Review of Flux: The Vanquishers Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
I didn’t hate it! I know that sounds like I’m damning The Vanquishers with faint praise, but for the final installment of a multi-parter—especially a series finale—in modern Who, that’s actually a pretty glowing endorsement on my part.
To use a gymnastics metaphor, this series was attempting a high-difficulty routine with lots of twists, flips, and unexpected combinations. It’s been looking pretty good in the air, but the question we’ve all had on our mind is whether or not it could stick the landing.
I don’t think I can honestly say it felt like a stuck landing to me, but neither did it miss and fall on its ass. There was a little hop there, worth a deduction to the final score, but I’m a little surprised to discover I don’t think it’s worth more than about one tenth of a point.
To analyze how this final installment performed, we need to look at the series as a whole. Way back in the first episode, we got a ton of seemingly disparate story threads thrown at us: Yaz and the Doctor, Karvanista, Williamson, Dan and Diane, Swarm, Azure, Claire and the Angels, Vinder, the Sontarans. Later we added Bel, the Grand Serpent, Jericho, Tecteun (as incarnation of Division), an Ood, and Kate Stewart to the mix. It seemed nigh impossible to tie them all together in a coherent and satisfying way, especially in the context of the overall threat of the Flux.
Review of Flux: Survivors of the Flux Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
I’m starting to wonder whether or not I will be among the survivors of Flux. I really thought the story was rolling along well, going in an interesting direction last week, but this week… Well, at least all the major threads are finally coming together.
To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure last series how I felt about rewriting the Doctor’s history so thoroughly. I like the idea of shaking things up and throwing a spanner in the works, so to speak, but making it so Everything Is About the Doctor™ is less interesting to me. And Chibnall is definitely doubling down on that angle with this year’s Flux storyline.
I haven’t quite put my finger on what changed between part four, where I was all in, and part five, which left me feeling somewhat flat. Perhaps it was the assertion/confirmation of how over-the-top “special” the Doctor is in Chibnall’s version of the show: the entire universe is under attack because of her, and she may or may not even be from our universe!
At least Chibnall has been consistent in switching up the style of each episode. That part I still like. This time we’re flipping from plot thread to plot thread with notations for the various time zones (which, in the case of Yaz and Dan (and Jericho), includes various locations). We come in mid-adventure for Yaz, who is taking on a very Doctor-y role, with Dan and Jericho effectively acting as her Companions. It’s a bit reminiscent of Clara in her later days (somewhat worrying, when I think about it like that…).
Review of Flux: Village of the Angels Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
I have to admit I’m impressed. It can’t be easy to create the stylistic variety from episode to episode that we’re being offered while still telling a singular story. Yet Chibnall (with help this week from co-writer Maxine Alderton) continues to deliver.
In fact, they delivered not just an extremely atmospheric, gothic, “something’s wrong in a sleepy English village” episode, they also provided us space to breathe. The pace of the first half of this short series has been so break-neck we’ve barely had a chance to look around, let alone speculate freely about what it all means. (Not that we’ve had no time—just not much.)
And there’s something comfortingly familiar about the village of Medderton in 1967, narratively speaking. Whether in Hide or in Amy’s Choice or in The Daemons, we’ve seen this kind of just-a-bit-off village many times before. It’s because of that familiarity that this episode is both relaxing and so effectively frightening.
Now I’ve said before that Doctor Who has never actually scared me, but it definitely provides varying levels of tension, depending on the episode. This one ranked pretty high on my tension scale, with the Angels feeling more threatening to me than they had in a very long time. Perhaps it was because the Angels’ original tendency to make their victims “live to death” (with the new information that “nobody survives it twice”) was combined with the idea that “that which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel”—which they leaned into hard. Whatever made it work so well, Chibnall and Alderton really made the most of the antagonists this time.
Review of The Edge of Destruction (#3) DVD Release Date: 24 Mar 09 Original Air Date: 08 – 15 Feb 1964 Doctors/Companions: One, Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright Stars: William Hartnell, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill Preceding Story: The Daleks (One, Susan, Ian, Barbara) Succeeding Story: Marco Polo (One, Susan, Ian, Barbara)
The broadcast schedule for the current, new series has disrupted the timing for my usual monthly DVD reviews, but I decided not to let it replace my November edition of the Highs and Lows series entirely. That’s why there’s this bonus Saturday post!
Fortunately for me, the adventure that was already slated for this month is one of the shortest in Classic Who, so rewatching it was not a huge investment in time. Unfortunately, it was a decent investment in brainpower (of which I am in sadly short supply lately).
“The Edge of Destruction” (EoD) comes very very early in the history of the show, preceded only by the pilot adventure (“An Unearthly Child,” which includes the crew’s subsequent trip to “The Cave of Skulls”) and the Doctor’s first-ever encounter with the Daleks (in the eponymously titled story). Viewing it through a lens nearly sixty years of media evolution onwards, it feel surprisingly modern. Sure, it has all the trappings of ’60s Who, feeling more like a stage play than what we would recognize as television today, but it has an almost psycho-drama bent, and keeps the viewer on the back foot almost the whole way through.
Set entirely inside the TARDIS (we’ll ignore the obvious budgetary reasons for that, and pretend it’s just great storytelling), EoD begins with the Doctor, Susan, Ian, and Barbara all getting thrown to the floor and knocked unconscious. As they slowly come to their senses, disoriented and barely recognizing each other, they quickly realize something is amiss. Just what that is—and who is to blame—is much less clear.
The rapid changes in circumstances and in what each person on the TARDIS thinks they know, about both the situation and each other, keeps the viewer almost as confused as the characters. And for someone who is used to a Doctor who cares deeply about their Companions and who is always the cleverest person in the room, the way this early incarnation handles the situation can be unexpected to the point of being off-putting.
But when one remembers that none of these people quite trust each other yet—in fact, the Doctor basically kidnapped Ian and Barbara to prevent them from exposing his secrets—it makes more sense. The Doctor was still getting used to humans (though at this point we were years away from the Doctor admitting he wasn’t one), the humans had just come off of a life-threatening situation they’d gotten into because the Doctor had deceived them for his own selfish ends, and the show as a whole was still finding its bearings.
I think EoD deserves its reputation as one of the “Highs”—it’s #30 on the trusty io9 list—because it really does provide an interestingly convoluted plot line. It may be both short and somewhat pedantic, as these early stories were wont to be (with some questionable science, by current standards), but it’s a snappy and dramatic little story that doesn’t drag on. This little bonbon twists your brain in all the best ways. Give it a go!
Review of Flux: Once, Upon Time Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
Regardless of one’s opinion on how the series-long story as a whole is shaping up, one can’t deny that Flux is an ambitious project. And I appreciate the fact that every episode so far has felt like a different beast.
At the beginning, we had a “meet the new Companion in the midst of an Earth-based crisis” episode. Then we got an alien historical. Now it’s a futuristic mind-f***. Whatever the flavor-of-the-week is, it’s been different than the week before.
I am also impressed, as a fellow storyteller, at how Chibnall has woven so damn many plot threads together. After last week, there were only two from the first episode that still needed to get tied back in, but before we even got back to any of those eight, he introduced a ninth with “Bel’s Story.” And by the end of the episode, not only that thread and one of the two previously pending ones, but also a thread from the previous series had been incorporated into Flux. Now we just have Claire’s story to connect into this mess (and it looks like that will happen next week—but I’m getting ahead of myself).
More than any other Chibnall-penned episode, this one felt like it could’ve been written by Moffat. It was packed with plot points, and switched among the various threads so quickly a viewer could barely get their bearings before needing to change focus. Moffat has often used that method to great effect to keep the audience from noticing plot holes, but there is still so much of this story left to tell that it’s impossible to make a judgement yet about how well it all holds together.
Review of Flux: War of the Sontarans Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
In the past I have often wished for the modern era to return to the Classic era’s serial storytelling style. It seems that this year I’m getting my wish. And although the pace of Flux is quite different than that of a Classic adventure—somewhat dizzying for Doctor Who, in fact—it feels just about right for the story that’s being told.
Again I find my recent experience with longer-running storylines to serve me well here. Despite so much information being thrown at us in quick succession (yes, Doctor, I made that face, too), none of it feels extraneous. Rather, it feels like we’re in that end-of-the-first-act period where most of the pieces have been moved into place, and the real maneuvering can now begin.
Last time I mentioned that I’d noticed at least eight disparate plot threads entwining themselves with the Doctor and Yaz. While some of them had already come together last time (Karvanista and Dan, Swarm and Azure), several others were still waiting to be pulled into the tapestry. This time, we almost immediately get most of the rest woven together.
First, the Doctor, Yaz, and Dan all find themselves in the Crimean War, face-to-face with Sontarans instead of Russians. They have just enough time to meet up with Mary Seacole before both Companions are whisked away to other parts of time and space. (As an aside, given that the Crimean War is not a direct part of my country’s history, and the American education system is pretty shit at introducing students to anything but the most basic aspects of US history (from its own biased perspective, at that), I knew nothing of Mary Seacole before this episode. I am, however, pleased to see the show continue to highlight real historical women.)
Review of Flux: The Halloween Apocalypse Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
I’m never quite sure what to expect from a new series—even more so this year, when I haven’t even bothered to watch the trailer. I always go in with cautious optimism, trying to give myself the chance to like (or even love) an episode before the analytical part of my brain catches up and starts picking holes in everything. Sadly, this time around I’m mostly just tired.
As I mentioned before, I don’t seem to have a lot of enthusiasm to spare these days. What energy I do have for viewing has gone almost exclusively into watching various Korean or Chinese (or occasionally Japanese) dramas, depending on what I can find and what strikes my fancy. Oddly enough, I think that puts me in a better place to watch Flux than I might’ve been otherwise.
The pre-credits sequence is all about the Doctor and Yaz getting themselves out of a seemingly hopeless situation. It’s over-the-top, implausible, and exactly the kind of thing that belongs in Doctor Who. (It’s also rich with fodder for fanfic writers, especially the shippers.) But the audience’s introduction to Karvanista, a member of the doglike Lupari species, is just the first of the eight distinct plot threads I counted.
Review of The Deadly Assassin (#88) DVD Release Date: 01 Sep 09 Original Air Date: 20 Oct – 30 Nov 1976 Doctors/Companions: Four Stars: Tom Baker Preceding Story: The Hand of Fear (Four, Sarah Jane) Succeeding Story: The Face of Evil (Four, Leela)
With the first episode of Series Thirteen less than a week away, it has occurred to me that the post timing for this Highs and Lows series will need to be adjusted. Although the series’s short run means December’s scheduled entry will not be affected, my review of Episode 4 now conflicts with the November Highs & Lows post. (New episode posts will also supersede two Confessions, but those are lower priority anyway, so I’m not concerned about those.)
Since that post was meant to go live right before the American Thanksgiving holiday, I’ll have to consider carefully how to adjust the posting schedule, but I’m sure something will work out. I can’t let one get lost in the shuffle!
For now, though, we get to revisit one of the Highs, ranked at #13 by Charlie Jane Anders on the io9 list I’ve been referencing for the past several years: The Deadly Assassin.
Review of Delta and the Bannermen (#150) DVD Release Date: 01 Sep 09 Original Air Date: 02 – 16 Nov 1987 Doctors/Companions: Seven, Melanie Bush Stars: Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford Preceding Story: Paradise Towers (Seven, Mel) Succeeding Story: Dragonfire (Seven, Mel, Ace)
Before I sat down to rewatch Delta and the Bannermen for this month’s Highs & Lows installment, I wrote down a short list of what I could remember about it. Aside from a general sense of distaste and the firm knowledge this was one at the Lows end of the scale, there wasn’t much. At the same time, those few notes were surprisingly accurate: try-out for Mel’s replacement; space bees?; Welsh(?) holiday lodgings; space bus.
I’ll admit that I only remembered about the Shangri-La holiday camp (which is not a term commonly used by Americans, at least not where I’m from) when I looked at the DVD cover, but it ended up being perhaps the biggest highlight for me. And though I knew Ray had been a potential new Companion, I’d utterly forgotten that she had that lovely, Welsh lilt (an accent I originally learned thanks to Torchwood).
Both of those details go in my personal “pros” column not least because I’ve been learning Welsh on Duolingo for the last several years (along with a few other languages). Thus, the addition of local color to the story by having a couple of the characters use a few sentences of Welsh with each other (one or two of which I could actually parse) was a particular bonus for me. Sadly, that wasn’t enough to save the overall story.
Review of The Time Monster (#64) DVD Release Date: 06 Jul 10 Original Air Date: 20 May – 24 Jun 1972 Doctors/Companions: Three, Jo Grant Stars: Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning Preceding Story: The Mutants (Three, Jo) Succeeding Story: The Three Doctors (Three, Jo, Two, One, the Brigadier)
The fascinating thing about doing a year full of Highs & Lows like this is that the experience highlights just how subjective such labels can be. This month’s entry is a case in point.
While the list I’ve been using from io9 compiled by Charlie Jane Anders ranks The Time Monster as #238 of 254 (leaving it ahead of only 6% of other stories), it is well known to Verity! podcast listeners that Lizbeth Myles ranks it as one of best stories of all time (or, at the very least, in her personal list of favorites). That leaves a wide range of opinion into which to fit my own assessment.
Predictably, I fall somewhere between the two extremes, though closer to Lizbeth’s end of the scale. Perhaps it’s because I’m already a fan of the Pertwee era, and Delgado’s Master in particular, that I didn’t find the “preponderance of fluff” (as Charlie Jane put it) so objectionable. Some of that fluff includes gems like the “time sensor” (which, when we see it face-on, is shaped… perhaps more suggestively than entirely appropriate for a family show) and a device the Doctor constructs out of household items in order to interfere with the Master’s time experiments, the latter of which is one of the few things that consistently stick in my mind about this story.
