Episode 5 - Evolution of the Daleks (The Jones Review)

Colour me disappointed.

The second part of this seasons Dalek epic falls apart quite badly:

• Tennant shouts his lines, again.
• The Daleks repeatedly have the Doctor in their sights only to let him go, again.
• The science is appallingly bad (seriously when is Gamma Radiation and Lightning the same thing?), again.
• Martha is pining for a relationship and whining about Rose, again.

Each twist, turn and betrayal in the plot was obvious and cliched, and the amount of speechifying contained in the dialogue (and the numerous times that someone stands up and makes a speech!) was embarassing and made me cringe from the very first to the very last. The melodrama level was far too high and lessons should have been learned from Aaron Sorkin if they had wanted to make social comment at this level.

The visual elements were heavily borrowed from many sources, from King Kong to Back to the Future and added some enjoyment for spotting the homages. The operatic musical score added some tension to the chase scenes, and underlined the grand scope of the venture, the Dalek plan, the threat level and of course the giant building itself. Unfortunately the actual scripting and plot were pants.

While I thought the first part of this story was a weak beginning, I had hopes for the second part lifting the game and bringing it all together. It failed. A number of people/characters die in this episode and I could have cared less about them. In fact there were at least two more that I think should have died that survived in the end. The final escapee was probably my favourite in the story, at least something better may come of that later.

Poor episode and worst of the season so far.