Thirteenth Doctor Era
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Flux Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse
The One With… the grumpy dog alien.
The premiere of Series 13 and the first instalment of the six-part Flux story arc. Born out of production difficulties caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic, the arc resurrects a format previously used for seasons 16 and 23 of the Classic Series, which revolved around a single, extended story divided into multiple smaller, but interconnected, adventures. Unlike both of those seasons, this one features Chibnall as a writer or co-writer for every episode.
It's Halloween night, and all across the universe, strange things are happening. In the depths of space, the Doctor and Yaz chase after a hostile alien known as Karvanista, for reasons that the Doctor refuses to properly explain to her companion. On Earth, a man named Dan Lewis is about to discover that he's been targeted by alien forces. On a remote asteroid, an entity of unknown power is about to break free after eons of imprisonment.
And in the remote depths of space, the Flux — a force which poses an unimaginable threat to space and time — is beginning to spread out through the universe.
It's Halloween, everyone's entitled to a few good tropes...
- Alien Abduction: An unusually benevolent example of this trope, since the Lupari are planning a mass abduction of human beings in order to protect them from the Flux.
- Alien Geometries: The TARDIS, even more than usual, as some unexplained event is causing the doors on the inside to keep changing locations.
- Apocalypse How: The Flux represents, at minimum, a Class X, capable of utterly annihilating any planet that has the misfortunate of encountering it; given that characters refer to it as being a threat to the entire universe, it may represent a Class X-4 or higher.
- Apocalypse Wow: Vinder gets a front row seat as the Flux destroys several planets.
- Apologetic Attacker: The Doctor repeatedly apologizes to the TARDIS as she is hitting her with a hammer.
- Badass Boast: Subverted in the Batman Cold Open where the Doctor's bragging that Karvanista hasn't got the better of her is followed by a Reveal Shot of just how much of a pickle she and Yaz are in. They escape anyway though, so it's justified in the long run.
- Bait-and-Switch Character Intro: Dan is introduced to the audience giving a passionate speech to guests at the Museum of Liverpool about what an amazing city it is, suggesting he's a tour guide. After he's finished, Diane, an actual museum employee, walks up to him to escort him off the premises, and tells him that her boss is going to ban him if he tries a stunt like that again.
- Beast ManYaz: I need to see a man about a dog, that's all you said. But it turns out the man is a dog, and he's called Karvanista!
- Benevolent Alien Invasion: The Lupari fleet approaching Earth, and Karvanista's kidnapping of Dan, is all part of a plan to save the human race from the Flux.
- Berserk Button: Do not call Karvanista a dog, no matter how much he looks like one; and no matter what you do, do not, under any circumstances, bring up his mother.
- Canine Companion: Lampshaded by the Doctor, with her implying that humans are attached to dogs due to trace ancestral memory of their protectors, the Lupari.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with pretty much every faction facing one terrible scenario or another: Claire has been zapped an unknown amount of time into the past by the Weeping Angels, Diane has been pulled into an old mansion and finds herself in a water-filled room along with Swarm and his sister, the Sontarans are preparing to launch their bloodiest military campaign yet against the universe, Vinder has been forced to eject from his station and is now fleeing the Flux in an escape pod, and the Doctor, Yaz, Dan, Karvanista, his species, and the entire planet Earth are all staring down the full force of the Flux with no rescue in sight.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Justified when your rescue involves being kidnapped by an axe-wielding dogman who then proceeds to Booby Trap your house. Dan is a bit wary when Yaz turns up to save him as well, but you can hardly blame him after everything that's happened.
- Continuity Nod:
- When the Doctor's voice-operated handcuffs malfunction, she wonders if it's because she had a Scottish accent when she programmed them.
- One going back all the way back to 1988: Apparently, the Doctor and Yaz's first attempt to confront Karvanista involved Nitro-9, the explosives used by Ace.
- Cutting the Knot: The Lupari intend to abduct all of humanity and then organize their ships into a protective shell to resist the Flux. The Doctor instead transmits a new formation to surround Earth, accomplishing the latter without the need to abduct anyone.
- Dangerous Key Fumble: Even more so when a Weeping Angel is involved.
- Descriptively-Named Species: The Lupari's name is clearly derived from "lupine", meaning "wolf-like".
- Disorganized Outline Speech: The Doctor has two things to say to Karvanista... provided she isn't distracted by the flashing signal on the dashboard of his ship.
- The Dreaded: Swarm appears to be this, given that the Division has kept him imprisoned on an asteroid for what appears to have been billions of years, if the rumors of him having been locked up since the beginning of time are to be believed.
- Egging: Referenced. When Dan gets annoyed at a costumeless adult trick-or-treater and angrily turns him away, he sees the man carrying a box of eggs and warns him not to throw any at his house.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Doctor describes the Flux as a force that disrupts every particle, disobeying every law of time and space; in essence, the end of the universe itself made manifest. Visually it is very reminiscent of the Nothing from The Neverending Story. However, the Flux is more than just an apocalyptic force; it appears to have a will of its own, or at the very least is directed by something, because it actively chases the TARDIS.
- Empty Fridge, Empty Life: Dan's fridge and cupboards are empty when he was previously shown turning down an offer of food from the food bank he worked in, saying other people needed it more.
- Escape Pod: Vinder evacuates Observation Outpost Rose on one to escape the Flux.
- For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Because Karvanista attempts to abduct him on Halloween, Dan initially assumes his face is a costume and compliments him on how well-made it is. Karvanista later transmits data on the festival to the rest of the fleet, believing they can take advantage of it to hide in plain sight amongst the humans.
- Friend to All Children: Dan gives a bag of sweets to a child in a Halloween costume when she and her mother visit his food bank.
- Godzilla Threshold: The Doctor, cornered by the Flux and with the TARDIS not in working order, ends up crossing her own threshold: she willingly opens the console hatch that leads to the Eye of Harmony, exposing the Flux to pure vortex energy. It does pretty much nothing, to the Doctor's horror.
- Good All Along: It turns out that, while Karvanista may be something of a Jerkass, he and his species are not coming to invade Earth; in fact, they're coming to save it, since they know that the Flux is on its way and they plan to evacuate the population of Earth before it arrives.
- Good Is Not Nice: Karvanista's species, the Lupari, are the protectors of humanity, with Karvanista himself specifically assigned to protect Dan. He does this by chopping down his front door with an axe, kidnapping him and locking him in an electrified holding pen, and destroying his home with a trap he sets for the Doctor. As he puts it, he has to save Dan, but he doesn't have to like doing it.
- Have We Met Yet?:
- Claire approaches the Doctor, Yaz and the TARDIS and attempts to greet them, only to be met with confusion. She promises that they'll all meet again.
- Played for drama with Swarm, who has fought the Doctor before. The fact that he can remember their past battles, whereas the Doctor cannot, gives him the advantage—he knows what worked last time and what didn't, whereas the Doctor is starting from scratch.
- Heroic Dog: Downplayed. Karvanista is very dog-like in appearance, and his species, the Lupari, see themselves as humanity's protectors, with each member genetically bonded to an individual human. Based on Karvanista's behaviour, however, they're also a case of Good Is Not Nice, don't have to like the human they're bonded to, and don't have any qualms about destroying their property or kidnapping them.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Swarm lampshades the fact that Earth is celebrating Halloween while the Flux rips apart the universe, mockingly asking the Doctor, "Trick or treat?", during one of her visions of him.
- Human Aliens: Vinder looks human, but his scenes must be set in the present since they feature the same Flux event that threatens the Earth on Halloween 2021, so he's a Human Alien rather than a future human.
- In Medias Res: The episode begins in the middle of the Doctor and Yaz's hunt for Karvanista, with the two having been captured by the alien and trapped in a truly spectacular death trap that they have to break out of to escape.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Given that this episode is one out of half-a-dozen interconnected stories, there are a lot of lingering questions left over by the time the credits roll. Between the continuing mystery of the Division, Claire's subplot with the Weeping Angels, the underground construction in 1820, the Sontarans' imminent campaign of war, the strange malfunctions with the TARDIS, and whatever is going on with Swarm, it's left to the reader to puzzle out how the hell all of this connects to the ongoing story about the Flux.
- Kidnapped by an Ally: Dan being captured by Karvanista turns out to be this, as the seven billion members of his race coming to Earth have each been assigned to protect a human from the Flux by taking them from Earth.
- Last of His Kind: Karvanista is the last living Division agent the Doctor has been able to locate.
- Mind Screw: A police box starts growing from the floor of the console room, and somehow this is the door the Doctor, Yaz and Dan emerge from when entering from Karvanista's ship, despite the completely different angle and the doors opening differently.
- Noodle Incident: Yas took a gymnastics class on the planet Trapezium 7, coming out at the top of the class.
- No-Sell:
- The Flux manages to do this after being exposed to Vortex energy from the heart of the TARDIS, something that killed the Doctor's ninth incarnation (and very nearly killed Rose Tyler). Cue an Oh, Crap! from the Doctor.
- Karvanista's Jedi Mind Trick, to his annoyance.
- Oh, Crap!:
- As usual, when the Cloister Bell starts chiming, that's the signal for the Doctor to request her brown trousers.
- The Flux is scary enough, but the true moment when everyone has reason to be afraid is when it changes course to follow them.
- Outside-Context Problem: In a stark contrast to the Doctor's usual preparation for whatever threat the universe throws at her, she is left utterly baffled at the arrival of the Flux, a mysterious force tearing apart the universe at a fundamental level, which seems to have sprung up out of absolutely nowhere.
- Percussive Maintenance: The Doctor's attempts to fix the TARDIS's unexplained malfunctions appear to consist mainly of hitting it with a hammer.
- Phlebotinum Breakdown: Seemingly due to the Flux, the TARDIS is starting to become less reliable than usual. Something is leaking from the ceiling, the console room door keeps shifting locations in the interior, and the main console starts to need more than one good whack with a hammer for the ship to take off.
- Poor Communication Kills: Karvanista is introduced as a Malevolent Masked Man who says he's going to witness "the final hours of planet Earth". After being unmasked as a dog-like alien, it turns out that he meant the latter statement not as someone trying to cause it, but someone trying to save the planet. Given that he takes a while to get around to this explanation, the Doctor and Yaz nearly get themselves killed several times over trying to stop what they assume is an Alien Invasion.
- Remember the New Guy?: The Lupari are paired with humans so they have to protect us, yet they've never been mentioned before in the countless other times humanity was in danger.
- Sacrificial Planet: The Flux destroys at least three planets when it first appears.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Both Swarm and his sister, Azure, have been neutralized this way sometime in the past; Swarm in a forcefield on a desolate planet, while Azure has been Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can. Naturally, Swarm escapes during the episode and then frees Azure.
- Shout-Out: A wave of unstoppable universe-destroying energy? Sounds familiar.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Between Dan and Karvanista. Dan snarks at the fact a dog has kidnapped him, and Karvanista just rails at him for being an annoying human.
- Space Station: Observation Outpost Rose, where the Flux gets first observed.
- Stealth Pun: Karvanista waves his hand like a Jedi mind trick... almost lampshading that he looks like a Wookiee...
- Suggestive Collision: More subtext with the Doctor and Yaz falling into the TARDIS and landing on a mattress together, which the TARDIS has thoughtfully provided to absorb their impact.
- Tailor-Made Prison: Swarm begins the episode as the sole inmate of a prison which consists of him chained to a pillar and sealed inside an atmosphere-regulating forcefield.
- Unknown Rival: Swarm is a variant of this, given that he claims that he and the Doctor have clashed countless times across time and space; the Doctor has no memory of this, presumably because their memories of these events were wiped along with everything else that the Division took from them while covering up their past as the Timeless Child. For his part, Swarm doesn't even mind; he believes the anonymity gives him an advantage.
- Unwilling Suspension: The first scene of the episode has the Doctor and Yaz hanging upside down and handcuffed on an anti-gravity bar.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: The Sontaran commander and the psychic surveyor are old friends, but the commander mocks the surveyor for how old and disgusting he looks now.
- Vocal Dissonance: Karvanista is a very imposing canine-like warrior... who speaks with a heavy Northern accent.
- Weaponized Exhaust: The TARDIS isn't completely without weaponry as the Doctor has often stated; in times of dire emergency, the raw power of the Time Vortex can be unleashed from within the main console, which in the past has been shown to be enough to destroy anything. It's not quite enough this time, however.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The honeymoon period is definitely over for Yaz, as she calls the Doctor out on blatantly lying that she's fine, and obsessively hunting down Karvanista.
- The Worf Barrage: The Doctor tries directing a raw blast of time vortex energy right into the Flux. It does little, if anything, to slow it down.
- The World Is Just Awesome: Vinder appears to have been Reassigned to Antarctica on Observation Outpost Rose, but admits the view is wonderful. Likewise, when the Doctor throws open the TARDIS doors and says there's nothing there, Yaz and Dan can only disagree.
- You Have No Chance to Survive: The Batman Cold Open shows the Doctor and Yaz have managed to end up hanging by their heels above an ocean of boiling acid on a planet that's about to be engulfed by a red giant sun, with Karvanista's kill disks ready to intervene if they attempt to escape their predicament. And it's all the Doctor's fault, according to Yaz.
- Your Costume Needs Work: When Dan first meets Karvanista, he thinks he's a trick-or-treater.
NEXT CHAPTER: WAR OF THE SONTARANS
