Evolution of the Daleks

In my opinion, Evolution of the Daleks feels like a particularly significant step back from the already questionable Daleks in Manhattan. Gone is the more impressive scene setting of the previous episode, and instead we get a weird story about a hybrid that never really moves in a direction I didn't see coming. The stuff with Sek feels like it could be more interesting but instead his character arc and the Daleks turning on him feels pretty basic. Perhaps its because we have dealt with this idea of a nice Dalek being bad to the other Daleks, and maybe this story is original for broaching it a lot earlier than Moffat's Rusty character, but either way it feels pretty weak to me. The ending with the theatre feels extremely underwhelming to me and also just doesn't look all that great. The effects just don't hold up well at all near the end with the weird energy and lightning going everywhere - it's an extremely dry experience.

My wife loved the first three episodes of Martha Jones’ time in the TARDIS and she’s also a huge Andrew Garfield fan but I suspected that she wasn’t going to get a great deal out of this two parter and I was right. Whilst it doesn’t reach the lows of Fear Her I’d describe it as the new series’ second ever flop.

The show is cast well and in the most part they do a decent job of summoning 1920s New York but you have to wonder why Lazlo and the showgirl are featured so heavily when they have an incidental relationship with the main Empire State Building storyline. The Hooverville scenes are somewhat interesting but home to too many “rousing speeches” none of which land particularly well.

The half-human Dalek Sec looks unsightly and weird, the wiggling worm fronds being particularly ridiculous. Sec is easily disposed of by his Dalek counterparts, so it doesn’t feel like his arc adds up to much, I’d like to have seen him do more with his hybrid powers. We end up in generic territory with The Doctor talking about what he loves about humans and hates about Daleks - and the Daleks talking about human weakness. It’s been done better.

Even with tweaks to the script, there is something off with the production generally. You get the sense that in 2007, realising this time and place in the middle of the series is stretching the budgets and expertise of the production team. I would love to see this world realised in 2022 - for a start they would actually film large chunks of the episodes in New York.

Andrew Garfield’s bit part is fun to see after the huge year he has just had with Tick Tick Boom, The Eyes of Tammy Faye and his Spiderman revival. This show doesn’t doesn’t exactly showcase his full ability though!