Alas, having harboured high hopes for this seasons Dalek two-parter, ‘Daleks in Manhattan‘ and ‘Evolution of the Daleks‘ proved woefully misguided. With a promising premise of Depression New York, squealing pig slaves, weird experiments and desperate Daleks, the episodes dissolved into something far less entertaining, far less fitting and much less satisfying overall.

The sacrifice of Dalek Sec to advance the development of the Dalek species ultimately ended in a third-rate Frankenstein/King Kong crossover, with the freakish hybrid chained like the great ape and paraded for the entertainment of the masses for no greater reason than a chance target. Quite how two Daleks can aim at the Doctor and yet hit someone several metres nearer instead beggars belief. Did they lose the Time War due to myopic gunnery?

Given the physical damage suffered by the fourth Doctor falling from a tracking station, it seems odd that the lightning strike that riddled the 10th Doctor’s body with tens of thousands of volts of electricity did not trigger regeneration. Has he become impervious to harm like the doom-laden Captain Jack?

In the end, despite the Doctor’s surprise the Daleks had had enough power to complete one emergency temporal escape, Dalek Caan shifted out of the 1930s to Davros-knows-where… to ensure the continued survival of the species and some future machinations for the Doctor to foil.

While Dalek stories have misfired in the past, anyone who watched ‘Alien: Resurrection‘ should have known that this could only go wrong if handled badly… and guess what? It didn’t go so well. Hopes hang on the rest of the season to make up for this unfortunate two-week hiccup.