Revolution of the Daleks...

 

Oh well, it's not all bad with the world... The Doctor Who New Year special was actually quite good.  Not perfect but it employed interesting ideas such as Chris Noth's Trumpesque character Jack Robertson returning after the episode with spiders which we won't dwell on to cause all sorts of trouble by buying an old Dalek case that had fallen off the back of a lorry (after the driver had been murdered).  The storyline of using the Dalek casings for various forms of riot control and policing was actually quite novel and strangely believeable.  I didn't see the point of Robertson on his first outing.  He seemed to be a sort of upmarket Arthur Daley ...but that, it seems, is exactly the point... and it makes for an interesting dynamic.  Sort of Sabalom Glitz but with more snobbery and less charm.  I kind of get where Mr Chibnall is going now with these stories.  It's all much less black and white.  It's nice to see the Doctor as a bit more vulnerable here than say in David Tennant's era when the Doctor could bring down a Prime Minister with a single word... Now she's got a human nemesis and it's interesting to see someone whose guile she cannot easily overcome.  Is there any truth to North's claim that he was just helping out all along ...or does the Doctor know it's a lie but not particularly care?  All the plot threads in this story tie up too and we didn't have to endure too much waffle about the Timeless Child and the Doctor now knowing who she is... Yes, we know you don't know ...it's the title of the show.  Ryan and Graham's exit seemed a bit weak but then it was nice to see some companions actually leave to have a life this time rather than have to be exiled to a parallel dimension, get shot, get shot and come back to life but as water, get shot die and then be turned into a posthumous cyberman, be sent back in time to die of old age in the 1920s or generally be written out in such a way as to say "Well, they're nothing without the Doctor, are they?".  For a change it wasn't too grim and was, well, quite fun.  Good to see different Dalek factions arguing about their DNA again....