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.
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...
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.
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