Doctor Who, BBC One review: Why must the Doctor's adventures in space and time be so po-faced?
Happy New Year, Whovians. And farewell to the Doctor’s “fam”. Doctor Who (BBC One) returned after 10 months off our screens with a flawed but fun feature-length episode, full of old favourites and new beginnings.
Revolution of the Daleks found the 13th Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) imprisoned halfway across the universe in a Judoon space jail. Yes, even Time Lords have been stuck in lockdown. Amusingly, her fellow convicts in alien Alcatraz included several former foes: a Weeping Angel, an Ood, The Silence and a Pting – a sort of perma-peckish Baby Yoda, designed with one eye on the merchandising opportunities.
Talking of familiar enemies, the ominous sighting of a Dalek back on Earth alerted Ryan (Tosin Cole), Graham (Bradley Walsh) and Yaz (Mandip Gill) to danger. Humanity can’t even defeat the trundling pepperpots with a simple staircase anymore because nowadays they can fly.
The rasping-voiced villains were being riskily repurposed as “security drones” by the unholy alliance of corrupt government minister Jo Patterson (Harriet Walter) and Trump-esque American tycoon Jack Robertson (Chris Noth). Cronyism resulting in the award of lucrative government contracts? I wonder where writer Chris Chibnall got that idea.
Fitted with water cannons, solar panels, sonic weapons and CS gas, Dalek robo-cops were soon rolled out nationwide. “They’re a game-changer,” boasted Robertson. “The security equivalent of the iPhone.” What could possibly go wrong? Naturally, pretty much everything.
Could Team Tardis come back together to stop a deadly Dalek takeover? Of course they could. Immortal former sidekick Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) swaggered back, his signature coat swishing, to bust the Doctor out of prison, crack a few one-liners, wield some phallic weaponry and help save the day.
The subsequent romp, which barrelled along enjoyably for the first half-hour, was soon hamstrung by the nonsensical Timeless Child storyline hanging over from the previous series. The Doctor’s new-found identity crisis has already grown wearisome. Call me old-fashioned but must we have these navel-gazing interludes and convoluted narrative arcs? What’s wrong with a charismatic Doctor and a companion with chemistry simply whooshing around, having just-scary-enough adventures in time and space?
The wheels came off in a frantic third act, as they often do nowadays. “SAS Daleks” were summoned to slaughter the “impure Daleks”. The victorious SAS Daleks were then fooled a tad too easily and merrily dispatched into the Time Vortex. By the time the Doctor’s spare Tardis (do keep up) folded in on itself, it had become a metaphor for the muddled storytelling.
We also saw the drawback of having too many companions – which at least was about to be fixed. Having been away for the best part of a year, the Doctor had to apologise for her absence and rebuild bridges with her human friends. Doing the rounds of all three, this became repetitive, slowing down the action without adding emotional heft.
Before the Doctor set the Tardis controls for new horizons, we waved goodbye to Cole and Walsh for good. Having grown from boy to man during his Tardis tenure, Ryan decided to stay in Sheffield because his mates – and possibly his planet – needed him. Graham was torn but decided to stay with his grandson. The Doctor, of course, has two hearts. Sweetly, one was happy for them, while the other was sad to let them go.
The duo’s departure leaves us with the first ever all-female Tardis duo in almost 60 years. If only one of the “fam” had to stay, many viewers would surely have preferred it to be the quip-smart senior partner, Graham. However, Walsh is a busy man with a hectic work schedule, mainly for ITV.
But right after the credits rolled, news broke that the Tardis won’t be entirely girl-powered for long. The craggy Liverpudlian comedian John Bishop will climb aboard later this year, playing a new companion called Dan. As a much-loved middle-aged funnyman, Bishop can be seen as a like-for-like replacement for Walsh, though he’s six years younger (54 to Walsh’s 60) and has a sporty background, so could conceivably play more of a grizzled action hero in the Captain Jack vein.
It’s an intriguing and potentially canny piece of casting. Unfortunately, Bishop is currently “flattened” by Covid-19, having tested positive on Christmas Day. Let’s hope he beats the virus soon, so he can start battling visible monsters.
In the meantime, this episode had admirably ambitious scale, with sequences set in downtown Osaka, outside Edinburgh Castle and on Tower Bridge, not to mention in outer space. The Daleks’ new-look design looked sleek and suitably 21st century. There was even a cameo from Emily Maitlis.
The script was packed with pleasing references for fans. As well as the prison cameos for familiar monsters, there were name-checks for Torchwood’s Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), beloved former companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and even, obliquely, the Face of Boe. All neatly done and heart-warmingly nostalgic. Chibnall crossed the sci-fi streams with homages to Star Wars and Alien. He even threw in a Harry Potter reference for good measure.
The three veteran guest stars – eyebrow-waggling panto villain Noth, icy operator Walter and the incorrigibly flirtatious Barrowman – had a ball, adding much-needed levity to the angst. Captain Jack’s sweetly affecting reunion with the Doctor was arguably the episode’s highlight.
This New Year’s Day special was entertaining but ultimately frustrating. Nearly a return to form but let down by the same issues – messy plotting, po-faced themes, too many protagonists – which have dogged Chibnall’s era as showrunner. The ingredients are often all there but he can’t quite get the overall recipe right. Let’s hope the upcoming series, with its slimmed-down cast and Bishop’s eventual arrival, can nail that elusive Who alchemy.