The Tragic Ambition of Doctor Who: Flux
It may be gorgeous from top to bottom, but Series 13 is ultimately a confused mess.
Plot Summary
As a mysterious destructive force lays waste to much of the universe, ancient enemies from the Doctor’s forgotten past return for a final confrontation.
Notable for:
First major, continuous season arc in NuWho, similar to The Key to Time or The Trial of a Time Lord
Split into 6 distinct episodes, but with a clear throughline:
The Halloween Apocalypse
War of the Sontarans
Once, Upon Time
Village of the Angels
Survivors of the Flux
The Vanquishers
Filmed under COVID restrictions
Introducing John Bishop as new companion Dan Lewis
Return of the Sontarans, redesigned to better mimic the classic series designs
First appearance of Kate Stewart and UNIT in the Whittaker era; UNIT previously mentioned in Resolution as having its funding “suspended pending review” — Flux ostensibly explains why that happened.
The universe-destroying stakes of the Flux mirror those of the entropy field in Logopolis or the cracks in time from Series 5.
Pete commentary
From minute one, Flux sets the tone of the season: it’s going to be action-heavy, feature new characters with mysterious pasts/motivations, include some forced banter, and be very personal for the Doctor.
The cold open of The Halloween Apocalypse is fun and a pretty good foot to start on. Though it’s also contrived AF: You can feel Chibnall’s writing here, layering on thing after thing in his Rube Goldberg death trap. Still, it does the job of getting your blood pumping, establishing the current Doctor-Yaz relationship, and, most important, getting you to root for Whittaker’s Doctor: She’s the underdog, but still clever, and the cut to the opening credits, “He doesn't get rid of us that easily,” is electric. Makes you almost feel bad for Whittaker that she was cheated out of cool cold opens for so long.
Nitro-9 reference!
While the cold open is cool, it really, really oversells Karvanista as a villain. None of what he does or says makes any sense given what happens later. While he’s a great character and design/idea (a canine race being “man’s best friend” is brilliant), it’s insane that he’s so violent, attacking Dan in order to “save” him. And he’s not just confrontational – he actually tries to kill the Doctor and Yaz. Which doesn’t make sense on 2 levels, because, 1) He’s supposed to be a good guy, and 2) He actually KNOWS the Doctor. Yet somehow all’s forgiven later? Chibnall tried to have his cake and eat it too, using Karvanista as some kind of mislead villain, and it falls apart very early..
One other thing the cold open (unfortunately) establishes is everyone – everyone – with a gun in Flux has Stormtrooper aim. Stormtrooper aim is lazy writing at best, but the fact that every single action scene relies on the villains to be absolutely incompetent soldiers (the one exception being the massacre in War of the Sontarans) is a strike against Flux. Bel taking out an entire Cyber battalion by herself when she’s pinned down in her ship is the worst example, but there are many, including the drones at the beginning (how can they miss?), the Sontarans in every scene with the regulars, etc. At least the Ravagers have teleport ability to explain they can’t be shot. But the overreliance on Stormtrooper aim ultimately means none of the action sequences are that memorable. Apart from the first cold open, only the stuff in the temple of Atropos is any good.
Flux has multiple villains, whose motives are all different:
The Sontarans, who want to use the Flux to position themselves as the winners of what’s left of the universe.
Division and Tecteun, who want to destroy the universe and kill or turn the Doctor.
The Ravagers, who want to sow chaos and destruction by unleashing Time on Space (???), thus accelerating the end of the universe while also giving themselves access to the next one by taking over Division.
Prentis/The Grand Serpent, who wants to use the Sontarans to cement his own power as a not just a survivor, but a ruler, in a post-Flux universe. (similar motivations to the Sontarans)
All of the villainy makes a certain degree of sense, except for the Ravagers/Atropos storyline, which is the most ambitious. A planet called Time, with a Temple of Atropos, with a race called the Mouri who control the flow of time – well, it’s all a bit hard to wrap your head around. It’s easier to keep straight the second time around, and the story of Once, Upon Time works reasonably well.
Vinder and Bel’s story is simple, but also boring. Vinder is the only one you care about, thanks to the fleshing out of his story in Once, Upon Time. You don’t need a love story here, and Bel has absolutely no reason to exist other than to give someone for Vinder to send messages to. I found her irritating most of the time, and the Tamagochi did not help.
Also: Why not say they’re married?
What the hell were those blue “time locusts” or whatever, and why don’t they consume Bel? They’re just thrown in for more peril, it seems, but are they ever used to explain something or create real tension in a scene? No.
Let’s talk about the Flux itself. The script is very inconsistent about what it is, the scale of it, and how much damage it does. Early on, you see it destroying entire planets, but later, when the Doctor et al. arrive on Vinder’s home planet, it somehow just wrecked some buildings? At some point they say the Flux is antimatter, but if that’s the case, why is there anything left at all? Also, if the Flux is on its way to Earth, don’t you have to presume it destroyed a whole bunch of things along the way? What happened to Saturn, or Jupiter, or the Sun, or Alpha Centauri, for that matter? How could anyone on Earth ever doubt the existence of aliens or massive cosmic events after the Flux VISIBLY destroys so much?
Given that, are we to presume there’s been a big reset button by the end? Is space restored? Is time restored, at least to the point where Mary Seacole doesn’t think they’re fighting Sontarans in the Crimean War?
Why is Karvanista’s race, the Lupari, seemingly the only one that has a technological shield against the Flux? There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this exception, and you would think the Daleks, Cybermen, et al., would want to steal the secret of this tech rather than simply hide behind it. But even if you accept that there wasn’t time, it’s never explained how the Lupari got the heads-up on the Flux, how/why they became these conjoined protectors of the human race, why we’ve never heard of them until now, and why the heck they are so violently dedicated to what they’re doing to the point where they forcefully capture their “familiars.”
While we’re at it, why do the Lupari need to capture humans at all? If their plan is to interlock their ships to save the Earth from the Flux, why does that require taking them on board?
Is Earth the strategic refuge from the Flux BECAUSE the Lupari are there? I guess that makes some sense. Why do the Sontarans feel the need to conquer Earth in all historical periods? Very odd choice. I suppose maybe it’s the easiest way to quell resistance to their presence – ensuring there never was resistance. If it was that easy, though, you’d think the Daleks would have done it by now.
Flux has a lot of incredible design, and the Ravagers are one of the highlights. They look pretty incredible, and Sam Spruel is incredible as Swarm. They feel too powerful, being able to disintegrate people with a touch (and sometimes not even needing to?), teleport, and generally never being in much danger until Time kills them. That said, it’s a good moment when they show up at Division, seemingly turning the tables on who’s in charge.
Tectuen’s death is a good moment, but it’s frustrating because she seems to be the only person at Division (aside from the Ood). Why is there no security in this place? Does Tectuen seriously have no weapons or any means to defend herself or Division? No wonder she was scared of the Doctor.
I like that the resolution of the Timeless Child arc is that the Doctor gets the fob watch with everything, but tosses it into the deep recesses of the TARDIS for some future showrunner to deal with (or not). “Yes, it happened, now let’s forget about it,” feels about as good an ending as we could have got once Chibnall went down this route.
Cliffhangers, with the scream! Grace observed that makes it feel more like classic Who than most NuWho and I have to agree.
The Halloween Apocalypse:
We like Dan! Except he’s a bit too likable. The empty fridge, unlucky at love but with a heart of gold… well, it’s a bit cliche, isn’t it? Dan’s scenes with Karvanista are excellent, but he never matches that level of satisfaction – not through the whole thing.
Grace wondered why the museum wouldn’t just hire Dan, and I have to agree!
The introduction of the Ravagers is quite good, though there’s very little reason given for why Swarm is able to escape right now. We learn later it’s Tectuen and Division who want him out, but there’s no hint of that here – it just seems like he decided now would be a good time to break out, and he could have done it all along.
But… what is the deal with Azure’s human guard/husband? Why does he not take the drone seriously, which seems it was warning them? If he isn’t her guard, then why isn’t he curious what the hell the drone is, which Azure seems to recognize? This scene doesn’t work at all. And why does he disintegrate even though Swarm never touches him? What’s-her-name isn’t Azure yet.
Karvanista’s shrinking of Dan’s home is random. I guess you could regard it as some kind of foreshadowing that they’re going to play with size and all the stuff with Passenger.
How can Vinder outrun the Flux?
RATING: Lady Cassandra in her best Dalek dress.
War of the Sontarans:
I understand the logic of picking the Sontarans as the foot-soldier monsters, the conventional villain for the conventional part of the plot. They’re not as showy as the Daleks or the Cybermen, so the risk of them sucking the air out of the villain pub is low. The problem is they’re one part baddie vs. two parts silliness. Their use as comic relief in NuWho takes over at too many points, and they don’t get a moment of genuine horror until it’s revealed that the Sontarans killed all the Lupari. Even here in their marquee episode, the main thing they do is slaughter a bunch of British soldiers.
Featuring the Crimean War is a bit random, but why not? It continues with the Chibnall tradition of zeroing in lesser-known female heroes in history, in this case Mary Seacole.
The design and attention to detail is quite good in this episode, especially Mary Seacole’s hotel and the convincing Crimean landscapes. And the shot of Skaak on the horse is amazing.
But seriously… what. The. hell. Even if you buy that the Sontarans’ plan to conquer all of Earth history has merit, why would they have any problem at all taking over Crimea? Why isn’t the war over in 5 minutes? In fact, it almost seems to be, but then they go back into their ship, and go to sleep. WITH ABSOLUTELY NOT SECURITY WHATSOEVER! I’m fine with simplified storylines, but this oversight is just too egregious. These are soldiers in a war — there’s simply no way anyone should be able to just walk up to their ships and blow them up. This wouldn’t be that hard to write around, yet Chibnall didn’t even bother. Taking writing lessons from Moffat, are you?
By contrast, the Sontarans taking over modern Earth is just mentioned, and apparently happened even faster. Did no one fight back? Why isn’t the entire Earth a war zone?
The probic vent weakness is overused. It also makes very little sense that a Sontaran would ever turn his back on anyone. It’s like they’re not even aware of their own weak spot.
Linx reference!
More lazy writing: The TARDIS team comes to Crimea basically at random, because of the Flux collision with the vortex energy (I guess). Then Dan and Yaz bugger off to the future/Atropos for the same reason. It’s like Chibnall was just: “Oh, I can’t find a good reason for them to go where I want them to be, so I’ll just teleport them.” Slapdash.
Still, great episode for Dan. He gets to single-handedly beat the Sontarans with just a dog and wok. The Doctor, rightly impressed, invites him to come save Yaz. (the explicit invitation — he’s definitely a companion at this point). He gets some good lines (“I worked it all out by myself, until Scooby-Doo here tried to take all the credit”), and his cop-buddy relationship with Karvanista is hitting its stride.
RATING: Prof. Hayter
Once, Upon Time
DO NOT watch this episode drunk. That’s what I did the first time, and it was, “WTF is going on?” on repeat. But this is one of the more ambitious, unconventionally structured episodes Doctor Who has done, and it mostly works!
One thing I could put aside this time is thinking at all about the Mouri, what they are, and what the Temple of Atropos is. Knowing those answers are not really important or forthcoming allowed me to just think about the Doctor, Yas, and (to a lesser extent) Dan.
The idea of hiding the three of them (and Vinder) in their own timestreams to protect them from the Ravagers makes sense, and it allows for some very clever storytelling. I like how this episode trusts the viewer to figure things out as it goes along, and the idea of the using the regular cast as substitutes for key characters in each others’ story is both a brilliant cost-saving move (no need for a whole bunch of new guest stars) but it also works well with the idea that the people caught up in the time storm would be “echoed” somehow, and that more is at work here than simple memories.
The Doctor’s assault on the Temple from long ago is the most interesting memory, from a story perspective, and I really like how John Bishop and Mandip Gill in particular get to play totally different from their regular characters. Gill gets to do it again in Vinder’s memory, which is a great character-building storyline.
Yaz’s memories are a close second to the Doctor’s in terms of interest, because of the Angel. I like that they’re already doing something really unusual (hiding in their own timestream) but it’s made more unusual due to the wild card of the Angel.
Vinder’s storyline introduces the Grand Serpent, someone we know we’ll see again. Craig Parkinson is perfect casting, oozing outstanding levels of slime. Moreover, Vinder’s story really makes you care about him and want to see him redeemed.
Bel sucks. Vinder’s story 100% did not need Bel, whose entire character boils down to a simple videogame journey and is essentially a Mary Sue who can evade and kill all the main Doctor Who monsters, quite easily, it seems. For shame, Chibnall — more aping of Moffat’s worst writing mistakes.
Fugitive Doctor scenes are perfect. The story has exactly the right amount of Jo Martin. If it’s possible, I think I like Jo Martin in this episode even more than in Fugitive of the Judoon. She’s both badass (when confronting the Ravagers) and wise (in her mirror soliloquy with the Doctor).
Rating: Eternal Dalek
Village of the Angels
By far the best episode of Flux overall, a big part of which is Kevin McNally as Professor Eustacius Jericho — my favorite new character from Flux (and there are a lot). How could you not love his declaration: “I’M NOT BLINKING.” Moreover, he’s the character that Doctor Who champions: a smart person, distrustful of the Doctor and the wondrous & dangerous world she represents at first, but his intellect allows him to be persuaded into fighting at her side, essentially becoming a companion. You have to root for him because he’s us, only smarter.
The slow onslaught of the Angels builds amazing tension throughout, and I love how they make the stakes clear by doing just what they did in the original Blink: having the main characters fall victim to the Angels.
The child becoming Peggy in the future/present is maybe a twist too far: It makes sense, but you don’t care about her, so it’s not very memorable.
By contrast, you do care about Claire, at least a little. She’s the impossible girl of this episode, but the story gets so caught up in the plot that her character gets a bit lost. What happens to her after the Doctor is recalled to Division? Did the rogue angel release her? Somehow I doubt it.
Claire’s memories from The Halloween Apocalypse don’t make a lot of sense. She recognizes the Doctor, but… why? How? She hasn’t met her yet, has she?
The Doctor transforming to an Angel is pretty gratuitous, but I love it. It’s BARELY justifiable — the “quantum extraction” requires her to be in Angel form, I guess — OK, sure. But if you have the first female Doctor — yeah, you gotta do it, and it looked damn cool.
Bold choice overall to have the Doctor lose for a change, plus strand Dan, Yaz, and Jericho in 1901. This episode, more than any other in Flux, really makes you feel the stakes.
Rating: Viscount Banger
Survivors of the Flux
The penultimate episode of Flux is also the weakest. You have the trio trapped in 1904. You have Prentis vying for control of UNIT (for the Sontarans). You have Vinder trying to track down Bel for some reason and wandering into the Ravagers’ trap inside Passenger, later meeting Diane. And you have the Doctor, finally coming face to face with Tecteun.
The Doctor stuff isn’t much other than a pile of exposition, though it’s a good moment when the Doctor realizes she was the target of the Flux.
Some of the best parts are Prentis/UNIT, which has some nice love letters to fans of the classic series. The “corporal” is clearly supposed to be the future Brigadier, and there are some nice nods to UNIT HQ in The Three Doctors and a BOSS-style computer.
The trio in 1904 is fun, too. Couldn’t help but think of Macgruber as they wander the Earth, solving puzzles and getting out of sticky situations.
Prentis/The Grand Serpent’s way of killing people is kind of too much. The snake thing seems to just appear in people — again, too powerful. We already have the Ravagers, which can disintegrate with a touch. Make it a little harder for Prentis, please. Our heroes need to be able to credibly defeat the bad guys by the end.
Speaking of which, Kate Stewart’s plan was to reveal she knew this guy was a bad to do… nothing? Go home and break her cellphone? Seems this was the thing to say when you had 20 guys ready to pounce, no?
Best gag is Karvanista seeing their message and saying he’s not capable of time travel. Reminiscent of Red Dwarf: “By the way, we’re in space!”
Note to Tecteun: You might be outside the universe, but you should still care about security.
Rating: Lady Cassandra
The Vanquishers
And we get a do-over of War of the Sontarans, the second-weakest episode of the whole affair. Oy. But at this point, the story is so tired, everyone is mostly going through the motions. At least Jericho is there to keep the energy up — shame he dies.
The best moment in The Vanquishers is when Stenck reveals he’s killed all the Lupari. Finally a moment of true villainy, and finally giving Karvanista some kind of motivation.
Di is shockingly well informed.
The 3 Doctors thing is such a boring twist, and only done to speed along the story. It’s utterly unmemorable and says nothing about the character or the story.
“Time” being released and deciding to destroy the Ravagers feels like a deus ex machina. It essentially lays bare the strange aspirations of this side of things. They wanted to unleash the full force of Time onto the universe, essentially aging it into nothingness. But also to have fun along the way by taunting and torturing everyone? Oh, and don’t forget revenge against Division and Tecteun. It’s all very high-minded and ambitious, but Chibnall isn’t quite talented enough to pull it off. He’s trying to be Neil Gaiman here, and, though it works on a certain level, it doesn’t resonate. Had there been more to the idea of this being the Doctor being the last of the Time Lords, for real (literally lording over Time), it might have worked. As it exists, though, with Time essentially showing mercy(?) to the Doctor, you wonder, what the hell was that all about?
The resolution of the Flux, using Passenger to absorb it… uh, ok? Why would a Passenger form have enough capacity to crunch the Flux, but a TARDIS can’t? And using the 3 battle fleets as some kind of “wall” against the Flux — this is really poor attention to any kind of scientific detail. The Flux threatens the whole universe, destroying entire planets, yet the combined matter of 3 battle fleets somehow “wounds” it enough so it can be absorbed by Passenger? Doctor Who gets a ton of creative license, but this is just wildly, deliberately inconsistent… and just wrong, really. How am I supposed to care about the Flux and the stakes it represents when they shift from minute to minute?
Rating: Prof Hayter
What Flux needed to really succeed:
More clarity on Earth being a strategic refuge from the Flux
Some reason for Earth to be that refuge
Drop Bel or give her a reason to exist
Less powerful Ravagers
Smarter/more Tecteun
Less ambition, frankly. A personified Time that’s either a planet, an entity, or both? WTF?
Question: How does Flux work as…
An action romp? C
A romance? D
A mystery? B
A timey-wimey adventure A–
A “canon event” C
A 13th Doctor story A
Is Vinder a companion?
Is Jericho a companion?
What did Pete’s family think?
Jack and Grace both liked parts of it, but any discussion of the story quickly shifted to what didn’t make sense (which was a lot) and how unclear what the Flux even is. Grace loves the Angels and really liked Village of the Angels. Jack was glad he watched it, but kind of shrugged.
Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Why did the Randomizer take us here? The Keeper of Traken kicked off a cosmic-stakes trilogy, where a big chunk of the universe was destroyed by the entropy field. Flux is the less-sciency version of that.
What if the evil plot had succeeded? As ever, whose evil plot?
Tecteun: Universe destroyed, but maybe the Doctor pretends to join her, then figures out a way to reboot Universe 2 in the same pattern as the first one, essentially recreating the entire universe and destroying Division. At the end, Dan makes a comment about the Doctor being God, and Whittaker responds with a quip that he’d best get worshiping then.
The Ravagers: Time is unleashed, and they begin killing everyone on a massive scale. Time-sensitive races like the Daleks and Sontarans are the only ones who can do anything, the Doctor makes an uneasy alliance with them to develop defenses, then mounts a second assault on Atropos to enslave Time itself.
The Sontarans: They somehow succeed in dissipating the Flux and are in charge of whatever’s left of the universe. Assembling their fleet, they bring the fight to Tecteun before she can destroy everything and become the new Division, overseeing both universes and begin imposing their empire on each.
Prentis/The Grand Serpent: This is essentially the same as the Sontarans winning, except he betrays them and takes over as the new Tecteun. He quickly gets bored as a God and decides to play a game of cat and mouse with Kate Stewart, the only person who ever bested him.
Where's the Clara splinter? She’s Dan’s on-again off-again ex, essentially ensuring that Dan, despite being a nice, good-looking guy, that he never settled down.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, or Lady Cassandra? Lady Cassandra with an eye stalk
Chris commentary
Eclipse! Seasonally appropriate after all
Amazing work by the crew and cast. Every single flux problem, and they are legion, is the fault of the script.
I read the transcript first. Thought it was okay. Then it took me a painful amount of time to slog through the TV version, which surprised me. I thought the nice visuals would carry me along.
This. Is. Fan. Fiction.
And I sort of liked it on first watch?! Every time I see it, Flux falls apart more. I see more laziness, more cynical and desperate attempts to be popular. I get angrier.
Dead. Dogs. Did I get this right? Did we watch seven billion Lupari die? There is no clarity, no sense of scale suggested by the script! We see one damn Lupari! Just give us one more? You couldn’t afford that?
What. Is. Dan’s. Trade? I looked it up — he is literally the only adult companion in the whole Doctor Who TV show where we don’t know what his trade was. And Di says he’s got one. Seems important to know why he’s shunning it so much that he is LITERALLY STARVING. (What do his parents think about that? Are they cooking him meals with the giant wok?)
The script doesn’t even care about his aspirational trade. One example and we’re done. Just care about Dan, willya?
One example for everything! We know from Last Christmas that this is not how it’s done. Everything important must be flagged twice or more.
Dan is a two dimensional character so easy to parody in “evil Dan,” which is more memorable than the entirety of Flux. I can’t stop saying I’m good at this!
Why does Di dump him? It’s the dumbest thing. She was in the Flux too! Writing fails to suspend disbelief part 1,009
For that matter I cannot even begin to believe their budding romance. It makes Attack of the Clones look like Romeo and Juliet.
All feels very condescending to the people of Liverpool. Chibnall, from Formby, should know better.
Is this really a shaggy dog story? Jesus, Chibs.
Once you unravel the Dan thing you realize that Chibnall simply cannot write characters. With the exception of the professor, who is just this side of cliche, we are not given a believable likeable I want moment for anyone. What does Vinder do, really, and what does he want? Who are we rooting for and why? The most sharply drawn characters are the mean ones, like Peggy’s uncle or wtf he was. I liked hating him.
Except Karvanista, whose anger at humans is almost the script getting upset at itself. Relatable.
All this AND you want to unravel UNIT? Does he just want to smear the entire franchise on its way out of the door? Whyyyyyy
I’ll tell you why: the MCU. It’s the Hydra plot of Cap II. And he even does a mid credits sequence. Just more magpie-like behavior that doesn’t add up to anything like a structurally sound nest.
I’m going to put this down to quarantine brain. But man, what a wasted opportunity to make a good epic.
Reach so far exceeds grasp it’s painful. It’s like he wants to do a RTD style season closer, but instead of trying to do homage he’s trying to one-up. Journey’s End had 2 Tennants? Bring on 3 Whittakers!
The unfunny guru is almost Mike Myers Love Guru bad. Chibnall thinks he’s Moffat in these scenes but doesn’t realize how humor works.
He’s a writer of sketches, basically. Not comedy ones though he tries. But short scenes. Individually they’re sometimes cool. As coherent storytelling they give up the ghost.
Four One Questions to Doomsday - Chris
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, or Lady Cassandra? Cassandra-Hayter hybrid.