Incidentally, The Key to Time was also the last time we got a six-part serial like this, even though they'd been part of the Doctor Who format since series 1. They were around for 15 years, then disappeared for the next four decades, but showrunner Chris Chibnall has finally brought them back! Well he's brought one back anyway; what happens next is out of his hands as this is his and Jodie Whittaker's final series. It's not their last story, they've still got a year of specials after this, but it is their final full season. Jodie Whittaker decided not to try to beat Tom Baker's record as the Doctor who spent the most years on the show. Though her run will span from 2018 to 2022, five years, so technically she's in joint second place with Jon Pertwee!
Alright I've already written enough about chapter one: The Halloween Apocalypse, so I'll give the other five episodes a bit of a review each and then wrap this up by assessing the season overall. There will be SPOILERS.
| 9 | Episodes are rated on a 1-9 scale, with 9's being rare. |
| 5 | 5's aren't what you want, but they're bearable. |
| 1 | When you get down to 3 or lower you should just throw the episode in the trash. |
| Doctor Who - Series 13: Flux | ||||||||||||||
| 13-2 | War of the Sontarans |
6 | ||||||||||||
The universe didn't end and the crew didn't die in the Flux, but they find themselves lying on a battlefield in the Crimean War and the Tardis' door is missing so they can't get back in. Dan and Yaz suddenly teleport off, leaving the Doctor to solve the problem of a Sontaran invasion that's changing history. A British general becomes more open to her advice after his troops are massacred and she teams up with him and Mary Seacole to sabotage the Sontaran ships and force them to leave. Meanwhile Dan is back in the 21st century and finds that the Sontarans have conquered Liverpool and set up a base. He infiltrates a ship and with Karvanista's help manages to destroy the Sontaran ships in the present to erase the whole invasion from time (somehow). Elsewhere in time and space, Yaz and Vinder are asked by a triangle to repair a mysterious machine, but run into main villains Swarm and Azure. They avoid being dissolved into glitter because they're needed for the machine, and the Doctor arrives just in time to see Yaz about to be overloaded with time energy.
First I want to quickly mention that the episode starts with the
Doctor looking at a weird jumbled up mess of a house floating in a
black and white dimension. I'm writing this down here so I don't
forget later, because it has absolutely nothing to do with this
particular chapter. The episode is generally more focused
than The Halloween Apocalypse though, as it sticks to just three
stories... mostly: the Sontarans at the Crimean War, the Sontaran
invasion of Liverpool, and Yaz's adventures in the Temple of Atropos
on Planet Time.
I'm very disappointed in myself by the way. It hasn't been that long since I watched the Fates story arc in Legends of Tomorrow and then beat the video game Loom right afterwards, but I still didn't pick up on the significance of the name 'Atropos'. In Greek mythology she's one of the three Moirai: the goddesses of fate. I don't know what to think about Doctor Who introducing beings that control time and I don't really trust Chibnall to be the one who writes about them, but I'm going to put that all aside and stop thinking about it for now. I'll let some later episode suffer the full force of my annoyance/confusion. One thing I do trust Chibnall to do is throw in coincidences and we got some good ones here, with characters randomly teleporting to exactly where they needed to be, and the crew immediately running into Mary Seacole. Maybe there's a good explanation for it though! Maybe the Tardis was knocked down to the 1850s because of the Sontarans jumping back through time. Maybe Dan reappeared back in his street because that's where the Tardis was parked last. Maybe Yaz appeared in the place Swarm was heading to because she was pulled there deliberately along with Vinder and Joseph Williamson. It's definitely pure luck though, that the one man in Liverpool daring and skilled enough to Solid Snake his way onto a Sontaran ship has the Doctor to advise him and a guardian dog who can take on a room full of the greatest soldiers in the universe. I have to admit, I was a bit confused about the Sontaran invasion, and the story left me with a few questions:
The British general destroying the Sontarans after they'd already surrendered got me thinking back to historical events as well, like The Brig blowing up the Silurians and Prime Minister Harriet Jones blowing up the Sycorax in The Christmas Invasion. Seemed a bit pointless though in this story though. Anyway, I generally enjoyed this second part of Flux, even if it felt like it was also the third part. Seems like we're getting 12 episodes of content this season after all, it's just been squeezed into 6 chapters. |
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| 13-3 | Once, Upon Time |
7 | ||||||||||||
A woman called Bel makes her way through the Flux-wrecked universe looking for someone. Meanwhile, in the Temple of Atropos, the Doctor pushes everyone into the time stream in order to save them. Vinder finds himself reliving the events that got him exiled to a space station by the Grand Serpent, while Dan spends time with Diane, and Yaz plays video games. Meanwhile the Doctor finds herself in the role of the Fugitive Doctor during the Division mission that led to Swarm and Azure's capture. She also finds herself speaking to the Moirai and arranges to smuggle some of them in to fix the Temple of Atropos and make Swarm and Azure go away.
So far this season has felt like a group of writers were given an
overall story and then each went off to write their episode
separately without really knowing what the others were doing. Which is strange, as it's the first season in
Doctor Who history to all be written by the same writer.
It'd be fair to say Once, Upon Time is a little less straightforward than War of the Sontarans, with the characters split into four separate timelines, but it felt more focused than The Halloween Apocalypse at least. I suppose it helps that we know everyone now, so it's not constantly interrupting the plot to introduce someone new... well, except for Bel and her Tamagotchi. Bel's true identity was one of the episode's many mysteries, and she's so confident and capable that she got me going through the usual list of characters to work out who she could be. Is she the Doctor? The Master? The Rani? River Song? Susan? The Doctor's daughter? Turns out she's just a woman called Bel, who's become a Cyberman-slaying space hero due to her love for Vinder. I feel like that reveal should've been a lot more disappointing than it was for me, but I was actually fine with it. Unfortunately it seems a bit implausible that Bel and Vinder will ever find each other without a lot of help from the scriptwriter, considering the intergalactic scale of the story, but coincidences have a way of happening lately and I'm rooting for them. Though one thing that threw me off is that Bel isn't pregnant enough to show yet, so it seems like Vinder's exile on Rose Station likely wasn't for years/decades like The Halloween Apocalypse implied. Either way I can see now why he was so pissed off, as the Grand Serpent might not have been a giant snake but he was a huge dick. We also got the mystery of why the Tardis crew had become a special forces team raiding the Temple of Atropos, and I think the answer to that was pretty clever and satisfying. This is Chibnall at his most Moffat and he played fair with the clues, like how they were carrying the same type of rifle used by the Fugitive Doctor in Fugitive of the Judoon. Well, maybe not entirely fair, as the Doctor's wearing a different costume, but not the one she was wearing at the time. If the Doctor was wearing the Fugitive Doctor's costume it would've been a dead giveaway (and awesome), but giving her an inverted version of her regular coat was just bizarre and misleading. That and the computer glitch fizzing effect that implied that they were in a simulation. I was actually worried though, after the reveal that the 13th Doctor was reliving an event she'd forgotten, as I thought that she might screw up the Fugitive Doctor's plan due to a lack of information and not being as clever. Turns out the plan was already in play though and her only role was to go in and get thousands of hostages killed by talking to the Ravagers, when the others could've just rushed in from the start. In fact it was Karvanista who saved the day here, again. First he saved the Earth from the Flux with his fleet, then he saved the Earth from the Sontarans by ramming a ship into their docks, and now we learn that he once saved time itself by capturing Swarm and Azure in the distant past. It feels like the Doctor's being more proactive and effective this season, but she's still struggling to keep up with Karvanista's achievements. The whole setup at the Temple of Atropos still confuses me, but it seems like the Time Lords put it in place to try to control time for some reason, and Swarm and Azure expected the Doctor to fix it? They did bring another Passenger, apparently for the sole purpose of letting the Doctor bring more Moirai in. They must have assumed the Doctor would try the same plan twice, and she did... for some reason. Oh wait, I forgot they also have Diane prisoner in there and had to bring her with them to torment Dan. In my defence the story has a lot going on to remember. It's no wonder that Yaz gets short-changed a bit here, yet again. The episode takes 'and Yaz was also there' to a new level, as not only did she do nothing in her own timeline, but she was there doing nothing in all the other timelines too! Her scenes were mostly there to reintroduce the Weeping Angels into the plot, as they've infested her phone and game console somehow. Or I guess they will do in the future? Either way the episode ends with one of them in control of the Tardis, making tiny adjustments to the controls whenever the lights flicker. So that seems like a concern. Also the episode revealed that there's another mysterious threat behind Swarm and Azure who released them to damage time as part of a temporal poison... or something like that. Plus the most important mystery of all remains unsolved: what the hell is Joseph Williamson doing with his tunnels? This wasn't my favourite episode of Doctor Who, but I definitely prefer this to most of the last two seasons. It may be crazy but it's not boring. Also the music's good, the visuals too, except for the occasional obvious bit of green screen with conspicuous fringes. Plus we got Jo Martin back for a moment! It's weird how I hate the Timeless Child storyline but I'm into the Division one. I suppose because the Fugitive Doctor's secret past could just as well fit between Troughton and Pertwee and make a lot more sense there. Plus it's weird that this is maybe the first time in Doctor Who history that we've gotten flashbacks to something an earlier incarnation of the Doctor was up to that affects the current story. I've been wishing that they'd do something like this for years now. |
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| 13-4 | Village of the Angels |
7 | ||||||||||||
The Tardis is hijacked by a Weeping Angel which brings it to a village in 1967. The Tardis crew are reunited with Claire, who turns out to be a psychic with an Angel in her head, and the Doctor has to team up with a professor called Eustacius Jericho to figure out what's going on and escape a house under siege. Elsewhere, in 2021, Bel discovers that Swarm and Azure are capturing refugees from the Flux inside Passenger. Back in 1967, Yaz and Dan go looking for a lost girl and are sent back to 1901 by an Angel. Jericho is also sent back, but the Doctor gets outside... and finds that she's surrounded by countless Angels. They were sent to capture her, and she is transformed into an Angel herself as they take her to Division.
Hey it's an episode of Flux not entirely written by Chris
Chibnall! Maxine Alderton has only written one other episode of
Doctor Who, but it's The Haunting of Villa Diodati, the
fourth highest rated story in the Chibnall era according to IMDb, so
she seems reasonably well qualified. (The highest rated story is this
one).
That resolution for the last episode's cliffhanger was pretty objectively lame though. The Doctor pulls two cables out of the doorway and putting them together makes the Angel disappear... wow. I did like the twist about what the Angel was though. Some people online had been theorising that the Angels were on the Doctor's side this time, but it turns out that there was only one of them who wanted the Doctor's help, and they were planning to betray her from the start. Angels are dicks. I do like the idea of an Angel informant though, that was different. If there's one thing I can say about this episode it's that it understands the rules of the Weeping Angels. I know this because it actually has characters mention them. They can't move if they're observed, by anything. Even themselves. Despite this it frequently has large groups of Angels on screen at once, each of them presumably trying very hard not to look at anything. It also has pairs of characters trying very hard not to blink, as every time they do the Angel gets closer... because I guess they were blinking in perfect unison? Also you can't even touch an Angel without being sent back now? What about River when she was grabbed in The Angels Take Manhattan? Plus the sketch of an Angel being an Angel even if you tear it apart and set it on fire was a bit much. On the plus side, the episode has some real 'How the hell are the heroes going to get out of this?' dread to it, as things just get worse and worse. Then it turns out that the heroes don't get out of it, as everything's left unresolved... and the Doctor turns into an Angel for some reason? The episode presents it like it's the shocking cliffhanger, but we already know that they're just taking her to Division. It kind of took the sting out of the tail for me, as those are the people she was looking for! She's getting exactly what she wanted. There were a lot of things that happened 'for some reason' in this story; it just keeps adding complications and twists until most of the heroes are trapped in a weird time bubble of 1901 that's never really explained. We did at least get an explanation of Claire's deal (her foreknowledge comes from her psychic powers) and the Angel sent her back in time in part 1 because... it was hungry? I dunno. Speaking of hungry, I'm really starting to wonder if Dan's had anything to eat this season. The characters have been on the move so much I don't think he's had the chance. He really should've had that can of soup. One thing the episode did a good job of was making me hate Uncle Gerald. He was resentful about having to go out and look for a 10 year old girl that he was responsible for, and he rejected every bit of advice people gave him until his bad choices got him sent back in time and then killed. It was a bit of a shame his wife Jean had to die too though. The episode did an equally good job of making me like Professor Eustacius Jericho, who proved to be a worthy ally against the Angels. This was Kevin McNally's best performance in Doctor Who since The Twin Dilemma in my opinion. The guy who played Gerald had also been in Doctor Who before, playing a Silurian in Warriors of the Deep. We also checked in with Vinder again, though I turned it off when the credits started to avoid seeing the trailer, so I had no idea until someone told me. This is apparently the third ever Doctor Who episode with a mid-credits scene, after Death in Heaven and Face the Raven (both from the Capaldi era). But Bel got far more screen time this time and we learned that she was in the military as well, which explains why she's so capable and experienced. It also explains why she's the only one not taken in by Azure's trick. I was sure she was going to end up a prisoner of the Passenger, but nope. Overall I'd say this is a pretty okay episode, my favourite Flux chapter so far. It's not really an all-time great episode of Doctor Who though in my opinion. |
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| 13-5 | Survivors of the Flux |
5 | ||||||||||||
The Doctor finds herself in Division headquarters with their current leader, Tecteun, and discovers the truth about the Flux. Meanwhile, in 1904, Dan, Yaz and Jericho go on an expedition around the globe to find a prophecy of doom and a way to get back to their own time. They eventually run into Williamson and find his time portals in the tunnels under Liverpool. Back in the present, Bel goes to rescue the people captured in Passenger, but is dragged to Earth by Karvanista, just as Vinder is also captured. The Doctor doesn't have much luck either, as Swarm and Azure arrive, and kill Tecteun.
They tricked me! The title Survivors of the Flux made me think
this was going to be about the survivors of the Flux, a bit like the
Cybermen episodes at the end of the last season, but we only get to see survivors for a
moment and they don't get to survive much longer. The episode's mostly
split into five stories this time, following the Doctor, her
companions, Vinder, Bel and Karvanista, and the Grand Serpent.
I wish I could say that the resolution of the cliffhanger with the Doctor being turned into an Angel was a huge anti-climax, but they said last time that she was being taken to Division, and she was, so I can't really complain. Now Division on the other hand, that was a disappointment. It turns out that the mysterious woman we saw in Once, Upon Time was the Division's leader and also the Doctor's mother! Also there's an Ood there, and that's pretty much it. Despite this less-than-formidable opposition, the Doctor achieves basically nothing all episode. She does get to be angry a bit, but she seems more annoyed that Tecteun took her from a planet as a child than the fact that she's destroying the entire universe with the Flux just to stop her from interfering with their plans. Okay first, if you find a young kid abandoned on a planet alone it's not a horrifically cruel act to give them a home (you know, like Dan, Yaz and Jericho could've done with young kid that was left in their care last episode). Second, what the hell kind of scheme is that? The Division is trying to stop the Doctor from meddling with their operations by destroying the universe with the Flux, and they're trying to stop her from meddling with the Flux by taking her to the hidden centre of their operations. To say that Tecteun is literally detached from reality is an understatement. Plus it seems like this episode confirms the Master's story about the Doctor being the Timeless Child, so that's disappointing. It would've been great to hear that it was all a lie, or that there's a twist to it, but nope that's not what we got here. It also confirms that Division are the main villains! Or at least they were until Swarm and Azure came over and killed Tecteun. Now they're moments away from killing the Doctor with their 'disintegrate you into sparkles from across the room' powers. Shocking cliffhanger! (My theory is that Swarm's just going to choose not to kill her). I wish I could say that I was more interested in the Yaz, Dan and Professor Jericho plot, but it seemed more like a bizarre skit than an actual story. They were travelling the entire Earth for years looking for prophecies? Seriously? With what money? Their goal is kind of absurd, but I guess that the situation is so desperate that there doesn't actually have to be any sense in what they're trying to achieve. Plus there are so many coincidences in the story that it doesn't matter whether they fail or succeed, as they inevitably end up where they need to be by fluke. It's great that Williamson is finally coming into play, but what's the deal with his magic doors always leading to the exact point in time and space that the heroes are at? The Vinder plot wasn't much of anything: he got caught and met Diane inside Passenger. Nothing really happened in the Karvanista plot either except for a Lupar pilot falling asleep, or dead, or whatever, and Karvanista hijacking Bel's ship from across the universe to fill the gap in the shield. Man, the Doctor really did come up with a perfectly designed shield design for the Earth, as it turns out that the structure requires the entire Lupar fleet down to the last ship. The most interesting plot for me this time was the Grand Serpent taking over UNIT by time travelling through its history. I didn't think I'd be seeing either the Serpent or UNIT again this year, so that was a surprise. We also got Kate Stewart for a moment in a great scene where she immediately gives away what she knows to the enemy and almost gets assassinated for it, if it wasn't for her anti-snake-projection forcefield. Okay I'm lying, it was a bit crap, but her survival implies that we're getting even more Kate Stewart in the next episode, and maybe even some Osgood! I didn't expect the Sontarans to be making a return either. I'm not overly hyped to see them again, but it's a surprise at least. Then again everything's unexpected in this episode, because nothing makes any damn sense. Overall this episode was like a Hitchhiker's Guide novel except with 90% fewer jokes, so you're expected to take it seriously. Unfortunately it was so ridiculous that the story just collapsed for me. Though it did have some good banter with Team Yaz at least ("Are you from Liverpool? How come you never mentioned it?"), and I did find Karvanista's exasperated response to Dan assuming he has time travel tech funny... until I realised he was reading a message that had been painted next to the Great Wall of China 100 years ago somehow. Somehow I don't think that would be an enduring addition to the landmark, so he must have time sensors on his ship at least. |
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| 13-6 | The Vanquishers |
7 | ||||||||||||
The Doctor's escape attempt leaves her split into three separate beings, each in a different place. Two of the Doctors recover their friends and work to get information from the Sontarans, learning about their plan to lure the Daleks and Cybermen to their deaths in the next wave of the Flux. The Doctor figures out a way to leave the Sontarans unprotected as the wave hits, wiping them out as well, and then Diane comes up with the way to actually stop the Flux! Meanwhile Swarm and Azure have taken their third of the Doctor to the Temple of Atropos, along with the watch containing her memories, but the personification of Time destroys them and reincorporates the Doctor, giving her the standard warning that the Master's bringing her foes together and that she'll die soon. Anyway, everyone's reunited and gets a happy ending, except for Karvanista, who lost his people, Jericho, who lost his life, and Dan, who got dumped. So he goes off with the Yaz and the Doctor instead to be her new companion.
I came into this episode with a few concerns. Like:
Though I did have one other small concern: that the episode would end without anyone doing anything to fix the apocalyptic events of the serial, and it'd just ignore them. And yep, that's what happened. The Doctor Who universe is in an incredibly bad state right now, with huge chunks of it annihilated and many survivors either harvested by Swarm and Azure, or murdered by the Daleks or Cybermen as they conquered the surviving worlds. The Daleks and Cybermen have also been destroyed now by the way, along with the Sontarans and the Lupari, and the Time Lords already died a while back. It really feels like Chibnall's building up to a big reset button, but he's not ready to press it just yet. I mean last I checked half the solar system was gone, and we probably lost the moon-egg again. It's weird too, as the episode makes a point of showing that the damage can be reversed by reversing time. Speaking of time... it's unclear exactly what's going on, but some kind of Time entity made a last second deus ex It's a real shame really, because the Doctor was on fire this episode otherwise. The episode introduced an ingenious solution to the serial's overabundance of plots: split the Doctor up so she can be in three of them simultaneously! She got City of Death'd: splintered across reality like Scaroth. That meant she could be stuck in a virtual world and exposited at, held prisoner by the Grand Serpent, and still run around kicking ass at the same time, and I really appreciated that. Though honestly even the Doctor who was being interrogated by the Serpent managed to impress, as she learned everything about him without revealing anything about herself. And the episode moved just fast enough to make sure that I didn't dwell on the fact that the other Doctor coming in to rescue her just pointed the sonic screwdriver at him to incapacitate him. In fact 'move fast' was the episode's solution for everything. Kate Stewart claims to be the leader of the resistance while never interacting with anyone outside of the Doctor's group, or doing anything at all really? That's fine, we're already onto the next scene! The fact that they're offering tours of the time portal tunnels and yet no one's ever found the time portals is just glossed over as well. Plus we got some real coincidences in this one. Like Bel and Vinder are reunited purely because she was in the Lupari ship Karvanista recalled to Earth. Plus UNIT has secretly had the 13th Doctor's Tardis in storage since its creation, all the way through the Third Doctor's era, and Kate decided to give it back now because... she didn't trust Prentis with it? It just happens that this is the exact right time and the exact right Doctor to claim it. Here's another flaw: you can't slow down an impossibly vast wave of antimatter capable of travelling across trillions of light years by throwing a few ships into it. And they never put Dan's house back! In fact the resolution for Dan was a bit weird in general; I can understand why Diane wouldn't be racing to date him after everything she'd just endured, but it almost came off like she was blaming him for it. Looking at IMDb it seems like a lot of people found this to be a relatively disappointing episode and I can understand that. I imagine that if you were hoping for huge revelations about the Doctor's lost memories, a last second appearance from the Master, or a kiss between the Doctor and Yaz etc. it'd be underwhelming. But despite its huge flaws, I think this might be a contender for my favourite episode of the Chris Chibnall era, right up there with Fugitive of the Judoon. The reason for that is it's all about the Doctor coming up with mad plans and delivering Doctory dialogue and that's what I watch this series for! Jodie Whittaker dominated this story in the best way, despite the Sontarans trying every joke they could think of to steal it from her. Plus I know this isn't anything unusual for modern Doctor Who, but the episode looked fantastic. |
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CONCLUSION
My two-word review of the Flux is "Too much". There are too many
plots, too many characters, and too much happening for me to keep it all in my
head and write about it. I couldn't even remember everything that happened in
chapter one when it was the only episode out.
I was wondering if turning the season into a serialised mini-series was going to lead to it having a more leisurely pace. Turns out that the opposite happened, as this has the pedal to the floor the whole damn way through. It's hard to really have an emotional reaction or dwell on anything being introduced as it's already racing along to the next thing. Somehow it all kind of feels coherent though. Things happening in the last episode were foreshadowed by the first episode and almost everything gets a payoff.
Trouble is that you're often left wondering "Wait, that's it?" or worse "Wait, what's even happening?" The season is fond of blink-and-you'll-miss-it explanations that beg for further elaboration. I feel like if you asked the average viewer something like "Why did Tecteun release Swarm?" they wouldn't have an answer, because I didn't have an answer until I rewatched a bit of episode three, and I was taking notes! They definitely wouldn't be able to tell you why she set up two loyal Division guards to die in the escape. Three possibly, if you count the guy in the house with Azure. I feel like a lot of people would also be confused about whether the universe still exists or not, which isn't really a question you want to leave people wondering at the end of a Doctor Who serial.
Okay I'm going to unwrap the season and talk a bit about each of the threads that were woven through it, but I'm going to make this part of the review 'opt-in', because I'm well aware of how ridiculous it is.
Click to reveal a demoralisingly huge wall of text.
Overall the series feels the logical next step for Doctor Who, as the Chibnall era started off very down to earth and has been ramping up to insanity with each season. Series 11 featured straight-forward tales, but no continuity references to alienate new viewers, series 12 brought in classic enemies and dialled up the serialisation, and series 13 is all Sontarans, Weeping Angels, the Timeless Child, the Division etc. all the time. Oh plus series 12 killed all the Time Lords and series 13 kills most of everyone else, so there's a progression there too. You could consider it to be a wild overcompensation for the dullness of previous seasons, but I feel like it's a step up. The episodes still make time for fun banter between the companions but they don't keep hitting the brakes all the time so they can talk about their own story arcs for a bit.
Another difference between this and earlier seasons is how detached it is from present day issues and ordinary people's lives. Despite being about an apocalypse in progress it's less depressing and preachy. It did have me wanting to go hide behind the couch at times, scared of all the terrible twists it appeared to be leading towards, but it turns out I needn't have worried.
One thing that hasn't changed is the fantastic visuals and scope. The production crew had a challenge this season due to Covid restrictions, but the only obvious sign of compromise to me is in the number of episodes. Okay the writing's a bit lacklustre and the music's a bit on the subtle side, but that's normal for Chibnall Who.
I feel like I've gotten into a habit with Doctor Who of walking away from a series thinking "Okay, I'm just done with this now. I'll come back when the next showrunner takes over". Then it disappears off air for so long that the frustration fades and I give it another chance. Not this time though! Series 13 was a frantic jumble of bullshit, but it was entertaining enough for me that I'm fully on board for the three last Chibnall stories. I probably wouldn't recommend this to new viewers though, as it's not the most approachable season of Doctor Who. I'm not saying people can't jump on here, but this was made for people who are already fully strapped in on the ride.
Best character in series 13:
Karvanista: Last time around I gave this to the Fugitive Doctor,
but this series it has to be Karvanista. He's a pissed-off mercenary with
enough skills to threaten the Doctor, who always greets new people by opening fire at them with his gun-axe before becoming their most capable ally. They absolutely nailed the contrast between his
gruff personality and his giant ridiculous dog head.
I also liked Bel, but she's 33% pluckiness, 33% cheerfulness and 33% competence, which didn't leave much room for character. Dan was great as well. And Jericho. In fact there were a lot of good characters this season.
There were nine people working with three Doctors by the end of this season,
and that's a bit excessive. When Graham and Ryan left I assumed that Chibnall had
learned his lesson from the first two seasons about making the Tardis too
crowded, but nope!
Hang on, this is the first time I've noticed all those threads running across the control room. That looks a bit worrying. It also looks a bit like the webbing that's all over the Doctor Who logo lately on social media:
It's those spiders from
Arachnids in the UK
back again! How is no one in there freaking out about this?
My top three series 13 episodes:
Bottom three series 13 episodes:
Next time on Doctor Who:
What do I want from the last three Chris Chibnall specials? I hope he fixes the universe up a bit, that would be cool. I also want a satisfying twist on the Timeless Child story which re-establishes Hartnell as being the original Doctor, while also including the Fugitive Doctor in the lineage (I know that's just wishful thinking and it's never going to happen). Also the final story is going to be part of the BBC centenary celebration so I hope they do something clever and appropriate. Something to do with TV maybe.
Oh, and I want them to blow up the console room.
Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's
Babylon 5's Strange Relations.
Thanks for reading! Don't forget to leave a comment if you've got something you feel like saying about series 13.
I was wondering if turning the season into a serialised mini-series was going to lead to it having a more leisurely pace. Turns out that the opposite happened, as this has the pedal to the floor the whole damn way through. It's hard to really have an emotional reaction or dwell on anything being introduced as it's already racing along to the next thing. Somehow it all kind of feels coherent though. Things happening in the last episode were foreshadowed by the first episode and almost everything gets a payoff.
Trouble is that you're often left wondering "Wait, that's it?" or worse "Wait, what's even happening?" The season is fond of blink-and-you'll-miss-it explanations that beg for further elaboration. I feel like if you asked the average viewer something like "Why did Tecteun release Swarm?" they wouldn't have an answer, because I didn't have an answer until I rewatched a bit of episode three, and I was taking notes! They definitely wouldn't be able to tell you why she set up two loyal Division guards to die in the escape. Three possibly, if you count the guy in the house with Azure. I feel like a lot of people would also be confused about whether the universe still exists or not, which isn't really a question you want to leave people wondering at the end of a Doctor Who serial.
Okay I'm going to unwrap the season and talk a bit about each of the threads that were woven through it, but I'm going to make this part of the review 'opt-in', because I'm well aware of how ridiculous it is.
Click to reveal a demoralisingly huge wall of text.
Overall the series feels the logical next step for Doctor Who, as the Chibnall era started off very down to earth and has been ramping up to insanity with each season. Series 11 featured straight-forward tales, but no continuity references to alienate new viewers, series 12 brought in classic enemies and dialled up the serialisation, and series 13 is all Sontarans, Weeping Angels, the Timeless Child, the Division etc. all the time. Oh plus series 12 killed all the Time Lords and series 13 kills most of everyone else, so there's a progression there too. You could consider it to be a wild overcompensation for the dullness of previous seasons, but I feel like it's a step up. The episodes still make time for fun banter between the companions but they don't keep hitting the brakes all the time so they can talk about their own story arcs for a bit.
Another difference between this and earlier seasons is how detached it is from present day issues and ordinary people's lives. Despite being about an apocalypse in progress it's less depressing and preachy. It did have me wanting to go hide behind the couch at times, scared of all the terrible twists it appeared to be leading towards, but it turns out I needn't have worried.
One thing that hasn't changed is the fantastic visuals and scope. The production crew had a challenge this season due to Covid restrictions, but the only obvious sign of compromise to me is in the number of episodes. Okay the writing's a bit lacklustre and the music's a bit on the subtle side, but that's normal for Chibnall Who.
I feel like I've gotten into a habit with Doctor Who of walking away from a series thinking "Okay, I'm just done with this now. I'll come back when the next showrunner takes over". Then it disappears off air for so long that the frustration fades and I give it another chance. Not this time though! Series 13 was a frantic jumble of bullshit, but it was entertaining enough for me that I'm fully on board for the three last Chibnall stories. I probably wouldn't recommend this to new viewers though, as it's not the most approachable season of Doctor Who. I'm not saying people can't jump on here, but this was made for people who are already fully strapped in on the ride.
Best character in series 13:
Karvanista: Last time around I gave this to the Fugitive Doctor,
but this series it has to be Karvanista. He's a pissed-off mercenary with
enough skills to threaten the Doctor, who always greets new people by opening fire at them with his gun-axe before becoming their most capable ally. They absolutely nailed the contrast between his
gruff personality and his giant ridiculous dog head.I also liked Bel, but she's 33% pluckiness, 33% cheerfulness and 33% competence, which didn't leave much room for character. Dan was great as well. And Jericho. In fact there were a lot of good characters this season.
Hang on, this is the first time I've noticed all those threads running across the control room. That looks a bit worrying. It also looks a bit like the webbing that's all over the Doctor Who logo lately on social media:
My top three series 13 episodes:
- The Vanquishers (7)
- Village of the Angels (7)
- Once, Upon Time (7)
Bottom three series 13 episodes:
- War of the Sontarans (6)
- The Halloween Apocalypse (6)
- Survivors of the Flux (5)
Next time on Doctor Who:
What do I want from the last three Chris Chibnall specials? I hope he fixes the universe up a bit, that would be cool. I also want a satisfying twist on the Timeless Child story which re-establishes Hartnell as being the original Doctor, while also including the Fugitive Doctor in the lineage (I know that's just wishful thinking and it's never going to happen). Also the final story is going to be part of the BBC centenary celebration so I hope they do something clever and appropriate. Something to do with TV maybe.
Oh, and I want them to blow up the console room.
NEXT TIME
Thanks for reading! Don't forget to leave a comment if you've got something you feel like saying about series 13.
Overall I liked the series but there are still So Many Questions, it was all very uneven, and the last episode rushed through everything so fast that a lot of threads felt like they had been abandoned. Like Claire and Diane, who were both sort of "okaywearedonenowbyeeeee!"
ReplyDeleteOverall, it felt like they did in fact have 12/13 episodes planned and tried to squeeze it all into six, although Chibnall claims the story was designed for a shorter series.
Like Bel and Vinder. That came across as a major B-plot but beyond Vinder's past with the Grand Serpent, it didn't really have anything to do with anything. Great kids, great actors, I'm happy they got their happy ending, but what were they doing in this story?
Or the Grand Serpent, who was portrayed as a major villain for the entire series, but also didn't do anything of note, beyond ally with a Sontaran army that seemed to be doing okay by itself.
And was there any explanation for why the Tardis went wonky? Or why the wonkiness stopped being mentioned after episode three?
Argh. The more I think about it, the more I come to believe that it was... bad? But I enjoyed it as I was watching, and even if the overall writing doesn't hold together there were lots of other things that did work, and it did look amazing most of the time. And the dog man was great.
"A frantic jumble of bullshit" is exactly right, and it sort of worked.