Eve of the Daleks
Home › Forums › Episodes › The Thirteenth Doctor › Eve of the Daleks
This topic contains 46 replies, has 16 voices, and was last updated by nerys 1 month, 4 weeks ago.
-
AuthorPosts
-
1 January 2022 at 18:08 #72725
Happy New Year everyone! I hope we are emerging out of the darkness and into the light in many different ways.
This is what the BBC has to say about this episode in their turgid way:
“New Year’s Eve. Sarah is working – again. Nick is her only customer – again. Same old same old. Except this year, their countdown to midnight will be the strangest and deadliest they have ever known.
Why is an executioner Dalek targeting these two people, in this place, on this night? Why are they having to live through the same moments again? Can the Doctor, Yaz and Dan save them and survive into the New Year?”
Joining John Bishop as Dan is fellow comedian Aisling Bea, who has also proven herself to be a great actress, especially in her own show “This Way Up” and “Living With Yourself” in which she co-starred with Paul Rudd.
This is written by Chibnall and is directed by Annetta Laufer. She has several directing credits, but also has an array of writing and script supervising credits. Hopefully she’s helped Chibnall bash this into something good this time. Once again, I have my fingers crossed.
1 January 2022 at 20:24 #72733Thanks and happy new year o glorious emperor @craig . Now to the Special, well it was much better than the series and felt more like like an episode of Who. It’s almost as if now Jodie has the Flux out the way she’s able put her heart into being the doctor. Will probably have to watch again to digest and cogitate all the little bombshells but let’s say Yaz’s reveal wasn’t exactly a surprise given her possessiveness over the Doctor over the last 12 months of specials and series.
1 January 2022 at 20:34 #72734Anonymous @Absolute garbage. Roll on Russell.
1 January 2022 at 21:28 #72735That was a fun one – resetting to one minute later was a good use of the time loop concept. Also good use of the guest stars – Adjani Salmon figuring out how to save himself was a highlight.
@devilishrobby yeah, Whittaker seems to be joining Davison as someone who only relaxed into the role when she knew she was leaving it.
1 January 2022 at 21:52 #72736@bluesqueakpip yeah it felt more like a traditional Who episode, one thing did anyone see the guy towards the end of the episode taking pictures of the fire works I’m wondering if he’s got more significance for the future didn’t have my glassses on at the time but his voice was familiar, really need to rewatch.
1 January 2022 at 22:03 #72737It was Karl from Whittaker’s very first episode – at least, the credits named the character as Karl and he was played by the same actor (Johnny Dixon).
The question is, was it a little joke, or is it significant?
1 January 2022 at 22:05 #72738I love a time loop. And the device of having the time reducing by a minute each time added a lot more tension (I didn’t time it myself to make sure they weren’t cheating, mind you!). It reminded me of a Star Trek NG episode where (if my memory serves me well) each time the loop recurred, the space had contracted (i.e. more of the ship had disappeared). I teared up when Yaz acknowledged her feelings for the Doc – no surprise, but it felt like a powerful moment to have it recognised. And why not – 10 had Rose, so why should 13 not have Yaz? Of course, that will be complicated by an imminent regeneration but let’s see… I also had a sense that the dude watching the fireworks was significant and maybe familiar but couldn’t place him.
1 January 2022 at 22:19 #72739Ah that’s why he seemed familiar. I’m actually surprised by the episode I thought oh no not another Dalek NewYears episode when it was announced but as I said it was actually a better episode than I thought it would be. I had thought after the end of Flux here we go, how is Chibbers going alter who history again but it appears he wasn’t for once.
1 January 2022 at 23:15 #72740HNY everyone.
I was delighted that Yaz’s romantic feelings for the Doc were acknowledged in text.
It’s really, deeply meaningful for gender non-conforming and LGBTQ+ fans to have watched the Doctor become gender-fluid by way of regenerations and now, in the Doc’s awkward fashion, perhaps romantically, fond of certain humans regardless of gender.
My child-self would have been absolutely astonished and amazed that such wonders could ever have happened on page and on-screen in the official narrative.
That aside, I’m glad the Doctor’s genocidal actions with the Flux are coming back to haunt her. She has really stirred a Dalek hornets’ nest now.
Like @cathannabel I love a time loop, and was there a Covid pandemic response metaphor in there? Humans doing the same thing over and over again, and getting killed, but over time, learning to trust one another and work together to finally escape the death trap (deadly virus/ time-loop of crap government response).
2 January 2022 at 02:45 #72741Well, yes, that was actually a fun episode. I agree with all the wise comments above (but only the wise comments).
Have just finished it, so perhaps more thoughts later. Except for this:
As I watched it I could not help but be struck by the weird connection with a fabulous Japanese film I watched last night called “Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes” about a group of people who discover that the computer on the second floor is streaming a message from the restaurant on the ground floor that is two minutes in the future, and the computer in the restaurant is streaming a message from two minutes in the past. it is a wonderfully wacky movie, and I totally recommend it.
It is very different to tonight’s episode, but it shows that in the zeitgeist there are some great ideas about time floating around.
In case anyone wants to check it out:
p.s. Yes! The other connection, as @cathannabel points out, is the NG episode. Also a gem of an episode.
Isn’t time wonderful?
2 January 2022 at 03:31 #72742Happy Who Year to all of you!
We found out that my granddaughter, who is 13, has covid. She has the Omicron variant but has no symptoms and feels fine. It is still hard not to worry and I hoped this Who would take me away from it for a little while and it did. Thanks Doctor.
I really enjoyed the episode and even Mr Winston watched the whole thing and liked it. It required little background info to get into it so even an occasional viewer, like him, could understand it. Although it was not a light episode (exterminated 8 times)there were lovely light and funny moments scattered through it. The cast was excellent with Aisling Bea playing one of my favourite characters in a long time. It was a real romp through every corridor and dimly lit stairwell of this giant storage building. It was a great set that was a part of the story.
The Daleks are getting better weapons and are anxious to use them on anything that moves, even each other if you duck. I loved that part! They blew up real nice at the end giving us a lovely firework display.
I might be the only one who didn’t know how Yaz felt about the Doctor so I was pleasantly choked up when she was talking to Dan. Poor Yaz may get her heart broken. Dan is so nice I imagine people tell him things all the time.The Doctor reminding us that life is a series of knock outs and that we have to get up ,try harder and keep going was a message we all need at this time.
This was a fun episode that I want to re-watch just to enjoy it all over again.
stay safe
2 January 2022 at 16:33 #72746Now we’re talking! I really enjoyed this episode. The relationship arc between Sarah and Nick built in a predictable way, yet the romantic in me wanted it to go there. Sarah’s flintiness is hard to pull off believably, but Aisling Bea nailed it. Sarah wasn’t trying to be intentionally cruel to Nick (beautifully played by Adjani Salmon), yet her words and actions hurt him and others. Seeing that realization dawn on Sarah with each successive time loop was one of the most satisfying elements of this episode.
In some ways, the relationship between Sarah and Nick felt more real to me than the relationship between Clara and Danny … which is strange, since we spent a lot more time with those two. As heartbreaking as Danny’s demise was, I was never fully convinced that he and Clara had much in the way of a relationship. It was one of the few missteps, IMO, of the Moffat era.
I was afraid yet another Daleks episode would annoy me, but I felt the Daleks were utilized effectively. And, since world domination wasn’t their ultimate aim here, just getting revenge on the Doctor by exterminating her, that upped the dramatic tension. And containing the action in just one storage building, compared with all the massive set pieces we saw in the “Flux” story arc, brought it down to a more personal level.
The success of this episode shows how the “Flux” series could have benefited from fewer characters and more intimate interactions between the Doctor and her companions.
@winston I’m glad this episode provided a welcome diversion for you.
3 January 2022 at 06:32 #72751I think this was a very good episode. Pretty stand alone, but with two important threads from what’s happened before.
I noted about the last flux episode about how she rather skipped over that line, not that what she didn’t wasn’t clever and pretty justifiable in a battle sense, but that was rather the Doctor’s line – although they seem a little to have softened it here, at the time I got the impression that that, there, was all the Daleks. (Not that, as I said, genocide means anything with time travelling races) Now it’s a chunk of their battle fleet. However, there was something new and interesting in that conversation, the first sense I think I’ve had of the Daleks going after her, not tactically, not out of a sense of a historical war with Time Lords, or with the Doctor in particular as a legacy or expression of the Doctor’s history with Davros, but because of this particular thing the Doctor had done to them. And the Doctor is taking responsibly. Not that wiping out millions of battle Daleks (is there any other kind?) is objectively speaking a Bad Thing To Do, but it’s interesting to see some of Eleven’s hubris theme returning. As well as the fact, as Rory pointed out, the Doctor is dangerous to be around.
Secondly, the set up of conflict with Time itself. I did think the Doctor was a little slow in working out ‘I’ve just put the Tardis into a massive reboot. While I was setting it up the Tardis, who sees everything in the past and present, as I know, I’ve spoken to her, took me here. Now we’re engaged in a fight with the Daleks in a time loop, where, for the first (then second, then third etc) time, the Dalek’s have actually managed to kill me. The Tardis reboot is probably causing the time loop’. I am rather interested in how the rest of her conflict with Time will play out in the following two episodes this year. Though I am being cautious about how well it will be wrapped up.
Thirdly, Yaz and the Doctor. This was quite nicely done, including the Doctor’s evasive reactions. To be fair, her wife only died one reincarnation ago (and while their relationship wasn’t entirely monogamous especially for River but to an extent, for Eleven, it was very much, especially for Twelve, the primary relationship). To be fair also, romance with the companions has tended to be messy. How the Doctor feels about Yaz is to an extent unclear. Of course she loves her, she’s close to her in a way she wasn’t with the others on the Tardis. But as someone on here once said, Eleven imprinted on Amy like a little baby duck, and apart from Amy’s panic flirting and snog when she first met him as an adult, and even before he realised she was his mother-in-law, it was plutonic. So the question is, is this a Rose situation or a Martha situation? Yaz being a woman can’t come into it, it defies logic that reincarnating as a woman suddenly wipes out the Doctor’s attraction to women, or, if it’s technically feasible it’s absolutely not something I would expect this show to do. Likewise, several versions of the Doctor just haven’t appeared Romantically inclined at all, but again, this isn’t the context in which I expect to see that reintroduced. But nor has there ever been a fully fledged, in action, romantic coupling within the Tardis, Rose had to wait and end up with the copy of the Doctor. River didn’t travel with him all that often, not that we saw. I like Dan for clearly thinking ‘yeah, she’s never going to tell her. I’ll tell her. Because she already knows’. Given that RTD is returning to the helm, it’s interesting to see Chibs potentially introducing the first explicitly, canonically same-sex attracted Doctor (Ten definitely read as bisexual, but Captain Jack’s feelings for him also kind of read as unrequited).
(sorry about the rambling, I’m supposed to be doing footnotes, so naturally…)
Overall as well, lovely concept, a time loop getting tighter, genuine tension, threatening Daleks, a proper puzzle to sort out. Chibs is extremely patchy, to a frustrating extent, and vastly improved with the right co-writers But I really think future generations of watchers, even in some cases, the same watchers, will be much kinder to his run. (While complaining about whatever is happening and whoever is running Who at that time.
3 January 2022 at 06:57 #72752“apart from Amy’s panic flirting and snog when she first met him as an adult, and even before he realised she was his mother-in-law, it was plutonic.”
Sometimes a typo is just so good…. 😉
Not that I’ve seen anything past S11, where Yaz was basically just part of the scenery, so I’m guessing maybe she had a bit more to do in later series. Almost persuades me to get on Ebay and buy some later seasons.
3 January 2022 at 07:11 #72753@nerys Umm, Clara and Danny – me too. I could never see quite what the attraction was. It suited the plot to have Clara fall in love with Danny, but the start of Dark Water would have been even more devastating (for me) if Danny had been a character I cared about. And would have lent even more conviction to that awesome scene in the volcano where Clara and the Doctor were competing to gain control of the situation, I would not want to try and outbluff either of those two!
I think it was partly casting – Danny didn’t *look* (to me) like a sensitive guy who had been traumatised by his experiences in Iraq.
3 January 2022 at 07:13 #72754@dentarthurdent heh, not sure I can actually blame that on a typo, my brain insists on thinking vowels are pretty much interchangeable. Took me a few minutes to find it even when you pointed it out!
Yes, the Flux season especially bought her out a bit more.
3 January 2022 at 15:00 #72756@miapatrick Please don’t apologize for rambling! I enjoyed every word of your thoughtful analysis. It’s one of the reasons I love this group! (But I’m not seeing the typo.)
3 January 2022 at 19:29 #72757I ended up taking a break from this forum for the second half of season 13, but I did overall enjoy Flux. This episode, like Revolution of the Daleks, acted as a coda to the previous season, wrapping up some of the questions from Flux.
I loved the time loop—it’s a classic concept but surprisingly not one I’ve seen a lot of, and the twist of the decreasing time was enough. At first, I struggled to wrap my head around it, but the realization that someone who died before the reset point would die permanently really made it click while adding further tension. I also thought the decoy loop was a cool strategy. The episode was funny too—the mother’s insistence that the lines will be busy, Jeff the Unseen, and the decoy loop’s events were hilarious. And I rarely care much about the guest characters, but this time I did. They just felt so real, with all their awkwardness, flaws, and struggles.
There were a couple of slight problems with the episode, even though I really enjoyed it. Firstly, I feel like four years stuck in the past is extremely long (at least for me, but I’m young so maybe that’s why it seems so long) and was barely addressed. How did Yaz even keep her feelings for the Doctor that long? How will she remember stuff about her family? It’s a lot, and their interactions don’t seem any colder. Also, I’m still unclear over what happened to the universe sections destroyed by the Flux; I’m guessing that they’ve been reformed, at this point, since they haven’t been mentioned.
As for Yaz’s crush on the Doctor, it’s a mixed blessing. It shows that the writers weren’t just leading people on with the implications and it doesn’t come out of nowhere. At the same time, I’m not a big fan of romance plots in general and it seems a bit strange to keep a crush after a year apart, a couple months back together, and then another four years apart. I guess my complete opinion depends on how it plays out.
All in all, I thought this was an excellent and very entertaining episode.
4 January 2022 at 01:56 #72758Well, I quite enjoyed that. It’s usually best to go into the festive episodes with low expectations but I thought that was a pretty solid, if not exactly mind-blowing, bit of Who. It was basically Who does Russian Doll, wasn’t it? The concept was cool, the guest stars engaging and created characters that I was actually concerned about for once and the regulars moved effortlessly through their paces. Jodie seems very comfortable in the role now (frustrating now that she’s so close to the end) and with Yaz and Dan have formed a rapport that was almost entirely lacking in the original ‘Fam’.
And if you can say one thing for Chibs it’s that he can write the Daleks well. I can’t think of a single other story where the Daleks have had all the best lines like this. Nice to see the old bronze Daleks used too — though, come on, bring back the New Paradigms already.
But the best thing about the ep, for my money, is that Thasmin has been acknowledged and is now apparently very much a canonical thing. It’ll all depend on how Chibs follows through, of course, and he only has two stories to do so. I like that this seems to confirm the Doc’s bi (pan?) inclinations but unlike the 11/12 and River and 10 and Rose, I feel it’s a shame that we’ve not seen Yaz and 13 share that many happy times or even that much in the way of flirtation. Mostly what we’ve seen is them bicker and snap at each other. I’d like to have seen some of the fun times too.
The only two disappointments with the episode were the cringey rallying speech — 13 really isn’t a speechifying sort of Doc imo and the wasted opportunity of the TARDIS reset failing to get rid of that godawful console room. I’m really looking forward to seeing that one blown up for good.
4 January 2022 at 06:02 #72761@nerys plutonic/platonic, I think. I never noticed my spelling was so atrocious till the ubiquity of typing. My handwriting was always so bad no one noticed 😉
(Ironically a chapter of my dissertation revolves around the significance of switched vowels, either as misspellings or miss pronunciations or works with common origins (virtue/vartue, person/parson). Proof reading is really, really not fun.
4 January 2022 at 09:25 #72764@nerys I, err, think Miapatrick meant that Amy and Eleven’s relationship was ‘platonic’.
‘plutonic’ refers to volcanic phenomena occurring at a great depth, or, alternatively, Pluto a.k.a. Hades, ruler of the Underworld. So, um, deep, dire and drastic.
4 January 2022 at 09:33 #72765@dentarthurdent yeah that would be more like the relationship with the Master…
4 January 2022 at 10:10 #72766@nerys @miapatrick And of course if I’d refreshed this page before I posted I would have seen that Miapatrick had already explained it. D’oh.
By the way, proofreading – I had a massive dose of it when I contributed a book to Project Gutenberg Australia. Which is to say, scanned each page, ran it through an OCR program (which typically produced 3 or 4 errors *per line*) and then proofread and corrected them all. Phew!
4 January 2022 at 10:11 #72767@miapatrick (I just did it again! 🙂
Well, yes, that would indeed be more like the relationship with the Master.
4 January 2022 at 10:30 #72768@dentarthurdent having just spent a fair part of the day peering at the most readable scans of books by Haywood and Defoe I can find, with nothing but chaos in the plain text offering I greatly appreciate your efforts.
4 January 2022 at 12:00 #72769@miapatrick @dentarthurdent Ha, thanks for helping me out! Usually my proofreading skills are better than that. I kept staring at “snog” and thinking, “Well, I think that’s correct.” I was focusing on the wrong word and reading the rest of your post as you meant it … not as it is.
4 January 2022 at 12:13 #72771@nerys this conversation has made me ROLF . Your spelling is perfect compared to mine I’m always misspelling words even with automatic spell checking and autocorrect (though auto correct is a whole other problem), I also have a habit of hitting send or enter before triple checking what has actually gone down on the screen which has led me to rapidly hitting edit a number of times.
4 January 2022 at 12:48 #72773@nerys that last line – that is <i>precisely </i>the problem I encounter when proofing my work.
@devilishrobby my main problem with spell checkers is that at one point I kept accidentally clicking ‘add word’. Which didn’t even have the effect of eliminating the squiggly lines, because I rarely misspell a word the same way twice.
Although we might be a little off topic, so to summarise: The Doctor and Amy’s relationship was, apart from a very brief blip, platonic. The Doctor and the Master’s relationship is Plutonic. That between Yaz and the Doctor might well be neither. And this is an excellent way for me to remember the difference!
4 January 2022 at 21:22 #72774@devilishrobby Spelling is a thing for me going way back. I can blame my parents, I suppose, since they were always such perfectionists about it. It must’ve rubbed off on me.
@miapatrick I was a newspaper reporter and freelance writer from 1981 right up through early 2020, when my freelance assignments dried up and have never resumed. So I know all too well the “I meant this, but typed this” vexation. It was part of my love/hate relationship with writing. And then to see it as I intended to write it, when it’s not what’s actually on the page or screen, is even more frustrating! But I’m told that’s how our brain works.
Oh, and I enjoyed how you brought us back on topic!
8 January 2022 at 12:38 #72795That was more like it! Loved the idea of accepting their death in one loop to set up the next one – a time travel version of Memento.
on the subject of time travel films, I saw a spanish film a couple of years ago on BBC4 when someone travels forward in time and see themselves getting shot and (spoiler alert) in trying to avoid it actually discovers it was themselves that did it. Can’t for the life of me remember the title – anyone able to help me out?
10 January 2022 at 21:11 #72801I just watched Eve of the Daleks again this afternoon and enjoyed it even more. Now, this felt like a proper Doctor Who episode! Which is baffling. Clearly Chris Chibnall is capable, so why can’t all of his episodes draw me in like this? It’s an old question, at this stage of the game, and I’m not sure it’s worth debating. Better to celebrate the episodes like this one that give me that old timey wimey thrill!
11 January 2022 at 07:46 #72802@charlie-cook it sounded intriguing so I did a quick search and couldn’t find it (as I’m sure you’ve done) I did however find out about another film about time travel from Spain, Timecrimes (<i lang=”es”><b>Los Cronocrímenes) </b></i><b></b>only he goes back in time an hour and it’s someone else who dies. <b></b>
11 January 2022 at 08:58 #72803@miapatrick that’s the one! Obviously I misremembered the plot and the end but otherwise… 🙂
Thank you.
11 January 2022 at 09:04 #72804@charlie-cook I did wonder because it sounded close in concept, and it’s weird how the brain jumbles things while keeping the essence. I’m definitely going to look for it, it looks very interesting. I do like me a time loop!
14 January 2022 at 15:45 #72813hello everyone!
i’m new here and i just have to say how nice it is to not feel alone and/or weird to watch something that most people from my country never heard of. I am in awe. Have a nice day ya’ll.
5 August 2022 at 04:05 #73354I just watched this episode again and it was even better somehow. It had every thing I like in an episode of Who, humour, banter, danger and lots of running down dark hallways. Not to mention wise cracking Daleks and a little romance.The 2 people trapped in the loop with the Doctor learned so much about themselves and each other that by the end they are a “thing”. Very sweet. It is amazing how being exterminated so many times can change your priorities.
I think we need a prequel so we can find out why Jeff has filled the rooms with so much strange stuff. Beefy beans, and why so many ?Is that all Jeff eats or were they on sale? Why does he live there and where will he live now? I have so many Jeff related questions.
I think this is my favourite 13th Doctor episode and one I will watch many times.
Play safe
31 October 2022 at 13:07 #73649First impressions:
What’s this ‘reconfiguration’ business? Where did that come from? I guess it doesn’t actually conflict with any previous canon. I’d hate to think the Tardis was running anything related to Windows Update though 🙂
A Dalek with a gatling gun – that’s new too. It seems a bit of an overkill considering how deadly effective their previous weapon was. Typical Chibbers, everything up to 11. I’m nitpicking, up to this point (the titles) the ep’s been quite effective.
And then we revert to square one. Alternate futures? Interesting. Or is it alternate pasts? But the Dalek still kills everybody. So now we’re in Groundhog Day territory. And bugger me, Dan actually says “Groundhog Day”. That’s lampshading it.
Sarah appears to be quite a gutsy resolute girl. Why the Doctor feels the need to flash her psychic paper I don’t know, maybe force of habit, because Sarah obviously doesn’t believe it and it doesn’t matter anyway, no story is going to help.
Obviously the Dalek’s rotary cannon has sacrificed accuracy for rate of fire, since it aims a sustained burst down the corridor and manages to miss every one of the five – how is that even possible?
But anyway, the diminishing time loop is quite a good plot device. And Nick successfully pulled off the oldest trick in the book, the Irish firing squad. (They stand round in a circle).
The Doctor is still making lengthy garrulous speeches.
Sarah’s mother is so annoying, if I was a Dalek I’d shoot her too.
And I don’t think a few boxes of fireworks would take out a building and Daleks. You need several tons of them to create a proper explosion. Still, that’s a relatively minor nitpick.
I had hoped the Tardis reset would include a thorough remodelling, but it’s still Crystal Cave. Too bad. I don’t think anyone ever accused this Doctor of having good taste.
Overall, this was quite good. A bottle episode, with a cast of five (plus three Dalek operators). The stakes were not a planet, or the entire universe, but just the Doctor and two companions and two bystanders, versus five Daleks. The destruction was limited to one old warehouse. And yet the suspense was just as effective as the Flux. I think maybe Chibnall’s best so far.
1 November 2022 at 11:06 #73660On reflection, my previous comment was overall a bit too negative. It was actually a really *good* episode! I just wasn’t expecting that from Chibnall, cynical sod that I am.
On reading though the comments, I see that my impressions (technical nitpicks aside of course) is pretty much in line with the general opinion of the episode. I just felt impelled to re-watch again straight away, a rarity with Chibnall’s episodes (I think the previous ones were Prisoner of the Judoon and the Master double episode – Spyfall).
The ‘romance’ between Nick and Sarah was surprisingly interesting and quite well handled. Nick managed to be awkward and a little weird without being useless.
And the trio of Doctor, Yaz and Dan is a far better grouping than the previous ‘fam’ (ugh!) which never felt like a cohesive or convincing unit, the Doctor’s protestations to the contrary. In that respect (the earlier ‘fam’) she reminded me of one of those coaches on a business team-bonding exercise, full of false enthusiasm and bonhomie. And in fact, the (as Jim the Fish said) ‘cringey rallying speech’ hasn’t changed much.
But back to the companions, I never felt that Graham and Ryan were very convincing (or maybe I just didn’t care) and Yaz had very little to do. Yaz 2.0 and Dan are much more engaging characters. It’s a pity we didn’t get them much earlier in the Chibnall years.
2 November 2022 at 10:51 #73671Oh yes, and I really liked that the Daleks were the classic bronze models. Quite the most satisfying Dalek version IMO. (Even if they were upgunned with their new rotary shooters, which suited them as well as the original eggwhisk I think.)
2 November 2022 at 16:33 #73678@dentarthurdent This remains my favorite episode of the Chibnall era. Just when I thought he couldn’t pull it off, he did. So this was a really nice surprise for me. Now, if you like the Flux, then I’m going to have to rewatch it. For me, it was “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (the impression many of Chibnall’s episodes have left on me).
3 November 2022 at 01:43 #73687@nerys Well I’d agree with you that it’s Chibs best episode (so far – haven’t seen Sea Devils or Power yet). Your description of the Flux was pretty much my impression too. Too much going on. The best Flux episode IMO was the Angels one, which happened to be the most focussed one with the least complicated storyline.
15 November 2022 at 21:05 #73750@dentarthurdent I agree with you about the Angels episode. At the time, I thought, “OK, now we’re building toward something good!” And then the rest of the Flux arc fell flat.
6 September 2024 at 13:14 #76890Eve of the Daleks – rewatching after Revolution of the Daleks (and skipping over the Fluxes)
Hey, this is really good. Some well-sketched characters and not too much of the emotional stuff. (I think the emotions should come from the audience and not from the actors talking at length on screen). I do like the interplay between the Doctor, Yaz and Dan. And we’re right into the action with the Dalek – but importantly, it’s a finite threat. And they all get dead before the titles – that’s new.
And we’re into a deadly re-run of Groundhog Day. But with deja vu. By the way, I can’t help noticing there’s lots of Running Through Corridors, but I forgive Chibz that because it’s very well justified by the plot.
Nick is nearly as annoying as Ryan used to be, though possibly a bit more capable than Ryan initially was. And Sarah’s mum is, I suppose, in the Doctor Who tradition of appalling associates’ mothers.
What I don’t get is why the time loop resets when they get killed. And – which one of them? Does it reset when the last humanoid is killed? And why is the loop a minute shorter each time? I suppose it’s logical that, IF they aren’t killed on the last iteration, then the time loop won’t reset and they all survive.
I thought the time-loop was a little confusing but not too hard to follow. It wasn’t as precisely logical as, say, Blink. For a series whose main protagonist owns a time machine, nuWho has actually dealt with the possible local convolutions of time travel surprisingly rarely. I can bring to mind The Day of the Doctor, and The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, Blink of course, maybe Time Heist, a small one in Hell Bent, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang maybe, and that’s about it. Maybe my recollection is patchy. (As for oldWho, I don’t know enough to judge).
Anyway, as episodes go, I found Eve of the Daleks a lot more coherent than the Flux episodes which preceded it. The Doctor has vastly improved from early episodes, with far less tendency to babble unintelligibly, and Yaz and Dan make excellent Companions.
7 September 2024 at 06:43 #76891@dentarthurdent You have convinced me to watch the episode. I confused it with the previous Dalek New Year’s Special which wasn’t bad and so thought I had seen this one until I reread Craig’s intro.
Cheers
Janette
7 September 2024 at 09:42 #76892@janetteb Good luck! It will be interesting to see what you make of it.
8 September 2024 at 02:51 #76893@dentarthurdent I still want to know more about Jeff ! Why is he storing such strange things ? Why so many beefy beans? Who are you Jeff?
I like this episode, fun fast and feisty,with fireworks at the end, who could ask for more?
stay safe
8 September 2024 at 14:10 #76894@winston It was fun to have Jeff and his shady dealings remain a mystery to us, while being such a source of frustration for Sarah. Though, in the end, Jeff’s illegal weaponry did help to save the day.
That’s part of what made this such a fun episode (fun, yet the threat felt real). The humor and whimsy are not forced, a rarity in the Chibnall era. The Doctor doesn’t babble … a frequent problem with the way Whittaker’s Doctor was written. Also, as the story progresses, the characters gel believably into a team, which leads to their success. I also appreciate that time is such a fundamental part of this story. Highly appropriate for a Time Lord!
-
AuthorPosts
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.