Daleks in Manhattan rocked. Absolutely rocked.

"Daleks in Manhattan" was pretty good. The accent on the girl who played Tallulah was atrocious -- who was her speech coach, Betty Boop. Also, the thing at the end was terrible looking and laughable.

Exactly. Classic Doctor Who! It reminded me of Kroll, actually.

Funny, it had me thinking of Scaroth of the Jagaroth from "City of Death".

Yeah, I was torn on that. On the one hand it was classic Who, on the other.....it was classic Who.

I enjoyed the episode too. I'm glad I got to see the Confidential episode, because it showed a very important small moment I had completely forgotten about with the black Dalek escaping during last series' season finale.

Just a quick note to those who were unaware, but Sci-Fi has today officially announced that series 3 will begin on SciFi in July. They had this announcement breifly on their site several months ago, but it's back and is mirrored on other news sites, as well.

Daleks in Manhattan didnt do it for me. Its another two-parter like the Cybermen&blimps ep that could be a one parter if they trimmed some of the fat (I'm thinking of Tallulah).

The final reveal was silly. I know part of classic Doc is cheap fx and that is part of its charm, but honestly that creature design and the stupid pigmen dont help with it being modern, hip, not to mention more expensive.

Pretty poor writing too. Clumsy, cliched precredit opening, all the Tallulah subplot, and the hackneyed logic of the Doc taking the sewer job, which had no implied connection to the mystery he was there to unravel.

I wasn't too won over with Daleks in Manhatten either and for a lot of the same reasons you mention. This was the first Who episode this season where I "felt" time inch by.

And truth be told....I'm getting kind of tired of the Daleks. They had two great appearances in Series One and a fantastic (fall out of my seat) surprise appearance in Series Two. Now they're kind of just there.

And this is coming from a Who veteran.

SCI FI picks up Doctor Who Season Three

Monday - April 23, 2007 | by Darren Sumner


The SCI FI Channel will continue running the hit BBC series Doctor Who with Season Three, the U.S. cable network announced today. The new run of episodes will start this July, starting with the 2006 Christmas special "The Runaway Bride" before Season Three begins with "Smith and Jones."

The new season stars David Tennant as the Doctor, along with new series regular Freema Agyeman as the Doctor's new companion, Martha Jones. Former companion Billie Piper ("Rose Tyler") left the show after two seasons.

"We were delighted and honored by the second series' success, and we can promise new thrills, new laughs and some terrifying new aliens," executive producer and head writer Russell T Davies said. "The Doctor and Martha are destined to meet William Shakespeare, blood-sucking alien Plasmavores, The Judoon -- a clan of galactic stormtroopers –-- and a sinister Dalek plot in 1930s New York."

Doctor Who has performed well for SCI FI as an acquired series, averaging more than one million viewers per episode.

"The Runaway Bride," which picks up moments after the tear-jerking conclusion of Season Two, guest-stars award-winning comedy actress Catherine Tate.

The new season is currently airing every Saturday night on BBC One in the United Kingdom. The fifth episode of the 13-episode season, "Evolution of the Daleks," premieres this weekend.

Eh, while I'm still enjoying this season, it isn't knocking me on my ass like the first two did.

I like Martha, but I wish they would make her more than the damsel in distress. I can't recall how long it took Rose to come into her own, but I never got the sense that she held the doctor back but was his "equal" in her own way. So far Martha is just swooning over the Doctor, which is another thing I don't really care for. It's odd because she was so strong in the first episode, but she seemed to take a step or two back since then. She's smart and brave - I want them to show more of that. Less of the "he loves me, he loves me not" bullish.

The Shakespeare episode nearly put me to sleep and Daleks take Manhattan didn't do much for me either (which is a shame because every other time a Dalek has shown up in the new series it has felt like a major event). I really enjoyed Gridlocked and the premier, so the show is batting .500 right now. I just hope they turn it up soon. The first two seasons were perfect television as far as I'm concerned, season 3 is much more pedestrian in comparison.

Question: Is the Doctor drawn to planets and times that need him to fix something? Or have all of these trips been coincidences? This probably has been addressed, but I cannot remember.

I don't really know the answer to that, but (and this is IMO) in old Who when the Doctor didn't have complete control over the TARDIS I think the "drawn to" could be argued. Now that he apparently has complete control down to exact time and location (like showing off to Martha in the premiere with the tie thing and returning to the exact spot a second later), I'm not so sure.

bored, as far as I know, it's pretty much a coincidence that wherever they go they get involved in an hour-long adventure. Imagine that. I suppose it beats, say, Jessica Fletcher, who has coincidentally been a bystander for 300 murders and solved them all.

Yeah, exactly. It's called "being a TV show". It's the same reason why you never had a stretch of Star Trek episodes where they crossed empty space for a month.

Yeah, they played around a bit with the Doc, during the 3rd Doc era making him Earthbound for a bit, then on the run from his Time Lord commitments during the 4th Doc run and eventually getting forced into assignments (like the whole "Key To Time" season). But, generally, he just finds trouble or trouble finds him, cause otherwise why would we care?

There have been times when the meddling of the Doctor and/or his companions in events has been the catalyst for the story. For example The Aztecs or Father's Day.

Well one could argue that that did happen in Star Trek, but we just were never shown. The star dates between the episodes signified a passage of time no?

My question arose because the Doctor because he's been on four trips so far this year and on three of the trips just happened to stumble onto some plot or scheme to end the world/human race and the other just happened to be able to see Face of Bo die and get his cryptic message. If there had been an allusion or two between Martha and the Doctor about having been to another planet between the trips that have made up the episodes " (them getting off the tardis) Wow, the drinks at the Festival of Garthandroggonein on Planet Rhumnatitititty sure were great!" I wouldn't have thought anything of it. But since so much has happened so fast, it made me curious as to whether the Doctor was drawn to these times & places or no.

And something like that conversation about Rhumnatititty that I made-up might have happened in the first 2 seasons, but my memory is absolute shit.

Believe me, in a show were cats and women can have kittens, I'm not trying to argue logic on the show. Just trying to understand the mythos.

I think they have had lines like this before, but I can't say for sure. But honestly, I don't think we're supposed to assume that every episode happens directly after the last.

His ship takes him to troubled spots on purpose.

All I know about that is never invite Jessica Fletcher to your party. She's nothing but bad luck and people will start dropping like flies!

Very good episode but i think we are a bit daleked out. Id like to see more new baddies

I am getting a bit tired of them as well and I mostly just know the show from the new series. Great villain but having them turn up this often is diluting how powerful they are supposed to be.

The second part was heaps heaps better. So this one Dalek who survived, is that the one that the Doctor encountered in Series 1 (of the New Doc Who) ?

The Dalek FX were good, the Dalek human mask thing was terrible !

No.

It was an Ok two-parter, but I can do without seeing the Daleks for a couple seasons now.

The preview for next week's didn't thrill me too much either.

Pretty dumb. They hit a "reset button" on all the interesting concepts. Oh well.

Agreed that next week looks bad. But the 76-year-old man is played by Mark Gatiss (of the League of Gentlemen), who has also written for Who (The Unquiet Dead & The Idiots Lantern).