Doctor Who Flux: 10 Huge Questions After The Vanquishers

4. Who Was The Grand Serpent And Will He Be Back?

Doctor Who Flux The Vanquishers Time
BBC

The Doctor sees through the Grand Serpent and knows his type all too well. He’s a dictator, hungry for power and it doesn’t take her long to work out why he has allied himself with the Sontarans. She also works out that he is a rare binary-demi species, though she isn’t able to narrow it down any further.

Vinder knows him as an evil dictator and we also learn in The Vanquishers that Bel knows him too. But the Grand Serpent doesn’t recognise Vinder. This adds weight to the speculation that Vinder, who does like to mention the academy, might be a Time Lord. Did the memory scenes of Vinder and the Grand Serpent in Once, Upon Time, represent events that happened to an earlier incarnation of the space pilot?

Could the Grand Serpent be more than he seems? Could his binary-demi species be a cover? A Time Lord who has hidden his identity through a chameleon arch? The Master, who we now know is definitely returning, is a strong possibility. He might even just be hidden in the Grand Serpent as the snake half.

The Grand Serpent also reminded us of Colony Sarff, the snake-like assistant to Davros in The Magician’s Apprentice, especially when he kept saying ‘where is Kate Stewart?’ With the Daleks returning for the New Year special, could this been a sign that Davros will also be back?

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.