Holistic Review: It's a standout story for the Doctor, but everyone else gets shortchanged by a script that's determined to wrap up their plot threads as expediently as possible, regardless of what inconsistencies have to be glossed over.

Ahhh, we were so close to wrapping up Flux with a really well-crafted finale. And, indeed, certain elements of The Vanquishers are really good. Unfortunately, however, some plot threads wind up feeling rushed, others are under-explained, and a few critical plot points are never resolved at all. So — despite my assertion last week that I was pretty happy with the number of questions Flux had already answered, even if it didn't get around to resolving any more — I've finished the story feeling a bit let down.

This week, it all seems to come down to the characters in Flux, and how the plot is advanced (or not) through them. Only one character in The Vanquishers goes from strength to strength; for everyone else, there are good moments and bad moments, in varying ratios.

The Doctor

What works:
I'm tempted to suggest that this is Jodie Whittaker's best episode yet. For both her and the Doctor, The Vanquishers is — almost — an unalloyed success.

First, I just have to highlight her interrogation scene with the Grand Serpent, which I think is about the most Doctorish scene she's been given yet. I absolutely adore the way that the Doctor, pinioned and frozen in a torture-chamber device bristling with massive spikes, completely controls the interrogation from moment one, turning the questioning back around on her interrogator, and needling him with her flippant yet insightful comments as she absolutely refuses to take him seriously. I was just beaming from ear to ear the whole time. Let me highlight, in particular, these lines: "Oh! Am I right? 'Cause you look really cross.", "All right, let me guess... Exiled? Or fleeing? Ex-leader? Or dictator. You've got that air of entitlement. Probably responsible for any number of genocides. How am I doing?", "Are you — aah! — how rude! Are you trying to kill me right now?!", "And two... well, two!" along with several exchanges below.

The episode starts with a clever conceit, that when the Doctor rips off her conversion plate in the hopes of getting shunted back into Universe 1, things go awry — possibly due to Swarm's time-sensitive touch at the same moment — and the Doctor winds up being split into three parts. One Doctor remains on the Division research station, while two reappear in 2021: one in Williamson's Liverpool tunnels, and another on Bel's Lupari ship in Earth orbit. With three Doctors advancing multiple plot threads simultaneously, this is a great way to accelerate the story toward its resolution. (Hypothetically.)

One of the Doctors, who remains in the Ravagers' clutches, is functionally tortured almost to the point of death, or so it seems. There's a powerful moment, as her two other selves make contact, when she's able to admit to them — though she probably never would to anyone else — that she's not sure whether she's going to make it, and the exhaustion in her voice is almost palpable. Doctor!1 doesn't seem to accomplish a whole lot, but she does somehow find out that the Flux is composed of antimatter (which proves to be a crucial detail) and convinces the Ood to slow down the Flux's advancement (for whatever that's worth; we don't really get a sense of how much it helps). And, of course, Doctor!1 is the splinter that engages in the big-boss confrontation with Time.

Doctor!2, on the Lupari ship, is the episode's MVP. She demonstrates lightning-fast calculating and piloting abilities as she pinpoints the largest concentration of Sontarans on Earth while steering the Lupari ship straight for it. She's also the one who so triumphantly turns the tables on the Grand Serpent, and she's presumably the one who rescues Vinder.

Doctor!3, who reunites with Yaz and Dan, doesn't accomplish as much; she puts Operation Sontaran Corner Shop into motion, rescues Claire, and presumably sends Williamson home. She does, however, have two really big moments: her rescue of Doctor!2 from the Grand Serpent's interrogation, and she seems to be the one who comes up with the "risky plan" (if that can be considered a positive).

Jodie Whittaker herself is just spectacular. Her warm hug with Yaz upon reuniting is just so pure and sweet, and she demonstrates enormous range this week. Aside from the interrogation-scene lines I quoted above, I also adored her delivery of "And a... Victorian-looking bloke!", "Too late! Sorry!", "I'd have a shop exactly like this. Well, not exactly, I'd make some changes.", "Were you my companion?", "Do we have to go with dragging? I can walk, you know!", "I have got such a crush on her.", "I fancy that coat!" (Me too, Doctor, me too!), and the look on the Doctor's face as Dan interrupts her conversation with Yaz.

What doesn't work:

My only reservation about the Doctor's role in events is the way she handles the Sontarans. I get that they only got what was coming to them, hoist by their own petard, taste of their own medicine, etc, etc. But when "what was coming to them" is wholesale slaughter, possibly even genocide, it's a hard pill to swallow when this was the Doctor's plan. Why couldn't this have been Karvanista's idea? We already know he's fuelled by the rage of a thousand fiery suns to "kill every last Sontaran!" So why couldn't the Doctor have asked Karvanista to carry out an alternative, less murder-y plan — like, say, Kate's idea to warn the Daleks and Cybermen about the double-cross that the Sontarans are planning — only for Karvanista to rebel at the last second, choosing instead to wipe them all out? That would've put him and the Doctor at odds even more ferociously, added further interesting layers to their relationship (though I doubt we'll ever see him again), and kept the Doctor's hands spot-free. Instead, we have her standing right next to him, having apparently suggested the whole "murder every last one of them" plan (as an alternative to a less-homicidal option!) and most certainly approving of it, at least tacitly. It just feels wrong, even though it's hardly the only time in the history of the series that the Doctor has decided to murder her enemies. (Now is usually the time when I trot out The Ribos Operation, as one of the most egregiously gratuitous examples. But of course there's also The Brain of Morbius, The Two Doctors, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, etc.)

Plus, the Doctor's plans lead directly to Jericho's entirely-avoidable death. But more about that later.

The Division

What works:
The arc doesn't even make this point explicit, but it's rather frightening that the only remnant of Gallifrey, and practically the only remaining representation of Time Lord society and culture, is a supremely powerful clandestine organization whose malignant tendrils have infiltrated and manipulated the entirety of the known universe, and which managed to survive the Time War and every other calamity that befell Gallifrey by sneakily hiding beyond the boundary of our universe. (One wonders, if Tecteun really is gone now, who's going to assume control of the Division and all its operatives? Surely a lot of them died in the Flux, too, unless the Division, coldhearted though they seem, came up with some way to keep them safe.)

The Ood (Simon Carew and Silas Carson) remains a highlight. For whatever reason, he's now firmly on the Doctor's side, and fulfills dual roles of comedy-relief and trusted-sidekick. Loved Carson's delivery of "My impact may be minimal, but I'll try."

I'm beyond pleased with the fate of the Doctor's memories. I was absolutely convinced that the fob watch was going to get disintegrated, and on several occasions it (or its contents) nearly does, yet somehow it survives through to the end in the pocket of the Doctor's coat. (I wasn't expecting that, and gasped out loud when she pulled it out.) I'm not sure that I quite buy the Doctor's about-face from at least a year of nonstop "I want my memories more than anything else in the universe" to "I never want to know what's in this fob watch, probably" — we're never given any justification, other than her sudden and unexpected look of apprehension when Swarm suggests she enter the patchwork house to meet her lost selves — but I'm grateful for it, because it means that she can still possess the fob watch and keep her memories safe within the TARDIS, but she isn't rushing to infodump them into her own head just yet. However, the TARDIS can always parcel them out to her later, as and when needed. That's pretty much exactly the outcome I was hoping for, so I can handwave away the inconsistencies that got us here. (It would, however, be much easier to do so if this story didn't contain so many more such inconsistencies.)

What doesn't work:

For the past five weeks, I've been half-complaining that Flux virtually guaranteed the eventual deployment of the reset button, because a story arc about the mass extinction of the universe inherently required a reset. This week, too, there are several further hints that the Flux, and probably also Swarm's murders, would be undone:
• Swarm destroys (then reassembles) the Doctor's memories inside the fob watch.
  
• Of the Flux-death of the universe, Azure claims, "The final Flux destroys. We stop it, wind it back, and watch it again and again and again. A constant destructive loop!"
  
• Swarm starts to dissolve the Doctor, then puts her back together.

And then, after all those hints that it is doable... it never happens. On one hand, I'm impressed: it takes some guts not to press the reset button after a storyline that's wiped out something like 80% of the known universe. However, I'm also wary. We've seen plenty of Doctor Who's future history, and since when was the majority of the universe erased from existence in 2021? This is a massive change, and one that I do not like.

Heartbreakingly, the lack of a reset button also implies that some tragedies that I was relying on being reversed might now be set in stone. First and foremost, Tecteun, for whom I was counting on a miraculous restoration so that she could persist as a fascinating recurring adversary. But the genocide of the Lupari and Jericho's death are also upsetting; I recognize that some major ramifications were necessary in order to underscore the menace posed by the Sontarans and the Flux, but I had hoped they might wind up surviving once the Flux was unwound.

Amazingly, by the episode's end, the Division research station and seed bank remains intact. However, the fact that it barely came into play at all during the final episode — not to mention the fact that its continuing existence allows for the future possibility that someone might use it either to re-seed the universe or to unwind the damage wrought by the Flux — makes me think that surely we haven't seen the last of it either? If the Doctor and friends can find their way back, they could yet make use of it to restore the universe... but would Chibnall really make that dangling plot thread part of the New Year's special?

The Sontarans

What works:
On the whole, I feel like The Vanquishers is less interested in telling its own cohesive story than it is in wrapping up existing plot threads as speedily as possible. The one exception to this rule is the Sontarans.

Their plan is actually really clever: the Sontarans manage to lure the Daleks and Cybermen to Earth under the false pretense of mutually-assured salvation, only to pull the rug out from under them and leave them exposed to the Flux, in a monumentally brazen bid to wipe out their biggest competitors for control of the universe. However, even their duplicitous plan, which should form the backbone of the episode, isn't entirely successful, because it feels like it's built on a shaky house of cards, for a few reasons (though the first two are the biggest).

1. That dratted prophecy. Hoo boy. This only serves to prove my RTD-era point that 90% of the time, Doctor Who and prophecies are a poor mix. For all the hullabaloo over the last two episodes about how the TARDIS team and the Sontarans needed to pinpoint the exact date when the Flux apocalypse would hit the Earth, it doesn't impact the plot one iota. From the Doctor's perspective, it makes no sense: rather than relying on a prophecy, she could just, you know, measure the Flux's speed and trajectory, and calculate the date herself! Who needs a stupid prophecy?! The fact that she doesn't do this makes for a rather startling exception to Chibnall's usual celebration of the scientific method over fantasy. From the Sontarans' perspective, it might have made sense — presumably they want to know when the Flux will hit, so that they can time their invitation to the Daleks and Cybermen just right — except that they go ahead and invite them anyway, before the apocalypse has been nailed down. (Nevertheless, their timing is perfect.) What makes this even more ridiculous is that they're still trying to nail down the schedule for the apocalypse minutes before the Flux strikes. Literally: Claire finally pinpoints the apocalypse at 34:02, and we see the Flux barrelling toward the Lupari shield at 45:00, which presumably is meant to be the apocalypse that everyone's going on about. We never are actually privy to what Claire discovers, and as far as we know neither was the Doctor (at least, we never see her make use of Claire's intel) but it's no wonder: her line would've had to be something like "Oh yeah, actually, believe it or not, the apocalypse is today. It'll be here in just over ten minutes." Like, by then you could probably just look out the window and see it coming. Seriously, what was the point if nobody was going to do anything with this information, or even genuinely needed it in the first place? In hindsight, it makes not just the China excursion but the companions' entire plotline in Survivors of the Flux pointless.
2. The Sontarans' plan only works because, unbeknownst to them, the Ravagers have redirected the Flux so that it now centers on Atropos/Time rather than Earth. Had the Flux continued on its original course, it would only have reached Earth after having wiped out everything else, including the Dalek and Cyberman armies, thus presumably eliminating any need for the Sontarans to trick them.
3. Their original plan also could've gone horribly wrong if the Cybermen and Daleks had interspersed themselves among the Sontaran fleet, making it difficult if not impossible for the Sontarans to disentangle themselves without drawing attention to their plan. (Fortunately for them, their enemies like to keep their distance.)
4. Even as it stands, shrinking the size of the shield means that not all the Lupari ships will be needed, so where do the surplus ships go? (Well, two of them wind up under the control of Bel and Vinder, at least.)

Still, their cutthroat plan really helps to sell the Sontarans as worthy (and competent) adversaries on par with the Daleks and Cybermen. The Doctor acknowledges that they don't usually aim quite this high, but even she seems impressed:

Doctor: "Sontarans as the ultimate vanquishers, that is a massive power grab, the biggest swing they've ever made."

Likewise, their brutal genocide of the Lupari, which thankfully takes place entirely offscreen (aside from the battle scene on Bel's ship), is a jaw-dropping and wholly unexpected moment. It's well-motivated by their plans — they can't relocate the Lupari shield if the Lupari are still in control of their ships — and it truly sells the Sontarans as a depraved menace.

Most thrillingly, I cheered and punched the air when Stenck finally, finally, made onscreen reference to their sworn enemy:

Stenck: "In the face of an event which may extinguish us all, we offer the three–fingered hand of uneasy alliance. We must join together to survive this threat against us! Except Rutans. Rutans, you remain hideous scum and must be obliterated."

Please let that set them up for an expeditious return appearance, either without or with the Sontarans — though preferably both, in that order. (Also, in the spirit of completionism, I will point out that Stenck uses the most common pronunciation variant from Horror of Fang Rock, 2 instances of rú.t^han.)

I'm really glad the Sontarans got the opportunity to be the main adversaries of this arc. I love that Chibnall chose to lavish some attention on one of Doctor Who's classic but second-string monsters, and it's much more fun to watch them conquering the Earth than yet another attempt by the Daleks or Cybermen would have been.

Also, you just have to laugh that Chibnall named two of this week's Sontarans "Commander Stenck" (Jonathan Watson), which in rapid speech sounds an awful lot like 'stink', and, appropriately for the one who likes candy bars, "Commander Shallo" (Dan Starkey). Ha! By which I mean, Sontar-ha!

Dan Starkey — who portrays not just Kragar (from The Halloween Apocalypse) this week, but also Senstarg and Shallo — has elevated his Sontaran-craft to the point where he effortlessly balances the characters' menace and humor, even if sometimes I think his lines are scripted a bit too heavily on the lighthearted side. It almost doesn't matter because, I mean, he's Dan Starkey and you can't not love him. Script him all the silly scenes you want, people! I really loved Starkey's delivery of "More scum! Three scum!", the brilliant way he snaps a chocolate bar to emphasize the line "They break so easily.", the wide-eyed expression on his face as he considers the Doctor's proposal, and his delightfully alien laugh after "Chocolate!" Please let's have him back again soon.

Jonathan Watson, meanwhile, gets to balance Starkey's humorously incompetent and blustery characters with his more gruff, belittling, bloodthirsty clone. As much as Starkey's Sontarans stand out from the crowd, Watson's are reliably unmockable, which is of paramount importance in a story that's trying to reestablish the Sontarans as truly fearsome. I really enjoyed his delivery of "Ha! I look forward to the combat." and "I do not have time for your delusional witterings!"

What doesn't work:

Well, the way they're dispatched, as we've already mentioned.

Also, the prophecy, as I discussed at considerable length above. At least there's an attempt to work this utilization of paranormal abilities (first mentioned in part 2) into Sontaran culture, with a reference to their "psychic command center", but it still feels like an extremely peculiar fit for such a pragmatic species as the Sontarans. I would expect them to find psychics unreliable and frivolous, but then maybe they have more experience with actual psychic species than we humans do.

I also find myself cringing whenever I think about the 'corner shop' scene. On one hand, the script makes a good stab at justifying it rationally, by claiming that junk food assists in Sontaran metabolic processing (or, more likely, satisfies a craving brought on by their increased energy intake needs). However, unlike the rest of the episode, this scene is clearly aimed at eight-year-olds, who will be delighted by the shot of Shallo pigging out on candy and coming down on the side of "cho-co-laaaaate!" While the juxtaposition of murderous chocoholic warriors is amusing, it also seriously threatens to undermine the Sontarans' menace, even after all the headway the script has made in that regard. But perhaps the worst indictment is that the scene doesn't even need to be in the episode at all, and pruning it could have added much-needed breathing room to certain other plotlines. Its only purpose is to facilitate smuggling Jericho and Claire onto the Sontaran ship, which could've been accomplished a thousand other, more efficient, ways. On top of which, it seems extremely ludicrous that Shallo (a) would jump at a stranger's offer (b) when he knows the Doctor is on the loose, (c) doesn't find it at all suspicious that an apparent human is TRYING to get him to abduct one of her friends (even offering a bribe!), especially (d) because there doesn't seem to be anything in this arrangement for her, and (e) perceives a personal shortage of chocolate despite having access to as many corner shops as he wants (and, if he wanted the recipe, could surely retro-analyze it himself using Sontaran tech). It's just a lot of red flags for a presumed military genius like Shallo to ignore, purely to satisfy his craving for an addiction that he's clearly found a perfectly workable way to feed on his own. (Then again, calling Shallo a "presumed military genius" is evidently a big stretch. If we assume Shallo is a "dumb" clone, bred only to follow orders and not to question anything, then I suppose his reaction makes more sense.)

The Grand Serpent (plus Kate)

What works:
The Vanquishers doesn't answer a lot of my dangling questions, surprisingly, but thankfully one that is addressed is question 33, What is the Grand Serpent getting out of his alliance with the Sontarans? The Doctor theorized — correctly, it seems — that his plan is to let the Sontarans accomplish their goals, then double-cross them, and assert control over the grateful population on the wasted Earth. This seems like a fittingly devious scheme for, ahem, a snake-in-the-grass like 'Prentis'.

We also find out that the Grand Serpent is a member of some binary demi-species with inter-body bio-projection, though the Doctor doesn't quite manage to narrow it down to his exact race; still, I'm happy that we're given some hints! Also, I love his jacket embroidered with a gold snake, and his serpentine staff. Very classy.

I'm delighted to have a bit more time in the company of Jemma Redgrave; her every line delivery soothes my soul, and I was a particular fan of "And yet, in your arrogance, you came alone." and "I like this regeneration! I hope I meet it again." (Me three!) Even though Kate isn't a major player in these last two episodes, she gets at least a tiny bit of the action: she reveals that she's been the leader of human resistance against the Sontarans, and she (and Vinder) fittingly get to bring the Grand Serpent to justice together. It's not much, but I'm grateful that Chibnall decided to bring Kate back for these scenes, rather than inventing some new character to go toe-to-toe with Prentis. Here's hoping this leads to a revival of UNIT down the line.

What doesn't work:

My main regret is that, like everyone else, Craig Parkinson isn't given much material this week. His one big scene, the interrogation of the Doctor, puts the Grand Serpent on the back foot, so he never quite gets to be as deliciously evil as we know he can be (though his murder of the guy who gives up Kate's location is pretty chilling).

But I have some misgivings about his fate too, and not only that his comeuppance feels somewhat abrupt. It's waaaay better than the Sontarans — ostensibly he's being allowed to live out the remainder of his days in exile — but how tenable is an existence on a barren lump of rock, which is barely big enough to lay down on, floating in deep space? It can't have any atmosphere, much less food or water, so how long can the Grand Serpent — who almost certainly needs to eat! though admittedly he left his steak and two veg untouched last week — survive? Have they just as effectively condemned him to death too?

The Ravagers

What works:
We at least understand now that they're servants of Time — or, as Time delightfully calls them, "servicers" (just like Sutekh!) — which had been implied, but never outright confirmed.

Azure, in particular, gets a wonderful scene with the Doctor, in which they challenge one another's worldview. It's practically the inverse of the 'cho-co-late' scene; both scenes stick out from the rest of the episode, in this case because the discussion is so deep and nuanced, and I suspect allegorical.

Azure makes some really insightful comments about the Doctor's personality ("Your biggest fear isn't yourself. It's the destruction of other things."), contrasting it against the Ravagers' mindset. Here again, Sandall is absolutely brilliant at portraying Azure as reasonable rather than evil; she's not being villainous for the sake of villainy, because she — in yet another similarity to Sutekh this week! — truly does believe wholeheartedly that their goal for the universe is the most noble one. "But why?" she asks the Doctor, with an expression of curiosity rather than malice. "Why is it better? Why is what you fight for better than what we will bring?" This makes me think that Azure wasn't just pretending to be nice last week; she really did feel like she was saving people. (Though from what, I'm not exactly sure; the doldrums of existence, perhaps?)

Of course, the Doctor has a great answer to Azure's question of 'why': because the Ravagers bring death and destruction, and the Doctor wants to preserve life. "That is your faith," responds Azure. "Ours is different. Ours is true." And with that, I begin to see parallels between the Ravagers and the religious right in the USA. Sometimes it seems like all they see in the universe is mistakes that need to be fixed. But in many cases, those 'mistakes' are people, and fixing them means suppressing, forcibly changing, and eradicating them. "That's why we exist, to correct the error," says Azure, filled with nearly-religious fervor to accomplish these goals in the service of their god.

Then, in a shock development, Azure actually opens the fob watch. I felt sure this meant that all of the Doctor's lost memories would immediately rush into her brain. Interestingly, and rather inexplicably given past precedent, that's not what happens. Rather than the Doctor's memories coming out to her, she goes in to them. This does have the fortunate benefit of answering question 14, What's the significance of the Doctor's vision about the old floating patchwork house? Evidently, the house is a representation of this (organized, but ancient and rickety) collection of the Doctor's memories. Apparently, these memories don't just automatically return: they, like an old house, need to be purposefully explored.

In general, though their characters never quite crystallized nor achieved their full potential, Sam Spruell and Rochenda Sandall have been absolute highlights of the arc, especially as their personalities deepened following episode 1. Both are unsurprisingly excellent this week, though Sandall gets the best moments; I also loved her delivery of "You want creatures to breathe and live, you want species and races to build."

What doesn't work:

Despite having been the recurring villains throughout the story arc, the reveal that they're serving a higher power turns them into little more than powerful lackeys. I don't really have a problem with that in principle, but unfortunately it also seems to take away their agency. Swarm and Azure don't really accomplish much this week, other than threatening the Doctor and delivering her to Time, so they feel rather surplus to requirements.

Problematically, it's still entirely unclear why Tecteun released them. She was deploying the Flux to destroy the universe; what need did she have of Swarm and Azure wreaking uncontrolled havoc at the same time? Especially since — as ends up happening — their vendetta against her could threaten her own plans. (Clint Hassell makes the excellent point that this entire snafu could have been avoided, and been more satisfyingly scripted, if Swarm had been released not by Tecteun deliberately, but by the Flux.) Tecteun attempted to justify this decision by claiming that "The Flux event was spatial, but it was possible it wouldn't be enough. The Ravagers, Swarm and Azure, are rare and useful creatures. Now they have been reintroduced. Think of them as a temporal poison, or contagion." But I'm not really sure that this answers my question. How was a temporal contagion supposed to hasten the destruction of the universe beyond what the Flux could accomplish? If that's why the time-swarm was going around picking people off one by one, it seems like an awfully slow and small-scale solution for disposing of the survivors. Perhaps her ill-advised decision to release Swarm is just an indication that Tecteun was so smug in her superiority that she never envisioned them finding a way to infiltrate the Division, even when she herself provided a trail that they could follow. But it really would have helped if we had a coherent sense of how all of these forces — Tecteun and the Division, the Flux, and the Ravagers — were working together (or at cross purposes), if their goals or effects were better-defined, and if we better understood why those goals were important.

Finally, their demise, while fitting, also feels a bit rushed: they deliver the Doctor to Time, Time decides they should be punished for their failure, and poof, they're gone, and now we'll never get answers to any of our questions about them. (What is a nice touch is that Azure seems to regard this punishment as the holiest of gifts, joyously celebrating their "ascension".)

The Flux

What works:
Overall, I really like the solution of using Passenger, whose interior dimensions are a near-infinite source of matter, to counteract the antimatter of the Flux. I qualify this statement with the admission that it still feels a bit too easy, because Passenger wasn't woven deeply enough into the storyline that this solution feels like a clever exploitation of a preexisting plot point; in fact, I suspect this plot function is the entire reason that the Passenger forms were written into this story.

What doesn't work:

First, I don't entirely buy the suggestion that the TARDIS wasn't able to decode the makeup of the Flux, just because the Flux originated from outside our universe. If it's primarily made of antimatter — and apparently antimatter that's specifically coded to whatever frequency or composition characterizes the matter in our universe — then surely the TARDIS should be able to recognize that?

Second, the Doctor's plan seems to be that if they can throw enough matter into the path of the Flux — which is why she's so willing to sacrifice the Sontarans to it — then all that matter will at least slow the Flux down, if not stop it; but there's a strong hint (as per Kate's explanation) that she hopes to be able to absorb every last bit of the Flux. But surely the Dalek and Cyberman armies aren't enough to stop the Flux? The Division has almost certainly ensured that the Flux is made up of more than enough antimatter to dissolve every speck of matter in our universe. (Or so you'd think, anyway. In actuality, that seems not to be the case. Oopsie!)

Third, it's not at all clear how much Flux is still meandering around our universe. What would've really helped is a matching shot of the map in Division HQ, showing the true extent of the Flux and how much of it got swallowed up into the Passenger. Because from what we can see, the bulk of the Flux was diverted around the Earth, and only the small portion that penetrated the Lupari shield got vacuumed up. However, Time claims that the Flux has been "extinguished", which strongly suggests that the Passenger really did manage somehow to hoover in the entirety of the Flux, latching on before it could escape the Earth and sucking it right through the shield and out of existence. But we're not shown exactly what happened, and — aside from the static graphic in Division HQ — we've never been given a clear idea of the Flux's true size, shape, location, or progress.

Along similar lines, there seems to be a big plot hole in the fact that, this time, the Flux was able to at least partially penetrate the shield, despite the fact that there weren't even any gaps in it. So why didn't the first wave get through the shield?

Finally, how does the reveal that the Flux is made up of antimatter square with last week's assertion that the Flux was "compressing" matter which could presumably be un-compressed? If it's antimatter, it's not compressing anything, it's annihilating it.

This might be a good point for me to give a shout-out to Mikey Heinrich's excellent review for Doux Reviews, which distills, contextualizes, and clearly articulates the main objections that I had with this finale, particularly the way it handles the central Flux plot. Reading it, I was nodding along so hard that I could've sprained my neck.

Time

What works:
Finally we meet the force that Swarm and Azure serve: Time itself, enraged and impotent, trapped in the Temple of Atropos to prevent it from ever emerging to ravage the universe.

For the Doctor to meet the embodiment of Time is quite frankly jaw-dropping, and again I wish we had more time to devote to their meeting. I'm excited to learn more about Time and just why it's such a malignant force, as per Sapphire & Steel; hopefully we'll have the chance. Whittaker portrays Time beautifully, with a dark edge to her voice as Time taunts the Doctor.

Time takes advantage of this opportunity to slip in some hints about the Doctor's upcoming regeneration. First, a call-back to the Tennant years: where the tenth Doctor got "I think your song must end soon" from some random Ood, the thirteenth Doctor is threatened by Time itself: "Your time is heading to its end," it smiles in quiet self-satisfaction, knowing it'll outlive its tormentor. "I restore you, Doctor, reunify you. But for how long?" Even more worrisome — for the Doctor, though thankfully not for us, hello again RTD! — Time suggests that this might be the end of the Doctor for good: "Nothing is forever. No regeneration... no life." So as much as I want to learn more about Time, this cameo appearance doesn't feel like a cop-out; rather, it feels like Time is stopping by just to drop some portentous doom-bombs as foreshadowing, which frankly is way better than an Ood prophecy. (Time also leaves us with some extra hints: "Beware of the forces that mass against you, and their master." I think we can all assume she means Master, no? Hi Sacha Dhawan! Might the character be preparing to add a second, or arguably third, incarnation of the Doctor to their assassination checklist?)

What doesn't work:

I should say instead, "what doesn't work for now", because I suspect we'll be seeing more of Time. But for now, it's awfully shrouded in mystery.

For one thing: Time is evidently made up of purple motes, much like the never-explained time-force particles that were roaming the universe devouring people. Is that a hint that, while the the Mouri were weakened, Time itself was able to escape in a restricted form? (Of them, the Doctor says, "Time is breaking, hunting down anomalies." so maybe Time considers anyone left standing in the wake of the Flux to be an anomaly?)

The bigger issue, I think, is that we have three forces who all dissolve matter in similar ways — the Ravagers, the Flux, and Time — but it's never made clear how (or if) their powers differ, which leads to a great deal of confusion over whether or not they're all linked somehow.

Jericho and Claire

What works:
Well... hmmm. Claire's reunion with Jericho and the TARDIS team is nice. And... ummmmm...

Hmmm.

I can at least give one final cheer of thanks to Kevin McNally and Annabel Scholey. Though the episode doesn't give them much to work with — certainly not Scholey — Flux has done a pretty remarkable job of pairing up really great characters played by truly stellar actors, and this pair is prominent among them. It's a shame that the two of them didn't get more onscreen time together. I loved McNally's delivery of Jericho's poignant final line: "What an awfully big adventure!"

What doesn't work:

I mean, we've already firmly established that the prophecy business is nonsensical.

What makes things a bit worse is that Jericho gets taken along for the ride, despite having no clear reason to be there. Claire, who actually has percipient abilities, will be beneficial to the Sontarans, and their equipment can help her to pinpoint the date that the Doctor (claims she) is looking for. Jericho... what, is just tagging along for the ride, to give Claire moral support? What happens when the Sontarans find out he has no clairvoyant abilities? Wasn't there a danger that the equipment would burn out his mind?

So I was already wondering why Jericho was part of this mission, when suddenly the reason became quite clear, in yet another nonsensical sequence of silly coincidences. First, Jericho has suddenly become a butterfingers, and in his haste to escape, he sends half of his transmat ring flying across the room. (The R&D folks who designed this accessory clearly need another lesson on user-friendliness.) Then, just as he cleverly shoots out the lock to keep the Sontarans from entering, the lead Sontaran fires one shot — just one — not at Jericho, but apparently randomly at his ring on the floor?! Since the Sontaran likely couldn't even see the ring through his tiny helmet eye-slits, that makes this seem like a really lucky shot by complete accident. And then the Doctor claims that she can't rescue Jericho because he's too close to the Flux. And that's stopped her before when?! I just don't buy any of it.

It becomes clear, therefore, that Jericho is along on this mission for the sole purpose of including a casualty among the recurring characters, as he staunchly faces down the Flux as it rips the Sontaran ship apart. But why? It's poignant, but meaningless. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, so while Jericho may die a hero, it's not a hero's death.

Williamson

What works:
Williamson himself, now that his character has suddenly been overhauled! This week, he shows nary a hint of manic behaviour; instead, he's all calm and reasonable and polite as he relates his personal history to the Doctor. If Steve Oram had portrayed Williamson like this all along — sad but determined, with a deep and abiding concern for all mankind — I'd have fallen in love with him a lot faster. Instead, I'm left wondering why he was made to seem like such an unpredictable (by which I mean, insufferably rude) loose cannon.

What doesn't work:

More than any other character, Williamson is summarily bundled out the door — literally! — once his usefulness has come to an end. I totally get that we need to thin the herd of guest characters as quickly as possible to give others their due, but poor Williamson, it just feels so obvious that he's being dispatched never to be seen again.

Plus, his story about the tunnels doesn't make a lot of sense. He tells the Doctor that he encountered the rips in spacetime while he was walking around his land — ie, aboveground — but for some reason he excavated underground tunnels around them? At the very least, this implies that the 'doorways' should also be teleporting anyone who walks around Williamson's property, but it also raises the question, why did Williamson bother digging the tunnels at all if he could have just marked the locations of the 'doorways' aboveground? (And since the rips obviously do extend underground, how did he build the tunnels through them without getting sucked through the rips each time?) He does then go on to assert a second explanation for why he built the tunnels — he now claims they were meant to house the population if the coming apocalypse made the planet's surface unsafe — so maaaaaybe he meant for those two claims to work in tandem (ie, he decided to build the doorways underground so he could integrate them into his refuge tunnels) rather than being in conflict, but the way he explains it, it isn't clear. And anyway, if the Flux had disintegrated the Earth, it probably wouldn't matter if people had been on the surface or a few feet below it.

Bel and Vinder (with special guests Karvanista and Di)

What works:
The reunions.

Aside from Claire and Jericho, my other favorite recurring-character pairing, hands down, is Bel (Thaddea Graham) and Vinder (Jacob Anderson). The two of them are just such interesting, likeable actors, so again it's a shame that they really only got to share one brief scene together in the finale.

Bel also gets some nice scenes with the Doctor and Karvanista. I especially like that she very quickly comes to respect the Doctor, if the admiring look on her face is any indication. Graham's deliveries throughout are top-notch, but I'll give a special nod to the look of deep concern on her face on "Can, can you do it? Can you get him?"

But Karvanista (Craige Els) has developed into a pretty rich character too, especially now that we know that Division has implanted a synaptic collider in his brain, which will kill him within seconds if he so much as talks about his apparently very colorful history with the Doctor. If it's true that he's a former companion, then yay more alien companions finally!, and also, his apparent abandonment by the Doctor certainly explains his gruff demeanour, though it neither explains nor excuses his murderous side. Sadly we don't have much time to delve into the details of their newfound connection, but I really appreciate this attempt to deepen his character in interesting ways, and provide some more shading to his relationship with the Doctor.

What doesn't work:

I really thought that Vinder was going to be a lot more important in this arc, practically a part-time companion, but since episode 3 he's been pretty much sidelined. And we get confirmation that Vinder really wasn't trying to rescue Di, he only came to the Ravagers' satellite because he thought the Passengers had scooped up Bel.

The as-yet-unborn baby. For their grand reunion this week, Bel and Vinder only get a tiny conversation about the baby which lasts for all of two lines; was it really even necessary? I hate to script their little one out of existence, but it has such a nonexistent impact on the plot, bar giving Bel a cute droid to monologue to, that it might as well not have been included.

As I mentioned in passing above, everyone just seems to have gleefully forgotten that when Karvanista was introduced, he very nearly succeeded in an evidently genuine attempt to dissolve the Doctor and Yaz alive in boiling acid. And squish them inside a miniaturized house. And 'splode them with a supernova. But hey, why let a little cold-blooded murder (okay, a lot of cold-blooded murder) come between friends?

Diane. Oh my goodness, Diane. This week she's awesome yet inexplicable in so many ways.

For starters, Di has suddenly been overhauled from a sweet but spirited twenty-first century woman into a survivalist with an intuitive grasp of alien biotech. How did she manage to locate this bioform buried underground? Exactly how did she 'interfere' with it? Perhaps most importantly, how is it that Di knows exactly how rebooting the system works, and how long the escape route will remain viable, yet she's never done it before?! (Here again, the script itself readily suggests a believable alternative: Di could have explained that she had escaped before, but got sucked right back into Passenger before she could contact help, a stumbling block which Vinder can now overcome.) Don't get me wrong, I love how pragmatic and competent she is this week, she's a great foil for Vinder, and Nadia Albina is just brilliant in the role, but where on earth did all this advanced technological expertise come from?!

Unfortunately, that's not the only part of Di's storyline that feels completely unmotivated. A very important question is, why was Di the only one who escaped Swarm and Azure's plans? Her response is absolutely ludicrous, though Vinder seems to find it perfectly reasonable: "To them, I'm insignificant. But I'm not insignificant." So, what, she thinks they let her rot in Passenger because she was too insignificant to convert into fuel? But if they think she's so insignificant, why did they go out of their way to capture her??? They must have had some plan for her specifically, but we never find out what it was. It almost sets up the possibility that Di is working with them, she looks that suspicious!

Equally unexplained is Di's sudden resentment, or at least skittishness, toward Dan. We can only infer that she's feeling traumatized after her experiences and, for whatever reason, blames him for what she's been through, even though he is categorically not in any way responsible. This experience could have, and — given how brilliantly she handled herself — one would expect should have, bonded the two of them even more deeply. I was utterly convinced that Dan was going to stay behind in Liverpool with Di, and leave the TARDIS crew. Perhaps "Maybe not tomorrow." is her roundabout way of saying 'I just need some time', but her sudden cold shoulder to Dan seems to come from out of the blue.

In short, this week, Diane doesn't feel like a character, she feels like a plot device. Thankfully, she does get one genuinely great in-character moment: when she comes up with the brilliant idea to use the Passenger form to absorb the Flux.

Yaz and Dan

What works:
The lovely, if brief and understated, heart-to-heart scene between Yaz and the Doctor, to which this entire season (if not the last two years) have been building. Given that dramatic lead-up time, the resulting scene feels a bit underwhelming, but at least it's a start, which is all we really needed. Someday, though, I'd still like to see the scene where Yaz reacts to learning about the Doctor's recent discoveries.
Doctor: "Yaz. I'm sorry. I didn't let you in, to what I was doing, going after Karvanista, what I was looking for. I shouldn't have shut you out."
Yaz: "No. You shouldn't have."
Doctor: "I was looking for... information... about me, a life I never knew. I wanna tell you everything."
Yaz: "I'd like that."

The surprise addition of Dan to the permanent TARDIS roster! Given Bishop's limited availability, I had fully expected that he would only be present for this six-episode arc, but once Di rebuffed him, all the cards went back on the table. Even still, I expected him to turn down the Doctor's offer, so I'm delighted to see that we'll have him at least for the New Year's special, and likely for the remaining two Whittaker specials. Beyond that... who knows? Honestly it would be nice to have another companion-bridged regeneration again, which used to be the norm, though it's become much less common these days. Say yes, RTD and Mandip, won't you?

Despite not getting much to do, Gill gives an excellent performance. Her eye-rolling on "Come on, Scouse. Let Yorkshire show you the way." is hilarious, she gives great facial reactions throughout (as on "No, you shouldn't have." where she looks simultaneously annoyed, hurt, and hopeful), and I really loved the way she tries to spare the Doctor's feelings on this line, which I guess just goes to show how much the character has grown since Revolution of the Daleks:

Doctor: "How long has it been for you two?"
Yaz: "A few years."

Bishop, too, gets some nice moments. I loved his admiring delivery of "She was amazing. She is amazing.", as well as "Be nice, or you won't get a biscuit." (Poor Karvanista! So frequently infantilized!)

What doesn't work:

I hate to say it, but Dan has just been fairly useless as a companion. Yet again, I have to harp on the point that good companions need to have either specialist skills, or very distinctive personalities — ideally both — in order to help drive the story. Right now, Dan has neither; even his supposed job as a plasterer still hasn't been confirmed, which means his only specialist skill is "Scouse". As a result, pretty much the only thing he's done to contribute to the plot across six episodes is to recognize the name and importance of native Liverpudlian Joseph Williamson. As RuPaul might say, this is a competition to find the UK's next companion superstar, and average just isn't gonna cut it. I get that Dan fell into the Doctor's lap and they share a mutual enjoyment of each other's company, but if you're not gonna script any interesting ways for your character to contribute to the plot, through knowledge or actions or dialogue, then what's the point of having them there? Right now, Dan is a slightly clumsy dad-joke machine, and that's it. He's really likeable, so I want to see him succeed, but I need some help on the scripting front, y'all.

For that matter, as much as I've adored Yaz' confidence this season, I must admit that it's hardly original character development. In the absence of specialist skills, the only real pathway for a companion to achieve greatness is to emulate the Doctor, as Yaz is doing... just like Rose and Clara did before her. Which is a little annoying, because Yaz has specialist skills right there, just waiting to be explored. But instead of leveraging and developing Yaz' police training as a lens into her character, the scripts would prefer to focus solely on her increasing Doctorishness. I can't really complain too much, because even an unoriginal character arc is better than being ignored, but I can and do wish for more. Baby steps, I guess. Baby steps. (Hopefully Yaz will be around long enough to start taking some longer strides.)

It doesn't help that neither Yaz nor Dan gets to do much this week, other than react. Yaz, thankfully, gets to deploy the hexachromite — err, I mean, open doorway 9 with a grappling hook — so at least she takes down a platoon of Sontarans in the opening few minutes, but after that, nothing.

Plus, the resolution of the 'fetch your dog' prophecy. So, okay, it did turn out to be a message of some importance, but the prophecy didn't clue Dan into anything, except in hindsight. He didn't need some prophecy to tell him what to do; he would've released Karvanista regardless. Between this, the utter futility of the 'pot translation' plotline, and the total mystery of why the Grand Serpent of all people wanted to stop them, what was last week's episode for anyway?

Part of me is still holding out hope that we haven't seen the end of this general story arc. There are just too many little unsolved details — like why the Doctor didn't reverse the Flux, etc — for me to think that this storyline is really truly over.

But aside from my hope that some elements have been left dangling deliberately, it seems pretty clear that lots were left dangling either inadvertently (through a lack of attention to detail) or maybe due to apathy (because Chibnall didn't think they were important enough to bother answering) or, if I'm being generous, time constraints. Looking back over the entire arc, the following Flux-related questions remain unresolved:

5. How does Swarm kill people? (The precise mechanism is never disclosed, nor is it clarified why he sometimes kills by gaze and sometimes by touch.)
6. How was the psychic connection between Swarm and the Doctor established? (Do we just assume that they're both from telepathic species, and therefore a psychic connection between them is practically natural?)
7. Why wasn't Azure imprisoned in a containment field herself?
8. How is it that Swarm and Azure, servitors of Time who apparently wield time as a weapon, have powers that are so similar to the antimatter Flux? Especially since they, unlike the Flux, originate from our universe. (I can only conclude that their apparent similarity was a big goof on the part of the production team, who should have made the Ravagers and the Flux much more distinct.)

10. What's corrupting the TARDIS? (This is a major unexplained plot point. Given that the Flux is disrupting matter, not time, it shouldn't be affecting the TARDIS so profoundly. The only possible explanation given is that the damage occurred while Time was "running wild", but even if that's true, it isn't sorted out by the story's end, which again lends support to my theory that we haven't seen the last of this plotline. If Eve of the Daleks starts with the TARDIS back in ship-shape fashion, I'll be a little peeved.)
11. Was Jón an alien too? Who sent him and 'Anna' to Earth? (I thought for sure we'd find out the answer to this question, but alas, not so. In hindsight, very little about Anna makes sense, especially why she's roaming the universe free — if amnesiac — while Swarm is imprisoned in a tiny cell for eternity.)
12. Who sent the emergency signal, and why did Anna and Jón ignore it? (See above!)

15. Why did the near-impact with the Flux fling the TARDIS crew into an alternative Earth-history timeline?

17. How exactly do the Mouri constrain Time?

19. Who was responsible for yanking Dan and Yaz — and, for that matter, Vinder — through time and space? (It's not the same effect as the Doctor's phasing in and out during The Vanquishers — Dan and Yaz glow blue as they disappear, whereas when the Doctor fades, an afterimage effect suggests that she's slipping between her split timestreams — but I still can't shake my gut feeling that perhaps Yaz and Dan were sent elsewhere by the Division, except that I can't figure out what purpose it would serve the Division to send Vinder and Yaz to the Temple of Atropos.)

22. Related to question 8, why is Swarm's power so similar to the swarm of people-devouring time-force particles? (Presumably because they're both aspects, and enforcers, of Time?)
23. (We don't get an answer to question 23, but I'm going to assume that Williamson's peculiar wording about "the task" was just the result of a weird neuron firing in his brain.)

26. How, and to what extent, was the force of Time unleashed to wreak havoc?
27. Why does the Division only just now want the Doctor back, especially since we've been led to believe that they discarded her after that ultimate memory-wipe?
28. Is it perhaps possible that the Doctor somehow escaped the Division's clutches?
29. Why haven't they tracked her down in the interim millennia?
30. How does the Grand Serpent know about Yaz, Dan, and Jericho's attempts to pin down the end-date of the world?
31. How is the Grand Serpent travelling in time? Is he himself from a time-sensitive race, or has he acquired a time machine?
32. How did the closure of UNIT in 2017 enable the Grand Serpent to get access to the UK's missiles by 2021?

34. How do the Ravagers manage to follow the Doctor's trail?

The Vanquishers even adds a few more unanswered questions for the road:

36. What created the rips in space and time that form Williamson's doorways? (I assumed we'd be given or shown a direct answer at some point, but the only explanation we get is a very unconvincing "retro-temporal manifestations!" from the Doctor as she scans one of the doorways. Why would the Flux, which spans literally the entire universe, only create spacetime rips in one tiny corner of Liverpool? If they were a natural side-effect of the Flux, you'd expect them to be everywhere. So there must have been some catalyst or triggering event; what was it?
37. What's the deal with Swarm's superficial similarities to the Time Lords? (We never do find out why he was able to regenerate, etc.)
38. Why are the Grand Serpent's missiles never used against their "target cities"?

In rewatching the entirety of Flux, the only points that struck me as newly unclear, with hindsight, come from The Halloween Apocalypse:

39. When we first meet Williamson, we see laborers hauling rock in the very room where the doorways are located. Does nobody notice them? Is nobody accidentally transported to a different time or planet? That certainly might have convinced Stonehouse — who never did reappear — that Williamson's work was worthwhile.
40. We never learn from where the temporal residue covering Karvanista's ship, which caused him to leap ahead of the fleet, originated.
41. How does Swarm undo Azure's memory block?
42. It's never made clear why, out of all the people in the universe, the only person (as far as we're aware) whom Azure forced into Passenger via telekinetic control is Di; everyone else was essentially given a choice. And what kind of "fun" did the Ravagers have with her?

Taking into account that I'm counting #23 as answered, but have put 17 and 27 back onto the list (since we never really got full clarity about either one), that means our grand total remains, disappointingly, at 16 out of 42 questions answered, or 35.7%. Could definitely be worse... but not great, and indicates that Chibnall, like RTD and Moffat before him, was banking that the story's fast pace and nonstop action would gloss over the lack of answers.

Turning away from the plot, I'm pretty pleased with the effects this week. My favorite is the brilliant explosion of light from Passenger which reabsorbs Vinder and Di, but I also loved the effect of the Passenger form hoovering up the Flux, the purple dervish effect used to represent Time, and the clever effect of the Doctor reunifying. (I also just want to take this moment to thank the production team(s) for creating such distinctively different looks for the Dalek, Cyberman, and Sontaran ships. It really helps them to stand apart when placed side by side, as they are this week.)

As for sets, the entire Sontaran cell set looks fantastic. I especially like the design of the Sontaran cage, which opens like a claw retracting.

We've had a couple of great scores by Segun Akinola this year, but alas, this is not one of them. I have no thoughts on it.

I wasn't especially bowled over with Azhur Saleem's direction either, perhaps because the episode is forced to pivot frenetically in order to keep up with its many concurrent plotlines and characters; after all, so many rapid cuts and scene changes scarely allow for appreciatively lingering over the artistry of a well-composed shot. But while it didn't strike me as overtly artistic, it did come across as confident, and did a great job of conveying the tone of each scene. I didn't have any issues with his direction like I have in the past, whereas there were several shots that I really loved: the black-and-white scenes inside the fob watch, with Swarm and Azure in color; Sontarans marching through the Liverpool train station; and the slow zoom into Passenger.

Minor points:

• For all my complaints about the uneven plot, the dialogue certainly has its moments! (Though I feel a bit guilty laughing at this line, given that the Doctor's response is the sort of comment you might hear attached to a sneer about "those people" — poor people, people of color, immigrants, etc. I did a quick Google search to check, and indeed there are many valid reasons why a neighborhood might 'go downhill' — job closings, neglectful homeowners, insufficient city funding, homes selling for below market value, gentrification — but of course my search turned up puh-lenty of racist and classist comments too.)

  Azure: "Departing so soon?"
  Doctor: "Neighborhood went downhill."

• "It must be a shift in time, rather than space," observes Dan, much to Yaz' admiration. Yeah no, but there's a shift in space too, else Williamson would never have wound up on Atropos or the steamship.

• Yet another plot convenience: how did the TARDIS get into Williamson's tunnels? Kate must have somehow arranged for its transport, but how (who helped her?) and why (what made her think that the Doctor would wind up in that specific place?)?

• After all that talk last week about how one drifting ship opens up a hole in the Lupari shield that leaves the Earth vulnerable to attack, why doesn't Karvanista point out this critical flaw in the Doctor's plan, especially right on the eve of the apocalyptic Sontaran battle?

• In a remarkable display of synchronicity, when Azure snaps the fob watch shut, my laptop chose that exact moment to turn off the screen, cutting to black. It's never gone into power-saving mode while I've watched any other episode of Doctor Who, so I thought the screen really had gone dark, until the Doctor's line "What's all this?" made me realize that something was happening onscreen that I wasn't seeing!

• Love this!

  Doctor: "I approach everything with caution! Or abandon. One of the two."

• I shouldn't laugh at this joke either, because it's yet another example of my pet peeve — I think thus far unseen in the Chibnall era — of anachronistic jokes being told to (or between) characters who couldn't possibly understand the reference. But I guess my love of GBBO overcomes my distaste for this kind of humor, or maybe I'm just not bothered by a laugh at Williamson's expense?

  Doctor: "Well done! Paul Hollywood handshake!"

• Love Gill's exasperated little head-shake on this line:

  Dan: "You have any idea what she's talking about?"
  Yaz: "Not a clue! Normal service resumed."

• Line I Shouldn't Be Laughing At #3: as uncertain as I am about this scene in general, Starkey's delivery of this ludicrous line had me chuckling.

  Shallo: "Your delicious and appealing mouth snacks wrapped in paper will never weaken us, or our resolve!"

• What kind of soda do you suppose Yaz tosses to Shallo? (In my head-canon, it is an Irn-Bru.)

• Line I Shouldn't Be Laughing At #4: cheesy (and, I think, quite rude to Karvanista), but funny!

  Doctor: "Now I'm shut in with the dog!"

• Why does Di shoot the security system? She seems to know it isn't going to affect them, and for all she knows, Vinder has limited ammo which she shouldn't be wasting.

• Another great delivery by Starkey, with insight into the Sontaran mindset:

  Kragar: "Your service to Sontar will end in success, or death."
  Jericho: "And the reward for success?"
  Kragar: "Death."

• Awesome Interrogation Exchange #1:

  Grand Serpent: "You can call me... Grand Serpent."
  Doctor: (laughs) "Is that what your parents called you?"

• Awesome Interrogation Exchange #2, and a superb delivery by Whittaker:

  Grand Serpent: "I was a beloved ruler."
  Doctor: "Whoa, ego klaxon!"

• Absolutely love Whittaker's harmonious dual delivery here:

  Yaz: "There's two of you."
  Doctors: "I know!"

• Sweet delivery from both Whittaker and Graham:

  Doctor: "Wait, child tech? Are you having a —?"
  Bel: "All right, all right, we don't need to announce it, do we?"

• Bel seems to recognize Vinder's voice over the TARDIS speaker, but she doesn't react to his name (with surprise) until the Doctor repeats it? Did she think his voice belonged to someone else she knew?

• So what, is the Grand Serpent executing random Liverpudlians now, or does he have some concrete reason to suspect that this dude knows where Kate is?

• Quite possibly my biggest LOL of the episode:

  Ood: "Doctor, your existence is becoming too unstable. I fear it will destroy you. Refreshment?"

• Why did the Passenger pull Vinder and Di back in, without the Ravagers ordering it to? It doesn't automatically go after the Doctor when she turns up, so it can't just be a proximity thing. Was it somehow aware that they had escaped without permission?

• As the Doctor takes her leave of Claire and Kate, Claire gets a faraway look that led me to believe she was about to get a premonition of the Doctor's fate... but no.

• Where did Dan go back home to, anyway? (Assuming he did...) His house is still gone!

• One more great line to close us out, and I was so grateful for the ending she tacks on:

  Doctor: "Do me a favor. Keep this safe, somewhere deep within this TARDIS, somewhere I can never find it. Unless I really ask for it."

• Contrary to fan rumor, Jack Harkness did not reappear in Flux, which — given recent events and the BBC distancing themselves from Barrowman — is rather a relief. Though the possibility remains that John Barrowman was hired for one of the upcoming specials?

• And for the third year in a row, we get a New Year's special featuring the Daleks! I really really like this: it leaves the main season free to explore other adversaries, while turning the Daleks' return into sort of a special event. Plus now it's tradition!

From my rewatch, some retrospective minor points from The Halloween Apocalypse:

• I'm sad that we never saw Wilma again.

• How come Karvanista never tried out his hypnotic ability on anyone but Dan?

• It's a shame that Swarm and Azure never really pressed home their advantage of knowing the Doctor much better than she currently recalls them.

The only other episode that prompted further reflection was War of the Sontarans:

• How did Swarm know about the WWTDD written on Yaz' palm? We're never given any other hints that he's a mindreader, and he doesn't seem to be privy to other points in Yaz' timeline.

I wish that a lot more characters (especially Yaz and Dan, Vinder, the Grand Serpent, the Ravagers, and Kate) had been given more to do, but with the focus so squarely on the Doctor, and multiple plotlines needing to be wrapped up so quickly, The Vanquishers was a pretty functional episode, which sadly squanders some of its precious runtime on unnecessary scenes. I'm filled with undying gratitude that, miraculously, Chibnall was able to give us any Doctor Who at all in the midst of a pandemic, and I'm delighted that he decided to give us one long story with a string of truly fantastic classic-style cliffhangers. But as I look back over the past six weeks, I wish he'd ensured that the central Division / Flux / Ravagers storyline was strong and coherent before he built out the supporting side-plots for the guest characters and villains, and I wish that he'd been a bit more restrained than ambitious, as those were the moments when Flux really clicked.

posted:

02 January 2022