Run Fast, Be Kind: The Second Death of the Daleks

"All hail the Daleks."

Writer: Alfie Shaw

Format: Audio

Released: August 2026

Series: Twelfth Doctor Adventures 1.06

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Ash

Synopsis

During the last days of history, a lone wanderer crosses the wastes of Kersarin. Everywhere he goes, he delights those he finds with stories and songs. He provides a little hope in the dark.

His name is Ash Wilton, and I swear we've done this episode before. We definitely killed that Dalek.

Verdict

The Second Death of the Daleks was an excellent episode to conclude the Run Fast, Be Kind first series of Twelfth Doctor Adventures! I am delighted that thanks to the Power of 3 podcast it is already confirmed that there are another six episodes to come with this pairing at a minimum, and it ended on quite the cliffhanger! I liked how this was basically a sequel with some temporal looping of The Second Death and that also works brilliantly with the title and the cover artwork. They're so simple and I think that's actually pretty clever to incorporate. Returning to Kersarin was good but this wasn't quite the world that Ash remembered. I liked the replaying of sequences from that opening episode with some noticeable shifts and intrusions of the reset when it came to the Daleks. I thought the continuity with Victory of the Doctor was superb as the Doctor was dumbfounded to find that the Eternal Dalek had survived. I'm so impressed with how well the timeline for the Daleks is being utilised as this all just feels so natural for the New Paradigm from Victory of the Daleks and beyond into the Eleventh Doctor Chronicles. It all just feels right and that's such a compliment to the writers. It fills gaps and extends the life of the Paradigm which is a delight. I think the Doctor addressing the Eternal here as Colonel Mustard and La La the Tellytank was tremendous and perfectly in line with the Twelfth Doctor. Jon Culshaw is firmly settled in his impersonation of Peter Capaldi to the point now where I've almost forgot it's not the original actor! I really liked the enigmatic nature of the episode when people who should be dead were not and the reboot of time was causing havoc. Ash got excited by essentially being back at the start and whilst it was clear he still needed to travel with the Doctor, a lot could be reversed. Did Sky have to die? Would he now be able to avert himself from shooting Mundar? The Doctor warned him to be careful as not everything was free game. Breen being back was pretty pivotal to the entire episode and her confidence of Dalek puppets being in play was pretty powerful stuff! It was also just really interesting to hear her relationship with Ash but also how much she was basically hated by her children. That was pretty sad. The mystery behind Alan was fun to explore, especially by the end of the episode when it was clear he was from some sort of parallel universe or dimension. The truth was far more fun though! I loved the concept behind the Eternal Dalek and whilst the Doctor making it good isn't exactly a novel concept even for this incarnation going back to Into the Dalek, I did love that we got an explanation for how this particular Dalek escapes death. It isn't always the same Dalek but it's the casing that reprogrammed the mutant within and linked to the Dalek Pathweb to ensure all necessary information was provided to ensure the continued survival of the Daleks and that the Empire went until the end of time. That was terrific and makes perfect sense! The Doctor taking some solace in the fact that even though he's sure he'll face the Daleks again in his future, he knows at the end that the last one sees good. I think he's a bit too trusting there but he always tries to see the good. Discovering that Ash wasn't the true article and actually visiting his grave was not anything I expected but the revelation of him being the manifest of the story told of Ash Wilton was sublime! He's from the Land of Fiction! What an exciting cliffhanger to take us into the next set of stories. I can't wait to find out more and to just explore what will now be an incredibly different dynamic. There's still so much in play despite numerous answers here and that's what you want in a finale. Bring on the next set! I hope they continue the weekly release as that has been a lot of fun. Overall, a fantastic finale!

Rating: 9/10