ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
This is a beautifully filmed, well acted but ultimately
slightly disappointing story, mostly because the Dalek/Human Hybrid looks,
well, a bit silly really. It’s a shame because you want it to work but it looks
(politely) like a man with worms stuck to his head. There are some less polite
versions, but we won’t go into that now. Plus, the Dalek plan feels a bit
un-thought-through, even for the Daleks.
The Doctor and Martha arrive in New York in 1930 at the
height of the Great Depression, under the shadow of the partially constructed
Empire State Building, they find themselves in a shanty town in Central Park
called Hooverville. Here they encounter Solomon (Hugh Quarshie) the unofficial
leader of Hooverville who informs them that people who go to work for the
mysterious Mr Diagoras (Eric Loren) on the Empire State Building construction
keep disappearing.
The Doctor, Martha, Solomon and a young man called Frank (a
very early appearance by future Spiderman actor, Andrew Garfield) all go to
work on the construction site and soon encounter Pig Slaves, half-pig
half-human hybrids. The Doctor suspects alien interference with history and is
horrified to discover that it is the Daleks.
The Doctor and Martha then meet up with Tallulah (Miranda
Raison), a singer at a nearby theatre whose lover, Laszlo (Ryan Carnes), has
disappeared. The Doctor fears he has become one of the Pig Slaves and together
with Martha and Tallulah they follow Laszlo into the Dalek base where the
Daleks reveal they are going to create a Human/Dalek hybrid.
Mr Diagoras is tricked by the Daleks and becomes the first
Human/Dalek hybrid. The Doctor and his friends escape back to Hooverville but
it is then attacked by the Daleks and Solomon is killed. The Doctor is taken
back to the Dalek base here he negotiates with the Human/Dalek hybrid and
agrees a deal. The other Daleks, the ones who are still pure, decide that the
Hybrid is not a valid life form and chain him up whilst the Doctor seeks to cut
off their power supply by removing Dalekanium panels from the top of the Empire
State Building.
The Human/Dalek hybrid is killed trying to save the Doctor
and the remaining human slaves turn on the other Daleks, but are all killed.
Only one Dalek escapes, having been driven insane by what has happened.
There’s a lot going on in this story, and it looks
magnificent with all the art deco elements plus some really exciting scenes at
the top of the Empire State Building. The problem, in the end, is that the
Dalek plan doesn’t feel very thought out. They put a massive amount of effort
into experimenting on hybrid humans and then abandon the plan almost
immediately that they succeed in creating one, which even for the Daleks feels
a bit arbitrary. Plus the Dalek/Human Hybrid, despite being featured heavily in
media everywhere, isn’t that scary and his little tentacles look slightly
phallic.
Everything looses its way a bit in the second episode when
the Dalek plan becomes ever more convoluted – they now have an army of sleeping
humans ready to be converted into Dalek hybrids which they then just activate
as humans with Dalek genes who head off to march around New York but actually
never get anywhere. It’s a shame because it ends up being just another grandiose
mad scheme.
The acting is, by and large, pretty solid and the central
love story between Tallulah and Laszlo is well-executed and not too sickly.
When you break it down into its constituent parts it feels very strong, but it
doesn’t quite gel together.
NEXT UP: THE LAZARUS EXPERIMENT
© Text copyright - Raving Loony
Productions and
Andrew J. Müller,
Roy Barton
and Shaun Runham
© Photos and Artwork - Andrew J. Müller
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2022
