Daleks @ Peterborough

To be honest there are only a handful of Daleks from "Nu-Who" in the exhibition - a red New Paradigm one, the standard bronze model, and black Dalek Sec - so this latest post concentrates on the Daleks seen in the series 1963 - 1988, along with some related characters and models.

Just to give an idea of the layout, the exhibition sees you enter a room in which some Time Lords face the Silurian / Sea Devil group I showed you previously. They are lined up either side of a TARDIS console. Beyond this is the Cyberman section, with classic era models facing the newer ones.

You then move into another room in which there are lots of masks, models and costumes.

This then leads into a very big room, half of which contains Daleks, and the other half contains miscellaneous monsters from both eras of the programme.

Our first group of Daleks all made their debut in the Hartnell era - the city-based model seen in their very first story, the distinctive "Saucer Commander" from The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and then the standard Dalek with the vertical slats, which was first seen in the closing moments of The Space Museum, and ran through to a cameo in the final episode of The War Games.

Unusual to see that someone has made a Saucer Commander as it only features in a single episode, but I suppose the uniqueness was the attraction. I love the way they have included the little repair job to the middle ring beneath the dome. This ring got broken during the production of the story and they added a little piece of wood to act as a support, purely as a temporary measure. However, it was never replaced, and you will be able to spot this repair in various episodes throughout the 1960's. It was even included on the Eaglemoss figurine.

Before we move on to another unique Dalek, some models...

This little lot all come from The Daleks' Master Plan and represent the spacecraft of the alliance members, or Planetarians / Universal Council. The silver one, bottom left is the Dalek pursuit ship, whilst Mavic Chen's Spar 7-40 is third from left on top row.

That other unique Dalek is one of the highlights of the exhibition, and worth the £5 entry fee alone in my opinion...

It's a very impressive reproduction of the Emperor, from The Evil of the Daleks. It fills a whole corner of the room as they've provided it with a suitable backdrop, rather than just have it free-standing. As anyone who owns the Eaglemoss figurine knows, it simply doesn't look right in isolation.

the smaller lights surrounding the dome turn off and on in sequence.

Standing next to it is the first of our Dalek related characters - an Ogron, as first seen in Day of the Daleks, and then again in Frontier in Space.

For some reason these guys seem to be popular to recreate for fan-made video productions, and I'm afraid they don't always look that great. Here, I think they may have gone a bit overboard with the hairy arms... I think the problem here is also the fact that they've used a standard mannequin for display, so the head doesn't look bullish enough. For their TV appearances they sometimes had to split the masks at the back as the extras (often people overly familiar with the criminal justice system) were such big, bulky guys.

We next get a couple of 1970's Daleks, who flank the original version of Davros...

The Daleks either side of Davros are the silver / black model from Death to the Daleks, and the standard gunmetal grey version which first appeared in Day of the Daleks, and which also featured alongside their creator in Genesis of the Daleks. Two of my favourite colour schemes.

The final set of Daleks hail from the 1980's - from Resurrection and Revelation. We also get one of Lytton's troopers from the former story.

Next batch - some miscellaneous old skool monsters...