 |
| "We're in another Russell script?" "Sadly, no...but we might as well be." |
Seriously. I really don't.
Can we just skip ahead to Victory of the Daleks? I promise, it's fun. Yeah, it's stupid, but you've got really cool stuff in it. Not like this. This really doesn't do it.
Please? C'mon. It's skipping Series 3 and 4, I know...but c'mon. It's the Moffat era in the early days, it's significantly better than this. C'mon...please?
Editor's Note: We spent about four hours trying to convince Madcap to do this episode. We apologize for the inconvenience.
You did not! It was only three.
Editor's Note: It was actually five. I just didn't want you looking like too much of a whiny baby.
...ass.
Fine, so...Daleks in Manhattan. We're in Manhattan, it's the...I guess you'd call it the height of the Great Depression, but there's no way that term applies. In a dressing room behind a theater, a young performer named Tallulah (three L's and an H) is making out with her boyfriend, Lazlo, before a big show. When she leaves, Laz is tormented by a pig man that he stupidly follows into a darkened corridor of the theater rather than doing literally anything else. In a prop room, he is accosted by said pig man because he's also stupid enough to let himself get trapped in a room with one.
I guess we have to set up subplots somehow.
We catch up with the Doctor and Martha, the Doctor having apparently decided to take Martha to the actual New York as seeming recompense for his rebound trip in the previous episode. They stare at second unit footage of the Statue of Liberty and New York City, Martha finding a Newspaper of Exposition left behind by Quinn Mallory and the Sliders to tell them that it's 1930.
 |
| "It's only a greenscreen." "Shhhh!" |
A headline on the newspaper points them toward Hooverville, where a mystery is deepening. Martha gets a history lesson on the plight of the people in the Depression. Little shanty towns that have sprung up from the masses of people who were suddenly without work when the economy collapsed in a way that does not at all uncomfortably parallel the United States at the time this review will be published.
In the Hooverville, they witness an altercation and a man named Solomon settles the dispute by splitting a loaf of bread in half. Now, anyone who says this is cheesy...is completely right. But given that Kastagir from Highlander is an actor of African descent and African Americans were at one point very commonly naming their children after figures from the Bible (in this and in other instances in both real life and fiction), I'm willing to let the naming (at least) slide. On the nose as it is.
At the still being constructed Empire State Building, a man by the name of Mr. Diagoras deals with a worker dispute by introducing him to...a Dalek. Namely, one of the members of the Cult of Skaro that escaped the end of Doomsday. The worker is dragged away by the Pig Men, Diagoras being reminded that the work on the Empire State Building must be completed before the gamma strike hits. Diagoras assures them it will be. Luckily, there's no HR in the 1930's, or Diagoras would be up to his eyeballs in lawsuits.
Solomon tells the Doctor and Martha about the disappearances in Hooverville, someone is taking people in the night. They leave their things behind, so Solomon says they know these people aren't just leaving. Then who should pop into the tent but Peter Parker!
...no, not Tobey Maguire.
...not Tom Holland.
Yeah, Andrew Garfield. That one. The one people seem to forget because his second movie was so bad - not that that was his fault, or anything. He's playing Frank, a young man from Tennessee who totally sounds authentic except that he doesn't remotely. In fact, the "American" accents here are more than a little coconut and banana sandwich crazy, as we already heard with the incredibly over the top and exaggerated Tallulah. Worst of all, she's probably the best out of all of them.
I wish that was a joke. It's probably the only thing you'll remember from this episode besides something coming up very soon.
 |
| "Okay, so I do this...and I get to be Spider-Man, yeah?" |
Diagoras wants some work done, the Doctor and Martha going with Frank and Solomon to take the dollar a day job as an excuse to investigate. After a bit of character building and background, the foursome walks a bit further and finds no sign of a cave-in, but instead find a squid-like embryo. The Doctor, being the Doctor, picks it right up for examination. Martha is squicked.
Up above, Diagoras pushes his workers harder and gives them a bunch of suspiciously Dalek armor-looking plates to affix to the mast of the Empire State Building. They protest the unsafe conditions of working at night, and he gives them the riot act for daring to get in the way of progress. Dalek Caan returns to converse with Diagoras, mentioning that the Daleks have taken an interest in the human race's ability to survive no matter the cost.
Cue the "You would make a good Dalek" clip here.
The Daleks have decided he's the best option for a "final experiment". Diagoras is brought down as Dalek Sec commands preparations to be made. Into the basement they go... and Diagoras is restrained before Dalek Sec opens his casing...and Diagoras is shoved into the Dalek's...err...rear orifice, let's say.
...yeah, I have no idea what the hell they were thinking. This is stupid even for this show and that is not a statement I can make lightly.
Before that happens, though, we go back to the Doctor, Martha, Frank, and Solomon in the tunnels. They hear the oinking of the pig men and look for the source rather than running away, finding a dying one. Unfortunately, while the Doctor has a moment of compassion for the lost soul, more Pig Men show up and are far less about to die and give chase.
They make their escape, but Frank gets taken trying to cover their escape despite their attempt to save him. But as they lose a Spider-Man, they get a Harley Quinn...'s completely over the top wannabe actress cousin. Tallulah holds them at gunpoint and demands to know where Lazlo is (make your "Who is Gamora?" joke here). She later reveals that this is a prop gun, which makes the second fake gun plot device in two episodes. Maybe Russell was on a kick that week. Who knows?
It's been two weeks since Lazlo disappeared and Tallulah wants answers. The Doctor agrees, beginning to rig up a DNA scanner to figure out what the blob they found was. It's the Doctor, of course, so he's able to do this out of his sonic screwdriver and 1930's tech. Solomon questions the Doctor about who he is, getting nothing from him, before going back to warn the people in Hooverville. Tallulah and Martha have a scene to do more Doctor and Martha ship teasing that we know isn't going anywhere.
Of note here is that Tallulah implies the Doctor is gay. Which is rather amusing in a completely tone deaf sort of way.
Tallulah also shows Martha a white flower, just like the one Lazlo gave her the night he disappeared, that has been showing up on her dressing room table every night, giving her some hope that he's still alive. Regardless, as the workers get to work on putting the Dalek plates on the mast of the Empire State Building, Dalek Sec shoves Diagoras up his ass.
...really, I'm not trying to be crude. That's literally what he does. Now, you might think this is my chance to take some digs at Helen Raynor. That's coming, but this particular instance is not her doing. Nor is it her fault that we're subjected to the Pig Men. Those are Russell's doing, but I'll get into that nearer to the end of the review.
 |
| Pictured: David Tennant fleeing fangirls, (2020 colorized) |
The Doctor takes his DNA scanner for a spin and finds that the alien of the episode is something very close to his rage while Tallulah partakes in some Vaudeville with a song that sounds suspiciously like a penis metaphor. Martha, watching (not like that), sees a figure across the stage watching Tallulah. When this is pointed out, Tallulah screams and Martha gives chase. It's a pig man...but not a typical one in that he's very Lazlo shaped for reasons that are never explained.
Martha finds one of those very non-Lazlo shaped pig men and screams, the Doctor giving chase after her down the sewers. Tallulah follows despite his protests. Further in, Martha finds...Frank! He's alive! Spidey's alive!
Tallulah and the Doctor spy a Dalek in the sewers, Tallulah getting to see the Doctor's barely contained rage and pain as he reflects on how the Daleks seem to keep surviving and he loses everything...which I'm going to take as a reference to Gallifrey's loss in the Time War and not to a certain blonde...mostly because, to the credit of Russell's editing, he doesn't have the Doctor spent twenty minutes whining over her.
In the basement, Dalek Sec is smoking from within his casing and refuses to stop the experiment in spite of the protests of his fellow Daleks. Clearly, he failed to consult a proctologist before attempting this feat. Always ask a medical professional first, kids!
Back in the sewers, Lazlo reveals himself to be a pig man and Tallulah reveals herself to be a blithering idiot because she can't recognize the voice of a man she presumably loves. Unlike the other Pig Men, Lazlo got to keep not only his individuality and sanity, but also his hair! That way we know who he is!
...again. Something to get into in a bit.
The Doctor overhears the Daleks planning and scanning viable candidates for their final experiments. Lazlo explains that low intelligence subjects get turned into pig slaves, but high intelligence subjects are taken...somewhere.Martha is scanned, found to be of high intelligence, and set up for the experiment. Lazlo gets Tallulah to leave so the scenery can remain (mostly) unchewed and the Doctor and Lazlo join up with the group heading to the "final experiment".
The Doctor has Martha demand to know what the final experiment is. The Daleks, surprisingly, tell her the truth: the Daleks are trying to evolve into a new form. Dalek Sec demonstrates this...in one of the most laughable manners that has ever been exhibited on Doctor Who.
Remember when we had farting aliens in Series 1? I miss that. And I shouldn't miss that.
But a Dalek-headed humanoid emerges from the casing wearing Diagoras' suit. He proclaims that he is a Human Dalek, and that he is the future...
 |
| "STOP LAUGHING, PUNY HUMANS!!!" |
The set up of the Daleks wanting to evolve from their present form in order to survive is a neat idea. Set against the backdrop of Great Depression era New York, one of the places arguably hit the hardest by said Depression, with human beings struggling to survive day to day was even more of a meaningful parallel to their plight.
The concept is good. The execution is definitely not.
The shoving the man up the Dalek's ass and the Pig Men take you out of it right away, being camp even for Doctor Who (and I don't need to go back to that list I ran in a previous review). The Pig Men, to start from the least ridiculous, don't make a lot of sense given the Daleks' usual MO. Yes, they are not above using inferior races as slaves and have done so before, but why pigs? If Russell wanted an animal, why not oxen or some other beast of burden? The Daleks, deranged and insane as they are, do have a concept of efficiency and I really just don't see this fitting it.
Also, the Doctor's insistence in one scene that the Pig Man's face is definitely not a mask is just cute if it was intentional. The make up work is good, but the Judoon look...actually, no, these are better looking than the Judoon. Point withdrawn.
Also, if the Daleks could alter humans to become anthropomorphic pigs, why was creating new Daleks so hard?!
The Dalek shoving is, as I said, not Helen Raynor's fault. That's all on Russell and his bizarre desires that got put into episodes throughout his era because he had nobody besides Standards and Practices telling him no. Like so many odd choices over his tenure, this was among the things he would give writers to put into their episodes. He also often rewrote parts of the episodes to fit his whims as well, perks of being the showrunner, I suppose. It's utterly bizarre, and that's saying a lot for Doctor Who. It's more like watching a tentacle hentai parody of the show than watching the actual show itself.
Bad CGI aside, it's just unpleasant to watch. And I know that someone's going to bring up my defense of body horror tropes in my Smith and Jones review. This is hardly an alien menace that is perverting everything it means to be human as it consumes everything and anything remotely human about the host bodies it takes.
This is a Dalek shoving a man up its ass.
I really shouldn't have to explain why isn't the same thing and why it doesn't fit at all in Doctor Who.
The acting is also very hit and miss. The "American" accents, which I mentioned before range everywhere from the Solomon trying to not sound like he's from anywhere in particular to the Frank "I'm totally from Tennessee!" drawl to Tallulah inhaling an entire cosmos of scenery through her super-exaggerated Brooklyn accent. Diagoras also has the 1930's stereotypical mobster accent, minus and "See? See?" put at the end of his sentences for dramatic effect.
It almost feels like a pastiche or a parody of Americans than people actually trying to portray Americans is what I mean. Then again, American television is guilty of doing this to Brits, so maybe this is just revenge.
Either way, Daleks in Manhattan: good concepts on paper, but ultimately doesn't evolve into anything good. Unfortunately for us, this isn't the end. Next week, it's Evolution of the Daleks and we get into things that can't be blamed on Russell T. Davies beyond his approval of them. Sorry, Helen. I am happy to say you'll actually write a really great two-parter in Series 4, but that's a long ways off from this.
Next time, we'll see the results of the Human Dalek, Dalek Humans, a story of beauty hamming the beast, and science will cry. A lot.
Doctor Who is the property of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.
No comments:
Post a Comment