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DID IT SUCK? | Doctor Who Flux FINALE
This week, Harry concludes his assessment of Doctor Who Flux by reviewing the final episode “The Vanquishers”, followed by a summary and ranking of each individual episode of Series 13.
the doctor who series 13 flux finale hasbeen and gone and my oh my what adisaster it was chibnall does have atrack record of terrible finales andthis one was no exception my partner andi prepared ourselves with plenty ofalcohol knowing what was in store and wehonestly had a great time laughingthroughout most of it this is probablythe only positive thing about thevanquishers it’s so bad it’s hilarious ican’t exactly say the same for ranscoreor timeless children though that now hasme thinking about concocting a triplechimnal finale drinking game anywaylet’s recap shall we how good was series13 at wait a minute no i think it wouldbe better to leave that till the endwhen i hand outratings allow me instead to take aminute to talk about my favorite vpnatlas vpn is a program and app thatallows you to surf the net as though youwere in a different country it encryptsyour connection so when using publicwi-fi people aren’t going to snoop onyour activity that’s just the securityend of things it 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sorry i haveto keep saying this but it’s honestly ashame that the showrunners are so afraidto continue the intensity from last weekfor even a minute this episode has someof the worst get out of jail free cardsever let’s start withthe characters are initially seen takingcover from sontaran blasterfire yazsuddenly remembers that one of thetunnels should never be opened anddecides to open it with her newly foundrope expertise this was the first timein the episode i howled with laughterbecause of these linesthis seemed to be a reference to yaza’splot armor as she stood up in front ofsontara and fire with the potato peopledeciding to shoot elsewhere for theduration of her rope swinging it’sreally weird as well the direction ofthe blast seems to indicate thecharacters are hiding on the wrong sideof these boxes the gang then playsscooby-doo in and out of the mysterydoors one of them conveniently led backto the present day where the tardis katestewart and the doctor just happened tobe because of the ood teleport and thenear disintegration from swarm thedoctor has been triplicated so she’sbasically everywhere at once it feltlike they were trying to outdo whathappened to the doctor in journey’s endbut the problems go deeper than justbeing a shameless rip-off by having thisdone within the first three minutes ofthe episode the tension of having twodoctorless narrative threads is madecompletely redundant the mere fact ofthe tardis being here as well made mewonder how the grand serpent sontaranalliance could have ignored such aglaring oversight if the santarans werehelping the grand serpent infiltrateunits surely the tardis would be keptunder lock and key to have kate justmagically show up here with the tardismakes her downfall in the previousepisode feel utterly pointless[Music]that does not belong to you do you thinkwe’re going to stop i feel like ishouldn’t be laughing at this moment butboy does him just appearing out ofnowhere make me laugh was this intendedto be a jump scare they do this a secondtime later in the episode and it’s justso [ __ ] bizarre we have everything weneed the power to destroy your universeand you so does that mean the ravagersbasically wanted exactly the same thingas tektayoon torment the doctor with hermemories and wipe out the universe shewas in the sontarans were then seenbroadcasting a consoling speech to thepeople of the universe and an invitationto their foes apparently this isn’tinclusive of humanity and the doctorthough and is actually just aninvitation to the cybermen and daleks itmight have been nice if the showactually established the santirans beingat war with daleks and cybermen prior tothis episode allowing room for thearch-nemeses of the show to react to theinvitation instead of just showing upbecause the story demands it the doctorconveniently shows up on the lupari shipwith bell and carvinista they too havedispatched the santarans without so muchas a scratch but the bigger problem withthis scene is the doctor essentiallystealing the limelight it’s just the wayshe babbles on about her circumstancesas though nobody else is in the room shethen uses her sonic screwdriver toredirect the ship back to earth leavinga gaping hole in the shield andcompromising the planet the ship thenhilariously kamikazed into the centaurand shield the fact neither bell orcarvinista tried stopping her just blewmy mind the episode then displays a shotplaced between the shield and the earthit’s at this point i realized how littlethought actually went into episode one’sget out of jail free card first of allmy calculations of the exact area ofthese ships proves to be completelywrong if they are this far away from theearth’s surface the individual ships aregoing to be colossally larger than 10football fields a pop secondly just lookat how bright the earth is if thisshield is supposed to be protecting theearth in totality to the point that evenone ship leaving is a problem yourbroken shield unity you are compromisingearth’s protection earth shield is nowbreachable how is the earth lit up bysunlight right now ah the dark energycamera in chile a perfect luxury getawayholiday for all the family the doctorthen gets shown the creepy house in thesky again and this has to be one of thebiggest disappointments this series hasamongst all the others it is infuriatingto suggest that on top of oneestablished barrier that of the fobwatch there is another barrier todiscovering the doctor’s lost memoriesthis [ __ ] floating house in the skythe fob watch being opened should takeus straight to the memories instead wejust get swarmed destroying andrebuilding this house that has nosignificance or meaning to anybodywhatsoever it was god damn hilariousseeing what is essentially a glorifiedbuffer symbol in the sky a perfectrepresentation of chibnall unable tomake up his mind about what to do withlast year’s finale we cut back to thepresent day where the doctor learnsabout the companion’s grand tour how hasit been for youtoo a few yearsohlike it was nothing this would have beenthe perfect opportunity to explain howthe grand tour was funded heck we mighthave seen yaz jericho and dan resent thedoctor for not coming and getting themsooner insteadwe get yet another soppy momentproclaiming yaz to be such a greatperson without any justification oh mygod i can feel the deja vu coming on ithink you’re such an impressive youngwoman she was amazing she is amazingonce again there’s no how or why toyaza’s character decisions abilities shejust is the scene moves swiftly on tointroducing the doctor to josephwilliamson suddenly williamson becamejust another exposition machine ipreviously complimented how insane anderratic that combined character andperformance appeared to be now that ateleporting woman has just appearedbefore him he becomes so static and dullrepeating everything we already knewabout him all in service of this supercringey line well done paul hollywood[Music]the doctor then talks to kate stewartdespite this being the first interactionthe doctor and kate have woman to womanthe doctor’s new gender gets ignored infavor of more exposition dumping thisleads the gang to investigatecorner shopswhy ohmetabolic processing is a gravityrestorative gas composition that wouldprovoke a prediction you have any ideawhat she’s talking about not a cluedon’t you mean abudget hilariously the sontarans areback in liverpool displaying a wholebunch of leftover b-roll footage fromepisode 2. for some [ __ ] reasonchibnall decided to establish thesontarans as having a thing forchocolate i’m not making this [ __ ] upand i still can’t make up my mind ifthis is the single funniest or stupidestthing the show has ever come up with inthe context of a series finale it’spretty stupid i don’t know how on earththe bbc managed to get away with allthis product placement right here but atthe same time dan starkey lives up tobeing the greatest sontaran performerever even the doc and the companions doa great job of making this deal ofhanding over psychic people in exchangefor more chocolate very entertainingespecially seeing as it was the sametactics seen in episode 2.back to the doctor and pet pooch theysort of established carvenista as beinga companion there was some promise themoment he said that talking about histime as a companion would kill him itseemed to imply something truly awfulhappened on their adventures that hewould rather not relivebut no he will literally die if he talksabout his time spent with the doctorit’s certainly a familiar tale of acompanion being abandoned by the doctoronly to have her crash back into theirlife like nothing happened but it didn’tdo enough to make the potential emotionof this scene flourish the sontarans andgrand serpent come along for someinterrogation they start by claimingthat all the lupari were ejected intospace every looper on those shipsairlocked out into space their bodiesnow scatter the space lanes every singleoneagain this line is just taken as gospelboth in terms of the story and thecharacters i had a hard time believingthis statement myself after seeing onelupari fight several sontarans at onceon multiple occasions there are seven[ __ ] billion of them and yet only onehas the ability to fight santarans whenthe doctor once again believes whatcould potentially be a flat out liei’m so sorry i’m just left scratching myhead at how gullible these twocharacters are they honestly could haveused this proclaimed genocide as a trickto weaken carvinista’s resolve but it’ssomething that is just acceptedthroughout the remainder of the episodei just can’t believe how literal thescript is cybermen and daleks you’reinvited to a party that’s obviously atrap they show up carvinista we killedyour whole species off-screen no otherlupari are even seen in the seriesanyway so who [ __ ] cares anindeterminable distance away theravagers are still teasing the doctorabout when she’s going to die azure hasthis big monologue about basicallynothing all that the pair have done ischange the epicenter of the flux movingit from earth to atropos so that theycan make the doctor watch the universedie over and over again a constantdestructive look on a loop all i gatheris that the doctor watching the universecollapse rebuild and collapse again inthe same style as swarm does with thehouse would be torture to her but that’sit that’s all the ravagers wantapparently meanwhile in that dream spaceplace where the dock and swarm had achat in episode 1 the passenger is seeninside him vinda and diane are runningaround like headless chickens and i meanthat because neither of them even knowwhy they are running to begin with weget spoon more stupid information aboutthis place that really doesn’t matter inthe grand scheme at all as though vindahas nothing better to do which infairness he really doesn’t he gets toldto jump into the river and the pair werethen transported to a blue forest whichjust looked horrible not in a oh my godi wouldn’t want to be there kind ofhorrible this whole scene just hurts myeyeballs they found a glowing yellowpuddle and thankfully vinda knows allabout glowing yellow puddles it’s abioform it’s a combination of organicmachines but these are the internal techsystems what are youwhat are you talking about you shouldteach at the academy oh my god laser tagand finding yellow puddles is how youget into piloting school my god if onlyreal life worked like that these systemsthey seem to control those steps whereyou came in if you disrupt the systemsthe steps become active but it’sself-repairs so they’re only there alimited time you any idea what she’stalking about not a clue vinder thenshoots the yellow puddle and suddenlythey’re running up the stairs where theymet each other andwe’re out nice work that was easy insidethe sontaran ships in chile apparentlyall the psychic santarans areunavailable right now so jericho andclaire will do i really don’t understandthe purpose of their involvement in thisepisode aside from watching eachcharacter take a psychic load oh my godthe doctor also winds up being hooked upto a machine that looks oddlyreminiscent of when the ninth doctor wasinterrogated in the episode dalek theyaccidentally seemed to get thecharacterization of the doctor right inthis scene jody seemed to show a senseof humor for once it was nice that eventhough she was the one in the chair itappeared as though she was the one doingthe interrogating it was a shame thatthis was done to such an overbearingdegree that not one question came out ofthe grand serpent’s mouth everyone thengets out of chile quick smart with belleplanting some doohickey in a machinethis was able to pick up the sontaranadvert we saw at the beginning thedoctors put their heads together andthat somehow identifies that the flux ismade of antimatter taken from outsidethe universe after the convenient escapethe sontarans are getting ready fordeparture themselves the doctor was inhere she rescued herself i just need totrace all recent readings of ultraenergy around the earth daddy i need touse the laptop now all my friends areplaying roadblocks without mebe quick of coursekate’s stupid well firstly i don’t evensee how kate enters into the picturehere i thought you attempted to have herkilled last episode you would surelywant to know that your attempt wassuccessful rightnothe serpent is then seen at some [ __ ]train depot talking to some lad there’ssomething so hilariously pointless aboutthis character maybe i can’t unsee thisperformer outside of comedy but the factthey attempt to make his character allserious continually fell flat on itsface his final scene is just the biggestpunchline of the entire episode vinderand kate wind up holding him at gunpointand guide him into a door that leads toa [ __ ] rock in space which apparentlyhas air and is dense enough to haveearth like gravity oh it’s so cute himbeing exiled like vinda but the lack ofcharacterization on the part of thegrand serpent leads to him not evenhaving anything to say once he’s beendealt with what a waste so vinder anddye are now in the dreamscape whichsomehow allows him to call the doctorthe doctor then arrives talkspointlessly at the passenger for about20 seconds and gets the pair outquicksmart it’s not exactly made clear if hertalking to the passenger was whatallowed the tardis inside but my godevery rescue in this episode feels sodamn easy there’s absolutely no tensionin the sontaran’s base or inside thepassenger when this sort of [ __ ] happensit makes the reunion of the two seriespower couples feel so unearned on top ofthem all being two-dimensional planks ofwood the doctor and yaz then go back tokate stewart and the scene is just thebiggest exposition dump i’ve ever seen idon’t really know why it begins withkate just being brought up to speed withwhat the sontarans are doing what onlyto have the doctor speculate about whythe sontarans are luring cybermen anddaleks to the final flux event which asusual turns out to be absolutely on themoney here’s what i think they’re doingif they managed to wipe out the entireassembled armies of cybermen and daleksand that would reverberate acrosscivilizations suntarens is the ultimatevanquishers what [ __ ] civilizationsare going to be left after the flux hasrolled its way back through the universeah but yaz has already thought of thiseverything still gets destroyed by theflux and the explanationis just baffling the combination of alupari shield with all the daleks andcybermen in existence showing up in oneplace will cancel out the flux onlybecause my understanding of physicsdoesn’t go beyond gcse level hearingkate and the doctor lecture yaz abouthow anti-matter and mata work made mewant to fall asleep once again this iswhere the principle of showing and nottelling gets completely ignored in favorof just spouting dialogue that isn’temotionally engaging but quite franklyalienating i think the blame lies moreon the idea that delivering thisinformation in an interesting way wasn’tdone so it hurts the episode’sresolution as a result so the sontaranswarped away from earth placed close byto the lupari shield the doctor lays outher battle plan and for some reason theycouldn’t get jodie in this shot righthere appearing as though they justcopied and pasted a still image of herface looking directly into the camera ontop of a double it looks so [ __ ] susnext up jericho and claire need to getthemselves off the centaur and ship thedoctor gave them some teleporting ringsearlier and apparently jericho hasreally thin fingers because his goesflying off his hand and into the wallsontaran then shoots it as though hemagically knew it was right at his feetleaving jericho stuck on the shipmeanwhile all the daleks and cybermenships showed up looking like they hiredthe same visual effects artists as thoseon rise of skywalker it was equallybaffling to see standard rank-and-filemembers of those species essentiallyspeaking as these army’s leaders thedoctor bell and carvinista are onceagain seen on a lubari ship where theychange the shield to allow the fluxto kill everyone including the sontaransnow this moment to me is pretty bad andit’s not just because it’s so difficultto even comprehend the idea of auniverse destroying cataclysmselectively wiping doctor who villainsout of existence it’s more that thedoctor actively allows a genocide totake place i remember a month ago thedoctor having a go at a human generalfor essentially blowing up the sontaranarmy just as they were fleeing i alsoremember in this very episode the doctorsaying this ex-leader our dictatoryou’ve got that area of entitlementprobably responsible for any number ofgenocides how am i doing i also rememberthe doctor ridding the earth ofdangerous villains in equallyquestionable ways in the past but thisvideo is already too [ __ ] long tobother with a big exploration of thatthe point being that the doctor in thisseries has just completely flipped onher principles i assume it’s because thelupari were all killed off-screen as shedoesn’t seem to oppose this line andconsequent actions whatsoever you arenot in control we are and this is for mypeoplei’m not even mad she allowed the daleksand cybermen to die either they made solittle impression this series leavingtheir destruction to have as muchexcitement as a recorded fireworksdisplay plus the daleks are coming backfor the new year’s special again anywaysomoving on just before the big cleansingof the universe we see jericho have hisfinal moments what’s more saddening thanhis death was how great of a characterhe was in the angels episode only to begiven a terrifically small andinsignificant role in future episodeshis dialogue isn’t bad either and infact the music that plays beneath hisdeath is probably the first time thatsegen akanola’s score gave me goosebumpsthe problem is that right after hisdeath there’s a shot of yaz with morepipette tears ready to pour away and yetdespite spending three [ __ ] yearswith the man she saysnothing she didn’t even try to save himi think he’s such an impressive youngwoman she was amazing she is amazingadding insult to injury is how thedoctor just magically teleports apassenger right in front of the tardissoaking up the remaining flux was ilaughing at all this complete [ __ ]you can bet your ass i wasso after all that nonsense the ood givesthe doctor a fat ass mojito to calm herdown this gives her the courage toconfront the ravagers who decide they’regoing to take her to atropos to witnessthe end of the universe the two ravagerskept mentioning this savior charactercalled time which naturally had me evenmore confused than before because timeis not only a force that the mori kept acontrol of not only a human constructthat identifies the future in the pastnot only the name of a planet but some[ __ ] individual is called time to whotakes on the appearance of the nearest[ __ ] why personify time what was itall for just to tease the return of themasterwhat a [ __ ] joke and they’ve donethat before they did it in the 2009specials all the characters on board thetardis then get dropped off to theirrespective places claire and kate getdropped off and my god i like thisregeneration yeah you’d fit right in ontwitter dan’s apparently back trying tobe an unofficial tour guide i thoughtthis to be a missed opportunity for himto start spreading the truth about thereal purpose of the tunnels instead hejust claims that nobody really knows thepurpose to this bunch of tourists it wasgood the episode avoided the cliche ofdan and i getting together right afterthe adventure though in fact they seemto accidentally use visuals to explaindan’s feelings right here it leads danright back to the tardis though dan thenvanished in the very next shot and thedoctor apologized for being moresecretive to jazz this moment ends theepisode on a rather mixed note on theone hand the build-up of the seriesabout the doctor being a divisionoperative is basically melted into apuddle of piss on the floor by doingthis on the other this may be chibnallbasically saying yeah i literally haveno idea how to dig myself out of thishole i’ve dug let’s just forget thewhole thing and i am more than fine withthat shame it took you six wholeepisodes to say so and i’m not really aforgiving and forgetting kind of guy andthat’s why i’m about to breeze throughall the episodes again and hand outratingssodid they sucki think the strongest aspect of thefirst episode is probably the potentialof the characters established claire dancarvanister joseph williamson theravagers and the sontarans are allintroduced as key players in thisepisode i firmly believe now that theimminent destruction of the entireuniverse should have been somethingbuilt up over the course of the seriesnot introduced flat out as a cliffhangerto have the flux and then conjure up afinal wave later on diminishes theimpact of this first episode’s endingthere are a few entertaining moments butoverall it doesn’t start things off verystrongly too many budget constraints thecrappy dialogue and the forcedrelationship between yaz and the docreally make the episode a drag even ournew companion’s role as a plasterer andoverall poor man gets completelyforgotten beyond the first few sceneswith him i still am completely lostabout what the hell was going on withazura and the arctic circle as wellchibnall himself doesn’t appear to besure as to what exactly was going on intheir past either swarm and azure ithink historically weresworn enemies of the doctor theyimprisoned swarm on aprison planet in that cage we see inepisode one i feel like they also putazure into this sort of brutal memorywipe witness protection on earth whereshe’s she’s been held prisoner toseparate her from swarm if division’saim was to keep them separated how didswarm know where to find her i woulddefinitely say this first episode inhindsight doesn’t work beyond promisinggood things for future episodes i givethe halloween apocalypse a threeout of tenkind of a hot take on this one it’s fineit’s historically interesting but misseda massive opportunity with the sontaransbeing time travellers and only reallyused it for that map of sontar in eastasia the sontarans do make a ratherimpressive return in the past thanks tothe leading and wounded sontarans andtheir respective performers howevertheir presence in the present isunderwhelming to say the least maryseacole as a character was sorely inneed of being more than the best artstudent in the class but simultaneouslythe approach wasn’t as frustrating asprevious historic episodes in the eraunfortunately why dan vinder and diazwere teleported to their respectiveplaces never gets explained in or afterthis episode i give war of the sontaransa five out of ten oh boy the fillerepisode i liked the premise some of theperformances some of the design andthat’s basically it this episode has aserious dependence on expositorydialogue as well as a bunch of missedopportunities to make the companionsbackstories interesting even the doctorbecame a completely unlikable characterby the end of this episode bell’ssegments are tainted by the fact thatflux’s impact wasn’t as impressive asadvertised things that might have madebelle an interesting character neverreally get established instead she’sjust an excuse to highlight never beforeseen parts of the universe that have nowbeen kinda destroyed there has to be acertain reason why characters like belleand vinder know about daleks cybermenand tardises and you can’t just say thatthe performers are massive fans ofdoctor who because that’s essentiallymaking the actor the character the pairjust fell prey to becoming mary suecharacters all the stuff with the moriboth past and present didn’t impress orinterest me much either beyond thisepisode as well i don’t remember theinternal manipulation of the consoleroom with the additional anddisappearing doors ever getting anexplanation either i give once upon timea threeout of teni think it is generally agreed upon thatthis is the best episode of series 13. ithink some would even say it’s the bestof the era it’s fairly obvious why butgiven that it’s wedged in the middle ofall the flux and division [ __ ] it’ssadly not going to stand the test oftime it’s a massive improvement on theteasy weeping angels segment seen inprevious flux episodes and we gettreated to a full blast of weeping angelaction 2. i understood the scope of thevillage the characters that lived in itand the impact of the angels on thecommunity as a whole it’s visuallyimpressive with jericho and claire’spsychic shenanigans being equallyinteresting and fitting additions to thestory a woman being taken over by one ofwhose most famous monsters is certainlya chibnall favourite though and variousother aspects let this episode down likenot enough characters struggling not toblink angels communicating angelsworking for division and the scene thatmust not be named oh yeah there’s alsobellen vinders scenes chibnall actuallyconfirmed that the people on this planetwere humans so in taking the humans whohave been madehomeless azure and passengercome along kidnapped all those humanswhich just makes no sense because thisis still the 21st century how the hellare there humans on interplanetarycolonies when we haven’t even put a manon mars yet sadly this episode can’treally stand on its own two feet despiteit desperately trying to do so i givevillage of the angels a sixout of ten and then everything went backto business as usual actually creditwhere it’s due this has some of themakings of a good semi-final episodeit’s just largely tainted by thehilariously bad location hopping withthe companions right up until josephwilliamson showed up and then thequality picked back up again accompaniedby the unit’s origin story which wasmostly positive and some of the intrigueposed by the division set up theepisode’s final acts made up for some ofthe [ __ ] like the ravagers usingtheir hostages just to make a teleportswarm and azure have used thepsychotemporal energy of those humans tobuild a bridge back to where the doctorand tectone are in division a lack ofworld building on the one world thatmatters more than any other and vendorand bell’s continually pointlessappearances i give survivors of the fluxa 4 out of 10. andas you can probably imagine the finalewas undoubtedly the worst episode of thebunch the culmination of nearly everynarrative strand in this seriesbasically amounted to nothing theravagers just wound up being a couple ofaimless clowns vinda and diane’s escapefrom the passenger was one of thestupidest things i’ve ever seen thegrand serpent is a [ __ ] joke and katestewart’s inclusion was more thandisappointing the frankly suicidal andgenocidal plans of the doctors give memore reason to dislike this incarnationand the big showdown at the end left meemotionally unaffected doctor who fluxhas just been left unattended in the panwith a burnt exterior and an undercookedinside i give the vanquishers a 1out of 10.[Music]thank you so much for watching this ismy final production of 2021 i’m verymuch looking forward to reviewing series7 as well as revisiting the capaldi eranext year so make sure you’re subscribedso you’ll be the first to be notifiedabout future content from me i’d alsolike to personally thank my patrons forcontinuing their support of the channelthroughout the long and arduous journeyof this year keep an eye out on mycommunity tab over the next few daysbecause i’m going to be putting a pollout for which patreon exclusive videoi’ll be making public on christmas day ihope you all have a lovely christmas anda happy new year now without further adolet’s play some outtakes heck we mighthave seen yaz the doctor and dan resenther oh oh blimey the scene moves swiftlyon to reducing no meanwhile all thedalek and cybermen ship [ __ ]meanwhile all the daleks and cybermenships showed up oh that is a tonguetwister and a half not only a humanconstruct to identify the humans oh [ __ ]
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