Hello and welcome to a special Doctor Who discussion post looking at the 2018/19 special, aptly titled Resolution. Now for those who followed my posts on the rest of season 11, it could be said that my initial enthusiasm dipped after the first three episodes and then it was hit and miss from then on. If I were to order the episodes from least favourite to favourite, this would slot into the upper half as there were a number of things I enjoyed. There were still some issues that annoyed me and stopped me from declaring this episode anything more than just good (nothing wrong with good though) but we will get into those in due course.

Having a Dalek in the episode really did help it out in the villain department as that was something that had plagued the new series consistently. It was a proper villain and it was going round exterminating people: that’s what I wanted to see. The whole sequence where the Dalek thought the soldiers was great. The design was very unique but still looked enough the Daleks we all know and love (or love to hate). I presume that the look would have just been a one off as it had to build it’s own casing, but it was still a very good example of how to do a new take on a classic design.

We got to see a lot more of the Tardis than we have in a while and it was nice to actually get to spend some time there. You had time to notice more of the design changes such as the overhanging claws that go up and down which looked very cool. The extra Tardis time along with the Dalek actually made this feel more like Doctor Who.

The Doctor did actually show a bit of aggression against the Daleks and although it was far from the level of Christopher Eccleston asking a Dalek why it doesn’t just die, it was nice to see her get serious…until she didn’t. Things all got quite jokey again pretty quickly and it just made the whole thing feel less dangerous; and that’s not something you want to happen in a Dalek episode. Them all jumping on it and sticking a dis-assembled microwave oven on it to melt it was stupid, even with the inner creature lasting one more scene. I didn’t like how the Doctor picked up Graham and everyone else to go out and confront the Dalek either. She should have feared for their lives and wanted to keep them safe. She did at the warehouse but was way too confident by the end. And why would she ask Ryan’s dad along? They already had the oven so it wasn’t even for that! He just seemed to be their for the “emotional” death fake-out at the end and to pad out the extra fifteen minutes of running time the episode was awarded. There were just way too many people in that Tardis.

Overall it was better than a lot of series 11 episodes but still not that great compared to episodes in previous seasons. It took too long to get to the actual Dalek too but hopefully when they appear next we will get a lot more Dalek action as what we got here was very good.

DD Rating: 7/10