Doctor Who season 13 finally returned to our screens yesterday, and it's safe to say that the series kicked off with a bang! The first episode, The Halloween Apocalypse, saw the Doctor and Yaz recruiting a new companion and encountering an age-old foe, all while the mysterious Flux began to wreak havoc across the galaxy...
*massive spoilers ahead for Doctor Who*
We joined Jodie Whittaker's Doctor and Yaz (Mandip Gill) suspended upside down above an acid sea on a far-flung planet. They have been on the hunt for Karvanista, a member of The Division and one of the Lupari (dog aliens, essentially) for some time now. The daring duo managed to escape his trap and tracked the alien to contemporary Liverpool, where Karvanista broke into Dan Lewis's (John Bishop) home and kidnapped him.
Meanwhile, a mysterious prisoner called Swarm broke out of a prison he's been trapped in for millennia and disintegrated two prison officers, restoring his own body in the process.
Over the course of the episode, we learned that this terrifying new creature was actually the Doctor's lifelong enemy and that they'd done battle countless times over... but the Doctor didn't remember ever meeting them!
As if Swarm wasn't enough of a problem, the Flux began tearing its way across the galaxy, swallowing up planets in the process. Whilst the Doctor wasn't aware of how dangerous the Flux was, Karvanista explained how much of a threat it really was. He and the rest of the Lupari had actually traveled to Earth to protect every single human by taking them off the planet, not to steal them away.
With that misunderstanding cleared up, the Doctor and her new 'fam' teamed up with Karvanista and the rest of the Lupari to try and prevent the Flux from reaching Earth. The Flux started to chase the TARDIS, allowing the Lupari spaceship fleet to form a barrier around the planet.
The Doctor used the TARDIS to blast the Flux with vortex energy which seemed to do absolutely nothing to it. The Flux reached the open doors of the TARDIS... and then the credits rolled before we got to see what happened!
Clearly, no one was prepared for the first episode of this six-part saga to be so action-packed! So many Doctor Who fans headed straight to Twitter to share how thrilled they were with the first episode, but plenty more were stunned at just what might happen with the trio barely holding the Flux back.
OH NO. If *that* is the episode one cliffhanger - what the HECK are the other four cliffhangers gonna be?! #DoctorWhoFluxOctober 31, 2021
A truly sensational cliffhanger. Beautifully scored by @segunakinola. Fantastic shots of characters from the episode. So many questions. So much excitement and energy. My heart was racing. #DoctorWho #DoctorWhoFlux pic.twitter.com/cVy0re6EMmOctober 31, 2021
That was incredible!! And what a cliffhanger. Casual end-of-the universe on Halloween. So excited to see how the Doctor and Yaz’s friendship develops from here. Roll on next week #DoctorWhoFlux 💙 pic.twitter.com/AyEdVJP8VROctober 31, 2021
There's so much more to come from the latest season of Doctor Who. There was barely space here to discuss the Sontarans trying to take advantage of the chaos across the galaxy, or the fact that the Weeping Angels are back lurking in Liverpool.
With the fate of the universe firmly hanging in the balance, how will the Doctor handle the Flux and all these other returning foes? We'll just have to wait till Sunday to find out...
Doctor Who: Flux continues next Sunday at 6:15 pm BST on BBC1 and BBC iPlayer and 8:00 pm EST on BBC America.
