You know, for this second review of Doctor Who: Flux, I was going to be grand and pompous while bringing up up my prediction from “The Halloween Apocalypse,” and I was going to tease the thing this episode so dreadfully obvious sign-posted. However, I don’t think I will. It was something I would be doing out of spite and hatred, something with vitriol and anger. When in truth, that’s not what this episode needed.

“War of the Sontarans” continues stupid naming conventions after “The Halloween Apocalypse” didn’t have an apocalypse. This week didn’t have a war of Sontarans either. This week’s episode, like all others except the fourth, is written by Chris Chibnall and unlike last week, he wasn’t eating copious amounts of sugar when doing so. In fact, this was an episode of television and one that wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. “War of the Sontarans” is a functional (if at times messy) part one of a two-parter that wasn’t written to be as such. If anything, it seems like part one of one, not two of six to make up this excessively bland trite story we’re telling.

I will say, from the word go, I do enjoy a good “Doctor split from the companions” kind of story, as it should provide ample room for each of their characters to shine through. The trouble with Doctor Who in the Chris Chibnall-Jodie Whittaker run is that there has been a lack of consistency and a lack of a script editor throughout. Did anyone else catch Yaz saying she is a police officer? Not was, which was the line she gave to Dan last time out, who might have needed the idea of a reassuring human authority presence. No, she tells Vinder (Dave Lister-wannabe) with that sense of self-confidence she suddenly has within herself.

I really want to like Yaz, I think Mandip Gill is fantastic with Jodie in those clips over on the Doctor Who YouTube channel, but on-screen she’s flat. There is nothing to her. She’s not chewing the scenery with faces or moments to react to lines. Maybe that’s blocking from the director (Jamie Magnus Stone once again) who wasn’t really creative with anything. I’ll get to the moments with Swarm in a minute. Thus far, she’s had character beats for being a young cop, being a brown woman time traveling, the half-hearted suicidal thing from the last series, and most recently (last episode), became needlessly cutting with her remarks to the Doctor and overly co-dependent at the same time. Yet, none of those beats have been resolved.

In fact, in all those moments aside from the “WWTDD” on her hand (sweat can’t melt blue ink?), the shiny (yet gritty) Red Dwarf reboot felt more like a companion. He was moving us along in the story, and he was reacting to things in ways I had expected him to because this episode understood how to construct a story and tell it with beats following one another. The gun is set up and eventually used. Mary Seacole recording meticulous notes are later used, and the fact you have to be human or at least corporeal to show the presence of the Mouri, is used to give them those second and third reveals.

Shall we talk about the people standing in a circle that is “quantum locked against us” on the planet, which the Doctor didn’t know about called Time? A group of people in a temple to protect time (the concept) from chaotic events. See, the reveal in “A Good Man Goes To War” is that we get the word doctor to mean healer from “The Doctor is bled out”. I mean almost literally, there is a woman dying on the floor explaining that to her people the word Doctor meant fighter because The Doctor, is drawing it out. On a completely unrelated note, has anyone seen this thing called Loki? Yeah, me neither, I wouldn’t know where this finger-snapping, fizzing people away business comes from either.

Stone’s direction is (much like the episode itself) functional but not creative or interesting. The opposite problem that Star Trek: Discovery had with season 1, when the Dutch angles were tap dancing in a washing machine on an extremely long spin cycle. When it is most noticeable is the scene with Swarm being shot at by Lister: There are a few cuts but nothing to make it fun, quick, and playful. It never goes the full Tim Curry or Jim Carrey, if that makes sense? Swarm is meant to be literally playing with Vinder, disappearing and reappearing throughout the room, with every gunshot missing. Yet, it feels sedated.

To give a bit of respite from complaints, aside from the fact that Bishop is a touch shakier than he was last time in terms of acting, I am enjoying Dan a little. Maybe that’s because he and his parents are at least characters in an episode of Doctor Who. I like the parents though I did have a moment of face-blindness between Jim the neighbor and Dan’s dad. Both of them are large, white-haired, older, White men that are established with only a few seconds on-screen before a cut or quick movement. If I am honest, I do find it strange that both his parents look like they are pushing their mid-60s at most. Meanwhile, Dan looks like he’s in his 50s easily. Then again, it is Liverpool, so I could see that being a thing.

While we’re on Dan, why did he run like a duck that (without a nice way to put this) discharged itself at a funeral and is now running to the bathroom? When he’s running around in the docks with that wok, he is waddling like a man that has either caught himself in his zip or let his back passage flow like a river to the ocean. If you watch the episode back, which I don’t recommend doing in the first place and I have authority on this as I watch these back 3-4 times anyway, you’ll notice it straight away. I must say, it is quite distracting.

Now that I’ve spoken of both companions, this entire series thus far has been stealing bits from everything: Marvel, Red Dwarf, itself with misunderstandings of “Blink,” and a few others. That said, did we need that Back to the Future fading away? If so, why didn’t Dan get the Doctor’s attention with “You’ve gotta help me Doc?” If you are going to lean into your desire to remind people of much better sci-fi, then at least do it justice or make it fun. I still think it could have been tempered a bit, just so we’re not smacked in the face with everything.

Time to get quite nit-picky with script editing: Why did the Sontarans have to take those several minutes of a nap all at the same time? They are the galaxy’s greatest military tacticians of anyone, race, or creed, but they all take seven and a half minutes to refill the bodysuits that give them space their vitamins? Moreover, Dan Starky’s cameo as Svild, he wasn’t plugged in but still taking the nap. Did he ration his supply which, as far as I’d understood it, would slowly harm if not kill him if this capture went on long enough? At least have some security posted outside on shifts, or at least have them do as Svild did to protect the fleet.

I do like Mary Seacole, another one-off companion that was not only good but better than some we’ve had in recent years. She understood things well enough to be useful to the plot, but not knowledgeable enough to overstep into the realm of the Doctor’s job. I do find it interesting to see the online Daily Mail readers decreeing that the BBC overstepped by “disrespecting” Florence Nightingale by saying she wasn’t on the frontlines. Despite the fact that this episode has Russia replaced with Sontar, there are potato-men ruling over the world protected by the Lupari, there is a magic space-wizard, and it suggests the British were leading the Crimean War. Historical accuracy according to you might not be a high priority to a sci-fi show with Bill and Ted time travel.

Jodie finally got some Doctor-y bits, though as usual, she forgot who she was as soon as the next scene kicked in. I think she has just checked out. There is something about the last episode and this one that smells of “I’m on my way out, I’m not going to give this drek writing my fullest.” I love Jodie, I think the world of what she was doing during the lockdowns and as an ambassador for the show. She is leagues beyond most with fists full of energy and excitement when engaging with fans. Here, it is lacking that energy or the finesse that other actors were able to do with better writing holding them up.

It was the “I wanted to ride a horse” scene that made this glaringly obvious. It may have been editing holding on for those extra few seconds as if the line was funny and held on for applause or was laugh-track, but it showed weakness in the writing. The strength of Moffat and Smith was their ability to fire lines at you rapidly. To an extent, Tennant did this too, which made some of the more stupid and nonsensical lines at least palatable. It goes back to Lister and his game of Swarm Hunt. The pacing of the moment should have been quicker but either direction, editing, or writing is slowing it down and making it feel flat.

I mean Jodie had a gun pointed at her multiple times, not sci-fi guns which oddly we’re allowed to use, but period-regulation weaponry and she’s not kicking up a storm. No line about getting the gun out of her face, nothing about guns being for idiots either, just indifference. I hate comparing the Doctors when it comes to Jodie because it gives credence to the idiots that compare ratings, but 9 would have yelled to shoot him, 10 would have berated everyone within a mile, 11 would have been clever, and 12 would have made everyone waddle like Dan. 13? Indifference.

Since we’re onto General Logan and his stupidity, why was he planning his big battle with the Sontarans on a world map with only Sontar marked at such as large font? Someone in the art department has some explaining to do. Though I’d like Chibnall to explain to me why Skaak didn’t just say something like “Heed my warning General, the Doctor may be your best weapon against the Sontarans. Even then, you will lose!” Something that could give us some weight behind Logan’s change of heart after the battle. Show that it wasn’t just the Doctor being pompous, show that even the enemy knows she is the greatest weapon you could have on your side. At least then, someone is telling him not to point guns at her.

It doesn’t change much, and it never will despite Logan’s return at the end of the episode alongside Mary and several others. He gets away with blowing up the Sontarans as they were retreating, just because the TARDIS appears at the end of the episode. Though in the future they came from, they were already wiped out, which is a paradox issue. It is a time machine, you can wait a few minutes and rip his mustache off while telling him how wrong he is for doing it, but no, we get a simple line about wondering why she bothers to save humanity. Maybe, love, it is because when you were a man, as you so love to tell everyone as if it were a 50-year-old man’s joke about trans people, you spent 900-years protecting a planet and dying of old age in the process.

Before I go I want to ask, who is Kev in the background? Swarm and Azure have a massive bloke as a bodyguard despite their ability to protect themselves well enough. The character is Passenger, as they call him/them, and it is said with just the same energy your friend does when he brings someone at a house party, “Oh, this Kev! He’s my mate.” We spent 50-minutes last time introducing everyone including Claire, why not add another two minutes on and introduce Passenger too?

Honestly, for all the nit-picks I can have, (and I still have a few) it wasn’t as bad as Chibnall has been. It is probably the best episode he’s written (not co-written) since “The Woman Who Fell to Earth,” which isn’t a great compliment but it would be better than going all the way back to “The Power of Three” from 9-years ago. It hit the beats it was meant to, it progressed well enough, and while I do have gripes about 59-minutes and the pace, it was fine watching it plod along. As I say, after seeing it a few times now back-to-front, front-to-back, and every other way possible, I don’t think it is one you’d purposefully go back to during a rewatch-run.

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Doctor Who: Flux "War of the Sontarans"

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Sara Powell's expressive Mary Seacole.
• I'm enjoying Vinder as a companion
• "WWTDD"
• A story that knew how to be functional without sugar.
• Dan's parents.

Cons

• A lack of script editor to catch issues and paradoxes.
• Jodie has checked out.
• Still a bit messy in places.
• React to the guns Jodie, they are a bad thing!