Survivors - 3.9 The Enemy

For the first time on their travels our friends come to the equivalent of an inn. It's kind of nice to see Charles standing by the coal fire in the bar, doubtless remembering pre-collapse pub visits. 'Iechyd da,' he says authentically when served a fresh pint.

But he goes on to try to manipulate Jenny into sleeping with Alec so that he'll stay and fix the locals' generator. The argument they have about Greg while playing bar billiards was surreal, I thought maybe Charles was hallucinating, or perhaps I was. Jenny ends up shockingly calling him a Welsh bastard in front of everyone. I wonder, would he have had her thrown out of Whitecross if she'd said that while they were there.

Mind you, they're all at it - Charles refers to Alec as MacSporran and we learn that Jenny has been making Tartan Army references.

Sam the ex-junkie, saved by the plague is an interesting character. First he's just painted as very right-wing, then he turns out to be resentful and mad, intent on sabotaging the hydroelectric mission. The first time we've had a sort of anti-survivor plot.

It's a splendid moment when the generator starts and the light-bulb comes on. At the end the pithead wheels are turning again. But that made me think of the last line of the last of the Changes books - 'And the air would soon be reeking of petrol.'

Sam uses the same expression 'US' (unserviceable?) that Winser does in Claws of Axos.

Jenny comes in to nurse Frank and asks him how he's feeling. 'Is that a proposition?' he asks. As Adrian Mole said of Bert Baxter once, 'sometimes he is just a dirty old man who doesn't deserve visitors.'

Dating: Charles says it was last month that Jenny was back at Challenor. Does he mean in 3.6? Did they go back there after the half-way meeting, or is he referring to an off-screen visit between episodes?

He also says it's been 3 years [since the plague]. He probably means this is the third calendar year since it happened.