#source: my friend and i

[ellieshyperfixations]

Nightcrawler: When i was younger, my mom threw me down the stairs.

Rogue: Eh seems like a normal mom thing.

[4m4zing-gracie]

Khan, bringing the Murder drones some bread: You guys hungry?

J: Is that Sourdough?

Khan: ....Yes?

J: Then NOPE.

[verycorrectlegomovie]

[in a group chat]

Unikitty: The chickens ate her body, actually!

Unikitty: Oops. I'm liveblogging in another group chat.

Unikitty: That wasn't for here. Sorry!!

Lucy: ...okay then.

Lucy: totally FINE.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[hinamie]

sidelong

[twinstxrs]

so much happened in this whole episode but i’m still on fig infiltrating ruben’s dream, making it look like the place where his friend was murdered, and then disguising herself as kipperlilly & repeatedly saying different variants of “somebody needs to take the fall for this, and it’s not going to be me. it’s going to be you.” while adaine as the elven oracle shows up next to her. can you imagine waking up from that, the idea of a horrible truth being pinned on you by your friend to save her own skin while the personification of fate and destiny stands there, almost as a promise that this is GOING to happen to you. we don’t even know if this kid is guilty. my god.

[civetside]

TLT game night

[gl1tched-g0th]

"Wow you write this character really well!" Thanks I knew them personally

[repmet]

Firstprince + hugs

[sparrowlucero]

ik you were joking but I would be genuinely interested to hear about the flux cowriting credits strife if you feel like going into detail on it

So I have a big conspiracy theory about season 13 of Doctor Who ("Flux"), namely that there's a lost episode was scripted and even possibly filmed in near entirety, but ended up being cut and cannibalized in post production due to behind the scenes issues, and the fandom has yet to pick up on it.

For anyone who doesn't watch the show: Flux is a miniseries of Doctor Who; a full season was not commissioned because it was produced during Covid. The most important stuff about it for the purposes of this post are:

It's 6 episodes long (¹). The episodes are all directly continuous and could not be shuffled around. (I should clarify here that, no, the showrunner can't simply choose on a whim to make 10 episodes, or only make 4; they had to stick to 6, as that was the amount they were picked up and scheduled for)

The showrunner, Chris Chibnall , wrote every episode apart from episode 4 (Village of the Angels) which he has a co-writing credit on.

(More subjectively but perhaps relevant) The season is largely considered to be kind of a structural mess and (less subjectively) there appears to some abnormal and consistent production issues (²)

So the first thing I need to evidence here is that Chris Chibnall, aforementioned showrunner and writer of the entire season, was late. Like, really late.

Word of mouth gossip had been circulating for a while that there was some sort of on-set problem involving filming having to be paused because he was still finishing scripts: (³)

This would later be confirmed at a Gallifrey One panel (⁴) with Matt Strevens, the executive producer, who suggests that filming stopped to allow Chris Chibnall to finish scripts; he further implies that large swathes of episode 5/Block 2 weren't written until Episode 4/Block 1 (in which Kevin McNally debuts) was filming:

So with that context, let's talk about that Episode 4, "Village of the Angels", the only episode not attributed solely to Chris Chibnall. Co written by Maxine Alderton.

The filming pics reveal an interesting bit of trivia for Village: namely, the clapperboards show that the story was actually filmed as episode 5, not 4:

As the above tweet suggests, this doesn't make much sense. The miniseries is, again, a single continuous plot. It's not like they flipped Village and the current episode 5, Survivors of the Flux; the latter explicitly takes place chronologically after it. And yet, Village having been intended as the penultimate episode 5 is further evidenced by the original trailer for it, in which a character states that the story takes place on the 28th of November. This line is dubbed over in the final episode and subsequent trailers to instead say the 21st:

Why is this line important enough to dub? Because that's meant to line up with the air date of the episode. Episode 4 aired on the 21st and 5 on the 28th. But something happened in post production, and now it's episode 4 on the 21st instead (⁵):

So if none of these episodes were moved around but it does seem like Village was meant to be episode 5, where and what is the original episode 4?

I have a theory.

Flux has a recurring subplot involving two side characters, a married couple (Bel and Vinder) who have been separated by the titular disaster and are traveling the universe to reunite with each other. This story is told through segments sprinkled throughout the episodes. These have a different writing style (including a diary-esque narration only present in these scenes) and an internally consistent visual style that looks somewhat different to the other parts of the season.

Village of the Angels, for instance, is a moody, dark episode set in a village in the 1960s:

However, Bel and Vinder's segments in the episode have a somewhat different look:

On top of this, they never intersect with the episode's A plot (literally or in any clear thematic way), and the majority of these segments piece together into one single scene that seems to have been cut up.

So, what I think is that the bel and vinder scenes across the middle of the season were originally a single full story, an episode 4 that took a breather from the main plot and characters to follow the lives of these two side characters; the differing visual and writing style is due to it originally having been filmed separately and with a somewhat different artistic intent. I believe Chris Chibnall's cowriting credit on Angels exists because these specific scenes are from a script he wrote, but that otherwise the Angel script can be credited solely to Maxine Alderton by normal cowriting standards.

"But wait," you might say, "I thought there were already 6 episodes that are all plot relevant? If no episodes existing right now can be cut, how could this 7th episode exist?"

Remember this tidbit:

The adventures in question comprise a large amount of the next episode (Episode 5: Survivors of the Flux), nearly 20 minutes of a 50ish minute runtime (and frankly, much of the rest of the episode is somewhat fluffy build up that feels like it's taking advantage of an extended runtime). A version without this added plot would, in my opinion, only warrant one final episode rather than two.

I think the showrunner, still scrambling to finish scripts as the episodes were being filmed, and making a snap decision to include a new major subplot (⁶), wrote a finale script so long and with so many plot threads that the only way to keep all this material of was to split it into two episodes, 5 and 6. And because they only could only make 6, he had to get rid of one of the previous 5 episodes - the already scripted and filmed ones - to make room for this new episode 5. A tough order when it's a plot-heavy miniseries... if not for episode 4 being a standalone divergence from the main plot about the lives of two side characters, one that could, in theory, be cut up and dispersed throughout the season without continuity issues for the main story.

(Some notes and clarifications under the cut)

(1) some sources initially reported the episode count as 8; this wasn't inaccurate - the 2022 new years/easter special were part of the episode order. Flux itself was always meant to be 6 episodes long. (2) A few of the production issues include: - episodes filming without a second draft:

- the fx team that had been on the show since 2005 abruptly leaving midseason (because they "didn't feel like part of the team anymore") and returning as soon as the creative team changed, including the head of the studio implying they weren't properly credited (mild vfx body horror warning in link):

- people working on additional projects such as books not receiving clear information on the characters they were assigned to write:

- and likely a director who was put on hold due to a script being rewritten:

Among other things I can't directly cite at the moment, including vfx artists having to do whole episodes solo in crunch time and writers not being told their work was massively overhauled until it aired due to major changes being extremely late in production.

While I don't wish to pontificate too much here and many of these things are pretty normal by themselves, I do think it could paint a picture of a production where an episode well into filming may genuinely be cut on a whim and without consideration for the crew, artists, etc. working on the show. (3) This reddit post comes from a leaker who was known to be consistently accurate. (4) Gallifrey One does not allow filming of panels. I know Kevin's livetweets of panels to be accurate. (5) It's very, very unlikely the entire season was moved back a week, as the premier is a Halloween special that was certainly always intended to air on Oct. 31st. (6) I don't wish to insinuate Chris Chibnall is, throughout his career, an inherently poor showrunner, but I do think that maybe his jump from police procedural - a genre that doesn't involve quite as much concept art, vfx work, marketing, convention panels, set building, episodic storytelling, and keeping in touch with expanded universe producers - to flagship science fiction adventure show may have contributed to some of these issues, especially when he was already in the mindset that things could be changed on a whim (perhaps not such a major issue when it's broadchurch and no new sets need be built)

(source) Basically I don't really think this is "the showrunner's fault" or anything; more that a perfect storm of a showrunner who was habitually late on scripts, used to writing lowkey cop dramas, covid, an entirely serialized season, etc. may have led to these issues

[incorrectpeterparker]

Peter: I accidentally ate MJ’s sandwich… How long do you think I have to live?

Ned: Ten

Peter: Ten what?

Ned: Nine

[ellieshyperfixations]

Deadpool: We’re in a pandemic right now; A pandemic of haters.

Wolverine: It’s true, I’m one of them

[favroitecrime]

Palestinian freedom fighters breaking out of Gaza and reclaiming their occupied territories. They’ve taken over israeli tanks and have chased out the settlers that were on that land. They’ve launched rockets everywhere and the iron dome has failed to intercept. This is about to mark a momentous event in history.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

[verycorrectlegomovie]

Lucy: They're behaved and vaccinated. I swear.

Lucy: Only Rex isn't. He might have rabies.

Rex: No I have rabies.

[hurtspideyparker]

Steve: Do you ever wanna talk about your emotions Bucky?

Bucky: No

Tony: I do

Steve: I know Tony

Tony: I'm sad

Steve: I know Tony

[inadequate-nefelibata]

I just spent the last two years thinking that you guys knew more than me about life, and I just found out that you guys are just as dumb as me. Duh-doy. Yeah. Duh-doy.

COMMUNITY (2009) ∙ S2.E10: "Mixology Certification"