Just your Doctor Who overarching mystery correspondent here, dropping off a new Doctor Who overarching mystery for your delectation.
While you may still be chewing over questions about the Doctor’s missing memories, The Division, her past with Swarm, Swarm’s plans, the Flux and (of course) the Timeless Child storyline revealed last series, this week’s episode of Doctor Who: Flux – War of the Sontarans – threw another one into the mix.
It’s a quick moment early in the episode that’s easy to miss – right before she wakes up in the Crimean War, Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor wakes up in a black-and-white scene, staring at a strange, higgledy-piggledy ruined building apparently made up of more than one house and floating above a dead forest.
In the dream, the Doctor reaches for it…and then moments later she wakes up, gets (understandably) distracted by the fate of her companions Yaz and Dan (Mandip Gill and John Bishop) and the arrival of Mary Seacole (Sara Powell). The scene isn’t touched on again in the episode – but what does it all mean?
Well, it’s possible this strange vision in some way relates to one of the other mysteries mentioned above. It could be that this weird building in some way relates to the origin of the Flux, the Doctor’s missing past or her past dealings with Swarm.
In some ways, it reminds of the “Brendan” visions in 2020’s Ascension of the Cybermen, when an odd, creepy narrative of a foundling boy who joins the Irish Guards (aka the police) and gets his memory wiped appeared a few times throughout the traditional Doctor Who adventure.
!["19767526-low_res-doctor-who-series-12"]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2020/02/19767526-low_res-doctor-who-series-12-800b8af.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C414" "\"19767526-low_res-doctor-who-series-12\"")
Later, these were revealed to be visions the Doctor was having, that concealed a true narrative of the Doctor’s own life. Could this weird-looking house be something similar – a vision that is intended to refer to something, rather than a literal, existing building that represents a location in the series? The silhouette looked a little like the Time Lord Citadel (which also sort of floated above the area) – could it relate to her early days on Gallifrey?
Either way, it seems likely we’ll find out more in the coming weeks. Perhaps the Doctor will flash back to more visions of this strange location, or will visit the real place (if it exists) and all will be clear. We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for more moments of black and white. and clearing some more space in our “ongoing Doctor Who Flux conspiracies” notebook. We grimly advise you do the same.
Doctor Who continues on BBC One on Sundays. For more, check out our dedicated Sci-Fi page or our full TV Guide.