So a lot has happened in the ten months since the last Doctor Who episode, and I wondered at times if the New Years’ Special would have to be postponed. Turns out, much of it was shot with the rest of series twelve and thus with some post-production work that could be done remotely, would be ready to go for the end of 2020. Series thirteen is what will prove more effected by that little pandemic that’s happened in the interim. Once again, it likely looks like another long gap between new Doctor Who episodes. And so “Revolution of the Daleks” has to be sufficient as the only Doctor Who content we’ll be getting for most of 2021.
And it’s a big enough episode. What with the return of a beloved former companion and the departure of two current ones, it’s certainly important enough regardless of the details of its plot. Even in that plot too there are a few requirements it must meet, not the least of which is to follow up on the Doctor’s existential crisis from the end of “The Timeless Children”. This was always going to be an episode with a lot on its plate, and that’s without factoring in another big confrontation with the Doctor’s deadliest foe.
Yet “Revolution of the Daleks” doesn’t feel as crowded as it is. It hits the ground running and doesn’t ever let up with some characteristic hectic pacing, but none of the important things that needed addressing feel neglected. Chris Chibnall, who wrote the episode, understands where a breath needs to be taken, where the soul of the episode should be, and I wonder if that’s not why the plot is a relatively basic take on the old Dalek invasion storyline that sees them re-contextualized in a new and timelier way than even this show could have predicted.
Before getting to that though, I should just cover early the sides of this New Years Special that are, though not neglected, relatively underutilized compared to the more important obligations of this episode. Firstly is the Judoon prison the Doctor was taken to at the end of “The Timeless Children” and how much of a complete non-entity it ultimately is, bordering on a red herring. The Doctor has spent two decades there by the start of the episode for just general Doctor “crimes”, during which time she’s thought a lot about the revelation she was just confronted with about her own origin (which contentious though it may be in the fandom, I still say is more compelling than not, provided it is followed up on and perhaps with less grandiosity in the future), and about the companions she left on Earth. We never actually see a Judoon, but the show does give us some cameos from other Doctor Who aliens we haven’t seen in a while like a Weeping Angel, a couple Ood (less welcome is the Pting from “The Tsuranga Conundrum”), and then of course Captain Jack Harkness, having gotten himself arrested just to break out the Doctor.
And that leads to another somewhat less prominent aspect of the episode than I anticipated: Captain Jack. The return of John Barrowman as Captain Jack in a more substantial role than his cameo in “Fugitive of the Judoon” was one of the biggest marketing ploys of “Revolution of the Daleks”, and as much as I love Captain Jack and genuinely think he’s one of the best companions the Doctor has ever had, I was concerned he would take over the episode. Luckily though, restraint was applied. Captain Jack not only isn’t the star of the show, but he’s rather understated -which is saying a lot for as loud a character as he is. That’s not at all to say though that he is superfluous or underwritten, he serves a very distinctly functional purpose in getting the Doctor back to Earth, dispensing some wisdom to the other companions (Yaz in particular), and being a key member of the team -but he is a member of the team; and perhaps as a nod to his maturity makes himself less the centre of attention than he would in the past. This is not like his return in “Utopia”.
On the one hand I would have liked a little more focus on Jack -Chibnall still knows Jacks’ personality to a tee, and thus the character is just as charismatic and charming and delightfully flirtatious as ever. I would have liked more than a passing remark about Gwen Cooper and references to Rose and the Doctor and his first death back in “The Parting of the Ways” all of fifteen years ago -as happy as those things made me. I would have liked at least one Jack death. But I also love Jacks’ role in this episode being somewhat akin to Sarah Jane in “School Reunion”, especially in his scenes with Yaz. It struck me how much of a veteran he is now, a bona fide classic companion alongside the greats like Sarah Jane, Ian and Barbara, Jamie, Ace, and yes his own travelling partner Rose. I do feel his meeting the Doctor could have been improved and given a bit more time, and he deserved a few more isolated moments with her (it’s very difficult to re-establish with Jodie Whittaker the chemistry Barrowman had with both Eccleston and Tennant in such a short number of one-on-one scenes). But I have my doubts that this is the last we’ll see of him -he doesn’t even get an on-camera exit from the episode. There’s no reason not to bring him back and maybe further explore where he’s been and what he’s doing and who he is now. The door seems pretty thoroughly left open.
Because rightfully, “Revolution of Daleks”, as far as characters go, has its’ focus on the current TARDIS family. The Doctor as usual, is keeping her feelings relatively guarded, something which Whittaker has proven exceptionally good at, but this seems to be the attitude adopted by her companions as well. It’s been ten months for them as for us (of course being as this was filmed in 2019 and early 2020, the producers couldn’t foresee the global pandemic -making the January 2021 of this episode feel set in an alternate universe). That’s a long time for them to believe their friend and leader is dead. They’re hesitant to say it of course, though at the outset Ryan and Graham seem to have come to terms with it. But Yaz hasn’t, and has turned the TARDIS they were sent back in, disguised as a house, into almost that conspiracy scene from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in an effort to locate her. While her friends have rediscovered a routine and grown closer, Yaz has been clinging to the hope the Doctor is still out there and needs them.
It was announced some months ago that Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole were going to be leaving the show with this episode, but that Mandip Gill was going to be staying on. And “Revolution of the Daleks” works to set up the latter as much as the former. It’s necessary of course to illustrate Yaz as more attached to that lifestyle and adventure if she’ll be getting more of it, while the relatively content Ryan and Graham, who’d rather heed the Doctors’ last request to look after the Earth, would be less preoccupied with that hope. But the episode goes a little bit further, especially once the Doctor and Jack come back. The companions aren’t thrilled to see her like she hoped, rather they’re just stunned, and Yaz especially feels betrayed by the Doctor personally. There’s something different to that reaction, and her whole relationship with the Doctor in this episode, that though serving a narrative function for her character slightly longer term, can’t help but also suggest a stronger, more emotional connection than either Graham or Ryan show. There’s clearly something more the Doctor means to Yaz, and the open universe that she represents. She discusses it movingly with Jack, who gives her a good pep talk in one of the episodes’ nicest scenes, about the impermanence of any relationship with the Doctor, but also that it’s worth the pain of her one day leaving her to enjoy it while it lasts. She seems confident in her decision by the end, and as she comforts the Doctor in those final moments in the TARDIS, it makes me wonder how in coming episodes that relationship will be navigated without the boys.
Ryans’ journey of the episode is much more subtle. He and Graham seemed to like the idea of going it alone in investigating potential alien problems on Earth, and indeed some of the early fun scenes are they and Yaz doing just that. He’s standoffish when the Doctor shows up again, uncomfortable even, but he comes through later in the episode; once again keying in on the Doctors’ discomfort in her new knowledge, prompting her to spill a little of her anxieties and her identity crisis -and once again he’s the unconventional source of assurance that she needs. Tosin Cole’s always been a tad undervalued as an actor since he came on this show, but moments like this really allow him to shine. And the Doctor, parsing what she’s been going through psychologically, needs Ryan at this time -she needs as many friends as she can, who can get past her attempts at deflection and hiding from what’s bothering her. She needs to know she’s still the Doctor. And she needs a good victory after that turmoil.
The Daleks are always ready to give her one, and it’s about time I got back to them. Curiously in its’ main plot, the episode is something of a sequel to 2019’s “Resolution”, as the destroyed reconnaissance Dalek from that New Years’ special has been found and repurposed by none other than Chris Noth’s Jack Robertson, the returning billionaire industrialist and vague (hopefully now dated) Trump analogue from “Arachnids in the U.K.” The new role of this Dalek, just a shell with an A.I. core, is as a defence drone used to quell riots. And an incoming Prime Minister played by a wasted Harriet Walter, has Robertson ramp up production throughout the U.K. to install such security drones into other regions of law and security enforcement: policed Daleks.
When this episode was written, Chibnall couldn’t have known what 2020 would do to public trust of police institutions. It’s all the more impressive then how much this plot point speaks to the #ACAB world. An early scene of a Dalek teargassing people is chilling now, and seeing them in airports and on the streets, these weapons of destruction propped up as necessary security -it just hits so strongly as one of the greatest topical allusions this show has managed in years. And of course the Daleks turn evil -an idiot scientist clones the biological residue that was left in the shell, which then takes him over and has him grow more clones in Osaka. Soon they are transported into the empty shells and begin killing people. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a full fledged Dalek invasion of Earth with sweeping, random human casualties, and here it comes with the added disturbing context of their policing affiliation. Even the Prime Minister is killed, which is good, because Doctor Who has an unfortunate pattern of creating women prime minister villains.
Robertsons’ Trump quotes are dialed back in this, but he still feels like an intended avatar when he sells out the human race and the Doctor to the Daleks in an attempt to negotiate a deal. He’s honestly all over the place, travelling with the Doctor for a while for no good reason, lying his ass off, and taking credit for the Dalek defeat in the end (his own product it should be emphasized) which implies he’s not going anywhere as an adversary for this particular Doctor. Her solution, which I honestly can’t remember being done before, involves using fascism to defeat itself. She reactivates the recon signal, bringing a bunch of Daleks to Earth, who proceed to destroy the new Daleks for being ‘impure’ mutations (the clones have human DNA). There may not be a Dalek revolution in this episode, but there is a cool Dalek battle, followed by the Doctor tricking the remaining Daleks into the other TARDIS (making for a wonderfully silly visual of an army of Daleks flying into the police box) before collapsing it in on itself and sending them into the Void. Not so dramatic, but it gets the job done.
Barring Robertson potentially, no new loose ends are left by this. Indeed I don’t think Chibnall intended the main Dalek storyline to mean much -it just happened to gain new significance in the changed world from the one that he wrote it in. The ending is much more important, as for the last time the Doctor, Ryan, Yaz, and Graham are in the TARDIS together. And I am very happy with how this exit was done. Not since Martha in 2007, has a companion actually left the Doctor of their own volition. Moreover, there always had to be a tragic or quasi-tragic circumstance behind a companions’ departure -Moffat especially needed to reassert how much his companions’ lives utterly revolved around the Doctor to the point returning to normalcy would be impossible. I’ve grown to not much like this choice generally. The best companion exits: Susan, Ian and Barbara, Sarah Jane, Romana, Nyssa, Tegan, just involved them willingly or not stepping out of the TARDIS and saying goodbye. And that’s exactly what happens here.
Ryan decides he’d rather stay on Earth, resume his life, and continue to live by the Doctors’ message. Graham is not willing to leave Ryan behind, and wants to be there for him. They’re family after all. But then of course, so are the Doctor and Yaz. The emotion of the scene is muted, just as that Sarah Jane departure was, though there are tender hugs and one last beautiful group shot. It’s honestly bittersweet, not because Ryan and Graham are leaving, but because the Doctor is losing people she loved. This trio had been her “fam” for at least two years, they had been something of a unit -and though Yaz is sticking around, the fam has officially dissolved. For at least this scene, the power imbalance that exists between the Doctor and her companions doesn’t seem apparent -they are all equals, a family going their separate ways.
The episode ends with a touching callback to “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”: Ryan and Graham on the hills in Sheffield, the latter still teaching the former to ride a bike. Gifted with psychic paper by the Doctor, they’re ready to defend Earth to the best of their abilities (however far that goes without her), but for now they can just keep living, knowing the universe is in good hands.
Ryan Sinclair and Graham O’Brien were good companions. They were perhaps underdeveloped next to some of the characters they were following in the footsteps of (it’s what happens when screentime is split among three instead of one), and perhaps could have been fleshed out more. Things such as Ryan’s dyspraxia and Graham’s heart issues weren’t ever followed up on substantively, and Ryan’s whole family drama resolved a little too neatly. But I did feel I got to know them sufficiently, and liked them quite a bit. High levels of personal drama are not necessary in this show, and ensemble acting is underrated. There may not have been a slew of episodes devoted to either of them, but Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh stole enough scenes and enlivened the show, allowing it to offer diverse points of view. And they were fundamental in giving us a great TARDIS team again, which is honestly my preferred kind of dynamic. This may not be the end of the road for them (they do still live in the same town as Yaz), but I’m going to miss seeing them. When Doctor Who returns for a new series without Ryan and Graham it won’t be the same.
But of course that’s a good thing. Doctor Who should never strive to be the same. And I’m excited for what it’s going to be like with just the Doctor and Yaz whenever it comes back -Mandip Gill, for the record, gave probably my favourite performance of the episode! There’s still an awful lot to be accounted for, all those threads from series twelve that Chibnall left hanging, and on which I’m still anticipating to determine whether or not some of his bolder choices were all that worth it.
Oh wait… apparently John Bishop’s joining the show? A third celebrity-cast companion in a row? I would have liked an all-female TARDIS for a little while, but we’ll see how that goes. I’ve got plenty of time to learn how to comprehend his Scouse accent, I don’t expect the new series will start until late summer at the earliest. This was enough though. Certainly the best New Years special of the Jodie Whittaker era. I’m glad Doctor Who is still here in 2021.
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