Doctor Who: Once, Upon Time Review - 5 Ups & 6 Downs

With the main plot resolved, the episode makes sure to position our characters for next week, leading to a rather iffy conclusion and a run of three arguably weak scenes.

The first sees The Doctor communicating with a judgy and hostile old woman that really seems to have a bone to pick with her, but frustratingly doesn’t bother to explain why, beyond telling The Doctor that the Flux is all her fault. At this point in the series, not understanding the Flux is starting to get a little frustrating, and now we have another mystery box to theorise over with the identity of this woman. Tecteun, maybe?

Secondly, we have a slight gripe with Vinder’s last scene of the episode. The scene itself is absolutely fine - Vinder has a new purpose and all that, but we can’t help but wonder why, if he’s hunting the universe for Bel, he doesn’t stick with the person who has a time-travelling spaceship. That sort of thing feels like it might be useful?

Last but not least, we found this week’s cliffhanger was lacking, with another surprise Angel jumping out of Yaz’s phone and taking control of the TARDIS. We’ve lost count of how many times the supposedly unbreachable TARDIS has been breached in the Chibnall era: The Kasaavin, Zellin, The Judoon, Swarm’s possession of the TARDIS last week, and now the Angels. It just feels like Thirteen has disabled the security or something.

The episode is capped off with The Doctor proclaiming that the Angel has the TARDIS - a very on-the-nose Blink reference that takes you out of the moment. This one just felt like a cliffhanger for the sake of a cliffhanger. Not every episode has to end on an action scene…