And I can't say it's because I am not enthused with series three either, because I am! It's really very good, much better than I would have suggested on the basis of six year old memories. We watched Utopia last night (that's how far behind I am) and, amazingly, there hasn't been one so-so episode, not a weak link in the chain. It may even be (that pinging noise is my ExcuseFinder3000 going off) that it's the high quality of these stories that has slowed me down: with no half-baked New Earth to frown over, with no Rose or disempowered Doctor to rant about, I've been bereft. The upshot of my sluggardliness is that I'm going to cheat, just this once, and write up this two-parter as one post. It only cuts the tiniest corner off of this 102 episode lump of Doctor Who, but it'll make me feel better.
Even if I wasn't playing catch-up, I'd be tempted to treat these two episodes as one story, if only so that I could just call the whole thing Evolution of the Daleks. That's a great title. It goes beautifully with the those rather grandiose stories from the classic series (Genesis, Destiny, Resurrection, Remembrance), and, even better, it actually describes what we see on screen (unlike, say, Revelation of the Daleks). It's also a much better title than Daleks in Manhattan which can't help but suggest a mid-Eighties fish-out-of-water comedy, perhaps with a montage showing Skaro's finest visiting landmarks, buying I♥NY souvenirs, high-fiving break-dancers and inexorably falling in love with the local girl who can see past the dalekanium shell to the bubbling lump of hate inside. Actually that sounds like a brilliant film.
A little more seriously, there is something about the Daleks that suits the idea of Manhattan. Viewed from afar the humanity is invisible and New York becomes a vast machine that people merely infest: a shining futuristic city of clean lines, elevators, and gleaming glass and metal. (Yes, I'm thinking of this possibly). It's easy to imagine Daleks gliding down wide avenues or zooming through the air along the concrete canyons, so easy, in fact, that the image can't help but undermine an episode which can't show them doing it.
Still, the ambition of Evolution of the Daleks (I'm just going to call it that) is tremendously impressive. Shoot New York in Cardiff? Which loon thought that would work? But it does, just about. Okay, we see a lot of sewers and basements (just like New New York, we are trapped in the Undercity), the grand avenues are conspicuous by their absence, and the Empire State Building drifts about, first loitering suspiciously in southern Manhattan before deciding to loom over Central Park - but those wonderful plate shots make all the difference. There are those gorgeous skyline views, the single shot of the real Central Park that allows us to push Bute Park from our heads, and, best of all, the excellent composite image of the TARDIS, the Doctor and Martha all stood underneath the Statue of Liberty. It's so impressive and does so much work to sell the idea of Doctor Who in New York.
At the time, these episodes got a bit of a kicking from the 'fans' on the forums and a lot of the negative comments sadly focussed on the writer, Helen Raynor. It all got very unpleasant, and it is to be hoped that the fact that Raynor was the first woman to write for the new series had absolutely nothing to do with that. Certainly, I struggle to see what was supposed to have been so terrible about these episodes. It's actually one of the better Dalek stories because it asks questions about the common ground that humans and Daleks share, rather than just treating them as sons et lumières like some recent adventures. The idea that they should look to us to improve their own villainy is utterly chilling, and the slow unwinding of this premise as Sec's humanity begins to assert itself is excellent, allowing both species to restate their principles. We do get sold that old lie once again about them being emotionless ("Daleks have no concept of worry!" - er, yes you do, not to mention betrayal, audacity, hope, triumph...), and the 'human' qualities the Daleks want are apparently "ambition, hatred, aggression, war" (really?). But the Daleks are on good form throughout. I love this sense of them as conniving, duplicitous creatures - this is their true essence, what the Kaleds were busy doing in the Dome in Genesis: whispers and lies and machinations. The moment where one of them looks over its shoulder before conspiring is wonderful.
As is the period setting and I'm not just talking about the dance number, or the Universal horror movie vibes. It's daring and inspired to show us an historical backdrop that the audience doesn't already know well, and the choice of the Great Depression is particularly apposite for the story: these humans, like the Daleks, are at rock bottom and so desperate they will try anything. Furthermore they're both (and the Doctor too) recovering from a war that has made them doubt everything. How American is this episode? Not very I'd say, the killer line being that Diagoras calls the black Dalek "Lord Sec" - it's not impossible that he's assuming the Daleks are British (I suppose their accents are still British under all that ring modulation) but there's no way any self-respecting American, let alone a tough Nooyoiker, would instinctively reach for "Lord" to show his respect or deference. 'Mr Sec, sir,' that's what he'd say.
Two tiny things. Firstly, this is where I started to clench my teeth at the whole 'animals as aliens/creatures' thing that we see so much of during RTD's tenure: we've already had rhinos, cats and spiders, not to mention the Slitheen pig, and there's wasps and flies to come. It niggles here because there's no obvious reason why the Daleks would make their captured humans look like pigs other than pure sadism. That would be a good reason for them to do it, of course, but they don't really explain why they've done it at all. On the other hand, the Lazlo/Tallulah sub-plot needs that disfigurement for it to work and Robo-men just wouldn't cut the mustard.
Secondly, for once, it shouldn't be the Doctor that saves the day. By all means have him cook up a potion to save Laszlo but that business where the solar flare/lightning transfers some Time Lord DNA into the Human/Dalek mix is no good. This story is about the Daleks seeking something indomitable they have discovered in humans - it should stay indomitable. How brilliant, how perfectly Ghostbusters II, would it have been if the New Yorkers, with their brash, callous exteriors and squidgy, sentimental innards, had defied the Daleks? The great Melting Pot resisting the genetic purists? This is one time where we don't need a Time Lord intercessor: the almost mythological (and perhaps, admittedly, clichéd) reputation of the citizens of New York would have been enough.
Although the boys enjoyed this a lot (Chris: "One of the best Dalek stories ever"), they enjoyed some minor nit-picking themselves. William found the backwards and forwards between minutes and rels highly derisory, and Chris felt troubled when a Dalek opened fire without warning: "What? Don't they HAVE to say 'Exterminate!' to make their guns work?" I'd never thought of that before but I like it - voice controlled guns! Maybe that's why they say it three times too, desperately trying to find the right cadence to satisfy their inner Siris. Neither of them particularly liked the pigs either, but Chris praised the cliffhanger and the Daleks' sneakiness. he gave it a 9. William gave it an 8. He liked Sec's gradual humanisation and, having studied the Dustbowl at school, was interested to see the urban consequences of the Great Depression as well. Or at least, to see what it would have looked like had it happened in Cardiff.
The Americanisation of Doctor Who is of particular interest to me because, much to my surprise, I ended up living here in the United States. When I first saw this, I had never even been to America, let alone New York. To be honest, back then, I really didn't care that the Empire State Building was in the wrong place. But I did care that they were filming in Bute Park because, living in Cardiff, I recognised it all too easily. Now, when they have filmed in the real Central Park (for The Angels Take Manhattan) and Utah and elsewhere (The Impossible Astronaut) it begins to feel eerily like Doctor Who is following me once again. A Town Called Mercy was even set in Texas which is surely just a shot across the bows from the production team. On the other hand, missing as I do the UK, and Cardiff in particular, it's rather nice to see the TARDIS land in a street or playground that I know very well from back then. And luckily, with Evolution of the Daleks, I get to see both sides of the pond at once.
NEXT TIME...
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