I have only just noticed that "Revolution of the Daleks" is only 2 letters away from "Revelation of the Daleks" - kicking myself for not realising while writing - I coulda done a side by side comparison - one has compelling incidental characters, the other doesn't
you gonna do more big finish reviews this year? because theres alot going on. out of time, dalek universe, war doctor begins, some other time war stuff, masterful/MASTER!, diary of river song with 3 k-9s, eighth doctor stranded, the timelord victorious storyline, the end of the beginning that will end the monthly range and start a new era beyond and of course the ninth doctor adventures with christopher eccleston returning
Honestly, I loved it! Didn´t take too long for me to pick these words, but this episode managed to do so many things for me successfully, about which I was complaining up until this point. Most impressive feat: I finally started accepting and liking (? weird!) 13 as a character! I can finally say "she´s THE Doctor" without questioning it! But other than that, this had still lots of stuff to love, cinematography and music gorgeous, stellar acting at parts, humour in places where it fit, an overall decent script, a wholesome companion departure and Captain Jack "m-fing" Harkness! Easily the best episode of the Chibnall era for me so far, but of course it´s still a long way from being able to actually top the most brilliant stuff like Heaven Sent or A Good Man Goes To War.... I´ve actually developed a soft spot for The Return of Doctor Mysterio and even Hell Bent over time, they have now actually become my #1 and #2 all time favourite episodes....
So two years after Resolution, we get Revolution with a completely botched resolution. I guess one of the issues was they had to write out Ryan and Graham. The time away from the Doctor was the catalyst for that, and they needed a story in the middle before the characters left. If they had cut the Timeless Child entirely out of the prior season, maybe they could have done more of the prison and companion separation before having to shove so much into one "special". That might have allowed for a less grating escape, and resolution of the dalek part of the episode. All much easier in hindsight than for Chibnall and the other writers, but they are the professionals.
Don’t forget that in _Revolution of the Daleks,_ the human workers that were hired by the dalek were all transformed into _“an excellent concentrated protein,”_ as The Great Healer called it in _Revelation of the Daleks,_ in order to be edible for the dalek clones.
@@qwertyuio404 I spotted the parallel with Davros's "recycling" of bodies, too. Nice to know the Great Healer's techniques are still being put to good use :)
Just another wasted story idea, theyve had so many by this point, thats why what Stuart says about longer story arcs is salient, they should go back to the old way the show was done, you cant chew through all this stuff in one episode, alot of Dr Who stories needed the 4 parts, that was the idea so you got a full story not just flashpoints all crammed into one, even the sontaren experiment which was a fairly minor pause between two longer adventures was still a two parter.
Exactly! Why have that line to setup him being killed them come back to life? It's just like the Neural blockers for the psychic planet in battle of ranskor av kolos, unnecessary exposition for something that doesn't have any relevance or pay off in the episode itself.
Yes, not iconic per say but when he said that I thought: here we go, he’s gonna die and wake up shocking Yasmeen but we can’t even have cheap fun anymore 😞
Yeah, true, he keeps talking about it in the episode, and then he outright yells it at the Daleks, and I guess with the Daleks maybe he was being smug about how they failed to kill him in the future? I don't know
@@Stubagful maybe 13 regretting this and feeling remorseful is what chibnall's 5 year plan will depict. who am I kidding? this is chibnall we're taking about
Another thing that bothers me, if this was a Russel and Moffat episode, the moment where Ryan talks to the doctor would have spent more time focusing on her face, showing the turmoil of emotions within her, and there would be music accompanying it, setting the mood for this conversation. A TV show is an audio-visual medium, and music is a great way to set the mood, you just shouldn't use it as a crutch, doesn't mean you can't use it at all. It just shows how clearly uninvested Chris was in this moment. He doesn't care about Ryan as a character, this is just an obstacle to him, because an actor wants out.
It’s so strange that the Dalek storyline feels completely separate from... that Dalek story? Like we hear that Ryan and Graham have settles back into the Earth lives, but we don’t see their reactions to the Dalek’s taking over the society they’ve apparently settled back into. And the whole world is caught in a Dalek Civil war and the Prime Minister is literally murdered on TV but we literally get NO aftermath, like Ryan and Graham are just seen cycling at the end
@@TheJaviferrol I mean even then: Rose wanted to keep going with the Doctor and is implied to travel years at a time before visiting her family again occassionally. (sort of how you sometimes visit your grandparents and such) Martha was on bad terms with her family in Series 3 and only came back to present-day earth when there was some alien threat, threatening the earth. Donna only goes back to earth the first time after asking the Doctor to take her home after witnessing the brutal slavery in Planet of the Ood, and only goes back again in The Stolen Earth when it is revealed Earth is under threat. The constant unnecessary visits back to earth only really started happening when Moffat was in charge. (and even then he's mostly good when it comes to Amy and Rory, its more Clara and Bill he has problems with)
@@calumbishop7082 Clara has a boyfriend and a changed, less trusting, relationship with the doctor in series 8, her spending time on Earth inbeween episodes makes sense. On the other hand, Bill only travels in the tardis on the occasions the doctor can get away with not fulfilling his vows to watch the vault at all time, and the main relationship she has with the doctor is with him as her teacher, and her as his student, so it makes sense that theyre not constantly travelling
One of the best comments I’ve seen about this episode is just how passive it makes Jodie’s Doctor. If it were any other incarnation the tally marks on the walls of the cell would be escape attempts, but instead 13 is reliant on a male character to actually break her out
When they were looking at the picture of the Dalek on the phone and Yaz saying "A DALEK" and later when Jack said "YOU ARE FEEDING DALEKS LIQUIDISED HUMANS???"; was this episode´s equivalent of Ko Shamus´ "THEY´RE HERE"
Jack was expressing his disbelief and disgust, which is the kind of thing anyone might do in the circumstances. Indeed, the Sixth Doctor reacted similarly when he twigged that Davros had been doing pretty much the same with human corpses in Revelation of the Daleks ("You've turned them into food?").
@@ftumschk All right; maybe i´ve grown a little oversensitive picking up things like this during this era but, personally, i got the point before Jack said it out loud.
It was fine. Not terrible, not brilliant. Jack didn't really feel like he belonged. It also might have been better for the Doctor and co to arrive in a Britain where the Dalek drones are already omnipresent. I'm somewhat disappointed that they're adding a new companion for next series, since Yaz hasn't really had much of a chance to make an impact yet.
See, on a story level I agree with you, Yaz should really be on her own to give her and the Doctor full development together. But on the other hand, I do think representation is important, in being able to have a character you can relate to and if you have two women in the Tardis then men might be less interested in watching? Or maybe most don't care, idk. So I'm okay with having a guy character included in the Tardis just so women watching can relate to the Doctor and Yaz and men can relate to this new guy. (and maybe older people don't care so much about this, but I think it's important to have a little kid who's a boy have characters they can relate to and look up to just as much as characters for girls to look up to and relate to)
That speech could have been worded better. It should have been something more like "travelling with the doctor is a wild ride, you can get off whenever you like, or you can cling to it for dear life. But either way, it eventually comes to an end."
@@quinnsinclair7028 Which rather proves a point. You've made a better fist of it in a RU-vid comment than the man actually responsible for the production of the show managed for an episode which aired on Television.
Pretty sure the full quote was actually "nobody chooses whether they get to decide when to leave or the decision is made for them," or something similar to that
I'd argue that we did see Ryan come to the realization that it was time to move on from the Doctor in Can You Hear Me? He saw that the world keeps going with or without him, and he realizes that he can't handle that. He has nightmares of his absence being part of the reason humanity fails, and his friend needs him.
One idea I had was maybe the Dalek mutants only end up in say some of the drones, but they don't know how many or which ones, add a level of paranoia, make them attacking the humans a slow boil and have it stated that the drones are programmed so they can't be ordered to shoot other drones and that would be an allegory for how police have a hard time whistleblowing on each other. Just a thought.
“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history - true or feigned- with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.” - J.R.R Tolkien I love this quote because I think Tolkien hits the nail on the head here when it comes to "relevant" or "topical" content. Oceania in Orwell's 1984 for example is clearly a direct attack on the Soviet Union (Goldstein is clearly a stand in for Trotsky, Orwell had bad experiences with the Soviets while he was in the Spanish Civil War) but it also has more universal themes of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and the rewriting of history and the effects of propaganda. So it works both with and without the context because while it was clearly inspired by the USSR and Orwell's own experiences with it it's detached enough that it can be viewed in a vacuum. I also feel doing it in this more "detached" way gives it a longer lifespan, because it means an audience that experiences it in 10 or 20 years time wont just find it filled with dated references they don't understand. Doctor Who has done this quite successfully in the past, Genesis being my go-to example. Yes it's obviously inspired by Nazism but it's detached enough that it can still function as a more universal critique of obsession with racial purity and the destruction wracked by obsessive war or hatred. There's a huge difference between exploring an idea or subtly guiding your audience to think about a subject, and just bashing the exact message you want your audience to take away over their head until their head is wracked with blunt force trauma. I do have a theory for why this is but honestly its kind of crackpot.
God. I love you. You did it, I've been looking for someone to say this for MONTHS. Maybe if more people like you were out there, they would stop saying shit like "dOcToR wHo HaS aLwAyS bEeN pOlItIcAl"
@@billmilligan7272 Alright it's difficult to put this into words but bear with me because I'm going to try and articulate it as good as I can. It's no secret we live in very divisive times, I think no matter where anybody is politically we can all agree on that. I'm not here to start a political arguement, but I think a very unfortunate side effect of all this is that "escapism" has become something of a dirty word. There seems to be this unspoken rule nowadays that anything that embraces any form of escapism or tries to distance itself from the contemporary world is simply childish and naive at best, selfish and delusional at worst, and that anyone who enjoys this work is a selfish child who refuses to acknowledge the world's problems. The reason I bring all this up is because this mindset is not just detrimental to one's mental health (I'm sorry, but everybody needs a fucking break now and then, no matter who they are), it's flat out destructive towards the genre of speculative fiction as a whole. The fact is that no matter how hard you try to be "relevant" and "topical", speculative fiction requires a certain amount of escapism, even minimal ones. If you create a fictional setting, and then jam in contemporary attitudes and issues it shatters the illusion, and the audience suddenly becomes keenly aware of the stage and the curtains. Russell understood this, it's why I respect his era the most out of nuwho. He integrated his progressive themes in a way that wasn't intrusive or detrimental to the story and was internslly consistent. He didn't just have the Doctor go on a rant about capitalism like Moffat did (i must be the only person who didn't like series 10 very much) or insert a time traveling space racist from 5,000 years in the future who thinks the civil rights movement will magically disappear if he plays some pranks on Rosa Parks. That last example is a particularly detrimental one. These writers seriously expect me to believe that 5,000 years from now, in an advanced spacefaring civilization further removed from the Civil Rights movement then we are from the Roman Empire, that a psychotic 50's greaser is going develop contemporary views on race, become a white supremacist as we would understand it and hyperfixate on an individual who has been dead for thousands of years. Not only is that so ridiculous as to shatter the illusion but it's bleak as fuck, the idea that there is nothing else, that we as a species will never achiever anything else. That contemporary society with its ills and woes is all that we can ever be. Tell me, would New Earth or Gridlock be any better if the Doctor stopped, looked at the camera and gave a 10 minute lecture on the evils of the pharmaceutical industry? No because those episodes were smart enough (unlike oxygen) to take a step back, not treat the audience like drooling idiots, let the horror of the situatuin speak for itself. And a lot of people would probably call me a bigot for even saying this. And that's the problem. Nobody thinks anymore, everything is based off knee-jerk emotional reactions. And the people these companies hire all fall into this mindset. It's why Star Trek got dragged down from an optimistic speculation on what we could potentially become into a grim dark nonsensical mess. This has all led to a cascading effect I like to call "the death of nuance", it sounds hyperbolic I know, but I believe in it. Take my favourite game ever. Fallout New Vegas. New Vegas dealt with a lot of heavy subject matter, rape, imperialism, slavery, the collapse of human society, the nature of humanity, and in the process it explored a wide range of different cultures and ideologies. And it treated all of them with respect and nuance, even the ones we would consider deplorable like Caesar's Legion or the Great Khans are given understandable, realistic motivations. I don't than anybody at Obsidian was a devout Mormon but Joshua Graham's faith was treated with the amount of respect, reverance and depth that he would have done. The writers of that game made a concentrated effort to get inside the character's head and imagine how he would think. We will never get another New Vegas. We now live in an age where the Twitter mob considers any portrayal of amoral ideologies as anything other than cartoonish buffoons as an endorsement and a reflection on the character of the writer. Moral of the story here isn't "woke stuff bad" or "no politics", more just "can we please just destroy Twitter and reddit already they are a detriment to humanity." Mind you, Russell's return surprised me. I'm not holding my breath, but I am cautiously optimistic, which is more than I can say about Moffat or Chibnall's work in a very very long time.
The defense drones should've been introduced before the characters arrive in modern day. The companions learn of them throughout the 10 months, as we see scenes of them moving on/ Yaz losing herself in trying to find a way to contact the doctor. When she then finally shows up in graham's living room and they say 'daleks happened', they would've already been there for 10 months or so. They would've had to live in the pseudo police state for some time, without the doctor. When the daleks do turn evil, it's more of a shock to everyone in Britain, as they're not supposed to do that normally.
Why didn’t the P'ting didn't eat through the floor to escape? From Chiball's own script from Tsuranga : No Pting has ever been kept in captivity due to their ability to eat through any material that would incarcerate them. While strictly non-carnivorous, they devour all non-organic material.
@@____uncompetative he's died 1000s of times what's one more? Especially to establish his character to a new audience, instead of just being said he's immortal. Its such a boring option to pick.
@@____uncompetative Are you pretending to completely misunderstand my point as a joke, or are you serious? Imagine if a character's superpower was that they could fly, but they never once used that power, and instead just mentioned it?
Me and my family rewatched the season 4 two-part finale (Journeys End arc) on Christmas Day because it didn't feel like Christmas without Doctor Who. Even though we've seen these episodes a thousand times, we were still on the edge of our seats and our eyes were glued to the screen. The Daleks were actually scary and the characters drama was done well, not to mention the plot actually has repercussions on Characters like Donna and Rose, leaving us tearful as we sat goodbye to companions. Not to mention my mother usually falls asleep when we watch TV but she stayed up late with us to watch these episodes. Skip to new year's Day and we watch this episode. The Daleks are mediocre at best, making us laugh. The only time we tear up is when we laugh so hard at a scene or a character. My mother was asleep through half of it and when she woke up she asked what she missed and in all honesty, I couldn't remember anything important. Then, as the companions leave, we're actually cheering cus we never gave a shit about them in the first place! And also, as a person who wants to go on to be a writer, this episode left me frustrated as like you say, 'show don't tell' which are words I live by.
"I just want to feel something. *A N Y T H I N G*" It's offical, Stubagful has turned into season 6 Buffy No I don't know who / what Spike is in this analogy
"I was happy... Wherever I was... I was happy... At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time... didn't mean anything. Nothing had form. But I was still me, you know...? And I was warm. And I was loved. And I was finished. Complete... I-I don't understand theology or dimensions, any of it, really... But I think I was in heaven... And now I'm not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out... by my friends. Everything here is hard and bright and violent... Everything I feel, everything I touch... this is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that, knowing what I've lost..." -Buffy, on Hell
I did like the idea of the Dalek casings being used without an actual Dalek because then, what does the Doctor do? At that point it’s harmless and in a better story that could have been the story itself. Did we really need more than one Dalek when one could just alter the programming of all of them?
@@EditedAF987 exactly, the whole thing could have been something great but once again Chibs isn’t willing to go that route abs he’s packed the episode with too much already
WHEN YOU SWITCHED TO THE SHOW DONT TELL SCREEN I LITERALY SHOUTED "THATS EXACTLY IT". This episode had 2 main problems: tell dont show, and a seeming lack of stakes. multiple times throughout the show we were told things we couldve been shown. e.g 13 telling us outright that shes angry about the timeless child retcon, jack telling 13 hes been trying to get close to 13 for 19 years and more. And regarding the lack of stakes issue, each problem the team faced seemed to be solved entirely too fast and have zero consequences. for example, take the scene where the dalek creatures fall on yaz and Jack; the things drop on them and within about 2 minutes jack shot the daleks. when it played i legitimately said to my parents "what was the point of that scene?". similarly, 13 tells us she was in prison for a few decades.... but we see that for 5 minutes and just like that jack magically rescues her with no consequences to a legit jailbreak. And what about the security drone daleks? 13 tells us the bronze daleks will take care of it and just like that "we have exterminated the impurities" and all we see is a 6v6 deathmatch on the bristol suspension bridge. Just like you, i didnt hate the episode in the slightest in fact there were some good elements... but i just didnt care about anything that was happening and to me that is much more frustrating that an outright shite tv show. i just didnt care because there was no build up to make me emotionally invested in any scene of problem. i truly hope s13 can improve but tbh i doubt it
I think you should've also mentioned that the security drones are empty shells, and there's no action with them until the end. When obviously, that's not what it should've been, it should've been daleks from the beginning, infiltrating our society, and they are just allowed to be as brutal as they want, torment people for minor crimes, or even an assumption of a crime, it would be not only great way to characterize the daleks (obviously they detest the situation they're in, where they can't kill humans, so they will joyfully glad at these day to day situations where they can just enjoy themselves and cause suffering to the beings they view as inferior), but also a message about police brutality, how these people, with their own prejudices, are put in a position where they essentially have unlimited power, with limited consequences. Most of this episode could've been cut, and you could just begin the story with the police daleks already roaming the streets. The ending of Timeless Children is in fact perfect for that, cause it ends with out companions arriving on Earth, you have the perfect opportunity to drop them in this world, where this horrible advancement have been made, and they now have to undo it.
The only hook for me in this episode was seeing what this version of Jack had been up to since the last time we saw him, so I was thrilled when we didn't get anything.
8:07 tbh Jack got abandoned for 100 years by the Dr and got turned into a time immortal against his will so I wouldn't have been surprised if he told her to stop whining after only being left for 10 months. And Chris IS the one who kept writing him as a jerk in Torchwood (apart from CoE)
As far as I remember, she hasn't floated through the ari or fired lightning-bolts from her hands. Now _that's_ what I call proper Space Jesus stuff, and it was Davies wot did it.
Yeah, DW has gone from something I made time to watch on first broadcast, with family... to something I watch on iPlayer when I'm to tired to do anything useful.
@@ftumschk That wasn't just the doctor doing that though. That was the effects of the (effectively magic, I'll give you that) Archangel Network. The doctor also didn't fire any ebergy beams, that was the Master's Laser Screwdriver. If I've got the the wrong end of the stick, please notify. I'm not 100% sure if that's the scene you meant.
I think this should have been a two parter. Part one focuses on the companions investigating the rollout of the dalek security drones while the Doctor is completely absent and half the run time is devoted to her in prison. Part 1 ends with the companions effectively failing to stop the Daleks from being integrated into society but the hopeful note of the Doctor escaping the prison and we end on parallel shots of the Daleks becoming part of the UK society and the Tardis dematerializing on its way back home. Part 2 starts one year later. The doctor is late, very late. In that year the Daleks have become properly integrated as UK police and the companions are working to figure out how to deal with them without getting on the wrong side of the law which would draw the ire of the Daleks. The second part could look a little bit like the Dalek Invasion of Earth.
And the bronze daleks have 0 presence. They show up, kill other daleks, are removed immediately. I would argue that ending 20% was the worst part of the episode. It had no intruige and was so easy and boring
At least it's good by Chibnall's Doctor Who standards. Also I'll probably relisten to Blood of the Daleks and rewatch this to see the similarities... BTW, why does Blood of the Daleks end with the population of the planet go from being 'helped' by the Daleks to being 'helped' by the Cybermen on Telos?
@@jamesdunne8504 well it's also heavily implied that it is and the two planets are even in the same system. It probably depends on whether Blood of the Daleks takes place before or after the Cyberman series since the Telos story mentions that the planet got eviscerated by (I think) an asteroid. Why is it that stuff like that hard to fit into the chronology of the show? It would help if we got firm dates for stuff by at least a century.
This episode needed 15 more minutes to cover more of the doctor in prison, the companions trying to do things on their own and the impact of the drones.
I have watched a dozen or more reviews of this Doctor Who special and I have to say, this is the best of the lot. A nice, well reasoned critique of the programme. 👍
Don't forget the little break in the middle where he wrote dialog to the audience that we shouldn't be upset about the timeless child, bet he thought he was so clever
Basically spent the last few months binging your videos, watching the Chibnall time one multiple times, this is one of the only ones I’ve caught as it has come out which means there’s a chance you may see this, love the content, videos are brilliant, excited for this one
My problem with 13 is, I don't remember any scenes that stand out. I can't really remember episodes. I can remember her but not anything else. I can remember scenes from pretty much every doctor, including classic who. And I can remember episode plots. But with 13 I have none of that.
Honestly you could have had the Daleks be around for a while as you suggested, but to "Subvert expectations" (Sorry) It could actually turn out that the Daleks are really popular among the public for the decrease in crime, which actually creates a bit of an interesting dilemma for our need for safety and security vs what these drones can be used to cause. But by the time the enforcer squad arrives that concept is pretty much thrown out the window. It would kind of be similar to how humanity reacted to the ghosts in Army of Ghosts, and even that wasn't developed as much as it could have been
You could even stick some fun googly eyes on the Daleks or have the general public treat them like Beefeaters. Heck they could have been called DronyMcDroneFaces by the public and be one of those things we culturally love for being a bit silly before they turn on the humans.
Yes! So pleased to see this so soon. I love this channel more than I currently love Doctor Who. Great review as always. Need to split up with some of my current Patreons so I can divert some funds to this channel. I love all the Doctor Who stuff including Big Finish. I’m relatively new to the Big Finish scene so the reviews are really helpful. I also love the majority of random other shit you do. Personal favourite. “Newman & Badiel”. I was 16 in 1990 so I was the target audience for that immature comedy which hasn’t aged particularly well (bit like me really) 🙂
Man I wish I could've seen that 4-episode arc that you envisioned, it sounds like it could've been way more interesting that what we got.... And like you said, you could say that about a lot of Doctor Who in the recent years...
Tbh I preferred Resolution to this. Resolution was trying to do something different with the Dalek mutant idea and it felt like it built naturally. Aside from the Ryan’s dad stuff it’s a pretty good episode and doesn’t feel like “and then something else happened” which was what this episode offered over and over for 70 minutes.
While Jack maybe was dismissive of Yaz there...the problem is, that being negligent and emotionally unavailable IS what the Doctor is genuinely like; and because Jack has known the Doctor for longer than Yaz, (across multiple regenerations, no less) he would be ideally suited to giving her a facts of life speech about this. Companions feeling entitled with the Doctor is a guaranteed recipe for disappointment, because as far as the Doctor is concerned, it's all about her; and other people are really just there to gush about how awesome she is. I've noticed this with Thirteen even more than Twelve or Eleven. You can talk about how great she is and she will lap it up, but anything other than that will generally get disinterest at best, or anger at worst. Before the new people accuse me of attacking Thirteen specifically here, no, this isn't a problem that is unique to her. Most regenerations have had serious issues with aloofness to varying degrees; it's an integral part of who the Doctor is. I think part of it is an individual coping mechanism, and part of it seems to be a consistent God complex with Gallifreyans more or less in general. But it does seem to be a bit more pronounced and chronic in Thirteen's case, than some.
The reason I love your channel is because I’m able to fairly disagree with your opinion however I still find your opinions really well explained and you don’t hate it for the sake of hating it! In fact, you said you didn’t hate it! You make your criticisms fair and well explained and I respect that!
Someday, Stu. Someday you're going to make it big in the writing world bc you fookin deserve it. Ask Netflix if you can write a mini series for them or something
I agree with your review totally. It was watchable telly for he most part but really didn't do that much for me. I did like the part where the tech guy mentions he hooked up the Dalek to his systems briefly and then when you get to the facility in Osaka you see what it was able to achieve from just having access to a simple human network. It's a good way to make one Dalek feel threatening even when it's trapped in a lab. Of course then there's immediately a million Daleks and we forget about the whole thing...
I think that this should’ve been a two parter: First part: showing the doctor’s isolation in prison and how the companions are living without her and how the Daleks settle into modern society, ending with the Daleks starting to rise up Second part: the doctor being saved and stopping the new Daleks across the world and Trump stand in becoming their proper leader ( not having the bronze ones as they feel rushed to get a dalek civil war in there).
Another bog-standard Chibnal offering. Bear in mind that Tardises are living beings that The Doctor just murdered. I have seen more magnetism between blocks of literal wood than the"fam" & can see no reason Brad & Toisin would go off to fall of bicycles in Sheffield together. And these SAS of the Daleks all pile into the Tardis without any left outside. Difficult to imagine the actual British SAS getting caught out like that. (maybe Americans). Robertson is more like evey other Who villain who sells the Earth - usually to the Cybermen.
I feel the same way, I didn't hate it but the episode had a lot going for it if it just developed its ideas more, which as you say is a problem throughout the Chibnall era. How did you find the exits of Ryan and Graham? I thought it was okay but I just didn't really care that they were leaving especially as neither character really did anything in the episode or for most of the Chibnall era to even leave an impression on me.
You may or may not be amused to know theres actually an episode of Freinds where Rachael makes a trifle with shepherds pie as one of the layers because she misread a recipe book (she wants to do a genuine english meal but is clueless ofcourse so genuinely believes the trifle should have a layer of potato cos she knows no different) so it has literally been done for real in a sitcom. I agree with you about more interesting stories getting waylaid for the usual pattterns though, what disappointed me was how the Doc just comes back and says nothing about the fact Yaz was going nuts with all her workings out trying to track down where the Doc may be, surely the episode shouldve been the companions becoming detective to track down the doc and save her rather than Jack becoming a deus ex machina.
I don’t know if it was filmed pre-COVID, but it seem like it was several episodes, and Ryan and Graham were going to depart at the end of Hypothetical Series 13. But with 2020 resources, they couldn’t, so they Game-of-Thrones-Season-8-ed it into one special as if Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh’s contracts were up.
It hasn't always maintained the TARDISes are living creatures; far from it, the show has overwhelmingly shown them as the machines they self-evidently are. TARDISes may appear sentient because they have Artificial Intelligence and telepathic circuits, but AI and mind-machine interfaces aren't the same as being alive in any literal sense. Yes, we have The Doctor's Wife, but even that can be seen allegorically.
I think I will remember only prison from this episode, as it seemed really interesting. And yes, it would be cool if they have the whole episode with it :)
I feel the same way, my main takeaway after watching this special was that there were some interesting ideas, but there were a lot of them and they seem to all only get about 5 minutes worth of exploration of them Also I don't understand how it's the Doctor's fault that she got imprisoned and then the TARDIS screwed up, I don't get why that should be a catalyst for the companions getting so angry about the Doctor's negligence
I loved Revolution! I wasn't at all expecting a political satire, Chibnall doesn't write those, so was pretty pleased when the episode turned out to be a pretty fun dalek romp with some set up for the next series' arc.
Your last point about not remembering things a week from now made me realise that I don’t think I’ve rewatched a single episode from the Chibnall era so far... I think pretty much every other episode I’ve seen, I’ve watched a minimum of three times...
Honestly, I loved it! Didn´t take too long for me to pick these words, but this episode managed to do so many things for me successfully, about which I was complaining up until this point. Most impressive feat: I finally started accepting and liking (? weird!) 13 as a character! I can finally say "she´s THE Doctor" without questioning it! But other than that, this had still lots of stuff to love, cinematography and music gorgeous, stellar acting at parts, humour in places where it fit, an overall decent script, a wholesome companion departure and Captain Jack "m-fing" Harkness! Easily the best episode of the Chibnall era for me so far, but of course it´s still a long way from being able to actually top the most brilliant stuff like Heaven Sent or A Good Man Goes To War.... I´ve actually developed a soft spot for The Return of Doctor Mysterio and even Hell Bent over time, they have now actually become my #1 and #2 all time favourite episodes....
This video's description of the episode tells me that Charlie Brooker would have done a better job writing all of this. These are all things he's written better on Black Mirror.
Tell you who would have been better instead of the random tech guy who gets possessed by the Dalek Mutant? Daniel Barton. Think about it. He owns a large tech company that he could use to distribute the Daleks, and it would make sense for him to clone Dalek DNA having toiled with aliens before hand. But to be honest there are loads of missed opportunities in this story. Perhaps we could see through Ryans dad, Yaz's family, Ryans friend and Grahams bus friends how the Daleks effects normal society. Perhaps it could be a 2 parter, the first much more like Alien with the face hugger subtle horror social commentary type stuff, and the second part being more like Aliens, a big battle between both Dalek sides. Perhaps Jodie could escape prison because she uses the monsters around her e.g. the Pting eating a security camera. etc etc Perhaps Graham or Ryan could have died and added to a decision for either to leave the TARDIS. Perhaps Jodie could have an episode in the prison slowly going mad, talking to different versions of herself like Captain Jack sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean Worlds end. Perhaps the Defence drones are packaged like the Portal turrets in Styrofoam. Perhaps we could have had a scene where Jodie and the gang wonder the streets, seeing Daleks perched at every corner, one being unpacked from a box to a new customer, one leading a little kid to school, one stationed inside a bar etc.
I was a bit irritated by the tech guy. Not as a person - the actor did a good job, but he was way too young to be cast as an accomplished robotic engineer. Even less credibly, he was _also_ a biologist skilled enough to clone an alien being. There should have been two characters, and they should have had older actors playing them.
@@ftumschk We've had other child geniuses in the show before, Adam Mitchell and Luke Rattigan come to mind. I think writers just like to make the point that knowledge and youth isn't always better, it's a bit of a trope. I agree that Leo's role could have gone to Daniel Barton - the tech mogul from Spyfall - and would have been a brilliant way to worldbuild and a great, ironic way to wrap up his story (for him to be the one taken control of, and become a vehicle for someone else's whims).
@@anealingfeeling5356 I did't find Adam or Luke particularly convincing, either. To be fair to the character of Leo Rugazzi, I don't think he was meant to be a child genius, and was played by a slightly older actor. However, he wasn't so old that he could feasibly have become an expert in robotic design/engineering AND biological engineering too. I can only suspend my disbelief so far :)
I mean I enjoyed it but I had very low expectations. It doesn't go as far with this premise as it could and should but I was kinda worried if it did it would just kinda end up recreating the events of this year. Don't know if it was good or bad timing that it came out after this last year, cause it's incredibly relevant but a also really sore subject matter.
I was looking forward to your review. I'm afraid I'm one of those pesky people who think that the Timeless Child was a reprehensible canon destroying piece of crap, but I'd kind of logged out by then anyway. That said ... I was at home of course on new year's day (not being able to work like most of last year), so I thought I'd try to watch Revolution with an open mind and not think too much about how I feel about the Chib experience in general. I totally agree with you that this would have been much better if they'd done even two episodes. I got nothing out of the prison bit at all. Plus, I just don't feel like i'm invested in any of the characters to care enough about what happened at the end. In effect we're just told that ten months has gone by, but there's no sense of that at all. The show and tell thing was on my mind all throughout. On a side note, to just have her in prison for all those years, and for Jack to just turn up like that, seemed like such a cop out. And if I'm buying in to all this representation stuff, it would have been so much better if she could have broken out of there on her own, and like you say, with some kind of journey leading up to that point, so we could have felt the desperation and then shared the victory. SO leaving asside my feelings about the pandering and the social justice schtick or whatever, the whole thing just felt rushed and I couldn't bring myself to care much about any of it. I still say, that although I was kind of against a femail Doctor, all of this could have worked if it wasn't for this terrible writing. And the dialogue. God the dialogue!
After watching this I started watching the War Games and had more fun with that story than I did with this, even as a person who grew up in the early 2000s so my tv sensibilities are skewed more modern.
Excellent analysis, you put into words exactly why I felt dissatisfied with the episode. I’d much rather have shorter episodes but more of them, letting a story play out across multiple well-paced parts. Even the classic era’s 25-minute episodes usually managed to have a set of memorable supporting characters to make you care about the outcome of the big plastic monster invasion.
Still think this should of been a two parter with the black daleks taking over the world slowly (should of been Ryan and his friends as the view point) and prison break out over the first parter. Then have the doctor and Jack turn up at the end of it have have the resistance start up in the second part ending with a few bronze scouting and with a mini civil war
I think I watch it in the vain hope that it will get better. I have done this since Troughton took over from Hartnell. Yes, I have watched every episode since 23rd November 1963.
