Mark Watches ‘Doctor Who’: S03E04 – Daleks In Manhattan

In the fourth episode of the third series of Doctor Who, the Doctor and Martha travel to New York City during the Great Depression. They discover a disturbing plan by the Daleks to evolve in order to stay alive. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Doctor Who.

I like the Daleks a lot. I think they’re a fascinating Who villain, capable of being immensely creepy AND hilarious at the same time. I’m not sure I know of many villains who are the same in science fiction, as they tend to skew towards one end or the other. Every time they’ve shown up, it’s been a surprise as well, so I was a bit disappointed that the title of this episode pretty much spoils that.

Is it ok to say this whole episode is a bit understated? I didn’t hate it (“Fear Her,” YOU ARE THE WORST THING EVER), and there was a lot that was interesting. But as a whole, it didn’t grab my attention until the end.

This script feels as if it’s all over the place. It’s not particularly bad, but there are like ten different ideas all fighting for screen time. There are the homeless and poor in Hooverville and the Empire State Building and Laszlo and the theater and Tallulah and the Daleks and the Pig Slaves and Frank and the Cult of Skaro and Solomon and JESUS THIS IS SERIOUSLY A LOT TO FOCUS ON. Though, I do recognize that this is only the first part of the story and it’s entirely possible that Helen Raynor purposely made this story so complex because she plans to tie all the pieces together in the second half.

We meet the Doctor and MARTHA in New York City in November of 1930 and the Doctor takes them to the Hooverville located in Central Park. A shanty town of downtrodden and homeless citizens who lost their homes because of the depression, it’s a community of people at the ends of their means. I liked the idea of the Daleks / Mr. Diagoras using the poor and underprivileged for the Final Experiment. (Yes, I’m capitalizing that.) The thing is, while this is certainly fictional, it’s not an impossibility that people (and alien beings) in power would turn to those at the bottom of the economic and cultural food chain, to go after those the rest of society would deem as disposable. I would have liked to see more of that in this story, but so it goes. I don’t write Doctor Who. (But wouldn’t that be fun? I would seriously write a scene in which the earth opens up and eats someone. I would.)

So….who are the Pig Slaves again? Are these like those Santa Claus things from both Christmas specials? I mean, we know the Daleks are choosing those with “low intelligence” to be converted, but….why pigs? Maybe they’re explained in the second half, so don’t spoil me if that’s the case. I think that they can be creepy as hell, and that first scene in “Daleks in Manhattan” was fucked up. I can’t deal with bizarre creatures rushing out of the darkness to attack. It gets me EVERY TIME. It was even scarier when the Doctor was consoling one of the Pig Slaves in the sewer and then an ARMY OF PIG SLAVES CHASED AFTER THEM. I don’t know why this frightened me, and I’ll just say that sometimes, I scare easily. Sometimes I don’t.

I don’t care about the Tallulah / Laszlo side plot. I just don’t. Miranda Raison is beautiful. I just thought I should say that.

Let’s talk about about Andrew Garfield. As soon as he walked on screen, I had to pause Netflix and verify it was actually him, so that I wouldn’t get excited for nothing. IT IS HIM. And he didn’t have an accent! Of course, all I could think was OH MY GOD IT’S EDDIE DUNFORD FROM RED RIDING. Which…good god, WATCH RED RIDING. It is so goddamn good. (Yes, he was also in The Social Network, but I have no interest in watching that movie TYVM.)

Maybe I just like Andrew Garfield’s face, but I wanted to see more of Frank and I actually winced when he got pulled into the sewer by the Pig Slaves. I assumed the worse for his fate until it was later revealed that the Pig Slaves weren’t actually eating the people they captured.

OH DALEKS Y U SO CREEPY. I will say that what this episode does with the Daleks is FANTASTICALLY AWESOME. High five, Helen Raynor. The entire time, despite being disappointed by the spoiler of the title, I couldn’t figure out exactly what this Final Experiment was, why Mr. Diagoras was so important to it, and why they were lining up humans to become part of it. When they found that mass of alien matter in the sewer, I assumed it was a piece of whatever the Daleks were doing.

Could I have guessed what came out of the Dalekanium? Maybe the idea. A hybrid wasn’t too complicated of a plot twist. But HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING THAT JUST CAME FROM INSIDE OF A DALEK WHAT THE HOLY HELL.

This episode has its faults (and is apparently hated quite a bit by the fandom), but maybe it’s because I have no history of the Daleks. I seriously LOVED the end of this episode. I can’t even imagine what this means for the Dalek mythology or even how the Doctor is going to deal with this. These are the only four Daleks left. (Wait, how did they get to 1930? Don’t answer that yet, but I just realized that wasn’t explained.) Will Daleks in the future involve human hybrids? How will these hybrids differ from the Cult of Skaro?

This isn’t an amazing episode, but I’ve definitely seen worse. I’m actually kind of excited to see where this goes.

THOUGHTS

• Andrew Garfield HNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG
• “They always survive, while I lose everything.” Seriously unbelievably depressing/frustrating.
• If you’ve ever seen Man On Wire, then you know how UTTERLY FUCKING TERRIFYING THE SCENE ON TOP OF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING IS. Good god, I just expected them to fall off. Also, why are they sticking parts of the Dalek on the roof? I don’t get it.
• “Oh! I should have realized. He’s into musical theater, huh? What a waste.” A;SKLDSAFD;LFSDA;LKL; FD F;S AF;LKSKL;S
• Again, please don’t tell me about it, but I have NOT picked up on this series’s overarching theme/mythology. I thought it would be a single word or code, but I haven’t seen it yet! WHAT. Unless it has to do with YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
• Has someone made a macro of the Doctor as FOREVER ALONE? We should do that.