DAVROS: You will answer my questions.
You will answer them carefully and precisely.
You will tell me the reason for every Dalek defeat.
Davros if I tell you what you want to know, I betray millions of people in the future.
-I can't do that.
-But you can.
You will tell me! You will tell me! You will tell me! DAVROS: Omit no detail.
I wish to know everything.
NARRATOR: The most iconic of Doctor Who's enemies, the Daleks.
Brutal pitiless K*llers, they have returned time and again in their relentless quest to achieve universal domination.
The Daleks are the result of a protracted conflict between the Thal and Kaled races on the planet Skaro.
Nuclear w*r had scarred the surface leaving little more than barren wasteland.
Due to the high radioactive fallout, both sides were slowly mutating.
Realising his own race's ultimate form, the brilliant Kaled scientist Davros genetically corrupted the mentality of these creatures, leaving them without any sense of pity, remorse or compassion.
Placing these creatures inside a travel machine, the resultant entity was christened the Dalek.
And the rest is history.
But how was the concept of the Daleks evolved?
They first featured as early as the second Doctor Who serial written by former Tony Hancock associate, Terry Nation.
But what inspired Nation to such a concept?
In 1967, Nation was interviewed for Alan Whicker's documentary series Whicker's World.
How did a Dalek come to be a heavy?
It Well, I needed a villain.
You know, a very quick job.
There was going to be these six episodes of Doctor Who, which was take the money and fly like a thief, I needed a villain and the Daleks appeared somehow.
I couldn't tell you an interesting story.
They were just a villainous creature that came out of nowhere.
The mechanical part of it is in some way reflecting bureaucracy and the very mechanical life that we face there.
I don't think they're cosy at all.
I suppose World w*r II, you know, crops up again and again in Dalek stories.
Most particularly in the first one where there's the idea that Daleks are, you know, consumed with race hatred for the Thals of Skaro.
I mean, that's a very kind of fascist notion.
The Daleks themselves are very much post-w*r villains, in the sense that Terry Nation was a post-w*r writer.
A writer's preoccupations come out in what he writes.
And Terry, like most writers, you know, was on the whole liberal.
Most writers certainly have a hatred of fascism, of repressive regimes.
When you come to create something nasty for your hero to fight against in a series like Doctor Who, you're kind of bound to make your enemies pretty much like the enemies nearest to you, the writer, in history.
Daleks are like a disease.
There is no negotiating with them.
I mean, there's no appeasing them.
Wait.
Somebody's still in there.
Save for interrogation.
Disable.
They are driven by fear and fear makes you angry and it makes you dangerous, and it makes you violent.
Yes, but why destroy without any apparent thought or reason?
-That's what I don't understand.
-Oh, there's a reason.
Explanation might be better.
It's stupid and ridiculous but it's the only one that fits.
-What?
-A dislike for the unlike.
Racism is an emotional reaction.
It's not an intellectual one.
It's, you know, a powerful dislike of whatever is ''other'', for irrational reasons.
And what's always struck me about the Daleks is how hysterical they are.
You know, you frustrate a Dalek and it sort of goes into what the Americans call a hissy fit.
DALEK: Human female has escaped.
I have failed.
Female prisoner has escaped.
I have failed.
I can't fail They have a massive inferiority complex and most people who have a massive inferiority complex develop a massive superiority complex to overcome it.
The edge of hysteria is never very far away.
In fact, the basis of the Dalek mentality which I worked on, with the people who did the voices, was that feeling of being trapped.
Help me! Help! Help! They are borderline paranoid schizophrenic.
They basically are totally, obviously untrustworthy, but worse than that, they are totally unpredictable.
DALEK: You will be taken to Davros to answer for your crime.
No! If you come up against a Dalek, you might be able to have a conversation with it.
It will tell you what it wants you to do.
You'd better get it right otherwise that's the end of you.
In all likelihood, you won't get that far.
It will just spot you and zap you on the spot.
The things that we are most frightened of, the monsters, for most people, are linked with our biggest fear, which is death.
And the Daleks represent death in the sense that they deal it out quite liberally.
NARRATOR: The debut of the Daleks was a phenomenal hit and cemented Doctor Who's popularity.
The British public loved the creatures and calls for a rematch abounded in the press.
This success had not been anticipated by the series production team.
But they were able to quickly schedule a rematch to be broadcast in late 1 964.
The Dalek Invasion of Earth closed the first recording block of Doctor Who and brought the Dalek menace rather closer to home.
MAN: The year is 2000.
The place, London.
The invasion of the Daleks has begun.
Their plan, to destroy all earthmen.
DALEK: Work must proceed to schedule.
There must be no delays.
MAN: See the Daleks in Doctor Who.
The Dalek Invasion of Earth was better in all ways than the first Dalek story.
It was more immediate.
It was better written.
NEWMAN: I mean, it has quislings and black marketeers and collaboration and, you know, work camps.
All things that come from our iconography of World w*r II.
Including blitzed London, which I think, you know, resonates throughout British science fiction in the '60s.
That paranoia about the possibility of a German invasion and what would it have been like if suddenly there were Nazis walking around Trafalgar Square.
When you bring the enemy to your shore and watch them subjugate us, then obviously you've got a very strong story.
So it was a very strong story.
So you get the Daleks going round all the famous landmarks of London, you know, and you see them waggling their sucker cups in the air in a rather n*zi-like way.
On the Radio Times for that week, there was this cover with the Daleks, there was no Doctor or companions on it, it was just the Daleks.
And then we saw the first episode and this vivid sh*t of this Dalek coming out of the water, which was quite unexpected.
You had seen no Daleks before and suddenly it appeared.
MARTIN: It was difficult to get the Dalek coming out of the water.
Very difficult, and I wasn't very clever.
By the time we got it right, the tide was starting to sink again so we never completely submerged the Dalek.
We got it sort of three quarters of the way submerged and that was all.
And it should have been, obviously, it should have broken the water.
There was lots of comments on Points of View at the time.
After all this expectation that these Daleks were suddenly going to come back, all we saw was one Dalek coming out of the water.
One had to make them frightening and I used, as often as I could, the creeper camera, the low camera, because I wanted them, small though they were, to dominate.
If you start to take them from above, they diminish to the pepper pot they are and you don't get their real power.
McLACHLAN: The last six, seven minutes or more was devoted to Susan's leaving, Susan's parting.
Grandfather! And that really started a trend because you realise that perhaps when the Daleks came back, it meant something was going to happen to the Tardis crew.
DALEK 1 : Give your report.
DALEK 2: Our time machine has been completed.
The operation will proceed at once.
The movement scanners have located the enemy time machine Tardis.
It's a bizarre thing about The Chase because it probably, at the time, for the people making the programme, seemed the most reasonable thing to do with the Daleks.
You know, we've had them be these mysterious creatures in their city and then we've had them inv*de London essentially.
McLACHLAN: Now, the first Dalek story, the companions went to the Daleks.
In the second Dalek story, the Daleks went to Earth.
And so the third one, it was kind of a trip through time and space.
The Dalek Supreme has ordered they are to be pursued through all eternity.
It's just a run-around.
They're just chasing each other, you know, for not very good reasons except the Daleks just saying, ''I hate you and I want to get you.
'' Don't go.
Don't go.
Don't go.
I strongly suspect, although I don't know, that the reason for the comedy elements in The Chase were down to the script editor Dennis Spooner.
Compute timeline by Earth scale.
One Four I guess they just thought it was worth trying out.
And, in retrospect, it just looks like this horrible little blind alley of Dalek development and we all, as Doctor Who fans, go, ''Yes, well, that didn't really happen, did it?
No, no.
'' And, of course, what happens at the end of that story?
Well, Ian and Barbara left.
Do you both realise the enormous risks?
We do.
We still want to go.
NARRATOR: Of course, whilst Terry Nation wrote the initial Dalek story, many others have contributed to their success.
BBC staff designer Raymond Cusick took the rather vague description Nation had provided in his script and went on to create one of the most memorable designs of the 20th century.
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop and actor Peter Hawkins were largely responsible for that memorable staccato voice.
Like all aspects of producing a television drama, making the Daleks work was certainly a team effort.
-And does it work?
-Kind of.
NARRATOR: So what do the people who actually brought the creatures to life remember of them?
Ray Cusick had got quite a bit of acclaim within the design department anyway for his design of the Daleks.
It was really very clever.
It used small actors sitting on little seats inside.
I mean, the blokes who operated them were incredibly patient 'cause it was like spending time inside an oven, because they had no proper ventilation and they used to sweat buckets.
In rehearsals, the actors would sit in the skirt of the Dalek and the lid isn't put on until we're in the studio.
And they were heavy bloody things, you know.
I mean, I don't know what they actually weighed but they were solid wood and hardboard.
Those Daleks were really very primitive.
In front of us we hada wooden wheel.
And as we turned the wheel, the eye went up and down and at the same time, we could turn the whole thing so that the whole of the head turned.
Hold it.
Hold it.
Hold the f*ring.
Can we go on a single on Murphy?
-Murphy's the right hand one, isn't he?
-This one?
-That one.
-Right.
When you're ready.
It was always necessary to keep the Dalek looking animated.
So that meant a slight movement.
The Daleks could only move on their casters on a smooth surface.
You had to put hardboard under the sand and so you had to be careful how you sh*t them because if you sh*t downwards on them, you could see the feet in the sand that you'd laid over the hardboard.
And there'd be blokes behind the bloody things pushing them up the slope, you know, pushing them up into sh*t.
Objective sighted.
Advance.
I think the emotional effect of the Daleks is very largely due to the voice.
If you look at a Dalek, this robot, for a while, it's not particularly frightening.
You endow it with its menace.
The Time Destructor is now completed.
It only requires the core to be fitted.
Peter worked out, and with our help, developed this claustrophobic hysteria.
And he just has that incredible edge that just sets the modulator off beautifully.
We had this big thing about all the voice must be on one level tone or could go up, but could never go down.
Obey the Daleks.
You are in our power.
Over the first few stories, he developed slightly different ways of doing the Dalek, where he sustained words longer and got strange ''rhy-thms into it.
'' DALEK: Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System, will address the meeting.
And David Graham I thought was a brilliant foil to the Peter Hawkins Dalek voice because, you know, it was so different.
He's doing the same thing but he has that strange quality to his voice.
You know, it's kind of I'll probably be very embarrassed that I just did that.
The voice audio has been adjusted.
-What is its present range?
-Seven Earth miles.
He started to add that other thing, which I call snurginess.
That slightly perverted quality.
BRIGGS: And then Roy Skelton came along in Evil of The Daleks.
Who are you?
Answer.
And he has more of a rasping tone to his voice.
If there was a speech where a Dalek was angry, you would feel the emotion of that anger.
-Voice of right.
-Hello.
Let the foreground guys come in and settle and then go.
Okay.
Got you.
We were hidden away behind the scenery on the studio floor, in a sort of void between the backs of various sets.
We always tried to top one another.
We would top one another with gags, with jokes, who could be the most evil Dalek, who could be the funniest Dalek.
-Exterminate! -You will be exterminated.
You will be destroyed! -Exterminated! -Destroyed! -Exterminate! -Exterminate! -Exterminate! Exterminate! -Exterminate! DAVROS: I designed, for the survival of my race, a casing that would hold their mutated form and provide protection, life support and a means of transportation.
This casing, which is self-powered and self-maintaining, I have also equipped with an energy w*apon of awesome power.
But my vanity is not so great that I cannot admit to some minor imperfections in the design.
Do you know of any weaknesses?
Have you noticed, for example, that when they move about, there's a sort of acrid smell?
-Yes, yes, I've noticed that.
-I know.
-A fairground.
-That's it.
-Dodgems.
-It's electricity.
I think they're powered that way.
NARRATOR: The first time we saw the Daleks, they were dependent on static electricity being drawn up from the floor of their metal city.
When a Dalek lost contact with the floor the machine would lose power and the creature inside would die.
Yes, I got it! NARRATOR: The Daleks were soon able to overcome this issue and move beyond their city through slats that acted in a similar manner to solar panels.
But after a long dormancy, a Dalek would always require a period of recharging before they became self-supporting again.
When separated from its casing, the Kaled mutant is little more than a small green blob with tentacles.
Although more easily eliminated using projectile weapons, it is still extremely vicious in nature, with the ability to administer a poisonous bite should it come into contact with a human being.
Dalek casings are made from Dalekamia, an extremely durable and resilient metal.
It takes either high expl*sive or powerful energy weapons, such as another Dalek g*n, to penetrate.
DALEK: Retreat! NARRATOR: The eyestick is a weak point of the Dalek casing.
When blinded, a Dalek tends to open fire randomly in every direction.
DALEK: Turn and point NARRATOR: The only forms of ballistic projectiles that are capable of damaging a Dalek are bastic-headed b*ll*ts.
Daleks are susceptible to extreme cold.
An example being when two were immersed in a pool of liquid ice on Spiridon.
The shock of the low temperature instantly k*lling the mutants inside.
The mid-1960s were the pinnacle of Dalek popularity, and public demand was high.
You could see them in the cinema, buy toys from the local shop, read about their adventures in comics or even see them on stage.
Curse of the Daleks was written by former Doctor Who script editor David Whitaker and was played at Wyndhams Theatre.
The Daleks made regular appearances on other television shows.
But always remained in character.
DALEK: Do you like the Dalek cake the human being Valerie from Earth programme Blue Peter has made?
Yes, but I think there is too much chocolate.
NARRATOR: The Daleks next appeared on Doctor Who in the one-off episode, Mission to the Unknown.
Broadcast in October 1965, Mission featured neither the Doctor nor his companions and was a prelude for the mammoth narrative that was to follow four weeks later.
Temporarily uniting with a collective of bizarre aliens, the Daleks planned to conquer the solar system using their ultimate w*apon, the Time Destructor.
The Daleks' master plan was a 12 episode epic, notably grimmer in tone than previous Dalek serials.
Between November 1965 and January 1966, viewers were taken on a journey unmatched before or after in Doctor Who.
There was a real continuing thr*at that lasted for, in the end, three months, during which, very significant things happened.
And, of course, the first big shock of Master Plan is when Katarina dies and you thought, ''Oh, well you weren't really expecting that.
'' That was quite a surprise, the first companion actually had d*ed.
No, not that one.
Katarina! Katarina! And after having, more or less, Sarah in the background, they actually did an extremely bold and daring thing and k*lled her off in the last few minutes of the programme.
SARAH: Doctor! It was very, very horrifying, the idea that this thing which we've been led to believe can pretty much destroy the whole of time has, against all expectation, been activated.
-Come on, Doctor.
-No, don't touch me.
-I'll help you.
-Will you get back to the ship! Go on! At the end, you kind of say, ''Well, you know, when you're dealing with an enemy ''that's this bad and this vicious and this anti-life, ''you know, there are gonna be bad consequences.
'' BRIGGS: I think Douglas Camfield's direction ofThe Daleks' Master Plan is absolutely key to its success.
It won.
It was expected.
His usefulness is over.
And, you know, it is always a bonus when the director knows how to make the Daleks look good, you know.
Operate pyro-flames.
We obey.
The whole thing really zaps through very, very pacily and he's tremendously inventive with his camera angles.
BRIGGS: I seem to remember that you cut from the sun to the light flare on the dome of a Dalek and the camera pulls out.
Now, you know, you think, ''Oh my goodness, there's someone really thinking ''about how this visually fits together.
'' Are you coming in to take your seat?
They will not start the meeting without me.
I feel like waiting here.
There was quite a run of serials in which, you know, basically, the Daleks were partnered with, or they always entered into these untrustworthy alliances, with self-seeking maniacs.
I, Mavic Chen, give you the core of the Time Destructor.
Mavic Chen seemed to have a lot.
Why did he want even more?
Why did he want even more power?
When I am next to the Daleks, only they stand between me and the highest position in the universe.
Against all the evidence, he first of all thinks he's equal to the Daleks, and it's so clear he's not.
And then he thinks he's going to be their master.
I would love to see what happens when he gets sh*t because I imagine he's got a look of utter astonishment on his face.
-Exterminate all humans.
-Exterminate all humans.
Exterminate, annihilate, destroy.
Daleks conquer and destroy.
Daleks conquer and destroy.
Daleks conquer and destroy.
Daleks conquer and destroy.
The Power of the Daleks is pretty good.
I mean, it holds up throughout partly because it does this thing of having revelations that change the basic set-up.
It's about people, it's not just about Daleks.
They're good, interesting characters.
There's a political power struggle going on.
There's a beautiful sense of inevitability about it.
Polly, Ben come in and meet the Daleks.
-What?
-The Daleks.
They had the very good script, they brought the Daleks back, they had the new Doctor, and I think they also spent more money.
It's absolutely brilliant in the sense of the sets are terribly claustrophobic.
Christopher Barry, a tremendous asset to Doctor Who, a wonderful director.
Maybe even the Daleks have rather more complicated personalities in that particular serial because they have to pretend to be benevolent.
Within that sort of, you know, strange 30% of a person they are, they have good character dialogue.
DOCTOR: The thing it does most efficiently is exterminate human beings.
DALEK: I am your servant.
DOCTOR: It destroys them without mercy, without conscience! DALEK: I am your servant.
We all know that nothing could be further from the truth and the moment it does get back its power, then they're in for real trouble.
BRIGGS: And all these people around him going, ''No, no, no.
They'll be great.
'' ''We'll get them to do the cleaning and do the shopping.
''This is going to be fantastic.
'' And the Doctor's going, ''No, no.
'' And no one's listening.
We are not ready yet to teach these human beings the law of the Daleks.
And that is so spooky because this brings in another dimension of the Daleks which iswhich is more evil.
LESTERSON: He won't stop me experimenting.
There must be some way to bring you back to life and I'm going to find it.
So with Lesterson, you've got a guy who's so single-minded about scientific purity and the Daleks excite that in him.
David Whitaker has created such a strong character, who's strong but brittle.
And you see everything that he's, you know, that he's known and everything that he's put into his work and everything, dissolving and dissolving.
Why didn't I realise?
The Examiner was right.
They are evil.
There are four.
They can't be reproducing.
You always wanted to see more Daleks, more excitement quotient, you know.
And there were loads of them coming along the production line.
That actually went into my unconscious and I would have dreams about Daleks endlessly coming out.
The embryo Daleks which were sort of a gummy glue in a scoop arm, and they were on the conveyor belt, processing along, and the top flipped back and this glob of glue was put down into the Dalek.
-We are the new world -We are the When you wanted a group, sort of, rallying of Daleks you often had to make the same three Daleks run round in front of the camera several times.
I do remember the destruction scenes at the end of the series were rather, in my mind, a little bit chaotic, and I think we were all going rather over the top to get the best effect.
What are you dragging me into?
You've destroyed a human life.
-Don't you understand that?
-That is of no consequence.
No consequence?
There is only one form of life that matters, Dalek life.
Obey your orders, Waterfield.
Another fundamental and vital aspect of the success of the Daleks has to be the contribution of David Whitaker, both as script editor and subsequently as writer.
The Evil of the Daleks, I thought was a fantastic script actually.
It was a really good script.
And Derek very cleverly cast Marius Goring in the lead.
There's a moment in Evil of the Daleks, which is actually almost unprecedented and very rarely repeated in Doctor Who, of a cliffhanger that's based on a conceptual breakthrough rather than peril.
It's the moment where you realise that the Daleks, who've been infected with humanity, are playing trains, are doing something innocent rather than terrifying.
They're taking me for a ride! Jamie, they're playing a game.
Open it! Open it! You will be exterminated.
We had a series of model sh*ts, there on the stage, and then we had the big Emperor Dalek throne built on the stage.
I was only allowed three Daleks with actual working actors doing the Daleks.
The amusing thing was that, you know, one had to make it look like there was an army.
So these three Daleks kept going around and around the camera, flashing by.
Some of the full-size Daleks that we blew up, we actually used the real Daleks without the actor inside them and we made false tops.
When the thing exploded and the inside had to come out, this gooey mess, we would use pieces of plastic, foam, and we used wallpaper paste and this would come out over the top.
I think we've seen the end of the Daleks forever.
The end the final end.
The phone rang in the canteen.
I went down to answer it and Innes said, ''Just had Sydney on the phone.
'' Sydney Newman, Head of Drama.
''Whatever you do, don't k*ll the Daleks.
Keep them alive.
'' ''Right, ''I thought, ''how the hell am I going to do this?
'' All the explosions are set up.
Everything is ready to go.
And I got a bulb, a simple bulb, a light, and so that when the expl*si*n happened there was this pulsating light coming through all the smoke.
So it looked like the Dalek was still alive.
NARRATOR: 1 967's The Evil of the Daleks could well have been the final appearance of the Daleks in Doctor Who.
Terry Nation was attempting to launch the Daleks in America and the production team were concentrating on introducing new monsters, such as the Yeti and the Ice Warriors, and continuing the development of the Cybermen.
Perhaps, for the time being, the British public had also had their fill of the Daleks.
The 1960s had produced some 44 Dalek episodes.
More than the combined total of the next two decades.
DAVROS: My Dalek creations have clearly become more successful than I could have hoped.
They have developed their own command structure and thirst for conquest independently of my initial concept.
Excellent! Yet someone must lead them.
Explain! NARRATOR: As with all dictatorial entities, the Daleks have one ultimate leader, The Emperor.
Encased within a giant immobile shell in the Dalek city on Skaro, this is a specially-bred mutant.
An intelligence that controls every aspect of Dalek life.
With a larger casing than its minions, this Dalek was the head of the Supreme Council.
With a short temper and obstinate attitude, subordinates who failed it faced only one result.
You have failed! The Supreme Council does not accept failure.
NARRATOR: Another member of the Supreme Council was this gold Dalek who oversaw the occupation of Earth in the 22nd century.
It also monitored the activities of the renegade Time Lord known as the Master when trying to force a w*r between the empires of Earth and Draconia.
Dalek expeditions are generally led by a black Dalek, commonly referred to as a Dalek Supreme.
DALEK: No power in this universe can stop the Daleks.
NARRATOR: Two subdivisions of Supreme Dalek have also been seen.
The aides to the Emperor Dalek were seen prior to the Skaro civil w*r, whilst this distinctively coloured Dalek from their first invasion of Earth appeared to be commanding saucer Alpha Major.
Of the remainder, the silver Daleks form a scientific corps, hence their perceived higher intelligence.
With the grey Daleks effectively being the grunts of the Dalek army, simply created to fight.
DALEK: Stay where you are.
This is the Dalek Supreme.
Stay where you are.
You will be exterminated.
Exterminated.
Ever since the Daleks disappeared from Doctor Who, people have been begging for them to come back.
There've been literally hundreds and thousands of letters with people saying, ''Can't they please come back ''and have another memorable battle with the Doctor?
'' So who knows, perhaps if enough people write and ask the Doctor Who programme if the Daleks can come back, you never know, in the next Doctor Who adventures, the Daleks may well be there.
NARRATOR: And, indeed, after a long wait the Daleks came back to Doctor Who in 1 9 72.
Day of the Daleks dealt with an alternative future with Earth under alien control.
The initial storyline did not feature the Daleks.
But they were added when script editor Terrance Dicks realised that the season opener could be bolstered with such a popular return.
It was easy enough structurally, as it were, that the monsters behind the bad guys were the Daleks.
And the Daleks are such an icon that it's always a great moment when a Dalek comes trundling on screen.
So that's always an advantage.
It really actually played with the idea of time and interfering with time which Doctor Who at that point didn't do huge amounts of.
And, of course, they were once again on the front cover of Radio Times.
-Exterminate! -Anat! Look out! You kind of got the impression they hadn't done Daleks for a long time.
And it almost looked like they hadn't built the sets with the Daleks in mind.
Do not dispute with the Daleks.
Obey without question.
The Dalek operation in it is a little bit It seems a shame after the really good stuff they got going in the '60s.
It seems to be back to square one.
The voices were different.
They weren't the original voices, which I thought was strange.
Whoever is operating the time machine is an enemy of the Daleks.
But the one scene, I think, where you've got the Ogrons and the Daleks coming along, I must say, it looked To me, that was a disappointing scene 'cause there just wasn't enough of them.
Dealing with the Daleks in story terms, in dramatic terms, presents certain difficulties because they are limited, as it were.
You know, they're limited in their actions and their range.
Energy level building to liftoff capacity.
Prepare for ascent.
Planets of the Daleks is really the Daleks'greatest hits, isn't it?
It may not be the most original and the most brilliant Dalek story ever, but it feels totally authentic.
Come on, let's get out of here.
The ice volcano! And in Death to the Daleks, the thing was, ''Oh, let's take their g*ns away for a bit ''and see what they do.
Make them powerless.
'' I think that Michael Wisher came along and added something really new and interesting into the mix for Dalek voices, you know.
DALEK: Voices were heard.
Move into the firelight.
Pick up your blanket.
You will stay in sight at all times.
NARRATOR: Although entertaining dramas in their own right, it has been argued that the stories of the Jon Pertwee era provide little new to Dalek mythology.
This was rectified in 1 9 75 when the production team finally took us back to the very creation of the Daleks.
Genesis of the Daleks was a particularly stark vision of the Thal-Kaled w*r and first introduced us to the character of Davros, as played by Michael Wisher.
Today the Kaled race is ended, consumed in a fire of w*r, but from its ashes will rise a new race, the supreme creature, the ultimate conqueror of the universe, the Dalek! The forces ranged against your hero have to be more powerful than the hero.
This character, you know, like Davros, with no conscience whatsoever, is a sort of shorthand.
He was a perfect antagonist 'cause, yeah, he was a mad, ranting, humourless bastard.
And Tom Baker's Doctor Who always worked better when playing off a straight man.
Davros is a complete maniac.
He's consumed with his own ego and perpetuating himself.
It's a multi-layered performance.
There's a lot of texture to it.
When all other life forms are suppressed, when the Daleks are the supreme rulers of the universe, then you will have peace.
He comes out with all this offensive, r*cist nastiness and, you know, genetic purity and all that kind of stuff.
And Michael makes it sound reasonable! Bob Holmes put flesh on the dialogue and sort of gave it that extra level of sort of grotesqueness, really.
They talk of democracy, freedom, fairness.
Those are the creeds of cowards.
The ones who will listen to a thousand viewpoints and try to satisfy them all.
Achievement comes through absolute power.
And power through strength.
As soon as the spotlight went onto Davros, the Daleks were very much relegated into being ciphers.
And they fetched and carried and obeyed orders.
But they weren't actually the scheming, malevolent, devious, intelligent presence they had before.
I always enjoyed composing the Daleks in pictures.
They make good pictures.
And, of course, you can move a camera around them effectively.
I remember saying to David Maloney, ''You know, look, how can we make these Daleks a bit more menacing?
'' Those Daleks have some very strong openings where they come down towards the camera.
Dudley's music is very powerful there.
Maybe not showing the Daleks so much in such bright lighting.
Exterminate! Exterminate! For the first time we put a ray on this flipper.
Up to then it just went ''flip, flip, flip, flip''.
But I don't think by then that that was scary enough for the children.
Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! A Dalek by itself when it comes into view isn't frightening.
You have to put it in a sort of narrative context.
And I think this had a very powerful sort of context, the whole story about this race that need to construct a new sort of way of existing and then the fact that they get perverted.
That outlines the chromosomal variations to be introduced into the embryo Daleks.
It is to be implemented at once, Gharman.
-Davros, this will create enormous mental defects.
-Not defects, improvements! It'll mean creatures without conscience.
No sense of right or wrong.
No pity.
-They'll be without feeling or emotion.
-Correct! ANNOUNCER: We interrupt this programme to bring you an emergency news flash.
Two of Doctor Who's Daleks are missing, presumed stolen from right here at the BBC's Television Centre.
They were last seen parked here in the Ring Road outside studio 8 on Tuesday, May 22nd.
They'd come back from Cardiff and were waiting to be picked up by a lorry to take them to be stored away.
Well, they were picked up all right but not by the right person.
When the lorry driver went out to look for them, they had disappeared and since then, no one has seen sight nor sound of them.
The two missing Daleks look like this.
They're five foot six tall, four feet long and three feet wide.
And this Dalek has got a message for everybody who's watching.
We appeal to all viewers to assist the Earth humanoid police in finding the two missing Dalek members of our Earth observation delegation.
ANNOUNCER: We will inform viewers of any further developments in this breaking story.
And now back to the Dalek Tapes.
NARRATOR: Four years elapsed until the creatures returned in 1979's Destiny of the Daleks.
Terry Nation wrote his final script for the programme and the character of Davros rose from the grave, this time performed by David Gooderson.
But could it continue the success of its immediate predecessor?
Putting aside our differences for a moment, speaking simply as scientists, the problem is fascinating, don't you agree?
Oh, yes.
Two vast computers so evenly matched they can't out-think one another.
-Two space fleets totally impotent.
-Yes.
I think it's a neat idea to have a race of robots who lose touch with their origins and need to go back to the person who created them in order to get intuition.
It's just that it doesn't quite marry up with what's been said about the Daleks before.
If you're supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don't you try climbing after us?
Bye-bye.
The Daleks are already becoming tremendously emasculated.
There is one scene where one Dalek shouts at Lalla Ward's Romana, ''Do not move,'' about eight times.
Do not move! Do not move! Do not move! They're no longer these terrifying one-look-and-you're-dead thr*at that they used to be.
It kind of got the Daleks wedded to Davros.
It meant that every Dalek story from then on had to be a Davros story.
In the history of the universe, this moment is unique.
Davros lives! Yes.
Well, I can see your long rest hasn't done anything to cure your megalomania.
Have a Jelly Baby.
He creates the Daleks and they destroy him, which is a brilliant ending.
You know, that's how it should be.
And that explains the Daleks we saw earlier who don't have this Führer figure or this creator figure, who have just been, you know, given their initial orders to destroy and that's what they're going to do.
There's even the sort of hint that maybe there isn't even a Dalek creature inside anymore.
A Kaled mutant.
Of course, the Daleks were originally organic life forms.
In the studio, you always sh*t them tight.
They were always moving through foreground.
You were always aware of a sort of strange malevolent presence drifting through the sh*t or coming in the background, but you were always in an enclosed environment.
It was always very claustrophobic.
Tom was brilliant at creating that feeling of apprehension about the Daleks.
-Really?
-Do not move! You see, there's nothing you can do to stop it now.
ANNOUNCER: News coming in.
There have been further developments in the case of the kidnapped Daleks.
We now go live to our man on the scene, Peter Purves.
The first news of one of the missing Daleks was received here at East Dulwich Police Station shortly after 8:00 on Thursday night, just three hours after our dramatic SOS.
Constable, what actually happened?
Well, about 8:00 yesterday evening we had a phone call from a Mr Harding of Champion Hill to say he'd found a Dalek in his front garden.
-I bet you were surprised.
-Yes, we was very surprised.
Anyway, we went up there in the police Rover motor car and the van and there in his garden was this Dalek.
I keep my car covered up usually while I'm away.
-Yes.
-And in the afternoon I went and took the cover off it.
And it looked like somebody doing repairs, but in fact it was a Dalek -laying beside it.
-Was it damaged?
Well, it seemed all right to me.
Well, that is one of the Daleks accounted for.
But there was still one more to go.
This is Windsor Road.
Three nurses on their way to work spotted the second of the missing Daleks.
It was by a row of garages, just standing in the corner, and completely uncovered.
Unlike the first Dalek that was found, this one was damaged, badly scratched, marked, broken, all the mechanism in fact was smashed.
There was a blue Transit van pulled up here this morning and it took out the bottom of the Dalek, then it took out the top and it put them there It was in a blue Transit van with no windows and the men had long hair.
So, at least, although one of the Daleks was damaged, our story has a happy ending.
Both the missing Daleks were found within 24 hours of our Blue Peter SOS.
ANNOUNCER: The BBC would like to apologise for the delay.
Please enjoy the rest of the programme.
NARRATOR: During the 1980s, the Daleks appeared in three further adventures, two of which were penned by series script editor Eric Saward.
Davros was once again recast, performed in all three stories by actor Terry Molloy.
Resurrection and Revelation of the Daleks were both morbid and dark tales.
The former was an action-packed killathon with a higher body count than The Terminator.
Whilst the latter is perhaps the strangest Dalek story of all, mixing black comedy and horror in a manner previously unknown in the series.
Revelation also introduced a new concept.
Daleks created from human remains that were loyal only to Davros.
So, after the perceived shortcomings of Destiny, could these serials get the Daleks back to their best?
Fire! Mask down.
Mask down! It put images on television that you could probably not have put in any other context.
Specifically, the image of British policemen murdering innocent people.
There are a lot of ideas in there, and most of them are good ones, but there are just too many.
Your duplicates will return to Gallifrey where, at our command, you will assassinate the members of the High Council.
No! I just didn't feel very satisfied with it.
I can't really put my finger on it and say, ''It was wrong because of this, this and this.
'' I think it was just too much rushing around.
It was too urgent, tootoo fussy.
I shall build a new race of Daleks.
They will be even more deadly and I, Davros, shall be their leader.
What we were doing was reintroducing, in a sense, Davros, having been out for quite a while, and reminding people of what Michael Wisher had created.
Not imitate, but replicate and begin to build from that point onwards.
You hesitate, Doctor.
If I were you, I would be dead.
I lack your practice, Davros.
Action requires courage, something you lack.
I was very aware of how I portrayed him and tried not, in any way, to make him a caricature villain.
BEECH: For perhaps the only time after the introduction of Davros, of course, the Daleks actually get to do a lot of k*lling.
Matthew Robinson and his lighting technicians kept it very dark so he could get that gloomy atmospheric, claustrophobic, kind of suspenseful atmosphere.
And I think he achieved that remarkably well.
Welcome, I am Takis.
-You sent for us?
-That's right.
Where is Davros?
I'll take you to him, but first, can we discuss our deal?
You will obey my will.
You will take me to Davros.
-Now! -Of course.
At once.
Of course, if you're going to do Doctor Who, the story you wanna do is the Dalek story.
Well, I did and I was very pleased to do it.
There were some wonderfully humorous lines and wonderfully dark and sinister lines, and the ability for me as an actor to portray Davros at very many different levels.
And there were things I wanted to explore with the character the second time round, into some of the more subtle areas of where his character may have come from and what he was thinking inside.
There are moments always for ranting.
A person like that will rant, but you keep it down a bit.
The best villains work when they're quiet.
It was great to be able to bring that voice right down to a very low level.
If someone had treated me the way he has treated you, I think I would have k*lled him.
-k*lled him?
Oh, no, I couldn't do that.
-No?
And what it does is actually it gives a texture and a depth above and beyond just a two-dimensional villain, becomes a three-dimensional villain with their own set of values.
The more you push the concept of the Dalek into making it a much more dynamic Giving it a sense of what it is.
It is a form of Stormtrooper.
It is an all powerful, all invading creature.
I wanted to show the Daleks in a really horrific way.
I was really worried that they didn't look silly, they didn't creak along.
Come this way a bit.
Stay just a bit There, like that.
MOLLOY: sh*ts where just an eyestalk would come in, we'd just get the back of the Dalek, or they'd be in shadow and they'd just slowly come forward.
And that becomes much more menacing.
You're right.
This place is gruesome.
I didn't want it to be so horrifying that nobody could watch it but I wanted it to be terrifying.
I wanted to That's what Doctor Who is.
My mind has been conditioned to serve a new master.
So you keep saying, but who is this person?
I can't remember.
I wanted to be able to see how the head, the brain, could be adapted and how he would use, how he would create this Dalek.
Graeme suggested that because there were human beings, or human entities, inside them that they should have a slightly different, more human quality.
-You are our prisoner.
-You will not resist.
A different tone of voice that was making them, I suppose you could say slightly more human, but I don't think they were more human but they'd still got a different quality to them.
Now! Run! NARRATOR: Davros and the Daleks were last seen attempting to steal the legendary Hand of Omega from the Doctor.
Thwarting their plan, the Doctor destroyed Davros' ship and turned Skaro's sun supernova.
Whether Davros survived or not has yet to be seen.
And that was the last appearance of the Daleks in the original television series.
Since the inception of the programme, the Daleks have been inextricably linked to Doctor Who, forever chanting their legendary battle cry of ''Exterminate''.
They are one of the most enduring concepts of science fiction.
An analogy of a timeless evil, the Daleks still maintain the ability to send children scurrying behind the sofa.
And we always know that whatever the time, whatever the place DALEK: No one can dispute the power of the Daleks.