Doctor Who’s 2022 Specials Are Avoiding The Mistakes That Killed Flux

Doctor Who‘s 2022 specials are deftly avoiding the narrative pitfall season 13’s Flux storyline landed in. Doctor Who fans aren’t exactly blessed with an abundance of material at present. Due to the pandemic situation, Doctor Who season 13 found itself chopped to a scant 6 episodes, while 2022 foregoes a full season altogether, opting instead for a series of special episodes dotted through the year. “Eve of the Daleks” kicked off proceedings on New Year’s Day, with additional adventures planned for spring and fall. The last of that trio will see Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor regenerate as part of the BBC’s centenary celebration programming.

And many viewers will be hoping Doctor Who‘s 2022 represents a vast improvement upon 2021. Though Doctor Who: Flux was billed as a groundbreaking story of unprecedented scale, the season – and its finale in particular – came in for heavy criticism. When Chris Chibnall first announced Doctor Who season 13 would comprise one overarching storyline, his approach seemed logical enough. Addressing season 12’s Timeless Child revelation would be difficult in standalone episodes, after all. Unfortunately, Doctor Who: Flux not only ignored the biggest Timeless Child questions, but lost control of its own narrative thread too.

Doctor Who: Flux began with a chaotic premiere, ended on a finale filled with plot holes and nonsensical twists, and dropped a ton of hollow exposition in between. A season-long storyline might’ve looked attractive on paper, but the execution was found wanting as Doctor Who: Flux buckled under the weight of its own ambition and disorganized idea mashup. As Doctor Who‘s 2022 specials come into view, however, the future – and Jodie Whittaker’s goodbye – refuse to make the same error.

“Eve of the Daleks” can be best described as a standalone bottle episode, limiting characters and settings to a bare minimum. Doctor Who‘s 2022 New Year’s special strips back the formula, relying on strong supporting characters and a clever time loop concept where the TARDIS gang repeat a single New Year’s Eve, desperately trying to survive a Dalek attack by acting differently each time – like replaying a video game level you can’t quite complete without dying. The self-contained nature of “Eve of the Daleks” provides welcome reprieve from Flux’s headaches and dead-ends, and a trailer for Doctor Who‘s next installment promises more of the same. “Legend of the Sea Devils” looks very much like a historical one-off featuring pirates and an old adversary from the Jon Pertwee era. It’s highly improbable that significant chunks of that episode will bleed into the next, meaning Jodie Whittaker’s farewell must also be a self-contained adventure, capping off a very episodic run of Doctor Who 2022 specials.

This should come as a good omen for Doctor Who‘s next 12 months. While not getting a proper explanation into the Timeless Child is disappointing (Chibnall is apparently leaving that job for Russell T. Davies), the current era of Doctor Who has regularly proven itself prone to over-ambition without delivering satisfactory payoff – first with the Timeless Child, and again with Doctor Who: Flux. By contrast, the strongest episodes of season 13 (“War of the Sontarans” and “Village of the Angels”) both steered away from Flux’s central story to tell their own separate tales. Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall’s final three Doctor Who episodes (“Eve of the Daleks,” “Legend of the Sea Devils” and Whittaker’s regeneration) will seemingly sit in that same standalone vein, giving reason for optimism that both can exit on a high.

About The Author

Craig Elvy
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Craig first began contributing to Screen Rant in 2016, several years after graduating college, and has been ranting ever since, mostly to himself in a darkened room. Having previously written for various sports and music outlets, Craig’s interest soon turned to TV and film, where a steady upbringing of science fiction and comic books finally came into its own.
Craig has previously been published on sites such as Den of Geek, and after many coffee-drenched hours hunched over a laptop, part-time evening work eventually turned into a full-time career covering everything from the zombie apocalypse to the Starship Enterprise via the TARDIS.

Since joining the Screen Rant fold, Craig has been involved in breaking news stories and mildly controversial ranking lists, but now works predominantly as a features writer.
Jim Carrey is Craig’s top acting pick and favorite topics include superheroes, anime and the unrecognized genius of the High School Musical trilogy.

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