Doctor Who, Eve of the Daleks, BBC1, review: Back at its best, with a sensational performance from Aisling Bea

After last month’s knotty and largely uninspiring finale, Eve of the Daleks was a wonderful return to form for Doctor Who.

This was the show stripped back to its best: a smart, simple concept, engaging supporting characters, and the Daleks at their most menacing. Exactly what you want on a zonked-out New Year’s Day while recovering from the Covid-19 you caught over Christmas.

Doctor Who is famed for its alien locations and fantastical travels through time, yet it’s remarkable how much fun you can squeeze out of the TARDIS in a self-storage centre in Manchester.

It was here that the Doctor and co found themselves stuck in a time loop, along with Aisling Bea’s long-suffering employee Sarah, Adjani Salmon’s lovesick Nick (both charismatic performances) and a couple of gatling gun-toting Daleks. The twist? Every time they were killed by the Daleks, the time loop reset one minute closer to midnight – where the loop would close for good.

Time-loop stories are hardly a new idea in science fiction, but they are popular for a reason: the theme of déjà vu is universally familiar, and the format has built-in high stakes and intrigue. Why is this happening? Can they break the loop in time? What will they do differently this time? All of which gave Eve of the Daleks an entertainingly frantic sense of momentum.

Salmon, the creator and lead of hidden BBC Three gem Dreaming While Black, was burdened slightly with the role of Nick – an odd guy who puts his ex-girlfriends’ possessions into storage in case they ever want them back – but he was charming enough to sell it.

Bea meanwhile was in her element as the sardonic Sarah, whose no-nonsense Irish sense of humour was not a million miles from the semi-autobiographical character she played in Channel 4’s This Way Up. She was sensational, reminiscent of when Catherine Tate stole the show in 2006’s The Runaway Bride and much like Tate, she would make a great future companion.

Some argue that in the modern Doctor Who era, the Daleks have lost their ability to scare. This festive special proved that when it comes to the Daleks, less is more: trapped inside a self-storage facility, stuck in claustrophobic corridors with no means of escape, they began to resemble raptors – where every unfortunate encounter means instant death.

The biggest talking point was the revelation that companion Yaz (Mandip Gill) is harbouring feelings for Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor. Yaz has been so thinly written over the past few years, following the Doctor around with apparently little motive, so a secret crush could be an explanation.

Will it be reciprocated? So far, Whittaker’s Doctor is hardly the romantic of the David Tennant era, but after breaking ground as the first female Doctor, it would be quite the flourish for Chris Chibnall to end her era with a same-sex romance. There is still hope yet that this era of Doctor Who can go out on a high.

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