Aw, Brilliant, It's Doctor Who Headcanon, 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 of writing a more progressive series. I like the idea of the companions. But ... it took me years to be 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 never quite  figures out who she is, which didn't work when Moffat/Capaldi tried it for a single season 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. And I'm glad through three full seasons, I was finally able to get ten episodes that I enjoyed watching. Even if it took until the final episode to reach that number.

Sometimes a Doctor's best companion is themself.

Season 12: Flux
(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)
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 messages 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)
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. 
 

Serial 4 : Spyfall
(13, Yasmin, Ryan, Graham, The Master)
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)

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, Fugitive Doctor, 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, 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 Russell 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.


Episode 10: Power Of The Doctor
(Ah, ah, ah, spoilers.)

To say I was worried about the ending of Chibnall's reign as Doctor Who scribe would be a massive understatement. I don't enjoy his dialogue or his inability to take parts of a story and tie them into a conclusion. I don't even expect him to make satisfying conclusions, I just want him to make an ending that doesn't make me want to hurl a laptop across the room.

And he did!

Oh, this is a horrible mess of a story with too much going on, and a lot of things seeming like random fan service. But at least it's fun. There are characters who pop up in this episode who haven't been on the show IN 57 YEARS. No other show can do that. Toss in your Daleks, your Cyberpeople, whacky Master, and the daftest regeneration of a Doctor since David Tennant regenerated into David Tennant, and you at least know that you've definitely watched an episode of Doctor Who, and not some generic knockoff.

And while this wasn't the female-centric episode that I wanted (I posited an entire season of Whittaker's Doctor along with Clara, River Song, CyberBill, Kate Stewart, Ashilde/Me, and Missy inside the Diner TARDIS before Moffat threw a bunch of those characters out the widow), it made some awesome choices, allowing some classic characters to get well-deserved closure. 

It's a better multi-Doctor finale than I imagined or hoped for, even if it was, again, kind of an uneven mess. But for Chibnall's run? This was probably his third best episode after "Fugitive Of The Judoon" and "Eve Of The Daleks". It was 100000000000000000% better than "Flux".