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 creation of the Daleks, where he ended up 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 sink plunger. 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 Daleks/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.
 * When the Doctor realised that he was creating a bootstrap paradox, he exclaimed that the "timelines and canon are rupturing."

Continuity

 * This minisode references the fact that, in-universe, an hour has passed since his regeneration; this aligns with Davies' intent that COMIC:, set after TV: , takes places over the course of a single hour. Also in direct reference to the ending of Power of the Doctor, the Doctor mentions being "a really brilliant woman" and having "this old face back again".
 * The Doctor mentioning "60 minutes ago, I was this really brilliant woman" draws a parallel back to the Series 11 episode, in which the Thirteenth Doctor exclaims that "half an hour ago, I was a white-haired Scotsman."
 * This story is a prequel to TV:, positing that several parts of Dalek culture were introduced by the Doctor via a bootstrap paradox. This story 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. This was also a tongue-in-cheek reference to the aforementioned episode.
 * The Doctor calling the time period the "genesis of the Daleks" in dialogue also acts as a nod to TV:, in which the Saxon Master similarly dubbed his Cyber-Foundries as the "genesis of the Cybermen".
 * One of the anagrams Castavillian proposes 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.
 * 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 Fourteenth 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."
 * The view of Skaro from space closely resembles its appearance in TV:.
 * Dalek casings being created from polycarbide was established in TV:

Home media releases
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