This is it, fam. We’ve reached the end of the world. The Grand Serpent turned off the shields protecting earth, leaving it wide open for the Sontarans to attack. The Doctor is still trapped somewhere in between time and space, and the rest of the fam is somewhere underground in 1904 Liverpool, having to deal with an attack of their own. We’ve got an hour to resolve this, and that’s a tall order. Let’s see who ends up holding the title of “The Vanquishers,” with six final thoughts on the occasion of this finale, one for each part of the series.
And for the last time in this series: Spoilers!
1. Split Three Ways
The only way the Doctor is going to solve the multiple simultaneous crises facing time and space is to be in three places at once. Which literally happens. While she’s still trapped on the Division’s ship, she sends one version of herself to the Lupari ship with Bel and Karvinista, and then another version of herself to Joseph Williamson’s tunnels – – to Dan, Yaz, Mr. Williamson, Jericho, and (oh hey nice to see ya!) Kate Stewart. These are not whole selves of the Doctor, which means they are feeling some effects of the time-space split, but there’s enough of her to come up with a plan.
And if you’re wondering: yes, the Doctors’s split selves do end up in the same room together at one point executing this plan, and there’s some witty banter and even flirting . . . but no repercussions of what is essentially a paradox: two Doctors in the same timeline, and two Doctors with the same body no less! But time is in a hot mess of flux, so I guess we can forgive this transgression.
2. A Cunning Plan
The Sontarans have already set up their base on Earth, so the first step in figuring out how to stop this Flux (even though it’s underway, and the Swarm is practically giddy with glee in how they can use it for torture of the Doctor for all eternity) is to infiltrate one of the Sontaran bases, particularly one set up in Chile at the Dark Energy Camera. The Sontarans have been using the camera and the base of operations to try and pinpoint the date and time of this final flux event, so it’s time to plant some moles in the Sontaran camp. And who does the Doctor know that has some innate psychic gifts?
None other than Professor Jericho and Claire Brown. Off to 1967 we go to pick up Claire, and one (literal) chocolate covered bribe later, the fam is on the inside. What they find out leads to one epic plan to save time and space, which we’ll get to in a bit. But first some nerding out.
3. The Dark Energy Camera
It’s a real thing! Being that I work for a publisher of journals of physics, I had to go look this up. The Dark Energy Camera, aka DECam, is mounted on the Victor M. Blanco Telescope, which itself is located at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in the Andes Mountains. So while the one we saw in the episode was in the desert, such a camera does exist in Chile. While the telescope was built in 1974, the camera was added in 2012 as part of the Dark Energy Survey. The Dark Energy Survey has more details on the camera, along all kinds of (free to read) papers on their research.
4. A Cunning Foil to the Cunning Plan
In the Doctor’s investigation, she discovers that the Sontarans made an alliance with the Grand Serpent to invade Earth, which is . . . very unlike them. They also made some alliances with the Daleks and Cybermen. Also very unlike them.
Earth is only means to an end. The Sontarans want to use the Flux to trap their enemies, vanquishing them with the Flux once they turn off the Lupari shields. The fact that Earth gets destroyed as well is just, well, collateral damage. The Lupari can’t even fight back, seeing as the Sontarans wiped out the entire race, saved for Karvinista.
But Karvinista still can control all the Lupari ships, which he does to turn the flux on the Sontarans themselves once the Daleks and Cybermen get swallowed. (Since the New Year’s special puts the Daleks front and center again, it’s safe to assume that not every Dalek ended up wiped out.) The shield goes back up to protect Earth, but there’s still some residual Flux out there. Never fear, because in between all this, the Doctors and the fam find Vinder and Diane (remember her? Dan’s love interest from the museum…) in Passenger, and they use Diane’s rather extensive knowledge of Passenger (she’s been in there quite some time) to have Passenger absorb the rest of the Flux, rendering both Passenger and Flux extinct.
Continued belowThe world is saved, and even Swarm and Azure get their comeuppance on Atropos where they’ve taken the Doctor to meet her fate, only to find a very dissatisfied Time with their efforts. And with a touch these two find themselves returned to the dust that formed them.
Seems like all is right with the world . . . right?
5. Where Does She Go From Here?
While the world seems saved and several happy reunions take place, not everyone’s come out of this unscathed. Professor Jericho decides to go down with the Sontaran ship, feeling he’s had a long and happy life and this is the way to go. Dan and Diane are back at the National Museum of Liverpool, but Diane turns down his offer of a drink. (His despair doesn’t last long, as it proves perfect impetus for Dan to make a longterm home in the TARDIS.)
But the Doctor is the one most tortured of all. Throughout the episode, everyone hints at their past with the Doctor, and those recollections are often less than sunny ones. With the eradication of Swarm and Azure, the Doctor does have control of the watch fob with her memories, and you can see the torture all over her face as she drops it into the TARDIS’s bowels for safekeeping from her. You know she’s going to be digging that back up sooner rather than later, though. As Time warned her on Atropos, her time is coming to its end, and before she leaves this body for whatever form she takes next (Idris Elba please let it be Idris Elba), she’s going to want answers.
6. Final Unfluxed Reflections
This was an ambitious event for Chibnall to take on. He wanted a swan song for his and Whittaker’s tenure in the TARDIS, and he certainly got it. But like attempting to close an overstuffed suitcase by sitting on it, he put too much in to these six episodes to really get anything meaningful out of them. The characters all ended up making sense once the puzzle was fully assembled, but the connections didn’t make sense. Plot lines were referred to and then dropped. Notice how many times I would say “remember them?” in these recaps after talking about a character, like I did here with Diane. The story has been at such a breakneck pace that no doubt you probably forgot who Diane was after her appearance in the first episode, and there was no development in between to bring you to the point where she returned front and center to the story, outside of brief moments of dialogue. Six episodes was not enough for this kind of story Chibnall wanted to tell.
That isn’t to say there weren’t your memorable faces. Bel and Vinder won hearts with their across-the-universes love story, and I would love to see more of them. (Big Finish, Titan Comics, if you’re reading this . . . holla.) Same can be said for the Grand Serpent, who has all the cunning of Missy but with an even colder character. There’s potential for a wonderful new foe that could put even the Master in his/her place. And Dan proves himself a worthy addition to the TARDIS fam, the kind of restless person who finds adventure at just the right time. Wisely, the show stayed away from any sort of romance with him and Yaz, and let’s keep it that way.
But the greatest disappointment is in the tease of the Doctor’s memories. We were left in 2020 with this idea from the Master that everything the Doctor ever knew was a lie, that she had this large life lived and no recollection of it. There were hints to this throughout the series, but nothing ever properly followed through upon. Was this something that would have been the focus of the original series 13 (and a possible series 14), but scrapped when Whittaker announced she was leaving? It may well be that we learn more in the three specials coming next year, and they could set a blueprint for Fourteen when he/she/they take the controls. But after the large buildup to not promise anything outside of more hints and more inferences is some sloppy storytelling. Either spend some time on it, or none at all.
This ends Doctor Who for 2021, but the show will be back on New Year’s Day with “Eve of the Daleks,” along with two additional specials in 2022, the latter of which will be Jodie Whittaker and showrunner Chris Chibnall’s swan song (as well as part of the BBC’s centenary celebrations). Until then, best wishes to you and yours for a happy and healthy holiday season, and we’ll see you in 2022!
