Doctor Who-"Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks"

Though Doctor Who majorly strays from Southern American culture during the first few seasons of its current reboot, the two episodes “Daleks in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks” give a slight glimpse into British views of Southern life via the character of Frank, played by Andrew Garfield. The beauty of these episodes lies in their ability to overlook Frank’s Southern-qualities. In fact, the only designation of difference his character ever really suffers is through his horrible accent (whether that is Garfield’s fault or the director’s remains unknown). All it really adds to the story, though, is some slight comic relief during the episodes’ darker moments, which refreshingly shows that Southern people can be just as normal as other character types.

The beauty of the episodes comes from how little “other” qualities Frank possesses versus the alien onslaught that The Doctor and the other Manhattan residents face. When everything from the Daleks, age old war machines, to their race of hybrid Pig-humans is considered, Frank’s Southern accent seems hardly like anything to fret about. Frank is poor and rural, like several stereotypes we’ve explored have been, but so are the other residents of Hooverville (a makeshift town of dirt poor individuals in the venter of Central Park) in the episode. In the end of the two episodes, it is Frank that convinces his fellow townspeople to allow Laszlo, a half pig half human, to live with them. His own experience as an “other” has contributed to allowing Laszlo’s even greater “otherness” to be deemed acceptable. Considering this is a British TV show, this could very well be a statement on how cultural lines tend to be pretty solidly drawn between North and South here in the U.S. In the grander scheme of things, those designations can be pretty pointless and trivial. A human being is, after all, just a human being.  - Michael Carter