Retrospective Discussion | Doctor Who (2005) | 1x06 "Dalek"
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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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Yeah I think this was the first episode of the revival that was like "Okay, they're not fucking about with this" for me.
I've been saying for a while now that they need to recapture the feeling of this episode for the Daleks, where they're actually a significant threat. I think it's always tempting to have the big epic battle where the Doctor defeats all the Daleks all at once (which even this season did the next time they came back) but I think that kind of cheapens them the more you do it.
Just barely getting away alive should count as a victory when it comes to the Daleks, and doing something as big as destroying them all should be a Pyrrhic victory like the end of the Time War, not just the standard resolution IMO.
This is almost enough to be its own thread. I agree...but I'm also not sure it's possible.
There are certain villains in sci-fi that are set up for inevitable diminishing returns. Usually, it's because they are (a) immensely powerful, and (b) single-minded. I think the Daleks and the Cybermen fall into this grouping, as do Star Trek's Borg.
When you set up an enemy like that...it seems like you can only really use them once or twice before you have to start making changes. Either they have to get less threatening, because otherwise it's ridiculous that they keep getting beaten, or you have to start tweaking the "single-minded" aspect of them to find new storytelling angles.
With the Daleks, they've done both since 2005, to varying degrees of success. Hell, this episode does it to an extent, giving the Dalek a mutation to allow it to be unwilling to kill Rose, and eventually declare itself to be...not a Dalek, really.
But to keep them as a powerful, single-minded "kill everything" type of villain...it's just not sustainable, even though they're a powerful metaphor.
As much as I miss the crazy pepper pots, it's probably a good thing that the RTD2 era has given them a "rest" so far (though I quite liked Chibnall's Dalek-centred New Year's specials).