Inspirations - Dalek

Dalek was written by Robert Shearman - his only contribution to the TV series. It is the first story of the revived series to properly bring back one of the series' icons. A lot of people would judge the new series by the way it employed such icons.

When it was announced that Doctor Who was coming back, everyone took this to also mean that the Daleks would be coming back. The BBC certainly thought so, and assumed that that there were no problems commissioning stories with them. This presumption was to come back and bite them.

Russell T Davies found that the BBC expected him to employ the Daleks in the opening episode. he resisted such calls and eventually won the day. He wanted them held back to the mid-point of the season.

His reasoning was that, even if the series proved popular, audiences might tail off once the novelty was out the way. Something might be needed at the mid-point to give the series "second wind" - a fresh boost. This is usually called tent-poling.

Davies was putting together a group of writers to work alongside him on the series - he would only write the opening story, the concluding one, and four middle episodes. Some of these writers were veterans of the Virgin New Adventures novels, others simply well known TV or radio drama writers, who tended also to be fans. Shearman was selected for the Dalek story on the back of him writing an audio for Big Finish called Jubilee. This had featured a captive Dalek. (It also leant its name to a fictional pizza delivery firm seen in this episode, which would go on to feature in other Doctor Who and Torchwood stories).

Davies intended to have the Daleks feature in the conclusion of the series, and the mid-point appearance would help set this up. He wanted to make the Daleks terrifying again, after many years of them being treated as a bit of a joke. Shearman's play gave the idea that a single Dalek could be as much of a global threat as an army of the creatures. 

The idea of a single alien creature, in an enclosed environment, picking people off one-by-one obviously makes us think of Alien and all its imitators. One tabloid newspaper actually picked up the plot wrong and thought that the lone Dalek was going to feature in a spaceship setting.

Shearman decided that it would be a great idea to feature some of the Daleks' design features - giving them explanations hitherto only guessed at. The sucker - often derided as being little more than a toilet plunger - became a deadly weapon which was also capable of manipulating controls. The hemispheres on the skirt became explosives for self-destruction. New attributes included the swivelling mid-section, so that the Dalek could fire in any direction, and the bullet melting forcefield.

As the Daleks had fought in the Time War, they were redesigned slightly to make them look more armoured - with big bolts and rivets. Their original designer Raymond P Cusick visited Cardiff later, and expressed his dislike of this new look. They looked man-made, and not Dalek-made.

Despite Daleks having been seen to levitate in the classic series, the general public still joked about them being defeated by stairs (as only fans had been watching when they got to fly). It was therefore decided to feature a scene where the Dalek clearly floats upstairs, after being mocked that it can't, to finally put these jokes to bed.

The attitude of the BBC, in assuming that they could use the Daleks without reference to Terry Nation's estate, led to that estate withholding permission to use them. Shearman had already written a number of drafts which featured the Dalek - only to be told he couldn't use it. Davies came up with an alternative creature - a deadly metal sphere covered in weaponry. These would be kept in reserve once the Daleks were back on again, to become Series 3's Toclafane. The Dalek-free version of the story Shearman jokingly titled "The Absence of the Daleks".

A new companion is added, in the form of Adam Mitchell. We'll talk about him more next time, as he is basically there to set something up for the following episode.

Another classic monster made its appearance in this episode. In Van Statten's museum is the head of a Cyberman. Not clearly seen on screen is the description of it having been found in the London sewers in the 1970's. This is clearly supposed to refer to The Invasion, but they have used the head from a Revenge of the Cybermen costume - and that story is set around the 30th Century.

"Bad Wolf" features as part of a radio message, as Van Statten's helicopter arrives.