Retrospective reviews have been mostly positive. Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote in "The Discontinuity Guide", "The best "Doctor Who" story in some considerable time, "Remembrance of the Daleks" reintroduced mystery and magic into the series with much intelligence and revisionist continuity". "The A.V. Club" reviewer Christopher Bahn, despite noting that the production had not aged well visually, called "Remembrance of the Daleks" "the Seventh Doctor era at its best". He was positive towards how going back to "An Unearthly Child" allowed Aaronovitch and Cartmel to "showcase their new, more devious master-planner version of the Doctor", as well as the action and the character moments for Ace. DVD Talk's J. Doyle Wallis, reviewing the original DVD release, gave the story three and a half out of five stars, calling it "a good ... adventure" and noting the shift in the Doctor's personality. Alasdair Wilkins of io9 called "Remembrance" "by a pretty wide margin the best anniversary special the show has ever done", praising the return to the 1960s and the various continuity references.