Pass me a head torch, a compass, a length of rope, marker pens, a stack of Post-Its, a spare pair of trousers and a bulging reference book. No, I’m not going down a pothole to do my homework. I’m just trying to make sense of this series of Doctor Who (BBC One).

Six-part story Flux reached its penultimate chapter with a muddled tangle of an episode titled Survivors of the Flux. Once again in this frustrating series, there were moments of brilliance buried in a pile of piffle. Far too much leaping around – I counted five planets across half-a-dozen different timelines – may have left viewers feeling queasy rather than entertained.

We last saw the 13th Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) turned to stone by Weeping Angels. As we returned, she was stuck in a vast field of the deadly statues, who whispered a blend of sinister threats and plot exposition in her ear. They transported her back to shadowy Gallifreyan organisation “The Division”, where she met a spaghetti-faced Ood and the enigmatic Awsok (Barbara Flynn).

Companions Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop) had been marooned with Professor Eustacius Jericho (Kevin McNally) in a Devon village circa 1901. They’d been busy while we were away. It was now 1904 and they were in Mexico, looking chic in period costume while searching for clues about the impending Flux cataclysm.

After escaping dynamite deathtraps and a homicidal waiter, they climbed a Tibetan mountain for a hilarious audience with a soothsaying hermit, before painting a giant SOS on the Great Wall of China. These sequences were enormous fun – Indiana Jones meets Agatha Christie with a sci-fi twist. As the narrative became increasingly convoluted, I found myself longing for more interludes with the intrepid trio and fewer in space.