Before The Flood Reactions – Doctor Who - The fan show

This is a spoiler warning. In this show we’ll be discussing Before The Flood. So if you haven’t seen episode 4 of series 9, why haven’t you seen it? Google it. And click the iPlayer link. I’m Christel Dee, he’s Luke Spillane and welcome to the Fan Show. Joining us this week to discuss Before The Flood are Doctor Who fans and YouTubers beckie0 and Jake Dudman. Hey guys! Hello. So, Before The Flood. What were your favourite moments? I love the pre-titles, fourth wall breaking opener where the Doctor is talking to the camera. I thought that was really refreshing. A new take on pre-titles. Looking directly into your soul. It’s fantastic. Yeah, controversial looking straight down the lens. Yeah, I don’t know what other people thought of that but for me but for me it really draws you in and you can really connect to what he’s saying. It’s not the first time I think Doctor Who has broken the wall though. I remember a long time ago Tom Baker broke the wall sometimes for comedy but it’s quite personal. I like him talking to us. Yeah, Tom Baker has broken it a few times. There was one moment where William Hartnell raised a glass of sherry or something to the camera and said Merry Christmas to everyone at home. My favourite moment was probably the scene where Cass was being followed by the ghost. I thought that was such a chilling moment in this episode and for me I really enjoyed it because it harked back to Under The Lake with the horror element of it and just that sound design was just so chilling. Hearing that utter silence and just her breath, it really shivers down my spine that scene. I chose exactly the same moment at you. And for exactly the same reason as well. Just going from that awful scraping of the axe and then going to this science and you really feel like you’re there with her. Well let’s talk about that opener then. The cold open, pre-titles with the Doctor talking directly to the camera. Maybe talking to us, maybe talking to Clara. Maybe it’s her POV. Sandra says “I liked it and I paused it the moment he asked to Google it to do exactly that.” And Chris Lindsay says “I loved it I assumed he’s talking to Clara at some earlier point and we were getting a POV as they refer to it later.” I think like Beckie said it’s really nice having the Doctor talk down the lens again. We haven’t seen that since Tom Baker’s comedy moments where he would look at the camera. In The Invasion of Time he looks down the lens and says “Oh even my sonic screwdriver isn’t going to get me out of this.” But I don’t know. I found it very jarring. I found it kind of put me off a little bit. I liked going into the episode with something completely different. Something really new. The Doctor just explaining something like at the beginning of Listen. I love the moments where mulls away in the TARDIS with his own thoughts. It didn’t really feel like that though. It felt like the Doctor was telling us something. This is what’s happening. Which I found a little jarring. If it is about Clara’s POV, I think it’s quite effective in in the way that it works. The last clip is him looking into the camera I believe at the end of the episode so the way the story works is it’s all about paradox loops, that could work quite nicely if those pre-titles could have been after that at the end of the episode. Oh yeah. Yeah, that’s true. So obviously that cold-open then goes onto the electric guitar theme which was amazing. That went down quite well online. Flarespire says at first “I thought it I thought it would fade out into the normal opening then it didn’t and my mind temporarily exploded. That was awesome.” And The Whovian, The Jeff says “The rock version rocks, I want it forever.” So guys, did you like the guitar theme. Oh yeah. Definitely. Much more louder. And aggressive in a good way. It suits the rock and roll Doctor that we currently have. Especially after his opener in this series. And with the guitar that he’s having in every episode now. I thought it was really good. Let’s talk about Clara in this episode. Now I personally was annoyed by Clara quite a bit. Personally I think she acts quite entitled in this episode, she makes it all about herself and I don’t think she’s very likeable anymore. You know, what a privilege to travel in time and space and I don’t think she treats the Doctor very well in this episode. There’s another moment in the faraday cage as well where she’s trying to get them to go outside and go and get the phone and the way she was talking to them was ‘me’ not us, it was ‘me’. ‘I need to contact the Doctor.” And then had to correct herself. ‘I need to be saved.’ ‘I really like Toby Whithouse as a writer. I think it’s really interesting how he’s developed Clara. In the first scene we see her with Lunn. He asks her what she would say to someone who is scared. It shows the side of the Doctor where travelling with him has obviously made her a better person because she can deal with people who are scared and try and make them feel better. And there’s a really interesting contrast to where they’re in the faraday cage and she doesn’t hesitate to ask to throw them out into the potential danger of where the ghosts are. So it’s showing both sides. This almost recklessness that she’s developed from travelling with him. She says on the phone to the Doctor “Die with whoever comes after me, not with me.” Well we asked some fans if they thought this was harsh. Sandra says “I don’t think so but it was quite emotional. It made me feel for the day the Doctor looses her.” And Murderess Malice says “If we were her we wouldn’t want to be the companion who get’s stranded because the Doctor goes and dies.” I can understand why she’s terrified. I don’t think I would have said that but I would have been saying anything just to get him to come back to rescue them or rescue us. It’s a moment of desperation. She’s desperate. I think you can understand why. We can sit back as an audience see what we think is a selfish moment but I can kind of understand that and appreciate that. But yeah, the point of Clara. She has really changed and she is becoming someone that we’re not recognising anymore. There’s always the danger with companions actually staying in the TARDIS too long can really change you and quite badly because you basically become the Doctor. Which you know, the Doctor is good at being the Doctor but anyone else is kind of dangerous. So we had lots of lovely characters set up in Under The Lake but in Before The Flood, a lot of them get told to sit and wait and it becomes a lot more about the Doctor and the monster. The characters become a little but more disposable. Do you think it was a shame seeing this after such great characters were set up in part 1? I think this second episode is very different to the first episode. A lot of set up at the beginning. The ghosts, the base, all of this. A great ensemble of characters. We all knew who was who, what was going on. We all knew their names in the first episode which sometimes you loose especially from being a one-parter base-under-siege-story. There was so much set up that for this story to take a complete U-turn, we did loose a part of that I felt which was kind of sad. I think it definitely needed the phone where the ghosts take the phone away because otherwise they would just be like [Mimes waiting action] It definitely brought interest. It was quite a nice character development with all the love interests at the end. I liked seeing Cass and Lunn get together I think. It was also nice to get to know Prentis as well in this episode and he surprised me because I thought he would be quite serious but he was really giggly and comical and sweet so therefore when he becomes a ghost, it’s really sad because you get quite attached to him so that was a bit of a surprise for me. Let’s talk about the Fisher King. It’s been a while since we’ve had a spacey wacey alien. The part was played by Britain’s tallest man Nigel Fingleton and and voiced by Peter Serafinowicz. Marge Silbert says “I loved it. It was a change from Daleks and Cybermen. Plus the season so far is pretty good. A little scarier.” And Sam says “The Fisher King was spine-chillingly beautiful from voice to overall design but criminally underused.” I would have liked to have seen more screen time because I felt like it was more him having a conversation and being washed away at the end. Although he was intimidating and he looked over the Doctor and he saw the Doctor getting scared I would have liked to have seen a bit more confrontation. See him in action a bit more. I thought the Fisher King was terrifying, looked amazing. Like everything in these two episodes. I think the consistency across these two episodes in the design, the production. It’s been produced wonderfully. I thought everything about it looked great waist upwards, he had a bit of a dress on down below. But I loved all his bone stuff and his alien type mouth. I thought he looked great. But he was a bit immobile. I would have liked to have seen him doing more. He had that weapon in his hand. We didn’t get to see it in action. He didn’t really do anything with that and basically the Doctor went “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. I wiped off the instructions” and the Fisher King goes “Oh no!”, walks outside and has a look. “Oh no, he didn’t. He lied to me.” and then get’s washed away. I felt like for such a big monster to be built up, the ending was a bit [Blows a raspberry] He held his arms open though. Because he put his arms up, is he welcoming it. “Okay, I’m going to die. Go for it.” Or was he like “Nooo!” I would have liked to have seen his face at that moment, maybe not behind to see whether he was excited or wide-eyed or whether he was like [Pulls a face] I do wonder whether we needed an alien. I think it’s nice to have a new alien. It’s always nice to have a new alien and I really did like the design of the Fisher but I do wonder whether it was necessary. Could it just be maybe just the ship. Perhaps having him adds to the complexity of the episode and it might be more confusing for more casual viewers because it’s just another thing to think about. I’m not sure about having an alien but definitely it needed something because otherwise it’s just the Doctor and the characters running around a base and although running is fantastic it definitely needed something. Maybe the ghosts instead perhaps. Yeah. Maybe just one massive ghost. Let’s talk about the ending. Personally I thought it wrapped up pretty quickly. It seemed like an easy win for the Doctor. It’s left me with lots of questions. I’m a little bit frustrated. And the thing about the glasses, the glasses were awesome but I feel like we’re seeing them a little bit too much and they’re doing things tat we’re not always understanding like he put the glasses in that thing at the end and all of a sudden he’s just talking the message away. I know there’s probably a reason but I’m thinking why didn’tt he do that earlier. It did wrap up quite fast. I actually really enjoy when a Doctor Who story has just a nice TARDIS ecene at the end where the companion goes ‘What did happen again?’ and the Doctor goes ‘This is what happened and I’m very clever.’ I actually really liked that. I thought that was very classic Who. Which I really like. I was quite happy with it but yes, it happens very quickly. It’s all of a sudden, monster blown away and it happens very quickly. I like the scene between the Doctor and Bennett where they see Prentis the Doctor has to say ‘We can’t just back and change time.’ I think it’s very important to reinforce that to the audience. You actually can’t just go back and change everything. It’s very important. Almost like Father’s Day the episode from Series 1. I saw that as a reference to that because he says before you know it you somebody lying on a slab or something and then you really do see ghosts and I saw that Pete Tyler lying on a slab dead after being hit by a car and then you really do see ghosts which are the Reaper. I completely saw that as a Father’s Day reference. That’s great. I never picked that up. I was like ‘Ahhhh! Series 1!’ Let’s go on to talk about talking about the Bootstrap Paradox. Oh my head. Did anyone have to Google it? The Doctor did tell us to. Well Luke, are you happy to explain this for us? Without saying ‘wibbly-wobbly’ The Bootstrap Paradox is when past events are caused by future events but those future events are caused by past events. A causal loop is the phrase here. A causal loop is what happens. Which I think makes sense. It all makes sense. It is a very simple way of seeing it however if you write out exactly what’s happened because of what’s happened because of what’s happened, why did that ghost of the Doctor get created originally? Because the Doctor saw the ghost in his past so he created- it goes on and on. So it’s a simple say of understanding it. Chicken and egg. But it is chicken and the egg. We got some Tweets in. George says “I understand the Bootstrap Paradox and I think it was genius. I wouldn’t have understood it without the Beethoven analogy.” And Elizabeth R says “I love it when the show delves into and really embraces the time travel part of it. I’d love to see more paradox types show up.” Imagine being a kid watching that and yes, being like that was quite confusing, what was happening. But also all these kids around the country and around the world are going ‘Ah, now I get it. I know what that means.’ And they’re understanding the theory of time travel. I love that. And the reference at the end going back to who composed Beethoven’s 5th was very simple and immediately took you back. It’s not like they had to reiterate everything again at the end. It was already in your head bit like the word, the things on the spaceship. It’s already in your head so you know. That’s so true. It’s true isn’t it because you almost forget about it. Because it opens the episode then after the titles you kind of forget that it’s happened. And you’re watching the episode unfold and it’s only until right at the end where the Doctor says ‘Beethoven’s 5th’ you go ‘oh!’ I hadn’t thought of that. That’s amazing. The co-ordinates were put in our head at the beginning of the episode and we forgot about them but we knew where we were going. Great observation. That’s really clever. Dave K says “Very different feel to it and a bit of a let down but that might be because of the supurb-ness of the first” John says “Two very different parts but that’s what made it great I think.” So I think we all liked last week’s episode and think the views from fans generally were positive. It was very different. I think that that is great way of wording it. I’s a two-hander. It’s not exactly a two-parter. But I still enjoyed it in it’s on right. It was it’s own time travel story. It was a separate story. It was like another Doctor Who story that caused this story. I think it will be interesting to see how the other two-handers are in relation to one another. A new age of two-parts. Yeah, it’s very interesting. It’s very different isn’t it. Stories that are related but aren’t quite connected as they used to be. Gone are the days of Aliens of London and World War Three where it was like Slitheen turn up now what’s going to happen. But it’s two different stories connected. It’s exciting. I think Doctor Who constantly has to change. But will be prepared for it next time. A lot of people as well with Under The Lake didn’t know it was going to be a two-parter which I actually love that. I love that people got to the end and were like ‘Oh! It’s not the end! There’s more!’ I want people to feel like that every time Doctor Who finishes going ‘Oh what? There’s more?’. I love that. Maybe more of that. Well thank you so much for joining us and I think this discussion has thrown up quite a lot of questions. Maybe we’ll find out what those are as the series continues. Well, we’ll leave you with a trailer to Girl Who Died. Oh, not Vikings. You’re coming with us. They’re called The Mire. The deadliest warrior race in the Galaxy. Yes, why? I am a Viking. I will crush you on the field of battle. I think this village just declared war on you.