Stop me in the event you’ve heard this earlier than, however final night time’s Doctor Who was a little bit of a large number. Plotlines showing and vanishing thick and quick, thriller upon thriller, questions fired as rapidly as they had been left unanswered—and the present’s rapidly working out of time to show it may choose up what it’s placing down. But right here’s a twist: this time that mess form of labored.

It actually is form of outstanding in so truncated a season as Flux is, how starkly a few of Doctor Who’s most tried and true tips can grow to be obvious. If “Once, Upon Time” was a couple of episode or a complete season away from one thing like “The Halloween Apocalypse” their similarities may not make for thus inviting a distinction. Or as a minimum, maybe what was so irritating about one and far much less irritating in regards to the different would really feel more durable to discern. Yet, right here we’re; two episodes on from a smörgåsbord of plot hooks blasted at you with an overload of spectacle, Doctor Who takes our heroes to the time-rich planet of Atropos to do a lot the identical. Doctor, Yaz, Dan, and new buddy Vinder are torn aside, not a lot by bodily distance, however a temporal one, as we study just a little bit about what introduced all of them right here within the first place.

So sure, one factor that “Once” does borrow from Flux’s premiere is that messy really feel, as we dance between the completely different pockets of time our heroes are flung into, but additionally backwards and forwards between a completely new thread with the mysterious Bel (Thaddea Graham), a survivor of the Flux who’s working throughout what’s left of the universe to seek out her real love. Arguably, it’s made much more complicated than “Halloween Apocalypse” at instances as showrunner Chris Chibnall goes all Steven Moffat on us. He’s not simply taking part in with completely different timelines and factors in our characters’ private histories, however flinging our heroes into the our bodies of their previous selves and others as we flit between them. Is this Yaz “our” Yaz, or is she flung into Vinder’s reminiscence? Is the Doctor the Doctor, or a previous self, as we see when Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor makes a particular look? Loads is happening, each dense and but not dense sufficient at instances to essentially give us an inkling of whether or not or not we’ve discovered sufficient in regards to the Flux, Swarm, and Azure, and their actual plans.

Then what does make “Once, Upon Time” and its twisty-turny, and really a lot timey-wimey, mess of narrative loops really feel like extra of successful than the season 13 premiere? Well, for a begin, at the very least the overwhelming majority of threads right here construct to a singular function. After the Doctor opens the Time Storm to keep away from having Swarm make Yaz and Vinder vessels for the Mouri’s management of time itself—I hope you’re maintaining a notepad of all of the Proper Nouns this season, since you’ll want it—a lot of the episode, as surface-level “weird” it’s, is definitely comparatively easy. The Doctor desires to reunite her mates after shopping for sufficient time for the Mouri to ship extra vessels to Atropos and alongside the way in which, we study one thing about each her latest buddy and the Doctor themselves. It’s a easy core that “Halloween Apocalypse” lacked because it layered new narrative threads and explosions on high of one another, and regardless of how muddled “Once, Upon Time” will get with its time-twisting shenanigans, it offers a middle for the episode to maintain coming again to.

Plus, studying about these characters is definitely what works, even when in the end what we all know of the broader arc of the collection remains to be left large open. Sure, we all know Swarm and Azure are working for the next energy past them (I hope you’re prepared for 3 weeks of speculating if the Mysterious Old Woman is the Rani, the Valeyard, a brand new Master, or by some means all three), and their struggle towards the Doctor has occurred earlier than, so way back it was in her “Fugitive” days. But we don’t actually know as to why they’ve fought on such a scale that billions of beings have been affected by their battle but, exterior of a nebulous philosophical battle between Space and Time itself. It’s grand stakes, as a minimum, however tempered with one thing far more private. Getting to find out about Vinder’s backstory—to the purpose the place we form of know extra about him than we learn about Dan now—gave a human context to each the devastation of the Flux itself and supplied additional texture to his character. And maybe, extra importantly, we get to see one other rising aspect of Whittaker’s Doctor.

Undercut all through her common hero-saving obligation all through “Once, Upon Time” is a component of the thirteenth Doctor solely often glimpsed within the final season: a craving for data that takes her to some vengeful, harsh locations. It’s not simply that the Doctor desires to know what’s happening with Swarm and Azure so she will cease them, or know what’s happening with the consequences of the Time Storm so she will save her mates. She’s determined to know as a result of it ties into the previous she was denied by the Time Lords themselves—and for all of the Doctor advised the Master final season that she was freed by realizing that there’s extra to their previous than they’d beforehand identified, “Once” makes it explicitly clear how a lot that truly deeply frustrates this incarnation. That frustration manifests in flip as she turns into as soon as once more chilly and commanding to her mates, vengeful in her need to cease her enemies, and gaining a recklessness that threatens to not simply endanger them, however her very self—maybe laying the groundwork for a heavy worth to be paid down the road.

And so lastly, midway in, Doctor Who: Flux has some attention-grabbing meat on its bones. Whether or not that meat will make for a satisfying meal by the top of the collection nonetheless stays to be seen. But in lastly offering a context for its stakes—and giving the Doctor a spot within the struggle extra than simply the truth that the Doctor fights dangerous guys—possibly, simply possibly, Flux has discovered the main target it’s been lacking thus far. Sometimes there actually is a technique to the timey-wimey insanity.

Assorted Musings:

• Oh, it was pretty to see Jo Martin again, regardless of how briefly! Hopefully, her connections to all this imply we are able to get just a few longer appearances from her earlier than the top of all this.
• As if there wasn’t already sufficient happening on this episode, it felt virtually pointless to have Bel spend a lot of her thread all through this episode being harangued by acquainted threats in each the Daleks (… unconvincingly CGI’d in as floating pepperpots, as nobody desires to trundle a Dalek throughout a forest) and the Cybermen. Still, if that is the way you drive your “let’s have an old monster show up!” indulgence right into a season the place it’d be actually weird to shoehorn both of them in, that is the way in which to do it.
• Felt a bit bizarre that this was the episode to provide the thirteenth Doctor a wardrobe improve, however hey, we’ll take a brand new coat after we can get it.
• We’ll should see given how the specter of the Angel performed into the Time Storm right here, but it surely actually does really feel like “Village of the Angels” has the potential to be one other “War of the Sontarans” in that’d be a siloed-off “standalone” on this sea of narrative connections—all of the extra irritating after an episode like this. Fingers crossed that’s not the case!

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