Story 300: The Power of the Doctor

In which the Doctor picks up a distress signal emanating from a spacecraft resembling a terrestrial bullet-train... 

The TARDIS is unable to materialise within the craft so it must hover above and the Doctor, Yaz and Dan must abseil down, wearing spacesuits. They come under attack by Cybermen, who have invaded the craft in search of a particular item of cargo. They are led by CyberMasters, previously created by the Master. Dan is almost killed when his visor cracks. The cargo proves to be what appears to be a small child, but the Doctor identifies it as a powerful sentient energy source known as a Qurunx. The Cybermen seize their prize and teleport away. Dan announces that he is leaving the TARDIS, having come so close to death. The Doctor takes him back to Liverpool, then she is confronted by a holographic message from a renegade Dalek. It claims to have turned its back on its own kind as they are a corruption of their original Kaled origins, and it warns of a plot to destroy the human race.

She then seeks out the Qurunx and traces the Cybermen to the year 1916. She is surprised to see that a new planet has appeared in close orbit to Earth. 

The TARDIS lands on this moon-like planetoid, and they discover that it has been artificially enhanced by the Cybermen. nearby is another TARDIS, also looking like a Police Box, which is connected to the planet - as is the Qurunx. It has been harnessed as a power source.

In St Petersburg, Russia, in 1916, the Master is posing as Rasputin. He hypnotises the Tsar's family into leaving the Winter Palace in his care.

On the CyberMoon, the Doctor and Yaz come under attack by Cybermen and CyberMasters and are forced to flee. Back in the TARDIS, they receive a summons from Kate Stewart of UNIT.

Arriving at UNIT's new central London HQ, the Doctor is reunited with former companions Tegan Jovanka and Ace. Ace had been investigating a number of paintings which had been altered to feature the Master's image, in his Rasputin guise, whilst Tegan had received a cryptic message from the Doctor's former self - a tiny Cyberman model.

Kate explains that a number of geophysicists have vanished, all experts in volcanoes. They trace the Master to a conference in Naples. The Doctor and Yaz travel there by TARDIS. He has killed the missing experts but is easily captured and brought to London where he is locked up.

meanwhile, a spaceship crashlands on the CyberMoon. Its pilot is the Doctor's friend Vinder, who had been tracking the Qurunx. He sees the Police Box nearby and assumes it is the Doctor's.

The Doctor then goes to meet the renegade Dalek - intrigued by what might link them with both the Master and the Cybermen.

The rendezvous proves to be a tunnel beneath an active volcano in Bolivia, South America. As the Doctor meets her contact, Yaz discovers that there are many Daleks close by, operating massive machinery.

At UNIT HQ Ace discovers that it was the Master who sent Tegan the tiny Cyberman figure. It is really a miniaturised Passenger form. It grows to full size and a cloned Ashad emerges with an army of Cybermen. He frees the Master as Ace, Tegan and UNIT battle the Cybermen.

In the volcano, the Doctor discovers that she has walked into a trap. The Daleks had allowed the renegade to bring her here so that they could capture her. The renegade is destroyed and she is ensnared within its empty casing before being transported to the Winter Palace in 1916.

There she learns that the "Rasputin" Master intends to carry out a forced regeneration, using the power of the CyberMoon. He will become her.

Ace plans to escape from UNIT HQ by jumping from the roof of the building using a parachute. Tegan heads for the basement, whilst Kate is captured by Ashad, who intends on converting her and the surviving UNIT personnel. Tegan is to self-destruct the building, with the Cybermen contained within.

The Master-Doctor forces Yaz to become his companion as he steals the TARDIS. He will wreak havoc across the universe in the Doctor's name - starting with halting an interplanetary war by destroying both worlds. He has donned an outfit which is a mash-up of some of the Doctor's earlier styles.

The comatose Doctor finds herself in a bizarre dreamscape which is crumbling away, and she is confronted by images of some of her former incarnations. The landscape is crumbling away, indicative of her mind being slowly compressed by the forced regeneration. Soon her old self will be gone, subsumed by the new Master-Doctor personality. She must fight to preserve this.

Holographic representations of the Doctor have been triggered by the TARDIS. One is seen by Yaz whilst Tegan sees it in the form of the Fifth Doctor.

Yaz takes the TARDIS to the CyberMoon where she rescues Vinder. They then rescue Ace after Ashad destroys her parachute. She lands safely in the ship.

Yaz then drops Ace off at the Bolivian volcano, to put a stop to the Dalek drilling operations. The Master has been working jointly with them and the Cybermen on a scheme to trigger all of the planet's volcanos simultaneously, wiping out all life on Earth - the "Master's Dalek Plan".

Ace meets a Holo-Doctor in the form of the Seventh Doctor, before encountering Graham O'Brien in the tunnels. He had been investigating Dalek activity.

Together they set about sabotaging the drilling operations.

Yaz arrives at the Winter Palace with Vinder and another Holo-Doctor, in the form of the "Fugitive" Doctor. Together they overpower the Master-Doctor and force him back into the forced regeneration mechanism after killing the CyberMasters. Harnessing the energy of their subsequent regenerations, they are able to reverse the process.

Kate and Tegan are able to escape UNIT before seconds before the building implodes, destroying the Cybermen. They are collected by the TARDIS, and the Doctor has her assembled friends assist her in freezing the volcanoes which have already erupted.

She then takes Vinder to the CyberMoon and repairs his spaceship so that he can head home.

She then sets about freeing the Qurunx but is attacked by the dying Master. The energy of the energy being lashes out uncontrollably and strikes the Doctor, fatally wounding her. As the Qurunx breaks free, the planetoid begins to break up.

The Doctor and Yaz make one final journey together, whilst Graham sets up a support group in London. He is joined by Kate, Ace and Tegan, as well as Dan, Jo Jones, Melanie Bush, and Ian Chesterton. The group exists so that they can share their experiences of travelling or working with the Doctor, when others would refuse to believe their stories.

The Doctor takes Yaz home after their trip, as she wishes to be alone when the time comes to regenerate.

This takes place on an isolated rocky promontory. The Doctor is shocked when, instead of an entirely new body and personality, they find themself once more in the form of their tenth incarnation...

The Power of the Doctor was written by Chris Chibnall, and first broadcast on Sunday 23rd October 2022.

It was written especially to mark the centenary of the BBC, and marked the final contributions to the series (to date) of Chibnall as chief writer / showrunner, and Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor.

It also sees the end of Yazmin Khan as a companion, Mandip Gill having been the only actor to portray a companion character for the entire run of a particular Doctor. (Frazer Hines had appeared in all but one of Patrick Troughton's stories).

Also bowing out, for now at least, are Sacha Dhawan as the Master, Bradley Walsh as Graham and John Bishop as Dan.

Another event of significance is the return of David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor - the first time a lead actor has returned to the role other than for multi-Doctor stories.

Nods to the past include cameo appearances by David Bradley as the First Doctor, Peter Davison as the Fifth, Colin Baker as the Sixth, Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh, Paul McGann as the Eighth and Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor. Whilst the earlier four don Time Lord robes, McGann wears an outfit related to his Big Finish outings.

Martin features in a Winter Palace scene in holo-form, whilst the others feature in the mindscape when the Doctor undergoes her forced regeneration. Davison and McCoy also get to interact with their former companions in holographic form.

We also have the Master-Doctor's costume, which is an amalgam of previous Doctor's outfits.

As well as Janet Fielding and Sophie Aldred reprising Tegan and Ace, the support group scene features Katy Manning, Bonnie Langford and the late William Russell. The latter's appearance earned him a world record for the longest gap between appearances by an actor in the same role. Bonnie would shortly be lined up to return to the series as a member of UNIT, whilst Manning had recorded material in character as Jo for the Third Doctor Blu-ray box-sets.

Sadly Russell was suffering from dementia and John Bishop spent the day looking after him. This was his final acting role.

Earlier in the story we saw Jacob Anderson as Vinder, and Patrick O'Kane returns as a clone of Ashad.

With so many returning characters and actors, there isn't actually any room for guest artists.

Appearing only briefly we have Richard Dempsey and Anna Andresen as Nicholas and Alexandra - a reminder of one of Tom Baker's most prominent roles. He played Rasputin in the 1971 movie Nicholas and Alexandra - and the Master takes on this role here.

Tom was invited to cameo, but proved unavailable. It's previously been claimed by him that he felt he wasn't properly looked after when he played the Curator for the 50th.

At one point the Master dances to the 1978 Boney-M song Rasputin - just for the fun of it.

The official word was that Chibnall had left the series under his own volition - having only agreed to three years in charge, and he had agreed with Whittaker that they should depart together.

The only problem with this is that no-one believes it.

Whittaker no doubt did only commit to three years, and she wanted to have a child and do other work, including a return to theatre. She was already pregnant during filming.

The idea that Chibnall - a life-long fan of the series - would turn down the chance to recast the Doctor with another actor, or miss out on the opportunity to run the show for its 60th Anniversary, is hard to believe. he only contributed two full (shorter) series during his tenure, with one longer season-long story. That he might have run out of ideas is another thing not to be believed.

Ratings were declining and fans and critics alike were unhappy with his time on the show, and it's my belief that this was taken note of by the BBC. The impression is that RTD was already lined up and was brought back specifically to save the show.

Chibnall later said he did not know at the time who would replace him, or even if the show was going to continue.

For his final throw of the dice, Chibnall seems to have thrown in a lot if of ideas / imagery he may have brought to a further series. A lot of what happens here seems superfluous to the plot, and you wonder why it was included. For instance, the whole Rasputin / Winter Palace thing. There's absolutely no point to any of this, other than to add some colour and to allow the whole Boney-M homage. Is the Master merely impersonating Rasputin (and where, then, is the real one?) or is Chibnall saying that Rasputin was the Master (despite him being a historical figure whose life and death are well-documented)?

Vinder's inclusion is also unnecessary, so presumably just there to squeeze in someone from Flux (and if so, why not the more distinctive - and popular - Karvanista?). Is this another hangover from John Barrowman's cancellation? Poor Dan gets dropped 10 minutes in - a disappointing end to a character who was shaping up to be the new Graham.

The story has a running time to fill, and you want it to be epic as its' the BBC's hundredth birthday, and there's a regeneration - but perhaps there's just too much crammed in.

Overall, it looks great but is overstuffed. A simplified storyline might have made a better impression. Sadly, the things people will remember most about it are the things which had nothing to do with Chibnall - the Doctor and companions cameos and the return of David Tennant...

Things you might like to know:

• We aren't told at this point how Mel happens to be back on contemporary Earth, having last been seen flying through space with Sabalom Glitz in what appeared to be the far future.
• This is the very first occasion that Mel's surname is actually confirmed on screen.
• There's an empty chair at the support group, which many fans thought to be a little tribute to Lis Sladen. However, it was actually intended for Anneke Wills, reprising Polly, but she pulled out at the last minute when she heard it was only a cameo.
• "The Master's Dalek Plan" is obviously an in-joke on The Daleks' Master Plan - the 12 part epic from 1965-66. Big Finish had beaten Chibnall to it by three years.
• The Dalek drilling operation closely resembles a DWM comic strip in which UNIT fought Quarks and Dominators in a similar set-up - "The Fires Down Below" in Issue 64.
• Ace gets to smash up a Dalek with her baseball bat - just as she did in Remembrance of the Daleks.
• Ace now runs the A Compassionate Earth charity - as established in The Sarah Jane Adventures and again in the Season 24 Blu-ray trailer. These trailers endeavour to be canon.
• The circumstances of her departure from the TARDIS have never been mentioned on screen, but we hear in this story that there was some unspecified schism between her and the Doctor.
• This is the third time that the Master has tried to steal the Doctor's body - the first being in The Keeper of Traken and the second in the 1996 Movie.
• The Master has so far featured in the final televised stories of the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Tenth and now the Thirteenth Doctors, as well as a cameo in the Fifth's. They were also in what was originally to have been the Twelfth's, until Moffat was forced to write another Christmas Special, and both the Master and Missy were indirectly responsible for that regeneration. (And if you want to believe the recent colourised The War Games then he was in the Second's last story as well).
• The Master's TARDIS is said to be a Type 75.
• At one point the Master-Doctor plays The Skye Boat Song on the Second Doctor's recorder - as Troughton had done in The Web of Fear.
• The regeneration location is Lulworth Cove in Dorset, where The Curse of Fenric was filmed. The owners were not at all happy as they feared fans would want to visit the spot, despite it being extremely dangerous and situated on the protected Jurassic Coast. Of course the actual filming of the regeneration took place in two different Cardiff studios 6 months apart, under different directors.
• Chibnall had originally hoped to have Doctors Ten through Twelve for the mindscape scene, but thought that they might be brought back by his replacement and so went for surviving Classic Series Doctors. Capaldi had ruled out any return for the foreseeable future anyway, and RTD already had plans for Tennant.
• RTD did not want the Doctor to be seen in Whittaker's outfit as he didn't want to mock drag culture.
• Tennant came up with the "I know these teeth" line himself.

Story 299: Legend of the Sea Devils

In which the Doctor encounters an old enemy when visiting 19th Century China...

A lady pirate arrives in a small fishing village in search of a statue depicting a strange creature. An old man named Ying Wai, who is sworn to protect it, challenges her - against the advice of his son Ying Ki. Having tampered with it, the pirate sees the statue break open to reveal a living Sea Devil entombed within. It kills Ying Wai. His son fails to see what happened as a storm has struck and assumes that the woman killed his father, and so vows revenge.

The TARDIS materialises on a beach nearby and the Doctor, Yaz and Dan make their way to the village after the Doctor discovers a powerful magnetic force emanating from the sea.

They witness the Sea Devil massacring the villagers. Only the pirate woman and Ying Ki survive. An attempt to capture the creature fails as it uses a glowing sword to cut the fishing net they have used, and then a huge sailing ship appears - floating through the air. The Sea Devil is picked up and the ship sails away.

The Doctor recognises the pirate queen as Zheng Yi Sao, the notorious pirate queen known as Madam Ching. She reveals that she is hunting for the lost treasure of the Flor de la Mar, which sank near here in the 16th Century. The wreck had been found by the famous captain Sin Ji-Hun, only for his own ship to sink soon after.

On the flying ship, the Sea Devil - Marsissus - takes command. It is a Chief Sea Devil who has been in hibernation for generations, trapped within the statue in the village. It orders the summoning of the Hua-Shen, a great sea serpent.

Madam Ching returns to her own ship, and Dan follows Ying Ki there, as the young man is still intent on killing her since she is still responsible for his father's death having awakened the Sea Devil.

They are quickly captured by the pirate queen and discover that she is alone on the ship. They must become her crew.

Knowing that Madam Ching will not negotiate with them directly, the Doctor decides that they should use the TARDIS to travel back in time to discover the whereabouts of the lost treasure, by finding out what happened to Sin Ji-Hun's ship. This will give them a bargaining tool.

They arrive on his vessel in 1533 and witness him forcing his crew overboard before Marsissus teleports on board. The captain is surrendering the vessel to the Sea Devil, and it begins to sink with only him and Marsissus on deck.

Knowing now where the ship went down, the Doctor and Yaz return to 1807 and the seabed location, but find no trace of the wreck. What they do find is the Hua-Shen, which attempts to devour the TARDIS.

Madam Ching discovers that her compass is acting erratically, and when they go to check their position by the stars they are shocked to see them moving around them. Dan and Ying Ki learn that her crew were abducted - including her two sons - and she must locate and hand over the treasure of the Flor de la Mar as ransom to get them back.

They are then attacked by the Huan-Shen, which has the ability to deflect cannonballs.

The creature had earlier taken the TARDIS to the Sea Devil base, where the Doctor is confronted by Marsissus. She learns that the reason they did not find Sin Ji-Hun's ship is that it was converted into the flying vessel they saw earlier. The Sea Devil seeks one further gem, known as the Keystone, which was supposed to be with the lost treasure, and which Sin Ji-Hun claimed to possess. When he failed to hand it over, Marsissus had him placed in a stasis chamber as punishment. He is here in the base, in enforced hibernation. 

The Hua-Shen has now located the Keystone on the surface nearby. The Doctor creates a diversion by forcing the Sea Devil ship to the surface and frees Sin Ji-Hun. They have surfaced next to Madam Ching's ship. The Doctor and Yaz swing over to Madam Ching's ship where they discover that the Keystone is actually being worn by Ying Ki as a pendant. It has been passed down through his family from the man who had been Sin Ji-Hun's first mate, given to him for safekeeping to prevent it falling into the hands of Marsissus.

The crystal can trigger a device that would cause the Earth's oceans to rise and sink all landmasses - freeing the planet for the Sea Devils alone. Before Marsissus can sink his ship and return to his base, a swordfight breaks out. The Sea Devil commander is killed by Sin Ji-Hun, but not before the Keystone has been transported to the base.

The Doctor therefore sinks the ship to stop the rest of the Sea Devils activating their device. She will cause the entire base to increase its density so that the weight will cause it to collapse in on itself. To do  this she will have to remain behind. Sin Ji-Hun elects to sacrifice himself in her place and the base is destroyed.

Fortunately, the treasure of the Flor de la Mar has been moved into the TARDIS before the sabotage begins. Madam Ching can now free her crew and sons. She regrets not having helped save Ying Ki's father earlier, and so offers the young man the chance to stay with her as part of her crew.

Legend of the Sea Devils was written by Chris Chibnall and Ella Road, and was first broadcast on Easter Sunday, 17th April, 2022.

It is the second of the trio of Specials which would see out Chibnall as showrunner and Jodie Whitaker as the Doctor. Unusually for a special it runs to less than an hour in duration, clocking in at 50 minutes - the same as any normal episode since Chibnall took over. This might suggest that the script was originally going to form part of Series 13 until the Covid pandemic forced changes.

However, there are some jarring narrative leaps on show which suggest that the episode was supposed to have been longer, and has simply been badly edited to get it to fit the shorter time slot.

The fight at the village near the start jumps to the Doctor and her companions having a complicated trap set up only seconds after they have walked through the gates, and the story entirely fails to set up the Keystone, so its significance comes out of nowhere.

If the story seems rushed and disjointed, it at least looks great. VFX and character costumes are excellent. The ship was the largest set built for the series up to that point. Thankfully, the Sea Devil design has been kept faithful to the original John Friedlander masks, and he is given an on-screen credit. The costumes are far better than the padded Samurai outfits they were given on their last outing - way back in 1984's Warriors of the Deep - and the original, but impractical, "fishing net" look has also been ignored. The new period costumes look fine, whilst the masks make use of modern techniques to look more natural.

As well as the Sea Devil / Chinese pirate adventure, the episode takes time to explore certain relationship issues which came to prominence through the recent Flux series, though they had their origins in the series prior to that. Certain sections of fandom refer to this as "Thasmin" - a merging of The Doctor and Yasmin, like "Brangelina" or "Bennifer". I've argued before that Chibnall failed to plan properly ahead, making his series look as though he's making things up as he goes along rather than spending time carefully plotting things out in the style of both RTD and, especially, Moffat. They could sow seeds that wouldn't bear fruit until four or more years later.

It seems apparent that Chibnall, who claimed never to read anything the press or fandom said about the show during his tenure, took on board what fans were saying and so co-opted it into his writing.

The cast is headed by Crystal Yu as Madam Ching. She has featured in the second season of Good Omens and Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Ying Ki is played by Marlon Chan-Reeves - only his first TV role. He has since appeared in crime drama Shetland.

Sin Ji-Hun is portrayed by Arthur Lee. He seems to do a lot of voice work for video games, but just before his Doctor Who role he featured in the Robert Pattinson Batman movie, and has done a stint on EastEnders.

Fresh from playing Karvanista in Flux, Marsissus is played by Craige Els.

You can tell that this episode was made under the strict Covid protocols as the guest cast is so small, with CG duplicating Sea Devils, and Madam Ching having her crew conveniently abducted and so never seen. The village complement seems to compose solely of Ying Ki and his dad.

Overall, you have to wonder how they could have got it so wrong. The return of the Sea Devils, coupled with Chinese Pirates, in a period setting, really should have been a classic. But the tiny cast robs it of its epic status, and the Sea Devils hardly feature. There's the issue of the editing mentioned above, and the narrative fails to flow coherently. Really ought to have been better.

Things you might like to know:

• The real Madam Ching was born c.1775. She was known as Zheng Yi Sao - "Wife of Zheng Yi". He was a pirate whom she married in 1801, and on his death in 1807 she took over his operations. She would later wed Zheng Yi's adopted son, who helped her run the pirate enterprise. This was said to comprise some 400 vessels, 24 of which she commanded personally. She died a wealthy woman in 1844, peacefully. She left behind a pirate code which was followed by many generations of successors. She has a climbing route named after her in the Austrian Alps.
• The Flor de la Mar - "Flower of the Sea" - was a Portuguese carrack which sank in November 1511. A nobleman was sailing home with a vast treasure destined for the Portuguese king when it sank off the coast of Sumatra. It was basically unseaworthy, having undergone continual repairs, and foundered in a storm with the loss of 400 men - though the nobleman survived. Some of the survivors were not found until a year later. The wreck has never been found.
• The overnight ratings were only 2.2 million, giving this the lowest viewing figures since the opening episode of Battlefield. The McCoy story's consolidated viewing figures actually beat those for this new Easter Special.
• In an interview later, Chibnall claimed that fans could consider the Myrka the offspring of the Hua-Shen.
• One of the costume makers used the codename "Green Gilberts" to conceal the return of the Sea Devils. This was a reference back to their first appearance, when one of the captured Royal Navy submariners calls them this.

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.