The Daleks

Home Planet: Skaro
Appearance: Kaled mutations in robot-like mechanical shells
Weaknesses: Reliance on logic & machinery

The greatest enemy of the Doctor has been the Daleks. The Daleks are organisms from the planet Skaro, integrated within a tank-like or robot-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. Occasionally they are shown as experiencing other emotions, primarily fear, although such occurrences are rare. Their famous catchphrase is "Exterminate!", with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic electronic voice.

The Daleks were created by writer Terry Nation and designed by BBC designer Raymond Cusick. They were introduced in December 1963 in the second Doctor Who serial, colloquially known as The Daleks. They became an immediate and huge hit with viewers, featuring in many subsequent serials and two 1960s motion pictures. They have become as synonymous with Doctor Who as the title character, and their behaviour and catchphrases are now part of British popular culture. "Hiding behind the sofa whenever the Daleks appear" has been cited as an element of British cultural identity; and a 2008 survey indicated that 9 out of 10 British children were able to identify a Dalek correctly. In 1999 a Dalek appeared on a postage stamp celebrating British popular culture, photographed by Lord Snowdon.

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. He was also inspired by a performance by the Georgian National Ballet, in which dancers in long skirts appeared to glide across the stage. For many of the shows, the Daleks were "played" by retired ballet dancers wearing black socks while sitting inside the Dalek. 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. 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. 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.

The Dalek obsession with their own superiority is illustrated by the schism between the Renegade and Imperial Daleks seen in Revalation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks: the two factions consider the other to be a perversion despite the relatively minor differences between them. This intolerance of any "contamination" within themselves is also shown in "Dalek", The Evil of the Daleks and in the Big Finish Productions audio play The Mutant Phase. This superiority complex is the basis of the Daleks' ruthlessness and lack of compassion. This is shown in extreme in Victory of the Daleks, where the new, pure Daleks destroy their creator, impure Daleks, with their consent. It is nearly impossible to negotiate or reason with a Dalek, a single-mindedness that makes them dangerous and not to be underestimated.

The Daleks were created by the Kaled scientist, Davros as travel machines. He had deduced that the years of radiation and chemical poisoning from an ongoing war would lead his race to mutate into immobile organisms.

The Dalek travel machines would house these creatures and allow the Kaleds to survive. However, in the course of his experiments, Davros deliberately removed what he considered to be debilitating emotions from the mutants and a force of evil was spawned!

The Daleks were born without any ability to feel compassion or pity and were motivated only by hate, fear and an implacable belief that they were the superior creatures in the Universe.

Today, almost forty years after their debut, the Daleks are still immensely popular. Their name even has an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of English, and several years ago a British stamp was issued with a picture of a Dalek.

In season five of the new Doctor Who series, the Daleks were again back on our TV screens in Victory Of The Daleks, supporting the british army and Winston Churchill... or are they?

For the season 5, the Daleks have undergone a brand new look, coming under some scrutiny from hardcore Doctor Who fans as being too 'safe'. The Doctor's greatest enemy were resurrected - complete with new, multicoloured casings!

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