Doctor Who fans I know that I didn't review the last few episodes of the series but that was because I was busy with other things but tho I promised my self that come hell or high water I would review the New Years Day special and well here I am. Also of note is that even tho this is the only new episode we're getting this year there will be at least one more Doctor Who review from me this year and it's of a classic episode that's just been animated.
The plot of this special is pure and simply an old enemy is back and it's up to the Doctor to put a stop to it's latest evil scheme. I'm not going to lie I really enjoyed the story for this years special to me it felt like a story that best suited these villains and incase you haven't noticed i'm trying to keep this bit as spoiler free as possible and I will say that a storyline from series 11 i'd say gets resolved which was something that I never thought they'd do.
The guest cast for this weeks episode is Charlotte Ritchie as Lin , Nikesh Patel as Mitch and Daniel Adegboyega as Aaron. For me the acting from the guest cast wasn't as strong as it perhaps could have been but for a special episode it was serviceable at best it certainly wasn't the worst acting in this current run of episodes but it's up there and if you've seen the episode i've left one name of here because it would be a give away as to who the villains are.
Returning for the special is Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor , Bradley Walsh as Graham , Tosin Cole as Ryan and Mandip Gill as Yaz. The acting from the main cast I thought was pretty spot on Jodie and Bradley killed it in every episode in the last series and the same is true for this special and I know that not alot of people like Jodie but for me she's solid as The Doctor. It's just a shame that yet again Yaz is left with practically nothing to do and when the show comes back on next year I wouldn't be surprised if they got rid of her character.
Like a lot of you I was pretty shocked when the BBC announced that instead of getting the traditional Christmas special we'd be getting a New Years Day special. Which if the setting for this episode took place on New Years Day to me it would have made sense but it doesn't so there was no real reason as to why this episode couldn't have aired on Christmas day. To me it seems that this was only made a New Years day episode because the BBC wanted an episode of Doctor Who released in 2019 which I do see why they would want that but at the same time if that's what they did want then why not make two special episodes instead of the one.
OK boys and girls from this point onwards there will be some spoilers but if you want to skip the spoilers section then just go right to the end of the review for my final thoughts and overall rating of the episode. The one actor I left of the credited guest list was the great Nick Briggs who is back voicing The Daleks and I cannot believe how could it was to hear his voice again the man is just so freaking good at playing The Daleks.
If you couldn't tell by how many times i've just mentioned them the villains of this episode are the iconic Daleks and I have to say it felt good seeing them again after about a year or two break it was right that they return in a special episode. However I will say that they just weren't scary at least in my opinion in this episode if anything they felt like the type of villain that you'd see in an action film and not like the villains you'd see in a classic Doctor Who story.
I will say that I loved the new design for them for some reason they look a lot more physical and like they could actually beat you up. What did interest me about the story tho was seeing this one lone Dalek rebuild it self almost from scratch I don't think we've seen that in any Doctor Who Dalek episode before so it was really interesting to see that play out and it's a shame that the episode didn't do more with that idea.
The one storyline from series 11 that didn't get resolved i'd say does in this episode and that's Ryan's dad shows up i'm not going to lie from how he was filmed in his introduction scene I knew it was him before Ryan said who it was. Just because you wouldn't have tried to hide his face if it wasn't his dad so that was a pretty obvious reveal and I like how that storyline got resolved it was a fitting way to end the storyline and really the only way they could have done.
There was a lot more action in this episode then I was expecting I think that when we all found out that the daleks were coming back we knew that there'd be some action but alot of the third act is just pure action. I'm not honestly sure how I feel about that to be honest because to me Doctor Who isn't about the action and things blowing up but at the same time for a dalek story it kind of makes sense that The Doctor would go that extra mile to try and defeat them.
Now for the last few episodes of series 11 I was saying all over twitter that Jodie has yet to have that big I am the doctor type of speech. Well I think she gets it in this episode and it's a pretty good well written speech it's no where near as good as the one that the doctor gives about war from series nine but it's still a really good speech in my opinion.
Overall I thought that this episode was really good like all later episodes of the show it has it's ups and it's downs and like I said I saw no reason why this had to be a New Years Day special rather then a Christmas Day episode so overall i'm giving this episode a solid 7.5 out of 10 from me.
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