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.
By one account, the Dalek Supreme was none other than the original Black Dalek Leader, the Dalek Prime's warlord. (PROSE: The History of the Daleks) The Dalek Survival Guide defined this Supreme as a Black Dalek with a gold dome and accessories. (PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide)
Characteristics
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) A similar leader led a red-domed subordinate and silver Daleks in an attack on Sydney. (COMIC: Sub Zero)
Biography
As a member of the Supreme Council, human historians believed that the Dalek Supreme was present when the Master came to Skaro and proposed Operation Divide and Conquer to the Council. Indeed, Alcide Esposito's Doomed Alliance depicted the gold-and-black Dalek Supreme along with a number of grey Daleks and a shadowy figure believed to have been the Master. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) In any case, the Daleks brought this plan forward to the Dalek Emperor, who approved of it. (AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests)
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 grey 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) The Time Lords believed this Dalek to be a subordinate "outpost commander" who deputised for the Dalek Supreme. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)
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)
Other Dalek Supremes had the same casing design. (AUDIO: The Genocide Machine, Emissary of the Daleks) One such Dalek Supreme was also 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.
Non Canon/Internet Appearances
- A Dalek Supreme with a strikingly very similar casing appearance and color scheme appeared as both the main antagonist and the leader of a planetary invasion force in the popular 2023 five part animated YouTube web series “Zed vs the Daleks”, which was created by YouTuber Zedoniverse.
Invalid sources
- The Universal Databank identifies this Dalek Supreme as a Black Dalek warlord, following an earlier Black Dalek associated with the 2150s Dalek invasion of Earth and the Mechonoid Incident, and suggested that it went on to be the Black Dalek involved in the Duplicate Incident before another Black Dalek took its place by the time of the Hand of Omega Incident.
- According to The Dalek Handbook, a non-narrative source, this Dalek Supreme was the head of the Dalek Supreme Council established following the Great Civil War on Skaro, dated to the 41st century. The Supreme was supported by Gold Commanders, replacing the earlier Black Dalek tier. Grey Daleks replaced the silver Daleks as drones, with designated Dalek Leaders reporting to the Commanders and the Supreme. The presence of the Supreme and its forces in the 26th century was indicative of continued Dalek efforts to overwrite history in their favour. It is acknowledged that the Daleks were once again led by a Black Dalek by the 46th century Movellan War, with prior Dalek history now being uncertain as a result of the Fourth Doctor's interference.
- The Dalek Handbook's list of real world Dalek paradigms places the Supreme in a 1972-1985 paradigm with the Gold Dalek and the early Grey Daleks.
- 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 Supreme Council. This notion was later confirmed in a narrative source, Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe.
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.
