What in the flying flux was that load horse bunkum? Ok, let’s just ask the question of which the whole series was setting up: The universe is ending, how does the Doctor save the day? Chris doesn’t even know, I think he forgot his own premise about three seconds after he established it. You have to be a goldfish to believe that this series of Doctor Who was: A) Doctor Who, and B) handled well. A better question that we can answer with some coherency is: What was the Flux? A wave of anti-matter, a devouring form for which we can use matter (everything) to slow it down. So, we’ve still not stopped it, surely.

Honestly, that piece of information should have been handed to us (the viewer) four or five episodes ago. That way, when we find out that the Passenger-form is internally made of infinite matter, or at least close enough for Chris to give up, we can tick along and work it out with the Doctor. Despite that whole matter and anti-matter thing being factually wrong anyway, is Christopher Antony Chibnall, the writer in one of the most coveted spots in television, smart enough to work out that is how information is given to viewers in a mystery? Is he flux? He couldn’t fight his wet paper bag if there was a massive hole in the side with a flashing sign saying, “exit over here!”

However, I am singling out one thing that contributes to the problem, this was a whole team effort of a flux up. Shut up, I am going to use that every chance I get. I hear that if you repeat a joke several times and jump around your points, you get the job of heading Doctor Who, and maybe that is the way to infiltrate this show. Hopefully I could keep it on track once Russell T Davies leaves. Though my point of this is that the mess created was a team effort: The editing and direction was a complete hodgepodge of mangled dog food, and whoever was meant to keep everyone (including the writer) in check should be left alongside some dead space dogs.

We’ve got the whole Scrooge McDoctor/Picard from the finale of TNG split into three different Jodies, but could you tell which one was which once we got two of them together? If you are directing multiples of the same character in the same scene, in the same room, or the same split second, you need to establish where we are with everyone. That is something only made worse by the editing flinging us around every room like we weren’t strapped in properly to a fairground ride and it is moments before we’re flung out, break our necks, and become the big lawsuit for the small midwestern town that dare not have another fair because of some ghosts.

At least one of them could have taken off the jacket, parted their hair differently, or gotten a small cut on her cheek, something. I’m not the only one to complain about this, how poorly do you have to direct to not understand that you put a person in a blonde wig and that coat facing Jodie? The entire direction of this series has been complete and utter tripe throughout Flux, and honestly if you can’t do this, what were you hired for? I think the only thing that helped give direction to this whole series was the production design. Even then the direction has been one of the weakest points, accentuated by this episode’s inability to give the viewer the geography of a scene.

Shall we get to my annoyance with the Ravagers, Vanquishers, or whatever they are called, Swarm and Azure? What was their plan? Here it was to catch the Doctor and do that “I release the spirit from you” thing southern pastors do with great pomp. What is the whole business on the planet called Time/Atropos and why were they there? None of that, much like the Sontarans, made sense with this ending. They weren’t episodes written for this series, they were jammed into this, and I’m struggling to call it a story. I’ve seen someone saying, “Swarm and Azure worked for The Division,” but that doesn’t work as the explanation either because he broke out of the prison of his own accord.

None of the events of this entire plot work in succession: Swarm broke out of prison to chase the Doctor with Azure, caught her, whatever the Jo Martin thing that put him in prison in the first place was about happened, they ran away, the Angels put the Doctor in The Division which was between universe 1 and 2, then they wanted to fizz her away a bit then offer her as a sacrifice to Time (not the planet, the god). What about the Sontarans in Crimea? They had nothing to do with this until the last episode where they tried to wipe out the Daleks and the Cybermen with the Flux, which was created by The Division, not Swarm and Azure as the trailer implied.

There was too much fluff in this entire series for any of that to breathe. I’ve seen some argue that “Oh with mystery, it either goes one of two ways.” No! This isn’t that, you don’t get to cop-out with either it was going to be satisfying, or it wasn’t because we didn’t have the information needed to solve the puzzle as it was playing out. I’ve said this recently with a book review, and I’ll tie it into Doctor Who too. For all his faults Steven Moffat left you all the clues for the ending, ultimately allowing you to feel as smart as the Doctor sometimes. At the end of episode 3, I didn’t know what Swarm and Azure’s goal was other than to be the Joker.

Why was Bel pregnant? We have one character searching for her origins, and another is about 10-15-years younger than his Scouse parents. Why are we not tying this story to the main cast? Bel, Vinder, and Karvanista all go off on their space adventures, be a bit timey-wimey and say they’re having a boy. Maybe she wants to call him Dan. That way, the human that Karvanista is to protect is the human inside his new crewmate, and we have tied at least one story together with a nice little bow.

Ok, if you want to get around the race thing where neither of them are White, change it to the Doctor. That way, Karvanista’s crewmate gave birth to the person he was a companion to. While we’re on that for a second, that was a really nice thing that was written on the page for about two seconds. Then it was screwed up with the “I have an implant that will kill me” comment, saying that it would hurt to tell the Doctor all about their past, so he is going to take that burden to help her. That idea was nice until the whole bit about The Division. Has there been anything good that has come from adding that it came from The Division? No, so stop adding to the pile of things connected to them.

What happened to the Mouri? Even the grand whatever of time that Swarm and Azure wanted to sacrifice the Doctor to become another Jodie (that’s 4, if you are counting) didn’t explain that. At least with this one, we had the inverted coat again which was only meant to signify Jodie was actually Jo Martin, so we knew which one was which. Why weren’t the Mouri revealed to be the origins of the Weeping Angels? You set up that they are Quantum Locked, everything was right there. Moreover, why wasn’t the vain magic time-god thing a Mouri? You are already on Time/Atropos and put two pieces of information you’ve set up together. They aren’t like electrical wires in a film, you won’t become Doc Brown.

Can we once again talk about the morality of this entire episode? Yes, I know, you ask Chris Chibnall what morality is and he’ll tell you it is calling in literal Nazis to take care of your brown friend or calling the space Nazis to deal with other space Nazis. However, this episode just went all out on torture, he loved torture this episode, and he even made the Doctor commit torture. The person who refused a gun from a friend to kill someone who was threatening death upon billions of people now commits torture and uses Nazis to her advantage. Part of me wants to say, “Yeah, that’s a great thing to tell the kids,” but honestly, with ratings and Audience Appreciation Index numbers in the toilet, I don’t know that many kids are watching.

The morality of this whole series is in dire straights. The Grand Serpent is just left on the disheveled ruins of Earth once it becomes nothing but six feet of rock and no air. So, 13 killed that bloke and allowed Vinder to point a gun at him, meanwhile the last of the Passengers is left to be devoured from the inside by the Flux. That’s 2 beings killed by her this episode, shall we go through the whole series as well? No, I’ve already lost the will to live from watching so much of Chris Chibnall’s complete and utter nonsense.

We never bothered to wrap up the story of why the door kept moving and the TARDIS was bleeding. Does anyone want to try and explain that one away? If we’re going to say it was the Flux, “The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn’t get through that door,” so I don’t think some poxy little misunderstanding of whatever anti-matter happens to be would be able to either. Then again, Chris Chibnall seems to have missed that episode of Doctor Who because he let Space Rhinos get through that one time for plot convenience. Much like the fact that half the universe is now missing, I don’t think we’re ever going to find out, and I think everyone working on Doctor Who under Chris just has apathy at this point.

Yaz had some character development, either that or someone finally noticed that we’ve all been in a pandemic for nearly 2-years without much human contact. Remember when we got the “You’ve been away for 10 months,” which came several months into the very real pandemic? Yeah, well this time there was no school playground pushing and teen angst boiled over to build to the half-hearted Will They-Won’t They relationship thing. Oh, we still got the tease of the woman who is noted as being suicidal also possibly being a lesbian with the Time Lord, but we also didn’t because Chris Chibnall can’t commit to tying anything together.

What was that long drawn-out awkwardness of teenagers about to kiss? Either do what you are setting up or don’t bother at all. It just showed more emotional immaturity of both this Doctor and this whole era. Yes, 11 was childish, but despite that, he had the emotional maturity to not have this awkward teenage bit around what he wanted. Either he was too focused on his shoes to notice someone wanting to snug him, he got childishly giddy with River, or he was playful with Tasha Lem. For 13, she’s just emotionally immature and unable to feel anything unless someone else is writing her, in which case she’s energetic.

I think the worst part out of all of this is not just Kate standing about directing traffic for a bit, or Williamson getting a big send-off and Jericho being blown to kingdom come, it was simply the missed opportunity written straight into the episode. So Azure does the usual villain thing while our “hero” (that likes torturing now) is strapped to the chair, and unveiled the plan. Just as a side note: What was that interrogation bit where the question was literally “Why are you always just so good all the time?” Anyway, the whole plan is that southern baptism thing, “I release you” which both Swarm and Azure have done, but they can do it and reverse it.

So, it is set up that they are going to devour the universe time and time again until they get bored, resetting it every time. Yet, somehow, the highly paid and inexplicably still employed writer didn’t go with that route for resetting the universe. Instead, he just decided that half the universe can be devoured, no one needs to fix that problem for a sci-fi show that often travels to far-off distant planets. Honestly, I care more about what planets are now missing thanks to the lack of tying up that story than every time we were supposed to care about Earth being clawed to death by the Macra or whatever Chibnall thinks anti-matter happens to be.

To purposefully write a worse episode (or more importantly an arc) of Doctor Who would be a feat of accomplishment, given that I am sure a script editor will legally be allowed to kill you on the spot for doing so now. Ambling, tasteless, and downright clunky, “The Vanquishers” and (in general) Flux is one of the worst pieces of Doctor Who I’ve ever seen. We spent a good few moments on a Sontaran raiding a corner shop for some cheap chocolate and fizzy drinks, all so we can get some characters on a spaceship. Unfunny, uncreative, and as flat as my interest in yet another New Years’ special with the bloody Daleks. I don’t understand what was redeeming about any of this.

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Doctor Who: Flux "The Vanquishers"

0

Score

0.0/10

Pros

• Production design is still nice.

Cons

• One shot-reverse shot
• The universe is ending! Who cares, it isn't to be resolved.
• Connect your dots, you wrote them.
• Morality is gone, so much for being the hero.
• Dreadful direction and editing.