Right with a new producer Steven Moffat, taking over the rigns of dr who, and there have always been redesigns on the daleks, and cybermen

For S5 I would like to see the daleks down graded, no levitation, no shielding protection, and no laser gun, just a very basic dalek who shoots either gas, or bullet type weapon, but as the series progresses they upgrade

Cybermen make them very mobile, where they could run after you, give them a type of suit simiar to what was worn in dune, but silver, and make the head gear more human like

Gas shooting Daleks is a bit silly. I always thought they looked more like fire extinguisher droids when I saw the movies as a kid.....

The Daleks should walk like Spiders!
And they should pop open their case to hide precious stolen items, like Bender from Futurama!

The only thing wrong with them at the minute is I'd like them to tone down the shield they have. I think the main reason they have that is a nice little hand wave to the fact why the production team don't have to show the daleks being blown up very often when they're in piched battles. (Which means they could've got away with building relatively few initially and using CG to represent the few Dalek casualties....in fact I think every time a Dalek has been blown up so far in New Who is has been CG....)

This might be a production nescessity but it does mean they're almost invunerable, there's no chance a human with a paintgun can score a lucky hit. Sometimes you want to see that

I'm not sure there should be much alteration to the new look Dalek, if it reappears any time soon. I think the design is wonderful, if used slightly too often!

As for the Cybermen ... of the Classic series stories, I've only seen Earthshock ... but preferred entirely the design of those Cybermen to the NuWho design. Though of course it needs "updating", the basic principle of a Cyberman is, imo, more effective there than the new-look Cyberman

Get rid of the Cybus-Men and bring back the Cybermen

I agree they are a bit too clunky for me. I'd rather they went back to the original idea of the alien race that payed the ultimate price in their search for immortality. Also I always felt they were far more sinister. The exception being the rather sily cybermen of the Davidson + eras, they were just awful.

I've got a silly question regarding the Daleks, but since they are the property of Terry Nation (or of his heirs ?) is anyone allowed to change their design ?
I've not watched any Classic Who featuring the Daleks yet, but unless I'm mistaken, they already looked like what we have in the new series, including the flying, didn't they ?

Yes! They were like a bargain basement, comedy version.

The design stays the same, it just how you make them lok, and do

IIRC there were talks of Spider-legged Daleks once upon a time (i think they actually appeared in a comic...), dunno if they could do anything like that.

In theory, you could have 2 factions of Daleks like the old days, and redesign one lot and call them somwething else (say, Supreme Beings), retire the regulare Daleks and keep the Supreme Beings going... although im not sure if you could keep the voice pattern too...

They did fly in McCoy's time, yes.

if you can call a dalek shell attached to a stair lift "flying" lol

Yeah, you weren't meant to be able to see that. Cheap 80s budget. Nowadays CGI is used.

That was an elderly Dalek, don't mock!


I think we should definitely find out the fate of our universe's Cybermen at some point.

The idea of the Daleks - where they come from, why they do the things they do - is the property of Terry Nation's estate.

The actual design belongs to the BBC. Of course if the BBC wanted to make radical design changes TN's estate disapproved of, then TN's estate would withhold permission to use the Daleks.

I believe it's a similar situation with K9 and his creators.

I personally think anything but the most superficial cosmetic changes to the Daleks would be a big mistake. Perhaps a more useful appendage than a toilet plunger (that was daft even in 1963) and I think they look more effective when flying rather than rolling slowly on the ground. When on the ground they're a bit like zombies. Pretty deadly if they catch you, but you can outrun them quite easily even if you're a 90-year-old man with two hip replacements wearing his great-granddaughter's 6-inch stiletto shoes.

Cybermen are a bit difficult. Full-metal like the Cybus Cybermen and they're clumsy. Too much skin exposed, or a more flexible costume and you either look like Star Trek's Borg (who, let's face it, are much improved Cybermen anyway) or the typical Doctor Who "face mask and coveralls" monster. Wouldn't mind not seeing them again anyway. Not a huge difference between a race that wants to destroy every other species in the universe and one that wants to "upgrade" all of them.

I rather like them both as they are but maybe the Cybermen could look more I Robot, as in thinner.

I hope this doesn't sound too silly but if you pushed a dalek on its side, how would it get up?

Thanks for the info regarding the legal details.

I've bought a book a few days ago called Inside the TARDIS. The author is a historian who has had access to the BBC archive and he explains that the Cybermen (along with the Yeti and the Ice Wrrioirs) were invented because Terry Nation tried to market the Daleks during Troughton's era, so they had to find a new "monster" that would be as popular as the Daleks were, hence the same pattern between the Daleks and the Cybermen.
But I agree, the resemblance between both make the Cybermen a bit redundant.

Since its mid-section can now rotate, it probably could press its sucker against the floor to get some lift then use its anti-grav arse to do the rest.

Not before having a little nap first

I've never really thought the new Cybermen held any menace. The new design is a bit too polished I feel. I've never really thought they were used brilliantly in the new stories either - sort of forgot they were there in the latest Xmas ep, thought the "Next" Doctor overshadowed them a bit and the Godzilla ending got a bit too ridiculous. Likewise, with the series 2 finale, they were pretty much rendered the rank outsiders as soon as the Daleks appeared, and the whole slanging match between the two sides in the corridor was a bit silly too.

Something a bit more crude might be interesting, not just a human brain thrown into a polished, uniformed shell, but something showing a bit more of the grim reality of the process. Then again I wouldn't want something like the Cyberwoman, which in my eyes looked like a villain from a sofcore sci fi porno.

Its funny how people's opinions can differ, you've just listed pretty much everything that I loved....
New Zy-bermen are great for me, even if they can't make up their minds that their electric hands or their arm laser is their primary weapon!
(Anyone notice at the end of Army of Ghosts they forgot to add the electric effect to the tv presenter that gets attacked as the Zy-bermen emerge from the ghosts??)

I especially loved the Giant Stomping Super Cyberman on Christmas Day. A marvellous concept I thought and a fantastic use of the SFX team...

I like the daleks evolving so they can levitate, but the flying like a bloody jet fighter is too far & makes them even more unbeatable. Air Skaro needs grounding a little! Force shields are ok, but it always seems to need almost divine intervention to finally beat them.

As for the cybermen, I much prefer the old type (although they did need updating), far more sinister!

They should be more 'borg' like

I think really they do need to ditch the cybermen design completly - it's essentially still based on a 1960s design. When you look at the most famous android/cyborg - the Terminator - they have gone through various designs across the 25 years they've been around. All significantly more scary then the cybermen ever were. They combine the cybermens relentlessness and power but put it into a form which people find scary on a primordal level - a skeleton.

I don't want to see Arnie in Doctor Who but I do think with the vast array of robot designs in games, films and television using a 1960s model is a definate mistake.

As for the Daleks - they were always stupid. It's what they said and did that made them scary - not their design. Even when I was young I could never understand why they would make a transport machine which was so bad to maneuver, I mean seriously did Davros do the creature and delegated the machine to Sir Clive Sinclair?

Ridiculous is right. That "Godzilla" scene looked like it belonged in Power Rangers! That giant Cyberking robot just made me think of the Zord battles. Except that the Doctor was more inventive in his choice of vehicle and weapon... not the sort of thing I want to see again in Doctor Who for a long time. It was a good episode until Hartigan's conversion into the pilot of that giant.

Think I've said this before - but I always thought the original cybermen with their cloth-faces were much more scary. It showed they were human underneath (body-wise). I also agree that any NEW incarnation should look more like half-human/half robot, whatever - like the Borg.
As for the Daleks - they HAVE to remain the same! They have always 'flown' (not that we saw it) - but it was obvious that they could get about in the old days. Look at 'The Chase' or even earlier 'Invasion Of Earth' - they could swim!!

Could we not just retire the Daleks and the Cybermen for a couple of series? The RTD era has been a bit predictable, in terms of the major enemy in each series: Daleks...Cybermen...Daleks and Cybermen...the Rani...Daleks again...the Master...Daleks yet again...Cybermen again...the Master again...