Doctor Who Destination Skaro Children in Need review

By Owen Quinn author

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

With with only a week to go before the Doctor and Donna cross paths again in the 60th anniversary birthday special, we get a most welcome taste of the new Doctor once again standing proudly as part of the annual Children In Need event.

I didn’t realise how much I missed these until last night. While they may be short they give us so much pleasure like Time Crash and Tennant’s regeneration meltdown going into the Christmas Invasion so what would this new era bring given the fourteenth Doctor now has his tenth Doctor face back?

The anticipation was high as we wondered would it link to The Star Beast featuring a prequel featuring the Wraith Warriors, the Meep or Donna herself? No, we got a bonus surprise that like the Tales from the Tardis gives us an unexpected blast from the past. Many have wondered why a tank like a Dalek would have a sink plunger as an appendage which has been the subject of ridicule for years. Well, we writers have an answer for everything.

Enter Davros but not the hate filled wheelchair bound version we know and love. Here he is the scientist he once was before he became the version that has plagued the Doctor for years. The minute he opened his mouth you know who it is and welcome back to Julian Bleach. He is showing off the future of the Kaled race to a subservient Mister Castavillian in the form of his mark 3 travel unit aka a Dalek. The Dalek has a savage looking metal claw. The problem is he cannot think of a good name for it. Within just a few lines we see the Davros we know and his drive to rule with his new invention.

But we also get a new side of Davros as Castavillian tries to come up with a name by scrambling the letters of the word Kaled all of which Davros rejects. Bleach’s comedy timing is great making the Davros character multilayered. He really was human once.

But then the Tardis crashes taking the claw arm off in the process. The 14th Doctor pops out and accidentally gives the name Dalek, gives the exterminate catchphrase and replaces the claw with a sink plunger. Realising this is the genesis of the Daleks, he rushes off. Again a nice nod to the first on screen Davros story. The Doctor here is more exuberant that his tenth persona and reminds me very much of Quantum Leap’s Sam Beckett. He blunders in and accidentally cements part of the future into place. Just as Sam showed Michael Jackson how to moonwalk, gave Stephen King plots for books and inspired Donald Trump to build Trump Tower, so the Doctor christens the Daleks and provides the sink plunger that for years many have laughed at.

It’ a nice loose end to tie up and very Doctor Who as he becomes part of his own history. Davros returns and sees the damage and announes he loves it. With that the battle with the Toymaker and the Meep takes one step closer.

Thid is like getting the present you wanted for your birthday only to find an additional one hidden inside. It takes elements we know and makes them new again. This Doctor will not be a retread of the tenth Doctor but an independent version like all his other selves. This was fun and slotted into the show’s history as if it has always been there.

The 14th Doctor has arrived.