With the Doctor imprisoned on a penal asteroid, the Earth has to rely on her ‘Fam’ and Captain Jack Harkness to save the planet from domination by the Daleks.

WARNING: There are spoilers throughout this review.

It’s somewhat appropriate that a series centred around time travel had the foresight to shoot its 2021 festive special long in advance, and before COVID-19 would impact the filming of entertainment. That’s not to say some timey-winey shenanigans were involved, rather that this was some serendipity.

Lee Haven Jones directs his third episode after Season 12’s Spyfall: Part II and Orphan 55, working from a script by showrunner Chris Chibnall. Picking up 367 minutes from the ending of 2019 New Year Special Resolution, we see the remains of the destroyed Dalek rather easily hijacked on the way to a storage facility. Then we’re 10 months (and 79 billion light years) after the end of The Timeless Children where the Doctor was captured by the Judoon for being a member of The Division. But any concerns about this being a Doctor-lite episode – immediately conjuring up memories of The Christmas Invasion where the recently-regenerated Doctor 10 spent a significant time in bed – are dispelled when John Barrowman’s Captain Jack breaks into the prison and whisks the Doctor back home.

In the spirit of the festive romp, there’s many aspects of this story where you really shouldn’t spend too much time questioning logic and probability, and just accept that an entire army of Dalek mutants were secretly grown in a factory in Osaka (before the workforce were liquidised as food!) and that Dalek casings could be 3D printed (with mood lighting and an energy efficiency rating of A) somewhere in the UK. It’s that’s sort of episode where you just need to settle back and enjoy moments such as warring Dalek factions facing off against one another on Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge, or Jack and co planting bombs on a rather natty Dalek ‘SAS’ ship.

That’s not to say it’s all crash and boom, there’s many character moments setting up the departure of Graham and Ryan, Yaz’ future relationship with the Doctor, and the Doctor’s new identity crisis. John gives us the full Barrowman – saucy as ever, and with a few zingers aimed both at and from him, enjoying the panto performance he wouldn’t get on stage this year. Chris Noth returns from Season 11’s Arachnids in the UK as cowardly entrepreneur and Trumpalike Jack Robertson, and at one point suggests that the new Dalek are the security equivalent of the iPhone, which is a pretty good description of the slender, stylised new versions, still voiced by Nick Briggs.

After Penelope Wilton’s flawed Prime Minister Harriet Jones, we have another misguided PM, but this time it’s a different Harriet… Walter as Jo Patterson, who discovers all to late that she wasn’t given the best advice. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Misfits) is engaging as technical whizz Leo Rugazzi, though sadly becomes one of many casualties in this 70-minute caper.

For one moment I worried that Ryan and/or Graham would die or sacrifice themselves on the Dalek ship, but thankfully they’re given a proper send off on their own terms, though we now have another couple of ex-companions buzzing around with alien technology – maybe they’ll bump in to Clara/Me or Bill/Heather? Thankfully Ryan isn’t miraculously cured of his dyspraxia, which would be disrespectful to real-life sufferers, and instead we see progress with his cycling, and what do you mean you didn’t have a tear in tier eye with that flash of Grace at the end?

Oh, and if your TV had the right specs and you could handle the signal, the BBC transmitted the episode in UHD, and it looked glorious in HDR – 4K Resolution of the Daleks!

Verdict: Not that anyone would have known when filming this in 2019, but this is the sort of Doctor Who runaround that we needed to start a New Year after the ‘Worst Year Ever.’ There’s a time for angst, darkness and extra clever time travel conceits, and there’s a time for two warring factions of Daleks to out-hate each other to death. And the latter is what you get! Enjoy. 9/10

Nick Joy