Doctor Who: Flux – Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse Review

Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whitaker return for one final season of Doctor Who. Series 13 had a strong start with one of the most entertaining episodes during the Chibnall/Whitaker era.

Many forces are drawn to Earth. These include the Lupari, a dog-like alien race, the Weeping Angels, the Sontarans, and worst of all, a space cloud called The Flux. Dan Lewis (John Bishop) and his friends end up getting caught up with all these events.

The pandemic forced Series 13 to be a shorter series. It will be six episodes long, with two additional specials. However, these unusual circumstances allowed for an opportunity because Series 13, or as it has been titled Doctor Who: Flux is set to tell one long, continuous story. This hasn’t happened since the Classic Era.

The seasons in the Modern Era have arcs throughout their runs, i.e. Bad Wolf in Season One, The Darkness in Season Four, and The Cracks in Season Five. Yet all these seasons still told individual stories and the meaning of things like ‘Bad Wolf’ and ‘The Darkness’ only became apparent in the season finale.

Due to this new style of storytelling meant “The Halloween Apocalypse” task was to be a set-up episode. It had to introduce all the new characters, their agendas, and the big threat of the season. The job of these types of episodes is to hook in audiences, particularly new audiences and it succeeded. This was the most fun I had with Doctor Who since Chibnall took over as the showrunner.

One of the biggest criticisms of Chibnall’s run as showrunner is his writing. His episodes were often a slog that zaps out any excitement. He often had characters talk about things instead of showing audiences what has happened. The show became boring under Chibnall’s tenure. However, “The Halloween Apocalypse” had so much going on, that it meant Chibnall couldn’t slow things down to explain things: the events on-screen had to speak for themselves. It felt more like an episode from the Russell or Moffatt eras: it was blockbuster TV.

Chibnall’s biggest credit before he was the Doctor Who showrunner was ITV’s Broadchurch. Broadchurch was a series that told the story of how a crime impacted a small coastal town. Telling a long, continuous story seems to fit his style of writing. Even during his run as the Doctor Who showrunner Chibnall can supply a good cliffhanger and a continuous story can give lots of opportunities for more.

Dan is set to join  The Doctor and Yaz on their adventures through time and space. He was shown to be a welcome presence as a passionate Liverpudlian and a regular Joe. He ends up getting thrust into the weird world of sci-fi when he gets abducted by a dog-like alien. It helps that John Bishop is a likeable comedian and actor in shows like Skins. He has only appeared in one episode, but I felt more connected to him than to Yaz or Ryan.

The best moment in the episode was the sequence involving the Weeping Angel. One of Dan’s friends, Claire (Annabel Scholey), gets confronted by a Weeping Angel when she was at her front door. It was a wonderfully tense sequence because Claire couldn’t look away or blink. When she did lose sight of the Angel for a split second it got closer to Claire. This sequence was the best involving the Weeping Angels since Series 5.

Whilst The Weeping Angel sequence was really instance, this episode was also really goofy. The episode opened with The Doctor and Yaz hanging upside down over a sea of boiling acid. The aim was to give the episode an action-packed opening, but it was really silly because of numerous threats, The Doctor and Yaz’s bickering, and the poor CGI and green screen. The costume for the Lupari looked like it came out of the Classic Era because it was shockingly cheap. It looked like the series has had its budget slashed. However, goofy was preferable to being boring because this episode was trying to be fun.

The weak leak in this episode was The Doctor and Yaz. Audiences have spent two seasons with them, yet they still feel like blank slates. Whitaker’s Doctor was just still the fast-talking oddball she’s always been and Yaz had no personality. Attempts at humour like The Doctor and Yaz using a hammer to fix the TARDIS fell flat.

“The Halloween Apocalypse” was a vast improvement to most of the Chibnall era. It felt like the show many people fell in love with and I want to see where this Series goes.