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The Battle For Billy Bollocks…, I mean, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, is the series finale for Doctor Who Series 11, and before The Doctor and the Scooby Doo gang appear, the episode begins with some otherworldy nonsense where, 3407 years ago, a being landed just as two of the inhabitants – from a race known as the Ux – throwing rocks up into the air for no apparent reason.
Ranskoor Av Kolos translates into “Disintegrator of the Soul”, which caused Bradley to comment: “Oh, another cheery one(!)”, and when this series first started, I had zero clue that he would turn out to be the best thing about it, when I thought he’d be the worst.
They meet Mark Addy from The Full Monty, and he can’t remember his name ever since he went outside and witnessed the battle to end all battles… which was all done off-camera. Bugger.
And who’s behind all the bad deeds? Tim Shaw from the first episode, The Woman Who Fell To Earth. Yes, amongst the dearth of ideas, it’s time to resurrect that old joke.
You see, this is why the Doctor should just kill all the baddies, not just let them whittle off back to their own time and place. Naturally, Bradley has revenge on his mind, but if he does bump him off, then the Doctor won’t allow him to travel alongside her any more, and if we’re stuck with just Yaz and Ryan, the ratings will plummet even more.
In this finale, there was a lot of pontificating, and a lot of explaining the plot – Hey, could you guess that Tim Shaw wanted revenge? Who knew?!
On the plus side, however, there was a bit of wandering around an old quarry, just like in the good ol’ days.
The problem with the Ux is that they think that since Tim Shaw is being seen to be The Creator, no-one should criticise his plan, and they should have faith in it… so it’s basically Christianity, aka believing in total rubbish in order not to have to face reality.
Meanwhile, the baddie doesn’t seem to have killed off all the space crew members he originally claimed, since Bradley and Ryan are left to free them out of stasis… until it transpires that he’s also like one of those moronic terrorists who want to kill everyone and don’t mind if it also kills themselves.
The whole time, it didn’t feel like Tim Shaw posed any sort of danger, and was just a man with his mask covered in Rice Krispies, and this was creating increased amounts of yawning.
“Yippee-Kay-Ay, robots”, from Bradley, wasn’t much of a chant and felt like yet more lazy writing from Chris Chibnall, as was the usual overuse of the sonic screwdriver, and if you hadn’t known this was the finale, you wouldn’t have guessed, since it felt very much like a mid-series episode, rather than a finale.
In the end (SPOILER ALERT), the way to disable Tim Shaw was to shoot him in the foot, the same thing the BBC did to itself by hiring Chris Chibnall to run this show.
Next time: It’s New Year’s Day, and The Doctor is seen telling whoever she’s addressing, “This place is protected by me and my mates this year, and every year”. Add to that the trailer proper which followed, and it feels like Doctor Who is saving it’s finale-style big bang for New Year… but who was she bleating at?
We never saw the enemy, but it’s been leaked that it’s… (in the spoiler bit below, because, y’know… Spoilers!)
And kudos to Ashley Bradbury on Facebook for this observation on the Doctor Who Page:
The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos is available on the BBC iPlayer.
You can also pre-order it on Blu-ray, Blu-ray Limited Edition Steelbook and DVD.
Individual episodes can be bought in HD and SD here.
Score: 2/10
Director: Jamie Childs
Producer: Nikki Wilson
Writer: Chris Chibnall
Executive Producers: Chris Chibnall, Matt Strevens
Music: Segun Akinola
Cast:
The Doctor: Jodie Whittaker
Graham O’Brien: Bradley Walsh
Ryan Sinclair: Tosin Cole
Yasmin Khan: Mandip Gill
Andinio: Phyllis Logan
Paltraki: Mark Addy
Delph: Percelle Ascott
Umsang: Jan Lee
Tim Shaw: Samuel Oatley
Previously on DVDfever:
December 2nd:
The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos is the tenth – and final – episode of Doctor Who Series 11. There’s nine distress signals emitting from the same planet, and Mark Addy from The Full Monty is stuck there. Can The Doctor & co. save Dave and solve everything in 50 minutes?
Maybe as well let the CGI frog, from episode 9, write it…
Synopsis: On the planet of Ranskoor Av Kolos, a battlefield, a conflict-scarred survivor, and a deadly reckoning await the Doctor, Ryan, Yaz and Graham.
Chris Chibnall returns to write the episode… (UGH!), and it’s directed by Jamie Childs, who also directed The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Demons of the Punjab, and It Takes You Away.
It Takes You Away is broadcast slightly earlier at 6.25pm on BBC1 next Sunday. It’s also just a mere 50 minutes, rather than an hour normally allotted to a finale… sometimes even longer!
And it looks like we’re off to another quarry!
Read our review for It Takes You Away.
Director: Jamie Childs
Producer: Nikki Wilson
Writer: Chris Chibnall
Executive Producers: Chris Chibnall, Matt Strevens
Music: Segun Akinola
Cast:
The Doctor: Jodie Whittaker
Graham O’Brien: Bradley Walsh
Ryan Sinclair: Tosin Cole
Yasmin Khan: Mandip Gill
Andinio: Phyllis Logan
Paltraki: Mark Addy
Delph: Percelle Ascott
Umsang: Jan Lee
Check out the brand new trailer below along with a look at what police officer Yasmin Khan has on file about the Morax from episode eight.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.