But it's not odd. The odd thing is that the Daleks caught on in the way that they did.

And that probably owed just as much to the series in general and how different it was from the norm back then. It was a kid's series, but adults watched it, too. Scientists wrote in to commend the BBC on how good the programme was, and how impressed they were with the actual science in the programme. The opening credits were like nothing anyone had ever seen. Nobody had ever seen visual effects like the video feedback in the credits. And it's for sure that nobody had heard anything like the music before. This was before synthesisers had even been thought of, don't forget. The whole theme tune was made with line-testing signal generators and edited together on tape with a razor blade and sticky tape, note-by-note.

The whole programme was like nothing anyone had even imagined you could see on television. Add to that the Daleks with their odd look and strange voices, and you can see why people were so taken with this completely new idea.


The "whisk" is a gun.

And Daleks don't always have the plunger. There's the Special Weapons Dalek, the Daleks that had claws rather than plungers, and there was the Cutting Dalek, which you saw in "The Parting Of The Ways".


So much so that they almost never made it to screen. When he created the show, Sydney Newman said that his main rule was that it feature no "bug-eyed monsters". He tried to get Verity Lambert not to film the Dalek scripts, and only let her when she made it clear that there were no other scripts that they could produce and that it was the Daleks or go off air. After they were a huge success, Newman actually phoned Lambert up and said that she obviously understood the market better than he did, and that he wouldn't interfere from then on.

So, the truth is, that the Daleks were a schedule-filler that nobody expected to hear from again, and who almost didn't make it on to the screen at all.

had there been no Daleks do you think the series would have taken off the way it did?

It's impossible to say, really. Maybe. I certainly don't think that they're entirely responsible for the programme's success, but it's hard to know how much of a contributing factor they've been.

Pretty sure the new series Daleks are already taller than the ones from the Classic series.

If you want to keep the shape making them taller also means making them wider and much wider they won't be able to fit through normal earth sized doors so that limits their conquest capability a bit

As to new series Monsters

I'm fairly sure the Slitheen will be back again but only on the SJAs.

I think the Ood have the potential to be an ongoing recurring villain, though it seems there would have to be some other creature controlling them each time.

The Gelth I could see returning and also the Krillitanes (who of course could look totally different).

Unless you keep them the same width, in which case they'll fall over.

So what I don't get, is that you obviously have a problem with the 8th doctor, you have an entire catalogue on inane questions such as "do the daleks need an update?"...Why don't you just bugger off and watch something that isn't doctor who? The latest incarnations are far from perfect, but christ almighty fella, give it a rest.

"you obviously have a problem with the 8th doctor" <- what? this thread doesn't even mention them?

Plus I'm only speculating and brainstorming while doctor who is off the air, if you don't like my threads, don't post in them, simple.

There has to be a redesign of the daleks, if Davros is going to be involved.

Davros, daleks should be modern design, have some element that would worry the doctor

Some part of the tardis used within the new design, and at the bottom of the dalek, from where they glide. all round the rim, we could have torchwood symbols

Reduce the amount of cylinders, and replace with energy absorbing panels, which could be used to give the daleks more power, which can take out bigger objects

Look. Everyone's dissing those spider designs but I think they're pretty cool.
Every now and then a new 'special' dalek pops up. Maybe it's time for a new one.
There's a good entry in wikipedia called Dalek Variants that details alot of special dalek designs from the series and the old comic books.

I really hope Davros never comes back. Man, he was so crap.

According to one of the commentaries, the new series Daleks are ever so slightly shorter than the classic ones. Was done so the Daleks eye piece was at Rose's eyeline for the episode "Dalek".

Really?

I'm sure I read somewhere they were taller, oh well.