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 4- Village of the Angels

 “Mrs Hayward, you appear to be... at night."

Right then. I've been pretty positive about pretty much every episode this season so far, leavened by a little apprehension about exactly what Chibnall is doing with his retconning of the mythology and whether the end result will do the show good or ill. I'm enjoying the ride, but perhaps not unconditionally.

Well, this episode is not one for such equivocation. It's bloody sublime, scary Who at its greatest. Well done Maxine Alderton, who gives us another slice of proper behind the sofa scares. This episode treats the Weeping Angels easily as well as Steven Moffat used to, and is crammed with excellent suspense-filled set pieces of exactlythe sort that Doctor Who should be doing. The Angels are the perfect television baddies, literally dependent on being seen by the camera for the very effective scares. And there is, of course, a television within a television, because we all remember that an image of an Angel becomes an Angel.

Yet the setting- a village cut off from the world and a base under siege along two time zones- is compelling and, moreover, so are the characters. We have Claire, suffering the horror of being stranded decades in the past and the further body horror of being possessed, Exorcist-like, by an Angel. We have the likeable Professor Jericho, whose bravery stems from the fact that the horrors he's witnessing tonight are as nothing to the horrors he witnessed at Bergen-Belsen. There's even a brief exchange of words showing that Gerald (who thankfully dies; apparently a second touch of an Angel simply kills) is the worst kind of authoritarian patriarch. This is good writing, and well shot too.

Yet there's more than scares and characterisation. The story of the week may take centre stage here, as in War of the Sontarans, but the arc plot continues apace. Vinder is still (in a nifty mid-credits sequence at the end) on the trail of a rather heroic Bel, while Azure is luring countless victims into a Passenger. The TARDIS crew all get good stuff to do. And there are revelation- The Weeping Angels are (sometimes) working for the Division, and the whole thing is a trap for the Doctor, suddenly recalled to the Division at the end in an effectively shocking moment. And Yaz and Dan are still trapped in 1901.It's all the more effective for seeming to come from nowhere, yet the whole plan makes perfect sense.

I have no idea where this is going, but perhaps I really ought to put aside my reservations about Chibnall's work and admit I'm just enjoying the ride.