Doctor Who Eve of the Daleks New Year’s Day Special
Review by Paul Bowler
Having survived the Flux the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and companions Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop) are back to face the Time Lords dreaded nemesis, the Daleks in this festively themed New Year’s Day special! The Daleks return with a bang in Eve of the Daleks as the Doctor and her friends find themselves caught in a time loop with the Daleks hot on their heels!
The feature length special, written by showrunner Chris Chibnall is set on New Year’s Eve and guest stars Aisling Bea (from Channel 4’s This Way Up) who plays ELF storage facility manager Sarah, Adjani Salmon (of BBC2’s Enterprise) as Nick, the lovestruck customer who visits every New Year’s Eve, and Father Ted’s Pauline McLynn as Mary. Their lives turned upside down when they get caught up in an adventure with the Doctor, Yaz, Dan and the Daleks. The episode cleverly utilises its core cast and single set to great effect as it blends its rom-com elements with time loops, themes of loneliness, unrequited love, and of course lots of Dalek action!
Eve of the Daleks is essentially Doctor Who doing Groundhog Day with a Sci-Fi twist after the Doctor’s attempts to reset the TARDIS backfires, and the complex fun filled plot positively rattles along at a cracking pace from the outset. Jodie Whittaker excels as the 13th Doctor once again, the rest of the cast are also on fine form, and the action sequences are pretty spectacular as well. Director Annetta Laufer manages to strike just the right balance between the interconnecting plot threads, quirky humour and frenetic high-drama to keep everything on track.
This time though the Daleks are not just trying to end the universe. Instead this special squad of executioner Daleks have set their sights on the Doctor herself and are hellbent on getting some payback!
Eve of the Daleks is fun run-around that milks its complex timey wimey laden premise for all its worth. The slapstick humour and goofy romantic sub-plot gets a tad overcooked in places, but the non-stop-action and great dynamic between the 13th Doctor and her companions more than makes up for any shortcomings. This is the first of three specials that will round off the 13th Doctor’s era in 2022 before the Time Lords imminent regeneration in the autumn. Eve of the Daleks provides a great showcase for the return for the Daleks as they battle the Doctor, while also providing an engaging coda for the events of Doctor Who Flux, and setting the stage for things to come. To top it all a surprise next time trailer heralds the return of the classic Doctor Who monsters the Sea Devils this spring in Legend of the Sea Devils!
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
Doctor Who Flux blasted onto our screens this Halloween staring Jodie Whittaker as the 13th incarnation of the Time Lord, along with Mandip Gill as Yaz, and new travelling companion Dan played by John Bishop. This series will also feature Game of Thrones actor Jacob Anderson as Vinder, and a host of monsters including the Weeping Angels, Sontarans, beings known as the Ravagers and many, many more! Series 13, or Doctor Who Flux as its subtitled, is the first time modern Doctor Who has told a single story across the space of a whole series (a move necessitated in part by logistics and COVID restrictions), but given Chris Chibnall’s history with serialised drama – most notably ITV’s smash-hit Broadchruch – its perhaps no surprise this format would have been adopted at some point during his tenure as show runner anyway.
Each of this seasons six episodes have been written by Chris Chibnall, apart from episode four which has been co-witten with Maxine Alderton who wrote 2020’s The Haunting of Villa Diodati. The workload behind the camera has been split between two directors as well, with Jamie Magnus Stone (Spyfall Part One, Ascension of the Cybermen and the Timeless Children) handling episodes one, two and four, with newcomer Azhur Salee on episode three, five and six.
The new series kicks off with the appropriately Halloween themed season premier, The Halloween Apocalypse. Its Halloween time all across the universe, and horrifying forces are awakening. Everywhere, from an industrial excavation in Liverpool 1820, to the Artic Circle, and the void of deep space an ancient evil imprisoned since the dawn of the universe is starting to break free! Back on present-day Earth, in Liverpool, the life of Dan Lewis will soon change forever after he’s hijacked by an alien and propelled into an adventure with the Doctor and Yaz in the TARDIS.
Doctor Who Flux certainly starts with a bang with The Halloween Apocalypse, plunging the 13th Doctor and her companions into what can best be described as season finale level action and intensity right from the outset, with the Time Lord hot on the trail of the canine looking alien called Karvanista (Craig Els) who has worked for the Division – the mysterious Time Lord cabal behind Series 12’s ‘Timeless Child’ reworking of the Doctor’s origins. Jodie Whittaker is assuredly confident in her role now as the 13th Doctor, with the Time Lord pushed to the edge as the TARDIS starts to malfunction just as she’s attempting to unravel the mysterious enigma known as the Flux.
Mandip Gill has also come into her own as Yaz since the end of Series 12, she’s not afraid to challenge the Doctor when it’s clear the Time Lord has been keeping secrets, and she’s adept enough with alien technology now to enable her to help Dan escape from his cage on Karvinista’s ship. Comedian John Bishop makes a welcome addition to this TARDIS team as Dan Lewis, a fun everyman style character. Bishop brings a delightful sense of warmth and Liverpudlian humour to Dan, a classic audience associative figure, who gets kidnapped by Karvanista on Halloween, and ends up being rescued by Yaz and the Doctor – leading to Dan’s priceless reaction to stepping into the TARDIS for the first time. Jacob Anderson also debuts in the first chapter of Flux as Vinder, who is based on the intriguingly named Observation Outpost Rose in deep space, and is the first character to witness first hand the destructive power of the Flux – a cataclysmic force that’s sweeping across the cosmos.
Chibnall is clearly setting up major aspects of Doctor Who Flux with the introduction of the Swarm.
With old enemies of the Doctor kicking around in the background waiting to make their move and an armada of Karvanista’s species spaceships on their way to Earth, it seems we are only scratching the surface of the forces gathering against the Time Lord. Sam Spruell’s ghoulish turn as the Swarm may prove to be one of the Doctor’s scariest and deadliest foes yet. Chibnall is clearly setting up major aspects of Doctor Who Flux with the introduction of the Swarm, a former archenemy of the Doctor in their life as Division agents before their memories were wiped, whose his psychic connection to the Doctor leads to some of this episodes most dramatic moments, and chillingly he knows the Time Lord but the Doctor is left complexly on the back foot as she has no idea who he is. The Swarm also travels to Earth in a hauntingly creepy scene to revive his sister, Azure (Rochenda Sandall), who is hiding in human form in a remote house near the Artic circle. The Halloween Apocalypse is chock full of scary moments. The Swam is frighteningly powerful, seemingly draining his victims body and soul as he renews himself. The creepiest scenes though had Annabel Scholey’s mysterious character, Claire, who claims she’d taken “the long way round” (a phrase closely associated with the Doctor’s own journey to find Gallifrey), and has a frightening encounter with a Weeping Angel on her doorstep!
So, with the Doctor bewildered and the TARDIS on the run from the Flux, seemingly immune to even a face-full of time vortex energy shot from the time machines leaky crystalline central console, and seven billion spaceships from Karvanista’s dog-faced Lupari species about to prove they may actually be man’s best friend after all The Halloween Apocalypse proved to be a resounding success. I had to keep pausing the episode to answer to the door to trick-or-treaters, but other than that I thought it was a great action-packed series premier, with an epic scale, and a menacing new adversary to boot. All that and we got a doozy of a cliffhanger too, with the Doctor confounded by the Flux, and the warmongering Sontarans returning as well. The Halloween Apocalypse felt like proper old-fashioned Doctor Who again at last!
The Cloister Bell rings out in the ominous aftermath of the TARDIS being engulfed by the Flux as War of the Sontarans transports the Doctor and her companions into an unexpected encounter with one of her oldest and deadliest foes, the Sontarans, who have become a new faction during the Crimean War! This exciting second chapter of Doctor Who Flux marks a dramatic change of pace as Chris Chibnall sends the Doctor, Yaz and Dan off on three separate adventures – with the Doctor teaming up with renowned nurse Mary Seacole (Sarah Powelll) for the historical portion, while Dan returns home to contemporary Earth where Liverpool docks have been turned into a Sontaran ship yard, and Yaz finds herself transported to a mysterious temple on a planet called Time along with Vinder.
Even though the Flux is rapidly obliterating the universe the Sontarans have eagerly seized the chance to use the Crimean War as a staging ground for their temporal assault on Earth’s history. The militaristic clone race of the Sontarans positively relish the chance to engage in what they perceive as a glorious conflict. Skaak / Sontaran Commander Riskaw, brilliantly played by Jonathan Watson, is the ruthless Sontaran leader who confronts the Doctor on the field of battle, Jodie Whitaker excels here as the Doctor intervenes spectacularly, and Dan Starky (who has played a number of Sontaran’s in the past, most notably Strax of the Paternoster Gang) stars as the injured Sontaran Svild who has hilariously suffered the indignation of been captured by the British and nursed by Mary Seacole. This is the first time we’ve really seen the Sontarans en masse like this since The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky (2008), and the battle sequences in War of the Sontarans mark a truly spectacular return to form for them.
War of the Sontarans is an action-packed, exciting and fun run-around for the 13th Doctor and her companions.
Jodie Whittaker really gets some great material to sink her teeth into with this episode as the Doctor struggles to prevent the British army going into battle against the Sontarans. The 13th Doctor is still desperately playing a game of catch up, with the TARDIS continuing to malfunction alarmingly, and even the Sontarans frustratingly seeming to know more about the Flux than she does. Whittaker’s Doctor and Sarah Powelll’s excellent turn as Mary Seacole makes for an inspired historical team-up with the Time Lord, the compassionate Mary Seacole’s moving words of wisdom about the futility of war resonate powerfully with the stories darker elements, and the Doctor’s disgust with General Logan (Gerald Kyd) after he blows up retreating Sontarans is perhaps one of the most ‘Doctorish’ moments of Whittaker’s era so far.
Dan Lewis is rapidly becoming one of my favourite NuWho companions, and John Bishop almost steals the show in this episode. We briefly meet Dan’s parents after he’s displaced back through time to present-day Earth, before he sets off to find a way to stop the ‘potato head’ aliens that have taken over Liverpool docks armed only with a wock and his wits! Fortunately Karvanista shows up just in tine to pull his fat out of the fire, the dynamic between Bishop’s and Craig Els’s characters is great fun, and one of the highlights of this episode.
Yaz, who has also been displaced in time like Dan, ends up in the Temple of Atropos along with Vinder from Observation Outpost Rose. Mandip Gill gets to do all the fun exploring bits in War of the Sontarans as Yaz ventures into the temple (blagging her way through mystery and danger no doubt in part thanks to an ingenious note she’s written on the palm of her hand during an inspired note-to-self moment between adventures), and bizarrely encountering one of the Liverpool industrialists from 1820 before meeting a curious triangular automated Priest (voiced by Nigel Richard Lambert) that asks if she can help repair the damage the Flux has done to the temple and the Mouri – silent quantum locked women held in stasis that miraculously maintain the very flow of time. Yaz also meets Jacob Anderson’s Vinder here, there’s clearly an instant chemistry between them, but Vinder’s character still remains a frustratingly unknown quantity at this point.
The fear factor gets ramped up to the max when the Swarm and his sister, Azure, enter the Temple of Atropos. Sam Spruell and Rochenda Sandall’s scenery chewing performances continue to impress, although this time their characters are accompanied by a mysterious newcomer – the Passenger (Johnny Mathers). While the Sontarans are brutish, bloodthirsty and not the smartest aliens on the block, this trinity of terror are clearly seeking to capitalise on the damage caused by the Flux. Chris Chibnall masterfully juggles storylines and characters, providing just enough hints and revelations about the Flux and the Swam’s plans to keep us guessing and on the edge of our seats – especially given that chilling finger-snapping cliff-hanger!
War of the Sontarans is an action-packed, exciting and fun run-around for the 13th Doctor and her companions. The corruption of the TARDIS by the Flux, with even time itself seemingly damaged, has certainly raised the bar in terms of the sheer scope and scale of the danger the Doctor faces. With its stylish blend of historical and sci-fi action, awesome battle scenes, and callbacks to the Sontarans first appearances in 1973’s The Time Warrior, War of the Sontarans is easily one of Series 13’s best, and indeed the modern series’, most standout episodes.
After two bombastic scene-setting episodes, Once Upon a Time allows the 13th Doctor a chance to explore the events behind the universe spanning peril this Flux mini-series has set in motion. Time has been disrupted in the aftermath of the Flux and is running wild. The Doctor throws herself into the heart of the Time Storm in a desperate bid to save her friends from the Swam’s trap, and together they find themselves simultaneously lost and working collectively as they journey through their memories of the past, present and future while time unravels all around them.
The third chapter of Doctor Who Flux is at times both bewildering and brilliant, it reaches for greatness, and ends up falling into the cracks somewhere between the two. We do finally start to get some answers though, especially concerning the nature and cause of the Flux phenomenon. Jodie Whittaker spots a reversed coat version of her iconic costume as the Doctor explores her unknown past and history with the Division on the planet Time as the Fugitive Doctor, alongside Yaz, Dan and Vinder who experience the Siege of Atropos with her as the Division’s ancient battle with the Swarm and Azure comes to a head. Jo Martin, who first appeared in Fugitive of the Judoon (2020), makes a welcome return as the Fugitive Doctor, another incarnation of the Time Lord, and her scenes offering sage advice as the reflection of Jodie Whittaker’s startled 13th Doctor provides some of the episodes most riveting moments.
Once Upon a Time focuses heavily on the Doctor’s time displaced companions as well. Mandip Gill gets some great scenes, with Yaz’s job as a Police Officer and home-life leading to some especially scary moments with the Weeping Angels, and relations between Yaz and the Doctor continue to feel the strain as the Time Lord’s obsession with recovering secrets from her past seems to threaten to drive a wedge between them. We also learned that Dan was once going to be married during a somber interlude with his would-be girlfriend, Di (Nadia Albina). Bishop really excels in these quieter, emotional scenes, and there’s a perplexing encounter in the 1820’s between Dan and Steve Orman’s Joseph Whilliamson that gets thrown into the mix to keep that unusual plot element spinning in the background as well.
Most intriguingly though, we actually get some backstory to Jacob Anderson’s character, Vinder, in this episode. It seems Vinder was some kind of intergalactic whistleblower who exposed the throughly unpleasant Grand Serpent’s (Craig Parkinson) dealings and was excelled to Observation Outpost Rose for his troubles, whereby his forlorn messages to his nearest and dearest have been relayed to the newly introduced character Bel, played by Thaddea Graham.
Bel’s narration and story nicely distracts from the more complex aspects of the episode that has time playing games with everyone and the Doctor furiously negotiating with the etherial supersized Mouri. Bel and Vinder’s heartfelt journey in Once Upon a Time seemingly runs along parallel lines across time and space, Bel’s mission parameters knowingly tug at the heart-strings as Vinder’s true love while she single-handedly survives the apocalyptic aftermath of the Flux, evading Dalek patrols and becoming a one-woman army as she battles Cybermen – not bad for an expectant mum-to-be.
The monsters are out in force in Once Upon a Time, with Daleks, Weeping Angels, and the Cybermen all getting a piece of the action.
Sam Spruell’s and Rochenda Sandall’s double act as the gloriously evil Swarm and Azure didn’t really have much to do other than relish being menacing on the sidelines for most of this episode – despite sidekick Passenger actually being a living prison and far more crucial to the plot than expected. Matthew Needham returns again for the role of Old Swarm during the flashbacks to the era of the Fugitive Doctor’s adventure in the Temple of Atropos, however, he’s no match for Spurell’s gleefully villainous addition to the modern series’ pantheon of ‘big bad’s’. Fortunately Spurell is back on hand as Swarm by the end to ramp up the mystery and danger quota just in time for the next episode.
The monsters are out in force in Once Upon a Time, with Daleks, Weeping Angels, and the Cybermen all getting a piece of the action. It was an unexpected surprise to see the Daleks appear during Bel’s monologues, and it was great to see the Weeping Angles again. Although used sparingly, the Weeping Angels had probably the greatest impact, appearing in the Time Storm with the Doctor and creeping up on Yaz in the mirrors of her Police Car, and later striking at her again via a video game she was playing. The Cybermen also returned in force; battling with Bel in her spacecraft. These action-packed scenes were really exciting. However, as they’ve always been my favourite Doctor Who monster I was a bit disappointed that the Cybermen’s appearance related to little more than a cameo and didn’t really contribute all that much to Once Upon a Time – especially considering how heavily the Cybermen’s presence was promoted for this episode.
If all those Moffat-style time-twisting highjacks Cibnall utilises wasn’t enough it also became apparent that Karnavista’s Lupari species must be extremely long lived, as events in this story surprisingly reveal they were hanging out with the Fugitive Doctor during her time with the Division. Vinder got to have that classic Doctor Who moment of entering the TARDIS for the first time as well (although curiously he seemed to know what a TARDIS was), even though his journey home ultimately ended up being one tinged with sadness, and Barbara Flynn made her first appearance as the enigmatic ‘Awsok’.
The term ‘Temporal Haze’ is bandied about a lot in Once Upon a Time, which probably best surmises what will probably become the Marmite episode of Doctor Who Flux. Covid filming restrictions also clearly impacted on how some scenes were framed, the plot positively groans under the weight of its often incomprehensible narrative at times, and the scatter-shot dialogue made the episode feel more like the frenetic middle act of a MCU movie than a Doctor Who episode. Despite all that Once Upon a Time still managed to deliver enough shocks and surprises to gloss over most of its shortcomings. Jodie Whittaker’s engaging performance as the Doctor continues to keep everything on an even keel, her incarnation of the Time Lord seems to thrive amidst the chaos, and we also got a super scary cliffhanger with a Weeping Angel in the TARDIS to boot as well!
The Weeping Angels take centre stage for Village of the Angels and bring some good old-fashioned behind the sofa scares to the fourth chapter of Doctor Who Flux. Chris Chibnall and Maxine Alderton craft a wonderfully creepy tale here with an eerie gothic horror vibe – a genre that Doctor Who has often drawn its influences from with great success in the past – and the episode provides lots genuinely chilling thrills as a result. After a Weeping Angel hijacked the TARDIS and brought them to the village of Medderton in Devon, November 1967, the Time Lord and her friends split up, with Dan and Yaz investigating the mystery of a little girl who has gone missing, while the Doctor meets Professor Eustace Jericho (Kevin McNally) who has been conducting psychic experiments with the help of Claire Brown (Annabel Scholery) – the same woman ambushed on her doorstep by a Weeping Angel in The Halloween Apocalypse. Medderton, or “The Cursed Village” as it is known, is a place haunted by Weeping Angels, where dark secrets lurk in the shadows, and in the graveyard there seems to be one gravestone too many.
Village of the Angels showcase the great dynamic evolving between Yaz and Dan. Mandip Gill and John Bishop are effectively dealt a two-hander by the scrip which sees their characters marooned in 1901 after a frightening encounter with a Weeping Angel. Yaz gets to use her Police skills and Dan gets all the best lines as they come to terms with being trapped in Medderton in the past along with the young girl, Peggy (Poppy Pollynick). It was also tragically sad how Mrs Hayward (Penelope McGhie) turned out to be an older version of Peggy, who’d been ridiculed for years for trying to warn everyone in the village about what happened there when she was ten years old. Poppy Pollynick’s reaction as the young Peggy to the horrific demise of her elderly carers Gerald (Vincent Brimble) and Jean (Jemma Churchill) in 1901, where the village has been taken out of time and space by the Angels, was another of this episodes most disquieting and standout moments.
The Weeping Angels return with a vengeance in Village of the Angels.
The supporting cast are also superb, especially Annabel Scholey as the psychic Claire and Kevin McNally’s stalwart scientist and war veteran, Professor Eustace Jericho. Their scenes help establish and built the haunting atmosphere that permeates every aspect of this episode, with Jericho’s EEG printing out the image of an Angel, and Claire hallucinating that she has stone wings in one particularly disturbing moment. Claire’s precognitive abilities establish how she was able to know about and find the Doctor in the first episode and how she also knew so much about the Weeping Angels. From this point Village of the Angels goes into full on classic Doctor Who base under siege territory, with Weeping Angels surrounding the Professor’s house, and the Doctor, Claire and Jericho barricading themselves in the basement.
Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor positively excels in this environment, fending off the Weeping Angels, and desperately trying to keep Jericho and Claire safe. It is only when the Doctor telepathically enters Claire’s mind that she uncovers the terrifying truth. Claire has a Rogue Weeping Angel hiding inside her mind, the other Angels are a quantum extraction squad sent to find her, and what’s more, the Angels are working for the Division!
After the revelation in the Timeless Children it would seem the secret Time Lord organisation is still very much present and active in the universe. Jodie Whittaker gives a commanding performance as her Doctor has to grapple with peril on all sides, whilst trying to stay one step ahead of the Angels, and come to terms with the secrets of her past.
The Weeping Angels return with a vengeance in Village of the Angels. Ever since their first appearance in the highly acclaimed episode Blink (2007), the Weeping Angels have become one of the modern series’ most popular monsters. Village of the Angels plays out like a greatest hits of their scariest moments: from dust in the eye, to lurking in graveyards, with Claire’s torn-up drawing of an Angel notably reassembling as it projects itself into the room and then bursts into flames when the Doctor sets the sketch alight, there’s an underground tunnel with Angels growing out of the walls, and perhaps most unnervingly of all they use Professor Jericho’s own voice to play on his insecurities in an attempt to make him lower his guard.
Bel’s voyage to find her soulmate continues in a brief interlude to the main action, with Thaddea Graham’s character travelling to a barren world where she saves Namaca (Blake Harrison) when Azure and Passenger show up to rescue refugees that have gathered on the planet in the aftermath of the Flux event. Sadly Swarm didn’t appear in this episode but we did get to see Passenger’s powers in action. Jacob Anderson also featured during a brief mid-post credit scene, where Vinder discovers Bel is still alive after Namaca leads him to a holo-recording that she’d left for him.
This episode had it all. Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor even got to utter the 3rd Doctor’s (Jon Pertwee) iconic catchphrase “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow” at one point! With the Rogue Angles dire warnings about what the Doctor will soon find out about herself Village of the Angels races towards its nail-biting cliffhanger. With Dan, Yaz, Peggy and the Professor trapped in 1901, they can only watch on helplessly across the divide of time to 1967 where the Doctor slowly turns to stone, wings growing on her back, as she is imprisoned as an Angel to be ‘recalled’ by the Division.
As cliffhangers go, this one was right up there with the best, and it rounded off this brilliant episode in jaw-dropping style. Village of the Angels is the undisputed jewel in the crown of Doctor Who Flux, as riveting as it was scary, and easily one of the best episode of the 13th Doctor’s era.
In the penultimate episode of Doctor Who Flux the Doctor, Yaz, Dan and Professor Jericho must face their most perilous journey of all. Survivors of the Flux sees their quest to save the universe confounded by circumstance and insurmountable odds at nearly every turn. As the Doctor confronts her Weeping Angel captors while in transit to the Division, her stranded TARDIS team go tomb raiding in 1904 in order to decrypt an ancient text that can help them find their way back to the Doctor.
Chris Chibnall skilfully manages to bring numerous plot threads together in Survivors of the Flux, with the Doctor’s opening monologue rapidly connecting the dots for the audience, and numerous characters story-arcs dramatically intersecting with one another as Flux races towards its conclusion. Of course, any enjoyment of this episode and its impact on the Doctor’s legacy depends very much on whether you liked the Timeless Child arc which set-up the Division as a secret means for the Time Lords to meddle indiscriminately with the development of the universe, and revealed that the Doctor was also the Timeless Child.
Survivors of the Flux reintroduces Barbara Flynn’s character, now called Tecteun, along with an Ood (Simon Carew) servant, when the Doctor arrives at Division HQ’s bizarre vessel on the fringes of the multiverse. Here the mysteries of the Flux finally begin to unfold as the Doctor learns the Division has expanded across all of time and space, recruiting countless alien species, and now they want to take their mission to other universes – burning ours on their way out. What’s more the Division caused the Flux to prevent the Doctor uncovering the truth about their organisation and Tecteun was the Gallifreyan who found the Timeless Child and stole its genetic ability of regeneration for the Time Lords. She was also responsible for wiping the Doctor’s memories – memories which now tantalising reside in a fob watch. Jodie Whittaker gives a towering performance in this episode, running a gauntlet of emotions during her powerful exchanges with Tecteun, and Barbara Flynn is wickedly chilling as the Doctor’s cold-hearted ‘adoptive mother’.
Survivors of the Flux was a really ‘Ood’ and exciting episode.
One of the most fun aspects of this episode through was the light-hearted Indiana Jones style adventures in 1904 that Yaz, Dan and Jericho’s embarked upon. Mandip Gill really stood out here as Yaz has clearly taken charge of this TARDIS team in the Doctor’s absence, and calls all the shots throughout their globetrotting quest. The moment where Yaz watches the adaptive hologram recording the Doctor managed to secretly make for her was especially moving too.
Kevin McNally’s Jericho was another great addition to the team, gleefully sharing the comedy spotlight with John Bishop’s cheeky Dan Lewis, and proving to be the perfect foil to mix-up the dynamic between Yaz and Dan as bit as well. There were some brilliant moments as they encountered a hilarious Hermit in Nepal, Karnavista’s reaction to their attempt to get a message to him was priceless, and they also got to meet Joseph Williamson as the mystery behind the industrialists haphazard appearances throughout the 19th century in Doctor Who Flux were finally made clear at last.
Another surprise was seeing Craig Parkinson’s Grand Serpent return in a far more villainous capacity, this time on Earth under the alias of Prentis. It would seem this mysterious character has been manipulating UNIT since its formation, and has been present throughout the organisations illustrious history of dealing with extraterrestrial threats. I thought it was wonderful to see these early years of UNIT explored during this episode, with knowing call-backs to that ‘Post Office Tower business” from the 1965 Hartnell story The War Machines, and of course it was lovely to hear the voice of the late Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier when a snippet of dialogue from part four of Terror of the Autons (1971) rang out in the background. To top everything off Jemma Redgrave also returned as UNIT boss Kate Stewart and almost completely stole the show out from everyone in the process! All in all, it was fantastic to see UNIT back in Doctor Who again, especially that tense confrontation between Kate Stewart and Prentis. Mind you, I think having the 13th Doctor’s TARDIS in UNIT HQ during the 1960’s is bound to cause a few temporal hiccups!
While the supporting cast is slightly sidelined events in this episode do lead to some decidedly unexpected team-ups, with Bel and Karnavista’s missions becoming chaotically linked at the worst possible moment for them both, coragerous soldier Vinder and feisty modern-day scouser Di also find themselves in trouble when they inadvertently discover what the Ravagers have planned for the missing citizens of the universe.
Tecteun’s scheme to burn our universe to cover up her own machinations possibly makes her the most monstrous person we’ve encountered so far in Doctor Who Flux. Everything builds towards a magnificently pitched cliffhanger, with the Lupari shield breached as the Grand Serpents allies – the Sontarans – attack Earth, while the Swarm and Azure show up to enact their revenge on Tecteun and destroy the Doctor. The special effects were outstanding as well, especially the backdrop of countless Weeping Angels featured during the Doctor’s conversion and the cosmic scale of Tecteun’s heinous plans for our universe. Survivors of the Flux was a really ‘Ood’ and exciting episode. Unlike the time twisting Once Upon a Time, Survivors of the Flux juggled all of its timey-wimey threads with consummate ease, every character and throw-away line was relevant to the overarching narrative, and it provided a fantastic set-up for the series finale as well.
All hope seems lost in the explosive final chapter of the Flux. The Vanquishers sees the Ravagers insidious campaign against the Division and the Doctor has come fruition as the forces of darkness take control. The monsters have won. Swarm and Azure are hellbent on unleashing a constant destructive loop as the Flux consumes the universe, Earth has fallen to the Sontaran empire, Kate Stewart is leader of the resistance against the Sontaran occupation, and the Doctor is tempted to delve into the lost memories of her past as the fate of her companions and the universe hangs in the balance! The Vanquishers strikes a fine balance between being both a stand-alone adventure with the Sontarans using Earth as a staging ground for their conquest of the universe and providing a conclusion to the six part Flux story arc. For the most part Chibnall succeeds in this by ingeniously turning the episode into a multi-Doctor story – of sorts – by splitting the Doctor into three personas across multiple time zones and locations. The Time Lord even saves herself form being tortured by Craig Parkinson’s intriguingly double pulsed Grand Serpent at one point, before reuniting with friends and allies alike. Claire (Annabel Scholey) returns to throw a proverbial psychic spanner into the works of the Sontaran Psychic Command and the Odd in Division HQ plays a pivotal role in helping to weaken the effect of the Flux. Jacob Anderson and Thaddeea Graham’s star-crossed lovers Vinder and Bel also get a happy – if somewhat underwhelming – ending as well.
Chibnall really hit the landing with this one.
Jodie Whittaker’s amazing central performance and multiple portrayals of herself is the driving force of this complex episode. Her Doctor’s warmth and endearing personality makes light work the exposition heavy moments and keeps the narrative engaging. The Vanquishers showcases the 13th Doctor like never before, especially when ‘big bad’s’ Swarm and Azure taunt her with the mysteries of her past, but it is the quieter moments where her incarnation really shines. There are emotionally charged scenes with Yaz in the TARDIS as the Doctor finally admits she’s been keeping secrets from her, Steve Oram’s Joseph Williamson gets a moving farewell from the Doctor, we also have 13’s first meeting with Jemma Redgrave’s tough-as-nails Kate Stewart (who fittingly also sends the Grand Serpent packing), and perhaps most heartrending of all is the scene where Whittaker’s Doctor realises Craig Els’ grumpy space-hound Karnavista once travelled with her during the Fugitive Doctor’s era.
The Sontarans are as ruthless as ever, invading Earth, exterminating the Lupari and even luring the Daleks and Cybermen fleets into a trap – although I’m surprised either of these intergalactic superpowers actually fell for it but it certainly made for some spectacular special effect sequences as the Flux closed in. The Sontarans plans quickly came unstuck after Karnavista turned the Lupari ships against them, Professor Jericho (Kevin McNally) met a noble end, Di’s (Nadia Albina’s) inspired idea of using Passenger to absorb the Flux also helped save the day, while Swarm and Azure were fittingly vanquished, and the Doctor got a reckoning with time itself to round everything off. Even though the multi faceted resolution and drawn out coda got a tad convoluted, Chibnall really hit the landing with this one. So, with Karnavista, Vinder and Bel setting out on their own and a Masterful portent about the Doctor’s impending fate looming Doctor Who Flux concluded with the tantalising prospect. Namely that of the fob watch containing the Doctor’s forgotten memories being squirrelled away in the depths of the TARDIS for safekeeping by the Doctor, and best of all John Bishop’s character Dan joined the TARDIS team for more adventures in time and space.
Chris Chibnall delivered a truly epic saga with Doctor Who Flux. I really like how Chibnall drew influences from so many eras of Doctor Who and included plenty of fan-pleasing callbacks to the shows past. Although the Timeless Child reboot of the Doctor’s origins is no doubt still a dealbreaker for many, given its context post Flux it arguably complements the Time Lords legacy now rather than detracting from it. The entire cast, crew and production team clearly pulled out all the stops to make this series under the most difficult of circumstances during the pandemic – a commendable feat in itself. Doctor Who Flux had some outstanding episodes, high production values, and stunning visual effects. The reduced episode count and serialised approach offered a more concisely structured narrative, and with a veritable army of popular returning monsters to endanger the universe it got Doctor Who firing on all cylinders again – both creatively and dramatically.
Jodie Whittaker’s outstanding performance as Doctor was another major highlight of this mini-seres. Her incarnation of the Time Lord has come a long way since Whittaker’s bright and breezy debut in 2018’s The Woman Who Fell To Earth, and the 13th Doctor became an all-commanding presence that has positively flourished here during the crisis of the Flux. Mandip Gill has also excelled as Yaz, with the character finally shrugging off the trope of being the underdeveloped third wheel of the TARDIS team, and John Bishop was absolutely brilliant as new companion Dan Lewis.
Overall I think Doctor Who Flux turned out to be an extremely good season, one that was actually much better than I expected to be honest, and minor quibbles aside I throughly enjoyed it. I also took the decision to write a series overview of Doctor Who Flux this time around rather than individual episode reviews. It was nice to try out a new format, I’ve really enjoyed just chilling out watching Doctor Who Flux, and taking a step back from the treadmill of individual episode reviews for a change.
Well, Doctor Who Flux might be over but the 13th Doctor will return to kick off 2022 in a New Year’s Days Special: Eve of the Daleks. This will be the first of three Doctor Who Specials airing in 2022, with the second arriving in the Spring, and Jodie Whittaker’s final feature-length Special (where the 13th Doctor will regenerate), to be shown during the autumn of 2022 as part of the BBC’s Centenary celebrations before Russel T Davies takes over from Chris Chibnall as the new Doctor Who show runner to usher in the programmes 60th Anniversary in 2023.
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
The new trailer for Revolution of the Daleks is here at last! The Thirteenth Doctor and the fam are back to kick-off 2021 with a special action-packed episode on New Year’s Day – Revolution of the Daleks!
When we last saw the Thirteenth Doctor at the end of series 12 she was trapped in a high-security alien prison. Now in this upcoming festive special episode, Yaz, Ryan and Graham are on Earth and continuing their lives without her. But a threat involving a Dalek is brewing. Can the Doctor escape her prison and how will her friends fight a Dalek without the Doctor’s help? Fortunately Captain Jack’s back, but even with his help the Doctor and her friends are about to face their greatest challenge of all time…
Staring Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham), Mandip Gill (Yaz) and Tosin Cole (Ryan), with a guest cast featuring John Barrowman MBE as Captain Jack, along with Chris Noth as Jack Robertson, stage and screen star Dame Harriet Walter also makes her Doctor Who debut with TV star Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (The Trial of Christine Keeler).
Revolution of the Daleks will air on New Year’s Day 2021, the special episode is a standalone episode and direct sequel to Resolution, and marks the debut of a special new Dalek design.
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
The Cyber-Army is on the march in the emotional and epic Doctor Who series finale, The Timeless Children. With the last few survivors of the human race being mercilessly hunted down by the Cybermen, Graham, Yaz and Ryan must fight to survive the horror and carnage unfolding around them. Some civilisations will fall, while other with rise, new and reborn! Secrets, lies and unexpected truths will be revealed as battles rage. Even the Master has returned to wreak chaos! The Doctor is trapped, alone, and in the aftermath of the trials still to come nothing will ever be quite the same again for the Time Lord and her companions…
The Timeless Children, written by Doctor Who show runner Chris Chibnall and directed by James Magnus Stone, provides a stellar conclusion to this two-part series finale as events in Series 12 are brought full circle.
Following an upbeat, if somewhat underwhelming first series in 2018, Jodie Whittaker’s era of Doctor Who has really come into its own during Series 12, brining a wealth of exciting adventures and unexpected plot twists – with the brilliant reveal of Sacha Dhawan as the Master, a surprise return for fan-favourite Captain Jack Harkness (John Barroman), the resurgence of the Cybermen, and even a new incarnation of the Doctor played by Jo Martin. Some episodes have still been a bit preachy on occasion, but overall Series 12 has seen a big improvement in the quality of the stories and characterisation – with emphasis on a more mysterious, darker tone.
Ascension of the Cybermen saw the Cybermen back in force and hell bent on wiping out the last remnants of humanity. Now in the Timeless Children the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) must confront the Master (Sacha Dhawan) in the ruins of Gallifrey, while Ryan (Tosin Coyle) and Ethan (Steve Toussaint) form a strategy with Ko Shamus (Ian McElhinney) to fight the Cyber-Death-Squads sent to hunt them down on the planet where the threshold of the boundary leading to Gallifrey resides, as Yaz (Mandip Gill), Graham (Bradley Walsh), Ravio (Julie Graham) and the surviving human refugees face the Lone Cyberman’s, Ashad (Patrick O’Kane), newly awakened army of unstoppable Cyber Warriors back on board the Cyber-War Carrier.
The Timeless Children is an epic and emotional 65 minute finale that draws together several key narrative threads, most notably the mystery of the Timeless Child – first mentioned way back in The Ghost Monument (2018) – which is finally revealed, the significance of the flashbacks to 20th century Ireland involving the seemingly immortal Brendan (Evan McCabe) also gradually becomes clear, and even Jo Martin’s role as the hitherto previously unknown version of the Doctor provides yet more mystery waiting in the wings to be revealed over the course of this episode.
One of the biggest highlights in The Timeless Children through is the powerful confrontations between the Doctor and her arch nemesis, The Master. Jodie Whittaker and Sacha Dhawan are magnificent in these scenes, especially once the Master sets about challenging the Doctor while she’s simultaneously trapped inside a paralysing field in the Citadel of Gallifrey and the Matrix, where the shocking reality that everything the Doctor has ever believe in gets torn down before her eyes and exposed as a lie – and the shocking truth the Doctor is forced to acknowledge will shake the legacy of Time Lords to the core! It seems the Master is also set on forming an alliance – albeit an uneasy one – with the Lone Cyberman as well, inviting them to land on Gallifrey, leading to some fantastic moments featuring this seasons two most maniacal villains.
So, who, or what exactly is the Timeless Child? Well, as the Master gleefully reveals long ago, a scientist and explorer called Tecteun (Seylon Baxter) from Gallifrey’s indigenous race, the Shobrgans, found a child from beyond a gateway to another universe on a distant planet. She brought this child to Gallifrey, where in a fatal accident the child miraculously regenerated. Tecteun dedicated herself to studying the child to discover its secret of seemingly unlimited regeneration, until it could be bestowed in a limited capacity of twelve regenerations to the elite of the society that became the Time Lords who would also go on to discover the secret of time travel – the foundling child ultimately becoming the founder of Gallifreyian civilisation itself.
Yes, the Doctor is indeed the Timeless Child! Incarnations before the 1st Doctor (William Hartnell) or any of the Time Lords later incarnations, including the unknown Doctor’s briefly glimpsed in The Brain of Morbius (1976), are, it seems, most definitely a thing now! Needless to say, this is something of a continuity busting revelation. It recons virtually everything that has ever been established throughout the long history of Doctor Who and turns it on its head. There’s also insight into the origins of the Time Lords non intervention policy in The Timeless Children, but intriguingly some details are missing from the Matrix. Even the Master hasn’t been able to reconstruct them, only lost memories remain, some link to events in 20th century Ireland, while others seem to proffer a clue, possibly from a parent, and the burning question concerning how many lives the Doctor has actually lived has now become an insurmountable fact that’s potentially ad infinitum in scale to a degree that’s almost mind blowing to contemplate.
We have seen the Doctor’s companions struggling at times to balance their lives on Earth and their adventures with the Doctor over the course this series. Now in The Timeless Children the full impact of these events on their personal lives and their friendships with each other are brought into even sharper focus. Ryan must find his own path after he is separated from the Doctor on the planet, ever resourceful, he ends up fighting the Cybermen alongside Ethan and Ko Shamus, while Yaz and Graham have a moving heart to heart, and together with the human refugees they adopt an ingenuous disguise to escape the Cybermen on the Cyber War Carrier.
Tosin Coyle, Mandip Gill and Bradley Walsh all give emotionally charged performances in their roles as the Time Lords companions, events challenge the Doctor’s friends and reinforce their faith in the Doctor like never before, and Yaz leads the way as they cross the boundary with Ko Shamus and the refugees to reach Gallifrey and rescue the Doctor.
The Cybermen begin their reign of terror in earnest in this episode. With the Lone Cybermen unleashing his new look legions of Cyber-Warriors to wreak havoc, prospects certainly looks bleak for the Doctor, her friends and the human refugees. The Cyber-Warriors are a ruthless, unstoppable war machine, and are a worthy addition to the pantheon of the Cyber-Race. Their leader, the deranged Lone Cyberman, Ashad, is as malevolent as ever. Welder of the Cyberium, possessing the entire knowledge of the Cyber-Race, and the feared Death Particle capable of destroying all organic life on a world, Ashad’s character plays a pivotal role in the action. He is unwavering in his quest, and we also gain more insight into this ghoulish creature’s motivations. He’s especially menacing in the scenes where he searches for Graham and Yaz on the Cyber-War Carrier – leading to some genuinely nerve jangling moments – although his ultimate goal to purge the entire Cyber-Race of all organic components does seems like a rather narrow-minded quest for perfection to me…
However, the Lone Cyberman’s alliance with the Master is short lived as the renegade Time Lord uses his favourite weapon – the tissue compression eliminator – to turn the tables on Ashad and seize the power of the Cyberium for himself. The Master hasn’t just destroyed the Time Lords, he kept the bodies as well, and now with the power of the Cyberium and the technology of the Cyber-Race at his command the Master creates a new race of Cybermen, the Cyber-Masters, invincible new Cybermen that also have the ability to regenerate!
To say that Chris Chibnall’s ambitious script has a heavy amount of plot and exposition to convey during this episode is something of an understatement, however, Chibnall just about manages to keep everything on track, and the resolution is handled satisfyingly enough. It was intriguing to see the Doctor having another meeting with Jo Martin’s incarnation of the Doctor, this time inside the Matrix. The role of Joe Martin’s Doctor still remains somewhat vague, but she’s instrumental in helping the Doctor escape the Matrix and embrace the new status-quo established by the revelations about her origins. The scene where the 13th Doctor gathers her memories is a cinematic masterpiece in itself, featuring a glorious montage from every aspect of the series’ history, and with the inclusion of the ‘Morbius Doctors’ Chris Chibnall effectively blows the bloody doors off decades of hotly debated continuity as well!
The final showdown between the Doctor, the Master and the Cyber-Masters positively crackles with tension and suspense, before Ko Shamus (the man responsible for sending the Cyberium back through time where it became entangled in the events of The Haunting of Villa Diodati) intervenes when the Doctor cannot bring herself to sink to the Master‘s level, and unleashes the Death Particle to defeat the Master and the Cybermen. Its in the aftermath where the plot contrivances get a bit tangled and strain credibility to the limit, as Chibnal throws in a TARDIS here and there to get the Doctor’s companions and the human refugees safely returned to present day Earth, while the Doctor takes a similar journey to reunite with her own TARDIS, where she suddenly gets arrested by the Judoon and sentenced to life imprisonment somewhere in deep space!
The Timeless Children is a superb showcase for the regular cast, with Jodie Whittaker giving a magnificent performance as the Doctor, the action sequences with the Cybermen are superb, and everything is all impressively directed by James Magnus Stone. It was thrilling to see the Cybermen invade Gallifrey and become the Cyber-Masters in this episode, and Sacha Dhawan totally knocked it out the park with another scenery chewing turn as the Master. This episode certainly gives us lots to process. The Timeless Children was an exciting finale for sure, game changing even, and that cliffhanger ending is sure to keep us all guessing until Doctor Who returns for the upcoming festive season in the episode entitled: “Revolution of the Daleks”. But, are the major retcons of the Doctor’s origins and the legacy of the Time Lords a stroke of genius, or a step too far by show runner Chris Chibnall?
Well, I for one don’t think it really changes all that much to be honest. I’m sure many will disagree with me. I’m no big fan of Chibnall as show runner, Series 11 wasn’t that good at all, but I do feel he’s learned from that and gone some way to restructuring the show significantly for the better in Series 12. Jodie Whittaker and the regular cast have all been great this season too. As for the potentially limitless number of incarnations the Doctor now apparently has available given the revelations of The Timeless Children… well, so what eh? As far as I see it makes very little or no difference, whether we acknowledge it or not, everything we knew is still there, and these developments just bring a new perspective to what we already have. Doctor Who has always been about change, and it always will. If the changes made during this episode doesn’t bring some much needed mystery back into modern Doctor Who and a wealth of exciting possibilities to explore then I don’t know what will, do you? I like “new Who”, I have since it returned in 2005, but for me “Classic Doctor Who” will always be my favourite version of the show. The Timeless Children won’t change anything for me one way or the other in that respect, although I’m sure some will hail this tampering with the history of Doctor Who as the beginning of the end and that Chris Chibnall has killed Doctor Who.
Well, time will tell won’t it? Viewing figures for Series 12 haven‘t exactly been out of this world, so maybe somewhere the tea really is getting cold again? Who knows? Personally I’ve quite enjoyed Series 12, and thought Ascension of the Cybermen and the Timeless Children brought this season of Doctor Who to a really exciting close. I must admit I did have some trepidation towards Series 12, as after Series 11 it did feel like modern Who had runs its course to me, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well this new series actually turned out to be. Just think, for the first time in ages we don’t quite know who the Doctor is anymore, there’s scope for a wealth of new adventures on an unimaginable scale still waiting to be discovered. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty exciting place for Doctor Who to be in to me…
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
In the distant future the Doctor and her companions face a brutal conflict in Ascension of the Cybermen. A war between humanity and the Cybermen has raged across the farthest reaches of space, and now the Doctor must do whatever it takes to save the last remnants of the human race from the relentless onslaught of the Cybermen!
Written by Doctor Who show runner Chris Chibnall and directed by James Magnus Stone, Ascension of the Cybermen gets the first half of Series 12’s eagerly anticipated two-part finale off to a great start. Seeing how the 13th Doctor’s already defeated a Dalek in the 2019 New Year’s Day Special Resolution, it was inevitable the Cybermen would be next on the list of classic Doctor Who monsters for her to confront next.
The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) has already faced the Lone Cyberman, Ashad (Patrick O’Kane), in The Haunting of Villa Diodati, where she made a fateful choice, and now together with her companions Ryan (Tosin Coyle), Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Graham (Bradley Walsh) she must fight the Cybermen in force, who return with their previous Nightmare in Silver redesign now sleekly updated (including new handles!), and seemingly more ruthless than ever!
Having given the Lone Cyberman the Cyberium (The embodiment of the Cyber-Races knowledge and history) the Doctor and her friends have travelled far into the future in Ascension of the Cybermen, to a ravaged planet during the immediate aftermath of the Cyber-Wars. The Cybermen have wiped out the majority of the human race, but the Cyber-Race has also been decimated. Now the last refugees of humanity are on the run from the last of the deadly Cybermen, it has brought them all to this dark corner of the universe, and the final battle in which the Doctor must prevent the Lone Cyberman from rebuilding the Cyber-Army!
Opening with the ominous aftermath of the Cyber-War in space (featuring a stunning transition through the eye of destroyed Cyberman into the title sequence), the Doctor and her companions soon end up facing some pretty extreme situations in Ascension of the Cybermen. Fortunately they find some help in the form of Ravio, played by Shetland star Julie Graham, as one of the desperate human refugees still battling for survival against the Cybermen on this planet – one of the last settlements of humanity in the universe. Despite brining countermeasures specifically attuned to some of the Cybermen‘s previously known weakness, the Doctor’s initial plans to help the human refugees fails when two Cyber Shuttles arrive, brining the Lone Cyberman and his Cyber-Guards to the planet – along with some especially lethal Cyber-Drones as well! The TARDIS team get separated during the attack, with Graham and Yaz fleeing with the surviving humans in their Grav-Raft vessel while the Doctor, Ryan and Ethan (Steve Toussaint) escape in one of the Cyber-Shuttles.
Intriguingly it transpires that Ravio and her fellow refugees are in search of something called Ko Sharmus, the fabled boundary to the gateway which they believe will allow them to escape to the other side of the galaxy. Chris Chibnal’s scrip is packed with action and suspense as the Doctor and her companions work alongside the refugees as they split into two teams, with each encountering vastly different outcomes during their quest to reach Ko Sharmus.
Another major subplot of the episode revolves around the mysterious flashbacks to 20th century Ireland involving Brendan (Evan McCabe), the child abandoned at birth whose life unfolds over the course of Ascension of the Cybermen as he’s adopted by a young couple and grows up and becomes a Police Officer. He even gets killed in the line of duty at one point but miraculously seems unable to die – in a way that seems strikingly similar to Captain Jack Harkness! There is also an especially disturbing sequence involving Brendan near the end of the episode, where he is confronted by sinister versions of his father and mentor, although quite how this man’s life relates to humanities struggle against the Cybermen in the future remains a mystery for now. He presents a wealth of possibilities and no doubt Brendan’s story will be resolved in the second half of this series finale.
The Cybermen in Ascension of the Cybermen are relentless, unstoppable and brutal in the extreme in pursuit of their goal. Humanity is desperately clinging on, Cybermen lurk at every turn, and they never, ever seem to give up. The Cybermen have always been my favourite Doctor Who monster. I’ve sometimes felt they’ve been given a bit of a raw deal in the modern series, so it’s great to see them back to their menacing best in Ascension of the Cybermen.
Patrick O’Kane is also back as the Lone Cyberman, Ashad, he’s every bit as frightening as he was before, and perhaps even more so this time around now that the stakes have become so high. The Lone Cyberman makes for an imposing figure as he strides though a flaming battle scene, his chilling presence is almost palpable as he corners Ethan in an abandoned building, and he seems to delight in his power almost malevolently. In fact he seems quite emotional at times for a Cyberman. It is in his unsettling holographic communiqué with the Doctor on the Cyber-Shuttle where the Lone Cyberman seems almost frighteningly unhinged, believing himself to have been chosen to revive the Cyber-Race and instigate the death of everything!
Impeccably directed by James Magnus Stone, Ascension of the Cybermen gradually draws the numerous strands of the plot together in the most exciting and ingenious way imaginable. Graham, Yaz, and the human refugees find a huge Cyber War Carrier drifting in deep space. This eerie scene is littered with countless bodies of dead Cybermen floating in the void. The human refugees believe they’ve found a ship to help them reach Ko Sharmus, instead they discover this vast carrier holds a sleeping army of Cybermen, and when the Lone Cyberman arrives he quickly sets about reviving them.
These new look Cybermen Warriors have been subtly redesigned enough to make them seem fresh and revitalised for their return. Featuring sleeker armour, a chrome-like finish, spikes, and a head reminiscent of the Invasion style Cybermen from 1968 to complete their new image. The new Cybermen look amazing, an unrelentingly powerful force to be reckoned with, and I got a distinct Earthshock vibe watching the Cyber-Army marching though the cavernous interior of the War Carrier. I was quite shocked how the Lone Cyberman seemed to terrify the new Cybermen as they were revived – scary to think there’s a being frightening enough to actually make a Cyberman scream!
Meanwhile, the Doctor, Ryan and Ethan are astounded when their journey reveals that Ko Sharmus isn’t a location, it’s actually a person! On this strange world they’ve discovered the man called Ko Shamus (Ian McElhinney) explains that he remained behind to help other surviving humans escape the Cybermen. He also leads the Doctor to the boundary, where the gateway-like portal opens to reveal the ruins of Gallifrey beyond, and the Master (Sacha Dhawan) suddenly steps though the portal to confront her! With Graham and Yaz facing an army of Cybermen in space and the Master gloating to the Doctor that everything is about to change forever, Ascension of the Cybermen delivers one of the best cliff-hangers of this entire series.
It seems this time the Doctor may well have put her companions in terrible danger – more than perhaps even she can handle! The Lone Cyberman has achieved his goal with the revival of the Cyber-Army, the revelations about Ko Sharmus were certainly unexpected, and the surprise return of the Master rounded the episode off perfectly.
Featuring terrific performance all round, Ascension of the Cybermen is a superb return to form for the series. It had the Doctor and her friends on the run from numerous threats, the danger from the Cybermen has never been greater, and the episode builds to a game-changing cliff-hanger that has the Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yaz in a situation that looks seemingly impossible for the TARDIS team to ever reunite or escape from.
As you probably all know I’m a big fan of the Cybermen, so I’ve been really looking forward to their return in these episodes, and I’ve been very impressed with the results. I thoroughly enjoyed Ascension of the Cybermen, it was a thrilling, action packed episode, and I can’t wait to see how everything’s resolved in the final episode of Series 12: The Timeless Children.
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
Spine-chilling danger and a moment in literary history entwine in The Haunting of Villa Diodati as the Doctor and her companions travel to Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816, where a group of renowned luminaries have gathered in the Villa Diodati to tell ghost stories. The Doctor soon discovers that some monsters are real. For this is the night that will inspire Mary Shelly to write Frankenstein, just as a horrific threat is about to arrive, and the Doctor will face the most difficult decision of all – but will it be the right one?
Written by Maxine Alderton and directed by Emma Sullivan, The Haunting of Villa Diodati continues Doctor Who’s twelfth series’ predilection for darker themed stories and encounters with key historical figures on auspicious dates in history.
Based around that fateful evening where Frankenstein was inspired – when Lord Byron challenged Mary Shelly to write a ghost story – and her subsequent desire to create a fable that would curdle the blood, the setting and events of The Haunting of Villa Diodati provides a superb backdrop for this Doctor Who episode.
Jodie Whittaker’s 13th incarnation of the Time Lord and her companions Ryan (Tosin Coyle), Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Graham (Bradley Walsh) take the TARDIS to Lake Geneva because the Doctor wants to go somewhere fun, so after instructing her companions not to mention Frankenstein, and with the intention of soaking up the literary atmosphere they are shocked to find there’s actually sinister elements at work on this dark, stormy night.
The ensemble guest cast for The Haunting of Villa Diodati includes Lewis Rainer as Percy Bysshe Shelly, Maxim Braldry is Polidori (who wrote the first Vampire story), Lilly Miller plays Frankenstein author Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Shelly), along with Nadia Parkers as Mary’s step-sister Claire Clairmont, and Jacob Collins-Levy as Lord Byron.
The Doctor soon senses the house is unrelentingly evil. Percy Bysshe Shelly is also conspicuous by his absence, while ghostly, creeping things lurk in the shadows, and there is also a distinct lack of writing going on as well considering the zenith of creative minds currently assembled within the gloomy walls of Villa Diodati.
Maxine Alderton’s story wonderfully encapsulates this iconic moment in history with the Sci-Fi themes of Doctor Who, and the result is a thrillingly atmospheric tale. Fear not, the Doctor doesn’t just travel back in time and give Mary Shelly the idea for writing Frankenstein. Maxine Alderton has crafted something far more ingenious, melding subtle nuances, exquisite details, all stitched together with intricate characterisation and chilling moment of horror. The Haunting of Villa Diodati is stylishly directed by Emma Sullivan, dynamic camera angles, swarthy shadows and flickering candlelight all complement the gorgeous period setting – with the lavish costumes designed by Ray Holman completing the look of this episode perfectly. It’s also nice to see the Doctor and her companions turned out in period attire for this adventure as well.
With the skeletal remains of a 15th century soldier getting animated and Mary’s warning of Percy Bysshe Shelly’s ominous vision of a burning figure at the lake, it soon becomes apparent there is something very wrong with the house. The Haunting of Villa Diodati is like a very old-school, creepy kind of Doctor Who episode. Following the moody scene setting opening quarter things go a bit Scooby-Doo for a while as the Doctor and her friends begin to investigate their way around Villa Diodati’s inexplicable shifting rooms and corridors. Fortunately the initial spell of goofy high jinks quickly pass, giving way to nightmarish perils, as the perception filter trapping everyone in the house lifts and the real menace is unveiled – the Lone Cyberman!
Yes, Captain Jack’s dire warning about the Lone Cyberman finally cones to pass in The Haunting of Villa Diodati! The Lone Cyberman is a terrifying sight. A lumbering, grotesque parody of a Cyberman, it has travelled through time in search of the Cyberium – the entire history and knowledge of the Cyber-Race – which has found a human host on Earth – Percy Bysshe Shelly! The Lone Cyberman looks amazing on screen, it’s like a macabre junkyard demon, and its voice is genuinely chilling. Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is faced with her most challenging dilemma yet, will she heed Captain Jack’s warning about not giving the Lone Cyberman what it want’s, or will she be willing to sacrifice Percy Bysshe Shelly instead to stop the Cybermen once and for all?
The 13th Doctor gets some fantastic confrontational scenes with the Lone Cyberman. Initially she faces him alone in an electrifying face-off, but it is once the action shifts to the cellar that Jodie Whittaker’s incarnation of the Time Lord really steps up to the plate. Faced with an impossible choice she must challenge not only the Cyberman but also the convictions of her TARDIS team as well.
Lilly Miller is also fabulous as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Shelly) in the final showdown with her modern Prometheus the Lone Cyberman, or Ashad (Patrick O’Kane), as she he begins to remember the man he was, giving the Doctor the chance to unexpectedly turn the tables by allowing the Lone Cyberman to have the Cyberium and save Percy Bysshe Shelly as well – but at what cost?
The Haunting of Villa Diodati was a brilliant episode, full of thrills, scares, and Cyber-chills! I loved the dark gothic look of the episode and how the mystery of the Lone Cyberman was revealed. The Cyberium was another interesting concept, this quicksilver-like liquid embodiment of the Cyber-Race offers a wealth of new possibilities, and it will be fascinating to see how the Cybermen will continue to evolve now the Doctor has surrendered it to the Lone Cyberman. It was also fun how, in a story full of things that went bump in the night, that Graham was the only one who apparently saw a ghost!
Now the Doctor and her companions must fix the calamity the Time Lord has potentially instigated. They must travel to the future, find the Lone Cyberman, and stop him rebuilding the Cyber-Army! The Haunting of Villa Diodati is easily the best episode in Series 12 so far. The stage is now set for the thrilling two-part series finale, I can’t wait for the Cybermen to return in force, and to see how everything will be resolved in Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children.
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
There are no bogie men, but that’s not exactly true in Can You Hear Me? Returning to Earth for a break from their adventures in time and space, the Doctor and her friends are soon forced to confront their darkest fears. With a call for help from space, horrific monsters in 1380 Aleppo, and something terrifying infecting peoples nightmares in Sheffield, the Doctor must investigate the cause of this haunting mystery from beyond the stars…
From the creepy opening scenes at a hospital in 1380’s Aleppo, it is clear we are in for a nerve jangling episode. Can You Hear Me?, written by Charlene James and Chris Chibnall, and directed by Emma Sullivan, is the seventh episode of Doctor Who series 12, and it sees the TARDIS team touching base with their lives back on Earth. Yaz (Mandip Gill) visits her family; Ryan (Tosin Coyle) and Graham (Bradley Walsh) catch up with their friends. However, events soon take a darker turn when all three of them are struck by frightening visions, and a strange voice calls out for help from the depths of space. As well as heralding an ominous new threat for the Doctor and her friends, these disturbing signs also highlight some deeply personal issues for Ryan, Graham and Yaz to contend with as they endure unsettlingly scary nightmares.
The chilling premise of Can You Hear Me? provides a chance to really showcase the Doctor’s companions when they return to Sheffield and the Time Lord sets off to investigate events unfolding in 14th century Syria. Mandip Gill, Tosin Coyle and Bradley Walsh all deliver terrific performances. Charlene James and Chris Chibnall’s finely crafted script skilfully utilises the regular cast, which enables us to gain a far greater insight into where these characters are in their lives right now, and how it all relates to the journeys with the Doctor.
Events conspire to take them on some very individual journeys as well during this episode. Graham and Yaz each have their own distinct, and extremely personal nightmares to contend with, Yaz in particular gets some great character development, while Ryan’s issues about not always being their for his friends raises some really challenging quandaries for him to deal with as well. Can You Hear Me? also sees the return of Ryan’s best friend, Theo, played by Buom Tihngang (who we were introduced to briefly in Spyfall Part 1), and Ryan soon discovers that travelling with the Doctor often take a toll on the friendships you leave behind.
This episode guest stars Aruhan Galieva as Tahira, Clare-Hope Ashitey (the lead in the Netflix drama Seven Seconds) who also appears as Rakaya, and Nasreen Hussain as Anita Patel. Each of these characters have pivotal roles to play in Can You Hear Me? and drive the episodes narrative in many surprising and unexpected ways. Once the Doctor has saved Tahira from a monster in Aleppo that not even the Sonic Screwdriver and the TARDIS can identify, its time for the Time Lord to catch up with her friends, and of all their disturbing experiences its Graham’s psychic incursion that enables the TARDIS telepathic circuits to bring them to the cause of the nightmares – a monitoring platform in deep space overseeing a Geo Orb where the woman from Graham’s vision is imprisoned and suspended between two colliding planets in the distant future.
Can You Hear Me? features a sinister new villain called Zellin, played by Game of Thrones, His Dark Materials’ and Torchwood: Children of Earth actor Ian Gelder. He also proved the voice of the Remnants in 2018’s The Ghost Monument, where we first heard about the “Timeless Child”, a phrase that has become even more significant now in Series 12. Zellin is the creepy immortal entity that has set his sights on stalking the Doctor and her friends through time and space on their return to Sheffield. Zellin is one of the most nightmarish beings the Doctor and her friends have ever faced, with deadly fingers that detach and lock into peoples ears to feed off their nightmares, and his brooding presence permeates every aspect of this eerily atmospheric episode.
Jodie Whittaker is also on fine form. She seems totally settled and far more assured in the role of the Doctor now. Series 12 has seen Whittaker markedly refining the characterisation of her incarnation of the Time Lord. Being simultaneously fun, quirky, and resolute in the face of danger, Jodie Whittaker performance is endearingly Doctorish throughout. The Doctor’s scenes in particular with Tahira and her confrontations with Zellin are just some of the many highlights in this episode that enable Jodie Whittaker to really shine as the Doctor.
There are a number of callbacks to previous episodes as the TARDIS team experience their nightmares, especially for Graham when Grace (Sharon D Clarke) shows up with grim news, and Ryan sees the monstrous Dregs from Orphan 55. Zellin seems to have been watching the Doctor for quite some time as well, he mentions the Guardians, the Eternals, and the Toymaker, other god-like beings the Doctor has encountered in the past, and there’s also another mention of the Timeless Child thrown in for good measure to keep us intrigued as well.
Having tricked the Doctor into solving the quantum fluctuation lock Zellin is now able to free the woman from the Geo Orb, who is actually Zellin’s companion, and together they return to Earth to feast on the nightmares of the human race. I really like how Zellin’s and Rakaya’s story is also explained with a neat animated sequence, it signifies just how ancient these beings are, and was an interesting visual way to relay this back-story. Fortunately the Doctor is able to use Zellin’s own abilities against him to trap Zellin and his female companion – along with some especially monstrous company – and effectively puts the god-like beings back in their box for all eternity.
Can You Hear Me? is a cracking good episode, and much like Tahira’s Chagaska it quickly wraps its claws around your imagination. Emma Sullivan’s assured direction skilfully builds the tension as Zellin menaces everyone across both time zones, leading to some really creepy and scary moments. The Doctor and her companions are really put through something of an emotional wringer over the course of this episode, and there are some especially moving closing scenes as Graham confides in the Doctor about concerns over his health while Ryan and Yaz reflect on how their time on board the TARDIS has changed them – perhaps forever.
Although the threat posed by Zellin was resolved a little conveniently and quickly this was still an exciting episode. Can You Hear Me? was great, imaginative, and full of strong character moments. There’s always a risk when you pass the midway point in a series that the initial momentum can falter, resulting in filler stories to keep things going until the finale, so I love it when a really good episode of Doctor Who creeps up on you unexpectedly like this. The episode dealt with some powerful issues and also made the bond between the TADIS team feel stronger than ever, especially now they’ve faced their greatest fears together. The episode closes with the Doctor thanking about Frankenstein, which certainly sounds good to me, and their next destination looks set to continue the darker tone that Series 12 seems to be taking as we progress towards the epic season finale!
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
The momentum of Doctor Who Series 12 continues to build in Praxeus, where the Doctor and her companions have split up to investigate a series of mysteries across multiple continents on planet Earth. The Doctor must find the cause behind these strange occurrences and their connection to a new alien menace. What they uncover will place all of humanity in danger. And even the Doctor might not be able to save everyone this time!
Given how Series 12 has already shown the devastation of Gallifrey, along with intriguing mysteries like the Timeless Child and the Lone Cyberman simmering ominously in the background, coupled with the return of the Master (Sacha Dhawan), Captain Jack Harkness (John Barroman), and even the debut of a new female incarnation of the Doctor (J Martin), you’d be forgiven for thinking what Praxeus, co-written by Pete McTighe (Kerblam!) and show runner Chris Chibnall, and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone could possibly throw at the Doctor and her companions next? Praxeus certainly veers off on a significantly different tangent than might have been expected, and the result is an energetic episode bursting with intriguing ideas and scientific concepts.
As we rejoin the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), Ryan (Tosin Coyle), Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Graham (Bradley Walsh) in Praxeus the gang have already split up and are conducting their own investigations around the globe in response to the alerts the TARDIS received at then end of Fugitive of the Judoon. But what is it that connects a missing astronaut, birds that are behaving strangely in Peru, and a US naval officer washed-up on a beach in Madagascar? Jodie Whittaker’s performance as the Doctor continues to impress in Praxeus as she tackles what could prove to be this series’ most challenging mystery so far. Whittaker’s Doctor runs a gauntlet of emotions as she contends with several seemingly unrelated incidents, including a missing submarine in the Indian Ocean, alien technology giving off strange energy readings in Hong Kong, and identical deaths on two separate continents.
The Doctor’s companions are also put through their paces in this episode as their investigations take them around the world. Tosin Coyle and Mandip Gill have some great scenes as Ryan and Yaz embark on their missions, Bradley Walsh also continues to excel as Graham, and overall everyone gets a good share of the action.
Praxeus also guest stars Joana Borja and Gabriella Tolo as young bloggers Gabriela and Jamila, along with Warren Brown as Ex Police Officer Jake Willis, Matthew McNutly as Jake’s husband and the missing astronaut Adam, Molly Harris as Suki Cheng and Thapelo Maropefela as Amaru. They all inadvertently get caught up in the Time Lord’s chaotic adventure and it’s not long before the Doctor and her companions find themselves in a frantic race against time to save the human race from a deadly alien infection spread by rampaging flocks of birds around the world.
For an episode so jam-packed with characters and a world-wide menace to solve, co-writers Pete McTighe and show Chris Chibnall skilfully make use of the ensemble cast, and skilfully keep the plot on track as the mystery concerning the pathogen unfolds. I really liked the scenes where Ryan and Gabriella team-up to investigate a rather creepy looking hospital as well; Yaz’s character also gets a more significant role in Praxeus, and proves increasingly resourceful as she works with Gabriella in Hong Kong to find the true location of the alien threat.
Ex Police Officer Jake Willis and his Astronaut husband Adam also have key roles in the story, their relationship drives a good portion of the narrative, and Warren Brown and Matthew McNutly’s performances help give added emotional depth to an episode that could have otherwise risked been just a manic run-around. The scene between Jake and Graham was another highlight of the episode, with Graham proving as insightful as ever as he offers Jake some sound advice to gain a fresh perspective on life and get his failing marriage back on track.
There is something very wrong with the birds in Praxeus. It turns out the plastic they have eaten have been contaminated by a deadly alien pathogen that seems to feed on micro plastics – one that has now mutated the birds from the inside and driven them to attack. Praxeus feels a bit like a Sci-Fi version of The Birds at times, with its swirling flocks of marauding birds circling ominously overhead, or chasing the Doctor and her friends across a beach to the TARDIS, and the effects for these scenes are chillingly realised on screen.
Praxeus is Peter McTighe’s second episode for Doctor Who, his first being Series 11’s Kerblam! Together with co-writer Chris Chibnall, McTighe manages to balance the numerous plot strands of Praxeus, and the result is a fast paced and exciting globe-trotting adventure. Much of Praxeus was filmed along with the first episode, Spyfall, in South Africa, and it really gives the episode a great sense of scale. Director Jamie Magnus Stone delivers a roller coaster ride of an episode here, complete with stunning scenery, great special effects, and some especially disturbing moments as well.
With Yaz’s and Gabriella’s discovery of an alien construct and the missing submarine deep beneath a Gyre of plastic refuse in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Doctor and the others travel in the TARDIS to the underwater construct having just found a solution for the infection – thanks to Adam volunteering to be a test subject for the cure. With the scientist Suki Cheng now revealed as a humanoid alien who deliberately plotted to infect Earth with the Praxeus infection to find a cure for her own species, the Doctor must act quickly to save the world, cure the infection, get everyone to safety and carry out a last ditch rescue attempt!
Although there is a stark ecological message at the core of Praxeus, quite literally in fact, at least this time it wasn’t tagged on like it was in Orphan 55, and it was actually integral to the overall plot of Praxeus. I really liked the strong concepts and ideas that formed the basis of the story and how well all the characters worked together. At one point the Doctor name-checks the Autons as having a possible connection to the plastic pathogen, only to dismiss them out of hand as this strategy doesn’t fit with their usual M.O – obviously recalling the classic Doctor Who monsters shaped like shop window dummies faced by Christopher Eccelston’s Doctor in Rose (2005) and perhaps even more significantly during the 3rd Doctor’s (Jon Pertwee) era where they demonstrated the ability to manipulate other forms of plastic, such as dolls, suffocating plastic daffodils, and a lethal inflatable chair.
There were a few interesting questions posed during Praxeus that remain unanswered. Take the strangely garbed aliens that attacked Graham, Yaz and Jake in Hong Kong. Later the Doctor says she scanned the building and didn’t detect any life signals, so how come the TARDIS registered active alien tech in Hong Kong but not the life forms, and why could the aliens hide their life signs but not the unusual energy patterns from their technology? At one point in Praxeus the Doctor frantically contemplates the mystery of the pathogen in the lab, only to refer to her thoughts in the plural, which concerns her companions. So is this just the Doctor rambling as she thinks, or does the Doctor have two brains? Now that would certainly be another new take on Doctor Who cannon! During the attack on the lab, Amaru was seemingly killed by the birds, yet it is unclear if he was an alien like Suki Cheng, and his apparent death doesn’t seem to register at all with anyone.
With only two episodes to go now until the two-part season finale, Praxeus had a tough act to follow after the dramatic revelations in Fugitive of the Judoon, but Praxeus managed to surpass and exceed all expectations. With its great cast and excitingly paced script providing so many excellent character driven moments, the credible environmental threat presented during this episode seemed all the more potent as a result, and the outcome saw Praxeus evolve into one of Series 12’s most intriguing and exciting adventure to date.
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
The Judoon are back! Stomping their way into Series 12 of Doctor and present-day Gloucester, in Fugitive of the Judoon. This time the Judoon are hunting someone on the run. So the Doctor and her friends arrive amidst the chaos caused by the intergalactic police forces presence on Earth, and must act quickly to bring the situation under control. But who is the mysterious fugitive and why are the Judoon so intent on finding them?
Fugitive of the Judoon marks the welcome return of the Judoon, first introduced to Doctor Who back in 2007’s Smith and Jones, and seen most recently in 2015’s Face The Raven. Written by Vinay Patel (Demons of the Punjab, 2018), her second story for Doctor Who makes excellent use of the Judoon‘s return to the series, its filled with fun moments, whilst also brining some new aspects to the creatures and their motives. With location filming in Gloucester, Fugitive of the Judoon is probably the most contemporary story so far in Series 12, and director Nida Manzoor strikes just the right balances between the episodes lighter tone, humour and action.
Indeed, the Judoon make a surprisingly effective challenge for Jodie Whittaker’s 13th incarnation of the Time Lord, Whittaker’s Doctor shines with strength and warmth throughout this episode as she tackles the aliens rampage, and there’s also some great confrontations with Judoon Captain Pol-Kon-Don (Paul Kasey) – voiced by Nick Briggs.
The Doctor and companions Ryan (Tosin Coyle), Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Graham (Bradley Walsh) continue to show what a great and resourceful TARDIS team they make in Fugitive of the Judoon. Prior to the TARDIS intercepting the Judoon’s warning signal, the Doctor’s “fam” notice how preoccupied she’s become, and when they confront her the Time Lord confesses that she’s been trying to locate the Master. The Doctor believes he may have escaped the Kasaavin’s dimension because of the personal nature of the message he left – although she still doesn’t tell her companions that her homeworld of Gallifrey has been destroyed. Fugitive of the Judoon also leads to a surprising blast from the past for the Doctor’s new companions when first Graham, followed later by Ryan and Yaz, are unexpectedly teleported to a spaceship piloted none other than Captain Jack Harkness!
Yes that’s right Captain Jack, played by the brilliant John Barrowman, returns to Doctor Who after nearly a decade in Fugitive of the Judoon having commandeered a space vessel complete with a Quantum Scoop, and an important message for the Doctor. Seeing John Barrowman return as Captain Jack was a great surprise and made for some of the episodes standout moments, especially when Jack thinks that Graham is the Doctor! But with naoprobes set to bring Captain Jack’s mission to an impromptu end, he quickly informs the Doctor’s companions they must warn the Time Lord to beware of the lone Cyberman. It seems an Alliance of some kind has virtually annihilated the Cybermen, using something they sent back through time and space to destroy them, all save for one!
The guest cast features Jo Martin as Ruth Clayton, a Gloucester tour guide, and Neil Stuke as Lee, Ruth’s husband, an interesting everyday couple living seemingly ordinary lives in the cathedral city of Gloucester. The Juddon are not here for a tour of the local attractions though. At first everything points towards Lee being the alien fugitive the Judoon are after, and it seems they will stop at nothing to apprehend him. However, when the mysterious alien woman who hired the Judoon, Gat (Ritu Arya), intervenes and Lee is killed it becomes clear that Ruth is the one the trigger the happy rhino-faced space police are actually looking for.
Although the Judoon have featured a few times in Doctor Who, Fugitive of the Judoon is the first time they’ve really played a major role in a story for a while, and Vinay Patel‘s wittily crafted script brilliantly showcases these gruff alien space police as their mission causes them to lock horns with the Doctor. The scene when the Judoon corner the Doctor and Ruth in the cathedral is another highlight. Their scans see through the tour guides biological cloaking field, fortunately Ruth is beginning to remember her true identity at this point, and spectacularly turns the tables on the Judoon.
From here Fugitive of the Judoon plunges down the rabbet hole and the pace hardly lets up for a moment. A journey to a lighthouse and a blank grave, where a buried TARDIS with a rather classic looking interior is discovered, which all leads to a tense showdown on the Judoon spaceship, and the shocking revelation that not only is Gat a Gallifreyan, but that Ruth was actually a Time Lord in hiding is and really another incarnation of the Doctor! To say that Doctor Who continuity just got turned inside out during this moment is something of an understatement here, there were countless time twistingly referential nuances woven into the story, and I’m still not sure how I feel about all these jaw-dropping surprises. It was fun, if a little bewildering, to have so many unexpected surprises in Fugitive of the Judoon. No doubt Chris Chibnall will probably deliver some Moffat style temporal twist that will ensure that everything in Fugitive of the Judoon eventually makes sense, but until then there are lots of questions that will remain unanswered – for now at least.
I thought Jo Martin was great casting as Ruth /The Doctor though. Her dual roles in this story were cleverly scripted, and her performance as another incarnation of the Doctor alongside Jodie Whittaker’s startled 13th Doctor was riveting! Quite how Jo Martin’s incarnation of the Doctor fits into the series’ extensive web of continuity remains to be seen. Fugitive of the Judoon seems to hint that she’s an earlier version of the Doctor, possibly earlier than any we’ve seen before! I still think this is unlikely. Could this second female Doctor in fact really be the first female Doctor, and how could the 13th Doctor have forgotten about her? Could it be that Ruth is a secretly unacknowledged version of the Doctor like John Hurt’s War Doctor from the 50th Anniversary story The Day of the Doctor (2013), or is she bizarrely linked somehow to the unknown Doctor’s we briefly glimpsed in The Brain of Morbius (1976)? We never actually saw the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton, regenerate on screen in The War Games (1969) either, so maybe Ruth existed before we saw Jon Pertwee’s 3rd Doctor begin his exile on Earth in Spearhead From Space (1970)? My money is on Ruth being from some other dimension, especially with the return of the Master, Jack and now Ruth’s debut as a hitherto unknown version of the Doctor, it really does seems that time is indeed swirling and closing in around the 13th Doctor and her friends. Blimey, I could speculate about this all day, and don’t even get me started about the unexpected return of Captain Jack Harkness – heaven only knows where he fits into all this!?
With the Judoon menace eventually sent packing, the Doctor is reunited with her companions and I really liked how everyone compared notes back on board the TARDIS. The Doctor is still reeling just as much as Ryan, Yaz, and Graham are about Ruth’s real identity, but the bond between this TARDIS team feels stronger than ever now as they set off to investigate multiple alerts detected across three continents on Earth.
I was expecting Fugitive of the Judoon to be a fun and frivolous story, nothing more. Instead this marvellous adventure by Vinay Patel and director Nida Manzoor turned out to be a riotous mid-season roller coaster ride that had me hanging on every word. Fugitive of the Judoon has given Series 12 of Doctor Who a thrilling boost with its game changing shocks, surprises and Judoon near the Moon.
It was wonderful to see John Barrowman as Captain Jack again as well. My only gripe was that he didn’t actually meet the 13th Doctor, so fingers crossed he will be back at some point in Series 12 to team-up with Jodie Whittaker’s incarnation of the Time Lord.
As you all probably know, I’m a big fan of the Cybermen, they are my favourite Doctor Who monster. So you can imagine the references in Fugitive of the Judoon to the fate of the Cybermen and Jack’s dire warning about the universe being in peril, insisting that that the Doctor mustn’t give the lone Cyberman what it wants, has me considerably intrigued – even more so than all the shenanigans involving Ruth’s incarnation of the Doctor and her place in the grand scheme of things. Fugitive of the Judoon was a fun, mind-bending episode for sure, Series 12 really seems to be hitting its stride now, and I can’t wait to see what dangers await the Doctor and her companions when they eventually face the lone Cyberman!
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
The Doctor and her companions travel to 1903 in Series 12‘s fourth episode, Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror, at the edge of Niagara Falls where something is going very wrong with Nikola Tesla’s generator plant. It seems someone, or something has been sabotaging the inventors work. So has Tesla actually received a message from Mars, and how does his rival, Thomas Edison fit into such a bizarre series of inexplicable events? With the world facing imminent peril the Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham have no choice but to team-up with one of histories most maverick inventors if they are to save him and planet Earth!
Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror is an engaging and exciting addition to Series 12 written by Nina Metivier and directed Nida Manzoor – who are both newcomers to Doctor Who. Indeed, Doctor Who’s historical adventures are often at their most captivating when they are focusing on the somewhat lesser known, though still eminently significant historical figures. So this episode featuring the inventor and “Father of Electricity” Nikola Tesla is a terrific showcase for a man that has sometimes seemed overlooked by the history of science.
This story really gives Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor a chance to shine as the Time Lord gets to meet Nikola Tesla, brilliantly played by ER’s Goran Visnjic, who is in competition with his famed rival Thomas Edison (played by Robert Glenister who first appeared in The Caves of Androzani as Salateen in 1984), and the episode also features Canadian writer and actor Haley McGee as Nikola Tesla’s assistant, Dorothy Skerritt. Nina Metivier’s excellent script cleverly captures the rivalry between these two enigmatic inventors, and it skilfully weaves it into an exciting Doctor Who adventure bursting with insightful and exciting moments.
Tesla’s struggles to gain investors for his Wardenclyffe Project and an accident at his generator plant at Niagara Falls leads to the discovery of a strange floating orb, and with the Doctor’s impromptu arrival its not long before the sparks really begin to fly! When an alien using a human image and brandishing a Silurian weapon strikes, the Doctor, Tesla and Dorothy Skerritt flee with the Time Lord and her companions to New York where the orbs secret is soon revealed. Built by an ancient race of inventors and explores, the Orb of Thassor was created to share their vast legacy of knowledge and discoveries throughout the entire cosmos. Now the orb has been hacked and reprogrammed by the aliens disguised in stolen human images for their own nefarious reasons.
Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror gives the Time Lord’s companions plenty to do as well, and its nice to see Tosin Coyle, Mandip Gill and Bradley Walsh getting a good share of the action in this episode as Ryan, Yaz and Graham take in the period setting of this adventure. The Doctor and her friends investigation leads to Tesla’s rival, Thomas Edison getting caught up in the action. The scenes involving Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison are a joy to behold, especially when they get to travel in the TARDIS and Tesla is quick to grasp the concept of the time machines startling interior dimensions; unlike his rival who just sees an opportunity to make a quick buck from the experience. Fortunately Graham is on hand to quickly put Edison in his place!
Filming for this episode took place on the New York City set at Nu Boyane Film Studios in Bulgaria, with the set suitably dressed for the period, it further heightens the smoky industrial tone of the story. The setting of the golden age of New York provides a stunning backdrop for this adventure to play out against, the cast deliver great performances all round, and Nida Manzoor’s terrific direction perfectly balances the high-stakes drama and action.
It seems Tesla has been targeted by the scorpion-like Skithra, a species that have a nasty habit of stealing tech and faces. When Tesla and Yaz are teleported to the cloaked Skithra Throne Ship hovering over New York they are confronted by Queen Skithra, played by Bodyguard’s Anjli Mohindra. The monstrous scorpion creature believes Tesla is an engineer with superior intelligence because he responded to the Skithra’s signal (which inadvertently made Tesla think he’d received a message from Mars), and she intends to force him to use his knowledge to repair her ships stolen technology. Using a handy portable teleport device the Doctor rescues them and returns to Wardenclyffe for an electrifying showdown with Queen Skithra!
As historical Doctor Who stories go this one is right up there with some of the best the modern series has produced. Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror is a superlative mix of bold ideas, exquisite costumes, great special effects, and music. Jodie Whittaker is on fine form as the Doctor, she has some wonderful scenes with Goran Visnjic who is superbly cast as Nikola Tesla, and Robert Glenister is also excellent as Thomas Edison. I really liked the interaction between the characters in this episode, especially during the build up to the face-off with Queen Skithra at Wardenclyffe with everyone splitting up into three teams to complete essential tasks, and there’s a great moment where the scorpion-like Skithra chase Yaz and Edison through the streets.
There’s also a great confrontation between the Doctor and Queen Skithra, where the scorpion Queen asks the Doctor if she’s ever seen a dead planet, an especially pertinent aside from the alien in light of what has recently happened to Gallifrey and the Time Lord is visibly moved as she briefly reflects on what has happened to her homeworld.
Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror felt like a very traditional kind of Doctor Who story. It was full of exciting action, had a great period setting, and boasted some of the finest characterisation we’ve seen in far in Series 12. Queen Skithra was dispatched in a rather predictable way at the end, but that’s only a minor quibble in what was otherwise a superbly written and directed episode. Indeed, Tesla’s own story forms a poignant epilogue for the episode, and it’s a moving, beautifully uplifting closing scene. Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror was an electrifyingly good Doctor Who adventure, it ticked all the right boxes, and is easily the biggest highlight of Series 12 so far!
Hi, I’m Paul Bowler, blogger and reviewer of films, TV shows, and comic books. I’m a Sci-Fi geek, a big fan of Doctor Who, Star Trek, movies, Sci-Fi, Horror, Comic Books, and all things PS4.You can follow me on Twitter @paul_bowler,or at my website, Sci-Fi Jubilee, and on YouTube and Facebook
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