Azuma Yeonchi: "Chibnall pussies out of the do…"

YeonchiDoctor Who Series 13 (Flux) Review Chapter Six: The VanquishersAir date: 5 December 2021 “Prepare to be disappointed.” This is my not-so spoiler-free thought for this episode. So, the threads all come together for the resolution to what appears to be the biggest story yet. Although the main threat gets dealt with, there are still some lingering threads - that were already lingering before this series - that never get fully dealt with and it honestly feels insulting and spiteful. Never since The Timeless Children has a series finale disappointed and angered me so, but given the path we’ve taken to come to this point, I’m mostly feeling apathetic at this point. Apathy seems to have set in over the course of this series as well and this episode proves it. Anyway, spoilers after the break. Doctors of narcissism (in one block this time) Since all the threads come together in this episode, I’ll be doing the recap in one block. There are a total of four threads in this episode that join and split whenever the plot demands it. In 1904 Yorkshire, Dan, Yaz, Jericho and Joseph Williamson are hiding from the Sontarans shooting at them, but Yaz manages to open Doorway 9, which fires bolts at their probic vents, knocking them out. Hearing more coming, they head through a doorway leading to 5 December 2021 (after a brief fluke on a volcanic planet). After Swarm turns Tecteun into ash, the Doctor manages to escape to another part of the Division ship/space station outpost with the Ood. Learning from the Ood that she can return to her universe by ripping off the conversion plate on her, she does so, but Swarm touches her right as she does so… The Doctor ends up on the Lupari ship where Karvanista and Bel are fighting off the Sontarans, but her existence is seemingly unstable… Upon arriving in 2021 with the TARDIS nearby, Dan, Yaz, Jericho and Williamson are met by Kate Stewart when the Doctor appears. After a brief reunion, she finds herself flashing between 2021, the Lupari ship and the Division outpost; as a result of what happened, the Doctor has been split into three. The Doctor on the Lupari ship takes control of it and flies it towards the Sontaran fleet stationed at a dark energy camera in Chile, where it is caught in a force field. Back at Division, Swarm and Azure continue tempting the Doctor with the fob watch containing her memories as the Timeless Child, which the latter opens. The two then confront the Doctor in front of the Lungbarrow-esque house from War of the Sontarans, where her memories are apparently stored. When the Doctor refuses to explore it under the insistence of Swarm and Azure, the former proceeds to repeatedly turn the house to ash and back to normal, making the Doctor feel the pain as it disintegrates then restores her back to normal. In 2021, the Doctor learns from Yaz that it has been a few years for her, Dan and Jericho since they separated from the Doctor (which probably could only have been about a day or less for her). The Doctor learns from Williamson that he could go to different faraway places on his land due to multiple rips in the fabric of space and time. However, on one of his journeys, he saw the final Flux event and so, he began building his tunnels in an effort to construct a city under the Earth to protect as many people as possible, despite being mocked for it. The Doctor then turns to Kate and learns that the Sontarans have a psychic command centre and they are using humans to fuel its work, adding that she was intending on sending some undercover operatives into it. Following intel from Kate, the Doctor confronts Commander Shallo in a corner shop eating chocolate and sweets (just go with it) and offers them a couple of psychic operatives in exchange for unlimited chocolate. I have to interject here and say that a Sontaran riding a horse is one thing, but a Sontaran addicted to chocolate is just… what the hell. After that, the Doctor and Jericho head to 1967 to pick up Claire. Meanwhile, while being held prisoner on the Sontaran ship, the Doctor tries to get Karvanista to talk about their time in the Division together, but he reveals that he literally can’t because the Division implanted a synaptic collider into his brain that would kill him in three seconds if he said anything. He also shows that he had resentment for the Doctor after she left then came back as if nothing had happened. Back at Division, the Doctor insists to Azure that life must win because they wouldn’t have a purpose to exist otherwise. Azure states to the Doctor that she shouldn’t exist and that she and Swarm are there to correct the error. Their intention with the Flux is to have it destroy the universe and end it on Atropos with the release of time, where they intend to rewind it and watch it repeatedly, like when they were imprisoned themselves. Swarm proceeds to repeatedly disintegrate the Doctor and return her to normal… The Grand Serpent takes the Doctor for interrogation while Commander Stenck reveals to Karvanista that every Lupar in their ships has been airlocked into space, making him the last of the Lupari. While Jericho and Claire are hooked into the Sontarans’ psychic systems in an attempt to identify when and where the final Flux event will happen, the Doctor manages to flip the interrogation back on the Grand Serpent, who she manages to identify as a binary demispecies. The Grand Serpent attempts to suffocate the Doctor from the inside, but is unsuccessful due to being split across three places. It is then that the Doctor arrives with Yaz and Dan to rescue the Doctor and Karvanista (fetching the dog) while Bel uses Tigmi to gather information on Sontaran transmissions. In the TARDIS, the Doctor continues to receive the psychic data through Claire and Jericho’s transmat rings. She also learns that the Sontarans are allying with the Daleks and Cybermen for some reason and the Doctor’s two selves make contact with the remaining self at Division in an attempt to find out what is going on with the Flux. The TARDIS was unable to work out what the Flux is and the Doctor learns that the Flux is actually made of anti-matter created outside the universe before she loses contact. So it’s just another anti-matter wave. Good to know. Commander Kragar manages to work out the coordinates for the final Flux event and Stenck launches their Flux offensive, pulling their ships back into deep space. The Grand Serpent barges in in an attempt to search for the Doctor, but he manages to find Kate… Meanwhile, with Vinder unable to find Bel or use his communicator the Doctor gave him inside the Passenger, he and Diane manage to briefly disrupt Passenger’s systems and escape in order to signal the Doctor before they are transported back in. The Doctor manages to lock onto Vinder’s signal, but Kate informs the Doctor that the doors in the Williamson Tunnels are behaving strangely. The Doctor sends her other self to rescue Vinder, reuniting them with Bel and Dan, while she and Yaz go to meet with Kate. While the Grand Serpent attempts to find Kate by suffocating a local boy from the inside (like he would somehow know unless he worked for her), the Doctor learns that retrotemporal manifestations, caused by the Flux manifesting in the past, could blow the doors in. The Doctor sends Williamson back to the 19th century through a doorway, ending his relevance in the story as nothing more than a source of deus ex machina. The Doctor then works out that the Sontarans are on course for the ultimate victory by luring the Daleks and Cybermen (but not Rutans?) into the Flux, allowing them to be absorbed by it while being protected by the matter-generating Lupari ships, stopping the Flux by fighting anti-matter with matter. Yaz and Kate believe that the Doctor may attempt to warn the Daleks and Cybermen, but as always, the Doctor has a nuclear option… Sure enough, while the Doctor’s third self distracts the Ravagers, who take her to the Temple of Atropos, she gets the Ood to minimise the final Flux event. The Doctor sends her other self to the Lupari fleet with Vinder, Bel and Karvanista while she gets Jericho and Claire to use their transmat rings to teleport back to the TARDIS. As the Dalek and Cyber ships appear within the Lupari shield, the Sontarans move the ships to protect themselves, exposing the Daleks and Cybermen to the Flux. Suddenly, the Sontarans find themselves exposed as well; Karvanista had taken control of the Lupari fleet while Vinder and Bel take out the Sontaran communication transmitters. The Doctor tells Jericho, who had lost his transmat ring only for it to be subsequently destroyed by a Sontaran, to escape, but he accidentally shot the door controls in an attempt to defend himself from the Sontarans. Stenck comes in (through another door?) to execute Jericho, but is swallowed by the Flux before Jericho himself is as well. Despite their efforts, some of the Flux is about to get through the Lupari shield. On Diane’s suggestion, the Doctor summons the Passenger and opens it up in front of the Flux, causing it to be absorbed. At the Temple of Atropos, Swarm and Azure meet their saviour, Time, taking on Swarm’s form, but it sends the time force to disintegrate them for their failure. The Doctor picks up the fob watch dropped by Azure and Time takes on her form, restoring her to normal and warning her that her time is nearing its end at the hands of the Master, with no regeneration. The Doctor then finds herself back in the TARDIS. Realising that there is one thing left undone, the Doctor heads back to 2021 Liverpool, where Vinder and Kate confront the Grand Serpent and coerce him into opening Doorway 7, exiling him on an asteroid. The Doctor sends Vinder and Bel away with Karvanista on his ship before seeing off Claire and Kate. Later, after giving another unsolicited tour of the Museum of Liverpool, Dan meets with Diane and asks her out again, but she turns him down. Lady, you and your boyfriend were kidnapped in the midst of a crisis involving the entire universe, and him ghosting you was the biggest thing you were concerned about? God, you’re fucking shallow. Later, Dan is officially offered to travel in the TARDIS with the Doctor and Yaz. The Doctor finally admits her intentions to Yaz and her identity as the Timeless Child, then while Yaz is distracted by Dan, dumps the fob watch inside the TARDIS, telling it to put it somewhere she can never find it (unless she really asks). Pussying out of the double-down Given what we saw in this episode, my rant on why I don’t like the Timeless Child will have to wait until the epilogue. So despite the double-down of the Timeless Child in the last episode, we don’t get to hear more details about it. The fob watch just gets dumped in the TARDIS where it’ll probably never be brought back up again. This isn’t a retcon, this is Chibnall pussying out and pulling an RTD the episode after confirming the destruction of canon. It’s like the Doctor revealing himself to be half-human and then in the next episode, saying that he is 100% Time Lord without revealing how he came to be half-human or why he even said it in the first place. That being said, Ruth doesn’t appear in this episode either despite my hopes that she would appear again. Despite my hatred of the Timeless Child storyline, I honestly thought that it would culminate in the Doctor accepting her past, no matter how grim or dark, like in Ultraman Orb, possibly as an attempt to lessen the impact of the twist despite it not making sense. But it just gets dumped without it even barely going anywhere. The Doctor doesn’t explore the Lungbarrow-esque house and she doesn’t open the fob watch after she retrieves it from Swarm and Azure, meaning that she is still in denial of her past as the Timeless Child. Maybe it might have been for the best, but a denial of a canon-destroying twist does not a retcon make. Maybe the fob watch will be brought up again in the three specials, but we’ve already waited two years for this series and work on the Centenary Special has already been done a year in advance, so I wouldn’t count on it. Other general thoughts There are less sections in this review because so much of it has been dedicated to recapping this episode. Although I have intended on sharing my thoughts in this section, I have put some in the recap since they were important to the scene. I honestly believe this episode should have been titled Vanquishers of the Flux, like how Resolution should really have been Resolution of the Daleks (though I can somehow understand how Chibnall went with the former, even though the return of the Daleks wasn’t that big of a surprise to the fans as he had hoped). While there was no cold opening in the previous episode (making it the only such episode in this series to be as such), the cold opening of the previous episode is the only one to directly follow on from the last scene of the previous episode as shown in the recap sequence. Kate barely does anything in this episode, especially after Williamson is sent back to the past. Couldn’t she have helped with the final plan in some way? Also, what was the purpose of the two people with the serpent tattoos in the last episode? If they were working for the Grand Serpent, it isn’t explained nor is the purpose of the waiter with the serpent tattoo in 1904. Likewise, why didn’t we hear anything about the missiles he was preparing? The deaths of Jericho and the Lupari felt very superficial in contrast to Tecteun’s death in the last episode, though a common element of them is that they were absolutely unnecessary. Throughout Williamson’s appearances in the series, I’ve been wondering what relevance he will have in it. It turns out that instead of getting a full episode focused on him, he’s actually the deus ex machina that brings Yaz and Dan back to the present along with Jericho. Wouldn’t it be possible for the Doctor to find a way to remove the synaptic collider from Karvanista’s head? Oh, but we have to have an excuse to not address the Timeless Child double-down any further. Diane seems knowledgeable about the Passenger to the point of it being suspicious. How would she know that the Passenger is full of matter anyway? To that point, what on earth was her purpose in this series? Apparently, the Sontarans weren’t originally planned to return in this episode. In an interview with Radio Times, Jonathan Watson (who plays Stenck in this episode) stated that Skaak was supposed to be kicked over a cliff at the end, but it was rewritten with him telling the Doctor that he would return. Technically, given how the Sontarans are, it’s not so much a return as it is a new character from the same clone batch, but it’s still kind of true. Honestly though, I wish the Sontarans didn’t return in the finale or rather, didn’t have as much focus. Given how Swarm and Azure were set up to be the main villains of the series, they honestly got screwed over at the end. Swarm and Azure should have been the main focus of this episode, which would also have been the perfect basis for a Tecteun redemption arc. The scene on Atropos is the only time the Timeless Child is explicitly mentioned onscreen. It’s like Chibnall went to great lengths to avoid using those words throughout this series. Claire being returned to the present despite being sent to the past by a Weeping Angel honestly feels like an insult to all the victims of Weeping Angels, including Amy and Rory Pond. On the other hand though, the Angels were focused on capturing Claire’s Angel, or rather, the Doctor, so they weren’t necessarily focused on feeding off potential time energy. The Doctor couldn’t rescue Amy and Rory due to the time paradoxes in New York caused by Winter Quay, so what would have happened if the Doctor did manage to rescue other villains of Weeping Angels, essentially robbing them of their food supply? The Doctor notes that Tigmi is “child tech”, so what does that mean exactly? The main vibe I got from the two Doctors meeting each other is that she can be a bit of a narcissist. Not even the Tenth Doctor was that narcissistic when he met his meta-crisis self, although he was stuck on the Crucible with his companions and Davros, plus he became angry with him at the end. I’m honestly surprised that the Daleks and Cybermen came back again despite their cameos in Once, Upon Time. I suppose we have to keep Terry Nation’s estate happy by bringing back the Daleks each year or series… So, is Chibnall not going to address what was destroyed by the Flux or whether anything that was destroyed will be restored? The Passenger did absorb the Flux, but why didn’t we see it get destroyed? The Ood also ends up being superficial, but hey, I suppose they’re used to it. Time warning the Doctor of her oncoming end and the return of the Master is essentially the same as Carmen warning the Tenth Doctor that “[his] song is ending” and “he will knock four times” in Planet of the Dead. So that’s another story element ripped off from a previous era. Yet again, there’s no toku references or SJW red flags in this episode. However, at a stretch, I suppose the Flux can be compared to the Wonder World’s corruption of the real world towards the end of Kamen Rider Saber. Summary and verdict This episode had the potential to be an epic finale, but for the most part, it ended up falling flat and making a mess of things. The tension and drama were okay, but they were dragged down by the plot, particularly certain elements that ended up making them superficial. The Sontarans suddenly became the main villains of this series even though Swarm and Azure were supposed to be. Jericho and the Lupari, like Tecteun, died for no reason at all. Kate Stewart (and by extension the Grand Serpent) barely does anything in this episode, Joseph Williamson’s relevance in the series was basically deus ex machina and Diane ends up being too shallow to deserve someone like Dan. Let’s not forget that Chibnall pussied out of the Timeless Child double-down; from the moment Tecteun confirmed the Master’s words, the only way he could go was down. I don’t even have the strength to give this episode a 3 or 4 because it honestly doesn’t deserve it. I predicted last week that this episode would get a negative score and it looks like it was always going to go that way, regardless of whether Chibnall doubled-down on or pussied out of the Timeless Child storyline. I’ve given the Chibnall era too much credit it honestly doesn’t deserve, particularly during Series 11 when I wasn’t as versed in SJW politics than I am now. I hope the score for this week and last week make up for me being dense towards everything. Rating: -10/10 Stay tuned for the epilogue to my Flux reviews, where I sum up everything I’ve learnt about the series and my thoughts on the entire thing. After this, the next review will be after New Year’s Day for Eve of the Daleks.

Recent searches

Search options

Administered by:

Server stats: