When we last saw the Doctor, in what seems like an age ago but was in fact March 2020, she was banged up in space prison, while her friends returned to life on Earth. This year’s festive Doctor Who special, Revolution of the Daleks, picks up where The Timeless Children left off, and we now have a lot more info.
Firstly, Doctor Who isn’t, as a lot of us had hoped, returning to BBC One’s Christmas Day schedule. Instead, it’s following in the footsteps of previous Jodie Whittaker-era specials and airing on New Year’s Day. At least, with New Year parties not being a thing this year, we might not be watching it through as much of a hungover haze as with Spyfall Part One.
And, thanks to a new trailer you can see below, we now know a bit about the episode’s story and guest cast. It looks like it’ll be a political thriller in which the British Prime Minister, played by Dame Harriet Walter (Killing Eve, The Crown), announces the deployment of ‘drones’ suspiciously similar to Daleks.
As if that wasn’t “this will go badly” enough, the scheme also involves Jack Robertson, the disgraced Trump-alike from Series 11’s Arachnids in the UK, with Chris Noth returning to the role.
Speaking of returning Jacks, Jack’s back! After that odd cameo in Fugitive of the Judoon, John Barrowman is actually properly in this one, returning as Captain Jack Harkness to fight the Daleks and, it seems, ask Graham, Ryan and Yaz (Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, and Mandip Gill) tough questions about what it means to travel with the Doctor.
Oh, and the Daleks have been redesigned, again. That plus their employment by the PM makes this feel like a modern retread of Victory of the Daleks, so let’s hope Chris Chibnall’s effort becomes better remembered than that controversial 2010 episode. We’ll find out for sure on New Year’s Day, but for now, here’s that trailer in full: