Doctor Who: TVNZ Pursues A Wider Audience With Exciting Dalek Special

REVIEW: Having pulled the latest season off its Friday primetime on TVNZ2 after just a couple of episodes, the state broadcaster has devised a new strategy to Doctor who Return.

Clearly “Chasing” the fanbase of the most prominent supporting actor, tonight’s holiday special (Saturday) Dalek Revolution airs at 7 pm on TVNZ1, before being available to broadcast on TVNZ OnDemand.

Picking up the action after the events and reveals of season 12 closer The timeless children, showrunner Chris Chibnall’s (Wide church) The story initially centers on The Doctor’s (Jodie Whittaker) teammates Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole), Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) and Graeme O’Brien (the previously alluded to Bradley Walsh).

It has been 10 months since the Doctor sent them back to Earth in their own Tardis and they are beginning to lose hope of ever seeing her again. While “Yazz” won’t give up on her just yet, the other two are convinced that they should start thinking about moving on with their lives. They also know that they must do the Doctor’s work in his absence. So when images of the government’s new “security drones” are leaked, alarms go off, especially since they look terribly like “the most evil killing machine in the galaxy.”

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Later, his investigations uncover another link to one of his past adventures, American businessman Jack Robertson (Chris North), whose luxury hotel was infested with genetically modified spiders. In alliance with an ambitious politician, he is the man behind the deployment, but he assures our trio that his “solution to civil unrest” is completely robotic. However, not even he knows that one of his employees could not resist cloning the fragment of organic material he found in the stolen and burned shell that inspired his creation.

One of the best decisions Chibnall has made during his time in the hot seat of this BBC staple was to ditch the Christmas-themed episode. For more than a decade, the various modern incarnations of the Doctor had to endure snow-covered, tinsel-adorned tales to make it a suitable festive dish. Changing the special from the holiday season to New Years has allowed Chibnall and his writers the freedom to take whatever tangent they want. And who doesn’t want to see everyone’s favorite Whoviano nemesis, the Daleks, ruling the streets of London once again?

Admittedly, there is definitely a sense of deja vu about the conceit and especially the solution, but it all bubbles up nicely before building a properly explosive ending.

As it has been promoted a lot, this is a story of two Jacks. The slimy Robertson of Noth and the revitalized Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). Both have their moments in the limelight, with the latter lending a particular shine to Walsh’s “Silver Fox” Graeme. However, with now four companions, the Tardis feels a bit crowded and each character struggles to really make an individual impression.

That includes “13” herself, who is clearly still struggling with her new backstory and feels like a comic relief to the main narrative here at times. That said, Whittaker still proves what an excellent choice he was, infusing his incarnation with nuance and complexity that others haven’t always possessed.

Fans of the original series can still struggle with overloaded soundtracks and excessive use of slo-mos, but as Doctor who continues to evolve, this special shows that there is still a lot of life on the show that is now 57 years old.

Doctor who: Dalek Revolution debuts tonight (Saturday) at 7pm on TVNZ1, before being available to broadcast on TVNZ OnDemand.