Three members of the Woolstencroft family are contributors to BC Magazine. Each discovered the BBC's Doctor Who at a different point: Tony goes all the way back to Hartnell, Ian started with Pertwee, and Daniel came on board during Davison's stay in the Tardis.
This week WooWho faces its biggest challenge yet — we were all subjected to a two part episode: "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks"
The Script
Ian: Where to begin? Writer Helen Raynor obviously owns a copy of the “Writers Guide to Stereotypes” and isn’t afraid to use it, treating us to such clichés as the tough showgirl with a heart of gold, the greedy industrialist who’ll do anything for power, and the disfigured man watching from the wings as his lost love performs onstage.
Then of course there are the pig-men. The Daleks have had slaves before – the Robomen in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" and, most memorably, the Ogrons in several Pertwee-era stories spring to mind – but this time the fiendish pepper pots have merged human and pig DNA. Why? God only knows, for it seems clear Raynor doesn’t have a clue. Unless Dalek DNA is a close match to that of a pig.
Daniel: There's this idea that Doctor Who terrifies young children, causing them to hide behind the sofa lest the nasty beasts on screen "get them". This episode nearly had me doing the same, thanks to its ludicrous plot - why would a heavily armored Dalek decide to make itself far more vulnerable? Amongst other puzzlers - and numerous additional flaws.
Ian: This would have been bad enough as a single episode but it’s been padded out to a two-parter by falling back on the old Who tradition of having a lot of pointless running around in corridors (or in this case sewers).
I’d say this was disappointing, but I never had high hopes for it in the first place.
Tony: Laughably awful. How anyone could have thought this would work on screen is beyond me. It may have worked better (not that it worked at all for me) if they’d played it for laughs, but there are some ludicrously overblown lines culminating with "The Doctor is in!" One of the most unintentionally hilarious episodes I can remember.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments