Summary
- Keeping the iconic Daleks in their original appearance was Russell T Davies’ best decision for Doctor Who.
- The Daleks are xenophobic cyborg aliens and old, classic enemies of the Doctor.
- Fans eagerly await a reinvented Dalek storyline in the upcoming Doctor Who season.
Russell T Davies, who rebooted the British science fiction TV series Doctor Who in 2005, shared one thing he considered the “best decision” since he revived the show. According to him, keeping the most iconic and feared villain in the franchise as they were was the right choice.
Doctor Who is the longest-running British sci-fi show. It debuted in 1963 and ran for 26 years before it was canceled in 1989 due to the BBC cutting budget and declining popularity. There was an attempt to relaunch the show in 1996 with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. However, it failed to win the audience for a full-time show. In 2005, Davies rebooted the series, bringing Doctor Who into the modern era, and it was a success because the show is still airing now, with a new season coming up next month. In a recent interview, Davies shared one decision he was proud of since the reboot.
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Davies recently appeared on David Tennant Does a Podcast With… and they talked about Doctor Who. Tennant appeared and led the show twice as the Tenth Doctor and Fourteenth Doctor. He is considered among the most stylish leads because he is the only one who matches his suit and trench coat with a pair of Converse sneakers, and they look cool on him. During the conversation, the duo talked about Davies bringing back the show in 2005 and Tennant asking what he was thinking at the time, since it wasn’t easy to introduce the series to children who had no idea about the show and he couldn’t just present Dalek to them. Davies acknowledged the Dalek being redesigned over time like “flying droids,” but the showrunner preferred to stick to its original appearance. “That was my best decision, to stick to the Daleks. They weren’t allowed to change their proportions at all,” he told Tennant. According to Davies, there were a lot of designs to change the Dalek’s look, but he was very strict regarding keeping its proportion.
Davies said:
People had great designs, they were big and they were brutish but they were more like droids. You know, when you get a toy Dalek that looks like a Dalek, it’s not a Dalek. When they get the measurements wrong, when you draw it, you go, ‘That doesn’t look like a Dalek.’ I just had to believe – that was just an act of faith.
The Daleks are a fictional, xenophobic, and extremely dangerous extraterrestrial race of cyborg aliens. They have robotic appearances and are highly intelligent, and they nearly wiped out entire civilizations. The Daleks are among the Doctor’s greatest enemies because no matter how many times the Doctor defeats them, they always find a way to return. The Daleks have appeared in several episodes in modern Doctor Who during Davies’ first run as showrunner from 2005 to 2010. In the 2005 episode “Dalek,” a single Dalek survives the Time War and goes on a rampage. In 2006’s “Doomsday,” Daleks and Cybermen had an epic battle, and a secret elite group of Daleks — the Cult of Skaro — was introduced. In the episodes “Dalek in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks,” the show featured the Daleks experimenting with human-Dalek hybrids in 1930s New York. It introduced Dalek Sec, the leader of the Cult of Skaro – which was formed with improved fighting skills and strategies to defeat their enemies. The Daleks haven’t appeared in the recent seasons of Doctor Who, but they have always been a major part of the franchise. Ncuti Gatwa, the Fifteenth Doctor, previously said that he wanted to encounter a Dalek while on the show. Without a Dalek encounter, Gatwa’s stint on the show wouldn’t be complete. “What on earth would be the point of me being Doctor Who without facing a Dalek!” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2024.
The Daleks are among the fascinating characters in the Doctor Who universe. Dalek Sec, who became the first Dalek-human hybrid after deciding to experiment with human DNA in the hope of evolving the Dalek race, was exterminated because his transformation gave him emotions that his fellow Daleks considered weakness. The Daleks are as famous as the Doctor, and they are recognizable worldwide, as evident in merchandising and toy sales. It has been a while since fans last saw the Daleks, so it’s time to bring them back with reinvented storyline. They can make the Daleks smarter, stronger, and scarier. The Daleks’ return on Gatwa’s season will be great, especially because Gatwa wanted his character, the Fifteenth Doctor, to encounter them. Hopefully, Gatwa’s request will be granted because fans have been waiting for another epic battle involving the Daleks.
Doctor Who Season 15 will premiere on April 12, 2025.
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