Dalek Supreme (Planet of the Daleks)
A Dalek Supreme was a member of the Supreme Council and sent to Spiridon to take over Dalek operations.
This Dalek had a black and gold casing, and the unusual feature of a lamp in his eyestalk lens. He held the same communications function as a regular Dalek's luminosity dischargers on the sides of his head, lighting up when he spoke. (TV: Planet of the Daleks)
Biography
During the Spiridon campaign, the Dalek Supreme arrived to take command after Supreme Command grew impatient with the pace at which the Dalek expedition to deal with the intruders and awaken the Dalek army. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks)
He and his escort left their craft unguarded, unknowingly travelling past Jo Grant and Latep.
When he arrived at the Dalek base, the Dalek Supreme ordered normal operations to resume, and found the progress of the invisibility experiments "satisfactory." In a fit of temper, he then exterminated the Dalek Section Leader for its incompetence.
However, the Dalek Supreme proved to be little more successful. The Third Doctor and the Thals infiltrated the ice caves holding the hibernating army and caused an ice volcano eruption, burying the army and the remaining members of the Dalek expedition underground. The ice volcano began to flood through the rest of the base, prompting the Dalek Supreme abandon it and set all instruments to self-destruct. (TV: Planet of the Daleks)
The Supreme and his aides were the only three Daleks left active on the planet. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks) They remained so once the Thals stole his ship so they could return to Skaro. After unsuccessfully giving chase to the Doctor and Jo Grant, the Dalek Supreme ordered one of his escort to have Dalek Command send a rescue craft, and have a team of experts free the army from the ice. He then declared: "We have been delayed, not defeated. The Daleks are never defeated..." (TV: Planet of the Daleks)
According to human historians, however, the Dalek Supreme was never rescued and was lost on Spiridon, which the native Spiridons subsequently reclaimed. This was a great blow to the Supreme Council, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) with the Dalek Supreme having been second in command to the Dalek Emperor. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks)
Legacy
A fellow Council member, the Gold Dalek, was thought to have felt some responsibility for the loss of the Dalek Supreme, as it had let the Doctor live at the insistence of the Master, thereby allowing the Doctor to escape to Spiridon in the first place. Seeking redemption, the Gold Dalek led a Dalek mission to conquer 22nd century Earth through the use of time travel. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) It too was destroyed in an encounter with the Third Doctor and Jo Grant. (TV: Day of the Daleks)
Further Supreme Daleks met their end during the subsequent Second Dalek War, including the red Supreme Dalek which led the attack on the Cathedral of Contemplation, coming into conflict with the Tenth and Fourth Doctors. (AUDIO: Out of Time) Eventually, circa the 2580s, the incumbent Supreme Dalek had to call off the war after the loss of the Exterminator and the Battle of Arkheon threw the Dalek war machine was thrown into disarray. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks)
A Dalek Supreme with an identical design and colour scheme later led the Dalek expedition to Kar-Charrat. It too was the immediate subordinate to the Dalek Emperor. (AUDIO: The Genocide Machine)
Behind the scenes
Prop
The Dalek Supreme prop was actually made up of parts from two props used for the Dr. Who film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.; the top half from the Gold Dalek and the bottom half from a Silver Dalek.
In 1977, the top half of this prop was repainted black and red, the end of the manipulator arm went missing so it was replaced by a pink one. The base unit for this prop, however, was from the photoshoot of Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday.
Similar Daleks
A Dalek Supreme with a similar casing appears in the audio story The Genocide Machine.
A Dalek with this colour scheme first appeared in the TV Action comic strip, *Sub Zero (1972), which predated Planet of the Daleks by over a year.
Other info
The Dalek Supreme is among a handful of leading Daleks referred to as a "he" rather than an "it". While this is normally done by the Doctor or through narration, the Dalek Supreme has, unusually, been referred to with male pronouns by other Daleks as well.
