I didn’t have much confidence going into “Once, Upon Time” given I was lukewarm at best on the whole subplot last episode centred on that Temple of Atropos, the Mouri, and this metaphysical idea of time being splintered across the universe, with all the assorted complications and messiness such a thing seemed destined to indulge in. Doctor Who asking you to pay such intricate attention to its details and mechanics and lore over storytelling and characters does not appeal to me much -on some level this is still a show for kids, and I can’t imagine any child following that kind of dull plotting very well. But “Once, Upon Time” largely assuaged my trepidation. It still is perhaps too complex and bogged down in its’ own concepts, but not overwhelmingly so -it shows its’ hand a few times and actually provides a few answers that are genuinely interesting and satisfactory. The broken time thing is also thankfully mostly dealt with by the end.
A narrative pattern is emerging throughout Flux where the central plots of the episodes are born out of a minor thread in the previous one while the plot for the next episode is being sown alongside. The Sontarans were glimpsed a couple times towards the end of “The Halloween Apocalypse” to then be the primary focus of “War of the Sontarans”. Similarly, the time fracturing in Atropos was set up through Yaz’s subplot in that episode to take centre stage in this one. And next week’s episode was forecast by a couple appearances of intruding Weeping Angels. It’s consistent in any case, which can’t really be said for the rest of Flux thus far. Nevertheless, “Once, Upon Time”, for the issues it does have, resolves some of my overarching qualms about this series.
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One of those being that few of the new characters populating this story arc have been very inspired or strongly written. With the possible exception of Karvanista, their purpose has been simply to move along plot, and with limited screen-time, we haven’t gotten to know anyone. Bel, played excellently by Thaddea Graham, is not one of these characters. The episode opens on her, as many have done in the past with guest characters, setting the scene of a universe devastated by the Flux, some years into its’ chaos apparently. Bel is a survivor, a scavenger, and something of a rogue, searching for her love as she evades Daleks, Cybermen, and Sontarans, all seemingly engaged in a free-for-all of invading and subjugating what’s left of the known universe. We haven’t actually seen the impact of the Flux yet on a cosmic scale, and this paints a very interesting picture -the apocalypse that that first episode pointed towards. It’s an exciting scenario to be dropped into, it’s quite visually impressive too (one world Bel visits that the Cybermen have conquered is characterized by gorgeous red fields), and Bel is a compelling character to follow through it, in large part due to Graham’s dedicated performance. She’s a planet-hopping space adventurer with a tamagotchi she can send messages through, and an abiding faith in the power of love -her mission as she tells the Cyberman commander she has taken down. Why isn’t she the star of the show?
Much as that would be unexpected and perhaps a welcome change of pace, there is something to be immediately answered for. Last episode ended on a rather drastic cliffhanger, with Swarm threatening to kill Yaz with a snap, the snap happening just before the cut to credits. It was obvious this was going to be some kind of bait and switch the next episode would brush off or else retcon entirely, and what actually happened when the episode returned to this moment, is it did both. I really don’t know what happened, in the seconds before Swarm snapped his fingers, the Doctor had a Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes moment of quickly conceiving a plan that makes no sense and then suddenly being on the Mouri platform herself (and Dan on another) -and the next thing you know, she, Dan, Yaz, and Vinder are floating in what’s essentially the time tunnel from the opening credits. It’s extremely poorly written and edited in an effort to get out of the corner the episode was backed into for the sake of where everyone needed to be for this one.
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The episode remains solidly confusing for the next several minutes, as each of the Doctors’ companions are extracted from the time vortex, seemingly lost somewhere in time, while the Doctor resists the same happening to her under significant strain -somehow splitting herself through the various time streams. Although she does occasionally find herself sucked into one of her own, where she is disoriented and only half aware of what’s going on. It finds her on the planet Time with Yaz, Dan, and Vinder all in combat gear preparing an assault on the Temple of Atropos to rescue hostages. They are the ones who seem to know what they’re doing as the Doctor dips in and out of understanding -they’re methodical, competent, and in the cases of Yaz and Dan, unrecognizable in their personalities. You’re not sure whether this is some kind of paradoxical alternate universe, or if the Doctor’s been thrown to some point in her future, where her companions have been changed severely by their experiences. Either way it gives Mandip Gill and John Bishop the chance to play something different, and they clearly enjoy it a great deal. There’s something cathartic too to the relationship between the Doctor and Yaz that we’re seeing Yaz in the position of a knowledgeable advantage over the Doctor.
Jodie Whittaker though also gets to do a bit of playing against type, as the Doctor pops into the time streams of her companions, occasionally appearing as someone else before breaking through herself to communicate. It’s what results in a scene where the Doctor in a police uniform is sitting in a car with Yaz chatting about something innocuous in a very un-Doctor-like dialect. It’s also the first indication we’ve gotten in a few years that Yaz has remained on the Sheffield Police Force despite her constant travelling with the Doctor. And it’s where an angel makes its’ first appearance, and rather spooky in the rear-view mirror. Later it appears again while Yaz is playing a video game with her sister Sonya (Bhavnisha Parmar), gradually coming out of the TV screen The Ring-style. The Doctor only manages to tell her not to blink before fading out of that timeline. Presumably she manages to do so, because the next we see Yaz she’s alright.
What Dan encounters though is perhaps more disturbing. His reality bounces it seems between present and future and with space somewhat warped around him. He and Diane (his crush from the museum and also the woman abducted by Azure in “The Halloween Apocalypse”) start walking about Liverpool before finding themselves in some stone monument and then sitting on the steps of a great pyramid. However it’s against this context that Dan, who’s only partially cognizant of the time skipping, reveals some of his history, including a brutal heartbreak from his fiancee leaving him at the altar. Bishop is wonderful here, expressing a kind of sheepish solemnity that betrays deep scars. And then Diane eerily cries that she waited for him, in reference to their unfulfilled date, before disappearing. The moody atmosphere and foreboding setting gives the moment an extra potency, as does the presence of a shadowy figure in the distance. It doesn’t end here for Dan though the way it does for Yaz -he’s temporarily pulled back to Atropos to meet Williamson, the 1821 industrialist, who yet again just foreshadows some mystery before buggering off -I wonder if he’ll keep dropping in in this manner until the finale.
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If Dan’s forlorn story of a failed romance gave some emotional insight into his character, it’s got nothing on Vinder, who’s given a full backstory treatment with this episode as the time stream he is pulled into is his past, and specifically the series of events that led to him manning a solitary outpost on the edges of the universe. Vinder as it turns out, was a talented officer in some kind of starfleet organization of a broad intergalactic alliance assigned to a corrupt leader called the Grand Serpent (Craig Parkinson), who arranges for an assassination of his political enemies in exchange for allegiance with a major new power. He implicates Vinder in circumventing his orders to record negotiations, and after the crime has been carried out, Vinder’s conscience proves too noble and he releases documents on the meeting in an attempt to be a whistleblower. It’s the latest dim political allegory that Chibnall has put in the show and is perhaps too on the nose, especially in Vinder’s citing his loyalty to a constitution over any one person. The theme doesn’t carry over elsewhere in the episode either, though in its’ brevity it is handled generally well. The Grand Serpent is not the cartoon that Chris Noths’ transparent Trump analogue was, and it highlights the systemic injustice that even Vinders’ commanding officer is unwilling to do anything about it, knowing it will only get back to the Grand Serpent himself and not change anything. Regardless of the message, the storyline builds Vinder more concretely as a character, and Jacob Anderson gets some good moments to shine, especially in his pain in reliving these memories. His exile on that station rings more meaningfully, as does his inability to tell the truth in his communiques with his partner.
Through all this, Vinder receives the least interference by the Doctor -though his commanding officer is replaced by Yaz. Some aspect of the time divergence accounts for a face from his present replacing one from his past. This should have clued me in to the role of the apparent Yaz, Dan, and Vinder in the Doctors’ vision at Atropos, though I’m glad it didn’t until the point it needed to.
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There are further complications, even once the Doctor has restored the Mouri and brought Yaz, Dan, and Vinder back into their proper timeline. In her last ditch attempt to learn some truth of her past, she is taken to an old woman (Barbara Flynn) who chastises her for trying to remain in the time stream and gives her just enough information to hint at the bigger picture: that the universe is at an end point, the Flux was created for a specific purpose, the Ravagers reintroduced for the same, and somehow, it’s because of the Doctor. We may have identified our overarching villain of this miniseries, a far more absorbing one than Swarm. That guy meanwhile asserts the Doctor succeeding here was part of his plan anyway (sure dude). And as if he couldn’t be any more of a banal moustache-twirling villain, before disappearing, he presents his woman tied to the railroad tracks: Diane -predictably provoking the ire of Dan, now given a personal stake in this conflict.
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“Once, Upon Time” was directed by Azhur Saleem, his first episode for Doctor Who, and one of three he’s doing this series. It’s the best directed of Flux thus far, he incorporates some creative visual choices, such as a moving split screen shot of Vinder and Bel in their far flung corners of the universe, and he manages some crisp, nicely staged shots. It definitely helps the episode set the bar as the first real high point of this series. The mood and the music do too, especially near the end. It’s still not terribly clean in its plotting or devices, and Chibnall continues to add elements at the same rate he resolves them (I didn’t even mention the floating particle storms that feed on survivors of the Flux), but there is some clarity being incorporated now, some threads coming together and more meaningful developments, themes and character work, even if the overall direction of the narrative remains obscure. The Doctor bullet-points objectives as they leave Apropos. One is simply to get Vinder home: mission accomplished. Two, is to save Diane from the Ravagers, and three is to figure out who created the Flux and what she has to do with it. Maybe she should seek out Karvanista again -one of the great tiny reveals seemed to be that her earlier companion whom she interpreted as Dan was really that puppy-faced captain. These priorities are waylaid however by an Angel popping out from Yaz’s phone, and in a great creepy collection of shots and cuts, takes over the TARDIS, steering it onto their next adventure. I’m feeling more confident in it.
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