Doctor Who (2005): Series 13 - Flux Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the 13th series of the Doctor Who revival, which has been given the shiny golden title of Flux. It's pretty unusual for an entire season to have a name and it's also unusual for it to be one long continuing story like this. You'd have to dig pretty deep into Doctor Who history to find anything like it, to seasons like The Key to Time in the 70s and The Trial of a Time Lord in the 80s. Honestly, I'm in the mood for some proper cliffhangers so this works for me.

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.

Doctor Who (2005) 13-01: Flux - Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse

Episode:

863

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Writer:

Chris Chibnall

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Director:

Jamie Magnus Stone

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Air Date:

31-Oct-2021

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Hi, Sci-Fi Adventures should still be on a break, but I felt the urge to write something about Doctor Who... because Russell T Davies is coming back! Can't say I saw that coming. I'm not sure his next run is going to be the second coming of the Eccleston/Tennant era of the show, and I'm not sure I even want it to be, but I do feel cautiously optimistic about it. More optimistic than I am about Chris Chibnall's final series anyway.

Though with this series the Doctor Who revival does finally pulls ahead of Red Dwarf, which aired its Series XII in 2017 (even though it's really only had 11 seasons). Even more importantly, this is the first season since Doctor Who began where the Doctor's number is the same as the season number! (Neither of these two facts are important).

Series 13 is going to be massively cut down compared to a normal Doctor Who season, as COVID meant they were only able to produce six episodes, but for the first time since Trial of a Time Lord in 1986 we're getting one story playing out over an entire series! This is also the first six-parter since the Fourth Doctor's The Armageddon Factor in 1979, though the episodes are double the length these days.

To be honest I was seriously considering skipping the rest of Chibnall's run and waiting for the RTD episodes, but when I learned how short it was going to be I figured I might as well stick with it. It's the best marketing they could've done! Though the Doctor Who team also tried a bunch of other clever tricks to get me to watch, like projecting a spaceship in the sky and deleting their social media accounts. Plus they've brought in a new companion from Liverpool! Tom Baker and Liz Sladen were both from Liverpool as well, so I'm considering this to be a good sign.

What am I expecting from series 13? Fewer people on screen, less location filming in South Africa, and a frustratingly reactive and ineffective Doctor. I'm not expecting a regeneration though as I know we've got three Jodie Whittaker specials to come after this. I'm not expecting to enjoy it much, but I wouldn't mind being surprised.

Okay I'll be screencapping the episode in its entirety and writing some commentary underneath so this review is going to be full of SPOILERS.