kalleah | All the cool kids are doing it

Since all the cool kids are doing it -- my brilliant observations on Evolution of the Daleks.

Solomon actually said "Respect my authority." Apparently Helen Raynor's never watched South Park. Unfortunate. And I so liked him in the last episode. As it was ... I wasn't sorry to see him go, just sorry for Frank and the look on the Doctor's face to see the inevitable carried out.

I don't think the Doctor was bluffing. Maybe he thought there was a chance, but it wasn't his usual self-assured bravado. He assessed what odds there were and thought maybe 50-50. When Martha asked to go with him, he was pretty cold to her -- granted, he knew that she could genuinely help the people who needed medical care. He might have given her the psychic paper as part of his impromptu plan, but she was very much an afterthought. I thought she had a good right to be quite pissed off.

The Doctor actually grew to respect Sec in a way, and it was a credit to both Raynor's writing and Tennant's acting that I didn't laugh them both out of the room. His aside to Lazlo made his thought process pretty clear to me -- he was working, in a quiet way, to destroy the race that had caused so much death and chaos across time, through change rather than more killing. In a way, this solution is much more the Doctor's style than to kill, even to kill a Dalek. But, he seemed so surprised, despite his earlier Significant Looks given to the other Daleks that they would disobey Sec. This was not a big shocker to me, and I am not a genius. However, I'm also not deluding myself that the greatest enemy in all of space and time could be (somewhat) peacefully assimilated into the general culture.

I still love Tallulah. Without being bitchy about it, she put Martha quite squarely in her place about her Doctor!emo. Basically, "talk to me when you have some real problems." I did like Martha much more in this episode than I had previously, but a lot of it was feeling sorry for her, and I don't want to go there. She and Tallulah were a great team working on the blueprint puzzle, and her idea about the giant lightning-rod-cum-pig-cooker was excellent. Martha also had a beautiful moment of self-doubt and guilt over the death of the pig men, even though she didn't have a choice. Her regret was genuine and completely understandable for it.

When the hybrids were killed, I ached all over again for the Doctor. I had been reminded of the creation of the new species on New Earth and his joy at that new beginning -- and then seeing that hope eliminated all over again was truly terrible. His offer to the last Dalek standing was so .... I can't even describe. Tennant was brilliant in that scene, all physical casualness masking such a brittle interior. I got misty.

Ultimately, he's given even the Daleks, his greatest enemy, second chances, and more than one of them. And he saved Lazlo, thank God for small favors. If Lazlo had died (which I am glad he did not), I think Tallulah would have come with the Doctor and Martha. The Doctor got to have his "at least somebody lived" moment, which while not as grand and moving as the "everybody lives!" joy of The Doctor Dances, ended the episode on a somewhat optimistic note.

In summary ... This wasn't my favorite episode, but it had some good moments in it, and I had the first stirrings of some affection for Martha. I suppose I need not even say this with the audience in question, but David Tennant is a hell of an actor.

And I miss Rose.