The Savages Animated

The Savages will be the next missing adventure to be animated. Release date according to online retailers, in the UK at least, is March 24th.

This is one that has no surviving episodes, and there aren't even any decent clips, and early fandom dismissed it due to its lack of monsters. Let's see if a positive re-evaluation takes place, though no doubt many will take issue with the very basic animation style we've come to expect from the official releases.

What's Wrong With... Terminus

Apparently we aren't supposed to call him the Black Guardian anymore - he's the one of Darkness and Chaos as opposed to Light and Order.

Whatever he's called, he doesn't seem to have a clear plan for the Doctor, other that to destroy him. Last time, he seemed content just for Turlough to bash his brains in with a rock, but then he wants the Doctor to suffer before he's destroyed. 

Turlough must surely realise that the Doctor is one of the good guys, and that the Guardian is a figure of pure evil - so why does he trust him to rescue him when the TARDIS breaks up. Destroying a thing you are travelling in whilst still on it is surely going to make the boy think twice about going ahead with the sabotage.

Why is Turlough given Adric's bedroom when the TARDIS must have loads of empty ones? Why is Tegan so blasé about her dead friend's belongings being disposed of by someone she doesn't like?

Going back to last time again, I asked what was going on in the Doctor's mind regarding Turlough. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, we could say that he knows exactly that there's some mystery to solve with him, and his actions are suspicious. But if that is the case, why would he leave him alone in the console room for so long? The alternative is that the Doctor is a bit of a gullible idiot to be taken in by him. He's ignoring the opinions of his companions as well. Tegan is warning against Turlough every five minutes, and even Nyssa - the one whose opinion he values the most - is only reserving judgement for the time-being.

It's very confusing what is going on with the Lazars. The Vanir don't seem to know about the transport ship, so how do they think the Lazars get there? Olvir says the illness is incurable, but we're told that lots of people do return cured - or at least think they've been cured.

Nyssa thinks that the company won't retaliate as people are scared of the disease - yet there is a known cure. And what's to stop the company retaliating without putting soldiers on Terminus. They could simply blow it up and write it off for tax purposes, or send in robots. We've seen that they have such things at this time in this region of space.

Are the Vanir - supposed warriors - really going to stick around and act as nurses once they get a source of synthetic hydromel?

Lazar's Disease is clearly based on leprosy, so the programme was quite rightly criticised for depicting this as teatime entertainment and demonstrated ignorance of the subject.

The writer / script editor haven't structured this story very well - despite the reported interventions of the latter in the writing process. Tegan and Turlough - who's the new companion, remember - have nothing to do for much of the story, and have to be parked in an airduct for a significant part of the running time.

Whilst there Turlough is ordered to press a few buttons. How can doing this, on a converted space-liner docked with Terminus, cause the engines on the station to overload? How can they possibly be connected? The way this is edited is a little confusing.

The engines are shut down, but surely the danger still remains? What's to stop a malfunction occurring five minutes after the Doctor leaves? We ought to have seen the Doctor fix things so that there would be no possible danger of such an event happening again. Why not shift the station somewhere that it can't do much damage?

We're told how the universe was created by an earlier accident, but how can some exploding fuel possibly create a universe-destroying event under Terminus' current circumstances? The conditions are totally  different now.

When the company which runs Terminus took over, did no-one bother to have a look round and notice a giant dead astronaut in one of the control rooms? Did they not think of fixing the engines themselves, or were they happy to have a money-making business blow up at any minute?

Actually, where exactly is the money-making opportunity in this set-up?

Kari and Olvir are set up as highly trained pirates, but Olvir comes on a mission with a gun whose power pack runs out after a single shot.

And who ever thought that the Garm was an acceptable costume to be seen clearly on screen, rather hidden in shadows with only glowing eyes showing, as the writer intended?

O is for... Optera

A race of subterranean creatures encountered by the Doctor's companion Ian Chesterton on the planet Vortis. He and a Menoptra friend named Vrestin stumbled into their domain after falling down a crevasse, where they were captured by the grub-like creatures. They feared the world above, having lived below ground for generations, and they were going to sacrifice their captives by throwing them into a pit of fire. However, Vrestin recognised their origins. They had once been like her, but had retreated underground in the past and devolved into their present form - losing the power of flight and developing extra limbs for burrowing. They also made use of broken stalactites and stalagmites as tools and weapons.

They still recalled their former existence by making the Menoptra their gods, and when Vrestin spread her wings they recognised her as one of these.

Their leader Hetra explained that the acid pools used by the Animus to feed its Carsenome would leak down into their world, endangering them. When Ian and Vrestin explained that they sought to destroy the creature which they called "Pwodarauk", they agreed to help - taking them to a cavern directly below the Carsenome from which they could launch and attack. On the way, they encountered an acid leak, and one of their number - Nemini - sacrificed herself to block it by pushing her body into the crevice.

After the Animus had been destroyed, the Optera were encouraged to return to the surface, where future generations might have the power of flight once more.

Played by: Ian Thompson (Hetra), Barbara Joss (Nemini). Appearances: The Web Planet (1965).

• Thompson had previously appeared as the Aridian Malsan in The Chase, also directed by Richard Martin.
• Joss had featured in the same Dalek story, as Maureen O'Brien's double on the location filming for the Aridius scenes.
• The Optera did not feature in Bill Strutton's original scripts. They were created by Martin and story editor Dennis Spooner as they felt that the latter half of the story lacked incident.

O is for... Ood

The Ood originate on a world known as the Ood-Sphere, which lies in the same region of space as the Sense-Sphere, home to the Sensorites. The two species may well be related, both having some telepathic abilities.

In appearance they were bipedal, with large domes heads and a mass of facial tendrils covering the lower part of the face. From this emerges a white plastic globe - an artificial device which allows them to speak, lighting up as it does so. They speak in a calm, level voice. Like the Sensorites, they are all physically identical.

The Doctor first encountered them when the TARDIS materialised in Sanctuary Base 6, which had been constructed on a hostile planet in perpetual orbit on the edge of a Black Hole. The Ood were being used as servitors for the human crew stationed there - come to investigate a power source located deep within the planet. Their telepathic field was continually monitored.

Buried there was an ancient evil known as "The Beast" which exploited that telepathic field. It was able to possess them and turn them against their human masters - utilising their speech globes to kill by electrocution. Their eyes glowed red when taken over. The Ood could be stunned with a psychic shock, though only for a short time.

The Beast planned to use the creatures to scare the humans into fleeing the planet - carrying it with them as it had possessed the body of one of the crewmen.

The Ood were left trapped in the base as the planet fell into the Black Hole.

The Doctor regretted not being able to save the Ood, and some time later the TARDIS brought him and Donna Noble to the Ood-Sphere itself. There they learned that the Ood were basically a slave race, exploited by humans. Many years before, Earth explorers had visited the planet and found its inhabitants to be a benign but extremely docile people. Natural-born Ood had a second, hind, brain, which they held in their hands. This made them particularly vulnerable and trusting, and a man named Halpen discovered that they acted as a form of gestalt, their society organised through its mental link with a gigantic brain which was located in an ice cavern beside their settlement. With this isolated from them, the Ood would be leaderless and malleable - the perfect slave race. Halpen had the great brain sealed up in a subterranean bunker and ringed with an electromagnetic field, which cut its telepathic link with the Ood.

The Doctor and Donna had arrived on the Ood-Sphere during a period in which Ood across Earth's empire were beginning to turn on their owners - using their communications spheres as weapons. The condition was known as "Red Eye", as the affected Ood's eyes turned bright red. 

 

Ood Operations was now being run by Halpen's descendant Klineman. He was constantly tended by an Ood servant designated "Sigma". A growing number of people were coming to the realisation that the creatures were being exploited as slaves, and a militant group calling themselves the Friends of the Ood decided to do something about this. Working on the Ood-Sphere was a Dr Ryder, who was supposed to be helping find a cure to the Red Eye illness. He was actually a member of the militant group and had secretly been reducing the strength of the electromagnetic field - enough for the giant brain to make a link with the Ood but not enough to be noticed by Halpen's people. When he found out, Halpen killed him. A full-scale revolt broke out. Ood Sigma had been providing Halpen with a hair tonic, but this was laced with Ood genetic material - and the ruthless businessman who had exploited the creatures for so long was suddenly transformed into one himself.

Ood Operations was closed down and the Ood were permitted to return home from across the empire. Before they left, Ood Sigma appeared to foretell the futures which lay in store for both the Doctor and Donna.

The Doctor later attempted to alter the course of history by saving the life of a significant figure who was supposed to die. However, Time corrected itself and she died by her own hand instead, and the Doctor was then confronted by an image of Ood Sigma - which he took to be a sign that his current incarnation was soon to die. He wilfully avoided responding to the vision, which he knew to be a mental projection channelled back through time. By the time he returned to the Ood-Sphere, he realised his error in delaying as the Ood had been trying to warn him about the return of the Master and a threat to Time itself. The Doctor had known that something was wrong when he saw how advanced the Ood civilisation had become in just 100 years, as well as Sigma's ability to mentally project himself through time. Sigma took him to a cave system in which the Ood Elder showed him a vision of the Master's movements back in 2009. This Elder had a larger, brain-like cranium and wore a distinctive white robe.

After defeating the Master and preventing the Time Lord President Rassilon from destroying Time to escape the Time War, Sigma appeared once more to the Doctor - on the Powell Estate on New Year's Eve 2004 - to signify that it was time for him to regenerate.

In his next incarnation, the Doctor met an Ood known as Nephew, which acted as a servant to an entity called House - which inhabited the inside of a planetoid in a bubble universe. House fed on the energy of TARDISes, and used Nephew to assist with the transfer of their matrices - the sentient part of them - into short-lived biological shells. Later, when House hijacked the Doctor's TARDIS to enter the prime universe in search of other TARDISes to feast on, he sent Nephew to kill Amy and Rory who were trapped onboard. Whilst possessed by House, Nephew's eyes glowed a sickly green. Nephew was destroyed when the Doctor landed a makeshift TARDIS on the spot where he was standing.

After Amy and Rory had stopped travelling with the Doctor on a full-time basis, they awoke one morning to discover an Ood in their home. They had been visited the night before by the Doctor, who had been taking this Ood home after rescuing it from the Androvax Conflict. However, it had managed to leave the TARDIS. The couple found it extremely willing to help around the house whilst they endeavoured to get the Doctor back to collect it. Both enjoyed its help but were concerned that they were exploiting its subservient nature. The Doctor did turn up eventually and took it home to the Ood-Sphere. 

On another occasion, the Eleventh Doctor had taken Albert Einstein on a trip in the TARDIS, and the scientist had temporarily been transformed into an Ood.

When the Doctor, in their thirteenth incarnation, was captured by Weeping Angels who were working for the shadowy Gallifreyan organisation known as the Division, she found herself in a huge space station which was slowly passing through a void between two universes. The only beings on board were Tecteun - the Doctor's foster parent and leader of the Division - and her Ood servant. Tecteun was busily destroying the universe with the anti-matter force called the Flux, and the Doctor was able to get this Ood on her side when she pointed out to it that all of its own kind would perish due to the Flux. It then helped her escape.

Ood are widely travelled creatures, and have also been seen in a variety of locations, such as the Maldovarium trading post.

Played by: Paul Kasey (Sigma), Simon Carew (Division Ood), Ruari Mears (Ood Elder). 

Voiced by: Silas Carson, Brian Cox (Ood Elder).

Principal appearances: The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit (2006), Planet of the Ood (2008), The End of Time (2009), Pond Life (2012), Survivors of the Flux, The Vanquishers (2021).

• Ood have appeared as background characters in a number of episodes, including The Magician's Apprentice and Face The Raven. Ood Sigma first appears as a projection to the Tenth Doctor at the conclusion of The Waters of Mars.
• Images of them have been seen in The God Complex and Time Heist amongst others.
• The creatures' very first appearance was in the Tardisode short for the eighth episode of Series 2.
• Russell T Davies originally intended The Impossible Planet to include Slitheen as the base's servitors, but then decided on creating a new alien instead.
• They were inspired by the Sensorites, which is why he later had their planets in the same region of space. Identical in dress and appearance, they have large domed heads, are partially telepathic, and the Ood have tendrils where the Sensorites have beards.
• Davies regretted killing the Ood at the end of The Satan Pit, and of not exploring their subservient nature, so decided on a sequel which could look into this more fully.
• Einstein - played by Nickolas Grace - is turned into an Ood in a piece called Death is the Only Answer, which was the winning entry in a writing competition for schools, organised by Doctor Who Confidential.

Episode 143: The Highlanders (3)

Synopsis:

As they are rowed out to the Annabelle, Ben, Jamie and McLaren see a corpse being dumped overboard - and Trask threatens that this is the only way out for them...

The prisoners are forced below decks to a cramped hold where there are already several other captives. McLaren recognises one of them - a man named Willy MacKay. He is the true master of the Annabelle, but his ship has been stolen from him by Trask, his treacherous First Mate. MacKay had been smuggling guns for the Jacobites when captured by Government forces, and Trask had switched sides to avoid arrest.

He is initially suspicious of Ben, being English, but the others vouch for him. It is Ben who works out that they are going to be sold as slave labour.

Polly and Kirsty approach Inverness, where they decide to pose as orange sellers. They seek out Lt. Ffinch to help them, and find him at the Sea Eagle Inn. His sergeant suspects the women are the ones they were hunting the day before, but Ffinch is easily blackmailed by them and he insists they are old friends. 

They are being observed by an old woman, sitting at a nearby table.

Solicitor Grey is on the Annabelle addressing the prisoners. He informs them that they will all be pardoned if they sign a contract, offering them transportation to the West Indies and work on the plantations there for a period of seven years. The alternative is that they will be hanged as rebels.

MacKay warns everyone that he has witnessed conditions on these plantations, and warns them not to sign.

He refuses to do so, as do Ben, Jamie and McLaren.

Ben then asks to read the contract before he thinks of signing one. When Grey hands them to him, he tears them up. Trask orders him taken away and chained up.

Polly sees Grey's clerk Perkins and starts toying with him to gain information about her friends.

The old woman joins them, offering to play cards. Polly discovers that this is the disguised Doctor.

Grey arrives, but fails to recognise the Doctor. He leaves with Polly and Kirsty, instructing Perkins not to set foot outside the inn for the next ten minutes or he will shoot him dead.

The Doctor takes the women to a nearby barn, where he reveals that his pistol wasn't loaded. As an old woman he has been able to move about and gather information from the Redcoats, and tells them that their friends are being held on the ship. Polly suggests a plan to rescue them, but the Doctor thinks that they should capture the whole ship instead, then they could get everyone to safety in France.

They will need weapons, and Kirsty knows that the Redcoats will sell anything for a little money.

Whilst Polly wants immediate action, the Doctor then falls asleep.

Grey returns to the Annabelle with new copies of the contracts. He decides with Trask that Ben should be made an example of, to discourage the others from refusing to sign. 

The Doctor, Polly and Kirsty have managed to scrape together a few weapons, but hardly enough for their plan to seize the ship. Polly then discovers that Kirsty has been concealing a gold ring which they could have sold. She did not want to part with it as it belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie, who had presented it to her father. The Doctor convinces her that it should be used to help save the Prince's supporters.

In the harbour, Ben is brought up on deck and has a rope tied around his waist. He is hauled up into the air, then dropped down into the murky waters of the dock...

Data:

Written by Gerry Davis & Elwyn Jones

Recorded: Saturday 17th December 1966 - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 31st December 1966

Ratings: 7.4 million / AI 46

Designer: Geoffrey Kirkland

Director: Hugh David

Additional cast: Andrew Downie (Willy MacKay)

Critique:

The Highlanders is about as comedic as the Troughton era gets. (Some might think the next story the funniest - but that's more unintentionally funny). The Romans is often singled out for its humour, but not this fellow historical. Like the Hartnell story, the humour is very much juxtaposed against some terribly grim goings-on. The past was a dark and dangerous place.

The humour mainly comes from the star. After this story, the Troughton Doctor will be rapidly toned down. The Doctor is dressed as a little old woman for the entire episode, and seems to act erratically and impulsively. He once again runs rings around Perkins, but when Polly wants some action he simply yawns and falls asleep.

A comedy sequence in the inn, with the Doctor as the old woman, was cut late in the day, so the humour could have been even more overt. This scene would have entailed the Doctor trying to save his beer as he is being pushed around by some Redcoats and getting cross-eyed and dizzy, only to end with him knocking their head together.

Michael Elwyn continues to play Algernon Ffinch as a stereotypical upper class twit, having rings run round him by Polly and Kirsty.

Considering that she is often perceived as a typical screaming companion, it should be noted how proactive Polly is in this story. She takes the lead straight away her friends have been captured, arguing with Kirsty over her apparent helplessness.

It is Polly who spurs her to action and comes up with ideas such as blackmailing Ffinch and posing as orange sellers.

With this, Polly is recalling that famous 17th Century figure Nell Gwyn (1650 - 1689). A popular actress of the Restoration stage, she was best remembered as a mistress of King Charles II and is mentioned in the diaries of Samuel Pepys. Before her fame she had sold oranges at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.

Ben is also given plenty to do, on the eve of his character being side-lined by the arrival of Jamie. He tricks Grey into handing over the signed contracts which he then destroys, and later pays the price for this with a decent action sequence - more rigging-hanging than cliff-hanging.

Ben's tearing up of the contract was inspired by a similar scene in Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped.

Filming took place at Ealing on Wednesday 16th November, to record the cliff-hanger - Michael Craze not being required for the recording of the fifth instalment of The Power of the Daleks. Of the guest cast only Dallas Cavell and David Garth were needed.

Fight Arranger and stuntman Peter Diamond doubled for Craze in the climactic scene where Ben is lowered into the water, having also been the dead body dropped into the harbour at the cliff-hanger of the previous episode.

Rehearsals were cut short for the regulars as they had to do location filming on the next story - The Underwater Menace - in Dorset. This had also entailed them having to give up their day off.

Craze and Hines then missed a further day due to other filming at Ealing.

The opening titles for this episode were played over a shot of bubbles rising, as the reprise from the previous instalment was reduced significantly.

Both recording breaks involved Anneke Wills and Hannah Gordon - the first to allow them to change into their orange seller costumes, and the other to allow them to move, with Troughton, from the inn set to the barn one.

Wills suffered a fluff when she got Ffinch's name wrong. His full name was supposed to be given as 'Algernon Thomas Alfred Ffinch', but Wills got the Algernon and Alfred mixed up.

When Polly says that his disguise suits him, the Doctor replies by calling her a "saucy girl". This was an ad-lib by Troughton.

The closing titles mirrored the opening ones - played over a shot of bubbles rising to the surface.

Trivia:

• The ratings actually increase by around half a million viewers - no doubt due to the New Year's Eve timeslot. The appreciation figure remains stable. It varies by only a single point over the course of the entire story.
• The old woman named Mollie, seen in Episode 2, was supposed to feature in this episode as well, serving in the inn, but her role was given instead to an extra as it didn't require a dialogue part.
• Willy MacKay was originally going to be played by Russell Hunter. However, he had to withdraw late in the day when veteran actor Duncan Macrae fell ill and could not appear in a pantomime version of Treasure Island in Edinburgh. Hunter was called upon to take over, and so MacKay was recast with Downie taking the role. Hunter would eventually appear in Doctor Who a decade later, playing Uvanov in The Robots of Death.
• Downie would later feature in the film Soft Top, Hard Shoulder (1993) - written by and starring Peter Capaldi.

The Art of... The Highlanders

The Highlanders was novelised in 1984, with the hardback released in August and the paperback following in November. The artist is Nick Spender. He stated in an interview that he took a long time getting Frazer Hines' likeness just right, and also got a couple of friends to pose in Highland outfits and pretend to fight for the background figures. The image of Alexander McLaren is based on William Dysart. It was extremely unusual at this time in the run of novelisations for artists to be permitted to use actors' likenesses.

Spender based the TARDIS on a photo from The Masque of Mandragora - the same one he used on the cover for Doctor Who - The Aztecs.

The book has never reissued with a new cover.

The soundtrack was released in 2000 with the usual photomontage cover featuring some of the cast. The Troughton image derives from a publicity photo session for the following story. Jamie is seen only side on, so a much better image really ought to have been chosen. Not sure why they didn't just use the whole image of the Doctor and companions being threatened by Jamie and Alexander. Young McLaren is quite prominent on the cover, despite being killed off half way through the first episode.

Hines provided the linking narration.

The novelisation was released in audiobook format in April 2012, using Spender's artwork. The larger, squarer format allows us to see another Redcoat on the right.

This time the reader is Anneke Wills.

The soundtrack was recently re-released on translucent red and blue vinyl - in June 2024. Demon Records have opted to concentrate on the Battle of Culloden for an exciting, attention-grabbing cover - even though the conflict is over when we join the story and nothing is actually seen (or heard) of it. Misleading, but I doubt very much if any non-fans ever buy these releases.

The inner sleeves have Radio Times-style listings for the episodes printed on them.

Finally, with no animated DVD / Blu-ray release on the horizon, the movie database site has provided its own colour montage to illustrate this story. The three key guest artists, plus Jamie, are featured along with Troughton larking about with the Jacobite bonnet.

The story is one which many fans would like to see animated, but there are some obstacles. If you've seen what they do with the Doctor's checked trousers, then you'd realise that tartan would be very difficult to depict. The story also has a large number of sets and speaking characters - plus it's a historical - which might all work against it being an obvious choice for animation.

Story 298: Eve of the Daleks

In which the Doctor attempts to reboot the TARDIS, in order to overcome the damage caused by exposure to the Flux.

She plans to take Dan and Yaz on holiday whilst this takes place, as it will not be safe to remain inside the ship. However, instead of an exotic location they find themselves in the basement of a storage facility on the outskirts of Manchester. 

It is New Year's Eve, 2021, and the manager of the facility, Sarah, has been let down yet again by her colleague. There is only a single customer - Nick - who turns up at this time every year. He puts into storage items left behind from his many failed relationships.

The Doctor detects a temporal signal on an upper floor. Nick has just exited his unit when he is confronted by a Dalek, which exterminates him.

The Doctor and her companions arrive too late, and the Dalek has already gone down to the reception area where it kills Sarah. When the TARDIS trio arrive, they learn that the Daleks have upgraded weaponry. All three are exterminated...

It is New Year's Eve, 2021, and Sarah has found herself having to work the late shift at her storage facility  as her colleague has failed to turn up yet again. She has a single customer - Nick, who always comes tonight to drop off items left behind from his failed relationships.

The TARDIS materialises in the basement...

Time has jumped backwards, and the Doctor and her companions are aware that something has happened - a sense of deja vu. Then they recall finding Nick's body and rush to his unit.

He and Sarah have also registered that time has somehow slipped backwards, and Nick has left his floor before the Dalek turns up.

At reception, he discovers that the building is sealed by a forcefield. The Dalek appears and exterminates him.

Sarah has gone to an upper level to see if there is anything that might be used as a weapon in her colleague's unit.

The Dalek finds and kills her. It exterminates the Doctor and her companions once again, after pointing out that there has been a time malfunction which has reset the last few minutes.

The cycle begins again, though the Doctor spots that the clock has gone back by one minute less. They may be able to exploit the fact that they are aware of the time slippage but have slightly shorter each time in which to formulate a plan to break out of the loop. She is aware that the Daleks will be thinking along the same lines, however.

When next the five are exterminated, the Dalek reveals that the damaged TARDIS is the cause of this time slippage.

As each loop comes round, the Doctor and her companions, with Sarah and Nick come up with possible plans to avoid the Dalek and to arm themselves against it. At one point Dan pretends to be a customer, mistaking the Dalek for a robot employee, just to divert it from the Doctor's actions. This works for only a short period.

Sarah learns that Nick's regular visits are due to him having a crush on her. He thinks he has avoided the Dalek - only to be killed by a second one. The Daleks have adapted by increasing their numbers...

The Doctor discovers a hoard of potential weapons - fireworks. One of the Daleks tells her that they have despatched this death squad to kill her for her role in the destruction of their fleet by the Flux. She points out that she merely made use of the Sontaran scheme - but they kill her anyway.

Several more attempts are made to survive the trap, which all end with the extermination of the TARDIS crew and their new friends.

When the Doctor and her companions are next killed, they know that they will have to act in the next cycle, as after that time will have sorted itself and anything which takes place will be permanent.

They lure the Daleks down to the basement where the fireworks have been stored, bolstered by various highly flammable materials. The Doctor then uses her Sonic to give false life readings, so that the Daleks will think they are gathered there. They are instead about to flee through a gap in the forcefield.

The home-made bomb is detonated and the Daleks are destroyed as the entire building blows up.

Not far away, the blast is witnessed by Karl Wright - the young man who had been hunted by T'zim Sha a few years ago. He thinks it is all part of the New Year celebrations. Sarah and Nick decide to go travelling together, whilst the Doctor retrieves the rebooted TARDIS. She is now aware that Yaz has feelings for her...

Eve of the Daleks was written by Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on 1st January 2022. It is the first of a trip of Specials which will culminate in him and Jodie Whittaker leaving the series.

For a festive special it is very small scale, and that is all down to it being filmed at the tail end of the Covid pandemic, when the various restrictions had merely been loosened, but not dropped.

There are only two guest artists in studio / location, with a third appearing only on video calls. The setting also lends itself to a controllable environment.

Neither Russell T Davies nor Steven Moffat had looked to the Daleks for their festive specials except for the odd cameo - saving them for their standard series stories. RTD had argued that you cant's have Daleks without many deaths - and this wasn't the sort of thing families wanted on Christmas night. Even Terry Nation had delivered an entirely Dalek-free episode for The Feast of Steven, the Christmas instalment of the otherwise bloodthirsty The Daleks' Master Plan.

Chibnall clearly saw mass death and destruction at New Year as being more acceptable, as he delivered Dalek stories for all but one of his specials.

It's not as if any of the deaths actually matter in this year's story, as time keeps resetting and everyone survives anyway, and his earlier specials had often included a healthy dose of humour to lighten the mood.

The main inspiration is obvious. Dan even mutters something about Groundhog Day at one point, to describe their situation.

This hugely popular 1993 comedy, starring Bill Murray, sees a cynical TV weatherman stuck in a temporal loop, reliving each day as he visits a town which celebrates the titular event. It's not a pure time loop, as he gets the chance to change his ways, Scrooge-like, over the course of his experiences. If A Christmas Carol was one of its inspirations, then it also counts here. In the case of Eve of the Daleks, it is the relationship between Sarah and Nick - initially antagonistic on her part, with unspoken / unrequited love on his - which is the focus.

This is mirrored by the relationship between the Doctor and Yaz - the former seemingly oblivious to her companion's feelings, and Yaz in a similar situation to Nick. 

As a full length story it rather drags, thanks to its repetitive nature. It would have made a far more exciting half hour. The set-up is interesting, and the way in which the situation is resolved is interesting - but there's just too much of the same thing in between.

Another problem I have is the whole notion that Sarah would be working on New Year's Eve in that sort of setting. I've had a quick Google and there isn't a single one near me that is open 24/7, let alone on a major holiday.

Moffat's timey-wimey stories were blessed with invention, but this just doesn't have much.

That small guest cast comprises Irish comic actor Aisling Bea as Sarah. She's appeared in a few movies, but is better known for her appearances on comedy TV shows or stand-up.

Nick is Adjani Salmon, who is actually better known for his writing and directing. He wrote and starred in the BAFTA nominated Dreaming While Black. This began life as a webcast before being picked up by BBC Three.

In a cameo role, seen only on video calls, is Pauline McLynn, playing Mary - Sarah's mother. McLynn will forever be known as tea-pushing Mrs Doyle in C4's Father Ted.

One further cameo is the appearance at the climax of Jonny Dixon, playing Karl once again - the young man from The Woman Who Fell To Earth.

Overall, an okay story which seems popular with many fans, though I found it a little dull due to the aforementioned repetition. A few less time-loops would have suited me better.

Things you might like to know:

• This special was supposed to be a lot bigger and spectacular, linked very closely to the previous two Dalek festive stories - Resolution and Revolution of the Daleks - to form a proper "Reconnaissance Dalek Trilogy". Covid led to a radical rethink, shrinking the story down to what we see here.
• The subsequent Sea Devil story hadn't been planned when Chibnall first wrote this, and he had the ending link directly to The Power of the Doctor's opening scene.
• There is an in-joke when the Dalek tells Dan: "I am not Nick" - as Nick Briggs is, of course, providing their voices as usual.
• Another Nick - Pegg - is inside one of the Daleks. He had fallen foul of the series, and DWM, after leaving a very rude message aimed at both the magazine and the BBC in the crossword he compiled for the mag.
• Chibnall claimed this episode took only two weeks to write. Kinda shows, I'm afraid.
• The opening credits don't appear until 9m 10s in, which is a record for the programme.