Doctor Who review, 'Resolution': The Daleks return for a New Year's special that honours tradition

As a slightly cheesy reminder of what we love about ‘Doctor Who’, this is a New Year treat that more than delivers

And so the big twist at the conclusion of Chris Chibnall’s first stretch at the helm of Doctor Who is revealed to be the return of a familiar foe. The incoming show-runner had insisted his debut season would exclusively feature all-new monsters. But of course that doesn’t include the controversial New Year’s Day special (controversial because it isn’t on Christmas Day, as per Time Lord tradition).

Thus it is with a wink and a flourish that “Resolution” panders to audiences’s Whovian cravings, by serving up a seasonal Dalek as big bad in this 2019 one-off (Doctor Who proper won’t be back until 2020). Throw in some zippy shoot-outs and much zinging around the universe and it adds up to an enjoyably pulpy reprisal of Who’s Greatest Hits.

At the centre of the excitement is 13th Doctor Jodie Whittaker. With eyes wide and wearing an expression of delighted incredulousness, she’s in her element pinging across the dimensions battling the Dalek.

By the time she finally sorts him out, he has already caused considerable confusion by being mistaken for an everyday unmanned flying object (how absurd of Chibnall to posit that an unidentified drone could cause an entire country to shut down). Being properly nasty he goes on to disrupt Britain’s wi-fi signal and banishes Netflix. If that isn’t evil personified, what is?

This is no ordinary advocate of planet-wide “exxxxxtermination”, moreover. Back in days of yore, the villain had been removed from his iconic egg carton casing, chopped into three segments and scattered to the geographical winds.

Alas one of those pieces has ended up Sheffield, which as Doctor Who devotees have lately discovered, is the only place on Planet Earth where anything mildly interesting ever happens. A pair of romantically entangled archaeologists uncover the creature and, taking time out from making big gooey eyes (give it a rest, we’re all still hungover), accidentally allow the Dalek to reconstitute himself (technically it should be “itself” but this Dalek is definitely a bloke).

Quick as you like he’s plugged into the cortex of lady bone-digger Lin (Call the Midwife‘s Charlotte Ritchie) and is on a mission to enslave humanity.

Otherwise detained are the Doctor and gang, who bump into Ryan’s deadbeat dad (Daniel Adegboyega) back at Graham’s flat – setting the stage for an awkward reunion. The encounter also introduces what can only be described as Chekhov’s Microwave, with the cheap oven Aaron is flogging door-to-door proving useful in the final face-off with the Dalek.

There is a vague Brexit gag in there, too. The Doctor is stunned to learn the United Intelligence Taskforce has been suspended because of a falling out between the UK and its “international partners”. Ooooh, is that the cordite whiff of political commentary smuggled into child-friendly science fiction?

Perhaps. Either way it’s on to the more pressing task of stopping the Dalek, which has taken the obvious step of driving – via the possessed Lin – to a farmhouse in deepest Yorkshire.

There he bangs together a new Dalek shell in a scene that echoes the Doctor-makes-sonic-screwdriver sequence from the start of the series. Not it does the alien much good. With Aaron and Aaron’s magic microwave for back-up, the Doctor and her crew melt the Dalek’s casing and then blast the menace into an exploding star.

It’s all incredibly whizz bang, and a bit exhausting if you’re not in the mood (on New Year’s Day you very possibly aren’t). A shame, too, that Chibnall didn’t squeeze in more of the Game of Thrones-style hack and slash from the scene-setting flashback to the Dalek’s original defeat.

Yet as a slightly cheesy reminder of what we love about Doctor Who – i.e. the fact it gives us an intergalactic eccentric in a big flappy overcoat shouting at Daleks – this is a New Year treat that more than delivers. In honouring Whoivan tradition whilst also carving out its own territory it also augers well for Chibnall’s next tilt at Doctor Who – whenever that is.