13.25: Once, Upon Time

In which Doctor Who gets Restless.

It perhaps doesn’t say *great* things about Flux that I’m only a handful away from finishing this three and a half year journey, and the next two are my favourites of the season, and I’ve accidentally stopped for 27 days without meaning to. Anyway, might as well get on with this:

Broadcast: November 2021

Watched: September 2022

“Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in my reflection?”

I love the idea of doing a character episode. I can see why Chibnall loves it, too (it saves money on guest cast, allows the regulars to have some fun, etc). But the plot mechanic used to get us to it, the time force being released and the characters being dropped into their timestreams something something, is complete and utter nonsense. (Is this meant to be same sort of thing has happens to Clara in Name...?) It is also very, very Chibnall not to even try to integrate the character stuff into actual plot, and just to stop everything for an episode so we can do it instead.

Given all of that... it works far better than it should. The threads, in descending order of interest:

1. The Doctor basically finds herself stuck in her own past, like one of those weird meta episodes of Quantum Leap. There are points where you can definitely tell our Doctor is saying the Fugitive Doctor’s lines. Also, in contrast to the last episode, this scene looks cheap as shit: honestly, those rocks might as well be the backdrop in a panto, or something with William Hartnell in it. 

2. Bel’s story (more travel by caption, this time interstellar), is really nicely done, but raises questions that won’t be answered about what exactly the Flux is. There are also questions to be asked about how she knows so much about the workings of the universe, and where she found her ability to wipe out a cyber army like some kind of hyper Rory.

All that said, call me soppy, but the revelation she’s talking to Vinder’s unborn baby genuinely got me, both in 2021 and this time.

3. Meanwhile, Dan’s dreamed date feels a lot like the Alex Garland novel The Coma, or maybe actually Ace’s dream in Timewyrm: Revelation. I like the way we get a tour of the big sights of Liverpool. And then he finds out that the villains have Diane, oh no. I do like his silly “We’re going to stop you” bit, like he knows he’s a companion now despite having known the Doctor for about an hour and a half.

4. Elsewhere, Yaz remembers police work, boringly, and also playing computer games. The angels in the computer game is a brilliant conceit. So is making the fact that it’s clearly not Yaz’s family flat a plot point (oh, it’s the future, or something). 

5. Least interesting is Vinder’s story, both the staging and contents of which are obvious and boring, but Anderson is a likeable enough actor to fill some of the gaps.

But it’s pretty well done, and I’m a sucker for stories we haven’t done before (at least in Who: it’s Torchwood: Fragments, isn’t it? Or maybe Buffy: Restless). So, despite its massively structural problems, it’s one of my favourites of the season. 

Also, the cliffhanger is, “The angel has the TARDIS”. Cool.

Other things...

• I do like the attempted mirroring of 13’s friends with Fugitive Doctor’s team, but f*cking hell the dialogue in the Fugitive Doctor flashbacks is just endless infodump, so even if they weren’t stood next to some obviously fake rocks before a painted backdrop it’d suck, christ. Mind you, the way she defeats swarm is very cool and very Doctor-ish.

• Did Chibnall name the planet “Time” purely for the pun? Does he know how time or the Mouri work? My suspicion is not. I mean:

• “Here we are, still engaged in the Founding Conflict. There is no greater battle than this, the battle between Time and Space. And Time shall not lose. Time shall never surrender to Space. No planetary mass, however sophisticated, can imprison the force of Time. This planet, this construction, is not just a fallacy, not just futile hubris, it is heresy.” ...what? (I feel sorry for the poor sod who had to construct a “previously on” when even the writer can’t tell you what matters.)

• Hang on they capture both Swarm and Azure! That’s what’s going on in the Arctic, she’s in witness protection! She cooperated so gets some freedom! Well, that’s one inexplicable plot problem solved.

• Elsewhere, Tacteun (we don’t know its her yet) seems to suggest Division released the Ravagers to mess up Atropos and screw time, in the same way the Flux screws Space. If either of those were a meaningful concept, this would be more coherent than I thought.

• I do like Bel’s comment on the fundamental pointlessness of the daleks, cybermen and sontarans fighting over a broken universe.

• Dot Cotten/Craig Parkinson/the Grand Serpent is good enough and comes with enough baggage from other things that fact his character and motives are bullshit doesn’t really matter.

• Hang on, when does Vinder get Bell pregnant exactly, if he’s been on that isolated station long enough to file 20,000 reports?

• “What do you want?” “To reign in hell.” Oooh, hard.

• The Doctor is very snippy with Yaz this week. Trouble in paradise.

• I wish Jo Martin was the Doctor.