Doctor Who wages a multi-front war as its Flux miniseries continues
The Sontarans stir up trouble in the past and the present, while the future remains in Flux
TV Reviews Doctor Who
After last week’s absolutely jam-packed premiere, “Chapter Two” offers a better sense of what we can expect from this six-part Doctor Who: Flux miniseries going forward. In a lot of ways, “War Of The Sontarans” could be a standalone hour about the Sontarans waging a multi-front temporal attack across multiple periods of Earth’s history. The main storyline is half historical romp, half present-day alien invasion story, as the Doctor faces off against the Sontarans on a battlefield of the Crimean War in 1855, while Dan deals with them on the Liverpool docks back in the present day. It’s a fine, if familiar, Sontaran story, filled with all the requisite comedy and commentary about the pointlessness of war. And it’s both aided and in some ways overshadowed by the ongoing Flux mystery.
The upside of the Sontaran stuff is that I really enjoyed learning about Mary Seacole (Sara Powell)—a real-life British-Jamaican “doctress” who cared for wounded soldiers at her “British Hotel” behind the lines during the Crimean War. When Chris Chibnall took over as showrunner, one of his priorities was to return Doctor Who to its original educational roots. And as with the focus on World War II-era British spy Noor Inayat Khan back in “Spyfall,” it’s especially nice to see Doctor Who highlight a woman of color who perhaps hasn’t gotten the historical name recognition she deserves. (At one point Seacole mentions Florence Nightingale, a contemporary who’s enjoyed much more posthumous fame for her similarly pioneering approach to nursing.) Powell’s warm performance makes Mary one of those great would-be companions, and, like the Doctor, I hope we see her again before this Flux story is out.
The rest of the Sontaran adventure never quite rises above the sum of its parts. After the TARDIS team inexplicably survive last week’s universe-ending cliffhanger, a mix of flux and vortex energy sends Dan and Yaz barreling towards different corners of time and space. And while that leaves the Doctor with more solo screentime this week, I’m not sure I come away feeling like I know her much better. Sure, she hates war, rails against bullish military figures like General Logan (Gerald Kyd), and stalls her way through the Sontaran crisis long enough to save the day with a plan that involves venting their supplies and forcing them into a retreat (excuse me, strategic withdrawal). But that’s the sort of scenario you could basically slot any NuWho Doctor into, rather than one that allows Thirteen’s unique qualities to really rise to the surface.
If I had to make an argument for what makes this a uniquely Thirteenth Doctor story, it would be the almost shocking amount of faith she places in Dan to singlehandedly save the day from a massive Sontaran army back in present day Liverpool—and even that feels more like a storytelling shortcut than a purposeful narrative choice. In fact, I’m really curious why the show made the decision to separate Dan from the Doctor, rather than keep him by her side and build up their nascent relationship. True, it leads to some fun comedy once the Doctor and Dan are eventually able to communicate across time via Sontaran Timeships. And I did enjoy the payoff of Karvanista once again swooping in to begrudgingly save Dan’s life. But it feels like a missed opportunity not to give the Doctor more time to bond with her new companion while Yaz is away.
Still, at least Dan (sort of) gets to prove himself in a crisis, even if it’s strange that he takes the initiative to enter a deadly alien invasion encampment as casually as he took the initiative to lead a make-shift museum tour last week. Loathe as I am to actively request a damsel in distress be added to a story, I wonder if making Diane a Sontaran prisoner would’ve given Dan more meaningful motivation for risking his life to enter their base. Instead he seems mostly focused on vlogging the experience for the Doctor—a woman he barely exchanged half a dozen words with last week.
Still, the upside of the Flux miniseries format is that the episodic story is balanced out by the ongoing one (and vice versa). Though Vinder and Mr. Williamson don’t get a ton to do this week, it’s fun to see them meet up with Yaz now that we already know a bit about both of their backstories. All three characters mysteriously find themselves at the Temple of Atropos on the planet Time, where officious diamond-shaped robots called Guardian Priests instruct them to fix some broken holographic figures known as the Mouri. In a throughline filled with standard Chibnall-era over-exposition, we learn the Mouri harness time to prevent it from running wild, and the fact that two of them are broken likely explains why the TARDIS has been acting up.
It remains to be seen if all that exposition will pay off in the future. But what does click right away is Yaz’s chemistry with Vinder and Mr. Williamson. Like Amy Pond in “Dinosaurs On A Spaceship” or Clara Oswald in “Flatline,” Yaz has become a full-on Doctor-like figure in her own right. (It’s part of the reason Dan’s early solo mission feels so odd—he hasn’t earned it yet.) And she takes two different approaches with her would-be companions. She’s kind and gentle to the clearly befuddled Mr. Williamson, sussing out what year he’s from and easing him into the idea that she’s from another time. With Vinder, however, she immediately spots a kindred spirit and takes him into her confidence as they try to get info from the Guardian Priests together.
It’s more character building than Yaz has gotten in the past two seasons combined, and it ups the stakes once Swarm, his sister Azure, and their mysterious “Passenger” crash the Temple as well. And while the villainous trio’s air of all-knowingness isn’t really working for me yet, their spooky creature design at least looks cooler in the brighter environment of the Temple than it did in the darkness of last week’s episode. (I referred to them as the “Glam Rock Squad” in my notes.)
How do Swarm and Azure know so much about Yaz and Vinder? Why do they hint at their experience in the Temple of Atropos being cyclical? And just who is their mysterious Passenger? Those are all questions for the rest of the season to explore—along with the slightly more pressing issue of how a Mouri-fied Yaz and Vinder are going to survive a burst of pure time energy. While “War Of The Sontarans” isn’t quite substantial enough to fully sell me on Flux, it succeeds at keeping my interest piqued to see where we go from here.
Stray observations
- For an episode named after them, I didn’t spend much of this review actually discussing the Sontarans themselves. That’s because I find them to be a bit of a one-note villain, although I did laugh at the Commander revealing he chose to stage his attack during the Crimean War because he wanted to ride a horse.
- In fact, I actually thought a lot of the humor in this episode was pretty solid—from the Doctor asking for a pointy stick to lay out her master plan to all the knowingly cheesy wok jokes.
- Speaking of which, while Dan’s parents are fun characters who deliver that wok along with some helpful Sontaran exposition, the way they randomly enter and then vanish from the episode is bizarre.
- There are no check-ins for Diane or Claire this week. We do, however, get a new mystery in the form of the Doctor’s black and white vision of a spooky floating house.
- We also get a shout-out to the Shadow Proclaimation and the fact that the Doctor used to be the President of Gallifrey.
- While Karvanista’s hatred of Dan is funny, I actually find Dan’s dislike of Karvanista to be kind of rude. He just saved your life, dude, be at least a little grateful!!
- “Hit the road, Skaak.”
74 Comments
“Glam Rock Squad” I just called him “Bedazzled Voldemort.”
Vajazzled Voldemort?
They remind me of the Jared Leto Joker, not that they look exactly the same but just the “aesthetic” as the kids say
They remind me of the Kryptonian villains from the first two Superman movies. Both groups are trios consisting of a sinister leader (General Zod/Swarm), a femme fatale (Ursa/Azure), and a big guy who never speaks (Non/Passenger).
I can’t help but connect the Temple of Atropos to season 5 of Legends of Tomorrow!
A Doctor Who-Legends of Tomorrow crossover would be amazing though challenging since they shoot in different counties, among other reasons Sara Lance and the current doctor would be a great teamup
Dan’s attitude to Karvanista is very Scouse – constant mockery and refusal to accept the need for help, but then the little nod to each other as they parted to show that both recognised what the other had done.
I genuinely laughed out loud at Karvanista’s “I’ve got a human in this fight!”. It finally seems Chibnall has figured out this whole “comedy” thing and he’s writing things that actually work. Neither episode this season has been perfect, but the show is so much more unclenched and relaxed than (especially) the first or second and it’s making all the difference in the world, and this episode was fast-paced, had proper A and B stories going on (and a C story for Yaz) that actually worked, and it was pretty propulsive. I enjoyed it a lot!“I wonder if making Diane a Sontaran prisoner would’ve given Dan more meaningful motivation for risking his life to enter their base.”Dan explicitly says, “they’re our docks”. If one knows anything about Liverpool folk is is that you do not fuck with their docks. He takes the Sontaran presence very personally, and that feels very real and authentic for a character like Dan who has a pre-established love of his city and the desire to protect it. I know that might not necessarily translate across the Atlantic but I thought it worked well enough and it’s definitely a refreshing change from a damsel in distress so I’m fine with it. (Also his Mum and Dad coming for a visit was kind of mentioned in passing last week, so it’s not a total co-incidence or contrivance, though sure, they depart the story quick enough when they’re surplus to requirements. Nice characters, though).
Agreed – and Dan creeping across the dockyard with his wok poised was another laugh out loud moment for me. Also the idea that the Sontarans’ critical weakness had been discovered by “some feller from Birkenhead. He was drunk, with a mallet.”
“If one knows anything about Liverpool folk is is that you do not fuck with their docks. He takes the Sontaran presence very personally, and that feels very real and authentic for a character like Dan who has a pre-established love of his city and the desire to protect it. I know that might not necessarily translate across the Atlantic…”
Correect. Except for the hardcore Anglophiles, USAmericans know almost nothing about Liverpool except (if you’re lucky) that the Beatles came from there.
Obligatory:
I hadn’t realised before that Chibnall is from Formby (just outside Liverpool). He’s gone all in with the Liverpool angle, with quite a few little lines probably only meaning anything to Scouse viewers.
It’s been an education for me – I’m enjoying it!
If one knows anything about Liverpool folk is is that you do not fuck with their docks. So basically the Sontarans are Everton fans…The former and corrupt mayor did look potato-like.
More like Mancunians. The Everton fan analogue in this would be the Lupari.
The Sontaran redesign is really good and appropriately disgusting without going overboard for the kids watching. this is also the ideal villain for Chibnall to write: they’re pretty simple and hard to screw up, and he clearly loves deflating their arrogant demeanour with intentionally silly jokes. (also a Linx mention! now that’s a quality Classic throwback if there ever was one)Dan remains solid enough, although I may be alone in thinking that Karvanista is so great he overshadows the human in every scene. seriously, can we make that dog a companion ASAP?the Temple storyline was barely half a plot and hard to judge off that, much like the borderline incomprehensible Arctic Circle stuff last week. I’m not disappointed with what we got though: Swarm and Azure look fantastic and their campiness punctured with genuine menace is great. the imagery of Yaz and Vinder (who I really like and want to know more about!) forced to be timekeepers was genuinely quite unnerving tooall in all, serialisation seems to be doing wonders for Chibs (that or he finally worked out the kinks in his era just before it ended). the visuals are also absolutely fantastic this season, especially the overhead battle shot and the creepy Wandavision b/w house. there’s plenty of flaws still popping up this season but the good is finally outweighing the bad
Isn’t the Sontaran design a reversion to the original or at least previous design from the original/classic series?
More or less, but the classic series was also pretty inconsistent about it.
absolutely a callback to it but with some detail you couldn’t get in the Pertwee era. they look unnervingly real now
The Sontaran “redesign” is a callback to their first appearance.
These were the two best back-to-back Chibnall-scripted episodes.
The mention of Linx was a nice classic Who callback & it seems like a shame not to get a reference to Sarah Jane too
WOW! I have exactly the opposite reaction. It is weirdly, a reversion back to some of the worst makeups for the Sontarans. They had really done terrific work with the Sontaran makeup by 2008, in which the one could no longer see seams at the eyes and mouth. Now you can see how the eyes just set inside a hole in the mask, and I could clearly see the human lips behind the mask lips when Commander Riskaw speaks.You truly think this make up is better than the ones above my comment, and below?
Actually seeing how far back the eyes are set into the flesh of the current Sontarans heads, it’s like having blinders on.
“You truly think this make up is better than the ones above my comment, and below?”…yes, like absolutely. the former looks tactile and imperfect and battleworn, the latter looks like a plastic mask a kid would wear for Halloweenthey definitely improved the first NuWho design as time went on, it looked a bit more detailed in the Moffat era, but I still think it just fundamentally looks… well, silly. give me the new one any day
I know real-life Richard Nixon was very problematic and yet at least part of me would still have liked to see him doing more travelling with the Doctor and getting into wacky adventures.
Just as a side note, during the 1977 revival of Laugh-In, they tried to get Nixon to come on and say “You can stop now” but he chose not to. I think they may have gotten an impersonator to do it instead.Also, Hubert Humphry often claimed his decision not to go on Laugh-In as well may have cost him the election.
Birkenhead!
There is one issue I had with the plot. So, a Sontaran is captured and from observing him Mary figures out their sleep cycles. The Doctor then says that the sleep cycles are because they have to go into their ships to recharge their suits and that gives her the plan. But the Sontaran who was captured was kept out of the ship. He was away from it for long enough for Mary to observe him. But he wasn’t any worse for wear?
That’s a good point. It’s well established Sontaran’s need to be fed through their probic vent regularly.
My feeling was that while they need to take seven and a half minutes to rest and resupply, they aren’t ‘running the tank to empty’ every day. So a captured or isolated Sontaran can keep going for longer than a few days.However, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a biological clock. If you’re used to that rigid a sleep cycle, you stick to it even if you don’t really need to.
AND if the Sontarans are so tied to that cycle, haven’t they figured out the concept of working & resting IN SHIFTS? Why have the entire army “go down” at the same time?
That was my big problem with this part of the plot.
Yeah, that was definitely an issue I picked up on (as well as wondering why you would even need to invade multiple points in history when you could just invade the earliest one and then you can have everything). Stuff like this does bring down the episode unfortunately.
Also apparently a race of alien clones who live for war and conquest haven’t yet figured out the concept of staggered R&R shifts?
at one point the Doctor mentions the Sontarans are not precisely known for being bright…
Mary Seacole is pretty famous in the UK, to be fair. We have the Mary Seacole Trust which is a very active foundation, the NHS have the Mary Seacole Awards for nurses, and the Mary Seacole Leadership Programme for managers. A load of our hospitals have a “Seacole Ward”. I think kids are taught about her in the school curriculum now too. She had a tribute in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics… etc…
It’s true for many years she didn’t get the same kind of recognition, but I think today she’s very much a part of the public consciousness.
The Seacole vs Nightingale bunfight has been going on for decades as regards whether one was more legitimate than the other. While the accusations that Seacole wasn’t properly trained or establishment enough clearly smack of racism, there is definitely doubt as to whether she was actually present at battlefields and delivering frontline medicine like Nightingale was, and how much of it was canny self-promotion.
Dan recognizing Mary Seacord without any introduction was a nice nod to her current level of fame without explicitly addressing it
I am blown away by how good things have gotten all of a sudden. Which just makes things that much more disappointing because we’re near the finish line. We get a glimpse of how things COULD’VE been only to have it taken away so quickly.
Moffat’s last season with Peter Capaldi was the same. After two interminable seasons of the Clara Show (guest starring The Doctor), we finally got a fresh companion and setting, and it produced some of the best stories from his whole run – not to mention, giving us Bill, Nardole and the redemption of Missy.
“YoUrE nOt My DoCtOr”.At least when Rose did it, they had enough sense not to draw it out for the majority of the season. I finally got my wife to start watching Doctor Who, she was having fun with it and was even enjoying it. We got 3 episodes into the Capaldi era and she called it quits. Clara sucked all the enjoyment out of the show for her. It boggled the mind how i09 was like “YES MORE CLARA LESS DOCTOR!!”. I was like, please God no.
I would really like to see a battle between the Judoon and Sontarans.
I am going to call it. The Muori are the Doctor’s people, she just doesn’t know it as she ended up abandoned/orphaned as the Timeless Child. Not certain how it will actually play out, but guessing this will resolve that dangling thread before Chibnall’s end.
Interesting idea!
I wondered if they were proto-Angels, since a line referred to them being “quantum-locked”.
The origins of the Weeping Angels are another dangling plot thread it would be nice to have resolved. I always assumed they were tied to the time lords somehow though that is not clear obviously
I’m really impressed by John Bishop. Not because he’s an exceptionally standout performer in any particular way, but because he’s got the exact right range for a long-term Doctor Who role; thoroughly British in a very specific way, and good enough at comedy to handle the silly as hell scenes, but able to hold his own in the dramatics.While watching the scenes around the docks I had the thought that if he wasn’t a companion, he’d actually make a good Doctor. Which I do stand by (even if I don’t really want a ‘straight white guy’ Doctor anytime soon), but I think would actually be a waste of his talents, because he’s also very good at playing ‘slow’. It’s hard to think of a companion in recent memory who’s been as fun to watch going through the learning process and not quite getting it.
Yeah, when’s the last time we had a companion who was not great at being a companion in a comic way? Harry Sullivan maybe? Sometimes they did it a bit with Rory, but generally he was a pretty competant character.
I was also just thinking about Nardole, but he really isn’t incompetent, he’s basically a junior Doctor with a contrasting worldview.
Nardole if anything was so competent he just couldn’t be bothered putting in the effort to use his full potential most of the time. in fairness though most of his laziness would have saved 12 some trouble if he’d ever listened (like hey Doctor, let’s not go into this abandoned spaceship with no oxygen!)
True, Nardole’s really as if the Doctor just decided to take a day or two off from rushing in headlong to save the universe. “I know that the Daleks have invaded Gallifrey, but it is tea time…”
One expects any comedy to be well handled in DW. It might be less known to US audiences, but John Bishop, Catherine Tate and Matt Lucas had all had successful TV comedy shows, not to mention the games how hosts John Barrowman and Bradley Walsh. Bernard Cribbins was a storied comic actor, Jon Pertwee’s next gig on UK TV was as the eponymous living scarecrow in in kids comedy show ‘Worzel Gummidge’. Not forgetting that Malcolm Tucker, super sweary spin doctor from The Thick of It, was Peter Capaldi being one of the funniest characters ever.
And there’s more: Timing lords: comedians who have starred in Doctor Who – in pictures | Stage | The Guardian
Doctor Who and The Comedians – Everywhere (weekendnotes.com)
I’m well aware there were plenty of great comic actors on DW, my specific question was about the character niche of an incompetent companion. Harry Sullivan was the last outright bumbler I could think of, though a couple short term (limited number of episodes) companions might fit the bill as well. Bernard Crimmins might be a one-shot companion example, and even Catherine Tate early on, though certainly not by the end of her companion tenure.
I was low-key worried he might turn out to be another chameleon arched Doctor in hiding after he and the Doctor kept saying the exact same thing at the exact same time, especially after his introduction while attemptig to act as a tour guide reminded me of Jo Martin’s human persona. 🤔
You know, guys, if you’re going to have a cliffhanger where it looks like Yaz might die, don’t immediately follow it up with a promo for next week’s promo that shows her alive!
True. But did anybody really think they were going to kill off Yaz this early in a six part series and without the Doctor there for the inevitable mourn/revenge rage.
We can hope!
The episodic cliff-hangers are very classic Who. Nearly every Tom Baker episode ended like that.
Classic Who didn’t have next-episode promos right after the credits though!
Very true!
I mean, we already know she’s in the chibnall finale next year
I strongly suspect this is going to end up being an origin story for the Weeping Angels (the Mouri controlling time, being corrupted etc).I’ll wait for the end of the season to collect my No-Prize if I’m right.
I reckon you’re onto something there. The Angels are supposed to be the oldest race in the universe, and this temple seems similarly ancient/timeless. Plus Azure says something about the Mouri being “quantum locked” against them, and their arrangement in a circle may be intended to keep the where they are and immortal. It’d be interesting to have the Angels, consistently portrayed as purely monstrous, be given a sympathetic backstory.
I wasn’t sure if the Sontarans would work as serious threats/ villains since Strax was such a great funny sidekick for so long. Their semi-gratuitous slaughter of prisoners in the present, soldiers in the past, and even other Sontarans for being captured did help establish them as formidable bad guys, as did their impressively ambitious plan. Still really want the Rutans to return too
Solid stuff so far. I think the Sontaran plot was probably the basis of a standalone episode before Covid made them shorten and restructure series 13 as one long story. I’m guessing that will also be true of the Weeping Angels episode coming in part 4.
This episode has been such a slog I haven’t even finished it yet. Also, why do they have to make the Doctor so condescending whenever a person in their contemporary time doesn’t want to take her advice? You know, a person who goes about their daily life not knowing about space/time travel? Also also, when did the Doctor get Mr. Spock powers? Did I miss something along the way?
Venusian akido!
Yeah, Evil Lincoln just said it. It goes all the way back to Jon Pertwee, the third Doctor.
Callback to the Third Doctor. She also used it in The Ghost Monument.
In fact, I’m really curious why the show made the decision to separate Dan from the Doctor, rather than keep him by her side and build up their nascent relationship.COVID filming perhaps?
I finished the episode (I know you were all waiting to hear that). The thing is, I don’t have an emotional investment in the show anymore. It’s not grabbing me. Hell, I cried when I thought a robot dog sacrificed itself for the greater good, and I cried again when K9 and Sarah Jane Smith were reunited! So many times over the years this show has grabbed me in “the feels” (I think that’s how the kids use that turn of phrase). Now I can’t even remember the last time the show really gripped me emotionally, and that makes me want to cry. I doubt Chibs will deliver on that (although I’m willing to be proven wrong), and good or bad, maybe RTD can get me grabbing for the tissues again.
Excuse me but did you say Temple of Atropos or Temple of…
I’m pleasantly surprised by how competent these two episodes have been. The mechanics of a fairly complex plot have worked unusually well for the Chibnall era, without the usual patchwork over big plot holes and major pacing problems.
There’s room for things to go bad — it’s not clear if he’s going to put together an emotional payoff to go with the plot wrapup, but I’m hopeful at least so far that it will be a satisfying story.My big problem so far is fairly superficial — I don’t like the design of the villains, and they look awfully rigid and masklike, much worse than the Sontarans. It seems like these villains need much more expressive faces to convey their characters.I’d disagree that Dan’s mission feels undermotivated. I thought they did a good job establishing how little else he has to do, and his huge pride in his hometown, and he’s a fun change from the mopey clouds hanging over the companions.And I’m glad Whitaker’s Doctor is finally doing things, thinking, and communicating. She’s finally been given a chance to be a Doctor, and she’s clearly up to the task.
I really appreciate the humour in tonight’s episode. Most of it came from the Sontarans, but Mary’s delivery of “I have no idea what’s happening” was extremely funny.