The Daleks (pronounced /ˈdɑːlɛk/ ( listen)) are a fictional race of extraterrestrial mutants from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Daleks are organisms from the planet Skaro, integrated within a tank-like mechanical casing. The resulting creatures are a powerful race bent on universal conquest and domination, utterly without pity, compassion or remorse. Various storylines portray them as having had every emotion removed except hate, leaving them with a desire to purge the Universe of all non-Dalek life. Very occasionally they are shown as experiencing other emotions, including fear, although occurrences are rare.^[1] Collectively they are the greatest extraterrestrial enemies of the Time Lord and series protagonist, the Doctor. Their most famous catchphrase is "Exterminate!", with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic electronic voice ( play sample (help·info)).

The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation and designed by BBC designer Raymond Cusick.^[2] They were introduced in December 1963 in the second Doctor Who serial, colloquially known as The Daleks.^[3] 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 been cited as an essential element of British cultural identity;^[4] and a 2008 survey indicated that 9 out of 10 British children were able to identify a Dalek correctly.^[5] In 1999 a Dalek appeared on a postage stamp celebrating British popular culture, photographed by Lord Snowdon.^[6]

The word "Dalek" has entered the Oxford English Dictionary^[7] 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".^[8] The word and Dalek image have been copyrighted by the BBC, whilst the rights to the Dalek concept reside with the (Terry) Nation estate. The term is sometimes used metaphorically to describe people, usually figures of authority, who act like robots unable to break from their programming; for example, 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.^[9]

Physical characteristics

Externally, Daleks normally resemble human-sized salt and pepper shakers^[2] with a single mechanical eyestalk mounted on a rotating dome, an exterminator arm containing an energy weapon (or "death ray") and a telescopic manipulator arm which is usually tipped by an appendage resembling a sink plunger. Daleks have been seen to be able to use their plungers to interface with technology,^[1] crush a man's skull by suction,^[1] measure the intelligence of a subject,^[10] and extract information from a man's mind.^[11] Dalek casings are made of a bonded polycarbide material dubbed "dalekanium" by a member of the human resistance in The Dalek Invasion of Earth and by the Cult of Skaro in "Daleks in Manhattan".^[10][12]

The lower half of a Dalek's shell is covered with hemispherical protrusions, or "Dalek bumps", which are shown in the episode "Dalek" to actually be spheres embedded in the casing.^[1][10] Both the BBC-Licensed Dalek Book (1964) and The Doctor Who Technical Manual (1983) describe these items as being part of a sensory array,^[13] whilst in the 2005 series episode "Dalek", they are shown to serve a function in a Dalek's self-destruct mechanism.^[1] Their armour has a forcefield that evaporates most bullets and resists most types of energy weapon, although normally ineffective firepower can be concentrated on the eyestalk to blind a Dalek.^[14] Their own energy weapons have also been shown to be capable of destroying them.^[15] The eyepiece is a Dalek's most vulnerable spot, and impairing its vision often leads to a blind, panicked firing of its weapon whilst shouting, "My vision is impaired; I cannot see!" Later stories would see this weakness eradicated; Russell T Davies inverted the catchphrase in his 2008 episode "The Stolen Earth", in which a Dalek vaporises a paintball that has blocked its vision while proclaiming "My vision is not impaired!".^[16][17]

The creature inside the mechanical casing is depicted as soft and repulsive in appearance and vicious even without its mechanical armour. The first-ever glimpse of a Dalek mutant, in The Daleks, was a claw peeking out from under a coat after it had been removed from its casing.^[18] The actual appearance of the mutants has varied, but often adheres to the Doctor's description of the species in Remembrance of the Daleks as "little green blobs in bonded polycarbide armour".^[19] In Resurrection of the Daleks a Dalek creature, separated from its casing, attacks and severely injures a human soldier.^[20] As the creature inside is rarely seen on screen, a common misconception exists that Daleks are wholly mechanical robots.^[21]

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.^[20] Once the mutant is removed, the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids; for example, in The Daleks, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) enters a Dalek shell to masquerade as a guard as part of an escape plan.^[18]

For many years it was thought that, due to their design and 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".^[22] 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!"^[23] 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."^[24][25] Dalek mobility has improved over the history of the series: in their first appearance, The Daleks, they were capable of movement only on the conductive metal floors of their city; in The Dalek Invasion of Earth a Dalek emerges from the waters of the River Thames, indicating that they not only had become freely mobile, but are amphibious;^[26] Planet of the Daleks showed that they could ascend a vertical shaft by means of an external antigravity mat placed on the floor; and Remembrance of the Daleks depicted them as capable of hovering up a flight of stairs.^[27] 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 2005 episode "Dalek" made the same joke, and were shocked when the Dalek began to hover up the stairs.^[1] The new series depicts the Daleks as fully capable of flight.^[14]

Prop 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 cylindrical louvres just beneath the dome which 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 casings created for Doctor Who's 21st-century revival retain the same overall shape and dimensional proportions of its forebears, although almost every component has been re-designed to give it a heavier and more solid look. Changes include an expanded base, a glowing eyepiece, an all-over metallic brass finish, a housing for the eyestalk pivot and significantly larger dome lights. The new prop made its on-screen debut in the 2005 episode "Dalek". As shown in a Doctor Who-themed episode of the children's programme Blue Peter, these current Dalek cases use a short operator inside the housing while the 'head' and eyestalk are operated via remote control. A third person, Nicholas Briggs, supplies the voice in their various appearances.

Movement

Early versions of the Daleks rolled on nylon castors, propelled by the operator's feet. 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 be filmed on the streets of London. To enable the Daleks to travel smoothly on location designer Spencer Chapman built the new Dalek shells around miniature tricycles with sturdier wheels, which were hidden by enlarged fenders fitted below the original base.^[32] The uneven 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 parabolic 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 once again simply propelled by the seated 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] This problem has largely been eradicated with the advent of the ‘new series’ version, its remotely controlled dome and eyestalk allowing the operator to concentrate on the smooth movement of the Dalek and its arms.^[33]

Voices

The staccato delivery, harsh tone and rising inflection 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 (with the exception of those in the 1985 serial Revelation of the Daleks, for which director Graeme Harper deliberately used less distortion.^[34]

Besides Hawkins and Graham, notable voice actors for the Daleks have included Roy Skelton, who first voiced the Daleks in the 1967 story The Evil of the Daleks and went on to provide voices for five additional Dalek serials^{[35][36][37][38][39]} and for the one-off anniversary special The Five Doctors. Michael Wisher, the actor who originated the role of Dalek creator Davros in Genesis of the Daleks, provided Dalek voices for that same story, as well as for Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks and Death to the Daleks. Other Dalek voice actors include Royce Mills (three stories^[38][39][40]), Brian Miller (two stories^[39][40]), Oliver Gilbert and Peter Messaline (one story^[41]). John Leeson, who performed the voice of K-9 in several Doctor Who stories, and Davros actors Terry Molloy and David Gooderson also contributed supporting voices for various Dalek serials^[37][39].

Since 2005, the Dalek voice in the television series has been provided by Nicholas Briggs, speaking into a microphone connected to a voice modulator.^[42] Briggs had previously provided Dalek and other alien voices for Big Finish Productions audio plays. In a 2006 BBC Radio interview, Briggs said that when the BBC asked him to do the voice for the new television series, they instructed him to bring his own analogue ring modulator that he had used in the audio plays. The BBC's sound department had changed to a digital platform and could not adequately create the distinctive Dalek sound with their modern equipment. Briggs went as far as to bring the voice modulator to the actors' readings of the scripts.^[42]

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^[37]) or, in the early black-and-white episodes, life-size photographic enlargements (The Dalek Invasion of Earth^[12][43] and The Power of the Daleks^[44][45]). In stories involving armies of Daleks, the BBC effects team even turned to using commercially available toy Daleks, manufactured by Louis Marx & Co and Herts Plastic Moulders Ltd. Examples of such use can be observed in the serials The Power of the Daleks, The Evil of the Daleks and Planet of the Daleks.^[46] Judicious editing techniques also gave the impression that 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".^[14]

Four fully functioning props were commissioned for the first serial "The Daleks" in 1963, and were constructed from BBC plans by Shawcraft Engineering.^[47] 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 movie props filtered back to the BBC and were seen in the televised serials, notably The Chase, which was aired before the first movie's debut.^[48] The remaining props not bought by the BBC were either donated to charity or given away as prizes in competitions.^[49]

The BBC's own Dalek props were reused many times, with components of the original Shawcraft "Mk I Daleks" surviving right through to their final classic series appearance in 1988.^[50] Years of storage and repainting took their toll, however. By the time of the Sixth Doctor's Revelation of the Daleks new props were being manufactured out of fibreglass, which were lighter and more affordable to construct than their predecessors.^[51] These Daleks were slightly bulkier in appearance around the mid-shoulder section, and also had a slightly redesigned skirt section which was more vertical at the back. Other minor changes were made to the design due to these new construction methods, including alterations to the fender and the incorporation of both the arm boxes, collars and slats into a single fibreglass moulding.^[51] These props 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.^[52]

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 they should have no legs.^[53] He was also inspired by a performance by the Georgian State Ballet, in which dancers in long skirts appeared to glide across the stage.^[54] For many of the shows, the Daleks were "played" by retired ballet dancers wearing black socks while sitting inside the Dalek.^[29] Raymond Cusick was given the task of designing the Daleks when Ridley Scott, then a designer for the BBC, proved unavailable after having been initially assigned to their debut serial.^[55] 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.^[56] Cusick himself, however, states that he based it on a man seated in a chair, and only used the pepper shaker to demonstrate how it might move.^[57]

In 1964 Nation told a Daily Mirror reporter that the Dalek name came from a dictionary or encyclopedia volume, the spine of which read "Dal - Lek".^[58] He later admitted that this book and the origin of the Dalek name was completely fictitious, and that anyone bothering to check out his story would have found him out.^[58] The name had in reality simply rolled off his typewriter.^[59] Later, Nation was pleasantly surprised to discover that in Serbo-Croatian the word "dalek" means "far", or "distant".^[60]

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.^[61] 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).^[62][63][64]

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.^[54][58][65] 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!"^[66]

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.)^[67]

The instant appeal of the Daleks caught the BBC off guard,^[58] 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.^[68] Despite fans' adoration, the Daleks were clearly associated with Doctor Who and several attempts to market the Daleks outside of the series were unsuccessful.^[69][70] 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.^[71]

Early plans for what eventually became the 1996 Doctor Who television movie included radically redesigned Daleks whose cases unfolded like spiders' legs.^[72] 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.^[73][74] After much negotiation between the BBC and the Nation estate (which at one point appeared to break down completely), 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.^[75] Eventually talks between Hancock and the BBC progressed more productively, and the Daleks were cleared to appear in the first series.

Fictional history

Dalek in-universe history has seen many retroactive changes, which have caused continuity problems.^[76] 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.^[77] In 1975, Terry Nation revised the Daleks' origins in Genesis of the Daleks, where the Dals were now called Kaleds (of which "Daleks" is an anagram), and the Dalek design was attributed to one man, the crippled Kaled chief scientist and evil genius, Davros.^[36] 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.^[36]

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.^[78] Future stories in the original Doctor Who series, which followed a rough story arc,^[79] would also focus more on Davros, much to the dissatisfaction of some fans who felt that the Daleks should take centre stage.^[59] rather than merely becoming minions of their creator. Davros made his last televised appearance for 20 years in Remembrance of the Daleks, which depicted a civil war between two factions of Daleks. One, the "Imperial Daleks", were loyal to Davros, who had become their Emperor, whilst the other, the "Renegade Daleks", followed a black Supreme Dalek.^[39]

A single Dalek appeared in "Dalek", written by Robert Shearman, which was broadcast on BBC One on 30 April 2005. This Dalek appeared to be the sole Dalek survivor of the Time War which had destroyed both the Daleks and the Time Lords.^[1] A Dalek Emperor returned at the end of the 2005 series, having rebuilt the Dalek race with genetic material harvested with human subjects. It saw itself as a god, and the new Daleks were shown worshipping it. These Daleks and their fleet were destroyed in "The Parting of the Ways".^[14]

The 2006 series finale "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" featured a squad of four Dalek survivors from the old Empire, known as the Cult of Skaro, led by a black Dalek named "Sec", that had survived the Time War by escaping into the Void between dimensions. They emerged, along with a Time Lord prison vessel containing millions of Daleks, at Canary Wharf due to the actions of the Torchwood Institute and Cybermen from a parallel world. This resulted in a Cyberman-Dalek clash in London, which was resolved when the Tenth Doctor caused both factions to be sucked back into the Void. The Cult survived by utilising an “emergency temporal shift" to escape.^[80][81] They would later appear in the two-part story "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks", in which whilst stranded in 1930’s New York, they set up a base in the partially built Empire State Building and attempt to rebuild the Dalek race. To this end Dalek Sec merges with a human being to become a Human/Dalek hybrid. The Cult then set about creating 'Human Daleks' by 'formatting' the brains of thousands of captured humans, with the intention of producing hybrids which remain fully human in appearance but with Dalek minds.

The plot is ultimately foiled due to interference by the Doctor, and Cult members Daleks Sec, Jast and Thay are destroyed. The remaining Cult member, Dalek Caan, once again escapes using a temporal shift.^[15]

The Daleks returned in the 2008 series' two-part finale, "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End", accompanied once again by their creator Davros. The story reveals that Caan's temporal shift placed him in the Time War where he rescued Davros. The episode depicts a Dalek invasion of Earth led by Caan, Davros, and a red Supreme Dalek, who has kept Caan and Davros imprisoned in a section of the Dalek flagship, the Crucible, called "The Vault". Davros and the Daleks plan to destroy all creation with a "reality bomb". The plan fails due to the interference of the Doctor, his companions and Caan himself, who has been manipulating events to destroy the Daleks after realising the severity of the atrocities they have committed.^[17][82]

Dalek culture

Daleks have little, if any, individual personality,^[11] ostensibly no emotions other than hatred and anger,^[1] and a strict command structure in which they are conditioned to obey superiors' orders without question.^[83] Dalek speech is characterised by repeated phrases, and by orders given to themselves and to others. Dalek vocal inflection suggests perpetual anger, sometimes verging on hysteria.

In terms of their behavior Daleks are extremely aggressive, and seem driven by an instinct to attack. This instinct is so strong that Daleks have been depicted fighting the urge to kill^[15][40] or even attacking when unarmed.^[84][85] The Fifth Doctor characterises this impulse by saying, "However you respond [to Daleks] is seen as an act of provocation."^[40] The fundamental feature of Dalek culture and psychology is an unquestioned belief in the superiority of the Dalek race, ^[83] and their default directive is to destroy all non-Dalek life-forms.^[1] Other species are either to be exterminated immediately, or enslaved and then exterminated later once they are no longer useful.^[40] When the "Human/Dalek" Sec hybrid began to doubt the Dalek race's supremacy and purpose, the other Daleks in the Cult of Skaro considered it to be a traitor and turned against it.^[15]

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.^[39] This intolerance of any "contamination" within themselves is also shown in "Dalek",^[1] The Evil of the Daleks^[83] and in the Big Finish Productions audio play The Mutant Phase.^[86] This superiority complex is the basis of the Daleks' ruthlessness and lack of compassion.^[1][83] It is nearly impossible to negotiate or reason with a Dalek, a single-mindedness that makes them dangerous and not to be underestimated.^[1]

Dalek society is depicted as one of extreme scientific and technological advancement; the Third Doctor states that "it was their inventive genius that made them one of the greatest powers in the universe."^[84] However, their reliance on logic and machinery is also a strategic weakness which they recognise,^[37][39] and thus use more emotion-driven species as agents to compensate for these shortcomings.^[39][40][83]

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 killing them immediately. The first was their creator, Davros, in Revelation of the Daleks,^[38] and the second was the renegade Time Lord known as the Master in the 1996 television movie.^[87] 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.^[88] The framing device for the I, Davros audio plays is a Dalek trial to determine if Davros should be the Daleks' leader once more.^[89]

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 the opening night. Two stanzas are given in the novel The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch.^[90] In an alternative timeline portrayed in Big Finish Productions audio adventure The Time of the Daleks, the Daleks show a fondness for the works of Shakespeare.^[91] A similar idea was satirised by comedian Frankie Boyle in the BBC comedy quiz programme Mock The Week; he gave the fictional Dalek poem "Daffodils; EXTERMINATE DAFFODILS!" as an "unlikely line to hear in Doctor Who".^[92]

Because the Doctor has defeated the Daleks so often, he has become their collective arch-enemy and they have standing orders to capture or exterminate him on sight. In later fiction, the Daleks know the Doctor as the "Ka Faraq Gatri": the "Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds", and "The Oncoming Storm".^[14][82] Both the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) suggest that the Doctor is one of the few beings the Daleks fear. In "Doomsday", Rose notes that while the Daleks see the extermination of five million Cybermen as "pest control", "one Doctor" visibly un-nerves them.^[11]

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. The movies were not direct remakes; for example, the Doctor in the Cushing films was a human who built a time-travelling device called Tardis, instead of a Time Lord who piloted a device called "the TARDIS".

Nation also authorised the publication of the comic strip The Daleks in the comic TV Century 21 in 1965. The weekly 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, some concepts like the Daleks using humanoid duplicates and the design of the Dalek Emperor did show up later on in the programme. ^[93]

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. 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.^[94]

Other licensed appearances have included a number of stage plays (see Stage plays below) and television adverts for Walls "Skyray" ice lollies (1966), Weetabix breakfast serial (1977), Kit Kat chocolate bars (2001)^[95] and the ANZ Bank (2005).

Other appearances

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.^[96]

In the comic television documentary The 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".^[97]

In the 2004 series of Coupling, written by Steven Moffat (who later wrote for Doctor Who), a Dalek appears in the second episode of season four.^[98] This was voiced by Nicholas Briggs, who later went on to provide Dalek voices for the series proper from 2005 onwards.^[99] 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.^[100]

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.^[101] 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.^[102] 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."^[103] The song "Weathercade" by The Creatures (Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie's spin-off band of Siouxsie & the Banshees) contains the lyric "The Dalek drones are drowning".^[104]

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."^[105] 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. Healey is the Dalek of defence, pointing a metal finger at the armed forces and saying 'I will eliminate you'."^[106]

Australian Labor Party luminary Robert Ray described his right wing Labor Unity faction successor, Victorian Senator Stephen Conroy, and his Socialist Left faction counterpart, Kim Carr, as factional Daleks during a 2006 Australian Fabian Society lunch in Sydney.^[107]

Daleks have been used to caricature:

• Tony Benn ^[108]
• John Birt ^[109]
• Tony Blair ^[110]
• Alistair Campbell ^[111]
• Alec Douglas-Home ^[112]
• Charles de Gaulle^[113]
• Mark Thompson ^[114]
• Dick Whittington ^[115]

Pornography

Daleks have made their way into pornographic material. For example, a Dalek appeared with a naked Katy Manning (who played the Third Doctor's companion Jo Grant) in a photoshoot for Playboy after Manning left the series.^[116] Although Playboy did not use the images, they were eventually published in a men's magazine named Girl Illustrated.^[116]

Daleks were also featured in an unauthorized pornographic feature, Abducted by the Daloids. 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.^[117] Another pornographic parody, entitled Dr. Loo and the Filthy Phaleks was released earlier in 2005.^[118]

Magazine covers

Daleks have appeared on magazine covers promoting Doctor Who since the "Dalekmania" fad of the 1960s. Radio Times has featured the Daleks on its cover several times, beginning with the November 21–27, 1964 issue which promoted The Dalek Invasion of Earth.^[119] Other magazines also used Daleks to attract readers' attention, including the aforementioned Girl Illustrated.

In April 2005, Radio Times created a special cover to commemorate both the return of the Daleks to the screen in "Dalek" and the forthcoming general election.^[120] This cover recreated a scene from The Dalek Invasion of Earth in which the Daleks were seen crossing Westminster Bridge, with the Houses of Parliament in the background. The cover text read "VOTE DALEK!" In a 2008 contest sponsored by the Periodical Publishers Association, this cover was voted the best British magazine cover of all time.^[121]

Parodies

Daleks have been the subject of many parodies, including Spike Milligan's "Pakistani Dalek" sketch in his comedy series Q,^[122] 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.^[123] The Daleks made two brief appearances in a pantomime version of Aladdin at the Birmingham Hippodrome which starred Torchwood star John Barrowman in the lead role.^[124]

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.^[125] 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.

Toys

The first Dalek toy from Louis Marx & Co., a battery-operated Dalek, appeared in 1964.^[126] More toys and merchandise from various manufacturers appeared the following year, along with toys of the Mechonoids (robotic foes of the Daleks also introduced in The Chase). The Mechonoids were created with the expectation that they would become as popular as Daleks, but they were not as successful.^[127] Other Dalek replica manufacturers of note include Cherilea, Herts, Palitoy and Dapol.

At the height of the Daleks' popularity, apart from toy replicas, there were Dalek board games and activity sets, slide projectors for children and even Dalek playsuits made from PVC.^[128] Collectible cards, stickers, toy guns, music singles, punching bags and many other items were also produced.^[128] Between 1963 and 1965, the BBC published three annuals with short stories and comic strips featuring the Daleks, written by Whitaker and Nation.^[128] The Dalek Annual was revived in 1976 and 1977, with stories and selected reprints from the TV 21 comic strip.^[129]

From about 2000 onwards Product Enterprise (later Iconic Replicas / Sixteen 12 Collectibles) produced various Dalek toys including push-along ‘talking’ 6½” (165mm) and radio controlled 12” (305mm) versions. There was also a 2¼” (57mm) scale friction drive series.

In 2005 Character Options was granted a licence to produce merchandise related to the revived Doctor Who series, including Dalek action figures. The product lines have included 5” (127mm) static/push-along and radio controlled Daleks, radio controlled 12” (305mm) versions and radio controlled 18" (457mm) / 1:3 scale variants. Some versions of the 18” model included semi-autonomous and voice command-features. More recently the company has aquired a license to produce 5” (127mm) Daleks of the various “classic series” variants.

Several manufacturers have produced self-assembly Dalek construction kits over the years, including Louis Marx, Sevans, Comet Miniatures and Airfix

Computer games

Licensed Doctor Who games featuring Daleks include 1984's The Key to Time, a text adventure game for the Sinclair 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, and even more recently, a mod of Halo: Combat Evolved; many of these can be found online, including an Adobe Flash game, Dalek:Dissolution Earth^[130]. In 1998 QWho, a modification for Quake, featured the Daleks as adversaries. This also formed the basis of TimeQuake, a total conversion written in 2000 which included other Doctor Who monsters such as Sontarans.^[131] Another unauthorised game is DalekTron, a Windows-only game based on Robotron: 2084 and written in the Smalltalk programming language to coincide with the 2005 series.^[132]

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.^[133] 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".^[134]

Other major appearances

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 and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday: Porirua Little Theatre, Titahi Bay, Porirua, New Zealand (premiere 24 November 1984)
• Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure: Wimbledon Theatre, London (premiere 23 March 1989)
• The Tomb of the Cybermen (voice only): Oxford Brookes Student Union, Oxford (premiere July 1998)
• The Trial of Davros: Tameside Hippodrome, Ashton-under-Lyne (premiere 16 July 2005)
• The Evil of the Daleks: Theatre Royal, Portsmouth (premiere 25 October 2006)
• The Dalek Masterplan: Theatre Royal, Portsmouth (premiere 24 October 2007)
• Aladdin: Hippodrome Theatre, Birmingham (premiere 19 December 2007) - Pantomime featuring Daleks alongside Doctor Who and Torchwood actor John Barrowman

Concerts

• Doctor Who: A Celebration
• Doctor Who Prom

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
• Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale (Tenth Doctor Adventures), published April 2009

See also

• Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer
• Dalek Empire
• Dalek Variants
• Dalekmania - A documentary about the Daleks

References

External links

• Dalek on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
• How the Daleks were built - BBC Wales interview with engineer Bill Roberts
• Charity Dalek - A Dalek used for raising funds for charity.
• Charity Dalek Orion - Inspired by the above Dalek and also raising funds for charity.
• Dalek Voices - How to create Dalek voices using a home computer
• Project Dalek - How to build a Dalek