Red Dalek (The Evil of the Daleks)
A Red Dalek acted as the emissary for the Supreme Council, overseeing the experimental stages of Operation Human Factor in Theodore Maxtible's house on Earth in June 1866 in order to prevent disaster in the Great War.
By one account, the Dalek leader was none other than the Dalek Supreme. (PROSE: The History of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The History of the Daleks (short story)"])
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Daleks manoeuvred the Second Doctor into conducting an experiment on his companion, Jamie McCrimmon, observing his behavioural patterns to discover the elements of the human factor. Shortly before the experiment was due to begin, the Red Dalek demanded from its subordinates that there be no delay, or the consequence would be death. After being assured that the preparations were acceptable, it departed to report to the Supreme Council.
Once the experiment began, the Red Dalek, with its gunstick trained on the Doctor, monitored his progress and demanded an explanation for each of his decisions to ensure he did not sabotage the work. Before leaving the Doctor unsupervised at one stage of the experiment, the Red Dalek ominously warned him to "be careful."
Maxtible called upon the Red Dalek when he grew impatient and demanded the promised reward for his services - the secret of transmutation of metal into gold. Putting him back in his place, the Red Dalek shoved him off a stool, warned Maxtible against further insubordination and departed. Trying to rationalise the violent rejection of his demands, Maxtible opined that the Dalek was "just this silly, red-painted creature that did not understand," due to it being "some form of messenger, with ideas above its station."
After the experiments were completed, the Red Dalek returned to Skaro after destroying Maxtible's house.
Other Red Daleks were present on Skaro. One collected Maxtible and guided him through the Dalek City, where he eventually became infected with the Dalek factor. All the Red Daleks were caught up in the fighting when the Second Doctor spread the human factor throughout the Dalek ranks and sparked the Dalek Civil War which almost brought down the Dalek Emperor. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (novelisation)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
This is the second Red Dalek to be inserted into a Target novelisation by John Peel, after the Red Dalek Leader's inclusion in The Mutation of Time [+]Loading...["The Mutation of Time (novelisation)"]. As is the case with that Red Dalek, the one from The Evil of the Daleks appears as a standard Silver Dalek in its televised appearance. Links between the Red Dalek and the corresponding Silver Dalek in the serial can be made with the help of the dialogue, which remains largely unchanged by novelisation standards.
It is not the only Dalek in the novelisation to be recoloured; technically they all are. Each of the standard Daleks is described as grey rather than silver, while all the Emperor's guards are replaced with regular Black Daleks (despite the appearance of a silver Dalek with a black dome on the front cover, although these were called "Black Daleks" on screen).
It is possible this was in part due to the story's incomplete status in the archive; the soundtrack was released in 1992, just one year before the novelisation. It may also have been an effort by Peel to link the novelisation to his later novel, War of the Daleks [+]Loading...["War of the Daleks (novel)"], which explains the place of Grey Daleks, Red Daleks, Black Daleks and the Dalek Prime in the Dalek hierarchy. All of these Dalek variants appear in the novelisation of Evil.
Earlier, John Peel and Terry Nation's The History of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The History of the Daleks (short story)"] claimed that the Dalek Supreme, implicitly the original warlord, was present for the events of The Evil of the Daleks, filling the role which would be taken by the Red Dalek in the novelisation. Peel's own novelisation contradicts this not only with the inclusion of the Red Dalek, but also by establishing that the Dalek Supreme was presumed dead after the events of The Daleks' Master Plan [+]Loading...["The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)"].
In the 2021 DVD release of Evil, which contains a colourised animated reconstruction of the story, the Dalek in question remains silver. The second novelisation of the serial released by BBC Books in 2023 does not specify the colour of the Daleks for much of the story and marks out no Red Dalek. In the scene in which Maxtible confronts the Dalek about upholding their promises to him (which, in the original novelisation, features the Red Dalek), he seeks an audience with the Dalek in charge, but is disappointed to be met by a Dalek which is simply described as looking no different to all the rest.
