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ANew Year Special is a special episode in theDoctor Who series which airee outside of the regular run on1 January.

Four New Year Specials aired from 2010-2022. The first time aDoctor Who special aired on New Year's Day wasThe End of Time: Part Two, which aired in2010 a week afterPart One, the2009Christmas Special.

Forseries 11,showrunnerChris Chibnall made the decision to cut the yearlyChristmas Day tradition, which had been ongoing since2005 whenBBC Wales'Doctor Who began, in favour of New Year Specials.Resolution, the2019 New Year Special, was the first to be primarily set onNew Year's Day. (The End of Time: Part Two had previously featured a short scene near the end, set on1 January2005.)Resolution was also the first seasonal special to be primarily produced byBBC Studios instead of BBC Wales.

Two furtherDalek-focused specials, namelyRevolution of the Daleks andEve of the Daleks, followedResolution, in2021 and2022, respectively. These formed a trio of sorts, strung along theThirteenth Doctor's era, between main series runs. At the start of theFifteenth Doctor era, and a month after the secondRussell T Davies production era first aired, the Christmas Specials resumed beginning with2023'sThe Church on Ruby Road, over a year and 11 months afterEve of the Daleks.

The New Year Specials have, along with the Christmas Specials, sometimes been collectively referred to asFestive Specials.

List of New Year Specials[[edit] |[edit source]]

Doctor Who[[edit] |[edit source]]

Other candidates[[edit] |[edit source]]

InDoctor Who spin-offs, the very first episode ofThe Sarah Jane Adventures -Invasion of the Bane - was broadcast on 1 January2007. As the episode was produced as a standalone special from the show'sfirst full series, broadcast later in the year, it could be considered to be the first New Year's Special in theDoctor Who family of shows.

In addition to the above, theTorchwoodseries 1 finale,Captain Jack Harkness /End of Days, also premiered on this date.

Though not a television special, the very first episode ofDoctor Who to premiere on 1 January was "Volcano", very nominally the eighth part of the1965-66 serialThe Daleks' Master Plan. The first parts of the1972 serialDay of the Daleks and the1977 serialThe Face of Evil also premiered on 1 January, although, while the episode ofThe Daleks' Master Plan actually celebrated the occasion, the latter two were just a case of the calendar happening to fall on that date and made no mention of it within the story itself, much like the fourth episode ofThe Invasion falling by pure happenstance on the show’s5th anniversary yet letting the occasion pass without celebration.

The first part ofSpyfall, the opening episode ofseries 12, premiered onNew Year's Day2020. Although not promoted as a special, the episode was purposefully aired outside of the series' usual time slot in order to coincide with the date due to that year's omission of an actual special.