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The Daleks are the oldest and indisputably the most popular recurring villain on the BBC's long-running, cult favorite sci-fi series Doctor Who. The Daleks were first conceived by writer Terry Nation with the actual costume design created by the BBC's Raymond Cusick. A young Ridley Scott had initially been given this design assignment, but Scott moved on to another job prior to completing any work on it.
The Daleks made their first appearance in late December of 1963. The seven episode story in which they first appeared is generally called simply "The Daleks," though no official story titles appear on the episodes of that season (the episodes were individually titled). It was only the second serial in the programme's long run. Proving to be immediately popular, they have since appeared in dozens of stories in the programme's long history as well as two feature films.
Appearance
At first sight, Daleks appear to be some sort of robot, vaguely cylindrical with a flared "skirt" at the bottom. A single eyestalk protrudes from the front of their domed tops. A claw or sucker arm and an exotic "exterminator" weapon protrude from their midsection.
In reality, however, the external shell is an armored travel machine for a somewhat shapeless mutant life form inside.
Behavior
Cut off from external stimuli and none too stable to begin with, the mutants inside the shell range from a bit neurotic to completely insane. Most often, Daleks exhibit a sort of fanatical fascism and an obsession with the idea that they are a superior race. They revel in subjugating and/or exterminating other life forms and appear to do so for no other reason than the sheer enjoyment of it. It usually takes very little to cause a Dalek to fly into a rage and begin shouting "Exterminate!"
Capabilities
Individual Daleks are fitted with a built-in "exterminator" energy weapon. The first shot that makes contact is frequently lethal. The most recent generation of Dalek also appears to be able to emit lightning-like electrical discharges, again, to lethal effect.
A Dalek poses with real life creator Terry Nation
Daleks supposedly have genius-level intelligence.
Dalek armor is said to be composed of an alloy known as Dalekenium, which the Doctor has described as a bonded polycarbide. It has proven almost completely invulnerable to contemporary small-arms fire. However, multiple direct hits on a Dalek's eyestalk have on occasion been known to disable their vision. This usually causes the (now completely isolated) mutant creature inside the armor to fly into a panic—screaming, "My vision is impaired. I cannot see!" and frantically taking blind potshots. Because of this weakness, the usual advice given to infantry facing Daleks is to "concentrate your fire" and "aim for the eyestalk." Also, a lucky shot with some anti-tank weaponry may actually damage the armor.
The most recent generation of Dalek also packs a forcefield that appears to stop small-arms fire in its tracks.
Traditionally, the Daleks' movement has been one of their greatest weaknesses. They do not have legs. Instead, they glide along the ground with no apparent means of propulsion. Savvy viewers point out that a Dalek could easily be avoided by simply running up a flight of stairs. More recent generations of Daleks have addressed this limitation by incorporating a hover mechanism into their armor.
At its height, the Dalek war fleet consisted of thousands of ships, each with hundreds of Daleks on board. It is known to have contained weapons capable of destroying planets.
The Daleks first glided onto viewer's screens in 1963
The Dalek race has possessed limited time travel capabilities for much of its history. They have managed to build at least one device similar to a Gallifreyan TT capsule (see TARDIS) and have also developed hand-held time-warp generators. However, their time-travel technology appears to be rather primitive compared to that possessed by the Time Lords, and they do not appear to have a power source suitable for generating the enormous amounts of power required to engage in time travel frequently.
Dalek Genesis
Although it is clear that the Daleks originated on the planet Skaro, there are actually two distinct versions of the Dalek origin story. In the first Doctor Who story to feature the Daleks, the Doctor meets a beautiful humanoid race known as the Thals. The written history of the Thals indicates that the peoples of Skaro were once one race known as the Dals. Dals were a smallish, flabby semi-humanoid race until a brutal war of attrition arose between two factions, who began calling themselves the "Thals" and the "Daleks." Skaro was left a burned-out nuclear wasteland, with its people horribly mutated. The Thals became a more conventional form of humanoid, while the Daleks became the even less humanoid creatures that inhabit mechanized travel machines.
Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.
In the 1975 story "Genesis of the Daleks," the Doctor returned to Skaro during an earlier era. In this adventure, he learned that although the history provided by the Thals may have been largely truthful, it was also incorrect on a number of points. The rival faction that fought the Thals was not the Daleks themselves, but another humanoid race known as the "Kaleds" (an anagram of Dalek). If the diminutive Dals had ever existed, therefore, it was clear that both of the resulting factions had mutated into humanoid form, rather than the mutant form in the Dalek shells.
Nevertheless, both factions were concerned about the mutation. The Thals would eventually develop anti-radiation meds, as seen in the original story. The Kaleds turned to their scientific leader Davros for a solution. Davros initiated a series of genetic experiments. He told his contemporaries that he was trying to determine the final form of the Kaled race—and therefore determine how the survival of the future Kaleds could be ensured. However, the mutant Kaleds he produced were even less humanoid than their Dal predecessors. To further ensure the survival of his mutant Kaleds, he built armored travel units to house his creations and instilled them with a merciless desire to enslave and destroy the other denizens of the universe. The resulting cybernetic fusion of organism and mechanism was called a Dalek.
The Time Lords Intervene
Forseeing the threat the Daleks would eventually pose to the universe, the Time Lords sent The Doctor to intervene at the moment of their creation. The Doctor's mission was to either alter the development of the Daleks or to destroy them altogether. He failed at both tasks, but managed to ensure that they remained trapped in the bunker in which they were created for many hundreds of years. This resulted in the splitting of Dalek history into two distinct time lines. The original time line (prior to The Doctor's intervention) had the Daleks leaving Skaro almost immediately after their creation. In this time line, they easily subjugated or destroyed all of the races they encountered, eventually endangering even the Time Lords themselves. In the alternate time line, created by The Doctor's intervention, the delay in the Daleks' departure from Skaro allowed many of these races to be more advanced when the Daleks met them. Thus, the Daleks encountered many more setbacks in their plan for universal domination. Of note is their encounter with the Movellans, which baffled the Daleks so much that they attempted to recover their creator Davros to aid them (in the 1979 Doctor Who story "Destiny of the Daleks").
The Doctor's intervention is seen by some as the start of the time war that ultimately resulted in the destruction of the Time Lords themselves.
Civil War
After failing in their first attempt to recover Davros, the Daleks tried again in 1984's "Resurrection of the Daleks." This time they succeeded. Davros immediately began developing new and even more devastating capabilities for his Dalek creations. Although this allowed what had essentially been a stagnant race (due to their interest in racial purity) to evolve, it angered the purist elements of Dalek society, and resulted in civil war (seen in 1985's "Revelation of the Daleks" and 1988's "Remembrance of the Daleks"). Although the outcome of this conflict has not been explictly revealed, the current generation of Daleks seems to have the enhancements from the Davros faction, plus a few new surprises.
War with the Time Lords
Although the Daleks had long considered The Doctor to be public enemy number one, it is uncertain to what extent they knew (or cared) about other Time Lords or the Time Lord home planet of Gallifrey. The Doctor's intervention in the Dalek's creation seems to have changed all that. In Ressurection of the Daleks, the Daleks attempted to strike back by sending assassins to eliminate the Time Lord High Council. Thus began what is referred to as "The Time War."
The history of the time war, however, is somewhat uncertain. Most of its key events are assumed to have happened sometime between the 1996 Doctor Who Movie and the beginning of the new Doctor Who series. In this period, a plethora of new Doctor Who novels and radio plays emerged. Both sources agreed that Gallifrey had been engaged in a Time War. Neither, however, identified the Daleks as the Time Lord's main opponents in this conflict and they frequently disagreed completely as to the details. What is certain about the conflict is that it had resulted in the destruction of Gallifrey and at least the vast majority of the Time Lords.
Upon the re-appearance of the television series in 2005, the Daleks were revealed to have been the Time Lords' chief rival in the Time War (contradicting the book and radio versions) and it was revealed that both the Daleks and the Time Lords had indeed been destroyed, leaving the Doctor as the sole survivor of his race. A single soldier Dalek had also survived, falling to Earth in an era far earlier than the Time War itself. Additionally, the Dalek emperor appears to have survived...
The BBC has recently addressed the discontinuity between the TV series, the books and the audio plays, indicating on the official Doctor Who web site that although many stories are told of this era, the very nature of conflict between two races that are capable of altering history makes it hard to determine the truth of various events. Some things may in fact have happened in some time lines, but not in others. For this reason, the history of the Time War is said to be clouded by uncertainty.
Televised Appearances
The Silver Screen
The Daleks have appeared in at least three theatrical films. The first two of these, Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966) were essentially remakes of the first two Dalek serials from the television series. Although these films were clearly not part of the continuity of the television series because they changed some fundamental details concerning the premise and casting of the show, British audiences nevertheless flocked to the theaters to see the maniacal Daleks in color for the first time.
A third theatrical appearance occurred in 2003, when a pair of Daleks appeared with a collection of other famous movie monsters in Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Although they appear only for a few minutes, the Daleks are true to their traditional character in this outing and clearly dominate the scene they are in. This appearance, however, caused a minor copyright scuffle because the studio had simply assumed the Daleks were now public domain rather than verifying their ownership (in reality, they are still owned by the estate of Dalek creator Terry Nation).
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