Gold Dalek (Day of the Daleks)

Gold Dalek
Species:	Dalek
Job:	Supreme Dalek
Affiliated with:	Supreme Council
Place of origin:	Skaro
First appearance:	Day of the Daleks
Appearances:	TV: Frontier in Space PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe
Main voice actor:	Oliver Gilbert
Other voice actors:	Michael Wisher Nicholas Briggs

The Gold Dalek was a member of the Dalek Supreme Council. It specialised in time travel-based operations. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) The Dalek Survival Guide noted this unit as a Dalek Supreme yet also claimed the Dalek was never called by that rank, leading to the theory that it was actually a sub-commander or Chief. (PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide) The Time Lords believed this Dalek to be a subordinate "outpost commander" who deputised for the Dalek Supreme. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) Other Daleks of the same casing design were concretely called Supremes, however. (AUDIO: Poison of the Daleks, Eye of Darkness)

Characteristics

Commanding grey Daleks, the Gold Dalek's casing shared their shape including blue insulator discs across the eyepiece and black sense globes. (TV: Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space)

Biography

Alliance with the Master

The Gold Dalek meeting with the Master. (TV: Frontier in Space)

On the eve of the Second Dalek War of the 26th century, the Gold Dalek led a platoon of Daleks to meet the Master on the Ogron homeworld. There, it ordered the Master's captives — including the Third Doctor, Jo Grant, General John Williams and the Draconian Prince — exterminated. However, the Master convinced the Daleks to leave the prisoners under his supervision until the Daleks' planned war began so he could see the galaxy in ruins, to which the Daleks agreed and left the planet. Later, the Doctor managed to escape the prison cell by using the Master's hypnosound device, which caused the Ogron on guard to perceive the Doctor as the Gold Dalek and he opened the cell out of fear. (TV: Frontier in Space)

Fallout of failure

The Gold Dalek's decision to ally with the Master having led the Daleks to a defeat on Spiridon that set the Empire's war efforts significantly, even causing them the loss of another Dalek Supreme. (TV: Planet of the Daleks) As the Gold Dalek felt responsible for the failure, to redeem itself, it orchestrated a time travel-based mission to conquer Earth in the 22nd century, creating an alternate timeline.

However, this order of events was only outlined by human historians. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) It was also possible this "Time Paradox Incident" actually occured before the alliance with the Master from the Daleks' perspective, as that was the order the Time Lords recorded the events in. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) Indeed, the Gold Dalek did not recongise the Third Doctor during this incident despite his role in defeating their plan with the Master. (TV: Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space)

By one account, the Time Paradox Incident long followed the Spiridon Incident, the Daleks having only developed the Time Vortex Magnetron by the close of the Mechon Wars, which were fought in the wake of the Mechonoid Incident. (PROSE: The History of the Daleks)

Ruler of Earth

The plan allowed it to become the Supreme Dalek in charge of the planet Earth in the ensuing alternate timeline where the Second World Peace Conference had failed and the Daleks invaded in the 22nd century in the aftermath of the devastating wars which followed.

When the Third Doctor threatened to negate the timeline, the Gold Dalek led the Daleks and their Ogron servants back to the 20th century to ensure the Conference failed and their favoured timeline continued. The Gold Dalek had the Doctor interrogated through the use of the Mind Analysis Machine, and saw depictions of the First Doctor and the Second Doctor. They advanced into the Auderly House which was then destroyed by Shura using a Dalekanium bomb, taking them with it. (TV: Day of the Daleks)

Legacy

According to the human historians, informed by the failure of the Gold Dalek, one of the remaining Dalek Supremes later organised a smaller-scale time mission, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) going further back along the timeline of the Doctor and attempting to execute him in his first incarnation. (TV: The Chase)

Behind the scenes

Portrayal

John Scott Martin operated the Gold Dalek in both Day of the Daleks and Frontier in Space episode six, being credited as "Chief Dalek" in Radio Times on both occasions.

Prop

Katy Manning poses nude with the Gold Dalek.

In Day of the Daleks and Frontier in Space, the Gold Dalek was depicted with a hybrid prop combined from a top half constructed for The Chase and a bottom half constructed for The Daleks.

During recording of Frontier in Space in 1972, the Gold Dalek prop appeared in an episode of The Generation Game. On 11 November 1972, the Gold Dalek appeared with a grey Dalek at the Lord Mayor's Show in London. The original Gold Dalek prop was then repurposed to serve as a grey Dalek in Planet of the Daleks.

Another Dalek prop was later painted in the colours of the Gold Dalek and appeared in an episode of Nationwide featuring Elizabeth Sladen on 13 May 1976. In 1977, Jo Grant actress Katy Manning posed nude with the Gold Dalek prop for the glamour magazine Girl Illustrated.

Identity

Although the same prop was used, it was not confirmed until Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe that the Gold Daleks in Frontier in Space and Day of the Daleks were the same individual.

Merchandise

• A figurine of the Gold Dalek was released with the first "Bonus" issue of Doctor Who: Figurine Collection magazine.
• This Dalek was released by Character Options as the "Gold Supreme Dalek".

Invalid sources

• The Universal Databank identifies the Gold Dalek seen in Day of the Daleks as a "Dalek Warlord" and potentially an "avatar" of the Black Dalek. It is claimed that both Black Daleks and Gold Daleks were below the Emperor Dalek's Dalek Council.
• The Dalek Handbook classes the Gold Dalek as a Commander, subordinate to the Dalek Supreme and above the grey Dalek Leaders. In their list of real world paradigms, The Dalek Handbook counts the Gold Dalek in a "1972-1985" paradigm with the grey Daleks and the Dalek Supreme.
• The Dalek Tapes, a feature in the Genesis of the Daleks DVD, presented both the Gold Dalek and the gold-and-black Dalek Supreme as members of the Dalek Supreme Council. This notion was later confirmed in a narrative source, Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe.