181 Once, Upon Time

Live from Master Closet Studios, you’re listening to the only podcast on the internet that doesn’t know when this is: It’s the Noobs and the… Noob? 

My name is Austin and I’m the Whovian? and these are my sons Corbin and Tripp and we’re the noobs! 

This is the podcast that introduces a whole new generation to Doctor Who by watching an episode each week and discussing it from the perspective of a dad who HASN’T seen it before, and two sons who haven’t. 

Welcome to Episode 181 covering Series 13 episode 3 entitled Doctor Who: Flux, Chapter 3 – Once, Upon Time

Super-short Recap

This is the one where the Doctor and her companions get lost in time. Like I ran out of time to write this.

Production notes

• Story #297c
• Originally aired November 14, 2021 to 3.76 million viewers
  • Last week’s episode ended up with 5.1 million
• Written by: Chibs
• Directed by: Azhur Saleem

Checklist

• Name of the episode spoken in dialogue?
  • The little blue bits
  • Particles of the Timeforce- tiny fragments of temporal destruction that destroy whatever they touch
  • Time was released for long enough, the damage is done
• TARDIS 
  • Sideways door again
• Name Dropping
  • John Burroughs once said, Leap and the net will appear.
  • An American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States
• Adventures in closed captioning!
  • I’ll smite you! I spite you!

Other stuff we noticed

• An Angel appeared in the Timestorm, and then again in the TARDIS
• I like that when they’re in their other timelines, they’re still wearing what they were wearing in the present, but the other people are wearing their period-correct clothes, but they look like people from the present.
  • But the Fugitive Doctor was NOT wearing tactical gear!
• Scoring was amazing! There’s a bit where Dan was talking to Diane and the music is sweet and lovely, then it goes minor and creepy when he sees the blue things
• I LOVED seeing Jodie play that cop
• Locate the Ravagers – are Swarm and Azure Ravagers?
• Nobody calls them video games?
• The Daleks, Sontarans, and Cybermen are all fighting over whatever is left of the disappearing universe.
• How did they save the day?
• This universe is over. And you get to call it, do you?
• The Angel has the TARDIS!
  • The Angels have the police box.

Who’s Who?

• What is the Division?
  • It has a dirty secret that Swarm discovered: a planet called time.
• Who is Williamson?
  • He’s a nutter
• Who is Swarm?
  • It’s an interesting moral high ground you occupy. Stop killing things or we’ll kill you.
  • He wants to reign in hell
• Who is Azure?
• Who is Passenger?
  • Form
  • Living prison holding hundreds of thousands of people
• Who is Claire?
• Who is Bel?
  • She and Vinder fought the Daleks?
  • Someone wants to stop her from getting to Vinder
  • Her mission is love. Love is the only mission.
    • That’s why you’re dead on the floor and I put you there. 
    • Wait, what?! Your LOVE killed him?!
• Who is Tigmi?
  • Is that little device of Bel’s some kind of link to the baby?
  • Is the baby the Timeless Child? definitely
• Who is Vinder?
  • He knows what a TARDIS is, but he didn’t think they were actually real
  • He wants to pilot it
  • Bel wonders if he looks different.
    • I took this to mean cuz he’s older
    • But many people are assuming it’s because he can regenerate
  • He stayed on his planet to look for Bel
• Who is Dan Lewis?
  • He’s a romantic
  • He got dumped 2 days before his wedding cuz she thought about it and couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of her life with him! Geez!
• Who is Yasmin “Yaz” Khan?
  • Madip Gill is TRAGICALLY underused
• Who is the Fugitive Doctor?
  • She was at the siege of Atropos
  • Finish this mission and you’re clear. They promised, they’ll stick to it.
    • Is this why she got the memory wipe?
• Who is the Doctor?
  • She’s talking to herself like 12 did in his mind palace/TARDIS
  • She thinks she’s in a memory (siege of Atropos), but later she says you could be in the past, present, or even the future
  • Which means there’s a problem, another problem, several problems, but I don’t want to worry you, which I have, so sorry.

Can we talk about the Flux?

• Time and space are at war and the Division has tried to imprison time on a planetary mass.
• It wasn’t a naturally occurring event, it was made, it was placed, because of you, Doctor.
• Vinder’s planet looks like a war zone. But we saw the Flux collapse entire planets.

Classic Who Connection

• We see the Daleks levitating. They used to do that. But not right from the start, they had to develop that technology once off Scaro. According to the TARDIS fandom page the first time they do this is Remembrance of the Daleks with the Seventh Doctor.

Overall impressions

• Overall rating out of 10
  • Jared – 8 timestorms
  • Austin – 9 Call of Duty: Angels Ops
  • Corbin – 7 blue bits
  • Tripp – 8 snaps 
• Creep Level – out of 500
  • Jared – 50
  • Austin – 175
  • Corbin – 50
  • Tripp – 10

Theories

• Jared – Swarm was a Time Lord or comes from the attempt to give Time Lords regenerations (connected to the Timeless Child storyline).
• Tripp – Swarm made the flux as the ultimate challenge to the doctor. The doctor and swarm are from the same dimension, but not same race. Dan is somehow important to the division. 
• Austin – The Flux is the Nexus that takes you to the Timeless Child’s universe/dimension
  • Something’s up with Dan. I think he is a Timelord
  • There is a connection between Williamson and Dan, they might be the same person

The Game Plan 

• Doctor Who: Flux, Chapter 4 – Village of the Angels
• After Series 13, we want to do a Best Of series. We’re going to cover our favorite story from each NuWho Doctor, and then our favorite Festive special! And by “our” I mean “all of us”. Go to noobsandthewhovian.com/bestof to take the survey and help us pick the very best of NuWho.