Dalek

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Doctor Who race
A Dalek from the 2005 series
Daleks
Type	Mutants in mechanical shells
Affiliated with	Dalek Empire
Homeworld	Skaro
First appearance	The Daleks

The Daleks (pronounced "DAH-lecks"; IPA: /'dɑːlɛks/) are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A Dalek is a grotesque mutated organism integrated with a tank-like mechanical casing made of 'polycarbide'. The resulting creatures are a pitiless race bent on universal conquest and domination. They are also, collectively, the greatest alien adversaries of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Their most infamous catchphrase is "EX-TER-MI-NATE!", with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic electronic voice (play sample (help·info)).

The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation and BBC designer Raymond Cusick and were introduced in December 1963 in the second Doctor Who serial.^[1] They became an immediate hit with viewers, featuring in many subsequent serials and two 1960s motion pictures. They have become synonymous with Doctor Who, and their behaviour and catchphrases are part of British popular culture. "Hiding behind the sofa whenever the Daleks appear" has even been cited as an essential element of British cultural identity, along with Bovril and afternoon tea.^[2]

The word "Dalek" has entered the Oxford English Dictionary^[3] and other major dictionaries; the Collins Dictionary defines it rather broadly as "any of a set of fictional robot-like creations that are aggressive, mobile, and produce rasping staccato speech".^[4] It is also a trademark, having first been registered by the BBC in 1964 to protect its lucrative range of Dalek merchandise.

The term is sometimes used metaphorically to describe people, usually figures of authority, who act like robots unable to break from their programming. John Birt, the Director-General of the BBC from 1992 to 2000, was publicly called a "croak-voiced Dalek" by playwright Dennis Potter in the MacTaggart Lecture at the 1993 Edinburgh Television Festival.^[5] The Daleks have appeared on a postage stamp celebrating British popular culture in 1999, photographed by Lord Snowdon.^[6]

Contents 1 Physical characteristics 1.1 Costume details 1.1.1 Movement 1.1.2 Voices 1.1.3 Construction 2 History 2.1 Conceptual history 2.2 History within the show 3 Dalek culture 4 Licensed appearances 5 Other appearances 5.1 Non-Doctor Who television and film 5.2 Parodies 5.3 Politics 5.4 Music 5.5 Pornography 6 Merchandising 6.1 Toys 6.2 Computer games 7 Other major appearances 7.1 Stage plays 7.2 Original novels 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Physical characteristics

Externally, Daleks resemble human-sized salt or pepper shakers around five to six feet (152 to 183 cm) tall, with a single mechanical eyestalk mounted on a rotating dome, a gunstalk containing a projected energy weapon (or "death ray"), and a telescoping robot arm. Usually, the arm is fitted with a device for manipulation that resembles a sink plunger, but Daleks have been shown with arms that end in a tray, a mechanical claw, or other specialised equipment like flamethrowers and blowtorches. Daleks have used their plunger-like manipulator arms to interface with technology,^[7] to kill a man by crushing his skull^[7] and to extract the brainwaves from a man's head, killing him in the process.^[8] Dalek casings are made of a bonded polycarbide material that was dubbed dalekanium by a human in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.^[9][10]

The lower half of a Dalek's shell is covered with many hemispherical protrusions or "Dalek bumps". These are described as "sense globes" or sensors in The Doctor Who Technical Manual by Mark Harris (which is of uncertain canonicity).^[11] However, in the 2005 series episode Dalek, they are part of a self-destruct system.^[7] The casings are vulnerable to "bastic"-headed bullets, and when breached tend to explode spectacularly.^[12]

The creatures inside the "travel machines" are depicted as soft and repulsive in appearance, and still vicious even without their mechanical armour. The first glimpse of the mutant in The Daleks was a claw peeking out from under a coat after it had been removed from the machine.^[13] The actual appearance of the mutant has varied, but in most cases it is an octopus-like multi-tentacled creature. The Doctor described the Daleks as "little green blobs in bonded polycarbide armour" in Remembrance of the Daleks, where a Dalek mutant was seen to have a bionically augmented claw.^[14] In Resurrection of the Daleks a Dalek creature, separated from its casing, attacks and severely injures a human soldier.^[15]

However, as the creature inside is rarely seen on screen, the misconception exists that Daleks are wholly mechanical robots.^[16] (The series itself has even made this mistake on occasion.^[17]) The interdependence of biological and mechanical components makes the Daleks a type of cyborg. The Ninth Doctor, in Dalek, described the Dalek as a genius: it could run through an electronic lock's billion combinations in seconds and download all of the information on the internet into its memory, showing the union of the biological and mechanical components.^[7]

The voice of a Dalek is electronic; the Dalek creature is apparently unable to make much more than squeaking sounds when out of its casing. Once the mutant is removed, the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids, as seen in The Daleks,^[13] The Space Museum^[18] and Planet of the Daleks.^[19] In The Daleks, Ian Chesterton disguises himself by hiding in a Dalek shell, which alters his voice to sound like that of a Dalek.^[13]

Daleks also have a radio communicator built into their shells, and emit an alarm to summon other nearby Daleks if the casing is opened from outside. The Dalek's eyepiece is its most vulnerable spot, and impairing its vision often leads to a blind firing of its weapon. On one occasion they were shown to be susceptible to extreme cold (Planet of the Daleks).^[20]

For many years, it was thought that due to their gliding motion Daleks were unable to tackle stairs. A cartoon from Punch pictured a group of Daleks at the foot of a flight of stairs with the caption, "Well, this certainly buggers our plan to conquer the Universe".^[21] In a scene from the serial Destiny of the Daleks, the Doctor and companions escape from Dalek pursuers by climbing into a ceiling duct. The Fourth Doctor calls down, "If you're supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don't you try climbing after us? Bye bye!"^[22] The Daleks generally make up for their lack of mobility with overwhelming firepower. A joke among Doctor Who fans goes, "Real Daleks don't climb stairs; they level the building."^[23][24]

In The Dalek Invasion of Earth a Dalek emerges from the waters of the River Thames, indicating that they are amphibious to a degree.^[25] Remembrance of the Daleks showed that they can hover using a limited antigravity capability^[26] — first implied in earlier serials such as The Chase (1965) and Revelation of the Daleks — but their awkward forms still limit their mobility in tight quarters. Despite this, journalists covering the series frequently refer to the Daleks' supposed inability to climb stairs; characters escaping up a flight of stairs in the episode Dalek made the same joke, and were shocked when the Dalek began to hover up the stairs.^[7]

The various appearances of the Daleks in the new series have featured Daleks hovering and flying using an energy thruster, with The Parting of the Ways showing them flying through the vacuum of space.^[27] In the Dalek episode, the Dalek said "Elevate" before elevating, in the same way it would say "Exterminate" before exterminating.^[7]

[edit] Costume details

The non-humanoid shape of the Dalek did much to enhance the creatures' sense of menace. A lack of familiar reference points differentiated them from the traditional "bug-eyed monster" of science fiction, which Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman had wanted the show to avoid.^[28] The unsettling form of the Daleks, coupled with their alien voices, made many believe that the props were wholly mechanical and operated by remote control.^[29]

The Daleks were actually controlled from inside by short operators^[30] who had to manipulate their eyestalks, domes and arms, as well as flashing the lights on their heads in sync with the actors supplying their voices. The Dalek cases were built in two pieces; an operator would step into the lower section, and then the top would be secured. The operators looked out between the circular louvres just beneath the dome that were lined with mesh to conceal their faces.^[30]

In addition to being hot and cramped, the Dalek casings also muffled external sounds, making it difficult for the operators to hear the director's commands or studio dialogue. The top sections were also too heavy to lift from the inside, which meant that the operators could be trapped inside if the stagehands forgot to release them. John Scott Martin, a Dalek operator from the original series, said that Dalek operation was a challenge: "You had to have about six hands: one to do the eyestalk, one to do the lights, one for the gun, another for the smoke canister underneath, yet another for the sink plunger. If you were related to an octopus then it helped."^[31]

The Dalek cases created for Doctor Who's 21st-century revival do not differ significantly from the original series' Daleks, except for an expanded base, a glowing eyepiece, an all-over metallic brass finish and ear-bulbs that resemble the movie versions. The new prop made its on-screen debut in the 2005 episode Dalek.

[edit] Movement

Early versions of the Daleks were rolled around on nylon castors or propelled by wheels connected to hand cranks by bicycle chains. Although castors were adequate for the Daleks' debut serial, which was shot entirely at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios, for The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Terry Nation wanted the Daleks to take to the streets of London for location filming. To enable the Daleks to travel smoothly on location, designer Spencer Chapman built the new Dalek shells around miniature tricycles with sturdier wheels; to hide the wheels, the base of the costume was deepened with enlarged fenders.^[32] The bumpy flagstones of Central London caused the Daleks to rattle as they moved and it was not possible to remove this noise from the final soundtrack. A small radar dish was added to the rear of the prop's casing to explain why these Daleks, unlike the ones in their first serial, were not dependent on static electricity drawn from the floors of the Dalek city for their motive power.^[31]

Later versions of the prop had more efficient wheels and were simply propelled by the operators' feet, but they remained so heavy that when going up ramps they often had to be pushed by stagehands out of camera shot. The difficulty of operating all the prop's parts at once contributed to the occasionally jerky movements of the Dalek.^[31] The latest model of the costume still has a human operator within, but the movement of the dome and eyestalk is now remotely controlled so that the operator can concentrate on the smooth movement of the Dalek and its arms.^[33]

[edit] Voices

The staccato delivery and harsh tone of the Dalek voice were initially developed by voice actors Peter Hawkins and David Graham, who would vary the pitch and speed of the lines according to the emotion needed. Their voices were further processed electronically by Brian Hodgson at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Although the exact sound-processing devices used have varied, the original 1963 effect used EQ to boost the mid-range of the actor's voice, then subjected it to ring modulation with a 30 Hz sine wave. The distinctive harsh grating vocal timbre this produced has remained the pattern for all Dalek voices since. Another notable voice actor for the Daleks was Roy Skelton.^[34]

Since 2005, the Dalek voice in the television series has been provided by Nicholas Briggs, speaking into a microphone connected to a voice modulator.^[35] Briggs has also done Dalek and other alien voices for audio plays, and voiced the Cybermen for the 2006 series.

[edit] Construction

Manufacturing the props was expensive. In scenes where many Daleks had to appear, some of them would be represented by wooden replicas (Destiny of the Daleks^[36]) or, in the early black and white episodes, life-size photographic enlargements (The Dalek Invasion of Earth^[37][9] and The Power of the Daleks^[38][39]). In stories involving armies of Daleks, the BBC effects team even turned to using commercially-available toy Daleks, manufactured by Louis Marx & Co. A typical example of such use can be observed in Planet of the Daleks.^[20] Judicious editing techniques also made it look like there were more Dalek props than were actually available, and continue to be used to the present day, such as using split screen in The Parting of the Ways.^[27]

Four fully functioning props were commissioned for the first serial, constructed from BBC plans by Shawcraft Models;^[40] these became known in fan circles as "Mk I Daleks". Shawcraft were also commissioned to construct approximately twenty Daleks for the two Dalek movies in 1965 and 1966 (see below). Some of these props from the movies filtered back to the BBC and were seen in the televised serials, notably in The Chase, which was aired before the first movie's debut.^[41] The remaining props not bought by the BBC were either donated to charity or given away as prizes in competitions.^[42]

The BBC's own Dalek props were reused several times, but eventually years of storage and repainting took their toll. By the time of the Sixth Doctor's Revelation of the Daleks, the props were manufactured out of fibreglass, and were lighter and more affordable to construct than their predecessors.^[43] These Daleks were slightly bulkier in appearance around the mid-shoulder section, and also had a slightly redesigned base which was more vertical at the back. Minor changes were made to the design thanks to these new methods of construction, including alterations to the lower skirting as well as the mid-shoulder section incorporating the arm boxes, which were now one single unit, with the vertical bands encircling the casing also included in the fibreglass mould.^[43]

These were repainted in grey for the Seventh Doctor serial Remembrance of the Daleks and designated as "Renegade Daleks"; another redesign, painted in white and gold, became the "Imperial Dalek" faction.^[44]

[edit] History

[edit] Conceptual history

Wishing to create an alien creature that did not look like a "man in a suit", Terry Nation stated in his script for the first Dalek serial that the Dalek should have no legs.^[45] He was also inspired by a performance by the Georgian State Ballet, in which dancers in long skirts appeared to glide across the stage.^[45] For many of the shows, the Daleks were "played" by retired ballet dancers wearing black socks while sitting inside the Dalek.^[29] Raymond Cusick became designer of the Daleks when Ridley Scott, then a designer for the BBC, proved unavailable after having been assigned to their debut serial.^[46] An account in Jeremy Bentham's Doctor Who — The Early Years (1986) says that after Nation wrote the script, Cusick was given only an hour to come up with the design for the Daleks, and was inspired in his initial sketches by a pepper shaker on a table.^[47] However, Cusick himself states that he based it on a man seated in a chair, and only used the pepper shaker to demonstrate how it might move.^[48]

In 1964, Nation told a Daily Mirror reporter that the name came from a volume of a dictionary or encyclopedia, the spine of which read "Dal - Lek".^[49] He later admitted that he had made this up as a reply to a question by a journalist and that anyone who checked out his story would have found him out.^[49] The name had in reality simply rolled off his typewriter.^[50] Later, Nation was pleasantly surprised to discover that in Serbo-Croatian the word "dalek" means "far", or "distant".^[51] Other Slavonic languages have similar words for "far", such as the Russian далеко (daleko). The Cyrillic letter Д, or "D", coincidentally also resembles a Dalek.

Nation grew up during World War II, and remembered the fear caused by German bombings. He consciously based the Daleks on the Nazis, conceiving the species as faceless, authoritarian figures dedicated to conquest and complete conformity.^[52] The allusion is most obvious in the Dalek stories penned by Nation, in particular The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) and Genesis of the Daleks (1975).^[53][54][55]

Prior to writing the first Dalek serial, Nation was chief scriptwriter for comedian Tony Hancock. The two fell out and Nation either resigned or was fired.^[45][49][56] When Hancock left the BBC, he worked on several series proposals, one of which was called From Plip to Plop, a comedic history of the world which would have ended with a nuclear apocalypse, the survivors being reduced to living in dustbin-like robot casings and eating radiation to stay alive. According to biographer Cliff Goodwin, when Hancock saw the Daleks he allegedly shouted at the screen, "That bloody Nation — he's stolen my robots!"^[57]

The first Dalek serial is called, variously, The Survivors (the pre-production title), The Mutants (its official title at the time of production and broadcast, later taken by a second, unrelated Doctor Who story), Beyond the Sun, The Dead Planet, or simply The Daleks. (The naming of early Doctor Who stories is complex and sometimes controversial.)^[58]

The instant appeal of the Daleks caught the BBC off guard,^[49] and transformed Doctor Who from a Saturday tea-time children's educational programme to a must-watch national phenomenon. Children were alternately frightened and fascinated by the alien look of the monsters, and the Doctor Who production office was inundated by letters and calls asking about the creatures. Newspaper articles focused attention on the series and the Daleks, further enhancing their popularity.^[29]

Nation jointly owned the intellectual property rights to the Daleks with the BBC, and the money-making concept proved nearly impossible to sell to anyone else; he was dependent on the BBC wanting to produce stories featuring the creatures.^[59] Despite fans' adoration, the Daleks were clearly associated with Doctor Who and several attempts to market the Daleks outside of the series were unsuccessful.^[60][61] Since Nation's death in 1997, his share of the rights now belong to his estate and are administered by his former agent, Tim Hancock.^[62]

Early plans for what eventually became the 1996 Doctor Who television movie included radically redesigned Daleks whose cases unfolded like spiders' legs.^[63] The concept for these "Spider Daleks" was abandoned, but picked up again in several Doctor Who spin-offs.

When the new series was announced, many fans hoped the Daleks would return once more to the programme.^[64][65] After much negotiation between the BBC and the Nation estate (which at one point appeared to completely break down), an agreement was reached. According to media reports, the initial disagreement was due to the Nation estate demanding levels of creative control over the Daleks' appearances and scripts that were unacceptable to the BBC.^[66] Talks between Tim Hancock and the BBC progressed more productively than had been expected, and in August 2004 an agreement was reached for the Daleks' appearance in the 2005 series.^[62]

[edit] History within the show

Main article: History of the Daleks

Dalek in-universe history has seen many retroactive changes, which have caused continuity problems.^[67] As is common in long-running series, Dalek backstories were not fully mapped out and were the product of many different writers.

When the Daleks first appeared in The Daleks, they were presented as the descendants of the Dals, mutated after a brief nuclear war between the Dal and Thal races.^[68] However, in 1975, Terry Nation revised the Daleks' origins in Genesis of the Daleks, where the Dals were now called Kaleds (an anagram of Dalek), and the Dalek design was attributed to one man, the crippled Kaled chief scientist and evil genius, Davros.^[69]

Also, instead of a short nuclear exchange, the Kaled-Thal war was portrayed as a thousand-year-long war of attrition, fought with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons causing widespread mutations among the Kaled race. Davros experimented on living Kaled cells to find the ultimate mutated form of the Kaled species and placed the subjects in tank-like "travel machines" whose design was based on his own life-support chair.

Genesis of the Daleks marked a new era for the depiction of the species, with most of their previous history either forgotten or barely referred to again.^[70] Future stories in the original Doctor Who series, which followed a rough story arc,^[71] would also focus more on Davros, much to the dissatisfaction of some fans who felt that the Daleks should take centre stage,^[50] rather than merely becoming minions of their creator.

Davros made his last televised appearance in Remembrance of the Daleks. This serial also marked the last on-screen appearance of the Daleks until 2005, save for charity specials like Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death and the use of Dalek voices in the 1996 television movie.

A single Dalek returned in Dalek, written by Robert Shearman, which was broadcast on BBC One on 30 April 2005. This new Dalek exhibited abilities not seen before, including a swivelling mid-section that allowed it a 360-degree field of fire and a force field that disintegrated bullets before they struck (in The Parting of the Ways it would be shown that concentrated gunfire on a single point of the force field could penetrate it). In addition to the ability to fly, the new Dalek was also able to regenerate by absorbing electrical power and the "DNA of a time traveller".^[7] (The later story Doomsday suggested that the Dalek was absorbing not DNA but a form of energy which time travellers' bodies absorb.)^[8] The Dalek's "plunger" manipulator arm was able to crush a man's skull, in addition to the technology-interfacing abilities shown by earlier models. A more sophisticated model of the Dalek mutant was also shown. This Dalek appeared to be the sole survivor of a Time War (apart from the Doctor) that had destroyed both the Daleks and the Time Lords.^[7]

Some other Daleks did survive, however. The Dalek Emperor returned at the end of the 2005 series, having rebuilt the Dalek race with human subjects; it saw itself as a god, and the new Daleks were shown worshipping it. These Daleks and their fleet were reduced to atoms in The Parting of the Ways.^[27]

The 2006 series finale saw another squad of Daleks, known as the Cult of Skaro, led by a black Dalek named "Dalek Sec" that had survived the Time War by escaping into the Void between dimensions. They emerged from a Void Ship together with the Genesis Ark, a Time Lord prison ship containing millions of Daleks. The breach this created was exploited by the Cybermen from a parallel world to invade Earth, and led to war between the two sides (viewed as 'pest control' by the Daleks). Eventually, the Tenth Doctor caused both factions to be sucked back into the Void, but Sec was seen "temporally shifting" away and remains unaccounted for (Doomsday).^[8] The Series 3 teaser trailer at the end of The Runaway Bride revealed that Sec will return in the 2007 series.^[72] The two-part story will be set in 1930 New York; the first part is titled Daleks in Manhattan, the second Evolution of the Daleks.

[edit] Dalek culture

Daleks have little to no individual personalities,^[8] ostensibly no emotions outside hatred,^[7] and a strict command structure, conditioned to obey superior orders.^[73] The fundamental feature of Dalek culture and psychology is an unquestioned belief in the superiority of the Dalek race^[73] and their default directive is to destroy all non-Dalek lifeforms.^[7] Other species are either to be exterminated immediately, or enslaved and then exterminated later once they are no longer necessary.^[74]

The Dalek obsession with their own superiority is illustrated by the schism between the Renegade and Imperial Daleks seen in Remembrance of the Daleks: the two factions consider the other to be a perversion despite the relatively minor differences between them.^[75] This intolerance of any "contamination" within themselves is also shown in Dalek,^[7] The Evil of the Daleks^[73] and in the Big Finish Productions audio play The Mutant Phase.^[76]

This superiority complex is the basis of Dalek ruthlessness and lack of compassion.^[73][7] It is nearly impossible to negotiate or reason with a Dalek, a single-mindedness that makes them dangerous and not to be underestimated.^[7] However, their reliance on logic and machinery is also a weakness that they recognise;^[36][75] the Daleks use non-Dalek species as agents to compensate for these shortcomings.^[73][74][75] Daleks have occasionally made alliances with other species, but have no compunction about betraying their allies when they are no longer useful to the Dalek cause.^[77]

In The Parting of the Ways, the Daleks that were resurrected through the manipulation and mutation of human genetic material by the Dalek Emperor were religious fanatics that worshipped their Emperor as their god. The Doctor theorised that these Daleks were also insane due to self-loathing, as they had been created from human genetic material.^[27] He also noted that, prior to this encounter, no Dalek had a conception of blasphemy, as they had no religion or tolerance for it. The secret order of Daleks, above and beyond the Emperor, known as "The Cult of Skaro" in the Doomsday episode, included Dalek Jast, Dalek Caan, Dalek Thay, and their leader, the black Dalek, Dalek Sec. The Tenth Doctor noted that these Daleks were unique in their culture, granted the right to bear names that set them apart from the other Daleks.

Although the Daleks are well known for their disregard of due process, there have been two enemies that they have taken back to Skaro for a "trial", rather than immediately killed; the first was their creator, Davros, in Revelation of the Daleks,^[78] and the second was the renegade Time Lord known as the Master in the 1996 television movie.^[79] Neither trial occurred on-screen, so it is not clear what was involved. The reasons for the Master's trial, and why the Doctor would be asked to retrieve the Master's remains, have never been explained on screen; the Doctor Who Annual 2006 implies that the trial may have been due to a treaty signed between the Time Lords and the Daleks.^[80] The framing device for the I, Davros audio plays, is a Dalek trial to determine if Davros should be the Daleks' leader once more.^[81]

The spin-off novels contain several tongue-in-cheek mentions of Dalek poetry (and an anecdote about an opera based upon it, which was lost to posterity when the entire cast was exterminated on opening night). Two stanzas are given in the novel The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch.^[82] In an alternate timeline portrayed in Big Finish Productions audio adventure The Time of the Daleks, the Daleks show a fondness for the works of Shakespeare.^[83]

Because the Doctor has defeated the Daleks so often, he has become a bogeyman figure in Dalek culture, and the mention of his name causes the Daleks concern. They have standing orders to capture or exterminate the Doctor on sight. They are occasionally able to identify him despite his regenerations. In the comic strips and novels the Daleks know the Doctor as the "Ka Faraq Gatri": the "Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds" (this was first established in the novelisation of Remembrance of the Daleks by Ben Aaronovitch).^[84] In The Parting of the Ways, the Doctor says that the Daleks call him "The Oncoming Storm"^[27] — this name was used by the Draconians (whose word for it is "Karshtakavaar") to refer to the Doctor in the Virgin New Adventures novel Love and War by Paul Cornell.^[85]

The modern Doctor has come to view the Daleks as completely evil and unworthy of trust or compassion. This contrasts with some of the Doctor's earlier dealings with the Daleks: the Second Doctor attempted to instill a "human factor" in Daleks in The Evil of the Daleks^[73] and the Fourth Doctor hesitated when presented with the opportunity to destroy the Daleks at the point of their creation in Genesis of the Daleks.^[69] The Ninth Doctor made a venomous outburst in Dalek, leading the lone mutant in that episode to observe that the Doctor "would make a good Dalek."^[7]

This almost certainly have much to do with the eradication of the Doctor's people, the Timelords, in the Time War, a war mainly between the them and the Daleks.

[edit] Licensed appearances

Two Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing featured the Daleks as the main villains: Dr. Who and the Daleks, and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD, based on the television serials The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, respectively. However, the movies were not straight remakes. Cushing's Doctor is not an alien, but a human inventor, and is literally named "Doctor Who". The movies used brand new Dalek props, based closely on the original design but with a wider range of colours. Originally, the movie Daleks were supposed to shoot jets of flame, but this was thought to be too graphic for children, so their weapons emitted jets of deadly vapour instead.

Nation also authorised the publication of the comic strip The Daleks in the comic TV Century 21 in 1965.^[86] The one-page strip (written by David Whitaker but credited to Nation) featured the Daleks as protagonists and "heroes", and continued for two years, from their creation of the mechanised Daleks by the humanoid Dalek scientist, Yarvelling, to their eventual discovery in the ruins of a crashed space-liner of the co-ordinates for Earth, which they proposed to invade. Although much of the material in these strips directly contradicted what was shown on television later, some concepts like the Daleks using humanoid duplicates and the design of the Dalek Emperor did show up later on in the programme. In 1994, the UK arm of Marvel Comics reprinted all the TV 21 strips in a collected edition titled The Dalek Chronicles.

At the same time, a Doctor Who strip was also being published in TV Comic. Initially, the strip did not have the rights to use the Daleks, so the First Doctor battled the "Trods" instead, cone-shaped robotic creatures that ran on static electricity that were obviously based on the Daleks. By the time the Second Doctor appeared in the strip in 1967 the rights issues had been resolved, and the Daleks began making appearances starting in The Trodos Ambush (TVC #788-#791), where they massacred the Trods. The Daleks also made appearances in the Third Doctor-era Dr. Who comic strip that featured in the combined Countdown/TV Action comic during the early 1970s.^[87]

Beginning in 1979, Marvel UK published Doctor Who Magazine, which included comic strip stories in its pages. The Doctor occasionally fought the Daleks in the main DWM strip, and a new nemesis was introduced in a recurring back-up strip: Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer. Daak was a convicted criminal in the 25th Century who was given the choice between execution and being sent on a suicide mission against the Daleks. He chose the latter and, when the woman he loved was killed by the Daleks, made it his life's purpose to kill every one of the creatures he came across.

The Daleks have also appeared in the Dalek Empire series of audio plays by Big Finish Productions. Three mini-series, totalling 14 CDs, have so far been produced; these saw the return of the original Dalek Emperor. The Daleks have also returned to bedevil the Doctor in Big Finish's Doctor Who line of audio plays and Bernice Summerfield in Death and the Daleks.

[edit] Other appearances

[edit] Non-Doctor Who television and film

Dalek toys are seen in a department store in "Death at Bargain Prices", a 1965 episode of the fantasy/thriller series The Avengers, which like Doctor Who was created by Sydney Newman, although broadcast on the rival ITV network.^[88]

In the comic television documentary Red Dwarf A-Z, two Daleks are shown (under "E" for "Exterminate") arguing that all Earth television is human propaganda, and the works more commonly attributed to William Shakespeare and Ludwig van Beethoven were actually written by Daleks. After this, one of them remarks that the "change the bulb" joke from "Legion" was funny, and is promptly exterminated by the other for the crime of "not behaving like a true Dalek".^[89]

A 2001 British Kit Kat advertisement featured a squad of Daleks who have joined a group of Hare Krishna devotees, rolling through a shopping centre and repeatedly chanting "Peace and love!" and "Give us a cuddle" in their distinctive voices.^[90]

In the 2004 series of Coupling, written by Steven Moffat (who later wrote for Doctor Who), a Dalek appears in the second episode.^[91] This was voiced by Nicholas Briggs, who later went on to provide Dalek voices for the series proper from 2005 onwards.^[92] Terry Nation's original Dalek rights deal with the BBC had been negotiated by his then agent Beryl Vertue, later Coupling writer Moffat's mother-in-law.^[93]

In the 2003 film Looney Tunes: Back in Action, two Cushing movie-style Daleks made a cameo appearance in the "Area 52" segment amidst many famous "old-time" movie monsters. A Dalek also appears (along with the Lost in Space robot) in a 2005 television advertisement for the ANZ bank in Australia - The Dalek was replaced by a giant toy robot in later ANZ Ad.s

A pair of black Daleks appeared in a 2004 episode of Top Gear that featured a race between science fiction characters, including a Silver Nemesis-era Cyberman and the Sixth Doctor (played by Colin Baker). Unable to get into the car, the Daleks exterminated the other contestants and wheeled themselves around the track instead.

[edit] Parodies

See also: Doctor Who spoofs.

Daleks have been the subject of many parodies, including Spike Milligan's "Pakistani Dalek" sketch in his comedy series Q,^[94] and Victor Lewis-Smith's gay Daleks. One sketch on Dave Allen At Large portrayed a baptismal font behaving like a Dalek. Doctor Who itself has used the Daleks for parody: in 2002, BBC Worldwide published the Dalek Survival Guide, a parody of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbooks.^[95]

On BBC Radio 4, the Daleks made occasional appearances on the satirical impressionist show Dead Ringers, noting that the proliferation of wheelchair ramps would make it easier for Daleks to invade Earth. Other sketches included them trying to buy skin-care products for Davros's wrinkled skin. Dalek voices have frequently appeared on another BBC Radio 4 satirical programme, The Now Show.

[edit] Politics

In a British Government Parliamentary Debate in the House of Commons on 12 February 1968, the then Minister of Technology Tony Benn mentioned the Daleks during a reply to a question from the Labour MP Hugh Jenkins concerning the Concorde aircraft project. In the context of the dangers of solar flares, he said, "Because we are exploring the frontiers of technology, some people think Concorde will be avoiding solar flares like Dr. Who avoiding Daleks. It is not like this at all."^[96] An earlier political reference occurred at the 1966 Conservative Party conference in Blackpool, where delegate Hugh Dykes publicly compared the Labour government's Defence Secretary Denis Healey to the creatures. "Mr. Healy is the Dalek of defence, pointing a metal finger at the armed forces and saying 'I will eliminate you'."^[97]

[edit] Music

The first known musical reference to Daleks is the 1964 novelty single "I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek" by The Go-Go's, released during the 1960s' "Dalekmania" fad.^[98] As part of their light show in the 1960s, Pink Floyd used a light which they dubbed the "Dalek", due to its erratic behaviour and tendency to break down.^[99] (the version of Pink Floyd's One of These Days on the Delicate Sound of Thunder live album also briefly quotes the Doctor Who theme tune). In The Clash's song "Remote Control" (from their self-titled 1977 album), the last verse includes the lines, "Repression — gonna be a Dalek / Repression — I am a robot / Repression — I obey."^[100]

The band Shriekback had a musical reference in their 1985 album Oil & Gold in the song "Hammerheads." Singer Barry Andrew declares, "This is our mission; to be the Daleks of God!". The Shapes' "Let's Go To Planet Skaro" is set entirely on the Daleks' homeworld, where the Doctor is holding his wedding reception. The single "Doctorin' the Tardis" by Doctor Who-themed group The Timelords included various Dalek vocalisations, and its music video featured a late-model sedan (dubbed "a Ford Timelord") crashing into a crudely constructed Dalek.

Rotersand, a European synthpop/industrial band, released an album and single entitled Exterminate Annihilate Destroy, prominently featuring a sound sample of a Dalek repeating the title phrase. The short-lived punk act, The Art Attacks, released a single with the song, "I am a Dalek" in 1978 for Albatross Records. Additionally, at least two bands have named themselves after the Daleks: the late 1970s synth pop group Dalek I Love You and The Daleks, a punk rock band who recorded one single in 1980.

[edit] Pornography

After she left the series, Katy Manning, who played the Third Doctor's companion Jo Grant, posed nude with a Dalek in a photoshoot for Playboy; that magazine did not use the images, but they were eventually published in a short-lived Australian men's magazine named Girl Illustrated.^[101]

Daleks were featured in an unauthorized pornographic feature, Abducted by the Daloids (although the disc itself uses "Daleks"). In the film, the "Daloids" (portrayed by several Dalek models) abduct three scantily-clad models and watch lesbian scenes. The BBC took action to prevent sale of the DVD when learning of it in November 2005.^[102] Another pornographic parody, entitled Dr. Loo and the Filthy Phaleks was released earlier in 2005.^[103]

[edit] Merchandising

The BBC approached Walter Tuckwell, a New Zealand-born entrepreneur who was handling product merchandising for other BBC shows, and asked him to do the same for the Daleks and Doctor Who.^[104] Tuckwell created a glossy sales brochure that sparked off a Dalek craze, dubbed "Dalekmania" by the press, which peaked around the time The Chase aired in June 1965.

[edit] Toys

The first Dalek toy from Louis Marx & Co., a battery-operated Dalek, appeared in 1964.^[105] More toys and merchandise appeared the following year, along with toys of the Mechanoids (robotic foes of the Daleks also introduced in The Chase). The Mechanoids were created with the expectation that they would become as popular as Daleks, but they were not as successful.^[106] Other unsuccessful BBC attempts to create a "replacement" for the Daleks, or at least duplicate their popularity included the Voord (The Keys of Marinus, 1964), the Krotons (The Krotons, 1968) and the Quarks (The Dominators, 1968).

At the height of the Daleks' popularity, apart from toy replicas, there were also Dalek construction kits, Dalek board games and activity sets, Dalek slide projectors for children and even Dalek playsuits made from PVC.^[107] There were collectible cards, stickers, toy guns, music singles, punching bags and many other items.^[107] Between 1963 and 1965, the BBC published three annuals with short stories and comic strips featuring the Daleks, written by Whitaker and Nation.^[107] The Dalek Annual was revived in 1976 and 1977, with stories and selected reprints from the TV 21 comic strip.^[108]

In the 1970s, Palitoy released a Talking Dalek which could utter standard Dalek phrases such as "You will obey!" and "Exterminate!" Later, model kits of other Dalek-related characters like Davros, the Supreme Dalek and Gold Daleks were also released. In 2001 a new range of talking Daleks were produced, along with a talking Cyberman and a talking Davros.

In 2005, new Dalek toys, including a remote-controlled, talking Dalek and a pair of battling Daleks, were also created based on the designs for the new series. These were unexpectedly popular and were sold out in many stores in the UK. A remote-controlled Dalek based on the white-and-gold Imperial Dalek design was also released.

[edit] Computer games

The Daleks have featured in computer games since the 1980s, beginning with an unlicensed modification of the Robots game called Daleks. However, the game uses Daleks only as generic monsters, with no Dalek-specific features. Similarly, the 1985 game Paradroid includes a robot ("Droid 883") which resembles a Dalek: the game's background info mentions that the source design was "modelled from archive data" and that its appearance frightens humans. One of the enemies in Alien 8 appears to be half-mouse, half-Dalek.

Licensed Doctor Who games featuring Daleks include 1984's The Key to Time, a text adventure game for the ZX Spectrum. Daleks also appeared in minor roles or as thinly disguised versions in other, minor games throughout the 80s, but did not feature as central adversaries in a licensed game until 1992, when Admiral Software published Dalek Attack. The game allowed the player to play various Doctors or companions, running them through several environments to defeat the Daleks. In 1997 the BBC released a PC game entitled Destiny of the Doctors which also featured the Daleks, among other adversaries, who also seemed to be able to follow the player character up the stairs. In 1998 the BBC released a Doctor Who screensaver done in Macromedia Shockwave which had a built-in minigame, where the player controlled K-9 battling the Daleks through seven increasingly difficult levels.

Unauthorized games featuring Daleks continued to appear through the 1990s and 2000s, including Dalek-based modifications of Dark Forces, Quake, and Half-Life; many of these can be found online. One authorised online game is The Last Dalek, a Flash game created by New Media Collective for the BBC. It is based on the 2005 episode Dalek and can be played at the official BBC Doctor Who website.^[109] The Doctor Who website also features another game Daleks vs Cybermen (also known as Cyber Troop Control Interface) in which the player controls troops of Cybermen which must fight Daleks as well as Torchwood Institute members based on the 2006 episode Doomsday.^[110]

[edit] Other major appearances

[edit] Stage plays

• The Curse of the Daleks: Wyndham's Theatre, London (premiere 21 December 1965)
• Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday: Adelphi Theatre, London (premiere 16 December 1974)
• Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure: Wimbledon Theatre, London (premiere 23 March 1989)
• The Evil of the Daleks: Theatre Royal, Portsmouth (premiere 25 October 2006)

[edit] Original novels

• War of the Daleks by John Peel (Eighth Doctor Adventures), published October 1997
• Legacy of the Daleks by John Peel (Eighth Doctor Adventures), published April 1998
• The Dalek Factor by Simon Clark (Telos Doctor Who novellas), published March 2004
• I am a Dalek by Gareth Roberts (Tenth Doctor Adventures, part of the Quick Reads Initiative), published May 2006

[edit] See also

• Dalek Empire
• Dalek variants
• Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• How the Daleks were built: BBC Wales interview with engineer Bill Roberts
• Dalek Links: a comprehensive listing of Dalek Web sites

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Portal

v • d • e Dalek television stories
First Doctor:	The Daleks | The Dalek Invasion of Earth | The Chase | Mission to the Unknown | The Daleks' Master Plan
Second Doctor:	The Power of the Daleks | The Evil of the Daleks
Third Doctor:	Day of the Daleks | Frontier in Space | Planet of the Daleks | Death to the Daleks
Fourth Doctor:	Genesis of the Daleks | Destiny of the Daleks
Fifth Doctor:	Resurrection of the Daleks
Sixth Doctor:	Revelation of the Daleks
Seventh Doctor:	Remembrance of the Daleks
Ninth Doctor:	Dalek | Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways
Tenth Doctor:	Army of Ghosts/Doomsday | Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks
Minor appearances:	The Space Museum | Frontier in Space | The Five Doctors | Doctor Who (1996 movie)
See also:	Dr. Who and the Daleks | Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD | The Curse of Fatal Death

v • d • e Dalek audio stories
Second Doctor:	Fear of the Daleks
Fifth Doctor:	The Mutant Phase • Renaissance of the Daleks
Sixth Doctor:	The Apocalypse Element • Jubilee • The Juggernauts
Seventh Doctor:	The Genocide Machine • Return of the Daleks
Eighth Doctor:	The Time of the Daleks • Terror Firma • Blood of the Daleks
Bernice Summerfield:	Death and the Daleks
Dalek Empire:	Invasion of the Daleks • The Human Factor • "Death to the Daleks!" • Project Infinity
Dalek War:	Chapter One • Chapter Two • Chapter Three • Chapter Four
Dalek Empire III:	The Exterminators • The Healers • The Survivors • The Demons • The Warriors • The Future
I, Davros:	Innocence • Purity • Corruption • Guilt