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) s13e04 – Village of the Angels

Most of this episode—save a brief appearance from rubber masked villain Rochenda Sandall—is quite good. Not just the best episode of the season so far (though it’s handily the best episode of the season so far), but an actual good episode.

Doctor Jodie Whittaker is solo in late sixties small village England, trying to stop the Weeping Angels from getting lost-in-time Annabel Scholey for their nefarious reasons. Sure, there’s some tedious stuff explaining why the Angels want Scholey and how it ties into Whittaker’s lost history arc, plus the rules for the Angels are a bit loose here. I mean, they have the same rules as always, but the episode seemingly forgets them from time to time to move the plot along.

But it’s a compelling episode. Whittaker and Scholey are a lot better together than Whittaker has been with her regular companions this season. Whittaker’s relationship with Mandip Gill is on its way for another hard talk because Whittaker’s still lying to her, and then John Bishop is just around. Though when Gill and Bishop team up to help the villagers search for missing ten-year-old Poppy Polivnick, it pretty much just works. Like Gill and Bishop have fine chemistry opposite one another. You wouldn’t be able to tell when they’re hanging off Whittaker.

Whittaker met Scholey in the first episode of the season when Scholey knew Whittaker (and Gill), but they didn’t know her, which ought to make everyone chill out a little because the only explanation for that disconnect is they’re going to survive this adventure for Scholey to again see Whittaker in the future. I think. It’s timey-wimey, who knows. Plus, the “Flux,” which destroyed most of the universe or whatever, didn’t affect Earth’s history. At least not since they did something, but then the rubber mask villains did something and then….

Doesn’t matter. Unraveling it distracts from the strong episode, which has Whittaker and Scholey fortifying in amusing old professor Kevin McNally’s house to survive the Angels.

Then Gill and Bishop are trying to find Polivnick, which leads to some big twists and turns and generally engaging television.

And Thaddea Graham’s a lot better this episode than last time. She’s traveling the Flux-ed universe in search of Jacob Anderson. That storyline is the easy least of the episode, but it’s not terrible. I mean, it’s a definite improvement (until the end) over before.

The writing’s better—this time Chris Chibnall has Maxine Alderton helping him in addition to the plot not being a series of tropes and pop culture steals—and it’s easily Jamie Magnus Stone’s best direction of the season.

The end’s wonky, but it’s a much better-than-lately forty-five minutes getting there.

Doctor Who (2005) s13e01 – The Halloween Apocalypse

Jodie Whittaker’s lame-duck season gets off to an inglorious start. It’d be inglorious no matter what—it’s Whittaker’s last season—but there’s an added dig with the next series being outside the BBC’s control or something. Sadly, instead of going out with a bang, writer Chris Chibnall, whoever hired the effects companies, and director Jamie Magnus Stone have decided it will be a struggle to even get it to a whimper.

After an awful “action-packed” opening with Whittaker and companion Mandip Gill escaping an actually very easy to win no-win scenario, the episode starts going through some of the old tropes. Whittaker lying to Gill? Check. Whittaker not remembering something because there have been seventy-bazillion Doctors, and she only remembers a handful of them? Check. End of the universe? Check. Familiar aliens? Check. Familiar aliens desperately used for effect? Check. There’s even a future companion (Annabel Scholey) running into Whittaker before they meet. It really doesn’t help Scholey looks like former companion Jenna Coleman and has a very similar name. I was wondering if they’d just recast the part.

And some of these tropes aren’t even new to Whittaker’s “Who.” I’m pretty sure last season was Gill being mad at Whittaker for lying to her most of the time too. There’s a quick mention of the departed Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole, who apparently took all the heart with them when they left, but most of the companion stuff is setting up new guy John Bishop. He’s a Liverpool jingoist with a heart of gold, alternating between giving free tours in the Liverpool museum and working at a soup kitchen (even though he doesn’t have any food on his own shelves). He figures in coincidentally, with the bad guy who was after Whittaker at the open—Craige Els, whose alien costume reveal is one of the episode’s few smiles–kidnapping him from planet Earth.

Only Els’s motives turn out to make most of the twists involving the character, including the opening attempt to execute Whittaker, nonsensical. To be fair, I didn’t realize the giant plot hole was a massive plot hole until after the episode was over because I was too busy concentrating on the apparent season nemesis, played by Sam Spruell. I don’t think he gets a name in this episode because Whittaker doesn’t remember him, but he’s the Red Skull with Thanos’s zapping powers. They didn’t spend any money on the costumes—some of the masks are dollar store cheap or the big effects sequences requiring composite shots. Still, they did get an okay app to do the Thanos disintegration effect, which Spruell uses on various people throughout the episode.

Spruell’s got a nice and silly backstory—he’s been imprisoned from the start of time at the end of the universe (odd the Doctor didn’t run into him at the end of the universe a few seasons ago)—and it reminds of Star Trek V, which is the second time “Who”’s leaned on that Trek. Of course, they already did an imprisoned Satan years ago, just as ostensibly oblivious to the source material.

But this episode also ups the ante with a Star Trek: Generations “nod.” There’s a destructive force moving through the universe, destroying everything in its path. The only one who can stop it is a boy named Bastian Bux—wait, wait, whoops, NeverEnding Story. It’s not the Nothing, it’s not the Nexus, it’s the Flux, which is also this season’s subtitle.

Flux, not Not the Nothing, Not the Nexus, It’s the Flux, which is too bad because it’s a better title. “Who”’s something of a hopeless property, but it’s off to an even worse start than usual. Especially since the episode very intentionally doesn’t give Whittaker or Gill anything to do.