It could have been the series of compromises. It could have
been shot with actors standing two metres apart in front of green screens with
CG monsters. In Chapter Three there is a bit of that, but despite the
limited cast, Flux is as epic in terms of geography, plotting and intent
as Doctor Who has ever been. This is the show rising from the ashes of a
pandemic, bolder than ever before. The pre-publicity was, for once, the honest
truth: Flux is the biggest story Doctor Who has ever told. It’s a Daleks’
Master Plan for the new generation, a War Games, a Trial of a
Time Lord but here written not as a pulpy comic book Boy’s Own serial, nor
as Terrance Dicks would assert “an effort to make sure we didn’t have to broadcast
the test card on Saturday,” or in an unwieldy fit of behind-the-scenes mania
with a script editor storming out at the final throes; this is Doctor Who imagined
as an epic. It’s not the sort of shape one
would think likely to befit the anthological nature of Doctor Who but, for one
series only, it truly works. Flux is a majestic success, one which
proves breath-taking in its scope and ambition, a six-hour television novel to
be admired holistically after the event and to be thrilled at episodically,
week by week, its cliff-hangers each and every time tugging us forcefully back into
the game.
Truth be told, I was about through with Chris Chibnall’s Doctor
Who after Revolution of the Daleks which felt rife with his worst writerly
traits. I was not, like the trolls of fan forums, ready to stop watching, but
there was a feeling that I’d seen him play all his tricks, that I’d still be
squirming at his dialogue and clunking plotting when Series 13 came along despite
whatever stories he might come up with. True, there were several instances of wincing
during Flux (“your as yet unborn child” anyone?) but for the most part,
this felt like a writer at the peak of his powers, suddenly finding himself
riding solo, rediscovering his penchant for humour and big ideas. This was the
writer who brought us the chutzpah of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and the
pace and heart of Fragments and Exit Wounds. The most
disappointing aspect of Chibnall’s Doctor Who has been its reluctance to Go
Big. Here, that can never be a criticism aimed his way.
The era’s second most disappointing aspect has been its extremely
tepid regular characters. The Fam never truly worked, with three quarters of
them miscast. Luckily, for Flux, we kept the best one: Mandip Gill.
Jodie Whittaker, however, delivers – undeniably – her best performance here.
There are still moments of slipshodness, a lack of focus, of poor textual
negotiation and flat gags, but for the most part, Whittaker is finally present.
In her stance against General Skaak, she cuts a heroic figure, rocking that
foggy, Sebastopolian landscape. In her flight from the Angels through the
cellar, she leads that gang with distinguished adroitness. In her quiet rising
to Tecteun, she feels – for the first time – dangerous: here, unusually, Jodie underplays.
The fantastic, earthy John Bishop as Dan Lewis completes a winning trio of TARDIS
travellers, his quirky naturalism a pleasing contrast to the more veteran,
unearthly regulars. Funny how the slight re-alignment of a leading cast can make
for a considerably more winning dynamic.
The Halloween Apocalypse is a bravura opening, spanning so many locations without
feeling the need to tie any strands together. Chibnall tells us we’re in this
for the long game by the sheer size of his story-telling. Moments of smallness,
however, make this instalment fizz. Dan’s reaction to both the TARDIS and his
shrunken house are hilarious, his reaction to Karvanista storming his front
room genuinely funny. This is a seam of humour that has been missing from
Doctor Who for some time. Amongst all the wild concepts here, there’s room for
Chibnall to be funny again. This is perhaps illustrated by the very funny, very
exciting pre-titles sequence, which sets out the stall: this is massive stuff but
by no means are we going to get reverential. As Jodie would say, “What a
relief!”
The introduction of Swarm is a deeply unsettling and mythic scene,
which thrills in its strangeness and sense of history. Sam Spruell is one of the
joys of this season, giving a frighteningly camp, dangerous and dynamic voice
to yet another strong Chibnall villain. I love how Chibnall’s baddies are
simply bastards: Tzim-Sha, Daniel Barton, The Master, Ashad – they’re not the sort
of people you can psycho-analyse. Indeed, the Doctor tried that with Ashad over
the video-comms and he agreed that, yes, he was a mad bugger, thank you very
much. Here, Swarm’s motives are equally linear: he wants to reign in hell.
Obviously. Azure, his twisted sister, is perhaps even more disquieting, Rochenda
Sandall playing her as a sensual, insatiable terror. Her final confrontation with
the Doctor in The Vanquishers is her defining moment. Quite what she’s
doing here in the Arctic Circle married to the boy from The Demon Headmaster
remains a mystery though.
The City of Liverpool is one of the silent stars of this series
and in particular, the first two Chapters. Director Jamie Magnus Stone shoots
the urban landscape beautifully, those gorgeous drone shots of the museum
allowing the environment to sing. The Liver Building and Anfield set-about by
Sontaran ships are iconic images, as is the breath-taking explosive finish at
the Albert Docks. Later, director Azhur Saleem returns to paint yet more beautiful
portraits of the Metropolitan Cathedral and St George’s Hall. And beneath the
city, the snaking tunnels of Joseph Williamson connect all these locations
together, satisfyingly forming the crucible for the season finale, the epicentre
of all of time and space. Only in this mad programme…
Whilst The Halloween Apocalypse delights in illustrating
the newfound size of Doctor Who (whilst happily retaining its domesticity) War
of the Sontarans is the robust, archetypal action story. It repositions the
Sontarans as enemies worthy of the Doctor’s steel. And by the time we reach The
Vanquishers, the Sontarans have arguably reclaimed their title of Doctor
Who’s Third Big Bad. Their costumes are fantastic, eschewing that rubbery RTD
blue for the Classic combat silver and – after years of watching Strax – their plan
seems as ambitious as their predecessors who, lest we forget, once invaded
Gallifrey.
The Crimean scenes are breath-taking, the scale of this real-life
historical epic feeling unhindered by the TV screen. Battle scenes dazzle,
making their way rightly into those early trailers (incidentally, way more exciting
than the Chibnall era has managed thus far – no complaints on the fantastic
marketing this year!) and the episode’s gunpowdered twofold climax is the best
Doctor Who has ever looked. As strong as Whittaker’s Doctor is in the aforementioned
battlefield confrontation, she flounders when asked to explain some plotting
with a blackboard and pointer. She’s simply not terribly Doctor-ish. Unless she
has a very obvious narrative drive throughout a scene, she’s all energy and no
focus. Look how terrific she proves she could be though in the closing seconds
of this episode, terrified for Yaz, in my favourite of the cliff-hangers served
throughout Flux. It feels old-skool and new at the same time. The scream
of the music howling in over Swarm clicking his fingers whilst Jodie looks on
desperately. That’s Doctor Who editing of the highest calibre, a moment where every
element of production comes together in an edge-of-the-seat moment of spine-tingling
excitement.
Once, Upon Time is perhaps the weakest instalment of the series but is by no
means unenjoyable. It’s essentially a Heroes-style Six Months Ago
episode but told through a needlessly convoluted time-bending device. This is perhaps
the only time in the show when COVID-casting becomes sometimes glaringly
apparent, most obviously in the scene where Vinder’s real-life line manager is
played by an extra, a fluctuating Mandip Gill given all the lines. There are
also quite a few Green Death worthy CSO backgrounds against which our
regulars strut their out-of-character stuff. Whilst there’s a definite frisson
in spotting Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor in the mirror, as if we’re watching a
forbidden text, the episode ends up feeling rather hollow, as though we’ve
ended proceedings in the same place we left them, but with Yaz and Vinder in
slightly less jeopardy. That said, there’s a definite satisfaction in seeing
the jigsaw pieces begin to align. We are now fully equipped to head into the
second half of the maelstrom.
Village of the Angels has already been hailed as an instant classic on the fan forums,
and it’s easy to see why. This pushes all of Doctor Who’s most intrinsic buttons.
The church echoes The Daemons and there is an elemental folklore feel to
Village which suits the show down to the ground. It’s also as relentless
an episode as you’re ever likely to find. The Angels just keep on coming, using
every trick in their Time of Angels book. By the time they’re chasing the
Doctor, Jericho and Clair through the tunnels, hands poking from the walls,
they’ve been at the door for half an hour and show no signs of stopping. In
fact, this proves to be the story where the Angels win. When Whittaker ultimately
transforms into a Lonely Assassin herself, we’re out of breath such is the
white-knuckle ride. And then, to top it all off, the Hartnell era titles are
interrupted by Bel and Vinder, whose story has been delicately playing out away
from the main action. There’s a sense that this show can now do anything and it’s
a viscerally felt change.
Survivors of the Flux or A Brief History of UNIT feels different again, pushing
boundaries backwards as well as forwards in time. The Grand Serpent is another
suitably macabre Chibnall villain, perfectly pitched by Craig Parkinson. His
motives remain a delightful mystery and when quizzed by the Doctor the following
week, he’s not giving anything away. Robert Bathurst gives his usual charming out-of-his-depth-but-elevated-to-a-senior-leader
performance and it’s a genuine shock when he meets his horrible demise. To see
Kate Stewart again is a joy and to see her in a new era cements her reputation
as a worthy successor to her father. Jemma Redgrave is perhaps stronger than
ever here.
And then we reach The Vanquishers, which, truth be
told, feels a bit like a party balloon slowly deflating, as Chibnall places his
toys a bit too neatly, one by one, back in the box. None of his ongoing narrative
threads feels as if they’re concluded with any noteworthy grace. The final
defeat of the Flux via a Passenger is neat but it’s too easy. Where do the
TARDIS crew find him? How do they get him there? How do they eject him from the
TARDIS? Why doesn’t he eat them all? Swarm and Azure are disposed of by Time
flicking his fingers at them and they seem fairly pleased. Their ambition to
reign in hell was presumably just a bit shallow. Joseph Williamson, enigmatically
brought to thundering life by Steve Oram is simply told, “That’s it, your plot’s
over and done with,” at which, mad as box of frogs, he walks off uncharacteristically
into oblivion. After all Bel and Vinder’s universe-spanning agony to find one
another, they simply meet and have a hug in the TARDIS. Where’s the moment they
glimpse one another again? Where’s the dashing across battlefields towards one
another? Elsewhere, this has been a beating heart of the series but here ends on
a drab, almost unimportant note. When the Grand Serpent is left to stew in
eternity, we’re treated to one reaction shot of Parkinson which bleeds into a
crossfade – it feels too brief and he deserves better. The Diane and Dan romance
is astonishingly badly handled too: she’s been through a lot, sure, but she comes
up with the Passenger solution, proving herself adept at this type of thing,
after which it all seems a bit much and without even a “I know you weren’t
actually late, Dan” she snubs him and he goes home, sadly. At least we think he
goes home, wherever his tiny house is. Jodie’s missing memories amount to the black
and white house we’ve already seen a few times; we’re no further forward. Even
Karvanista doesn’t get his moment of vengeance and quite why the TARDIS is so
knackered I’m still not entirely sure.
What does work in the finale is the imagery: the Lupari ships
in formation is an awesome sight, in the truest sense of the word. Dalek, Cyber
and Sontaran ships arriving en masse is wondrous. There has been a real sumptuousness
about the visuals throughout Flux with DNEG’s CGI becoming a defining
feature in this tremendous looking series. The worlds-spanning establishing shots
have been a gold standard from The Halloween Apocalypse, but that cheap
and nasty, orange typeface I could have done without.
There is a satisfying tidiness in the closing instalment, each
plot strand tied up in neat narrative bow, but there’s an even greater feeling
that nothing particularly dramatic, nothing particularly human has
happened. It could well sully how inarguably strong the rest of the show has
been but the remainder glows so brightly, it’s hard to take too much offence at
Chibnall stumbling at the final hurdle. He had after all kept so many plates spinning
for so long, it was perhaps inevitable that at some stage, he’d drop them.
This reviewer could keep waxing lyrical about the wonders of Flux
as a whole though. I haven’t mentioned Kevin McNally’s finely cured Professor Eustacius
Jericho, Craig Els’s extremely well-pitched (often hilarious) dog man, the tiny
detail of the servants of the Grand Serpent sporting a snake tattoo, Bel’s
pre-titles sequence with its surprise flying Dalek squad and a fiercely
beautiful look to camera, the lovely Brigadier cameo, the revelation of who the
Doctor’s previous companions were, Angelic wings in a mirror, the very brio of
a threefold Doctor and that final terrifically well-played scene with the watch
– nail-biting.
The closest comparison I have to Flux is Steven Moffat’s
ludicrously wonderful novelisation of The Day of the Doctor with its River
Song, Silence and Brigadier cameos added alongside its Daleks, Zygons and Time
Lords. It’s as if this wants to be the next ultimate Doctor Who story.
The Biggest Baddest Baddies are here doing what they do best, UNIT is here
being brilliant, there’s an Ood, there’s a fobwatch, there’s even a nod to the
Master and it’s a story which puts the nature of the Doctor at its very heart. Against
the odds, a 60th anniversary series is going to need to fight damned
hard to make an impact when Flux has running through it the very DNA of
Doctor Who. This is everything a fan could want. What a fabulous cast of
characters. What a series. Truly, thank you, Chris Chibnall. With Flux,
you captured my heart.
As an entity in and of itself, the six-part epic earns a 9/10
from me.
JH
