Notes on - Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks

 

Revolution of the Daleks notes

 

A Long time ago far far away (nice copywrite dodge) 2019 Cheltenham

GCHQ - Is a reminder of Resolution really a great foot to start on?

367 minutes later is curiously speciric and almost certainly to make us immediately misread it and think a year later so we'll be (pleasently?) surprised to still be talking about Resolution

Depositary 23?

So what happened to the cretaure inside?  I can't even be bothered to go look.

Uncharacteristic moment of asking about the guys mum - took no time and told us a lot about both characters.  It's the opposite of the time usage in the rest of the first 45 mintues

Do tea roofies really work that fast?

The incidental musiv is quite good here

Nice tight shot verifying that the dalek shell is empty.  Good directing touch.

Jo patterson

Leo Rugazzi

Fuck sake, Chris Noth.  We want to remind people about Arachnids in the UK?

The American Mike Ashley?  Does that mean something?

So Jo's the secretary of technology, but has ambitions and sold out the dalek remains to Chris Noth to get a jump on cheak defense robots.  OK, I didn't need to see all that.

Weirdly violent 'simulation'.

I like the new dalek design.  It follows logically from having only seen the Resolution one.  Nice lines.  Kind of a penis-y helmet though.

Nice surprise that it's a water cannon and gas firer instead of dalek weapons.  That could have gone somewhere interesting.

Mr. Jack Robertson

A whole scene just to explain how Mr. Robertson has the plants to build new daleks fast.  This is such a waste of time.  9 minutes so far in what could have been two lines of dialogue later

79 Billion light years away

Who runs this prison?  Not the timelords, they're all dead.  So, who's fundingf it?  And the judoon?

Nice unstated internal logic with the neon icons guiding the day

Angela - weeping angel, bonnie and clyde - Ood and Sycorax, Tiny - a p'ting

They're deliberately invoking all the shitty episodes.

The Doctor reciting Harry Potter would have been a fun surprise, before JK went full TERF

They should have cut the whole first 12 minutes and started with a briefer version of the jail montage cut to the fam

Yaz is obsessively trying to figure things out and is living in the secondary TARDIS

Graham and Ryan finding the leaked Dalek footage is a good in to the story.

Jo Patterson played the whole getting Daleks free thing quite well.

Jack's initial assumption is that he's being mugged

*** What is this word you keep using?

Oh, Graham mentions needing the psychic paper early to pay off later.  Clever.

Why even start woth the Doctor in jail if it has no point in the plot.

She forgot the silence was there.

'Breakout Ball'.  Guardians of the galaxy did this so much better

Jack:  Hi

Doctor:  Have you had work done?

Jack:  You can talk.

There's just NO reason for the prison stuff to be in this episode

Jack:  I heard a rumor you were in here, so I committed a few crimes.  Well, maybe a lot of crimes.  Maybe more than I should have.

This escape is way too easy.  'You really want me to answer that is 'I'll explain later'

Biotech cloning and the machine tech are totally different disciplines.  Leo wouldn't have been capable of both.

This should start at minute 24

Leo's actions really are profoundly stupid.  And unbelievable for him to do alone.

They did a good job of making the new dalek mutants look just different enough

Leo has a spouse and kids, apparently.

7000 other offensives?  On whose authority?

The fam weren't allowed any time at all to investigate and prove they've grown beyone the Doctor, since she show's up beforethey have time to do anything but look at clippings.

I appreciate Yaz' reaction

Again, no real reason for her to be late.  Nothing to do with having been in prison, so even that wasn't a point.

Osaka Japan.  How fast can Leo really get there?  The fact that I'm wondering about that is a bad sign.

Did we need the cliffnotes version of why Jack's immortal?

Yaz' enthusiasm to work with Jack was cute.

Patterson's scheme is actually perfectly legitimate business, making drones for security.  Ethically drone surveillance is a question, but he's no more evil than, say, google.

The big questions going in - Can the fam fight Daleks alone?  Noipe, they don't need to bother

Can the Doctor escape prison?  Sure, here's a magic button after wasting twenty minutes.  This will undercut the point above

If they're always meant to be machines, why did he leave space inside

Jack:  You're getting much too excited about a bunch of 3-D printed shapes.

Two characters named Jack is a BAD decision

Why stop for a talk about Boeshane penninsula?  Or about Rose. SUCH A LAZY FANSERVICE SCRIPT

It's interesting the way The Doctor breaks Trans pronoun rules.

Yaz:  It felt cruel.  Like being shown something I can't have anymore.

So, this talk with Yaz and Captain Jack exists just to set up Yaz not leaving at the end

Yaz:  Are you feeling insecure?  Because you seem to need a lot of praise.

Jack:  ... ... Do I...?

The discovery by Yaz and Jack of the Dalek clone farm would have been awesome... if we hadn't just had it ruined by the same reveal to Leo five minutes ago.

We cut to Patterson already inside the TARDIS freaking out, totally missing the moment of reveal to him

Security in exchange for liberty COULD have been an interesting discussion in this episode.  But it's not.

The Doctor's apology is genuine and good, and it's good she doesn't try to excuse her delay on the prison.

Give them credit - they're giving themselves the space to set up each of the fam's reasoning for why they leave or stay.

Ryan:  We've known each other long enough now, I know when something's changed.

The Doctor:  Me too.

I suppose they had to take a moment to address how the doctor currently feels about the Timeless Child thing.

Ryan:  Things change.  All the time. And they should, cause they haveta.  Same with people.  Sometimes we get a bit scared, because new... can be a bit scary, right?

The Doctor:  New can be very scary.

It's funny that no one bothers to explain or reassure Patterson

Leo should just appear at this point.  That whole earlier scene should have been cut.

Jack:  You're feeding cloned dalek embryos liquified humans?

Dalek Leo:  Correct.

Patterson:  This is a PR disaster.

OK, I'll buy that clone Dalek could make design changes unnoticed

I really do like this new design.

The revolution shod SO have been Dalek Shells vs. Dalek Minds.

She should have found a way to turn the bodies against the minds.  There was NO reason to bring te other daleks into this this late in the game.

Chris Noth SHOULD NOT BE IN THIS

And now Patterson's 11th hour betrayal FOR NO REASON AND IN SPITE OF ALL LOGIC

What does Patterson hope to get out of this?

The cool new daleks were all but one destroyed off screen.  Great that we wasted the whole episode building up to them for no reason.

*** Can we stop there and pretend there's no bad news?

Yaz is undergoing Doctor seperation anxiety.

Patteron never has a second of regretting joining the Daleks before he just accepts rescue.

OK, Daleks flying en masse into the TARDIS is a fucking Awesome image!  And they'd properly set up the other TARDIS effectively so that the moment worked.

Do they think Patterson 'winning' is cute?

Gwen Cooper shoutout, because why the fuck not.

Loved Ryan's so are we hugging?  Amd how quickly Yaz said she was staying.  And Graham choosing Ryan over adventure

I only remember one really touching companion to companion goodbye before

Some REALLY nice callbacks to WOman who fell to Earth

The Doctor:  I could always use the TARDIS to go back.  Arrive an hour after you guys.  Change the timeline.  Then we'd have more time together.

Yaz:  (Quietly)  It's ok to be sad.

Going back to the bike riding was a good choice.  As was Ryan still not being able to do it.  And Ryna not letting it get to him this time.