‘I’m normally very good at keeping up with things, but you lost me quite early on.’ I said The Halloween Apocalypse teetered on the brink of incoherence. This not only tips over the edge, it plummets, like Kylie going down on Starship Titanic. Starting with ‘Bel’s Story’ didn’t help – my reaction was pure “Not Another One” meme as Chibnall throws more random characters into the mix including the Grand Serpent and ‘Awsok’, plus that funny Victorian Scouser wandering about again. And Daleks, Cybermen, and a Weeping Angel – gotta catch ‘em all!

But the major problem with this is that the dialogue sounds like a French and Saunders parody of Sapphire and Steel: ‘There is no greater battle than this: the battle between Time and Space. And Time shall not lose. Time shall never surrender to Space.’ “You’re just saying things,” as Donna Noble would snap. I think what’s happening is that while the Flux is destroying Space the newly-introduced blue static is supposed to be destroying Time, and for some reason (presumably relating to the Doctor’s brand new secret past) it’s all her fault. And to try to put everything right and defeat the Ravagers (someone’s been listening to Nick Briggs Big Finish), the Doctor needs to reinstate the Moirai and hide her friends in their own pasts. Oh, and there are things called Passengers that are basically the Genesis Ark.

I sort of got the gist of this. It plays like a Doctor Who-coloured collage, as baffling as Mindwarp and as choppy as one of those heavily edited-for-broadcast McCoy episodes. Jo Martin’s in it so briefly it barely qualifies as a cameo. There are references to the Dark Time, and the 13^th Doctor gets all secretive with Yaz and wears a new, dark coat to make the “Cartmel Masterplan” comparisons complete. The AI (at 75) is the worst of the 21^st Century series to date. I’m with them. At least Orphan 55 had a story and some jokes.

Next Time: Flux Chapter Four – Village of the Angels