Story 297f: Flux - The Vanquishers

In which Swarm and Azure have invaded the inter-dimensional space station and killed Awsok. They turn their attention on the Doctor...

She is able to rush away, taking the Ood servant with her. In the tunnels near Liverpool, her companions open one of the many doors which Williamson had earlier showed them - one from which multiple laser blasts emitted. These hit and kill the Sontaran invaders.

The tunneller then shows them a door which he claims will lead to December 5th, 2021 - the date which their travels have pointed towards, when the Earth comes under threat.

The Ood helps the Doctor escape back to her universe, and she suddenly finds herself on the spaceship containing Karvanista and Bel. They notice that she appears to be slipping in and out of phase. Not only is she on the spaceship, but she remains on the inter-dimensional space station as well.

Yaz and the others emerge in the tunnels as they appear in the present day, where they are met by Kate Stewart of UNIT. She has brought the TARDIS with her. She traced them here through artron energy emissions. The Doctor then appears, still phasing in and out of existence and now in three different locations simultaneously.

The Sontaran commander, Stenck, sends out a message to the Daleks and Cybermen - offering them an alliance if they come to Earth.

The Doctor takes control of Karvanista's ship and deliberately aims it at the Sontaran spaceships which have assembled at a base in Chile. The craft is caught in a forcefield, but the Doctor has intended this. It is a diversion to allow Bel to find out what they are planning. The Grand Serpent is here.

At the tunnels, Williamson explains to that Doctor how he foresaw Earth's destruction, and so began tunnelling to create escape routes and to provide a subterranean shelter.

Kate tells them of a weakness they have discovered in the Sontarans, and of the psychic experiments which they are undertaking in Chile. Jericho suggests that he and Claire could go there under cover as they have experience in this.

They will use the TARDIS to collect her from 1967. The new weakness for the Sontarans proves to be a chocolate addiction, and this is used to blackmail one of their officers into providing information.

Karvanista reveals to the Doctor in Chile that he was once her companion with the Division, but can say no more as an implant in his brain will kill him should he reveal any information about those times.

On the space station, Swarm reveals that the convergence of the Flux is to be moved away from Earth, to the planet Time. The destruction of the Temple of Atropos will free the captive embodiment of Time.

The Grand Serpent reveals to Karvanista that all of his people have been killed in the Sontaran attack - ejected from the airlocks of their ships into space. He is now the last of his kind.

                              

Inside the Passenger Form, Diane shows Vinder a weakness in the technology. He shoots it and an exit is revealed which allows them to escape.

In Chile, Jericho and Claire discover that Stenck is using psychic humans to determine the exact location and time of the final Flux event. 

The Doctor is being interrogated by the Grand Serpent, held in an immobilising field. His attempts to kill her with his snake creature fail. She is rescued by herself - the Doctor from Liverpool arriving in the TARDIS to free her. The Grand Serpent is trapped in his own immobilising field. Bel, meanwhile, downloads information from the Sontaran database, whilst Dan recues Karvanista.

A conference is held in the TARDIS in which the Doctor learns of the Sontarans' alliance offer. She makes psychic contact with her other self, still on the space station, to work out what the Sontarans are up to.

Stenck learns what he wishes to know from Claire. The Sontarans are ordered to prepare for the event.

The Grand Serpent manages to break free, and scans for artron energy. This points him towards Liverpool where he believes Kate Stewart - leader of Earth's resistance movement - to be.

Vinder manages to contact the TARDIS, after the Doctor had earlier left him a communicator. They discover that it is Bel who he had been searching for. Before they can go and fetch him and Diane, the pair are recaptured by the Passenger.

Kate contacts the Doctor to let her know that the doors in the Liverpool tunnels have begun to act erratically. She believes that they are being influenced by the Flux, but from the future. Williamson is sent back to his own time, to preserve history.

The Grand Serpent is in the city, interrogating suspected resistance members in search of Kate.

One of the Doctors jumps into the Passenger briefly to free Vinder and Diane. 

Yaz realises that the Sontaran offer of an alliance with the Daleks and Cybermen is a trap. Once in position, the Lupari ships which are acting as a shield against the Flux will be moved to destroy their assembled fleets. This proves to be the case.

Claire is able to escape from the Sontaran base in Chile by teleporting into the TARDIS, but Jericho remains trapped when he loses his transport device.

The Doctor on the space station is able to divert Swarm and Azure long enough to enable the Ood to minimise the effects of the Flux.

Karvanista then uses his spaceship to disrupt the Lupari shield - leading the Flux to attack the Sontaran fleet. Unfortunately Jericho perishes in the destruction.

The remains of the Flux are then ensnared in a captured Passenger.

The Grand Serpent finally confronts Kate in the Williamson tunnels - only to be captured by Vinder. He is forced to pass through one of the doors - which leads to a tiny barren asteroid in space.

The Ravagers take the Doctor to the Temple where the Flux event has allowed Time to gain corporeality for a while. It takes on Swarm's form. The failure of the Flux to destroy all of Space has left Time still ensnared by the Mouri, so it destroys the Ravagers. Taking on the likeness of the Doctor, it then warns her that she will face her end very soon. before disappearing, it reunites her three sperate selves into one.

Karvanista will travel the cosmos, adventuring with Vinder and Bel, who is expecting their child. Claire is now back in her own time.

Dan is saddened to discover that Diane wants a break from him, following her traumatic experiences - so he accepts an invite to stay with the Doctor and Yaz in the TARDIS. The Doctor has retrieved the fob watch containing her stolen memories - but elects not to open it...

The Vanquishers was the sixth and final instalment of Series 13 and the overall Flux storyline. It was written by Chris Chibnall, and first broadcast on Sunday 5th December 2021.

It has the unenviable task of tying together all the many elements thrown into the mix by Chibnall, which proves to be an impossible task.

Just trying to edit the synopsis down gave me a headache there is so much going on, very little of it making sense.

It's ironic that one of the principal new characters is Karvanista - because this whole series has been a bit of a dog's breakfast.

The two previous showrunners tended to paint themselves into a corner in their finales, with RTD favouring the Deus Ex Machina as his get-out-of-jail card, whilst Moffat preferred a bit of cheating through timey-wimeyness. Chibnall just plain cheats, by introducing three separate Doctors to help resolve the myriad plot threads. There's also technobabble aplenty.

It looks good - quite spectacular in places - but it's all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

There is one element which we will remember - the demise of Professor Jericho, who has been one of the best things about this entire story / series. It's also nice to see Kate Stewart back again, and the Daleks / Cybermen (even if only seen briefly). The aforementioned canine alien has also been an entertaining character, and Dan makes a welcome addition to the roll call of companions. He's a likeable bloke.

Looking back at Flux in its entirety, the two episodes that could have been repurposed as stand-alone stories remain the better parts - the ones featuring established aliens, and one of which had another writer involved.

We can forgive the first instalment as it has to set up the story and introduce new characters and threats. Parts three and five tread water, with the first of these being a bit of a confusing mess as characters flit through timestreams.

By the time we get to the finale, the story has been allowed to meander too far off the rails to be salvageable.

One problem has been the overcrowding issue mentioned previously. We really did not need Diane, Bel, Williamson or the Grand Serpent. Even Vinder is relatively redundant. 

After rehabilitating the Sontarans after the Strax nonsense, Chibnall screws them up again with the chocolate addiction - one of the most embarrassing sequences in the entire history of Doctor Who.

There was absolutely no point reintroducing Awsok / Tecteun, just to kill her off so easily.

The Ravagers are also despatched far too easily, as Time just snaps its fingers and they crumble to dust.

Chibnall even fails with Time's final words, which should have set up a mystery for fans to try to solve. It simply gives the game away that the Master is going to involved, so clumsily is it written.

So, overall, Flux gets a thumbs down from me. A couple of worthwhile episodes, but the rest drag it down - and the finale is a mess.

Things you might like to know:

• Chibnall claimed there was a deleted scene featuring the Doctor and Karvanista in captivity, in which the Lupar believed that she had named K-9 after him.
• The Sontarans specifically exclude the Rutans from their protective alliance - their interminable conflict having dated back to The Time Warrior.
• Sontarans have entered into an alliance with the Daleks and Cybermen once before - the Pandorica Alliance. The entire universe was threatened back then as well.

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.

Story 297d: Flux - Village of the Angels

In which the Doctor and her companions have escaped from the Temple of Atropos, only to discover that a Weeping Angel has taken control of the TARDIS...

This Angel had previously been interfering in their timelines.

In the Devonshire village of Medderton, Professor Eustacius Jericho is conducting experiments with a young woman named Claire who has been suffering terrible visions. It is November 1967, but she claims to have been born in 1985. Sure enough, the Doctor and Yaz had met Claire in present day Liverpool - just before she encountered a Weeping Angel. Claire is somehow aware that an Angel has taken control of the TARDIS.

In the ship, the Doctor performs a reboot which ejects the Angel, but leaves the TARDIS powered down on landing. They have arrived in Medderton, 1967.

The TARDIS has been mistaken for a real Police Box by an elderly couple named Gerald and Jean. Their grand-niece, Peggy, has gone missing - though Gerald is more angry that concerned. The Doctor picks up strange signals on her sonic screwdriver and goes off to investigate by herself, whilst Dan and Yaz elect to join the search for Peggy. An elderly villager named Mrs Hayward warns that an event from recent history - 1901 - is going to repeat itself, and warns the local vicar to count the headstones in his graveyard. He discovers one extra - a life-size angel...

The Doctor traces the signals to Prof. Jericho's home where she meets Claire, whom she recognises from Liverpool in 2021. Feeling ill, the young woman goes to the bathroom where she is shocked to see stone wings on her back when she looks at her reflection.

The Doctor meanwhile tears up Claire's drawings of her visions as they contain Weeping Angels - knowing that the image of an Angel can become one.

Dan and Yaz are walking across a field when they discover that the scarecrow ahead is actually an Angel. Their torches begin to fail, and then the Moon goes behind a cloud. They are attacked.

Meanwhile, far across space and time Bel continues to search for Vinder in her captured Lupari spaceship. Arriving on the planet Puzano she meets a man named Namaca, who tells her of a gathering where refugees can be taken to places of safety away from the Flux.

The Doctor, Jericho and Claire discover that the professor's home has now come under siege by an army of Angels. Claire tells them both that she has been having visions of the creatures since she was a child. She knows that the entire population of Medderton is about to disappear - just as it had done in 1901.

After their encounter with the Angel, Dan and Yaz have found themselves elsewhere in Medderton - but in broad daylight. They find the village to be deserted except for a young girl, who proves to be the missing Peggy. They are shocked to learn from her that they have been thrown back in time some 66 years. I 1967 Gerald and Jean have discovered that the village has been cut off - quite literally. At the end of a country lane they find themselves on the edge of space. An encounter with an Angel throws them back to 1901 as well. They come upon Peggy, Dan and Yaz, and the girl warns them not to go near another Angel which appears. They ignore her - and are reduced to dust. One touch from an Angel can send you back in time, but a second is fatal.

Dan and Yaz also discover that the village seems to be floating isolated in space, and Peggy recalls a phrase which an Angel placed in her mind - "quantum extraction".

Professor Jericho finds his home under attack from both within and without. Angels are breaking down the doors and windows, whilst Claire's drawings, even when burned, can become Angels. A rudimentary CCTV system put together by the Doctor allows another Angel to emerge from the TV screen.

Claire is convinced that the Angels are coming for her, due to her lifelong visions of the creatures. In order to learn more, the Doctor decides that she must make a psychic link with her to discover the truth.

Jericho will have to keep the creatures at bay as the Doctor links minds with the young woman.

She finds herself on a remote, windswept beach. Claire is here, accompanied by an Angel. It explains through her that it is an outcast from its kind - a fugitive being hunted by the others. It has possessed Claire in order to hide and now intends to use her to keep her pursuers at bay. If they let it go free, it will give them something which they are even more desperate to obtain - the Doctor.

It was this Angel which infiltrated the TARDIS, as it actually wanted the Doctor's help. It has been hiding from the main force of its kind, who want to capture the rogue as it was part of an Extraction Squad employed by the Division.

On Puzano, bel discovers that the person helping refugees flee the Flux is actually Azure, who is accompanied by a Passenger form. People are not being rescued - they are being imprisoned.

Bel manages to escape the collection field, taking Namaca with her. He is distraught at being left behind.

In 1901 Medderton, Dan and Yaz discover that the village is slowly being reduced in size as the boundary falls away into space.

Jericho is forced to break the mental link between the Doctor and Claire as the Angels are about to break into the basement where the professor's laboratory is situated. He tells them of a tunnel from this area to the open countryside. They enter this - only to find that there are Angels here as well which they will have to avoid - including stone arms emerging from the rock walls.

Peggy tells Dan and Yaz that a stone age monument on the edge of the village only appeared in 1901. They go there and discover a temporal barrier - with 1901 on one side and 1967 on the other. They cannot pass from one to the other. Mrs Hayward appears, and reveals that she is Peggy, grown-up. She had been spared by the Angels in order to stand witness to their actions.

Jericho is touched by an Angel and transported to 1901 where he joins Dan and Yaz, whilst Claire manages to stay in 1967. They have exited the tunnel at the monument.

When the Doctor emerges she is confronted by the whole Angel force, who capture her. She has fallen into a trap concocted by the Division, which is recalling her. her companions are horrified to see her transformed into an Angel...

Village of the Angels was written by Chris Chibnall and Maxine Alderton, and was first broadcast on Sunday 21st November 2021. It is the only instalment of Flux to have a co-writer credit.

It's also the best episode of the season-long story.

Other episodes might have Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans and spectacle, and ultimately feel shallow for it - but this instalment has mood and atmosphere and a sense of substance.

It also has a cracker of a cliffhanger as the Doctor is transformed into a Weeping Angel.

There's actually a final sequence featuring Namaca and Vinder / Bel but it rather dilutes that cliffhanger as, for me, I'm really not at all interested in the couple.

Alderton had previously written The Haunting of Villa Diodati - another stronger episode of its particular season. The rustic setting of Medderton would not be out of her comfort zone, as she has written extensively for both Emmerdale and the revived All Creatures Great And Small.

The other thing of note is the appearance of Kevin McNally as Professor Eustacius Jericho. He had previously featured in the series as Lt Hugo Lang in The Twin Dilemma - from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Another returnee from the 1980's is Vincent Brimble, who plays Gerald. There's no way you would have recognised him, however, as he played the Silurian Tarpok in Warriors of the Deep.

You will recognise both his brothers - Nick and Ian - from many UK TV series and movies.

Playing Jean is Jemma Churchill. She is best known for school drama Waterloo Road and the revamped Upstairs Downstairs. 

Mrs Hayward is Penelope McGhie who is also a freelance drama coach. She appears in the final two Harry Potter films, in which she is one of the Death Eaters.

Peggy is Polly Polivnick. 

Already introduced briefly in The Halloween Apocalypse, we finally get to spend some quality time with Claire, who is played by Annabel Scholey. One of her many credits is providing voices for the Final Fantasy video games.

Also appearing in this episode is Blake Harrison, playing Namaca. he is the second of The Inbetweeners to be cast during Chibnall's spell in charge, following James Buckley's turn as Nevi in Orphan 55. Harrison clearly got the better deal.

Overall, probably the best single episode of the Whittaker / Chibnall era. The better ones are often those not written exclusively by the showrunner, which should have rung alarm bells had he not stood down the following year. 

Things you might like to know:

• The closing credits are split in two, with the Namaca / Vinder scene inserted.
• This is the only episode of Flux in which Karvanista, Joseph Williamson and Swarm are absent.
• This is the second instalment of Flux to be set of the date of transmission, though unlike The Halloween Apocalypse it's just the day and month - 21st November - in this case.
• Jemma Churchill and Vincent Trimble have a Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin connection. He featured in the classic BBC comedy, whilst she is the daughter of Pauline Yates, who played Reggie's long-suffering wife Elizabeth.
• Annabel Scholey was in the running to play both Amy Pond and Clara Oswald.
• The Doctor utters a couple of phrases better associated with previous incarnations: "When I say run, run!" and "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow".

Story 297c: Flux - Once, Upon Time

In which the Doctor is forced to improvise to save Yaz and Vinder from being exposed to the full force of Time itself...

They are in the Temple of Atropos on the planet named Time, captured by Swarm and Azure and forced to take the place of two damaged Mouri - beings who help harness and control Time, which is seen as a sentient but chaotic force.

The Doctor saves everyone by throwing them into a time storm, where they can be concealed within their own timelines.

Elsewhere, a young woman named Bel is travelling through the remnants of the universe, attempting to avoid the consequences of the Flux. She records messages to her lover as she goes along. On one world she spots a pair of refugees and witnesses them come under attack by a glowing blue cloud, which destroys them.

Within the time storm, the Doctor sees a Weeping Angel. She finds herself in a darker version of her coat, standing outside the Temple of Atropos. With her are Dan, Yaz and Vinder. They are armed and all seem to know each other well - part of a team. They are about to raid the building.

She realises that she is experiencing a moment from the period for which she has no memories - and the people with her are avatars for other people. At this point in her history she was the "Fugitive" Doctor. Dan is actually Karvanista, proving that they were once partners within the Division.

Their task is the capture the Ravagers - Swarm and Azure - who are besieged within the Temple. This is the older incarnation of Swarm, before his escape from captivity just before the Flux struck.

Dan is back in Liverpool with Diane, but the pair keep flitting through time. He also sees the cloud of blue particles. Only he notices the time jumps, and recalls these incidents from his recent past. Diane suddenly vanishes, to be replaced by the hulking Passenger, who had accompanied Swarm and Azure at the Temple.

Yaz is back in the police force, and fleetingly sees a Weeping Angel. Her colleague transforms into the Doctor, who manages to warn her that she is trying to break into her time stream before vanishing again.

Vinder has been transported back to the time immediately before his demotion and exile to the deep space observation platform. His commanding officer, who appears to him in the form of Yaz, orders him to work with a powerful figure known as the Grand Serpent - a ruthless, manipulative character.

Attending a meeting with him, he realises that the Grand Serpent is advocating the assassination of a client's political rival. When he questions something he says, he suddenly finds himself in disgrace and reassigned to the spacecraft.

Within the time storm, the Doctor is warned by a trio of Mouri that Time is toying with her and her friends.

Dan next finds himself in a series of tunnels, and comes under laser fire. Joseph Williamson is here. Both have to evade the blue particle cloud. He then returns to present day Liverpool, and the Doctor appears and tells him about her hiding him within his time stream. She vanishes again, as she is still dealing with the Mouri.

Bel finds an abandoned Lupari spaceship and uses it to escape the region of space now dominated by the Daleks. The universe has been split between Dalek, Cyberman and Sontaran space since the Flux struck.

The ship comes under attack by Cybermen but she is able to destroy them all.

Yaz is now playing video games with sister Sonya. Their first-person-shooter game suddenly features a Weeping Angel, which emerges from the screen.

The Doctor appears and Yaz tells her that this is not her home. The Angel is corrupting their time streams. The Doctor gets pulled away and Yaz smashes the games console to make the creature vanish.

Back at the Temple, during their Division operation, Swarm and Azure explain that they champion Time in its war against Space. They explain that Passengers are actually living prisons - each can contain thousands of people. However, the Division team have planted one of their own, containing Mouri. They emerge and the Ravagers are captured.

The Doctor next arrives on a space station where she meets a woman named Awsok, who tells her that the Ravagers were released deliberately in order to corrupt Time, whilst the Flux was created to destroy Space.

Before she can discover more, the Doctor finds herself back inside the time storm and the Mouri announce that they are about to return everyone to the present. The Doctor demands more time, as she wishes to learn more of her past, but they decline. Back at the Temple, Swarm and Azure reveal that the blue particle cloud is actually the destructive Time Force. The Doctor and her companions, along with Vinder, escape to the TARDIS.

The Doctor takes him to his home planet. It still exists, but it is now lifeless. He tells them that he now plans to seek out his lover - Bel. The others leave in the TARDIS, where Yaz is shocked to see a Weeping Angel on her mobile phone. 

Dropping it, the creature materialises within the ship and begins to operate the controls...

Once, Upon Time, the third chapter of Flux, was written by Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on Sunday 14th November 2021.

Falling between an action-packed Sontaran adventure and an atmospheric Weeping Angel story, this episode was always going to struggle. Indeed, in polls it tended to be the least popular of the six instalments.

Until you work out that everyone has been placed within their time streams, it can be confusing - leaping about as it does. Half way through the overall story, some explanations should start to make themselves known but, apart from the background to the Ravagers, we're still none the wiser.

Williamson's presence in particular remains inexplicable. Not only has he popped up within an alien temple, but there are now laser shots being fired in his tunnels by someone we don't even get to see.

And after the Flux there is now the weird blue cloud to get our heads round.

A serious problem is the addition of even more characters. Chapter 3 of 6 and we now get the Grand Serpent, Bel and Awsok... As Flux develops, it looks increasingly probable that Chibnall was making large parts of it up as he went along. Two of these characters will have some role to play in the final analysis, but Bel really isn't needed at all. Vinder could have been given a quest that did not necessarily mean the inclusion of a whole new character, on top of all the others we've already got. And in hindsight we know we're going to get another, much more, significant character in the next chapter.

Of our new characters, the Grand Serpent is portrayed by Craig Parkinson. He is best known as one of the regulars in police drama Line of Duty, having previously featured in Misfits and Whitechapel, in which he played two roles - modern day versions of the Kray Twins.

Awsok is Barbara Flynn. She starred opposite Peter Davison and David Troughton in the cult drama series A Very Peculiar Practice. Other roles of note include an early Inspector Morse, the Beiderbecke Trilogy with James Bolam, and more recently Beyond Paradise - a spin off from the popular Death in Paradise.

Bel is played by Thaddea Graham, who has appeared opposite Ncuti Gatwa in Sex Education.

We get return appearances by Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor, and Bhavnisha Parmar as Yaz's sister Sonya - last seen in Can You Hear Me?

It's a personal annoyance of mine that Chibnall upset a great many fans by introducing the notion that there were other Doctors before Hartnell - hundreds or even thousands of them. So why do we only ever see Doctor Ruth? Here was a perfect opportunity to show another earlier incarnation, but we only ever seem to get her...

Overall, it's only supposed to be a place-holder episode, a sort of catching of the breath between bigger and better chapters, but it would have been nice if it had moved things along a lot further. Nice to see the Cybermen again, even if it's only a cameo appearance.

Things you might like to know:

• Craig Parkinson is married to Susan Lynch, who appeared in The Ghost Monument as Angstrom.
• Vinder has heard of TARDISes - further suggesting that this character was replacement for Captain Jack.
• Masked Ravager Guards were due to have featured in the Temple scenes, and got as far as creature designs being made before being cut.
• Weeping Angels were featuring in actual console games in 2021, including VR game The Edge of Reality. There was also a game designed for mobile phones called The Lonely Assassins.
• Jo Martin is credited as "Fugitive Doctor". Until now this had been a term used only by fandom and in certain BBC sanctioned publications, but the programme itself now makes it official.

Story 297b: Flux - War of the Sontarans

In which the Doctor succeeds in guiding the TARDIS back through time to avoid impact with the Flux - a rolling mass of destructive energy which is devouring the cosmos.

The wave strikes, and the Doctor suddenly finds herself alone in a bizarre dream-like landscape, dominated by a huge crumbling house. Before she can identify where she is, she is on a battlefield. There are dead soldiers lying around, wearing red uniforms of the mid-19th Century, and abandoned artillery.

The TARDIS is also here, and Dan and Yaz soon appear. A woman approaches, accusing them of robbing the dead. She is Mary Seacole, who has come to the Crimea to nurse the wounded - for this is Sebastapol in 1855. They here enemy troops approach, and the Doctor is shocked to discover that they are not Russian soldiers. They are Sontaran warriors...

Vinder has also been thrown into another environment by the Flux. He is in an ancient temple complex, where he is confronted by floating Priest Triangles. They ask if he has come to make repairs, as they need someone to fix something of great importance. Led into the inner chamber, he discovers that six plinths, which appear empty, actually have a white-robed figure standing on them - only visible when approached. These are the Mouri, but two are missing.

Seacole takes the Doctor and her companions to her hospital / shelter, which she calls the "British Hotel". First Dan, then Yaz vanish, and the Doctor discovers that the TARDIS doors have disappeared - trapping her here. She assumes this to be a side effect of the Flux interacting with vortex energy.

Dan finds himself back on his street in Liverpool - but dominating the skyline is a Sontaran warship. The aliens have invaded. Chased through the city, he encounters his parents - Neville and Eileen - who tell him that the planet is now dominated by Sontarans, despite human resistance activity.

Yaz has arrived at the same location as Vinder. As she explores, she encounters the Liverpudlian tunnel-obsessive Joseph Williamson, who has also found his way here. He is looking for the way home, and wanders away.

Yaz then meets the Priest Triangles, which lead her to where Vinder is waiting.

The Doctor meets Lt General Logan at the British Hotel - commander of the British forces here. he is planning a counter-offensive against the Sontarans - and refuses to heed the Doctor's advice about them.

She fears a bloodbath should Victorian soldiers attempt to battle alien laser weaponry.

From Logan and Seacole, the Doctor discovers that the corruption of history is only recent. Seacole reveals that she has a wounded Sontaran soldier - Svild - hidden at the Hotel. The Doctor decides that he should be released, so that she can follow him and discover the location of the Sontaran base.

She is determined to try to negotiate a peace. Svild will inform his commander that she is here.

They follow him discreetly and see him enter a nearby valley, where a fleet of warships are hidden by a camouflage barrier.

He tells his commander - Skaak - of the Doctor's request for a parley, before being shot dead for having allowed himself to be captured.

Dan learns that the Sontarans invaded two days ago - just as the Lupari spaceships formed their shield around the planet. They have made their base at the docks, so he heads for there - sending his parents to safety.

Vinder and Yaz have learned that they are in the Temple of Atropos, on a planet called Time. The Mouri act as conduits for all the time in the universe, which passes through them. They control it and prevent it from causing chaos - but two have been damaged.

Dan witnesses Commander Ritskaw executing curfew-breakers, and overhears mention of a full temporal offensive which is due to take place. He decides to break into one of the warships to learn more.

The Doctor attend her parlay with Skaak and discovers that the Sontarans have simply exploited the Flux - slipping into Earth just before the Lupari shield closed. They have made this incursion into history as a test, before launching their main attack on the whole of Earth's past, present and future.

Her attempts at peace are halted by the arrival of Logan, who pledges his forces to battle. Skaak naturally accepts the challenge.

The Doctor is unable to halt the slaughter. She and Seacole break into a warship, where she manages to make contact with Dan on another ship in 2021. They must each stop their respective war fleet.

Dan is then captured by warriors - but is saved from summary execution by the arrival of Karvanista, who continues to be bound to him.

Logan returns a broken man, his troops almost entirely wiped out. The Doctor knows that Sontarans are vulnerable for a short period each day when they re-energise themselves from their ship. She forms a plan, then she, Seacole and Logan set off for the hidden valley with some surviving soldiers. Once there, they begin sabotaging the ships as the aliens recharge. However, Logan decides to adapt the scheme.

In Liverpool, Karvanista arranges for the ship he and Dan are in to take off then crash into the others - creating a temporal chain reaction. They escape through a waste unit into the dock.

Instead of merely disabling the fleet in Sebastapol - to force the Sontarans to withdraw, Logan has released their fuel which will be ignited. 

The Doctor discovers this too late, as the entire fleet explodes. The Liverpool fleet is also destroyed, with the temporal shockwave wiping out both incursions and putting history back on course.

The Doctor is able to gain access to the TARDIS again - now increasingly warped within - and heads off in search of her companions.

It materialises in the Temple of Atropos - where she encounters Swarm and Azure. They have with them a giant mute figure, known as Passenger. They have destroyed the Priest Triangles and now Yaz and Vinder are captive - transformed into the missing Mouri. 

The full force of time is about to flow through them, destroying them...

Flux - War of the Sontarans was written by Chris Chibnall and first broadcast on Sunday 7th November 2021.

It is the first of two instalments of the Flux storyline which could have been stand-alone episodes, with some rejigging. In this case, the removal of the Temple of Atropos material. The Sontarans have been shown to be interested in mastering time travel since the beginning. In The Time Warrior they had some limited technology, allowing Linx to move between Medieval England and the 20th Century. By The Invasion of Time, they are actually launching an attack on Gallifrey itself, and may well have conquered or destroyed it had the Doctor not been there. (So it's ironic that their agents, the Vardans, involved him in the first place).

So a story in which the Sontarans attempted another invasion by manipulating time and altering history as a test could easily have been a story in its own rights.

As mentioned last time, the aliens have undergone a design makeover. The basic outline remains, including the short stature and the domed helmet which reflects their domed heads. In place of the very rubbery-looking blue costumes introduced in Series 4, they now sport a dark padded suit, with a number of armoured sections - on chest, shoulders, knees and forearms. Below is a costume from the Worlds of Wonder exhibition.

The metalwork is tarnished, looking slightly rusted, and therefore more lived-in and battle-used. As for the masks, they have also undergone a tweak to make them resemble more closely the original Linx mask, in terms of skull shape and colouring. Their spaceships remain the version introduced in The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky.

We only visit the planet Time for a few scenes - when Vinder arrives, followed by Yaz, and finally when the Doctor catches up with them. Swarm and Azure only appear briefly, accompanied by new character "Passenger". Victorian eccentric Williamson appears, and his role in events remains totally enigmatic.

Dan properly becomes the Doctor's companion this week, whilst Vinder also joins the Doctor's narrative.

We are also introduced to a monochrome dream-like landscape in which there is a huge, tottering house, which appears to be slowly breaking apart.

The guest cast is headed by Sara Powell as Mary Seacole. She had a recurring role in fire brigade drama London's Burning. Lt General Logan is Gerald Kyd. Like Powell, he has appeared in forensics drama Silent Witness and is currently co-starring in Love Rat.

We are introduced to dan's parents, but unlike previous companions  since 2005 we will not get to know them very well. This will prove to be their sole appearance. Both actors are Brookside veterans - Paul Broughton playing Neville, and Sue Jenkins playing Eileen. Broughton also featured in the BBC4 live version of The Quatermass Experiment.

The Sontarans are the same as last week - Jonathan Watson and Dan Starkey, and Craig Els is back as Karvanista. 

New character "Passenger" is Jonny Mathers. 7' 2" tall, he is actually a tenancy sustainment officer in his day job.

Overall, one of the highlights of the series - mainly because of its "stand-alone" quality and a respectful treatment of the Sontarans. The aliens were badly handled by Steven Moffat, being treated as figures of ridicule only, and there purely for comic relief. Writers like Robert Holmes could get across how ludicrous they could be, but balancing this with their ruthlessness and danger.

The horse joke is great.

Things you might like to know:

• Mary Seacole was born on 23rd November 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica. Her mother ran a boarding house and had herbalist skills, which may have led Mary into the nursing field. The "British Hotel", established when she travelled to the Crimea to help wounded troops, was intended as accommodation, but the officers explained that the men would prefer their own barracks. She therefore turned it into an eating establishment, which proved highly successful. She died in 1881, and in 2004 was voted the greatest ever black Briton.
• Seacole had already met the Twelfth Doctor, but on audio.
• The Mouri are all played by female actors, though it is hard to notice on first watch due to the costume / make-up.
• Their derives from "mauri", which means a lifeforce, vital essence, or symbol of a life presence (or an object or person which embodies this). This from the Māori culture.
• "Atropos" is Greek for inflexible or unalterable - so the opposite to flux.
• The Doctor uses Venusian Aikido to overpower her guard - the martial art introduced in the Third Doctor's era.
• Some of the dialogue mirrors the Tennyson poem The Charge of the Light Brigade - inspired by an event once described by the Second Doctor as "magnificent folly".
• An alien race called Ravagers were to have featured in the temple scenes, but were cut from the final draft.
• A spin-off graphic novel featuring Captain Jack was planned for this episode, back when the Flux storyline was set to include him. This was scrapped when Barrowman got cancelled.
• The Priest Triangles are voiced by Nigel Lambert. He played the scientist Hardin in The Leisure Hive.
• The mask worn by Mathers as Passenger had previously featured in a pornographic Star Wars parody. And no, I've never seen it. Honest.

Story 297: Flux - The Halloween Apocalypse

In which the Doctor is tracking down a figure called Karvanista, who is supposed to have information about her time with the Division...

She and Yaz have been captured by the huge dog-like being, and are now being pursued across the acid seas of an alien planet by his kill-discs. They are supported only by a gravity bar, to which they are handcuffed. To add to their peril, a star nearby is about to go supernova.

The pair manage to escape, falling into the waiting TARDIS.

In Liverpool, 1820, Joseph Williamson is busily tunnelling beneath the grounds of his estate. Thought mad by his peers, he claims to have a very good reason for embarking on this great project.

In the city, two centuries later, unemployed Dan Lewis volunteers at his local foodbank - looking after others but neglecting himself. A proud Liverpudlian, he likes to give unauthorised tours of the museum where his girlfriend Diane works. She and Dan arrange to meet that evening for Hallowe'en drinks.

However, when he gets home he is disturbed by the sudden arrival of Karvanista, who appears to know who he is.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor has a vision of a desolate planetoid on which a figure named Swarm has been imprisoned. Two guards arrive to check on him, and they are killed as he breaks free after regenerating himself.

The ship then materialises outside Dan's house after tracing Karvanista. Entering, they find the occupant missing. The Doctor finds a laptop which shows a mass of Lupari ships converging on the Earth. This is Karvanista's race. The Doctor suddenly notices that the laptop does not fit with the sparse furnishings and realises that it is a trap. She and Yaz flee the house before it is destroyed.

Dan, meanwhile, is being held in a cage on Karvanista's ship in orbit above the Earth.

In the Arctic, Anna and Jon see a strange electronic device materialise at their research base. They recognise it, but Anna simply destroys it. 

Outside what used to be Dan's house, the Doctor and Yaz are approached by a young woman named Claire who knows them. She explains that whilst they have not met her yet - she has already encountered them.

Heading home, Claire is then menaced by a Weeping Angel.

The Doctor and Yaz return to the TARDIS to discover that its internal dimensions have become corrupted. They trace Karvanista's ship and head towards it.

In deep space, a young man named Inston-Vee Vinder has been banished to a remote one-man observation outpost after running foul of his superiors. After months of routine, he notices something affecting a nearby planet. A vast glowing mass is rolling through space, destroying everything it touches. He sees the planet disintegrate, then flees in an escape capsule before his outpost is consumed.

At the Arctic base, Anna wakes up to see Swarm in her room. He kills Jon, then causes her to change her appearance. She is really a similar being to the alien being, called Azure. Swarm has now freed her to become her old self.

On Karvanista's ship, Yaz frees Dan whilst the Doctor confronts its pilot. She discovers that the Lupari fleet has come not to invade Earth but to protect its population. Each Lupar is bonded with a human being, and Dan is Karvanista's personal responsibility to safeguard. They have come to save each individual from the a phenomenon known as the Flux.

Elsewhere in space, the Sontarans are monitoring the Flux, which they fully intend to exploit.

In Liverpool, Diane is on her way to meet with Dan when she is lured into an old house by Azure - and finds herself transported to a strange black void.

The Doctor orders Karvanista to reposition his fleet so that the massed vessels create a physical shield around the planet.

She is then mentally contacted by Swarm who threatens her, and it is clear that he knows her from her previous life.

Dan joins Yaz and the Doctor as they leave to investigate the Flux - and are confronted by the destructive wave previously seen by Vinder. The TARDIS interior continues to alter its shape, and the Doctor assumes this to be a side-effect of the Flux. Vortex energy fails to stop its advance. 

It hurtles towards them...

Flux: The Halloween Apocalypse was written by Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on Sunday 31st October, 2021.

It was originally intended that the 13th series of Doctor Who would follow the normal pattern of a dozen or so episodes, comprising mainly single-episode stories with the odd two-parter. 

However, the Covid pandemic then intervened. Once it was known that production on the series could resume, a number of strict health & safety limitations would remain in place. 

Chibnall realised that the next series would need to be truncated to half the usual length, and so decided to scrap his original plans. The new idea was to have a single story told over the duration of the six-episode season - making it the longest Doctor Who story of the revived series.

The classic run of the series had seen stories lasting 8, 10 and 12 episodes, with Trial of a Time Lord claiming 14 instalments.

The Halloween Apocalypse - named when it was known it would screen on 31st October, and so set on that date - would act as a set-up to the series, which was given the overall story title of Flux. Each individual episode, or chapter, would have its own subtitle.

Characters are introduced who won't play any significant role until later in the story - making this opener appear to be a bit of a confusing mess. Whilst Trial could be seen as three separate stories with a framing device, Flux would very much be seen as a single unified story in six chapters, and so it would be necessary for viewers to stick with it throughout.

The main threat is what appears to be some sort of natural phenomenon - the titular Flux - which is rolling through the universe like a destructive wave. Its presence coincides with the release from captivity of a being named Swarm, who has been imprisoned on a desolate moon-like world. Once free, he regenerates into a younger form - played by a different actor. Swarm has something to do with the Doctor's hidden past, so his captors were presumably Division. Their guns would appear to confirm this, as they're the same model sported by Gat in Fugitive of the Judoon. 

Chibnall very much builds on the Timeless Child revelations of the previous series.

Once free, Swarm then releases his sister Azure, who has been living in the Arctic as a seemingly human woman.

A key new figure is Karvanista - a huge shaggy dog-like biped who knows the Doctor's Division history. Initially presented as villain, we find out that his motivations are more ambiguous. Through him we are introduced to new companion Dan - first seen in a brief post-credits scene of the last New Year Special.

Other characters we meet are Dan's girlfriend Diane, who falls foul of Azure; Claire, who is haunted by a Weeping Angel; and Vinder. It is widely believed that this character was a replacement for Captain Jack Harkness, following John Barrowman's fall from grace. Seemingly divorced from the rest of the story is the real historical character of Joseph Williamson - famed for his tunnelling obsession.

On top of all this, we then discover that the newly redesigned Sontarans are somehow involved.

It's quite impossible to get a grasp of what is going on at this stage, other than that the Flux is destroying the universe. Little did we know that another four very significant characters would be added to what is already a fairly overloaded narrative.

Dan is played by Liverpudlian comedian and devout Liverpool FC fan John Bishop. 

In his introductory scene at New Year he was seen opposite actor Craig Els, who returns now to portray Karvanista.

Playing Vinder is Jacob Anderson, who came to fame as Grey Worm in Game of Thrones. He is currently to be seen in the TV adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire, in which he plays Louis.

Diane is Nadia Albina - primarily a theatre actor but who has also recorded some Big Finish audios.

The older version of Swarm is played by Matthew Needham, with his younger self portrayed by Sam Spruell. As well as a lengthy small-screen CV, he has acted in movies alongside Tom Hardy, Liam Neeson and Chris Hemsworth. I'm not entirely sure why they saw the need to have two different actors play Swarm. One could easily have essayed both versions. It isn't even terribly clear on screen that it's another actor.

Azure is played by Rochenda Sandall, best known for Line of Duty. She also featured in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Claire is Annabel Scholey who was a regular in the first season of Being Human and was recently seen in the highly acclaimed true-life crime drama The Sixth Commandment.

Williamson is played by actor and comedian Steve Oram, who has appeared in films by Ben Wheatley and Edgar Wright. He has worked with many fellow comics, some of whom featured in his directorial debut Aaaaaaaah! (2015) - in which all the characters communicate in grunts.

Finally, the two Sontarans we see are portrayed by Dan Starkey (Kragar) and Jonathan Watson (Commander Ritskaw). The latter is well known to Scottish television audiences from numerous comedy shows going back to City Lights in the 1980's. He has been co-starring in sitcom Two Doors Down since 2013.

Overall... Impossible to judge - it simply can't be looked at in isolation. The main thing is, did it make you want to come back and find out what's going on? In this it does work, as it has thrown so many elements into the mix that something piques the interest - even if it's just the reappearance of popular old monsters like the Sontarans and Weeping Angels. Only half a million or so failed to come back for more the following week.

Things you might like to know:

• For a programme dealing with scary monsters, it had never used Hallowe'en as a setting. It's alluded to by Dan having trick-or-treaters visit, and he initially thinks Karvanista is wearing a costume.
• The Doctor mentions having Nitro-9 explosives in the TARDIS - as created by previous companion Ace. She also makes use of some Hopper Virus at one point, which previously appeared in Orphan 55.
• We also hear the Cloister Bell sound - first heard in Logopolis, the first time the entire universe fell under a single threat in the series.
• The Doctor's handcuffs are voice activated, programmed by a previous incarnation who had a Scottish accent. She attempts to order them open by impersonating her Twelfth persona, and then her Seventh.
• Dan Lewis is supposed to live at No.37 Granger Street, yet his next door neighbour's door has No.49 on it. (Filming took place in Cardiff at a property numbered 51, with Liverpool FC's Anfield Stadium added in the background via CGI).
• Vinder's observation outpost is called "Rose", but this does not lead anywhere.
• Both the Sontarans and a Weeping Angel had both been seen on location, but at a time before it was known that they would both be featuring in the same narrative.
• The former no longer wear their rubbery-looking blue armour, but have reverted to a look closer to their original appearance. The masks are certainly closer to that worn by Kevin Lindsay as Linx.