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Daleks in Manhattan Format Reviewed: TV Review Daleks in Manhattan sees change in Doctor Who, with an Earth bound location not being in mainland Britain. It is rare we even venture out of London or Cardiff, but to go accross the Atlantic is something new. Very few times in the show's history has a story been set overseas, so this provides an interesting difference to the norm. The TARDIS arrives in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty off the New York coastline. The date is November 1st, 1930 in the Great Depression. The Doctor and Martha discover that strange things are happening, and people are disappearing in a shanty town in Central Park. these runours prove to be true, and things center on a theatre and underground sewers where strange pig-like creatures have been seen. Meanwhile, the people building the Empire State Building are speeding up construction at the request of their new masters, the Daleks. They are working on the final experiment, whereby people with low intelligence are turned into pig slsves and the most intelligent are taken forward for work on a Dalek-Human hybrid. Martha gets caught and is taken forward for the final experiment, and the Doctor manages to get himself and a local in their group. There they discover that Dalek Sec has been transformed into a walking Dalek-Human hybrid. Daleks in Manhattan sees the return of the Cult of Skaro introduced in the finale of the previous series. It was not apparrant then that all four Daleks in the Cult of Skaro managed to escape, just the Black Dalek, Sec. Indeed, in the publicity for this story we only see Dalek Sec but here though, all four members of the Cult of Skaro are present. The premise that they have hijacked the construction of the Empire State Building for their own ends is interesting, and part of what makes Doctor Who great. I thoroughly enjoy visiting new planets and meeting new alien races with Doctor Who, indeed I think more of this should be done now, but the cleverness is combining this with integrating science fiction elemernts into established Earth history. As the Doctor and Martha are once again separated in the story, both are given another chance to perform apart. Tennant probably comes accross better in this story, but nothing either of them do can be considered as bad. The guest cast here is very strong, led by Hugh Quarshie as Solomon and Eric Loren as Mr Diagoras. I was left fairly non-plussed by Miranda Raison and Ryan Carnes as Tallulah and Laszlo respectively, as both feel like they are trying too hard. Not bad overall though. Daleks in Manhattan, being the first part of a two part story has to really be taken in context with its concluding part. Without this though the story is largely filled with establishing images, and explaining the Daleks and their technology to the characters who have never encountered them before. We also have introduced the main theme of this story, the evolution of Dalek Sec into an alien-Human hybrid creature. This concept is interesting and will undoubtedly provoke fierce debate within the fan community. The concept of the Cult of Skaro was for a splinter group designed to 'think outside the box' as it were. Whether or not this should include a new relience on a species the Daleks will see as inferior is questionable. Also, the question of why the Daleks should need to evolve is as yet completely unexplained, as in their current state they are virtually indestructible. Overall, Daleks in Manhattan is an episode that by its nature poses more questions than it answers. The return of the Daleks was inevitable, and the evolution storyline seems to indicate that the team have taken them as far as they can in their current state, which is probablky true given the storylines the Daleks have been in. This episode will really be judged though on the success of the evolution storyline, but more so with the success of the concluding part of the story. Rating:  |