Doctor Who, series 11, the new year’s special episode – Resolution

The usual Christmas Special Episode was delayed a few days, on New Year’s eve, and the Doctor and her companions started to celebrate the first day of some new years in the row. without waiting the full year to pass in the regular way. That would have been rather difficult: the years were in different centuries.

This episode has a few good things and (at least) one bad. It’s in the same mediocre tone of the series 11. Good things:

• it has a Dalek. A new type of Dalek, to be more precise, a scout sent to gather information about the Earth many centuries ago. One that can use people as vehicles, to move from one place to another, and to rebuild the shell distroyed many centuries ago.
• there is action. The episode is pretty fluent, without many pauses.
• there is humor. An involuntar one, without any quality, but it’s there.

But, and that’s the bad part, some things in this episode are not realistic: the producers tried too much to offer an action-pack episode and they leaft behind some logical and normal parts, spoiling everything. A Dalek, for example, is cyborg, part machine part living organism inside a tank-like armoured shell. It is hard to believe that the organic part is still alive and intact after being cut into pieces several hundred or thousand years ago. It’s even harder to believe that it’s able to rebuild it’s shell in and ordinary workshop and some woman’s hard work. I an not mysogynist, but it didn’t have any tools capable to get the results. It’s hard to believe that Ryan’s dad (yes, he finally appears) was saved so easily from the Dalek.

Directed by Jamie Childs and Wayne Yip, written by Chris Chibnall.

Cast: Daniel Adegboyega (Aaron), Michael Ballard (Sergeant), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek – voice), Graham Burton (Cafe Owner), Connor Calland (Security Guard), Darryl Clark (Police Officer Will), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Sophie Duval (Mum), Laura Evelyn (Call Centre Polly), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Hugh Holman (Zak), James Lewis (Farmer Dinkle), Callum McDonald (Teen 1), Nikesh Patel (Mitch), Charlotte Ritchie (Lin), Harry Vallance (Teen 2), Bradley Walsh (Graham O’Brien), Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor).

The next series will be back only in 2020.