The Vanquishers

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Jody and Tera, the only Doctor Who flashcast with its own entry on doesthedog die.com.

I'm Nathan.

I'm James.

I'm Peter and I'm Todd.

So we are here to talk about the Vanquishers by Chris Chibnell, ably directed by Asia, Salim, who did Once Upon Time and Survivors of the Flux.

He seems to have got the weird space reasons episodes this year.

I'm going to go around the group and ask you some questions, but I do want us to pour one out for the Cliffhanger resolution, which was the doctor walking briskly away from swarm after being threatened by him at the end of the last episode.

So the 80s cliffhanger as well and truly back and I'm completely here for it.

Actually, I watched it the 2nd time just now, and it said previously, and then when the Cliffhanger came and then it was new material, it changed to now, and I thought that was actually pretty cool.

[01:07]

I was sort of super into that.

Anyway, it kind of, it kind of reminded me of the episode Assassin in Bleak 7, where Dana teleports down and sees Servoland and says, you, and is about to kill her, but then gets distracted, and Servoland just turns around and walk, walk, walks out of frame, and that's it.

So great.

In fact, that is kind of saved by swarm's line. which is she thinks running will do some good or something like that.

He's just to, he's like Servilan.

He's just not going to run, not in that makeup and not in those heels.

And again, I just think he's so good.

All right.

I've been talking to people about this and I just wanted to get each of you to comment on Jody's performances, the doctor this week.

Do you want to start us off, Todd?

Oh, thank you, Nathan.

I don't believe I'm going to say this.

You know, the whole history of her time on the show, I don't believe she's actually saved an episode, but I believe she saved this episode.

[02:14]

I really thought she was extremely good.

And I actually enjoyed her performance and even if there were other things I didn't enjoy.

What about you, James?

Which performance, Todd?

All 3 of her.

Yes.

I just think that it's the end of her time and I think when a doctor gets towards the end of their time and they know they're going. they free themselves off a bit to do things that are off script and I think up to this season she's been on script all the time and and I just think in this episode she was doing little things that she's never done before just facial expressions or tiny little looks and I think she's was just freer than she's ever been.

I think we've made the point on the flash cast already this season that Jody's really been helped by being split up from the regulars.

And so she's had different characters to interact with.

She's been able to throw off different reactions and it just gives her wider character scope as an actress and more things to work with.

And it has shown this is, you know, whatever you think of the baseline of her time on the series.

[03:16]

This has undoubtedly been her best series.

Yeah.

What about you, James?

Look, I think I think Jody's had some really, really good moments this season.

Especially in this episode.

That that scene with her flirting with herself is just joyful.

Um, and and even the sort of the gurning that she, you know, some some people find it quite irritating about her.

Even that seems to have become a bit more natural.

I think it's a test of any actor when you have to act against yourself because you have to sort of get the rhythms right.

And I mean, it helped that she wasn't in the same frame a lot, and so it was a lot of cutting and reversed.

There wasn't a lot of putting her into the same shot.

But that is a test of an actor.

Yeah, I really noticed that they kind of taken the easy way out there.

Well, they couldn't have her in the same shot with herself because of COVID restriction. social distancing.

You have to stay away from one. metres away from yourself at all times.

[04:18]

I want to make special mention of her scene with the Grand Serpent, where I thought she was really quite great.

And that was maybe her best confrontation with a villa.

And then, and she had a pretty good confrontation, a good socially distanced confrontation with that Santara in episode two.

And again, I thought she was really good.

And I think it really goes to show that it's it's been dependent on the writing.

I think this was always a possibility, but she was just never given the opportunity to do it.

And I, you know, I really enjoyed her this week.

I thought she was great.

Also her against herself as time at the very end too.

But just to pick up something that James said then is that sometimes in the character, this particular doctor rattles off all these things.

In a sentence, and it just let, it comes across like she's just reading a script, like in previous seasons, but in this episode when she has all those little thoughts, you know, that are all in a sequence, she actually paused.

[05:24]

There were little pauses, and I just thought, this is the 1st time you're actually doing that and I actually can see a performance there that I'm actually enjoying.

There was times throughout this season, and especially this episode where the doctor looked like she was fed up, and I've kind of been missing that because I think you're right, Nathan. absolutely in the writing.

She hasn't had much steel.

She's generally been quite a go along to get along character and the performance has informed that that's what's there on the page.

But she's just been given.

She's been giving short shrift to the opponents that she's got because she's just, she's a bit fed up and I'm here for that.

Yeah, it's my favourite thing about Peter Davison's performance, as the dog, for instance, is that he isn't the nice one.

He's the one who's basically fed up with everyone and I think that that's a good mode for the doctor to operate in.

Let's talk about the primary antagonist who surprised us with their return at the end of episode five, and that's the Santarians.

[06:24]

How do you think the Santarans came across this week?

Peter.

Did the Son Torans really invade Liverpool twice in 5 weeks?

Yes, apparently.

Hey, very quickly got elected head of the human resistance against the Santarians.

So there's that.

No, she did that in 2017.

Maybe.

I think the Chipnall iteration of the Santarians is the best that we've had since the classic series.

And, uh, I mean, it's part of the reason why I did enjoy this episode.

I enjoyed it on a very superficial level.

Um, I thought there was far too much happening and um, the explanations came thick and fast mostly for space reasons, but having the Satarans involved didn't mean that every time it cut back to them, I was just enjoying what was on the screen.

There's that line where one of them says, you know, there's 2 outcomes for these success or death.

[07:25]

And Jericho says, you know, what's the reward for success?

And it's Dan Starkey, isn't it?

And he just says death with exactly the same intonation as he had in the previous line, and it's so perfect.

I'd be so terrified that Chibna would make the Santarans boring and serious.

And in fact, he's made them maybe funnier than they've ever been.

Well, that's ridiculous, isn't it?

We've had tracks and links, but made them properly funny again, and I think they were great.

But he's made them traditional.

Yeah, but hilarious.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's they've got the humour in them, not of them, if you're not ever.

They're kind of an acme of what I thought Chipnall might do with the entire show, which was be quite traditional, reach back into the classic series and just kind of present things quite simply and in a straightforward fashion.

And he's hit on that with the Santarans.

He hasn't, he hasn't done anything that I didn't expect he would, but he's done what he has done quite well.

[08:30]

If that makes sense.

Yeah No I'm here for them.

What about you, Tom?

I utterly enjoyed their entire thread through out this episode.

You know, I can talk about a lot of other things happening because they simply needed to happen for plot points, but I really just enjoyed every single sequence they were in, their whole, um, tricking of the cybermen, the Daleks, you know, and and chocolate.

Yeah.

It was so great.

Even Jody's dialogue as well.

Like, there are occasional jokes that have landed this year.

I thought last week was really funny, for instance, but the one where the doctor comes in and says, you know, I'd like to have a little shop like this, a little corner shop exactly like this one, except I would make a few changes and go on.

What are you talking about?

And it was just a very weird kind of fabulous. little, you know, a little exchange.

I liked it a lot.

That's a that's a riff on on the tenant line.

[09:30]

Yeah, yeah, the little shop in the in the hospital foyer.

So we've got 2 more questions that I want to deal with before we wind up.

And 1st is how did we feel this episode went generally?

And this summer I might start with you, James.

I think it was a mess.

It was a real mess.

There was so much going on.

And there was...

There was very little time to comprehend things or breathe, and there was a lot of dialogue and ADR to cover the fact that I think that I think was heavily edited.

I think it's it was probably closer to 75 minutes and they had to chop it to pieces.

Um, but it was an enjoyable mess.

I enjoyed it and I joined it more rewatching it.

Last night after, after watching it at 6 AM.

I must have been really grumpy yesterday morning because I was super furious at it at the end of the 1st watch.

[10:35]

I kind of watched too.

And I felt a bit better about it watching it tonight.

There was this whole thing where...

I was like, well, what happened to the universe?

And Brendan pointed out to me, um, that, you know, they, They did actually, they did, they did wrap that up.

Um, and I missed it because it was lots of dialogue dump.

There was there were moments where they talked about um, redirecting the flux away from the earth. towards Atropos.

So the earth...

Anyone else longer the last thing that we can kill?

And also, you know, the ood fiddling with it to make it less... less destructive as well.

So, I mean, that shouldn't, it should be, so not tell, but they did actually wrap that up and sort of explain why.

Only the, at least not only the earth that's left, which was the original kind of impression you got from last week.

[11:40]

I think show not tell has never been a theory that Chris Chibmill has subscribed to.

Um, and we did in fact get a lot of that um, this week.

But, um, it's an episode that's impossible to watch on its own, I think.

It was very much conclusion to the series and it wasn't its own thing.

And so, If you enjoyed the explanations of how it wrapped up the threads and thought it did a good job of that.

You probably got quite a lot from it.

I didn't.

I thought, like James, that it was a mess, but that's because everything that had been set up, sometimes quite successfully in previous episodes, I thought wasn't pulled together properly or was kind of quite glibly explained.

And so at the end, I was kind of left with that rush of, I think we've had all of the explanations there, but did any of them land for me?

I not sure.

What about you, Tom?

I kind of think that, uh, it is all explained, but it's all, it's all joined the dots, and it's all like, well, we needed Vintage to go into the passenger and we needed Diane to have an adventure in there and work it all out so she could explain it all in like 5 seconds.

[12:47]

And, you know, we needed the 3 doctors to be in the convenient places for everybody.

And we needed Bill to be the 3rd wheel in that plot so she could do whatever she did to the Santara and ship that, but, but not be in really any real danger.

You know, we needed suddenly at the end, um, azure and swarm to sort of be there with time and then just be wrapped up, you know, it was all, all those things were all happening, right?

And they all had explanations.

But a lot of them were very, very quick and short, maybe because of, you know, it's 6 episodes and not seven.

I mean I don't know.

But there were explanations, but at times I did feel like I'm just getting talked to, you know, by when I was not in the Santaran plot, you know, and I mean, poor Kate Stewart had very little to do.

And it was great to see her.

And, and, you know, she said you'd love to, she loved the doctor and all that sort of thing.

But other than that, what did she really bring to the table, except, you know, a bit of a conclusion from last week and getting wrapped into the, what's his name, Serpent, um, The Grand Serpent's thing.

[13:52]

I mean, I'm sounding like I'm really down on that, but for the most part, I was quite pleased that I actually got explanations and things were there generally, even if they were brief, because I thought there'd be a lot more hanging and I'd be a lot more angry about things, but I was kind of going, okay, that's fine.

Some of the dialogue is still terrible.

Yeah, I'm saying it's not.

We're trained to, you know, like respond to all these different situations. the last one we do is passenger form.

Wow.

That's because we don't have 10 minutes to go through it.

We've got to explain it in 20 seconds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It didn't have to be said.

It seems unforgivable that we got to that point given that pretty much nothing happened in episode five.

So we were spinning our wheels and having things explained to us in episode five, but almost no one's plot got advanced beyond we all met Joseph Williamson in the tunnels at the end.

[14:55]

So like, I think that's a problem.

And so let's talk about the flux as a whole.

How do you feel about this season generally, Todd?

Now we're here.

I really like this season a lot more. than the previous two?

Yep.

I think a basis for Jody, I really liked Jericho a lot.

I was a bit miffed that he got killed and other people just had to survive because they were plot devices.

Um, but generally, It's a season I do want to go back and rewatch because I think looking at the, um, you know, the episodes that sort of are the space reason episodes, I'm just interested to see what's in that and and that sort of thing.

I mean, but I do think it was wrapped up far too quickly.

I mean, azure and swarm after the 1st 15 minutes had nothing much to do until right till the end, really.

Like, you know, and I thought they were going to be much more prevalent.

[15:55]

But it's a triumph for Jody, I think.

James?

Overall, I've really enjoyed this season.

Um, Most of it actually has helped together quite well.

Um, and you know, we're, we're, we're, you're often quite down on, um, treadmills writing.

But, you know, and not just us, fandom, generally.

Discerning viewers.

You know, same people to know.

But I actually think he constructed something quite enjoyable.

Um, he's not great with dialogue, but I think I think overall the season actually held together quite well.

For something that is almost the length of a, um, a Sylvester McCoy.

Season.

Um, Over 6 episodes um, It it actually. was quite full of, uh, entertaining moments, um, and some really good concepts, not necessarily, you know, the best, like realised the best way possible, but, I, I enjoyed it, and the cast was great.

[17:11]

I think Broadchurch was successful not because of the quality of gymnal scripts, but because of the quality of the cast and the quality of the production.

And I think here, both the cast and the production were really great.

I thought there were 2 good directors.

I thought the thing looked amazing.

I was watching, you know, it's COVID, so we're going to have lots of cartoon special effects at the end, and because this is a giant epic about space reasons.

And those special effects at the end were really astonishingly good.

And some of those strange environments were great.

So, you know, I think that both of those things it really definitely had going for it.

And I wonder if the show has ever looked quite as good as this.

Yeah, I need disappointing special effect in the entire season, I think, was there was the time special effect.

Like, which just looked like it was a placeholder for what they were actually going to put in there.

Yeah.

[18:12]

What about you, Peter?

I thought it was a pretty unremarkable set of episodes.

Pretty standard.

And that's not a, that's not a terrible thing, actually, because that might have been more than I hoped for.

But what it did have was some big ideas, which I think.

Generally worked, even if they didn't come off quite well in the end, I did enjoy kind of the ideas behind azure and swarm and division.

And I think there was one good episode and one excellent episode, uh, those being, um, Village of the Angels and uh, War of the Santarans, being the excellent episode, and they kind of piqued my interest and felt more, more like traditional Doctor Who, and the Doctor Who, that I've always loved, maybe more than anything in the last 2 seasons of Chipmall.

So I think that overall that's a plus and a score.

I agree with you, Peter, on that on that level.

I still don't care about the time as children or really the division very much.

I mean, I just don't.

[19:14]

And, you know, it's happened.

The time thing happened, the time it all happened and it's all resolved, but I'm not, make her angry about it or anything like that, like I've been in the past.

So, You know?

Yeah, that's a lot of things, but it wasn't a lot of things to make you roll your eyes, was there, Todd?

No, and I actually thought, is it a jur's speech to the doctor, when she was absolutely mesmerising, it was one of the highlights of the episode, I thought her big info jump.

Do you know what I thought the problem with that was?

Because that was like uh, your evil is my good speech, you know, it was the idea that they just had incommensurate ideas of what was worth preserving.

They're differently moraled.

Yeah, that's right.

And she says, you know, well, that's your faith, and I have my faith, and the difference is that my faith is true.

And in a way, like Chipnill's a bit kind of pessimistic.

There's lots of dismal post-apocalypses and the doctor walks past terrible things that are happening to people and, you know, um, And I liked that.

[20:20]

But what I thought was telling was that Chibnell didn't have a good answer to it.

He couldn't put something in the doctor's dialogue that answered what the point of her fight was.

And it was kind of like the universe is the way it is for a reason and you just sort of think, oh, well, that's your sort of dismal centurism again.

You know, like, what do you stand for?

And I think that's disappointing.

Nathan, what do you think of a well prepared meal?

Yeah, that would have been good.

But Nathan, what do you think of her just throwing the watch down into the heart of the Tartars at the end that it's just sitting there so we don't really get any answers?

I think she angstered more about that watch than she did about all those countless planets and people being wiped out and 7 billion dogs being killed.

Which was done off screen.

Yeah that was terrible.

Yeah, that was that was pretty bad.

I wanted to see that.

Do you really want to see them?

No, but, you know, show something.

Why did they all have to get in there?

7000000 dogs die onscreen.com.

[21:21]

But I mean, if you can operate all of those ships by remote control from one ship, like it just seems to me, like maybe the other 7000000000 dogs could have stayed home.

I, you know, anyway.

In their kennels.

Yeah, at least we're talking about this will be pulling it to shreds.

Only one dog costume.

Yeah, that'd be worked.

And it is a good dog costume.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So here is what I think the problem is with it.

And that is that a lot of things happen, but they don't seem to matter to anyone.

And so this is plot but not story.

And so there are a lot of space things that happen in an enjoyable way and he's decided that that's what he's going to do.

It's not going to be, you know, plastic daffodils or burping garbage bins or, I don't know why I'm going to autons, but whatever, is not going to be grounded. going to be very sort of space things and that's fine.

But what I missed was that no characters had an arc.

[22:24]

And the 2 closest things to an arc, where the doctor starts wanting to know her past and is dragging, you know, Yaz along for the ride without telling her.

And then at the end, she either does or doesn't want to know, and we don't know which, because she loses the watch, but then says, oh, but keep it in case I want it, so we don't know.

So she doesn't go from anything to anything.

And even if she doesn't want those memories now, we don't know why.

And it's not even hinted at, and I think that's a problem.

The other arc, I think, is Dan and Diane.

And again, I don't know why Diane didn't want to go with him except that he needed to be free to be in the specials.

So he could travel with the doctor.

And I think, I think that's disappointing.

I mean, it would have been easy to have shown the effect that being trapped in the passenger hat on Diane or that she was scared of Dan because dreadful things happened when she met him or whatever.

[23:30]

She's just broken.

Yeah, we didn't get anything.

And I think that's the problem.

It's not like it was reaching for that.

No.

It's like, it just wasn't, it wasn't competent enough to make, to make that point.

Well, I just don't think he wanted to make that and I think that's a problem.

And I also think too, so without a big revelation, the reason we were waiting for a big revelation about Bell and Vinda was, why else are they here?

And it just turned out, well, they just wandered around missing one another and then met by accident in the TARDIS.

You know, like these things, you know, some of these things are just due to COVID and stuff, you know, you need an expanded regular cast and people doing things on their own and whatever, but I just thought that was all a bit of a mess.

So I can easily see myself rewatching the flux, like bingeing it and having a reasonably good time, but I do think there's a problem with the absence of people.

It's what my mother always suspected Doctor Who was like.

It was just full of space people doing space things for space reasons.

[24:34]

And Nathan, I do agree with you, all those observations, um, totally.

And, you know, it's like Paul Jericho's death.

Yaz had one a 12nd reaction.

Dan had nothing.

We moved on like Adric with Nissa and Tegan, you know, let's go and have a, let's go back space adventuring, you know?

And it's all those little tiny non-character moments or non-character arcs that do, in the cold, hard light of day, leave you not liking things as much or reflecting on it and going, oh, I just wish there was some more purpose to it and despite all the positives that is in this series.

Well, it's the craft of, it's the craft of writing, isn't it?

It's not about plot and story.

It's about the impact that these things have on your characters.

And the single biggest thing lacking in Chris Chibnall's writing, and we got it this season as well as the previous seasons, is that things don't impact on his characters.

We don't learn anything about them.

So Dan, who I think has been a missed opportunity and has gotten by on the charisma of the actor.

[25:39]

That's all.

Um, That scene with Diane could have been revealing of him.

It was kind of the last best chance to give him some interiority, and again, it was just glossed over.

And so it has no impact on us because we can't see any impact on him.

We did get that speech from him in episode 3 about being left at the altar.

But again, that was kind of a kicked puppy moment.

You know, like it was meant to engender sympathy for him from us and from Diane.

But we didn't learn anything about him, really.

You know, that's a thing that happened to him.

And do you love how?

Tommy more about Singh.

It's basically what I get from that.

He just doesn't understand human emotion.

I wonder if the, is it the Grand Serpent?

I always forget what his name is.

I wonder, you know, he's now stuck on some asteroid somewhere, his revenge is coming with Kate Stewart.

You know, is it going to be in the 2nd special or the 3rd special?

[26:41]

Who knows?

I actually hope to see him again.

Yeah, he was great at his time.

Yeah.

Swarm Azia, the Son Tarans, and the Grand Serpent were all pretty great.

And Swarmanazir who were criminally underused, were just tremendous.

Just the look and the acting and they were so camp.

It was really something.

And if I understand, swarm correctly.

Um, he wanted to destroy the universe, released time, and then just rewatch it.

So I have a lot of sympathy with that kind of impulse.

He's a block to me.

Yeah, exactly.

All right.

Well, I think that we're done for the season then, and so I've got a few things left to plug, uh, we are releasing our Wedding of River song episode on Flight Through Entirety, uh, this coming Sunday.

Brendan has released his walk to work with Whittaker episode for episode six, so there'll be a link to that in the show notes.

[27:47]

Take a look in your podcatcher.

He doesn't get run over this week and it's always delightful when that happens.

We also have maximum power nearing the very end of series A of Blake 7 and Joe and I will be tackling our 1st episode of Enterprise this coming Friday on Untitled Star Trek project.

So there's a long road getting there.

And we make that point.

Sorry.

All right.

So all that remains is for me to say, until next time, have a relaxing and enjoyable holiday season and we will see you again early in the new year.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

See you soon.

Remember, everyone.

A Cavanistra is for life, not just for Christmas.

6.5 out of 10.