But, really, when you look around at what we’re capable of ignoring, it’s not implausible.) (Every once in a while the series will take note of this odd fact, without ever explaining it very well.

You’d think that the people of Earth would recognize them by now, given how many times they’ve been up in our business, and know enough not to get into bed with them, but in “Doctor Who” humans are remarkably forgetful when it comes to alien attacks. There is no sign of COVID-19 in this timeline, but the past year’s social unrest makes a sort of appearance: there’s a plan to use these new Daleks as “security drones” for crowd control. Hanging around as guest stars are John Barrowman, back as flirty Time Ranger Captain Jack Harkness Harriet Walter as an ambitious politician and Chris Noth reprising the Trump-ish American businessman he played a couple years back in the episode “Arachnids in the U.K.,” here trying to turn a fast buck - which is to say, millions of them - from reverse-engineering the armored remains of that aforementioned alien. Soon enough, thanks to current showrunner Chris Chibnall, who wrote the episode, she’s back on Earth with companions Yaz (Mandip Gill), Ryan (Tosin Cole) and Graham (Bradley Walsh). The end of last season saw the Doctor being carted off by the Judoon - rhinoceros cops in space suits, basically - and bunged into a space prison “for being me.” There we find her reciting “Harry Potter” to herself, and taking exercise in a sort of prison yard filled with Easter eggs, in the non-Eastery, non-eggy sense of the term. “It looks like a Dalek, but it can’t be a Dalek - unless it’s a Dalek,” the Doctor will say when she encounters one again, again. This year’s entry, “Revolution of the Daleks,” both concludes the cliffhanger upon which last season ended and acts as a sequel to the 2019 New Year’s special, “Resolution,” which ended with the Doctor and her familial crew blowing up a Dalek - the series’ signature enemy, forever almost destroyed and forever coming back - but just not quite enough. “Doctor Who,” in a British tradition, used to field a Christmas Day special, but throughout Jodie Whittaker’s tenancy in the time-space traveling TARDIS, New Year’s has been the day.

Doctor who season 1 episode 2 daleks