Doctor Who: 10 Worst Things The Daleks Have Ever Done
The metal pepper pots have committed some of the worst atrocities in the Whoniverse.
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00:00 Doctor Who's first monsters have plagued the Hooniverse time and time again.
00:05 Now, these pepper pots first appeared in 1963 and from the very beginning
00:10 were a chilling force to be reckoned with.
00:13 The Daleks have one of the most iconic looks in sci-fi culture,
00:17 and whilst the designs have altered slightly over the years,
00:20 the core design remains the same.
00:22 Every Doctor has come across the Daleks many times during their time on screen,
00:27 with the exception of the criminally short-lived Eighth.
00:30 Now, due to the depth expanded media has gone with these characters,
00:35 we will be covering moments beyond just that of the TV series.
00:40 And so, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture,
00:43 here with the 10 worst things the Daleks have ever done.
00:47 Number 10, only the monstrous The Thousand Worlds.
00:51 In 2015, Big Finish acquired the right to new Who content,
00:56 and their first exploit into this era was a series for The War Doctor,
01:01 venturing into the Time War.
01:03 Now, the first audio adventure for The War Doctor saw the Daleks
01:07 invade a planet called Kesska, along with another ruthless race, the Tarleans.
01:12 Now, on the surface, invading a planet and enslaving the locals
01:15 is a pretty generic thing for the Daleks to do,
01:17 but this particular invasion is part of a much larger plot.
01:21 Kesska is one of a thousand planets, all invaded by the Daleks,
01:26 and all with engines being placed at the centre of those planets.
01:31 Now, of course, we have seen the Daleks trying to place engines in planets before,
01:36 but we'll talk a bit more about that later.
01:38 But what is the purpose of these planet engines?
01:42 Well, it's pretty simple.
01:43 They're going to fire them at Gallifrey to try and win the Time War.
01:46 Now, that's one hell of an offensive against the Time Lords,
01:49 to invade a thousand planets, enslave all those populations,
01:53 and then make those people drill to the core of their own planets.
01:57 It's all one very sick scheme.
01:59 But thankfully, the Doctor and co managed to stop this particular plot,
02:03 and the war rages on, and the Daleks go on to commit even more atrocities.
02:07 Number nine, Dark Eyes, the Dalek time controller.
02:11 The big finish 16-part epic Dark Eyes, starring the Eighth Doctor,
02:16 sees a unique kind of Dalek take centre stage, the time controller.
02:20 And it's no exaggeration to say this is one of the worst Daleks out there.
02:25 Having made various appearances in Big Finish before this story,
02:29 the Dalek time controller has proved a force to be reckoned with.
02:33 But Dark Eyes is their big moment.
02:35 Using the Doctor's companion, Molly, who's infected with retrogenitor particles,
02:40 he planned to undo the Time Lords' past, wiping them out.
02:44 But thankfully, due to a paradox, this is unsuccessful in the first part of the series.
02:49 But the time controller still vows to wipe out the Time Lords.
02:53 After these events, he is exiled by the Daleks and allies himself with the Master.
02:59 In the end, the time controller seeks out the origins of the Eminence,
03:03 a psychic force that's a comparable threat to the universe as the Daleks,
03:07 and wishes to become one with it.
03:09 Thankfully for the Hooniverse, this plot is foiled by the Doctor and his companions.
03:14 But if the time controller had succeeded,
03:17 then the Time Lords could have been wiped out before the Time War even began.
03:21 If there is a Big Finish audio adventure that you should sink your teeth into, it's this one.
03:26 Number 8. The Magician's Apprentice and Witch's Familiar tricking the Doctor.
03:31 The latest reunion between the Doctor and Davros sees the Time Lords summoned
03:36 to the planet of the Daleks, Skaro, to meet with their dying creator.
03:41 After long chats between these two arch-rivals,
03:44 the Doctor is made to feel sympathy for Davros, who is unable to open his own eyes
03:48 to watch the sunrise on Skaro one last time.
03:52 To fix this, the ever-kind-hearted Doctor elects to give the creator of the Daleks
03:56 some of his regeneration energy, thinking it enough to allow him this final moment.
04:01 When the Doctor unleashes his Time Lord gift into the cables connecting Davros
04:05 to the rest of the Daleks, Colony Sarf, a snake-like being,
04:09 secures him in place, siphoning off even more regenerative energy.
04:13 This energy is taken and transferred into every single Dalek,
04:17 renewing them, including Davros, allowing him to regain his strength.
04:22 However, once rescued by Missy, the 12th Doctor reveals he knew the plan all along,
04:27 including the Daleks in the sewers, who revolt, destroying the Daleks in the Skaro city.
04:33 This resulted in us once again being led to believe Davros has been destroyed,
04:37 although we all know that that's most likely not the case.
04:41 The evil of this plot, even if the Doctor did know what was coming,
04:44 is that the Daleks try to use the Doctor's kind-hearted nature against him,
04:50 even for his worst enemies.
04:51 Number 7, Asylum of the Daleks, Oswin Oswald the Dalek.
04:56 Now, we've seen cyber-conversion many times in Doctor Who,
05:00 but that seems like nothing when compared to Dalek conversion.
05:04 With cyber-conversions, the process puts the participant into the cyber-armour,
05:09 but then removes all feelings, whereas the horror of the Dalek conversion
05:13 is that hatred and anger are channelled in order to make the machine go.
05:18 In the series 7 opener, when venturing into the Dalek asylum,
05:22 Oswin Oswald ends up captured by the Daleks inside,
05:26 and goes through the horrific conversion into a Dalek.
05:29 This reality is so horrific for her that she imagines herself a different version of events.
05:34 Trapped within the cold metal shell,
05:36 Oswin believes herself to be hiding within her crashed ship making souffles.
05:41 It's not until the Doctor turns up that she sees the true fate that has befallen her.
05:45 The moment in which Oswin learns the truth is soul-crushing,
05:48 and the following flashback of her being forced into the process,
05:51 whilst not graphic, still feels gruesome.
05:54 The only positive in the end is that Oswin manages to fight the process,
05:58 allowing and assisting the 11th Doctor to escape.
06:01 Now, granted, this isn't some huge invasion that puts countless lives at risk,
06:06 but the ordeal that Oswin goes through is horrific.
06:09 Number 6, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Time Destructor
06:14 The huge 60s epic, The Daleks' Master Plan, was exactly what it said on the tin.
06:19 William Hartnell's last encounter with the Daleks came in the form of a 12-part serial,
06:24 in which the Daleks had created a new weapon, the Time Destructor.
06:29 Their intention was to conquer the solar system.
06:31 The device would reverse or accelerate the flow of time with devastating consequences,
06:37 exhausting its terranium core, a mineral only found on Uranus.
06:41 Whilst this is thankfully going to become a repetitive trend, the Dalek plot is halted.
06:46 However, the device is still used.
06:49 Not only does the serial feature the first and second companion deaths in the franchise,
06:54 they are also both equally two of the grimmest fates befallen two Who characters.
06:59 Katrina's death technically does not involve the Daleks, however,
07:03 during the series she is awfully sucked into space.
07:06 But Sarah Kingdom falls victim to the Time Destructor itself,
07:10 basically aged to death, decaying to nothing.
07:14 Now, this device is actually later used by the Time Lords against the Daleks
07:18 in that previously mentioned Big Finish War Doctor series in the opening moments.
07:24 But it does represent the huge threat presented by the Daleks if not stopped.
07:30 Number five, Planet of the Ogrons, the Overseer.
07:34 Another slightly altered Dalek appearing in Big Finish here,
07:38 the Dalek Overseer is a monstrous scientist
07:42 who appears in the eighth Doctor's Time War series.
07:45 Based on the titular Planet of the Ogrons,
07:48 the Overseer creates dreadful experiments in order to create weapons to win the Time War.
07:54 Now, the Daleks have done some pretty gruesome things in their history,
07:58 but none so bad as this abomination.
08:01 One of the experiments revolved around inserting Ogron brains
08:05 into battle TARDISes to bypass their controls.
08:09 Another one of the Overseer schemes was the insertion of Ogron armies
08:13 into events of the past, such as Day of the Daleks.
08:18 But thankfully, these events remained unchanged,
08:20 but the aim was to try and increase the Daleks' chances of victory
08:25 through temporal manipulation.
08:27 A final major creation is Doctor Ogron,
08:30 where he augmented an Ogron with the personality of the Doctor.
08:35 Now, while he did make a lovable character here,
08:37 this guy is still bad news,
08:38 and this particular experiment did lead to his downfall.
08:42 In the end, he was deemed an insult to the Dalek race
08:45 and was exterminated by the other Daleks.
08:48 Number four, the relationship with their creator.
08:51 1975's Genesis of the Daleks debuts the Pepper Potts creator Davros.
08:56 Through his various appearances throughout the show,
08:59 we've seen the Daleks treat their creator with varying levels of respect.
09:03 The end of his first appearance, after having just created the Daleks,
09:07 a squad of them come and exterminate Davros.
09:10 But by the next serial, they want him back,
09:12 with him thankfully for them having survived within the depths of Skaro.
09:16 Across the remainder of his classic appearances,
09:18 Davros starts the Imperial-Renegade civil war,
09:21 where the Imperials side with him against the Supreme and the Renegades.
09:25 When Davros returns for New Who,
09:27 the Tenth Doctor even mocks that he has chucked away into the basement,
09:30 with them simply using him once again, without him running the show.
09:34 The lack of respect is therefore a running trend in Davros' character,
09:38 and in the previously mentioned series' nine-opener,
09:41 it is clearer than ever that he is only ever used
09:44 when they wish to use him for their own gain,
09:46 rather than out of any loyalty to him.
09:49 Now, we know the Daleks are evil,
09:51 but showing no respect for, for want of a better word, your father?
09:55 That's just truly nasty.
09:58 Even if Davros is just as evil, if not worse.
10:01 Number three, the stolen Earth and Journey's end, the reality bomb.
10:05 When Davros returned to Doctor Who for its new series,
10:09 he brought with him the Daleks' most horrific plot to date.
10:13 Already in the serial, Davros has recreated the Daleks using his own cells,
10:17 which is pretty bleak as it is,
10:19 but with this new army, he created the reality bomb.
10:22 The device would result in untold devastation,
10:25 killing all that wasn't protected by the Crucible,
10:28 basically a very extreme version of wiping out all non-Dalek life.
10:31 Using the Z-neutrino energy of the Dalek Crucible
10:34 and the transported planets within the Medusa Cascade,
10:38 the reality bomb would cancel out the electric field of atoms,
10:41 turning everything to dust.
10:43 This plot would not just wipe out the main Who universe,
10:46 but the life of all other universes.
10:49 But we won't get into the potential plot holes of that.
10:51 The recreating an entire Dalek army and moving 27 planets
10:56 is a testament to the lengths the Pepper Pot were willing to go for this scheme.
11:00 And while this plot does fail, we do see the devastation
11:04 that this device is capable of when it is tested on a group of humans,
11:08 who, as mentioned, quite literally turn to dust.
11:11 Number two, revelation of the Daleks using the dead of Necros.
11:16 1985's "Revelation of the Daleks" sees the sixth Doctor and Perry
11:20 encounter Davros and the Daleks on a planet called Necros,
11:24 the location of Tranquil Repose, a space funeral home.
11:28 However, at its core, Davros was creating a new race of Daleks from the dead humans.
11:34 "Revelation" through and through is a very bleak story,
11:37 but Davros using the corpses within the facility is the most appalling aspect.
11:41 In this story, the dead are used for two things,
11:44 the previously mentioned new Daleks,
11:46 as well as being formed into a new type of protein
11:49 to solve the galaxy's famine problem.
11:51 That doesn't seem a very marketable product.
11:53 These new Daleks become the ranks of Davros's
11:56 previously mentioned Imperial Daleks.
11:58 This plot is an interesting one, as using humans,
12:01 like the case with Oswin years later,
12:03 to create Daleks seems to go against their quest for racial purity.
12:07 Now, we could argue that this shocking Dalek moment could take top spot,
12:13 but there is one more Dalek moment that just about takes the trophy.
12:18 Number one, 22nd century Dalek invasions of Earth.
12:22 In the 22nd century, the Daleks invade Earth, twice, crippling the planet.
12:28 The first Dalek sequel brings the creatures from Skaro to Earth for the first time,
12:32 and years later, Big Finish brings them back for round two,
12:35 20 years after their first attempt.
12:38 The strategy for invasion involved bombarding the planet with meteorites,
12:42 unleashing a plague from within the meteorites,
12:44 which wiped out the majority of people in Africa, Asia, and South America.
12:49 Once the population was weakened, the Daleks moved in for conquest.
12:52 This may seem kind of run-of-the-mill compared to previously mentioned entries,
12:56 but the Daleks occupied Earth for 10 years, causing insurmountable pain to humanity.
13:02 Recent Big Finish adventures following the Doctor's granddaughter Susan,
13:06 after the first invasion, claim Earth's technology is set back 200 years.
13:11 Similar to the Thousand World plot, the Daleks aim to reach the center of the planet
13:15 and replace it with a propulsion system
13:18 to use as a massive, movable base of operations to conquest the galaxy.
13:23 When they return for their second invasion, led by the Time Controller,
13:26 the plot is fairly similar, but instead they use a time warp engine
13:30 to create a plague planet capable of moving through time and space
13:35 to weaken and infect other worlds.
13:37 The Daleks are the most pure evil force in Doctor Who,
13:42 and the Whoniverse should be thankful that most of these plots
13:45 were stopped before the Daleks reached their goals.
13:48 And that concludes our list.
13:50 If you can think of anything we missed, then do let us know in the comments below.
13:54 And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe
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13:58 Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there @whoculture,
14:01 and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
14:05 I've been Ellie with Who Culture, and in the words of River Song herself,
14:09 goodbye, sweeties.