January the first so time for a Resolution - the first New Year airing of Doctor Who since The End of
Time Part II (which did not go well.)
It started well with the legend of the ancient vanquished
enemy, divided into three parts and buried at the ends of the earth (or
Sheffield, whichever is further.) All was going well until those pesky
archaeologists started digging in the sewers beneath the Sheffield Town Hall.
Which brings me to my first quibble.
Those sewers looked amazing. The
council are really missing a trick if they aren’t offering guided tours. But leaving that aside, the archaeologists made
two fundamental errors - leaving an unknown thingy under a UV lamp, and
wandering off alone, which provided a classic Doctor Who set up, though it did take them quite a long time to get
around to it.
Sadly, things lost their way a bit in the middle of the
episode. We had the brilliant concept of
a Dalek mutant hitching a ride like the Old Man of the Sea, but everything
stopped for what seemed like ages whilst Ryan and his dad had a chat in a café,
and his dad tried to sell a dodgy oven to the café owner. There could have been a bit more subtlety
with the oven. We definitely got the message that it was going to come in
useful later.
Meanwhile, back at the action, the mutant had found a
workshop and cued the music, just like in an old-style episode of Top Gear, though the finished casing
looked rather better than most of Messrs Clarkson, Hammond and May’s efforts at
customisation. I really liked that scrapyard Dalek casing. A pity that it was
not robust enough to withstand a combination oven.
But this story was not really about the Dalek, but about
family, and Ryan’s relationship with his father. There’s nothing like the possibility of being
sucked into space with an angry Dalek mutant to provide a resolution to a
family rift.
All in all, a good story which also looked good, but was let
down by the pacing of the script.
