Doctor Who S03 E05 – Is that a human Dalek or are you just happy to see me?

Previously: Inexplicable pig-men and Daleks in New York.
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Evolution of the Daleks

Marines: The supremely phallic Human Dalek announces that all of the humans in attendance will soon also increase their facial phallicness 1000%. The Doctor sneaks away as the Coverall Pigs step forward to apprehend people. “Happy Days Are Here Again” starts playing and everyone gets real confused. Phallic Human Dalek asks what that sound is and the Doctor peaks out to say he did it. He’s got a radio in his hands. The Daleks immediately cry EXTERMINATE, but Phallic Human Dalek stops them. All he says is, “wait!” though, so we don’t get a reason as to why they are leaving the Doctor still alive. Just wait.

Kirsti: Contrivance. Obviously.

Mari: PHD boasts that the Cult of Skarro escaped the Doctor’s slaughter. An emergency temporal shift brought them to the 1930s. That explains to the Doctor why they are hiding and experimenting instead of conquering the world. The shift roasted up their power cells. PHD is all, “yeah, but look at me now. Face tentacles, boom.” The Doctor asks what it feels like to be a human Dalek, because you know our boy is all about the feels. PHD takes a second to get in his own emotions and says he feels ambition, hatred, aggression, and war. The Doctor’s like, “well, crap.”

K: I guess having like six penises on your face comes with extreme levels of testosterone, so it doesn’t surprise me that that’s what PHD feels. 

Mari: #science

The Doctor walks away from PHD a bit and asks what this experiment has achieved. They are still missing stuff and he can prove it with the radio. One of the Daleks ask what the purpose of a radio is. That’s the Doctor’s point. While humans can dance and sing and fall in love to music, to the Daleks it’s all just noise. The Doctor points his sonic screwdriver at the radio and it starts emitting a high frequency noise that makes the Daleks double over. The Doctor tells everyone to run (SHOTS!) and they all do.

They run out into the tunnels and then we cut back to the Daleks. One of the Daleks asks how PHD is feeling and he gets all poetic about pain of the flesh. In the tunnels, the escapees pass Tallulah and yell at her to run as well. We get really dramatic shots of Coverall Pigs and Daleks making their way through the tunnels (only on Doctor Who) and the escapees reach a ladder.

In the Dalek room, PHD examines the broken radio.

The rest of the Daleks have reached the ladder and figure they’ve lost the escapees. The Daleks send the Coverall Pigs back to the base and now alone, one of the Daleks asks the other one what he thinks of Phallic Human Dalek. They both have their doubts.

K: The way they wave their eye-stalks around, checking if anyone’s listening to them, cracks me up. It’s total workplace water cooler behaviour, when you’re talking to your work BFF about that one person neither of you can stand. 

Mari: And that person is your boss. Worst.

The Doctor and company have returned to Hooverville. The Doctor tells Solomon that they have to get out, but Solomon isn’t so sure. He asks if maybe they can reason with the Daleks but both Martha and Andrew Garfield are like, “no.”

A man on sentry duty hears something. He uses binoculars to look out into the park and sees a pig wearing coveralls peak out from behind a tree. He jumps up with as much urgency as you would expect from someone who just saw a giant pig wearing coveralls. He alerts everyone to their arrival.

When the sentry arrives the Doctor looks grimly at an unfixed point and says, “it’s started.” I’ll make this comment now even though it’s an end of post thing, but he’s being real melodramatic which is understandable because DALEKS. But also, coverall pigs and tentacle face. It’s hard to take this episode seriously, but the Doctor sure is.

K: I feel like “serious, but hard to take seriously” is basically the tagline for Doctor Who…

Mari: Mayhem breaks out as people run for guns. Solomon yells at everyone to stick together. Coverall Pigs squeal and chase and push everyone trying to escape back into the park. I mean, there are only like 10-15 extras, but we’re supposed to believe that they are surrounded and no one escaped. Martha hopefully says that they just have to hold off until morning, but the Doctor is looking up and announces that the pigs were only the foot soldiers.

Everyone looks up and sees a Dalek approaching in bad CGI. If you just pretend that everyone’s OMG. WHAT EVEN. is about the bad special effects, it makes it more entertaining. Andrew Garfield shoots the approaching Dalek, but the Doctor pushes his gun down. Bullets won’t work. The Daleks start shooting up the place but miss every single human. The Doctor yells at them to stop and they get super jazzed about having found him again.

K: I think part of the reason why flying Daleks look so fucking stupid is that there’s no apparent means of propulsion and also nothing to indicate that they’re moving. It’s like on Playschool how they stick a paper cow on an icy pole stick and move it around a background, and kids are meant to believe it’s moving on its own but, like, its legs don’t move so it’s totally sketchy. Or maybe I was just a highly suspicious child. ANYWAY. I think that’s why I have such a hard time dealing with flying Daleks. 

Mari: That’s an excellent point. I hadn’t considered it further that HA HA HA LOL.

Solomon steps forward and the Doctor tries to tell him to stop, but he insists that this speech is about to save the world. “Ain’t we the same,” he starts. “Underneath, ain’t we all kin?” On he goes with his speech as Ten looks between him and the Dalek with the most delightful, “this is never going to work,” face. Sure enough, as soon as Solomon is finished he’s shot by a Dalek. Martha freaks out and the Doctor says, “Daleks,” though gritted teeth. Hahaha. Sorry. Have I mentioned that I can’t take this episode seriously?

The Doctor steps up and says it’s his turn. He yells at them to kill him if it will stop them killing innocent people. Instead of actually killing the Doctor, the Dalek takes a moment to announce that he will be the destroyer of his greatest enemy. The Doctor starts yelling, “do it! Just do it!”

 

K: Okay, but like why does he punch himself in the ribs as he yells?? Also, Dark Doctor shots! 

Mari: The Dalek gives the longest and most drawn out “exterminate” that you ever did hear, giving Phallic Human Dalek enough time to call off the kill shot. The Dalek is confused, the Doctor is confused, but finally The Dalek tells the Doctor to follow him. Martha steps forward and protests, wondering what will happen to the rest of them. The Doctor demands that the rest of the people be spared and the Daleks agree to those terms. Martha wants to go with the Doctor, but he tells her to stay and help those who are hurt. He walks off but comes back, grasps Martha’s hand, and thanks her. He leaves with the Daleks and Martha sees that he’s left her with his psychic paper.

At Dalek Base, one of the Daleks asks PHD why he spared the Doctor. PHD says for his big, ole brain.

Back at Hooverville, Martha is patching people up. (K: YAAAAAAAAAAAAS. I love that we get Martha actually using her medical skills.) She wonders out loud why the Doctor gave her the psychic paper. Where is she supposed to go?

The Doctor arrives at Dalek Base, yelling up a storm about how killing people is wrong. Phallic Human Dalek agrees. Seems like PHD is feeling more human now. PHD explains that the Daleks were stranded in olden days with limited resources. They tried to grow their own baby Daleks, but that didn’t work so they turned to people. PHD pulls a lever and down comes a hospital bed of sorts. The Doctor pulls back the sheets and a dude we’ve definitely seen before (wait, maybe?) looks dead. He’s not dead, though. His mind has been wiped. In the background the two Daleks give each other eyes like WTF. You just know if they had eyebrows they would be raising them to high heaven right now.

The Daleks have thousands of empty human shells. The Doctor asks how they are going to power all of this and PHD tells the other Daleks to open the conductor plans.

Meanwhile, in Hooverville, Martha is connecting the dots. She remembers that the Daleks mentioned an energy conductor and Dalekanium. She rushes off to see if Andrew Garfield knows anything more. He’s busy being sad but after lots of questions from Martha, he says that the main work Pinstripe Assassin (now Phallic Human Dalek) used to get them was on the Empire State Building. A-ha.

PHD is showing the Doctor blueprints of said building and explaining the rest of their evil plan. Something something gamma radiation, solar flare, energy conductor, genetic splicing. The Doctor doesn’t get how he fits into any of this and PHD repeats that it’s about his big ole brain. PHD thinks that the Daleks have to return to having emotions because being supreme beings is bad. The Daleks behind him pipe up because they do not like this one bit, but PHD is convinced. He wants the Doctor to help him change the Daleks.

K: Man, apparently PHD took a crash course in the Big Book of Villain Gloating while he was transforming into a giant penis face.

Mari: Martha, Tallulah and Andrew Garfield have made it to the Empire State Building.

Base. The Doctor isn’t convinced the Daleks are going to let PHD just make more human Daleks, heavy on the human. They all say that they have to obey PHD, though. PHD says that after all the human Daleks are made, the Doctor can carry them away in his TARDIS and find them a new home. I bet he’s thinking, “I offer this to people ALL THE TIME. No one ever says yes!”

It’s eleven minutes until the solar flare so the Doctor gets to work.

At the Empire State Building, Martha and Andrew Garfield are looking over blueprints to see what changes the Daleks recently made. Tallulah is looking at the view.

Base. Lots of science is happening. The Coverall Pigs come in with more science materials. The Doctor asks what happens to them in the grand scheme of things. PHD says they have a limited lifespan. Lazlo is there and presumably hears that. The Doctor gets near to him to basically apologize for his permanent pig state and a nearby Dalek narrows its eyepiece at them.

Martha is still trying to figure out what they’re looking for and Tallulah decides this will be a good time for our episodely relationship chat. Martha sad pandas about how sometimes the Doctor looks at her, but it’s like he’s not seeing her, just remembering Rose. Tallulah, bless her heart, is like, “wanna hear about sad? My boyfriend is a pig in ugly coveralls.” You win, girl.

K: While I’m never a huge fan of Martha sad pandaing over how the Doctor doesn’t see her, I love that she finally got to have some girly bonding time. Because Rose got to do quite a bit of that. But Martha? Not so much.

Mari: Really? I feel like this conversation has come up in every episode so far.

Base again. The gene solution is ready and starts getting pumped into the human shells.

Martha has found where the Daleks installed the Dalekanium.

Alarms start blaring downstairs because the Daleks are overriding the gene feed. The Daleks have turned against Phallic Human Dalek and are pumping 100% Dalek genes into the human shells. The Daleks order the Coverall Pigs to restrain PHD and the Doctor. Lazlo rushes forward and grabs the Doctor. And thankfully, the lift randomly arrives on their floor so they can rush into it and escape. Lazlo isn’t feeling well, though.

PHD is pissed that he’s being disobeyed. “You told us to imagine,” one of the Daleks says. “We imagined your irrelevance.”

The Doctor and Lazlo join the others. The Doctor hugs Martha and it’s cute for one second before they realize the elevator is being called back down to the Daleks. “Never waste time with a hug,” he says. Martha dies inside. The good news is that she does know where the Dalekanium is. The Doctor says he’s going to climb to the mast to remove it and Martha has to stay down there and fight. For about a minute, we watch the Doctor climb the mast. I’m not complaining; I’d watch David Tennant climb just about anything.

K: Understandably.

Mari: The Daleks send the Coverall Pigs after the Doctors now that the lift arrived.

Martha, Lazlo, Tallulah and Andrew Garfield are getting ready to fight, but Lazlo goes down. He’s not looking good and neither are the odds for this group. Lightning crashes outside that gives Martha an idea.

On the mast, the Doctor is using his sonic screwdriver and gets the first piece of Dalekanium off.

Martha and Andrew Garfield are laying out pieces of metal to connect to the elevator. If the building is going to get struck by lightening regardless, they can fry the pigs. Bacon joke here.

The Doctor drops his sonic screwdriver. He climbs up on the mast and when the lightening finally strikes, it courses through him as well.

K: It totally reminded me of Back to the Future. 

Mari: The pigs get fried.

The Dalek people army awakens.

Martha feels bad about killing the Coverall Pigs because they were people once. Lazlo says the Daleks were the ones that killed them, long ago. Martha rushes off to check on the Doctor and we see he’s passed out on the mast.

The Dalek People Army all grab whisk guns that the Daleks had on hand, I guess.

Martha and Andrew Garfield climb up to the mast and Martha is doing this heaving, weepy thing. She found the sonic screwdriver. And despite being almost a doctor, instead of checking to see how the Doctor is doing at all, she just yells at him, “you’re getting careless!” It works though because the Doctor stirs.

The Dalek People Army march and march with their whisk guns.

The Doctor tells the others that the Daleks are probably using the sewers to spread out. Their only hope is that he got in the way of the gamma blast first. He wants to draw their fire and thinks this hard about how he can do that:

K: HAIR <— that’s as coherent as my thoughts get. 

Mari: Doctor’s got it though! The theater! They need another elevator so Martha takes off for the service elevator. “That’ll do,” the Doctor says. “Allons-y!” Have a shot!

One of the Daleks is connected into their mainframe (or whatever) so he’s ready to direct the people army.

The Doctor and company arrive at the empty theater. Lazlo is still burning up but the Doctor is too busy to answer Tallulah’s questions about what’s happening to him. He uses his sonic screwdriver to send out a signal that attracts the attention of the Daleks. It works and unsurprisingly, they would like to exterminate him.

The Doctor wants Martha to GTFO but she refuses to leave. It doesn’t matter anyway because the Dalek People Army has arrived. Andrew Garfield wonders where the Dalek masters are. The two Daleks not plugged into the computer arrive with a blast on stage. They have a sense of theatrics. Phallic Human Dalek is in chains and crawling before them. The Doctor stands up from behind the seats.

Instead of killing the Doctor, it’s time for more speeches. The Daleks go, “we are definitely going to kill you.” The Doctor goes, “you guys are the worst. I’m going to ask you deep philosophical questions even though I know they will not make you think or feel in the least.” When that’s all done, PHD tries to speak up for the Doctor and he gets exterminated. The Doctor addresses the Dalek People Army and says this is what being a Dalek is all about. Plugged In Dalek senses a spike in their serotonin levels.

Back in the theater, the Daleks command the DPA to take aim at the Doctor, but when the exterminate order is given, nothing happens. One of the people army (the man we definitely have seen before probably maybe) asks why. He keeps repeating “but why” until he finally says that he is not a Dalek. The Doctor looks at him with lots of feels and says he never will be. He explains again that he got in the way of the lightning strike so Timelord DNA got all mixed up in there. The Daleks take aim at the Dalek People Army, but they fight back. The Doctor yells for his company to duck and cover. A few of the DPA go down in the fight, the but the two Daleks are destroyed.

K: Mostly my thoughts on this scene boil down to “How did David Tennant walk across the tops of theatre chairs without dying?”. Because seriously. HOW??

Mari: MAGIC.

The Plugged In Dalek says that the Dalek People are failures and hits some sort of self-destruct button. The Doctor is pissed because genocide is the worst. Lazlo points out that one of the Dalek masters must still be alive. One Dalek left in all the universe.

We cut to base. The Doctor faces off with the last Dalek who says he is definitely going to kill the Doctor this time. For real. The Doctor tries to appeal to Dalek Caan one last time, saying that he can help. He just saw one genocide and he won’t cause another one. Dalek Caan chooses instead to emergency temporal shift away.

Martha and Tallulah bring Lazlo up because he’s getting worse. Lazlo explains that he’s dying and Tallulah cries over him, asking the Doctor if there is nothing he can do. The Doctor stands and throws off his coat with a flourish. He’s in a big genetic laboratory and too many people have died already. He’s running about and pulls a stethoscope out of his pocket. “The doctor is in,” he cheeses.

The next morning, Andrew Garfield comes to say that they will take Lazlo in at Hooverville. He still looks like a pig, but he’s alive. Tallulah hugs him. Later, the Doctor and Martha walk back to TARDIS. She wonders if a relationship between a woman and half-pig can work. The Doctor isn’t sure, but if there is anywhere where it can work, it’s New York City. Martha jokes that it proves that there is someone for everyone. The Doctor gets serious and offers an unconvinced, “maybe.”

Martha apologizes to the Doctor because she knows that one Dalek got away and what that means to him. She asks if he thinks he’ll ever see it again and he stands at the threshold of the TARDIS and says yes. One day.

This two-parter just wasn’t for me. I usually really like the Dalek episodes because of what they let the Doctor explore. I mean, sure, most of those themes were still present here and it was interesting to see how angry the Doctor was and how Phallic Human Dalek managed to divert that with his idealistic plans. Plans that may have worked, were it not for the Doctor’s age old and perpetual enemies. I can stand back and see these things on an intellectual level but this episode just managed to distract me with too many other silly things. This is probably highlighted because I’m recapping and every time I had to write about pig slaves or face tentacles, I was reminded of how much NOT SERIOUS is packed into an episode that was begging to be taken seriously.

Also, though, it’s been a while since part one. I feel like every time we slow this project down we are doing a disservice to it. We’ve talked a lot in the past about shows that are best consumed quickly and unfortunately, sometimes Doctor Who is very much that.

K: This is very true. There are episodes of this show that I absolutely love. But then I have to recap them and it takes me a thousand years and everything seems to drag on forever and OH MY GOD JUST GET OT THE POINT. This two-parter, I think, is one that works better when you don’t have to think about it. I love the setting, and I really like some of the characters (NOT Phallic Human Dalek, I should add). But it’s hard to see past some of the clunkiness and silliness when you’re recapping. 

Mari: So, what say you guys? Is it our recapping experience or is this episode just not that good? Sound off in the comments below!

 

Next time on Doctor Who: Martha and the Doctor return to present-day London where a mad scientist is experimenting with age reversal in S03 E07 – The Lazaus Experiment.