The Chibnall Years: 2018 - 2022

“Doctor Who: Flux”

"Survivors of the Flux"

After a 5-year absence, UNIT finally returned in the series 13 episode “Survivors of the Flux”, which was Part 5 of the Doctor Who Flux story arc. Notably, not only did we see modern, current-day UNIT, we also saw the earliest chronological appearance of UNIT, pre-dating their first appearance in “The Invasion”.

I am not going to go into the timeline, and the dating of the UNIT stories here, because there are other websites that will go into far more detail about it than I. Needless to say, this episode merely added to the already confused chronology of UNIT and certainly raised a whole host of questions.

We learn in this episode that the very first Commanding Officer of the British branch of UNIT (and indeed the man who set it all up – presumably as part of a concerted United Nations operation) was General Farquhar. The general wears a standard British Army general’s Service Dress uniform.

 

On his upper left arm he wears a UNIT patch, which matches the patches worn by the likes of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Captain Yates, and Sergeant Benton on their Service Dress uniforms.

 

Farquhar was also correctly wearing the red lanyard that we saw UNIT officers wearing during this period – except he was wearing on the wrong arm. The Brigadier and other officers always wore their lanyards on the right. It should be noted that we did sometimes see Sergeant Benton wearing his lanyard on the left, however.

 

One final observation about the general (technically an error, but an eminently forgivable one); you can see on a number of occasions that the rank insignia on the general’s epaulettes are attached using clip pins. 

This is the modern way to attach rank insignia.

In the 1960s it would have been attached using split pins.

This is very nit-picky and I wouldn’t expect the costume department to go to the lengths of finding old-style insignia. I merely mention it as interesting.

The UNIT soldiers in this episode are wearing British Battledress uniform.

This is an anachronism for two reasons. Firstly, UNIT troops in these early years wore the beige uniforms seen in “The Invasion” and “Spearhead from Space” etc. (UNIT Uniforms: The Early Years: 1968 - 1970) – of course, it’s entirely possible that UNIT troops were initially kitted out with uniforms from their home-country’s armed forces, before switching to the beige uniform a year or two later. But that brings us to the second problem; the British Army stopped wearing Battledress uniforms in 1961, so they are seven years out of date. But look closer and it’s even more anachronistic that it seems.

 

There were three styles of Battledress worn by the British Army – 1937 pattern, 1940 pattern, and 1949 pattern.

1937 pattern

1940 pattern

1949 pattern

 The style worn by the UNIT soldiers in this episode is the 1937 pattern, so it is the oldest and most out-of-date of all the Battledress uniforms. This style was not seen worn much after the Second World War, 20 years before the events of this episode.

 

Having said all that, there is precedent for UNIT troops wearing out-of-date uniforms. During the Golden Years of Pertwee’s Third Doctor, UNIT were kitted out in 1960s combat fatigues, despite being in the 1970s (or was in the 80s?). Ironically, the combat fatigues they wore in those days are what they should more correctly be wearing in this episode, since it is set in 1967.

 

The soldiers in this episode wear their Battledress open at the collar, with a shirt and tie beneath.

 Like Farquhar, they have a UNIT patch on their left sleeve.

The soldiers wear the correct sand-coloured beret for this era, but for some reason, they all wear it backwards! The badge should be above the left eye with the beret folded over the right ear, but Jennings and the two soldiers in the corridor wear them the opposite way around.

 

 You can just about see that the beret has the old-style UNIT badge on (although slightly smaller than the original). Private Jennings also wears this UNIT badge on the collars of his Battledress uniform, which is a nod to the collar badges worn by Yates and Benton on their Service Dress uniforms.

 So, in summary, the UNIT soldiers in this scene certainly evoke the feel of the 1960s UNIT troops, but on closer inspection are in fact, entirely anachronistic.

 

We also get a very brief glimpse of modern UNIT in this episode. In addition to Kate Stewart, we see a female UNIT soldier ordered to aim missiles at Earth. She is wearing a black shirt which was last seen being worn by UNIT personnel at the UNIT command post in Turmezistan in “The Zygon Invasion”.

 Like the UNIT troops in Turmezistan, this soldier wears the new UNIT logo on a badge on her chest. At first it appears that this badge is now on the left breast rather than the right – but if you look closer you can see that UNIT is written backwards on it, and also on the screens behind her. This means that this image has been flipped in post-production, so the badge was still actually worn on the right. Here's how it should have looked...

She also wears the old RTD style UNIT wings as a patch on her upper sleeves, and as a badge on her red beret, which is folded under her epaulette.

 A final note:

 

In the scene at UNIT HQ, General Farquhar hears the voice of Lethbridge-Stewart (taken from an audio-clip of Nicholas Courtney in the episode “Terror of the Autons”). Farquhar then says, “That’s our new Corporal”.

This line entirely ruins the whole UNIT scene for me. Corporals are NCOs, whereas Lethbridge-Stewart was an officer. These are two entirely different career routes in the army, and someone who was a corporal (which is a very junior rank), would never rise to the rank of Brigadier – as you can see from the table below.

 It is certainly possible for someone to be ‘promoted from the ranks’ – for example, experienced Warrant Officers will be given officer training and granted a commission, thusly then being promoted to a junior officer rank like captain - but in these cases you have older soldiers in junior officer roles, and Lethbdridge-Stewart is not old enough for this to be the case.

 If he were a corporal in 1967, there is no way he could then be a lieutenant colonel in 1968 in “The Web of Fear”. And he certainly wouldn’t rise to the rank of brigadier.

(And on another note, based on this episode, are we now also assuming that he was with UNIT all along in “The Web of Fear”?)

 

Frankly, the “Corporal” line was an example of lazy writing and no research on how the military works. What would have been better is if Farquhar had said, “That’s our new Colonel.” That would have made far more sense.

 

The Lethbridge-Stewart cameo had the potential to be a highlight of the episode and have me squealing in delight. Instead, the glaring mistake just had me sighing and rolling my eyes.

 

It is not just Doctor Who that is guilty of this (although it has been a major offender in recent years), but I do wish that if modern writers are going to write about the military, they would actually do some research to find out how it actually works. The Ministry of Defence has a very useful page on their website about it:

 

Rank Progression - British Army Jobs (mod.uk)