The Daleks Are Better The Less They Talk [Opinion]
Posted by Justin on November 22nd, 2011
Monsters are monstrous. That’s the point of them.
Their inhumanity is defined by how little of ourselves we see in them. For example despite his Gallifreyan origin, The Doctor is chock full of human quirks. He’s prideful, arrogant, caring, has an accent (after all, lots of places have a North) and many times a liar. All elements that we recognize as human. All elements that make as love and trust The Doctor.
But his greatest enemy, The Dalek has a sliding scale of humanity. Sometimes they are fixated terrors determined to wipe out any and everything in front of them. But sometimes they are just a lost alien race, a pitiable hoard of lost barbarians long separated from their tribe. Often time, the latter is accomplished by having our tin can cretins talk more. Which is a mistake.
The Daleks suck the more they talk. I will prove it now!
Unreasonable
Many of the worst cop out endings for Doctor plots involve the one piece of information revealed when all is lost that totally changes the power dynamic. Great plot resolutions come from action and action is a necessity when your obstacle will only reply “EXTERMINATE!!!” to any pleadings.
It also reinforces the superior race element to the Dalek personality. They believe they are the most advanced race in the galaxy. Why would they engage in dialogue to pond scum like humans?
Iconic
They look like pimply tin cans, the roll as fast as Will Smith’s suggested Summertime cruising and look rather harmless.
Which is what makes them awesome.
They are the greatest killing machine known to any species in any time. This is best exemplified in the 2005 Dalek reintroduction entitled Dalek where the Doctor and Rose find a lone Skaro warrior trapped in the basement of an American billionaire. One tortured creature murders dozens and dismantles a man’s empire like a lost child. A slow rolling tower of chaos.
Quite simply, no words are needed.
They Look Stupid Talking To Each Other
When they sit there blinking at each other with their barely differential voices (a la The Daleks In Manhattan) plotting against each other or their enemies it just looks a bit too much like a really boring animatronic exhibition.
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November 23rd, 2011 at 4:47 am
And yet the Dalek Empire radio series, which featured Daleks talking to each other (and other characters, obvious), was probably the scariest the Daleks have been since the Fifth Doctor.
November 23rd, 2011 at 3:33 pm
I don’t know about that. I feel that the daleks are, figuratively speaking of course, head and shoulders above the cybermen or the Silence. The cybermen are daleks that instead of deleting everyone make others into more cybermen, and the Silence stand creepily behind you and shoot lightening. The Daleks have force fields, can fly, and apparently can create whole armies without the Doctor noticing till it’s almost too late. I’d say that outweighs their speaking too much, especially when all you have to do to kill a cyberman is to make it have feelings and a Dalek with feelings is still kinda creepy awesome, see episode “Dalek”.