Doctor Who: Flux's Ending Sets Up Jodie Whittaker's Regeneration
Doctor Who: Flux's explosive finale saw the Doctor prevent the destruction of the universe and learn of her upcoming final battle against the Master.
This article contains spoilers for Doctor Who: Flux episode 6.
The dramatic ending of Doctor Who: Flux saw Jodie Whittaker's Doctor triumph, saving what remains of the universe - but also receive a prophecy of her ultimate death from the avatar of Time itself. The coronavirus pandemic forced current Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall to adapt, and the result is Doctor Who: Flux, a single story woven through six episodes, in which the stakes are higher than ever before. The entire universe is threatened by a destructive phenomenon known as the Flux, an artificial event designed to destroy all that is, was, and ever will be.
The Flux had been created by a secretive Doctor Who organization known as the Division, run by Tecteun, the apparently immortal Gallifreyan explorer who discovered the Timeless Child a billion years ago. Tecteun has become obsessed with control, but the Doctor proved too potent a force of chaos by her reckoning, making the universe impossible to control. And so, Tecteun resolved to destroy this universe and move on to the next, with Doctor Who embracing the popular science-fiction concept of the multiverse. The Flux is a spatial event, and to complete the destruction Tecteun also released the Ravagers, Swarm and Azure, who possess the power to atrophy matter at contact. This proved a mistake, because Swarm created a psychic link with the Doctor; when she was transported to the Division's headquarters, he was able to transport himself and Azure there as well. From this vantage point, in a base outside time and space, Swarm and Azure resolved to destroy the universe and free the avatar of Time that had been contained on the Temple of Atropos with the Mouri.
The Doctor had already failed to prevent the destruction of much of the universe, but in Doctor Who: Flux episode 6 she faced the possibility all that remains would be destroyed as well. The plot of Doctor Who: Flux episode 6 is a complex one, attempting to weave countless subplots together into a coherent narrative, while raising a promise of greater threats for the upcoming three Doctor Who specials in 2022. Here's the ending of Doctor Who: Flux explained, including how the Doctor learned of her future fate.
Doctor Who has a tradition of multi-Doctor episodes, but Doctor Who: Flux takes the idea in a very different direction - with Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor split across time and space when her attempt to escape the Division goes wrong. Swarm triggers his power on the Doctor at the moment she's being transported back into the universe, and the interaction disrupts the process in a manner that apparently breaks all the laws of physics - and yet, conveniently, works. It effectively means there are three versions of the Doctor running around in this episode, one discovering the truth about the Sontaran battle-plan, another reuniting with Dan and Yaz and picking up the TARDIS, and a third still a prisoner of Swarm and Azure. It's rather contrived, and little time is given to explaining it, but in truth this kind of plot convenience has happened before. Although the episode riffs on 1972's "The Three Doctors," in functional terms, this is similar to the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor in Russell T. Davies' episode "Journey's End." A lot of the jokes are reminiscent of a Comic Relief Special from the Matt Smith era in which the Doctor's companion Amy flirted with herself.
The ending of Doctor Who: Flux finally revealed the Sontaran plan for Earth. It seems they are aware some humans have latent psychic potential, and they used human captives to predict the precise timing of the final Flux event. Apparently the Flux's destructive effects are largely driven by antimatter, and the Sontarans intended to trick their rivals - the Daleks and the Cybermen - into being consumed by the final Flux, hoping to exhaust its antimatter while they are protected behind the captured Lupari shield-ships. The Doctor modifies the Sontarans' plan, allowing the final Flux to consume the Daleks and the Cybermen, but then taking control of the shield-ships and ensuring the Sontarans are destroyed as well. Ironically, she then uses one of Swarm's Passenger forms - which contains an infinite amount of matter inside it - to consume the Flux. The Doctor may have saved the universe, but most of it lies in ruins, because she only succeeded in preventing the final Flux event. Countless races and civilizations have been wiped out, with only a handful remaining.
The Doctor's plan is actually quite disturbing, because it involves the destruction of every Dalek, Cyberman, and Sontaran ship. As far as she's concerned, she has allowed the Sontarans to conduct two acts of genocide and follows it up with one of her own, taking control of the shield-ships and refusing to protect them nor offering a chance to surrender. Doctor Who: Flux has actually made Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor the darkest incarnation of the time traveler to date, with the Doctor showing no hint of remorse as she planned to wipe out three entire races. There's a striking contrast with, for example, the classic Tom Baker story "Genesis of the Daleks" in which the Fourth Doctor wouldn't even commit genocide against the Daleks. It's arguably even darker than the ruthlessness David Tennant's Tenth Doctor showed against his enemies in the classic "The Family of Blood" episode. This particular twist is all the more remarkable given the Doctor ultimately uses a Passenger to contain the Flux. She could technically have done that at any point but didn't think of it until three races had been destroyed.
Doctor Who: Flux episode 2 explained that Swarm and Azure were attempting to destroy the Temple of Atropos, situated on the planet Time, where time itself had been controlled by a new Doctor Who race known as the Mouri. They intend the final Flux event to culminate on Atropos, liberating Time, and they travel there with their captive Doctor to bear witness to their triumph. They are greeted by the avatar of Time itself, which initially manifests as Swarm and then, after rewarding Swarm and Azure for their failure by annihilating them with the Time Force, promptly shifts into the form of the Doctor, with an inverted coat as seen in Doctor Who: Flux episode 3. This is the first time Doctor Who has ever shown an avatar of a cosmic force like Time; the idea seems very similar to Marvel comics, where forces such as Death and Entropy can manifest physical forms, and it's appropriate given Doctor Who: Flux has borrowed from the MCU so much.
Time chooses not to destroy the Doctor, instead merging her three selves back together and promising that the Timeless Child's story will soon come to an end - without another regeneration. "Beware of the forces that mass against you," Time tells the Doctor, "and their Master." It's not exactly a subtle hint that Sacha Dhawan's popular incarnation of the Master will presumably be returning in 2022's three Doctor Who specials. The Timeless Child may have unlimited regenerations, but the process can be interrupted, meaning even the Doctor can still die - and the Master is the only one who knows the Doctor's true abilities, making him her greatest threat. The prophecy from Time is a smart way of increasing the tension of Jodie Whittaker's final three stories, ahead of the debut of the as-yet-unannounced Fourteenth Doctor. It will be interesting to see how the Doctor avoids Time's prophecy.
Doctor Who: Flux often treated the potential end of the universe as a B-plot, instead focusing on the Doctor's quest to regain her memories as though it was the A-plot. In Doctor Who: Flux episode 5, the Doctor learned all her Timeless Child memories had been taken by Tecteun, stored in a Gallifreyan Chameleon Arch fob watch. She ultimately regains the fob watch by the end of Doctor Who: Flux's finale, but in a surprising twist chooses not to regain her memories - instead depositing the fob watch inside the TARDIS, telling her oldest companion to hide it somewhere deep in its systems where she can never find it again. "Unless I really ask for it," she adds, clearly second-guessing herself, and it remains to be seen whether she'll stick with this decision in the remaining three specials.
The scene implies the Doctor has at least half-realized her obsession over her lost memories was turning her into a singularly unpleasant person, and she now recognizes regaining those memories could have a similarly transformative effect. What's more, Time's prophecy means the Doctor's attention is finally turning away from her past toward her future - a state of mind that would be a lot healthier if she weren't contemplating her own demise. Doctor Who: Flux episode 6, therefore, ends on a bittersweet note, with the Doctor apologizing to Yaz and finally beginning to heal from the mental scars the Master dealt her. Unfortunately, she's now looking to the future with fear rather than hope, even as she tries to protect the devastated remnants of the universe.