Doctor Who: Flux, Chapter 3- Once, Upon Time

 “Time is playing games with you all."

I have to admit this episode is pretty damn awesome, and has me bloody excited. I have my usual reservations with Chibnall's retconning of the Doctor's past and continuity- has it been thought through? Is it going to benefit the show in the long term rather than buden it with confused and conflicting continuities? There's a reason why the so-called Cartmel Masterplan quite deliberately never amounted to the odd vague hint. However, in the moment, I'm enjoying the ride. A lot.

I've been reading a lot of Michael Moorcock lately, and this feels very much like his work. Concepts like the Passenger, a planet called Time and awar between Time and Space are very Moorcockian, if that's a word. The Flux is decimating space; now the same is happening in time. The narrative is complex, with the Doctor, Yaz, Dan and Vinder jumping between different times and places simultaneously, some real and some relived memories- but memories with details changed. Nothing is stable. I have reservat ions about how the general public will take to this, but this middle aged geek loves it.

We get nice little glimpses into the pasts of both Yaz and Dan, good character moments for the pair of them Dan and Diane are sweet together and she's clearly besotted, and Dan is horrified to discover she's trapped within the Passenger. We also learn Vinder's past- and he's a whistleblower in a corrupt society who was punished for doing the right thing, a difficult concept to grasp in the "in no way corrupt" Britaoin of 2021 (Ooh, bit of politics there...). We also see the mysterious Bel, on a quest (with her unborm Tamagochi child or summat) for love that encompasses hordes of Daleks, Cybermen and others.... only to discover at the end that she and Vinder are a couple on mutual quests for each other.

Oh, and Vinder knows what a TARDIS is, which is interesting...

But we also, of course, learn a lot about scenes from the Doctor's past which she relives alongside people she sees as Yaz, Dan and Vinder. Yet her own reflection shows her as the Jo Martin Doctor, while Dan is really Karvanista, who must be bloody ancient. So who are the other two...?

The Doctor is leading an army for the Division, an agent of law and order against the same two baddies as the present day. But are they baddies? They seem to have an ideology (Time must not be constrained) which is not obviously any more right than that of the Division.But we get very little context... until a mysterious scene with Barbara Flynn as a mysterious woman who explains that the Flux and all this is deliberate, the universe ending is the point, and it's all the Doctor's fault.

Oh, and there are some awesome action sequences with Cybermen and especially Weeping Angels, now right up there as iconic baddies. Yes, I loved this episode, and Chibnall wrote it. But let's hope what he's doing to the mythology of the show doesn't break it, or I may well look back upon this episode less fondly...

Doctor Who: Flux, Chapter Two- War of the Sontarans

 “Repair must not be undertaken by idiots!"

Once again, for the second week in succession, I must admit this episode is pretty good. Chibnall's scripts have a certain lack of wit and polish, but he's getting better. And, much as I'm not sure how the general family viewing public will be reacting to this complex, universe-spanning, timey-wimey plot, I'm quite enjoying it.

The main season plot chugs on underneath as our three mysterious baddies from the dawn of time- Azure, Swarm, and the bizarrely named Passenger- attack a planet called Time, which isn't supposed to exist, where mysterious priests called Mouri keep Time itself under control as, apparently, when Time is uncontrolled it is "evil". All this is brand new mythology, unknown either to us or, interestingly, the Doctor. It'll be interesting to see where Chibbers is going with this. So far it seems to be about providing a Perils of Pauline-style cliffhanger for Yaz and Vinder, now integrated into the gag, just to give us a cliffhanger, but the concepts are cool.

Meanwhile, the Sontarans have exploied the Flux to invade Earth and, in a nice touch, are basing their claim on Linx's exploits all that time ago- and they seem to have time technology far more extensive than that of The Time Warrior, invading Earth at all points in its past in a plan which is rathere confusing to think about. But the extended sequence of the Doctor and Mary Seacole in the Crimean War is rather fun as an A plot for the episode, and I must confess that history being changed so that the British, French and Ottomans are fighting the Sontarans, not the Russians, is pretty damn cool. And I like the portrayal of the Sontarans- comedic, yes, as they have been since RTD brought them back, but also brutal.

As is the Doctor. Jodie Whittaker proves to still be on fire here: she's awesome.So, too, is the character of Dan, merrily slaughtering hordes of Sontarans with a wok given to him by his mum in Sontaran-occupied Liverpool, as you do, in scenes which reminded me a bit of Independence Day.

There's also that sceptical bloke ffom 1820 wandering around in the temple on the planet Time, and so many cool concepts and set pieces not least of which is a Sontaran on a horse. I must admit, I'm rather enjoying this.

Outlaw King (2018)

“I’m done with running and I’m sick of hiding!”

Time for a good, proper historical epic, I thought; it’s been a bit of a while. And what better, I thought, than this recent Netflix offering? Well, I’m certainly glad I watched this spiritual follow-up to Braveheart that deserves to be known for far more than its famous sex scenes.

As a historical epic the film works well- complex events over many years are successfully collapsed into a suitably dramatic narrative. The film looks convincingly like mediaeval Scotland as it would have been, with no tartan in sight. And Chris Pine is a charismatic and convincingly Scottish star. We get a suitably moustache twirling Edward I and a surprisingly a rather large role for the future Edward II, wisely not dwelling on his sexual orientation.

This is a superb subject for a film and it’s surprising it hasn’t been filmed more often- the extreme reversal of fortune shown by Robert the Bruce is intrinsically very dramatic indeed. The slow courtship between Robert and the devoted but fierce Elizabeth is wonderful and rings true, although the sex scene when they finally do it is startlingly realistic. You are certainly left in no doubt of the moment where he climaxes. Whether it was equally satisfying for her is, it seems, lost to history.

There are some moments that make one raise an eyebrow- would Edward I really have had access to the jealously guarded secret that was “Greek Fire”? It’s also strictly inaccurate to have the English royals and nobility speaking English, unlike the Anglophone Scottish nobles, but I think we can overlook that. What we have here is a truly impressive version of events which really, really needed to be made into a film. Highly recommended.