Before the season began, I was talking to some fellow “Doctor Who” fans about what we most wanted to see in series three.
Jokingly, I said I’d love to see the series get a new cliffhanger, since for the past two series, every cliffhanger has been the Doctor and/or the companion being stalked by an alien menace or the return of the Daleks.
This week, “Daleks in Manhattan” got the first chance of the new series to step up and give us a new cliffhanger.
So, did it? Sort of!
When you boil it down, the cliffhanger is something old, something new. It’s the emergence of a new threat, though in this case since it’s a human/Dalek hybrid, I’m not sure it counts as a new cliffhanger. To me, it still feels like a big reveal of the Doctor’s greatest enemies, even if the enemy has taken on some kind of new form.
But what about the rest of the episode?
For the most part, it was another solid entry for the third series of the new “Doctor Who.” Early on, series three seems to have found some of the assuredness of storytelling that series one had in the middle to later episodes of the season. And while it’s yet to produce an out and out classic, it’s getting farily close each week.
My real issue with trying to review “Daleks in Manhattan” is that its only the first half of the story. My assessment of it could change next week, based on how everything plays out.
The Doctor and Martha arrive in New York in 1930, during the Great Depression. The Empire State Building is under construction and we learn the Daleks are behind it. They have some kind of schedule they’re trying to meet and are working their workers to the point of exhaustion and beyond. Again, we’re not quite sure yet what the overall plan is for this, but I am sure we’ll find out more next week.
The Doctor discovers that people from Hooverville (the shanty for those feeling the brunt of the Depression) are disappearing and decides to look into it. Before you know it, the Doctor is exploring the sewers and finding human/pig hybrids down there who are mindless servants for the Daleks. (Makes me wish they’d brought back the Ogrons..but that’s the old school “Who” fan in me). The Daleks, meanwhile, are revealed within the first ten minutes of the story and it turns out its the same four Daleks we last saw in “Doomsday.” The Daleks are looking for some way to ensure their race survives. Part of this is creating a Dalek/human hybrid that is revealed in the final moments of the episode.
Along the way, Martha and the Doctor meet some new friends in Hooverville and a bustling theater. The plotline of Tellulah, the lead of the show is the weakest part of the story. It ties only remotely into the Dalek plotline and the actress playing Tellulah features one of the worst American accents I’ve ever heard. (It’s only topped by the bad accent of the guy from Tennessee….)
Where the episode works best is when it focuses on the Doctor and Martha. Freeyma Angema continues to make you forget about Rose as she provides a great counterpoint to David Tennant’s Doctor (she may go down as the definitive Tennant companion). And you can just see Tennant getting more and more comfortable as the Doctor, especially in the scenes where he discovers that he’s facing the Daleks. There’s a dark moment where he laments that the Daleks keep on surviving, while he loses everything that is nicely done and superbly delivered by Tennant.
There’s also hints of the Doctor’s fear and respect for his old enemies when he infiltrates their headquarters as part of a group of prisoners and makes Martha question the Daleks so he won’t have to reveal he’s there (though how the Daleks haven’t seen him yet, I’m not sure.)
The episode builds up to an interesting point that left me curious to see where it might all end up next week.
As always, the period detail by the BBC is second to none and beyond a few bad accents, the supporting cast is more than up to the call in the roles they are given.
Next up: The Daleks attack Hooverville….
Bronzethumb says
I agree with you for the most part: the Doctor and Martha, and their interactions, were fantastic, and the Daleks were as awesome as ever, but the rest of the ep was a bit ho-hum. It seemed to drag on a bit into a big history lesson and period exercise. Then again, it might prove vital to the plot of the next episode.
Am I the only one who *hearts* the Cult of Skaro? I reckon they could prove to be the Tenth Doctor’s greatest recurring nemesis, more than just creatures that return for Round 2 but actual individual villains for him to interact with and personally battle. Remember, after all, it was in the Dalek Sec-initiated Battle of Canary Warf that the Doctor lost Rose. And that little villain monologue that Sec gave about the Daleks’ purity and the need to evolve, I thought it was very chilling, especially coming from a Dalek.
Bob says
doctor who could be such a good show, it’s all there – good acting, likeable characters, a brilliant mythology, writing which is generally pretty good…
But sometimes it just needs to take itself a bit more seriously. I mean really, pig/human hybrids? And the Dalek imperative part, about genetic contamination was so underused, that plot line could have been taken to some really interesting places (could still I guess…) but it was just glossed over.
Also, considering how well they spotted the tenth doctor in doomsday, i’m wondering if the cult of skaro has gone blind.
Still you’re right about not being able to judge until part 2, this could go either way.
Kevling says
I’m sure it will all be explained in part 2, but I’m still at a loss as to how Dalek Sec sacrificing himself to become a human/dalek hybrid could possibly be an ‘evolution’. Surely being a ‘human dalek’ and ‘outside the shell’ makes them just as vulnerable as the humans they have been exterminating all these years…
Oh well we’ll see.
On another note, it was fantastic to see my 8 year old daughter watching it through her fingers… but unable to take her eyes off the screen!
Kevling says
PS My personal prediction is that the human dalek will end up incapacitated, and will end up a sort of Davros 2.0
PaulJ says
“…a Dalek/human hybrid that is revealed in the final moments of the episode.”
Great camera-work, to reveal the face of the monster at the last moment. Unfortunately this face was shown in all its g(l)ory on the front cover of Radio Times, on sale in every UK newsagent four days before the episode’s first airing.
Once again, I’d recommend the full version of Doctor Who Confidential for some fascinating insights into this episode. The website’s not bad either: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/confidential/
Stephen Roberts says
The hybrid looks like a Cthulhu spawn.
Doesn’t seem like much of an improvement though. Sure he’s now got hands and opposable digits. And he might be a bit more mobile in some ways.
But he loses a near invulnerable tank-suit that can fly, shoot things, scan things and teleport…
tho maybe more will be revealed
David Hill says
Unless the Dalek-Human Hybrid starts humping every female in site to get more hybrids born?
Alan says
I don’t know why I didn’t come here first! Now I’ll have to repeat my thoughts here–sorry SoSF!! You deserved the first crack!
I will say this– I thought that accent was great!! I have a friend who still talks like that now in the 21st century! The only bad accent was from one construction worker. All the other actors were British, so you have to give some cred! Solomon … and the flapper dame’s boyfriend? And the guy who gets sucked into the Dalek? I swore they were American!
Okay, now quoth me;
I’ll start by saying that I am determined to love Doctor Who in its every incarnation. I’ve done so for twenty some-odd years and I’m not about to stop now. And for about that long, I’ve wanted a black companion. (I wanted it to be me, in fact). Now there’s Martha. yyayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. And, yyuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmm.
That said,
1) Black people were called “colored” not “black” in pre-civil rights America. (And not a few worst ones than that)
2) A young white Tennessee fellow was not likely to flirt with a black woman in the 30’s. Especially being from south of the Mason Dixon line.
3) Our flapper heroine was not likely to accept the possibility that Martha might be hooked up with the white Doctor as easily, with her only out being that the Doctor was probably “into musical theater”. Even the famous black songstresses of the 20’s and 30’s couldn’t have open relationships with white men. Even in the ’60’s it was frowned upon (see Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach), let alone during the Great Depression.
4) Solomon as the defacto leader of Hooverville? A “colored” and a white fighting over bread, and the older “colored” guy settles the argument, and none of the white guys standing around are resentful?
4a) Black people had Harlem during The Great Depression. Many were part of the working class in New York. (My mother, her aunts, her uncles, her own mother, and her grandmother in fact). Why would they go live in a Hooverville in Central Park when Harlem started at 125th Street? (Central Park is from 59th to 110th Streets, north to south, and nowadays Harlem is considered starting at 110th). More back then than now, blacks survived by being in community. They weathered discrimination and poverty together. They derived identity by being together. And their families were far more cohesive then than now (unfortunately). There were communities in that era in Harlem like Striver’s Row where there were even wealthy blacks. So again, why were they over in Hooverville–(if there even was one in Central Park, which I don’t ever remember hearing about).
5) You can’t see the Empire State Building like that from Central Park. The ESB is at 34th Street. The Park ends at 59th. The ESB is tall, but not that tall. There’s Central Park West, Rockerfeller Center, and 25 blocks of buildings between the ESB and The Park. (This is not a historical inaccuracy, but geographical–and nitpicky on my part, I admit it).
6) I got confused by the human ESB overseer using the phrase “By Any Means Necessary” to describe how he was going to achieve power when that is so strongly attached to Malcolm X, a black civil rights (New Yorker) leader. What was that about?
I guess I was watching the episode through my New York-born, black, American grid. I know my life and the lives of my family have been profoundly affected by our journey through America and since the beginning of my loving the show, I’ve wanted to see some of my own history reflected in the TARDIS’ travels. I thought Martha was going to be that reflection for me. Now, not so much.
So I’ll just enjoy the show for what it’s worth–awesome science fictional escapist whimsy and dynamic characters. It’s been good enough for me all along. I’ll just do what the other people in the Whoverse are doing–ignore the color of Martha’s skin.
Donna Beers says
Dr. Who(a family favorite show in our house)got too hokey. Two silly New York episodes in a row. The Motorway was more creative, than the Darleks. I don’t want to see anymore Darleks. Unless they bring back Rose. Billie Piper is a much better side kick than Rose. David Tennent playing the doctor is still hard to take, no fault of his, but mostly the guy he replaced what amazing, and my favorite, Dr. Who, and a very hard act to follow. This is the same problem Martha is having trying to replace Rose. Tennant is much better than the Dr. from the 80’s, too bad they didn’t give him good stories so far this season. Has he lost the anything you want it to say wallet?
Donna Beers says
Opps should have said Bille Piper, Rose, is a much better side kick than Martha. What amazing should be was amazing.
I wanted to look up the actors names on another screen and hit the submit comment by mistake, before the article was ready for submission. Sorry.