I am – Hercules!!

“Kelvington” says:

Doctor Who Evolution of the Daleks

This week’s “Doctor Who” picks up with the typical re-cap of last weeks show, including the shot of the human Dalek. Where is where the episode begins.

This episode has both some very strong moments, but it has many flaws as well. The idea that the Daleks have the Doctor in their grasp and don’t just kill him seems like every bad James Bond moment.

I’m not sure that I’m completely down with the idea that Daleks will turn over a whole new leaf and become partly human, it’s an interesting twist but I didn’t completely accept it. And neither did the other Daleks, who quietly plan against Dalek Sec’s ideals.

There were many interesting moments, watching Daleks hatch a plan in secret, seeing the half human Dalek Sec being treated like a wild animal, and many of the shots The Mill provided of the lightning hitting the exterior of the Empire State Building and The Doctor’s ascent to the very top.

But for every wicked cool moment was two or three bad ones, again my main gripe with the episode was the number of times The Doctor should have been killed by the Daleks and was either spared or interrupted or watching The Doctor change the rules.

Plus seeing The Doctor helping the Daleks seemed VERY, VERY wrong, I kept waiting for the double cross, but even in the end, The Doctor seemed to find way too much compassion for the Daleks, something we would have never seen with Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor.

I’ll admit watching pig people and Daleks hunting the sewers was pretty cool and kinda scary. Also seeing the Daleks have doubts about the new type of Human-hybrid and conflicts in sparing the humans lives is very well done.

There’s even talk of the Dalek creator, while they don’t mention him by name, it’s good to know they still remember Davros. Another nit pick I have is that the Psychic paper shouldn’t be seen as blank to anyone but the Doctor. (and Shakespeare and perhaps a member of Torchwood or two) but
to everyone else, it should be, whatever you want it to be. That was just sloppy. While we’ve as viewers only seen what is written on it once, to everyone in the story, it should never appear blank.

Overall I would give this as a stand alone episode a C maybe a C+, if you combine it with last weeks, then maybe a B-, but it wasn’t the super cool ending I was hoping for, however I do want one of those Dalek Tommy Guns under my Christmas tree this year.

Just my 2¢

“DimensionsPlural” says:

Hi Herc,

Just had the pleasure of watching episode 5 of the new Who series, and thought I’d post my two cents-worth:

What’s it called: Evolution of the Daleks

What’s it about: Daleks looking to evolve, oddly enough. In this, the second part to last week’s Daleks in Manhattan , the black dalek Sec has determined that the only way for his small troupe of pepperpots to survive and conquer is to change their basic strategy. Which he accomplishes by splicing himself with a 30’s Noo Yawker to become a squid-headed dandy with some disturbingly penile dreadlocks. And raising an army of humans all infected with dalek DNA. Though without the dreads, thankfully…

What’s good: lots, actually. The beautifully recreated scenes of Manhatton 80 years ago. The attack on Central Park ’s shanty town by flying daleks and squealing pig-men. The genetics laboratory and the partially constructed art-deco offices in the Empire State Building . The various film references at the heart of the story – Bride of Frankenstein, The Fly, Phantom of the Opera….The treacherous “real” daleks, who decide to take the future into their own appendages. Captain Panaka’s “why can’t we all just get along” speech and the snappy comeback. No OGR (Obligatory Gay Reference), but it did get a bit S&M at the end. Martha, who actually gets something to do this week other than look good in tight trousers….

What’s not so good: Those accents haven’t got any better, and some of the dialogue is a tad laboured in places. And unless I imagined it, I think the Doctor actually came on to a dalek…..

Overall: Solid episode, will do better on repeated viewings. Continues the trend of what has been a very confident season so far. 3 ½ stars (out of five)

Next week: Doctor Lazarus has invented a machine that makes himself 30 years younger. And unleashes the mother of all scorpions, by the look of it. And is that nice Mr Saxon sponsoring his experiments?

“The Handsome 12th Doctor” says:

After last week's fairly deficient starter to the two-parter did matters improve any tonight?
Ummm, no, not really.

It began with an unconvincing get-out from the cliffhanger. This to me has been the main thing that the new writers of Who have been getting wrong. The getaways following a cliffhanger episode always seem to be too easy. Tonight's was on par with the first Cybermen story from last season.
So far only Steven Moffat has come up with one I enjoyed, for the Empty Child/Doctor Dances.

Anyway things did then appear to pick up for a short spell. Flying Daleks, all out attack, lots of explosions. Good action leading up to a face-off between the Daleks and the Doctor. Here's where it started to lose me again. There were several points through the show when the Doctor was standing right in front of them, and they were saying things like "You are our greatest enemy. We will exterminate you now. Oh yes. We will. We mean it. We're going to do it. Honestly."
I paraphrase to some extent but it felt like that. They kept saying and saying it and then not doing anything. Doing that once would have been fine for building tension, but three or four times became a joke. You could argue that this sometimes happened in the older shows but I don't recall it ever being this bad.

There was also someone else who the Daleks would have killed immediately yet didn't. If you watched it then you may know who I mean, but let's not go spoiling things eh. If any of the other reviewers here has said what happened then somebody really ought to tell them off.

Right, so we've got Daleks that are now rubbish at being Daleks, doing some muddled sci-fi scheme. It never felt like they were ever in real control of what they were up to. More like making it all up as they go along. They should get jobs writing for 'Lost'.

I'm trying to think of anything that I liked. Sad to say I'm finding this a struggle. Martha My Dear taking charge and coming up with a plan to deal with the oncoming pig-men was good. And the effects work when the Daleks turned on the lights in the room was well done. But beyond that I have to say it was weak overall.

“Alex F” says:

Hi Herc,
I’m a long time reader, first time contributor, after seeing tonight’s episode of Who I though I just had to email you a review, I hope it's of use to you.

Evolution of the Daleks

After last week’s rather drawn out and only intermittently interesting episode, a lot was riding on the second part of this year’s Dalek tale, especially as the ratings for Daleks In Manhattan were pretty disappointing.

Once again visually it was impressive, and the brief action scenes were well orchestrated, but they’re the only positive things that can be said about the episode. The problem with it wasn’t just the slow pace and slightly dodgy and dull characterisation of the supporting characters (and it‘s best if we just ignore the accents once again), but rather the fact that it was far too predictable. The other three Daleks had questioned the concept of Dalek Sek evolving with the help of Human DNA last week, so there was a distinct lack of surprise when they inevitably turned on him and went ahead with their own diabolical plan.

The onslaught of Human Daleks at the end (all 12 or so of them, though there’s supposed to be thousands) lacked any kind of menace, and when the Doctor tried to reason with them, surprise surprise, even after one of his weakest speeches, they turned on the Daleks and blew them to pieces. Though one escapes, obviously, which will make the estate of Terry Nation happy. But I’m not sure anyone else will feel this way.

Tennant’s really growing in to the role this season, with a lot of the silly OTT manicness now absent, but here he was all too one note, and that note was the angry shouting Doctor who loses a lot of his appeal, and the depth that Ecclestone gave to the role was sadly missing.

I fall in to the camp who believes that Russell T Davies does write great Doctor Who episodes at times (the season finales usually), but also writes childish rubbish (yep, I still haven’t forgiven him for Aliens of London after all this time), but he’s been believing his own hype for too long now - Who can be a great sci-fi show, but at times it’s been pretty awful too, and for the show to really develop it needs a big shake up - and at the very least he really needs to hire better writers than this.

We’re five episodes in now and the standard of this season has been consistently average, we’re yet to have anything outstanding - hopefully in the coming weeks we’ll have this year’s “Girl In The Fireplace” or “The Unquiet Dead” - if not it could turn out that this third year of Who is the worst yet.

I am – Hercules!!