The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos & Resolution (Doctor Who 11.10 & 11.11)

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The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
Not exactly finale material (and I remember being very disappointed in it for that reason on first watching) but an okay episode. I honestly could not remember anything about it except Tim Shaw and the Doctor having a go at Graham for wanting to kill him, but actually there was some good stuff. Some lovely family stuff between Graham and Ryan, working together as a team to rescue the stasis people. Not a lot for Yaz, except that brief "I'm with you," or whatever it was, crush on the Doctor thing. The Ux were an interesting concept (though my brain inevitably stuck on, if there are only ever two of them, how do they reproduce? My son supplied that they're probably cloned when one dies or something) and I liked both of them. Plus Phyllis Logan! I grew up watching her in Lovejoy!

I didn't get why they were so confused by the idea of Tim Shaw knowing the Doctor. Wiki says it's because they were isolated from the rest of the universe, but I didn't get that from the show. Could have been made clearer!

The shrunken planet thing I sort of remembered, or possibly just worked out again. And, like the first time I watched this, I kept thinking of The Pirate Planet because – hey, seen this before!

The neural blockers were a bit of a let-down. Built up to be this big, essential thing so that when Yaz and the Doctor give theirs up, we expect… I don't know, something. But Yaz makes a bit of a face, the Doctor gets a bit of a headache and… that's it. Let-down.

Interesting conversation with the Doctor about guns and grenades and bombs and so on. Apparently she's okay with blowing up buildings and things that can be rebuilt. Which sort of makes sense, but doesn't really hold a lot of water, especially when she then waffles a lot about how they shouldn't pay attention to the rules she gives out because she's always changing them!

Apparently the sniper bots were the same ones as in The Ghost Monument (because the Stenza had previously conquered Desolation, according to TARDIS Wiki). That's why Graham and Ryan recognised them.

The threat to the Earth was also a let-down. It didn't really ever feel like we were in danger here. No images of people on the Earth's surface staring up at the big red light in the sky – no images at all of what it might have looked like to those of us actually on Earth – nothing to make it feel at all personal.

Den of Geek's review makes the point that most of the New Who season finales felt more final because someone (either a Doctor or a companion) was leaving in them, whereas no-one was in this one. True for the Davies era, I guess, though not for all the Moffatt ones.


Resolution
I remembered enjoying this one first time round, but found it rather meh this time. :-(

The archaeologist characters were great, and I remember particularly liking Charlotte Ritche in this (and then went on to love her in Ghosts), and definitely enjoyed her performance again this time. She's very engaging.

Unfortunately, there was a lot that just didn't work. Like the whole set-up with the Dalek being split into three and buried across the world (just like the Judge in Buffy)… except that as soon as one part got a bit of UV light on it the rest of it just zapped back into place! I mean, what was the point of the set-up if you're then just going to ignore it? I suppose it was meant to be scary that the Dalek recovered that easily?

And the whole Ryan's dad storyline – what the hell was that about? Apart from being a missed opportunity to present both viewpoints of a failed relationship sympathetically and properly explain why Aaron had felt he had to leave and couldn't even come back for Grace's funeral, and give the relationship some proper emotional grown… apart from that, what the hell did it have to do with the rest of the storyline? The only possible reason I could see for Aaron being there was to fill out the length of the script (oh, and conveniently bring a microwave on board the TARDIS)!

And oh god, the wifi joke. That was so cringeworthy. I thought Chibnall was trying to do an RTD thing where he'd show various 'citizens'' reactions to whatever was going on, but at least he'd show a number of different homes/venues and show them a couple of times through the episode. This was literally just a one-off scene to tell a very lame joke and it felt totally crowbarred in.

And what's this about UNIT being suspended due to funding quarrels or whatever it was? And, if it was, why isn't she getting on the phone to Captain Jack? Or Kate Stewart or Osgood in person?

I thought the Dalek itself was quite interesting, in that directly taking over people was something new-ish for Daleks (though we did have those Dalek-people who grew eyestalks from their foreheads under Moffat too) and I did love the way the Dalek made itself a new body from junk, just like the Doctor made her sonic in the first episode.

Apparently there was no title sequence in this one. That makes sense as I remember saying, "Oh, we're getting a teaser this time", and then, "Have we have the title sequence yet?" Weird. Apparently, The Woman Who Fell to Earth had no opening titles either. Very weird. I wonder why?