User:DReifGalaxyM31/New Daleks in Manhattan

"Daleks in Manhattan" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 21 April 2007, and is the fourth episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series. It is part one of a two-part story, concluded in "Evolution of the Daleks". In New York City, 1930, in the midst of the Depression, people are disappearing from among the homeless and jobless masses. Pig-like creatures hide in the sewers, and at the bottom of the Empire State Building, some of the Doctor's greatest and oldest enemies, the Daleks, are at work, preparing their most horrific plan yet.

According to the BARB figures this episode was seen by 6.69 million viewers and was the eighteenth most popular broadcast on British television in that week. Critically, the episode was poorly received. Raynor, for her part, was left "literally shaking... as if she'd been assaulted" after reading particularly harsh criticism of the episode on Doctor Who fansites.

Plot
In 1930, at a theater in New York City, showgirl Tallulah is speaking to her boyfriend, Laszlo, one of the theater's stagehands, before her nightly performance. She promises to come and see Laszlo's mother soon, and in turn, he gives her a rosebud for good luck. Just as soon as she leaves, something runs past the door, oinking. Laszlo follows the sound into a storage room. Suddenly, a pig-headed man leaps out of the shadows and attacks him.

Two weeks later, the Doctor and Martha, having just left New New York, materialize the TARDIS at the base of the Statue of Liberty. They note that they have arrived in 1930 (specifically, November 1), judging from both a newspaper and the fact that the Empire State Building is not yet completed. When the Doctor looks at the newspaper, he notices an article about a deep mystery surrounding the disappearance of numerous individuals from a Hooverville community in Central Park.

As the Doctor and Martha walk through Central Park, he explains how the shantytown that is Hooverville came to be. Arriving in Hooverville, they meet Solomon, the leader of the downtrodden residents, who is currently trying without much success to rally the residents.

Meanwhile, up at the 100th floor of the Empire State Building, wealthy businessman and architect Mr. Diagoras is ordering construction workers to speed up work on the mast of the building, saying that his new masters (who apparently come from out of town and beyond human imagination) demand it. When a construction foreman refuses to complete the work, Diagoras pushes an elevator's call button to summon one of his masters: a Dalek, accompanied by two Pig-Slaves. Dalek Cann orders the Pig-Slaves to take the foreman away, and informs Mr. Diagoras that the gamma strike has accelerated and they need more bodies.

Back in Hooverville, Solomon tells the Doctor and Martha about the disappearances. At night, someone cries out for help, and by the time others have gotten there, they have vanished into thin air, leaving behind their few possessions. The Doctor wonders who is taking the men and what for, but is interrupted when Frank, a young runaway from Tennessee, bursts into the tent to inform them that Mr. Diagoras has arrived looking for recruits.

Diagoras is asking for volunteers who, for a dollar a day, would like to clear a collapse in the sewers. The Doctor is intrigued by Diagoras's admission that people sometimes fail to come back up, and he, Martha, Solomon, and Frank volunteer. They are told to go about a half mile into the tunnel they enter. Martha learns that Frank is a runaway, who hitchhiked his way up to New York via the railroads when his father died. The Doctor, in turn, learns from Solomon more about Mr. Diagoras: until a few months ago, he was just another foreman, and now he seems to be running much of Manhattan (itself an allusion to how during this time period, one could go from rich to poor overnight). Just then, the Doctor spots an unusual green-glowing blob of alien protoplasm, which Martha confirms as being extraterrestrial in origin. He picks it up, and also notes that they've already gone a half mile into the tunnels, and there is no sign whatsover of any collapse.

Far above, Mr. Diagoras orders the construction crews at the Empire State Building to attach strange metal plates (taken from a Dalek's 'skirt') to the base of the mast, and to complete the task by nightfall. The workers complain about the unsafe conditions and the risk of falling, but reluctantly comply when Diagoras warns them that if they do not work, he can replace them in a flash. After they leave, Dalek Caan discusses the construction with Diagoras, and mentions that his planet was destroyed in a war, while humans survive across time, building and rebuilding New York City. Diagoras tells Cann that he fought in World War I, and that he promised himself he would survive at any cost. Noting that Diagoras is most like them in mentality, Dalek Sec orders him to the basement, where he is seized for use in their 'final experiment'.

After travelling for a little while longer in the sewers, the Doctor tells Solomon and Frank to hurry back to Hooverville, but they suddenly hear screeching noises in the tunnel. The Doctor shines his flashlight on a lone Pig-Slave, which doesn't attack or put up a fight. But as soon as he gets close to it, more Pig-Slaves show up and chase them. The Doctor, Martha and Solomon are able to escape through the first manhole they find, but Frank is captured at the last moment. However, just then, Tallulah confronts them with a gun and wants to know where Laszlo is. She explains what happened and once she shows her gun is a prop, the Doctor offers his help and needs to figure out what the bio-material is.

The Doctor rigs up a crude DNA scanner and Soloman goes back to Hooverville, while Tallulah talks about Laszlo and thinks that the Doctor and Martha are involved. She notes that someone has still been leaving a flower on her dressing table just like Laszlo always does. Soloman rallies the men in Hooverville to protect themselves and they arm themselves. While the men work atop the Empire State Building to attach the new metal plates, plates made from the Dalek casings. Lord Sec announces they are almost ready for the “final experiment” and Diagoras wants to know how he’s involved. Sec says they need his flesh. The other Cult members argue that they are ruining their purity, but Sec says he is now ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. He opens his casing and the true Dalek creature within him emerges and merges with Diagoras, pulling him into its casing, which closes again.

Analyzing the material he found in the sewer, the Doctor realizes that it originated on the planet Skaro. Martha is watching Tallulah's dance number when she notices a Pig-Slave watching from the other side of the stage. She tries sneaking behind the dancers to reach him, but he runs away. Noticing that he is more human than pig, she follows him into the prop store, where he disappears down the manhole. Moments later, she is seized by other Pig-Slaves. The Doctor and Tallulah race down into the sewers. Moments after Tallulah enters the sewer (despite the Doctor's warning), he pulls her aside to prevent them from being noticed by a passing Dalek. They are about to return to the surface when they spot the Pig-Slave from earlier. This one asks them not to look at it and reveals he was transformed to be one of the Dalek slaves. He somehow escaped before his mind was transformed and tells Tallulah to stay away. It becomes clear that he is Laszlo, transformed into a grotesquerie. Frank agrees to take them to the Dalek base.

Back in the Dalek lab, smoke billows from Dalek Sec's casing while he shakes violently. His comrades urge him to cancel the experiment, but he refuses and asks for an injection. Dalek Jast plunges a syringe containing a chromatin solution into his casing. Martha is thrust in with a parade of captives taken from Hooverville, including Frank. They are met first by Dalek Caan, and then Dalek Thay who reports that the Dalekanium is in place. The Daleks use their plunger arms to scan their captives' brains as the Doctor hides nearby and watches. Laszlo explains that those who get a "low intelligence" reading, like himself, become Pig-Slaves, while those marked "high intelligence" are taken to the laboratory, designated for 'the final experiment'. Laszlo urges Tallulah to go back without him. The Doctor joins Martha in the high intelligence group as they proceed towards 'the final experiment'. Tallulah runs through the sewers, but gets lost.

The human captives are taken into the lab and the Doctor suggests that Martha ask what is going on. They explain that it is the dawn of a new age and they will evolve to a life outside the shell. Everyone looks on as Dalek Sec’s casing opens up and a creature emerges: Diagoras, with a Dalek creature merged onto his body.

Continuity

 * Tallulah asks Martha if she has ever been on stage, to which Martha replies "Some Shakespeare", referring to the events of "The Shakespeare Code".
 * The song performed by Tallulah, "My Angel Put The Devil In Me", is heard in the background during the bar scene in part two of The End of Time.
 * The First Doctor, Vicki, Ian and Barbara land briefly on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in 1966 during the events of The Chase
 * The First Doctor, Steven and Dodo visit New York in 1965 in the novel Salvation.

Daleks

 * When he first realises that the Daleks are present, the Doctor says, "They always survive, while I lose everything." The Daleks have survived multiple apparent extinctions, in The Daleks, The Evil of the Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks, the Time War, "Dalek", "The Parting of the Ways" and "Doomsday".


 * The members of the Cult of Skaro (Daleks Caan, Jast, Sec and Thay) are the only individual Daleks ever to become recurring characters.
 * Dalek Caan states that "[his] planet was destroyed in a great war". In Remembrance of the Daleks, Skaro was destroyed when the Seventh Doctor used the Hand of Omega to cause Skaro's sun to go supernova. According to the Eighth Doctor novel War of the Daleks, which was published before the 2005 revival and thus the Time War story, Skaro was never destroyed (the Doctor blew up the wrong planet, which was part of a grand Dalek plan). While the canonical status of the novels is uncertain, Russell T Davies has previously intimated that various Dalek stories take place as parts of the Time War, such as Genesis of the Daleks which he refers to as "the first strike".
 * This is the first episode of the revived series in which Skaro is explicitly mentioned as the Dalek homeworld.


 * The Daleks refer to their armour as Dalekanium. This term was first used in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. The Doctor referred to it as polycarbide in Remembrance of the Daleks (explicitly referring to the armoured shell as "bonded polycarbide"), The Parting of the Ways, and Doomsday.
 * The Daleks are also seen on the Empire State Building in the previously mentioned story The Chase.
 * This is the first Dalek episode of the revived series which does not feature their catchphrase "Exterminate!", apart from in the preview of the next episode.

Cultural references

 * There was a Hooverville in Central Park: it existed between 1931 and 1933 in the former Lower Reservoir of the city water supply system, which was being emptied and landscaped into the Great Lawn and Turtle Pond.
 * Tallulah is based on Jodie Foster's character, also named Tallulah, in Bugsy Malone. It may in turn be a reference to the actress Talullah Bankhead.
 * The Island of Doctor Moreau, Frankenstein and The Phantom of the Opera were amongst the horror novels and films that served as inspiration for this story.
 * On arrival, the Doctor extemporises on the name, "New York, New York: Well, there's the genuine article. So good they named it twice. Mind you, it was New Amsterdam originally. Harder to say twice, no wonder it didn't catch on. New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam." This is a humorous reference to the city's location within New York State, as popularised in the song "New York, New York (So Good They Named It Twice)". New Amsterdam was the original name of the Dutch colony that became New York City.
 * The 2007 episode guide on the Doctor Who site has the caption for this episode as "Sec's in the City", referencing the popular sitcom Sex and the City, also set in New York.
 * Popular songs of the period appearing in the soundtrack include Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and Irving Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz" (the former when the Doctor and Martha are on Liberty Island, looking at the Manhattan skyline, and the second when they are first walking through Central Park).

Production

 * All of the scenes with Martha and the Doctor in front of the Statue of Liberty were actually filmed in Wales. The production team found a wall that matched the base of the statue. This was mentioned in the accompanying Doctor Who Confidential.
 * Helen Raynor is the first woman to write a televised Dalek story, and the first woman to write a story for the revived series.
 * Some filming for this story was done in New York for plates of the city, including images of Central Park, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty. However, on the online episode commentary for "Gridlock", David Tennant, when asked if he filmed in New York, replied, "I didn't, everybody else did!" The Confidential episode shows that The Mill also used the shoot for elements of the Majestic Theater.
 * A shot supposedly in the Hooverville shows the Empire State Building, incomplete, looming over trees in the background. In fact the building is about 2 km (1.25 miles) from Central Park, much further than might be inferred from the shot, and behind a number of skyscrapers in the central part of Midtown Manhattan.  Similarly the view of the southern tip of Manhattan from Liberty Island is exaggerated to make the building seem part of southern Manhattan and close to Liberty Island. The true distance is about 8 km (5 miles) from the island to the building.  The closest point on Manhattan is 2.6 km (1.6 miles) from the island.
 * This episode includes the first location filming outside of the United Kingdom since Doctor Who's return in 2005. Several original Doctor Who stories included location filming outside of the UK: City of Death (1979) included filming in Paris, Arc of Infinity (1983) included filming in Amsterdam, Planet of Fire (1984) included filming in Lanzarote, and The Two Doctors (1985) included filming in and near Seville. Also, the entirety of the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie was filmed in Vancouver, apart from some stock footage of San Francisco and world capitals.
 * Scenes set at the Hooverville shanty town were filmed at Bute Park, Cardiff.
 * The dance scene was rehearsed in London but shot in the Parc and Dare Hall, in Treorchy, South Wales.
 * The presence of the Daleks in this story was reported by the News of the World on November 12, 2006 and confirmed by the BBC in late December. An interview with David Tennant in TV Times indicated there would also be 'Art Deco Daleks'. However, they did not appear in either this episode or the second part, "Evolution of the Daleks".
 * The cover for the Radio Times for the week from 21–27 April consisted of a photograph of the Dalek/human hybrid and named it as such: "Half-Dalek, half-human - total monster? The Daleks are back!" It was played by Eric Loren who also played Mr Diagoras, and this, too, is revealed within the magazine, which contained a how-they-made-it feature and also a small section on the half-man/half-pig Laszlo played by Ryan Carnes. The decision to reveal the hybrid on the cover caused controversy, with some fans considering it a major spoiler as the creature's appearance and nature as a mutated combination of Dalek Sec and Diagoras is the episode's big cliff-hanger reveal.
 * This episode along with "Evolution of the Daleks", "The Lazarus Experiment", and "42" was released as a 'vanilla' DVD (i.e. with no special features).

Cast notes

 * Joe Montana, who appears as "Worker #1", had previously played the Commander in the Ninth Doctor episode "Dalek".
 * Hero Pig played by Paul Kasey is mentioned in the credits. This is not a reference to a specific character but to the Pig-Slave who was given the most to do, 'Hero' being the term for a prop or costume with the most detail and therefore most suitable for closeups.