Inspirations: Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks

The Cult of Skaro were introduced in the Series 2 finale - Army of Ghosts / Doomsday - which concluded with the quartet fleeing the Battle of Canary Wharf via an emergency temporal shift.

Daleks in Manhattan is the sequel - showing us where that time shift took them. In hindsight, it can also be considered the middle section of a Dalek Caan Trilogy.

This story is set in November 1930 (unless it is a very old newspaper which Martha finds). The location is New York City, centring on Central Park and the Empire State Building.

1931 is the actual year of the completion of the famous skyscraper, and is also the year in which Universal's film adaptation of Frankenstein was released. This proves to be one of the inspirations for this story.

Of course there was one one earlier Doctor Who story, which featured the Empire State Building and in which Frankenstein's monster made an appearance. This was 1965's The Chase.

After showing Daleks in the future and in the present day, Russell T Davies wanted to see them in a  story set in the past. He felt they had a bit of an art deco look to their design, so the period between the wars automatically came to mind.

A principal location is the city's Hooverville. Named after Herbert Hoover, President of the United States between 1929 - 1933. His term in office coincided with the Great Depression, when the economy failed and tens of thousands of men found themselves out of a job. This had the knock-on effect of rising homelessness, outstripping the cheap hostels and lodging houses, and many took to living in shanty-style temporary communities which sprang up in most of the cities. The unemployed would travel across the country to the larger urban areas to seek work. It wasn't just men but women and children as well who made up the population. Seattle's Hooverville had its own elected mayor and a governing body.

The one depicted in this story is set up in a corner of Central Park, on the site of a defunct reservoir known as the Great Lawn. New York had a second homeless community at Riverside Park.

In a leadership role in the story we have a man named Solomon. He is obviously inspired by the biblical figure who famously threatened to cut a child in half in order to identify its real mother - who would rather relinquish it than see it come to harm. The Bible story is referenced in his halving a loaf of bread and giving it to both men who have claimed it.

(This episode of King Solomon's life almost featured in Doctor Who back in 1987, as Pip & Jane Baker intended him to be one of the people abducted by the Rani in Time and the Rani).

Construction on the Empire State Building commenced in March 1930, and it was completed in May the following year. New York is known as the "Empire State", hence the name. It was the tallest building in the world until 1970 when the World Trade Centre's twin towers were completed. It has its own ZIP code.

It gained international fame and became a cultural icon thanks to its prominent role in the conclusion of the RKO film King Kong, which opened in 1933.

In The Chase, the TARDIS arrives on a viewing platform on the 102nd floor, where the travellers meet Alabama tourist Morton Dill. The Daleks are in close pursuit and arrive moments after the TARDIS has departed. It may well be that the Cult of Skaro were aware of this visit from their history computers, though their main reason for intervening in the building of the skyscraper is its great height. They want to use the lightning rod to capture a gamma radiation strike.

The imagery of a lightning strike bringing an experiment to life is where Frankenstein comes in. The 1931 Universal version, directed by James Whale and starring Colin Clive as the scientist and Boris Karloff as his creation, remains the most popular adaptation, despite its diversion from the original Mary Shelley text. Think of the Frankenstein Monster and the image that usually comes to mind first is that of the giant flat-headed figure with bolts through the neck. The make-up, originally created by Jack Pierce who devised all the classic Universal monster designs, remains trademarked to the studio (which the BBC seem to have ignored but gotten away with).

It was this version of the monster which featured in the "House of Horrors" funfair sequence in The Chase.

In the film the monster is brought to life when it is sent on a table up into the air, to be deliberately struck by lightning. This shocks the body into life. In the Daleks' laboratory we see the captured humans who are to be turned into mental Daleks lying on tables suspended in the air, and the gamma strike takes the form of a lightning strike.

The genetic experiments were also inspired by HG Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896). This had been adapted for the screen, starring Charles Laughton, as Island of Lost Souls in 1932.

The Daleks employ human-pig hybrids as servants. They have a history of using inferior species as servants and guards, going back to the Ogrons (Day of the Daleks and Frontier in Space).

RTD regularly created new monsters simply by giving humanoids the head of an animal. As well as Pig-men we had Cat People, Fly People, Fish People and Rhino People.

One other location which is significant to the story is the Majestic Theatre, where Laszlo and Tallulah work. This appears to be an off-Broadway establishment judging by its size. Any professional theatre with a capacity of between 100 - 499 seats qualified for off-Broadway status. Historically they were the larger theatres on the streets which intersected with Broadway, but did not lie on the "Great White Way" itself. (Smaller, more distant theatres are known as off-off-Broadway).

The story's director James Strong elects to film part of the song and dance routine from above. Despite the fact that there would be no camera over the stage, or anyone other than stage-hands able to look down, we see Tallulah looking upwards. This is all a homage to the Hollywood musicals of the 1930's, often based on Broadway shows - especially those choreographed by director Busby Berkeley (1895 - 1976). Among his most famous movies are 42 Street and the Gold Diggers... series (of 1933, 1935, 1937, in Paris).

His trademark was to choreograph dance routines that could be appreciated by complex moves and kaleidoscopic patterns when seen from above - something a real theatre audience would never have been able to see. The whole point of these films was to provide some fantasy and escapism in the gloomy days of the Great Depression.

Laszlo's haunting of the theatre after his conversion, leaving gifts for his beloved, is reminiscent of Gaston Laroux's The Phantom of the Opera (1910) and first filmed by Universal with Lon Chaney in 1925.

Tallulah was named after the speakeasy singer played by Jodie Foster in Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone (1976). Future companion Bonnie Langford was also amongst the cast.

Behind the scenes, RTD wanted Steven Moffat to write this story, but he declined. To appease the showrunner he agreed to write the single-part Doctor-lite story - which is how we got Blink.

Next time: Quatermass meets The League of Gentlemen...

L is for... Lem, Tasha

 

Tasha Lem was an old friend of the Doctor. It was heavily implied that they had once enjoyed a romantic relationship. He was reunited with her at the planet Trenzalore when she was Mother Superious of the Church of the Papal Mainframe. The Church had stepped in to try to maintain peace amongst the many alien races who had gathered there in response to a mysterious universe-spanning signal.

A force-field had been established to prevent any alien technology from reaching the surface, but the Doctor hid a TARDIS key under a wig to smuggle the ship down to the township of Christmas.

Tasha was a long-lived individual, and after 500 years the peace finally broke down as the Daleks defeated all the other races. When the Doctor returned to the Papal Mainframe he found that Tasha had been turned into a Dalek drone, with one of their weapons sprouting from her forehead. She could recall having been exterminated. However, such was the strength of her will that she was able to overcome the mental conditioning. She had been taught how to operate the TARDIS at some point in the past, and used it to travel to 21st Century Earth to fetch Clara Oswald to come and help the aged Doctor.

Played by: Orla Brady. Appearances: The Time of the Doctor (2013).

• Tasha Lem is River Song in all but name - an old girlfriend who can fly the TARDIS. Apparently Steven Moffat did not intend this similarity - it derived from the director and actors.
• In DWM Moffat suggested that she and Madam Kovarian had once been married.

L is for... Leicester, Earl of

The Earl of Leicester was right hand man to King Richard I - the Lionheart - during the Third Crusade. He was with his monarch at his base in the city of Jaffa when it was visited by the Doctor and his companions. Barbara was abducted by a Saracen raiding party, and Ian found himself knighted in order to represent Richard in approaching Saladin for her release. The Doctor, meanwhile, became involved in court intrigues. The King devised a plan to marry his sister Joanna to Saladin's brother Saphadin, in order to bring the war to a close. The Doctor argued with the Earl over how to end the conflict - with the Doctor favouring a peaceful resolution, and the Earl demanding conquest on the field of battle. He divulged the King's plan to Joanna, and Richard came to believe that it had been the Doctor who had done this. Leicester declined to contradict this as he wanted to undermine the Doctor.

Soon after, the Earl came to suspect the Doctor and Vicki of sorcery. They were escorted into the nearby forest to be executed, but 'Sir Ian of Jaffa' arrived back in time to save them - claiming the right to kill them himself. They fled into the TARDIS and departed - leading Leicester to believe that the sorcerers had abducted poor Sir Ian.

Played by: John Bay. Appearances: The Crusade (1965).

• Robert de Beaumont, Fourth Earl of Leicester, died in 1204 - his birthdate unrecorded. He was made Earl whilst on crusade with Richard, on the death of his father. He died without issue and his nephew, Simon de Montfort, inherited the title.
• Bay was an American. He was married to comic actress Elaine Stritch.

L is for... Leela

Companion to the Fourth Doctor. Leela was a member of the tribe of the Sevateem, who lived on an unnamed primordial planet. She was a descendant of the Mordee Expedition - colonists from Earth who crash-landed here generations ago.

Over the years the party became separated, a situation compounded by their ship's computer - Xoanon - which had been repaired by the Doctor using part of his own personality. The Survey Team evolved into the Sevateem - who lived a natural hunter-gatherer existence in the jungles - whilst the spaceship technicians became the Tesh - who remained within the vessel and maintained an ascetic existence.

Xoanon wished to conduct an experiment in eugenics with the two factions.

Leela spoke out against Xoanon, whom the tribe believed to be their god, held captive of the Tesh. For this she was sentenced to face the Test of the Horda (small flesh-eating creatures). When she hesitated from accepting this her father, Sole, took it for her and perished when he failed.

Leela was then banished into the jungle, where monsters were said to dwell. High Priest Neeva sent assassins after her. In the jungle she encountered the newly arrived Doctor, who had forgotten all about his previous visit. This had left a mark, however, as his face was now associated with the "Evil One" responsible for Xoanon's captivity.

Leela quickly came to realise that the Doctor posed no threat, and so decided to accompany him. At one point she was stabbed by a janis thorn. These plant spikes contained a deadly toxin which paralysed then killed within seconds. The Doctor was able to use discarded Mordee equipment to find an antidote. Leela employed these thorns as weapons - something which the Doctor greatly disapproved of, along with her skills with the knife and the crossbow.

After Xoanon had been repaired, Leela refused to become leader of a reunited Sevateem / Tesh society. Instead she pushed her way into the TARDIS and operated the dematerialisation circuit - joining the Doctor on his travels.

Their first destination was a bleak desert world where they encountered a mobile factory crewed by robots, with only a small humanoid command staff. Leela thought the Doctor's yo-yo was some sort of magic, which made the TARDIS travel. Over the course of their time together, she began to understand that the universe operated through science rather than magic. Leela used her hunting instincts to identify crew member Poul as concealing his true purpose on the Sandminer.

The Doctor next took Leela to Victorian London to see how her ancestors used to live, as part of his efforts to educate her. She dispensed with her usual animal skins to do appropriate period dress.

The Doctor excused her odd manners by claiming she had been found floating down the Amazon in a hat box. She swapped places with a captive of the deformed scientist Magnus Greel, and twice almost fell victim to his life-force draining machinery.

Another attempt to visit her ancestors saw Leela and the Doctor arrive on Fang Rock, a tiny island off the southern coast of England. Here she shocked the Edwardian crew and the survivors of a shipwreck by wearing male apparel. She took great pride in helping to kill the alien Rutan which had started killing everyone on the Rock. Curiosity caused her to watch the explosion of the Rutan mothership. The blast blinded her and she asked the Doctor to put her out of her misery. However, the effect was only temporary, though it did cause her eyes to change colour from brown to blue.

When the TARDIS came under attack by the Nucleus of the Swarm - an aggressive alien virus - Leela was unaffected as it was noetic, seeking out mental energy. Her lack of education meant she wasn't terribly cerebral, being more instinctive in nature. She and the Doctor were cloned and miniaturised in order to be injected into the Doctor's body to fight the Nucleus at its source. When this clone died, it passed natural antibodies into his blood stream, from which an anti-virus could be formulated. Leela was helped by Professor Marius' dog-shaped mobile computer K9 whilst the Doctor was unconscious. After the Nucleus had been defeated Marius announced that he was unable to take K9 home to Earth with him. Leela asked if it could be taken in the TARDIS. Before the Doctor could response, it entered the TARDIS by itself - just as Leela had done. K9 formed a closer bond with Leela than it did with the Doctor.

The Doctor continued to educate Leela whilst they travelled, including teaching her to read and write.

On Earth in the late 20th Century she also formed a bond with an old lady named Ma Tyler - recognising in her the 'Wise Woman' figure of her own tribal society.

On the planet Pluto she was captured by the authorities and sentenced to be steamed to death, but was rescued by the Doctor and his new allies. Leela as now using her knife to wound and disable enemies, rather than to kill, and she had dispensed with the janis thorns after their trip to Victorian London.

Leela was shocked one day to find the Doctor seemingly acting against her, after the TARDIS had rendezvoused with an alien spaceship. They then travelled to Gallifrey where the Doctor assumed the Presidency of the High Council. He had Leela ejected from the Capitol. In the wilderness she found a group of Gallifreyans who had rejected Time Lord society, and helped them form an army to retake the Capitol from Vardan invaders - and later Sontaran troops. The Doctor had been forced to send her away to stop the Vardans reading her mind. During the battle she met and fell in love with Andred, Commander of the Chancellery Guard. When it came time for the Doctor to depart, she elected to stay behind and marry Andred - and K9 announced that it would also be staying to look after her.

Leela was mentioned by the Doctor when he visited Gallifrey in his Fifth incarnation, at the time of the Omega crisis, though she was not seen in the Capitol at that time. Nor was she seen on the occasion when the five incarnations of the Doctor were transported to the Death Zone. 

When the Doctor was having his memories drained by the Daleks in order to create a replicant of him, he failed to imagine Leela amongst his companions. This may have been deliberate as he knew her to be on Gallifrey and might be able to identify and stop the fake Doctor had the Dalek plan succeeded. 

We do not know what - if any - her role was in the Last Great Time War, and with Gallifrey now destroyed by the Master, her ultimate fate is unknown.

Played by: Louise Jameson. Appearances: The Face of Evil (1977) to The Invasion of Time (1978).

• Initially, writer Chris Boucher actually developed the male character of Tomas to fulfil the companion role in The Face of Evil rather than Leela.
• Intended for one story only, it was decided to keep her until the end of the season, when a new Victorian character might replace her. 
• Keeping her on as the regular companion led to a dispute between Boucher and the production team over payments for the character. Normally the companion was developed by the production team and belonged to them, but she had wholly come out of a story and so belonged to its writer.
• She was named after the Palestinian hijacker Laila Khaled.
• Unhappy with having to wear red contact lenses to make her eyes appear brown (her name meaning "dark eyed beauty") Jameson insisted on ditching these as a condition for staying on for Season 15 - hence the incident at the conclusion to Horror of Fang Rock.
• Presumably the TARDIS was itself responsible for dematerialising with Leela on board in The Face of Evil. There is no way she could have found the right control straight away. The ship might help select companions when the Doctor is travelling alone.
• The production team considered killing Leela off in The Sun Makers.
• Graham Williams later claimed that her departure in The Invasion of Time was so poorly handled because he was very annoyed with Jameson for turning down another season.
• In order to ease viewers through the departure of Tom Baker, producer JNT asked Lis Sladen to return as Sarah Jane Smith. When she declined he then asked Jameson to reprise Leela. She also declined, but later admitted that she regretted this decision.
• Leela was eventually seen again - in Dimensions in Time, though it is actually Romana looking like Leela, or something...
• Leela has continued to be performed by Jameson on audio with Big Finish, in Fourth Doctor adventures as well as the Gallifrey spin-off.

L is for... Lee (2)

 

Lee Clayton lived in the city of Gloucester with his wife Ruth. He had a rival in love in the form of the local café owner Allan, who was obsessed with proving Lee unworthy of Ruth's affections.

Allan's dosier did not contain the truth about Lee, however. He was actually the companion to the Doctor - an incarnation whose existence had been hidden from later versions due to her involvement with the shady Division. This was a Gallifreyan organisation which actively intervened in the affairs of other races. "Ruth" had used a Chameleon Arch to hide her own identity from herself after fleeing the Division. Lee was aware of her true identity and helped protect her. 

The Division finally tracked her down and operative Gat and a platoon of Judoon were sent to capture her. Lee provided a diversion to allow his wife to escape in the company of the 13th Doctor. Gat then executed Lee.

Played by: Neil Stuke. Appearances: Fugitive of the Judoon (2020).

L is for... Lee (1)

Lee McAvoy was a young man who had been visiting the Library planet when it fell under quarantine. This was due to an attack by the microscopic flesh-eating Vashta Nerada. Those unable to get off the planet were teleported into the central processing unit of the Library's mainframe computer, CAL. Here they lived an artificial life in an AI environment, looked after by the computer's maintenance system, which appeared in personalised form as 'Dr Moon'. The Doctor's companion Donna Noble was accidentally transported into this AI realm and came under the care of Dr Moon. He introduced her to Lee, who was socially awkward and spoke with a pronounced stammer. The pair fell in love and married, and became parents to a boy and a girl. Lee's stammer came under control as he settled down.

The Doctor arranged a truce with the Vashta Nerada to allow the trapped people to be reconstituted and leave the planet. Donna hoped to meet the real Lee. He in turn spotted her, recalling their time together within CAL, but his stammer prevented him from calling out to her. He teleported away before he had a chance to be reunited.

Played by: Jason Pitt. Appearances: Forest of the Dead (2008).

L is for... Leandro

 

Leandro was an inhabitant of the planet Delta Leonis. He was a bipedal being with lionesque features. His eyes glowed in the dark, and he was also capable of breathing fire.

He crash-landed on Earth in 1651 and befriended Lady Me - the assumed identity of the immortal Viking woman known as Ashildr. She was a local landowner now. Leandro claimed to have escaped the persecution of his people, fleeing through a portal generated by a gem called the Eyes of Hades. He had lost this in the crash and wanted Me to help him retrieve it from a rich neighbour who had found and gifted it to his wife.

An attempt to waylay the neighbour's coach, with Me posing as Highwayman "The Nightmare", failed when the Doctor intervened. He was tracking the gem's power signature.

Later, Me and the Doctor burgled the neighbour's mansion and retrieved the Eyes. To power it, someone's lifeforce was needed, and a fellow Highwayman named Sam Swift was selected. He was to be hanged at Tyburn.

Me discovered that she had been tricked by Leandro. He was really the advance scout of a Leonian invasion force, poised to come through the portal. When Me saved Sam's life, the portal began to close - and the furious Leonians killed Leandro for his failure.

Played by: Ariyon Bakare. Appearances: The Woman Who Lived (2015).

• Bakare plays the villainous Lord Carlo Boreal in the His Dark Materials serials, and portrayed Ligur, the Duke of Hell, in the first season of Good Omens.
• One of the Leandro make-ups was on display at the Doctor Who Festival in November 2015: