*It’s right there in the title. Spoilers abound—“The Vanquishers” is the main target, but anything from the season is fair game.*
Circling back to the season finale for a more in-depth look here. Today we’re focusing on the specifics of the plot, and I’ll dive more into the characters in the next weeks before the New Year’s special.
As I said in my review, the Flux arc winds up coming together pretty well, even if I wasn’t overly confident about that going in. The various threads that are introduced in the season premiere and along the way in series 13 – Joseph Williamson and the tunnels, the Lupari, the Sontarans, Swarm and Azure, Claire, the Division, the Grand Serpent, UNIT – all wind up playing a role, and the few threads that don’t, like the Weeping Angels, get sufficiently wrapped up in an earlier episode. I like seeing how the different elements factor in. For instance, Joseph’s tunnels open up to different points in time and space, which allow our heroes to get back to each other when the TARDIS is out of play, and Claire’s psychic predisposition makes her a target for the Sontarans as they search for the time/location of the final Flux event, which gives the Doctor access to pick up the same intel. The Flux itself is brought about by the Division, who decide to destroy the universe and jump ship to another because the Doctor ruined this one with hope or something? (Seriously, that is “the Silence blows up the universe in their attempt to prevent The First Question from being asked” levels of overblown collateral damage.) Swarm and Azure play themselves in their efforts to take advantage of the Flux for their own purposes, and the Passenger form they use for convenient prison space becomes essential in burning out the last of the Flux, saving what remains of the universe.
(Which reminds me: much of the universe is still a wreck, which team TARDIS weirdly doesn’t mention at the end of the adventure. I wonder if Thirteen’s final specials will somehow undo the devastation of the Flux, or if we’ll be left with a severely-reduced universe. Or, a third possibility, that Chibnall will leave the universe as it is and RTD will revive it when he takes the reins back. It wouldn’t be the first time a showrunner reverses a major event established by their predecessor.)
There are parts I like more than others. Jericho’s sacrifice gets me, everything about the three Doctors is awesome, and I’m absolutely here for Vinder and Bel’s reunion, while the Grand Serpent has felt like an extraneous villain throughout the season for me and I don’t think enough weight was given to the genocide of the Lupari. But on the whole, I was quite pleased. We had laughs, mystery, action, and moving moments. While I enjoy series 12 more than series 11, this was a definite level up for Chibnall’s showrunning duties. I wonder if the COVID-induced episode reduction actually helped him focus, telling one story with six parts spread across a lean season instead of pulling the show in multiple directions and having a number of episodes only feel about 75-85% ready. It’s certainly a possibility. After all, Broadchurch’s seasons were only eight episodes each, and each one focused on a main arc. I went into series 13 ready for Chibnall’s exit, even as I was lamenting Jodie Whittaker’s, but this season was firing on all cylinders.
Not sure how I feel about the Division stuff. The Timeless Child reveal from last season is far from my favorite, but once it’s been introduced, it makes sense to go all in with actually doing it. But the Division, as depicted here, somehow feels like too much and too little at the same time. On the one hand, if it’s still an active organization that has their fingers in everything and armies of Weeping Angels at their beck and call, it seems unlikely that the Doctor could’ve been tooling around time and space for so many lifetimes without bumping into them again (or without them tracking down the Doctor.) On the other, once we actually step behind the curtain, the operation appears to amount to Tecteun and a single Ood in a (beautifully-designed) TARDIS. Obviously, it’s much easier during COVID to have an expanse of non-moving Weeping Angels that you can CGI rather than a bunch of people breathing in the same space, but it’s a little anticlimactic and belies the aforementioned claim that they have their fingers in everything.
And of course, killing off Tecteun before she can give the Doctor any answers and the Doctor deciding not to open the fob watch that contains her memories reeks of “we’re saving it for the big finish!” If we’re going to get anything further on this (and if we’re going to see the Nth Doctor again!), it had better happen during Thirteen’s 2022 specials, because there’s no guarantee that future showrunners will have any interest in picking up this thread.
One exciting tidbit for the future: an allusion to the Master coming back! That makes me all kinds of happy. Sacha Dhawan is fantastic in the role and plays so well off of Whittaker. It wouldn’t be right for Thirteen to finish her run without those two coming head-to-head again.
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