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Doctor Who: Series 11 (or 36 depending on how you count) Episode 11: Resolution by Chris Chibnall.

After the announcement that they had run out of ideas for Christmas episodes, ‘Doctor Who’ moves to the New Year. I always felt it far too much of a coincidence when the Doctor continually bumps into something yuletide this time of year. It isn’t like she has other planets in time and space to be visited.

There’s already been plenty of hints as to what Team TARDIS is going to bump into that I’m not sure it is deemed to be spoiler anymore. There is plenty that still remains classified so read with care.

A pair of archaeologists unearth a 6th century skeleton under Sheffield’s town hall in 2019 and unknowingly resurrect under ultraviolet light, a third of a Dalek who takes control of one of them.

Let’s go back to the 6th century a minute because that’s where it starts. How did such a primitive man and army of that period stop a single Dalek when modern military, as show later in this story, with modern weaponry prove ineffectual? Anyway, back then, the corpse of the tentacle Dalek is divided into three portions so as not to resurrect. Quite how they knew this is also not revealed. The other two portions are currently buried in Anuta Island, South Pacific and Siberia, Russia. Although you do have to wonder about the reassures and transportation for these two warriors to go so far, let alone know of these foreign lands. The third part in Sheffield was because the knight carrying it was killed passing through a war zone. This brings up an interesting question of how many times can you chop a Dalek into bits and it still survives?

The Doctor and her team try tracking down the possessed Lyn and she discovers that this is a super-Dalek and a reconnaissance scout and there is a fierce battle between it and the Doctor. Thrown into this mix is Ryan’s visiting father seeking to make amends and two many delays for character scenes for us to care about him. We also learn that UNIT’s funds have been suspended. Are humans so stupid to think a couple years without an alien invasion enough to close it down?

The Dalek in the meantime creates a new body for itself. That has shades of the Doctor making a new travel machine. Considering that there is no Dalekelium on Earth, you do have to wonder about its indestructibility.

For the finale, you have to see the story for yourself.

As you can spot in the above, there are several places that I’ve stopped and questioned things. The fact that I have problems with these and writer Chris Chibnall has glossed over makes me worried. Even with a mostly fast-paced story, these are serious lapses that he just glosses over. Had he covered such details, I would have held this story in better regard. As it is, on first viewing and bearing in mind I’m writing this review 30 minutes after watching has made me think this is the worst of the eleventh series. Granted Chibnall wanted to put in a couple character scenes between Ryan and his father and later Graham with Ryan’s dad, this tended to make things draw out than move things along. You don’t stop a war just to have a couple emotional scenes when you’re anxious to see what is going on. This doesn’t mean the cast doesn’t do well under the circumstances but the care with SF is not to leave potholes that don’t make sense. Had these been resolved better, I think this could have been a classic episode. One can only hope Chibnall learns from what not to do with such stories in the year before the twelfth series.

© GF Willmetts

01 January 2019

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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