{"id":9434,"date":"2022-01-01T21:00:02","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T20:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1541713"},"modified":"2022-01-01T21:44:12","modified_gmt":"2022-01-01T20:44:12","slug":"doctor-who-eve-of-the-daleks-review-a-creepy-if-repetitive-thriller","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/doctor-who-eve-of-the-daleks-review-a-creepy-if-repetitive-thriller\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks review \u2013 A creepy if repetitive thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Patrick Mulkern\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Saturday, 01 January 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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<\/div> 4.0 out of 5 star rating<\/span> <\/span> <\/div> <\/div>

Fifty years to the day since Doctor Who<\/a> legends Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning and Nicholas Courtney faced the Day of the Daleks<\/a> \u2013 and I was sitting there on New Year\u2019s Day 1972, glued to our temperamental telly \u2013 the current winning team of Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill and John Bishop gamely take on the Eve of the Daleks.<\/p>\n

This special has been touted in some quarters as \u201ca romcom with Daleks\u201d. If that\u2019s showrunner Chris Chibnall\u2019s aim, it falls down on the \u201ccom\u201d front. Odd, given that most of the cast (Bishop, Aisling Bea, Adjani Salmon and Pauline McLynn) are more recognised for comedy. Yes, there\u2019s the occasional amusing line or incident but no more than in a standard episode. The wittiest stroke is an in-joke when an indignant Dalek blurts, \u201cI Am Not Nick!\u201d \u2013 voiced, of course, by Nicholas \u2018Nick\u2019 Briggs.<\/p>\n

Eve of the Daleks fares better in the \u201crom\u201d department. Sarah and Nick are a couple of weirdos. He\u2019s weird for using the storage facility only to preserve the effects of his failed relationships, dated with Post-It notes. She\u2019s weird for keeping Elf Storage open for her sole customer Nick and his annual visits on New Year\u2019s Eve. Despite strong performances from Bea and Salmon, they remain to the end a mismatched, unconvincing pair.<\/p>\n

Far more romantic heft comes in the shape of Yaz. Just when she and Dan are looking superfluous to the material, making up numbers as Dalek fodder, Dan cuts to the heart of the matter and asks Yaz outright about her feelings for the Doctor<\/a>: \u201cHave you ever told her? How you feel about her?\u201d For the first time she has to vocalise her adoration of the Time Lord. \u201cI\u2019ve never told anyone. Not even myself.\u201d<\/p>

This is by far the loveliest aspect of the special. We\u2019ve been here before with Rose and Martha\u2019s adoration of David Tennant\u2019s Doctor and Amy\u2019s flirtation with Matt Smith\u2019s. All long ago. Yaz-and-the-Doctor has been simmering for years. Mandip Gill plays the emotion subtly and tenderly, as does Whittaker, who, like all incarnations before her, must rise above earthly desire and romantic entrapment.<\/p>\n

The Daleks are on sturdy form in their third successive New Year\u2019s Day special after Resolution<\/a> (2019) and Revolution of the Daleks<\/a> (2021). Interesting that no matter what reboots they undergo, they always revert to the gorgeous bronze models brought in back in 2005, even if the latest trio are tooled up with an eight-barrel gun at the tip of the exterminating shaft. As they emerge from shadows and time and again get the better of the Doctor \u2013 \u201cDaleks learn!\u201d \u2013 their menace is enhanced, even if the repetitive rounds of extermination soon lose impact and engender the ennui of a video game.<\/p>\n

The time loop structure, losing a minute each time, is worthy of former showrunner Steven Moffat, while the use of a countdown in real time (albeit looped) also recalls Chibnall\u2019s underrated Doctor Who debut episode\u00a042<\/a> way back in 2007. If there\u2019s one glitch, it\u2019s how Sarah\u2019s mammy (McLynn) keeps phoning, when she is outside the time loop.<\/p>\n

\""Doctor\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Aisling Bea, Mandip Gill, John Bishop and Jodie Whittaker in Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Eve of the Daleks succeeds as a contained piece, a \u2018locked-room\u2019 thriller, sagging only a little in the middle but gaining momentum in the final minute\u2019s loop. Anyone who\u2019s ever spent time wandering through the warren of a dimly lit storage facility will know how damned creepy they can be \u2013 even without a Dalek materialising at every turn.<\/p>\n

The final explosion and demolition of the multi-storey building is another of this era\u2019s impressive CGI effects. If you think the chap at the end, gawping at the fireworks, is vaguely familiar, he is Karl (Jonny Dixon)<\/a>, the crane operator that Jodie Whittaker\u2019s Doctor saved in her debut episode<\/a> in 2018.\u00a0That seems so long ago, and now we\u2019re approaching the end of days for this Doctor, just as Whittaker has become so persuasive in the role. Only two more specials to go\u2026<\/p>\n

The teaser for the next episode ends with a further echo of 1972 \u2013 a glimpse of a Sea Devil<\/a>. Classic monster lives again! Chibnall brought back their land cousins, the Silurians, with some success in The Hungry Earth<\/a> in 2010, so I\u2019m cautiously hopeful for Legend of the Sea Devils.<\/p>\n