Praise4Media #61 - Doctor Who - Resolution

It’s January 2020 and you know what that means, I’m talking about Doctor Who again! And it’s my first Jodie Whitaker review. Series 11 of Doctor Who was solid. There were a number of mediocre episodes, a couple of real standouts (You know the two I’m talking about) and none that I consider outright bad.

That being said, mediocrity can often be less interesting to talk about than outright bad episodes, so let’s look at one that toes the line a bit, their New Year’s special, Resolution. Making the special a New Year’s special rather than a Christmas special was a smart move, New Year’s Day doesn’t have as much associated imagery so it allows for more creative freedom, and I think choice of having a Dalek as the villain isn’t a bad one because it the Daleks present a unique challenge to this particular Doctor. Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor has a very stern attitude towards violence and particularly guns, and here we have an enemy here who cannot be reasoned with and can only be defeated by violence, a challenge to her ideology in theory.  How did it work out? Let’s take a look.

We open with a description from a narrator who is… never mentioned again after this scene. In ‘ancient times’ tribes banded together to face an impossible opponent in a bloody battle. They made a pact to split their opponents body into 3 pieces, to be buried at opposite ends of the world, I don’t know how that’s possible when they couldn’t cross oceans at this point but the big bold letters on the screen tell me that Anuta Island in the South Pacific is one of those burial locations. As is Siberia in Russia. In Yorkshire, England, the tribal leader who has no guards with him, btw, is shot down by an arrow by some thieves who proceed not to steal his body piece, his body is left so long it’s buried by natural causes.

Note to the wise, Chris Chibnall, when you want an over-complicated backstory for something, best not to use the exact one from Justice League.  In 2019, New Year’s Day to be precise, that body in Yorkshire is now in a sewer tunnel (and somehow wasn’t noticed when they were building it) and being examined by 2 archaeologists, Mitch and Lin and we see one of Chibnall’s bigger issues as a writing, human sounding dialogue.

Moffat wasn’t great at this even as many of his background characters served as walking exposition machines or quirky jokers but here we have a scene that is entirely about establishing their characters and it’s really off. They kissed at Midnight and Mitch is asking if it meant anything and it apparently did. Mitch is like a puppy hanging on her every word, it’s actually kinda sad.

They discover something which Mitch believes might be proof of the battle of Hope Valley, but Lin is like ‘down puppy.’ And we see their equipment is activating something. Cut back to Anuta Island, the latest guardian who has never in the unspecific number of generations ever abandoned her post is frightened by the shaky cam, same for in Siberia, both pieces of the body teleport away and into the bag in the tunnel, thus rendering the entire 3 parts sequence entirely worthless. We’re less than 6 minutes in. 

Speaking of, let’s cut to our title characters watching ‘cosmic fireworks’ to bring in the New Year. They’d been watching New Years celebrations throughout history for some reason. The Doctor has decided to take them to another planet where it’s New Years eve every day. I suspect that’d probably be the least interesting place to celebrate because people would’ve long gotten bored of it, but apparently, they have good balloons. Yes, balloons…

But because the plot says so the TARDIS picks up a disturbance on Earth, non-terrestrial teleportation, converging on Sheffield. The creature, now fully formed breaks out of the bag. Lin goes looking for it and we get some decent atmosphere as she sees the mutant creature. Like a complete moron she reaches out to touch it, just as the TARDIS arrives.

Lin re-joins the group and tells the Doctor about the weird creature on the wall, it seems to have moved on, they presume into the water and with the sewers leading under the whole city, it could quite literally be anywhere. The Doctor takes charge and orders the site quarantined. They just kinda of walk away, not asking who the Doctor actually is because one of them is a moron, and the other doesn’t care, it’ll be obvious which is which later.

Lin gets in her car and we get some ominous music to let us know something’s wrong. The Doctor decides to park the TARDIS in Graham’s house, destroying one of chairs in the process. She needs eggs to examine the protein of the goo. I feel like other Doctors have been able to perform that kind of analysis on site without the use of eggs.

The doorbell sounds, Graham goes to answer it and upon seeing who it is, immediately shuts the door in his face. It rings again and this time Ryan goes to answer, it’s Aaron, Ryan’s father. Time for some backstory: Aaron is somewhat of an absentee father, wasn’t even able to come for the funeral of Grace, Ryan’s grandmother who died in the first episode. The Doctor brings him to task for this, making the scene immediately awkward. The silence that follows this line speaks volumes

He wants to grab coffee and Ryan asks for everyone’s permission as if he wasn’t a legal adult, I’m pretty sure he’s a legal adult. Aaron claims to Graham that he wants a fresh start and because it’s New Year’s Day he felt it would be opportune. Graham gives him a lesson out of a Christmas special before Ryan and Aaron head off.

Cut to Lin back at her house, she enters her bathroom, feeling a lite unwell and we see that the creature has attached itself to her back which has never been done in any episode of Doctor who ever. She tries to fight it off, but the creature claims to have all brain and motor functions under his power, which explains how she tried to fight it off… Contradictions in storytelling are generally not great but at least try not to contradict yourself in the same line.  

The TARDIS finishes its analysis and discovers that the goo is from a Dalek. A Dalek that somehow survived being chopped into 3 bits. It uses Lin to hack into military databases using knowledge neither of them has? I know Daleks are clever but the whole point of the exercise is to gain knowledge, how do you hack into databases neither you or your host know exist?

Again, she tries to struggle, which seems odd for someone who has no control of their brain but the Dalek threatens to kill everyone she cares for with her own hands. We get a short bit of exposition about the Daleks for the 2 people who don’t already know what they are, those 2 people of course being Yaz and Graham.

Lin begins a bit of reckless driving, eventually catching the attention of the police. The Dalek eventually agrees to stop, but only for combat. It kills both the cops, having Lin put on a uniform and begin driving the police car.

We cut to the café were Aaron and Ryan are, and Aaron is selling a microwave to the café. Apparently, it’s legit, built by a friend with his engineering experience helping with the specs but door-to-door selling of microwaves is not really a thing anymore and his Delboy style of selling makes it look like a con.

This scene should be a really good dramatic moment as Ryan takes his father to task for not being there an acting like everything should be relatively normal. It’s let down by the on-the-nose dialogue, and it could really use Ryan not delivering it a half-whisper. You are right to be angry, be angry, shout a little.

Aaron responding by passing it off as a life lesson to Ryan actually disgusts me and I don’t think that was what they were intending with it. The remaining companions and the Doctor stop off to pick up Mitch, who provides exposition about the stupid battle. Apparently, a Dalek can be revived by UV light…

They realise that Lin might be in trouble and use the TARDIS to track her phone. Ryan and Aaron come back, with Ryan taking hold of the microwave whilst Aaron heads to do his business, figuratively not literally this time. Ryan takes the microwave into the TARDIS because we’ve gotta prime that obvious checkov’s gun. Ryan isn’t happy with his father and doesn’t want him around right now and I don’t blame him

Apparently, the Dalek has the ability to blow up the TARDIS now, because it’s a reconnaissance scout. Seems like a feature that might’ve been useful to use before, same with the whole possession thing really. They were apparently specially enhanced before leaving Skaro, but I have to wonder wouldn’t they need the tech to do that? Apparently, the cure is peanut butter because of course it is, Graham is sent to get some

Lin arrives at a research lab called MDZ. A guard approaches, she asks who has access to the archives, apparently, it’s just him because he has

“The most secure digits in Yorkshire, at least that’s what my boyfriend tells me” goodbye, poor soul, it is a pleasure never to have to think about that line again. So he’s killed and she gains quick access to the archive, retrieving a Dalek gun. But the Doctor has used the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits to enter Lin’s mind, because that’s something the TARDIS can do now.

It confirms that it is indeed a recon scout, before the Doctor somehow makes Lin appear as a holographic projection, again, this is something the TARDIS can do now. It also manages to break the Dalek’s control long enough to send a message to Lin… The amount of rubbish they’re pulling out here is…

It was all a ploy whilst the TARDIS rebooted from all the damage, and the Doctor is quickly after it, leaving Graham alone in the house with Aaron. Apparently 5 is too many in the TARDIS, who knew. So MDZ have been buying up alien weaponry on the Black Market for purposes of most likely sinister nature that won’t be brought up again. With the Dalek now combating every method for the Doctor to track it, she decides she needs some help.

Time for a Brexit joke… yay? Apparently UNIT’s operations have been suspended pending review

Doctor: “UNIT is a fundamentally vital protection for planet Earth against alien invasion”

Secretary: “Yes, but when did that last happen”

Is that a serious question? The Return of Doctor Mysterio wasn’t that long ago. Apparently international partners pulled out of the operation, UNIT have bases all over the world and are supported by the United Nations, that’s the UN in UNIT used to stand for. All this lore breaking for a crummy Brexit joke and to get them out of the action. Hey, remember when the aliens from Harmony shoal infiltrated UNIT? I know that’s a leftover Moffat plot-line and you’d rather be set on fire than touch one of those, something I honestly don’t blame you for, but it’s a perfect excuse for them not to be available.

Time for a more touching moment between Aaron and Graham as he shows that Grace never forgot him and kept a lot of his old junk.

Lin arrives at a farm in the middle of nowhere, killing the farmer that owns the property and getting to work, using Lin to builds its original case out of the bits that it recovered. Lin begins to fight again as the Doctor, having tracked them by satellite arrives at the farm, she finds the farmer’s body and uses her sonic screwdriver to identify the cause of death as a Dalek blast.

They head into the storehouse, and hear Lin calling for help, the Dalek has left her and because it’s feeling nice today, kept her alive. Yaz and Mitch help carry Lin to safety as the Doctor searches for the Dalek and Ryan I guess helps Yaz and Mitch. We get to see the new look Dalek and yeesh, that’s not a great look.

Doctor Who has had the perfect Dalek design since 2005, every redesign attempt since has looked terrible and this is no exception. The Doctor blocks the Dalek’s gun with her sonic using feature 6,000,000,003 and I just wonder why that’s never been tried before. “You’re not fully in sync yet” explains nothing so…

More of Dalek lighting up seems like an expensive and unnecessary addition. It scans the Doctor and somehow doesn’t recognise her, he should at least know she’s a time Lord, which automatically means enemy. She tells it that she’s the Doctor and it overrides the sonic and starts shooting. The Doctor finds cover and the Dalek starts monologuing about how humanity is week and it’ll summon the fleet, it’s not very good at keeping its plans secret, something you might want to do when your mortal enemy is right in front of you.

Rather than killing the Doctor, which it is now perfectly capable of doing it takes off. She gives Lin some tablets that’ll do something before Graham rings, wanting to be picked up. Aaron comes aboard too. The Dalek is flying through the sky in some dodgy looking CG then in the next shot it’s on the ground confronting military.

The military are deployed to take on the Dalek and it seems humans have completely forgotten about Daleks which is confusing but might be a retcon from the Big Bang. It seems Bulletproof, which is odd for something with force-fields. It deploys rockets and begins killing everyone which is actually fun to watch, especially as it takes on a tank. It’s nice for the Daleks to be an actual threat again but I do have to ask, how was defeated so many years ago? Apparently with a net? Huh…

Anyway, of course Chekov’s microwave is gonna prove useful in defeating the Dalek as the Doctor tracks it down to GCHQ, represented here by 4 computers, glass tables and some lights. The Dalek bursts in, kills the one tech guy in the room and begins aligning satellites to transmit to the Dalek fleet. In doing so it manages to down the country’s entire internet, represented here by a family of 4 complaining that they can’t stream anymore. There are potentially more dangerous and interesting consequences that could be explored but they’re not ripe for cheap jokes, are they?

The Doctor arrives at GCHQ as the TARDIS Forcefields block the Dalek’s attack. Because the Doctor is feeling especially stupid today, she gives the Dalek another chance, telling it to leave but it refuses, so the Doctor enacts her plan, disengaging the force-field long enough for them to get around to the back of the Dalek and attach microwave parts to it, the parts melt through the casing, destroying the Dalek shell.

But Dalek itself survived and takes control of Aaron, and promises to kill him unless the Doctor takes him to the fleet. The Doctor agrees but has a plan, instead of the fleet, she takes the Dalek to a supernova and opens the door, hoping the Dalek will release Aaron and fall into the sun, but he isn’t doing so. It’s Ryan who eventually opens up to his father and tells him to hold on, forgiving him, giving him enough strength to fight off the Dalek and fall into the sun.

You’ll forgive me but this forgiveness does not feel earned, at all. In part this is because they spent so little time on this plotline but if it was supposed to be some sort of grand gesture, Aaron needed to sacrifice himself to save Ryan. Maybe have him stop the Dalek getting onto Ryan’s back by jumping in front of him or something. Wanting forgiveness and expressing regret is not enough if you expect forgiveness to just be handed to you. Aaron falling victim to the Dalek wasn’t a sacrifice, it was just bad luck. The conclusion to this arc is lacklustre in so many ways.

The dig is set back up, and Lin tells her puppy he can go looking the next time something goes missing, he smiles in agreement, like the good puppy he is. Aaron is offered a trip in the TARDIS but he turns it down. And the crew disappear for times and places to be revealed in series 12.

And that was resolution, is it the worst episode of s11, perhaps not but it’s definitely the most flawed.

I certainly enjoyed seeing the Dalek in action, it’s nice to see a Dalek episode with a double-digit body count, it’s shot as nicely as the rest of s11, which was a notable upgrade from previous series.

The plot felt clumsy and disjointed, the dialogue continues to be among the weaker aspects of the show, the CG is bad, even considering BBC cutbacks. I’ve mentioned my dislike of how the Aaron subplot worked out and I feel as a challenge for the Doctor, this didn’t quite hit the mark. Maybe another episode can explore this concept better. Yaz had basically nothing to do all episode and some of the humour left a lot to be desired.

Rating -15%

In s12 what I want to see more of is the companion’s special skills. They could also use some more divergence in terms of personality. They could also do with creating a new iconic villain, the Stenza did not work in this aspect. But oh my god this is better than Spyfall, guess I’m reviewing that next year.