Today marks the return of this blog's oldest and longest recurring feature, Doctor Who Is NEW! This is the regular feature that posts whenever there is a new episode of Doctor Who.
The first Doctor Who Is NEW! posted on Saturday, March 30, 2013. It was the first of Matt Smith's last batch of episodes as the Doctor and it marked the introduction of a new companion, Jenna Coleman as Clara.
8 years later, today's Doctor Who IS NEW! is about the first episode of Jodie Whitaker's last season as the Doctor with the introduction of a new companion, John Bishop as Dan.
The more things change the more they yada yada yada.
But there's a lot riding on this particular debut.
Chris Chibnall's time on Doctor Who has been marred by unmet expectations and missed opportunities. Heading into the home stretch of his time as show runner with a massive six part storyline called "Flux", there's a lot riding on potentially redeeming in the eyes of Whovians everywhere.
How did the opening salvo of "Flux" do? I'll prattle on about that after the break.
And as always: Spoilers, sweetie!
The Halloween Apocalypse
by Chris Chibnall
Yay! It's a cold open and boy, it's a hot one.
The Doctor and Yaz are in a predicament, handcuffed and suspended upside down over an ocean of acid by an alien called Karvanista.
The Doctor ponders if some of this is possibly her fault.
Yaz testily replies it is most definitely ALL her fault!
Loving this Abbott and Costello dynamic!
The Doctor and Yaz get out of their death trap in spectacularly dangerous fashion and...
They wind up in bed together.
(Sorry, shippers! It's not like that.)
After this break neck opening, a lot of things happen.
There's a dude back in 1820's Liverpool digging tunnels all over the underneath of the city. Why? Hey, bad things are gonna happen and by God, we're gonna need those tunnels.
The Doctor gets a psychic message from a strange dude imprisoned on a distant space rock by (get this!) the Division. Yep, the same shadowy organization that manipulated the Timeless Child. Well, the dude (called "Swarm") ain't imprisoned for long.
The TARDIS is leaking black goo. Yaz is worried. The Doctor says it's fine, it does that. No it doesn't and the Doctor is lying.
We meet Dan Lewis who gives guided tours at the modern day Liverpool museum even though he doesn't actually work there. Dan's a nice guy who works down at the food bank helping to feed the poor even though his own cupboards are bare. Dan gets kidnapped by a space dog.
Karvanista's a space dog, y'all.
The Doctor is very determined to track down Karvanista. Yaz wants to know why the Doctor is so obsessed with this guy but the Doctor ain't telling. This is pissing Yaz off. She thought they were friends. (Or more?)
The Doctor and Yaz track Karvanista to Dan's house. Karvanista and Dan are long gone and the house gets shrunk.
The Doctor and Yaz meet Claire. She knows who they are but they don't know who she is. Shades of River Song, they're meeting in the wrong order.
There's a couple in the Artic Circle. One of them is Swarm's sister, Azure.
Back in space, Yaz springs Dan from his cage and the Doctor confronts Karvanista who apparently works for (get this!) the Division and the Doctor wants answers, damn it!
Whoops! Claire is zapped by a Weeping Angel!
Out in space, a dude named Vinder has monitor duty on some deep space outpost named Rose (should we make something of that?) which gets zapped by a space cloud that eats planets and stuff .
Give it up for... the Fluz!
Whoops! The Flux is heading for Earth. And Karvanista was saving Dan from getting zapped by the Flux and the other 7 billion members of his race are on the way to save each and every person on Earth.
The Doctor is flummoxed. How does she not know about the Flux?
Dan's worried he's going to be late for his date with Diane.
Diane is lured into a haunted house. Oh look, Azure is there! (Whoops! I forgot to mention Diane was introduced when we met Dan at the Liverpool Museum.)
Two Sontarans meet. They look less like potatoes now. One reports to the other something really bad coming and the second is estactic. Boy oh boy, a really great chance to wage some war! Weeeeee!
The Flux is after the TARDIS! The Doctor throws everything she can think of to escape the Flux, including busting open the console and zapping the Flux with Vortex energy.
Doesn't work.
And I can't help but think I've forgotten something.
A lot of stuff gets thrown at the wall to see what will stick.
The Halloween Apocalypse is less of a story and more of a collection of sub-plots in search of a story. Since this episode in service to the larger narrative that is to take place over the next five episodes, maybe that's OK in the long run. In the immediate experience of the episode itself, it's a bit of information overload with the ending (the TARDIS about to be consumed by the universe eating Flux) feels a bit rushed.
The Doctor facing down an all consuming threat to everything should feel like a bigger deal. But the moment doesn't feel earned with Jodie Whitaker once more rushing around and breathlessly telling us how bad things are, a patented Chibnall trope if there ever was one.
Nonetheless, props to the Doctor Who gang for trying something different and maybe The Halloween Apocalypse will seem stronger as we start to see some pay off on the various sub-plots introduced here.
Speaking of introductions, hello to new companion Dan Lewis, a dude with a positive spirit even though part of the working class poor. He seems quite a genial sort but with a sharp wit, a younger version of Graham, if you will.
We do get to spend some time with the Doctor and Yaz before Dan enters the mix and it's a net gain for Yaz's character. Yaz is smart, funny and effective. Even the addition of Dan adds a bit to Yaz as she gets to be the senior companion, helping Dan along.
All in all, The Halloween Apocalypse is a bit of a mess but it's a fast paced mostly fun mess so I'm mostly willing to forgive most of the excesses and missteps in the hopes there will be a pay off as this serialized storyline continues.
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