13th Doctor Overview.

The Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), with "The Fam."

I'm writing this just shy of two years from the end of the Thirteenth Doctor's era, just as I'm preparing to move on to viewing and reviewing Ncuti Gatwa's first season as the 15th Doctor. Before I move forward, I'm feeling a need to look back, because many of my thoughts about the tenure of showrunner Chris Chibnall and star Jodie Whittaker are not fully represented by my reviews of the individual episodes.

Fair warning: This is neither a hate post nor a love letter. If you're looking for relentless negativity, I suggest finding a YouTube video, probably one with googly eyes on the thumbnail that uses the word "woke" a lot. If you're looking for only positive comments, then do the same, only avoiding those particular search cues. I'm going to discuss both what worked for me (and a lot did) and my frustrations about elements that either didn't work or that I thought fell short of their potential.

As ever, this represents my own opinion, and other views are available.

The Doctor confronts a Cyberman - and Whittaker shines
with a script that lets her get properly angry for a change.

JODIE WHITTAKER AS THE DOCTOR:

The announcement of Jodie Whittaker's casting came during my burnout period, in which I was neither viewing nor reviewing Doctor Who or anything else. I will admit that the announcement caught my eye. Whittaker is an actress whose work I've generally enjoyed, and I found her to be particularly good in Chris Chibnall's Broadchurch. It took me another year to recover from my malaise, but her casting was one of the reasons I decided to return to Who when I was ready to start reviewing again.

My response to her first appearance was... well, mixed. She was fine in The Woman Who Fell to Earth, with excellent individual moments... but she also had several deliveries that struck me as either flat or just plain misjudged. It wasn't until Rosa that she won me over. Even then, Arachnids in the UK (in my opinion, her single worst performance in the role) made me doubtful all over again.

Her performance improves whenever a script avoids reducing her to "the nice Doctor." There are glimpses throughout Series 11: Her scenes with Krasko in Rosa, her interactions with both the Thijarians and Manish in Demons of the Punjab, her confrontation with King James in The Witchfinders, and her general grumpiness in Kerblam!  All of these moments saw Whittaker's performance noticeably improve.

Thankfully, that became explicit characterization in Series 12 and 13, as it became clear that this Doctor's friendly smile was a shield to protect her from getting too close to her companions. She may have labeled her first companion set "Fam," but she kept them at a distance, avoiding anything that resembled a meaningful personal question. If they pushed harder, as Yaz often did in Series 13, she became snappish and even hostile. The more these beats were played, the better both character and actor became.

Whittaker was excellent at showing the character's defensiveness, and I think she exceled in moments of frustration and anger. On the other hand, I don't think she ever quite got the handle of delivering sci-fi Technobabble. In her first season, her Technobabble scenes often reminded me of actors phonetically reciting foreign language dialogue. She got better (and the scripts wrote less of it for her), but it remained a weakness.

Her worst performances came whenever she was written as "Dr. Exposition." Her acting flattened in episodes like Praxeus, Revolution of the Daleks, and Survivors of the Flux, in which she was little more than a vessel for explanations. I got the impression she couldn't engage with reams of exposition, and I wasn't surprised when excessive exposition was one of the only complaints she voiced in interviews after her exit. 

The Doctor officiates a wedding in Demons of the Punjab, easily my favorite episode of this era.

WHAT WORKS:

When the Chibnall era gets discussed, particularly after a couple years' distance, I see a lot of the sentiment: "Jodie was good, shame about the scripts." There is truth to that, but I think it's reductive.

There are a handful of fine scripts in these three-and-a-bit seasons. The stories from Vinay Patel and Maxine Alderton would stack up well in any era, and I hope both writers get a chance to submit for the series in the future. Chibnall's own stories include a solid new Doctor introduction in The Woman Who Fell to Earth; a terrific time-loop story in Eve of the Daleks; and, in War of the Sontarans, the best showing for the potato-headed warriors since their introduction during Jon Pertwee's tenure... though, as my review noted at the time, that doesn't clear the highest of bars; my pick for their previous second best story was the enjoyable but heavily flawed The Two Doctors.

In my Series Eleven overview, I stated some of my issues with that first season. Still, while I had quibbles with the execution, Series Eleven's attempt at a grounded and character-focused approach was something I had wanted to see from Doctor Who for a while. When the Doctor introduced herself as "just a traveler" who helps where she can, I wanted to applaud. I also love that all of Thirteen's companions are ordinary people - no dark secrets, no paradoxes, no alien plots. Just a group of average but highly decent human beings.

Revolution of the Daleks. Like a lot of episodes, it's fine. Just... fine.

A LITTLE TOO CONSISTENT:

Chris Chibnall wrote a higher proportion of the scripts than his predecessors did, which results in an era that's very consistent in tone and quality. There are relatively few episodes that I think are truly bad. Even the worst don't approach the awfulness of other eras' stinkers. Gun to my head, I would choose to rewatch both Orphan 55 and Legend of the Sea Devils before I sat through either Victory of the Daleks or Fear Her again.

The flipside of this is that there are equally few standouts. The only "10/10" I awarded across three seasons was for Demons of the Punjab, while there are individual RTD and Moffat seasons that feature multiple episodes that I gave full marks. Most of the shows range from "okay" to "pretty good." That doesn't sound bad on the face of it, but a steady diet of "pretty good" becomes numbing in practice.

By the time Flux rolled around, I no longer felt excitement at the prospect of a new season. Ironically, and despite its flaws, that ended up becoming my favorite Chibnall season. But I came away from the era reflecting that the occasional ghastly dud was something I was willing to put up with, if it also meant that something truly brilliant might be around the corner.

Graham (Bradley Walsh) and Ryan (Tosin Cole) get Series 11's
character arc, leaving the Doctor and Yaz to just carry the plots.

CHARACTERS:

Up to this point, most of my thoughts tilt toward the positive, albeit with a side of, "This could have been better." Shifting to the regular characters, however, moves into an area that left me feeling frustrated.

I liked all three of the initial companions. As of Rosa, I thought this was a promising new set of regulars, just waiting for scripts that would bring out extra layers that would make them "pop." Sadly, at least for me, that "pop" never happened.

Some of the reasons are easy enough to determine. There's a lack of interaction, particularly among the "Fam" of Series Eleven and Twelve. Too many episodes fall into a familiar pattern of splitting them into teams - usually with the Doctor and Yaz working on the plot while Graham and Ryan received moments of character (in Series Eleven) or comedy relief (in Series Twelve).

The results tended to be good whenever an episode broke away from that pattern. Ryan and Yaz get some well-written exchanges in The Woman Who Fell to Earth and Rosa. Yaz and Graham share terrific moments in Demons of the Punjab and Ascension of the Cybermen. But Yaz is the only companion who gets significant one-on-one time with the Doctor. Even before the "Fam" leaves, it feels as if Yaz is her actual companion, with the other two just along for the ride.

Yaz also doesn't come properly into focus until Graham and Ryan leave. In those first two seasons, it often feels as if she's competing against them for screen time... and even in her supposed "spotlight" episodes, it tends to feel like she's losing that competition.

This improves with Flux and the specials, which see her interacting with new companion Dan in a way that feels a lot more authentic. It further helps that this shift happens at the same time that she starts really pushing back against the Doctor's secretiveness. At this point, the character starts to work... but by the time Flux starts, there are less than ten episodes remaining in her tenure.

Yaz falls hard for the Doctor, and it doesn't seem entirely unrequited. It also doesn't go anywhere.

BOLD IDEAS, TIMID EXECUTION:

And on to my single biggest frustration.

On paper, Chris Chibnall's ideas for Doctor Who are ambitious. These three seasons deliver: the series' first female Doctor; a massive retcon of the Doctor's origins; and the first same-sex romantic attachment between a Doctor and a companion. You can like or dislike any of these, but the ideas are unquestionably bold.

So why does it all feel so damn timid?

The first female Doctor spends too much of her first season being characterized as a blandly inoffensive "Doctor Fluffy." The Doctor, in all incarnations, has always been arrogant, more than a little judgmental, and often downright rude. In Series Eleven, she's rarely allowed to show any of these traits. She's so busy being "the nice Doctor" (right down to checking during a confrontation with a Dalek that she's nice, right?) that she too often doesn't feel properly like the Doctor.

As with other problems, this improves in her later seasons, as it becomes a major point that her surface niceness is a shield that keeps others at a distance far more effectively than the 12th Doctor's surface grumpiness ever did. But even then, she's rarely allowed to show the arrogance that the Doctor should possess.

The Doctor/Yaz relationship never actually comes to much. Yaz refers to the Doctor as "my person" in The Haunting of Villa Diodati, and her feelings for the Doctor are a character point in Flux and the first two 2022 specials... only for that to be cut off at the end of Legend of the Sea Devils when the Doctor tells her that relationships with short-lived humans end up hurting too much, something Yaz just... accepts.

Now, I've never been fond of the New Series phenomenon of Doctor/Companion romances, because they by definition can only go so far. Still, if you're going to go down that or any route, then do it! I don't think queerbaiting was the intent - but the refusal to commit to this as a direction made it come across that way. Either do a thing or don't; just half doing it will be enough to annoy those who don't like the direction while failing to satisfy those who do like it.

More than any other single element, this era's bizarre tentativeness is what holds it back. Chibnall seems to have conceived a fearless vision of Doctor Who - but instead of diving into the deep end, he keeps dipping a toe over and over before deciding the water's too cold, drying his feet off, and going back inside. Doubly frustrating for me was that I started watching this era on the heels of Broadchurch, a show from the same writer, showrunner, and actress that was emotionally fearless. His Doctor Who badly needed that same quality.

The Thirteenth Doctor's last sunrise.

OVERALL:

Given how critical the latter half of this post has been, I feel that I should emphasize that I enjoyed the 13th Doctor era on its own terms. I liked Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, particularly when she was allowed to be a little spiky and snappish later on. I loved seeing some historically based stories that were actually centered around history. I'm a Hartnell fan, and I can easily mentally transplant the original TARDIS team into stories like Demons of the Punjab and Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror.

Still, despite liking a lot more of the individual episodes than not, this is the most frustrated I've ever felt with an era of Doctor Who, including a couple that I think are qualitatively worse than this. What I said about Whittaker in Series Eleven equally applies to the era as a whole: I think there's a genuinely great take in here, if it had only been willing to commit to its own ideas.

It's been announced that Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill have joined Big Finish, so maybe some of their upcoming audios will redress this. Certainly, thanks in large part to COVID sending Whittaker's final season into disarray, there's a sense of an era that's only half-finished, so this was an extremely welcome announcement for me.

At its best, Big Finish has made some great Doctor Who. Fingers crossed for that, and for something of substance to be done with the 13th Doctor and Yaz, rather than them just battling Rutans and Krynoids to fill monthly slots.


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#29: Legend of the Sea Devils.

The Sea Devils return to television! After this story, it might take them another 40 years to try again.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Ella Road, Chris Chibnall. Directed by: Haolu Wang. Produced by: Nikki Wilson.


THE PLOT:

The TARDIS finally brings the Doctor and her friends to a beach! That beach, however, is at a Chinese fishing village in the year 1807 - a village that has just been raided by the infamous pirate known as Madam Ching (Crystal Yu)!

Ching has come for a very specific target: a stone statue of a sea monster whose base holds the key to the location of the fabled treasure of the Flor de la Mar. What she doesn't realize is that the statue is actually a prison. When she chips away at the base, she frees its captive: A Sea Devil who has been held in place for more than 200 years.

Now the Sea Devil is free - and unless the Doctor can stop him, he plans to use his technology to flood the entire planet!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: When she confronts the Sea Devil, she bluffs that she knows the location of the "keystone" he seeks, talking at a million miles a minute while at the same time fishing for any scraps of information he might divulge. The Sea Devil is smart enough to catch on to her game: "You talk to secure yourself time to think."

The "B" plot sees her grappling with Yaz's feelings. Yaz's interest doesn't seem entirely unrequited; if it was, moments such as showing her companion the bottom of the ocean floor while beaming that she's "not such a bad date" would smack of cruelty. Still, as she explains - and, really, as the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors' eras repeatedly showed - her long lifespan means that any such relationship could only end in pain.

Yaz: Is a little too eager to act as "mini-Doctor," the role she effectively filled during her separation from the Doctor during the Flux. However, she isn't on the Doctor's level.  During the confrontation with the Sea Devil, she gives away information that the Doctor planned to hold in reserve.  She later attempts to replicate the Doctor's use of Sea Devil technology but can't remember which switch to use. If this era wasn't ending in just one more episode, this story would have me actively expecting her to end up on a collision course with her own limitations.

Dan: Quickly bonds with Ying Ki (Marlowe Chan-Reeves), a young man whose father became the first victim of the Sea Devil. His compassion gets the better of his judgment, though, when he follows the youth onto Madam Ching's ship, separating him from the Doctor and Yaz for most of the rest of the episode. The climax sees him battling Sea Devils with startling enthusiasm... but in between, it's back to Flux territory, with Dan mostly just an amiable presence rather than an integral part of the plot.

Madam Ching: Crystal Yu as the Historical Figure of the Week. The historical Madam Ching is a fascinating figure who rose to become head of the Guangdong Pirate Confederation, and who is sometimes credited as being the most successful pirate in history... which frankly sounds like the basis for a much more interesting and exciting story than this one. Yu does a fine job with what she's given, but she isn't given much, with the historical figure's life and background almost entirely unmentioned. Compared with this same era's treatment of historical figures such as Rosa Parks, Nikola Tesla, and Mary Seacole, this is disappointingly shallow, and the climax reduces her to little more than an extra.


THE RETURN OF THE SEA DEVILS:

The Sea Devils' design is extremely faithful to the Classic Series, only more polished. At first glance, the monsters looks terrific: menacing and strangely beautiful in a single image.

Then the lead Sea Devil talks, and the illusion is broken.

The problem is the full face mask. Compare with the (at the time) much-vilified redesign of the Silurians. That revamp left the face and mouth uncovered to allow a full range of expressions. The Sea Devils here are not granted the same luxury, and actor Craig Els is left with no ability to convey any subtlety because expressions are impossible. Also, because the mouth doesn't move well, his speech is indicated by a blinking light hanging around his chest. Which is very Classic Who... but in all the wrong ways.

As for the characterization? Well, the Doctor pays lip service to them as a peace-loving culture (though I'm frankly not sure how she arrived at that from either of their previous televised appearances). Despite that, the only speaking Sea Devil here is pure evil, sneering "Land Parasite!" at humans, keeping one man alive indefinitely just to torture him, and gloating about his planned mass extinction event. All that's missing to make him a silent movie baddie is a mustache to twirl and a scene in which he ties Yaz to some railroad tracks.

If Series One's Dalek served as a masterclass in bringing back a potentially silly monster and making it menacing and relevant to modern audiences, then I'm afraid this story represents the opposite. Their last major televised appearance was in 1984's Warriors of the Deep. After this, it wouldn't surprise me if it took another 40 years for their next return.


THOUGHTS:

Though this is not a good episode, there are good individual elements. Even if Dan is persistently underused, I really like the dynamic of the current TARDIS team. All three actors share a good-humored screen rapport. I actually believe these three enjoy traveling together, while in Series Eleven and Twelve it too often felt like the Doctor and Yaz were on one team and Ryan and Graham were on another.

For the first half or so, I mostly enjoyed this. The early scenes are fun: Yaz tricking Dan into wearing a pirate outfit (complete with hook), while the Doctor expresses exasperation with both of them; the reveal of the Sea Devil's flying pirate ship; Dan's compassion letting him get roped into an ill-advised misadventure with Ying Ki; and, most particularly, the entire sequence in which the Doctor takes Yaz 200 years into the past to locate treasure at the moment of its sinking, followed by a lovely pause (the episode's only one) at the bottom of the ocean floor.

Even in the early going, however, there are plot holes. I was immediately put off by Madam Ching operating her ship with no crew at all. A frigate isn't a private sailing boat, and the crew did not exist merely to repel boarders and to give the captain someone to flog when feeling peevish. You'd think the script would at least lampshade this with a couple lines about modifications. But... nope! She's sailing a full-sized pirate ship all on her own, and that's all there is to it.

The script has quite a bit of sloppiness. Characters reference information they shouldn't know. The Doctor and Yaz realize why the stars are in the wrong place, which would be an interesting reveal... except that they weren't present for the scene that showed the stars in the wrong place, and they had no opportunity within the episode to make that discovery for themselves! Much is also made of the Sea Devils' pet sea monster, but the creature conveniently disappears for the action climax.

The entire story feels rushed, which becomes particularly problematic near the end. First, the Doctor and Yaz escape from the Sea Devil's ship by jumping across to Madam Ching. At this point, the story should really take a moment for the characters to bond and pool information. Instead, it launches almost instantly into the final fight.

The incredibly poorly edited final fight.

Editing is somewhat jagged throughout (likely covering for issues caused by COVID restrictions), but here it becomes all but incomprehensible. I replayed bits to try to figure out how the Doctor escapes certain death in one part or how Dan knocks over Sea Devils in another part. After a few times doing this, however, I gave up and just let the images pass unchallenged; in some cases I found the answers, but it frankly wasn't worth the effort.

As if the ending hadn't been botched badly enough, the main story closes with Doctor Who's most tiresome and overused trope: a Heroic Self-Sacrifice (TM). This case feels particularly superfluous. The problem that requires a character to nobly die occurs all of a minute before the sacrifice. It may not be as poorly staged as the one in The Timeless Children, but it makes up for it by feeling entirely narratively unnecessary.


OVERALL:

Legend of the Sea Devils plays very much as if the crew shot a rough draft. This may not be far from the truth. One of the three 2022 specials was an "extra," commissioned when the BBC asked for one more episode. Given that the other two specials are the traditional Chibnall Dalek New Year's special and the epic finale, Legend of the Sea Devils seems the most likely candidate.

It might actually have been better if it hadn't been made. Eve of the Daleks left the Doctor and her team soaring into their final adventures. Legend of the Sea Devils sends them crashing back to Earth, left to stumble in a daze into their final outing.


Overall Rating: 2/10.

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#28: Eve of the Daleks.

Dan confounds a Dalek.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 58 minutes. Written by: Chris Chibnall. Directed by: Annetta Laufer. Produced by: Sheena Bucktowonsing.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor initiates a TARDIS reset to repair the damage left by the Flux. The plan is for her, Yaz, and Dan to enjoy a beach vacation while the timeship resets. But the TARDIS has materialized off course (again), leaving them in a far less luxurious setting: a storage facility on New Year's Eve.

They are not alone. The Daleks have tracked the time travelers, resolved to execute the Doctor and her companions. Which they manage with great efficiency within minutes of finding her...

Only for everyone to be resurrected, back where they started.  They are in a time loop, repeating the brief interval between their arrival and the New Year. This leaves the Doctor only a few minutes at a time to figure out how to stop the Daleks, save all of her friends, and escape the storage facility. And with the loop gradually collapsing, her time is running out...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: In the midst of the crisis, she tells Yaz: "My actions are catching up with me, time is catching up with me." Once the situation is resolved, she immediately returns to her increasingly strained show of cheerful obliviousness, however, claiming that she doesn't remember saying that. I'm actually glad that that Thirteen has emerged as the most guarded of Doctors. It's a note that builds on her first season (whether intentionally or not, Series Eleven saw most of her best character bits happening when her companions were not present), and it's both more interesting than the early "Dr. Fluffy" characterization and better suited to Jodie Whittaker's acting strengths.

Yaz: The most notable character beat for Yaz is that she finally confesses that she has feelings for the Doctor... to Dan. In fact, in this episode, all of Yaz's best scenes are opposite Dan. The two share an enjoyable bickering sibling vibe, with her lightly mocking him when a Dalek labels him as "the inferior human," yet leaping to his defense when the storage facility's owner, Sarah (Aislin Bea), snaps at him.

Dan: After being basically "the extra companion" for the entire back half of Series Thirteen, he finally receives some strong material here. I love his "delaying tactic" against the Dalek; there are echoes of Morton Dill in The Chase as he confounds the metal monster by treating it as if it's an employee and asking to speak to its manager. He gently coaxes Yaz into admitting her feelings for the Doctor, and later takes on the Rory role of calling the Doctor on her BS when he grumbles that he knows she notices things: "You do, but for some reason you pretend to me and to her that you don't."

Sarah/Nick: The two bystanders. Aisling Bea is terrific as Sarah, the grumpy owner of the storage facility, who would rather be anywhere else even before the Daleks show up. She behaves in a refreshingly human fashion, taking one Time Loop to run for her life instead of staying to help the Doctor. Nick (Adjani Salmon) is a long-time customer who always comes by on New Year's Eve. It's instantly apparent that he fosters a massive crush on Sarah, though it takes that being shoved in her face for her to actually notice. Oddly, both characters parallel the Doctor in different ways. Sarah is grumpy and keeps Nick and her mother at arm's length, the same way the Doctor does to her companions; Nick is more than a little odd but is also fundamentally decent, descriptors that could be applied to all of the Doctor's incarnations.

Jeff: The offscreen Jeff becomes both the episode's running joke and possibly its key character. We never see him, not even a photograph, but his presence is a constant through the episode. Sarah and Nick are both at the facility because Jeff never shows up to work on New Year's Eve. As the Doctor and her friends explore the facility, they discover that he bunks in a storage unit, and that he keeps canned food and other items in further empty units - including a few items that play a key role in the resolution.

Daleks: Targeting the Doctor for her actions during the Flux crisis... although the Doctor has thwarted them so often that she has to stop and ask exactly which action prompted them this time. Though treated comically, particularly in the scene with Dan, they aren't made into jokes. The entire episode sees them ahead of the Doctor, thwarting her plans and escape attempts. When the Doctor tries to stop them using old tactics, they are ready, telling her with audible smugness, "Daleks learn!"


THOUGHTS:

"Groundhog Day!"
-Dan's first words upon realizing that he, the Doctor, and Yaz are caught in a time loop.

With only a few exceptions, I have never been a fan of the New Series' Dalek stories. One of those exceptions was Chris Chibnall's own Resolution, the first of his New Year's Dalek specials... but even that one fell apart at the end, while I found his following Revolution of the Daleks to be entirely competent but utterly uninteresting.

Which makes Eve of the Daleks all the more pleasant a surprise. This is easily the best of Chibnall's three New Year's episodes, a well-paced, fun, and funny story that held my attention from the first scene through to the last.

"Daleks learn!" is intoned at the end of the teaser, and that one line sets up much of the rest of this. All the characters - Doctor, Daleks, and even humans - retain the memories of each loop, leaving them to use their knowledge to try to succeed in the next loop. The Doctor has jammed Dalek weaponry with her sonic screwdriver once before; the Daleks have upgraded to circumvent that. Sarah tries to change her route to avoid getting killed (again); the Daleks anticipate that change and intercept her on a higher floor. Even the episode's resolution plays into this, with the Doctor using the information gathered over each loop to set a trap for her enemies.

There is one "Doctor speech" about three-quarters of the way through that fails to land for me. It goes a little too heavy-handed in making sure we don't miss the (already well-established) theme of learning and adjusting to challenges - and while Jodie Whittaker is very good through the rest of the episode, her delivery of this speech was a bit too earnest for my tastes.

Outside of that one nitpick, this episode is great fun. Performances are good, dialogue (not always Chibnall's strength) is sharp and often amusing, and the pace doesn't flag.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

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#26 (13.5): Survivors of the Flux.

Dan, Yaz, and Professor Jericho search for answers while marooned in the early 1900s.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 50 minutes. Written by: Chris Chibnall. Directed by: Azhur Saleem. Produced by: Pete Levy.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor has been taken by The Division, which leaves Yaz, Dan, and Professor Jericho (Kevin McNally) stranded in the early 20th century. The Doctor anticipated this, however, and left Yaz a clue: a hastily recorded message giving her friends a mission to find out anything they can about the invasion that she's sure will come. The search leads them from pyramids to ocean liners... until the answer literally walks through their door in the form of 19th century Liverpool eccentric Joseph Williamson (Steve Oram).

As Yaz and her friends work to unravel the coming plot, the Grand Serpent (Craig Parkinson) is already bringing it to fruition. Using time travel technology of his own, he infiltrates the latter part of the 20th century, nudging UNIT's development just enough to fit his own agenda - while leaving a pile of bodies in his wake.

Meanwhile, the Doctor finds herself on a space station where the mysterious Awsok (Barbara Flynn), leader of The Division, reveals that she unleashed the Flux to destroy the universe. Her reason for doing so? The Doctor herself!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: Finally learns the reasons the Flux was unleashed. There's a decent moment when she is tempted by a promise to restore her lost memories... but since we never doubt that she'll refuse, the moment ends up being interesting more for its potential than its realization. Jodie Whittaker has been terrific all season, but this time she comes across a bit flat - probably because her role this time amounts to little more than "receiver of plot information."

Yaz: Takes charge in the Doctor's absence, effectively paying off the question she wrote on her palm: "What Would the Doctor Do?" Stranded in the past, with only a brief message from the Doctor to guide her, she focuses Dan and Professor Jericho on anticipating the alien threat. She also shows a hint of a ruthless side; after a would-be ocean liner assassin avoids questioning by killing himself, she coldly orders her companions to dump his body overboard, which briefly startles both of them.  Mandip Gill is clearly enjoying her turn in the spotlight - and at the same time, looks fantastic in her Edwardian Adventuress getup.

Dan: His Encyclopediac knowledge of Liverpool history comes into play, as he recognizes the name "Joseph Williamson" when the mysterious 19th century traveler (Steve Oram) mentions it. That leads him, Yaz, and Jericho to the Williamson tunnels. When they find Williamson, Dan talks to him "one Scouser to another" - which quickly leads to him being slapped by the historical figure and threatening to slap him right back. Dan's compassion also shows itself when he catches Yaz in a moment of sad contemplation. Knowing the reason, he immediately offers reassurance that they'll see the Doctor again.

Professor Jericho: At this point, Kevin McNally's professor has become a de-facto companion in his own right... and I have absolutely no complaints about that. He, Dan, and Yaz make an engaging trio as they travel around the early 20th century world, hunting down any clue they can find. He's mostly a light comic figure here, but he receives a few moments that remind us that there's more to him than that, notably when he talks about his awareness of the horrors of World War I, only a little more than a decade off from where they've found themselves.

Bel/Vinder: They appear only briefly, just enough to put them in place for the finale. Bel ends up with Karvanista, just as the Lupari shield around Earth reaches a crisis point. Meanwhile, Vinder is captured by the Ravagers - but he seems to have anticipated this, and he declares that he has a plan. At this point, I'm fairly confident about where the Bel/Vinder subplot is going, but I genuinely like both characters and am interested in seeing how they reach their obvious destination.

The Grand Serpent: The Yaz/Dan/Jericho scenes are the episode's most enjoyable, but the Serpent's thread is the most interesting. His infiltration of UNIT allows for a lot of nods to the Classic Series, including references to The War Machines and a very welcome voice cameo. Parkinson's villain is highly effective, his cold disdain apparent even to the men who have allied with him - all of whom eventually come to regret that alliance...

Kate Lethbrige-Stewart: Jemma Redgrave makes a brief return, as we learn the reasons behind UNIT's shutdown. Kate is unfazed as she confronts the Serpent, brushing aside his artificially pleasant demeanor with a cold, "I see you." When he attempts to add her to his list of victims, she "goes dark" - presumably putting her in place for a larger role in the finale.


THOUGHTS:

To get the bad out of the way up front: The resolution to Village of the Angels' brilliant cliffhanger is a gigantic letdown, on the level of "Sarah Jane falls to the safety of a previously unseen ledge." Earlier this season, War of the Sontarans ended on an edge-of-the-seat cliffhanger which was resolved in an unexpected but perfectly in-character manner in Once, Upon Time. Here, the resolution feels like a lazy hand-wave.

I generally enjoyed the rest of Survivors of the Flux. It's probably the season's worst episode - but it earns that title largely by default. It's a set up episode, all about putting pieces in place for the finale, with little real identity of its own. There are a few decent character moments for Yaz and Dan, but this is basically an hour of "plot, plot, and more plot," which leaves little room for strong emotional engagement.

This is also the closest to a Doctor-lite episode that the Chibnall era has delivered. I doubt the Doctor is on screen for more than twenty minutes (if that), and virtually all of her screen time is devoted to Learning What the Plot Is. As I indicated in the "Characters" section, it's as well that she's not in much of it; her thread, while vital in informational terms, is easily the least enjoyable.

Hopefully, all the information imparted here will keep the finale from being a repeat of The Timeless Children's tedious exposition-fest. That said, to me this is the least engaging installment of the season. It's a necessary episode, and perfectly fine for what it is. But taken on its own, it's no more than "OK."


Overall Rating: 6/10.

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#22 (13.1): The Halloween Apocalypse.

The Doctor has a mental link with the evil Swarm (Sam Spruell).

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 50 minutes. Written by: Chris Chibnall. Directed by: Jamie Magnus Stone. Produced by: Nikki Wilson.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor's attempt to get information from Karvanista (Craige Els), of the dog-like Lupari species, goes predictably awry, leading to Karvanista escaping. The Doctor pursues, tracking him to present-day Liverpool... but arrives too late to stop him from kidnapping Dan Lewis (John Bishop), a seemingly ordinary human.

The Doctor and Yaz continue their pursuit, unaware that the universe itself is unraveling. Swarm (Sam Spruell), a being who has been imprisoned by The Division since the beginning of time, has escaped, and The Flux has begun...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: Continues to be secretive about her motives. She refuses to tell Yaz exactly why she's so intent on confronting Karvanista. When they infiltrate his ship, she sends Yaz to rescue Dan... in part to rescue the kidnapped man, but I think primarily so that she can talk to her quarry alone. When Yaz calls her on her behavior, the Doctor becomes instantly defensive, and I suspect a part of her is almost relieved when a crisis stops their argument before she has to actually share her goals.

Yaz: When Yaz meets Dan, she introduces herself as former police. To invoke Amy and Rory, she has now made the choice between "real life" and "Doctor life" - and she chose the Doctor. Which likely makes it all the more frustrating that the Doctor is still keeping secrets, something Yaz already lost patience with back in Series 12. With the TARDIS newly un-crowded, the dynamic between her and the Doctor feels much fresher and livelier, and Mandip Gill's performance here is wonderfully energetic.

Dan: Comedian John Bishop makes a strong first impression as the newest member of the TARDIS team. Introductory scenes arguably oversell the character: He's a proud Scouser who gives impromptu tours at the Museum of Liverpool despite not actually working there, who has an endearing flirtation with museum worker Diane (Nadia Albina), and who volunteers in a soup kitchen. What, no rescuing a kitten from a tree? For all this, Bishop is authentic and likable, and the scene in which he mistakes Kavanista's alien appearance for a Halloween costume is quite funny (and unlike some comedy scenes, knows to drop the gag before it wears out its welcome).

Returning Enemies: This episode briefly features both The Weeping Angels and the Sontarans. Neither enemy interacts with the Doctor, and it's obvious that they are being established for future episodes. The Weeping Angel is the centerpiece of the episode's most effective scene, as a lone angel stalks the mysterious Claire (Annabel Scholey) as she tries to make it to safety before it can catch up with her. The Sontarans receive two scenes, principally comic in tone - as has been the New Series' general treatment of them - as they relish the thought of the destruction heading their way.

Swarm: Set up as the main enemy of the season. He is introduced as a Hannibal Lecter-like character, taunting and psychologically manipulating his jailers even as he is confined. He has a history with the Doctor, presumably from when she worked for the Division, and uses a thus-far unexplained psychic link to taunt her with a past that he remembers and she does not. "There is not a tiny corner of you that remembers," he exults. "I remember every battle - which gives me the advantage." Sam Spruell does wonders with his limited screen time, his voice and bearing exuding presence. It helps that the makeup job is terrific, with him just alien enough to be unsettling without tipping over into silliness.


THOUGHTS:

The Flux begins! ...And I have only the vaguest notion of what might be going on, but at least so far it's fun to watch.

The Halloween Apocalypse is light on explanation, succeeding largely through sheer momentum. This has not traditionally been a strength of writer/showrunner Chris Chibnall's. Too often in this era, the action has screeched to a grinding halt to deliver character or plot exposition, leaving the stories to have to restart the pace instead of letting it build.

Well, that doesn't happen here. There are still good character moments, but they arise naturally during the action rather than feeling crowbarred in. Yaz confronts the Doctor about her secretiveness while they work on their pursuit of Karvanista, and they talk only for a couple minutes before being interrupted by more plot. The action is near constant, with the episode offering up no less than five different set pieces across its brisk 50-minute running time.

I wonder if it shouldn't have been a little longer. The main thread of the Doctor and Yaz pursuing Karvanista and rescuing Dan is a bit thin, and it is sometimes overwhelmed by all the "stuff" happening around it. The Division! Sontarans! Claire, who meets the Doctor out of sequence before fleeing from a Weeping Angel! And at least two other threads I'm not mentioning simply because I have no clue what's actually going on in them. The Halloween Apocalypse is the "busiest" episode of the series since the departure of Steven Moffatt, and I think an extra ten minutes might have done wonders to help all these individual bits feel like they're genuinely connected.

That said, not since Fugitive of the Judoon has a new Doctor Who episode passed so quickly for me. When the episode ended, I was actively surprised that a full 50 minutes had already elapsed. I may currently be confused about how (or whether) the pieces will end up fitting... but I wasn't bored for a second, and I'm at least cautiously optimistic that Flux might manage to deliver on its potential.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Story: Revolution of the Daleks
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#7 (11.7): Kerblam!

Something isn't quite right with the robots...

1 episode. Approx. 49 minutes. Written by: Pete McTighe. Directed by: Jennifer Perrott. Produced by: Nikki Wilson.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor receives a delivery from Kerblam!, the biggest retailer in the galaxy. Much to the Doctor's delight, it's a fez - doubtless ordered two lifetimes ago. More interesting to the others is the packing slip, which has a message printed on the back:

"HELP ME."

They travel to the Kerblam! warehouse, where they go undercover as new workers. They meet Judy (Julie Hesmondhalgh), the friendly but ineffectual "Head of People", and Slade (Callum Dixon), an overbearing manager. The Doctor and Ryan go to work in the packing stations, where they befriend Kira (Claudia Jessie), an enthusiastic young employee. Yaz is assigned to Fulfillment, retrieving items from the warehouse with Dan (Lee Mack), a veteran staffer. Both Kira and Dan separately remark on employees who have suddenly "gotten the sack," with Kira mentioning a co-worker who never arrived back at her home. Meanwhile, Graham is assigned to maintenance, where he bonds with Charlie (Leo Flanagan) and takes the opportunity to learn the layout of Kerblam!

Then Dan takes a call to retrieve an item from a remote, mostly closed-off floor... and vanishes. When Yaz follows, she comes face-to-face with some Kerblam! delivery bots. And the robots are definitely not behaving according to their program...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: "I don't like bullies, don't like conspiracies, don't like people in danger, and there's a flavor of all three here." After getting the message, the Doctor is initially content to try a low-key approach, more-or-less blending in among the workers. After Dan's disappearance, she abandons that entirely, directly confronting Slade and Judy, breaking into locked cabinets, and even hacking into Kerblam!'s base code. She manages to stop what would have amounted to a 9/11-style event, but not without collateral damage. Right after her confrontation with the villain of the piece, she looks anything but pleased. For a brief moment, she actually looks like she's been utterly defeated.

Graham: "You're just making sounds now!" Graham's bemused exasperation, both at the strange but recognizable Warehouse of the Future and the Doctor's behavior, provides a lot of amusement. He's none too pleased when the Doctor switches jobs with him, which sticks him with "Premium Maintenance" (read: janitor). He doesn't dwell on his annoyance, though, using his affable nature to form a friendship with Charlie and to get the younger man to obtain a map for him. He pays attention to his surroundings, which means that when the Doctor needs to access "Kerblam Version 1.0," Graham knows exactly where she can find it.

Yaz: This isn't remotely a Yaz spotlight episode, and yet it may well be her strongest showing of the season. When the message arrives, she is the first of the Doctor's companions to urge investigating. She genuinely bonds with Dan, and is concerned enough for her new co-worker to go looking for him immediately after he disappears. When Ryan hesitates before jumping onto the conveyor, she is a silently encouraging presence - Then provides more vocal encouragement when they have to jump from one conveyor belt to another. The episode ends with her making a request of the Doctor: To visit the family of one of the story's casualties.

Ryan: "Halfway across the universe, and I feel like I'm back at work." Kerblam! reminds Ryan of the various jobs he has held, and not in a good way. The Doctor seems to enjoy doing this kind of mindless drone work (doubtless it's a new experience for her... for less than a day), but Ryan knows this kind of work too well and finds no fulfillment in it. When Kira gushes about how work gives people purpose, he responds, "some work." His familiarity with these types of warehouses does mean he knows exactly how to get into closed off areas when it's needed.

The script also wins points for not only remembering Ryan's coordination issues, but properly engaging with them. We learn that at his warehouse job, he had difficulty with some tasks at first. "Takes me a while to learn things physically," he tells the others. "Get there in the end, but some stuff takes me a bit longer" - and during that period, he only kept his job with the help of friends who covered for him. He hesitates before jumping on the conveyor belt at the end, but does not take the chance to stay back when it's offered. "That's not how we roll, is it, Yaz?" - which earns him an appreciative glance from her.


THOUGHTS

Kermblam! is a good, solid episode of old-school Doctor Who. A well-paced mystery, some creepy robots, an undercurrent of commentary on current society. I could easily see this episode working with pretty much any Doctor, with only relatively minor rewrites. It's one of the least immediately interesting episodes of the season, but it makes up for that by being one of the most entertaining.

Pete McTighe's script gets a lot of mileage from the obvious parallels between Kerblam! and modern corporations (the obvious target being Amazon). The work is dehumanizing, repetitive, and dull, something commented on by both Ryan and the Doctor. The workers wear devices to monitor productivity - something Ryan reminds us is not really science fiction when he observes that "wore on of these at (his) last job." Oversight is all but nonexistent, leaving complaints and issues no place to be properly addressed, something that frustrates even the management whose job it is to deal with those issues.

There is also a nice sense of an established world here. The viewer sees the work as dehumanizing, as do the regulars, but the actual human employees of this time and place seem genuinely enthusiastic about having these jobs. Judy, whose title is Head of People, proudly declares that the company is "Ten-Percent People Powered!", as if having actual humans making up 10% of the workforce is a rare and special achievement. Kira mentions having only received one gift in her entire life - not complaining, but instead reflecting in wonder on receiving a small box of chocolates. Dan "splurges" on a flight back home twice a year to see a daughter he obviously adores. Even the one character who is angry and frustrated at the state of affairs isn't raging against the nature of the jobs - Just that the quota for them is a measly 10%. It all creates a grim picture of a society whose problems extend far beyond the story's warehouse setting.

The script is quite well-structured, to a degree that becomes very clear on second viewing. The mystery plays fair with the viewer, with clues planted in the early scenes that most simply won't catch the first time around. I appreciated that apparent stock characters - an ineffectual Human Resources staffer, a sneering manager - end up being more rounded than they first appear. The villain's identity is a surprise that works, because when it's revealed it fits with what has gone before.

I only have only one issue with the story, but unfortunately it's a big one. Late in the episode, suspense is built when a likable guest character is put into jeopardy. It's actually refreshing that the regulars don't manage to rescue this character in time. But it is not the villain who kills this character - and the murder goes largely uncommented on by the Doctor and her friends. The scene itself plays out very effectively, and I have no problem with the Doctor not addressing it in the climax (she's a little busy preventing thousands of deaths at that moment). But the epilogue should really see her doing something about it. Instead, the script appears to forget entirely, which just doesn't sit right.

Kerblam! is still a good episode: Well-paced, often funny, with the best balance of the four regulars since Rosa. But the failure to address that guest character's murder leaves a sour taste - A shame, because this good episode would otherwise be a quietly superb one.

Rating: 7/10. But probably would have been a "9" without that single, severe misstep.

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