Doctor Who Flux: Chapter Three: Once, Upon Time by Chris Chibnall (TV review).
I wonder how many writers will remember the comma in the title and not turn this ‘Doctor Who’ episode into a fairy tale. Then again, I suspect this episode will be remembered as one of the surreal ones. As the Doctor attempts to rescue her friends stuck in zero time, she unsticks them in time and Yaz, Dan, the future soldier whom we finally discover is called Vintor and the Time Lord herself relives events from the past or future.
Who’s to know which and what is real. Add into this, dashes of daleks, cybermen and weeping angels and an oriental warrior with her own mission. Maybe it should have been called ‘Quad, Upon A Time’ since its focus on is four lives.
If anything, its making sense of everything that is going to analysing things difficult without knowing where writer Chris Chibnall is going to take things. I would hazard a guess we are likely to get another few pieces of the Doctor’s past but that’s based off last season.
Saying that and a need to add a few more lines to what has to be a short review, you would have to wonder if all of time is open to the Doctor, why wasn’t she capable of asking her own people, the Time Lords, for help and advice or even other companions/friends but that might confuse things too much and raise expectations.
The jigsaw still has too many missing parts and even those we aren’t really sure of might not be who they think they are. You would think the universe was ending. Oh, it is, isn’t it?
One area of confusion. The Doctor gives Vintor a communication device but since the TARDIS can go to the future, you would have thought they could arrive instantly there to grab him. Oh, can’t do that.
I’m not sure if anything I say would be classed as spoiler simply because so much is literally in flux (sic) with no real means to know what is propelling the story towards a conclusion. Don’t blink.
GF Willmetts
14 November 2021
