After a crapload of BOOK OF LISTS entries, it's time to change gears. Thankfully, we've just had a season full of recurring foes whose histories I have chronicled in previous essays that now need to be properly placed in the timelines I've created.
I'm guessing that, by this point, anyone who hates Chris Chibnall has stopped reading this blog. I've taken a ridiculously strong pro-Chibnall stance on here. Not just because I think a lot of the persecution he's suffered was completely unfounded, but I also feel he's actually doing legitimately great things with the show. So much so, that I may just consider him to be the best Showrunner since Doctor Who returned to the air in 2005!
Flux, for me, has greatly re-enforced this notion. I do feel it's something of a masterpiece. Six glorious episodes that linked together beautifully and told a continuously compelling story that was richly-layered and brilliantly-conceived. A really amazing piece of television that actually had a lot of the Chibnall-naysayers (not all of you, of course, some will never convert!) having to finally admit defeat and agree that he did something really good. Although, I'd say it was more than just really good. In fact, I'd say it was amazing.
Quite simply, Flux kicked ass.
As the whole season played out, I appreciated more and more what Chibnall had been doing all along. Series Eleven gave us no recurring foes and a very "light" Doctor. Series Twelve started bringing some villains back and the Doctor went to some darker places. Thirteen was steeped in Lore and recurring monsters and showed a Doctor that was being pushed beyond all her limits. I absolutely loved the way he arced things across the last few years. To me, it shows off just how good of a writer he truly is by having the skills to plan things out so far ahead. I know many will be happy to see the back of him as RTD steps in for 2023, but I won't be one of them. I loved Chibnall's work and will miss him dearly.
NICE REVIEW, ROB - NOW GET TO THE POINT!
All right, that little review was largely unnecessary. This is supposed to be a CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essay. But I still wanted to voice my opinion just a little bit in the intro before getting to the real meat of the essay. Flux rocked and I felt that needed to be stated clearly for all the world (or, at least, those who read this blog) to see.
Besides being awesome, something else that Flux did to make me happy was to feature sooo many recurring creatures whose timelines I have already pieced together into something linear and mildly cohesive. The inclusion of these various races throughout the season now means I get to do a nice, gigantic two-part Appendix where I can figure out where these latest appearances will fit in to the histories I have established. This, of course, makes me very happy!
It's my theory that some of the returning aliens that we saw this season came from another time while others hail from the present. Part One of this Appendix will focus on the ones that come from our current time period. I will not just point out which races are in the present tense but I will try to provide evidence to support my views.
Part Two of the Appendix, of course, will look at the time travellers who I feel came from another era to investigate the Flux. I will also try to present evidence to substantiate those claims.
But we'll get to that later. Let's focus on the Now.
SETTING A DATE
The Halloween Apocalypse very quickly establishes a date for when the Flux Disaster starts. It seems to begin on October 31st, 2021. Or, at the vary latest, November 1st, 2021. It seems pretty late in the night when the story starts. Due to a slight time distortion, Karvanista arrives on Earth ahead of the rest of the Lupari fleet. So the Event probably did start later in the night but then Karvanista accidentally slips back in time to rescue Dan. So when Vinder sees the Flux advancing towards Observation Outpost Rose, a few hours may have elapsed since the start of the adventure. Which means we might be past midnight, by this point. So, if we want to be super-pedantic, the Flux may have started on November 1st.
Whether this all begins October 31st or November 1st is not all that relevant. The most important fact is that providing a date in Halloween Apocalypse does make it clear that we are not in the future or the past. This is a present-day experience.
It stands to reason, then, that several of the returning aliens that we see during the season would also be from the present. I would think this would especially be the case with anyone that appears in Halloween Apocalypse. This is a story with a very specific date and the creatures that cameo in the tale are, very much, reacting to the current events of the Flux.
This leads me to believe, then, that Commander Ritskaw and his forthcoming Sontaran invasion force all hail from the Modern Day. When they make their bid to conquer the Earth by slipping in just before the Lupari shield forms, they have only travelled in Space - not in Time.
PRESENT-DAY INTERLOPERS - PART ONE
War of the Sontarans may cause a bit of confusion about what period these Sontarans come from since most of it does seem to take place during the Crimean War. But, as the story progresses, we learn that the Sontarans established an original foothold on Earth during late 2021 and are using time travel technology to go back into the past and pervert the course of human history (they tend to like to do that!). So these are still Sontarans from current times - they're just time travelling a bit once they make it onto our world.
Thanks to the intervention of the Doctor, their original plan to conquer the Earth fails. But this doesn't stop the Sontarans from hatching a second, more subtle plan. In this scenario, the Grand Serpent is recruited to their cause to interfere with the formation of UNIT and make the Earth vulnerable to another invasion from the Sontarans.
While this does seem to be a different battalion (led by a Commander Stenck, this time), these are still Sontarans from the present. Just like the other Sontaran invaders, they are desperate to use Earth as a means of protection from the Flux. And, at the same time, they are planning to eliminate the two other major races that are competing with them to dominate what's left of the Universe. While they have probably given the Grand Serpent some time travel technology so that he can influence UNIT over the years, the scheme is still initially-hatched in late 2021 as the Flux is sweeping across the cosmos.
WHERE DOES IT FIT?
All that's left, now, is to go back to my original entry on Sontaran History (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/04/chronologies-and-timelines-probable.html) and place it somewhere in the timeline I established, there. The Halloween Apocalypse, War of the Sontarans, Survivors of the Flux and The Vanquishors takes place between the events of Sontaran Strategem/Poison Sky and The Sontaran Experiment. There is, of course, a sizeable gap of time between those two stories. I wouldn't be surprised if more Sontaran adventures eventually appear in this period in future episodes.
About the only other thing that needs to be brought up about all this is the fact that the Sontarans in 2021 look radically-different from the ones in 2008(ish). How do we account for such a big difference of appearance in only a handful of years? Especially from what is meant to be a clone species?!
If you do bother to go back and read my initial essay on the matter, I theorise that the Sontarans are similar to us in that different regions of the planet produced different races. Those races then started cloning themselves as the Sontarans began fighting the Rutans all those many years ago. This explains why clones can look so different from each other during certain stories. Basically, we are seeing different races from the same species.
PRESENT-DAY INTERLOPERS: PART TWO
The other Big Nasty that we need to deal with in this entry are the Weeping Angels. I'm convinced that they also hail from the Present Day. But, just like the Sontarans, things can get a bit confusing as they do a fair amount of travelling back and forth in time. Their initial entry point onto Earth, however, is late 2021.
The first Weeping Angel that we see in the season is the one that abducts Claire in Halloween Apocalypse. Which, as we've already established, is taking place on October 31st/November 1st, 2021. So we can safely assume that this is where (or, more accurately,when) the Angel comes from. In some ways, it's a bit difficult to be certain of this since we have no clear idea of how Weeping Angels get around. They can transport people into the past but they don't seem capable of actually time travelling, themselves. Since moving through time doesn't seem possible for them, I'm inclined to believe this Angel is from the present. I don't believe the Angel could attack Claire in 2021 if it didn't come from that time period.
As we go into Village of the Angels, things become tricky. We see Weeping Angels in 1967 and then in 1901. These are Angels working as an extraction team that are trying to capture an agent that wants to leave Division. The rogue agent, of course, is the same Angel we saw attacking Claire in Halloween Apocalypse. What about the rest of them? What time period are they from? 1967? 1901?
It's my belief that, like the fugitive Angel they were chasing, the extraction team are originally from current times. Division has granted them the ability to travel through time so they can set up the quantum extraction. I believe this because the Angels bring the Doctor back to the Present to meet Tecteun in Survivors of the Flux. This leads me to think that Tecteun put together a team from a contemporary position on the timeline and sent them back in time to get the fleeing agent and the Doctor.
PROPERLY PLACING THE ANGELS AND DEALING WITH A TRICKY BIT
Just as we did with the Sontarans, we need to place Halloween Apocalypse/Once, Upon Time/Village of the Angels and Survivors of the Flux in a timeline I have already established for the Weeping Angels. Should you wish to take a full look at it, I tried to piece their history together in this entry: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/06/chronologies-and-timelines-brief.html .
Chronologically, all the episodes from Flux that involve Weeping Angels take place between Blink and The Time of the Angles/Flesh and Stone. We could be nitpicky and try to fit things in a bit better by dealing with their brief cameo in The God Complex, but let's not sweat that too much. Those particular Angels, after all, were just an illusion.
The Flux episodes that involve Weeping Angels fit into a pretty big gap of time between Blink and Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone (just like the Sontaran episodes did). More than likely, there will probably be other Weeping Angel stories that will get made someday that we can also slot into this particular part of their timescale.
There is one more issue to deal with that might be a bit tricky to reconcile. During Once, Upon Time we see a Weeping Angel appearing to Yaz during certain scenes that take place in her past. This is happening so that the Angel can, ultimately, leap out from Yaz's memories and into the TARDIS to commandeer it. I have asserted that all Weeping Angels in Flux are from the Present. I also believe that the species is capable of temporally displacing their victims but cannot travel in time, themselves (the very fact that an Angel needs to steal the TARDIS to go back to 1967 helps to re-enforce this). So the Big Question is: how was this Weeping Angel able to slip into Yaz's past?
My guess would be that Yaz is having a very unique relationship with Time during that particular episode. And, while an Angel cannot actually travel in time, it can still manipulate it. Those two elements working together enabled the Weeping Angel to briefly reach into Yaz's past and make some appearances in her memory. She is now retaining the image of an Angel, which enables the creature to leap out into the TARDIS at the opportune moment. But a Weeping Angel would never be able to do this sort of thing under normal circumstances. Yaz needed to be zipping around in her own timeline like she was for the Angel to accomplish such a trick.
THUS ENDETH PART ONE
We have, now, "properly" chronicled the recurring baddies that hail from the Modern Day. There are, of course, a few other creatures that appeared in Flux that I have chronicled over the years that were not brought up in this particular installment. This is because I don't believe they actually came from our Time Zone so I am going to give them a special entry of their own. As we move into Part Two, I'll explain why I believe them to be time travellers who are visiting this period from another era and try to present evidence to support my ideas.
See you then....
SPECIAL NOTE:
Just wanted to offer a bit of an apology for not posting so much in January. I had intended to put up a few entries for the month but then a personal tragedy came into my life that was clearly a bigger priority. After a very brief battle with cancer, my father passed. Grieving him was more important than blogging about Doctor Who so I took a little break from here.
While I will never totally recover from such a loss, I am starting to feel well enough to get back into my passion for blogging about Doctor Who. So the entries should start coming out fairly regularly, again.
Thanks to all of you who have been patient with me while I was away and I appreciate the great support you show me now that I am starting to write in here, again.
Just in case you don't feel like scrolling up to find the link, here are the full histories of the two monsters we covered in this entry:
Sontarans:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/04/chronologies-and-timelines-probable.html
Weeping Angels:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/06/chronologies-and-timelines-brief.html
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