Friday, March 29, 2013

Doctor Who-Evolution Of The Daleks

                                  Confronted by the newly born hybrid Dalek Sec,the doctor is able to use the radio he reprogrammed to create a sonic burst. The doctor, Martha, Tallulah and Frank run back to Hoover Ville where they inform Solomon of what has happened. Soon the pig slaves arrive accompanied by two Daleks. They tell Solomon that he and the residents are to be exterminated. Solomon attempts to negotiate peacefully with them and is,of course exterminated for his trouble. The doctor offers his own life. Upon witnessing this, Sec orders the Daleks not to kill him and asks the doctor to join him. While in his company, after instructing Martha and Tellulah to use his psychic paper to get into the Empire State Building to investigate what the Daleks are really doing, the doctor observes as Sec reveals that he has no intention to kill anymore human beings as he has become convinced the Dalek race must return to having emotions beyond hatred and killing. Sec plans to use a solar flare to power a DNA converter to use cadavers collected for some time to create new Dalek/human hybrids to fasilite this. 

               The other two Daleks stage a mutiny over this and sabotage the equipment as Sec prepares to start the solar collector. The doctor travels to the top of the Empire State Building where this takes place with Laszlo, soon joined by Martha and Tellulah, where they tell him he has to remove the Dalekanium panels from the building in order shut it down. It temporarily knocks him out. When he awakens and the group escape the pursuing pig slaves he leaves his sonic screwdriver behind, which activates the human shells. While Lazslo is dying,the doctor along with Martha and Tellulah return to her theater where the human Daleks confront their creators along with a captive Sec. The doctor again offers himself as a sacrifice until the human Daleks reveal they will not kill without provocation. The energy of his screwdriver has infused them with time lord DNA therefore, they Daleks decide to exterminate them along with Sex even as Martha,Tellulah and a dying Laszlo escape with the doctor. After the final surviving Dalek Caan transports through time, the doctor uses the Daleks genetic laboratory to help Laszlo survive and allows him to disappear peacefully with Tellulah into the Hoover Ville before departing with Martha.

            This story concludes this two part episode that is actually very telling about how the Dalek race confronts vulnerability. Naturally because Sec is now hybridized with human DNA, he begins to see the advantages of compassion and courage that the standard Daleks were completely unable to comprehend. Sec also recognized that the Dalek's perceived advantage of having only the emotions necessary to kill was equally their greatest disadvantage to their survival as their culture naturally embraced death over life.  By somehow relating to men they were unsure of for very different reasons Martha and Tellulah make excellent companions in this story as they both try to help the doctor accomplish his mission of defeating the Daleks and helping them to somehow understand that humanity's emotionally varied nature was actually every bit to their advantage. Though his character doesn't survive to episodes end, Solomon's heartfelt and moving speech for peace between human and Dalek indicates the strong personal ties created by the enforced poverty of the Hoover Ville environment. This sad irony was why the doctor left the now malformed Lazslo, likely cast out of the rest of society in that time, there with the other residents.

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