text:
Davros

Davros is a fictional character from the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He was created by screenwriter Terry Nation, originally for the 1975 serial Genesis of the Daleks. Davros is a major enemy of the series' protagonist, the Doctor, and is the creator of the Doctor's deadliest enemies, the Daleks. Davros is a genius who has mastered many areas of science, but also a megalomaniac who believes that through his creations he can become the supreme being and ruler of the Universe. The character has been compared to the infamous dictator Adolf Hitler several times, including by the actor Terry Molloy, while Julian Bleach defined him as a cross between Hitler and the renowned scientist Stephen Hawking.

Davros is from the planet Skaro, whose people, the Kaleds, were engaged in a bitter thousand-year war of attrition with their enemies, the Thals. He is horribly scarred and disabled, a condition that various spin-off media attribute to his laboratory being attacked by a Thal shell. He has one functioning hand and one cybernetic eye mounted on his forehead to take the place of his real eyes, which he is not able to open for long; for much of his existence he depends completely upon a self-designed mobile life-support chair in place of his lower body. It would become an obvious inspiration for his eventual design of the Dalek. The lower half of his body is absent and he is physically incapable of leaving the chair for more than a few minutes without dying. Davros' voice, like those of the Daleks, is electronically distorted. His manner of speech is generally soft and contemplative, but when angered or excited he is prone to ranting outbursts that resemble the hysterical, staccatissimo speech of the Daleks.

Concept
Davros first appeared in the 1975 serial Genesis of the Daleks, written by Terry Nation. Nation, creator of the Dalek concept, had deliberately modelled elements of the Daleks' character on Nazi ideology, and conceived of their creator as a scientist with strong fascist tendencies. The physical appearance of Davros was developed by visual effects designer Peter Day and sculptor John Friedlander, who based Davros' chair on the lower half of a Dalek. Producer Philip Hinchcliffe told Friedlander to consider a design similar to the Mekon from the Eagle comic Dan Dare, with a large dome-like head and a withered body.

Cast in the role of Davros was Michael Wisher, who had previously appeared in several different roles on Doctor Who and had provided Dalek voices in the serials Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks and Death to the Daleks. Wisher based his performance as Davros on the philosopher Bertrand Russell. In order to prepare for filming under the heavy mask, Wisher rehearsed wearing a paper bag over his head. Friedlander's mask was cast in hard latex, with only the mouth revealing Wisher's features; make-up artist Sylvia James shaded the mask's tones and blackened Wisher's lips and teeth to hide the transition.

In the serial Destiny of the Daleks, Davros is played by David Gooderson using the mask Friedlander made for Wisher after it was split into intersecting sections to get as good a fit as possible. When Terry Molloy took over the role in Resurrection of the Daleks, a new mask was designed by Stan Mitchell.

In 2023, Bleach reprised the role of Davros for a minisode aired during Children in Need, informally titled "Destination: Skaro". For the first time on television, Davros is depicted as non-disabled and without scarring. In an interview for Doctor Who: Unleashed, executive producer Russell T. Davies said that this is how Davros will be depicted in future appearances, to avoid contributing to harmful tropes of disabled villains in media.

"'We had long conversations about bringing Davros back, because he's a fantastic character, [but] time and society and culture and taste has moved on. And there's a problem with the Davros of old in that he's a wheelchair user, who is evil. And I had problems with that. And a lot of us on the production team had problems with that, of associating disability with evil. And trust me, there's a very long tradition of this.

'I'm not blaming people in the past at all, but the world changes and when the world changes, Doctor Who has to change as well.

'So we made the choice to bring back Davros without the facial scarring and without the wheelchair – or his support unit, which functions as a wheelchair.

'I say, this is how we see Davros now, this is what he looks like. This is 2023. This is our lens. This is our eye. Things used to be black and white, they're not in black and white anymore, and Davros used to look like that and he looks like this now, and that we are absolutely standing by.'"

The decision to portray Davros without his chair received a divisive reception from fans.

Encounters with the Fourth Doctor

The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) first encountered Davros (Michael Wisher) in Genesis of the Daleks when he and his companions were sent to Skaro to avert the creation of the Daleks. As chief scientist of the Kaleds and leader of their elite scientific division, Davros devised new military strategies in order to win his people's thousand-year war against the Thal race that also occupies Skaro. When Davros learned his people were evolving from exposure to nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and biological weapons used in the war, he artificially accelerates the process to his design and stores the resulting tentacled creatures in tank-like "Mark III travel machines" partly based on the design of his wheelchair. He later names these creatures "Daleks", an anagram of Kaleds.

Davros quickly becomes obsessed with his creations, considering them to be the ultimate form of life compared to others. When other Kaleds attempted to thwart his project, Davros arranges the extinction of his own people by using the Thals, whom he mostly killed with the Daleks later. Davros then weeds out those in elite scientific division who are loyal to him so he can have the Daleks eliminate the rest. However, the Daleks ultimately turn on Davros, killing his supporters before shooting him when he tries to halt the Dalek production line.

In Destiny of the Daleks, it is revealed that Davros (now played by David Gooderson) was not killed, but placed in suspended animation and buried underground in the destruction of his bunker. The Daleks unearth their creator to help them break a logical impasse in their war against the android Movellans. However, the Dalek force is destroyed by the Doctor, and Davros is captured and imprisoned in suspended animation by the humans, before being taken to Earth to face trial.

The Dalek Civil War
In the Fifth Doctor story Resurrection of the Daleks, Davros (Terry Molloy) is released from his space station prison by a small Dalek force aided by human mercenaries and Dalek duplicates. The Daleks require Davros to find an antidote for a Movellan-created virus that has all but wiped them out. Believing his creations to be treacherous, Davros begins using a syringe-like mind control device hidden in a secret compartment in his wheelchair on Daleks and humans; he ultimately releases a sample of the virus to kill off the Daleks before they can exterminate him. Davros expresses a desire to build a new and improved race of Daleks, but he apparently succumbs to the virus himself, his physiology being close enough to that of the Daleks for the virus to affect him.

In the Sixth Doctor story Revelation of the Daleks, it is revealed that Davros managed to escape at the end of Resurrection and has gone into hiding as "The Great Healer" of the funeral and cryogenic preservation centre Tranquil Repose on the planet Necros. There, creating a clone of his head to serve as a decoy while modifying his body so that it can fire electric bolts and his chair is able to hover, Davros uses the more intelligent frozen bodies to engineer a new variety of white armoured Daleks loyal to him (while using the lesser intellects as food for the galaxy, ending a galaxy-wide famine), but he is captured by the original Daleks and taken to Skaro to face trial.

Davros' final classic appearance is as the Emperor Dalek in Remembrance of the Daleks, with his white and gold Daleks now based on Skaro and termed "Imperial Daleks", fighting against the grey "Renegade Dalek" faction, who answer to the Dalek Supreme. By this time, Davros has been physically transplanted into a customised Dalek casing. He is only revealed to be the Emperor in the final episode. Both Skaro and the Imperial Dalek mothership are apparently destroyed (in the future) when the Seventh Doctor tricks Davros into using the Time Lord artefact known as the Hand of Omega, which makes Skaro's Sun go supernova, before homing in on their mothership. However, a Dalek on the bridge of Davros' ship reports that the Emperor's escape pod is being launched and a white light is seen speeding away from the ship moments before its destruction, leaving a clear route to bring Davros back in the future.

The Time War and the Reality Bomb
During the revived series, Davros was referred to in the episode "Dalek" (2005) by the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), who explains to Henry Van Statten that the Daleks were created by "a genius... a man who was king of his own little world", and again by the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) in the episode "Evolution of the Daleks" (2007), where he refers to the Daleks' creator as believing that "removing emotions makes you stronger". Davros makes his first physical appearance in the episode "The Stolen Earth" (2008), portrayed by Julian Bleach. The episode reveals that Davros was thought to have died during the first year of the Time War, when his command ship "flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child" at the Gates of Elysium, despite the Doctor's failed efforts to save him. But Davros was pulled out of the time lock of the war by Dalek Caan (voiced by Nicholas Briggs), using his own flesh to create a "new empire" of Daleks who place him in the Vault as their prisoner to make use of his knowledge. Under Davros' guidance, the Daleks steal 27 planets, including Earth, and hide them in the Medusa Cascade, one second out of sync with the rest of the universe.

In the follow-up episode "Journey's End" (2008), it is revealed that the stolen planets are required as a power source for Davros' ideal final solution: the Reality Bomb, which produces a wavelength that would cancel out the electrical field binding atoms to reduce all life outside the Crucible into nothingness in both his universe and countless other realities. But Davros learns too late that Dalek Caan, who came to the realisation of his race's atrocities as a consequence of saving his creator, used his prophecies and influence to ensure the Daleks' destruction while manipulating events to bring the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) together for the role the latter would play. Though the Doctor attempts to save him, having earlier taunted the Doctor for turning his companions into killers and being the cause of the deaths of countless people during his travels, Davros furiously refuses the Doctor's help and accuses him of being responsible for the destruction while screaming: "Never forget, Doctor, you did this! I name you forever: You are the Destroyer of Worlds!" Thus the Doctor is forced to leave Davros to his supposed fate as the Crucible self-destructs.

Remembering the Twelfth Doctor
Davros returns in the two-part Series 9 opening "The Magician's Apprentice" and "The Witch's Familiar" (2015), having escaped the Crucible's destruction and ending up on a restored Skaro with his life being prolonged by the Daleks. But when the aged Davros' health begins to fail, he remembers his childhood self, played by Joey Price, meeting the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) during the Kaleds' thousand-year war prior to Genesis of the Daleks. The young Davros finds himself lost on the battlefield and surrounded by handmines, with the Doctor throwing his sonic screwdriver to the boy with the intent to save him before learning his name and leaving the child to his fate. Davros, seeking a final revenge on the Doctor, employs the snake-like Colony Sarff (Jami Reid-Quarrell) to bring him to Skaro. When it appears that the Doctor has lost his companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) to the Daleks, Davros manages to trick the Doctor into using his regeneration energy to heal him, extending his own life while infusing every Dalek on Skaro with the energy. But the Doctor reveals Davros' scheme has also revitalised the decomposing-yet-still-alive Daleks left to rot in Skaro's sewers, causing them to revolt and destroy the city. The Doctor then discovers the Daleks have a concept of mercy and are allowed to have the word in their vocabulary when he encounters Clara, having been placed in a Dalek casing by Missy (Michelle Gomez). The Doctor and Clara escape, the former having an epiphany as to how Davros somehow put a sliver of compassion into the Daleks. He then returns to the battlefield in Davros' childhood, using a Dalek gun to destroy the handmines with the one bit of compassion in Davros' life instilled in the Daleks' design to ensure Clara being saved.

The Fourteenth Doctor
In the Children in Need sketch "Destination: Skaro" (2023) (which takes place during an earlier time in the Kaled-Thal war), Davros (Julian Bleach) (who has not yet become disfigured or received the cybernetic eye) is seen presenting a Dalek prototype featuring a robotic claw to his assistant, Castavillian. When he briefly departs to attend to an urgent matter, the Fourteenth Doctor lands in the TARDIS, accidentally destroying the robotic claw. He inadvertently suggests the name "Dalek" for the prototype, and gives Castavillian a plunger-tipped arm as a replacement for the broken claw. Once he realises that he has accidentally assisted with the creation of his greatest enemy, he quickly departs saying that he was "never here". Davros returns and approves of the new plunger arm.

Comic strips
Doctor Who Magazine printed several comics stories involving Davros. The first, "Nemesis of the Daleks" (#152–155), with the Seventh Doctor, features an appearance of a Dalek Emperor. Speaking with the Emperor, the Doctor addresses him as Davros, but the Emperor responds "Who is Davros?" The Doctor initially assumes Davros' personality has been totally subsumed, but in the later strip "Emperor of the Daleks" (#197–202) this Emperor is shown as a different entity from Davros. Set prior to Remembrance of the Daleks in Davros' timeline, but after in the timeline of the Doctor, the latter, accompanied by Bernice Summerfield, together with help from the Sixth Doctor, ensures that Davros will survive the wrath of the Daleks so that he can assume the title of Emperor, allowing history to take its course. "Up Above the Gods" (#227), a vignette following up on this, features the Sixth Doctor and Davros having a conversation in the TARDIS.

Audio plays
Terry Molloy has reprised his role as Davros in the spin-off audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions, mostly notably Davros (taking place during the Sixth Doctor's era), which, through flashbacks, explored the scientist's life prior to his crippling injury, which is attributed to a Thal nuclear attack (an idea that first appeared in Terrance Dicks' novelisation of Genesis of the Daleks).

Davros, which does not feature the Daleks, apparently fills in the gaps between Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks, and has the scientist trying to manipulate the galaxy's economy into a war footing similar to Skaro's. The Sixth Doctor manages to defeat his plans, and Davros is last heard when his ship explodes, an event obliquely mentioned in Revelation. However the Doctor thinks he has survived. Davros also mentions he will work on a plan to combat famine, tying into Revelation of the Daleks.

The Davros Mission is an original audio adventure (without the Doctor) available on The Complete Davros Collection DVD box set. It takes place directly after the television story Revelation, while leaving the planet Necros and beginning Davros' trial. At the end of Davros Mission, he turns the tables on the Daleks, forcing them to do his bidding. The Big Finish miniseries I, Davros, also features trial scenes, but mostly explores his early life. In those four stories, his journey is seen from his boyhood, to just before Genesis of the Daleks.

The Curse of Davros begins with Davros and the Daleks working together to try and alter the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo using technology that Davros has created that allows him to swap peoples' minds, allowing him to switch various soldiers in Napoleon's army with his own Daleks, ultimately intending to replace Napoleon with a Dalek after Waterloo is won so that he can change history and lead humanity in a direction where they may ally with the Daleks. The plan is complicated when the Sixth Doctor arrives and uses the device to swap bodies with Davros in an attempt to subvert the Daleks' plans from the inside, but Davros-in-the-Doctor is eventually able to convince the Daleks of his true identity, planning to remain in the Doctor's healthy body while leaving the Doctor trapped in his original form. At the end, Davros and the Doctor are returned to their original bodies with the aid of the Doctor's new companion Flip Jackson, the Doctor exposes Davros's true agenda to Napoleon, and Davros is left with an army of Daleks who have had their minds wiped. These Daleks presumably become the "Imperial Daleks", first seen in Remembrance of the Daleks.

In The Juggernauts, Davros is on the run from the original Daleks. He hatches a plan to add human tissue to robotic Mechanoids, using them, along with his own Daleks, to destroy the originals, but the Doctor learns the truth about this plan, and his companion Mel Bush—who unwittingly assisted in the programming of the new Mechanoids—uses a backdoor she installed in their programming to turn them against Davros. At the end of the story, the self-destruct mechanism of Davros' life-support chair explodes after he is attacked by the Mechanoids, destroying an entire human colony. It is not clear how Davros survives to become the Dalek Emperor as seen in Remembrance. However, in the DVD documentary Davros Connections, director Gary Russell points out that the explosion of Davros' life-support chair leaves the listener to believe there is little of Davros left. This fits chronologically the fact that Remembrance depicts Davros as just a head inside the Emperor Dalek.

In Daleks Among Us, set after Remembrance, Davros returns to Azimuth, a planet that was invaded by the Daleks long ago, presenting himself as a victim of Dalek enslavement to infiltrate an underground movement against the repressive government- so desperate to prevent riots about individual actions during the Dalek occupation that official policy is now that the Dalek invasion never happened- seeking the remnants of an old experiment he carried out on the planet. This experiment is revealed to be Falkus, a clone of Davros's original body that was intended to be a new host for his mind, with Falkus having evolved an independent personality since the Daleks left Azimuth. Falkus attempts to acquire the Persuasion Machine, a dangerous device that the Seventh Doctor has been tracking with his companions Elizabeth Elizabeth Klein and Will Arrowsmith, but the Doctor is able to trick Falkus into using the reprogrammed Persuasion Machine to destroy himself and his Daleks, while Davros flees in an escape pod. Davros is last shown trapped on the planet Lamuria, faced with the spectral former residents of the planet who sought to punish all criminals in the universe.

By the time of the Eighth Doctor audio play Terror Firma (set after Remembrance), Davros is commanding a Dalek army which has successfully conquered the Earth. His mental instability has grown to the point where "Davros" and "the Emperor" exist within him as different personalities. His Daleks recognise this instability and rebel against Davros. By the story's end the Emperor personality is dominant, and the Daleks agree to follow him and leave Earth.

In the fourth volume of the Time War series, looking at the Eighth Doctor's role in the Time War, after The Valeyard uses a Dalek weapon to erase the Daleks from history, the Dalek Time Strategist escapes the erasure by travelling into a parallel universe where the Kaleds and Thals have been at peace for centuries, with Davros still fully human and married to a Thal woman. The Dalek Time Strategist manipulates this alternate Davros into using his dimensional portal technology to merge various alternate Skaros together to recreate the Daleks in the prime universe, convincing Davros that the Doctor is an enemy of the Kaleds rather than the Thals. Reference is made to the 'prime' Davros having been killed in the first year of the War (as mentioned in "The Stolen Earth"). The process of merging with his alternate selves causes the alternate Davros to gain the injuries and memories of his counterparts, to the extent that he forgets his wife and the peace with the Thals. Eventually his presence restores the Daleks in the prime universe, but the Dalek Emperor has Davros put into stasis to prevent his influence causing another civil war by causing the Daleks to become divided between loyalty to the Emperor and Davros.

Novels
Terror Firma may contradict the events of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel War of the Daleks by John Peel, in which an unmerged Davros is placed on trial by the Dalek Prime, a combination of the Dalek Emperor and the Dalek Supreme. In the novel the Dalek Prime claimed that the planet Antalin had been terraformed to resemble Skaro and was destroyed in its place. A subterfuge to destroy Daleks aligned to Davros; both on Skaro (Antalin) and those that remained hidden within Dalek ranks on Skaro (original). Despite finding evidence of threat to Skaro via evidence found on 22nd century earth of Davros' mission to 1960s Earth and seeing the event via time-tracking equipment, the Dalek Prime allowed the destruction of Skaro to destroy Daleks allied to Davros. Dalek Prime also claimed that the Dalek/Movellan war (and indeed most of Dalek history before the destruction of "Skaro") was actually faked for Davros' benefit; in fact another ruse designed to bait Davros into giving evidence against himself (as he does in his trial.) Skaro is later seen to be intact and undamaged, and one character notes that it is quite possible the Dalek Prime is lying in order to weaken Davros' claim to leadership of the Daleks, while using foreknowledge of events to destroy and entrap Davros and his allies.

At the conclusion of War, Davros was seemingly disintegrated by a Spider Dalek on the order of the Dalek Prime. However, Davros had previously recruited one of the Spider Daleks as a sleeper agent for just such an eventuality, and even he was not certain in the end if he was being disintegrated or being teleported away to safety, leaving the possibility open for his return.

Short fiction
Paul Cornell's dark vignette in the Doctor Who Magazine Brief Encounters series, "An Incident Concerning the Bombardment of the Phobos Colony" occurs sometime between Resurrection of the Daleks and his assumption of the role of Emperor.

Theatre
In 1993, Michael Wisher, the original Davros, with Peter Miles, who had played his confederate, Nyder, reprised the role in an unlicensed one-off amateur stage production, The Trial of Davros. The plot of the play involved the Time Lords putting Davros on trial, with Nyder as a witness.

Terry Molloy played Davros in the remounting of the play, again with Miles, for another one-off production in 2005. During the production, specially shot footage portrayed Dalek atrocities.

In 2008, Julian Bleach appeared live as Davros at the Doctor Who Prom, announcing that the Royal Albert Hall would become his new palace, and the audience his "obedient slaves".

Unofficial BBC representation
BBC staff have traditionally created parodies of its own programming to be shown to colleagues at Christmas events and parties. The BBC's 1993 Christmas tape parodied the allegedly robotic, dictatorial and ruthless management style of its then Director-General, John Birt, by portraying him as Davros taking over the BBC, carrying out bizarre mergers of departments, awarding himself a bonus and singing a song to the tune of "I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)" describing his plans.

Television

 * Genesis of the Daleks (1975) (played by Michael Wisher)
 * Destiny of the Daleks (1979) (played by David Gooderson)
 * Resurrection of the Daleks (1984) (debut of Terry Molloy)
 * Revelation of the Daleks (1985)
 * Remembrance of the Daleks (1988)
 * "The Stolen Earth" / "Journey's End" (2008) (debut of Julian Bleach)
 * "The Magician's Apprentice" / "The Witch's Familiar" (2015) (Joey Price as young Davros)
 * "Destination: Skaro" (2023)

Comic strips

 * Nemesis of the Daleks (Doctor Who Magazine) (implied)
 * Emperor of the Daleks (Doctor Who Magazine)
 * Up Above the Gods (Doctor Who Magazine)

Audio plays

 * Davros
 * The Juggernauts
 * Terror Firma
 * I, Davros: Innocence (young Davros played by Rory Jennings)
 * I, Davros: Purity
 * I, Davros: Corruption
 * I, Davros: Guilt
 * The Davros Mission
 * Masters of War (Doctor Who Unbound series; outside of default Doctor Who continuity)
 * The Curse of Davros
 * Daleks Among Us
 * Palindrome (alternative Davros)
 * Restoration of the Daleks (alternative Davros)
 * The War Master: Anti-Genesis (alternative timeline)
 * The Dalek Defence

Note
Played by Terry Molloy, except when noted.

Short fiction

 * "An Incident Concerning the Continual Bombardment of the Phobos Colony" by Paul Cornell, Doctor Who Magazine No. 168

Original novels

 * War of the Daleks by John Peel (Eighth Doctor Adventures)

Video games

 * Dalek Attack (later told that is in fact a Davros made up by the Doctor in the Land of Fiction)
 * Lego Dimensions Doctor Who level expansion pack "The Dalek's Extermination of Earth" features Davros and the Daleks as the main antagonists.

Theatrical productions

 * The Trial of Davros, 14 November 1993, 16 July 2005 (played by Michael Wisher in 1993 production, Terry Molloy in 2005 production)
 * Doctor Who Prom, 27 July 2008 (played by Julian Bleach)

Other media
On 26 November 2007, a DVD box set was released featuring all of the Davros stories from the shows original run, including Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, and Remembrance of the Daleks.

title: Davros


text:
Dalek

The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of extremely xenophobic  mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. They were conceived by writer Terry Nation and first appeared in the 1963 Doctor Who serial The Daleks, in casings designed by Raymond Cusick.

Drawing inspiration from the Nazis, Nation portrayed the Daleks as violent, merciless and pitiless cyborg aliens, completely absent of any emotion other than hate, who demand total conformity to the will of the Dalek with the highest authority, and are bent on the conquest of the universe and the extermination of any other forms of life, including other "impure" Daleks which are deemed inferior for being different to them. Collectively, they are the greatest enemies of Doctor Who's protagonist, the Time Lord known as "the Doctor". During the second year of the original Doctor Who programme (1963–1989), the Daleks developed their own form of time travel. At the beginning of the second Doctor Who TV series that debuted in 2005, it was established that the Daleks had engaged in a Time War against the Time Lords that affected much of the universe and altered parts of history.

In the programme's narrative, the planet Skaro suffered a thousand-year war between two societies: the Kaleds and the Thals. During this time-period, many natives of Skaro became badly mutated by fallout from nuclear weapons and chemical warfare. The Kaled government believed in genetic purity and swore to "exterminate the Thals" for being inferior. Believing his own society was becoming weak and that it was his duty to create a new master race from the ashes of his people, the Kaled scientist Davros genetically modified several Kaleds into squid-like life-forms he called Daleks, removing "weaknesses" such as mercy and sympathy while increasing aggression and survival-instinct. He then integrated them with tank-like robotic shells equipped with advanced technology based on the same life-support system he himself used since being burned and blinded by a nuclear attack. His creations became intent on dominating the universe by enslaving or purging all "inferior" non-Dalek life.

The Daleks are the series' most popular and famous villains and their returns to television over the decades have often gained media attention. Their battle cry, a staccato "Exterminate!" has entered common usage as a popular catchphrase.

Creation
The Daleks were created by Terry Nation and designed by the BBC designer Raymond Cusick. They were introduced in December 1963 in the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks.

Entry into popular culture
The Daleks became an immediate hit with viewers, returning for subsequent appearances throughout the 1960s. As early as one year after first appearing on Doctor Who, the Daleks had become popular enough to be recognized even by non-viewers. In December 1964 editorial cartoonist Leslie Gilbert Illingworth published a cartoon in the Daily Mail captioned "THE DEGAULLEK", caricaturing French President Charles de Gaulle arriving at a NATO meeting as a Dalek with de Gaulle's prominent nose.

The Daleks have become as synonymous with Doctor Who as the Doctor himself, and their behaviour and catchphrases are now part of British popular culture. "Hiding behind the sofa whenever the Daleks appear" has been cited as an element of British cultural identity, and a 2008 survey indicated that nine out of ten British children were able to identify a Dalek correctly. In 1999 a Dalek photographed by Lord Snowdon appeared on a postage stamp celebrating British popular culture. In 2010, readers of science fiction magazine SFX voted the Dalek as the all-time greatest monster, beating competition including Japanese movie monster Godzilla and J. R. R. Tolkien's Gollum, of The Lord of the Rings.

The word "Dalek" has entered major dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines "Dalek" as "In the BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who: a member of a race of aggressive alien mutants in mobile armoured casings. Frequently in extended, allusive, or similative use." English-speakers sometimes use the term metaphorically to describe people, usually authority figures, who act like robots unable to break from their programming. For example, John Birt, the Director-General of the BBC from 1992 to 2000, was called a "croak-voiced Dalek" by playwright Dennis Potter in the MacTaggart Lecture at the 1993 Edinburgh Television Festival.

Physical characteristics
Externally, Daleks resemble human-sized pepper pots with a single mechanical eyestalk mounted on a rotating dome, a gun-mount containing an energy-weapon ("gunstick" or "death ray") resembling an egg-whisk, and a telescopic manipulator arm usually tipped by an appendage resembling a sink-plunger. Daleks have been known to use their plungers to interface with technology, crush a man's skull by suction, measure the intelligence of a subject, and extract information from a man's mind. Dalek casings are made of a bonded polycarbide material called "Dalekanium" by a member of the human resistance in The Dalek Invasion of Earth and the Dalek comics, as well as by the Cult of Skaro in "Daleks in Manhattan".

The lower half of a Dalek's shell is covered with hemispherical protrusions, or 'Dalek-bumps', which are shown in the episode "Dalek" to be spheres embedded in the casing. Both the BBC-licensed Dalek Book (1964) and The Doctor Who Technical Manual (1983) describe these items as being part of a sensory array, while in the 2005 series episode "Dalek" they are integral to a Dalek's forcefield mechanism, which evaporates most bullets and resists most types of energy weapons. The forcefield seems to be concentrated around the Dalek's midsection (where the mutant is located), as normally ineffective firepower can be concentrated on the eyestalk to blind a Dalek. In 2019 episode "Resolution" the bumps give way to reveal missile launchers capable of wiping out a military tank with ease. Daleks have a very limited visual field, with no peripheral sight at all, and are relatively easy to hide from in fairly exposed places. Their own energy weapons are capable of destroying them. Their weapons fire a beam that has electrical tendencies, is capable of propagating through water, and may be a form of plasma or electrolaser. The eyepiece is a Dalek's most vulnerable spot; impairing its vision often leads to a blind, panicked firing of its weapon while exclaiming "My vision is impaired; I cannot see!" Russell T Davies subverted the catchphrase in his 2008 episode "The Stolen Earth", in which a Dalek vaporises a paintball that has blocked its vision while proclaiming, "My vision is not impaired!"

The creature inside the mechanical casing is soft and repulsive in appearance, and vicious in temperament. The first-ever glimpse of a Dalek mutant, in The Daleks, was a claw peeking out from under a Thal cloak after it had been removed from its casing. The mutants' actual appearance has varied, but often adheres to the Doctor's description of the species in Remembrance of the Daleks as "little green blobs in bonded polycarbide armour". In Resurrection of the Daleks a Dalek creature, separated from its casing, attacks and severely injures a human soldier; in Remembrance of the Daleks there are two Dalek factions (Imperial and Renegade), and the creatures inside have a different appearance in each case, one resembling the amorphous creature from Resurrection, the other the crab-like creature from the original Dalek serial. As the creature inside is rarely seen on screen there is a common misconception that Daleks are wholly mechanical robots. In the new series Daleks are retconned to be squid-like in appearance, with small tentacles, one or two eyes, and an exposed brain. In the new series, a Dalek creature separated from its casing is shown capable of inserting a tentacle into the back of a human's neck and controlling them.

Daleks' voices are electronic; when out of its casing the mutant is only able to squeak. Once the mutant is removed the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids; for example, in The Daleks, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) enters a Dalek shell to masquerade as a guard as part of an escape plan.

For many years it was assumed that, due to their design and gliding motion, Daleks were unable to climb stairs, and that this provided a simple way of escaping them. A cartoon from Punch pictured a group of Daleks at the foot of a flight of stairs with the caption, "Well, this certainly buggers our plan to conquer the Universe". In a scene from the serial Destiny of the Daleks, the Doctor and companions escape from Dalek pursuers by climbing into a ceiling duct. The Fourth Doctor calls down, "If you're supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don't you try climbing after us?" The Daleks generally make up for their lack of mobility with overwhelming firepower; a joke among Doctor Who fans is that "Real Daleks don't climb stairs; they level the building." Dalek mobility has improved over the history of the series: in their first appearance, in The Daleks, they were capable of movement only on the conductive metal floors of their city; in The Dalek Invasion of Earth a Dalek emerges from the waters of the River Thames, indicating not only that they had become freely mobile, but that they are amphibious; Planet of the Daleks showed that they could ascend a vertical shaft by means of an external anti-gravity mat placed on the floor; Revelation of the Daleks showed Davros in his life-support chair and one of his Daleks hovering and Remembrance of the Daleks depicted them as capable of hovering up a flight of stairs. Despite this, journalists covering the series frequently refer to the Daleks' supposed inability to climb stairs; characters escaping up a flight of stairs in the 2005 episode "Dalek" made the same joke and were shocked when the Dalek began to hover up the stairs after uttering the phrase "ELEVATE", in a similar manner to their normal phrase "EXTERMINATE". The new series depicts the Daleks as fully capable of flight, even space flight.

Overview
The non-humanoid shape of the Dalek did much to enhance the creatures' sense of menace. A lack of familiar reference points differentiated them from the traditional "bug-eyed monster" of science fiction, which Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman had wanted the show to avoid. The unsettling Dalek form, coupled with their alien voices, made many believe that the props were wholly mechanical and operated by remote control.

The Daleks were actually controlled from inside by short operators, who had to manipulate their eyestalks, domes and arms, as well as flashing the lights on their heads in sync with the actors supplying their voices. The Dalek cases were built in two pieces; an operator would step into the lower section and then the top would be secured. The operators looked out between the cylindrical louvres just beneath the dome, which were lined with mesh to conceal their faces.

In addition to being hot and cramped, the Dalek casings also muffled external sounds, making it difficult for operators to hear the director or dialogue. John Scott Martin, a Dalek operator from the original series, said that Dalek operation was a challenge: "You had to have about six hands: one to do the eyestalk, one to do the lights, one for the gun, another for the smoke canister underneath, yet another for the sink plunger. If you were related to an octopus then it helped."

For Doctor Who's 21st-century revival the Dalek casings retain the same overall shape and dimensional proportions of previous Daleks, although many details have been redesigned to give the Dalek a heavier and more solid look. Changes include a larger, more pointed base; a glowing eyepiece; an all-over metallic-brass finish (specified by Davies); thicker, nailed strips on the "neck" section; a housing for the eyestalk pivot; and significantly larger dome lights. The new prop made its on-screen debut in the 2005 episode "Dalek". These Dalek casings use a short operator inside the housing while the 'head' and eyestalk are operated via remote control. A third person, Nicholas Briggs, supplies the voice in their various appearances. In the 2010 season, a new, larger model appeared in several colours representing different parts of the Dalek command hierarchy.

Movement
Terry Nation's original plan was for the Daleks to glide across the floor. Early versions of the Daleks rolled on nylon castors, propelled by the operator's feet. Although castors were adequate for the Daleks' debut serial, which was shot entirely at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios, for The Dalek Invasion of Earth Terry Nation wanted the Daleks to be filmed on the streets of London. To enable the Daleks to travel smoothly on location, designer Spencer Chapman built the new Dalek shells around miniature tricycles with sturdier wheels, which were hidden by enlarged fenders fitted below the original base. The uneven flagstones of Central London caused the Daleks to rattle as they moved and it was not possible to remove this noise from the final soundtrack. A small parabolic dish was added to the rear of the prop's casing to explain why these Daleks, unlike the ones in their first serial, were not dependent on static electricity drawn up from the floors of the Dalek city for their motive power.

Later versions of the prop had more efficient wheels and were once again simply propelled by the seated operators' feet, but they remained so heavy that when going up ramps they often had to be pushed by stagehands out of camera shot. The difficulty of operating all the prop's parts at once contributed to the occasionally jerky Dalek movements. This problem has largely been eradicated with the advent of the "new series" version, as its remotely controlled dome and eyestalk allow the operator to concentrate on the smooth movement of the Dalek and its arms.

Voices
The staccato delivery, harsh tone and rising inflection of the Dalek voice were initially developed by two voice actors, Peter Hawkins and David Graham, who varied the pitch and speed of the lines according to the emotion needed. Their voices were further processed electronically by Brian Hodgson at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The sound-processing devices used have varied over the decades. In 1963 Hodgson and his colleagues used equalisation to boost the mid-range of the actor's voice, then subjected it to ring modulation with a 30 Hz sine wave. The distinctive harsh, grating vocal timbre this produced has remained the pattern for all Dalek voices since (with the exception of those in the 1985 serial Revelation of the Daleks, for which the director, Graeme Harper, deliberately used less distortion).

Besides Hawkins and Graham, other voice actors for the Daleks have included Roy Skelton, who first voiced the Daleks in the 1967 story The Evil of the Daleks and provided voices for five additional Dalek serials including Planet of the Daleks, and for the one-off anniversary special "The Five Doctors". Michael Wisher, the actor who originated the role of Dalek creator Davros in Genesis of the Daleks, provided Dalek voices for that same story, as well as for Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks, and Death to the Daleks. Other Dalek voice actors include Royce Mills (three stories),  Brian Miller (two stories),  and Oliver Gilbert and Peter Messaline (one story). John Leeson, who performed the voice of K9 in several Doctor Who stories, and Davros actors Terry Molloy and David Gooderson also contributed supporting voices for various Dalek serials.

Since 2005 the Dalek voice in the television series has been provided by Nicholas Briggs, speaking into a microphone connected to a voice modulator. Briggs had previously provided Dalek and other alien voices for Big Finish Productions audio plays, and continues to do so. In a 2006 BBC Radio interview, Briggs said that when the BBC asked him to do the voice for the new television series, they instructed him to bring his own analogue ring modulator that he had used in the audio plays. The BBC's sound department had changed to a digital platform and could not adequately create the distinctive Dalek sound with their modern equipment. Briggs went as far as to bring the voice modulator to the actors' readings of the scripts.

Construction
Manufacturing the props was expensive. In scenes where many Daleks had to appear, some of them would be represented by wooden replicas (Destiny of the Daleks) or life-size photographic enlargements in the early black-and-white episodes (The Daleks, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and The Power of the Daleks). In stories involving armies of Daleks, the BBC effects team even turned to using commercially available toy Daleks, manufactured by Louis Marx & Co and Herts Plastic Moulders Ltd. Examples of this can be observed in the serials The Power of the Daleks, The Evil of the Daleks, and Planet of the Daleks. Judicious editing techniques also gave the impression that there were more Daleks than were actually available, such as using a split screen in "The Parting of the Ways".

Four fully functioning props were commissioned for the first serial "The Daleks" in 1963, and were constructed from BBC plans by Shawcraft Engineering. These became known in fan circles as "Mk I Daleks". Shawcraft were also commissioned to construct approximately 20 Daleks for the two Dalek movies in 1965 and 1966 (see below). Some of these movie props filtered back to the BBC and were seen in the televised serials, notably The Chase, which was aired before the first movie's debut. The remaining props not bought by the BBC were either donated to charity or given away as prizes in competitions.

The BBC's own Dalek props were reused many times, with components of the original Shawcraft "Mk I Daleks" surviving right through to their final classic series appearance in 1988. But years of storage and repainting took their toll. By the time of the Sixth Doctor's Revelation of the Daleks new props were being manufactured out of fibreglass. These models were lighter and more affordable to construct than their predecessors. These newer models were slightly bulkier in appearance around the mid-shoulder section, and also had a redesigned skirt section which was more vertical at the back. Other minor changes were made to the design due to these new construction methods, including altering the fender and incorporating the arm boxes, collars, and slats into a single fibreglass moulding. These props were repainted in grey for the Seventh Doctor serial Remembrance of the Daleks and designated as "Renegade Daleks"; another redesign, painted in cream and gold, became the "Imperial Dalek" faction.

New Dalek props were built for the 21st-century version of Doctor Who. The first, which appeared alone in the 2005 episode "Dalek", was built by modelmaker Mike Tucker. Additional Dalek props based on Tucker's master were subsequently built out of fibreglass by Cardiff-based Specialist Models.

Development
Wishing to create an alien creature that did not look like a "man in a suit", Terry Nation stated in his script for the first Dalek serial that they should have no legs. He was also inspired by a performance by the Georgian National Ballet, in which dancers in long skirts appeared to glide across the stage. For many of the shows the Daleks were operated by retired ballet dancers wearing black socks while sitting inside the Dalek. Raymond Cusick was given the task of designing the Daleks when Ridley Scott, then a designer for the BBC, proved unavailable after having been initially assigned to their debut serial. According to Jeremy Bentham's Doctor Who—The Early Years (1986), after Nation wrote the script, Cusick was given only an hour to come up with the design for the Daleks and was inspired in his initial sketches by a pepper pot on a table. Cusick himself, however, states that he based it on a man seated in a chair, and used the pepper pot only to demonstrate how it might move.

In 1964, Nation told a Daily Mirror reporter that the Dalek name came from a dictionary or encyclopaedia volume, the spine of which read "Dal – Lek" (or, according to another version, "Dal – Eks"). He later admitted that this book and the associated origin of the Dalek name were completely fictitious, and that anyone bothering to check out his story would have found him out. The name had simply rolled off his typewriter. Later, Nation was pleasantly surprised to discover that in Serbo-Croatian the word "dalek" means "far" or "distant".

Nation grew up during the Second World War and remembered the fear caused by German bombings. He consciously based the Daleks on the Nazis, conceiving the species as faceless, authoritarian figures dedicated to conquest, racial purity and complete conformity. The allusion is most obvious in the Dalek stories written by Nation, in particular The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) and Genesis of the Daleks (1975).

Before he wrote the first Dalek serial, Nation was a scriptwriter for the comedian Tony Hancock. The two men had a falling out and Nation either resigned or was fired. Hancock worked on several series proposals, one of which was called From Plip to Plop, a comedic history of the world that would have ended with a nuclear apocalypse, the survivors being reduced to living in dustbin-like robot casings and eating radiation to stay alive. According to Hancock's biographer Cliff Goodwin, when Hancock saw the Daleks he allegedly shouted at the screen, "That bloody Nation — he's stolen my robots!"

The titling of early Doctor Who stories is complex and sometimes controversial. The first Dalek serial is called, variously, The Survivors (the pre-production title and on-screen title used for the serial's second episode), The Mutants (its official title at the time of production and broadcast, later taken by another unrelated story), Beyond the Sun (used on some production documentation), The Dead Planet (the on-screen title of the serial's first episode), or simply The Daleks.

The instant appeal of the Daleks caught the BBC off-guard, and transformed Doctor Who into a national phenomenon. Children were both frightened and fascinated by the alien look of the monsters, and the idea of "hiding behind the sofa" became a popular, if inaccurate or exaggerated, meme. The Doctor Who production office was inundated with letters and calls asking about the creatures. Newspaper articles focused attention on the series and the Daleks, further enhancing their popularity.

Nation jointly owned the intellectual property rights to the Daleks with the BBC, and the money-making concept proved nearly impossible to sell to anyone else, so he was dependent on the BBC wanting to produce stories featuring the creatures. Several attempts to market the Daleks outside the series were unsuccessful. Since Nation's death in 1997, his share of the rights is now administered by his former agent, Tim Hancock.

Early plans for what eventually became the 1996 Doctor Who television movie included radically redesigned Daleks whose cases unfolded like spiders' legs. The concept for these "Spider Daleks" was abandoned, but it was picked up again in several Doctor Who spin-offs.

When the new series was announced, many fans hoped that the Daleks would return once more to the programme. The Nation estate, however, demanded levels of creative control over the Daleks' appearances and scripts that were unacceptable to the BBC. Eventually the Daleks were cleared to appear in the first series. In 2014, Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat denied their numerous appearances since was as a result of a contractual obligation.

Fictional history
Dalek in-universe history has seen many retroactive changes, which have caused continuity problems. When the Daleks first appeared, they were presented as the descendants of the Dals, mutated after a brief nuclear war between the Dal and Thal races 500 years ago. This race of Daleks is destroyed when their power supply is wrecked. However, when they reappear in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, they have conquered Earth in the 22nd century. Later stories saw them develop time travel and a space empire. In 1975, Terry Nation revised the Daleks' origins in Genesis of the Daleks, where the Dals were now called Kaleds (of which "Daleks" is an anagram), and the Dalek design was attributed to one man, the paralyzed Kaled chief scientist and evil genius, Davros. Later Big Finish Productions audio plays attempted to explain this retcon by saying that the Skaro word "dal" simply means warrior, which is how the Kaleds described themselves, while "dal-ek" means "god." According to Genesis of the Daleks, instead of a short nuclear exchange, the Kaled-Thal war was a thousand-year-long war of attrition, fought with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons which caused widespread mutations among the life forms of Skaro. Davros experimented on living Kaled cells to find the ultimate mutated form of the Kaled species, believing his own people had become weak and needed to be replaced by a greater life form. He placed his new Dalek creations in tank-like "travel machines" of advanced technology whose design was based on his own life-support chair.

Genesis of the Daleks marked a new era for the depiction of the species, with most of their previous history either forgotten or barely referred to again. Future stories in the original Doctor Who series, which followed a rough story arc, would also focus more on Davros, much to the dissatisfaction of some fans who felt that the Daleks should take centre stage rather than merely becoming minions of their creator. Davros made his last televised appearance for 20 years in Remembrance of the Daleks, which depicted a civil war between two factions of Daleks. One faction, the "Imperial Daleks", were loyal to Davros, who had become their Emperor, whilst the other, the "Renegade Daleks", followed a black Supreme Dalek. By the end of the story, armies of both factions have been wiped out and the Doctor has tricked them into destroying Skaro. However, Davros escapes and based on the fact that Daleks possess time travel and were spread throughout the universe, there was still a possibility that many had survived these events.

The original "classic" Doctor Who series ended in 1989. In the 1996 Doctor Who TV-movie (which introduced the Eighth Doctor), Skaro has seemingly been recreated and the Daleks are shown to still rule it. Though the aliens are never seen on-screen, the story shows the Time Lord villain the Master being executed on Skaro as Dalek voices chant "Exterminate." In Eighth Doctor audio plays produced by Big Finish from 2000–2005, Paul McGann reprised his role. The audio play The Time of the Daleks featured the Daleks without Davros and nearly removing William Shakespeare from history. In Terror Firma, the Eighth Doctor met a Dalek faction led by Davros who was devolving more into a Dalek-like life form himself while attempting to create new Daleks from mutated humans of Earth. The audio dramas The Apocalypse Element and Dalek Empire also depicted the alien villains invading Gallifrey and then creating their own version of the Time Lord power source known as the Eye of Harmony, allowing the Daleks to rebuild an empire and become a greater threat against the Time Lords and other races that possess time travel.

A new Doctor Who series premiered in 2005, introducing the Ninth Doctor and revealing that the "Last Great Time War" had just ended, resulting in the seeming destruction of the Time Lord society. The episode "Dalek", written by Robert Shearman, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 April 2005 and confirmed that the Time War had mainly involved the Daleks fighting the Time Lords, with the Doctor ending the conflict by seemingly destroying both sides, remarking that his own survival was "not by choice." The episode featured a single Dalek who appeared to be the sole survivor of his race from the Time War. Later audio plays by Big Finish Productions expanded on the Time War in different audio drama series such as Gallifrey: Time War, The Eighth Doctor: Time War, The War Doctor, and The War Master.

A Dalek Emperor returned at the end of the 2005 series, having survived the Time War and then rebuilt the Dalek race with genetic material harvested from human subjects. It saw itself as a god, and the new human-based Daleks were shown worshipping it. The Emperor and this Dalek fleet were destroyed in "The Parting of the Ways". The 2006 season finale "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" featured a squad of four pure-bred Dalek survivors from the old Empire, known as the Cult of Skaro, composed of Daleks who were tasked with developing imagination to better predict and combat enemies. These Daleks took on names: Jast, Thay, Caan, and their black Dalek leader Sec. The Cult had survived the Time War by escaping into the Void between dimensions. They emerged along with the Genesis Ark, a Time Lord prison vessel containing millions of pure Daleks, at Canary Wharf due to the actions of the Torchwood Institute and Cybermen from a parallel world. This resulted in a Cyberman-Dalek clash in London, which was resolved when the Tenth Doctor caused both groups to be sucked – unprotected – into the Void. The Cult of Skaro survived by utilising an "emergency temporal shift" to escape.

The four-Dalek Cult of Skaro returned in the two-part story "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks", in which whilst stranded in 1930s New York, they set up a base in the partially built Empire State Building and attempt to rebuild the Dalek race. To this end, Dalek Sec merges with a human being to become a Human/Dalek hybrid. The Cult then set about creating "Human Daleks" by "formatting" the brains of a few thousand captured humans so they can have Dalek minds. Dalek Sec, however, becomes more human in personality and alters the plan so the hybrids will be more human like him. The rest of the Cult mutinies. Sec is killed, while Thay and Jast are later wiped out with the hybrids. Dalek Caan, believing it may be the last of its kind now, escapes once more via an emergency temporal shift.

The Daleks returned in the 2008 season's two-part finale, "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End", accompanied once again by their creator Davros. The story reveals that Caan's temporal shift sent him into the Time War, despite the War being "Time-Locked". The experience of piercing the Time-Lock resulted in Caan seeing parts of several futures, destroying his sanity in the process. Caan rescued many pure-bred Time War era Daleks and Davros, who created new pure Dalek troops using his own body's cells (his Kaled DNA, as all pure Daleks were originally Kaleds). A red Supreme Dalek leads the new army while keeping Caan and Davros imprisoned on the Dalek flagship, the Crucible. Davros and the Daleks plan to destroy reality itself with a "reality bomb". The plan fails due to the interference of Donna Noble, a companion of the Doctor, and Caan, who has been manipulating events to destroy the Daleks after realising the severity of the atrocities they have committed.

The Daleks returned in the 2010 episode "Victory of the Daleks", wherein it is revealed that some Daleks survived the destruction of their army in "Journey's End" and retrieved the "Progenitor", a tiny apparatus containing 'original' Dalek DNA. The activation of the Progenitor results in the creation of New Paradigm Daleks who deem the Time War era Daleks to be inferior. The new Daleks are organised into different roles (drone, scientist, strategists, supreme and eternal), which are identifiable with colour-coded armour instead of the identification plates under the eyestalk used by their predecessors. They escape the Doctor at the end of the episode via time travel with the intent to rebuild their Empire.

The Daleks appeared, only briefly, in subsequent finales "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" (2010) and "The Wedding of River Song" (2011) as Steven Moffat decided to "give them a rest" and stated, "There's a problem with the Daleks. They are the most famous of the Doctor's adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe." These episodes also reveal that Skaro has been recreated yet again. They next appear in "Asylum of the Daleks" (2012), where the Daleks are shown to have greatly increased numbers and now have a Parliament; in addition to the traditional "modern" Daleks, several designs from both the original and new series appear, all co-existing rather than judging each other as inferior or outdated (except for those Daleks whose personalities deem them "insane" or can no longer battle). All record of the Doctor is removed from their collective consciousness at the end of the episode.

The Daleks then appear in the 50th Anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" (2013), where they are seen being defeated in the Time War. The same special reveals that many Time Lords survived the war since the Doctor found a way to transfer planet Gallifrey out of phase with reality and into a pocket dimension. In "The Time of the Doctor" (2013), the Daleks are one of the races that besieges Trenzalore in an attempt to stop the Doctor from releasing the Time Lords from the pocket dimension. After converting Tasha Lem into a Dalek puppet, they regain knowledge of the Doctor.

The Twelfth Doctor's first encounter with the Daleks is in his second full episode, "Into the Dalek" (2014), where he encounters a damaged Dalek he names 'Rusty.' Connecting to the Doctor's love of the universe and his hatred of the Daleks, Rusty assumes a mission to destroy other Daleks. In "The Magician's Apprentice"/"The Witch's Familiar" (2015), the Doctor is summoned to Skaro where he learns Davros has rebuilt the Dalek Empire. In "The Pilot" (2017), the Doctor briefly visits a battle during the Dalek-Movellan war.

The Thirteenth Doctor encountered a Dalek in a New Year's Day episode, "Resolution" (2019), when a Dalek mutant, separated from its armoured casing, takes control of a human in order to build a new travel device for itself and summon more Daleks to conquer Earth. This Dalek is cloned by a scientist in "Revolution of the Daleks" (2021), and attempts to take over Earth using further clones, but they are killed by other Daleks for perceived genetic impurity. The Dalek army is later sent by the Doctor into the "void" between worlds to be destroyed, using a spare TARDIS she recently acquired on Gallifrey. After cameo appearances depicting them as one of several villains trying to take advantage of "the Flux" event tearing through space-time in series 13, the Daleks returned in the first 2022 special, "Eve of the Daleks". In the episode, a team of Dalek Executioners are dispatched by High Command to avenge the Dalek War Fleet destroyed by the Doctor in the series 13 finale "The Vanquishers", only for a time loop established by the TARDIS to save the Doctor's life and give her a chance to destroy the executioners instead. The Daleks later appeared alongside the Cybermen as allies to the Master in "The Power of the Doctor" as part of a plot to finally destroy their nemesis, but the alliance is defeated by the Doctor and new and old companions.

In a video short for the 2023 Children in Need telethon, the origin of the iconic plunger-like appendages used by Daleks was retroactively established as being from the Fourteenth Doctor's TARDIS, while also establishing an unintentional hint by that Doctor, given to a Kaled military officer, for the creation of the name "Dalek".

Dalek culture
Daleks have little, if any, individual personality, ostensibly no emotions other than hatred and anger, and a strict command structure in which they are conditioned to obey superiors' orders without question. Dalek speech is characterised by repeated phrases, and by orders given to themselves and to others. Unlike the stereotypical emotionless robots often found in science fiction, Daleks are often angry; author Kim Newman has described the Daleks as behaving "like toddlers in perpetual hissy fits", gloating when in power and flying into a rage when thwarted. They tend to be excitable and will repeat the same word or phrase over and over again in heightened emotional states, most famously "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

Daleks are extremely aggressive, and seem driven by an instinct to attack. This instinct is so strong that Daleks have been depicted fighting the urge to kill or even attacking when unarmed. The Fifth Doctor characterises this impulse by saying, "However you respond [to Daleks] is seen as an act of provocation." The fundamental feature of Dalek culture and psychology is an unquestioned belief in the superiority of the Dalek race, and their default directive is to destroy all non-Dalek life-forms. Other species are either to be exterminated immediately or enslaved and then exterminated once they are no longer useful.

The Dalek obsession with their own superiority is illustrated by the schism between the Renegade and Imperial Daleks seen in Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks: the two factions each consider the other to be a perversion despite the relatively minor differences between them. This intolerance of any "contamination" within themselves is also shown in "Dalek", The Evil of the Daleks and in the Big Finish Productions audio play The Mutant Phase. This superiority complex is the basis of the Daleks' ruthlessness and lack of compassion. This is shown in extreme in "Victory of the Daleks", where the new, pure Daleks destroy their creators, impure Daleks, with the latter's consent. It is nearly impossible to negotiate or reason with a Dalek, a single-mindedness that makes them dangerous and not to be underestimated. The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) is later puzzled in the "Asylum of the Daleks" as to why the Daleks don't just kill the sequestered ones that have "gone wrong". Although the Asylum is subsequently obliterated, the Prime Minister of the Daleks explains that "it is offensive to us to destroy such divine hatred", and the Doctor is sickened at the revelation that hatred is actually considered beautiful by the Daleks.

Dalek society is depicted as one of extreme scientific and technological advancement; the Third Doctor states that "it was their inventive genius that made them one of the greatest powers in the universe." However, their reliance on logic and machinery is also a strategic weakness which they recognise, and thus use more emotion-driven species as agents to compensate for these shortcomings.

Although the Daleks are not known for their regard for due process, they have taken at least two enemies back to Skaro for a "trial", rather than killing them immediately. The first was their creator, Davros, in Revelation of the Daleks, and the second was the renegade Time Lord known as the Master in the 1996 television movie. The reasons for the Master's trial, and why the Doctor would be allowed to retrieve the Master's remains, have never been explained on screen. The Doctor Who Annual 2006 implies that the trial may have been due to a treaty signed between the Time Lords and the Daleks. The framing device for the I, Davros audio plays is a Dalek trial to determine if Davros should be the Daleks' leader once more.

Spin-off novels contain several tongue-in-cheek mentions of Dalek poetry, and an anecdote about an opera based upon it, which was lost to posterity when the entire cast was exterminated on the opening night. Two stanzas are given in the novel The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch. In an alternative timeline portrayed in the Big Finish Productions audio adventure The Time of the Daleks, the Daleks show a fondness for the works of Shakespeare. A similar idea was satirised by comedian Frankie Boyle in the BBC comedy quiz programme Mock the Week; he gave the fictional Dalek poem "Daffodils; EXTERMINATE DAFFODILS!" as an "unlikely line to hear in Doctor Who".

Because the Doctor has defeated the Daleks so often, he has become their collective arch-enemy and they have standing orders to capture or exterminate him on sight. In later fiction, the Daleks know the Doctor as "Ka Faraq Gatri" ("Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds"), and "The Oncoming Storm". Both the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) suggest that the Doctor is one of the few beings the Daleks fear. In "Doomsday", Rose notes that while the Daleks see the extermination of five million Cybermen as "pest control", "one Doctor" visibly un-nerves them (to the point they physically recoil). To his indignant surprise, in "Asylum of the Daleks", the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) learns that the Daleks have designated him as "The Predator".

Measurements
A rel is a Dalek and Kaled unit of measurement. It was usually a measurement of time. However, in some comic books it was also used as a unit of velocity. Finally, in some cases it was used as a unit of hydroelectric energy (not to be confused with a vep, the unit used to measure artificial sunlight).

The rel was first used in the feature film Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., soon after appearing in early Doctor Who comic books.

Licensing
Copyright for the Daleks was maintained by Terry Nation rather than the BBC and has passed to his estate after his death. A number of licensed usages have been made over the years.

Two Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing featured the Daleks as the main villains: Dr. Who and the Daleks, and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD, based on the television serials The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, respectively. The movies were not direct remakes; for example, the Doctor in the Cushing films was a human inventor called "Dr. Who" who built a time-travelling device named Tardis, instead of a mysterious alien who stole a device called "the TARDIS".

Four books focusing on the Daleks were published in the 1960s. The Dalek Book (1964, written by Terry Nation and David Whitaker), The Dalek World (1965, written by Nation and Whitaker) and The Dalek Outer Space Book (1966, by Nation and Brad Ashton) were all hardcover books formatted like annuals, containing text stories and comics about the Daleks, along with fictional information (sometimes based on the television serials, other times made up for the books). Nation also published The Dalek Pocketbook and Space-Travellers Guide, which collected articles and features treating the Daleks as if they were real. Four more annuals were published in the 1970s by World Distributors under the title Terry Nation's Dalek Annual (with cover dates 1976–1979, but published 1975–1978). Two original novels by John Peel, War of the Daleks (1997) and Legacy of the Daleks (1998), were released as part of the Eighth Doctor Adventures series of Doctor Who novels. A novella, The Dalek Factor by Simon Clark, was published in 2004, and two books featuring the Daleks and the Tenth Doctor (I am a Dalek by Gareth Roberts, 2006, and Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale, 2009) have been released as part of the New Series Adventures.

Nation authorised the publication of the comic strip The Daleks in the comic TV Century 21 in 1965. The weekly one-page strip, written by Whitaker but credited to Nation, featured the Daleks as protagonists and "heroes", and continued for two years, from their creation of the mechanised Daleks by the humanoid Dalek scientist, Yarvelling, to their eventual discovery in the ruins of a crashed space-liner of the co-ordinates for Earth, which they proposed to invade. Although much of the material in these strips was directly contradicted by what was later shown on television, some concepts like the Daleks using humanoid duplicates and the design of the Dalek Emperor did show up later on in the programme.

At the same time, a Doctor Who strip was also being published in TV Comic. Initially, the strip did not have the rights to use the Daleks, so the First Doctor battled the "Trods" instead, cone-shaped robotic creatures that ran on static electricity. By the time the Second Doctor appeared in the strip in 1967 the rights issues had been resolved, and the Daleks began making appearances starting in The Trodos Ambush (TVC #788-#791), where they massacred the Trods. The Daleks also made appearances in the Third Doctor-era Dr. Who comic strip that featured in the combined Countdown/TV Action comic during the early 1970s.

An animated series called Daleks!, which consists of five 10-minute long episodes, was released on the official Doctor Who YouTube channel in 2020.

Other licensed appearances have included a number of stage plays (see Stage plays below) and television adverts for Wall's "Sky Ray" ice lollies (1966), Weetabix breakfast cereal (1977), Kit Kat chocolate bars (2001), and the ANZ Bank (2005). In 2003, Daleks also appeared in UK billboard ads for Energizer batteries, alongside the slogan "Are You Power Mad?"

Stage plays

 * The Curse of the Daleks: Wyndham's Theatre, London (premiere 21 December 1965)
 * Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday: Adelphi Theatre, London (premiere 16 December 1974)
 * Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure: Wimbledon Theatre, London (premiere 23 March 1989)
 * The Trial of Davros: The Village Hotel, Hyde, Greater Manchester (premiere 14 November 1993)
 * The Trial of Davros: Tameside Hippodrome, Ashton-under-Lyne (premiere 16 July 2005)
 * The Evil of the Daleks: Theatre Royal, Portsmouth (premiere 25 October 2006)
 * The Daleks' Master Plan: Theatre Royal, Portsmouth (premiere 24 October 2007)
 * Recall U.N.I.T. or THE GREAT TEA BAG MYSTERY! : Edinburgh Fringe Festival 1984 play by Richard Franklin

Concerts

 * Doctor Who Prom (27 July 2008)
 * Doctor Who Prom (27 July 2010)
 * Doctor Who Prom (27 July 2013)

Original novels and novellas

 * War of the Daleks by John Peel (Eighth Doctor Adventures), published October 1997
 * Legacy of the Daleks by John Peel (Eighth Doctor Adventures), published April 1998
 * The Dalek Factor by Simon Clark (Telos Doctor Who novellas), published March 2004
 * I am a Dalek by Gareth Roberts (New Series Adventures, part of the Quick Reads Initiative), published May 2006
 * Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale (New Series Adventures), published April 2009
 * The Only Good Dalek by Justin Richards and Mike Collins (New Series Adventures), published November 2010
 * The Dalek Generation by Nicholas Briggs (New Series Adventures), published April 2013
 * Engines of War by George Mann (New Series Adventures), published July 2014

Non–Doctor Who television and film
Daleks have made cameo appearances in television programmes and films unrelated to Doctor Who from the 1960s to the present day.
 * Two to three purple toy Daleks are also seen in the background of an episode of the American children's cartoon Rugrats.
 * A toy Dalek appears in the opening sequence of the seventh episode of the British comedy series Mr. Bean (titled Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean), when Mr. Bean plays an "alternative nativity play" with several modern day toys like tanks and a plastic dinosaur.
 * In the television special The Red Dwarf A–Z, two Daleks are shown (under "E" for "Exterminate") arguing that all Earth television is human propaganda, and the works more commonly attributed to William Shakespeare and Ludwig van Beethoven were actually written by Daleks, although they deny having written "Mandy" by Barry Manilow; subsequently, one of them remarks that the "change the bulb" joke from the episode "Legion" was funny, and is promptly exterminated by the other for the crime of "not behaving like a true Dalek".

 * In the 2004 series of Coupling, written by Steven Moffat (who was later to write for and produce Doctor Who), a Dalek appears in the second episode of season four. This was voiced by Nicholas Briggs, who later went on to provide Dalek voices for the series proper from 2005 onwards. (Terry Nation's original Dalek rights deal with the BBC had been negotiated by his then agent Beryl Vertue, later Moffat's mother-in-law.)
 * In the film Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the secret military base, Area 52, detains a number of monsters and robots from old sci-fi films; among those are two Daleks, who upon release by Marvin the Martian, proceed to attack while spouting their catchphrases.
 * A Dalek appeared alongside Darth Vader, Ming the Merciless, a Klingon, the Sixth Doctor and a 1980s Cyberman in a 2003 episode of the British motoring programme Top Gear, to see who was "Master of the Universe" with a lap around their test track in a racing modified Honda Civic. The Dalek could not get into the car, so it exterminated the other drivers (with the exception of the Klingon and the Doctor; who had apparently fled beforehand as they were not present); the Cyberman was eventually declared the winner by the hosts.
 * In a 2009 episode of the American sitcom Better Off Ted, a deactivated Dalek is spotted in the sub-basement where the supposed "Robot Farm" is located.
 * In the 2017 film The Lego Batman Movie, the Daleks, in what appears to be a Lego adaptation of their 2010 designs, make an appearance as escaped prisoners from the Phantom Zone.
 * It's A Sin (written by former Doctor Who show runner Russell T Davies), in scenes where series lead Ritchie Tozer (Olly Alexander) is cast in a fictional Doctor Who story called Regression of the Daleks.

Comic books

 * In the graphic novel Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer, the titular protagonist, a sentenced criminal with a death wish and an insatiable hatred of the Daleks, hunts his nemeses who have recently invaded the planet Mazar, homeworld of princess Taiyin.

Music

Daleks have been referred to or associated in many musical compositions.

 * The first known musical reference to Daleks is the 1964 novelty single "I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas with a Dalek" by the Go-Go's, released during the 1960s' "Dalekmania" fad.
 * Dalek voices were sampled and recreated in the 1988 novelty single "Doctorin' the Tardis" by The Timelords (who later performed as the KLF),

Video games
Licensed Doctor Who games featuring Daleks include 1984's The Key to Time, a text adventure game for the ZX Spectrum. The first graphical game to feature daleks was the eponymous, turn-based title released by Johan Strandberg for the Macintosh in the same year. Daleks also appeared in minor roles or as thinly disguised versions in other, minor games throughout the 80s, but did not feature as central adversaries in a licensed game until 1992, when Admiral Software published Dalek Attack. The game allowed the player to play various Doctors or companions, running them through several environments to defeat the Daleks. In 1997 the BBC released a PC game entitled Destiny of the Doctors which also featured the Daleks, among other adversaries.

One authorised online game is The Last Dalek, a Flash game created by New Media Collective for the BBC. It is based on the 2005 episode "Dalek" and can be played at the official BBC Doctor Who website. The Doctor Who website also features another game, Daleks vs Cybermen (also known as Cyber Troop Control Interface), based on the 2006 episode "Doomsday"; in this game, the player controls troops of Cybermen which must fight Daleks as well as Torchwood Institute members.

On 5 June 2010, the BBC released the first of four official computer games on its website, Doctor Who: The Adventure Games, which are intended as part of the official TV series adventures. In the first of these, 'The City of the Daleks', the Doctor in his 11th incarnation and Amy Pond must stop the Daleks re-writing time and reviving Skaro, their homeland.

They also appear in the Nintendo DS and Wii games Doctor Who: Evacuation Earth and Doctor Who: Return to Earth.

The Daleks also appear in Lego Dimensions where they ally themselves with Lord Vortech and possess the size-altering scale keystone. When Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle encounter them, they assume that they are allies of the Doctor and attack the trio. The main characters continue to fight the Daleks until they call the Doctor to save them. A Dalek saucer also appears in the level based on Metropolis, in which the top of it serves as the stage for the boss battle against Sauron and includes Daleks among the various enemies summoned to attack the player. A Dalek is also among the elements summoned by the player to deal with the obstacles in the Portal 2 story level.

The Daleks also appear in Doctor Who: The Edge of Time, a Virtual Reality Game for the PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, HTC Vive, and Vive Cosmos, which was released in September 2019.

The Daleks are a licensed costume in Fall Guys.

Politics
At the 1966 Conservative Party conference in Blackpool, delegate Hugh Dykes publicly compared the Labour government's Defence Secretary Denis Healey to the creatures. "Mr. Healey is the Dalek of defence, pointing a metal finger at the armed forces and saying 'I will eliminate you'."

In a British Government Parliamentary Debate in the House of Commons on 12 February 1968, the then Minister of Technology Tony Benn mentioned the Daleks during a reply to a question from the Labour MP Hugh Jenkins concerning the Concorde aircraft project. In the context of the dangers of solar flares, he said, "Because we are exploring the frontiers of technology, some people think Concorde will be avoiding solar flares like Dr. Who avoiding Daleks. It is not like this at all."

Australian Labor Party luminary Robert Ray described his right wing Labor Unity faction successor, Victorian Senator Stephen Conroy, and his Socialist Left faction counterpart, Kim Carr, as "factional Daleks" during a 2006 Australian Fabian Society lunch in Sydney.

During a 2021 House of Commons debate about the retention of dentists in rural areas of the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic, the voice of Conservative MP Scott Mann of North Cornwall, while on a video link, became distorted due to a malfunction with his audio feed. Deputy Speaker of the House Nigel Evans interrupted his broadcast, amidst the chuckles from other MPs; by saying, "Scott, you sound like a Dalek and I don't mean that unkindly. There's clearly a communications problem." Mann later returned to apologise.

Daleks have been used in political cartoons to caricature: Douglas Hurd, as the 'Douglek', in Private Eye's Dan Dire – Pilot of the Future; Tony Benn, John Birt, Tony Blair (also portrayed as Davros), Alec Douglas-Home, Charles de Gaulle, Mark Thompson.

Magazine covers

Daleks have appeared on magazine covers promoting Doctor Who since the "Dalekmania" fad of the 1960s. Radio Times has featured the Daleks on its cover several times, beginning with the 21–27 November 1964 issue which promoted The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Other magazines also used Daleks to attract readers' attention, including Girl Illustrated.

In April 2005, Radio Times created a special cover to commemorate both the return of the Daleks to the screen in "Dalek" and the forthcoming general election. This cover recreated a scene from The Dalek Invasion of Earth in which the Daleks were seen crossing Westminster Bridge, with the Houses of Parliament in the background. The cover text read "VOTE DALEK!" In a 2008 contest sponsored by the Periodical Publishers Association, this cover was voted the best British magazine cover of all time. In 2013 it was voted "Cover of the century" by the Professional Publishers Association. The 2010 United Kingdom general election campaign also prompted a collector's set of three near-identical covers of the Radio Times on 17 April with exactly the same headline but with the newly redesigned Daleks in their primary colours representing the three main political parties, Red being Labour, Blue as Conservative and Yellow as Liberal Democrats.

Parodies
Daleks have been the subject of many parodies, including Spike Milligan's "Pakistani Dalek" sketch in his comedy series Q, and Victor Lewis-Smith's "Gay Daleks". Occasionally the BBC has used the Daleks to parody other subjects: in 2002, BBC Worldwide published the Dalek Survival Guide, a parody of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbooks. Comedian Eddie Izzard has an extended stand-up routine about Daleks, which was included in her 1993 stand-up show "Live at the Ambassadors". The Daleks made two brief appearances in a pantomime version of Aladdin at the Birmingham Hippodrome which starred Torchwood star John Barrowman in the lead role. A joke-telling robot, possessing a Dalek-like boom, and loosely modelled after the Dalek, also appeared in the South Park episode "Funnybot", even spouting out "exterminate". A Dalek can also be seen in the background at timepoints 1:13 and 1:17 in the Sam & Max animated series episode "The Trouble with Gary". In the Community parody of Doctor Who called Inspector Spacetime, they are referred to as Blorgons.

Merchandising
The BBC approached Walter Tuckwell, a New Zealand-born entrepreneur who was handling product merchandising for other BBC shows, and asked him to do the same for the Daleks and Doctor Who. Tuckwell created a glossy sales brochure that sparked off a Dalek craze, dubbed "Dalekmania" by the press, which peaked in 1965.

Toys and models

The first Dalek toys were released in 1965 as part of the "Dalekmania" craze. These included battery-operated, friction drive and "Rolykins" Daleks from Louis Marx & Co., as well as models from Cherilea, Herts Plastic Moulders Ltd and Cowan, de Groot Ltd, and "Bendy" Daleks made by Newfeld Ltd. At the height of the Daleks' popularity, in addition to toy replicas, there were Dalek board games and activity sets, slide projectors for children and even Dalek playsuits made from PVC. Collectible cards, stickers, toy guns, music singles, punching bags and many other items were also produced in this period. Dalek toys released in the 1970s included a new version of Louis Marx's battery-operated Dalek (1974), a "talking Dalek" from Palitoy (1975) and a Dalek board game (1975) and Dalek action figure (1977), both from Denys Fisher. From 1988 to 2002, Dapol released a line of Dalek toys in conjunction with its Doctor Who action figure series.

In 1984, Sevans Models released a self-assembly model kit for a one-fifth scale Dalek, which Doctor Who historian David Howe has described as "the most accurate model of a Dalek ever to be released". Comet Miniatures released two Dalek self-assembly model kits in the 1990s.

In 1992, Bally released a Doctor Who pinball machine which prominently featured the Daleks both as a primary playfield feature and as a motorised toy in the topper.

Bluebird Toys produced a Dalek-themed Doctor Who playset in 1998.

Beginning in 2000, Product Enterprise (who later operated under the names "Iconic Replicas" and "Sixteen 12 Collectibles") produced various Dalek toys. These included one-inch (2.5 cm) Dalek "Rolykins" (based on the Louis Marx toy from 1965); push-along "talking" 7-inch (17.8 cm) Daleks; 2$1/2$-inch (6.4 cm) Dalek "Rollamatics" with a pull back and release mechanism; and a one-foot (30.5 cm) remote control Dalek.

In 2005 Character Options was granted the "Master Toy License" for the revived Doctor Who series, including the Daleks. Their product lines have included 5-inch (12.7 cm) static/push-along and radio controlled Daleks, radio controlled 12-inch (30.5 cm) versions and radio controlled 18-inch (45.7 cm) / 1:3 scale variants. The 12-inch remote control Dalek won the 2005 award for Best Electronic Toy of the Year from the Toy Retailers Association. Some versions of the 18-inch model included semi-autonomous and voice command-features. In 2008, the company acquired a license to produce 5-inch (12.7 cm) Daleks of the various "classic series" variants. For the fifth revived series, both Ironside (Post-Time war Daleks in camouflage khaki), Drone (new, red) and, later, Strategist Daleks (new, blue) were released as both RC Infrared Battle Daleks and action figures.

A pair of Lego based Daleks were included in the Lego Ideas Doctor Who set, and another appeared in the Lego Dimensions Cyberman Fun-Pack.

Full-size reproductions
Dalek fans have been building life-size reproduction Daleks for many years. The BBC and Terry Nation estate officially disapprove of self-built Daleks, but usually intervene only if attempts are made to trade unlicensed Daleks and Dalek components commercially, or if it is considered that actual or intended use may damage the BBC's reputation or the Doctor Who/Dalek brand. The Crewe, Cheshire-based company "This Planet Earth" is the only business which has been licensed by the BBC and the Terry Nation Estate to produce full-size TV Dalek replicas, and by Canal+ Image UK Ltd. to produce full size Movie Dalek replicas commercially.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Dalek