Does anyone remember ‘Heaven Sent’, where the Doctor escaped a literally inescapable prison that was designed specifically for him?
Well apparently, that prison was nothing next to the one that River Song escaped from on a weekly basis.
But that’s by the by; there’s far worse things about this episode.
Starting at the beginning, having destroyed all of the continuity that was created by far more competent writers of the past, Chibnall has now even turned on his own past entries.
Last year he turned in a New Year’s Day special, which could be described as ‘not terrible.’ It wasn’t good, but at the very least it was superior to the usual drivel that he normally scrawls on the back of cigarette packet five minutes before a deadline.
Seemingly not content with having demonstrated something approaching competence 12 months ago, Chibnall now takes the opportunity to retrospectively lower the quality of his one passible script.
Once again the catalyst for the action is the Doctor’s incompetence; she apparently just left a Dalek shell to be picked up by anyone.
Keeping with this theme, no one on Earth remembers the multiple Dalek invasions; you know when they burst out of a void in Canary Warf and killed millions of people, and when they literally moved the whole planet to another quadrant of Space.
Anyway, this collective amnesia means that only the ‘fam’ recognise the Dalek’s when they see one, but can’t get any help from the Doctor who’s making zero effort to escape prison. Not to worry, Jack Harkness shows up to break her out.
This is the first major problem; the Doctor is entirely passive in her escape from prison. No other version of the character would just sit there and be in prison. This continues the theme of the Doctor as incompetent; if Jack could think of a way out, the Doctor should have been able to think of ten.
Anyway the Doctor then makes it back 10 months after her ‘fam’ to receive a shove and an angry pout from Yaz. Did I miss something? Is Yaz her jilted lover or something? Also, all the Doctor does is apologise for being away for 10 months, when from her perspective she’s been imprisoned for more than 20 years. There’s no reason that she couldn’t simply answer with this, but doesn’t seemingly for drama.
The most interesting dynamic between Clara and Twelve was that neither of them was ever willing to consider the other’s point of view. The dynamic between Thirteen and Yaz is that Thirteen just accepts whatever Yaz says as reasonable rather than ever standing up for herself. Call me old fashioned, but I think a protagonist who’s incapable of standing up for themself isn’t going to be convincing as a world ending super genius.
Anyway we move on to the Doctor lecturing the evil businessman about the dangers of messing with things he doesn’t understand. This is fine and in character, except it becomes pretty obvious that he isn’t doing that. The hipster who’s company he bought is doing that; but the Doctor lets him off, for…reasons.
The Doctor’s end game of pitting Dalek against Dalek is a quite literal deus ex machina.
Tosin Cole takes his performance to new lows, with wooden line delivery from start to finish. It’s clear that he doesn’t care about the role and it’s difficult to tell if he ever did. He and Bradley bow out in an incredibly forced scene, that rips off Noel Clarke’s exit while someone losing all it’s meaning.
John Barrowman does his best to salvage his parts of the script, but is undermined by Chibnall’s inability to show rather than tell. At one point Barrowman delivers Jack’s signature camp indignation at his efforts being ignored. It’s obvious that this comes out of Jack’s insecurity, but Chibnall has to have Yaz say it, to make sure that the audience doesn’t miss it. Barrowman turns in one of the only decent performances, but has his writer working against him.
Overall, this was a poor and typical entry from Chris Chibnall that lowers last year's special by association.
