Doctor Who The Flux: 10 Huge Questions After The Halloween Apocalypse
7. Did Swarm Seem Familiar?
Thanks to his telepathic links with the Doctor, Swarm is being set up as the big bad of the storyline, though his relationship to the Flux is unclear at this point. When the first glimpse of the monster was teased by the BBC fans were trying to see likenesses with known Doctor Who enemies, with even Davros being suggested.
But even though he does appear to be a new character - an enemy from the Doctor’s distant past or future, there is something oddly familiar about him. One theory is that he could be the Stenza warrior Tzim-Sha, last seen trapped in an eternal prison by Ryan and Graham. Apart from a similar voice, it’s a tentative link and the tooth collector has hardly been in a long running battle with the Doctor.
Swarm’s partial crystalline appearance is closer to a more obscure foe from the Tom Baker years – the Kastrian, Eldrad, from The Hand of Fear. The gender changing alien would translate well in a Chibnall story, and he does have reason to want revenge on the Doctor. It’s a nice theory, but probably too obscure a reference.
For an even more obscure link, the scene where Swarm is inadvertently
released by the Division operatives is also reminiscent of the cancelled Doctor
Who film Lost in the Dark Dimension, where a powerful creature made of ‘chronal
energy’ completely changes the Doctor’s timeline after it had been sent into
the Time Vortex. It’s wouldn’t be a surprise if something similar might link
Swarm to the Flux, especially since the cliffhanger sees the Doctor fail in her
attempt to destroy the Flux with a blast of artron energy.