- Not be confused with the first Dalek serial, The Daleks.
Dalek was the sixth episode of series 1 of Doctor Who. It was the first appearance of a Dalek in the revived series. It was also the first time viewers saw companion Adam Mitchell. Furthermore, it was the first time in Doctor Who history — the 1996 telemovie notwithstanding — that an episode had been set entirely in the United States of America.
Synopsis
The Ninth Doctor and Rose arrive in 2012 to answer a distress signal and meet a collector of alien artifacts who has one living specimen. However, The Doctor is horrified to find out that the creature is a member of a race he thought was destroyed: A Dalek.
Plot
The Doctor's TARDIS is drawn off course by a signal, and materializes underground in a bunker located in Utah in the year 2012. As the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler step out to investigate, they find that the bunker is a very special sort of museum, full of alien artifacts, including a mileometer from the Roswell crash, a stuffed Raxacoricofallapatorian arm, and even the head of a Cyberman. As the Doctor muses over the fact that he's getting old, he touches the glass casing of the Cyberman exhibit and sets off an alarm. Immediately, he and Rose are surrounded by armed guards.
They are taken to see the owner of the Vault — Henry van Statten, a billionaire who claims to own the Internet. Van Statten fires one of his employees when the employee says that he can't replace the President. Van Statten then fires the man with the following remark, "Thank you so much for your opinion, you're fired!" He has been collecting alien artifacts for years, and is impressed when the Doctor manages to identify a new piece that one of his assistants, a young English researcher named Adam Mitchell, has acquired in an auction. The Doctor shows van Statten how to play the alien musical instrument, but is disturbed when he tosses it aside carelessly. Van Statten asks the Doctor if he would like to see his one living specimen, which is locked up in a part of the Vault called the Cage. Van Statten calls it the Metaltron, and his scientists have been trying to get it to talk, torturing it, but it has so far remained silent except for screaming.
The Doctor enters the darkened Cage, and begins by saying that he is here to help. When he introduces himself, however, a grating, familiar screech repeats his name, synchronised with flashing lights. The Doctor is shocked at the impossibility of the sight before him as the lights come up. It is a Dalek, in chains, declaring him an enemy of the Daleks and crying its intent to exterminate. The Doctor, panicked, bangs on the door and demands to be let out, until he realises that the Dalek's casing is cracked and worn and its weapon stalk does not work. Delighted, the Doctor rounds on the Dalek, who is demanding orders. The Doctor says that no orders will be forthcoming; the Dalek race is dead, all ten million ships of its fleet burning, and the Doctor was the one who destroyed them. The Dalek asks what happened to the Time Lords, and the Doctor grimly acknowledges that all of them are dead as well, casualties of the last Time War. The two of them are the last of their kind, but he is going to finish the job. In a fury, he pulls a lever, sending electricity coursing through the Dalek, but van Statten sends his guards to stop the Doctor.
As they ride up to the upper levels, van Statten's assistant, Diana Goddard, tells the Doctor that the Dalek fell to Earth fifty years before, on Ascension Island, where it burned in a crater for three days before anyone could approach it. It then passed through the hands of several collectors before van Statten bought it at an auction. The Doctor concludes it must have fallen through time somehow, and van Statten notes that the Dalek is not the only alien on Earth now. The Doctor is chained up, stripped to the waist and painfully scanned. As van Statten gleefully observes that he can patent the Doctor's binary vascular system, the Doctor realises that van Statten is not just a collector. He scavenges technology from the artifacts and then sells them. Van Statten proudly admits this, revealing that broadband was derived from Roswell technology, and that recently his scientists found the cure to the common cold in bacteria recovered from the "Russian crater".
Meanwhile, Adam is showing Rose (who is unaware of the Doctor's predicament) around the base. When Adam shows her the Dalek on the monitor, they see one of the technicians, Simmons, torturing it, trying to get it to speak again as per van Statten's orders. Rose asks to be taken down to the Cage so she can stop Simmons. There, Rose talks to the Dalek, offering to help. The Dalek feigns haplessness, getting Rose to approach it. In sympathy, Rose touches the Dalek casing, and immediately the Dalek absorbs some of her DNA, which allows it to regenerate part of its casing and break free of its chains. When Simmons approaches it, the Dalek uses its plunger-shaped manipulator arm to crush his face. The Cage is sealed, and van Statten alerted. The Doctor calmly tells van Statten to release him if they want to live.
Although the lock to the Cage has a billion combinations, the Dalek easily runs through them in a matter of moments. It then smashes a computer terminal with its manipulator arm, absorbing electricity from the Vault and seven states in the Western United States to completely repair itself, as well as absorbing the collective information of the Internet. Rose and Adam are evacuated from the level as van Statten's guards surround the Dalek, firing at it. However, a force field melts the bullets before they hit its casing, and its middle section can swivel around, giving its energy weapon a 360-degree field of fire. Van Statten shouts over the guards' communicators that he does not want the Dalek damaged, but there is no answer — the Dalek has killed all of them. The Doctor tells Diana to have weapons distributed to everyone.
Adam, Rose and a female guard named De Maggio are climbing the stairs to the upper levels, hoping to escape the Dalek, but it hovers up after them, killing De Maggio. Van Statten still thinks the Dalek can be negotiated with, but the Doctor bluntly tells him that the Dalek will kill everyone who is different from a Dalek, because it honestly believes they should die. It is the ultimate in racial cleansing, and van Statten has let it loose.
In the Vault's weapons testing range, another group of guards takes up a firing position. Once Rose and Adam are clear, they open fire on the Dalek, but it sits there, impervious, even allowing the Doctor to see this on the monitors to prove it. It then hovers in the air, triggering the sprinklers. With one shot, it electrifies the water on the floor and kills the guards there. A second shot runs through a metal walkway, taking care of those guards. It demands to speak to the Doctor, and reveals that absorbing Rose's DNA — the genetic code of a time traveller — allowed it to "extrapolate her biomass" and regenerate itself. Its search through the world's satellite and radio telescope systems revealed no Daleks anywhere, confirming the Doctor's claim that it is the last of its kind. As the Dalek now knows that no new orders will ever come, it intends to carry out the default Dalek function — to destroy and conquer. The Doctor suggests, with almost uncharacteristic venom, that if it wants an order, it should just kill itself. The Dalek observes that the Doctor would make a good Dalek.
Van Statten has managed to restore some power to the bulkheads, but not for long. The Doctor holds off activating the doors for as long as he can to allow Rose and Adam to get to safety, but the power is failing, and he has no choice but to shut them. Adam makes it to the other side, but Rose is trapped. Over her "superphone", Rose tells the Doctor it was not his fault, and the Doctor hears the Dalek cry, "Exterminate!" and the sound of the Dalek weapon firing. Furious with grief, he blames van Statten for all the deaths that have transpired, especially Rose's.
The Dalek, however, has not killed Rose. The DNA it absorbed from her is making it hesitant, and it can feel Rose's fear, something that a Dalek should not be able to do. It contacts the Doctor, holding Rose hostage and demanding that the bulkheads be opened or it will kill her this time. It taunts the Doctor, saying, "What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?" The Doctor tells van Statten that he already killed Rose once; he cannot do it again. He then unseals the doors. Adam informs the Doctor that, while the alien weapons van Statten has collected are down in the lower levels, there are some uncatalogued ones in his laboratory. Van Statten mindwipes his employees after he terminates their service, and Adam wanted to keep some aside in case he had to fight his way out. The Doctor sorts through the pile and finds a large weapon exactly like a handheld cannon.
The Dalek reaches van Statten's office, and threatens to kill van Statten for torturing it. Rose stops it, and the Dalek hesitates once more. Rose tells the Dalek that it does not have to kill anymore and asks it what it wants. The Dalek replies that it wants freedom. They ride up to Level 1, and there, the Dalek blows a hole in the roof of the Vault, letting the sunlight stream through. It opens up its casing to reveal the mutated creature inside, a tentacle waving up to capture the warmth of the Sun. The Doctor appears, weapon in hand, telling Rose to get out of the way, but Rose refuses to let the Doctor kill it. The Dalek did not kill van Statten — it is changing. But what, Rose asks, is the Doctor changing into?
The Doctor, appalled at his own actions, lowers the weapon. Thinking on Rose's words, he realises that the DNA the Dalek absorbed from Rose is mutating it further. The Dalek also realises this, as its mind is filled with so many new ideas, and it cannot reconcile it with the Dalek notion of species purity. It asks Rose to order it to die - at first she cannot bring herself to, but when the Dalek screams in desperation for her to obey, she reluctantly does. The Dalek rises into the air, the globes on its shell disengaging to form a sphere formation around it. The spheres emit energy and it implodes, completely disintegrating. Goddard orders the guards to take van Statten away and mindwipe him for causing the events that resulted in the death of 200 people. She also orders the Vault to be filled in with cement.
Rose and the Doctor make it back to the TARDIS, where the Doctor ruefully observes that the Time War is finished, and as the last survivor he "wins", although this obviously does not fill him with joy. Rose asks whether it is possible, since the Dalek survived, that some of the Time Lords did as well, but the Doctor says he would feel it if they had, and it feels like there is no one. Adam comes by, saying that they have to leave as Goddard is sealing the base, and Rose hints to the Doctor that they should take Adam along, as he always wanted to see the stars. The Doctor is skeptical, but does not object and tells Rose "On your own head". Adam, not knowing what they are really saying, follows the Doctor and Rose into the TARDIS with a puzzled expression, and it dematerialises.
Cast
- The Ninth Doctor - Christopher Eccleston
- Rose Tyler - Billie Piper
- Polkowski - Steven Beckingham
- Henry van Statten - Corey Johnson
- Diana Goddard - Anna-Louise Plowman
- Adam Mitchell - Bruno Langley
- Simmons - Nigel Whitmey
- Bywater - John Schwab
- De Maggio - Jana Carpenter
- Commander - Joe Montana
- Dalek Voice - Nicholas Briggs
Crew
| Executive Producers Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Mal Young |
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| Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources. |
References
- Rose states that there is a piece of Slitheen on display.
- Bad Wolf is mentioned as van Statten's helicopter lands: "Bad Wolf One descending..." This is one of the only known occasions in which a Bad Wolf reference is made in such a context that it is not seen or heard by either Rose or the Doctor.
- The Doctor mutters the line "I win, how 'bout that" near the end of the story. The Master utters a similar line near his death in Last of the Time Lords, "How 'bout that, I win".
- Van Statten's mention of "the Russian crater" could be a reference to the Tunguska event.
- The Doctor recognises the mileometer from the spacecraft that famously crashed at Roswell New Mexico in 1947 (seen in DW: Dreamland, SJA: Prisoner of the Judoon). Van Statten later indicates that he developed broadband Internet from technology salvaged from the vessel.
- The Time War is mentioned and elaborated on by the Doctor and the Dalek.
Story notes
- This is the first story of the new series not to feature the TARDIS interior.
- Van Statten is heard to utter the curse word "goddamn" - the first time this word had been heard in a televised Doctor Who story. At the time of broadcast, however, little attention was paid to this; instead, the episode attracted criticism for van Statten's use of the word "spoon" in a possibly sexual context. However, it was not the first use of a curse word across Who.
- Davros is mentioned (but not named) by the Doctor when saying that van Statten would have liked the creator of the Daleks.
- According to Doctor Who Confidential, Robert Shearman had to write a second version of the script because it was not initially known if the new series could obtain the rights to use the Daleks from Terry Nation's estate, so he had to create an alternate alien race that would have been used had the Daleks not been available.
- Had the Daleks been unavailable, Russell T. Davies had made a sketch of a potential replacement robotic creature called "Future Human". The design of this creature was later adapted as the Toclafane in DW: The Sound of Drums (REF: Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale - The Final Chapter, which includes Davies' original illustration).
- Though it has not been confirmed, this is likely the first episode of the revived series in which the events were possibly changed by later stories, as in this episode no one seemed to know what a Dalek was, despite the previous huge invasions from 2007 to 2009.
- This Dalek, the Dalek Emperor, and Cult of Skaro are the only 'pure' post-Time War Daleks.
- The year the Dalek landed on Earth, 1962, was the year prior to 1963, the debut of Doctor Who (and by extension, the Dalek race itself).
Ratings
- 8.6 million viewers
Myths
- This is the third episode to show a Dalek hovering up the stairs. The first time was DW: Remembrance of the Daleks. DW: Revelation of the Daleks had Daleks hovering, but the angles didn't clearly show it.
- This is the third episode to show the actual creature inside the Dalek shell. The creatures had been shown on screen almost from the very start (a blanket-covered creature was seen in The Daleks). A very clear view was shown in DW: The Five Doctors. This is the first time an "uncanned" Dalek was shown to speak, however.
Filming locations
- Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
- National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
- Unit Q2, Imperial Park, Imperial Way, Newport
Production errors
- When Rose and Adam stop in front of gunmen, the two swap places.
- When Rose is trapped and the Dalek shouts "Exterminate" over the com, no scorch marks can be seen when the screen returns to the scene, whereas scorch marks are present when the Dalek fires twice more.
Continuity
- This story was adapted by writer Robert Shearman from his Big Finish Audio Drama Jubilee. This was the first time that a licenced Doctor Who story from the "expanded franchise" had been adapted in this way. Later, DW: Boom Town would reference a novel, and DW: Human Nature/The Family of Blood, Blink, and The Lodger would be based upon a previously published novel, a short story, and a comic strip respectively.
- This is the second story to feature Daleks (on screen) rising up stairs, the first being DW: Remembrance of the Daleks where an Imperial Dalek "climbs" stairs.
- The Cyberman head displayed in van Statten's museum is of a style from DW: Revenge of the Cybermen. This is the first time an old-series Cyberman appeared in the revival series, but to date only Pete's World Cybermen have been featured in an active fashion in the revival. This is not the first story in which both Cybermen and Daleks have appeared, however; discounting flashbacks, that honor goes to The Five Doctors.
- Adam Mitchell becomes the first on screen male companion of the Doctor since Vislor Turlough departed in the 1984 story DW: Planet of Fire.
- The Doctor tries to convince the Dalek that it no longer has any purpose, perhaps trying to use the same tactic as he did in DW: Remembrance of the Daleks which resulted in a Dalek self-destructing.
- The Dalek was an unknown creature due to the Battle of the Medusa Cascade being unwritten, or simply "time got rewritten" due to following events.
- Van Satten says: "In-Tru-Der Window." a similar line would later be said by the Tenth Doctor in DW: The Sontaran Stratagem.
- This is the first television Dalek story, since DW: Death to the Daleks in 1974, not to feature Davros.
- The Dalek tells Rose "I feel your fear", to which she responds "What do you expect?", mirroring a conversation between Victoria and a Dalek in DW: Evil of the Daleks.
Timeline
- This story occurs after DWM: Death to the Doctor!
- This story occurs before DW: The Long Game
Home video releases
- Dalek has been released on a single DVD together with Aliens of London and World War Three.
- Dalek has been released on a single UMD (for Sony's Playstation Portable) together with Aliens of London and World War Three.
- Dalek was also released as part of the Series 1 DVD boxset.
- This was also released with Issue 3 of the Doctor Who DVD Files.
Faux documentary
Following the broadcasts of The Parting of the Ways, BBC Radio aired The Dalek Conquests, a 2 1/2-hour faux documentary on the history of the Daleks. Narrated by Nicholas Briggs and featuring extensive sound clips from Dalek and other Doctor Who stories dating back to 1963, the documentary supposedly takes place at some point after Dalek, with Briggs describing a post-incident visit to van Statten's facility, now decommissioned.
The Dalek Conquests was released to CD by BBC Audio in 2006.