Written by Chris Chibnall
Directed by Lee Haven Jones
The Doctor: "Thanks for helping today. Won't be seeing you later."
Dalek: "You will not escape us, Doctor."
The Doctor: "Yes I will. Every time."
Following the events of that controversial finale, it seems that things really have changed for everyone and yet at the same time, maybe not changed enough. If you liked Resolution as a Dalek story but felt it was a bit too small scale, then you'll be happy that Revolution Of The Daleks is something far grander in the scheme of things.
The Dalek story definitely feels a lot bigger this time around. Instead of one simple Recon Dalek, we have an entire race of Security Drones, partially created by the clever Leo Rugazzi (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) at the behest of Jack Robertson (Chris Noth) and aspiring PM Jo Patterson (Dame Harriet Walter). Unfortunately for Leo, his curiosity led to these seemingly safe Security Drones becoming more like their true selves when he meddled around and created a whole new embryo.
Of course, this lead to some more possession acting, which was nicely done but unlike Lin in the previous Dalek story, Leo died here. It also didn't help that the Security Drones became mutated with liquified humans and in order to solve the problem of the Security Drones, the Doctor had to wangle in some actual Daleks to deal with the situations.
This also meant that in order to get rid of the Daleks, Jack, Ryan and Graham had to nuke their ship and the Doctor and Yaz had to lure them into the other TARDIS and have the latter collapse in on itself just to get rid of them for good. All round, that should sum things up here in terms of the actual threat of the episode.
As for the returns - I guess we should've see Jack Robertson coming back a mile off. This episode could've either humanised him or killed him off and there was definitely a moment where the latter seemed very likely. Ultimately it did neither and Robertson managed to come out of the situation looking like a hero. Yup, he's going to be a recurring pain for the Doctor at this point.
As for Captain Jack (John Barrowman) - I loved his earlier appearance in Fugitive Of The Judoon and I thought he was brilliant here. The quick way he got the Doctor out of her prison, their wonderful dynamic, his timely advice to Yaz on the nature of being a companion, which of course also led to the other big event of the episode.
It's been a while coming but this episode saw the exits of Graham and Ryan with both of them volunteering to leave the Doctor of their own accord. As exits go, it lacked a certain oomph and considering some new information that's come to light, Yaz won't have much longer with this Doctor either. Still though, I thought Ryan was actually used pretty well in this episode and I did like a certain callback with both him and Graham that ended the episode.
Speaking of Yaz, she was definitely the most affected by the Doctor's absence and definitely reacted the most emotionally towards it as well. There's been rumours that she might have feelings for the Doctor and this episode certainly didn't dissuade that. I personally would prefer if the show didn't go there with the Doctor and Yaz but a part of me wouldn't be surprised if the idea is at least raised next series.
- While in prison, the Doctor encountered a Weeping Angel, Ood, Sycorax, a Silent and of course, the Pting. John Barrowman also got his name in the opening credits.
- Nice references to Rose Tyler, Gwen Cooper, the Master and even better that Chibnall did not reference a certain real life event still going on at the moment.
- Interesting that the Doctor gave both Graham and Ryan psychic paper each. Seemingly odd too in a way.
- This episode was also made in 4K UHD if you really want to see it in a more snazzy way.
- A short scene added to the end of the episode, revealed that John Bishop will be joining the cast for Series 13 as new companion, Dan.
- Chronology: Ten months since the events of The Timeless Children.
Revolution Of The Daleks certainly delivered a better Dalek story, return for Jack but somewhat fumbled with the exits for Graham and Ryan. Still though, it's a strong episode and with next series only being eight episodes long, I do hope this episode will be a signifier of better quality next series, especially if those rumours are about to come to pass.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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