Doctor Who – Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks – Review

The Daleks are back (again) and they make as little sense as ever.

Synopsis

The Doctor takes Martha to “real” New York, but chooses the height of the Great Depression.

People from Hooverville (a tent city in Central Park) are being abducted. They are, in fact, being turned into Pig Slaves by the last four Daleks in the universe, the Cult of Skaro. Soon Martha is captured by them.

The Cult is working on an experimental program. Using their imagination, their leader, Dalek Sec, realizes that they have come to the brink of extinction because of their limitations, but that humans go from strength to strength throughout time.

The Daleks are also in charge of building the Empire State Building and they’re up to something.

Dalek Sec merges with a human and becomes the first Human Dalek. His outlook begins to expand and, rather than kill the Doctor, he convinces him that this could be the beginning of a new, compassionate Dalek race. They had plans to turns thousands of humans into new Dalek Humans and use them as warriors, but now he proposes making them more human and taking the entire species to a new, uninhabited planet where they can live in peace.

The Doctor goes along with the plan, but they are all tricked by the remaining three Daleks who no longer recognize Delek Sec as their leader. They change things around and the Doctor manages to create the Dalek Human army instead.

The Doctor interposes himself into the gamma radiation burst and alters the Dalek Human creatures sufficiently enough to question orders.

The Daleks are about to kill the Doctor but Dalek Sec jumps in the way and dies. The Dalek Humans fight back, killing two of the three remaining Daleks. The third escapes with an emergency temporal shift.

Analysis
I have to give kudos to Russell T Davies for bringing the Daleks to the new series and making them menacing, but, they’re wearing really thin. For such ruthless beings, once again, they spent far too much time talking about killing the Doctor and not just shooting him.

There’s a lot to pick on in these two episodes, but I’m not going to bother with most of it.

The part that really bothered me in this episode was the Doctor’s death wish.

Somehow, I can imagine at the kick-off production meeting for this series, RTD gave all the writers a little direction for the season. Something like this, I imagine:

“This season, the Doctor is quite depressed about Rose, and he’s really feeling alone in the Universe. He doesn’t want to let Martha in and, to some extent he’s reached the point where he doesn’t want to go on anymore. We’re going to bring the Doctor a dramatic revelation of his being ”the last of the Time Lords“ at the end of the series and we need to bring him to the brink of desperation before we get there. Remember that when you’re writing your stories, it’s going to be lovely.”

This episode’s writer, Helen Raynor, has taken this too far, with the Doctor seemingly asking to be shot several times over the course of the epsisode. Fortunately, the Daleks have become so pathetic, they can’t even shoot the Doctor. When the last Dalek is confronted by the unarmed Doctor, all alone at the end of the episode, rather than shooting the Doctor, the Dalek runs away.

The Daleks have never quite come off as the emotionless creatures they are supposed to be and that is unchanged in this episode. Making matters worse is the fact that the Cult of Skaro has “imagination” so that they can imagine new tactics. Still, that doesn’t quite make me believe that they’d chain up and parade Human Dalek Sec around like a dominatrix would her sex slave.

Once again, Martha proves to be possibly the Doctor’s best companion, ever.

The Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks.
by Helen Raynor

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