TV Review: Doctor Who: Flux

TV #86 of 2021:

Doctor Who: Flux

Doctor Who is a franchise that thrives on change, and so I have to credit soon-to-be-former showrunner Chris Chibnall for structuring this season as basically one single six-episode story, an experiment in serialization the likes of which the show hasn’t attempted since maybe Trial of a Time Lord back in 1986. It doesn’t always work, and in fact, I found the first hour woefully overstuffed and chaotic, at least on an initial viewing. (Perhaps it will fare better on a rewatch when I already know the shape of the larger plot and don’t have to wait a week in between installments.) But the rest is a degree stronger, and the ambition throughout is fantastic to see. Although it’s hit or miss overall, there are moments in this abbreviated run that absolutely deliver on all its potential.

Granted, it’s a little disappointing for offering one of those premises that goes so big you understand well before the end that it won’t have any lasting continuity impact — future writers aren’t going to accept that almost all the universe has been destroyed when they can undo that with a line or two of technobabble or simply ignore the development altogether — but I’m glad it follows up somewhat on the previous momentous reveals about the Doctor’s early incarnations, instead of leaving that explosive topic dormant. It’s the Division stuff that seems likely to stand out when we look back on this period later, rather than the Flux itself or the skull-faced baddies with their vague mission and nebulous talk of time.

Whenever the program slows down and remembers that it can be about people with real legible emotions and not just cool-sounding yet empty sci-fi buzzwords, the narrative soars. That’s what makes Karvanista’s and Yaz’s respective last scenes with the Doctor so touching, but the companions’ easy dismissal of being stranded on earth for a few years (!) fall flat. It’s why Vinder and Bel light up the screen each time we see them searching through ruins for one another, while none of the exposition about reality’s fate in general ever registers as particularly significant. I don’t even care that much that the Flux devastation lingers on, except to idly wonder whether the three specials next year will pick up that train before the Doctor’s regeneration and Russell T. Davies’s triumphant return.

As a whole this has still probably been my favorite of the Jodie Whittaker series, and that star actress remains a charmingly dorky delight in her line readings and other acting choices. But the unevenness in plot and tone is keeping me from embracing it quite as fully as its higher aims ought to deserve.

[Content warning for genocide and gore.]

★★★☆☆

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