How Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary Cleverly Fixed a Longtime Dalek Plot Hole

In 2005, Doctor Who made its grand return with Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor, who was just fresh out of the Time War. Scarred by what he had to accomplish to end the war, the Doctor was a changed man.

The Time War was believed to have a tragic finale – the Doctor had to put a stop to the endless killing and wipe out the Daleks, Gallifrey, and the Time Lords. At least, that’s what he thought he had done.

The New Who’s first season revealed that one Dalek had survived the war, becoming one of Henry van Statten’s artifacts before going on a killing spree. This was a surprisingly refreshing twist and a nice homage to the Doctor’s most famous classic archenemies, but the series didn’t stop there.

Doctor Who kept bringing the Daleks back practically every season to the point of them turning into your run-of-the-mill villains that didn’t seem as terrifying as they used to. The show managed to find explanations for the Daleks’ return time and time again, but seasons later, even the explanations got tiresome and predictable.

How come the Daleks kept popping up wherever the Doctor went, and yet not a single Time Lord (except for the Master) escaped the Time War? This seemed ridiculous, as the show’s determination to shove the Daleks into every other season continued to undermine the Doctor’s sacrifice during the Time War. If he didn’t wipe out the Daleks, this just meant that he killed his own people for nothing.

Of course, Doctor Who’s 50th-anniversary special The Day of the Doctor cleared things up, and it did so brilliantly. Apart from the fact that Gallifrey was now saved – frozen and in another universe, but not destroyed – the episode gave viewers a legitimate explanation why the Daleks kept appearing in the Doctor’s timeline.

Previously, the audience was led to believe that the Daleks got eliminated along with the Time Lords in the Time War. Now the Doctor’s plan consisted of taking Gallifrey with all the inhabitants to a pocket universe, and the Daleks would presumably destroy each other in the crossfire.

Well, they might have wiped out the majority of their own species in that crossfire, but at least these new clarifications to the old story allowed for the Daleks’ survival in the first place. It’s much more believable that the Daleks didn’t all get exterminated once they realized that Gallifrey was gone, right?