Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole, Charlotte Ritchie, Nikesh Patel, Daniel Adegboyega, Darryl Clark, Connor Calland, James Lewis, Sophie Duval, Callum McDonald, Harry Vallance, Laura Evelyn, Michael Ballard.

It is never the end, not as far as the Doctor and the Daleks are concerned. A writer’s symbol of the evils of Fascism, a nightmare to which we should always guard against returning, and yet seem to find unbelievably steeling its resolve with sharpening and destructive purpose.

In recent years the Daleks have been on the side of the so what return to screens, rarely encapsulating the real dread in which their intended intention was to be, to scare, to make people think, the major times in which they worked was when it was placed within the scope of a human’s eye, notably in the first series since its return as Christopher Eccleston took on a solitary beast, with Clara ‘Oswin’ Oswald in The Asylum of the Daleks and The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar and in the epic The Day of The Doctor and Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, these episodes played out well because of the intensity of the havoc caused and the structure in which the Skaro story was upheld.

The New Year special for the opening day of 2019, Resolution, adds to this, a single Dalek brought back to life, but one that adds the dimension of horror to the proceedings. If there is one thing to fear more than Fascism, it is knowing you are being controlled but cannot fight it, for all intent purposes you have become a puppet, a ventriloquist’s doll used as a mouthpiece to spout the doctrine of abhorrence, revulsion, hate. It is a course of action that is reflected within society today, good people caught with rhetoric in the mouths, of towing the insidious line without even thinking; and like a disease, it can soon spread as if it is a contagion, a nod towards the sense of finding an impurity in which to wipe clean off the face of the Earth, remind you of anything?

If Resolution highlighted, magnified, one cautionary note to which should be addressed when the series returns, is that of having three companions travelling in the Tardis. The dynamic is watered down to the point where certainly one of the team seems to be relegated out of site, only there to add what could be suggested to be superfluous dialogue, speaking words to which others could quite easily manage.

For the most part this has unfortunately fallen upon on Mandip Cole, the actor deserves assuredly deserves more of an arc, and whilst the growth of Tosin Cole has matched the charm of Bradley Walsh as they come to respect their mutual position of having been important to the memory of a woman who saw good in them both, Mandip Cole has suffered through lack of meaningful participation. With the beautiful exception of the episode Demons of the Punjab, her role has felt wasted, secondary, to the overall arc of the series.

If there is to be three companions in the next series then the story requires further exploration, it would be difficult to imagine Jodi Whittaker’s incarnation of the Doctor without Bradley Walsh travelling alongside the Timelord, it therefore either asks a pertinent question of how you accommodate three travelling confidantes acting as the buffer between audience and the plot, or do you let one go for the sake of the dialogue and the show.

With a superb performance from Charlotte Ritchie as the carrier of the Dalek and its mouthpiece, The New Year episode of Doctor Who was in many ways worth waiting the extra seven days for, it also brought to attention some of the downfalls to which series 11 has been noted for; what is needed before the next set of episodes is a promise, an oath that Resolution will be a turning point in those regards.

Ian D. Hall