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Once Upon Time is Chapter 3 in series 13 of Doctor Who, aka Doctor Who: Flux.
NOTE: There are some spoilers in this review.
Once Upon Time begins with Bel’s Story (who?), telling us how some weird nanobot-type creatures flying about and vanquishing people are a lot more troublesome than the Daleks, even though they’re about as well. However, as we later learn, you can avoid the small mites by simply ducking behind a wall, because they can’t turn corners… sometimes.
Yaz was in a bit of a spot after last week, when she was about to be turned into stone – or whatever, but in a split-second, The Doctor yanked both Yaz and Dan away from it, and into a ‘time storm’. And then a Weeping Angel also appeared, before the Scooby Doo gang (inc. Vinder) were back together, and they had to sort out the siege in Atropos, but instead of showing us that, it flashes to some point where Dan’s talking to Diane who he fancies, but is trying to make it look like he doesn’t (Christ, shag already!), but then it’s all a smokescren because nothing is what it seems.
And they STILL ended up in the Temple of Atropos!
Or was it the future? Or the past? Or… Good Lord, what a fucking mess this script is.
And if The Doctor doesn’t like guns, why do her gang have some sort of blasters?
The episode also featured fleeting occurences of the black Doctor from an earlier episode I’ve long forgotten (because none of it made sense), Cybermen, more Angels, and Dot Cottan from Line of Duty. Plus, for whatever reason, Bel has Tigmi, a Tamagotchi-type device. I don’t think it ever responded back after she spoke to it.
As Craig Parkinson’s character says at one point, “You understand this?”
Nope, and no-one on Twitter seemed to, either. It was nice to see Barbara Flynn in whatever role she was playing (I’ll look it up, even though I doubt it’ll matter), but even she couldn’t save this dirge.
If you’ve seen Dune Part One at the cinema, recently, and was completely confused for the entire 2 hours 35 minutes, along comes Chris Chibnall to utter, “Hold my beer…”
Chapter 4 will be Village Of The Angels, and airs next Sunday at 6.20pm.
Doctor Who: Flux can be pre-ordered on Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbook, Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on January 24th 2022.
You can also buy Series 12 on Blu-ray, DVD and Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbook.
Also available is Revolution Of The Daleks on Blu-ray and DVD.
The episode is now on the BBC iPlayer.
Score: 0/10
Director: Azhur Saleem
Writer: Chris Chibnall
Music: Olga FitzRoy
Cast:
The Doctor: Jodie Whittaker
Yasmin Khan: Mandip Gill
Dan Lewis: John Bishop
Vinder: Jacob Anderson
Bel: Thaddea Graham
Joseph Williamson: Steve Oram
Swarm: Sam Spruell
Azure: Rochenda Sandall
Karvanista: Craige Els
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.