For a Series which has prioritized character drama over SF concepts, it shouldn’t be a surprise that The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos offers a nice wrap-around for Series 11, as close to an arc as this Series got. But, and here’s where the Tour lets our biases show just a bit, Ranskoor unfairly suffers just a bit from the expectations episode finales for 10 previous Series and 13 years of nu-Who have wrought.
Bad Wolves, Torched Woods, Pandoricas, and Desert Diners have taught us fans all-too-well. And even though Series 11 had it’s own ethos and tone from the jump, there’s a certain apprehension about when, not if, events in Series 11 were about to get epic. And in relative terms Ranskoor was about as ‘big’ in story terms as Series 11 got, and its a perfectly good, linear tale.
Bradley Walsh was steely, and the rapport between Ryan and Graham had a nice payoff to the rapprochement that had been lightly weaved throughout Series 11, but that alone is not a story arc of the type with literal earth-shattering consequences. Just a nice end to a fine series.
The good news? We don’t have long to wait before we get a little more Jodie Whittaker. Then all we’ll have is time. Images and for The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos are now online.
