Doctor Who Flux: 10 Huge Questions After The Vanquishers

5. Who Or What Is Time?

Doctor Who Flux The Vanquishers Time
BBC Studios

The big bad of the piece was not the Grand Serpent, the Flux, the Ravagers or even Tecteun and the Division. It was the ethereal Time, a god to Swarm and Azure and a devil to the Time Lords. Time has been using all the others in its own attempt to be free of the confines of space. Time is pulling all the strings.

But what is Time? Is it an amoral force that didn’t need to be contained in the first place, one that watches over the multiverse, or is it an alien imposter, pretending to have godlike abilities? If it can shapeshift and present itself as a creature in space, could it have already taken the form of say Tecteun? It would mean that a character assumed dead could also be brought back to life.

The jury’s out at this stage, but what is clear is that the Ravagers have been used for Time’s own ends. They admit failure, offering the Doctor as a sacrifice to appease their god. But if Time has an agenda that remains outstanding, it’s going to need somebody else to do its bidding. A certain dictator left stranded on a rock, perhaps?

Contributor
Contributor

Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.