As with the rest of season 11, details on the upcoming New Year’s Special of Doctor Who are being kept tightly under wraps. However, there’s a big fan theory surrounding the episode that everybody expects to come true: after a year without them or any other classic monsters, people think the Doctor’s nemeses the Daleks will return in the special. And the evidence just keeps on stacking up.
The theory actually predates the first promo for the hour-long adventure, but that definitely added fuel to the fire. The teaser revealed that the episode will see the TARDIS team discovering that an alien evil has been buried on Earth for centuries. Something the Doctor describes as “the most dangerous creature in the universe,” one which will “kill anything that gets in its path.” That sounds a lot like the Daleks to us.
What’s more, fans also think the special’s title could be holding a secret. According to some folks, “Resolution” could just be part of the real name of the episode, which might be “Resolution of the Daleks.” This could be people overthinking things, but it does sound a lot like a classic Dalek story (see: “Resurrection of the Daleks,” “Revelation of the Daleks” or “Remembrance of the Daleks”).
Also, here’s a fresh piece of the conspiracy to pin up on the wall. During the Doctor Who panel at SDCC over the summer, Chibnall kept emphasizing the point that “this year” would be all about the “new stuff” and “this year” had been engineered as a “perfect jumping-on point” for fresh or lapsed viewers, hence the lack of traditional villains. But what if he was chose his words very carefully?
After all, the special isn’t airing this year, it’s coming on January 1st, 2019. We didn’t pick up on this at the time, as we thought we were getting the usual Christmas Day episode instead, but now it looks like Chibnall may have been subliminally telling us that we could expect to see a certain familiar foe in the special.
What do you think, though? Are the Daleks returning to Doctor Who this festive season? Or does this theory need to be exterminated? Have your say in the comments section down below.
