In Doctor Who’s New Year’s Day special, Resolution, one lone Dalek tried to conquer the Earth, with the cosmic pepperpot sporting a steampunk makeover in the process. The Dalek reconstructed itself from scrap metal and stolen military technology in a warehouse in Yorkshire. Gone was the sink plunger attachment, replaced with a rudimentary metal claw. The new design was a crude, rusty, makeshift mess, but the Dalek just kept calm and carried on. It was exactly the make-do-and-mend spirit we will need in Brexit Britain.
As we approach March and a possible no-deal exit from the EU, what could be more British than having to rely for survival on a few bits’n’bobs you have picked up in an abandoned industrial estate? Or standing around in a costume cobbled together from junk, telling anybody who will listen that you plan to go global.
Where will this 2019 austerity redesign sit in the pantheon of Daleks? Originally created by Terry Nation and designed by Raymond Cusick, the menaces from the planet Skaro have had several looks over their six decades.
The first major change came when 60s Dalekmania led to the commissioning of two Dalek movies. A major selling point for these was that you would be able to see the Daleks in colour, and the film-makers went to town on that. Daleks stayed pretty much the same until 1988, when a Special Weapons Dalek appeared, equipped with heavy artillery.
The revival of Doctor Who in 2005 saw Daleks change colour to bronze, and adopt a more robust appearance. This lasted until 2010, when Daleks appeared in military green sporting union jacks while being presented to Winston Churchill as a potential second-world-war-winning weapon.
That story also introduced the worst Dalek design. Larger, chunkier, in bright colours, they soon earned the nickname “the Teletubby Daleks”. These unpopular versions hardly ever featured onscreen again. Set against those, the latest reimagining more than holds its own.
Doctor Who has tried at times to feature every single design of Dalek in the same story. Not so in 2019 – in the era of austerity and Brexit, we get the lone, makeshift Dalek we deserve.
