CONTAINS SPOILERS

Mr Chibnall’s opus culminates as the Flux’s various plots end in a flurry of recycled ideas and unanswered questions. In an extra-long finale, did the Doctor uncover her past, or open a can of worms?

Disparate plots are a running theme of this series, and the finale is absolutely no exception. Foiling last week’s Division based cliffhanger by… darting out of the way (if only Awsok/Techteun had thought of that), the Doctor starts the episode being taunted by Swarm and Azure, now in possession of her fob watch and all the Doctor’s memories of previous incarnations as a Division employee. It strikes me as odd that Swarm and Azure have so much knowledge of the Doctor and her former career, given that they were enemies of the organization and were locked away for aeons prior to a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, Yaz, Dan, Jericho and Joseph Williamson are in the middle of a Sontaran invasion in the tunnels under Liverpool with no escape. Thankfully one of JW’s mystery doors holds an unspeakable terror behind it, and opening it rids the extended Tardis team of the Sontaran threat, while another leads back to 2021 with the bonus of ex-UNIT head Kate Stewart, who’s I assume has been lurking down there since her house was blown up last week. So far, so Flux.

The Doctor eventually finds out Swarm and Azure’s grand plan which is to use Division to ‘play’ with the Universe, utilizing The Flux’s cataclysmic effects to repeat the Universe’s last moments over and over and enjoy the associated pain and suffering therein. The Doctor’s going to get a sneak peek of this, as Azure briefly opens the fob watch, but rather than returning her memories, it brings the Doctor back to the greyscale twisted house she stood under briefly in episode 3, explained by the Ravagers as containing all the Doctors missing memories (this is new – usually the memories come flooding back?). Swarm starts to disintegrate the memory house, therefore the Doctor herself, before undoing the disintegration, much to the Doctor’s anguish. It’s a suitably ambitious evil plot for these protagonists, but it’s an empty threat overall and even the Doctor seems more peeved by them than terrified. Obviously, she’s going to stop them and thanks to a handy little McGuffin, the Doctor just about escapes Swarm’s deadly touch and appears to splinter into three separate Doctors – one with Yaz and crew in Liverpool, one with Karvinista and Bel in Earth’s orbit in the Lupari shield and one remaining on Division with the baddies. Three Doctors – not the first time we’ve seen this in NuWho but unfortunately this time one of them isn’t the fabulous Donna Noble, more the pity.

To do the main threads of the story justice, let’s examine each, individually, and meet up at the end (just like the review for episode one, this feels like the only way to decipher the messy episode structure this series has revelled in).

Let’s start with the Sontaran’s, who make a surprise return this week in slightly more menacing fashion, but they’re just as easy to defeat. Their plan, facilitated by the Grand Serpent and his largely pointless years-long infiltration of UNIT, is to use the orbiting Lupari shield to hide on Earth from the Flux and offer sanctuary via an alliance with the Doctor’s other big enemies, Cybermen and Daleks. This is a rouse, however, to kill three birds with one stone – overwhelm the Flux by feeding it the massed armies of the Daleks and Cybermen leaving them alive, with dominion over the ruined universe. This sort of grand plan makes sense for the Sontaran’s, given their reputation for military might. They do flex their villain muscles quite effectively in the episode, mercilessly killing the Lupari and leaving Karvinista as the last of his species (we’ve heard that one before). It’s unfortunate then that their penchant for chocolate bars is the beginning of the end for the potato-like soldiers, who don’t appear to be able to shake being the butt of the joke in NuWho.

Their plan is foiled, not by a vengeful Karvinista, but by the Doctor herself, who leaves them, along with the Cybermen and Daleks, to the ravages of the Flux without offering an out, effectively committing a big old genocide of her greatest enemies. Oops. The plan was simple enough – get on board the Sontaran ship, put the shields down and let the Flux deal with the lot of them. While that successfully dispatches the baddies, the Earth is still exposed, so Passenger is used to swallow the Flux in it’s cavernous housing, something it potentially could have done a while back, had it not been used for nefarious kidnapping purposes by Swarm and Azure (and just wait until you hear who comes up with that plan).

Meanwhile, the Doctor’s split into three individual Doctor’s remains baffling. It was never made clear if she was physically in three places simultaneously or was it her consciousness in each place? It seems to depend on what was required at the time, but it did allow her to be a part of all the main adventures in the episode. That’s just as well, as her input was crucial to the success of every activity which led to the (almost) bloodless conclusion. We’ve had multiple versions of one Doctor operating together before, but unlike RTD’s explanation of multiple Doctor versions, which was seeded for two whole series before coming to fruition, there isn’t a specific reason given as to why the Doctor splits into three, other than sheer convenience. There was the inevitable flirting between Doctor’s, no one in NuWho can see themselves and not be instantly smitten, but, oddly, one of the Doctors seemed to take charge over another and none of the amassed group appeared to question the situation much, even when she made ‘Contact’ with her selves which must have looked odd.

Kudos for some Yaz and Doctor work this week – the Doctor gave an actual apology for being a bitch to Yaz for the last five episodes and there was a noted elevation of Yaz’s position as a companion – as opposed to Dan or the others – something she’s deserved all series. An interesting aside was the conversation between the Doctor and Karvinista on board the Sontaran ship, where it’s discovered that Karvinista is not only physically incapable of speaking about the Doctor’s past thanks to a deadly neural implant, but also he was once the Doctor’s companion, an unexpected revelation which explains his anger and unwillingness to cooperate all series. Unfortunately, this isn’t mined for any emotional depth or development.

Also on board the Sontaran ship is the Grand Serpent, now demoted to Sontaran lacky having aided their plans to shield himself from the Flux (we assume). He does however have his torture chamber on board (the mind boggles), where he strings up the Doctor and attempts to dispatch her using his reptilian magic – this doesn’t work obviously, and he’s neutralized incredibly easily by the Doctor’s sonic and Vinder and his gun. His eventual fate, left on an “oxygenated rock” in deep space, is an odd outcome for a Master-like villain who never reached his potential.

Claire makes a return, volunteering to go onboard the Sontaran ship with Jericho to act as psychic conduits to work out when the Flux will hit. Claire has companion potential and it’s been mentioned a few times that her psychic abilities are special, so surely that’s reason enough to bring her back for a proper adventure? This brings us to the episode’s attempt at an emotional gut-punch, Jericho’s untimely demise as a victim of the Flux on board the Sontaran ship. His own fault, displaying epic butterfingers by literally throwing his transporter ring across the room rather than just touching it as instructed. His final words – “What an awfully big adventure”, are not bad, and had we spent more than two episodes with him, it may have had the desired effect.

Bel and Vinder play their respective parts but fall to the wayside while the plots rumble on, reuniting eventually and playing no larger part in the story than being star crossed lovers which will anger the Whoniverse who had them pegged as the Doctor’s parents. It’s Kate Stewart that draws the shortest straw here – she has about three scenes in the episode and isn’t a major part of any grand plan, which is a shame for the character who has a lengthy history with the Doctor and sidelines any UNIT involvement. Finally, Dan contributes very little to this episode. He has a brief reunion with Diane, who gets lengthy sequences this episode having been trapped in Passenger since episode one and has somehow gained a full knowledge of not only how to escape from but also to use Passenger to defeat the Flux (yes, it’s her idea, she literally defeated the Flux), but that’s about it for old Dan, who’s been noticeably sidelined for the final three episodes of the series.

We reach our finale with the Doctor’s recombined and once again facing Swarm and Azure. They’re going to offer the Doctor as a sacrifice to Time – this is the personification of Time, who is made up of and responsible for the blue dots we’ve seen murdering people previously. Taking the form of Swarm, Time appears to be on the Doctor’s side, as he disintegrates both Swarm and Azure, who seems pleased to be ‘ascending’ and frustratingly don’t put up a fight dropping the Doctors fob watch as they go. Meanwhile, Time lets the Doctor go with an ominous warning, akin to past Doctor’s prophesy-like warnings about the end of her tenure in the Tardis. Karvinista, Bel and Vinder depart together, like an odd space sitcom cast in waiting.

We see Dan, back in the museum giving his unauthorized tours again (can someone arrest or employ him already?) and Diane, who sensibly tells Dan that she’s not interested in perusing a relationship with him. Perhaps her time in Passenger had more lasting effects than an innate knowledge of space physics? A dejected Dan gets a lifeline via the Doctor, who appears with Yaz to pick him up in the Tardis for places unknown. Yaz and the Doctor have a moment – the Doctor promises to let Yaz into her life more and romance is hinted at but never acted upon – before the Doctor takes the decision to hide her fob watch and her past lives deep inside the Tardis and to never tell her where it is. Unless she really asks. Whatever that means.

We find ourselves at the end of the series in a much-changed universe. The Flux is defeated, Division is gone, Ravagers Swarm and Azure are vanquished. But as well as that, much of the universe has been destroyed with whole worlds and species wiped out and humanity has been changed. The massed armies of the Sontaran’s, Cybermen and Daleks have been eradicated and the Lupari species, soul bonded to every human on Earth, are dead. Doctor Who now operates in a post-apocalyptic universe – there was no big red undo button pressed so the damage inflicted throughout the series, including on Earth by the Sontaran’s, should still be felt by all living things. Division, a huge part of the Doctors unknown history, is now absent from the universe and without their controlling nature, what effect will that have on life as we know it? Heck, Dan’s house is still shrunk to miniature size, where will he heat his soup now? Given all this, I’m a little surprised that Liverpool Museum is operating under normal opening hours, to be honest. And I’m surprised that the Doctor isn’t hell-bent on undoing this damage and getting back what was lost.

It was a rough ride, six episodes of ambitious storytelling which gave us some relative highs and some very low lows. Chibnall’s attempt to build an extended narrative across six episodes feels unnecessarily lofty – other showrunners have managed to do this while at the same time telling episodic stories and including dollops of character development – something that was sorely missing from this series. My feelings about Dan stem from bad development – his consequence-free ending just cements his position as an unnecessary addition to the team, at the cost of an existing companion. Yaz’s position as a chief companion was somewhat reinstated by the end of the series, but she was on the sharp end of the Doctor’s tongue more than once, which felt unnecessary given the depth of their apparent friendship.

There was never a shortage of ideas, but the tactic of throwing them all at the viewer to see what sticks is simply poor storytelling and makes me wonder what they thought the audience wanted to see. We exit the series with an extended, albeit severely damaged universe, only without answers to most of the questions raised by The Timeless Child arc. We were already familiar with the concept of multiverses thanks to RTD’s stories, so that wasn’t exactly a revelation, but will the position of Division, floating between the universes and now manned by a single Ood, allow our universe to return to some sort of normality? The upcoming New Year special gives very little insight into any of that, but some Daleks did survive and are terrorizing people in a time loop, the concept of which I don’t completely hate (Groundhog Day is one of my favourite movies). I’ll be very interested to see if Chibnall tries to clean up after his Flux via the specials next year, or if he’s going to hope no one notices and walk away whistling innocently.

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