Doctor Who In Eleven Seasons, Season 12: Flux

If we know each other in real life, or if we are friends on social media, you know I am a huge fan of Doctor Who, in general. I'm critical of parts of it, but, for the most part, as long as I don't see  Mark Gatiss's name as the writer of an episode, I go into it with an open mind.

I was incredibly excited for the Thirteenth Doctor. I like Jodie Whitaker as an actor, and I enjoyed the first season of Chris Chibnall's Broadchurch (I haven't seen the other seasons).

I, uh. I don't love it. I love Jodie Whitaker as The Doctor. I love some of the risks they've taken in the interest in writing a more progressive series. I like the idea of the companions. But ... I haven't been able to finish an honest Twelfth Season comprised only of episodes that I like. Chibnall's take on the characters is Super Clunky. His companions are rarely given enough  time to be interesting, and his Doctor takes a whole season to figure out who she is, which didn't work when Moffat/Capaldi tried it a few years ago, and it didn't work for Chibnall/Whittaker.

But in November 2019, I started rewatching the modern Doctor Who episodes with my partner. And I used this series of blog posts as a guide. It's been great, and helpful. I had made some mistakes in episode selection when I created the original list, and we would watch a Not So Great episode, talk about why it didn't work, and then I'd find an episode that I'd previously left off, and update the list. I stand by the current incarnation of this list.

Except this post. This post will start off well, but it will get mired in continuity episodes, which I usually would skip out on except...there aren't enough episodes yet, so I needed to flesh them out.

This list may disappear almost entirely when Russel T Davies comes back, and, fingers crossed, returns the show to its previous glory. But for now, here's my suggesting for getting completely caught up with modern who, featuring the new awesome Doctor, her mediocre companions, The Best New Character In The 21st Century, and her inconsistent writing staff which is led by the worst showrunner in the sixty year history of the show.

Sometimes a Doctor's best companion is themself.

Season 12: The Timeless Child
(Jodie Whittaker, Jo Martin)

Episode 1: The Woman Who Fell To Earth
(13,  Ryan, Yasmin, Graham, Grace, Tim Shaw)
64 minutes

The Doctor: "Why are you calling me madam?"
Yasmin Khan: "Because… you’re a woman?"
The Doctor: "Am I? Does it suit me?"
Yasmin Khan: "What?"
The Doctor: "Oh yeah, I remember – sorry, half an hour ago I was a white-haired Scotsman!"
It's a whole new Doctor. This one, a goofy steampunk engineer is an absolute delight. She spends most of this episode trying to figure out who she is, and why some tooth-stealing alien is killing humans.


Episode 2: Demons Of The Punjab
(13, Yasmin, Ryan, Graham, Nani Umbreen, Thijarians)
50 minutes

As a favor to Yasmin, The Doctor and crew head to Partition era Pakistan to learn about Nani Umbreen (Yasmin's grandmother)'s past. Of course there are aliens involved. It's Doctor Who. But there are some great misdirects, interesting historical notes, and significantly less whitewashing than most Doctor Who historical episodes. While you may learn a lot, and there are certainly political notes, this feels more like a character driven story with political mesasages than a political statement that they wrapped a plot around. It is my second favorite episode of this season.


Episode 3: KERBLAM!
(13, Ryan,  Graham, Yasmin, Judy, Dan, Kerblam Deliverymen)
49 minutes

It's Amazon Dot Com in the future! Fewer humans. More robots. Less humanity. This was the first episode of Whittaker's reign that felt like a fun, classic Doctor Who scrape. 
 

Episode 4 : Spyfall
(13, Yasmin, Ryan, Graham, The Master,  Daniel Barton, The Kasaavin)
120 minutes

An alien race is killing international spies indiscriminately. The companions realize that they really don't know anything about The Doctor. The Master is back. The fictional version of Google is run by a truly evil fuck (no, not The Master). Plus important female historical figures serve as temporary companions when The Doctor is separated from her more boring, contemporary companions. The new Master is fantastic in this serial.


Episode 5: Nikola Tesla's Night Of Terror
(13, Yasmin, Ryan, Graham, Skithra)

There have been some great comics and stories about the two warring 20th century genius inventors: Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. Edison is, according to history, justifiably cast as the villain in most of these stories. Here, too. This is just a fun, one-off historical story, which have become rare as the 21st century of the show has matured.


Episode 6: The Fugitives Of The Judoon
(13, #?, Ryan, Graham, Yasmin, Jack Harkness, The Judoon)
50 minutes

Vinay Patel is far and away the best writer from Chibnall's era of Who. Having also written "The Demons Of Punjab", this episode, reintroduces The Judoon, introduces a new Doctor, and brings back a companion we haven't seen since the end of our Season 9. Everything about this episode is perfect. I loved it even before the returning companion. And well before the reveal of the new Doctor, but those other notes helped this episode climb to My Absolute Favorite Chibnall-era Who episode.


Episode 7: War Of The Sontarans
(13,  Yasmin, Dan, Swarm, Azure, Kavanista, Passenger, Vinder, Sontarans)
​
This is technically the second part of a six episode storyarc, but it's not only stronger than the first part, it's much more interesting if you haven't seen the first part. The Doctor and her companions (one of whom is new) have become unstuck in time and are locked out of the TARDIS. And history is unglued, as historical Earth events have been interspersed with familiar Doctor Who aliens. And several mysterious new lifeforms are also trying to fix the timeline.

Episode 8: Village Of The Angels
(13, Yasmin, Dan, Azure, Bel, Passenger, Weeping Angels)

When I started including the 2021 episodes in the continuity, I pulled out five not very good episodes from 2019 that led up to "The Timeless Child". I already wasn't enjoying Chibnall's run, but I thought Chibnall was an Idea Writer who wasn't good at execution.  There are many of them in comics. I can see their intentions and their world-building concepts, and their sense of characters but they lack the ability to translate that into dialogue and plotting. I thought that was Chibnall's flaw. He structured his entire second season of Doctor Who to answer a question posed in "The Brain Of Morbius", which was the first episode of this website's Season Three. It didn't need an answer, but it was an intriguing concept. It was just also a confusing mess. Chibnall writes like a fan of the series who lacks any understanding of what makes the show work. He's not an Idea Writer, he's a Fanfic Writer. I am hoping that when Russel T Davies takes over the show, the pre-credit teaser to the very first episode is an homage to Bobby Ewing's return to Dallas, and we find out it was all a fever dream? Whose? Jo Grant's Doctor. Let Davies give Grant a whole new back story who had a dream she was ... *a spoiler would go here* ...

I hope the series gets to a point where I can erase this episode, too. It's not very good, but it's significantly better than parts 1, 3, 5 and 6 of Flux, which are incoherent nonsense with a dull thud of a finish. There's at least a coherent plot in this episode, even if it is Incredibly Stupid and contains a reveal that falls somewhere between laughable and a solid reason to stop watching the show forever. Yes, this episode includes The Weeping Angels, and no it's not going to make you enjoy their presence.  

Episode 9: Eve Of The Daleks
(13, Yaz,  Dan, Daleks)

This whacky time loop episode with two human guest stars and Daleks is a perfect antithesis to the horrible clusterflux of the previous season. It's silly in an endearing way.

******

Alternate take:

When I started including the 2021 episodes in the continuity, I pulled out five not very good episodes from 2019 that led up to "The Timeless Child". Unfortunately, the Timeless Child was a horrible mess. It answered questions by posing dozens, if not hundreds more, most revolving around How Could A Capable Writer Think This Was Going To Be A Good Idea? "Flux" made "The Timeless Child" seem like a masterpiece. While The Timeless Child began with some really good episodes, "Spyfall" and "Fugitive Of The Judoon", and then deteriorated into a narrative stew concocted by an amateur Top Chef contestant who was given too many variables to play with, "Flux" began with a confusing mess, seemed to get a handle on it, and then completely fell apart in the service of End Of The Episode Cliffhanger Moments which are intended to be shocking, but are eye rollingly terrible. It's really a shame that Jodie Whittaker, who is a blast when given coherent scripts and a narrative purpose, has been wasted on what is easily the worst era in the history of the program. I feel worse for her than I do for Colin Baker, because she has to be saddled with misogynist fans who think the problem is diversity and having The Doctor portrayed by a woman, when the real problem is the show is being written by an incompetent white man with good intentions who just doesn't have the skill or talent to support his job as Showrunner.