WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the season premiere of Doctor Who: Flux, "Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse," which aired Sunday on BBC.
Ever since the announcement of Doctor Who's Season 13, we knew that this season would be different. Indeed, when the series would return, it would be subtitled Doctor Who: Flux, and it would run for six episodes that tell one continuous story. Since then, fans have theorized about what the titular Flux could be. Teases and trailers promised that the Doctor would face her biggest challenge yet, and they hinted that this threat was unlike any we had seen before, causing attacks from plenty of villains, both new and old.
Now, Season 13 has finally kicked off with "Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse," an episode that doesn't hold back in unleashing the Flux right out of the gate. So what is the Flux, and why is it so dangerous?
As "The Halloween Apocalypse" begins, the Doctor and Yaz are in another corner of the universe facing mortal danger, but they are rapidly called back to Earth to catch their attacker, a humanoid, dog-like creature called Karvanista. The alien, however, didn't come to Earth alone -- an entire fleet of 7 billion others just like him are aboard their spaceships, heading towards the planet. But what the Doctor mistakes for an invasion fleet is actually a rescue operation: Karvanista and his friends are actually traveling to save every single human from an incomparable threat.
When Karvanista tells the Doctor about the Flux, he is surprised that she doesn't know about it, since it's already making waves across the universe. On several occasions, the audience sees what the Flux is, and what it's capable of. The new threat is best described as a colossal swarm of cosmic proportions. A gigantic cloud that travels across the universe, it obliterates everything it comes into contact with. It destroys planets in a matter of seconds, taking the lives of billions in the process, and it's said that it attacks every single particle of reality, which means that the Flux is attacking the universe itself. The Flux is ravenous and seemingly unstoppable. In fact, when finally coming face to face with the cosmic swarm, the Doctor fires a blast of pure Time Vortex energy at the Flux, and it barely makes a dent.
As the episode comes to a close, the Doctor finds herself unable to stop the Flux as it moves ever closer to Earth. And with no hope of stopping it, she contemplates the end of the universe itself. While it's certain the Doctor will manage to repel the Flux long enough to escape in next week's episode, her defeated attitude at the end of the "The Halloween Apocalypse" shows that the Flux may be the single greatest threat she has ever faced. It has already unleashed destruction on a scale never seen before and claimed an untold number of lives.
This truly is the Doctor's greatest fight. And the worst part is, she has no idea where the Flux comes from, what it actually is, or who, if anyone, is behind it.
To see how powerful the Flux is, new episodes of Doctor Who: Flux air Sundays on BBC.
0 Comments