Doctor Who has released the trailer for its New Year’s Day special, promising a Dalek time loop. With season 13 of the revived series, subtitled Flux, now concluded, Doctor Who fans will now embark on the final adventures of Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor in three special episodes airing throughout 2022. These episodes will conclude the actor’s tenure in the leading role, as well as the era of current showrunner Chris Chibnall, making way for the return of Russell T. Davies as executive producer as well as a new Time Lord in 2023. The first of these episodes will be the New Year’s Day special, a tradition of Chibnall’s tenure.
Both of the prior New Year’s Day specials have seen the Doctor face down her most iconic foes, the Daleks, a race of hate-filled mutants entombed in indestructible tanks. The first of these specials, “Resolution,” saw a lone Dalek scout launch an attempt to bring an invasion fleet to Earth, only to be destroyed by the Doctor and her companions. A direct sequel, “Revolution of the Daleks,” saw the remains of said scout redeveloped by human scientists into a race of man-made Daleks who engaged in a war with their original counterparts. It seems fans are now due to see a conclusion to a trilogy of New Year’s Dalek specials.
The BBC released a new trailer for the episode, which reveals the newest Dalek adventure will be a time loop storyline. The trailer introduces a facility called ELF Storage on New Year’s Eve, with the owner of the building, Sarah, and a customer, Nick, being the only people inside until they are killed by a rogue Dalek. The narrative then restarts as the Doctor and her companions Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop) become involved in events, with all five characters realising they are trapped in a time loop with at least three blood-thirsty Daleks. The trailer then keeps restarting, with New Year’s anthem “Auld Lang Syne” being repeated for added effect, as the Doctor reiterates the Daleks’ primary motivation to destroy anything not in their image.
Click Here to Watch the Full Trailer on YouTube
The trailer does an effective job at laying out the gimmick of the episode, which appears to be aping a Groundhog Day-style narrative. With Doctor Who being a show focused on time travel, time loops have naturally come up throughout several plots in its 58-year history. However, this appears to be its first episode where the entire conceit is based around a time loop that resets upon death, similar to the aforementioned Bill Murray comedy, though the Tom Cruise action flick Edge of Tomorrow may be a better base of comparison. The decision to utilize this concept may be born out of necessity due to the regulations the crew would have been under at the time of production because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, a story taking place in one location with a limited cast would be workable for the real-world situation but could also lead to an effectively claustrophobic Dalek slasher-film pastiche.
It is unknown whether the special will tie into the prior Dalek New Year’s Day capers. The plot seems to be self-contained, with no reference to the preceding Dalek adventures, which were tied together via returning characters, scope, and a new Dalek design. This may be an indication that Whittaker’s final specials will be standalone adventures, free of ongoing story arcs, similar to the final specials of Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, in 2009. Regardless, Doctor Who fans can take comfort in knowing that the Time Lord’s deadliest enemies will menace this incarnation one final time while ringing in the New Year.
Source: BBC