See Chris, this is why we can’t bring in Americans to watch Doctor Who, people like you who think their own turds are adhesive shouldn’t be allowed near a pen and Doctor Who. I’d honestly like to know what everyone thinks is the logical conclusion now halfway through this story. That’s where we’re at, your man Swarm here is still playing coy with his goals. Jodie’s Doctor, Yaz, and Dan have no agency in the plot, and we’re getting more superfluous nonsense by the minute. All of which is under the guise of mystery and intrigue, when in reality, it is a moron believing they are ambitious.

“Blink,” was a simple story, “The Girl in the Fireplace” was a simple story, and “Rose” was a simple story. All of them were surrounded by sci-fi and nonsense, but they were simple and told well. “One, Upon Time” and the rest of Doctor Who: Flux is the inverse of that, a needlessly complex story that is doing nothing and told poorly. What people should be thinking coming out of this episode was, I know how why X, Y, and Z happened. The trouble is that I didn’t understand a moment of this in the way we’re being shown this world. I’m not sure anyone else (including the writer) would either.

It is not the best story, but “If Wishes Were Horses” from Deep Space 9 can throw nonsense at you but still make some semblance of sense, then maybe Doctor Who should be able to too. In fact, if Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville can do a better version of that exact episode about fear, I think Doctor Who should be able to tell a moderately competent story. However, none of this is told well, or anything that matters when it comes to Doctor Who. Or, more importantly, it fails to tell a linear story in entertainment.

In Act 5 of Macbeth, there is an interesting quote: “It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” So what was this episode’s so-called plot? Bel is on the search for someone, she’s fighting the worst CGI I’ve seen since the tin-dog was pulled into that bin, and it turns out she’s connected to those surrounding the Doctor. Dan? No, he’s the reboot of the bloke that used to host Robot Wars after that farmer left to yell “Power” with a few extra Rs. If you don’t get any of those references, you’ve never seen good TV and it would prove my point that these plots just don’t work.

What about our main characters, ya know, the dog, the Black woman that was interesting up to this point, Yaz, and Dave Lister? Right, can I just shout about that moment where Jodie is talking us through the plan to counter Swarm? The entire premise depends on you forgetting that we saw Swarm and Azure counting right down to zero and Jodie stood still the whole time. We see Swarm move his fingers to snap, the same snap we’ve seen do the Thanos several times already. Yet we’re being told that because Jodie needs to be put into this Mouri time/Soda-stream thing, she was actually jumping onto one of the broken platforms, dragging it with her, and sonic-ing the ceiling. What?

Ok, what is the Flux doing? We saw it devour planets the same with Swarm and Azure blipping people away. Last time there was nothing, and this time we’re told some PS4 particle effects are chewing people up. What exactly is it doing and why are we seeing it? These are two questions that can’t be answered because they are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The entire premise of the whole series seems to be that we know why the Flux is bad and why the Doctor has to stop Swarm, two things that are as yet unexplained to any significant degree. Outright Swarm is asked what his goal is and the reply is “to reign in hell.”

In terms of structure, this is the low point in any conventional story. It is the point where our main characters should be beaten, battered, and bruised. Despite the last episode having some actual structure and general form, there is no structure, no direction and no means by which we’re getting anywhere in this story. There is nothing among the noise of saucepans clomping down the street as we’re thrown villain after villain bombarding the gates which are trying to hold back the tide of crap storytelling. I don’t say the fact the episode attempts to daze and confuse isn’t the point, because it is, but it is in service of nothing so-far.

I bang this drum every time, and I don’t know why I do because it feels like no one hears it, but he needs an editor. Not someone to say, “Yes Chris” but someone to turn to him and tell him what he needs to do. He needs someone that has more power than him to say no and pull him away from revealing the Doctor isn’t actually a Gallifrian after all, which we’ve been told for the better part of nearly 60-years now. More importantly, we need someone to tell him that none of this is making much logical sense, no less because the promise was one story over six episodes.

I’m reminded of that tweet I spoke about in the first review, the one that said “this is how stories should be done, forget the single adventure nonsense.” This isn’t any different than Series 1 which had an arc, the difference here is how front and center this arc is supposed to be. This is still the single “adventure” but they are smacking you in the face with exposition because Chris Chibnall is writing for what is meant to be a family/kids show despite lacking experience in that demographic. After this episode, I don’t believe he’s ever written for humans either.

Both Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat wrote shows for kids. More precisely, Moffat was a teacher, became a writer for Press Gang, and then wrote episodes talking about hard things such as substance abuse, and other dark themes. Davies wrote Children’s Ward, which talked about cancer, alcoholism, child abuse, and more that gives you an idea of my point. The second thing Chibnall wrote for national TV (that anyone cares about) was the episode of Torchwood with the sex ghost. I think that says everything right there, the last two had steady work behind them with kids in mind, Chibnall needs to put in a bit extra assuming the audience is too stupid.

It is the same as Jeremy Clark’s ego coming to life without understanding that it is stupid. He believes it says “I’m so brilliant, I am great, I am pushing the boundaries of storytelling,” when it really is just noise made to distract. The lines Jodie gives after our three companions get sucked off through the Mouri time stream-thing as the Weeping Angel is 20-feet away are all there to make you forget this is complete nonsense. Also, I’m surprised she didn’t say “You are live on Channel 4, please do not swear!” as she said the line “I’m coming to get you.“

By the way, as being the 13th Doctor it means she fully knew what 10 said to Sally Sparrow. So why did she look away from the Angel? I’m being serious, there was nothing set up to say that the Angels were unable to feed on your remaining energy while in the Mouri magic space. So much so that Yaz’s little escapade through what was meant to be her own timeline led to a cheap Unity-made first-person PS2-era Resident Evil with an Angel in it that tried to kill her. Oh, and once again, Jodie said, “don’t blink [don’t look away]… turn off the game,” Yaz looked away, and nothing happened.

Don’t worry, that’s not a director problem, well, it might still be, but this wasn’t the same director that put us with a character who went behind a tree and nothing happened. There are maybe three decent shots in Azhur Saleem’s first episode of Doctor Who, but nothing made it stand out other than the Angel issue. That’s not the only issue I had with that scene either, but it was more that I wanted to rip Yaz’s throat out and beat Chris Chibnall to a point he might understand why making that young woman look stupid is a bad idea. “If time would have overwhelmed me, what is it going to do to you?” said the human woman to the Time Lord.

The woman looked into the eye of the Untempered Schism as a child. I think a tiny bit of wibbly-wobbly nonsense on the planet Time might just be like going to Sunday school for the time-traveling woman that’s 2000-years old and looked into the heart of the time vortex. I’m not saying you have to be a genius or, as David called me the other day, an encyclopedia, but this isn’t even Classic-Who lore that you’d understand whizzing by as you enjoyed New-Who. The Untempered Schism is where we know the Master got the drums from and lead to John Simm’s masterful portrayal. This isn’t Frobisher, the talking penguin companion, this is Doctor Who you should know.

What was with the Tamagotchi? Don’t tell me that was meant to be some kind of connection with the baby in Bel, because those things are left to die all the time. While we’re on Lister and his family, what was with the regret he had when he was put back through his own timeline via the Mouri-thing? He specifically has regret about turning in space-Hitler, who looked like a melted waxwork of Russell Kane if he was taller than two PS5s stacked on top of each other. He regretted doing the right thing, which is meant to imply regret over giving up being with his family, but the timing is wrong for all of this.

That made me really dislike him. It just does so much to undo his character for him to say, “don’t make me relive this bit” when he is telling his superior about Space-Don Corleone with less charisma. That whole character is nothing to me, even the conflict between him and Vinder just wasn’t clicking at all for me. It feels redundant to say it now given we’re three episodes in, but everything is too busy so the story can look like it is making noise. However, in reality, it is barely louder than applause at a funeral. Who genuinely cares what 13’s story is?

This is the problem I think I’ve had with Chibnall’s last two series (and the first too, kinda), he has made the Doctor the main character. He is focusing on adding more information to the character with the least amount of room to maneuver and grow. We’ve had a slow burn of 50-years, we need to focus on characters that can grow and move in a scene and throughout a series or two of Doctor Who. That’s why we have companions, not just for them to stand about stone-faced and bored. Also, what was that bit about all three companions laughing that Yaz likes to inject the Doctor with sci-fi nonsense. That’s poor American writing of banter, you can do better.

Honestly, the question coming out of this episode isn’t “why can’t I just time travel to next week for the next part?” It is, what the Flux is going on? A good mystery is one you can piece together, one that with logic you deduce how we got to that point by the end of the episode. Scooby-Doo can do this, you can put together 20-minutes of kids TV like that, you know how to write a decent mystery. Yet I feel like Chibnall is still on the cover of Screenwriting for Dummies. I read a young adult novel with a mystery at the heart of it recently, and it was at least following logical beats because Jennifer Lynn Barnes knows logic. Where is the logic here in this Doctor Who?

Jodie’s Doctor seems to not be able to deduce anything, and while Matt Smith had similar “missing the forest for the trees” moments, he was too focused on his shoelaces. Jodie’s Doctor is just flat, uninteresting, and completely missing basic concepts because it benefits the writer’s goal to set up contrived nonsense. Even the jacket is contrived. I wrote in my notes “I like the Jo Martin take on Jodie’s jacket,” and then we got the reveal this was Jo Martin in those strange division moments. That was a nice moment, but we got the two Doctors pulling opposite ways when arresting Swarm?

I do like the actress playing Bel, though that’s an external thing. Show me a person with an Irish accent of any kind and I’ll probably melt like putty in their hands. I also like the look. This entire run has bumped up the overall look, but we still got crap CGI. What I am saying is that it no longer looks like a Halloween costume made for 12 cents by someone who thought green bubblewrap looked like something sci-fi.

However, that’s one of the problems: Production values are up and you can see that, but writing is on the floor holding its knees just waiting for Russell to come back and give us all a hug. Ultimately, yes, this was a dreadful episode that made no sense whatsoever. Some might argue that the point was to confuse, and yes, but even when other writers confuse you with the writing, they at least have structure and beats to hit with characters and generally, quality writing of some kind.

If you somehow believe I’ve gone mental I am going to do something I don’t usually do: “Love & Monsters” had an audience of 76, which makes it generally seen as a bad episode, but Chapter 1 was 76, Chapter 2 was 77, and this set the new low at 75. I hate comparing Jodie with other eras, but this is the lowest we’ve hit since Classic-Who. Anyway, an Angel has control of the TARDIS and is taking us somewhere because our characters have no agency.

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Doctor Who: Flux "Once, Upon Time"

1

Score

1.0/10

Pros

• I like Bel, she's nice.
• Production values are at least better, minus CGI.

Cons

• Stay out of military roles, Bishop.
• What the Flux?
• Where is our main character's agency?
• Does no one on production staff not understand the Angels?
• Connect the dots, it isn't hard.