Eve of the Daleks

This episode opens in a storage facility in Manchester shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve. Customer Nick is greeted by Sarah, the owner. Meanwhile on the Tardis, The Doctor is preparing for a system reset to fix problems caused by the Flux; this will necessitate them leaving the Tardis for a while. She plans to do this on a beach planet... instead they end up in Sarah's storage facility. As Nick goes to put his item in his storage locker he encounters a Dalek and is killed. Shortly afterwards it kills Sarah... and then The Doctor, Yaz and Dan! Obviously this is not the end... suddenly time rests to the moment The Doctor and her companions exit the Tardis. They are caught in a time loop and the building is sealed. Everybody in the building is aware that they are in a loops so they work to ensure each time round they get closer to finding a way to survive. There is one other problem though; each loop is shorter than the last.

The idea of a time loop has been used in many films and TV shows; usually characters initially just have a sense of déjà vu, or at most one character realises what is happening so it was in interesting change to have everybody aware from the start thus avoiding the repetition of explain to people what is happening every loop. Similarly having the loops get shorter added a degree of tension as we know the characters can't keep trying different solutions for ever. The single location and limited cast of characters may have been done for budgetary reasons or for easy of filming under Covid rules but it did create a decent sense of claustrophobia and enabled good character development for Sarah and Nick. There were some good funny moments, most obviously being when we learn what Nick is storing and why. The cast was solid with fine guest performances from Aisling Bea and Adjani Salmon as Sarah and Nick. Obviously there were some weaker moments; how Nick defeated a pair of Daleks was rather silly and having Yaz admit to Dan that she has feelings for The Doctor was a mild distraction from the drama; at least for once the wretched sonic screwdriver proved to be useless. People complaining about time loops clearly have sat through 'The Endless Eight' episodes of 'The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya'; that has eight episodes of it with only minor changes between each! Overall I thought this was a pretty good stand-alone episode; of course it might have helped that reviews had set me up for a disappointment.

4/10, and I'm being generous, after rather enjoying Flux, I was looking forward to this. What an incredible disappointment this was, some nice ideas, but the execution was shocking.

The story......they trailered it so much, so everyone must have known the plot, The BBC itself feels like it's stuck in a time loop. For years now, Agnes has been in search of the perfect Christmas tree, and The Doctor has been battling Daleks, there's nothing like variety. BBC, variety is good, it's so good!!!!! Clearly done to save a few quid.

The Daleks were pretty stupid here, and perhaps all need to go for target practice. Each time they appear they seem diminished somehow. Definitely written as convenient storm troopers, nothing however, is worse than the magic wand that is the sonic screwdriver, it was a little lazy in terms of the writing.

The Doctor referenced Supermarket Sweep, an episode of that would genuinely would have been better viewing than this.

It's a toss up between this and Mrs Brown's Boys for the real festive turkey.

Bad, really bad, 4/10.

After two New Years specials that seemed like just two out of place normal episodes, Chibnall finally manages to balance a festive story that works really well!

The loop concept is amazing. Although the daleks are still underused like in the other two times, this one doesn't bother, actually it's a lot of fun.

What a wonderful addition John Bishop was to this cast, Dan is such a charismatic and wonderful character. Jodie Whittaker is very comfortable in her role as Doctor, always surprising. And Mandip delivers really exciting scenes as Yaz.

What an episode!

Well I enjoyed this, I thought actually it was the best episode of the show I'd seen in a long time.

Funny, romantic, and reasonably easy to get your head around - I don't see why it's being slated quite so much here.

Good fun.

A TARDIS reboot causes an ever-shrinking temporal stutter that the Daleks exploit as an opportunity to kill the Doctor. I like these kinds of time-loop stories, in which lessons from each iteration can be applied to solve an overall problem, and so I generally liked this episode despite the tedious, irritating and unnecessary secondary characters. Even though the most feared creatures in the universe can be slow-moving and lousy shots (when the plot demands it), any adventure featuring the polycarbide-armored malignant blobs is usually worth the couch time. That said, I still dislike Jodie Whittaker's goofy 'people's doctor' (she is a Time Lord after all, not some moderately advanced monkey like we are) and the flippant, jejune script and strained attempts at humour undermined what could have been a particularly clever story. Hopefully if the Doctor decides to engage in some inter-specific miscegenation, it will be with something interesting (like a Zygon or a Denebian slime devil).