This article contains spoilers for Doctor Who: Flux episode 6.
Doctor Who: Flux brought back the Sontarans as a major villain – but unfortunately this caused some major (and quite absurd) plot holes. The coronavirus pandemic forced Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall to take a very different approach for season 13. Unlike previous seasons, this one – called Doctor Who: Flux – featured a single overarching narrative in which the Doctor searched for her lost memories while attempting to save the entire universe from destruction. However, despite the high stakes, there are serious flaws in the story.
The BBC has recently published a breakdown of Doctor Who: Flux, presented by Chibnall and Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker herself. The two discuss all the main beats of the plot; the Doctor’s quest for her forgotten past, her confrontation with a sinister covert organization called the Division, and the role of the main villains Swarm and Azure. Curiously, though, the breakdown omits a lot of the narrative; the Sontarans, who are a regular part of Doctor Who and even conquered Earth (twice) aren’t even mentioned. It’s clear Chibnall’s attention, as showrunner and writer, was on the A-plot centered around the Doctor’s memories. Unfortunately this resulted in some messy writing, creating a number of plot holes – many of which are centered around the Sontarans.
In Doctor Who: Flux episode 6, the Doctor decided the best way to deal with the Sontarans was to ensure she was captured by them. She got their attention by taking control of the Lupari spaceship she was stranded upon, and trying to crash it into the Sontaran flagship; as she rightly deduced, the Sontarans possess force-field technology to prevent anyone doing that. It was an ingenious way of irritating the Sontarans enough to get taken to their leader, but it was also fundamentally flawed; because in Doctor Who: Flux episode 2, the Doctor’s companion Dan dealt with an entire Sontaran fleet by crashing one spaceship into the rest, triggering a temporal blip that wiped them out. That wouldn’t have been possible if Sontaran ships had protective force-fields.
There’s no easy way to explain away this plot hole; one moment, Sontaran ships don’t have shields, and the next they do. What’s more, both instances are crucial to making the plot work. The only explanation, sadly, is sloppy writing. In Chibnall’s defense, he was writing and producing Doctor Who: Flux – a story in a format Doctor Who hasn’t tried since 1989 – in the middle of a pandemic, and the BBC’s recent breakdown suggests all his attention was on the A-plot. Thus his mistake here is understandable, but real nonetheless.
Ironically, Doctor Who: Flux episode 2 also revealed another way the Doctor could have beaten the Sontarans. It seems Sontarans aren’t made for an Earth-type environment, and thus they require frequent recharges in their ships. That would have been a rather useful weakness for the Doctor to deploy in episode 6, but it was forgotten – probably because it was only written into episode 2’s script as a plot contrivance. Instead, the Doctor identified other weaknesses – the most amusing one being that Sontarans apparently love chocolate. It led to one of the great laugh-out-loud moments in Doctor Who: Flux, even if it probably wasn’t necessary.
About The Author
