Timey Wimey Business- a thread for Doctor Who

electricidad

Active member
Citizen
This episode suffered from being the episode that builds up to the 2021 finale. (Although not the season finale, as the specials in 2022 are still technically season 13.) The Doctor did a lot of "assessing the situation" in this episode. The Doctor spars verbally at Division; the companions do things more than a hundred years in the past; and a creep (The Grand Serpent) who has an even creepier snake alien infiltrates UNIT. Oh! And there was more stuff with the dog aliens.

I admit to caring more about Yaz, Dan and the Professor's adventures more than the Doctor's stand off. At least they had some forward motion. The Doctor drops an excellent speech toward the end of this episode--these are the kind of things Chibnall should have had her saying all along!--and we get another cliffhanger.

Some thoughts:

•Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is back! More next week, I guess?

•When the Doctor is pounding on the Weeping Angel hand, and yelling, "I'm blinking!" {chef's kiss}

•Wait a minute? What happened to the rogue Weeping Angel? Did she just leave? They made such a big deal out of her last episode, and now she just sneaks away?

•If you loved the Timeless Child stuff, this episode has more of it.

•Vinder and Bel. Those are the name of the star-crossed lovers who cannot reconnect. Will we find out they are actually The Doctor's real parents, or some plot twist along those lines that ties into the Timeless Child stuff? At this point, I'd bet money on it.

•Swarm and Azure sure like popping up in places, and announcing that all this is part of their evil plan. This--and dissolving people with their hands--is their super power. I don't remember their motivation. Are they destroying things and people, just because?

•The Sontarans have been kind of great this season. "War of the Sontarans" might be my favorite Whittaker-era episode.

•It's a pity we won't get a proper season with The Doctor, Yaz and Dan. The few moments this season those three were together, they were brilliant.

•I'm going to watch this episode again right before next week's Flux finale. There are A LOT of storylines going on, all at the same time. I found myself having to look up the names of Vinder and Bel, because, my God, there are a lot of storylines going on, all at the same time.
 

Kalidor

Supreme System Overlord
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
At the end of the previous episode it was said that the Angels were more interested in catching the Doctor so the rogue angel seems to have turned the Doctor in to be allowed to leave. Whatever the angels wanted in this context was determined by what the Division wanted so apparently the Division had no further interest in the rogue.
 

Monique

Guess whos back
Citizen
It looked like the rogue angle got caught anyways. Tecteun or "Awsok" in the subtitles showed an image of it saying something about having them. Seems like an abrupt dismissal of the plot point but that seems to be common in this 6 parter as stuff kinda just comes up and then poofs a minute later.

I don't really get why the Sontarians are back, but I also didn't really get the conclusion to their episode. They both got blown up in the past while simultaneously their ships were destroyed in the future un-making them from time due to the timewarp which would have lead them to never invading the past.. but now they are back for revenge.. with the same ships.. but outside the barrier instead of inside.. but also inside of time apparently.. Just feels like a lot of weirdness and given how much needs to be resolved in the last episode of the 6 parter probably something that either is going to suck up a lot of better used time or be resolved within minutes to move on to the main dish.
 

Rust

Slightly Off
Citizen
Yeah, for how much I was enjoying Flux at the start...I'm getting worn with it all now. The Timeless Child nonsense (THAT'S NOT HOW THE FOB WATCH WORKS, DAMMIT) is just nonsense. I'm operating under the assumption it'll be quietly ignored going forward the same way these kind of plot lines always have been in Who's history.

But Swarm and Azure...the air of mystery about them and their connection to the Doctor was interesting and they were all mysterious. Except now here at the finale...that's literally all they are. This is Bad Wolf if that particular plot point had actually called attention to itself prior to the finale. They aren't actually adversaries, they're just ciphers meant to build engagement and mystery except that's all they are. Meant to build engagement and mystery. There's no way I see the resolution of these guys being anything remotely satisfying.

I mean, this season's still been "Classic" Who in a way the show's sorely been lacking for the entirety of 13's run. But I'm not seeing any kind of satisfying payoff, even to the Timeless Child stuff and including the three specials yet to come.
 

Monique

Guess whos back
Citizen
Kinda where I am right now. I really found myself liking the first couple of Flux episodes and then I started to notice the patterns and how much extra stuff was being crammed in that didnt seem to really have room to be payed off or just dropped. That along with a lot of Chibnalls just.. gross retconning of stuff without any care for what it does to the story. Also why is the doctor so shocked about being between universes. Going between universes was a thing shes done in the past. Being in the space between universes is something timelords have done on many occasions. Its not.. its not new or shocking?

Also you can't.. you can't uncompress matter. Its not a zip file. You can compress matter.. it greatly alters said matter destroying what it used to be because you removed all the empty bits between atoms.. but you can't just.. decompress matter and restore a planet or person.. Also if they are compressing matter that should mean one Giant ass black hole not a bunch of floaty things eating up parts of planets. I mean.. I know its scifi and its doctor who but how in the world do you right "oh yeah this thing thats been done a lot is shocking, this thing that is absurdly not how anything works and infinitely more complicated is just at thing the doctor is sure can be done easily.

I mean its still better than what we've been getting but man. Chibnall really really does not give a jive about the property they have control over and the passing of the torch can't come soon enough. RTD was.. campy and had his own problems but even at their most nonsensical (looking at you 10 somehow transfering your DNA via the spire of the Empire State building) it was still somehow less.. stupid.
 

Princess Viola

Dumbass Asexual
Citizen
Honestly the one thing I've concluded after this week's episode is that Flux really needed more than six episodes because I can't imagine the conclusion being anything other than a mess, there's just too much stuff to resolve in a six-parter.
 

Rust

Slightly Off
Citizen
Chibnall really really does not give a jive about the property they have control over

Honestly, what worries me is the idea that they actually do, and what we're witnessing is fan fiction writ large. Someone who took in the subplot of Seven's tenure and desperately wanted that fleshed out in ways better left alone.

To put in a Transformers context, The Timeless Child stuff feels a lot like "What if Hot Rod hadn't gotten in the way?" stories. "Okay, but what if the Doctor WASN'T a Time Lord? But...the person who inspired the Time Lords!"
 

Cradok

Active member
Citizen
We've kinda known that since the Morbius Doctors showed up in The Timeless Children. And he's moved onto UNIT Dating now. This is what he is, what his Lore is all about, one giant fix fic for the stuff that bugged him as a teenager, now given the power to make that fic into 'canon'...

Oh, I've just realised, he's Who's equivalent to Curtis Saxon.
 

Kalidor

Supreme System Overlord
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
So I just flat out skipped episode 3 and half of episode 2 so maybe I missed something (I'm not going to waste my time watching them). Hopefully someone can help me out - Clair was introduced in the first episode saying that she knew the Doctor but they haven't met yet. Then at the end of the episode an Angel sends her back in time.

She already had a rogue angel in her (I assume) and then the Doctor met her in that guy's basement. So at what point did she get into the future to see the Doctor on the street to get sent back in time when they never met, but they did but it was when she was back in time before she got sent back in time?

"EX-PLAIN"
 

electricidad

Active member
Citizen
So I just flat out skipped episode 3 and half of episode 2 so maybe I missed something (I'm not going to waste my time watching them). Hopefully someone can help me out - Clair was introduced in the first episode saying that she knew the Doctor but they haven't met yet. Then at the end of the episode an Angel sends her back in time.

She already had a rogue angel in her (I assume) and then the Doctor met her in that guy's basement. So at what point did she get into the future to see the Doctor on the street to get sent back in time when they never met, but they did but it was when she was back in time before she got sent back in time?

"EX-PLAIN"
I get the feeling that they're going to use The Flux to brush off every plot hole this season.
 

Cradok

Active member
Citizen
Claire had a vision of the Doctor, and the Angel who hid in herher. she then encounters The Doctor in Liverpool, before being sent back to the past, and is there for two years before meeting The Doctor again.
 

Noip

I'll think of something later.
Citizen
I'm caught up. The writing is better far than anything Chibnall has produced previously, at least in my opionion. But I despise the Timeless Child plot completely and totally and all the better writing has not changed that.
 

Rust

Slightly Off
Citizen
Well that ended about the way I expected it to.

I'm not upset by it - it was good television, and decent Who. But for the stakes at play in the story itself I am left...whelmed.
 

Princess Viola

Dumbass Asexual
Citizen
So like
Is most of the universe just ******* gone? Obviously hoping the 2022 specials deal with that but it's a bit weird like 'Yeah we did it, we stopped the Flux we're all safe now except for all of the universe that was destroyed by it.'

Overall though I did enjoy it, probably a solid 7/10 to me.
 


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