Doctor WhoForgets Most of Its Problems With Some Potato Power

Good tidings ! This week ’s Doctor Who figured out that hold two plotlines is much clearerthan having 84 . Not really unfit but just kind of fine news show ! It ’s maybe still not quite watch how to focalise in its return to a serialized format , however .

“ warfare of the Sontarans ” is another weird episode for season 13 , but far from eldritch in the room its predecessor “ The Halloween Apocalypse ” was . They both found themselves at betting odds with disparate office of each other , yes , but as previously mentioned , the 2d episode starts off on a considerably potent animal foot by only really get two parts of itself to be at odds with each other — rather than the nauseant of plot lines knock down out and left for former contemplation in last workweek ’s messy premiere for Doctor Who : Flux . or else of the problem being an empty , helter-skelter apparatus here , the job is a piddling more experiential : can Flux be aserialized Doctor Who taleover six parts and also be a time of year of medico Who where you getfun , silly , one - off adventure ? The answer is … maybe . Mostly because it has to be ; because it ’s what we ’ve got .

But the Just variety of Fine news program is that if it ’s go to try , “ warfare of the Sontarans ” is a mostly acceptable endeavor at doing such a one - off romp , even if the experiential struggle still lingers throughout . Set primarily in the midst of the Crimean War , the Doctor , Yaz , and Dan — who has conform remarkably well to the sea of chaos that is life with the Doctor already — find themselves deal out with a rather peculiar ramification of the Flux . Just as the Lupari buckler fleet ’s denial wrap themselves around Earth at the climax of the season 13 premiere , a Sontaran war fleet nobble in and decided to fiddle time havoc on human beings . They not only encroach upon in the twenty-first hundred but progress a fleet of ships to go back and wage war throughout humanity ’s farsighted chronicle of conflict . The Sontarans apparently go about this by rub out Russia and China off the function so the alien can replace Russia at the Siege of Sevastapol in 1855 . That ’s quite a highly specific program !

“Look! Over there, in the fog, off-camera! It’s a large force of alien warriors we don’t have the budget to show!”

“Look! Over there, in the fog, off-camera! It’s a large force of alien warriors we don’t have the budget to show!”Image: BBC

But before we can get too far into Sontar trickery , the strain of Doctor Who ’s re - jiggered format already start to make themselves apparent . No sooner than the Doctor , Yaz , and Dan are present to our guest fibre of the hebdomad Mary Seacole ( played by Sara Powell ) , the British - Jamaican enterpriser and medic who , famously , established her own field hospital on the front lines of the Crimean War , they ’re torn apart , the fracturing of time itself whisk Dan and Yaz away . Dan , at least , still gets to engross with the main thrust of the installment , have back to contemporary Liverpool to prove and see what the Sontarans are up to , while the Doctor is left in 1855 to try and stop the Sontarans from completely annihilating the British forces .

Yaz , meanwhile , is tear onto a dissimilar tangent altogether , and it ’s here that the tale gets both the most interesting and the most frustrating . Yaz ’s plotline for the rest of the episode is almost all unrelated to the events of the rest of “ War of the Sontarans , ” as she determine herself pulled — alongside Vinder and that nineteenth - century businessman from last week , the latter of which is on the face of it here just to remind you That Plotline live before wandering off 30 seconds later — to a mysterious temple called Atropos . As we are jarringly yank between the Sontaran clash in the Doctor and Dan ’s game , which naturally mousse together , and the closed book of Yaz ’s sentence on Atropos , we learn what is , presumptively , going to be the factual driving thrust of Flux as a wider story . become out Atropos is home to a conclave of priestess called the Mouri , who has spent all of existence on a planet literally call Time insure the chaotic nature of Time itself . Now that they ’re fail — in part by being belt down off by the Big Flux Villains , the Swarm and his sister Azure , who also show up uninvited to Atropos to plow Yaz and Vinder into bait for the Doctor — fourth dimension is head for the hills rearing across beingness , unwrap reality as we get it on it .

And here ’s the thing : the Doctor and Dan defend the Sontarans is utterly fine . It ’s full of fun , bivouac slapstick , and whizzbang action — cleverly and conveniently mostly disguise by large sea of fog and night setting , because , well , you try out to shoot the Siege of Sevastapol but the Russians are white potato vine extraterrestrial with laser guns on horseson a BBC budget . While it ’s mostly empty bagatelle , it ’s the good kind of empty Doctor Who fluff that every time of year of the show needs . Sometimes you just desire some laser guns to go off , some woks to beflung against probic vent , and for the day to be save by some large blowup and maybe an honorable via media or two ( one that the show does n’t even have time to linger on in the case of “ War of the Sontarans , ” showing you how much it actually cares about setting such an ethical difference up ) .

Image: BBC

It ’s the kind of dangerous undertaking that you watch once , are mostly fine with , and then move on from in your Dr. Who aliveness — the humdrum glue that ties a season of dangerous undertaking in clip and quad together . But the hooey on Atropos with Yaz , clock time itself , and enough right nouns to give you a soft headache ? That is absorbing and full of potential and clearly something Flux want to hang itself around . But “ state of war of the Sontarans ” does n’t eff what to do with it because it ’s mostly seek to be an episode about , well , the Sontarans . So every clock time we cut to it , we ’re dragged away from the fun fluff of Sontaran action at law , but never really long enough to jaw on the mystery story being go down up . It ’s sure as shooting less mussy than Doctor Who ’s approach to setting up threads for the rest of the time of year last calendar week , but being offer something much more challenging to chew on and then being tell “ oops , the episode ’s over now , we ’ll get to it next week ! ” is a unlike kind of frustration .

So there lies the problem in Doctor Who ’s current experiment : it need to be a magnanimous interconnected story about this grand idea of Time itself running rampant . On its own , that ’s exciting view the Time Lords themselves are currently occupied with being Very beat , along withall the calamitous revealsfrom last season that could be drawn on here . But it also has to be a time of year of Doctor Who , with the ups and downs of one - off creature features and big stakes report that you ’d usually get — something that , with just six episodes to itself , Flux has to be very finical over . We wo n’t be able to tell until its grand coming whether or not it was deserving spending more time with the Sontarans here rather than Atropos — but in the meantime it just makes Doctor Who feel a bit more momentary than usual , explode space ships or otherwise .

Assorted Musings:

“ Oh maybe next workweek we ’ll focus and get a lot on Swarm and Azure and what they ’re ab - oh no , the Weeping Angels ” was literally all I could think of watching theNext Time previewfor “ Once , Upon Time . ” peachy episode title though .

I joked in the first place about a quite a little of the in reality really clever way this episode did things to maintain its prominent - than - life scale on Doctor Who ’s not - larger - than - life budget , but … can we talk about how the shot of Dan and Karvanista slide out of the Sontaran fourth dimension ship into the docks of Liverpool might in reality be the worst CG effect of the show ’s modern era ?

Very interesting to learn more about Swarm and Azure ’s silent butler , who I mentally film to calling “ Discount Darkseid , ” given that they were so out of centering every time we catch a glimpse that their nerve mask just take care like the dread countenance of DC ’s cosmic supervillain , but distinctly out of grasp of a Warner Bros budget . Who are they ? Where did they come from ? Is Flux not doing enough that we just need to roll out young characters sneaking into the background unexplained like they were really always there ?

Image: BBC

Image: BBC

Speaking of questions : Dan ’s parents seemed to get really good at being charmingly falter Anti - Sontaran resistance paladin considering they ’d only been on the planet for … two days ? I kind of like the unspoken melodic theme that Doctor Who ’s Earth is so used to being invaded now multitude do just get on Facebook and read what some random person has discovered about push back the latest alien attack .

Wondering where our RSS feed move ? You canpick the newfangled up one here .

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Image: BBC