnibuses anymore, but let's just pretend you're watching it. omnibus.

It would be, she turns into an angel and then 5 seconds later, she, the angel part melts away.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

[06:29]

needed to cut to something else.

Although I remember, sorry, go on, Brandon.

I remember who it was now, who said the thing I just said, it was friend of the podcast, Kevin.

Ah, yes, of course.

He also pointed out that he would have had the Yas and Dan and Hugo Lang montage at the beginning first.

And then revealed the doctor.

It's fine.

So it does give those extra few minutes, as you say, Simon, and yeah, it's a really good point.

Although that, that very 1st visual of what seemed to be unmistakeably Jody's hands over her face, you know, seeing her fingers, like I thought that that was, uh, that was really something.

There is, there is something about the visuals and something about those backgrounds that don't look real.

I mean, they look like special effects, but I think they look really effective and they create a sense of scale.

They look unreal in a good way.

Yeah, yeah.

If I can lip that way.

Not unreal, isn't rubbish.

Unrealizing, you know, otherworldly.

[07:30]

Yeah, yeah.

It's, I think it's great.

I hope that that's a technology that we continue with into the future.

All right.

Let's talk about the 2nd plot, and that is Yaz, Dan, and Eustacius Jericho.

How do we feel that went?

Simon.

Well, I think they move around the planet.

Perhaps unnecessarily and perhaps a little bit ridiculously.

Like, I'm not sure why they pick up the pot from the Chichen Itza in Mexico.

And then for some reason, the only person who can translate it is in Constantinople because of course they'd be familiar with the culture of Miso America.

And then they have to go to the Great Wall of China in order to, you know, message Carbonista by not rising on the Great Wall of China.

I didn't understand that at all.

Well, I don't know what.

Well, I don't know whether it's something to do with, you know, how the, the, the alleged claim that the Great Wall of China is visible from space or something.

And so that they would write a message to him on the Great Wall of China.

[08:35]

Well, of China, but they rode around it and the Great Wall didn't even make a an underline.

You know, or something.

It was kind of, it was kind of a gap in the middle of the, in the middle of the thing.

But look, I think they're obviously very entertaining.

I love the fact that, you know, the 2 middle-aged men are the ones who are kind of bumbling around and, you know, Yaz is the one who knows what she's doing and that's great.

Yeah, I mean, that was that was probably the plotline that I was most engaged.

Yeah, I certainly wasn't engaged with what the doctor was doing.

I just thought it was really terrifically funny.

What about you, Brandon?

Yeah, yeah.

That's the thing.

It's like, this is incredibly inefficient, but also a lot of fun.

Yeah.

And, um, especially the scene with the, um, with the guru on the mountain. like it, you know, it is obviously so modern.

It's it's it's almost like Archer. in its sense of humour.

Um, but I, I, I actually turned to Rod in that scene.

[09:36]

I said, oh, look out, they're going to become the champions any moment.

I did think the guru jumped the shark somewhat.

I confess.

I thought that was a little bit like he was a, he was a guru that you kind of were more likely to sort of find in, you know, in, you know, Los Angeles in, you know, 1973 rather than in...

I mean, it's obviously a fun night version of what is a sort of fairly racist trope.

And so what you do is you have him played by an Indian guy and he's not an idiot and he's sort of funny and likeable and he's got the upper hand in that entire thing.

And the look on his face when he says the word dog because he wasn't expecting it at all.

And he kind of, like, what?

You know, like I think that's actually really pretty fun.

The, you know, the bit from the trailer where Dan just slams into the floor and Yaz says, you're right?

or something like it's so good.

Watcher.

Like, she's really fun in it.

[10:37]

And her beating up the guy was really great as well.

I was just waiting for one of the men to rescue her and it never happened and I was super pleased with that.

It is really... yeah go on.

Simon.

I was just going to say, and I really loved when she's watching the doctor's video recording and the look in her eyes is quite something in terms of it really is communicating something with just a look.

I think that was lovely.

She's so, she's been so wasted over these 3 years.

And because she's...

Yeah, she's really good.

And it just, you know, she just hasn't been given the opportunity to breathe, I think.

Again, though, it was very plotty and not, there's no story, you know, like they just go from place to place to place.

And, you know, maybe we would have been happy with Constantinople had it been sold a bit better or whatever.

Like a, you know, like a better constructed script would have given us better reasons to go from place to place.

[11:40]

But, you know, like it was really sort of just terribly fun.

But that's why I'm, yeah, but that's why I'm sort of sort of curious because you already have the epic feel by being over so many episodes and you have the epic feel that you've got, you know, you're going to so many different time zones and you've got some time, you've got angels and you've got the whole thing.

You don't actually need them to be going to 3 and 45 different places.

You could have the whole thing set in, or their bit set in Constantinople, and that kind of gives you perhaps a bit more of a sense of place and a bit more of a, uh, a connection to it rather than just kind of random stuff.

It's supposed to be kind of like a sort of, you know, Indiana Jonesy sort of capery thing, you know, like with...

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think it definitely works.

I kind of like that this season is never giving me the chance to get bored.

You know, then...

There is no chance.

There is absolutely no chance that you can go, yeah, I've spent enough time here now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[12:42]

Whereas series 11, which I still enjoyed, has some, has some settings that I'm like, this is very worthy, but I'd like to go somewhere else now.

Can we have some fun?

And in terms of characterisation, and, you know, yeah, yeah, being a bit wasted in the previous 2 series.

All the characters who've been newly introduced.

So Bell, Vendor, even the Grand Serpent, even Techtaune in this episode, it's like, we're out to episode 5 now, and I feel like I know these people better than I knew Yaz and Ryan in the Saranga conundrum.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying I know a lot about them.

Because I can sort of go how they'd react in a certain situation.

It is kind of funny because we have all of our characters sort of wandering around randomly bumping into each other.

You know, like and now Carbonist is meeting Bell and now, you know, we're meeting Williamson and now this is happening, you know, and they're all kind of sort of bumping into one another, like, I don't know, Adam's in a particle accelerator.

[13:48]

But that's kind of what you want to have happen at this point.

You want to have them all start to come get into a hole.

And I think you can sort of see that.

So let's do our next plot, which is the Grand Serpent setting up unit.

How do we think that went, Brendan?

The only way I can enjoy this is to go that he has messed around with time and and so it's wrong.

Because...

Are you having a unit dating crisis?

I think it happened.

I think.

Okay, it is impossible for Lethburn Stewart to be a corporal in 1968 and become a colonel by the time of the weather fear, no matter what timeline you set the weather fear in.

It is impossible within the ranking structure of the British army.

Did they call what I'm saying?

Corporal or colonel, I think.

They called him a corporal.

They called him a corporal.

967.

Yeah.

Don't say that we're fair.

We say that in age, the Webber Fear is 1975, isn't that what's supposed to be?

[14:50]

You're saying it's impossible to traverse that?

What if you need something really impressive?

Even if he does, you know, even if he does something really impressive, he would become a junior officer.

Not a, you know, not a kernel.

But apart from that blatant...

Are you worried?

Are you worried?

Yeah, that's right.

I'm writing to my MP about it as you see.

I'm a very passionate person.

I'm the guy who's supposed to be complaining the Doctor Who's not realistic.

That's my role.

Look, as a look, if unit have never existed before now.

Okay, let's put it that way.

Yes, that's an interesting idea that you have this figure weaving himself into Earth's 1st line of alien defence. over the course of 60 years.

No, I think that's a really interesting idea.

And um, The Grand Serpent is a really great villain.

[15:52]

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Yeah, what did you think, Simon?

Do you seem more sceptical.

No, not sceptical.

Just it just felt a bit too fanny that we're going to sort of traverse the the creation of unit through this guy.

It's kind of cool, but I was sort of more interested in everything else that was going on rather than that.

But having said that, yes, he's very good.

Yes, I think it's actually quite well done and I think all the different little scenes throughout the history.

I, I think are quite, are quite nice and I don't have any, I don't have a problem with it, certainly.

And I don't care whether, I mean, I've never had a problem with the unit dating.

I can have 7 different unit timelines in my head simultaneously and it just doesn't matter.

Yeah, I thought that actually some of that was really great.

Like the, you know, the idea that they missed the post office tower and they decide, you know, like because they were kind of only just getting going and stuff, like that was terribly fun.

I think his performance is amazingly great.

[16:52]

I loved the snake.

I loved. is it Robert Bathurst, the guy that he was the lead in joking apart.

And he's fantastic.

You know, like he's so great.

He's such a twit.

You know, like he's so hopeless and it's just like, oh, he's a random person.

I went and clay pigeon shooting with and I'm going to get him to help me design my ultra secret, you know, paramilitary organisation and stuff.

She seems like a, he seems like the right sort of chat.

That's exactly it.

It was just wonderful.

He was really funny.

You know, all of that was great.

The snake was really awesome.

But I just couldn't help thinking that this isn't really going to go anywhere.

And I also kind of think that it's also a sort of 15 minute apology for that crappy joke in resolution.

So that's why Kate Stewart couldn't be caught, you know, couldn't be contacted on the phone.

[17:58]

So, I don't know.

We'll see if that goes anywhere, but certainly it had some pretty entertaining moments in it.

So I'm sort of here for that, I think.

All right.

So it's the plot with the bits of the episode with Jody with the doctor in them.

How did you feel it went?

Brendan This kind of thing is my bag, baby.

It really is.

Yeah, I love having 2 actors go at good material with gusto and emotion.

Look, I have reservations about the doctor being a victim of trauma.

I do have reservations about that, but accepting that that is what we're doing.

I thought Jody was sensational in those scenes.

I thought Barbara Flynn was excellent as well.

And they're sort of, you know, moving around each other in that set, that beautiful like TARDIS with a tree in the centre of it set.

[19:00]

The sort of sacura desktop theme she's got going.

Yeah, look, it, you know, and by nature, it's going to be wordy. its exposition.

Jody having things explained to her again.

But, you know, then you get that scene with Jody and the Oud.

And persuading the Oud to try and start to help her.

And when I'm watching that, I'm going, I know we're not going to get the payoff to that this episode.

I'm looking forward to payoff to that.

Of course, the Ud leaps into action.

Of course he does.

We love the od.

That what's happening.

There are songs, song of her.

Yes.

So, is it true, Simon, to say that everything that you compress can be uncompressed later?

Yeah, I didn't quite get that because the flux isn't really compressing things, is it?

It kind of disintegrating them and making them go whiskey off into the distance.

No, because we have to adversity in episode six, so it compresses them now.

Yeah.

[20:01]

Right.

Okay.

But, look, I mean, I was only watching it the 2nd time that I realised that, you know, the doctors on the in the Field of Angels for a few minutes and then she's spending the rest of the episode with Czech Taun, and I realised, my God, you really do have that amount of time, with the 2 of them talking with the oud.

I mean, it starts with Tectayon saying, so you'd like to know about the division.

And it's like the curiosity show.

I mean, this creek goes over the head of a lot of Arington, all their international audience and anyone under the age of about sort of 35.

But, you know, it's like, I'm glad you asked.

I will now tell you for the next 40 minutes what everything about the division.

It's kind of, it's not that I don't like exposition.

Exposition's going to be, and a certain amount of technobabble is always going to be a part of a program like this and a plot like this.

Yes, and I love it.

I lap it up, like you, Brendan, I can lap it up.

I can sit there.

I can laugh.

But I just think it was ham fisted in the sort of the sense that it was just not very well crafted and so it was just a whole lot of stuff mushed together rather than it feeling like it was being revealed.

[21:09]

Yeah, I think I think essentially that that's the problem.

If Jody had found that stuff out, then I think it would be better than, you know, because it is just basically the same exposition being explained to Jody that she had explained to her 7 episodes ago.

And I just kind of think, oh, you know, come on.

And it is, it's a little bit, you know, the, you know, everyone loves fugitive of the Jadoon.

But there's the scenes with Captain Jack, which is literally just 10 minutes of nothing happening on a set while people just talk.

You know, no, there's no peril, there's no obstacles, there's no, like, like, I think that this is a lot of plot, the flux, generally, but no story because the characters aren't going on a journey or learning anything or doing anything.

And I think that's what he's going for, is going for like big space things and they're fun to look at and there's some pleasure to be had there.

[22:12]

But I don't think this even reached the level of plot.

I think this was just, you know, he's the thing again.

Um, and, you know, like she doesn't have a relationship with Tech Taune.

She never met her.

Um, so, like, she doesn't remember meeting her.

Yeah, yeah, but that's the same thing, you know, like, that's the same thing.

You know, she can't be a victim of trauma if she doesn't remember having experienced the trauma, you know, in a very rare way it didn't happen to her.

I think that this whole backstory has no bearing on the doctor and that's pretty much what she says in the timeless child.

So I know why we're doing it again.

So I did think that killed him.

We're doubling down.

Yeah, yeah.

I saw it as doubling down on the toilet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, even to the point where she says, so the, you know, the master, everything the master told me was true and it's just, you know, take Tame doesn't say, wait, who?

Um, again, someone else said that.

But, you know, like it just sort of was, you know, all right.

And I do think some, there's the COVID thing is showing, you know, that we're not going to all have a car chase.

[23:21]

We're not going to, you know, do anything sort of, it is just going to be us standing around in a very weird and very beautiful set, just talking about space things.

And it's also chip not trusting the audience a little bit.

You know, the bit where Yaz explains the cyanide in the tooth, the cyanide capsule in the tooth?

Yeah.

And you kind of go, oh, come on.

Like we've watched television before. don't need to do that.

In fact, it would be cooler not to.

You could just do that and not have the line of dialogue explaining what had just happened.

And here, you know, like the visual of the division base between the 2 universes was so good and so well done that you didn't need quite as much explanation, I think.

I think we could be shown these things on TV.

It's not a big Finnish script, you know, we could be shown stuff, I think.

[24:22]

Yes, look out there.

There are 100s of them.

I think that there's, um, there's, it's that thing that there, because they spend the entire time yabbbering at each other.

You don't get time to appreciate any sense of mystery or any sense of one or it's just all being fired at you at such a rapid pace that you can't appreciate it properly.

And I think that's what I, what I'm saying, we're being sort of smushed together.

I mean, like I do think that the 2 actors did a good job with what they had.

Just as Sasha did, you know, with the exposition in the timeless child.

And in fact, I'm giving, is it Barbara Flynn?

Barbara Flynn.

She's getting the Sasha Dawan award for services to exposition this week, actually.

I was just going to say, regarding Tech Teune.

The thing that disappointed me a little bit was, It's like 2 weeks ago when we saw it, people were like, oh, God, it's Tecton.

[25:27]

And I was like, well, yes, that's the most obvious person it could be.

And it ended up being the most obvious person it could be.

Yeah.

Stephen Buffett approach.

I thought it was going to be the frog.

The the other thing with the with the Sinai capsule.

We need to keep in mind, I think, that children are watching who aren't familiar with like the tropes of spy thrillers and Agatha Christie and what have you.

And without that, without that line, the visuals are like, hold on, does Yaz kill him?

Oh, yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

And I think I think that's that's the reason it has to be in there.

It has to be utterly clear that he took his own life, not one of our heroes.

Even though they do then think the sharks.

With this course.

One of my former students contact.

I think that's actually how necessarily gruesome makes up.

I quite like it.

Why do I, why do I, forward students contacted me today and said uh, how come uh, Yaz has so much experience getting rid of bodies, you know, so much confidence and experience when it comes to getting rid of bodies.

[26:35]

And I explained she was a member of the police force and he thought that that was probably fair enough.

All right.

Okay.

So does anyone have that's our 4 plots.

So does anyone have any closing statement?

Just before we get to the closing statement.

I just need to mention that the snake did, whatever his name was.

I love the fact that if Kate's being told that unit's being defunded in 2017.

In 2021, he still has the unit logo on his TV screen.

Did you say?

He stole it from the office.

He stole it to replace the screensaver on the TV.

Just him now.

Unit is just a bloke in an almost.

There you go, yes, yeah.

It's like Torchwood Swansea or wherever it was. there's one there's one torchwood that is just a bloke in an office on a seashore or something.

He's so good Look, look, look, look. poured into that suit.

[27:36]

Yes.

Look, look, my sort of feeling is that, I mean, I, I, my favourite episode of the series so far is certainly the 2nd episode, and I think that's still, that's because it's the one that felt most engaging.

And I can't escape the fact that it's the one where the doctor and the companions are interacting with the widest array of other characters.

Um, you know, rather than having Vinder and Bell off doing their own thing and, you know, someone as you're only turning up sort of at the end, they're all, you know, there's all this other stuff happening.

And, and, I mean, I was engaged by that.

I was drawn.

I was finding that I wasn't breathing properly when we got to that cliffhanger.

Um, I just feel that what's missing is, is craft.

The whole thing is not coming together in a way that justifies its scope, if I can put it that way.

It needs to, it needed to be just more clearly thought through, and I'm not saying it's because it's all moving too fast, and I appreciate there are certain ways they want to sort of make it, make it exciting and engaging.

[28:42]

But just having an awful lot of stuff happening.

It doesn't make it exciting and engaging unless you can see more clearly how it's all fitting together.

I hope it all resolves next week in a satisfactory way.

I'm not expecting it to be completely satisfactory, but I'm just hopeful that a few of the sort of bits come together.

I'm worried it's not going to though.

There's the Star Trek principle, you know, where the odd-numbered episodes are sort of a bit disappointing and the even-numbered episodes are good.

And so we, who knows next week could be the undiscovered country.

Exactly.

And it's not just, it's not just the odd number ones aren't as good.

The odd numbers ones are also weird and experimental and weirdly put together.

And I think that's definitely true of one, 3, and 5 of blocks. and 2 and 4 are the better one.

You know?

I mean, I think of the odd numbered episodes, I think that this was the one that I enjoyed the most.

Um, I didn't yeah, I didn't like 3 very much.

[29:42]

I thought one was fine.

Like, I like that structure of just, you know, introducing everyone and having this sort of huge universe spanning event.

I thought that was, you know, reasonably well done.

Oh, best line of the show, um, is, is where Yaz says, are you from Liverpool, Dan?

You've never mentioned it.

And her delivery of that line and the look on her face after she says it, I roared out, you know, I roared with laughter.

It was wonderful.

She's really good.

And also, regarding that scene, isn't Chris Chibnall very considerate giving big finish, Mandip Gill, John Bishop and Kevin McNally, box sets for years?

Oh, I'm there for that.

In 1908, in 1901 to 1904 of them knocking about.

Robbing people.

Because we've been in this time zone for 3 years.

We've been in this decade for 3 years now.

[30:43]

Yaz, as you know.

I think they've been robbing people for 2 years, so they can afford all the overseas travel.

Yeah, no.

They're from the future.

No, they've been they've been manually reinserting the village back into the earth surface for 2 years, I think, probably.

All right.

Okay.

So in that case, um, we've got some plugs, uh, series 6 of Flight 3 entire 80 continues unabated and next week, we will be joined by Joe Ford and Jack Shanahan for closing time.

And then we'll sort of finish the series a bit after that.

Have you been walking to work with Whittaker today?

A walk to work with Whittaker.

Will return about 12 hours after this episode goes up.

Basically, there was no time to do it today, so I'll do it tomorrow morning.

[31:43]

Okay, brilliant.

Don't get run over.

I will not.

And then our other podcast, maximum power continues with series A, and Untitled Star Trek project.

We recently did our 1st episode of Discovery, which we liked very much.

And next week we are going to do Star Trek, the original series, The Corpa Mite maneuver.

So keep an eye out for that on Friday.

And so all that remains is for me to say, until next time, remember that teasing people is important.

Make sure you never miss an opportunity to do it.

I don't.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Good night.