Dalek

:For other uses, see Dalek (disambiguation).

History

Conceptual history

Terry Nation claimed that he was inspired by watching ballet dancers in long dresses glide as if on wheels. Indeed, for many of the shows, the Daleks were "played" by retired ballet dancers wearing black socks while sitting inside the Dalek. Raymond Cusick claims that after Nation wrote the script, he was given only an hour to come up with the design for the Daleks, and was inspired by a pepper shaker on the table in front of him to do the initial sketches (other sources state that he based it on a man seated in a chair, and only used the pepper shaker to demonstrate how it might move).

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Nation also claimed that the name came from a volume of a dictionary or encyclopedia, the spine of which read "Dal - Lek". 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. The name had in reality simply rolled off his typewriter. Later, Nation was pleasantly surprised to discover that in Serbo-Croatian the word "dalek" means "far", or "distant". Other Slavonic languages have similar words for "far". The Cyrillic letter Д = "D" coincidentally also resembles a Dalek.

Related Topics:
Serbo-Croatian - Slavonic languages - Cyrillic

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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, domination, and complete conformity. The analogy is most obvious in the Dalek stories penned by Nation, in particular The Dalek Invasion of Earth and Genesis of the Daleks.

Related Topics:
World War II - Nazis - Genesis of the Daleks

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Prior to writing the first Dalek serial, Nation was chief scriptwriter for comedian Tony Hancock. The two fell out and Nation was fired. According to various sources, including Cliff Goodwin's biography of Hancock, the comedian claimed that during one of their last meetings he had speculated on how nuclear warfare might reduce humans to such a helpless state that they would have to be plugged into robot-like casings to stay alive. Allegedly, when Hancock saw the Daleks he shouted at the screen, "That bloody Nation — he's stolen my robots!"

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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 reason for the multiple titles is that in the show's early years each individual episode had a different name and overall story titles were used only by the production office. Subsequently, several different overall story titles were circulated by fandom without access to the correct records. See: Doctor Who story title controversy.

Related Topics:
The Daleks - Fandom - Doctor Who story title controversy

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The instant appeal of the Daleks took the BBC off guard, 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 completely alien look of the monsters, and the Doctor Who production office was inundated by letters and calls asking about the creatures. Newspaper articles focused more attention on the series and the Daleks, enhancing their popularity further.

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Despite the Daleks' popularity, however, they were forever associated with Doctor Who. Nation, who jointly owned the intellectual property rights to the Daleks with the BBC, therefore had the problem of owning a money-making concept that proved nearly impossible to sell to anyone else and was dependent on the BBC wanting to produce stories featuring the creatures. Indeed, several attempts to market the Daleks outside of Doctor Who were unsuccessful. The sums of money required to pay Nation for the use of the Daleks also explained why their appearances in the programme were rare in later years. 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.

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When a new Doctor Who series was announced for 2005, many fans hoped the Daleks would return once more to the programme. 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. However, talks between Tim Hancock and the BBC progressed more productively than had been expected, and on August 4 2004 a BBC press release announced that the creatures would, after all, be appearing in the first season of the new series.

Related Topics:
2005 - August 4 - 2004

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Rumours were rife about Dalek redesigns, ranging from cosmetic changes to the Dalek casing to radical ones like the multi-legged "Spider Daleks" concept (first proposed for an early version of the Doctor Who television movie, and later popular in fandom). None of these rumours were confirmed, however. An alleged "official BBC" sketch published in the British newspaper The Daily Mirror on October 30 2004 showed a soldier looking on at a conventional-looking Dalek that appeared to be either flying or hovering off the ground. At the press preview screening of the first episode of the new series on March 8, 2005, it was revealed that the Daleks would be able to fly and hover on a kind of energy thruster.

Related Topics:
Spider Daleks - ''Doctor Who'' television movie - The Daily Mirror - October 30 - March 8

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In November 2004, pictures showing a new Dalek prop began circulating on the internet, and the images also appeared in various newspapers. The photographs showed no major alterations to the Dalek design, except for an expanded base, an all over metallic brass finish and ear-bulbs that resembled the movie versions. In a trailer for the new series broadcast on March 15, 2005, a quick glimpse of a Dalek of this design in chains was seen. Episodes of the Channel 4 afternoon talk show Richard and Judy on April 21 and April 29 showed some clips from the episode as well.

Related Topics:
November 2004 - March 15 - Channel 4 - Richard and Judy - April 21 - April 29

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History within the show

As is common in long-running series whose backstories are not mapped out and which are also the product of many different writers over the course of years, Dalek history has seen many retroactive changes and these have caused some continuity problems.

Related Topics:
Retroactive changes - Continuity

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When the Daleks first appeared in The Daleks (1963), they were the product of a brief nuclear war between the Dal and Thal races. However, in 1975, Terry Nation revised the Daleks' origins in the serial 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.

Related Topics:
Thal - 1975 - Genesis of the Daleks - Anagram - Davros

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Also, instead of a short nuclear exchange, the Kaled-Thal war was portrayed as a generations-long war of attrition, fought with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The resulting mutations from the fallout were accelerated by Davros and placed in tank-like "travel machines" whose design was based on his own life-support chair.

Related Topics:
Attrition - Biological - Chemical weapon - Tank

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Genesis of the Daleks marked a new era for the species, with most of their previous history either forgotten or barely referred to again. Future stories, which followed a rough story arc, would also focus more on Davros, much to the dissatisfaction of some fans who felt that the Daleks should take centre stage, rather than becoming mere minions of their creator.

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Davros made his last televised appearance in the serial Remembrance of the Daleks (1988). Remembrance of the Daleks also marked the last on-screen appearance of the Daleks in the context of the programme until 2005, save for charity specials like Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death and the use of Dalek voices in the Doctor Who television movie in 1996.

Related Topics:
Remembrance of the Daleks - 1988 - Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death - ''Doctor Who'' television movie - 1996

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The Daleks returned in the 2005 series. Dalek, written by Rob Shearman, the sixth episode of the new series, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 April, 2005. The 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 dissolved bullets before they struck it. In addition to the ability to fly, it was also able to regenerate itself by means of absorbing electrical power and the DNA of a time traveller. The "plunger" manipulator arm was also 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 was apparently the sole survivor of a Time War that had destroyed both the Daleks and the Time Lords.

Related Topics:
2005 - Dalek - Rob Shearman - BBC One - 30 April - DNA

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The two-part 2005 series finale, comprising Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways saw the return of the Dalek Emperor, who had also survived the Time War and had rebuilt the Dalek race. This Emperor came to see itself as a god, and built its new society around the Daleks' worship of itself. At the end of the story, the Daleks and their fleet were reduced to atoms.

Related Topics:
2005 - Bad Wolf - The Parting of the Ways - Dalek Emperor

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The production team has stated that the Daleks will face the Tenth Doctor at some point, but not in the 2006 series.

Related Topics:
Tenth Doctor - 2006

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