S03E04: 'Daleks in Manhattan'

Occasionally, the new series of Doctor Who has struggled with the pacing of the episodes and the lacklustre 'Daleks in Manhattan' is a perfect example. The sheer burden of expectation associated with Dalek stories doesn't help our appreciation, but the flaws are glaring.

The episode feels very two-paced and jarringly uneven. The scenes involving the Daleks and their fiendish plans are mostly absorbing and contain a brave new direction with their self-analysis and dialogue. The cliffhanger is also particularly stunning thanks to the wonderfully designed Dalek Sec/human hybrid.

However, away from their experimentation, The Doctor and Martha's exploration of a New York in the midst of the Great Depression is rather tedious and feels dragged out. The sequences in and around the sewers and the theatre feel rather dragged out and inconsequential and leave us itching for the Daleks to come back on screen.

The character of Tallulah is simply painful. It's a nice, quaint idea to have a showgirl embroiled in the extraterrestrial plot, but she serves no real purpose apart from spluttering highly contrived dialogue and displaying irritating traits. At one point near the end of the episode there's a scene of her running to and fro between various sewer tunnels in a panic before unleashing a yelp. If ever someone was deserving of the extermination effect it's her. Fingers crossed for next week.

The tension and menace so powerfully created by Joe Ahearne in his Dalek episodes with Christopher Eccleston's Doctor is strangely lacking here under the direction of James Strong. The first appearance of the iconic monster, emerging from an Empire State Building lift, is distinctly anticlimactic despite the presence of Murray Gold's leitmotif. Breaking down the mise-en-scene might explain why everything feels so underwhelming. For Strong seems to cut from tension building close-ups and gliding camerawork to tension dissipating long shots that totally remove you from involvement. Very bizarre creative choice.

It is slightly harsh to judge this episode in isolation. Last year's 'Rise of the Cybermen' was a fairly stale and meandering affair, but set the foundation for the phenomenal 'Age of Steel' the following week. Once the premise and plot explanation is out of the way then the battles and intrigues can really kick off. So the real merits of this first episode will come to the fore once 'Evolution of the Daleks' hits our screens.