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Daleks, We Loved You
Despite neat touches, Doctor Who's latest Dalek eps fail to catch fire
We have to keep reminding ourselves, here on Death Ray, that Doctor Who is a kids' show (well, a family show), and that it should not be judged on the criteria that we'd usually apply to, say, BSG or anything else similarly 'adult'.
Hence, we can all enjoy it when things get a bit a silly without any grown-up guilt; but it's precisely because Doctor Who is a family show that 'Daleks in Manhattan'/'Evolution of the Daleks' was such a disappointment. It dragged; it smacked of the BBC syringing a boring history lesson about the Great Depression into the show; the pigmen seemed unoriginal in light of the porcine diversion used in Aliens of London; there was little drama in the return of the Daleks; and the return to the premise of the Daleks being genetic engineers par excellence was a little wasted. (Opinion is divided as to the Dalek/human hybrid – as a kid, I would have loved it. But the predictable surfacing of human emotions and stiffly-waving tentacles were less than impressive. And the less said about the cod-New York accent the better.)
Nope, after the zany SF delights of
'Gridlock', the historical romp of 'The Shakespeare Code' and the impressive
introduction of Martha in Smith and Jones, this two-parter felt overlong and a
wee bit laboured, 90 minutes of telly that would have fit comfortably into 45,
stretched to accommodate two parts. The return of the Daleks should always be
an event, but their return here was curiously anticlimactic, and the doctor's
swift descent into co-operation was unconvincing, given his utter terror and
hatred of the Daleks in previous encounters. We applaud the decision to do
something a little different with the Daleks (and there were several nice
touches, the conspiring Daleks furitvely peering around as they discussed Sec
being one such example) but the whole thing was a bit flat, lacking in drama
and invention, and ultimately unsatisfying. There wasn't a whole lot for Martha
to do either, and given 'Gridlock's final scenes, which neatly counterpoint the
Doctor trying to fill the void left by Rose with Martha's realisation of said
fact, it seems a shame that there was little deepening the Time Lord/companion
relationship over these two episodes.
Which isn't to say it was all disappointing. There were moments of glory – is it too much of a stretch to say that Tennant is playing the Doctor as a manic-depressive with a death wish, a hangover from/evolution of Eccleston's survivor guilt-ridden war veteran? Think of it that way and his constant explosions from dour seriousness to gurning dynamo make a peculiar and satisfying kind of sense. Somehow, the Dalek design fit right into '30s New York too, the pepperpots and the city complementing each other perfectly. The dialogue between the aliens was superb too, the tensions between Dalek old and new wobbling on a knife edge.
So while not as lacklustre as 'Aliens of London'/'World War Three', season one's equivalent two-parter, nevertheless, when the Daleks are about you want something really special. And sadly, this wasn't it, for me at least, creating a small lull in an otherwise excellent series of new Who.
Jes Bickham May 02, 2007, 03:39:17
