Doctor Who: Flux, Episode 6- The Vanquishers

 “What an awfully big adventure!"

Perhaps this isn't quite the perfect finale, but it's nonetheless a fine culmination to what s easily Chibnall's best series. It's a busy episode and, if the Sontarans' attempt to save and then rule the universe by backstabbing some suspicioiusly gullible Daleks and Cybermen doesn't quite ring true, there''s enough going on to gloss over it. Even if the Sontarans are simutaneously a bigger threat than they've ever been and, er, overly partial to chocolate. I rather wish that hadn't been done. This os a weakness that will probably be repeated again until we eventually reach the equivalent of Ace chucking gold at Cybermen in Silver Nemesis. Still, I liked it on the whole.

The threads are drawn together well. Vinder and Bel are reunited rather straightforwardly in the end. The Professor, a wonderful character, gets a cool and heroic death. All the characters get something meaningful to do, even if there are a lot of plot threads to tie up. The mystery of the Doctotr's past is dangldd in front of us again, with that nice little metaphor of the Escher-esque rickety house of memory. We learn that Karvanista, perhaps, was a companion, but little else. Indeed, the Doctor ends up with the pocket watch only to deliberately hide it from herself. She fears she would not approve of the person she once was.

The use of the Sontaran plan, and the Passenger, to destroy the flux is clever, although it's not entirely clear how much of the damage can be undone. Azure and Swarm's plan- to sacrifice the Doctor to Time on Atropos and stsrt an endless time loop of the end of the universe- is gloriously bonkers, and I like the hint that it echoes something the Doctor may once have done to them, which makes me think of the fate of the Family in Human Nature.

Oh, and I liked "contact" with the three splinters of the Doctor, deliberately and appropriately echoing The Three Doctors in a tale about anti-matter destroying the universe.

The Doctor and Yaz being reunited is touching, and will do nothing to discourage the shippers, nor will the Doctor's pledge to be more open from now on. And Dan, having just been puzzlingly dumped by the rather resourceful Diane, is now officially a member of the team having well and truly proved himself.

All the more interesting, though, are the hints from Time at the end. The Doctor has little time yet, and will not regenerate. The Master will be involved. It is suddenly starting to feel like the end. And it's all very good. It just doesn't quite feel as epic as it should.

Doctor Who: Flux, Chapter 5- Survivors of the Flux

 "Fetch your dog!"

This is, let us confess with all due squeeing, if that word still exists, that this was a somewhat exciting episode, teasing us almost as much as the Nepalese seer with his Conan Doyle obsession. We had Dan, a rather fetchingly dressed Yaz  and Professor Jericho (yay!) as Edwardian Indiana Joneses. We had Bel and Vinder. We had the Grand Serpent manipulating the history of UNIT, complete with what may have been a bit of Nick Courtney's voice, until Kate Stewart proves to be his match. We get the beginnings of an explanation for the Williamson tunnels. We get, in short, the beginnings of some answers, as befits a fifth episode of our first literal six parter since The Armageddon Factor, another story about time, cosmic balance and war.

Chibnall does well to balance the enormous number of characters here, and gives us feels as well as exposition. There is a lot of character development, from the Doctor's affection (love?) for Yaz to Yaz's resourcefulness as the leader of the intrepid gang stranded in Edwardian times. She's tough, and Dan and the Prof are lucky to have her.  Yet we also feel for poor Mr Williamson (with his anachronistically modern Scouse accent; a Scouser in the 1820s would have sounded more like the rest of Lancashire) as he is at last believed.

It has to  e said, though, that the best bits are the fun, globe-trotting, action set pieces in 1904, as well as the little bits that are bound to pay off later- UNIT, se see, has the TARDIS as it was at the end of last episode.

But the big event is the Division, and the revelation that Barbara Flynn is in fact playing Tecteum,the Doctor's adoptive "mother" (and, by implied retcon, the Claire Bloom character in The End of Time?), as well as that the Division exists outside of time, and has been shaping the history not only of our universe but a whole multiverse (right at the point where I'm reading loads of Michael Moorcock)... to the poinyt of wanting to destroy this universe and move to the next one. Which, incidentally, may be the universe from which the baby Doctor-to-be had just arrived by wormhole when first found by Tecteum, whoincidentally has the Doctor's memories stored in a Chameleon Arch pocket watch.

Deep breath. This is exciting stuff, and if that's not enough the Sontarans are invading, Swarm and Azure have just killed Tecteum and it seems the Doctor is next, amongst some rather exciting silultaneous cliffhangers.

And... breath. Yeah, that was a bit good. And Chibbers wrote it...

Doctor Who: Flux, Chapter 3- Once, Upon Time

 “Time is playing games with you all."

I have to admit this episode is pretty damn awesome, and has me bloody excited. I have my usual reservations with Chibnall's retconning of the Doctor's past and continuity- has it been thought through? Is it going to benefit the show in the long term rather than buden it with confused and conflicting continuities? There's a reason why the so-called Cartmel Masterplan quite deliberately never amounted to the odd vague hint. However, in the moment, I'm enjoying the ride. A lot.

I've been reading a lot of Michael Moorcock lately, and this feels very much like his work. Concepts like the Passenger, a planet called Time and awar between Time and Space are very Moorcockian, if that's a word. The Flux is decimating space; now the same is happening in time. The narrative is complex, with the Doctor, Yaz, Dan and Vinder jumping between different times and places simultaneously, some real and some relived memories- but memories with details changed. Nothing is stable. I have reservat ions about how the general public will take to this, but this middle aged geek loves it.

We get nice little glimpses into the pasts of both Yaz and Dan, good character moments for the pair of them Dan and Diane are sweet together and she's clearly besotted, and Dan is horrified to discover she's trapped within the Passenger. We also learn Vinder's past- and he's a whistleblower in a corrupt society who was punished for doing the right thing, a difficult concept to grasp in the "in no way corrupt" Britaoin of 2021 (Ooh, bit of politics there...). We also see the mysterious Bel, on a quest (with her unborm Tamagochi child or summat) for love that encompasses hordes of Daleks, Cybermen and others.... only to discover at the end that she and Vinder are a couple on mutual quests for each other.

Oh, and Vinder knows what a TARDIS is, which is interesting...

But we also, of course, learn a lot about scenes from the Doctor's past which she relives alongside people she sees as Yaz, Dan and Vinder. Yet her own reflection shows her as the Jo Martin Doctor, while Dan is really Karvanista, who must be bloody ancient. So who are the other two...?

The Doctor is leading an army for the Division, an agent of law and order against the same two baddies as the present day. But are they baddies? They seem to have an ideology (Time must not be constrained) which is not obviously any more right than that of the Division.But we get very little context... until a mysterious scene with Barbara Flynn as a mysterious woman who explains that the Flux and all this is deliberate, the universe ending is the point, and it's all the Doctor's fault.

Oh, and there are some awesome action sequences with Cybermen and especially Weeping Angels, now right up there as iconic baddies. Yes, I loved this episode, and Chibnall wrote it. But let's hope what he's doing to the mythology of the show doesn't break it, or I may well look back upon this episode less fondly...

The Scandalous Lady W

"I belong to no man!"

It's almost a cliche to say that the BBC could do a costume drama in its sleep. Unfortunately that's what it seems to have done here.

Oh, it all looks good. You expect that. And Natalie Dormer is good and not to blame for her underwritten character. But given the huge themes at play here- the fact that women, in 1782 as here and for ninety years after, were legally their husbands' "property" and, of course, our old friend those sexual double standards- the script doesn't really involve us much inter characters, or get us to understand or care about them.

The concept is huge here: a woman isbeing persuaded by her husband to indulge his cuckolding fetish by shagging other men while he watches through a keyhole, thereby meeting another man with whom she elopes. She wins s victory of sorts by successfully fighting in court his attempt towin punitive damages against her new lover, but this comes at the terrible cost to herself of a shattered reputation, ultimately costing her access to her daughter and the very lover for whom she sacrificed all.

This is a heady brew. Why, then, do I not feel emotionally engaged? Perhaps this is not a story that could have been told over a mere ninety minutes; it feels extremely rushed, to the point of being hard to follow. Why not a six part series?

There are a couple of lines that made me smile- Lord North tells Sir Richard that "Lady Wortley will no more give up her independence than will the American colonies": rather witty for such a terrible prime minister. But beyond this there isn't much historical depth. The role of Lord Mansfield, presiding over the trial, in the ending of slavery on English soil is not even remarked upon, and neither is anything except plot, plot, plot.

This is a wasted opportunity of a story that could have made great telly. Hopefully one day it will.