Last week I needed a bit of a winge. I allowed myself a mask-off moment where I could just say what I felt. For the first four episodes of Flux, I resisted the urge to utterly tear into the show. I deleted so many opening paragraphs. I resisted every urge to write one-line articles simply saying- “I really disliked that.” I drew some ire from a few of you, and that’s fine. This blog is about my experience, and I’m ok with you disagreeing. I like to think that those of you who read these, do so because I take strides not to impose my views as the only true way to enjoy Doctor Who. When other people do that, it really irks me. But I still needed to let off some steam. I’m glad I did so because this week, I feel a bit better. Not about Flux, but as a fan. I’m glad I got to get all of the frustration out so that I could look at “The Vanquishers,” through sober eyes.
Flux had given me a bit of an identity crisis. I was trying to give Chris Chibnall some room to pleasantly surprise me. This indulgence arose from a genuine desire for the series to succeed. My desire to enjoy Doctor Who put a lot of objections on stand-by. Because of this, I couldn’t tell if I was being unfair, or if it was really that bad. “The Vanquishers,” cleared all of that up for me. I did not enjoy most of that, and a huge portion of it led nowhere. You go through a phase during a bad movie where you stop hoping it will turn out good, and realise it’s actually rather bad. Last night I was struck by a moment of clarity where I found myself thinking “This is how I must have felt watching ‘Batman and Robin,’ in the theatre.” But then I started thinking “No, ‘Batman and Robin,’ was at least somewhat campy and fun.” This was just a mess.
Much like Steven Moffat did in “Twice Upon a Time,” Chris Chibnall has allowed himself a few moments of metatextual commentary for his last series finale. Sadly, I’m not sure all of it was entirely self-aware, like when the Doctor says “It’s quite draining, and confusing, and breaks every known law of every known… everything.” It’s a great way to explain his approach to tying together so many loose ends. Using the conversion plate that had stabilised the Doctor’s body for her meeting with Tecteun, Chibnall was able to split the Doctor into three different bodies in order to tackle this hulking mess of a narrative. Even with three Doctors on the case, the episode still stumbles from location to location, resting long enough to deliver crucial and convenient dialogue. No idea is left explored.
Let’s pick up with Diane and Vinder, still stuck in the prison form. I think it’s important to mention that despite their wish.com masks, I rather like the concept of the prison form. And my objection to Diane being precisely at the doorway when Vinder walked in was slightly quelled by the revelation that she was the last remaining person inside. Where they all went is never really explained, but it does at least explain why she’s the only person Vinder might meet. What she was doing hanging out by the entrance is still anyone’s guess. Vinder and Diane have a clever sequence where they use the edges of the artificial environment to escape. I say clever from their standpoint, not from a designing an inescapable prison standpoint. Evidently, this is a bit of a design flaw to the point that escaping a prison form was part of Vinder’s training.
One of the Doctor’s three forms allows her a moment to meet back up with Yaz, Dan, and Jericho after their three years of travel. She even got a moment to see Kate Stewart and the Mad Mole. Did they ever explain how the Weeping Angel town went from floating in space to back to normal? If they didn’t I have questions about how the three of them were able to travel the earth in search of the dumbest line of dialogue ever. Kate is no longer working as the leader of UNIT, but rather as the leader of Human Resistance Against Sontaran Occupation. Evidently, the Grand Serpent was infiltrating UNIT in order to remove them from the equation, so that the Sontarans could meet humanity with little resistance as possible. I guess they forgot the power of a drywaller with a wok.
The Sontarans are a weird readdition to the storyline. Who would have guessed that after “War of the Sontarans,” they would show up again, and as the biggest villains, no less? Chris Chibnall had said he planned to make them more fearsome, and he somewhat delivered. When they weren’t stupidly sleeping at the same time, getting their asses handed to them by pensioners with cookware, or going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, they were pretty formidable. As it would turn out, the story Flux was telling was about the Sontarans. Who would have guessed? No seriously, who would have guessed this was all leading to that? All this addition to the storyline really did was explain why the Sontarans were there in the first place. Their plan was basically to draw the Daleks and Cybermen to the Flux under a false truce. The Flux would destroy their greatest enemies while they remained shielded by the Lupari ships. With their competition out of the way, the Sontarans would be able to reign supreme.
The Sontarans use both Claire and Jericho in order to find out the exact time and date of the Flux for their little plan to work. Evidently, both of them have enough psychic ability to foresee this event, which is weird considering the Flux has been going on outside the Lupari shield for six weeks now. None of this holds up when you think about it for more than five seconds, which screams “first draft.” What are the Lupari ships made of that they can ward off the Flux? Why do the Lupari give a damn about humanity? How was Vinder’s planet left in ruins when we saw the Flux destroy entire planets in the first episode? Why do the Lupari ships block the Flux, but not the sun? If the Flux is anti-matter why does it put things into flux? Also, and this is a personal gripe, why use anti-matter and the beginning of the Time Lords and never once mention Omega?
The way in which the Flux moves only further illustrates how ill-equipped Chris Chibnall is at writing the science part of science fiction. We’re supposed to believe that this Flux has eaten so much of the universe that only a small portion of the universe remains. The speed at which the Flux travels vs. the size of the known universe leads one to wonder just how long the universe had been dying. This storyline would take so long that it would have been present during every incarnation of the Doctor. In series four, we got alien invaders after their planet was stolen by the Daleks. Where are the refugees of the Flux? Why is nobody freaking out? What do the people on earth have to say about the fact that the planet is surrounded by Lupari ships? Where are the shots of people coming out of their houses and looking up into the sky? It’s almost as if the concept wasn’t properly explored. Hence, my implication of this being the first draft.
The Grand Serpent’s place in all of this is to benefit from the Sontaran plan. In other words, he’s a bit of a write-off. The Doctor implies during a scene with the Grand Serpent that he must have been some genocidal dictator in his past. This is rich considering that the Doctor aids in a total of three possible genocides in the story. We’re led to believe that the universe is now empty, so any Daleks or Cybermen present are presumably the last, as are the Sontarans. But not only is the Doctor willing to let the Daleks and Cybermen die, she’s also willing to use them as bait to take care of the Sontarans. She even gets Jericho, a person who witnessed the Holocaust, to aid her in triple genocide. It’s Chris Chibnall’s weird mean spirited writing rearing its ugly head again. This is the same Doctor that left a brown man in the hands of the Nazis. All of this is justified because of a fourth genocide of the Lupari that happened off-screen.
Reviewing this episode has proven to be a challenge, as it is so awkwardly paced that it’s hard to remember when certain things happened. Not only is the Doctor jumping around from story to story, but so is the pacing. You could argue that the lockdown was a contributing factor to the mess that is the Flux. Chris Chibnall had originally planned to pace this story over ten episodes, rather than six. I would say he did his best, but nothing about this feels cut for time. Had he edited out the superfluous excess, we would never have met Bel and Vinder, because, let’s face it, their storyline was ultimately as useless as it was boring. While I think they’re fine as characters, did we really need to spend so much screen time watching them do nothing? What about any of their story couldn’t have also been done by Yaz and Dan? Why was Kate Stewart involved? Why was John Williamson there? Why was the Grand Serpent involved? What narrative function does Diane perform? Wouldn’t suggesting the Doctor feed the Flux with the matter inside the prison form make more sense coming from Yaz?
I had read that the Grand Serpent came about from Chibnall’s desire to work with Craig Parkinson. But why introduce a whole new character? Why not just have him play a Sontaran? Why bog down an already bloated script with yet another complication? This isn’t like when David Lynch changed Twin Peaks forever with the late addition of Killer Bob. This is just irresponsible writing. The only thing the Serpent truly manages is to pull UNIT into Chibnall’s web of broken canon. UNIT wasn’t formed in the ‘60s by Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart after the events of “The Web of Fear.” No, it was evidently formed in the ‘50s by General Farquhar. Having this many unresolved plotlines in the final chapter of your epic adventure is a bad sign. Each new storyline should elucidate upon what came before it, but instead, we’re just left with questions. I’ve touched on this before, that Chibnall’s writing leaves you with all of the wrong questions. These aren’t questions pondering the greater mysteries of the story, but rather what the hell just happened and how any of it was important.
Swarm and Azure’s storyline was also a bit of a write-off. As much as I really enjoyed their performances throughout their series, they never really achieve anything and spend the whole time posturing like cats. Their desire to destroy the universe over and over seemed like a good way for them to put the universe back at the end, but instead, they just die like dust at the hands of what I’m guessing was the personification of time. This isn’t before they tease the Doctor with her fob watch, which also doesn’t behave like its supposed to. In the past we’ve seen these fob watches open and restore the Master, the Doctor, and Ruth all back to Time Lords. But when the Ravagers hold it up to the Doctor’s face, it’s just a bit of torture. For some reason, when they threaten to dissolve the “Cabin in the Woods,” poster house, this also causes the Doctor to dissolve, which I guess makes sense. It doesn’t really, but once again, whatever.
The best part about the fob watch is that the Doctor drops it down into the bowels of the TARDIS. When she did that, I said out loud- “Oh thank God.” I couldn’t wait for them to destroy that damn thing and the misguided narrative that comes with it. Steven Moffat teased that he would reveal the Doctor’s name, only to pull back at the last moment. You get the impression that that’s what Chibnall thinks he’s doing here. While I am grateful that he allowed some mystery to remain, it feels less like character development, and more like damage control. After “The Timeless Children,” any restraint on his behalf feels more like a mandate from on high than any sort of artistic integrity. In this way, Flux feels less like the latest thrilling chapter in the Doctor’s adventures, and more like a “what if,” scenario. What if the majority of the audience had wanted to see more of the Timeless Child storyline? What if lockdown had never happened? What if Chris Chibnall had never been sacked? They’d have opened that watch, is what.
Like much of this series, it reduces the bulk of the Chibnall era to a write-off. What’s most frustrating is that, once again, we’re left with yet another finale that explores none of the things in which many of us are even remotely interested. We got close to no new information about the Ruth Doctor. I expected her story to come into focus, but she was completely missing from the story. On top of that, the TARDIS remains infected. The promotional art for the holiday special implies that the TARDIS is still broken and that maybe the Doctor is going to finally do something about it. Though I must say, the TARDIS’ infection was about as consistent as Ryan’s selective dyspraxia. In one story, the TARDIS door’s dimensions are grossly out of whack, and in other moments, it’s running like a finely tuned machine. Diane and Dan don’t end up together out of plot convenience, completely undermining Diane’s agency by turning her into a heartless jerk. Jericho was sacrificed for the cause of genoicide. Looking back, last night’s episode has completely disabused me of any notion that Chris Chibnall has improved as a writer.
One area of improvement across the entire show has to be Jodie Whittaker. This was easily my favourite season with her. And I will admit that Chibnall did give her better dialogue. It’s just a shame that it was bogged down by so much stupid exposition and questionable morality. That being said, I really enjoyed her in this episode. She really feels like the Time Lord we know and love. There were even moments where she was reminding me of Tom Baker’s alien weirdness. I hope that people who hated the concept of a female Doctor can now see this. From the memes and reviews I’ve seen online, the general consensus is that she’s a great Doctor who has sadly been bogged down with some of the worst writing in the show’s history. She’s modern Doctor Who’s Colin Baker, and I can’t wait to hear her absolutely rock shit in her audios.
Usually, I have more positive things to say about a story, but really, my favourite thing about this storyline was that it wasn’t as bad as I feared. It was bad in that it was a poorly written piece of mediocrity, but it wasn’t bad in a way that does lasting harm. “The Wedding of River Song,” was a jumbled mess, but it doesn’t ruin Doctor Who. I’m glad that Chibnall was kind enough to walk back some of his concepts in a way that allowed them to re-establish some of the mystery. This doesn’t change the fact that the Doctor being the first Time Lord is already far more information about her past than I ever wanted to know. My friend Taryn refers to it as “an idiot’s idea of clever writing,” and I can’t help but agree. That being said, it is nice to know that the way in which it ended leaves open a couple of different ways to retcon this mess into something salvageable. If Chibnall plays the next three episodes safe, then they might actually end up enjoyable.
We’re left now with a universe in tatters (in more ways than one). Evidently, the Daleks aren’t all dead because they’re going to be the villains of the holiday special, again. That’s about as exciting as the prospect of someone digging that fob watch out again. We managed to miss a few bullets, for which I am pleasantly surprised. Bel and Vinder aren’t the Doctor’s parents, yet, which was a great relief. And yet I find myself in the same position I was before “The Vanquishers.” It’s hard to rest with three episodes of Chibnall’s Doctor Who left. There are still too many balls in the air for me to feel like we’re past the worst of it. Part of me hopes that the reason the Ruth Doctor hasn’t been fully explored yet is that she’s set to become the Fourteenth Doctor. Part of me worries it’s because Chibnall is saving it for yet another unfulfilling finale. All I really want from Chibnall at this point is to do what he does best- aim low and fly under the radar. Please, Chris, leave quietly.
Since its inception, Doctor Who has utilised the power of the cliffhanger in an attempt to draw viewers back to the next week’s episode. This is mostly due to the stories being presented in a serialised format. The story isn’t over, but the episode is, so they needed something to entice viewers back. Oftentimes it was the Doctor or another protagonist about to meet an uncertain fate. Other times it was a big reveal, such as an alien peering out of the shadows. The problem with this format is that oftentimes the next episode would pick up right where we left off and the cliffhanger would resolve almost immediately. After being unsatisfied with how “The Empty Child,” and “The Doctor Dances,” run into one another, Steven Moffat adopted a new approach. He was quoted as saying- “My thing about cliffhangers is, it has to be a moment that changes the way you’re looking at it. It has to launch a completely different and hopefully unexpected phase of the story. It’s not just a movie cut in half.”
At the end of last week’s “The Halloween Apocalypse,” the Doctor and various other characters were facing the business end of a destructive force known as “the Flux.” Taking a page from Moffat’s playbook, Chibnall begins “War of the Sontarans,” in a completely different time and place. It’s a nice indication that while every story of Flux thus far has ended on some sort of cliffhanger, they aren’t just a movie cut in half (or sixths). Furthermore, it’s nice to see the episode had its own story arc, something of which had me worried after last week’s plotless beginning. Instead, we got a well-paced and beautifully directed episode of Doctor Who. And despite what other reviewers have said, I found it refreshing.
Once again, we’re given more moments as the Doctor and Yaz’s personalities continue to crystalise. I really enjoy Jodie Whittaker’s new approach to the Doctor. She’s more snarky, if not a little mean, but not mean in a “gives the brown guy up to the Nazis,” sort of way. She’s mean in a “talks trash and gives vague threats,” sort of way. So much of her first two series made her come off as a kids show presenter, and I’m glad she’s seemingly shed that skin for a tougher exterior. Yaz, while not incredibly fleshed out, also seems to have more of a direct personality. We’re meeting the Yaz that has taken to becoming the Doctor 2.0 in the same manner of previous companions like Rose or Martha. She’s even gone as far as to write “WWTDD,” or “What would the Doctor do?” on her hand. I can imagine that will be a bit divisive within the fandom. It’s a froggy chair moment, and no I don’t mean the one from Animal Crossing. It’s like Marmite, you’ll either like it or not. I’m team Marmite, or rather, I’m team WWTDD. Both really.
The episode wastes no time putting characters in their positions to play out like pawns in a chess game seemingly devised by the evil Swarm and his sister Azure. After discovering the TARDIS has taken them to the Crimean War, the Doctor, Yaz, and Dan are almost immediately split up. Fading away like a polaroid in a Back to the Future movie, Dan and Yaz find themselves transported away leaving the Doctor with her unreliable TARDIS. The TARDIS, still acting up, is rendered doorless as the Doctor frantically looks for a way into the safety of her phone box. Unable to swan off, the Doctor is forced to retreat from an anachronistic fleet of Sontarans. It’s around this time that the Doctor meets Mary Seacole and her “British hotel.” Chibnall’s penchant for historicals is evident at this point, but thankfully, his penchant for edutainment has not also returned. There are no moments when the Doctor stops what she’s doing to tell her companions the brief history of Mary Seacole. If “Rosa,” had ended with the Doctor looking directly into the camera saying “You can find out more at your local library,” I wouldn’t have batted an eye.
The Sontarans are back to being threatening again, but this isn’t to say they didn’t have questionable behaviour. Having slipped in through the Lupari shield just before the Flux, the Sontarans have claimed Earth as an outpost for Sontar. They did so by taking over Russia and China during the Crimean War. Like Dan and Yaz’s disappearance, it’s not really clear how or why the Sontarans or the Doctor ended up in the year 1855. The episode may have explained it, but I honestly could not tell you now. This could have something to do with the fact that the story is yet unfinished, or it could be the poor audio mixing that seems to be a theme this season. While the episode itself was nicely paced with creative direction and cinematography, the sound design was surprisingly lacklustre. Motives aside, the Sontarans of this story are on par with those of the two-part story “The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky.” It was also nice to see the return of Dan Starkey as yet another completely different Sontaran.
Back to the present day in Liverpool, Dan has discovered his beloved home is now the Earth capital of Sontar, but that doesn’t mean the Liverpudlians have taken this new threat lying down. Armed with pots and pans, they fight back against the Sontarans with a good whack to their probic vents. Among these rebels are Dan’s parents Eileen and Neville. If you recall, it was rumoured that Dan would be the son of a former companion, a rumour that can now be put to rest. Eileen and Neville serve up heavy Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney from “The Sarah Jane Adventures,” vibes. Pepper in a dash of Wilfred Mott and Sylvia Noble and you’ve got Dan’s parentage. They’re a cute addition to the story that does great work to lighten the mood a bit.
Across both timelines, the human resistance to the Sontarans fight their respective battles. Dan, armed with a wok, infiltrates a Sontaran ship, while the Doctor attempts to avoid bloodshed altogether. I liked how the Doctor uses Mary Seacole’s hotel as a sort of base of operations. Her and Mary have a nice rapport as two women trying to avoid the inevitable war between British forces and the Sontarans. I was giddy when the Doctor used her being a woman to trick the Sontarans into a parlay under the guise of having information about the male Doctor they know and fear. It took them three years, but they finally found a way for the Doctor’s femininity to take part in the storyline. Ultimately the talks fail as Sontarans would rather die than make some sort of peace accord with an inferior species such as humans.
The story attempts to portray the British soldier General Logan as a fool, but I found him to be a man stuck between two impossible choices- fight the Sontarans or let them roll across Europe for the glory of Sontar. Only after watching his battalion get crushed is he willing to hear the Doctor’s perspective. I’d also like to add that I rather liked the battle scene. A lot of the visuals of this season have been exactly what they needed to be. I saw a funny post the other day celebrating the fact that the Sontarans look like shit again, and it’s true. It’s nice to see that Doctor Who knows when to look real and when to look fantastical. In this instance, it was great to see the cameras pull back to a wide-scale battlefield. It sounded echoes of “The War Games,” which were compounded when the Doctor and her new friends discover the Sontarans are using a camouflage shield to divide the battlefield from their base of operations.
It was nice to see Mary doing some spy work, though I question the intelligence behind setting up her spy post in the exact point of a known doorway in the shield. That seems like a good way to get caught. The shots of the Sontaran base from on high stirred memories of Mordor and the witch’s castle in “The Wizard of Oz.” If they had shown the Sontarans marching back and forth singing the March of the Winkies, it wouldn’t have felt out of place. Mary learns that the Sontarans sleep for only seven minutes every 27 hours. Despite Mary’s competency and ability to adapt, I was massively disappointed when Chibnall decided in all of his infinite wisdom to have her state that she has no idea what’s going on. She may not understand the technology in front of her, but I would say she’s doing just fine for a woman who cares for a wounded Sontaran and infiltrates their base. Claiming she doesn’t know what’s happening felt like a betrayal of her intelligence and her agency. That’s a bad Chibnall!
If the Doctor’s plan sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same plan the Doctor had in “The Sontaran Experiment.” The idea of destroying the Sontaran’s food and energy sources is exactly how they foil the plans of Field Major Styre. This wouldn’t be the first time the new series of Doctor Who used key plot points from classic Doctor Who. In “Rise of the Cybermen,” they replace the mirror planet Mondas with a mirrored universe. The plot of “The Silurians,” is ripped off wholesale in “The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood,” two-parter, also written by Chris Chibnall. Perhaps Chibnall is just Doctor Who’s reboot guy. He rebooted “The Silurians,” he rebooted the Cartmel Masterplan, and now he’s rebooted “The Sontaran Experiment.” This isn’t incredibly egregious, but I must say it does hurt the story in an unexpected manner. If the Sontaran’s major weakness is revealed in the past to be their reliance on their foodstuffs, why the hell are they all taking their seven-minute recharge simultaneously? Even idiots in horror movies know to have a guard on duty while everyone else gets a bit of kip. If you were generous, you would say it’s hubris, but it does make the Sontarans seem rather stupid.
I suppose that’s a potential pitfall in any Sontaran story. It’s easy to want to write them as stupid. They’re so serious and yet, they look so much like potato men. Moffat even went as far as to portray them as dumb enough to not notice that while their tank was invisible, they were not. So sure, why not leave yourself open to attack for seven minutes? And sure, why not keep access to their reserves at a height easily reached by humanoids? It’s not like they only protected these precious valves with a single panel that could be removed with a sonic device, the known tool of their oldest enemy, the Doctor. Oh, they did? Oh. Right. As I said above, their actions are a bit questionable. Honestly, though, I am okay with this for one reason- it gave us an ending. It was nice to see the Doctor have a plan and for that plan to play out. It may have been a bit naff, but it still felt like a run of the mill episode of Doctor Who, which, these days, is quite a lot. It makes as much sense as Donna being able to survive the atmosphere aboard a Sontaran ship. Just go with it.
Dan and the Doctor’s adventures conclude in similar fashions- with giant explosions. One orange, one blue. On the Doctor’s end, it’s at the hands of Logan who blows them sky-high with barrels of gun powder. The Doctor admonishes him, but I have to admit, from his perspective, I once again understand his actions. Sure, she can send the Sontarans packing, but Logan can’t take the chance that they might come back. Like Captain Magambo in “Planet of the Dead,” his main concern is for the human race. The Doctor won’t always be there to save humanity. While I don’t stan General Logan, I do understand his motivations. On Dan’s end of things, he and his new Lupari friend, Karvanista, destroy the Sontarans with a sort of temporal bomb. How this bomb actually functioned was a load of bafflegab, but it certainly did the trick. It may be a bit a cliche at this point to end a Doctor Who episode by putting everything back in its place, but I don’t mind, personally. It seems within the realm of a time travel show that you could remove all traces of a thing using time travel technology.
Speaking of time travel technology, we are now getting a clearer picture as to why the TARDIS has been less than reliable. It would appear that the black goo we’ve seen dripping from her columns is some sort of corruption. Perhaps Swarm and Azure are using it to pilot the TARDIS to their location. Either way, at the moment it means the Doctor is no longer able to rely on her constant companion. I don’t quite understand the motivation here as the show has never really needed a reason for the Doctor not to use the TARDIS at every opportunity. Sure, there are times when the TARDIS takes a plunge into the odd Satan pit, but usually, they just have the Doctor not use the TARDIS. Because let’s be real, if this wasn’t a fictional show, there would be no reason not to use the TARDIS all the freaking time. Got Daleks? No problem. Materialise around them and drop them into the sun. Easy peasy. See? That would be very boring.
Not to be forgotten, Yaz has now met up with Vinder. The Flux has deposited Vinder to the same location as Yaz- a planet called Time. On this planet, a group of monks or priests in the form of floating triangles have conscripted both of the young heroes as repairers. They need their circle of witches machine fixed, for some reason. We’re also met once again by the character Joseph Williamson. Williamson is the same guy I forgot was in chapter one, who seemed to be running the weirdest dig site ever. This time he’s seen rambling in the corridors of this temple known as the Temple of Atropos. Is it just me or has Chibnall gotten better at naming stuff? Atropos is a far cry better than “Ranskoor Av Kolos,” a name of which I constantly have to look up. Even Lupar and Karvanista are decent names.
The Swarm and Azure sequences give me “Kinda,” vibes. They take a sort of relish in menacingly chewing scenery that reminds me of the Mara. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out just how many similarities I see between this series of Doctor Who and the MCU. Perhaps it was unavoidable when “Loki,” introduced the concept of the Time Variance Authority. But having an extremely powerful villain that uses a giant destructive cloud that eats everything in its path reeks of Kang the Conquerer. Especially when said bad guy casually avoids death by zapping from place to place as if already knowing where the killing blow will land. People joked about how close Vinder’s appearance was to that of Michael B Jordan’s “Killmonger,” from “Black Panther,” but maybe they were onto something?
As much as I have enjoyed the performances of both Azure and Swarm, I find them to be the most worrying aspect of the storyline. I can’t shake the feeling that their story ties into the cringe-inducing Timeless Child storyline. When they mentioned that “Time” is a planet, I began to worry that Chibnall was up to his worst inclinations. But I’m also trying to be open-minded, so I am also allowing myself room to be pleasantly surprised. I think a lot of people think Chibnall’s detractors want to see him fail. I want Chris Chibnall to succeed. I want Doctor Who to be good. If I want Chibnall to fail in any manner, it would be for him to fail in ruining the show. I want him to succeed at keeping the show afloat. I want him to fail at running it into the ground. Who the hell would like to see Doctor Who be bad?
One aspect I found really interesting about the storyline is where it was revealed that the circle of time guardians was purposely “broken.” These “Mouri,” are quantum locked, seemingly to keep Swarm and Azure from being able to harm them. Why this is interesting is that, up to this point, the only things that are quantum locked in Doctor Who are the Weeping Angels. Seeing as “Flux,” has already incorporated the Weeping Angels into the storyline, I can’t help but wonder if we’re not going to get a sort of origin story for them. I know Rassilon condemned the dissenting Time Lords to be like “the Weeping Angels of old,” but that doesn’t really mean that’s where they come from. I would be interested in such a storyline. And while the idea of the baddies ripping apart time makes me worry that Chibnall is still trying to do lasting damage to the show, it could also be a lot of fun to see what comes of it. Azure and Swarm seem to revel in toying with time that echos the Faction Paradox. Hopefully, they’ll be even a fraction as good. Chibnall decided to borrow from Andrew Cartmel to disastrous ends, so why not Lawrence Miles? I kid.
As I said, I enjoyed this episode. It might even be one of my favourite Chris Chibnall stories overall. Dan continues to charm, though I hope the next thing he does with his wok is cook a damn meal. At this point he’s gone from work, to capture, to a battle, and not a single banger or tattie to tide him over. That man needs a kebab like Commander Skaak needs to ride a horse! While the episode is by no means perfect, it met my number one criteria- it was fun to watch. Any story can be picked apart and held up to harsh light, but storytelling isn’t real life. I told my good friend Taryn that even if this series goes down as one of the worst in the show’s history, that this episode would be worth revisiting. There aren’t many episodes in the Chibnall era that I would like to revisit, save for maybe “The Witchfinders,” or “It Takes You Away,” but this one I could return to. What’s more, is that it doesn’t need a hokey cliffhanger to entice me back for the next episode. At this point, I’m invested.
In the past twelve days since my last update, I have been dancing around the idea of writing a follow-up article. While I think it was fairly obvious how I felt leading up to series thirteen, I felt as though I hadn’t quite captured what I was trying to say. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy writing about how unenthused I have been for more Doctor Who. It’s not a great feeling, furthermore, I dislike the idea of adding to the vitriol on the internet. Despite my reservations, I kept coming back to one question- what if we’re wrong? What if all of this is leading somewhere exciting? Ultimately, I decided against the article as I felt that it would not be long enough to justify writing it. But the question persists. It wasn’t until last nights episode when I finally was able to put into words what’s been bugging me- one of Chris Chibnall’s biggest failings is also the thing that keeps me returning.
“The Halloween Apocalypse,” starts with a bang. I want to say that upfront. I loved the Doctor and Yaz’s banter. Both Whittaker and Gill seemed to be having a great time. The special effects were pure cheese like something from a Power Rangers episode, and I appreciated the effort. Seriously, I loved how dumb it was. Because first and foremost, the one thing I’m looking for from Doctor Who is that it be fun. The Doctor and Yaz hanging over a pit of acid is daft, and cute, and fun. I also liked that the Doctor even somewhat planned everything to the point of setting up a trampoline to catch her and Yaz. That moment gives the Doctor some agency and makes her feel a bit crafty and for lack of a better word- Doctory.
I also really loved seeing Yaz with some much-needed personality. It almost illustrates immediately that maybe three companions was too many. Since we last saw her, Yaz has been given a little bit of a shot in the arm. She’s no longer with the police, and she’s fallen into a groove as a companion. I was reminded of Rose’s character arc wherein she goes from a young shopgirl to a Doctor in training. Yaz is shown punching buttons and giving directives. There seems that she has been given a more definitive character, and I am hoping that it doesn’t disappear in chapter two like Ryan’s dyspraxia. If it can remain consistent, I will be very excited.
Along with Yaz’s characterisation, it feels as though we’re finally seeing Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor take a little more form. I liked seeing her being a bit more assertive and comfortable with herself. There was a bit where her weird morality comes into play where she talks to Yaz as though showing her wondrous things excludes her from having to be honest. It felt a bit like when the Doctor failed to meet even the most basic of requirements for comforting a friend afraid of having cancer. But on the other hand, it reminded me a bit of moments when the Tenth Doctor threw his weight around and acted selfishly. I’m ok with the Doctor not being a great person, so long as the writing understands the implications. This seemed ok to me.
The problem I had with this episode, I now realise is the problem I’ve had with all of Chris Chibnall’s era of Doctor Who- there’s not a lot of resolution to be found anywhere. Clearly, the first episode of a greater six-part story is allowed to end on a bit of a cliffhanger, but on its own, very little happens. It’s a lot of set-up for chapter two. I only hope that chapter two isn’t, in turn, a lot of set-up for chapter three. You see, we’ve been given a lot to go off of, but very few postmarks that allow us to trace our journey. Yes, we’ve met the Ruth Doctor, but who is she? Is she even actually the Doctor? The way in which the Doctor side-eyes her in “The Fugitive of the Judoon,” makes me wonder if she might not be the Doctor. Everything thus far has been a lot of promise, with not a lot of payoff. We should have learned more about the Ruth Doctor by the end of series twelve, but we were only left with more questions.
Not even the resolution of “The Timeless Children,” elucidated much for us as the audience. Nothing about the storyline played into the action beyond being an info dump. Compare this to the end of series four. Throughout all of series four, we’re constantly hearing about planets that have gone missing. It’s such a basic science fiction trope that you’d barely even notice it as it’s happening. Of course, the Adipose breeding planet went missing, that’s the kind of thing that happens in sci-fi. Davies took this basic trope, seeded throughout series four, and built it into one of the best series finales. Not only had these planets gone missing, but they were also being used by the Daleks to create the reality bomb. The most the Timeless Child does to inform the story is to give the Master motivation to destroy Gallifrey. Knowledge gained in this way doesn’t further a plot, it just vomits information at us.
I feel like a lot of Chibnall’s writing would go over better if he gave the audience more moments of resolution. It reminds me a lot of Trenzalore, a concept drawn out by Steven Moffat to the point where it became more annoying than intriguing. Just tell the story you want to tell, stop implying that we’ll get there someday. Davies wasn’t afraid of peppering in clues or hints, but they all led to a finale. Both Moffat and Davies understood that while you could tell an overarching plot, each individual episode had its own sort of arc. They would leave room for further intrigue, while still giving us clear resolutions to individual episodes. In this way, the structure of “The Halloween Apocalypse,” worries me. It’s about the dissemination of information. I mentioned in my last article that I figured one episode would be the Weeping Angels episode, and one would be the Sontarans episode, and while they would be a part of a greater story, they would also stand alone as individual stories. What we got instead was an hour of set-up. I was looking forward to a spooky Halloween episode filled with Weeping Angels, but instead, we got a glimpse at the Weeping Angels and a mountain of exposition.
This seems to be a recurring problem in Chibnall’s writing. Not knowing when to give information. Not knowing when to let something be its own story. Take “Revolution of the Daleks,” for instance. We get a pretty good concept of the UK government using Daleks as the police and another good concept of the Doctor’s prison break. Both concepts could have been an episode on their own, but are instead dropped together in the same story. The consequence of which is that neither story is properly explored. “The Halloween Apocalypse,” suffers from this lack of breathing room. So much information is dropped up front that by the end, you feel more overwhelmed than informed. And look, I get it, if you’re constantly being called the boring guy, you would want to put as much excitement and promise into that first episode as possible. That’s totally fair, but I know I’m not the only one who felt overwhelmed by the info dump. The fact that the sound mixing was muddy didn’t help either.
The closest thing we’re given to a plot is in the form of newcomer Dan’s run-in with Kavanista, a Lupar soldier who could best be described as a Chewbacca-spaniel. The Doctor and Yaz have been pursuing him so the Doctor to could learn more about her past. As it turns out, Kavanista’s mission is to rescue Dan from the Flux, a devastating force in space, threatening to wipe out the entire universe. The Lupar race is evidently a kind of companion race to humanity, and each of them has been assigned a human to protect from the Flux. Their big plan is to wrap the planet earth in a network of ships like they were the Nova Corps. I think. Don’t quote me on that. How their ships could handle the Flux where whole planets failed is anyone’s guess.
My current theory is that the Flux is somehow related to the new baddies in town- Swarm and Azure. As villains go, they’re not bad. There’s not a lot to go off of this early. Swarm has been imprisoned since the beginning of time but has spent the entire time planning and growing. He reveals himself to the Doctor while revelling in the fact that she doesn’t remember them. One can probably assume that he’s the reason the Doctor doesn’t remember being the Ruth Doctor, which is not exactly exciting as it all ties back to the Timeless Child, a storyline in which I have consistently shown very little interest. My initial reaction to Swarm and his sister Azure is that they feel a lot like Chris Chibnall took Tzim-Sha and mashed him up with the Eternals from “Can You Hear Me?” Swarm stands out, however, due to the strong performance given by Sam Spruell.
Throughout the episode, I was struck with the feeling that Chibnall was trying to evoke the experience of a classic Doctor Who serial. Oftentimes, classic serials would opt for a cliffhanger episode leading into the next. You could go a whole six weeks for certain elements to resolve. The difference is that the old serials didn’t also drop close to every possible story arc in the first episode. They allowed the story to tell itself slowly, over time. I’m willing to give that a lot of good faith, however, mostly due to the reasons I’ve already stated above. The main reason is that it’s only chapter one. That being said, I would have liked to have seen some of these story elements spread out a little more. Even “Game of Thrones,” with its many characters and plotlines took the time to parse out the information. As I said, I hope episode two is allowed to be a story arc on its own.
Speaking of Game of Thrones, one of the elements that worked the least for me was the inclusion of the character Vinder. From the space station “Rose,” Vinder is either stranded or maybe even exiled from his people, out in deep space. Vinder’s main role in the story is to passively watch as the Flux passes through and destroys planets in its wake. This is all fine and good, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand how fast the Flux moves. It appears to be engulfing planets around Vinder left and right, but never really encroaching on him or the space station. Vinder’s actual location in relation to the Flux is never quite clear. You think at times that he is about to die, but then the Flux seems lightyears away. Yet simultaneously it destroys planets all around. It reminded me a lot of when Whittaker’s Doctor bumps her hip to send her sonic screwdriver inexplicably into her hands, defying all laws of physics. The portrayal of Vinder and his position in relation to the Flux is poorly defined. I’m not even sure when or where Vinder is, but hopefully, that will come with time.
Judging by the movement of the Flux and the size of the universe, the human race has anywhere between 5 minutes and 75 billion years before it utterly annihilates the earth. It’s hard to tell, because, you know, space is massive. The Doctor pilots her TARDIS to Halloween, the day on which the Flux arrives to Earth. This comes after some weird behaviour on the TARDIS’ behalf. I really like the idea that the TARDIS is possibly dying. That’s a very cool concept for a story. My only fear stemming from that storyline is that they may use it as an opportunity to replace the TARDIS. Why this worries me (beyond the fact that the TARDIS is an institution and a character in her own right), is that I’m nervous they’re going to use this as an opportunity to replace the blue box. There have been really dumb rumours that they may change the police box because police aren’t that popular these days. Doing so would not only fix a problem that never existed, but it would also be the ultimate act of performative wokeness. Seriously, nobody wants that. The part of that storyline that is interesting to me is in seeing how the Doctor might save the TARDIS. It’s ok to put the TARDIS in peril, but at the end of the day, it’s not ok to kill her. Even Steven Moffat knew he couldn’t actually say the Doctor’s name. Some things, no writer has the right to change.
Next week is looking like it’s going to be the Sontaran episode. My hope for stand-alone stories may yet be fulfilled. Though we didn’t get our spooky Halloween episode, which was a major disappointment, we may still get some good self-contained episodes. As an American, I have always wished they would do a Halloween episode. I figured it would never happen as Halloween isn’t as big a deal here in the UK. It’s funny how Chris Chibnall seems to give me things I’ve wanted to see in Doctor Who, but his execution is so often lacking. I was hoping that they were going to try and add a little menace to the Sontarans, but instead we got more of the painfully unfunny humour about their appearance from the Moffat era. Sigh. You would think a Sontaran would wear his battle scars like a badge of honour, but here it’s a source of derision. It’s a disappointing choice, that, but I guess he’s trying to lean into what’s popular.
There’s a lot of setup in this story, culminating with the Doctor looking deep into the Flux, about to die inside an unreliable TARDIS. It’s not a bad place to be considering my attitude leading up to the episode. Obviously, some of my previous concerns remain, but most importantly, I had fun. Watching the Doctor and Yaz hold onto rockets like witches on brooms was a genuine delight. I also loved the Doctor hitting the Flux with the might of the time vortex only for it to do nothing. It nicely illustrated the inherent threat of the Flux. While I’ve not said much about him, Dan is a very sympathetic person. John Bishop’s accent may be a bit of a put-on, but he’s so damn charming that I hardly care. Lots of the acting was very strong. Much like Bradley Walsh, I feel as though both John Bishop and Sam Spruell are going to elevate what is on the page. This is a better place than where a lot of people are with the show at the moment. My friend Taryn told me that the only solace she has in the Chibnall era is that now there is an end in sight. She compared it to waking up three-fourths of the way into surgery and thinking “Well, at least it’s almost over.” It hurts, but it won’t hurt forever. For me, however, the most notable difference between my feelings before and after this episode is that now, I’m actually looking forward to the next one. Considering my pessimism just twelve days ago, that’s a hell of a turnaround.
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