New Who New Year's Day special: Resolution

[strange_complex]

Oh dear, yeah. I didn't have hugely high hopes, but I'm afraid that really did feel like Doctor Who by numbers to me. Basic plot-line - a Dalek is unleashed, causes a bit of havoc before being tracked down by the Doctor, and is then defeated via a combination of Technobabble and the Power of Love. We've definitely seen that story before, and the arc involving Ryan's Dad was particularly poorly integrated into it. It really made me miss RTD, who made those sorts of emotive personal plot-lines into the beating hearts of his stories, rather than feeling like an awkwardly bolted-on extra.

It's a pity, because I have a soft spot for Doctor Who stories involving archaeology (which as a real-life form of time travel offers a lot of potential for parallels with what the Doctor does), and the three Custodians seemed exciting initially. I could really have gone for a story in which their descendants had to come together and work with the Doctor (in the place of the lost third) to save the world. But we didn't get that, and even within what we did get I felt the design department did a pretty poor job of putting together the materials about the legend. Would it have been too much to ask for some authentic-looking ninth-century documents, rather than a picture-book which looked like it had been bought in The Works?

Oh well. Plenty of time to forget all about it before the next series...

Comments

[lady_lugosi1313]

I'd completely forgotten it was on - might have to watch it for a bit of dalek action though.

[strange_complex]

The design of the Dalek was good, to be fair. Otherwise, make sure you've got some knitting or something handy so you don't get bored during the scenes with the dad...

[lady_lugosi1313]

I think Mr Pops will want to watch it - I'll just get him to give me a shout when a dalek is on and will otherwise carry on with Douglas Coupland book I picked up last week from a charity shop. It's 'Worst.Person.Ever.' it's perfect festive season reading as it's undemanding but also v funny.

[poliphilo]

It was Ok. Most of the stories this year have been OK- but none of them has excited my sense of wonder- and that is what I go to the Doctor for.

[strange_complex]

Exactly!

[momentsmusicaux]

I quite liked it. The bits with squid dalek were particularly good, helped by the quality of the acting.

The stuff with the soldiers and the tank did a good job of showing how tough a dalek is, although, apart from the weapon, how much other stuff did it manage to get of its former casing, and so how much of the new casing wasn't dalekanium but just bog standard steel and therefore not that invulnerable?

The dad stuff dragged on a bit, and the microwave was a bit silly -- as in, nobody's thought to beat daleks with a microwave before?

The coda with the dalek on the dad felt a bit unnecessary.

[strange_complex]

Yeah, I mean individual bits were fine. I appreciated the way the fight you mention with the Dalek included shots from above, both showing how numerically-unequal the fight was and replicating the feel of a lot of modern real-life military footage. But the dad stuff really was weak, and the story-line as a whole felt to me more like the sort of plot you might find in a comic strip in a Doctor Who spin-off magazine than a flag-ship show with a large production team.

[qatsi]

We thought it was OK, but not brilliant, like most of the season. Yes, RTD probably did the "domestic" better, and Moffat would have tied up more convincingly into the canon. But on the plus side the UNIT hiatus has brought the Express out in spots, because it thinks it's an allegory for Brexit. (I actually thought it was more of an allegory for austerity, but there you go). YMMV.

[strange_complex]

Yeah, I read it as about austerity primarily, though be to fair they did also specifically mention European funders pulling out. So, maybe a bit of both?

[danieldwilliam]

This season of Doctor Who has ranged between okay to bland.

I'm not sure we needed another Dalek story. In particular, I'm not sure we needed another lone Dalek stuck on Earth story. I don't think it did anything that Dalek had not already done, except to establish that Daleks (despite needing super-armour) can survive being cut in to three and buried and can then teleport themselves back together (but can't teleport away from a supernova).

I expect Whitaker will announce her retirement over the summer with her second season being her last full season and her last episode being the 2021 Christmas special. To be honest, with the show being off air in 2019 it might as well be on hiatus. It's managed what 7 series in the last ten years.

My campaign to have Charlotte Ritchie cast as the 14th Doctor starts now.

[strange_complex]

I'd rank Demons of the Punjab in particular as much better than 'okay' - but there is a fair argument that it wasn't really Doctor Who, and it certainly didn't spring from the pen of Chibnall. You might well be right about Whittaker, but to be honest I'm happy to have the show air every other year rather than be cancelled altogether.

[danieldwilliam]

That's fair comment on Demons of the Punjab. It is the one episode this season that made me look at something in a way I hadn't before and it had some strong emotional resonance.

I don't think I mind Chibnall not being a great writer of Doctor Who if he turns out to have a decent strategic view and is a good commissioning editor.

My frustration with this 1 series every 18 months is mostly around the Captain, he'll be 10 the next time the show is on, a full 25% older than he currently is. I'll be 45, 4.5% older than I currently am. Also, having actors of the quality of Capaldi and Whitaker involved but then only getting 50% of their tenure in actual production is sad. Hey ho.

(Got up this morning to find the Captain watching the Doctors Wife.)

[strange_complex]

Yeah, Chibnall's no 1 best strategy for the future would be to let go of the writing a bit and let more other people have a go.

Does the Captain enjoy Classic Who? If so you could watch that together while the current series isn't on.

[danieldwilliam]

I don't think he's tried Classic Who. I might try him on Tom Baker. They will probably get on.

I recall his sister patiently explaining to me at about the same age that Laurel and Hardy weren't funny because they were black and white.

[strange_complex]

Yep, Tom is definitely the best place to start. He can develop a mature appreciation of William Hartnell later!

[danieldwilliam]

It is possible that the Captain is the re-incarnation of Tom Baker - which as he isn't dead yet would be very typical of them both.

Having seen the Peter Jackson coloured footage of World War One this winter I was wondering outloud with MLW whether the same colouration process would affect the viewing experience significantly for other black and white film.