Doctor Who 3.5: Evolution of the Daleks

[selenay]

I enjoyed this episode, but it's the first one of the season where I haven't been entirely satisified. The episode had lots of interesting ideas, lots of things to squee about but felt slightly disjointed, as though it was trying to do too many things and hadn't quite connected them right.

That's my only real quibble with the episode, though, and as mentioned there was lots to squee about too.

I loved the Dalek attack on Hooverville. Daleks flying through, strafing everyone below and being totally indestructable - it was possible to see how a couple of Daleks could potentially destroy the Earth. The season 1 episode, Dalek, is the only other episode where I've had that impression. The scene where the Dalek is in the big room in the base, elevates itself and kills all those soldiers really gave the impression that individual Daleks can be immensely powerful. I know that we've now had a couple of episodes where thousands of Daleks appeared and starting attacking, but somehow it's more impressive to see one or two.

The moment Solomon stepped forward to make his speech, I muttered something along the lines of "Oh, he's totally bought it" and a moment later I was right. That "Exterminate" never gets old :-)

The storyline between Lazlo and Tallulah was very sweet and I enjoyed it. Aw.

One of the interesting points that I hope we'll be coming back to is Martha's actions. I loved that she got to be smart and come up with a way to kill the pig men in the elevator, but that's got to have repurcussions. If I'm not mistaken, it's the first time she's killed and that's going to be a huge thing for a doctor (even a trainee) to do. I'll be a little disappointed if there isn't any fall-out from that in the next couple of episodes.

I still don't know whether Martha has been told exactly what the Daleks are and how they related to the Time Lords. I assume so, but there wasn't anything in the episodes to tell me and I no longer have Gridlock to check against!

The Doctor's speech about not wanting to cause a genocide by killing the last Dalek (and do we believe that it's the last? Thought not!) shows that he's changed a bit since season 1, although I wonder whether how permenant that change of heart will be. The Daleks won't change so at some stage the Doctor will have to do something.

The rest of the conclusion I can't really comment on because that's where I felt that it fell down. Possibly it's because there was one too many confrontation after the adventures up on the mast, so the episode didn't quite mesh. The shenanigans in the theatre didn't make quite as much sense as the writers obviously hoped, although watching the human-Daleks blow the crap out of their so-called masters was fun :-) The programmed destruct on them wasn't that surprising - we're talking about Daleks, here.

The final scenes and the hope in them did seem to carry on the theme of hope even in the worst circumstances that permeated last week's episode and I quite liked that. It was a nice element to end on.

As for next week...I'm looking forward to it :-) The previews look pretty good (didn't quite manage to ignore them this week) and they've been remarkably restrained in keeping Martha away from modern Earth so far, so I can't complain. Hopefully there will be some mention of the whole killing a bunch of pig men in the elevator element but otherwise I'm quite happy to see what RTD and co. can throw at me :-)

Comments

[paranoidangel]

I've seen various comments from people saying they felt disappointed by the episode, so when I saw it I was prepared for that, but I enjoyed it, and didn't really have any problems with it. (I loved that the Daleks rebelled against Sec for being human, because that's totally what they'd do.)

The moment Solomon stepped forward to make his speech, I muttered something along the lines of "Oh, he's totally bought it" and a moment later I was right. That "Exterminate" never gets old :-)

I loved that bit - it was obvious they were going to kill him the minute they stopped talking.

The Doctor's speech about not wanting to cause a genocide by killing the last Dalek

I liked that.

Solomon's speech

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was hoping they'd kill him before he stopped talking. It reminded me of the Asterix in Britain line about how all the British (or English) stop fighting at 4 o'clock to have tea, and then start up again afterward. Very polite, those daleks!

[historyterry.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the plot falling down in places. Genocide bad, yes, but a dalek with cloning and gene-splicing technology? With knowledge that the technology works and he just has to pick up where he left off? (I had a little chuckle at the thought of dalek in-breeding too, mind.)

However, I like the wording the doctor used when referring to his companion, because there was no gender assigned, and therefore it was not entirely clear who he was talking about. And making sure the pig/man survived, yeah, I liked that too.

And I did have to chuckle about the 'fondness for show tunes' line.

Oh, I could carry on...

T.

[selenay]

(I loved that the Daleks rebelled against Sec for being human, because that's totally what they'd do.)

Absolutely :-) In fact, it's rather reminiscent of certaine elements of the 80s Dalek stories, although given a new series feel to it.

I think it's an episode that's improved for me on repeat watching. I watched it without knowing anything going in and the plot issues stood out, but a repeat viewing had me prepared for that so I was able to concentrate better on all the bits that I liked.

Re: Solomon's speech

[selenay]

*g* It definitely would have had an element of humour if it had been done that way!

[selenay]

Yep, that Dalek will definitely be back :-) And it makes a lot of sense for Daleks to have all those genetic skills - Dalek in-breeding is something that occured to me as he shifted out, though.

There were a lot of really great touches that made this episode fun to watch despite the little plot gaps. I think it was the banter and character stories that carried the episode :-)