So after 10 months, we finally get some new Doctor Who. As I do every time there is any new Doctor Who and every time I see an ad or a trailer, I repeat the refrain I have made ever since Chris Chibnall took over:
So the night of New Year's Day came and went. I've seen the new Doctor Who special. So was it good?
As we go into this post, I will admit to some qualms but I believe there may be reason to be hopeful.
Spoiler warnings are go!
The fam are on Earth, 10 months gone without the Doctor. Graham and Ryan have come to terms with the Doctor's absence but not Yasmin who's holed up in the TARDIS that brought them back to Earth trying to figure out how to get back to the Doctor.
There are immediate pressing concerns on Earth in the ol' here and now: Daleks.
Seems Jack Robertson has gotten hold of the burned out Dalek shell left behind in the 2019 New Year's special "Resolution" and has a tech firm he acquired using the Dalek shell as a template for a new force of A.I. driven defense drones.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is in space jail where the Judoon sent her. A handy dandy intervention from Capt. Jack Harkness busts the Doctor out of space jail and reunites her with her TARDIS. One dramatic materialization in Graham's living room later and the Doctor and the fam are reunited.
Yaz reacts to the Doctor's return with a burst of anger.
Brought up to speed on the new Daleks, the Doctor, Jack and the fam are on the case. It seems Jack Robertson's Daleks are simple automatons with no slug creatures living inside.
But the scientist who developed the defense drones found some residual organic goo inside the burned out Dalek casing and has used that goo to clone a Dalek squid creature.
The Dalek squid creature is now manipulating the scientist to create more Daleks.
And zap! The Dalek squids are in the new casings and the Daleks are off on a killing spree.
The Doctor solves the problem of the rampaging new Daleks by summoning OG Daleks to Earth. Not caring for these new Daleks violating the purity of what it means to be a true Dalek, the OG Daleks get to work blasting away at the new Daleks.
The Doctor then solves the problem of having a swarm of OG Daleks on Earth with a kick ass mid air confrontation between the Doctor and the Daleks and some clever subterfuge involving a spare TARDIS.
Then it's time for goodbyes. While Chris Chibnall leans hard on the dramatic telegraph that Ryan Sinclair is gonna die, both Ryan and Graham survive to say their farewells.
One last check in shows Ryan and Graham taking an active interest investigating strange stuff on Earth, having a vision of Grace and Ryan finally riding that damn bicycle.
Revolution of the Daleks is probably the strongest outing of Doctor Who in the Chris Chibnall era, an epic adventure on par with the best of the Davies and Moffat eras of the show.
I was worried going into this that Chibnall would spend an inordinate amount of time with the fam without the Doctor while she spent way too much time cooling her heels in space jail. I was pleasantly surprised to see the whole space jail thing resolved fairly quickly.
It does bring up two concerns.
1) What was the whole point of the Doctor being in space jail? She seems to come out of space jail with the same hang ups she had going into space jail over the revelations of the Timeless Child and what this means to her identity.
2) While it was cool to see Jack Harkness on the scene and helping out the Doctor, I wish the Doctor had been more instrumental in her own rescue.
There are some good character moments with the fam. Yaz's reaction when the Doctor returns is surprisingly raw and real. Of the fam, Yasmin Kahn has the most invested in her relationship with the Doctor. Her conversation with Jack Harkness about what travelling with the Doctor is all about is very enlightening.
I have not been a big fan of Ryan but his alone time conversation with the Doctor was a very telling account of his growth and maturity as a person.
The Doctor's discussion with Ryan underscores the problems with a crowded TARDIS. With three companions, it's difficult to find time for such moments. Perhaps with Graham and Ryan gone, the Doctor and Yaz may have some moments like that when it's just the two of them. (But it seems we won't have that for very long. More on that later.)
Ryan's reasons for departing the TARDIS have been seeded in the past (for example in the Series 12 episode Can You Hear Me?) so kudos for not having Ryan's exit come totally out of nowhere. Graham's affection for his grandson and his sense of responsibility for him makes his decision to stop travelling with the Doctor seem very sensible.
The Doctor's go for broke strategy of bringing Daleks to Earth to fight the new Daleks was a ballsy move. Jodie Whitaker's Doctor hasn't had many opportunities to pull this kind of big "only the Doctor can make this call" moment and this one is a doozy. And it's big ballsy move backed up by the strategy of using the spare TARDIS in a very clever way.
The special effect of the spare TARDIS folding in on itself as the Daleks are consigned to the void made my daughter laugh. It did look kind of cheesy.
Consigning the Daleks to the void was a good call back to the Series 2 episode "Doomsday".
In the space jail, we get to see a nice cross section of aliens from across all eras of New Doctor Who with appearances from the Weeping Angels, the Ood, the Silence and even the Pting.
Chris Noth's return as Jack Robertson was irritating but kind of fun. Robertson's biggest worries when things go wrong is the extra paperwork and the bad PR. Damn if the sonuvabitch doesn't end the episode as a media darling for facing up to the invading Daleks (when he was in fact prepared to sell out to the human race to the Daleks.)
It seems people on Earth do not remember Daleks except when it's convenient to the plot.
One last thing: after the episode ends, we get a teaser that actor John Bishop will be joining team TARDIS in the next season.
I think I will hold my thoughts on that topic for a future Doctor Who post but here's a small spoiler for where my thinking is on that idea: "Oh hell no!"
And in breaking news just this morning: a new Doctor? I'm not ready to cope with that.
But back to the special itself, I think I will call "Revolution of the Daleks" a win for my "please be good" hopes.
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