Christopher Morley guides us through the Tenth Doctor story, Daleks In Manhattan.
Remember the Cult of Skaro, four very bad Dalek boys - Sec, Caan, Jast & Thay- tasked by the Emperor (Doomsday) to think as the enemy does in a bid to help the whole ' universal conquest' thing along a bit? Well, they're back & they fancy an emergency temporal holiday!
Remember the Cult of Skaro, four very bad Dalek boys - Sec, Caan, Jast & Thay- tasked by the Emperor (Doomsday) to think as the enemy does in a bid to help the whole ' universal conquest' thing along a bit? Well, they're back & they fancy an emergency temporal holiday!
They've opted for the New York of the 1930s- a
little glitz & glamour. Perhaps they were looking to catch Babe
Ruth & Lou Gehrig playing for the Yankees, watching spellbound &
no doubt a little envious as Ruth actually manages to hold a baseball
bat just like Ace did in Remembrance Of The Daleks-
if, that is, they managed to fight the fear of being hit with the
thing just as their forefathers once were.
After the game
they head off to the work in progress that is the Empire State
Building, casting off the caps they've been wearing to blend into the
crowd. There's business to be done...it's November 1 & they've a
deadline to meet if their latest scheme is to be a success- the '
Final Experiment'. Mr Diagoras, the American businessman they've
appointed to oversee the construction of the building, has to deal
with a foreman who's not playing ball.
He & his
masters want work to speed up, but it seems the foreman & his
crew can't meet the demand. A complaint to these 'masters' is
coming...& luckily one is in the lift, waiting to reasonably &
calmly discuss matters. Just kidding! He's going to be carted off &
turned into a Pig Slave, just like the ones flanking Caan. Enough to
put you right off bacon isn't it? Meanwhile, an old foe of theirs has
arrived!
The Tenth Doctor
& Martha Jones materialise at the base of the Statue of Liberty,
safely parking Sexy so they can go for a quick walk. Reading the
local newspaper it soon becomes apparent people have been going
missing from Hooverville- something must be afoot. Actually what '
it' is doesn't have any feet at all, but that's besides the point.
Making their way into the community itself, which sprang up following
Black Tuesday ( a massive US economic downturn), they've got some
questions for the residents.
Could it be that
the Empire State Building is a big clue to all this? As if to
reinforce the point Diagoras stops by to offer much-needed employment
to everyone. For the princely sum of a dollar a day, all they've got
to do is help clear out a sewer.
Ten is intrigued & quickly runs
off to change into a white T-shirt, hard hat & jeans you can
clearly see the top of his bum through, making a mental note to ask
for regular tea breaks & starting to practise lusty whistling for
the future attentions of attractive lady passers-by.
Even the
revelation that people don't tend to come back isn't enough to put
him off. While the work party's down there the Doctor finds an
odd-looking lump of green skin & quietly pockets it. There's a
Pig Slave a little further down, too..after a quick chat with what
appears to be a lone ranger a larger group arrives to chase the Time
Lord & his colleagues away.
Just
when things were looking
promising! Further up, final preparations are being made for the '
experiment'. Metal taken from Sec's ' skirt' section is to be used in
the building's final phase. Dalek fashion sense be damned, there's a
race to rebuild & time is growing short. No wonder the foursome are
getting a bit impatient.
Diagoras has a bigger part to play too-
though he doesn't know it yet! After a conversation regarding war
service with Caan ( the Daleks of course having fought in the Time
War, Diagoras as an American GI in World War One), he's taken into
the basement to become the ultimate part of their jiggery-pokery.
Sec, as leader of the Cult, is very impressed with his human
capabilities! If the Doctor were here he'd probably have some inkling
of what comes next, having seen it ( sort of) in the first Dalek
Civil War ( Evil Of The Daleks).
He's got no time to waste reminiscing about many a great adventure
with Ben, Polly, Jamie, Victoria, Zoe et al though....
The business at
hand is getting out of the sewers alive, which he, Martha &
community leader Solomon manage with gusto. But once they get out
they find a gun pointed at their heads, having surfaced in a theatre.
One of the showgirls, Tallulah, wants to know what's happened to her
boyfriend Laszlo. He went missing two weeks ago, & she's
demanding answers. As is Thay, who's questioning the sanity of their
leader's plan.
Sec comes up with
the quite reasonable for a Dalek argument that to survive they must
evolve beyond their original form. Thay has a counter-argument,
though. Surely merging with an ' inferior' ( human) specimen goes
against every point of their philosophy?
Sec, though, silences him
with a quite brilliant statistic- for only four remaining Daleks,
there are billions of humans. With that he announces a sacrifice
greater than Thay giving up his ' skirt' metal. He's going to give
himself over to a merger with Diagoras!
Back at the
theatre there's a Pig Slave in the audience for Tallulah's big night.
This one's different, though- more human than Piggy. But before
Martha can learn more having followed him into a prop store, he's off
down the drain. Ten hears her scream as she's seized by some nastier
Piggies, & he & Tallulah set out to find her.
In the process
they also find someone else rather important- Laszlo. It's he who's
the human Piggy! He escaped the Daleks before they could finish the
conversion process. It's a nasty one too, the ' lower intelligence'
prisoners turned into Pig Slaves while those of greater intellect
become pawns in the wider goal.
Having been taken captive, the Doctor
& Martha find themselves in the ' higher intelligence' group.
Miss Jones understandably wants to know what on Earth's going on down
here- she will bear witness to the ultimate rebirth of the Dalek
race, no less!
After a traumatic
final process, the new improved Sec steps out from his casing.
Resisting the urge to do a little dance ( perhaps the
period-appropriate Charleston?) now that he's got legs & a decent
pair of arms, he contents himself with telling his three now rather
terrified friends that he's a Human Dalek & by extension ' your
future'.
Meanwhile Ten, having seen all this, is probably racking his
brains to try & remember what he did last time something like
this went down while bemoaning the fact he hasn't got a recorder to
help him think any more.
Exciting stuff,
eh?
