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.
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