Story 297e: Flux - Survivors of the Flux

In which the Doctor has been turned into a Weeping Angel, whilst Yaz, Dan and Professor Jericho are trapped in the year 1901...

The Doctor slowly returns to normal and finds herself in a large control room.

For her friends, three years have passed and they are searching the globe for clues to a future event when the Earth comes under threat. The Doctor left Yaz a message about this. In their travels they have discovered an ancient prophesy which seems to relate to the Flux, and begin hunting down further clues. In Mexico, they explore an ancient Aztec temple and locate a relic which points them next towards Constantinople.

They realise they must be on the right track as they almost fall victim to a number of assassination attempts.

The Doctor finds that the station she is now on is presided over by Awsok - the woman who she briefly met when the Mouri cast her adrift within her own timeline, and who seemed to know something of her past. She is alone here, apart from an Ood servant. It transpires that she is actually a regenerated Tecteun - the Gallifreyan who adopted her - then exploited her - when she first entered this universe as a child. She was the power behind the Division, and is its sole survivor. The station is travelling through a void between universes, and Awsok reveals that it was she who unleashed the Flux in the first place. It is composed of anti-matter, and it is intended to wipe out the universe whilst Awsok begins afresh in the neighbouring one.

Yaz, Dan and Jericho discover that the date of 5th December is significant in their quest.

In England, 1958, the Grand Serpent is attending a country house shooting party, posing as a man named Prentis. He meets another guest named Farquar, who works with the United Nations. When 'Prentis' mentions his studies into extra-terrestrial threats, Farquar's interest is piqued and he reveals that he has been tasked by the UN to establish a group which will specifically investigate such threats. He invited him to join them as his assistant.

The Doctor learns from Awsok that the Division outgrew Gallifrey and the Time Lords, and now has many species working for it - hence the Ood servant. She tells the Doctor that she attempted to control her actions but could never stop her meddling, and so is destroying the old universe to start afresh - hoping to have gotten rid of the Doctor at the same time.

Bel is tracking down Vinder when she encounters a huge monolith in space. She is interrupted by Karvanista, who has come to find out why a Lupari ship is not conforming to orders. She is unaware that Vinder has just arrived on the monolith and witnessed all of the refugees from Puzano being disintegrated and turned into energy for Azure and Swarm.

At UNIT's new headquarters, the Grand Serpent sees the TARDIS, retrieved from the village of Medderton. Farquar reveals a new device for identifying alien lifeforms - and is astonished to see it react to his new assistant. A large snake-like creature materialises inside Farquar, suffocating him, before returning to the Grand Serpent.

Yaz, Dan and Jericho travel east to the Himalayas where they believe a wise hermit on a remote mountain has a clue for them. His clue points towards Karvanista, and so they decide to travel to the Great Wall of China - a structure visible from space - and set a message for him.

Vinder is the only survivor on the monolith, but is captured by a Passenger form and within finds a vast landscape with different climatic regions. He meets Dan's friend Diane who has been held here since captured by Azure. She shows him some damaged areas which may prove a weakness, and so they begin to formulate an escape plan.

1987 sees the Grand Serpent using his snake-like pet to assassinate senior political figures and so gain control over UNIT.

In the present day, however, he meets his match in Kate Stewart who refuses to see her father's organisation destroyed from within. On getting home after her meeting with him, she narrowly avoids the explosion of her house. She calls on Osgood for help and goes into hiding.

In Awsok's absence, the Doctor manages to convince the Ood to help her to save the rest of its kind. It shows her a map of the universe which shows many galaxies already destroyed by the Flux, which is closing on the Earth. She then hears faint voices, emanating from an antique fob watch.

It contains her missing memories, and Awsok offers to let her have it if she joins her - otherwise she can return to the original universe and perish.

After witnessing another appearance by Joseph Williamson, onboard a ship at sea, Dan realises that they ought to go and visit his famous tunnels in Liverpool.

There they discover many doors, each leading to another world or another period of Earth's history, explaining his seemingly random appearances.

Karvanista boards the ship piloted by Bel, but they quickly join forces when they come under attack.

The Grand Serpent orders that Earth's defences be disabled then contacts his ally - Sontaran General Stenck. The Sontarans attack the Lupari fleet, and troopers appear in the Liverpool tunnels.

Azure and Swarm use the energy of their victims to teleport themselves onto the space station where they kill Awsok and then threaten the Doctor...

Survivors of the Flux is the penultimate instalment of Flux. It was written by Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on Sunday 28th November 2021.

After Once, Upon Time, it's the least liked episode of the story / mini-series. Why might this be?

Like that earlier instalment, it's very "bitty", with the action jumping around from location to location and from time zone to time zone. Yaz and company are off on some sort of Indiana Jones quest which has come out of nowhere. Seems the Doctor left a message for her, despite there never having been any opportunity to do so.

We also have an origins story for UNIT which does not fit with the one we've always accepted. That's not to say the old one was the right one - it was always assumed by fandom that Lethbridge-Stewart was instrumental in forming UNIT, after his experience with the Yeti in the London Underground, but the idea that he was already a member, in a junior rank, simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

We also learn that Awsok is really Tecteun, from The Timeless Children, (and we really didn't want to hear any more about that...). The character is set up in such a way that we assume she's going to play a hugely significant role - being the person responsible for the Flux - but then the Ravagers turn up and kill her, just like that.

We're reintroduced to Diane, who has simply been parked for the last four instalments, and won't play much of a role ongoing anyway. The Grand Serpent suddenly emerges as a major villain, despite only having been seen in one, seemingly isolated, sequence in the third episode. It's as if Chibnall is simply making this up as he goes along - something Chibnall always seems to do. If the Grand Serpent was going to play such a significant role, why wasn't he properly seeded through the series. The first episode set up all the various players, and now we're expected to care about new ones. This story is stupidly overloaded.

That the Flux is simply anti-matter is really more anti-climax.

A few guest artists added to the cast list this week. Playing Farquar is Robert Bathurst, who first came to prominence in the series Joking Apart, which was written by Steven Moffat. He then featured in the comedy drama Cold Feet, which lasted nine seasons. He's best known for comedic roles, often playing the "upper class twit" character or authority figures.

As the mountain-top hermit - Kumar - we have Kammy Darweish. He featured in the James Bond movie Skyfall. Nicholas Blane (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) plays Millington, one of the Grand Serpent's high profile victims.

Jonathan Watson plays another Sontaran officer and Silas Carson once again voices an Ood. He has voiced these creatures ever since their very first appearance in 2006. The Ood themselves have traditionally been played by Paul Kasey, but he has moved onto movement coaching, so here it is played by Simon Carew.

Jemma Redgrave makes a welcome return as Kate Stewart, and we have a cameo voice appearance from Nicholas Courtney as "Corporal Lethbridge-Stewart".

Osgood is name-checked, but does not actually appear.

Overall, it's a bit of a dog's breakfast. There is one saving grace - Kevin McNally's Professor Jericho, who is now adding the sort of humour we enjoyed from the much missed Bradley Walsh. How much you enjoy the Kumar scene depends on your sense of humour. I thought it quite funny, but a lot of people hate it.

Things you might like to know:

• According to this episode, UNIT is formed sometime between 1958, when Farquar and "Prentis" first meet, and 1966, when WOTAN attacks London with its War Machines.
• The "UNIT dating controversy" was very much put to bed by The Sarah Jane Adventures - the stories are set at the same time they were broadcast - so Lethbridge-Stewart cannot possibly be a UNIT corporal and a colonel in a Highland regiment in the same year. He's good, but not that good.
• The audio clip of Nicholas Courtney derives from Terror of the Autons.
• In Farquar's HQ we see a sketch of the Special Weapons dalek, and he mentions the "Shoreditch Incident" - referencing Remembrance of the Daleks. There's also a visual reference to Torchwood's Children of Earth.