Cult Spy: The Impotence of the Daleks

The most feared race in the universe (apart from PE teachers) returned to television in 2005 and immediately restored a cultural icon to its former glory as well as sending children and adults alike scurrying behind the sofas. Yet three years and several ill-fated attempts to conquer the universe later, it seems that all The Doctor's companions have to do is click their fingers to destroy the metallic mutants en masse. Cult Spy probes the lessening impact of the Daleks…

The task facing showrunner Russell T. Davies and writer Rob Shearman was undoubtedly immense. The Daleks, once a bastion of fear with Nazi overtones, had been reduced to a kitsch object of fun and ridicule in the many years that Doctor Who had been off air. Perhaps the nadir was a Kit Kat advert in 2001 featuring a Hare Krishna-like procession of Daleks wailing "peace and love", or maybe a series of Energiser battery adverts shortly after. Just like the Spice Girls, these metallic mutants appeared to like making a quick buck through commercial endorsement on their way to global domination. (They also shared similarly grating vocals, but that's another story).

Yet Shearman's script, based on his own Big Finish audio play 'Jubilee', absolutely nailed the cunning personality at the core of a Dalek, harking back to the menace of their 1960s heyday, and exhibiting a childlike glee when exterminating a random member of the cast. As the original series wore on into the 1970s and 80s, many viewers would have mistaken the Daleks to be robots - such was their uniform, non-individualistic behaviour, with a range of dialogue as expansive as the battery-operated Dalek toys in existence at the time. It was left to Davros, after his 1975 debut, or the renegade Supreme Dalek to supply the interesting verbals.

Gone were the petty squabbles and devious ramblings in the ranks that were so delicious during the black and white era of the show. Just witness the stream-of-consciousness "WE-ARE-THE-MASTERS-OF-EARTH" rant in 1964's 'The Dalek Invasion Of Earth' by the Dalek that famously emerged from the River Thames.

2005's 'Dalek' restored their wild fanaticism and murderous imperative, with a few thinly-veiled references to the treatment and torture of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay. It demonstrated that a mere 'soldier', in dire need of orders, bears powerful emotions too and is not merely an expendable tool. Most importantly, lurking beneath the rusty polycarbide armour was a thinking, breathing blob of hate. Well, until Rose Tyler's DNA took hold at least. Then it became part seething squid with a desire to kill, and part chirpy chav with a desire to buy a Westlife CD.

On a visual level, gone were the battered props of old that barely managed to negotiate a cobbled street in 1988's 'Remembrance of the Daleks'. A gleaming, beefed up Dalek was an awesome sight to behold, with a rotating mid-section, bullet shield, functional plunger and a dilating iris that also evoked the 1960s props. The advent of CGI meant that we could see the Dalek glide across the sky and up stairs too, in much clearer fashion than their late '80s attempts to defy gravity.

The pinnacle of their ingenious resurrection surely comes with the mass extermination of Van Statten's troops by activating the sprinklers and then using the water to conduct the lethal extermination death ray onto the troops. Such cunning tactics are also deployed in their next story 'The Parting Of The Ways', where Big Brother housemate Lynda is killed by a Dalek hovering outside the space station. Brilliantly, we see (not hear) the Dalek cry exterminate outside, through the flashing of its 'ears'.

Yet this season finale also signalled the advent of an increasingly regular tendency to build up the Dalek threat only to suddenly wipe them out en masse in their entirety.

Rose Tyler's absorption of the Tardis vortex allowed her to disintegrate every Dalek in existence (apparently), which was a sudden plot twist that tied in with the ongoing 'Bad Wolf' story arc. Fast forward a year later and the Daleks are out in force and dominating the Earth's skies. Rose Tyler pulls a lever and suddenly all the Daleks (except the Cult of Skaro) fly into the Void and out of reality. Job done.

Most recently in 'Journey's End', Donna Noble has to flick a few switches in the Crucible and, shock horror, the Daleks go doolally and blow up. All of them. In seconds. Again. (Albeit with the help of a genocidal half human Doctor, in a neat parallel to a key scene from 'Genesis of the Daleks').

When so much time, effort and ingenuity is invested in establishing the menace of these perennial villains - and how one Dalek is enough to wipe out humanity - it's a shame to see the species repeatedly thwarted in such a manner.

Furthermore, there's a danger of returning to the days when Daleks would scream "exterminate" several times until their intended victim was able to escape. This happened to both Wilf and Sarah Jane in the latest season finale, although one trigger-happy Dalek at least managed to strike The Doctor with a glancing shot. Still, even that didn't do much damage. Are they starting to fire blanks?

The Daleks' power to strike fear into viewers is just about intact though, as proved by the terrifying shrieks of "exterminate" that Mr. Smith and Torchwood HQ managed to pick up in 'The Stolen Earth'. So simple, yet so effective.

The extended break for Doctor Who couldn't come at a better time for the bug-eyed monsters from Skaro. If they continued to be so easily and conveniently destroyed, then it wouldn't be long before they replace Pele in those Viagra adverts. It's over to you Steven Moffat...

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