*Premise spoilers.*
New Year’s special! It’s fun because it’s new Doctor Who, but it’s bittersweet because it gets us one step closer to the end of Jodie Whittaker’s time as the Thirteenth Doctor. (And maybe saying goodbye to Mandip Gill’s Yaz and John Bishop’s Dan as well? I haven’t heard anything on that front, but new Who has never carried previous companions into a new showrunner’s tenure before, so the smart money would suggest they’re not long for this show.) Anyway, the special is action-packed and entertaining, and it also brings some good heart.
The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan prepare to enjoy time on a beach while the TARDIS resets its inner dimensions, but they’re instead deposited in a Manchester self-storage facility on New Year’s Eve. It’s deserted except for the ornery owner and one nice-but-awkward customer. Oh yes, and a Dalek, which swiftly exterminates everyone on the premises, including the Doctor and her friends…who immediately pop back up in the sub-level of the facility, outside the resetting TARDIS. That’s right, folks, it’s a time loop episode! Team TARDIS and the two civilians need to band together and find a way to escape the Dalek’s deadly gun arm before the ever-shortening time loop leaves them with no chances left.
It’s a bit of a slow start, with a long cold open introducing our oneshot characters, Sarah and Nick. My first reaction to them is to be reminded a bit of “Orphan 55,” in which each of the guest characters have a Thing!, a single character trait that the episode continually beats for them. Sarah is put out because her employee flaked on her, forcing her to work on New Year’s Eve (again,) and she has no time for the awkward charms of Nick, who has unconventional methods of shyly flirting. The opening scene feels like too much of these two new characters hitting those same two notes, but as they get caught up in the time loop, they both open up a lot and turn out to be a lot of fun. I especially enjoy Sarah’s attempt to treat the Dalek like an unruly trespasser, along with a frantic exchange between the two of them about whether Nick throwing himself in the Dalek’s path is chivalrous or patronizing.
As far as time loop stories go, this one is pretty enjoyable. As a sci-fi convention, I feel like a lot comes down to the execution for me—they can feel anywhere from lazy to brilliant, depending on how they’re done. In this case, all participants realize the situation pretty quickly, which helps. There’s not a bunch of repetitive dialogue each go-round, and even Sarah and Nick, who are less accustomed to timey-wimeyness than our heroes, get the hang of what’s happening. In the second half, the Doctor has a really nice speech about their potential to continually fail, learn, and improve. I also like that the time loop is a minute shorter every time it resets, giving the characters a severe deadline for surviving the Dalek/breaking out of it. Plus, how cute is Dan mumbling, “Groundhog Day,” as the Doctor and Yaz say, “Time loop,” then muttering that it’s basically the same thing?
Speaking of Dan, this might be my favorite episode of his so far. He displays some bravery in the midst of all that’s happening, and we see how well he’s gotten to know and understand Yaz during their time together in series 13 (although there is one thing he does that I really didn’t like.) I love a particular confrontation he has with the Dalek one of the times through the loop, in which he’s both brave and a ton of fun. Yaz, as usual, is doing what needs to be done, but she’s also preoccupied with the Doctor’s distractions and evasions. A reckoning between them has been a long time coming, and yes, it does seem like deadly danger always comes along to get in the way of that, but she’s tired of the Doctor leaving her behind to run headlong into that danger alone.
The Doctor gets a good mix of being a clever boss, flailing as new complications keep arising, being alternately obtuse and caring, and inspiring those around her. She has a great badass line with the Dalek where, in response to the declaration, “DALEKS ANSWER TO NO ONE!”, she coolly states, “Daleks answer to me.” The constraints of the episode – ever-shortening time loop, trapped in a self-storage facility without a lot of useful resources – force her to do plenty of improvising on the fly, having to trust that the others will follow her lead without holding their hand because there simply isn’t time to explain things.
Finally, I love that the line, “Good-hearted weirdos are actually the keepers,” exists. So incredibly apt for Who, and it made me “aww.”
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