Evolution of the Daleks

The curiously unpopular "Evolution of the Daleks" scored over several of its New Series two-parter-resolving stablemates and yet somehow still managed to disappoint many. Undoubtedly this comes from our intelligence as fans, which is a contradictory factor, as we use our highly tuned knowledge of storytelling to predict with uncanny accuracy what's going to happen, forgetting to take into account that this is, after all, a slice of flash-bang kids TV.

I'm talking about the motivation of the Dalek Sec/Human Hybrid, the poor creature, who didn't stand a chance against the might of fans cutting expectation. Had he maintained his Dalek blood primarily, and turned into another ranting Davros, it would have been predictable. The actual course of his character, which turned out to be sympathetic to the Doctor's way of thinking, was still lampooned. The alternative was a last-minute deception, and yet this would have spoiled the glorious moment when Daleks that were always Daleks over-ruled him and took back their unquestionable right to KNOW they were superior. Poor old Sec couldn't win whatever he did.

Many questioned his good nature, on account of the fact that the human that he 'merged' with wasn't exactly Mother Teresa to start with. I can't help but think this misses the point of "humanity" - which we all have, an optimist and humanitarian like the Doctor would claim, no matter how much of a rotter we seem to be. I found the Hybrid's dilemma's oddly fascinating - it wasn't as if he suddenly turned against all things Dalek. It was like he was a Dalek, with the added benefit of a calculated compassion. In fact, I found his motivations anything but predictable. And at least we saw a lot of the fascinatingly gruesome creation.

Less glorious was the science involved in the Dalekenium/Lightning Conductor sequence. By the time the lightning was zapping its way through the Doctor and absorbing his DNA (Nurse! Fetch me a physicist!) one had to conceded that this episode was NOT written by an actual scientist and agree to get carried along with the fun. I'm sure the nation's children were none the wiser, so what does it matter eh?

As with last week, the Daleks looked marvellous and the whole thing was directed with panache. But I've just remembered that I started this article by noting that "Evolution" beat some of its contemporaries (that rare breed these days, the episode that needs to finish a story started a week ago) on several counts. So here we go - it didn't finish halfway through Part 2 and waste ten minutes in the TARDIS (unlike "The Doctor Dances"), neither did it sort everything out with a whizzdoodle knocked up at the last moment ("Rose", "New Earth") or something from inside the TARDIS ("Boom Town", "Parting of the Ways") and it didn't feel like two completely different stories glued together either. "Evolution of the Daleks" would in fact have made a perfect four-parter in the old style - if this story had been made in 25 minute instalments and filmed with Patrick Troughton in 1967, people would be scouring Hong Kong for it now.

No, I suspect the reason that "Evolution of the Daleks" disappointed many (more than being especially bad) is because it failed to offer much new spectacle. We've seen Daleks plenty of times now since the series returned, and we've certainly exhausted the novelty of them being diminished in number. Their plot here wasn't particularly amazing, once one gets used to the Hybrid, and in truth even New York (the serials biggest selling point) looked cheap and unreal. "Totally Doctor Who" managed to get to New York to cover this story, yet on screen we were denied any shots of David and Freema on or around any actual landmarks, CGI excluded. How crazy is that?

So poor old "Evolution" didn't wow many with its bag of tricks, and the fact that it was a skilfully directed, exciting and largely comprehensible bout of gorgeous visualised adventure didn't seem to count for much. It looks like yet another drastic new angle is required of the Daleks for us to fully appreciate them again.