Finally an episode in this season that I actually enjoyed! It’s mad that we had to get to the New Year’s special to actually find an episode that was worth watching.

Eve of the Daleks is a Groundhog Day style episode where two random characters, and the Doctor and her companions, are trapped in a self storage building on New Year’s Eve where Daleks are attacking. The group are stuck in a time loop where every time they are killed time moves one minute closer to midnight, and they have to work out how to get out of this time loop before midnight so that they do not perish completely.

What I loved about this episode was the constant restarting of it and that each time they came back they had the knowledge of the last time that they were in the situation and can build upon that and learn and grow. As it goes on it was really interesting to see how the group worked together, and the fact that they could make things that they found in the storage facility a weapon to use against the Daleks was really interesting. I do feel the Daleks can be a bit overplayed but because there were only a couple of them in this episode it was really fun and very much a game of cat and mouse, you constantly as the audience member are wanting to work out what the group can do to survive, which was really fun. It was almost an interactive episode where you were piecing parts together as they were too to see how they would escape.

However I did have a couple of issues with this episode, the first one was that one of the characters, the man, wasn’t supposed to survive past 5 to midnight because that’s when he is killed. Yet he does and gets another life at four minutes to midnight which went against literally what they said in the previous scene, they said if he dies again he is dead forever yet he still came back which is very frustrating. Plus the fact that the Doctor had a big speech about working together and overcoming adversity and all the usual stuff it just felt so pandering and annoying. This episode was really good and didn’t need that because you’ve got that sense from the episode anyway, whereas when she said it it just felt a bit too over the top and preachy, and I find that a lot with the writers of this season, they do not understand tact or subtlety at all.

However I did like the inclusion that Yaz and the Doctor finally realise their feelings for one another, even if they haven’t said it to each other yet, and I am interested to see if they do have a moment in the final episode or whether this was just a flicker in the dark and a bit of queer baiting. If it is that’s going to be very annoying and I have heard very bad things about the final episode so I’m not holding my breath.

However for all the parts that I didn’t enjoy this episode was very interesting to say the least. It’s just a shame that the rest of the season has been so dire when clearly they can do good episodes as this one shows, yet only when they’re standalone and not with an overarching storyline.

What do you think of Eve of the Daleks?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding