The Doctor is on the trail of Karvanista – but what is the Flux?

Spoilers

I think it’s going to be very hard to review this six part Doctor Who serial without spoilers but for those who are determined to read about it before watching the episode, suffice it to say that Chris Chibnall sets a lot of plates spinning, stretching across time and space, throws a number of familiar monsters into the mix, as well as introducing some new ones… and finds time to introduce us to John Bishop’s new character, Dan. How successful the episode will be seen in future I suspect will be judged by how the series plays out, and it’s certainly chaotic – we jump around time and space with a lot of apparent non sequiturs.

Proper spoilers after this.

The sound mix doesn’t do the episode any favours: there are a lot of key bits of dialogue that get lost beneath the explosions and dramatic music. Those of us who’d hoped that the revelations of The Timeless Children might be glossed over may have missed the reference to Karvanista being a member of the Division (the mysterious organisation threaded through Series 12 and to whom the two jailers in the Doctor’s first ‘mindmeld’ belonged)… it’s certainly something that’s put to one side once the Earth is in danger. The idea of there being one of Karvanista’s species responsible for each human on Earth is a fun one, and after years of cat people on the show, it’s good to get a canine… even if there are more than a few resemblances to both Chewbacca and, perhaps more to the point, John Candy’s Barf from Spaceballs.. I’m rather surprised the multifarious haters on the net haven’t already been drawing the comparisons.

The pre-credits sequence is clearly designed to throw us into the middle of the action but also throws up its own queries once we know who Karvanista is – why condemn Yaz alongside the Doctor, given her race? The effects do feel rather too similar to the 1980 Flash Gordon at times here – although the Flux itself works well.

There are a lot of characters – we’ve got someone pursued by a Weeping Angel (and that sequence was very effective and Halloween scary) as well as a large number of others who are killed quite graphically. There’s a villain who’s ready for another round with the Doctor, but of whom she recalls nothing (and that is a trope that could get very old very quickly!) The scene in 1820 Liverpool felt rather shoehorned in, given how little is made of it in the rest of the episode, and you can’t help but feel that it’s only come this early to give the “201 years later” link – in fact, there’s a bit of an Eric Saward feel to parts of this, in that we meet people who feel at more than one remove from the Doctor and companion.

There’s scope here for a prequel novel set between Graham and Ryan’s departure and the start of this, showing the way in which Yaz has changed – not least being a former policewoman now. The contrast of her confidence and Dan’s newbie status works well, and Mandip Gill and John Bishop look like making a good team. Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor feels more commanding than before, more trying to be in control of events than having them control her.

Verdict: A great deal going on – will it be a load of sound and fury signifying nothing? Time, as they say, will tell. 7/10

Paul Simpson