DW: Episode 3.5

Action packed?

From the trailer (and the Confidential) of last week, this episode was going to be a mad chase aginst blasting Daleks and battling human forces from Hooverville. Which it was. For about five minutes. And then everything fizzled out like a wet firework.

Instead we were subjected to exciting "genetic" sequences, with lots of bubbling beakers and frothing liquids, and being about as believable as Kylie Minogue being cast as a Cyberwoman. This is obviously a show for kids as anyone with a bare minimum understanding of science will know this is up there with the moon being made of green cheese. I don't care how much Time Lord or Dalek science Helen Raynor pulled out her ass, I'm just not buying it. (How, exactly, did the lightning manage to carry Time Lord DNA?)

But that doesn't matter as it's not the point of the episode. Indeed, the point is that the Daleks should be more human. Why? They were never supposed to be human, but metaphors for human evil. Frankly, I think they should have shot Sek a lot earlier. And shot the Doctor too. (Why are they so unable to shoot him? "Emergency temporal shift", bah! Just blast him while you had the chance!) And speaking of Sek, they should have redesigned the mask as he sounded like he was speaking with his nose blocked (which, strangely enough,...).

At least there's the Lazlo/Tullulah story line. It's the only storyline that isn't pushed over the top, and there is the nice surprise ending of neither suspected outcome happening.

So at the end, we have a promised run-around that never happens, a heck of a lot of bad science, and the promise of yet another Dalek story. This progressed an original idea... how?

Next week: Mark Gatiss gets his chance to overact!