What about the daleks in manhattan episodes? The first was godawful, and turning it into a two parter was unforgivable. Aside from that I have to say the first episode of series one is among the worst; if I hadn't already bought the DVDs on word of mouth I doubt I'd have continued watching the series after trudging through it.
The thing about the those episodes for me is that what's bad is everything on the periphery; the core Dalek story is one of the most interesting ones ever told not just in new Who but in the whole history of the show. The whole thing with that group being allowed free thought and where it leads, that's really amazing.
It's sad that episode is then weighed down by a New York setting they didn't have the money to carry off, the bizarre inclusion of the pig mutants and some really god awful Manhattan-accenting by British/Welsh actors/extras.
But, yeah, give those episodes a pass because the story it tells about the Daleks is really fascinating. This scene is stuck in my mind as one of the best Dalek scenes ever:
Dalek Sec: We need your flesh. Bring him to me!
Dalek Thay: (gets in the way) Halt! This action contradicts the Dalek imperative.
Dalek Jast: Daleks are supreme! Humans are weak!
Dalek Sec: But there are millions of humans and only four of us. If we are supreme, why are we not victorious?
(Thay and Jast look at each other; neither can answer)
Dalek Sec: The Cult of Skaro was created by the Emperor for this very purpose - to imagine new ways of survival!
Dalek Thay: But we must remain pure!
Dalek Sec: No, Dalek Thay. Our "purity" has brought us to extinction! We must adapt to survive.
I love a lot of this stuff, and Nick Briggs gives his best Dalek performance ever in those episodes. I love that they have that scene underground where Thay and Jast huddle together (which looks amazing and bizarre, given the size and bulk of them) to question if Sec has lost it. "You have your doubts?" "Affirmative." What they eventually do to Sec for his way of thinking is really, to be honest, one of the most pure evil things they've done.
I really like it as a Dalek story for the same reason I like Asylum, because I think that a Dalek story where they're not just killing everything and there's some real drama going on (caveat: Without Davros) is really difficult to write. Parting of the Ways is better than most for this as well, as it has the whole 'Daleks gone religious' side in its plot, though it's never really finessed and is just really RTD, an atheist, putting the boot into religion in a big way. What's more scary than genocidal maniacs? RELIGIOUS genocidal maniacs.
It's much easier with the Cybermen, where there's a natural human element to them due to what they are. Evolution is more ambitious than Asylum, too, since Asylum's interesting drama comes from the human element of Amy and Rory and Clara and stuff. It's a great episode, but it's a shame the "insane Dalek" idea was never really explored; it's bigged up - the ones even the Daleks are scared of!! - and then they just end up being a bunch of normal Daleks, except dusty and slightly broken. Missed opportunity. It's just a shame about everything surrounding it. Lazlow, pig men, musical numbers. Ugh.
Anyway, the above is enough to propel it from "bad" to "ok, with things that make it a necessary watch" in my book. The Long Game and Fear Her are just shit.
Regarding 'Rose', the first episode, it was really just a product of the time and things. I challenge you to find a bad review of that episode from the actual time. It's aged poorly. All of Series 1 and a lot of Series 2 has, to be fair. The mainstream were gobbling it up like mad, the UK press was in a frenzy, it was something else. My thoughts about that episode at the time as somebody Who'd never seen Who before (but had read one of the novelizations of a third Doctor story as a kid) were "Huh, cheesy but cool", and I sort of knew through childhood osmosis what the Autons were even though I was born the year Who went off air, so I knew that was an old thing, not something new. I think Rose is a magnificent script and if you went and filmed it with the production value and budget of The Eleventh Hour it'd be an all-time great. I really believe that.
