Timu's Doctor Who and Torchwood Reviews (spoilers!)

dr13 s3
The Flux Series.  this 6-part series has so many plot threads that after part 5 i decided to put a glossary here at the start of the whole thing.  The expositional-backstory i put into here is slightly modified from what i wrote part5's review on discord.  after part 6 i will probably make further adjustments to this.

SpoilerShow

so uh, the previous season finale we learn that the doctor's very very very very very first life long long long long long long long long ago:



the Doctor was just a tiny baby that Cryptic Old Lady found next to a wormhole to another universe. 



"neat.  a baby from another universe.   oh shit.  this baby has so many cool superpowers like regeneration.  now thanks to science, so do me and a bunch of other gallifreyans.  This is the origin of the time lords."



Cryptic old lady went on to become the boss of The Division, an organization that pulls the strings to manipulate history and try to control time and space across the multiverse.
The Division has members of all different species, but they are mostly time lord soldiers.  They also have weeping angels, a dog man, and 0th doctor.



"Hey, stop trying to control Time!"  said Time, which is a concept and is also pissed off.
Time has a handful of powerful people fighting for it: Thanos, and Thanos's Sister, who like to turn things into dust and teleport around.  Also there's a third member of Team Thanos, named Third Guy.  Third guy is actually a robot who is basically a prison on legs.  just shrink people down and shove them in there.



Team Thanos tried to fight back against the Division but lost.
The Division made a Triangle Temple, and put Time in it.  Like the myth of Atlas, who held the sky on his shoulders, there are four aliens with horse-feeding-bags who carry Time.  These Time Atlas Aliens control Time and makes sure it doesn't try to wipe out the universe or anything.
Thanos was sent to jail, Thanos's sister was turned into a human woman and had her memories erased, and Third Guy died.



Having conquered Time, the Division no longer needed the services of 0th doctor.  Wiped all her memories and thus started 1st doctor and the show Doctor Who, none the wiser of what Division had done. 

At the end of the previous season, the doctor learned of the existence of the Division.  Cryptic Old Lady wants it to stay a secret, and is willing to destroy the universe to keep the truth from getting out.  She engineers the escape of Thanos from prison, knowing that Thanos would go free Time from the Triangle Temple, thus allowing Time to unleash a Dust Wave that would destroy the universe.  This is.... the Flux.

In part 1, the Doctor empties the Tardis latrine at the Dust Wave, preventing it from completely destroying the universe.  The universe is only half-destroyed.  Will the Doctor be able to stop the villains from killing the survivors, and maybe even find a way to undo the damage?   Find out in Doctor Who: The Flux.

----
cast list:
The Doctor: it's the main character.  the 13th doctor, Dr13.
Yaz: the remaining companion from the past few years
Dan: It's Dan!

Villains:
Cryptic Old Lady: the doctor's mom and boss of Division.  wants to destroy the universe to keep Division a secret and to keep The Doctor from interfering with her plans.
Time: a pissed off concept who hates Space.  will obliterate the universe with a Dust Wave if given the chance.
Thanos: wants to destroy the universe on behalf of Time.  Actual name is Swarm.
Thanos's Sister: Thanos's Sister. Actual name is Azure.
Third Guy: a humanoid robot that can hold up to a million prisoners, all shrunken down.  There were at least five Third Guys at one point.  Actual name is Passenger.
Sontarans: the fun potato aliens who like war.  After the Dust Wave wiped out half the universe, the Sontarans move in to conquer the survivors.
Rogue Angel: one of the Weeping Angel hitmen who went AWOL.  on the run from the Weeping Angel Hitmen and doesn't mind endangering humans along the way.
Weeping Angel Hitmen:  wants to capture Rogue Angel, and doesn't mind attacking innocent civilians along the way.  They are jerks who like to scare people and send them back in time. Can only move when unobserved.
Space Senator: a senator of an alien civilization.  The only difference between Space Senator and a human senator is that space senator is part of an alien civilization's government and has nothing to do with earth.  They are otherwise exactly like a human senator:  they look exactly like a regular human, they have a cruel cutthroat backstabbing snobbish personality, and they contain several snakes inside of their body.   Later he ends up on Earth and becomes a founding member of UNIT.  (the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce for dealing with alien stuff.)  What could he be plotting??

Other People:
Dog Man: extremely competent dog man.  used to work for Division, but not anymore.  now leads the Dog People, who have come to Earth in order to protect them against the Flux.
Vinder: used to be Space Senator's bodyguard.  Tried to whistleblow Space Senator's corruption, and ended up imprisoned on a Space Station outpost.  Had to escape from the Dust Wave in an escape pod and ended up hanging out with Team Doctor for a bit as like a pseudo-companion.
Tamogotchi Girl: Vinder's significant other.  Wandering around looking for Vinder in the post-DustWave universe.  Has a tamogotchi.  Actual name Bel.
Jericho: a fun scientist from 1967 who is pretty cool.  Ends up hanging out with Team Doctor for a bit, as like a pseudo-companion.
Claire: a human from modern times.  Rogue Angel is hiding inside of her brain.  introduced as "random lady who met the doctor in the past" it turns out she actually only just had visions of the future. (due to Rogue Angel.)
Rich 1820s Guy:  a guy who, in 1820, paid a bunch of workers to dig a bunch of random tunnels under Liverpool.  These tunnels apparently have portals to random places in time and space.
Diane: Dan's girlfriend.  ends up getting kidnapped by Thanos and put into a Third Guy.
Kate: a leader in UNIT.  is a returning character from previous seasons.  Space Senator tried to kill her so she's now in hiding.

ep1 (season premier that happens to take place on halloween)
part 1 of 6 of the Flux Series

SpoilerShow

good morning it's that time of the year again
halloween which means it's time for the annual Doctor Who Halloween Season Premier which is a first in its history

previously on Doctor who ......
1. uhh we found out the doctor had like a bajillion regenerations that happened before the 15 or so that have been documented on television, those past lives were just erased from their memory
2. the current Team Doctor is The Doctor and Yaz, cause the other two people left at the end of the last season

okie
so
Dr and Yaz are handcuffed to a floating space pole suspended over a planet of acid!!!! can they escape before the timer runs out?  yeah but not without a cheesy action sequence
with that out of the way, they can pursue the Dog Man who put them in that death trap

meanwhile on earth
meet dan

(twitter link with four images) https://twitter.com/HTHRFLWRS/status/145...19264?s=20
twitter link transcript:
doctor who's contradictory needs of needing to advertise the new season while also revealing literally nothing about it have created this incredible situation where they keep posting about the new main character by saying his name and nothing else



it's dan

meanwhile on earth in 1820
some rich asshole is digging random tunnels and shit in preparation for the apocalypse or whatever.

meanwhile on earth in 2021 halloween, dog man smashes down the door of dan's house
dan is upset
this giant hulking dog with a glowy space axe just smashed down his door

then the dog says 'i'm an alien who is kidnapping you'
and dan says 'you're the second rudest fucking trick-or-treater that i've ever met.  your costume is good but like you gotta pay for my door you piece of shit'
and the dog is like 'the fuck is wrong with you.  i have a space axe.  i'm a talking dog man.  you've never seen an alien before?'
and dan says 'yeah but it's not christmas is it, dumbass, it's halloween.  doctor who has christmas specials but not halloween specials.  so why the fuck would aliens be attacking on the wrong day of the year.  fix my door or i'm calling the cops, or coppers as they are called here in the uk'
the dog kidnaps dan

meanwhile, there's this super time prison that has been guarding some guy named thanos since the dawn of time, but then that guy escapes.  this guy's name is swarm and he makes everything he touches fall apart into dust so he's thanos now
this is a picture of thanos



look at the expression
idk
i think it's kinda a goofy little smile

andrea — Today at 4:06 AM
it's good

meanwhile, two people living in the arctic hear an alarm.  there's a tiny baby ufo in their garage.  the ufo says 'there's an emergency!!'  the woman says 'fuck your emergency' and smashes the ufo with a hammer.

meanwhile, some random woman on the street says 'hi doctor! you haven't met me yet, but i have met you , cause time travel.' and the doctor says 'i don't give a fuck i gotta find a dog man'
and the doctor leaves and then a weeping angel shows up and touches the random woman (claire)

meanwhile, there's a guy on a space station somewhere, alone.  the guy seems to making a regularly scheduled report.  the guy says "hi, here's my full name, a couple of my most notable character traits and the basic details of my history.  i sit on this space station alone keeping an eye on stuff.  it's boring cause nothing happens but at least looking at stars is nice.  oh shit something is happening.  it looks like thanos is dusting up planets left and right i'm getting out of here, see ya'

meanwhile on dog man's ship:
dan: i'm begininning to think you're not just a guy wearing a costume
dog: yea
doctor: hehe i disabled the security system with a bag of cheetos
dog: actually i'm a good guy?  thanos is about to destroy earth so i rescued dan.  he's my designated randomly selected human for rescue.  the other 8 billion humans are gonna get rescued by the other 8 billion space dogs in like an hour, i was just early cause you've been bothering me
doctor oh okay.  so you got 8 billion space dog space ships?  why not just form a big wall of space dog ships that will protect earth from thanos
dog: that's a good idea
thanos: fuck.  well at least i destroyed neptune.

meanwhile on earth, in the arctic, with those two people who destroyed the little alarm ufo
thanos: hey i'm here in person.
the human husband: dusted
thanos: human woman did you know you're actually my sister
sister: o yea i forgot cause one of those undocumented-doctor-past-lives turned me into a human or something?
thanos: i guess?  idk what's going on.  there were weeping angels earlier?  oh i guess this is the end of this scene bye
sister: oh yes bye, also i look like a girl thanos now and not human

meanwhile on earth, in liverpool:
diane's girlfriend: oh no i'm being kidnapped by thanos's sister

meanwhile in space on a sontaran spaceship:
sontarans: hi we're an involved party

meanwhile at the tardis:
thanos: hi, i'm not here in person, but i'm telling the doctor telepathically that we fought during one of those undocumented-doctor-past-lives, also eat shit and get dusted
invincible all powerful tardis: oh shit noooo

end of episode cliffhanger!!
apparently this is a six-parter
i expected as much given all those fucking plot threads that just got strated

okay lets see all this shit that just happened and showed up in a single scene:
random lady who met the doctor in the past: attacked by weeping angel
dans' girlfriend: kidnapped my thanos's sister
sontarans: did absolutely nothing but laugh evilly
some rich guy in 1820: digging random tunnels for some reason
some guy on a space station: saw the thanos dust wave and took an escape pod

so!
that was a whole lot of nothing really happening.  a whole lot of 'here's stuff to look out for in the next episode'
but hey
at least we met dan

Overall rating:
Villain: Thanos
death rate: baby alarm ufo, at least three random planets, two of thanos's prison guards, thanos's brother-in-law, neptune
birthrate: thanos's sister turns back into thanos's sister
overall death rate: if there were people on those planets i guess no one cares
overall rating: Dan/10
Moral of the Story:
uuuhhhhhhhhh all i can think of is 'when someone sends you an alarm ufo don't smash it with a hammer' but like i still dunno what the deal with the artic people is so idk maybe smashing the alarm ufo is a thing you should do
well hey
you don't have to make a mistake to learn a lesson
moral of the story: even if you do everything right, sometimes you still get kidnapped by weeping angels/kidnapped by thanos's sister/killed by thanos/kidnapped by dogs/dig a weird tunnel/get to laugh evilly/ACTUALLY WAIT

not this time
moral of the story: if a dog shield blocks your dust wave from hitting earth, but you're already on earth un-humaning your sister, then you can probably destroy earth anyway
lemme check the wiki to make sure they actually were on earth otherwise this moral wouldn't work.  yeah okay they actually were on earth.
moral of the story: if you are on earth, in person, and able to turn your brother-in-law and his lamp into dust with your universe-ending powers, you can probably do it to the whole planet whether or not there is are a bunch of dogs covering the atmosphere



also on the wiki, turns out that one of thanos's prison guards was a time lord and thanos just ate the regeneration power, and it's actually a different actor before and after
i totally didn't notice
this is what thanos-species regeneration looks like i guess

different from the time lord glowy flamethrower hands
if i rewatched that scene i will probably notice the face changing and stuff now that i know to look for it
i was too focused on the 'oo fun face spikes retracting and extending'



Digimon World Enthusiast Jac ?? — Today at 5:06 AM
I think it sounds like maybe there were too many things in that one