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Dr Who, Daleks Kiss And Make Up 221

Posted by simoniker from the toilet-plunger-love dept.
Dynamoo writes "The BBC is reporting that the creators of the new series of Doctor Who due next year have reached an agreement with the estate of the late Terry Nation to include the Daleks in the new series. This means that I'll definitely be watching.. although whether from behind the sofa or not remains to be seen." We previously reported on the apparent exterminate-ion of the lovable pepperpots from this new version.
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Dr Who, Daleks Kiss And Make Up More

Dr Who, Daleks Kiss And Make Up

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @12:34AM (#9886110)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Terry was trying to make an alien that didn't look like a man in a rubber suit. The Daleks were a sack of protaplasm with an arm, who had to live in robot bodies after they'd devastated their home planet.

      Unlike the alien from the film 'Alien', they actually _couldn't_ be played by a man in a rubber suit.
      • Terry Nation wrote the scripts and created the Dalek characters. The design was by BBC employee Raymond Cusick, and this lies at the root of the rights problems / confusion now resolved - the Nation Estate could licence the name Dalek and characteristic speech patterns such as "Resistance is Uselesss" and, of course, "Exterminate", but not the likeness. The BBC could licence, and use, the likeness, but not the name or behaviour.

        Tim Hancock, Terry Nation's former Agent and boss of "The Nation Estate" for
    • Except Terry Nation didn't design the Daleks and the only thing he thought about was the lack of legs, based on a viewing of the Georgian State Ballet where the dancers appeared to glide due to their floor-length dresses. Raymond Cusick designed the rest, and he was the one inspired by a pepperpot.
    • Except, being British, he'd have thought "rubbish bin" not "garbage can". :-)

      A friend of mine had a theory that the whole upside down rubbish bin/garbage can thing was crucial to the popularity(?!) of the daleks. Any kid could put a bin on their head and *be* a dalek.

  • Yeah but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Chordonblue ( 585047 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @12:37AM (#9886116) Journal
    I'm still going to miss Tom Baker... Best scarves on T.V... ;)

    • in fact, (Score:2, Interesting)

      by grepistan ( 758811 )

      Best wardrobe, generally! Entire scenes of stories like 'The Aztecs' appear to have been casted, set and shot in the seedier kind of drag queen establishment, complete with makeup. The fact that any of the actors could keep a straight face just shows how talented they were!

      DOn't get me wrong though, I love Doctor Who. It's still on tv every weeknight here (yes, we ARE that backward Down Here)...

  • Where Did the Daleks Go In the Meantime? (Score:5, Funny)

    by PipianJ ( 574459 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @12:38AM (#9886124)

    During the hiatus, the Daleks did a little-known movie called "Mr. Dalek Goes to Washington."

    Here is a still from the movie. [pipian.com]

    "Expatiate!"

  • YAY (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zakezuke ( 229119 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @12:40AM (#9886134)
    As a Dr. Who fan, I get frustrated with intellectual property over the damned Darleks(tm). While I appricated the Terry Nation's vision, I can not see how even the BBC could ruin the commercial value of any spin off project that future non Doctro Who Darleks might have for they are nothing more then a B movie stereotypical evil villain.

    • Re:YAY (Score:2, Funny)

      by xsupergr0verx ( 758121 )
      As a Dr. Who fan, I get frustrated with intellectual property over the damned Darleks(tm).

      I saw Darl and intellectual property in the same sentence. Thought I wandered into the wrong section in Slashdot.

    • Re:YAY (Score:3, Informative)

      by dorward ( 129628 )

      B-Movie? Sterotype? No! Dalek Empire [doctorwho.co.uk] is now in its third series. The first was excellent - I just need to sort out my budget to get the rest.

    • Re:YAY (Score:2)

      by jazman ( 9111 )
      Is that the Darleks from Doctor Sco and the Darl-eks?

  • So really, why do we need, *need* them? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gordgekko ( 574109 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @12:47AM (#9886150) Homepage
    I loved the good Doctor as much as any other geek but do we absolutely have to have Daleks in the next series? Some of the best episodes ever -- like Pyramids of Mars -- had no Daleks.

    Rather than take the series in an interesting and new direction, we're essentially getting the same series but with better F/X. Why not just have The Master and the Daleks in every episode?

    Don't get me wrong, I love the Daleks but it was the occasionally very superb writing that got me, not any specific villians.

    • Did the Master AND the daleks ever appear together??
      • Yeah. In the Pertwee episode "Frontier in Space", the Master instigates a war between the Human and Draconian Empires, so that the Daleks might take advantage of the chaos.

        There's also the Five Doctors, which featured a mishmash of historical adversaries, including the Master, a cyberman, a dalek, a yeti...

    • Some of the best episodes ever -- like Pyramids of Mars -- had no Daleks.

      They tried to be in it, but after several attempts decided that the pyramids were to steep to go up.

      Let's hope the Daleks have some cool rocket jets in the next series.
    • Rather than take the series in an interesting and new direction, we're essentially getting the same series but with better F/X.

      But wouldn't that ruin it? I'm not a True Fan, but I thought "camp" was an integral part of the show.
      • Better effects would be good up to a point. Perhaps improve the effects to the level of the original Star Trek series or even Battlestar Galactica. Effects would still have a primitive feel, but not be totally backwards which would kill a large part of the potential new fanbase that *didn't* fall in love with the old show.

        As long as they don't bring them to the level of the later Star Trek series or Stargate SG-1... I'll be happy with it.
      • By and large, the original series was not especially lacking in the FX department. It was generally on par with any science fiction show during its time, really. The show only managed to gain a reputation for being done "on the cheap" because of two basic reasons. First of which was that what was probably the single most famous season of the show (season 17, the season where Douglas Adams served as script editor) did have the tendency of being cheaper-looking than was probably healthy. This is also just abo
      • better F/X

        Back in those days you didn't need special effects because kids still had imaginations. Now, if the film doesn't actually show the 'plot' in detailed brain-dead-o-color(tm) then the kids don't get it!

        It was the writing and acting that set the scenes and it simply didn't matter if the scenes wobbled when the cast walked past! Unfortunately, expectations have been raised and it will likely be ruined by too many expensive F/X and the cost of cheap plots and actors.

  • Wait a second... (Score:4, Funny)

    by cosmod ( 664812 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @12:49AM (#9886156) Homepage
    Shouldn't that be Doctor Whom?

  • I hear the breakthrough was reached... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timbotronic ( 717458 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @12:53AM (#9886175)
    ...when the BBC agreed not to put any stairs in the new episodes.

  • Thank God (Score:4, Funny)

    by ishmalius ( 153450 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @01:02AM (#9886203)
    I could never even consider watching Dr Who, or endure a single episode, without those beloved evil vacuum cleaners.

  • This is a bad thing... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EvilCabbage ( 589836 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @01:20AM (#9886250) Homepage
    Instead of taking the franchise new places, we'll be seeing re-hashed bad guys. Great.

    First it was half assed covers of songs I used to love (thanks a lot Jessica Simpson), then Doom 3, now this. I'm starting to think that trying to keep nostalgia alive isn't worth the risk of stunting the growth of such a promising franchise.

    • Re:This is a bad thing... (Score:5, Funny)

      by martinX ( 672498 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @01:24AM (#9886264)
      Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
      • Too right. Nothing's as cool as I remember it.

        Next thing I know Journey won't be cool anymore and George Michael will be openly gay.

      • lashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.

        It's been 16 seconds since you hit 'reply'.

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    • Well, either way people will bitch and moan. Take CatWoman for example, sure it was a completely horrible movie for more reasons than I can count, but one of the things critics found fault with was that it wasn't based off the original Cat Woman story in the least bit.

      So either way, you're going to have people pissed off. At least this way you get to see old time favorites recreated with a new vision.

  • It Must Be Late (Score:3, Funny)

    by Witchblade ( 9771 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @01:24AM (#9886262) Homepage
    I'm not a Dr. Who fan at all, but I read the headline as "Dr Who, Daleks, Kiss and Makeup". That imagined comma made me think for a minute that KISS were getting involved. I've been wondering why they never made another move [imdb.com] ...

  • Why would you WANT to bring the Daleks back? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sunspot42 ( 455706 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @01:32AM (#9886284)
    There hasn't been a good Dalek story since the mid-'60s. Pertwee's encounters with the Daleks were hardly the highlight of his career as the Doctor in the late '60s and early '70s. During his 7-season run as the Doctor Tom Baker had one mediocre, overlong Dalek serial (1975's "Genesis of the Daleks", redeemed only by Michael Wisher's fantastic performance as the Dalek's crazed creator, Davros), and one truly awful Dalek 4-parter, "Destiny of the Daleks" in 1979. Peter Davison's Doctor encountered the portly pepperpots half a decade later in 1984's lamentable "Resurrection of the Daleks". Colin Baker's Doctor runs into the Daleks the next year in the silly "Revelation of the Daleks". I've never seen Sylvester McCoy's Doctor's 1988 Dalek serial "Remembrance of the Daleks", but the general consensus seems to regard it as no better than "Genesis of the Daleks" at best.

    The Daleks were an idea that ran out of gas after the initial Dalek craze of the early '60s ran its course in the UK. Since then, a Dalek serial has been a guaranteed bad time. They're more a curse to Doctor Who than a blessing, and the real challenge for any new Who series would be trying to reinvent them into something truly chilling and remotely plausible to a contemporary audience. It's possible I suppose, but Who's past producers tried and failed for almost 20 years to produce a Dalek serial as engaging to modern audiences as original Dalek adventures like "Dalek Invasion Earth" were to audiences in the early '60s. I think they'd be better off ignoring the Daleks - and particularly the Davros character, who has been unnecessarily and ludicrously dredged into every Dalek adventure since 1975's "Genesis" - and concentrating on creating compelling new enemies for the Doctor to fight.

    And if they must revisit the past, they'd be far better off reimaging more plausible Who adversaries, like the Sontarans (reptilian clone warriors) and the Cybermen (televised sci-fi's original Borg).
  • ... am I the only one who thinks this was a publicity stunt? That's the first thing that came into my head when I read this.
  • The story should read "The BBC are..."

    No, I am not British, but I figured SOMEBODY had to defend them :)

  • Note the login. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Daleks ( 226923 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @02:02AM (#9886391)
    I haven't been kissing any doctors.

  • The amazing thing was... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @02:13AM (#9886417)
    that the author had any say in the first place. Here in the good 'ole us of a, there never would have been an issue, since the author would've signed away his rights ages ago. Not defending our system, just saying I'm amazed this happened at all.

  • Douglass Adams wrote for Dr. Who (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheTXLibra ( 781128 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @02:19AM (#9886431) Homepage Journal
    I was reading "Don't Panic" (sort of a biography on Douglas Adams during the period when he wrote H2G2) and apparently he used to be one of the writers, and later a script editor for them. And it was during the Tom Baker years too... ahh, the good years...

    ...anyone know what happened to good old Tom?

  • Scary? (Score:2)

    by fm6 ( 162816 )
    This means that I'll definitely be watching.. although whether from behind the sofa or not remains to be seen.
    I always thought that the main appeal of the Daleks was their campiness, not their scariness. I mean jeez, if you need to escape them, you just have to look for a non-flat surface!
  • Billie Piper [swindonweb.com] will be the first to get exterminated ;-)
  • For those of us who don't have any clue what Doctor Who is except for a vague idea, could someone please give a little bit of backstory on the Daleks, what they are, some links to pictures perhaps, etc? Thanks.

    • some device..that was connected to a bunch of other similiar devices.. and one of those devices, could search the others for 'content'... based on a 'searching criteria'.
      I should patent that! naaa it would never catch on.
    • Well, the best guide to who the Daleks are, is probably the Dalek entry on this page: http://www.lofficier.com/dwudd.html There are loads of Doctor Who sites with pictures of Daleks, but this is the Dalek gallery on the official Doctor Who site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/gallery/dalek/

  • Thatcherism across time and space (Score:5, Funny)

    by evilandi ( 2800 ) <andrew@aoakley.com> on Thursday August 05, 2004 @05:22AM (#9887052) Homepage

    The BBC has broken the strike over terms and conditions for the Daleks. Apparently the Cybermen began crossing the picket lines in unmarked coaches, while the Daleks pelted them with rotten fruit, shouting "SCABS ... WE ... KNOW ... WHERE ... YOU ... LIVE".

    As part of the deal, thirty-seven gravel pits will close.

    An Equity union representative, speaking of behalf of the Daleks, said "This is a sad time for the Daleks, but at the end of the day, they have bills to pay, and the electricity for the genetic embryo chambers doesn't come cheap."

    The strike-busting Cybermen are understood to have had their contracts terminated early in favour of the new hovering Dalek Battletank design, previously only seen in paperback. The Cyberman leader said "THE DALEKS MAY HAVE WON THIS BATTLE BUT OUR EMPIRE WILL CONTINUE TO EXPAND."

    Meanwhile a dispute is believed to have broken out inside the Dalek camp, with the Supreme Dalek unhappy at the terms negotiated by Davros. In a news conference earlier, Davros said "This marks the next generation of the Kaled race. We have evolved beyond rails, beyond wheels, beyond low-budget bluescreen CGI hovering awkwardly up stairs. Although I'm sorry to see Ace go, she was rather fit, wasn't she, and she still looks hot in those childrens' programmes she presents."

    The Supreme Dalek was unavailable for comment, although he was earlier overheard saying "I ... HOPE ... DAVROS ... LIKES ... HOSPITAL ... FOOD."
    • The BBC has broken the strike over terms and conditions for the Daleks....

      And in late breaking news, the CBC has decided to franchise Dr. Who from the BBC. Their first episode, "The Dalek Invasion of Detroit".

      Watch Daleks swarm the Ambassador Bridge, zapping toll keepers on the way.

      Watch Daleks ride the elevator to the top of the Ren Cen!

      Watch Daleks runing amok through a vast urban wasteland.

      (True to movie tradition it will actually be shot in Dallas.)

      • (True to movie tradition it will actually be shot in Dallas.)

        Actually, some of the new series is being shot with Cardiff standing in for London (the series is being produced by BBC Wales). Although they are doing some London shooting, probably due to Cardiff's lack of London landmarks.

  • Animated Dr. Who series (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Writer ( 746272 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @05:43AM (#9887117)
    Has anyone checked out the animated Dr. Who series [slashdot.org] on the web? The Master ends up being revived as a new robot assistant for the Doctor, kind of like a new K-9. I haven't followed all of Dr. Who, but I presume this meant the Master was killed off at some point. It's an interesting twist and I wonder if they will carry this kind of thing into the new series for some kind of continuity.

  • Is it just me? (Score:3, Funny)

    by DikSeaCup ( 767041 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @08:17AM (#9887527) Homepage
    .. although whether from behind the sofa or not remains to be seen.

    I think it's common geek issue that they can see all the threads of thought so quickly that, to non-geeks, often their comments seem as non-sequitrs, until the comment is explained.

    That being said, is it just me or did anyone else suddenly get the image of the article poster running around with a baseball bat, smashing aluminum trash cans and anything else that looked remotely like a Dalek?

  • I can't be the only Python fanatic here (Score:4, Funny)

    by noims ( 23711 ) on Thursday August 05, 2004 @09:23AM (#9887912) Homepage

    We previously reported on the apparent exterminate-ion of the lovable pepperpots from this new version.

    Am I the only one here who first thought of Monty Python pepperpots when I saw this? You know, the 'middle aged, middle class women' who first demonstrated that you can't tell the difference between Wizzo butter and a dead crab.

    The most disturbing thing for me was trying to figure out where these pepperpots might have appeared. I mean, on one hand they'd certainly make a powerful adversary for the poor doctor, but on the other hand can't you just see a couple of them following him around as sidekicks?

    - Look, Mrs Conclusion! The Cybermen and Daleks have united againstus!
    - Oooh! Well I never. And they used to be such nice people. I mean, society today. Young people. Ooooh. Tut tut tut.

    Noims

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