Reaction Post: Evolution of the Daleks
Welcome to the reaction post for Doctor Who: series 3 episode 5 - Evolution of the Daleks. My full-fledged review will appear after this episode airs in the U.S. (the series will begin in July.)
Spoiler warning!
Let me just begin by saying…does The Doctor have a deathwish much? I mean, he tried to get the Daleks to shoot him a couple of times and then he got struck by lightning. He’s been sort of acting a bit more like the ninth doctor lately. Perhaps the encounter with the Daleks had something to do with that. Well…that and other stuff. The Sonic Screwdriver didn’t get destroyed this time, but The Doctor dropped it. It looks like he’s going to have to come up with some alternate ways of doing things (or make himself a spare) if the writers are going to deprive him of his favorite tool more often this season. Does The Doctor have a wee issue with heights, perhaps? (”Blimey, that’s high.”)
This was a more “non-stop” sort of episode than the first half, it seems to me. Martha held up her end of things pretty well. She figured out what to do with the psychic paper and even managed to electrocute the pig mutants with lightning. And she actually got to do the physician thing. At this rate, by the time she passes her exams she’ll have a lot more experience than shows up on her record. The Doctor, on the other hand, actually saw potential in Dalek Sec and tried to help him. Too bad that the other “pure” Daleks didn’t agree with their plans. And now it’s down to one Dalek again. One Dalek that escaped. One Dalek to come back and haunt The Doctor. He couldn’t save the new race of DalekHumans, but at least they managed to kill the two Daleks on stage in front of them. Gotta love free will. At least The Doctor managed to save Lazlo, even if he didn’t manage to change him back. I wonder why he couldn’t do that? To sum up: I enjoyed this episode. I need to see both of the episodes back to back now. What did you think?
Doctor Who, Evolution of the Daleks
April 29th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
This episode was okay. The first half was awful. I think they should reserve daleks or a better writer maybe.
April 29th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
I think they work well if you watch the two stories together. I loved the fact that The Doctor knew the other Daleks would not go with the plan.
I think Martha will probably be dealing with the death of the pig guards for a bit of time.
Elisa, you are right I am seeing Martha’s conversations with the singer through a Rose prysim. I think I need to watch the episodes again. Maybe I was a bit to harsh. It is possible those scenes were not just generic “Rose talks to a local” scenes.
April 29th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I really need to watch these eps again back to back. I agree that part two is better than part one. The Vig, you have a point there about Martha dealing with death. She is a healer, even though she has yet to take the Hippocratic oath. (did I spell that correctly?)
April 29th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
yes you did!
April 29th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Thanks!
April 30th, 2007 at 6:14 am
I liked part II better than part one, but it strained credibility for the Daleks to have the Doctor at point-blank range for most of the episode and never kill him.
I’d almost like a retcon as to why the Daleks can’t kill the Doctor - perhaps Davros at some point realized that the Doctor’s future and the Daleks’ were so irrevocably intertwined that to kill the Doctor at any point in his history risked the Daleks never coming into being. Therefore he programmed a subconsicous unwillingness to kill the Doctor into the Daleks at their creation. This could also explain why, despite the Daleks being the Doctor’s greatest enemy, they’ve never caused a regeneration.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Well, Eric J, I hadn’t thought of that…but now that you mention it. Hmmm…either that or The Daleks have been watching too many early Bond films.