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The Daleks (2nd Appearance): The Dalek Invasion of Earth

And in the most dramatic fashion (though they obviously now do not work by static electricity, which I’m glad we abandoned). Now not only are the first Doctor Who enemy, they are the first to ever come back and they come back before we meet any other famous villains. But the one question that never gets fully answered in this serial, is why did they even come to Earth in the first place? Especially because as the Doctor states early on, these Daleks don’t know of Ian, Barbara, Susan, or the Doctor and come from the past. So why did they show up in 2164 and conquer Earth?

Of course we have to retcon the idea that they looked up Earth’s history as they were conquering it and learned of all their past failed attempts, but that can be overlooked since these Daleks seem hellbent on one goal. But their goal doesn’t make sense. Sure, let’s conquer the Earth in order to get to the Earth’s core, extracting the lava and completely eliminating the gravitational and magnetic forces so you can insert mechanical parts to pilot it around space...

What?!

You have spaceships? Why would you even want to pilot a planet in the first place? It’s not like it could handle space travel well. It doesn’t have any shields? If you wanted to be like Darth Vader and create a ship like a planet, sure, but the Daleks plan doesn’t make sense. Plus, why Earth? No other planet was good enough? There must have been one closer to home. But then this brings into the question of knowing their past and future and going which faction of the Daleks this strange group belongs to and how did they form this idea? I like to think Davros was just like, this is the weird children, we don’t talk to them, haha.

But then again they conquer the Earth! They did it and destroyed world leaders and free will while enslaving the people of Earth to help them with their daft plan. And all under the new leadership of the Black Dalek:

This the first time we see a designation based on color and also that some Daleks have leadership while others don’t. A concept that never leaves the show. But besides color changes, we also see wacky costume direction on this batch of Daleks. For one, their plunger hands have gotten stupidly long and even more ridiculous. And some now have fancy communication dishes on their backs, even though they still need to be at central controls to transmit them.

What does make this appearance of the Daleks interesting though is that they do interest some new ideas and themes with the Dalek lore. This is the first story where we learn they are built using a metal called Dalekcanium. And even though it is a rare alloy, the human rebellion leader Dalton manages to concoct a way to burn through it using bombs, so its not entirely full proof. Quite a change from how Missy decides to pierce their casing in the future.

The second is that while imprisoned, the Doctor manages to figure out a way to escape their cell since sometimes Daleks get locked up too on bad behavior and have to get out? It’s a little confusing and weird, but figuring out a magnetic puzzle using three dimensional graph geometry the Doctor can replicate the Daleks functions and extract the key to then opening the door.

Third, let’s discuss the Daleks “pet” aka the Slyther:

Some sort of wild mutation with limbs and floating eyes that runs around eating humans. A bizarre and never fully explained threat who we don’t even get a good look at. It does make you wonder how fully fledged out this idea was too since I can’t recall ever seeing it again.

And finally we come to probably the most interesting new Dalek invention in this story which is that in a way, they begin the origins of another familiar enemy though this isn’t really canon. And that’s because in order to enslave the human race, they realize that they must find a way to get other humans to work for them and in order to quell any rebellions these humans must be 100% obedient to the Daleks. And so the Daleks create a process to control the minds of certain humans and create the Robomen:

Devoid of emotion and individual thought, the Robomen obey orders from their Dalek masters via the strange (but familiar) headgear that they must wear and are plugged into. This as stated by others in the story sometimes is a crapshoot and many Robomen commit suicide when they do awaken or realize who and what they are. But others obey the Daleks and use whips to keep humans in line. Too bad though, that one wrong order from central control can have them rebel and destroy the Daleks, but kudos to Barbara for the brilliant idea.

And also, how did the Daleks conquer Earth if people can easily pick them up and destroy them? I mean heck, this serial has one of the best scenes ever where Barbara runs one over as she and Jenny escape London:

She definitely wins MVP this serial. In all seriousness, I know that bringing the Daleks back was a way to keep fans happy since they were such a big hit. And overall the serial takes the threat seriously even though it is ridiculous. Plus the real focus by the end was not helping Earth or the human rebels, but rather the emotional conclusion to our first companion departure, but that will be another post. Meanwhile, I will keep giggling at these silly Daleks and there ever growing lore.

#prep for the 60th #daleks #dalek invasion of earth #2nd appearance