'The Flux': Chapter 4 'Village of the Angels' (Story Code 13.04) by Chris Chibnall and Maxine Alderton

“We are patient. We have time. We are all around you. We are everywhere” – Weeping Angel

In the village of Medderton in Devon, on November 21st 1967, Professor Eustacius Jericho is conducting a psychic experiment with his associate, Claire Brown. After Jericho’s equipment registers strange readings that seem to show that Claire believes she is from the future, the young woman becomes possessed by an unknown entity. After Claire recovers, she gives a cryptic warning that “the angel has the TARDIS” …

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor, Yaz and Dan watch helplessly as the ship’s flickering lights enable the Weeping Angel to operate the control console. Thinking quickly, the Doctor uses two live power cables to expel the intruder, allowing the ship to stabilise. While the TARDIS reboots, the Doctor, Yaz and Dan venture outside to explore and find themselves in Medderton at night. As her sonic screwdriver gives an alarming reading, the Doctor rushes off to investigate, leaving Yaz and Dan with local couple Gerald and Jean, whose ten-year-old great-neice, Peggy, has gone missing. At the church, the parish vicar meets with the elderly Mrs Hayward, who has warned the villagers of dire events to come. Following up on Mrs Hayward’s curious remark about the graveyard, the vicar discovers an extra grave marked by a stone angel - which promptly attacks him… Elsewhere, Professor Jericho is surprised by the arrival of the Doctor in his cellar laboratory, even more so when his visitor recognises Claire from a meeting in 2021. Seeing Claire’s sketches of her premonitions, the Doctor quickly destroys the one showing a Weeping Angel. Feeling ill, Claire goes to the bathroom and sees an unsettling image in the mirror, of herself with stone angel wings... Meanwhile, Yaz and Dan help the villagers in the search for Peggy. Trudging across a field, they encounter another Weeping Angel; Yaz and Dan try not to blink, but the stone assassin drains their torches and then strikes…

Out in space, Bel’s search for her life partner Vinder continues. Landing on the shattered world of Puzano, Bel learns from a man named Namaca that the survivors of the Flux are congregating there to meet a saviour…

Angered that a stone has broken one of his windows, Professor Jericho opens his front door to confront the culprits and finds six Weeping Angels standing outside. He is saved by the Doctor, who pulls him back inside before the assassins can pounce. As they set about securing the professor’s house from attack, Claire tells the Doctor how her premonitions in 2021 warned her of the Angels, and that one of the assassins sent her back to 1965. Claire also shows the Doctor a newspaper clipping that describes Medderton as the ‘Cursed Village’, where everyone vanished on November 21st 1967, and before that, in 1901. While the Doctor rigs up the professor’s television set as a CCTV system, Claire covers up the fact that sand was pouring from her eye.

Yaz and Dan reappear in the same field, but this time in daylight - and in 1901. Returning to the village they find the place deserted, as if everyone suddenly vanished into thin air. Searching a house Yaz and Dan encounter the missing Peggy, who explains how the Angels took everyone but promised to leave her alone. Peggy then takes Yaz and Dan to the village outskirts, where the road crumbles away into infinite space…

In 1967, Gerald and Jean reach the outskirts of Medderton, where they too see the road falling away into space. The couple are then attacked by a Weeping Angel, which sends them into the past. Watching from nearby is Mrs Hayward… Retreating to the cellar with Claire and Jericho, the Doctor uses the professor’s television set to watch the hall upstairs. In the fire grate, the torn picture of the Weeping Angel reassembles itself, allowing an Angel to gain access to the cellar; the Doctor manages to deal with the creature by destroying the drawing, but in the distraction, the other Angels break into the house. Realising that the Angels want her, Claire shows the Doctor and Jericho that her hands have turned to stone. The Doctor deduces that because Claire is a seer, an angel has been able to hide in her mind through psychic manifestation. When the Doctor proposes joining minds with Claire, the professor sees an opportunity to record it on his equipment, and he places an apparatus on each of their heads. Entering Claire’s mind, the Doctor finds herself on a beach; Claire is here too, an Angel standing behind her. Recognising the Angel as the one that hijacked the TARDIS, the Doctor is astonished when it asks for her help. The stone assassin explains that it hid in Claire’s mind to escape the other Angels, who are an extraction squad for the Division…

On Puzano, Namaca takes Bel to where dozens of refuges have assembled, waiting for their saviour to appear. On an overlooking cliff materialises Azure, who promises to save everyone by transporting them to a safe galaxy in a Passenger form. Suspecting danger, Bel drags Namaca to safety, just as the masses are captured by their so-called saviour. After Azure departs with the Passenger, Namaca storms away from Bel, furious at missing his chance for salvation...

With space closing in on them, Yaz, Dan and Peggy run back to the village, only to be stopped by an Angel. Just then Peggy’s relatives appear, but they fail to heed their great-neice’s warning - and this time the Angel’s touch kills them.

While his equipment records the Doctor’s foray inside Claire’s mind, Professor Jericho keeps his eyes fixed on the television; but the Angels gain control of the set, making it cut out so that they can gain access to the house. When the set reactivates, only one Angel remains; it taunts the professor with his own voice, then tries to grab him through the screen. The professor smashes the television, but that just allows the other Angels to break into the cellar. As the professor holds the creatures with his unblinking gaze, his brain-scanning equipment goes crazy, drawing the image of an angel with its pens... Inside Claire’s mind, the rogue Weeping Angel explains that it was an agent of the Division, just like the Doctor was. The creature wants the Doctor’s help to escape capture, in exchange for its knowledge of the Division - including the Doctor’s stolen memories. Before the Doctor can learn more, she and Claire are woken by the professor, who needs their help now that the Angels have reached the cellar. Recalling the floorplans on the professor’s noticeboard, the Doctor uses a sledgehammer to smash one of the room’s walls, providing access to an assignation tunnel beyond. After using the scanner’s headsets to give two of the Angels a quantum headache, the Doctor urges Jericho and Claire into the tunnels and locks the door behind her. With the Weeping Angels trying to break through the tunnel’s door, Jericho, Claire and the Doctor make their way down the passageway. When the professor notices angel patterns on the walls, dozens of the creatures’ arms burst through and grab for them. Then an Angel appears further ahead, blocking their means of escape...

Peggy leads Yaz and Dan to the site of a stone burial site, a structure that appeared just recently; but their way forward is blocked by a temporal rift into 1967, which they are unable to cross without crumbling into dust. On the other side of the rift is Mrs Hayward, who explains to Peggy that she is her older self, sixty-six years later. Mrs Hayward believes the burial site is how the Angels arrived in the village: a giant stone spaceship…

As the Angels close in on, the professor keeps his eyes on the creatures so that Claire can get past safely. But when Jericho tries to join her, dust gets in his eye and he blinks - allowing the Angels to send him to 1901, where he meets Peggy, Yaz and Dan in front of the rift. As the ground trembles in both time zones, the Doctor makes a break for the exit, only to realise that the Angels are not coming for her. Stepping outside, the Doctor emerges from the stone spaceship, which is now surrounded by hundreds of Weeping Angels. Happy at seeing Yaz and Dan on the other side of the rift, the Doctor then notices Claire standing amongst the Angels, the rogue Angel now communicating via her. Working out that the Division’s Angels took the village out of space and time to extract their agent, the Doctor tries offering the rogue Angel a deal: Claire’s freedom in return for negotiating with the agents. But the rogue Angel refuses, having made a deal with her pursuers to recall the Doctor to the Division instead. As Yaz and Dan watch from 1901, the Doctor is powerless as her body turns into stone and she becomes a Weeping Angel…

On Puzano, Vinder meets Namaca, who takes him to a message left by Bel. She is now searching for Azure so that she can free her prisoners. When the recording cuts off before Bel can give her coordinates, Vinder vows to find her…


Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), John Bishop (Dan Lewis), Jacob Anderson (Vinder), Kevin McNally (Professor Eustacius Jericho), Annabel Scholey (Claire Brown), Alex Frost (Reverend Shaw), Vincent Brimble (Gerald), Jemma Churchill (Jean), Penelope McGhie (Mrs Hayward), Thaddea Graham (Bel), Blake Harrison (Namaca Ost Parvess Po), Jacob Anderson (Vinder), Poppy Polivnick (Peggy), Rochenda Sandall (Azure), Barara Fadden (Weeping Angel), Isla Moody (Weeping Angel), Lowri Brown (Weeping Angel), Jonny Mathers (Passenger)

Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone
Executive Producers Nikki Wilson, Ben Irving, Matt Strevens and Chris Chibnall
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
21st November 2021 @ 6.20 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Dan and Vinder, and introducing Professor Jericho

*This 56-minute story is part four of a six-part story

*The end-credits have a different version of the theme tune, and are interrupted midway by the final sequence with Vinder; after this, they resume with the rest of the production team’s credits