Doctor Who (2005) s13e06 – The Vanquishers

What a lackluster conclusion. There’s actually a bunch of good stuff, including a triplicated Jodie Whittaker they should’ve been doing since the cliffhanger on the first episode. Still, as the finish to “Doctor Who vs. The Flux,” it’s minimally successful.

The resolution with rubber mask supervillains Sam Spruell and Rochenda Sandall is lousy, and then the hook is exactly what you’d expect anyway. It’s Whittaker’s last season as the Doctor, and of course, the villains know to threaten her with not being regenerated. They’ve been doing it since David Tennant was on the show. It’s been ten years of it. Blah.

There’s some really good stuff with guest star Jemma Redgrave, who hasn’t been on since Peter Capaldi. She and Whittaker have excellent chemistry—when the episode beats Bechdel, it beats Bechdel—only it’s Whittaker’s farewell lap. Maybe they should’ve introduced Redgrave earlier. In Whittaker’s reign, not in this season. Though, in this season too. They could’ve halved this “event” and had something.

There’s some good stuff with John Bishop, who just needed character development away from Whittaker to get into the right zone as a companion. Mandip Gill has decent material throughout until to have a thankless conclusion.

The “Flux”-specific companions all get some final arcs and farewells, with Craige Els, Jacob Anderson, and Thaddea Graham set for an obnoxious spin-off. The good work is from Kevin McNally and Annabel Scholey, who get thankless conclusions too. Scholey’s finish doesn’t even make sense for the timeline, but, whatever most of the universe is destroyed, so does it really matter.

The Sontaran villains are only good compared to Craig Parkinson as the pointless guest human villain. There are way too many qualifications on a way too long, way too thin storyline. Especially since the deus ex machina gives way to an even more effective deus ex machina, they could’ve obviously used. It’s terrible plotting from writer Chris Chibnall, who wasted full episodes of the season on nonsense.

A quarter of the episode plays like a Star Wars 1977 homage, like the BBC finally gave “Doctor Who” to do the riff on it they’d been planning since… 1977. There is some decent CGI work, though. Surprisingly good for the show. Even if the green screen compositing is still lousy.

But the three Whittakers—interacting with different sets of companions, friends, and foes in different times—is possibly the best Whittaker has done when it hasn’t been one of her companions holding up the show. It’s a shame it took them until now to figure out what to do with the character. Still, since Doctors Who are always temporary, it’s hard to get any character development going until they face their imminent recasting.

It’s a real shame they wasted so much of Whittaker, Gill, and Bishop’s limited time remaining on this six-part nonsense. Writer and showrunner Chiball stretched an okay three-parter (it’d have been better in two) way too far with way too little reward.

Doctor Who (2005) s13e05 – Survivors of the Flux

“Doctor Who” has been around for almost sixty years, but its plot reveals are recycled plot points from last summer’s popular entertainment. This episode opens with a terrible CGI sequence as we find out what happens to Doctor Jodie Whittaker after she gets turned into a Weeping Angel statue.

Nothing, it’s just carbonite to transport her to meet She Who Remains (Barbara Flynn, who appeared in a quick ominous cameo earlier this season). There Whittaker finds out everything she knew about the Time Lords and the Universe was wrong (again). Flynn runs the anti-Federation, called the Division, which breaks the Prime Directive to change species’ evolutions for the Time Lords’ purposes. Oh, and Flynn has a secret identity important to Whittaker’s history.

Only not really.

I mean, sure, technically, but at most, it’s Whittaker’s “history” from last season. But the weightiness of it is more from this season, like three episodes ago. Writer Chris Chibnall doesn’t even try to get away with the recently introduced fluff; instead, he relies on Whittaker and Flynn to make the scenes effective and then—since Flynn’s playing a caricature—it ends up being all on Whittaker.

Who’s fine. It could be a lot worse. It will be a lot worse. Chibnall actually manages to hold on to the narrative cheapness until the end of the episode. Well, the most narrative cheapness. There’s a bunch throughout.

Starting with companions-lost-in-time Mandip Gill, Josh Bishop, and Kevin McNally, who are much better without Whittaker. They’re trapped in 1905, where “Doctor Who” continues its British jingoist timeline where no one was racist or sexist and instead thinks Gill’s wonderful. They’ve been trapped in the past for three years, and this episode has them figuring out how to get back to the future. It’s literally something they should’ve figured out on the second day. Their adventures are kind of Indiana Jones, but with a lot of colonialism thrown in. Like, do the British not see themselves?

Anyway.

There’s also some stuff with returning mawg Craige Els, who’s no more charming than before. Not even after finding out he’s thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years old or whatever. He’s got a couple tasks this episode, including dragging down Thaddeus Graham. Then Jacob Anderson’s off doing something too.

Craig Parkinson’s back—he was a racist future villain in another episode this season. Now he’s just in the British government in the late twentieth century, where they reward racist villains. Nice cameo from Robert Bathurst; I, unfortunately, cannot remember his “Downton” nickname. But having, you know, good actors cameo makes you wonder why they don’t hire more of them.

It’s a better episode than most this season, but solo writer Chibnall really should’ve brought back his co-writer from the last episode. There’s only so much Gill, Bishop, and McNally being charming can cover for and the episode finds that limit way too quickly.

Doctor Who (2005) s13e03 – Once, Upon Time

One of the reasons it’s easier to look at this season of “Doctor Who” through the lens of previous sci-fi is just talking about the new season of “Doctor Who” is boring. And narratively cheap. Chris Chibnall’s script this time uses two major manipulative devices just to get it across the finish line, and it’s literally about all the series bad guys taking over the universe. Even with the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Angels, it’s a snoozer.

The episode opens with a title card—“Bel’s Story”—and then we meet Bel, played by Thaddea Graham. She’s on one side of the galaxy, post-Flux, trying to get to the other. She’s got a long-lost love to reunite with, and her only friend is a Tamagotchi. Now, it turns out the episode will be all about two Flux events, with Graham in one of them, but the episode hinting she’s in the other one. Would it be better if she were in the other one? Who knows, but it wouldn’t be as dull. It’s really dull, real rote, once Chibnall does the big reveal.

Though I guess the special effects on Graham’s spaceship journey are better than anywhere else. When Jodie Whittaker’s stuck in the time stream—she’s unstuck in time, we’ll get to it—the special effects are of the “oh, they’re supposed to be bad” quality. Sort of like the villains’ rubber masks. We also find out the bad guys are called “The Ravagers” this episode, which is definitely from Guardians of the Galaxy but I think the term’s been used at DC Comics too. It also doesn’t describe the villains well, like trying to imagine them sitting around and coming up with that name for themselves. The bad guys are mad because there’s a planet Time, which the Doctor apparently helped create then forgot.

No mention of the Time Lords this episode, like Chibnall’s only allowed to mess with canon so much before they hit the reset button at the end of the season.

The heroes are all unstuck in time. Whittaker, Mandip Gill, John Bishop, and Jacob Anderson. Whittaker’s got the ostensible A plot, about the first time the Flux happened, where she isn’t exactly herself, and she’s actually not remembering things right, but it’s suitable for reveals. Her team looks like Gill, Bishop, or Anderson, but we soon find out they aren’t actually those people, and it’s not the future; it’s the past. We also meet Barbara Flynn, who’s very ominous, and you expect her to wink at the camera and joke about being the “Master of Her Domain” or something.

Anyway, Whittaker’s portion of the episode looks like someone really liked the apocalypse epilogue in Zach Snyder’s Justice League. Or at least some of the CGI backdrops. So many lousy CGI composites in this episode. So many.

We get Anderson’s origin story, involving future white people still being racist. Gill fills in as other characters Anderson is misremembering and has the most acting work in the episode. It’s admirable work from Gill, though her actual character gets the shaft. Damsel in distress stuff when she gets it. Bishop’s got a busy work plot to make it all about saving a different damsel for him.

The cliffhanger’s effective at least, but they’re really sending Whittaker out with a lackluster finale. Especially when we find out she shouldn’t even be in the episode; she’s stealing someone else’s place. The whole thing is an eyeroll.