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TARDIS Guide

Overview

First aired

Sunday, November 14, 2021

Written by

Chris Chibnall

Directed by

Azhur Saleem

Runtime

49 minutes

Story Arc (Potential Spoilers!)

Flux

Location (Potential Spoilers!)

Time

UK Viewers

4.7 million

Appreciation Index

75

Synopsis

Atropos has fallen, once again. The Doctor has thrown herself into a time storm in a desperate bid to save her friends. As Time itself comes apart, she finds much more than she bargained for.

All four are lost, together, in memories: past, present, future. So many roles they play. So many choices they have endured. And now, what happened once has come again.

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Reviews

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2 reviews

This review contains spoilers!

It was by this point in Flux that I began to get worried that the story was biting off more than it could chew. Due to its short length and the large number of moving parts, it was inevitable that some parts were going to end up feeling a little bit cluttered. This episode ended up feeling more like a fever dream.

There are some individually interesting elements, like the Doctor's flashbacks to a siege of Atropos that she cannot remember. I was hopeful at this point that we would get a full accounting of who Jo Martin's Doctor really was and her place in the timeline, something which was never fully borne out, but at the very least this episode did not disappoint me. Getting flashbacks for characters where the incidental characters are replaced by visions of their friends acting not quite themselves was an interesting choice which I did enjoy. As a final happy note, I did think Bel and Vinder's pining was cute, even if the dialog was a bit off, and Dan and Diane's scenes were too.

Aside from those aspects, I didn't enjoy this one very much. It's a story where, paradoxically, so much goes on, but it doesn't feel like much happened. It develops the mystery hooks of the season without seeming to have anything particularly new or unique to say for its own sake. Spinning its wheels and waiting for Village of the Angels to come along.

All in all, a bit of a mess, which was enjoyable on broadcast but with the benefit of hindsight now just seems kind of pointless.


very stylish and cool with a few great individual scenes but so hard to follow. SO much new information is introduced here. please. my brain is only so big.


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Statistics

AVG. Rating501 members
3.00 / 5

Trakt.tv

AVG. Rating772 votes
3.51 / 5

The Time Scales

AVG. Rating113 votes
3.05 / 5

Member Statistics

Watched

1067

Favourited

33

Reviewed

2

Saved

1

Skipped

0

Owned

5

Quotes

Add Quote

DOCTOR: No, no, no. Put me back, put me back. I want to go back in there. I have to get back in!

YASMIN: Doctor, it's okay.

DOCTOR: It's not okay! Not for me! You don't understand anything.

YASMIN: All right.

DOCTOR: I had a chance while it was broken.

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Transcript Needs checking

[Bel's story]

(Planet surface, a young woman is packing up camp in a ruined castle.)

BEL [OC]: What I learned in the immediate aftermath of the Flux seems obvious now, but it's only obvious once you've lived it. The biggest changes to our lives start small. Catastrophes creep in quietly, and by the time you realise, the life you once had is already behind you.

(A Dalek patrol passes, hovering just off the muddy ground, the whole vent section moving not just the dome with the eye stalk.)

BEL [OC]: The Dalek Sector is growing. I thought I'd made it out, but they just keep spreading. Because since what some people keep calling the Beginning of the End, who is there left to stop them? Of course, I call it the Dalek Sector, I don't know for certain. But it helps me understand, because the maps definitely don't make any sense any more. Or the days.


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