Doctor Who: Flux - The Halloween Apocalypse (2021) - Review

I've always believed that Doctor Who thrives on production limitations. Take Midnight, a story restricted to one set and no monsters, or Blink, an episode in which the Doctor (for scheduling reasons) barely appears, or Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways, which returns to Satellite 5 from an earlier episode purely to reuse the same sets and save money, but ends up retroactively resolving the rather open ending to The Long Game. All of these episodes are not only highly regarded by fans, but some of the best Doctor Who stories to ever grace our screens. The Coronavirus pandemic may have caused issues all over the world, but perhaps this could provide a spark of much-needed inspiration for the current production team on Doctor Who?

That's not to say that the last two series have been bad at all. We've had quite a few good episodes - predominantly the historical tales - but the show has struggled to adapt to a changing television landscape. Producing eleven standalone episodes with no real arc (be it story or character-centric) was a very 2007 idea for a 2018 series, while last year's run made many of the same mistakes previous showrunner Steven Moffat did (an inconsistent series arc, a finale focused on the Doctor's origins set on Gallifrey, etc.). But Covid-19 has completely changed the way Doctor Who is made. Instead of a ten-episode series and one special, we now have a six-episode series and three specials staggered out over a year. Showrunner Chris Chibnall discarded the original plans for Series 13 and came up with Flux: a six-part event serial designed to work under Covid restrictions whilst appearing not to. This is the first time Doctor Who has attempted this kind of serialised format in decades, with the closest point of comparison being the 1986 series The Trial of a Time Lord.

Naturally, this makes reviewing Chapter One of Flux, The Halloween Apocalypse, quite difficult. Chibnall's script is just 50 minutes of set-up and teases for where the rest of the serial will go, with not a single plot thread resolved. Much like with the last special Revolution of the Daleks, The Halloween Apocalypse is juggling too many disparate threads, resulting in a narrative with no real focus or anything to latch onto. There's multiple baddies, multiple storylines and a lot of characters with seemingly no connection, and it's hard to work out what to make of it all.

John Bishop makes a terrific first impression as new companion Dan Lewis, captured from his home by dog-like alien Karvanista and forced into an adventure he's probably not ready for. Dan is already a very likable character, partly thanks to a very endearing performance from Bishop. He's a man down on his luck but trying to make the world a better place. I'm intrigued to see more of his mentor/mentee dynamic with Yaz, who seems to be undergoing the same kind of overconfidence arc that made previous companions Rose and Clara a little annoying. Yaz seems to be becoming quite detached from reality, a character beat teased in Revolution of the Daleks but starting to become more prominent. It's a shame then that Chibnall hasn't really set this up particularly well, especially what her family and colleagues at the police seem to think she's doing. She casually mentions the peril her family might be in, but has no interest in actually protecting them. Chibnall does seem to struggle with the same issue of grounding his companions as Steven Moffat did.

Jodie Whittaker meanwhile does the best she can with a Doctor who seems to be undergoing some kind of arc, but the script isn't confident enough to really showcase exactly how she's changed - whether this is because there's too much else going on, or because Chibnall doesn't want to write a more brooding and methodical Doctor, I don't know. There are moments when we get to see the different sides to the Thirteenth Doctor, but I want to see more of that in this series. I'm glad that we seem to be getting more from the Division though - we need that Timeless Child twist justified!

Swarm and Azure(?) make for interesting new baddies; I like their apparent history with the Doctor (implied to be Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor from last year's Fugitive of the Judoon), and the prosthetics work is very impressive. Already one of the most memorable and distinctive villains of the current era. The Weeping Angel cameo was a nice touch, assuming it's teasing a storyline that we'll see more from later on, while I'm very pleased to see the Sontarans return - and looking much more like their 70's incarnations! Perhaps the only real let-down monster-wise was Karvanista: his introduction felt mishandled (in fact, the entire opening sequence felt ill-judged), and he was about as threatening as...well, as a giant dog man could be. In many respects, I think a character like that may have been better suited to The Sarah Jane Adventures.

This first chapter of Flux also has the distinction of being the cheapest-looking episode of Doctor Who for quite some time. The opening green planet was filled with wonky green-screen, not to mention over-written dialogue and a confusing tone (was it supposed to be silly or tense?); while Karvanista's ship seemed to be consistently over-lit in such a way that it failed to convey any kind of mood (and let's not talk about the limitations of that dog mask). Perhaps these lacklustre production values made it feel more Doctor Who-y? It's a fair argument. Aside from these (rather key) scenes, the rest of the episode did look quite good, and there was some very impressive CGI work with the Flux and Azure's transformation.

Overall, The Halloween Apocalypse is...definitely not the Doctor Who Halloween special I've been wanting to see since I was nine years old. It is, however, merely setting up where this six-part serial will take us, and I have to say that I'm very excited to see what War of the Sontarans will bring (hopefully, a bit more narrative focus). Flux may not be off to a flying start for me, but it's always nice to watch new Doctor Who - and with a good old fashioned cliffhanger!