Flux

Chapter The 216th, is the biggest chapter to date.

Plot:

[These are the most recent episodes of Doctor Who at the time of writing, so be wary of spoilers from this point on if you haven't seen the shows; there's also a lot of plot to recount.]

Many years ago, some Time Lords including Tecteun - the Doctor's adopted mother who took the Doctor when she was the seemingly abandoned Timeless child - formed the Division. This was a group that slowly came to recruit operatives from all races including Weeping Angels and Ood, who interfered in events in a way that the official Time Lords swear never to do. Early on, they created the Temple of Atropos on the Planet Time to imprison the chaotic and destructive time force that existed back then. Two Ravagers, brother and sister Swarm and Azure, powerful creatures who revere this time force as an anthropomorphised entity, later take over the temple and there is a siege. The pre-William Hartnell regeneration of the Doctor, who later was a fugitive on Earth in Gloucester, led a Division team that broke the siege, and captured Swarm and Azure. Both were imprisoned - Swarm fully conscious in a remote prison somewhere in space, and Azure on Earth in human form, unaware of her real identity. Tecteun, now in charge of Division, notices the current Doctor's investigations into the forgotten lives she had before she was an old man with long white hair. Wary that the Doctor will find out too much about the Division, Tectuen decides on a quite extreme way to stop the Doctor - destroying the universe. Tecteun is based on a vehicle outside our universe, poised to navigate to a new one. She releases the Flux, an energy wave that destroys matter. Just in case that's not enough, she also frees Swarm who then finds and frees his sister; they will want revenge on the Doctor, and will ensure complete destruction by mucking about with time too.

In 1820, Joseph Williamson is building his tunnels under Liverpool, and finds that some of them lead to other times and places (through rips in the fabric of time and space). From what he witnesses, he pieces together the danger that the Flux will mean in the future, and develops the tunnels to become a survival chamber for humans. On an unnamed planet, Bel and Vinder are life partners, and recent graduates of space pilot academy. They only have one night together before they are given separate postings. Vinder is given special duty as the personal guard of their ruler, the Grand Serpent. The Grand Serpent is corrupt, though, and abuses his position to threaten his political enemies. Vinder tries to blow the whistle, and finds himself sent to do a punishment duty in a deep space observation station, Outpost Rose. As he was sent there directly, he does not know that Bel is pregnant with his child. Vinder spots the Flux coming, and it destroys planets around him and finally Outpost Rose. It also unbeknown to him lays waste to his home planet. Vinder is transported to Atropos by the Ravagers as part of their plan to humiliate the Doctor. Bel travels off world to find Vinder.

The Doctor, helped by Yaz, has found an ex-member of the Division, Karvanista, a dog-like alien from a race called the Lupari. He won't tell her anything of her history, tries to kill both her and Yaz, and makes off for Earth. It looks as if he and the massive Lupari fleet are out to invade, but they are really trying to save the human race. Each Lupar is pair-bonded with a specific human. As he's ahead of his fleet, Karvanista is the first to pick up his human, arriving on the evening of October 31st 2021 and caging the human within his Flux-proof craft. This is Dan Lewis from Liverpool, who's very surprised to be on a dog's spaceship, and is even more surprised to then be rescued by the Doctor and Yaz. Eventually working out that Karvanista isn't exactly against her, the Doctor gives the Lupari a new plan, to configure the fleet into a Flux barrier encircling the Earth. The Earth is safe, but the Sontarans, exploiting possibilities offered by the Flux, sneak in before the barrier goes up. In the TARDIS, the Doctor, Yaz and Dan just avoid being destroyed by the Flux in space, and materialise in the Crimean War. The Sontarans have changed history and taken the place of the Russians in this conflict.

The Doctor is left alone when her two companions are transported elsewhere by the time disturbance. Yaz goes to Atropos and meets Vinder. Dan appears back in Liverpool 2021, meeting his Mum and Dad who explain that in the two days since he's been gone, the Sontarans have taken over the Liverpool docks. Helped by Mary Seacole, the Doctor defeats the Sontarans in the Crimea. Dan sneaks aboard one of their ships and communicates across time to the Doctor. The Potato-Heads' misadventures in the Crimean War are just a pilot scheme, and they plan to continue temporal warfare throughout Earth history. With Karvanista's help, still protecting his human, Dan destroys the Sontaran ships on Earth, and the time explosion reverts things to normal as if they'd never been there. Leaving Karvanista and the other Lupari in their ships still protecting Earth, the Doctor and Dan go in the TARDIS to find Yaz on Atropos.

Since the siege, the temple has been enhanced by incorporating time-sensitive lifeforms called Mouri that have the time vortex flowing through them as part of the temple circuit. Several of the Mouri have now been destroyed by Azure and Swarm sabotaging the system. The Ravagers wire in Vinder and Yaz to take their place, and are just about to switch on, which will kill both. To save them, the Doctor pulls herself, them and Dan into the unstable time vortex, hiding everyone in moments from their own timelines while she pieces together some of the backstory of what's happening, and persuades more Mouri to complete the temple circuit again. Once this is done, the Ravagers don't seem too bothered - they were just taunting the Doctor. They reveal that their attendants are Passenger forms, bigger on the inside prisons shaped like lumbering blokes in masks. Inside one is Diane, the person that Dan was set to meet for a date on Halloween night, who they've kidnapped. Again, they tell Dan this just for shits and giggles then they nick off. The Doctor drops Vinder off to search for Bel; Bel has by this time commandeered an abandoned Lupari ship and is searching the remaining areas of the Flux-impacted universe for Vinder. The TARDIS team are in the control room when a Weeping Angel, which Yaz had seen visions of in the time vortex, appears and takes control of the time ship.

Claire Brown lives in Liverpool in the present day and has psychic ability. She sees visions of the TARDIS, the Doctor and a Weeping Angel. On Halloween night 2021, she briefly met the Doctor and Yaz, and then got attacked by an angel, and zapped back to 1965. By 1967, she is in the village home of Professor Jericho who's investigating her abilities. The Weeping Angel brings the TARDIS to that village, and the Doctor finds Jericho and Claire. Meanwhile, Yaz and Dan are zapped back to 1901 by another angel. The angels attack Jericho's home. These angels are an extraction squad working for Division and want the angel from the TARDIS, who is now hiding in Claire's head, because it also previously worked for Division and has vital knowledge including information about the Doctor. The angels break in to the house. The Doctor, Claire, and Jericho attempt to escape but Jericho is zapped back to 1901 where he meets Dan and Yaz. The Doctor and Claire escape to find a stone vehicle that the angels used to get to Earth. The extraction squad angels are no longer interested in the rogue angel, they have a bigger prize now: the Doctor. Yaz, Dan and Jericho watch through a portal linking the time zones to see the Doctor turned into an angel and taken off.

Bel goes to the planet Puzano, one of the last remaining wrecks of planets surviving after the Flux, and where she and Vinder were planning to honeymoon. She finds that Azure is tricking refugees arriving there, promising to take them to safety but instead locking them up in a Passenger form. Vinder arrives on Puzano too, but after Bel's left, just missing her. Bel and Vinder both trace the source of the Passenger form signals, but Bel's Lupari spacecraft is called away to join the rest of the fleet round Earth before Vinder can catch up with her. He is captured by the Ravagers, who are exploding all the people they have abducted to generate power. They put Vinder in a Passenger form where he meets with Diane. Yaz, Dan and Jericho spend a few years of the early 20th century trying to work out when the final date for Flux destruction will occur, based on a recorded mission set for them by the Doctor. They don't get very far, but finally bump into Joseph Willamson, who shows them the portals within his tunnels. Meanwhile, still protected by the Lupari shields, with the Flux still active elsewhere in the cosmos, Earth becomes a target. The displaced Grand Serpent makes his way there, and infiltrates UNIT at its formation, then hopping through its formative years using time travel. In the present, Kate Stewart uncovers this, and gives him a warning; he blows up her house, so she goes underground. Karvanista boards the Lupari craft to wrest control of it back from Bel, just as the fleet is attacked by Sontarans. The Grand Serpent has done a deal with them, and has used his UNIT influence to weaken Earth's defences.

The Doctor is taken to Tecteun's base outside the universe and returned to her normal form. She has a converter attached so she can exist outside the universe. Tecteun and an Ood are controlling the Flux from here. Tecteun reveals that she has all the Doctor's lost memories in a fob watch, but neither the offer of this, nor an offer to spare the Earth from the Flux, persuade the Doctor not to interfere. With their needed power built up, Swarm and Azure are able to cross into Tecteun's domain, and kill her. They tease the Doctor with the memories from the fob watch, threatening to erase them, then roll back time, and erase them over and over again. The Doctor persuades the Ood to come to her aid, and rips off her converter device to return to the universe. Because of the time disruption, this instead splits her into three identical copies of the Doctor phasing in and out: one with Swarm and Azure, one with Karvanista and Bel, one with Yaz, Dan and Jericho. Between them, the three Doctors and her various helpers work to defeat the Sontarans. The Sontaran plan is to lure the Daleks and Cybermen to the area of space where the final Flux activity will happen, with a promise to use the Lupari shield to protect them; they'll then let both races be destroyed with the hope that all that matter being consumed will exhaust the Flux's anti-matter energy, leaving the Sontarans to rule over the remaining universe.

Kate Stewart arrives in the Williamson tunnels with the TARDIS (that UNIT retrieved from the abandoned 1967 village attacked by angels) and shares a plan that she's been developing to infiltrate the Sontarans. They are using humans with psychic ability to forecast where the final Flux activity will take place. The Doctor picks up Claire from the 1960s, and Claire and Jericho infiltrate a Sontaran psychic team, and come up with the desired coordinates. Diane and Vinder work out a way to signal to the Doctor, and she rescues them. The Sontaran fleet is destroyed alongside the Daleks and Cybermen, but not before they kill all the other Lupari except Karvanista. Claire manages to transmat away from a Sontaran ship before the Flux hits, but Jericho is not so lucky and dies. It's still not enough matter to halt the Flux though, but Diane has had the idea to use the Passenger form to suck up the remaining Flux energy, which works. Swarm and Azure summon their "Saviour" Time and offer up the Doctor. As the Flux has not destroyed Atropos, Time is still not free, so it destroys the Ravagers in punishment. It does not kill the Doctor, though, instead dropping a hint that her time is ending soon. The three parts to the Doctor come together as one and stabilise. The Grand Serpent is banished to an exile on a barren rock in space. Bel and Vinder are reunited, and go off with Karvanista. Everyone else is returned to their proper time and place. Diane is no longer interested in going for a date with Dan. The Doctor invites him instead to join the TARDIS team. The Doctor still has the fob watch, but decides not to open it for now, and hides it deep within the TARDIS.

Context:

I brought this on my self. About this time three years ago, in a blog post for the 12 x 25 minute episode story The Daleks' Master Plan, I made the following comment: "Unless Chris Chibnall were to take things in a very unexpected direction in 2020, Master Plan is going to be the longest story with which I will ever wrestle". Well, it took him until 2021, but he did indeed take things in a new direction, and created a story longer than that William Hartnell behemoth that took up three months of Saturday afternoons in the 1960s. Flux is composed of varying length episodes, three of 50 minutes and three of around an hour, so is the equivalent of at least 13 episodes of classic Who, making it the second longest Doctor Who story ever, measured in minutes. The winner, 14-episode The Trial of a Time Lord, doesn't really count to my mind, as it is composed of four discrete segments under an umbrella title. Each story is as separable as those that make up the Doctor's quest for the Key to Time, say, or various parts of more involved series arcs in 21st century Who like the Silence episodes in 2011. Not Flux though. If you cut out all the running subplots, you could make a standalone adventure out of Chapter 2 (War of the Sontarans) or Chapter 4 (Village of the Angels) at a push, but everything else is interweaved too tightly with the overall narrative.

There was nothing for it but to cover the story as one long piece. It troubled me a tiny bit to burn through so much of Jodie Whittaker's limited and precious stock of remaining stories, so I've decided I won't post about any of her three 2022 specials until they come up randomly, the better to make her era last throughout the remaining lifetime of the blog. Perhaps perversely, I also decided if I was going to use up six episodes in one go, I would use them up in one go. I would binge the lot in one five and a half hour marathon, with only the odd bathroom break on pause. I previously managed this for the relatively svelte 10-parter The War Games, but this would be even more of a challenge. I very nearly made it, but during Christmas holidays in a busy family house it wasn't possible to not have one meal break of half an hour. It at least took place between chapters four and five, so not interrupting an episode and following a cracking cliffhanger. I was accompanied throughout both shifts by the youngest (girl of 9) who was keen to watch it all again, and felt happier that some outstanding questions in her mind were answered by this re-watch. We viewed the story from my PVR recordings of the episodes rather than on the BBC iplayer, so we could get the surrounding idents, continuity and trails as part of the experience.

First Time Round:

I have often bemoaned my meagre remembrances of recent stories when covering them only a few years later here on the blog; many times I've suggested the keeping of a viewing diary, so as an experiment I tried it for Flux:

• 31st October. Chapter 1: The Halloween Apocalypse. Giving out sweets from about 5.30pm while the kids are out trick or treating. All sweets gone in half an hour, but that's not stopping people ringing the doorbell. Put up polite notice - 5 minutes to go before the broadcast, but kids not back yet. Start to watch live at 6.25pm, but feel guilty that I'm not waiting and give up at "Liverpool 1820" just after the beginning credits. When they get back, kids need to warm up with some soup. End up watching [from the start] with the two youngest (boy of 12, girl of 9) time-shifted using the PVR about 40 minutes later than live.
• 8th November. Chapter 2: War of the Sontarans. Missed the live broadcast as I was at the BFI for the Galaxy 4 animation screening, then with friends in London afterwards. Kids waited so they could watch with me. Put on the PVR recording the following evening after dinner with two youngest [they will be my only viewing partners throughout Flux]. Lots of chants of "Sontar-ha!" from both before they settled down to bed afterwards.
• 14th November. Chapter 3: Once, Upon Time. First episode we watched live as it went out on BBC1. Caught the obligatory last few minutes of Countryfile, waiting in anticipation. Youngest showed me that she was keeping her eyes wide open whenever the Weeping Angels were on screen.
• 21st November. Chapter 4: Village of the Angels. Slightly time-shifted (about 10 minutes or so) as we couldn't wolf down our supper fast enough. Youngest needed to play a game on my phone to distract herself towards the end as it was getting too scary, but didn't want to leave the room and kept occasionally glancing at what was on screen.
• 28th November. Chapter 5: Survivors of the Flux. Watched live including the last few minutes of Countryfile again. Youngest is feeling a bit poorly but didn't want to miss it. [This will turn out to be Covid and everyone in the family will get it before too long.]
• 5th December. Chapter 6: The Vanquishers. Tested positive the day before on a Lateral Flow Test, so could not be at the BFI again for City of Death as planned. Consolation is that we can watch the finale live. All three of us enjoy it.

Reaction:

Chris Chibnall famously appeared as a young Doctor Who Appreciation Society member on BBC public feedback show Open Air to express his lack of appreciation of the most recently broadcast series of Doctor Who. It being 1986, that was The Trial of a Time Lord. It is amusing therefore that all these years later, Chibnall has used the key idea from that 80s epic (an entire season of Doctor Who as one long serial) and for the exact same reason (to make a benefit of a reduced episode count thrust upon the production team by factors outside of their control; Covid this time, rather than Michael Grade). To be fair to Chibnall, the structure of the series was never what he had a problem with, and he certainly wasn't the only one then or since to find the writing of Colin Baker's final year as the Doctor a little lacklustre. People now and in the future may well say the same about Flux. I always thought people were generally a little hard on Trial - it has some great moments, and hangs together reasonably well. I would think anyone being so sniffy about Flux was being massively unfair though. It's a magnificent achievement. Watching the whole thing in one go makes it clear that everything in the narrative is clearly explained and paid off. It's only confusing when you're meant to be confused, and is paced well overall across the six chapters - frenetic opening of multiple narrative strands, action story with a little bit of resolution, pause for the revelation of some backstory, chamber horror piece that ends of a big cliffhanger, confrontation and more explanations, big explosive finale.

Like many of the longer stories of 1960s Doctor Who, including the other major antecedent for Flux, The Daleks' Master Plan, the narrative keeps things interesting over its running time by hopping between many different locales. Every single one of these is beautifully realised. What is on screen is breathtaking in its scope (many CGI-rendered spacecraft whizzing through amazing starscapes), beautiful in its detail (the Samurai styling of Karvanista's Lupari technology, as just one example) and perfect in its design (the make-up and costume for Swarm and Azure is outstanding). These episodes were made during a pandemic, when the crew were working out as they went along how to operate within restrictions that kept changing. I can't think of any moment that lets the side down. There was some carping online that the Passenger masks were commercially available ones that hadn't been adapted, but this misses the point to my mind, and the point is: the Passenger forms looked really cool. Why mess with that? Just like Trial of a Timelord back in the day, the epic starts with a sequence that pushes the boundaries of effects technology (the Doctor and Yaz zooming around above a lake of acid), but this is then sustained. There's at least one amazing set piece in every episode, like the massed ranks of Sontarans versus British soldiers in the Crimea, or many of the moments involving Weeping Angels from the fourth episode including perhaps the most memorable image of the Doctor turned into an angel. This is the one episode that I think will come in for the most praise, but it was mostly quite derivative. Nonetheless, it was enjoyable and scary. It seems that no matter how many times you have statues advancing on people trying not to blink, it never gets old. In that story, the 1960s are expertly recreated, as elsewhere is the Crimean War, and various places in 1904, and the many 20th century moments in the formation of UNIT that the Grand Serpent gatecrashes.

More than times and places, though, the many people of Flux help propel it along, and keep the audience engaged. Chibnall clearly understands this, as he ends the first episode with an exciting montage of each featured character at the start of their journey. The cast is Flux's biggest asset and every performance is a good one, some great. Karvanista is the first of the recurring guest cast to be introduced, and he's an instantly complete and engaging creation: gruff, blunt, and very Northern, at times almost antagonistic, but always coming back however unwillingly to his basic moral code. He also looks like a very cute dog, which is a genius choice as it informs his character - it could've been rubbish and just seemed like a mask (though the handiwork is exceptional) but it's great because looking cute clearly annoys the character so much. The concept allows for some wit in the dialogue too; "I still have a human in this fight". He's also now stitched into the programme's lore as an old companion of the Doctor, and I'd love to see Craige Els return to portray him again. Vinder and Bel, as more straightforward action / romantic heroes, are not quite so interesting, but nonetheless are engagingly performed (by Jacob Anderson and Thaddea Graham respectively), and both have some good moments. Vinder's backstory as a punished whistle-blower in a corrupt regime is something a bit different, and it's great to see them reunited near the end after a series of near misses. Annabel Scholey as Claire Brown doesn't get much to do that doesn't involve reacting to moving statues, but makes the most of it; the scene where she looks in the mirror to see her reflection has stone angel wings (achieved in camera with physical effects work) is another standout moment.

Other guest actors shine in less extensively featured roles: Nadia Albina as the resourceful Diane, Jemma Redgrave returning as Kate Stewart, Sarah Powell perfect as Mary Seacole, the historical celebrity around which a lot of the second episode revolves. On first watch, Blake Harrison seemed a little wasted in the role of Namaca, but this time round I got that he's there to represent all of the refugees displaced by the Flux, who otherwise wouldn't have a voice in the narrative. Best of all the guest characters, even though he doesn't turn up until halfway through, is Professor Eustacius Jericho, haunted but indomitable, serious but with a twinkle. It was a treat when he continued to work with Yaz and Dan in episode five, as he looked set to be a one-off character specific to the Angels plotline. It's also nice that Kevin McNally gets to do another good performance in Doctor Who, but this time as part of a story that's not The Twin Dilemma. Also returning to Doctor Who after a reasonable time away is Dan Starkey, who along with Johnathan Watson plays the different Sontarans featured. They are both so good, and the slightly tweaked masks similarly good, that you almost forget that there are actors in there. This is perhaps the best Sontaran story ever - showing them actually getting to participate in a war, having one ride a horse, and putting them on a level with the Daleks and Cybermen as top-tier adversaries. Main villains Swarm and Azure are gleefully but also glamorously sadistic, and actors Sam Spruell and Rochenda Sandall are having enormous fun playing them. Best of all the baddies, and also well dressed, is Craig Parkinson as the Grand Serpent. Yes, he's playing an extra-terrestrial twist on a somewhat similar role he famously played in another series (I'm trying not to spoiler here, if you know, you know) but he's doing it so well. He's also still alive at the end, so potentially could return to face the Doctor again.

There's still room left for the regulars to shine. John Bishop arrives fully formed as Dan, and slots instantly into the team, bringing a down-to-Earth warmth and humour to a long-running team, but also a greater sense of wonder than the existing regulars who maybe take the adventuring a bit for granted now. A new companion, and long periods where the Doctor is separated from the others, allows Mandip Gill to shine as the experienced old hand, and even act as the Doctor surrogate at times: her having WWTDD (What would the Doctor do?) written on her hand is a lovely character touch. There's some great interplay between the two companions too; I particularly liked the following naturally funny exchange: "Dan, are you from Liverpool? Why have you never mentioned it?" "Alright Sheffield, keep your cutlery on!". Jodie Whittaker has never been less than excellent in any of her previous stories, no matter the quality of the material. Here, with a rollicking good set of scripts, she somehow steps it up a gear and is sensational. Too many memorable scenes to list them all, but some stand-outs include flirting with her self when split into multiple Doctors, many scenes with the Ravagers playing vulnerable as her secret past is teased but not revealed, and turning the tables on the Grand Serpent in the finale. Best of all are the sequences with Barbara Flynn as Tecteun, the Doctor confronting the mother she never knew she had, who has robbed her twice, once by changing the course of her life by taking her as a foundling (an assumption that the Doctor points out was not necessarily a sound one), and secondly by removing her memories. These are great scenes in a story stuffed full of them, and crackling with some great jokes and snappy dialogue.

The nature of such a long story with many facets is going to attract a particular criticism. When I reviewed similarly epic The War Games I described it as the Doctor Who equivalent of The Beatles' White Album. Could Flux then be the long medley from Abbey Road? In other words, it's lots of bits and bobs put together with only a semblance of coherence. I'd take exception to such a reading, as the whole is well integrated and more than the sum of its parts (actually, you could say that about side 2 of Abbey Road too, I suppose). Sure, any one of the story threads could be unpicked and lumped together to create more modular individual episodes, but the whole would suffer. You could, for example, take all of Steve Oram's moments as Liverpool tunneler Joseph Williamson out of chapters one to five and just have him in the finale, but him popping up and meeting characters at unexpected moments, being weird and portentous, is much more fun. Any other flaws I've seen levelled are minor ones, or ones I can't accept as flaws at all. Yaz, Dan and Jericho spend a globe-trotting episode achieving naff all, but it's so much fun to be in those characters' company. The Sontarans vulnerability at the end because they have become addicted to chocolate is no bum note, it's a sort of crazy genius. The universe is so changed by the end that the show might have to reset, but that's true towards the end of any showrunner or Doctor's era. The next episode on the 1st January features Daleks who were seemingly all eaten up by the Flux, so they're already ignoring it anyway. The story might not be very deep; unlike previous Jodie Whittaker seasons there are no political or ecological themes, just an exploration of lore. Some people might think this is a good thing, of course.

Connectivity: 

Both Flux and A Christmas Carol feature a Doctor paired with two companions, one male one female, and both see them assisted by a wider group of people, some of whom travel in the TARDIS. Both stories feature scenes set around a notable day of the religious calendar (All Hallow's Eve and Christmas). Both see the Doctor flying through the air in a somewhat unconventional manner. Flux contains lots and lots of elements from Doctor Who's history, but it couldn't find room to include any flying sharks, alas.

Deeper Thoughts:

Everything's in flux. The 2021 story / season was an enjoyable event as it went out weekly, and stands up well when watched as one very long - Peter-Jackson movie length - special. I think it's fair to say that nobody on December 31st 2020 could have predicted that Chibnall would provide us with the 21st Century's version of The Daleks' Master Plan or Trial of a Timelord in the following year. So, it's probably a pointless exercise to look ahead to next year and speculate; but, I like pointless exercises, so here we go. Whatever else we guess about what 2022 has to offer, we know it will have one of the most exciting moments for a Doctor Who fan - the final story for a Doctor. Jodie Whittaker has three more stories left for 2022: a festive special on January 1st, and then two more specials in Spring and Autumn. In the final one, no doubt some of the questions about the Doctor's past left unanswered by Flux will have been answered, but the smart money would be on it not being all of them. Some mystery is likely to remain. I'd also bet that Sacha Dhawan will return as the Master and Jo Martin as the Division Doctor, but it's not certain. The only thing we can be 100% sure of is that the lead actor will bow out (Jodie's finished all her filming) and the character will regenerate. Beyond that, anything could happen. It's not completely unprecedented for the regeneration to end on a cliffhanger without revealing a new Doctor and actor, but it's not been done for a long time and only happened once (Jon Pertwee did not appear in Patrick Troughton's finale). Large sections of the audience would be very miffed to not have resolution and confirmation of the new Doctor, but that doesn't mean returning showrunner Russell T Davies won't do it.

I think it's more likely that someone will be cast as the Doctor next year and announced before the final special airs. It would be lovely for it to be a complete surprise and revealed only at the end of that story, but I don't think it's realistic. Any actor and their agent is going to want to keep the casting secret for only so long; professionally, it would need to be known that the person has the kudos of one of biggest roles in television (as well as clarifying that they won't be able to take on any other work for a bit). When the 2023 episodes start filming, it would be very likely to leak anyway. It's exciting, though; it means that sometime in the first three quarters of 2022, we should find out. According to a recent interview, Davies and team have not cast anyone yet (but he has been known to lie in interviews to ensure surprises). He also confirms that he has already written more than one episode, and the first one will be broadcast in November 2023 around the 60th anniversary of the show. This means that there will definitely not be a festive special on January 1st 2023, so 2022 could see the end of that tradition (or the schedulers and Davies could move the special back to the 25th December and there'd be one before the year is out). It's always nice for the profile of the show that Doctor Who is on over the Christmas period, but maybe all the possible stories set sometime between the 24th December and the 1st January have been told now, so I wouldn't be that sad about it ending.

Aside from the new, there's also the new old. One animation of a 1960s missing story has been confirmed for 2022; this will be 1967's The Abominable Snowmen. There's no date confirmed yet, but it's likely to be in the first half of the year if it's already being talked up. There are now two teams regularly tackling the creation of pictures to accompany stories where only the audio survives intact. So, providing the budget's still there to commission both, the other team should be working on something (it certainly seemed that way when they appeared at the BFI showing their last project The Evil of the Daleks). My guess, which will undoubtedly be wrong, is that they'll do The Wheel in Space next and it will be released late in the year. This will complete season five (Patrick Troughton's second year) on shiny disc, and will make it feasible to release that season as a Blu-ray box set sometime in the future. With regard to the Blu-ray sets, they returned to their pre-Covid release frequency in 2021, with three limited edition box sets (as well as some re-releases of older box sets in standard packaging). From social media mentions from some of the people that work on them, more are definitely in the works, and I'd expect another three in 2022. I'll speculate again, and no doubt be wrong again, and guess that the releases will be season 13 (Tom Baker's second year, a fan favourite, and there seems to be a one Tom set per year rule), season 22 (Colin Baker's first full year), and season 2 (William Hartnell's second year, which would be the first black and white season set, and would likely have photo reconstructions of the only two missing episodes in the season).

The previously mentioned RTD interview tied in with the Guardian's annual countdown of the 50 best TV shows of the year. I looked through the list and - as usual, and doubtless as intended - disagreed with a lot of it. Flux does not make the list, which maybe shows more about a long-running consistent programme such as Doctor Who being taken for granted rather than necessarily anything about the quality of the episodes themselves. Having paid for a month of Disney Plus to watch the Beatles documentary Get Back (number 27 in the Guardian's list), I was finally able to see WandaVision (the Guardian number 16), one of the fantasy shows to which Doctor Who has been compared unfavourably of late, and... it's only okay; wildly overrated, to my mind, and nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is. I am still to watch The Mandalorian or Loki; I'll report back if they rock my world. I much preferred the new seasons of a couple of US shows that I first watched during last year's lockdowns: Superstore and Ted Lasso. The latter made the Guardian list (at number 14) , the former didn't. As good as Lasso is, Superstore's emotional final season was slightly better for this viewer. Best of all for me was discovering the UK comedy series Ghosts (a US remake also premiered this year, but I haven't seen that yet). It only made number 34 in the Guardian list, but it was top ten for me. At some future date, when they finish telling the story of Button House, the entire Ghosts creative team would be a great pick to become showrunners of Doctor Who (though they might fall out between themselves as to which of them gets to play the Doctor). Of course, the next showrunner Russell T Davies happens to be the writer of the Guardian's number 1 show of the year, It's a Sin. It was shown early in the year, but it was such an intense, upsetting, invigorating and unforgettable drama that nothing shown since could top it. A worthy winner. It's very exciting to see what the writer of It's a Sin (who's maybe a slightly different man to the writer The Second Coming all those years ago) will make of Doctor Who next. But that's 2023, and we have 2022 to enjoy first. Any minute now...

In Summary:

It's fluxing great. Happy New Year!