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.
Roughly stitched together the pan shot of the house™ from War of the Sontarans.
Ok, but seriously…
The way the black and white and slightly crumbly quality calls back to 60s Who, hides the true colours of the scene, and low-key works in universe as a dream of the Doctor’s childhood because of that whole ‘I was colourblind for my first two incarnations’ joke Moffat added in the Day of the Doctor novelisation?
And we have this shot of Thaddea Graham’s character “Bel”, who I think is due to show up over the next couple episodes, surrounded by red vegetation and an orange sky from the trailer?
And the architecture? Those towers? The landscape?
Yeah, I’ve accidentally convinced myself that the house is you-know-what.
Pretty much confirmed, baby!
(I mean of course they technically didn’t use the name or say it was the Doctor’s family home but… come on…?)
I know it wasn’t technicallyLungbarrow. But also its my headcanon going forward, that the Doctor’s shifting lost lives were visualised as a twisted version of her old home, Lungbarrow. Because imo that sounds really cool
Oh 100%! I’m pretty much certain it was the intention too.
Cause seriously, there’s no way Chibnall just coincidentially chose that imagery right, at this point?
