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...
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.
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