Doctor Who (2005) - New Year's Day 2022: Eve of the Daleks

Episode:

869

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Writer:

Chris Chibnall

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Director:

Annetta Laufer

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Air Date:

01-Jan-2022

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Doctor Who again! This time it's the 2022 New Year's Day special: Eve of the Daleks, and it's a time loop tale! I hope no one considers that to be a spoiler, it wasn't meant to be. I'm going to be mentioning a lot of time loop episodes in all kinds of TV series so if that's an issue for you should skip the next paragraph and then also the rest of the review. Sorry.

Some of the best episodes in science fiction have been time loop stories. Supernatural's Mystery Spot, Stargate: SG-1's  Window of Opportunity, Red Dwarf's White Hole. Oh and there's Groundhog Day, obviously. So this has a good chance of being something kind of special.

It's also the third New Year's Eve Dalek story in a row, so that's become a bit of a tradition. I feel like it might be the last of them, seeing as Russell T. Davies is coming back next year and he introduced Christmas specials, but you never know, maybe it'll stick. We could even have a Merry Cyberman Christmas, a Happy Dalek New Year and a Master Easter special all in the same year!

I'll be going through the whole episode scene by scene writing my thoughts down under screencaps, same as usual, so beware of SPOILERS.

Doctor Who (2005) - New Year's Day 2021: Revolution of the Daleks

Episode:

862

|

Writer:

Chris Chibnall

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Director:

Lee Haven Jones

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Air Date:

01-Jan-2021

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Doctor Who again! I felt like I was probably done with the series after that last season, at least until Chris Chibnall stepped down as showrunner, but I needed to write about something new to break up all the Babylon 5 I've been reviewing and this one-off special aired at just the right time for me.

I mean I didn't hate series 12, but every now and then Doctor Who makes a real effort to sever my emotional investment in it and The Timeless Child did a better job than most episodes. Plus after two seasons of Chibnall Who I'm well aware of what to expect from it and I know it's not really my kind of thing.

Revolution of the Daleks is following in the tradition of classic 'R of the Daleks' stories like Resurrection of the Daleks (Davros tries to cure a Dalek virus), Revelation of the Daleks (Davros runs a funeral home) and Remembrance of the Daleks (Dalek vs Dalek in WW2 London). But not the last New Year's special, Resolution, as they forgot to include the 'of the Daleks' part for that one. Its title was announced before it aired, but it wasn't shown in-episode until the end credits so it seemed like they were going to reveal it was really Resolution of the Daleks... but it wasn't.

This time the title's up at the front of the episode, where it usually is, and... that's about all the trivia I can think of to write about here. Anyway, this I'm going to do the full recap and commentary thing with this one, so there'll be SPOILERS for the entire story, and perhaps other stories too.

Doctor Who (2005) - New Year's Day 2019: Resolution (Quick Review)

Episode:

851

|

Serial:

287

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Writer:

Chris Chibnall

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Air Date:

01-Jan-2019

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I hope you weren't looking forward to that Doctor Who series 11 review I promised, because this ain't that. I got distracted with other things and ran out of December to put it in. I believe I also mentioned that I might not be reviewing the New Year's special because I'd written about enough Doctor Who already, but that was before they revealed that this was going to be the only episode aired in all of 2019. How am I suppose to leave it out now? What sort of a monster would go from An Unearthly Child to the very latest season (skipping a year or ten along the way) and then stop exactly one episode before the end?

I kind of assumed that we were done with year-long breaks in between seasons now that the series has a different showrunner who's not trying to write Sherlock at the same time, but I guess that's just how the series is these days. The only difference is that in the Chris Chibnall era we get the one-off episode on New Year's Day instead of Christmas Day, because after thirteen consecutive Christmas specials they've used up every possible way of shoehorning Christmas into a Doctor Who story. Which means no more Christmasified opening titles! No opening titles at all in fact, for perhaps the third time ever in the series' history.

Resolution is also unique among Thirteenth Doctor stories as right now it's the first and only episode to allow anything major from an earlier season to return. Series 11 was very much about the new, with new actors, monsters, writers, a new visual effects house and a new composer, but this episode brings back director Wayne Yip! Also the antagonist might be a bit familiar too but I'll not spoil that here.

All my SPOILERS are safely contained below the next screencap, so continue at your own risk.