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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Doctor Who Season 3 UK (No Spoilers)

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miss wonderstarr

18:49 / 21.04.07

I wonder if there were more themes of racial difference and otherness in this episode: Solomon declaring a dollar a day was a slave wage, and making a point that black and white were treated equal in Hooverville, as if this wasn't the case elsewhere. The Daleks, of course, are all about purity and protecting the breed. I'm sure I read that their ideology was based on the Nazis actually.

18:54 / 21.04.07

That was certainly the aim during Genesis of the Daleks

18:59 / 21.04.07

Isn't it also quite natural for Solomon to make the point about racial equality given that at this point even the US armed forces were still segregated...

19:04 / 21.04.07

I loved Helen Raynor's Torchwood script, so had high hopes for this. They were sort of met, in parts, but I felt that the episode carried the burden of "part one of two," and moved just a little slowly because of this. It all looked and sounded lovely, though.

sleazenation:There's kind of an expectation now that every series of Dr Who will feature the daleks.

That's certainly true, but at the end of this year, the BBC lose the rights to use them, unless they can negotiate another agreement with the Terry Nation estate. If I were being cynical, I'd suggest that RTD created the human/Dalek hybrid in order to have some leverage when it comes to obtaining the rights to the proper Daleks.

19:10 / 21.04.07

I think you may well be right llamas

19:32 / 21.04.07

so - anyone want to link the pigmen from WWIII to the pigmen here?

miss wonderstarr

20:04 / 21.04.07

Wasn't it a fake alien pig in "Aliens of London", created by the Slitheen? Or is there another alien pig?

20:13 / 21.04.07

That's what i'm talking about MW - we'd all assumed that it was created by the Slitheen, but they could probably have bought it more easily...

miss wonderstarr

20:16 / 21.04.07

It definitely looks like the pig-slaves (who reminded me of the Ugnaughts from Empire Strikes Back) but Wikipedia records it this way: "Examining the body with Dr Sato, the Doctor tells her that it is a real pig, its brain augmented by alien technology."

22:38 / 21.04.07

Anyone else think the pig-men are proto-Weevils?

22:48 / 21.04.07

What I liked a lot was the build up of old-school weird menace throughout - it was straight from the pulps. Which is interesting because it's like the Doctor hasn't gone back just to the 30s, but to the fictional 30s of the pulp genre and the tropes therein.

The Doc ("Doc"!) is even like a less-buff Clark Savage Jnr. More brains, less brawn, all science.

Racial purity/equality definitely becoming a theme here. I realise Martha is black and, yes, zipping to past times is going to make that an issue but I'm glad (I think) that this has become a deeper theme throughout this season rather than an obstacle or constant thing that has to be dealt with every episode (or risk becoming insensitive/unrealistic).

Lots of things to chew on and resolve here. Dalek Sek and his new car.

Choice quote, "It is time to move beyond the shell" and the dimming of Sek's eye-stalk. Creepy and epic all at once. I got the sense of something really changing in the Dalek mythos.

In fact, Sek is an incredibly cool villain. An individual amongst faceless identicals, able to stand his ground in a debate and a charismatic orator. Yep, he's an octopus-headed Hitler.

So, what's at the top of the Skarro State Building?

22:48 / 21.04.07

PS. It needed more zeppelins.

06:53 / 22.04.07

Lots of things to chew on and resolve here. Dalek Sek and his new car.

Yeah, and perhaps after bonding with a human, Dalek Sec will start spelling his name with a K.

06:58 / 22.04.07

"Examining the body with Dr Sato, the Doctor tells her that it is a real pig, its brain augmented by alien technology."

I can see just enough wiggle room to try and tie the two together, but you are probably right - the one in Aliens of London was short and these are human-sized.

15:38 / 22.04.07

Another episode that I thought I'd chance, and another episode that left me cold and disinterested in the series as a whole - there is no warmth or charm at all to this show, the CGI vista's are driving me mad, and just from a technical point of view, it looks awfully lit and the camera is too static for what they seem to be trying to pull off. The accents were bugsy malone, and the human Dalek hybrid was awful. I think I'll stop even trying to like it from now on...

17:02 / 22.04.07

Yeah, and perhaps after bonding with a human, Dalek Sec will start spelling his name with a K.

Anything is possible!

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:19 / 22.04.07

Although I enjoyed the pulpiness of the episode and even the shades of Phantom of the Opera, I have real issues with the human-Dalek hybrid business, no matter the scene in the middle where Sec argues with the other Daleks that the only ones left are the Cult of Skaro and they have to find alternatives or they will die. Considering that the Daleks have almost wiped out humanity once the scene with the Dalek at the top of the Empire State Building talking about how humanity always survives while the Daleks, better in every respect, haven't almost sells the idea but doesn't quite. Sec has transformed from an almost undestroyable killing machine into a creature that looks nice and vulnerable to bullets or even clubs. Why do I get the idea that someone thought of the hybrid human/Dalek image, then came up with a story to get us to that point?

I also think this should be the last Dalek story for a while, not only is there the whole thing of having to pay money to the Terry Nation estate every time they come on screen, any extra potency they had by being sleeker and nastier has been diluted by their now three separate journeys to the planet whup-arse. They killed the Time Lords, WE KNOW. That we've got the same basic plot as the end of season one (oh you thought no-one would notice?) just from a different direction, would suggest that they are here because it's thought there should be a Dalek story, and never mind that no-one can think of one. Again, the idea for the story preceded anyone having an idea what the story could be about.

Otherwise it was nice that Tallulah wasn't the air brained bimbo that last week's preview suggested she'd be.

09:09 / 23.04.07

RTD has said in various places, including an episode of Confidential this year, that the Daleks will be back every year. The license needs negotiating but as the revived series has been a goldmine for TNs executers then surely it's a given that they'll be keen to see them back as well/

10:20 / 23.04.07

Could one of you expert fanwankists explain just why the hybridisation process is a good thing for the daleks? I'm sorta with Lady on this.

Whisky Priestess

10:38 / 23.04.07

Racial purity/equality definitely becoming a theme here. I realise Martha is black and, yes, zipping to past times is going to make that an issue but I'm glad (I think) that this has become a deeper theme throughout this season rather than an obstacle or constant thing that has to be dealt with every episode (or risk becoming insensitive/unrealistic).

What's ironic is that RTD has a definite habit of casting colour-blind and to hell with the consequences/questions it raises - loads of completely unexplained black lords and ladies at the court of France in Casanova, for example.

Any issues of colour in RTD-world, therefore, are usually ignored or treated as if they don't exist - but with Martha being such a major character race is finally being addressed, and in some interesting ways.

I'm kinda hoping that at some point they will visit Africa or Asia or some place non-white and Western so that the "sore thumb" factor we saw in the Elizabethan episode is reversed and turned upon the Doctor.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:54 / 23.04.07

The only real answer to that has to be babies.

Yes, they want our women. Leaving aside whatever the mast is meant to do (summon reinforcements? From where?), presumably Sec has concluded that a) while Daleks are very very hard to kill in their battle armour, killed they can be, so this very finite number of Daleks is not an acceptable margin for error. b) Sifting genetic material to make new Daleks takes a long time, and c) the technology to do so may not be available (also, Sec may have decided that human-DNA daleks is a more disturbing idea in terms of purity than half-human Daleks). So, if the Daleks as they are at the moment are a dead end, why not create a new body, which is able to interbreed with a slave population? The reason humans always go on is in part because they are prolific - when the Daleks blast Earth so hard in the Parting of the Ways that the continents change shape, there are still humans going about their business on other planets. Humans are cheap but numerous, Daleks high-performance but very few in number. This way, the Daleks can fairly rapidly (and exponentially more quickly) create new Daleks, while also probably wiping out the troublesome Hu-Mans.

Mnd you, the writers may blanch at "Cthulhu Sex Camp Earth!"...

11:36 / 23.04.07

I love me some quality fanwank.

11:48 / 23.04.07

I was going to post something wondering how the original group of Daleks created by Davros in Genesis reproduced, but I presume they just converted the rest of the Kaleds into Daleks.

What about after that though? Surely those Daleks would die, so they'd have to engineer some method of reproduction. Anyway, thoughts of Dalek reproduction aren't the most enjoyable topic of conversation.

Anybody else think that Dalek Sec will take Tallulah as his bride and attempt to make lots of little baby Daleks? Or is that just too much for tea-time telly?

12:28 / 23.04.07

Yes, they want our women. Leaving aside whatever the mast is meant to do (summon reinforcements? From where?), presumably Sec has concluded that a) while Daleks are very very hard to kill in their battle armour, killed they can be, so this very finite number of Daleks is not an acceptable margin for error. b) Sifting genetic material to make new Daleks takes a long time, and c) the technology to do so may not be available (also, Sec may have decided that human-DNA daleks is a more disturbing idea in terms of purity than half-human Daleks). So, if the Daleks as they are at the moment are a dead end, why not create a new body, which is able to interbreed with a slave population? The reason humans always go on is in part because they are prolific - when the Daleks blast Earth so hard in the Parting of the Ways that the continents change shape, there are still humans going about their business on other planets. Humans are cheap but numerous, Daleks high-performance but very few in number. This way, the Daleks can fairly rapidly (and exponentially more quickly) create new Daleks, while also probably wiping out the troublesome Hu-Mans.

In one of the possible episodes after next, in terms of where the writers could go with the storyline, couldn't the Doctor, having averted the latest Dalek crisis, turn to his lovely assistant, look her in the eye, explain that he is the last of the Timelords, and then move slowly, but with purpose, towards her, as the credits roll?

And couldn't the Doctor to be chuckling at this point, possibly waving around a bottle of champagne and his sonic screwdriver - he could mutter something about the nature of romance, and how it's essentially a human conceit. The subsequent, and no doubt final, episode of this well-loved family show would ... well it would be remembered, I suppose.

In a parallel universe, one very similar, but also subtly different to ours, this may well be what's about to happen.

Whisky Priestess

12:35 / 23.04.07

Cthulhu Sex Camp Earth

Best. Non-existent. Dr. Who episode. Ever.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

12:41 / 23.04.07

Tann Vennegoor of Hauserlink [P]resumably Sec has concluded that a) while Daleks are very very hard to kill in their battle armour, killed they can be, so this very finite number of Daleks is not an acceptable margin for error.

Which, considering that until the Doctor and Rose opened that pesky portal the grand total of Daleks destroyed by humans or the slightly more advanced Cybermen was zero (although one of them did feel a bit impaired briefly), makes no sense.

The Daleks going through this is a) anathema to their whole space-Nazi thing b)reducing them to a level where they can be beaten by a good right-hook. The Daleks started as flesh and blood and chose to give that up in an almost similar way to Cybermen because they felt the flesh was weak and failed you.

Perhaps if Sec is able to still remotely control the Dalek shell this might be a good idea but they could pretty much wipe out all life on the planet if they wanted to and use it's natural resources to rebuild Skaro, so this seems to be chosing obsolesence.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:58 / 23.04.07

Well, unless they are completely insane they would build new and perhaps slightly roomier Dalek armour. However, just because the weak Hu-mans could not stop them, this does not meant that the extermination of all life on planet Earth might not draw the attention of more sophisticated life forms who _could_, and who might rather welcome the opportunity to kill three Daleks.

That _is_ fanwank, obviously. It does seem odd even for imaginative Daleks to suddenly embrace miscegenation, especially when, inevitably, Mr. Diagoras' section of the gestalt is bound to cause problems.

14:22 / 23.04.07

I'm not sure. I mean it does go against everything we know about the Daleks but it makes sense in terms of the ongoing story.
Dalec Sek isn't an ordinary Dalek, his raison d'etre is to think as unlike a Dalek as a Dalek can think.
The scene with the Dalek doing a Doctor 'You're great you humans, you're all weak and piddly but you can build New York! ...'sniff' my homeworld is dead' is the key. Not much fanwank needed.
They are the supreme beings and they keep getting their asses handed them on a plate. maybe, just maybe they are missing something...something virus with shoes humanity can provide...
Although the new series has mutated the daleks twice now (concept of blasphemy and human hybrid) there is a precedent in the Classic DW for Daleks being aware of their own limitations. Evil of the Daleks (2nd Doctor) they go looking for the 'human factor' as to why humans always defeat them, Genesis (4th) has Davros forcing the Doctor to explain every dalek defeat, Destiny (4th Doctor) has the Daleks trapped in a war against the Movellans (sp?) both sides are super logical computers and so exist in constant impasse and need fleshy minds.

Sec finds out the Emprerereer survived the time war. till a slip of a human girl melted his black soul. 'No matter, we have the genesis ark-daleks will reign supr...oh bloody Nora-not again!'

'Our purity has brought us to extinction'
Daleks don't 'dance', they don't mix, innoculate, challenge, flow, grow. Humans and Daleks are very similair
viral, hate filled, destructive, egoistic, think the universe revolves around them but humans are a swiss army knife virus, Daleks are more rigid and this is why they fail

having said all that he's a hell of a lot easier to shoot now

i want to see what Sec does...this is the third Dalek, Human bonding we've seen
all through necessity
First Dalek got the blues bad
second load ended up hating themselves and evolving a bizzare religion around the fact they were impure, unclean made from the dust of the earth...(hang on?)
but now we have a volunteer...i hope they do something interesting with it

17:15 / 23.04.07

Isn't there an arguement for saying that the cult of Skaro are not pure in that they have identities and original thought and various other aspects that previous generations of daleks appear to have lacked...

All Acting Regiment

18:14 / 23.04.07

Pure speculation - Sec = Davros?

18:20 / 23.04.07

Nah.

18:29 / 23.04.07

The Dalek Emperor seems to have replaced Davros as Grand Poobah of everything pepperpot & plunger in New Who.

Sec/k/x mentions that the Emperor "created" the Daleks who make up the Cult of Skaro, which sort of answers the question about Dalek procreation by suggesting that they're all test tube babies, rather than the results of slimy green drunken fumblings.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

18:33 / 23.04.07

I suppose there's also the Colin Baker Dalek story, the name of which escapes me at the mo, where Davros is turning dead bodies into Daleks, going on to 'Remembrance of the Daleks' where the Daleks are split into two factions having a race war precisely because of the impurities that Davros has bred into the Imperial faction, so I suppose there is precedent, so I'm going to have to do the time-honoured move of the stymied fan and put my fingers in my ears and go "la la la! Can't hear you! la la la!" until the end of part two.

So, what's the tower for, to broadcast evil thought beams over New York and make humanity their slaves, or to try and contact someone in outer-space? Are they trying to open another rift like the one at Canary Wharf, are there more void ships that didn't come through, or are they trying to contact all the Daleks that came out of the prison ship and are presumably floating in the void? This episode seems very confusing, not least in the question of how the Daleks managed to get settled in the sewers in a pre-computerized society and build a lab when they lacked opposable thumbs and turn people into pig men. And, why pig-men? I bet that was Sec's idea as well wasn't it? "Let's make ourselves weaker. Yeah, now what other loony ideas have I always wanted to try? I know, let's cross the monkeys with pigs, let's have servants that are really quite slow and stupid, because I really miss the robotmen we had when we invaded Earth the first time. After that I'm going to suggest that the other Daleks replace their exterminators with those human spud guns."

18:41 / 23.04.07

Someone pointed out we've already seen human Daleks in the new series, but they were also in the original show. Davros created an army of white Daleks using human remains in Revelation of the Daleks, which sparked a civil war. Toying with human genes caused another civil war in Evil of the Daleks. All three incidents were triggered by the Daleks' current leader. And now Sec. Perhaps the pressure of leadership and its attendant responsibilities force these Daleks to abandon the letter of the racial purity law if not the spirit.

Sec may not see the evolution as devolution, just as the Emperor didn't seem to in the first series. "Dalek" could be a shifting descriptor that means more than a formula; if "Dalek" used to mean X but now means Y, then Y is racially pure and the one true Dalek kind. We saw something like this in Remembrance of the Daleks, where a subset of the original blob Daleks evolved into a shelled form and (yet another) civil war resulted.

We think of Daleks as the cool tank, but there's no reason to assume the Daleks themselves do.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

18:42 / 23.04.07

I guess them getting the lab had something to do with Sec whispering in Diagoras' mind. At least that kind of makes more sense than most aspects of the plan. I did enjoy the episode a lot really, and I thought it was kinda reminiscent of old school Who, but it really does kind of show why the Daleks always get defeated. I mean Sec is the Dalek's master strategist. And yet we can still see how glaringly flawed his master plan is. Really doesn't say that much for the intellectual abilities of the species the Dalek's managed to eradicate or subjugate. Still as I say I did enjoy it - it's probably best just not to think about the details of the plot too much.

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