Listen to the RadioTimes.com Doctor Who podcast: Mysteries of the new Daleks!

Delving into Doctor Who’s past and examining old precedents, we first try to explain why exactly the human race is so capable of collective Dalek amnesia, with one Seventh Doctor explanation later supplanted by some seriously timey-wimey storytelling in the era of Matt Smith’s Time Lord.

Plus, we examine the possibility that these new Daleks aren’t really Daleks at all, taking in the theories that the new-look design is created by humans and may be supplanted by the bronze versions by the end of the special episode.

That certainly seems to be what showrunner Chris Chibnall and executive producer Matt Strevens have been hinting anyway…

“This story is essentially both a standalone episode and also a sequel to Resolution,” Chibnall told Radio Times, revealing that the events of the 2019 New Year’s special are key to this year’s follow-up.

“I kept to using just one Dalek in Resolution because they’re powerful things singly anyway, so that’s fun just to be able to give one that space. But also I was planning to bring them back in greater numbers for this episode.”

“We knew that when we said goodbye to the Reconnaissance Dalek, when it was jettisoned out of the TARDIS doors into a supernova at the end of Resolution, that that would not be the end of it,” added Strevens.

“Chris already had the idea of this return, that the next time we see the Daleks, it’d be straight into a sort of origin story for the version in our era of the series.”

But will our theories about the forgotten and fake Daleks be proven right? We only have a few weeks to wait until we find out…

Want more Doctor Who chat? Check out last week’s podcast about Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole’s exit now, or catch up with our latest Doctor Who news stories on RadioTimes.com.

Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks comes to BBC One at 6:45pm on New Year’s Day. Want something else to watch? Check out our full TV Guide or our guide to the best Christmas TV.