Story: Resolution
Written By: Chris Chibnall
Length: 50 Minutes
Year: 2019
So reportedly, part of the reason that they made "Twice Upon a Time" and dragged out Capaldi's regeneration for a whole extra episode (which I don't mind because I really liked "Twice Upon a Time"), was that Moffat and Capaldi were both planning to exit at the end of Series 10, and would pass the duties on to Chibnall and Whitaker to take over at Christmas. So originally they hoped her debut would be similar to Tennant, having people tune in for her debut on Christmas day. But Chibnall was trying to wrap up "Broadchurch" and would not have been able to take on such an undertaking by Christmas Day. The BBC considered dropping Who from Christmas day entirely, but Moffat feared that if they lost the slot now, Chibnall would never get it back. And so Moff stuck around for the future of the show, to save the coveted Christmas Day timeslot.
It seems it was all for naught. The BBC decided to take Who off Christmas anyway. Instead, they moved it to New Year's Day. While I can see that prestige-wise it may be a ding on the show, as it has been a staple of Christmas viewing since 2005, mostly I'm just pleased we get any extra episodes we can...and really, Christmas-themed adventures are pretty played out for the show. They've had 13 Christmas specials, with the Christmas theme getting shoehorned in sometimes at random just to make the slot make sense. And that's not even counting "The Unquiet Dead" or "Feast of Steven" which were just regular episodes that took place at Christmas. Let's not even talk about all the extended media that have used the holiday as theme.
The show also often needs a break from the actual villain of the story, but I think Chibnall did a good job reintroducing and reinvigorating the Dalek in a way Moffat never really did. The Daleks haven't really been that exciting since Davies left, and even then, their final couple outings under him had issues. Moff had a shaky time keeping the villains relevant in the show in my opinion. His first entry was penned by the ever average Mark Gatiss, whose "Victory of the Daleks" was mildly entertaining, introduced an ugly redesign of the monsters (which isn't the worst thing in the world really, just not as timeless as the previous look), and set up the idea of the "New Dalek Paradigm" which were promptly never really heard from again. He then skipped over them for a year, then brought them back with a story that again set up a new premise for the Daleks. The New Paradigm is ignored, and the Doctor ends up being wiped entirely from the Dalek memory banks, which is a good idea actually. But then they show up in Matt Smith's exit and that is forgotten again...or at least quickly resolved. Capaldi faced off with a Dalek by going inside it, which at least an intriguing concept, even if I honestly watched it only once and can barely remember it. Capaldi's more interesting effort was the two part opener to Series 9 which featured a ton of different Daleks on Skaro with Davros. But it was really a Davros story, and not even close to my favorite from that year.
The point I'm getting at is this: The Daleks haven't truly worked as the scariest monsters in the Universe since Davies left, but Chibnall does some new and creative stuff with the Dalek in this episode that I liked, that reminded me of that Eccleston episode "Dalek" in 2005. I think swarms of Daleks can be fun for a big finale, but I want less swarms on the whole...and more of a small amount of Daleks causing endless horror. It ups the wow factor when the swarms do emerge. Here they have to take down just one Dalek, and I like that.
The story also deals with some closure for Ryan, whose dad makes an attempt to reconnect, and the story resolves the series long issues with his father that Ryan has been dealing with, ever since Ryan's dad didn't show up for his own mother's funeral. So that was a nice bow on everything. We had a solid threat in a crazy Dalek, we got some character resolutions for Ryan, and a bit more for Graham, and we got the Thirteenth Doctor's first Dalek confrontation. This is basically the Series 11 finale in my book (though I guess it won't be included in the complete Series blu-ray which irks me to no end), and I think it is a fine way to actually close out the Thirteenth Doctor's first series.
NEXT TIME: Series 11 Recap
Written By: Chris Chibnall
Length: 50 Minutes
Year: 2019
So reportedly, part of the reason that they made "Twice Upon a Time" and dragged out Capaldi's regeneration for a whole extra episode (which I don't mind because I really liked "Twice Upon a Time"), was that Moffat and Capaldi were both planning to exit at the end of Series 10, and would pass the duties on to Chibnall and Whitaker to take over at Christmas. So originally they hoped her debut would be similar to Tennant, having people tune in for her debut on Christmas day. But Chibnall was trying to wrap up "Broadchurch" and would not have been able to take on such an undertaking by Christmas Day. The BBC considered dropping Who from Christmas day entirely, but Moffat feared that if they lost the slot now, Chibnall would never get it back. And so Moff stuck around for the future of the show, to save the coveted Christmas Day timeslot.
The show also often needs a break from the actual villain of the story, but I think Chibnall did a good job reintroducing and reinvigorating the Dalek in a way Moffat never really did. The Daleks haven't really been that exciting since Davies left, and even then, their final couple outings under him had issues. Moff had a shaky time keeping the villains relevant in the show in my opinion. His first entry was penned by the ever average Mark Gatiss, whose "Victory of the Daleks" was mildly entertaining, introduced an ugly redesign of the monsters (which isn't the worst thing in the world really, just not as timeless as the previous look), and set up the idea of the "New Dalek Paradigm" which were promptly never really heard from again. He then skipped over them for a year, then brought them back with a story that again set up a new premise for the Daleks. The New Paradigm is ignored, and the Doctor ends up being wiped entirely from the Dalek memory banks, which is a good idea actually. But then they show up in Matt Smith's exit and that is forgotten again...or at least quickly resolved. Capaldi faced off with a Dalek by going inside it, which at least an intriguing concept, even if I honestly watched it only once and can barely remember it. Capaldi's more interesting effort was the two part opener to Series 9 which featured a ton of different Daleks on Skaro with Davros. But it was really a Davros story, and not even close to my favorite from that year.
The point I'm getting at is this: The Daleks haven't truly worked as the scariest monsters in the Universe since Davies left, but Chibnall does some new and creative stuff with the Dalek in this episode that I liked, that reminded me of that Eccleston episode "Dalek" in 2005. I think swarms of Daleks can be fun for a big finale, but I want less swarms on the whole...and more of a small amount of Daleks causing endless horror. It ups the wow factor when the swarms do emerge. Here they have to take down just one Dalek, and I like that.
The story also deals with some closure for Ryan, whose dad makes an attempt to reconnect, and the story resolves the series long issues with his father that Ryan has been dealing with, ever since Ryan's dad didn't show up for his own mother's funeral. So that was a nice bow on everything. We had a solid threat in a crazy Dalek, we got some character resolutions for Ryan, and a bit more for Graham, and we got the Thirteenth Doctor's first Dalek confrontation. This is basically the Series 11 finale in my book (though I guess it won't be included in the complete Series blu-ray which irks me to no end), and I think it is a fine way to actually close out the Thirteenth Doctor's first series.
NEXT TIME: Series 11 Recap
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