What’s so scary about the Daleks, anyway?
Jun 26th, 2008 by Waffles
Okay, so they’re the master villians of the Doctor Who universe. And I’ll admit, they’re pretty awesome. It might’ve been the first, and still one of the only times a non-humanoid is a supervillian (eat your heart out, Borg Collective!).
But seriously, guys… Check out this bad boy: His one hand is a plunger, that originally has been used to suck people’s faces off, and the other hand is some sort of disruptor beam. On his head, you’ll see a single optical sensor. We’ve never had any indication that they have any way to detect what’s going on behind them as they move forward. So what’s to stop anyone from sneaking up behind him?
We know from shots from Doctor Who that a dalek’s peripheral vision isn’t all that great I could stand directly to his left and make a face, and he’d never see me!
And really. Here they are, these advanced cyborgs, and they communicate with each other through plain ol’ speech! No computer code like the Bynars from Star Trek, no wi-fi like my computer, or anything. They just talk to each other, in that stuccato rough voice of theirs. It takes forever to say anything!
Don’t get me wrong. But check out the teaser from this Saturday’s Doctor Who:
I’m sorry, Sarah Jane. You remember the daleks from the 70s, don’t you? The daleks before they had jets in their base, and a single stairstep could foil their movement. You should remember daleks more like these:
So what are you so scared of?
They have markedly improved since those days. The have the aforementioned thrusters in their base, their weapons seem to be more powerful, and frankly, they are smarter than they used to be. But they’re still encased in that really restrictive metal case.
I’m sure they’ll exterminate their hearts out this week, but settle down everybody. If they really were as bad-ass as everything things they are, the Doctor would be dead long ago.
That clip has Barbara! Barbara? Barbara? Barbara? Barbara… Barbara!
I kind of always figured they had some radar- or sonar-like sensors in those Dalek bubbles on their base, although the idiocy they showed in the early years seems to contradict this. But whatever the case in the past, what they’ve evolved into today—and I mean their IRL evolution, in the minds of the writers and producers—is the best sci-fi villain race (in a TV series, at least) ever conceived. Borg? Scary until Voyager showed them getting eaten by giant CGI bugs. (And their sense of what constitutes a response-worthy threat was always MAJOR FAIL.) Cylons? Maybe, except their kick-ass battle models are subordinated to the whims of their emo, religious, well-dressed humanoid masters. Terminators? If we ever saw an army of T-1000s, then maybe, but The Sarah Connor Chronicles hasn’t shown us anything like that yet (although it really is a fun show, and it maintains the continuity of T2).
No, the modern Daleks are this unique mix of camp, intentionally retained from the good ol’ days, and absolute kick-ass, made possible by tech goodies that are now (but weren’t yet in the early ’60s) sci-fi staples, like personal energy shields and teleports. I think it’s compelling to have a bad guy that bluffs its way into making its opponents relax their guard by its intrinsic goofiness.