Doctor Who: Resolution

Doctor: 'They've got the best balloons.'

After a season devoid of returning monsters, this was Chibnall's first delve into the show's back catalogue, and was a mostly valiant attempt. Two of the main complaints I had about last season were the boring villains and the character development being either too simplistic or non-existent. So bringing back the Daleks, and spending time focused on Ryan's relationship with his father, should've been an instant win, right?

Wrong! One can't help but feel that the show's mostly a box-ticking exercise these days. Reference some off-screen adventure that sounds infinitely more exciting that the shite we're about to see. Check. Get the Doctor to insist that some mundane object/fruit-based activity is the best thing ever. Check. Introduce a gay character, and then kill them off seconds later because you don't know what to do with them. Check. Have the Doctor bumble her way through the episode, solving stuff with a wave of her sonic screwdriver. Check. Litter the script with gags that might have been funny thirty years ago but now sound like something your dad might say. Check. Frequently reference modern buzzwords to show how in touch with the kids you are... and then never stop milking them! Check.

In fact, this whole season feels like Chibnall went to doctor-who-plots-r-us.com, put checks next to his preferred beats, pressed the WRITE button at the bottom, and this is what came out. The only thing this method can't produce is heart, and despite the show's past failings, heart is something it's always had in spades and is the very thing this season's been lacking. Despite Chibnall going to great lengths to insist that we're watching a group of friends—a fam—it just doesn't come across on screen. They keep telling us it's true, but they seldom show us in a way that satisfies. As individuals they're just poorly drawn: there haven't been enough character establishing scenes; the dialogue is generic, interchangeable, and mostly plot serving; and any traits the characters do have seldom have any impact on the story.

Ryan's showdown with his father should have worked a treat. Ryan's a character badly in need of development, Daniel Adegboyega is a fine actor, and I thought Tosin Cole did some decent work as his disgruntled son. But I didn't buy any of it. I didn't like the soap opera nature of the father/son interludes; they didn't convincingly intersect with the main plot, in fact if anything they slowed it down; I didn't like the pat way the story progressed from Ryan disliking his father, to understanding him, to forgiving him; I don't find the single-fathers-are-twats trope all that interesting; and I didn't like the way that once Aaron's part in the story was over, he couldn't even be bothered to go on one trip with his son. Another example of fathers being complicated, perhaps? Or of Chibnall boiling characters down to stereotypes and thinking he's giving them depth?

Having the Daleks—or more specifically a Dalek—return however was cool. I was equally encouraged by the return of Nick Briggs, and was generally pleased with what they did with the Dalek storyline—even if it did take some mental gymnastics to explain how a bunch of primitives with spears managed to do what a modern force armed to the teeth with guns and tanks could not. But having the Dalek reassemble itself and attempt to call home was at least a coherent plan, which in a season full of wonky plotting and nonsensical character decisions, was a more than welcome development. I thought their makeshift look was pretty gnarly, too. Not a bad effort for an archaeologist with presumably no training in welding, metallurgy, or incorporating massive rockets into polycarbide/dalekanium shells.

Some of the other stuff, whilst interesting, was less successful. The show's always taken liberties by adding mad shit to the Dalek's backstory, but introducing a special Dalek that can survive being cut into three, buried, and then somehow reassemble its squishy bits despite them being at opposite ends of the earth, was a bit much. I know it was Moffat who originally introduced the Dalek sewer concept, so to some extent there was a precedent for this sort of nonsense, but please don't make them more immortal than they already are—they survive every defeat as it is. Unless confronted by a deluxe combination microwave oven, that is; then they're screwed.

I did like Lin and Midge. Chibbers did a decent job of setting up their relationship to make them believable enough to root for, and both Nikesh Patel and Charlotte Richie did a solid job of bringing them to life. Sadly, their inclusion meant that Yaz was given zero development again, and Graham's role was reduced in order for the Ryan/Aaron story to play out. And after a full season of being told that Aaron was a utter turd... turns out he wasn't too bad. Sure, his parenting skills left much to be desired, but he was the one who provided both the materials and nous to defeat the Dalek. How did an engineer cum salesman know that a microwave's primary and secondary coils would be enough to blow the Dalek's armour casing apart? Presumably the same way an archaeologist had the required skills to rebuild a Dalek.

The Doctor again was the weak link. I'm having a real struggle squaring Whittaker's insecure Doctor with all that's gone before her. It's hard to understand how a being with so much expertise, knowledge, and experience, can be so unsure of virtually everything she does. I hate that she keeps looking to her 'friends' for validation. I hate that her companions are called friends now. I hate that her dialogue is so utterly childish. She's like a children's TV presenter from the 80s: all big smiles, shallow conversation, sing-song delivery, and daft clothes. Which seems like such an odd decision given the series' commitment to education and telling real world stories. Surely a more authoritative Doctor would have been a better choice, rather than someone pathologically obsessed with the greatness of balloons, automated delivery men, and fucking apple bobbing.

Other Thoughts:

—I thought the TARDIS CGI looked a bit cheap this week.

—Currently this episode holds a 100 percent fresh critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, yet a 16 percent fan rating. These are perplexing figures.

—The music was awful throughout.

—I wasn't happy with them binning UNIT at the expense of a joke, nor did I think much of the scene itself. There was an unrealistic air about the receptionist, and there's no way on earth she'd explain financial cuts over the phone to a stranger.

—The Daleks taking down the internet scene was also an abomination. An old joke told in the least imaginative way possible.

—Would the guard fingering his boyfriend joke have made it through if a heterosexual man/woman had said it? And this is seriously the best Chibnall could do to introduce a gay man... before killing him ten seconds later?

—So a Dalek and a tank fire ordnance directly at each other, their missiles collide mid-air causing a deflection, yet the Dalek still scores a direct hit?

Quotes:

Doctor: 'These are my best friends.'

Doctor: 'Earth is protected by me and my mates.'

Doctor: 'I always think I'm rid of them. I never am.'

Doctor: [Insert generic dialogue here]