Review: “Doctor Who 13×07 – New Year’s Eve with the Daleks”

We are watching episode 7 of the thirteenth season. Warning spoilers!

The seventh episode of the thirteenth season is, strictly speaking, New Year’s special, and therefore also airs on New Year’s Eve 2021. Well, I can only repeat it over and over again: why try so hard to always include a New Year’s theme (ex: Christmas) ? Let the special air on New Year’s Day (or Christmas) but refrain from including the day it will air…

But back to the text

It’s warp time, baby!

The premise of the episode is nothing new, as our heroes are stuck in a specific time period. The Tardis needs repairs and the crew needs to be ejected. Well, one could debate whether “you have to get out in 7 seconds or you’re dead” makes sense with something like that…

However, the Doctor and his friends are stuck in a warehouse and experiencing the same minutes over and over again. Also involved are the Daleks, who have become aware of the Doctor, blaming him for Flux’s destruction of their fleet and wanting to make short work of it. So far so good and I must say up front: the episode is really fun.

Well, it’s a time warp sequence and you’re going through the same place over and over again looking for a solution. But it is different with each run. Not only does the doctor evolve, but also his friends. But the Daleks do not sit idle, and they are appearing in increasing numbers.

That might actually be the end of this review, because there isn’t much going on here, except that Friends finally succeed in blowing up the Daleks. There are some bugs though. For example, it would have taken an ancient Dalek mere seconds to break through the storage room door. And this is what the Dalek does here too, but only later, after the end of the dialogue. Good talking is part of it.

And the fact that Nick and Sarah ended up becoming a couple, after all he comes here especially because of her, is so obvious it screams cliché. After all, the Daleks have also upgraded their cannon a bit more and their trick of shooting each other still works – just like in the 1950s.

personal moments

Of course, there is still time for personal moments with an episode like this. Nick and Sarah have already been mentioned and their relationship develops accordingly predictably, but it’s still funny to watch. Dan, who just joined this season, can shine again and show so much compassion.

Then there’s perhaps the most controversial development: Because Yaz seems to like the Doctor and she shares her feelings. Now many will say that something like this may not suit the Time Lord, but I think the time has come. After all, after 60 years, why isn’t a doctor finally allowed to develop romantic feelings? Yes, of course one could argue that it’s only about a female doctor, but Time Lords have developed relationships before. Just think of Leela here.

For that matter, I’d love to see more of her – but probably won’t because the Whittaker era only lasted two episodes. Will Yaz eventually outsmart the version of the Tenth Doctor with Rose as she once did? Probably not, but one can still hope. And yes, there are already huge spoilers circulating for the final episode, but I’ve stayed away from them as much as possible so far. With Doctor Who migrating to Disney, hopefully that will change at least soon and we’ll always see new Who episodes around the world at the same time. (Hey, are they at Disney because of the good secret service? After all, the reason it was canceled under Capaldi was to leak new episodes…).