Daleks in Manhattan (2007)

The first two parter of the 2007 series sees the return of the Daleks who were last seen being sucked into the void except for the cult of Skaro. Despite this story being set in Manhattan, the Doctor Who team do a good job of making 21st century Cardiff seem like 1930’s America. The story is written by Helen Rayner who had been the shows Script Editor so the story was going to make sense at very least. The story does a good job in making us understand the setting. Set during the Great Depression, the scene where the ‘residents’ of the camp would be rounded up to work on something that they thought they were going to get paid.

The problem with this story is that this episode doesn’t have much going for it. Miranda Raison’s performance was ridiculously over the top. I found the bit where Talluah has that scene with her pig faced boyfriend to be awful. This sums up my general feeling of this story. There is too much emotional stuff going on and this gets in the way of the Dalek stuff which is why after all we have all tuned in. In this story Dalek Sec consumes a human and its actually well set up and slowly built to with the revelation coming at the end. Although when I say revelation, most of us already knew what it would look like because the kind chaps at the Radio Times decided to put it on the front cover thus ruining any sense of surprise. It’s a shame because that bit of shock and surprise is what the story really needed and would have been a great cliffhanger.

The big name is Hugh Quarshie who is best known to modern British audiences as appearing as Ric Griffin in the BBC medical drama Holby City. He is quite good despite not being a role that befits his acting ability. Despite my feelings regarding the character I do think Miranda Raison is a good actress. She is quite good in the BBC spy drama Spooks but unfortunately on this occasion is given a dud role. Only Eric Loren has a good role as Mr Diagores. His character spends the first half of this episode as a typical gangster boss who doesn’t fully understand his bosses. The scene where he is consumed by Dalek sec is a nice suitably horrific scene. David Tennant and Freema Agyeman have gelled and their performances are very good. I think the attitude from Agyeman’s character has been toned down a bit but not too much as to make her bland and dull. Tennant puts in a good show and he has some nice scenes with Quarshie.

I’m not a huge fan of this two part story but normally the first part would be the stronger of the two because it was have the more interesting build up before being let down by a lacklustre action part. There are moments in this episode that I quite like but unfortunately for Daleks in Manhattan it doesn’t have enough to give it that killer punch and I think that if I had to give a ‘Best Episode out of the two Award’ then it would reluctantly have to go to this one.

Evolution of the Daleks (2007)

Evolution is the disappointing conclusion to a disappointing two parter. The story plays around with the idea of human Daleks which I do like however the problem is that it just doesn’t grab my attention in this story which is a shocking revelation. The original idea of the Daleks has always been to keep the Dalek race pure, their likeness to the Nazi’s has been commonplace since they first appeared. However now that there is a human Dalek this contradicts the Daleks’ idea. There is a wonderful moment where two Daleks are talking to each other about Dalek Sec and one of them looks around them to make sure that they aren’t being spied on. Another thing I didn’t like was the way that the Daleks got written out of the story. The temperal shift that they used in Doomsday was clever and was also impressive. Fast forward to this story and it just looks like a bit of a cop-out as it robs the viewer of a satisfactory end to the Dalek involvement in this story.

The story is centred around the Empire State Building which when this story was set was still being built. It was a good idea and helps to maintain the illusion of the country that this story is set. It also good that a well known landmark is used but not in the way that we know it. I also thought that the sets were very impressive. I thought that the big lab area that the Daleks use was very good and allowed for some big scenes to take place. However my favourite were the tunnel scenes which had a claustrophobic feel to them.

The performances of David Tennant and Freema Agyeman continue to be entertaining. I did start to warm to the Laszlo character (played by Ryan Carnes), I didn’t like him in the previous episode but he grows on me during this episode. Something I didn’t twig until this episode was another famous face who wasn’t famous at the time but would go on to become quite a big name appearing in The Social Network where he was nominated in the Best Actor category at the Oscars and BAFTA’s. I thought at the time that his character wasn’t anything particularly special and I still don’t but its interesting to know that in this series of Doctor Who we have two actors (Carey Mulligan the other) who would go onto to get Oscar nominations.

Unfortunatley the story is a rather mish mash of a story. I think the story suffers from fairly dull characters and a rather ordinary Dalek plan. Out of all the Dalek stories in the new series, this is by far the weakest one. It’s not terrible just dull. I thought it when I first watched it when it aired in April 2007 and I think it today. I know that there was a lot of people ripping the story to shreds and I think that its unfair to Helen Rayner because I think that had it been another sort of story then it would have gone down better but because it had the word Dalek in the title then people’s expectations go up and sadly she wasn’t able to match it.

The Poison Sky (2008)

The first Sontaran story of the new series, with Wilfred choking to death in his car it was going to be interesting to see how the Doctor was going to get Wilfred out of it. The main problem with the new series two-parters is that very often the second part is not as good as the first. This story corrects that. Helen Raynor made a mistake with her Dalek two-parter the year before but has managed to keep her eye on the end and has written a story that is quite good.



Not only does the Doctor have to deal with the Sontarans but he has no TARDIS and also the cloned Martha. The story does think of the long time fan with a brief mention about Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (who was stranded in Peru) and then the mention of the Rutans who the Sontarans have been in a war with for an astonishing 50,000 years. The Sontaran’s are accused of cowardice which is the ultimate no-no. They plan to change the atmosphere of Earth so that they can breed billions of Sontarans.

If I had to pick this story up for something it would be for the cloned Martha. Unfortunately Freema Agyeman can’t do evil. I just can’t take her seriously when she was playing the evil Martha. The ending is quite abrupt, after an emotional scene with the Doctor, Donna and Martha before the door slams shut and the TARDIS takes flight effectively creating another cliffhanger to the next episode. On the whole, the story is quite good. I think that the re-design of the Sontarans is very good and Christopher Ryan is good as General Staal. They look muscular but it doesn’t look like padding which is a problem that dogged the previous designs. The masks that they have to wear are very impressive though the “they look like baked potatos” comment was obvious and had to be said. It’s obvious that they could afford to do masks for every Sontaran extra (like they couldn’t with the Judoon) but I think in retrospect that was a wise move because it made them to look more like soldiers.

Everyone in this story did a great job. David Tennant is on usual good form as is Catherine Tate who is showing how far the character of Donna has come since The Runaway Bride. It’s good how Donna and Martha didn’t bicker when they first met. Bernard Cribbins’ casting in this series is one of the best decisions of the RTD era. Cribbins gives a warm and friendly feel to proceedings when he is on screen. Ryan Sampson is a lot better in this second part as Luke Rattigan, he slowly starts to realise just what a monumental cock-up he’s made and puts it right at the end when he sacrifices himself and blows up the Sontarans battleship.

The Poison Sky is a great end to this two part story with a great script and some lovely directing. There was another blink and you’ll miss it appearance of Rose Tyler. Yet again I was hoping that something more would be revealed but congrats to RTD for not giving in an revealing too much.

The Sontaran Stratagem (2008)

Well their back and for the first time in nearly 25 years. Doctor Who has had a tendancy in the past of putting all their eggs into one basket and by that I mean putting all the action into the first part and hoping that carries into the second part, they seemed to be learning their lesson in the last series. The Sonataran Stratagem features the return of Martha after her stint in Torchwood. The new and improved Martha seems a lot more confident and the scene where The Doctor sees Martha for the first time since 29.13 – Last of the Timelords was well written and well acted by the trio. I liked the comedy that Tennant added to the scene thinking that Donna and Martha were going to swabble over him like Rose and Sarah Jane did in 28.3 – School Reunion. It was well done though I didn’t quite like the ‘You hug him and you get a paper cut!’, it then lead well into the main action. The return of the most useless military organisation was also a welcome addition. It started so well showing them that they could be a force that was well organised and had soldiers that could actually take control of a situation but boy did that disappear quickly.

The Sontaran’s were really good in this story and it was quite interesting to see that Sontarans have goatees. The idea that Sonatrans are actually cloning people is something that has never been explored in Doctor Who before which is kind of weird when you think about it. The look of the Sontaran is quite nice as it is quite colourful compared to previous adventures the idea that they have some sort of lackey seemed quite unlike Sontaran behaviour but worked quite well in setting up the story. The cliffhanger was the most dramatic that has ever happened in Doctor Who (well probably the second after 29.11 - Utopia). Sontarans chanting made them seem more
menacing and made them fell more dominant.

David Tennant was on good form as the Doctor as usual, his scene with Donna when he thought she was leaving him and then he realised what was going on was amusing and added a bit of light relief. Catherine Tate was continuing to improve as Donna and her first meeting with Martha showed how far she has come since The Runaway Bride. Freema Agyeman’s return to the show was a welcome addition to the story and the Martha we see in this story is not only different from her time in Series 29 but even different from her Torchwood run. Its nice to see that the infatuations with the Doctor have all but gone. Bernard Cribbins who I think is one of the best casting decisions done by the BBC Wales team was brilliant as usual as Donna’s granddad, when he realised that the man that Donna had gone away with was the same man he saw at Christmas it seemed as if RTD had been planning this from the beginning (if we didn’t know what we learnt from the first DWC of the new series).

Whilst it isn’t the best episode of the series so far it is still a damn fine episode and makes me confident that The Poison Sky will make a fine second parter in what has been a strong start to the 30th season of Doctor Who.

To The Last Man (2008)

This story was written by Helen Raynor who penned the Dalek two-parter last year and also Ghost Machine for S1 Torchwood. This story is another story with a historical theme to it. I thought that this story wasn’t the strongest one of the series but that’s because the previous two stories were absolute crackers. To The Last Man is essentially a Tosh story and the previous one featuring this character (Greeks Bearing Gifts) was a dull episode but I think that where they improved with this one is that it wasn’t all from Tosh point of view. The character of Tommy had formed a loving relationship with Tosh in what was in his eyes just four days, now at first this seems unbelievable but when you stop and this of it then its quite believable.

The writing was very good and all the characters were given good material which helped. The scene where Gwen walks into the ward and sees the soldier with an amputated leg and then he walks towards her was a really good moment, Owen wasn’t sarcastic in this episode which was weird but refreshing. Ianto was on form again in this episode and Jack was also very good in this story. The pacing of this episode was a nice steady one and when it all ended I didn’t feel short changed or confused.

Whilst its not as good as the previous two episodes it was still a good episode which proves that the producers have learnt their lessons from Series 1.