[old blog import] Fear Only One

You know, you have to feel sorry for the Daleks really. Whilst the new series has done much to restore to them a sense of threat and menance, it has also saddled them with one of the worst cases of the Inverse Ninja Principle ever seen.

Having just completed rewatching series 4 I feel for some reason compelled to comment on this. So here I go:

Series 1 - Dalek. The episode that is. Here is possibly the greatest Dalek episode ever. This story, more than any other establishes the Daleks as full on unstoppable killing machines. Literally NOTHING can stop the Dalek and the only reason it is defeated in the nend is because it commits suicide rather than mutate into the Dalek version of Rose Tyler, a sentiment that I think we can all agree on.

When next we see the Daleks in the series finale howewver there's a whole fleet of them, which are then dispatched in fairly short order by a slightly dodgy deus ex machina. Which is to say nothing of the fact that the Doctor had built a superweapon to destroy them all in about twenty minutes. Whilst they do give a pretty good account of themselves in the assault, ultimately they are doomed to ignominious defeat.

Then we move on to Series 2. The Cult Of Skaro turn up and do pretty well for themselves, shrugging off assaults by Torchwood and Cybermen alike without a scratch. Then they open the ark and suddenly there's millions of them. Which are promptly flushed down the metaphorical plughole with depressing ease. It was all going so well until the army showed up.

Not learning from this mistake we then arrive at the slightly iffy Evolution Of The Daleks, where again it all goes fine till the army shows up, whereupon they wiped out in about 5 minutes. Seriously, 3 quarters of the ENTIRE DALEK RACE bite it just like that.

Also, just for the record, DNA DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!

Then we move on again to the series 4 finale. Things are going well again, but sadly theres just to many of them to survive. That many Daleks simply have no chance against a single named character. It's worth noting that one lone Dalek on patrol nearly kills the Doctor outright, but put him in a room full of Daleks and it's like the thought never even crosses their mind.

So here we have a fully fleged Dalek Empire, at the hight of it's power, typed to death by Donna's l33t haxorz sk1lzz. Just like that, bam, threats over, time to go home.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this, except that I can only hope their won't be many Daleks in the next series. One Dalek, on it's own is a threat, Capable of slaughtering millions. A thousand Daleks are a minor inconvenience, solved with the press of a button.

Whilst the spectacle is all very nice, in order for the antagonists to be presented as a credible threat they have to be presented on a managable scale.

Show, don't tell.