'Doctor Who: Flux' Episode 5 Recap: Survivors Of The Flux

During the Steven Moffat era, a specific type of Doctor Who episode became a hallmark: The zany romp. Exemplified by installments such as "A Good Man Goes To War," "Let's Kill Hilter," and "The Wedding of River Song," these episodes would arrive filled with a madcap energy jokes-a-minute attitude and conclusions creating time paradoxes. They were both great and terrible, hours that were fun as hell to watch, yet couldn't withstand a minute of scrutiny, lest they collapse in a puff of logic.

Jericho: Come this way, away from the imminent explosion.

Since the beginning of Doctor Who: Flux, it has felt like showrunner Chris Chibnall is desperately grasping to recapture the quirky energy of that era. Not by chance, the last time I thought this was last season's episode "Fugitive of the Judoon." It, at least, had a solid twist premise embedded in it, the reveal of Ruth-Doctor and the controversial idea the Doctor has lived for more than 13 lives, with multiple regenerations missing from her mind. Nor do I think it a coincidence this run of episodes marks the first return of Ruth-Doctor. Chibnall seems to be trying to capture the same screwball spirit for his temporal loop-de-loops.