Thirteenth Doctor Era
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Revolution of the Daleks
"Stay strong. People are waiting for you."
"To billions of people, Dalek means hate. Daleks are creatures of hate and aggression. Daleks are insidious, relentless and clever, and, like hate, they will spread if they're not stopped. Never underestimate a Dalek."
— The Doctor
The One With… the final chase for two companions.
"Revolution of the Daleks" is the 2021 Doctor Who holiday special, filmed before the COVID-19 Pandemic hit the world, with post-production done remotely from home during the first UK lockdown of 2020. It was released on New Year's Day, 2021.
Following on from the final moments of "The Timeless Children", the Thirteenth Doctor finds herself locked in a supermax asteroid prison by the Judoon, no way to contact her friends, the TARDIS or anyone to save her. Simultaneously, Yaz, Graham and Ryan discover that the Doctor has vanished and, using their TARDIS from "Timeless Children" as a base, begin to investigate her disappearance. Something draws their attention, however — the UK government has unveiled its brand new defence system. Autonomous machines that can be deployed on land and air, with heavy armor and weaponry at a fraction of the size of a conventional tank.
If the title hasn't tipped you off, take a wild guess what this "defence system" actually is — it looks a bit like a salt shaker.
The trio must find a way to rescue the Doctor to stop this very deadly threat, or do it themselves, discovering that some familiar help is not too far away in the process
Tropes:
- An Aesop: Thirteen is still trying her positive-emotions-only repression, and Yaz and Ryan both tell her it's okay to feel sadness. When pressed, she admits she feels angry at the Time Lords and the Master.
- Aesop Amnesia: Robertson has increased his security after what happened in "Arachnids in the UK", but still fails to keep a close eye on what his people are up to. This enables Leo to clone the Reconnaissance Dalek, which then uses Robertson's corporation to construct an entire Dalek army under his nose.
- And the Adventure Continues: Although they're no longer travelling with the Doctor, Ryan and Graham both express an interest in continuing to investigate paranormal activity on Earth, such as a so-called troll invasion in a town in Finland or a race of gravel-people in a Korean quarry, and the Doctor's parting gift to them, two pieces of psychic paper, opens up a world of opportunities for them to do just that.
- Anger Born of Worry: Yaz's initial reaction to the Doctor returning is to shove her and yell about how worried Team TARDIS were about her.
- Ass Shove: Implied to be how Jack smuggled his vortex manipulator into the Judoon prison.
- Badass Boast: The Doctor's last comment to the Death Squad Daleks before destroying them.Dalek Commander: You will not escape us!
Doctor: Yes, I will. Every time. - Batman Gambit: Stealing the shell of the Dalek on its way to the vault apparently hinges on the truck driver stopping by one particular roadside stand for tea (which is poisoned). The antagonist must have very good information on all the staff and their habits to pull it off.
- Batman Grabs a Gun: The Doctor unsurprisingly does not have a problem with killing Daleks wholesale.
- Big Brother Instinct: When Jack is alone with Yaz investigating the Osaka facility, he doesn't flirt with her once and gives her some sincere advice on how to deal with life with (and without) the Doctor.
- Bookends: Ryan's appearance at the end of the episode has him trying to learn how to ride a bike, with Graham helping, like their first scene in "The Woman Who Fell to Earth". They are also wearing the same clothing from that scene.
- Bring It: How the Doctor tricks the Daleks into chasing her in to the spare TARDIS.
- The Bus Came Back: Both Captain Jack Harkness and Jack Robertson return, the former having last been seen in a guest appearance in "Fugitive of the Judoon", and the latter being from "Arachnids in the UK".
- Call-Back:
- Because they were copied from its wrecked shell, the "Defence Drones" use a similar design to the Dalek Scout from "Resolution".
- Team TARDIS have set the TARDIS from "The Timeless Children" as their Home Base.
- The Doctor is still reckoning with the revelation that she's not a Gallifrey-born Time Lord and whole segments of her life have been hidden from her.
- Robertson remembers his last encounter with the Doctor, and has increased his security since.
- Jack uses a squareness gun to destroy walls and kill Daleks at various points in the episode, a weapon he previously used in "The Doctor Dances".
- The Recon Dalek, as well as its clones, use UV Light to energize themselves.
- A group of Skaro-bred Daleks gets into a battle with Daleks that were bred differently and use black casings. It's the Imperials vs. the Renegades again!
- The Doctor traps the Death Squad Daleks in a Bigger on the Inside capsule and sends them into the Void, the reverse of the Daleks' tactic that was revealed in "Army of Ghosts" and explained in "Doomsday".
- Camera Abuse: After killing Patterson on live television, a Defence Drone Dalek announces that the Earth is the territory of the Daleks and all humans will be exterminated, then opens fire on the camera, causing the TV screen to pixelate and Fade to White.
- Chekhov's Gun: The spare TARDIS that the team used to return to Earth, and have been using as a Home Base ever since, is used as a decoy for the Death Squad Daleks, with the Doctor luring them in and then self-destructing it.
- Clone Army: The Reconnaissance Dalek built a cloning facility in Osaka, and created multiple clones of itself to pilot the Dalek shells manufactured by Robertson.
- The Comically Serious: The Daleks are still as humourless as ever.Dalek: Daleks are not pets of the Doctor!
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like:
- The Doctor wants to know what crimes Jack committed so he could Get into Jail Free to rescue her. Jack protests that the Doctor can hardly take the high ground given that she's in prison for over seven thousand offenses. When he teleports them into the TARDIS however, she awards him a gold star.
- Robertson unsurprisingly, even though everyone would feel well justified if they left him at the mercy of the Daleks.
- Continuity Cavalcade: The monsters in the Judoon prison are past enemies of the Doctor, including a Silent, a berserk Ood, a Sycorax, a Weeping Angel, and the Pting.
- Continuity Nod:
- The Doctor mentioned being a Harry Potter fan in "The Shakespeare Code".
- Jack once again smuggles something via Ass Shove.
- The Doctor once again comments that Jack's had some work done, only for him to respond with "You can talk!"
- Ryan tells the Doctor that, since he previously saw the Doctor, he has been able to reconnect with his father more.
- Rose and her fate are mentioned by Jack. He also tells Yaz he's from the Boeshane Peninsula and that the Daleks were responsible for his first death.
- As in "Victory of the Daleks", Daleks are mass produced by the British government for national security reasons. Said Daleks then turn the tables on the government, only to be exterminated by other Daleks for being impure (though these Daleks aren't happy about it).
- Robertson's plan to offer himself as The Quisling isn't that out-of-it, as the Daleks have made use of human collaborators during previous conquests.
- Gwen gets mentioned at the end of the episode, apparently taking a Dalek out with a moped and her son's boxing gloves, with Jack staying on Earth.
- Ryan namedrops a number of alien races he and Graham have defeated over the course of the past two series, including the Skithra and the Morax.
- Graham's parting words to the Doctor are a nod to something he said in their first meeting, with him happily admitting that they do get aliens in Sheffield.
- The end of the episode shows Graham helping Ryan learn to ride a bike. Graham is even wearing the same scarf as before.
- Contrived Coincidence: Robertson's agent in the beginning of the episode apparently managed to pick the exact tea stand that the truck driver transporting the Dalek's wreckage was going to stop at to get a drink en-route to his destination, and not any of the probably dozens of other places he could have stopped along the way. Unless Robertson went the Crazy-Prepared route and had people at every such tea shop.
- Corrupt Politician:
- UK Technology Secretary Jo Patterson feeds Robertson the route of the truck carrying the wrecked Dalek casing (causing the death of the lorry driver), has him build an army of "security drones" in her constituency so she can earn enough political capital to become Prime Minister, forces him to rush production so she can set up what is basically a robotic Police State, and then blackmails him into handing them over for free in return for turning a blind eye to his various companies' tax evasion.
- Averted with Robertson, whose political ambitions died the last time he met Doctor. By the end of the episode, they've rekindled.
- Crazy-Prepared: Granted that it apparently took Jack at least nineteen years to set up, but he manages to smuggle a device that stops time and lets him walk through walls and a vortex manipulator into the Doctor's prison, as well as arrange to be placed in the cell next to the Doctor's, so that they can make their escape together in a matter of seconds.
- Didn't Think This Through: Graham, Ryan and Yaz walk right up to Robertson and confront him about his involvement with the Dalek. It never occurs to them that he's updated security since they last met. As Robertson himself points out, they were damn lucky they didn't get shot.
- Dirty Coward: Robertson folds instantly when he thinks he's being carjacked, and he's willing to sell the Doctor and the Earth out to the Daleks to save his own skin.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Defence Drone Daleks being designed for situations of civil unrest, armed with water cannons and tear gas, and eventually becoming hostile and using excessive force (more than what was intended, however).
- Dramatic Irony: The audience knows — but Yaz, Ryan, and Graham don't — that in the ten months that passed for them since they last saw the Doctor, she was in prison for decades. This makes their complaints about how long they've been waiting for her much harsher than they realize.
- Elite Mooks: While they don't appear any different from the regular bronze Daleks beyond the claw-like manipulator arms, the group that comes to Earth here are identified as being the Dalek equivalent of the SAS (as in Special Air Service), and they are even more fanatically dedicated to Dalek purity than normal. They easily trounce the Defence Drone Daleks.
- Enemy Civil War: The Doctor deliberately sets one up by summoning the Death Squad Daleks to Earth, knowing that they will identify the Defence Drone Daleks as "impure" and exterminate them.
- Everyone Has Standards: Robertson may have all the morals of a weasel (and the approximate courage of one, to boot), but he made sure to equip the security drones with non-lethal weaponry, he's sickened by the sight of a Dalek mutant, and he's horrified by both the Dalek farm (albeit for the wrong reasons) and watching Leo's death.
- Evil Counterpart: Jo Patterson is a loose parallel to Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister, by way of being an initially relatively anonymous, seemingly decent, middle-aged female MP in a position of minimal power who makes a swift rise to become Prime Minister. In both cases, their reign comes to the end at the doors of 10 Downing Street and their lives end by Dalek extermination, though while Jones went out with Redemption Equals Death, Patterson is on the receiving end of almost literal Laser-Guided Karma.
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: The sheer brutality of the Dalek kills in this episode caused Executive Meddling to delay the airdate by a week, feeling it was too brutal for Christmas Day.
- Fatal Family Photo: The Reconnaissance Dalek forces Leo to call and talk to his wife before it makes him go to Osaka, telling her he's got to go on a business trip so his disappearance won't attract too much attention. During the conversation, he tells her to kiss their kids goodnight for him. The Reconnaissance Dalek later kills Leo to really Kick the Dog.
- The Fellowship Has Ended: Team TARDIS goes their separate ways. After the entire Dalek invasion has been dealt with, Ryan decides that he's content to remain on Earth. Graham, after some thought, decides that Ryan needs someone to look after him, leaving only Yaz to continue traveling. The Doctor and Yaz share one last group hug with them before they leave.
- Foreshadowing:
- Early in the episode, Graham comments it would probably help Team TARDIS' investigation if they had Psychic Paper, like the Doctor. When Ryan and Graham choose to stay to look after Earth, the Doctor gives both of them Psychic Paper.
- Leo tells Robertson he connected the cloned Dalek to the neural network and it seemed to understand it instantly. Turns out the Reconnaissance Dalek used this opportunity to order the construction of the cloning facility in Osaka.
- Forgot About His Powers: A Pting cameos on the prison asteroid. Their first appearance in "The Tauranga Conundrum" says they're impossible to imprison because they can eat their way out of any prison. However, the Doctor notes that it's impossible to eat one's way out of the prison cells, since she tried it too, implying that precautions were made specifically for the Pting.
- For the Evulz: The Reconnaissance Dalek gleefully agrees that it doesn't have to kill Leo when it's done using him as a puppet... but it does so anyway after the Hope Spot.
- Friendly Enemy: The Doctor has a surprisingly good relationship with her fellow inmates, even bantering with a Weeping Angel and advising a Pting not to eat its cage. It's presented as one-sided, however.
- From a Single Cell: The Reconnaissance Dalek's consciousness remains intact in the tiniest cell fragments left behind in its scrapped casing. Once Leo cultivates the cells and grows it a new body, it's as good as new. Except a few human cells got mixed in, so the Death Squad Daleks think the Reconnaissance Dalek needs to be exterminated.
- Get into Jail Free: Jack commits a few crimes (maybe more than a few) to get thrown into prison with the Doctor and rescue her. It takes him nineteen years before he can get close enough to put his plan into action.
- Godzilla Threshold: The Doctor specifically refers to summoning the Death Squad Daleks as the "nuclear option", since there's a good chance of it backfiring. She knows the pure Daleks will go after the impure Daleks on Earth first of all, but then leaves the problem of what to do about them afterwards.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: A subdued variation, as she's not Ax-Crazy, but it's clear that spending a long time in prison has done the Doctor not much good mentally. She's started greeting individual light fittings by the time we see her, as well as giving the non-communicative prisoners names. And back in her sleeping room, she talks to herself of reading classic bedtime stories, like the entire Harry Potter series.
- Group Hug: Team TARDIS share a group Headbutt of Love before going their separate ways.
- Hero Insurance: Averted; the Doctor isn't just in prison for evading the Judoon in her fugitive incarnation, but for 7000 other offenses he/she committed whilst saving the day. Jack is amused they stopped at 7000.
- Human Resources: The Reconnaissance Dalek has the humans who built its cloning farm converted into liquid feed for the clones once their labor is no longer useful.
- I Choose to Stay: Both Ryan and Graham decide to stay on Earth, with Ryan stating that someone needs to look after the Earth while the Doctor is away.
- Intimidating Revenue Service: Patterson threatens Robertson with a tax investigation to make him agree to produce the Defence Drones faster and provide them to the UK at no cost.
- It's the Journey That Counts: Yaz expresses anger over how the Doctor introduced her to the wonders of the universe, then suddenly disappeared from her life without any indication if she was alive or dead. Jack, who has been through this himself — but for centuries instead of the ten months that the Doctor was apart from Yaz — urges her to just enjoy her time with the Doctor while it lasts. In the end, Yaz chooses to stay with her instead of leaving with Graham and Ryan.
- Karma Houdini: Double subverted. The start of the episode confirms that Robertson's previous status as this at the end of "Arachnids in the UK" was revoked, as the toxic waste dump beneath his hotel caused a scandal that ruined his bid for the 2020 US presidency. However, despite being indirectly responsible for the crisis in the first place, and being willing to sell out humanity to the Death Squad Daleks for his own safety, the end of the episode has him being hailed as the saviour of humanity when filmed footage makes it look like he was standing up to the Dalek menace when he sold humanity out, and implies he's going to use the good PR to restart his political career with another bid for presidency.
- Kerb-Stomp Battle: There are potentially thousands of Defence Drone Daleks on Earth, if all the shells the Reconnaissance Dalek reported making were filled. The Death Squad Daleks kill them off in minutes.
- Kick the Dog: Robertson is his usual self-centred Obliviously Evil self; until he makes a conscious decision to become The Quisling because he assumes the Daleks will win.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The Defence Drone Daleks generally being able to shoot water and gas is reminiscent of the real-life operational Dalek replicas, which typically harmlessly fire vapour as a substitute for "extermination".
- Let's Mock the Monsters: The initial response of the actors hired as rioters to the Defence Drone being rolled out is laughter. Until it turns on the water cannon, CS gas and sonic screamer.
- Mad Scientist: Leo comes across as this while he's explaining how he cloned an alien creature.
- Murder by Cremation: After a horrified Robertson tells him to destroy the cloned Dalek, Leo attempts to dump the creature into the furnace. Unfortunately for him, he chooses to remove it from its case before doing so, allowing the Dalek the opportunity to overtake him.
- Mythology Gag:
- The Defence Drone Dalek prototype shoots fire extinguisher gas at the protesters. This was likely a tribute to the Peter Cushing movies, where the Daleks were supposed to shoot fire out of their sink plungers, but this was nixed due to health and safety concerns, so they were equipped with fire extinguishers.
- The regrown Dalek clings to Leo's body much the same way as the spiders in "Planet of the Spiders".
- One of the suspicious events that Ryan and Graham are going to investigate is naturally taking place in a quarry.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer and most of the promotional materials emphasized Team TARDIS and Captain Jack having to fight the Daleks on their own while the Doctor is incarcerated in the space prison, with the tagline, "How do you fight a Dalek without the Doctor?", being prominently featured. In fact, Jack busts the Doctor out of prison early in the episode, and she reunites with Team TARDIS pretty soon after they've just found out Robertson is building a Dalek army.
- New Era Speech: Jo Patterson gives one of these after becoming Prime Minister, focusing on how she intends to build a secure future for the UK with her new army of security drones.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Jo Patterson comes across as one of Prime Minister Theresa May, whose relationship with Trumplica Jack Robertson appears a satire on the "special relationship" between the UK and US.
- No Communities Were Harmed: Jo Patterson's position of "Technology Secretary" is entirely fictitious, though there was a Technology Minister from 1964 to 1970.
- Noodle Implements: Gwen Cooper boasts to Jack that she defeated a Dalek with a pair of her son's boxing gloves and a moped.
- Noodle Incident:
- The Doctor chastises Tiny the Pting for trying to eat the security fences in the prison, claiming she's already tried that once.
- Jack committed "maybe too many" crimes to get imprisoned alongside the Doctor.
- Not Me This Time: After their previous encounter with Jack Robertson in "Arachnids in the UK", Team TARDIS are instantly suspicious of him being in cahoots with the Daleks when they find footage of him attending a Defence Drone demonstration. It turns out he's ignorant of the threat the Daleks pose to the world and intends the drones to be controlled by A.I.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: While the impure Daleks invaded the UK, Gwen runs one over with her moped and uses her son's boxing gloves, with said exploit being relayed to Jack via intercom to the Doctor after the day is saved.
- Oh, Crap!: The Doctor and Jack both have this reaction when they discover the TARDIS has brought them back to Earth ten months later than they intended; and again when Jack attempts to recover from the first moment by casually asking what's new on planet Earth, only to receive the answer, "Daleks."
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Leo is both a Gadgeteer Genius whose in-depth study of Dalek casing components lets him set up a 3D printer to manufacture the Defence Drone Daleks, and he knows enough about genetics to clone the Reconnaissance Dalek from samples of its DNA he scraped off the original casing.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. Jack Harkness and Jack Robertson are both featured quite heavily in the episode. It helps that the latter isn't addressed by his first name, while the former always is.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: The companions from the comparatively down-to-earth Chibnall era of the show are utterly baffled when Jack casually discusses some of the things he and the Doctor went through in the Denser and Wackier Russell T Davies era.
- Pet the Dog: Robertson seems legitimately upset at Leo's death.
- Punny Name: The Doctor dubs a Weeping Angel prisoner "Angela".
- The Quisling: Robertson decides that he wants to work with the Death Squad Daleks to save himself, and he's prepared to sell out the Doctor and the rest of humanity to get them on his side.
- Put on a Bus: This was Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole's final episode, with Mandip Gill staying on for Series 13.
- Real Time: Graham, Ryan and Yaz haven't seen the Doctor in 10 months. This aired exactly 10 months after the last episode.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Robertson notes early on in the episode that Patterson has been assigned to a low-level cabinet position with both minimal power and a pitiful budget. Together, they scheme to advance her power and rehabilitate his with the Defence Drone Daleks.
- Recycled Plot:
- The episode recycles many elements of "The Power of the Daleks", including human characters trying to use the Daleks for their own purposes, believing they are harmless, and an obsessed scientist who ends up being manipulated and killed by the Daleks.
- Also, someone probably should've looked at the history books, because, in World War II, Winston Churchill also came up with a Dalek-based defence system. It didn't end well then, either.
- Just like in "The Evil of the Daleks" and the Daleks trilogy arc in the John Nathan-Turner era, a civil war occurs between the pure Daleks and the impure Daleks. "Remembrance of the Daleks" also had the two Dalek factions shooting it out on the streets of London.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Defence Drone Daleks glow a friendly blue color when being run by a central AI. Once the Reconnaissance Dalek's clones take over, they turn red and start killing.
- Red Shirt: The first three victims when the Defence Drone Daleks begin their rampage, two of Robertson's employees and a tourist, are notably wearing red clothing.
- Ripped from the Headlines: An odd example, in Robertson possibly being awarded an honorary Knighthood for apparently stopping the Dalek attack. Though this episode was filmed more then a year in advance, the New Years Honours List is frequently very controversial in the UK for people getting knighthoods in a manner perceived as undeserving. Especially as a lot of the people who get honours are businessmen who make donations to the Party in power.
- Room Full of Crazy:
- Yaz has filled the control room of the House TARDIS with all sorts of notes and papers in her attempt to find the Doctor.
- The Doctor's counting out the time in her cell making Tally Marks on the Prison Wall.
- Secret Government Warehouse: At the start of the episode, the ruined Reconnaissance Dalek is being trucked off to "Depository 23", which apparently hasn't been used for a while.
- Scary Black Man: Leo is as loveable as they come, but once under the control of the Reconnaissance Dalek, sports a permanent Slasher Smile and speaks with a Creepy Monotone.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In a vast departure from the way Whovians have come to expect companion departures (at least in New Who), both Ryan and Graham decide to remain on Earth, the first time since Martha Jones that a companion decided they simply had enough.
- Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: The reason why the Doctor summons the Death Squad Daleks to Earth, knowing that their hatred of impure Dalek kind would outweigh any decision to exterminate humankind, at least immediately.
- She's Back: After spending half the episode having an identity crisis, the Doctor declares herself as "the one who stops the Daleks!"
- Shout-Out:
- The episode opens with "A Long Time Ago...note Far, Far Away...note ", a riff on the opening crawl of Star Wars.
- The Doctor starts reciting the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to herself as a bedtime story in her cell.
- Slipping a Mickey: The tea lady at the start of the episode drugs the lorry driver's tea, in order to steal the damaged Dalek casing he's transporting. His ultimate fate is unclear, but he is still listed as missing by the time the main plot kicks off.
- The Slow Path: Due to the Doctor not programming the correct coordinates into the TARDIS when leaving the prison, she ends up re-uniting with her companions 10 months later than expected. Not to mention she spent at least twenty years in the prison until Jack broke her out.
- Skewed Priorities: A Running Gag in the episode is Robertson taking offense to the wrong things in the situation; Robertson's first response to discovering a Dalek used his company to finance building a Dalek cloning facility is to ask how it got the purchase order codes. Then when the Defence Drone Daleks he's built start to wipe out the human race, his response is that it's a PR disaster for him.
- So Proud of You: What might be Grace's ghost appears to Ryan and Graham at the end of the episode to give them a proud and loving smile before fading away.
- Spanner in the Works: With the Doctor's plan to have the Death Squad Daleks eliminate the Defence Drone Daleks, Robertson takes it upon himself to sell out humanity, informing the Death Squad Daleks of the Doctor's role in summoning them and ensuring she has to deal with them too before they wipe out Earth.
- Stepford Smiler: While the Doctor does try to keep a brave face in light of Ryan and Graham choosing to stay on Earth, as soon as the two are outside, the Doctor shows she is utterly devastated, and even considers changing the timeline if it means her fam staying together.
- The Stinger: After the credits, there is a brief scene that introduces the new companion Dan Lewis, who is told a horoscope that informs him that there will be surprises, with the colour blue and the letter "D" being important to his future, the lucky number is 13, to be prepared for action, and whatever hurdles come it's not the end of the world.
- Summon Bigger Fish: The Doctor sends a distress signal that gets picked up by the Death Squad Daleks, with the intention that they'll deal with the Defence Drone Daleks that are trying to seize control of Earth.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Graham, Ryan and Yaz confront Robertson, tell him they're going to bring him down no matter what — and, without the Doctor to help them, are immediately held at gunpoint by his security detail. The only reason they're not arrested, or worse, is due to Robertson deciding he wants nothing to do with them.
- The Doctor gets thrown into prison for a lengthy sentence because of all the crimes they've committed.
- Take Me to Your Leader: Robertson uses the line straight while negotiating with the Death Squad Daleks for his life. It actually works for a while, though, after seeing the Daleks kill one of their own, he realises they can't be negotiated with and tries to slip out on them.
- Take That!:
- Robertson not paying taxes to the government and said government taking a blind eye approach to it is one to the many tech companies that also do this in real life; Facebook and Google to name a few.
- A subtle one is delivered to the infamous scene from "Victory of the Daleks", where the New Dalek Paradigm describe the Time War Daleks as "inferior" and exterminate them, which ended up backfiring horribly after the Paradigm got an incredibly negative reception. Here, it's the Time War Daleks who end up describing the mass-produced Defence Drone Daleks as "inferior" and exterminating them all.
- Robertson being granted an honorary Knighthood for apparently saving the world and talk of renewed Presidential ambitions could be a dig at New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani, who was granted one for his leadership during 9/11 and tried using it to spur a Presidential run, subsequently people have questioned how helpful he was and whether his questionable management of safety standards might have contributed to the level of deaths.
- Talking to Themself: The Doctor does this while in prison, telling herself a bedtime story.
- Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: The Doctor does this in her prison cell.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: The lorry driver transporting the Reconnaissance Dalek's shell stops at a roadside stand for tea, which turns out to be poisoned while the stand itself was just a decoy.
- Tele-Frag: The Doctor programs the spare TARDIS to fold into itself once the Death Squad Daleks have flown into it. This will teleport it into the Void, where it will be torn apart, and the Daleks along with it. Visually, this is shown as the TARDIS collapsing into itself until it vanishes entirely.
- Time Skip: Ten months for Yaz, Graham and Ryan since returning to Earth from Gallifrey and an unspecified amount of decades for the Doctor in her prison.
- Too Dumb to Live: Scientist Leo Rugazzi deciding to use the cellular traces he found in the Reconnaissance Dalek shell to grow his own Dalek. Even not knowing what he was dealing with, why would you create a whole living creature without further studying the cells to figure out their origin? When even Robertson has a problem with it, you know it's a bad idea. Not to mention that, when he's instructed to put the thing into the incinerator and forget it ever existed, he opens the case it's in and just stands there dumbly for a few seconds, allowing the creature time to grab onto him.
- Touché: Patterson and Robertson meet up in a forest for a private conversation about the Defence Drones the former has ordered. While Robertson is vehemently against making so many drones in such short order, and at no cost to the taxpayer, the thing that changes his mind is Patterson suggesting that the government should look into how much tax his company has paid to them. Robertson admits defeat, with a "Well played" remark, and agrees.
- Traitor Shot: After serving the lorry driver, the tea lady can be seen watching him for an unusually long time, until he keels over.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The fact is that, had things gone as Robertson planned, the Defence Drones would have worked exactly as advertised. It's Leo who throws a wrench into the whole thing: upon discovering the DNA traces of the Reconnaissance Dalek, he cloned the creature, allowing it to then clone other Dalek mutants, who then take over the Defence Drones.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Robertson is able to sell his attempted betrayal of humanity to the public as a courageous attempt at defending the Earth.
- Villains Want Mercy: The Reconnaissance Dalek requests not to be exterminated by the Death Squad, insisting it can re-write its own DNA to purify itself and become a loyal servant of the Dalek cause again. The Death Squad, however, only recognizes one way to purify an impure Dalek...Dalek Commander: Exterminate!
- Void Between the Worlds: The Void from "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday" returns, this time as the end result of the Doctor's trap to destroy the Death Squad Daleks, rather than acting as a hideout for them.
- Weaponized Teleportation: Jack's squareness gun works just as well on living creatures as on inanimate objects.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Both Robertson and Patterson want to use the Defence Drone Daleks to create law and order, although they have self-serving intentions as well. Robertson wants to make more money to recover from his power plant scandal and Patterson aims to be Prime Minister. Nevertheless, Robertson designs the Defence Drone Daleks so that they have water cannons and soundwave weapons designed to induce pain, instead of laser guns, meaning that they are not designed to kill, but rather to serve as a repellent to break up protests. Unfortunately, those non-lethal weapons become much more lethal once the Reconnaissance Dalek hijacks the project.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: While we see the House TARDIS from "The Timeless Children", the Cyber-Wars trio who were brought to the present are nowhere to be seen.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Doctor effectively orders the "house" TARDIS to commit suicide in order to dispose of the Death Squad Daleks, with no moral weight placed on it, despite the show's frequent depiction of the Doctor's TARDIS as sentient.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Yaz does not take the Doctor's sudden reappearance and flippancy about her jail time well.
- Jack calls the Doctor out for summoning a fleet of Daleks to save them from the Reconnaissance Dalek's Defence Drone clones.
- You Do Not Want To Know: Jack once again produces a useful bit of tech he shouldn't have been allowed to keep, and tells the Doctor not to ask how he smuggled it in. Her expression says it all.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
- Robertson is not happy to see Graham, Yaz and Ryan again after last time.
- Jack's reaction to Robertson selling out the Doctor and humanity.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Reconnaissance Dalek tells the Doctor that, once it no longer needed human workers to staff its cloning facility, it "recycled" them into a nutrient gel to feed the clones. It then kills Leo before teleporting into a new casing, acknowledging, that while it doesn't have to, it wants to.
