Synopsis
As the forces of evil mass, the Doctor, Yaz and Dan face perilous journeys and seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their quest for survival.
It was always gonna be hard to follow up an episode as fantastic as last week’s. And to be fair to “Survivors of the Flux”, it’s not a bad episode. But it exists solely to set up the events of next week’s season finale. And it shows. Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Azhur Saleem, “Survivors of the Flux” finally starts to offer some concrete answers. But it also falls prey to the season’s biggest weakness. While all of the storylines are intriguing in their own right, Chibnall and Saleem never manage to get them to weave together as a coherent whole. There’s so much happening at any one time that it’s hard to appreciate what’s going on. Which is a shame considering a lot of the individual pieces are quite good.
NOTE: This review features spoilers for episode five of Doctor Who: Flux.
The Divison Revealed
It was bound to happen eventually, but the bulk of the Doctor’s (Jodie Whittaker) story this week is nothing more than an exposition dump. A welcome one, to be sure. And one that’s relatively well-executed. But an exposition dump nonetheless. Picking up some time after last week’s cliffhanger, the Doctor awakens at the headquarters of the Division – which is situated in a void between “our universe” and the next. She learns that Awsok (Barbara Flynn), the mysterious woman she briefly met in “Once, Upon Time”, is in charge of the Division. And that Awsok is none other than Tecteun, the Time Lord who originally found the Doctor as a child (seen in “The Timeless Children”) and experimented on her to uncover the secrets of regeneration.
As for the Division, it turns out the Time Lords originally created the organization to further the interests of Gallifrey in its surrounding galaxy. And as the universe expanded, so too did the Division’s goals. Now, they exist as a force to spread Gallifrey’s interests to other universes… I guess. It’s still a little unclear as to exactly what the Division is. But we do know that they created the Flux. Specifically to destroy the universe – and the Doctor within it – to prevent her from finding them and revealing their secrets to the world. None of this is particularly surprising. Chibnall was always gonna return to the Timeless Child stuff. So, I’m honestly glad that we’re finally exploring it with some real depth. And to see that the Flux, the Division, and the Doctor’s past are all tied together.
The Doctor’s Choice
In addition to all of the exposition, the Doctor and Tecteun share some meaty, emotionally charged scenes. And Whittaker and Flynn perform them brilliantly. As it turns out, Tecteun ordered the Doctor’s memories to be wiped. And the Doctor calls her out. But Tecteun turns the tables back on the Doctor, suggesting the way she treats her companions isn’t all that different from the way that Tecteun treated her. And honestly, she’s not wrong. The Doctor does use her companions. And it’s always nice when the Doctor’s moral superiority gets challenged – especially like this, in a way that explores who the Doctor is at heart. Tecteun offers the Doctor a choice: She can regain her memories at the cost of the universe. Or she can return to it, without her memories, and die alongside it. As the Doctor says, anyone that knows her would already know her answer.
But before the Doctor can actually make her decision, Swarm (Sam Spruell) and Azure (Rochenda Sandall) show up and kill Tecteun – more on how they did this in a bit. It remains wholly unclear what their plan is. Apparently, they’ve been using the Doctor as a means to find the Division and exact revenge upon it for capturing them. But why? Why were they captured in the first place? There’s all of that mumbo jumbo about Time and Space being at war, but it doesn’t really mean anything. Hopefully, next week’s episode will clarify it. And honestly, I’m disappointed. Tecteun made a far more interesting antagonist than the Ravagers, so to have her dispatched so easily is a bummer. But the groundwork is laid for the Doctor and the Ravagers to have quite a confrontation next week. So, hopefully, something compelling comes of that.
Bel and Karvanista & Vinder, Swarm, and Azure
Elsewhere, Bel (Thaddea Graham) has tracked the signal she found on Puzano last week to a mysterious asteroid. But before she reaches the asteroid, Karvanista (Craige Els) recalls her ship (a stollen Lupari vessel) back to Earth. Once her ship arrives at the Lupari defense, Karvanista boards it, demanding that she surrenders to him. Before the two can come to any kind of an agreement, they’re forced to team up and fight off the Sontarans, who are invading the Lupari ships – and the earth itself. But more on that in a moment. It’s kind of a shame that Bel is barely in this episode. Yes, it was already stuffed to the brim with storylines. But now seemed like the perfect time to give her character more room to shine. We can only hope that she and Karvanista will have a few good moments next week.
Moments after Bel’s ship is recalled from the asteroid, Vinder (Jacob Anderson) teleports to the surface. There, he finds that Swarm and Azure are destroying the “rescued” survivors, using them as some kind of fuel for a “psycho-temporal” bridge. Which they later use to find the Doctor at Division HQ. Again, it’s all very vague and unclear. But before they disappear, they find Vinder snooping around and trap him inside the same Passenger prison Diane (Nadia Albina) is trapped in. The two quickly meet, and Vinder tells her he has a plan to save those trapped inside the Passenger. And she’s all too eager to help Vinder since she’s got a score to settle with the Ravagers. Their scenes are very short and quite vague. But I’m definitely looking forward to them hopefully confronting the Ravagers next week.
Yaz, Dan, and Jericho – Globetrotting Extraordinaries
Meanwhile, Yaz (Mandip Gill), Dan (John Bishop), and Jericho (Kevin McNally) have been traveling around the world, looking for an artifact that will reveal the day the world ends. In a very Indiana Jones series of events, they find a pot in an old tomb and take it to a translator who translates the month and the date – December 5th. They then go to a soothsayer, who cryptically tells them to “fetch their dog”. So, they leave a message for Karvanista. But without access to time travel, he can’t help. These scenes are all too brief, and I wish the episode spent more time with them. Still, there were some nice moments. Particularly for Yaz and Dan, who have grown quite close over the past three years. Mandip Gill and John Bishop are such great actors, and it remains a delight to see them play off of each other.
Later, Joseph Williamson (Steve Oram) accidentally wanders his way onto their ship. And we finally learn what he’s been up to. It turns out he’s been building his tunnels in preparation for some final battle. A battle that’s not been mentioned at all before now. But hey, it’s something. And as for how Joseph’s been appearing all across time and space? Well, the Flux has done a number on Time and left it in a state of – pun intended – flux. While I remain thoroughly unconvinced that we needed to spend weeks setting up Joseph Williamson, I am glad to finally understand how he fits into everything. And his interactions with Yaz, Dan, and Jericho are quite fun. Which is good, considering the episode ends with them staring down a troop of Sontarans invading the tunnels. But more on that in a moment.
The Grand Serpent’s Takeover of UNIT
And last but not least, there’s the Grand Serpent (Craig Parkinson). We find him (now going by the name Prentis) in 1950s England, where he embeds himself in the creation of UNIT – the Unified Intelligence Task Force. Over the years, he exerts his influence on the organization. Secretly killing those who’d stand in his way, offering policy suggestions, etc. In 2017, he successfully orchestrates the shutdown of UNIT – much to the chagrin of Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), who’s worked out that Prentis isn’t who he says he is. And she threatens to expose him. But before she’s able to, the Grand Serpent orchestrates a (failed) assassination attempt, causing her to go dark.
But fear not – Kate appears in the trailer for next week’s episode, as the self-appointed head of humanity’s defense against the Sontarans. Because, oh yeah, it turns out the Grand Serpent has done all of this because he made a deal with the Sontarans. Why? It’s unknown. But he’s giving them the Earth. And the Sontarans are looking for revenge – presumably for what happened in “War of the Sontarans”. And so, the episode ends with the Sontarans invading the Lupari ships, 1904 Liverpool, and modern-day Earth. Who will stop them, and how? Well, that’s what the finale’s gonna have to answer. I’m not a big fan of the Sontarans. So, I can’t pretend I’m super excited to see them return so soon. But I’m open to seeing where all of this ends up.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, “Survivors of the Flux” is a messy episode. But in a mostly fun way. While all of the subplots are individually interesting, Chibnall and Saleem never find a way to coherently stitch them together. The episode comes across as a collection of unrelated scenes, haphazardly thrown together with no real rhyme or reason. Each of the individual plotlines could’ve easily filled up multiple episodes on their own. So cramming them together in one 50-minute episode was just a little bit too much. It’s not as confusing and disorienting as “Once, Upon Time” was. But it never fully comes together as a cohesive whole, either.
That being said, it’s hard to suggest the episode’s not also fun. It’s nice to finally get some answers to some of the season’s biggest questions. Seeing Kate Stewart and UNIT again was an absolute delight – as were all of the little references to previous UNIT stories that were scattered about the scenes of the Grand Serpent taking over the organization. “Survivors of the Flux” did exactly what any good penultimate episode needs to do. It offered some answers and laid the groundwork for the big climax. We can only hope that next week’s “The Vanquishers” sticks the landing. But honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these storylines don’t continue on into the New Year’s special and beyond…
Rating: 4/5
New episodes of Doctor Who: Flux premiere Sundays at 8pm on BBC America.
Part-time writer, part-time theatre nerd, full-time dork.
