Doctor Who: Flux kicked off with an action-packed opening that introduced a new archenemy for The Doctor, but the show needs to tread carefully if it hopes to avoid repeating Star Wars’ Snoke mistake. “The Halloween Apocalypse,” part one of a six-episode-long story entitled Flux, introduced Swarm, a powerful villain from The Doctor’s past. The mystery surrounding Swarm looks to be one of Flux’s central plot threads, and viewers are already speculating wildly about the shadowy figure’s origin.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens introduced a similar mystery with the enigmatic Snoke. Leaving the visual similarities between the two aside, both are puzzle-box villains who appeared as projections, teasing some mysterious link to the protagonist’s past. However, despite the initial surge of excitement around Snoke, the conclusion to his mystery left many dissatisfied.

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It appears Doctor Who: Flux is looking to recapture elements of Snoke’s mystery from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but if the show is going to avoid the same pitfalls, it needs to be prepared with some specific, compelling answers. Where Star Wars fizzled with an indecisive conclusion, Doctor Who needs to deliver concrete details. While Snoke’s failings were likely due to the changing hands behind the scenes, Doctor Who: Flux can still learn a great deal from Star Wars’ mysterious misfire.

Swarm in Doctor Who Flux

The mystery behind Swarm needs an answer that can live up to the speculation. One of the best indicators of Snoke’s success as a puzzle-box villain was just how eagerly viewers speculated on his origins. Every possible character was entertained as a potential secret Snoke. Swarm has kicked off the same kind of speculation from the Doctor Who audience. Star Wars: The Last Jedi essentially discarded the Snoke mystery, part of a statement about the series’s need to disregard the past. But once a subject has become a rampant source of speculation, an anti-climatic answer like that won’t do. Subverting expectations is a great storytelling technique, but revealing that a puzzle box was empty all along is a recipe for disappointment.

Snoke’s revelation was too murky and was missing the uniquely rewarding sensation of connecting already-present dots. Whatever the story behind Swarm is, the reveal needs to be simple. There can’t be a half-answer partway through, only to have it retconned in the Star Wars finale, as was attempted for Snoke in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Swarm needs an earnest pay-off to the set-up that has already been established in “The Halloween Apocalypse.” Swarm talks about he and The Doctor “dancing across space and time, locked in combat.” For the reveal in Doctor Who: Flux to be successful, it has to explain that shared history while illuminating a specific element of The Doctor’s background.

Ultimately, whatever reveal Chibnall has in mind for Swarm needs to heighten the character’s significance, not diminish it. Swarm doesn’t have to turn out to be The Doctor’s father; for many, Chibnall's era of Doctor Who has already made more than enough additions to The Doctor’s backstory. But Doctor Who: Flux needs to reveal that Swarm is something viewers can sink their teeth into, not simply a puppet that’s unceremoniously toppled over.

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