Doctor Who Is NEW!: Survivors of the Flux

 So we've crossed the Rubicon, the borderlands between light and shadow. 

We have ventured forth to the penultimate episode of Doctor Who Flux. 

With only one more episode to go in Chris Chibnall's grand storytelling experiment, with the end in sight, surely we're seeing the glimmer of recognition that all that has come before is starting to coalesce into the illumination of knowledge, of finally getting some gosh darn answers.

Surely Chibs would not choose now to give us more questions?

Well, we've come this far. What do you think?

More after the break. 

Survivors of the Flux

by Chris Chibnall

Where to begin? 

Hey, what's up with Bel and Vinder?  

Vinder gets sucked up into a Passenger where he meets Diane, Dan's erstwhile gal pal we first met back in episode 1.  Diane is not happy and looks ready to kick butt.

Man, people from Liverpool are up for anything.

The plot point that Bel stole a Lupari ship comes into play here. There's a hole in the Lupari shield around Earth and Karvanista has summoned the errant ship Bel "borrowed" to Earth to fill the gap.  

Meanwhile and elsewhere, the Great Serpent turns up.

Remember, we met him in Vinder's flashback in episode 3 ("Once, Upon Time") as a galactic poobah who was  breaking rules and shit to get some dirt on Hunter Biden or something. 

Anyway...

The Great Serpent winds up on Earth in the 1950's for... reasons and insinuates himself into the lives of people instrumental in the founding of UNIT.

It's great to see UNIT back on Doctor Who but damn, here in episode 5 of 6, Chris is dedicating a lot of temporal real estate to the secret origin of UNIT and the Great Serpent's role in it.

"MORE BALLS!!!!!"

The Great Serpent is killing and manipulating his way to... whatever the hell he is up to. 

Until he crosses swords with Kate Stewart. 

OK, I'm on board with almost any reason to bring back Kate Stewart but still...

"MORE BALLS!!!!!"

Kate's got the Great Serpent's number and she ain't rolling over for his shit. 

But a bomb in Kate's town home shows ol' Serpenthead still got game. After a quick phone call to Osgood...

"MORE BALLS!!!!!"

Kate shatters her phone and goes dark. 

Meanwhile, ol' Serpentballs is ready to serve up Earth on a silver platter to... the Sontarans!

"REFRIED BALLS!!!!!"

Meanwhile and elsewhere, Yaz, Dan and Professor Jericho are on a quest in the year 1904. 

You know, Chibnall wrote out Graham and Ryan so yay, more time with Yaz. Except....

Jericho is a more intellectual and erudite Graham.

And Dan is Ryan. 

The more things change, the more they actually don't. 

Yaz does have a lovely moment with a hologram message from the Doctor.  The bit where Yaz brushes away a tear as she whispers how much she loves the Doctor is a particularly poignant scene that occurs nowhere in this story, I'm just screwing with you. 

The message from the Doctor are marching orders to find clues to a particular date which will mark the end of everything. 

So we have our intrepid trio traipsing about the planet in Mexico, India and China. 

As much as it feels like Chiball is spinning his wheels to give Yaz and her pals something to do, these sequences are a lot fun.

And then their path intersects with Joshua Williamson...

"MORE BALLS!!!!!"

He's the weirdo digging tunnels under Liverpool we met in episode 1 in 1820.  He's popped up randomly since then, rambling and muttering, something about not understanding this script?  Anyway, it seems Williamson's magic tunnels are intersecting with all sorts of points in time and space. 

So there's... that. 

Anyway...

The show is called Doctor Who. Where pray tell is the Doctor?

Last episode, the Doctor got turned into a Weeping Angel.

Don't worry, it doesn't stick.

The Doctor is delivered to the Division which has an Ood

"MORE BALLS!!!!!"

...working for them.  And we meet that woman who taunted the Doctor in episode three and she reveals she is Tecteun.

"OBVIOUS BALLS!!!!!"

I mean, c'mon. Who did not see that coming?

Tecteun does a massive info dump explaining that Division created the Flux and are destroying one universe in favor of a new one and then Swarm and Azure show up and Tecteun gets dusted and no... one really seems to care. 

One episode to go and I really don't feel too confident that Chris Chibnall is going to stick the landing.   

I've tried to be hopeful. 

Or to quote a famous comic book writer:

"Oh, fuck you, Chibnall!"  

Mark Waid, November 28, 2021