Dr Who: Daleks in Manhattan

[andrewducker]

Oh Good Lord.

Last week's Who was disappointing, this week's was just bad. Lots of scenes stretched out beyond their natural length, badly written speechifying, and an _awful_ scene where someone fails to recommend the back of their boyfriend from 5 feet away, and completely fails to recognise their voice as well. It's _possible_ that the original writer thought that the scene would be lit such that Tallula wouldn't recognise him, but the director should have got a rewrite when it was obvious how bad it was going to look. Honestly, it's this kind of appalling production values that make the BBC look bad and gave Dr Who a bad name in the first place.

Martha was underused, The Doctor didn't do anything terribly interesting, and the only character that was interesting in and of himself (the Dalek's main servant) is now dead.

Oh, and the "evolution" sequence, which mostly consisted of Dalek Sec wobbling back and forth in place, looked awful. The half-human dalek was also laughable, with the dalek/human hybrid being about as impressive as the alien/human hybrid in Alien: Resurrection.

Thank goodness Heroes is on tonight.

Comments

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

It was a largely an excuse to get to a redundant cliffhanger. As I've said elsewhere, I hope the first 30 seconds of the next part deal with 90% of my issues with it.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't you be at a gig?!

[spaj.livejournal.com]

What, by the Dr waking up, realising it was all a bad dream, and then the Master stepping out of the darkness um... well... Masterfully, I guess, and kicking him in the face.

They seem to have either run out of special effects budget already, or they're saving up for something special later on.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

What, by the Dr waking up, realising it was all a bad dream, and then the Master stepping out of the darkness um... well... Masterfully, I guess, and kicking him in the face.

Nope. By the hybrid sticking on a curly wig and a dress and doing the can-can. :-)

While I liked enough of it not to hate it, the padding and lack of real content was terrible. Some scenes were fine. Others were really painful.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

bookzombie pointed out that no-one in the audience would see the effect of the wonderful busby-berkeley routine.

I liked the "into musical theatre" reference, but overall it was disappointing. Put it this way - 3 of the 4 of us on our block of desks at work will have definitely watched it and none of us mentioned it today.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I liked how last episode revealed that there is another Time Lord (who we all expect to be the Master of course). More stories that advance the long running arcs (e.g. the cult of Skaro here) are good, but what they're doing here I'm very suspicious of. I hope the doctor destroys all the 'new hybrid' Daleks so we're back to the normal ones by the end of the next episode. Daleks being a tin can is so worn into my brain that it almost wouldn't be Doctor Who if they started walking around.

Then again, I thought Billie Piper was going to be an awful assistant, and I think she turned out quite well.

[kelly-lesbo.livejournal.com]

Hey I get to see Heroes tonight because I live in the states and have cable. You're not downloading it from internetland are you? I'm telling Interpol!

[andrewducker]

I too have cable. And Heroes is being shown here on Monday nights. We're miles behind the US, of course.

[kelly-lesbo.livejournal.com]

Oh I didn't know they'd started showing it in the UK. good job you told me or I might have done a *SPOILER* and incurred your wrath.

Also Doctor who sort of sucked a lot last episode. The creepy thing about Daleks is they are weak little organic lumps not octopi with huge tentacles.

Ugh..nice subtle gay reference in it though - did you catch that?

[andrewducker]

I think so - the Doctor says something to the young guy, yes?

[kelly-lesbo.livejournal.com]

That's right. I never saw Dr Who being a beacon for gay acceptance. I've yet to see a lesbian themed episode as good the DS9 ep with Dax and her ex-wife.

No nothing good in any of the Torchwood series...yuck..plz don't go there.

[azalemeth.livejournal.com]

In a way, the episode illustrated why part of me wishes Doctor Who never becomes truly popular...

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

I didn't mind it that much. Thought it was hokey in a trad Who kind of way. The thing you mention is more a piece of piss-poor direction than production value based.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

They seem to have either run out of special effects budget already, or they're saving up for something special later on.

I reckon problem was down to the sheer amount of effects shots in that episode. What with all the 1930s era NY skyline shots. Not saying the effects were good, just saying the episode was probably a lot more expensive than you'd think.

[andrewducker]

I didn't production values in a sense of "bad special effects" so much as "bad attention to detail, making it look like nobody actually cares about how it looks."

But yes. Director should be shot.