The move from Christmas to New Years for Doctor Who’s annual special is having a more dramatic impact on other fans than me. While I understand the tradition it’s been for the past twelve years and no doubt fans have made it their own (myself included), I’m perfectly okay with it being moved forward a week. There’s plenty of other Christmas shows, stories, and movies I love more than Doctor Who’s with which I have to occupy my time on the holiday. It’s not the first time Doctor Who’s been connected with New Years anyway. “The End of Time” concluded on New Years’ Day which worked perfectly fine, and I rather liked that day as the setting for the Doctor Who TV movie. And this way at least we get one episode in 2019.
Yeah, I’m more than a little bummed that 2019 is going to be another 2016 with no new episodes until presumably the next years’ New Years’ special. It’s not entirely clear why the long gap, but I guess we’ll just have to look at it like a movie sequel. Television is becoming more like movies lately, and with both Game of Thrones and Stranger Things having taken a gap year in 2018, it may be something to expect with bigger budget shows going forward. But for now at least it’s nice to have the Doctor, Ryan, Yaz, and Graham back for a last hurrah before the elongated break.
And “Resolution”, an episode heavily dealing with the themes of rebirth and new starts despite its title, only makes sense to reintroduce an old foe and test the Doctor against them.
An excavation team on New Years Day uncovers the remains of an unusual organism under Sheffield Town Hall that was buried thousands of years ago after being defeated by an ancient allied army. Regaining sentience, it takes control of one of the archaeologists, alerting the Doctor and summoning her back to Earth. She soon discovers it to be her greatest enemy, a Dalek, and a reconnaissance scout determined to incite an invasion of Earth. At the same time as this is going on, Ryan’s father Aaron Sinclair returns to Sheffield attempting to set things right in his relationship with his son, to the disgruntlement of both Ryan and Graham.
A theme of the episodes of series eleven has been the supplementing of a high stakes sci-fi plot with character drama in the midst or on the sides of it. And it’s worked quite well overall, usually being integrated into story naturally and without the sense of the story stopping in its tracks. This pattern continues in “Resolution” though is perhaps not as clear-cut as it should be given how significant this particular dramatic subplot is. I feel like Aaron should have been more directly connected to the Dalek storyline, perhaps as the character the Dalek initially puppets.
In as much as this isn’t the case, the Dalek story remains interesting. It was pretty obvious long before this episode aired that its villain would be a Dalek. It’s inevitable that the series’ most popular antagonist be the one first brought back once the show decided to revisit old enemies to begin with. But of course it hasn’t been long since we last saw a Dalek (“Twice Upon a Christmas” was only last year after all), so its appearance here doesn’t have the weight of “Day of the Daleks” or “Dalek” for instance, the latter I still stand by as one of the best episodes of the revived series. Yet it is still a Dalek so it is fun, and the episode succeeds in making it moderately threatening, if not through advanced technobabble abilities due to being a recon agent than through its demonstrated cleverness to get ahead from a place of virtually no power. In fact the trajectory of the Daleks’ story reminds me a lot of the “Pickle Rick” episode of Rick & Morty. Both are about initially powerless evil geniuses growing their capabilities through crude biological and technological manipulation until they pose a serious threat -and ultimately both are deconstructed by Doctors!
And yes the return of a Dalek gives Jodie Whittaker the chance to prove herself against the franchise’s greatest villain. And she definitely does so, playing very well the fear and anger the Dalek evokes in her, speaking to her history with them (“I always think I’m rid of them -I never am”). And her confrontations with the Dalek are great, both in communicating remotely from the TARDIS with her stage-mike (possibly left over by the Twelfth Doctor) and her face-to-face interaction once its constructs its casing, which is an interesting-looking casing at that, made out of spare parts and a lot more rough around the edges. Some of her dialogue with it is even reminiscent of the Seventh Doctors’ famous speech to the armoured squids in “Remembrance of the Daleks”. But as has been shown this Doctor has a weakness for egging her enemies on without a fully formed plan and it backfires here, with even her admitting all she did was make it angry. Ultimately the Dalek is defeated by a microwave which is different and slightly underwhelming (seeing the group surround and manhandle it so easily really reminds you how silly Daleks’ design is), but it does allow us the chance to see a Dalek melted.
Aaron’s with the group for this climax and its the Dalek attaching itself to him that bring the two stories together. And I’m not entirely satisfied with how it turned out. Aaron’s introduction was very well done, with Graham shutting the door on his face when he shows up at the O’Brien house. The scene that is certainly the most detached from the rest of the episode, where Ryan and Aaron go for coffee, is also one of the best. It’s here where Chris Chibnall draws on his history of good character drama from Broadchurch, as Ryan and Aaron have an emotionally-charged yet subdued conversation, the former spelling out what he wants to hear from the latter and how he’s felt abandoned when he needed his dad most, and the latter trying to explain poorly why he kept running away from the family. It’s a wonderful scene, and both Tosin Cole and Daniel Adegboyega perform it really earnestly and movingly. Later, Aaron is left with Graham, who’d earlier chastised him for walking out of Ryan’s and Grace’s lives, and the box of childhood things his mother had left behind. It’s also a nice scene of Aaron expressing a desire to be better.
Which brings me to the end of the episode where Aaron, who came aboard the TARDIS and into the final confrontation, is taken hostage by the Dalek. The Doctor tricks it by opening the TARDIS doors onto a supernova in an attempt to flush it out of the TARDIS and off of Aaron in a manner similar to an airlock. But this plan comes within inches of killing Aaron as well. In the chaos, a distraught Ryan forgives his father and manages to personally free him himself. The episode ends on their relationship renewed as in the theme of the story, but I don’t think it should have. I have great respect for stories that understand that forgiveness is earned not given, and not only is this not the case with this relationship, but it feels too easy. Ryan and Aaron have one heart-to-heart, then Aaron is saved by Ryan and everything between them seems to be mended. I understand Chibnall maybe wants to start the next series fresh and give this episodes’ title some literal meaning, but from what we’ve seen of the effect Aaron’s absence has had on Ryan I think it can’t be that simple. More work is needed on Aaron’s part to repair some of those wounds.
One noticeable aspect of “Resolution” was the inclusion of a degree of unsubtle commentary. What stuck out to me most was the Doctor’s attempt to get in touch with Kate Stewart and UNIT, only to find out from a Help Centre receptionist that its international funding was withdrawn and its been suspended for bureaucratic reasons. This was certainly some kind of dig at international economics, politics, and quite possibly Brexit, but all I can hope for is that it isn’t permanent. I like UNIT. Then there was a really bizarre digression where upon the Dalek shutting down (among other things) the internet across the U.K. the show cut to a random family horrified at the idea of having to talk to each other. Not only was this joke kind of already made in dialogue by Graham, but it’s an incredibly lame comedy sketch inserted out of nowhere into the middle of the episode. Maybe stay away from satire Chibnall, you’re not very good at it. However what I found fascinating and even impressive was the subtextual commentary in the Daleks’ taking control of Lin, the innocent archaeologist played by Charlotte Ritchie, which had an uncomfortable impression to it. The Alien-like imagery of its control over her body combined with a gradual rather than instantaneous takeover of her mind read like a metaphor for sexual abuse (I don’t think it’s a coincidence in one shot its tentacle looked to be circling her breast). The subtext certainly seems to be there, making this aspect of the plot both decidedly relevant and potent while also very much in the vein of a classic Doctor Who story.
The plot deficiencies of the episode mostly relate to extraneous content. The mythological battle that forms the prologue is interesting as is the idea of the Dalek being cut up and buried in three remote parts of the globe, but it has little relevance on the episodes’ story apart from providing precedent for this Dalek being defeated by humans before and for there to be a reason its been buried on Earth. The character of Mitch, played by Nikesh Patel, also exists to establish Lin, provide a little bit of banter (and some cute flirtation), and an interest in that same backstory, but not much else. And once again it’s a shame Yaz is confined to the sidelines for most of the episode, with the Doctor, Ryan, and Graham carrying the most action and drama. Perhaps the one good thing about Ryan’s troubled paternal relationship being behind him is that the next series can focus a little more on Yaz’s life and experiences. Does anyone remember she’s a cop?
All in all, “Resolution” is about as good as the average Doctor Who holiday special. I didn’t like a couple of its choices but it had some unquestionably strong moments that kept it interesting. It’s not quite enough to satisfactorily hold me over for a full year without Doctor Who, but then I suppose a great episode would just leave me craving more. So until 2020, Happy New Year Doctor Who. Enjoy the sabbatical. I’ll try not to hold it against you.
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch/
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