The Guardian

Doctor Who recap: Flux chapter three – Once, Upon Time

At one point, newly introduced Bel (Thaddea Graham) said: “I’ve no idea what that means, but it doesn’t sound good,” and it seemed she might be speaking about the episode as a whole. After last week’s fun romp with the Sontarans, this was a frustrating reversion to the mean of the Chibnall era. It looked good, but it was more a disjointed series of exposition scenes rather than a story that flowed. It was definitely the weakest chapter of Flux so far.

On the plus side, we began to get some answers – and a look at the Doctor’s history with the Division and a mission on the planet Time, which had been hinted at by Swarm in the previous two chapters. (That said, it might have been more fun to see the Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin) and Karnavista (Craige Els) let rip in those scenes rather than occasionally flickering into view.) Martin absolutely rocked it as the Doctor in Fugitive of and has been desperately underused since.

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