Destination: Skaro (TV story)

Destination: Skaro — also simply titled Doctor Who Children in Need Special 2023 — was a televised minisode broadcast on 17 November 2023 on BBC One for Children in Need, written by Russell T Davies in celebration of the 60th anniversary.

Much like the 2005 Children in Need special had done with the Tenth Doctor, Destination: Skaro marked the first full appearance of the Fourteenth Doctor on-screen, following his debut in. In the interim, he saw multiple appearances in other media, including the comic story, which lead directly into Destination: Skaro by bringing the Doctor to Skaro during it's epilogue.

While mainly comedic in tone, Destination: Skaro was notable for bringing the Doctor back to the genesis of the Daleks, where he ended up unintentionally becoming part of a Bootstrap paradox by inspiring key elements of their development, such as accidentally giving away the name "Dalek" for the Mark III Travel Machine, as well as their battle cry, "Exterminate", and inspiring the suction arm by replacing the multi-dextrous claw he accidently destroyed with a plunger. However, dialogue in the minisode indicates that it is set in an different timeline to. Destination: Skaro also marked the first time an adult Davros was shown before his disfigurement in a visual medium, and the second time he had been seen on-screen without the need for his life support chair, coming after his appearance as a child in and.

Publisher's summary
In this special Children in Need episode, the Doctor hurtles through space and time to a crucial point in the Daleks' history.

Plot
Davros and his assistant, Castavillian, are building the first iteration of a mutant-housing Mark III Travel Machine. Castavillian tries coming up with a new name for the Machine, using different anagrams of Kaled, though none of which Davros approves of. Hearing a request from Nyder over an intercom, Davros leaves, telling Castavillian not to touch anything. As Castavillian laments his inability to come up with a good anagram, he hears an inexplicable wheezing and groaning.

Suddenly, the Doctor's TARDIS crashes into the room, smashing into a wall. The Fourteenth Doctor opens the door and, after greeting the bewildered Castavillian, starts rambling about regenerating from a "really brilliant woman" into an old face, until he realises realises his violent landing has accidentally smashed the multi-dextrous claw off the Machine, and apologises. Then he sees the Machine, and realises that its a Dalek, which Castavillian picks up on approvingly. As the Doctor notes that he was lucky that he wasn't "exterminated", he realises that he has accidentally travelled to the "genesis of the Daleks", with Castavillian noting down everything he says. Hurriedly, he legs it back to the TARDIS, retrieves a plunger, and throws it to Castavillian. The Doctor runs back into the TARDIS and tells Castavillian he "was never [t]here" as the TARDIS dematerialises.

Panicking, Castavillian sticks the plunger on to the Dalek in place of the claw. Davros re-enters and sees the plunger stuck on to the Dalek. Castavillian looks at him nervously, yet Davros, after a pause, only says, "I like it."

Cast

 * The Doctor - David Tennant
 * Mr Castavillian - Mawaan Rizwan
 * Davros - Julian Bleach
 * Voice of the Dalek - Nicholas Briggs
 * Nyder - Nicholas Briggs
 * Dalek Operator - Barnaby Edwards

Worldbuilding

 * Davros mentions that the war caused the Kaleds to mutate.
 * Davros identifies the bonded polycarbide shell, multi-dextrous claw and ruby ray blaster as part of the Travel Machine's arsenal.
 * The anagrams Castavillian proposes for the Travel Machine's name are "Lekad", "Adlek", "Klade", and "Edlak".
 * When the Doctor realises that he is inspiring the development of the Daleks by saying his future knowledge with Castavillian in earshot writing it down, creating a bootstrap paradox, he fears it will result in the timelines and canon "rupturing."

Continuity

 * Destination: Skaro is a prequel to TV:, positing that several parts of Dalek culture were introduced by the Doctor via a bootstrap paradox. It also refers to the creation of the Daleks as the "genesis of the Daleks", a name for the event that had previously been used in various spin-offs, such as the webcast , the book , and the short story.
 * The view of Skaro from space closely resembles its appearance in TV:.
 * Dalek casings being created from polycarbide was established in TV:
 * Davros identifies the Dalek's gunstick as a "ruby ray blaster", harkening back to the Doctor Who Annual 2006 game, which established that some Dalek flying saucers are equipped with ruby ray lasers.
 * One of the anagrams Castavillian proposes for the Mark III Travel Machine is "Klade"; the Klade, as seen in several BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, such as PROSE:, were often hinted at being the future evolutions of the Daleks.
 * An hour has passed for the Doctor since his regeneration; this aligns with Davies' intent that COMIC:, set immediately after TV: , takes places over the course of a single hour.
 * The Doctor saying, "Sixty minutes ago, I was this really brilliant woman", draws a parallel back to, where the Thirteenth Doctor told Yaz Khan and Ryan Sinclair that "half an hour ago, [she] was a white-haired Scotsman."
 * He also mentions having "this old face back", referencing his resemblance to a prior incarnation.
 * The Doctor calling the time period the "genesis of the Daleks" in dialogue acts as a nod to TV:, in which the Saxon Master similarly dubbed his Cyber-Foundries as the "genesis of the Cybermen".
 * The Doctor mentions the concept of canonicity as a concept similar to a timeline; many sources have also referenced canonicity in this way, such as PROSE: establishing that the Time Lords have a Tower of Canonicity. Furthermore, the Doctor's exclamation that "the timelines and canon are rupturing" is very similar to a line in GAME:, where it is stated that "there's been a rupture in time and the Doctor needs to know [...] what's changed between two realities."

Digital releases
Following its broadcast on television, Destination: Skaro was added to BBC iPlayer's Whoniverse catalog of Doctor Who content as a title separate from Doctor Who (2023-), under the name Doctor Who Children in Need Special 2023.