What I've realised rewatching the 13th Doctor's era, after admittedly not giving it the full time of day at broadcast, is that my god it has pronounced ups and downs, its a rollercoaster. And nowhere is this as apparent to me going from Resolution into Spyfall. Resolution to me is a truly classic story, that allows the dalek(s) to be terrifyingly genius for the first time in such a long time. The dalek feels so real and gritty and creates true fear in me which is so hard to achieve using such a well known and used enemy as the daleks, because it feels so grounded in what is a believable and gripping plot.

I say this because Spyfall is the complete antithesis to everything that Resolution is. Part 1 isn't as criminal as part 2, but I could personally never enjoy a serial that is set up to be so cheesy and filled with overdone cliches without doing anything new with them really, not for me. But part 2 is where the plot becomes completely disparate and all over the place. We spend the time of the episode getting taken from time period to time period across history and after watching I'm not even sure why, except to save the dangling plot pieces that were thrown at us. It was all loosely held together by a thread by three very powerful enemies, at least two of which felt underutilised because of the need to throw as much extravagance into the plot for show. The tech CEO was a convincing villain, who really portrayed a coldness that was maybe my favourite part of the serial. The mysterious race from another universe and the master both honestly felt like they could've been left out to create a better story, we're left with 3 huge personalities as our villains that take up so much space without really clashing or being addressed in much of a meaningful way, their motivations, individually or as a mismatched alliance, never really explained. The Master especially honestly felt like he didn't have to be there, especially with no acknowledgement of the events of the Doctor Falls. It's the most unnuanced depiction of the Master in a long time which is a real shame after just having such a beautiful arc end with Missy, and we don't even know how they're supposed to fit together.

And then of course I take issue with Gallifrey being destroyed again so cheaply, apparently just because the Master had a tantrum, oopsie! The first time Gallifrey was seemingly gone in the time war it was a mythic event that defined the Doctor's character arc for series to come and was the ultimate sacrifice at the end of the greatest war known to time. Just awful for this episode to tack on at the end, "oh yeah by the way. Gallifrey's gone." Character work is far from this era's strong point, and such an extreme event will not be able to have justice done to it I fear. But I know there's more Resolutions to come, and after this showing I can't wait for an episode that will restore my faith.