Doctor Who: RESOLUTION (S11E11) Review
- Adam Tye
- Jan 15, 2019
- 6 min read
Doctor Who fans rejoice over the return of the Daleks and, in other news, the temperature is finally starting to drop in Hell.
Watching 'Resolution', it becomes difficult, irrespective of opinion, not to feel the joy of familiarity. Chibnall's 'bold, new vision' for Doctor Who seems to involve being embarrassed at the very show he's making, ditching old villains, old characters and even the title sequence, until we've reached the point where fans are gulping down Who's most recurring enemy like swimmers starved for oxygen. Which ignites a flicker of wonder in me as to how much this familiarity alone is responsible for any positivity. Should I really be feeling this much joy at hearing Nicholas Briggs' Dalek voice again, despite having heard it hundreds of times over the years?
To snuff out this line of enquiry before it can enflame; perhaps it doesn't matter. Resolution is an odd beast in that it's not really very good - at times, its borderline inane - yet is also the most broadly enjoyable episode of 13's era so far. Balancing the two is never satisfying, but we're taking baby steps here people.
Resolution half-heartedly flip-flops between the re-emergence of an ancient Scout Dalek, long lost to history, and the re-emergence of Ryan's Dad, who has come to reconcile with his son. Whilst Ryan and his Dad contemplate mending bridges, The Doctor has to cope with the reconstructed Dalek attempting to communicate with the rest of the fleet as it hijacks bodies, cars, 'Sheffield steel' and the GCHQ.
Most of Chibnall's narrative hiccups are on display throughout, gradually sapping the episode of deeper meaning and logical sense, but unlike the rest of S11, events keep moving quick enough that I didn't stop to think much about them until the credits rolled. Much of this is due to Wayne Yip's direction, which moves away from the suffocating close-ups of previous episodes to instead emphasise clarity and energy. I can't begin to describe how relieving it is to watch a Jodie Whitaker episode where it's finally possible to make out the inside of the TARDIS.
Resolution also comes closest to tipping Chibnall's hand and revealing what really interests him - something that was readily apparent in the RTD and Moffat eras. Towards the beginning of the episode we get an extended dialogue scene between Ryan and his Dad, where the two openly discuss their feelings towards their estrangement. Ryan's daddy issues for much of S11 have felt cookie-cutter and obtrusive, but here Chibnall finally achieves a sort of emotional believability for the pair, as Ryan finally pours out all the pent up questions and sadness that has followed him for much of his life, only for his Dad to unwittingly deflect all of it - unwilling to own his mistakes all in one go. Between this scene, as well as his previous work on Broadchurch and Doctor Who, it would seem as though Chibnall is eager to carve out a niche for himself portraying familial dynamics - particularly broken ones. At the very least, I could see how you would make that argument.
One thing Chibnall doesn't seem to care much about, though, is drama. Much has been made elsewhere about the extreme openness of the main characters, extinguishing any potential conflict between the cast. Such honesty and wholesome behaviour makes for great role models, but not really for interesting television. Ryan and his Dad's frankness effectively exhausts and then pauses their conflict for the remainder of the episode, until Chibnall suddenly brings it back up again later on. Even here, it feels half-cooked, as Ryan forgives his Dad due to a life-or-death situation, presenting an oddly cheap solution to a complicated situation, that never feels like it resolves the specific issues lingering underneath.
Meanwhile, a crudely improvised Dalek prepares for war on Sheffield. Back in 2005, the episode 'Dalek' built up the most famous enemy in the Doctor Who playbook to the extent where it was believable that a single one was all it would take to annihilate a city. Resolution is the first episode since then to come close to realising this idea and although the vision isn't total (the Dalek shows up 40 minutes in and only fights a random envoy as well as the GCHQ), it is possibly the most plausibly dangerous use of a Dalek since Series 8's 'Into the Dalek'. Note that this doesn't make it the most interesting use, though. I'm actually on the side that the Daleks never quite overstayed their welcome in the Moffat era, with The Witch's Familiar being perhaps the definitive investigation of the Daleks since 'Dalek' (the word 'Dalek' has never been so overused as in this paragraph). In that two-parter, whilst they were never particularly threatening (there's no-one for them to kill outside the main cast), the episode carved out a lot of new ground by really leaning into the Nazi psychology underpinning the most hate-filled creatures in the universe. In Resolution, the Dalek is reduced to a vaguely comical force of nature; able to nudge tank shells out of midair, but unable to so much as singe the Doctor as she power-slides across the floor a few feet in front of it.
Against the hopes of any Doctor Who fan tuning in for a Dalek episode; once the Dalek fully arrives, the episode does begin to unravel. The military fight is a largely pointless excursion that turns the Dalek into an implausible threat, but it's the truly mind-blowing tangent where we see a family struggling with the lack of wifi that things reach Tsuranga levels of stupidity. "I suppose we'll have to have a...conversation," the mother deduces, as I melt with cringe off the sofa and into the floor.
The episode ends twice: once with a microwaved Dalek - pathetically setup by having Ryan's Dad carry the appliance around with him for the whole episode - and again by ejecting the Dalek out into a supernova. But the noise and scale of the finale can't substitute for weak plotting and, as a result, the Doctor's final offer to Ryan's Dad to join them in the TARDIS is not only unsatisfying, but literally nonsense.
Such is the driving momentum of Resolution that most of these issues (bar the last fifteen minutes) don't impact until a while after arrival. Yes Lin is probably going to jail for murdering a lot of people - including a policeman - but as a general rule with television and film, if I don't realise this until long after, I generally consider it something of a point in favour of the episode that I didn't realise it at the time.
A gently shuffled step forward for this new era, then. Which would be much more cause for celebration if there weren't about ten more steps to make up.
Other notes:
The best thing about Resolution? All those shots of Jodie holding an old microphone whilst she talks to the Dalek.
The Dalek squid is the best-realised version of the monster's true form ever put to screen. It's just so long and thick and gooey (that's what she said).
As for the 'new' design, it's okay. The middle looks a bit silly, but gets a pass because it's supposed to. Which is why all of it is undermined by giving the Dalek a big grand entrance like we're seeing the return of the Dalek emperor.
Seriously, Chris, why do you hate the title credits and cold open so much? I could even tell you where to stick them for this episode, so what's the deal here?
Yaz really is just completely neglected by the creative team. She's barely even in the ensemble shot at times!
For all the new cinematographic equipment thrown at the new series, we're still left with a turgid ugly colour palette befitting a gritty crime drama or an episode of Torchwood. We're a far cry away from the richness of Series 9.
The WiFi scene is, for my money, the single worst scene of Nu-Who. There's nothing about the tone of the preceding forty minutes that allows it to fit seamlessly into the episode, but beyond that it's just such a lazy old-man view of millennial family life.
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