Dalek zombies, vegan-friendly soufflés and Democracy of the Daleks!
Love blossoms between a terrible businesswoman and an obvious serial killer in the last Holiday Special of the Whittaker Era
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It’s New Year’s Eve, and Sara, the owner and manager of the least successful self-storage facility on Earth is avoiding social obligations and a healthy relationship with her mum by catering to the whims of her sole customer, stalker and likely serial killer Nick.
Meanwhile(ish), Doc has waited until the last moment to tell her companions that rebooting the TARDIS might cause the world to end, before rebooting the TARDIS. And out they pop into the glorious confines of Sarah’s self-storage facility, only to find themselves in a Groundhog Day’esque time loop.
Meanwhile(ish), too few Daleks have been sent there to take advantage of the loop and murder Doc for her role in Flux. Which they do. Multiple times!
We recorded this instant(ish) reaction review the day after this New Year’s Day Special aired and had a fantastic time getting into some very serious Whovian banter! Have a listen immediately to hear us discuss:
- The rather spiffing addition of Aisling Bea as Sarah
- What on Earth happened to Nick’s exes
- Yaz declaring her love for the Doctor, and how to possibly make that work
- Why no one wears a face mask in the Whoniverse
- How to act if you get stuck in a Time Loop
- And much, much more…
Happy New Year to the WBW gang and Happy New Year Podcastland!
So – Eve of the Daleks – I frickin loved it!
Likes
Beefs
Overall, it was a brilliantly fun episode and although there were some clunky bits, such as the 13/Yaz relationship felt a bit clumsy, but I’ve nothing against it and maybe we’ll see that explored more next time, but I can ignore any bad bits because it was so good. Probably my favourite Christmas/NY story so far.
I award this story 4.5 Jeff’s dodgy sex toys hidden in the basement out of 5
Andy Parkinson
@caffreys71
Hi folks
So that was..good. I’m surprised. Just for reference, I liked quite a lot of Flux but the ending episodes lost it.
But you know what, that worked. That really worked. Doctor Who rarely does time episodes so it’s nice when they actually do. We know that it had to be a bottle ep cos of covid but you know what, that’s fine with me. I’m sick of the big over the top finales/specials so the smaller scale is what I was looking for.
I thought our guest stars were quite good, particularly Aisling Bea. And our friends the Daleks were sadistic bastards, excellent.
Having only watched it once, this score is very instant and probably subject to change later. It gets 4.3/5 rapid Dalek gun blasts.
SEA DEVILS!!!!
Cheers
Kieren
Ok drop it down to 4.0/5 as some of those jokes didn’t land
Great podcast. Who knew that time is linear, Indeed!
Just to let you know that the actor’s name is pronounced Ashleen Bee. Aisling is Irish for “Dream” btw. Not only was her fussing, neglected, techno-skeptical Mum a deeply Irish archetype, but she was played by Pauline McLynn, once the iconic Mrs Doyle from Father Ted.
Doctor Who has very underrepresented the Irish over the years, considering we are next door neighbours and our immigrants are woven into British society, but Chibnall in particular has done a nice job of giving us a bit of visibility on the show, even making the Doctor Hirself Irish (sort of) in the Timeless Child storyline, even having Gaelic writing up on screen during it, which is extremely rare on primetime bbc.
Anyway, love your show. Keep up the good work.
BTW If you are looking for “extended universe” texts to branch out into exploring now that you are reaching the end of the New Series, I have to recommend the 4th Doctor Marvel comics from the early 80s. Total classic stories!