It seems you can’t keep a good Who-villain down for long as the trailer for the 2022 Doctor Who New Year’s Day special has been released and once again the Daleks are back to exterminate the human race. (Guess they think third time’s a charm?) And what better way to celebrate the New Year than being in a time loop with the Daleks?
With the conclusion of the 6 part story “The Flux,” the BBC spared no time in getting fans excited for the next installment of the 13th Doctor’s goodbye tour. The trailer for “Eve of the Daleks” begins with the introduction of Sarah (Aisling Bea), who is the owner of ELF Storage company, and Nick (Adjani Salmon), a customer who comes in on this fateful night. Along with the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), Yaz (Mandip Gill), and Dan (John Bishop), they battle the Daleks… over and over again.
Here’s the official synopsis given by the BBC:
Sarah (Aisling Bea) owns and runs ELF storage, and Nick (Adjani Salmon) is a customer who visits his unit every year on New Year’s Eve. This year, however, their night turns out to be a little different than planned as they find themselves joining forces with the Doctor, Dan, and Yaz in a fight against the Daleks. The trailer for the special, which aired following the series thirteen finale, finds the cast trapped in ELF storage and stuck in a terrifying time loop with the Daleks. Will the gang manage to avoid extermination and escape the storage facility in time to see out New Year’s Day?
Check out the trailer below:
The trailer does give strong Edge of Tomorrow vibes (you know, that Tom Cruise movie that we are still waiting for the sequel to appear after all these years). I would even throw in Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day as a comparison (I wouldn’t have been surprised had a cameo of Punxsutawney Phil pop up). It will be interesting to see how Chris Chiball uses this time loop troupe in what is hoped to be in a new and interesting way.
Fans will notice that the Daleks have once again received an upgrade. No longer relegated to single laser shots to “kill everything not within its own image,” they are now equipped with a gun that can shoot at multiple targets making them much more dangerous… and terrifying!
How this episode connects to the other two New Who specials (“Resolution” and “Revolution of the Daleks”) – or if it even does – is yet to be seen. What we do know is that this New Year’s episode is one of 3 specials that is leading up to the departure of Whittaker as the 13th Doctor. (If you’re still getting that deja vu sensation, that is because this is a similar game plan used with the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) that led up to his regeneration). The next episode will air sometime in early 2022 with the final special episode to air in the Fall of 2022 during the BBC Centenary celebrations. As the BBC exclaims,
“… the epic blockbuster special will see the Doctor fight evil across the galaxy one last time but just who will she come up against in her final battle before the Doctor regenerates once more?”
Only 26 days to go (at the time of this writing) before the Doctor returns! And hopefully, it will be an episode we won’t mind seeing again and again… and again… and again…
Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks premieres January 1, 2022, on BBC America in the U.S. and on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the U.K.
