Doctor Who returns with a new experiment in serialized storytelling
Doctor Who: Flux introduces a new companion and the Doctor's biggest threat yet
TV Reviews Doctor Who
Welcome to the beginning of the end of Jodie Whittaker’s run as the Thirteenth Doctor. And, more importantly, welcome to the era of serialized Doctor Who! In case you missed the show’s marketing memos, showrunner Chris Chibnall decided to handle the restrictions of filming a season of Doctor Who during a global pandemic by telling one long story across a six-episode miniseries. Today’s premiere, “Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse,” gives us our first taste of what we can expect from the serialized event that’s officially called Doctor Who: Flux. And if this episode is any indication, it’s going to be a frantic affair.
“The Halloween Apocalypse” opens in medias res, with Yaz and the Doctor pulling off a death-defying escape on an alien planet. And the pacing doesn’t let up right through to a cliffhanger set during the end of the universe. It’s a lot to take in, especially as the episode introduces not only new companion Dan Lewis (John Bishop) but also half a dozen characters who are set to recur across the serialized adventure. Thankfully, the episode’s fractured, frenetic pacing finds its center in a line the Doctor tosses off about halfway way through: “Nothing’s as it should be, Yaz. Too much out of the ordinary tonight.” In an episode that doesn’t do much hand-holding as it leaps through time and space, that line offers a little bit of reassurance from Chibnall. This episode is supposed to be confusing, but it’ll all pay off in the long run.
That’s the hope, at least—although the Chibnall era is no stranger to broken promises. But amidst the chaos, there are things about “The Halloween Apocalypse” that have me feeling optimistic about the season. For one thing, this episode does a nice job fleshing out the Doctor and Yaz’s status quo without relying on the kind of “stand and monologue” scenes that are often a Chibnall weakness. In the time since Ryan and Graham left the TARDIS in “Revolution Of The Daleks,” Yaz and the Doctor have become the sort of well-honed duo you only get when a companion has been around for multiple seasons. Like the Tenth Doctor and Rose in season two or Twelve and Clara in season nine, they feel like equals. But while the Doctor has been trusting Yaz with more responsibilities and building up the fun side of their friendship, the ancient alien still hasn’t opened up about what she learned about her past in “The Timeless Children.”
In fact, what the Doctor passes off as just a casual mission to “see a man about a dog” is actually an attempt to learn more about “The Division”—the secret organization she worked for in her now forgotten original cycle of regenerations. Dog-like Lupari officer Karvanista is the only living Division operative the Doctor has been able to track down. But that becomes a secondary concern once she learns the Earth is in danger. One of the most fun reveals in the episode is that Karvanista and his Lupari fleet aren’t the ones who intend to harm humanity, however, they’re actually there to save it. Each Lupari is “species-bonded” to a particular human. And begrudging as that bond may be, they’re duty bound to save their respective humans from the incoming Flux—a sort of universe-eating force that destroys everything in its path. That’s how Liverpool-loving, wanna-be museum tour guide Dan Lewis winds up sailing through the stars, first on Karvanista’s ship and then on the TARDIS itself.
Reframing Karvanista as a gruff, reluctant ally helps alleviate my initial concern that this episode had too many villains. Instead, Karvanista shares more in common with the other recurring characters this episode introduces: Eccentric 1820s builder Mr. Williamson, Sally Sparrow-esque modern day mystery woman Claire, museum worker/potential Dan love interest Diane, observation outpost operator Vinder (Game Of Thrones’ Jacob Anderson), and a Sontaran commander. All of these characters share a sense of confusion and/or compulsion—from Karvanista’s need to protect Dan to Mr. Williamson’s need to dig random tunnels under Liverpool to some classic Sontaran blood-lust. Like the Doctor’s unspoken obsession with learning about her past, there’s a sense that each of these recurring players are driven by impulses they don’t fully understand.
Indeed, the biggest weakness with “The Halloween Apocalypse” is that everything feels pretty up in the air at the moment. That’s especially true of a Tim-Shaw-meets-Red-Skull creature known as Swarm, who frees himself from an asteroid prison, locates his sister as one-half of a couple living in the Arctic Circle, and activates a “psychic connection” with the Doctor. It’s a lot to take in—particularly the sister reveal and the sister’s subsequent kidnapping of Diane, both of which feel like they maybe should’ve been saved for episode two. Though Swarm’s people-disintegrating powers seem to be linked to the all-powerful Flux, there’s not much about him to latch onto until he finally reveals he was the Doctor’s original mortal enemy before her memory was wiped. Now he’s back for one final fight.
While Swarm is one of the many elements of this serialized season-starter that fall under the “wait and see category,” there’s also a confidence to this episode that hasn’t always been there in Chibnall’s era of the show. In particular, “The Halloween Apocalypse” does a nice job fleshing out Dan in relatively little screentime. If Yaz represents the Doctor’s excitable, confident, adventurous side, Dan reflects the side of her that’s selfless but also a little bit sad. He volunteers at a food bank but is too proud to take anything to help with his own food insecurity. And though he has the confidence of someone who will jump into leading his own museum tour, that seems to come from a place of loneliness and longing more than anything else—sort of like how the Doctor’s adventures with Yaz are disguising a deeper identity crisis.
Maybe the single biggest weakness of the Chibnall era is that it’s failed to paint a nuanced portrait of who the Thirteenth Doctor is and how she’s different from her predecessors. And while introducing a bunch of new characters runs the risk of pulling focus from the Doctor, it could also be a way to bring new elements of her personality to light too. As with most things in this episode, however, it’s a question that’s still very much in flux.
Stray observations
- The CGI in this episode is the ropiest it’s been since the Russell T Davies era. Maybe it’s a nod to the fact that Davies will be taking over as showrunner again after Chibnall and Whittaker depart following three 2022 specials.
- While I’ll sad to see Whittaker leave her role as the Doctor, I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to this version of the TARDIS. It’s so cramped and unwelcoming that it almost doesn’t make sense when new companions are shocked that it’s bigger on the inside. (Maybe that’s why the Doctor has to be the one to say the famous line for Dan.)
- The Lupari shielding the Earth with their interlocking ships felt very Guardians Of The Galaxy.
- While some of the humor in this episode felt forced (particularly the Sontaran stuff), I did enjoy Dan and Karvanista’s confusion over “forebears” and “four bears.”
- There’s some great tension in the scene where Claire is hunted by the Weeping Angel. She’s the character I’m most excited to learn more about.
- “What’s the point of being alive if not to make others happy?
167 Comments
the Doctor’s biggest threat yetI didn’t know Michael Grade was in this.
Nice.
When I saw the dog person I thought of ‘Survival’ and thought “ this really is the end” now isn’t it.
Ironic how the one thing not to survive Survival was the show itself.
To be fair, I can’t exactly blame him for thinking the Saward era was garbage.
Yeah, Grade doesn’t exactly come out of the whole “cancellation” thing looking great, but mid-’80s Doctor Who was doing a pretty good job of loading the shotgun for him.
Just a shame that McCoy didn’t get one or two more seasons. He was on a hell of a role.
Yeah Grade going out of his way to cancel a show with steady ratings and an international fanbase wasn’t going to win him any friends, but meanwhile you look at episodes like Warriors of the Deep and you remember that John Nathan-Turner couldn’t plan his way out of a paper bag.
Warriors of the Deep wasn’t even that bad?
It’s certainly not that good. But that’s beside the point; everything on Warriors had to be done in a big damn hurry, so scenes were under-rehearsed and often didn’t have a second take filmed. Peter Davison almost got hypothermia getting thrown into a pool of cold water, and the glue wasn’t dry on the Mackra costume, so the actors were essentially huffing fumes when they had it on. The paint even visibly smears against the set because that wasn’t dry either. In short, it was a big disaster that made the show and the BBC look bad.
The better plan would’ve been to scrap the entire story and re-distribute the budget for the rest of the season, but JNT didn’t want another Shada on his hands.
I mean everything on the show ever had to be done in a hurry. There was never really a stable period- periods where the ratings were better, sure, but the entire story of the show is struggling against deadlines and rolling the dice on whether or not an effect will turn out well.
Yeah, I mistyped for some reason. Warriors of the Deep wasn’t the worst idea on paper, but the execution was absolutely appalling.
It was better when Grade was trying to murder the show; that was just a classic case of a person with power snootily trying to destroy something he looked down on. Chibnall doing his damndest to destroy it from the inside through sheer hubris-augmented incompetence is a sadder state of affairs.
So hard to know what to think about this, given that it’s the first of a six-fucking-parter. (I do have concerns about that, given that Chibnall’s yet to convince me he can write a decent one-parter.) But there’s a lot to enjoy here, the best bits being Dan and Karvanista – particularly the two of them together. The mysteries have stacked up quickly. Who are Swarm and his sister, and who was holding them prisoner (‘the Service’ presumably, but are they still working for the Time Lords)? Did the Doctor previously meet Swarm in her Fugitive incarnation, or will we be getting more Timeless Child bullshit thrown at us (or both)? What does the Flux want, other than just to eat everything in its path? How are Joseph Williamson and the Weeping Angels connected? How timey-wimey is Claire’s involvement with the Doctor going to get? Can the Sontarans ever be used in a modern Doctor Who episode without lapsing into comedy within 20 seconds? Will I ever give a shit about Yasmin?Time will tell. It always does. (cackles Sylvester McCoyly)
Broadchurch wasn’t actually any good, but yet we all felt compelled to watch it. There. I’ve finally spoken the unspoken truth.
The first season is good. They made a fatal mistake trying to continue the story beyond that. Like, there’s a murder, you solved the murder, secrets were exposed, relationships were shattered, nothing will never be the same again, the story is complete.
The first season is “okay” and that’s only because of the cast. Not the story.
This. The moral of Broadchurch is that if you have Olivia fucking Colman plus David Tennant in not-phoning-it-in mode plus Jodie Whitaker, David Bradley, Arthur Darvill, and a bunch of other ringers on the cast, you can get away with damn near anything.
That’s not entirely true is it? BBC’s Hold the Sunset has one of the most impressive casts ever assembled for a sitcom, but is damn near unwatchable.
Chibnall did that Westworld thing where he was more worried about online fans guessing the mystery than telling a good story.
It’s an interesting character take on Dan — as he seems to be a skilled tradesman who is unemployed, but good-hearted. It was understated, but that was an interesting choice… I like what I see of him so far, and I’m loving Yaz without the other two guys…
Chibbers seems to have taken the already-worrying trend in NuWho to put companions on a similar standing as the Doctor and turned up to like 38 instead of 11.Yaz came off as more competent and mature than the Doctor in that episode, which tracks given the “arc” that he set the character on. She was barking at the Doctor like she (the Doctor) was an incompetent buffoon, and that’s just madness.It’s partly because Chibbers has turned the Doctor into something significantly less than the character has been (while simultaneously establishing her as The Most Special and Unique Time Lord Ever™), and Yaz is just a cudgel to drive that point home. The Doctor – she’s no better/smarter/more capable than you or me, she just has a magic wand and a time machine!
That feeling – that the Doctor had been lessened somehow*- is the reason I’m about a season and a half behind. I think the Doctor said some version of “I don’t know what to do” ten times as often in 13’s first three episodes as in the rest of nuWho combined. (*I also agree with you that the Doctor has become waaay to “I’m special because of what I am.” Part of the reason I loved the 12/Bill season was because it was a nice return to “grumpy alien pottering about and saving people.”)
He’s…he’s writing all of the rest of the episodes of the Whittaker era. Oh dear.As far as Chibnall episodes go though, this wasn’t too bad. Felt a bit like Fugitive of the Judoon—not great, but it gets by on momentum. It doesn’t feel like he’s doing a serialized story because he has a great idea for one, but because he thinks that’s what great prestige tv does. The problem is that Doctor Who isn’t prestige tv and is all the better for it.
Maxine Alderton (who wrote the era highlight Haunting of Villa Diodati) is co-writing the Weeping Angels episode this season, so that’s one thing I’m comfortable looking forward to at leastthis was pretty good for a Chibnall script, though. wayyy too many plotlines going on, for sure, but he does seem to have moved away from the super-serious prestige TV imitation and just had some fun with it, which is absolutely the right move to make (I laughed out loud at the “man’s best friend” line and I’m not ashamed, and Dan seems very likable so far)
On the other hand, the Weeping Angels, much though I love Blink, probably had fastest diminishing-returns value of any nü-Who monster, and Alderton managed to not comprehend that “the new Prometheus” was in reference to the mad scientist, not the monster (and Chibnall let the line stand through editing!), so let’s not get our hopes up too much.
That’s a fair point, although I still love The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone as an action packed Aliens type sequel to Blink, even though it changes a lot about them.
Yeah I was surprised to really really like this, but unsurprised to see negativity when I checked here. I was really down on the entire creative team going into this and pretty much ready for the show to go off the air for awhile after Whittaker leaves, but this was really fun. I don’t mind Doctor Who being serialized at all and I actually think it’s a good way to go. Just because it’s more serialized doesn’t mean it’s aping prestige TV. Daytime soap operas have been totally serialized for like 75 years and no one thinks of them as “prestige.” Having a fast-paced, fun, complicated, busy introduction to a larger story like this was a great way to bring Doctor Who back and a corrective to a Doctor and an incarnation of the show that had become kind of boring and joyless.
I get what you mean. This feels like Chibnall is upset that his first season idea bombed super hard and is now throwing a bit of a temper tantrum going “you guys want returning villains? HERE! You want serialized storytelling? HERE!”. I said it before, the only disappointing thing about Chibnall’s departure is Jodi is going with him, and that means we’ll never get a chance to see Jodi’s Doctor under a good writer.
Well, there’ll eventually be Big Finish audio-things and probably appearances in anniversary-specials down the line (maybe not next year, though. I get the feeling that Whittaker will want to be able to miss DW before returning to it).
I don’t even know what that idea was, other than ‘make the show as basic as possible’.
SuBvErTiNg ExPeCtAtIoNsBut seriously, that was his idea. He wanted to start subverting expectations, and take the series back to its roots with more historically placed episodes. However, what Chibnall failed to realize is Classic Who episodes were a half hour long, and those story arcs were 5 or 6 episodes long. He also wanted to start innovating monsters and villains. Which one paper sounded good. I was really looking forward to seeing what he was going to do. In reality he’s not nearly as good a writer as the thinks he is, nor is he as creative as the thinks he is. Unfortunately, as showrunner, noone that worked under him was in a position to tell him no, and tell him his ideas weren’t not that good. Noone in their right mind would EVER tell a showrunner that if they wanted to keep their job.
The sad thing is I kind of enjoyed his first season and its break from returning monsters and focus on history and what not. I know that a lot of people saw the 12th series as an improvement but I thought it was a mess.
It’s prestige TV only in the sense that we Americans feel a little more sophisticated when we watch the Beeb.
Yeah, all the substance and weight of the good prestige shows? Nowhere to be found here.
Moffat seemed to feel like it could be somewhat liken prestige tv. This was true of the Capaldi era which felt a lot more serious and less fun than other seasons and Doctors. Even earlier seasons had fronts towards prestige tv on that all the Doctors (especially 10) could be angsty and brooding.
You’ve got a point, in that since the revival the Doctor is both hero and anti-hero. I mean, there’s a reason so many civilizations seem to fear and oppose him/her. Even though he has good intentions, he/she tends to leave disaster behind.
And nothing says Prestige TV more than leads being anti-heroes
It seems to me like Chibnall falls in his love with his ideas and doesn’t spend enough time on the execution. Like, you should just love his ideas, too.
I think he wants it to be prestige TV (and I wouldn’t be surprised if his superiors at the BBC have wanted that too). I prefer the adventure serial of the ‘70s, if I’m honest.
“It gets by on momentum” is Chibnall’s philosophy. The plots are always dodgy and never fulfill the promise of the big ideas he tries to put forth. He just hopes you won’t have time to think about it because things are moving fast.
He’s also exceptionally weak at dialogue and characterization, so keeping everything moving quickly is a way of attempting to hide it.
To be fair, Thirteen does know somebody else who could shed light on this latest mess …
You mean that more interesting, more compelling Doctor that was onscreen a fraction of the time of the current Doctor?
It kind of sums up the Chibnall era perfectly that in order to completely smash the show’s established continuity and replace it with his own, he did it by introducing a Doctor who was way more interesting than the one who he’d nominally based the show around……and then completely failed to re-cast her in the next season.
I have no doubt that, given enough time, Chibbers would (will?) ruin her as well. The best thing that could happen to Doctor Ruth (not that one) is to not appear again until the 60th Anniversary Special.
So who played the male Ravager? He looked and sounded just like Paul Bettany, but I know it couldn’t have been him because the Internet would be all over that.
I’ll be glad to see the end of the Jodie Whitaker-version of the Doctor. She’s seemed like a diluted-yet-frantic/surface-only impersonation of Matt Smith, with little of the charm (although she doesn’t seem to realize that fact) and none of the childlike wonder or barely repressed malevolence. And the companions they stuck her with did her no favors—boring, useless baggage most of the time. I don’t know if a different actress could have made the female Doctor more interesting or intriguing, but I do know that the current actress hasn’t.
We’ll never know if it really was just the weak scripts or if it was her performance until she returns to record audios in 20 years….
I get what you’re saying but this episode had a great moment where the Doctor was getting pissy with Yaz, and to me highlighted just how good Whittaker can be, and I definitely blame Chibnall for her being okay but rarely nothing more than that.
It’s 110% the scripts
We know already.This very episode had a character stuck in a monitoring station who underlined how amazing and beautiful it was to look out at the universe.And then followed it by a scene where the Doctor opens the TARDIS door at the edge of the Solar System, and seems to be scripted to be having a “seen it” response. No way for Whittaker to do anything with that except try to play too distracted to register the beauty.
I honestly think that just on the basis of The Woman who Fell to Earth, Demons of the Punjab and Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror we can conclude that she’s capable of being good in the part when the script gives her room to be good. It’s just that that happens so, so rarely. 🙁
In other roles, Whittaker’s more than proven she’s a great actor. But I doubt Denzel Washington could sell half the stuff happening in Chibnall’s scripts.
She has a much better British accent than Denzel.
In fairness, I think she’s also much better at portraying the female experience.
I’ve seen flashes of both Smith and Tennant in her performance. To be honest, I don’t think the problem has been Whittaker. It’s the fact that the writing has been weak. She can only do so much with the scripts she’s been handed.
I feel like 10-12 were more fully realized even if it took awhile to get there. Jodie’s Doctor has not and I’m not sure if that yin Chibnall or Jodie (probably Chibnall). It doesn’t help that there’s been such small stakes in her plot lines or too many Companions as she’s never had much to bounce off of
I’d put the blame on the scripts. Whitaker has had some great performances in her other work but this entire run has basically given her mediocre material at best. I think the only character actually written in a dynamic fashion was the Master and even though the actor gave a good performance, the actual content was subpar at best.
While I like Jodi Whittaker, I think she’s talented…I do blame her, almost as much as I do Chris Chibnall for her Doctor being ‘meh.’ The Doctor lacks a certain level of arrogance and authority, while doing some truly horrific things (leaving the Master to the Nazis, deciding the spiders should slowly suffocate, instead of a quick death). I also think it was a mistake to play her Doctor androgynous . Did we need a reminder every week that she was a woman, no. But, the lack of overall nuance and the feel of something unsaid, underneath is sorely lacking. I think the problem with the Companions is they all had the same personality and function. They just came in a different package; old white male, young Black male and young Asian female. Whittaker’s Doctor still feels lacking in depth, but, I think Yaz improved because she gets the spotlight and isn’t competing with characters just like herself. That being said, I liked the episode and found it to be fun. Fingers crossed that it will all land.
The thing is, if you watch Jodie Whittaker in interviews her normal personality is VERY The Doctor. She’s clever and charming and weird and a little scattered. Chibnall has let her down every step of the way.
I think almost all of that is in the writing. Jodie Whitaker is a fine actress who is doing the best she can with what she has. It’s just that what she has is below minimal. Put any A-list actress in her place and it would be exactly the same. Honestly, all of Chibnall’s run has felt too much like he was the ultimate fanboy who got to actually film all of his fanfic stories, including putting in retcons that further ruin everything Moffat ruined in his time (at least he was a much better writer who could find through lines for his Doctors’ motivations and desires, unlike this rubbish) to the point that the Doctor is this meaningless lump that does nothing for anyone.
Boy this was frantic, which I guess is what they are going for.I grudgingly kind of like that Yaz & I are both annoyed by the doctor still keeping secrets from her, while empowering her in other ways. (Shades of Seven and Ace?)I will miss Jodie Whittaker
The doctor doesn’t trust her completely and I’m eager to find out why. Shades of 11 and ganger amy
It’s been a particular trait of hers and it’s been unclear why. It is a nice character detail but not if it’s never explained. 11 also kept people in the dark about things but there were always reasons for it.
It was the writing equivalent of this:Lots of sound and fury. I guess we’ll find out what it signifies, but given that Chibbers is writing all of it I’m not confident.
Eh, it was OK. My biggest problem is that I can’t stand John Bishop. He puts my teeth on edge. The Dan character is portrayed as ridiculously noble and selfless, which didn’t help either.The other elements were interesting though. I especially liked the guy alone in the space station sending snarky messages to whoever put him there.
I don’t think anyone likes John Bishop. He’s the second worst Liverpool John.
Brought up in Runcorn and has lived in South Manchester for 25 years. His accent is fake AF.
………..who’s the first?
probably the one who beat his first wife and cheated on her and barely paid attention to his son and who most people at best considered him a real jerk, but could write a catchy tune now and again.
Yes.
I assume Klep Trep means John Lennon, which would fit in with the relentless negativity of this thread.
Of course, we all know about The Worst Toilet in Scotland.
I don’t really have enough of a read on John Bishop or his character to know whether or not I like him yet, but I spent every single time he was talking being bugged over where exactly I remember his voice from.A quick check on IMDB showed that he’s one of those guys that’s just constantly guesting on British panel shows, which both answers and doesn’t answer that question; I know I’ve obviously now heard of him, but there’s a dozen shows that I could’ve seen him on.
He’s a regular on Graham Norton’s show. I think he does most of his comedy on stage. I’ve always thought he’s pretty funny.
“The Dan character is portrayed as ridiculously noble and selfless…” — which, to me, is a clear indication that there will be a big twist revelation that he’s really a monstrous villain before this is all over.
I can’t see Chibnall having that much imagination. And I can’t see John “housewives choice” Bishop allowing his rep to be so sullied. I’d be ecstatic to be wrong
I don’t think they’re capable of that depth of thought/writing but ooh yes please I would love this
Not really sure who thought it was a good idea to put a character like John Bishop in this.I mean, we’re introduced to him pretending to be a guide, and the woman who chastises him for doing this, again, still opts to get drinks with him? I don’t think so.
Four candles. Four candles? FOUR CANDLES!
I take it you’re looking for some Fork handles?
I take it you’re looking for some Fork handles?
Handles for forks. Got any o’s?
am I the only one who saw the name “John Bishop” in the review and felt a brief twinge of joy thinking John Noble / Walter Bishop had joined the cast?
Right??
If Walter Bishop is cookin’, I’m in. Might make watching the rest of Chibnall’s rubbish bearable.
He should play the Doctor.
The first Aussie Doctor. Instead of “Run!” he’d say “Nah, she’ll be right, mate.”
My apologies you have to spend the next 6 weeks listening to the worst accent in the world, the Scouse accent.
I’m amazed that he hasn’t already told Jodie he’s a scouser and his mam knew Ringos mam when they ‘ad nothing but a tin bath and an outside toilet
What’s the difference between Batman and a scouser?
Batman can go places without Robin.
I’m from Raaaaaaahhhhhhhhchester NY and I cheeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhllenge that assessment.
An accent colourfully described by P.J. O’Rourke for his American readers as like “a goose being buggered with a car horn”.
The interlocking ships protecting the planet are from Guardians, the shrunken building is from Ant-Man And The Wasp and Jacob Anderson’s character had Killmonger’s hair. Next week: The Doctor, Dan, Yaz and Dog Guy sing ‘Hotel Calafornia’ at karaoke.(On the Chibnall scale, the episode was pretty good.)
Timeless Children is my least favourite episode of Doctor Who and Flux is written by the same guy. Yeah, I’m in no hurry to watch this. I wish I was.
Uh, Chibnall is also the current showrunner…
I know. Wish he just stuck to delegating and left the writing to the people who saved the Whittaker era from being a complete waste of time.
It really, truly sucks that the BBC seem to have decided that the best route is to combine the showrunner and head writer roles. I don’t know if it’s to save money or what, but it’s held the show back from being as good as it could be, IMO, even though the RTD and Moffat eras were largely pretty darn good.Like, imagine the show re-debuting in 2005 with RTD as the showrunner and Moffat (or even Mark Gatiss) as the head writer. You let RTD focus on the nuts and bolts and the broad strokes, and you let Moffat do what he does best – writing stories – while keeping him away from the overarching stories and such that he seems to have struggled with.
It’s hard to tell how well this story will pan out at this point, but so far, it seems to be OK, even if I’m not a big fan of the design on the Big Bad (it feels like they’ve used the “alien with a visible skull” design a couple times before). It has got to turn out better than the last time Dr. Who attempted a season-long story, back with “The Trial of a Time Lord” in the Colin Baker era.I am glad that we didn’t get too much dwelling on the “Timeless Child” revelation. I had honestly forgotten all about that Division nonsense. One of the unfortunate tendencies of NuWho is to keep parceling out bits of The Doctor’s backstory—yes, I know there was a plan to reveal the Doctor’s origins during the Sylvester McCoy era before it got cancelled—and I just don’t care. Whatever the writers can come up with can’t possibly be better than what we might imagine; sometimes, a bit of mystery can be enticing.I may have missed something, but was there a good reason that Kavanista was trying to kill the Doctor and Yaz in the opening. Was this an intentional misdirect from the writers or did they decide to start in media res so they wouldn’t have to explain the context? Presumably, if each Lupari is bonded to a Earthling, one of them would have been really upset when its charge was killed…
One thing I did come out of this feeling unambiguously positive about is the Sontarans. Not only is this design suitably menacing for having the Sontarans take on an actively antagonistic role (they’re always gonna look sorta comical, but this one can pull off actually looking scary if need be), but I do find it really interesting that specifically the Sontarans are the guys that know about this new mystery threat and are raring to act on it.That’s the sort of choice that stands out as ‘you’ve actually got an idea here’, because they’re neither high on the list of characters you’d expect to know about a big looming disaster, nor high on the list of ‘we need to pull in a famous alien for this’. They picked the Sontarans because they have very specifically a role for Sontarans, and that’s interesting.
I’ve always liked John Bishop. Adding his everyman quality to the cast helps fill the gap left by Graham O’Brien’s exit. There’s the added benefit that, on his own, Bishop’s just plain funny as hell. I think he’ll thrive in an ensemble cast.
Um, the OG version of Doctor Who (the one that ended in 1988) used to do this all the time. Multiple episodes that told a complete story. This feels like more like “The Key To Time” arc that the 4th Doctor had.
And they usually didn’t work out too well. I don’t think anyone holds up The Armageddon Factor or The Trial of a Time Lord as stellar examples of classic Doctor Who.
Man, you’d think those serialized episodes would be ideal for binging, but the sheer amount of repetition–they’ll often just repeat the last five minutes of the previous episode at the beginning of the next one–makes it almost impossible.
Yeah. And the finale usually makes the whole thing seem completely pointless. Doing a serialized story that means something in a never-ending show where the status quo must re-assert itself is hard. Moffat discovered that in S6.I’ve said this before, but the thematic stuff generally works better.
The War Games is ten episodes of “now let’s go to another historic battle and do the same exact thing again.” Just so tedious.
“The Key to Time” produced some of the best stories of the show’s entire run. They just had no idea where the arc was going, and didn’t think about how they were going to run out of money and be forced to go cheap on the concluding story.
The Key To Time was one of the highlights of the OG Doctor Who run, and really cemented Tom Baker’s legacy – he reached a perfect mix of funny, unhinged, and alien that he never quite nailed again. This review seemed like it was trying too hard to justify a B grade for the episode. Not looking forward to watching it, tbh.
I don’t get the grades here, to be honest.
I’ve almost never been in agreement with their Doctor Who grades. I stopped reading their coverage regularly during the Capaldi era.
Actually, I mostly agree with Wilkins’ grades for the first three seasons and the Capaldi era. But the Chibnall era has been let off so easy by critics. If it wasn’t Doctor Who, it’d be getting lambasted.
I love The Ribos Operation and The Pirate Planet. The next three are fine, but the finale of it’s a disaster.
TIL: Williamson’s Tunnels (whose actual purpose is still unknown) are a real thing, which is cool, but hopefully we don’t get one of Chibnall’s history lesson episodes out of it.
Well worth a visit – one of the odder tourist attractions in Liverpool.
“hopefully we don’t get one of Chibnall’s history lesson episodes”
Not sure if joking. History lessons were part of the show’s original remit.
“New experiment in serialized”Except that’s how Who started….?
Isn’t this not new but old? Back before NuWho, didn’t they do these serialized adventures?
Always – I think 3 or 4 to a story was typical from what I recall.
They typically did multiple episodes per story, but they were 25 minutes long, except for 1985. The longest 45 minutes story was 3 episodes. Stories with 25 minute episodes were commonly 4 episodes per story, with maybe a 2 or a 6 per season, until you get back to Pertwee and earlier series.
The longest story was 12 episodes, unless you count the Key of Time series as a single story which has 26 episodes. That 12-parter, The Dalek Master Plan, has roughly the same running time as The Flux will.
Chibnall’s really leaned into the Liverpool angle for his final hurrah. What with the Doctor referring to the “Klopp-era” and confessing to having been back to watch the 2019 European Cup Semi-Final game against Barcelona 9 times, and every aspect of John Bishop’s character playing to self-mythologising Scouse archetypes. Insanely proud of his city – check. Full of bravado and colourful witty comebacks – check. Refusal to be impressed by anything that didn’t originate in Liverpool – check. Man of the people, rooting for society’s underdogs – check.I loved it but can imagine people in other parts of England being ready to smash their TVs.
With the benefit of this added context I wouldn’t be opposed if Fourteen picked up a suitably grumpy Manc to ensure equal representation.
Nine was a suitably grumpy Manc himself – we don’t need another one.
I am going to clear my head of expectations when I watch this and give it a proper chance, but before I do that: 1) the Chibnall-written episodes are the worst part of this run of NuWho, the fact that he is apparently writing this season is a bad idea; 2) as the writers of LOST and a bunch of other shows know, you can get by on making things confusing for a while until they realize the puzzle box is empty (it could at least have opened a gate to the cenobites, c’mon); 3) just incredible that they found a way to bring in another comforting white male as a companion with bargain-bin Hugh Grant. I anticipate that I will feel like this dumb kids’ show era can’t end fast enough, but as I said I will give it an honest shot. I do hope Davies will do a “Day of the Doctor” type big bang to usher in his new era that will use Whittaker so she has the chance to be in something good for a change, having her as Chibnall’s doctor is like how black coaches are often set up to fail by being hired to coach hopelessly shitty teams.
You should never do a mystery box, serialized anything unless you know how it ends. All the great work you put into it all gets forgotten if you can’t nail the ending. I don’t have much hope that this will (see the previous season)
The thing is…Lindelof really redeemed himself with The Leftovers, that actually included mystery boxes zapping people somewhere…they said “don’t worry about where it is going, the story is about the characters” and after they nailed that they were like “btw here’s what happened”LOST had nothing in the mystery box (except farts), the show was basically a ponzi schemeThis show is likely using the mystery structure because it automatically creates intrigue (like starting with a gun fight and then the title card “three weeks earlier”)…it’s a cheap way to try to get people to watch the whole season because they were tuning out after individual disappointing episodes. the thing is I have full confidence they know whatever the mystery is and also that we know when we get to the end of it, based on this guy’s previous output, it will probably be a bad idea and not worth it
I really don’t like the final season, but the 1st and 4th seasons of Lost remain very watchable for me.
it’s just all soured by knowing that they’re just jerking off the whole time they named Jack’s father CHRISTIAN SHEPARD, I just can’t forgive that
….wait a minute when did The Leftovers explain the mystery box?
uhhh final episode? it didn’t explain plenty of things like International Assassin, but it explained enough of the big question for it to be very satisfying
Although of course there is very much the possibility that Nora just made it all up.The show isn’t the worse for it either way, mind.
Yeah, I have no problem with that interpretation of it and even more respect for Lindelof that he came up with a satisfying semi-explanation and then let the viewer choose what to believe
Ok I think I get what you intend now.Since I read Noras monologue as entirely fabricated by her character – she made ALL of that up after bailing on the wacky science – I came away with “nothing being explained about the mystery box” as a committed goal of the entire series. And it was awesome.
Yes, you read it as made up, I read it as not made up, I think both answers are pretty good really
As I see it, the entire point of The Leftovers is that we can’t know, because the Departure is a metaphor for death. “What happens after we die” is not a question to be answered in a series finale, or at all.
The Leftovers is a masterpiece, and when it ended with a perfect series finale that explained absolutely nothing and ended up indeed being about the characters, I forgave Lindeloff everything – Lost, Prometheus, World War Z and every other piece of crap he wrote up to that point. Then he proved it wasn’t a fluke by making Watchmen series.I’ve always thought that Nora’s story about her crossing to the other side was just something she made up to finally reconcile with losing her family. I thank the writers for not even trying to explain what caused the disappearance, and just showing how the world deals with something that has no logical explanation. This show is one of the best TV series I’ve ever seen.
I did believe Nora went there, and I love that the show let us both make up our own mindsHas there been a director’s cut of Prometheus released? Because I know there were scenes cut out around the time when Idris Elba has to shoot at the thing out the ship when it’s running at him because that part (among others) made no friggin sense. Bargain basement Chris Evans didn’t help that movie much (logan whoever). And then, Prometheus is, I think, one of the most beautifully shot movies ever made, the star map Fassbender opens up when I saw it in 3-d was just extraordinary, and the movie is such a total and complete and epic fucking mess! I might buy it on blu-ray. the only thing keeping it from being a Southland Tales style fiasco is that it doesn’t feel like the story is personal to Scott or to the writers, so unfortunately it feels more like commercial miscalculation instead of the batshit boondoggle I wish it were. There are a few bad movies that for some reason I love and love to watch while high, and I have seen some of them more times than I’ve seen The Godfather. Among them: Vertical Limit. stop judging me!
I did believe Nora went there, and I love that the show let us both make up our own mindsThe beauty of this ending is that both interpretations make perfect sense and contradict nothing that came before. I agree that Prometheus looks excellent because Ridley Scott’s movies always look great, even the shitty ones. However, I hated it for being aggressively stupid, like every line of dialogue was an insult to my intelligence. Nothing in it makes any sense, and all the characters, apart from David, behave like developmentally-challenged 5-year olds.
I find nothing to gainsay in your criticism of Prometheus
Not always true. Breaking Bad’s improvised third and fourth seasons work much better than its planned second season.
I may not be remembering properly, but was that a mystery box? I mean, there are shows where they are improved by going away from the books (Magicians) and shows that go off the rails without the books (GoT) but just having a planned season versus writing a new course (with practical knowledge now of your actors and strengths) isn’t quite the same, those weren’t “Find out what happened to the passengers of Flight X and why there are polar bears and three-toed statues and smoke monsters” shows where the answer was a loud wet fart. Although…Although there are often elements of shows that are mystery-box-like and unresolved: Fringe had a whole thing where Olivia saw her death and they just (bloop) dropped it…they pretty much just dropped the entire Jared Harris telekinesis storyline overall and hoped you didn’t remember it. If I think about it, GoT threw in a bunch of magic stuff the Lord of Light could do (bring people back from the dead, etc.) and then just farted it away. Raised By Wolves has put itself in a position where there doesn’t appear to be any possible explanation for all of the crazy stuff that has happened other than that the whole show takes place in a virtual reality. Seriously, it makes less sense than Prometheus. Sometimes when we rewatch those shows or reread books we have completely forgotten those really weird elements, especially if they went nowhere.
lol @ bargain-bin Hugh Grant.But bargain-bin Hugh Grant is rather annoying in this. Just found out he’s a comedian. Was any of his lines supposed to be funny?
“having her as Chibnall’s doctor is like how black coaches are often set up to fail by being hired to coach hopelessly shitty teams.”It’s a fairly common phenomenon that sadly is most often done to women:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_cliff
word, that sucks…Robert Saleh Jets and Brian Flores Dolphins come to mind immediately, although Urban Meyer coaching the Jaguars has to make up for at least a little of that :Pnot to mention taking the Warriors from Mark Jackson and giving them to Steve Kerr at their peak…perhaps offset by taking the Sixers from Brett Brown and giving them to Doc Rivers (although the Sixers are kind of a curse no matter what)
I liked it. It was fun and exciting in ways the entire Chibnall run has been, allowing 13 to finally show some of some of her action adventure chips. I think the best thing is that it’s the first time in Jodie’s run that it feels like there’s big stakes involved, making the show more exciting but also finally allowing Jodie’s Doctor to be more of a bad- ass and stringer than she’s been allowed to portray. Up to know, it’s been a lot of smaller stakes stuff and her Doctor was never allowed to shine
It’s like Chibnall threw the kitchen sink at us saying, “please like something!”Also, I could hardly hear the dialogue over the fucking background music.
Also, I could hardly hear the dialogue over the fucking background music.It’s relatively minor, I guess, given how Chibbers has poured gasoline on so many aspects of the show and taken a flamethrower to them, but the music has been a significant step down since Murray Gold left. I know that his bombastic This Moment Is So Important™ style wasn’t necessarily for everybody, but Akinola’s stuff has been utterly forgettable.Making it loud doesn’t make it any less forgettable, just more annoying in the moment. It’s like putting a ! after Jeb Bush’s name and expecting that to make him exciting to voters.
I tried putting a ! after Jeb Bush’s name and it just kept coming out “Jeb?”
Karvanista is basically the dog version of Odo from DS9. Same sense of duty, sarcasm, and even a similar job in a way.
He and Dan are going to end up bonding and watch out for the tears to start flying around on DW Twitter
The whole approaching space menace opening gave me strong Star Trek: The Motion Picture vibes.
Danny’s townhouse being shrunken down to a toy figurine is a dead giveaway that the Master will be back, not that that would be a big surprise. But it’s nice to see them call all the way back to the original series (the Master’s matter-compressor weapon).
It’s easy to handwave away the distinction (especially for Chibbers, obviously), but the Master’s weapon is a tissue compression eliminator. Granted, that doesn’t explain why clothing shrinks along with the people he kills with it, but poor Tegan suffered enough without finding a naked Auntie Vanessa doll in her car.
Nitpick: Tegan didn’t see her aunt shrunk down. The Doctor saw it and told her about it later. (Still, I wonder how Tegan explained that to the extended family when she finally got back home about a year later.)I could be misremembering, but I think the Master had used his [whatever] compressor on inanimate objects before. I think he held Peri prisoner at one point and demonstrated what he’d do to her if she didn’t cooperate by shrinking down some objects.
He did – they were spacesuits in the scene you’re thinking of, which follows along with the clothing exception, I guess.But now that I think of it, he’s never used it on anything larger than roughly person-sized, so far as I remember, so perhaps that’s the delta rather than anything the device’s name might imply.
I thought it was a fairly strong opener, though, like you say, there’s a lot going on and it’s all up in the air. And it does create a bit of a controversy as to how long-time Who fans should count it. Is this part one of a six-part story, or is this six interconnected stories, or what? How do I mark this down on my Doctor Who spreadsheet???
This was a decent start. Like yeah a lot depends on how this develops and whether the plot threads pay off in an interesting way, but at the very least, the characters are interesting, the visuals were pretty even if the effects were off, and the Doctor gets to be active for the first time in a long while. Dan’s got potential as a companion. Enjoyed the Doc and Yaz’s banter. “Synchronize watches. Oh wait, I don’t have one.”
“welcome back to to the era of serialized Doctor Who!”
Fixed that for ya. 😉
They should have made the Master the Timeless Child, not the Doctor.It would perfectly explain his perpetual rage, and add the wrinkle that the entirety of Time Lord society was derived from a psychopath. (Why else would he go on a rampage after discovering the secret?)With the Doctor as the Timeless Child, all we have is… oooohhh, another mystery box, with secret villains and organizations that will never be as compelling as the writers hope or expect. (The Doctor’s big secret is that… she was part of something called The Division? That sounds like one of those stupid Steven Segal films where 90% of his screentime consists of stunt doubles.)
Worryingly, Sacha Dhawan is not currently listed as having a credit on Flux, and seems to have been busy enough in 2020-2021 that it might not be one of Chibnall’s fake-outs. So I suspect we’re really stuck with this nonsense unless RTD wants to go to epic lengths to un-do it.
RTD will likely handwave it away, and the series (and its history) will be all the better for it. The Timeless Children arc left a gaping wound in Whovian lore that is going to be hard to fix without some sort of hard reset.
I genuinely hope they never mention the timeless child again. Just… pretend it never happened, like the doctor being half human.
I think they need to lean in, maybe only briefly, and deal with it. Then shut up and move on. It’s like The Blacklist finally explaining everything about Red’s character…apart from one thing. Just finish it please for those of us who are interested, and then close that chapter and get back to some decent, episodic storytelling that doesn’t require people to remember what happened last week/month/year.
Yeah I got the impression that Chibnall took the success he had on Broadchurch, which was an actually well written and acted mystery box story, and thought he could graft it onto all the fanfic scripts he has always wanted to make, and thus turn Who into prestige TV (which it never has been, nor has it tried to be before him, and that’s OK!) and instead we got the hot mess we’ve ended up with, and the realization that we’re going to go back to the classic kind rougish male Doctor with a pretty female companion for all time at this point.
Quick detour — if you enjoyed Broadchurch, and Doctor Who, have you ever seen Blackpool? Probably my favorite David Tennant project.
Are we not supposed to understand much of what Dan says? I felt bad about having to turn on on subtitles for him, but even my subtitles just bailed and went “(UNINTELIGIBLE)“ for when he got into the TARDIS, and I believe was trying to tell a story about how his mate had one of these just before getting his house back.
He was – he was doing the classic Scouse thing of acting like he’d seen it all before, and refusing to be impressed.