How hard was it to finish off writing your title, “Resolution” of the Daleks? After the battle of bippidy boppity boo, I don’t trust Chris to write his own name. At least not without stabbing himself in the brain. This is the first of a few New Years specials – Yes, I know Tennant’s second regeneration was on New Year’s Day, but “Resolution” replaced the regular Christmas special for some stupid reason. After nearly 3-years and all of Nu-Who, I’ve stopped caring and I’m letting my seething hatred for Chris and apathy toward his writing out.

Let’s be fully honest with ourselves, I’ve checked out. To me, this is 4:55 PM on a Friday and I am ready to get in gridlock traffic and finish off that crossword I couldn’t do in the 20 minutes I took this morning to have a dump. Until the Anniversary or anything worth covering (like Millie’s announcement), I’m done with Doctor Who. What will replace it next week? What will happen to me now that I can’t complain about Chibnall’s writing? What am I going to watch on Christmas day without Doctor Who? Probably “The Husbands of River Song,” again.

Just once, I’d want a Doctor not to interact with the Cybermen, not to talk to the Daleks, and avoid the majority of the classic monsters we’ve seen time and time again. Can we just focus on new things or interesting ideas? I know that’s difficult given The Simpsons meme is applicable: “Doctor Who has done it.” Just a series at least where we don’t talk about them or interact. I know I’m saying this as we’re heading into the second run of Russell, but for the love of all that is holy, I just need some time away. It isn’t me, it is the Daleks and stompy droids of hell.

“Resolution” of the Daleks is about a warrior that was so mighty and difficult to overcome that three tribes had to come together and quarter this thing into three, bury it across the planet, and of course it was the bloody proto-European Dalek flung through time. There is one piece being placed in Yorkshire. We’ve spent as much time on Earth with this regeneration as we did with Bessie, and that is not a good thing. Doctor Who is supposed to be a family sci-fi and fantasy show, no matter how little I care for the fantasy. I can’t think of a single strange planet Jodie went to.

I just wish Chris would stop trying to write young people, especially young people getting into a relationship. Nikesh and Charlotte are probably half-decent actors. Well enough to be in some things like Call the Midwife and Starstruck but sadly also with poor appearances in that god-awful Artemis Fowl film and as a blah Taskmaster contestant. Here they are not great, mostly thanks to the writing that is (to put it nicely) superficial and insecure like a child telling you a story exclusively in run-on sentences. Yes, that is the nice way of putting it.

It is exposition heavy, clunky in all the ways we’ve come to expect, and quite frankly, really boring. This is why I can’t be bothered with the Daleks anymore, the showrunner of the time couldn’t write an interesting or exciting episode that involved one of the longest-standing foes of the series. There is meant to be a joke in that the Dalek that rebuilds itself shuts down the wifi: “I suppose we’ll have to have a conversation,” yes well done Chibbers, you’ve written a 20-year-old quip that somehow lands worse than Gilbert Gottfried’s 9/11 joke.

There is just no energy to the story, the characters, or the entire show at this point. You have Jodie bouncing about a bit, you have Bradley leaning up against everything and being a sweetheart the whole time, and you have Yaz, Ryan, and others metaphorically T-posing on their X waiting to repeat the line on the paper. If you go back to Eccleston or Tennant’s era, every episode had a bouncy, ready-to-get-into-the-action feeling. Once you’ve done that, come to this episode and you’ll see how flat everything feels.

In theory, “Resolution” of the Daleks would have excited me, would have done well by developing Graham, Ryan, and Ryan’s dad’s complicated relationship, and maybe made for an interesting episode that just happened to have a Dalek in it. It wasn’t. Much like what I’ve said about the battle of bippidy boppity boo and many other episodes throughout my time writing these reviews, it feels like a script editor wasn’t doing their job too well. We know how poorly Chris does his job, and it continues to show between him and the editors.

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Doctor Who "Resolution"

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• The Doc giving Ryan's dad a right bollocking.
• The scarves. Lovely stuff!

Cons

• It's a Dalek episode, why am I so bored right now?
• Sure, kill the gay guy two seconds after he mentions his husband, I've stopped counting.