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Survivors of the Flux - Take Two Doctor Who Review
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- čas přidán 13. 06. 2023
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For some reason Chibnall refers to the people that get used by Swarm and Azure as Humans even though there's nothing hinting at the idea of them putting anyone else from Earth in Passenger and the only humans in the wider galaxy would be from Mondas... who by that point would presumably all be Cybermen.
The biggest issue is the way the Doctor enacts a plan for the Sontarans, Daleks and Cybermen to be wiped out by the Flux.
As you’re currently watching Trial of a Time Lord, one of the most powerful moments is, after the Sixth Doctor saves people from the Vervoids, that the Valeyard shocks him (and us) by accusing him of genocide.
Yet here the Doctor literally does it, three times over.
This is meant to be the same character who spent most of the Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat years haunted by the deaths they had caused during the Time War?
The same Doctor who disowned his Meta-Crisis version for destroying Davros and the Daleks.
Who just a few weeks before angrily chastised someone for blowing up Sontaran ships.
Yet here the Doctor wiped out three races with neither care, comment nor interrogation.
that's next week
I think ultimately this series didn't need Swarm and Azure. The Grand Serpent could've been used instead for the direct conflict with the doctor and why Vinder gets involved, etc, still leaving room for Tecteun to turn to and be the ultimate villain. Would explain the Grand Serpent's presence on earth, as a reasoning for Tecteun to be able to attack Earth from the inside so the Flux is able to have less stopping it, etc. Avoids Tecteun being killed unnecessarily by extra villains we don't need, gives more chance for emotional stuff for The Doctor and Tecteun, and ultimately there is stuff with Tecteun that could resolve The Flux instead of what does.
Heck you could even have TT being apprehended at the end by (Rassilon?) the Time Lords after *stuff* happens to reset the universe just a little. And then you could do that poetry of have her turned into the 'weeping angel' time lord lady from the end of time
That and have The Grand Serpent be warped by the Flux in the final episode so that he has Swarm's monstrous form.
I really dislike this episode, but I do appreciate the UNIT stuff. I also like how the Grand Serpent feels somewhat threatening in this one, having an actual plan of infiltrating UNIT. He turns out to absolutely suck in the Vanquishers, but it's not like there was no potential at all. Also, I like that Chibnall actually had a plan for UNIT, and it wasn't just a throwaway Brexit joke in Resolution. Kate appearing, and the Brigadier making a cameo is probably just nostalgia pandering lmao, but it worked for me.
Also, I recently watched Planet of the Ood, and anytime I see an Ood now it kind of breaks my heart. Why doesn't the Doctor try to save them :(((. These guys' brains were all cut off, and they should be returned to their planet so they can finally be free again. I'm probably the only person who thinks this, and I don't think it should be taken this seriously, but it does feel like... turning a blind eye to slavery.
The soullessness of Chibnall's vision of Doctor Who is at it's most extreme in these final two episodes of Flux. None of the characters bond in a meaningful way and it really got to me in this episode. I remember watching the hologram scene and all I could think was the realization of, "Oh, wait, Yaz never learns about the Timeless Child stuff!"
Dan, Yaz, and Jericho spend, like, five years together but never grow closer. The Doctor and Tecteun only speak in Villain/Hero terms, when apparently they're adoptive parent/child? Shouldn't the Doctor be more emotionally vulnerable than she is in these scenes considering the abusive nature of their relationship? Yaz and the Doctor never, never, let me be clear, NEVER bond in the three series they spend together, which leaves the hologram scene feeling hollow and platonic (when did the Doctor have the time to film that hologram, anyway?). Where's Peggy? Eh, she stopped being important so we memory holed her. Even Kate Stewart just reappears and goes, "Ah, you have a magical snake power? Well, I have a force field that shields me from that magical snake power." And it's like, WHO CARES?!
It's all exposition, no character; all plot, no scenes. There's nothing to latch on to as a viewer emotionally, it's all just bright colours and noise flying across the scene. It's hot garbo, honestly.
YES.
And this isn't just a Covid thing, it's been an oddly consistent Only When Plot Requires habit all the way through. Ryan and Graham bond, but only in really shallow really blatant moments of exposition without any push/pull or genuine progression. It's very robotic. And I've said this a million times over but in Flux it got worse because he kept adding new characters each episode, so not only was every character a hollow cardboard cut out, there was more and more to 'pay off' by the end and ... well SPOILERS
...
episode 6 makes them all null and void because Plot. The doctor becomes 3 people and it doesn't matter where or when they go because she can just pick them up and their problems were all entirely physical so everything is resolved. Yaz pining for the doctor isn't even brought up until the Specials. There's no emotional conflict, no philosophical or moral conundrum outside physical yes or no's like "blow up the master?" "No, let random stranger blow up the master" and then it's never addressed again. This era has short term memory loss. It only brings up Plot points in Chibnall arbitrarily feels like it. It doesn't just feel like covid happened and he had to jiggle some editing, it feels like he can't write characters beyond one-note My Thing Is and then doesn't know how to build on it or develop it or flesh it out or go deeper, he only knows how to a) "and then they bring it up and discuss it for a scene and everyone tells them it's not a problem or they're a good person don't worry about it" or b) and then so-and-so shows up so no time now!
its not even hot garbage, its mild, almost chilly garbage.
I can definitely be happy with bright colors and fancy fancy but it still has to connect, even in small ways, to the viewer and between the characters.
You are totally right about Yaz and the Doctor have ZERO connection and then they try to smash them together as a love interest and my pan self was so disappointed. Honestly they could have connected, they are both great actors and they would have made it believable, but the writing and all the forcing was a no go. No matter how hard the two of them try to sell that, and I believe they did try, if the writing isn't there it's not going to work.
I don't know, Chibnall was so damn boring with writing the first two seasons, he swings hard for the stars on this one, and it's so confusing it makes my brain hurt.
@@B-MC I think COVID made bad writing even worse. But agreed he couldn't save this script without a major edit of ideas and exposition.
@@hypnoamber3248 Yeah I agree. Weirdly I think s11 is the most coherent but the most boring. S12 is the most entertaining but the most annoying. And s13 is the most interesting but the most incoherent. It's like the more ideas Chibnall throws in the more potential it had yet ... the more wasted potential it had. I would love to see a well script-doctored version of S13 moreso than anything in s11 or 12, but for the same reasons its harder to save.
Spot on, Vera! Although you have a higher tolerance for Karvanista than I do. The dim lighting in so much of Flux made it hard to see his mouth moving, and in many scenes he came across as a ventriloquist's doll. Erm, dog.
Yes, this whole flux-up needed another couple of episodes - but if Chibs had been given them, I suspect he'd have just filled them up with more pointless, disconnected "ideas" and unnecessary characters.
He's like a kid who's been told his tea will be ready in half an hour - and instantly decides to add another three Lego sets to the six he already has scattered across the floor.
That's a great way to describe Chibs' plotting. I like to compare his exposition mania to the bad PowerPoint presenters I've endured at work; it's easy to see when someone is out of their depth if they cram slide after slide with overly detailed bullet points... which they then proceed to read out!
@@ftumschk Yes, exactly! It's the "reading out" part that rings so true, with the constant verbal exposition. It's like he doesn't trust any of his ideas to come through visually or in terms of plot. The problem is, it STILL doesn't make any sense! Every single scene in this episode - and the majority in Flux as a whole - come with a whole drinking game's worth of "Why????"s
24:35 Same. I loved her performance on Broadchurch, and I was excited to see her as the Doctor, but like you said, the material was not any good.
Wow, this is a long episode review for this channel. I appreciate that, definitely seems like there were a lot of thoughts that needed to be exorcised/expressed. I wholly agree with a lot of them, too, especially how fun the companion side of this episode was (the trio make a good fun pairing, as mentioned it is a little like an Indiana Jones or Mummy-style adventure, some nice character moments), while I found the Doctor side rather disappointing, especially when Swarm & Azure arrived. Again, I've always disliked the pair but the feeling grew as I watched more of Flux (they might've worked as a single episode focus, maybe as the accidental catalyst of the Flux or an accidental side effect of it that the Doctor's able to stop only to realize the bigger danger, the Flux, but they didn't work the way we got them) and I am inclined to agree that part of the problem is how the Grand Serpent arrives and steals a lot of oxygen. I think splitting it between the Grand Serpent and Tecteun (the Sontarans as a side effect was fine, a highlight of what the Flux has unleashed, even the Weeping Angels generally work) would have greatly improved things (not just because I found him less grating than the duo, just unlikable-as-intended, but also because it would've focused them, since Swarm & Azure have few ties to much of anything we care about). The sudden loss of Tecteun was also...just dull and anti-climactic. Would've been better to see that face off with "The Doctor's Mom" actually amount to...something, especially with how the Division/past Doctor stuff is unceremoniously abandoned here (or slightly referenced in the final episode before it's dropped)
You are a hero for trying so hard to be positive about something so disappointing. But sometimes all efforts fail. Thank you!
The stuff with the Oracle really makes me question whether I could trust Chibnall with 2 more episodes. By that point he had to have known the time crunch he was under, and that he needed to cut down on some elements. Instead, he included a character whose connection to the overall story is pointless; the trip to China to contact Karvinista could have been cut and they could have just discovered the Tunnel Guy sooner with nothing lost. Of all the elements in play in Flux, if Chibnall couldn't live without including that sequence from the Oracle to Karvinista seeing the message (that somehow stayed visible in paint by the Great Wall of China for over 100 years), I can't really trust his ability to prioritize what's actually important to the plot. It would be like me saying, "I've come to warn you of the end of the world! But first, here's me making balloon animals!"
Thank you for the video, Vera!
Most of the episodes in the Flux serial set up cool ideas and plot points, but never give them enough priority and time in order to develop them. And this episode is the worst one in that regard. As you mentioned before, the Grand Serpent is a good villain wasted in the serial. Watching an alien infiltrating and sabotaging U.N.I.T. across time is very interesting (and I also like how is unclear if the Grand Serpent is using time travel for that or he is some kind of ageless alien). That would be worth of its own dedicated storyline.
Tecteun is finally revealed, being established as a parental figure for the Doctor and leader of the Division, and... she just ends being killed? The abusive aspect of Tecteun experimenting on the Doctor as a child, creating the Time Lords and literally erasing the Doctor's memories time after time could be explored and used as conflict in the relationship between the two characters.
Swarm and Azure revealing to serve Time against Space is other cool plot point which goes nowhere in the serial. In dedicated episodes (and, if possible, under a different writer, instead of Chris Chibnall), both concepts could be introduced as literal entities fighting against each other since the beginning of the existence.
By the way, what even was the point in Yaz and the others leaving a message in the past for Karvanista in the present, and he being able to do nothing about their predicament? Just being a joke?
I understand that, at the time, the COVID-19 lockdown did interfere a lot in the recording schedule of the serial, and the Doctor Who TV series production team was forced to reduce the number of episodes. However, why Chris Chibnall (or the editing personnel) did not revised the existing footage and removed unnecessary parts? It would probably reduce the episodes running time and cut down the role of some side characters, but it would at least make the episodes in the serial less convoluted.
I still can't get over the fact that the Grand serpent looks a tad like Sir Humphrey from Yes, minister.
Hey, one positive thing about this episode was that it showed that Goa'uld are still getting jobs on TV, that was really nice to see
I totally agree I love jodie as the doctor and she is a brilliant actress but like you say the material let's her down I also love mandip as yazz more now and she and jodie are also wonderful people to meet I hope you get to meet them one day
Unfortunately the main memory I have about this episode is being piled on in a comment section for saying I hated the whole flux thing being about the Doctor and the Timeless Child haha! I had been thoroughly enjoying the season but that whole reveal just instantly dampened it. Like you said, I don't know this woman, I don't care about her, and then she's dead anyway.
I wish i could have seen my own face when i realised about half way through this episode that there was no way Flux could be wrapped up satisfactory because there just wasnt the time with half this episode plus one more and oh so little time left 😢 because id enjoyed the series until then
The character of Joseph Williamson was better than I remembered. I like characters who give very human responses to the extraterrestrial and the _weird._ Of course a human would, upon discovering something not of this Earth, chart it out and analyze it. Of course they would be seen as insane by everybody else. He was also a real person, who led project digging tunnels underneath Liverpool. Nobody knew why, so the writers decided to have fun with this real historical event.
I think his character is great and that emotion with him and mandip is brilliant. I like it when who plays with unknown bits of history
All i can picture is how funny it would be to be off camera watching you get angry infront of the camera at this disaster of a series😂
OH, this is the one with the adventuring companions.... which should have been its own episode, or its own spinoff. It was so fun... but it's crammed into Flux. Chibnal has a lot of ideas he crams (and therefore wastes) into episodes.
That feels like ripe material for a Big Finish Audio Drama series.
The tunnel boy is my favourite character in Doctor Who history because I genuinely forget he exists every time until someone reminds me.
You're right, I almost complained about next episode because I couldn't remember which was which.
Wiseman: Call Your Dog
Companions: Travel all the way to China ... by foot? ... in the past?
Dog: Who told you to do that, it's impossible.
The best thing with this episode is the side quests with Jaz, Jerico and Dan. Otherwise, this episode is totally forgettable. And yes, not ever talking about Peggy ever again, that's such a disturbing thing. Especially when dr Jerico was almost like a fatherly figure to her during the latter part of the previous episode.
I'm not sure if the compression of the story from 10 or 8 episodes down to 6 really is to blame for this mess. I keep hearing people making that argument, and it makes sense on a theoretical level, but looking at how "Power of the Doctor" turned out to be, with an absurd amount of elements shuffling all over the place as well, I'm afraid that this was just the kind of storytelling that Chibnall was keen on doing. I *suppose* he could have explored all those subplots and villains a lot more if there had been more time, but most likely he would have just added even more into the mix.
I mean, we've seen plenty of examples of Chibnall's writing under much better conditions before -- and Flux isn't discernibly worse. The big flaws/problems with Flux are all-but identical to the problems and flaws with... pretty much everything else. Dude just can't really write very well.
@@Netherfly Pretty much. I'm currently doing a New Who(universe) rewatch and just finished the first series of Torchwood the other day - and his episodes in particular suffer from the very same issues, just on a smaller scale. "End of Days" is just as a rambling and nonsensical mess as "Flux" is.
I've said before, and I'll say again, I really want to see the original breakdown of what Flux was supposed to be before COVID scuppered it. I know at least one episode was cut, and some of that was able to be reworked into the back end - I'm betting this is where it ended up. The whole thing with the Grand Serpent suddenly being on Earth could have been explained by the tunnels, and where he happened to come out, but you're right; he's too confident to just have stumbled in. Unless he arrived on Earth beforehand, and somehow knew about UNIT and decided to infiltrate apurpose because of something the Doctor was going to do to him in the future? It does get confusing. I want those original plans. I also want a novelization of the entire series done by the same author (maybe by Kate Orman, if she's still doing Who? Or Justin Richards?), because the novelizations can add in bits that aren't in the filmed version, and sometimes clarify what happened, because they can use the original ideas and intent to fill in gaps.
I think it'd be interesting from a purely academic point of view, but this whole series has real "bad execution of a bad idea" energy, so I have my doubts how much it'd be improved.
I fully believe that if there was 2 more episodes, there'd be 2 more episodes worth of new characters and filler. The problem isn't enough time, the problem is how one-dimensional and numerous the Plot elements are.
@@chrisclark7285 I think there are good ideas in Flux, but with so much going on, none were able to be developed fully and into something that could have felt like a fully integrated and tied together story. Flux has the problem for me that "X-Men: The Last Stand" had - too many plots in too small a space, so none really had time to develop properly.
@@B-MC The 1D could have been resolved, at least on one or two of them, with more time. I agree there's too many plot points for the time we had to go much beyond a surface level. Flux, with the elements already in play, needed a full 10-13 episode series to dive deep and interweave things more cohesively.
@@citrinedragonfly Agree with both comments, it's weird how many characters feel like cameos but could have been entire stories. Wanted to see more of Ruth, Grand Serpent, Swarm, Azure, Cybermasters, Tecteun, Ashad, the master's journey to destroying gallifrey or even the timeless child. Didn't like the last one conceptually but once it was revealed commit. Even thought the Rosa one-dimensional racist guy had something to him because they focused on what his briefcase said and I thought it was a clue to something. The Stenza could have been an entire race of assasins behind the flux working for the division. So many ways it could have been more than a one-off event but my point is he was good at creating villains who seemed to have interesting stories behind them. Oh and would love it if retroactively Big Finish could make it so that Yaz-Doctor was an ongoing thing, either emphasise it from the beginning so there's more yaz-doc moments paralleling the ryan-graham moments, or split them in two and don't introduce yaz until s13 with Dan.
In classic WHO it was established that Galifrey/Timelord society was founded by 3 great scientist....Rasilon, Omega and "The 3rd"....the Flux is implying that Tectayun is The 3rd since she researched regenaration
On first watch, I really liked the setup with the Grand Serpent, unfortunately it never really did go anywhere why he was forcing UNIT to shutdown to... well... make it better for them in the long term?
However, the Flux centering on Earth is sensible in-universe, since Tectuune would be using it TO GET TO THE DOCTOR, and make them rejoin with them, since they know what they're up to. This time, I think that validates it.
As somebody who was mostly able to follow Kingdom Hearts, I found Flux significantly harder to follow. I actually think you comparing this to Kingdom Hearts did a disservice to Kingdom Hearts.
TELL, DON'T SHOW - the number one rule in writing. I have no idea how you're able to re-watch and/or re-evaluate Series 13... you're a brave woman,.
Yeah this story, and this episode in particular, is the embodiment of why "show, don't tell" is a writing rule. Like... we're told that Division is massive and galaxy spanning... we're shown one woman in a room with a single subordinate on-hand.
@@CouncilofGeeks I'm assuming that Chibnall refusing to 'kill his darlings' after finding out production had to be pared down drastically due to COVID etc. played a major part. Either that, or he just didn't have the time for a major course correction.
@@scott_an I’m inclined to believe the latter is more likely.
I think he did a sterling job getting anything made at all. And I'm rewatching them too. I'm genuinely loving it. I can see the flaws but if you just enjoy the ride it is glorious fun. It really is.
I remember feeling the stuff with Yaz and the others didn't seem go anywhere. They went on a journey and the message they left was useless so remember the journey feeling pointless
You saying that the plot is like the plot of Kingdom Hearts opened my eyes. I think I now understand why I love Flux so much. And Yaz getting more time to shine didn't hurt.
The whole episode is just Chibnall spinning his wheels for an hour, moving characters around like pieces on a chessboard and getting them in place for the finale. Potentially interesting ideas are either dropped immediately after they're introduced (the Doctor turning into a Weeping Angel) or shoved into underwhelming subplots (the Grand Serpent infiltrating UNIT from its very start). Any potentially interesting character moments that could've come from the Doctor reuniting with her abusive mother are undercut by their scenes being nothing but endless exposition before she gets anticlimactically killed off. Only Yaz Dan and Jericho's subplot vaguely resembled something good, and even then that whole thing turns out to be a colossal waste of time anyway. This was the episode where I firmly lost faith in Flux back when I first watched it, and I regard it as being easily the worst episode of the miniseries, and one of the worst of this era.
I needed this today. Thank you.
My theory: they wrote a bunch of decent stand alone scripts, single episodes with a season arc, good characters, interesting villains, fun new concepts, and excellent visuals. And then they cut up all the scripts, smashed them together and said "perfect". And that was before COVID.
Totally agree this episode hurts to watch and needing a whiteboard to try and figure out what is going on. Totally agree on Jodi and how she's a great actress who is done so dirty by chibinals writing.
I actually like storm and Azul (or whatever her name is) but where is their story!?! They could have gotten rid of the grand serpent (why do I care about his side story? I don't) and fully fleshed out the other two. I don't think they could have done it the opposite way but that's only because of the flux being the focus of the season.
This whole episode is just why!?!
It's a fine episode. Weakest of Flux, but inoffensively fine in the bare minimum way possible. Really, my biggest bug bear is the title. Who were the 'Survivors of the Flux'?
There's a throwaway line about the people who survived the Flux being drawn to earth, which is said but poorly illustrated and not even really highlighted.
@CouncilofGeeks That would have been a better idea for the story of this chapter named such.
The 'survivors of the flux' are those who didn't off themselves by the end of Series 13 🤣
It was the fam we made along the way...
I still say the Unite stuff that includes the grand serpent is unnecessary cause it doesn’t add anything to the overall narrative and could have been cut out I get why Tecteun is there she is held over from the timeless child from season 12 and they were temping to resolve that i this episode while making division the reason for the flux happening but not even the official recap of the season from the doctor who CZcams channel could ask it make sense
You really take it to heart, Vera! That's what makes your videos so valuable. 🖖
Somebody fly Exposition Minion out from Hagainstan for this episode, there's a lot of dancing to be done!
I had not been a huge chibnall era fan up until the time flux aired, but I still looked upon s11 and s12 overall positively, weak, but still good. this episode was the first time I realised doctor who was something i didnt enjoy watching anymore. The Halloween apocalypse was almost there, but it was the first episode, despite being nothing of its own I thought "okay, now that stuff has been set up it will be better", and it was. war of the sontarins had a lot more good than bad, then Once, upon time happened. I knew flux was going to be the most dissapointing of chibnalls series. Village of the Angels gave me such hope though. the story was for sure not all there, but Jericho was amazing, He was the best part of the whole series.
Survivors of the flux dashed those glimmers of hope into nothingness. this episode made me sad, not because it was impactful, but because I felt like I had just wasted 50 minutes of my life. I didnt like what the show had become, and to this day flux is the only series that I would say had more bad than good, wasnt worth watching. this episode was the most dissapointed and miserable the show has ever made me. hell, even legend of the sea devils was better, and that thing litterally didnt have a story.
also the doctor calling refugees invaders was a fun take to see :/
I do think having this episode be a doctor-lite episode with the focus on the companions figuring out a way back would've built a lot more tension, then The Doctor could've had a confrontation with Division and Swarm/Azure could've had more of a team up with Tecteun with the Doctor and companions resolving things. This is very flawed and I think especially given the global pandemic, Flux ultimately would've benefited from less plot threads and a more intimate storytelling than we ultimately got.
After being so excited by the last episode, this one, for me, this was the point where Flux really started to massively nosedive for me. This was a rambling, overstuffed mess; the whole reveal of Tecteun being the true mastermind behind everything fell flat since she has only been seen and talked about very briefly before, and we're meant to take this as a big reveal when we've hardly even knew her and she gets immediately killed off at the end. It could've been either the Grand Serpent, the Master, Davros & the Daleks or both Swarm & Azure as the masterminds behind the Flux and it wouldn't have made any difference. I do think the whole Doctor's backstory arc really dragged the whole series down. Dan, Yaz and Jericho essentially went on a wild goose for four years until Williamson picked them up, and the whole Vinder/Bel sidestory now feels as it's just going on and on at this stage. With so, so much going on, it was really hard to enjoy, and it did not get better with the last episode.
this is one of the few episodes of thirteen's run that I genuinely hate. I think that the yaz/dan/jericho stuff is pretty good, but just.
division sucks as a concept, the doctor being considered a 'virus' to eliminate being too high stakes to work - and not to mention how that whole thing with how the doctor 'doing good' not only ignores the first doctor's arc, but it forces the doctor onto even more of a pedestal than before if the universe being cruel is the point and this ONE figure is responsible for fighting against that.
and then the grand serpent is useless. not only does he do NOTHING villainous that couldn't have been explained with 'government incompetence' (which would've been a far better explanation for unit going down anyway) the whole scene just. completely ignores everything previously established about unit. the framing of it being essentially a british-only thing (the un of unit came from united nations!) and lethbridge-stewart having joined in the fifties when in his first appearance he's with the regular army and in his second appearance unit is explained, and cannot have formed sooner than 1966 due to both the web of fear AND the war machines. canon isn't everything, and deviation from canon is to be expected, but that felt disrespectful. it could've been more believably established with less leaps of logic that the government cut funding to the british branch of unit and seeing kate essentially starting up her own underground branch than whatever the hell the grand serpent eating-up-precious-screentime plot was.
I'm normally so lenient towards thirteen's era than other people, and with flux because of the inability to rewrite much after the episode cuts, but this episode was bad. thirteen deserved better
Great comment! 👍👍👍
I will go out on a limb & assume you'll like this better then the sea devil special! Oy, now that was a slog
I feel you on trying to stay positive about this series, but struggling to. I used to do a Doctor Who podcast for years, but between my mental health taking a hit during the pandemic and the show during the Chibnall era being so...underwhelming and disappointing for me, I didn't want to spend every episode of my show just ranting about how much I hated the stories. So I stepped away from it.
Look, I'm glad there are people that really like this era (there's eras of Doctor Who that I love that aren't always popular) and like the stories within 'Flux', but it just left me cold. Really cold. And I just can't pretend to like it when I don't.
We're a bit tired of "bumbling, failing upwards buffoons" on this side of the pond, but, yes the Grand Serpent's story should have been its own series instead of Flux. He could have been a great Big Bad in the background, plotting and setting up the Doctor to fall.
Whilst I agree with every point made in this video, I still really enjoyed this episode. In a show that never clarifies if the universe still exists (or how much of it), if you want an explanation for what became of Peggy you will be disappointed. However if you are prepared to accept the individual elements on their own merits - almost like incoherent dream sequences, then they all work.
You can imagine there was some epic 2-parter featuring the Grand Serpent and his demise as galactic war lord. Then a season or two later he reappears integrating himself into Unit's history, ultimately foiled by Kate. We just never see it.
The image of a mad woman living between our universe and the next, is striking and she is well performed. If you are willing to accept she has some reason for wanting to wipe out our universe, then she would work. We just never get to see enough of her or what drives her, before she is killed off for no reason.
I think Joeseph Willliamson is one of the historical figures most creatively integrated into the plot. Perhaps they could have addressed him in the museum where Dan was pretending to be a tour guide, to give some context to people who have never heard of him (probably everyone who is not native to Liverpool, and has not visited Liverpool as a tourist).
The nineteenth century adventures have a swashbuckling vibe and invoke scale, and are probably the only element that does not need more context.
The idea of Swarm, Azure, Passenger and their epic war of time against space also gets me excited, though we see nothing to substantiate it. I also like the idea of a 6B doctor having history in this epic struggle working for the Celestial Intervention Agency.
To enjoy this episode you need the mindset that you are not going to get a coherent plot, or characterization, or any of the things you would normally expect from an episode of a TV series. Of course it is quite reasonable that one would want those things, so makes absolute sense if someone does not enjoy this episode, however hard they are trying to find the good.
Swarm and Azure killing off Tecteun gives me Adam killing off Professor Walsh in Buffy season 4 vibes.
@Council of Geeks Did you see the new Nimona trailer that just dropped? I'm so HYPED! My only concern now is that the characters will lose their complex moral ambiguity, and that the darker stuff will be toned down. But I'm going to trust that I'll enjoy it either way. 🤩 Oh, I'm so excited!
I did and it looks great.
I've come to the ultimate conclusion that Chibnall intended Flux to be a season-long event where the intention was that the Flux happened and that all these different factions fought with each other trying to co-opt it. He was trying to do a Game of Thrones, with the Grand Serpent as his Littlefinger and Swarm and Azure trying to summon Death/Time and thus being the supernatural element (like the ice zombies).
But Chibs isn't George RR Martin and there was no way this could work as a miniseries.
Edit: Actually, it's like it's a crisis-style comic event, except all the spinoffs issues are crammed into the series itself
I agree about Jodie, it breaks my heart she was done so dirty.
One thing I love about Steven Universe is that Rebecca Sugar and the Crewniverse had a really, really good reason *why* humans are special, both irl and in the narrative. Doctor Who has never managed that.
Swarm and Azure should have been used to enhance the Tecteun story. Imagine if Tecteun brutally disposed of Swarm and Azure instead, that would have made her power level clear and showed the kind of ruthlessness Division is capable of. Maybe she could have even released them, knowing they’d come for the Doctor and for her, bringing them together. Also also, I think this is where she should have gotten her memories back, or at least some of them-the ones connected to Tecteun. Again, show us how Division is comfortable using people and twisting their minds and memories and stuff.
Also no, I remember clearly, half the universe missing is never addressed. In fact, Dan specifically states in Eve of the Daleks that The Doctor “saved the universe”, so that’s a clear contradiction.
I desperately need RTD to address half the universe being destroyed, PLEASE
In my opinion, the only truly bad episode of Flux. Others are mediocre or better. But this episode does leave a bad taste for the rest of Flux too.
I completely agree with you about Jodie, a wonderful actress but not given anything to work with.
After everything, I’m still a fan of flux - except this episode, which gets nonsensical and exposition-heavy
I watched last night and still nothing makes any logical sense.
They leave a message for Karvinesta but then even if he did have time travel they just seem to be travelling on a boat 10 seconds later before looking for The Time Tunnel. Also how exactly does a) the message stay there for decades and b) Karvinesta know to zoom in on it?
The Doctor's adopted mother was just mentioned in The Master's Powerpoint presentation and now we're supposed to be shocked she's here and recognise her eyes?
All The The Doctor says is "was everything The Master told me true?" and the answer is just yes without any explanation of how she could know this?
The Grand Serpent could have been introduced a little sooner than just suddenly showing up and jumping forward every 4 years finally ending with nonsense about Kate wearing a magic shield and so now he hates Kate and forgets all about Vinder.
I so wish chibnall had started with flux and had time to properly figure it out, it so easily could have been good.
Is this the one with the hermit guy? I always felt uncomfortable with that scene. I don’t wanna say it’s racist but it felt odd.
I'm torn on that, because I don't know enough about the culture being depicted to say whether or not it's racist (especially as, so far as I understand it, it's playing far more with "wise old seer" tropes in general than cultural signifiers in specific).
Full disclosure, the scene with the guru guy is one of the worst scenes in modern Doctor Who, if not the worst, and I hate it with my whole ass. The Ghostbusters (2016) writing was just too much for me, even as someone who already didn't jive with Chibnall's sense of humour. It goes on for sooo loooong and it never becomes funny. These last two episodes are gonna be a slog.
Omg I don’t even remember any of this. Thx Vera, but lol I just can’t care, and am so past it!
Yaz could have so easily been Martha 2.0 but nope 🤦🏽