WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the Doctor Who New Year's Day holiday special, "Revolution of the Daleks," which premiered Jan. 1 on BBC America.
Doctor Who's 12th season ended in March 2020 with the Doctor being taken to a high-security cosmic prison, and her three companions on Earth, unaware the Time Lord wouldn't be returning anytime soon. But even without the Doctor, Graham, Yaz and Ryan stumble into trouble in the the New Year's Day holiday special, "Revolution of the Daleks," when their old acquaintance, Jack Robertson, spearheads a new project to deploy security drones across Britain. These are no simple drones, however; they're based on the design of the Recon Dalek that attacked Earth in the 2019 holiday special, "Resolution."
Of course, these Daleks unsurprisingly end up turning on their creator and attacking the world. But they aren't the only new Daleks introduced in this holiday special: "Revolution of the Daleks" debuts an even more lethal version of the classic Doctor Who foes, the Death Squad Daleks.
The Drone Daleks designed by Jack Robertson and his team are a sleek, new black-and-silver model with streaks of light that resemble something out of Tron. But while they are designed to be nothing more than roberts, Robertson's chief scientist discovers alien DNA in the destroyed shell of the original Recon Dalek. He's then able to clone those cells and create his very own Dalek, unaware of what the squid-like alien is truly capable of.
Unknown to the scientist, this Dalek is able to take control of some of the assets of Robertson's company, and transform a facility into a Dalek farm. As a result, thousands of these new Daleks are cloned; when they are finally transported to their robotic shells, the Drone Daleks are born -- and they waste no time in attacking the world and killing as many humans as possible.
The situation seems hopeless. Luckily, however, the Doctor returns to Earth with some help from Captain Jack Harkness. Once she's reunited with her companions, she devises a plan to defeat the new Daleks using what she describes as a nuclear option: to send a signal through the Time Vortex that will be picked up by a special breed of Daleks, the Death Squad, which she refers to as the S.A.S. Daleks.
The Daleks are frightening creatures hellbent on exterminating anything in their path -- but yet, there is an entire squadron known as an elite Death Squad. These Daleks look more like the traditional modern version of the monsters, only more efficient at extermination.
The Dalek Death Squad follows the signal and arrives on Earth in the present day to find the planet under attack by the cloned Daleks, which they see as impure. Therefore, the Dalek Death Squad make its mission to destroy all of the Drone Daleks in order to eliminate this impurity. Even the original Recon Dalek, brought back to life by Roberston's scientist, is deemed flawed, and, therefore, eliminated by the Death Squad.
The result is a total war between Daleks over the skies of Britain, one that's ultimately won by the Death Squad Daleks. And, when this problem is finally taken care of, all that's left for the Doctor is to trap the Death Squad Daleks, and send them packing into the Void.
These two new types of Daleks join the larger ranks of the classic Doctor Who monsters in a year that has already introduced several new Daleks in the Time Lord Victorious crossover event. The Drone Daleks are destroyed, but the Death Squad Daleks are merely trapped in the Void -- and they could always return to take their revenge on the Doctor.
"Revolution of the Daleks" stars Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole, John Barrowman, Chris Noth, Harriet Walter and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. The Doctor Who holiday special airs on BBC America on Friday, Jan. 1, 2021 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.