When Doctor Who’s Daleks Came Down to Earth
By Louisa Mellor
The Daleks are on Earth in the Doctor Who New Year Special, and it’s hardly the first time…
1966’s “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” boasts one of Doctor Who’s best cliff-hangers: the eerie sight of a Dalek rising from London’s River Thames.
In that story, the Daleks plan to destroy Earth’s core and pilot the planet through space, but William Hartnell’s Doctor saves the day.
In “The Evil of the Daleks” (1967), the Doctor is kidnapped and forced to create a race of Super Daleks with human qualities.
Most of that serial is missing (along with 90 other Who episodes wiped from the BBC archives in the 1960s) but in 1987, one part turned up at a car boot sale!
“Day of the Daleks” (1972) feat. Jon Pertwee’s Doctor was the first time we saw the Daleks in color.
While “Remembrance of the Daleks” (1988) gave us the first ever flying Dalek (a useful skill for villains previously thwarted by stairs).
Fast-forward to Christopher Eccleston’s first series, when a captive Dalek gave him the chilling verdict: “You would make a very good Dalek.”
Above London, millions of exterminating Daleks spilled out of the Genesis Ark, a Dalek prison built by Timelords, in “Doomsday” (2006).
David Tennant’s Doctor sucked those Daleks into the Void, an act that tragically separated him from companion Rose Tyler.
The Daleks next visited us in 1930s Manhattan, where they planned to transform Earth into a new version of home planet Skaro.
That involved building the Empire State Building out of Dalekanium and creating a race of human-pig hybrids.
Daleks were next seen on Earth in 1941, where they went by the name “Ironsides” and appeared to be helping Winston Churchill with the Allied war effort.
They were part of the alien Alliance that imprisoned Matt Smith’s Doctor underneath famous UK landmark Stonehenge in “The Pandorica Opens” (2010).
In ‘Resolution’ (2019), archaeologists dug up a Dalek that had been buried in 9th century England.