Eve of the Daleks Review

The first of the “specials” – Eve of the Daleks landed on New Years Day and we discovered why there was a point in the Daleks being in Flux and that was so they then had a reason to pursue the Doctor in Eve of the Daleks. Chris Chibnall has had it all planned out! As the most iconic of the Who monsters, they are the big guns which should come out on special occasions, as with the fancy china rather than every day so the expectations were high. Was Eve of the Daleks a hot hit or a miserable miss? Let’s get into it.

The use of time loops has been more a classic series tool but feels a timely theme given that for two years we’ve been stuck unable to live life normally and have been repeating certain patterns due to COVID-19. The obvious comparison here is the film Groundhog Day where the lead character, played by Bill Murray, relives the same day over and over until he changes into a better man. Here the action is centred on the last ten minutes of New Year’s Eve. The location was hardly glamourous as I imagine most of the budget had been all spent on Flux but it fitted the vibe of what is a self-contained, low key story.

Setting the story on New Year’s Eve, making it relevant to Jodie’s Doctor soon ending and I liked the references to getting to midnight and the hope of new beginnings it can bring. Although I really have no idea if storage companies really do stay open until that late I didn’t mind the idea of it as the story made the effort to introduce Nick and Sarah initially before they were killed in the first loop. With successive loops, more is slowly revealed of their characters as well as setting up the Doctor going into hero mode going to save them. The perceived difference in Eve of the Daleks is all the characters, including the Daleks, remembered the previous loop so it became more a battle of learning more each time and adapting how to escape the Daleks.

Mind you it wasn’t hard. Despite all the fancy new hardware these execution squad Daleks were useless at times to kill the humans even when they were right in front of them although I liked the look of the x-ray effect when people died.

New Year’s Eve. Sarah is working – again. Nick is her only customer – again. Same old same old. Except this year, their countdown to midnight will be the strangest and deadliest they have ever known. Why is an executioner Dalek targeting these two people, in this place, on this night? Why are they having to live through the same moments again? Can the Doctor, Yaz and Dan save them and survive into the New Year?

This continuing from Flux Chibnall trait, where the aliens cant shoot straight non-threat really doesn’t do the Doctor’s supposedly deadliest enemy any justice. Nick, just by ducking, makes two Daleks with weapons out destroy each other. Why did they both wait to shoot together at the same time?

The time loops developed the plot but I did lose track once the plan to confuse the Daleks changed from going up to the fifth floor and then to the basement towards the end. Chibnall cant leave an original plan alone and has to always add extra complications. These are normally explained at breakneck speed and cackhandedly by the 13th Doctor. Episode 6 Flux suffered like this with the motivations of the Sontarans. I guess the plan was to light up the fireworks, set fire to the chemicals and blow up the warehouse. Given all the references to Jeff, I really expected the figure at the end filming the fireworks to be him but good to know crane driver Karl (Jonny Dixon) is still around, albeit now living in Manchester, after being chased by aliens in “The Woman that Fell to Earth”

Bea-utiful

I didn’t recognise Aisling Bea initially as I was watching her in Doctor Who but having watched her on YouTube I do remember seeing her before as a comedienne on panel shows. Apparently, Chris Chibnall wrote the part for Aisling and she shines through so much of the story as the feisty and questioning Sarah. Bea carried a lot of needed energy with her introduction in the pre-credits sequence (which I believe was around nine minutes) and also all through the episode which buoyed up some of the other characters. I liked her challenging the Doctor which gave her a Donna vibe and brought out some of the more growly aspects of the Doctor.

Sarah’s relationship with her mother played by the marvellously comic Pauline McLynn trying to appease her had my sympathy. It’s a shame we didn’t see her in person when Sarah and Nick went away but maybe COVID affected how the production was made.

Adjani Salmon as Nick was slightly creepy and unnerving and an oddly underplayed choice to play against her as the strange guy with a crush who only appeared once a year at the storage unit. Chibnall’s natural leanings for writing about everyday worn-down characters seemed to be at play here but Sarah was understandably slightly exasperated. I was sure she would give him a slap if he tried anything. Nick’s effort to impress Sarah by protecting her or going out to be killed by the Dalek felt a bit meaningless because he lacked real chemistry with her. This isn’t on the same level of 12^th Doctor and River levels of charisma between two people.

There were a couple of funny moments with Nick where I started to warm to him where he crowed against the destroyed Daleks “So you think you can kill a Rasta” and when Yaz and Sarah confirmed with him his girlfriends were all still alive. Overall though he felt rather too cheesy to be memorable.

Thasmin

The realisation as Sarah started to notice Nick was a decent guy underneath and she softened as he opened up was mirrored by Yas starting to acknowledge her own feelings for the Doctor. Yes, the show went back to that place with the companion admitting she “likes” the Doctor. We’ve been here before with Rose and Martha and given also there are only two episodes left it honestly can’t end well. Cue tearful exit in two episodes. I am disappointed that Yas’s professional development as a policewoman has been mostly ignored in her tenure in favour of going down the romantic route.

Jack Harkness explained to Yas how easy it is to get a crush on the Doctor given how heady travelling with the Doctor in the Tardis can be. I don’t mind the development of something deeper going on if it was to be explored properly but the Doctor as we know never stays in one place. There is very little time to build to something substantial unless it really focuses on Yas and the Doctor. But we have Sea Devils in the next story (hooray by the way) which seems more exciting than furtive romantic glances.

I did wonder whether Dan was the right person to tell the Doctor that Yas likes her. Surely that was Yas’s decision to do? Dan said he saw through Yas’s feelings over four years of travelling. That’s the problem that we haven’t seen it. Although in series 11 in Arachnids in the UK Yas wanted to travel with the Doctor and thought the Doctor was “the best person she had ever met” there seemed a complete lack of interest in Yas’s development that series so all of this now feels slightly wedged in with a mallet. The hints then seemed to be to pair her off with Ryan in Series 11 suggesting Chibnall didn’t really plan what to do with her. In series 12 in her discussion with Claire Clairmont in “The Haunting of the Villa Diodati” Yas did disclose a kind of hero-worship of the Doctor but I assumed it was more around the opportunities that travelling with the Doctor gave her to find out who she was.

Screwball fun

I did enjoy John Bishop as Dan in this episode, his self-sacrifice on one of the loops delaying the Dalek, with the little in-joke “I am not called Nick” which was was fun. There were times when Aisling Bea was in full Sarah “angry” mode and she got more screen time and I felt he had to sit back when I’m sure he wanted to do more. Jodie’s Doctor was in full sonic waving mode this episode but the script was funny at times with lots of witty one-liners for her which distracted me. The Doctor must watch a lot of British TV in the Tardis with reference to Supermarket Sweep and Jools Holland’s Hootenanny!

Her rousing speech about learning and fighting was a bit school ma’am preachy considering she’d only just met Sarah and Nick. I thought Sarah’s quip earlier about the Doctor and team being from the council had hit the right tone about how well these people were going to get on. What I did enjoy in “Eve of the Daleks“ was for once the fast pacing and editing fitted the subject matter after we understood the time loop concept unlike some episodes of Flux. The pacing helped the repetitive nature of the story to keep moving energetically for the most part although the story suffers possibly with too many loops for me when more time to breath with some of the characters would have worked better.

In conclusion, it was New Years Day and maybe it was the remains of a hangover from New Year’s Eve but I needed something easy to watch and Chris Chibnall’s “romantic comedy with Daleks” was an antidote after the last episode jumble of Flux. I’m not sure “Eve” stands up beyond the Christmas period as more than a seasonal bauble, but I rather enjoyed it. I could pick holes in it but Aisling Bea added a sprightly comic edge to a relatively low key but pacey “base under siege” story. I wanted escapism without massive galaxy saving stakes and I got that. The Doctor saved two strangers in a storage unit, there were fireworks with a “happy” ending. Happy New Year everyone!

Score 7 / 10

What did you enjoy most about Eve of the Daleks? Post your comments on here, The Big Blue Box Discord Server or on Twitter. Let’s talk!