Doctor Who - Dalek Story Rankings - Part 1

As a fan of science-fiction, it must come as no surprise that I am a MASSIVE Doctor Who fan, and I intend on doing many reviews/lists and discussions about it.

I made this list a couple of years ago, and I even now I think it’s a pretty good list. However, my tastes and opinions have matured and developed since that time. With that in mind, I shall present a revised and (possibly) more in-depth analysis of every Dalek story that has been shown on the TV show.

The reason this list is limited to the TV series is simple; not everyone is going to know about the various appearances and stories involving them in other media, i.e. comics, audio, novels etc.

The Daleks are my favourite monster from Doctor Who, although sadly, not every Dalek story is a good one, something I shall detail further in.

Please note, that I won’t be including any story where the Daleks aren’t the central or main villains, no cameos or one-offs. The only reason ‘Day of the Doctor’ & ‘Time of the Doctor’ are included is that in those stories the Daleks have a sizeable role in relation to the story. So please bear this in mind if I put a story you might love lower down on the list; this is after all just my opinion, so it is basically going in order of worst to best.

Of course, I will always welcome friendly comments and discussion(s), so do feel free to share those.

Also, I will only be looking at these stories in relation to the Daleks, not the overall story, the Doctor or his companions (If and when Jodie does a story with the Daleks, I will happily add it to the list).

Now that that’s all settled, lets dive in then. 

Of course, let’s not forget: SPOILERS!

No. 26 : Victory of the Daleks (2010, Eleventh Doctor)

Reason: There were many good ideas and concepts that went into or were planned for this story; Winston Churchill, return to WWII, First encounter between Eleven & the Daleks, the Daleks being redesigned again for the Moffat Era, the idea of 'Pure Daleks' and the Daleks actually Winning. Sadly many of these ideas fell flat on their faces; don't get me wrong, there are actually some things from the story I like; Winston Churchill, WWII; those bits were good. I also liked the total fear and anger and hatred that this fairly new Doctor has for his mortal enemy, the whole speech alone is great. But sadly I feel this story is a case of the bad outnumbering the good; the character of Bracewell (Again a nice idea, but it just really didn't work), the spitfires in space (which on the one hand is cool, on the other is about as cheesy and silly as a you can get), Bracewell being defused by remembering what it was like to be human (Uggh... no, just no). And then we come to the thing that managed to collectively (if you'll forgive my language) piss off every whovian gifted with the power of sight; the redesign of the Daleks; aka the Dalek Paradigm, aka the Dalek balls-up -_-. Words cannot describe how much I loathe that design, it's oversized, it's ugly as sin, the irises are animal eyes now rather than mechanical parts, the colours are BEYOND garish. The only thing I liked about them were the voices; nice deep boom to them. All in all then, this gives a good example of how not to do a Dalek story. Although, sadly it isn't the only example.

No. 25 : The Time of the Doctor (2013, Eleventh Doctor)

Reason: I'm sure I'm gonna get a lot of stick for placing this so low down on the list but remember; this is about the Daleks, not the Doctor. As it were they had some good moments; the revelation that they had taken over the Church of the Silence's Ship, bit at the beginning when the Doctor turns up and all the eye-lights turn on and the mobile Dalek fighters/flyers (I'm sure there's an actual name for it, so feel free to correct me). But my issue comes from the Fact that they're little more then simple characters here; we will kill you, but we fear you, we know the rules of regeneration etc. All of that stuff just bored me when it came to them, they had no personality to them. Granted most of the good writing for this story is focused on Eleven & Clara and his impending Death (then Regeneration) just as it should be (although making the episode almost entirely focused on the subject of regeneration is not something I would have done but there you go). It uses the Daleks as stock villains, which is exactly what they mustn't become. When you do that, they become little more than pantomime villains.

No. 24 : The Day of the Doctor (2013, Eleventh, Tenth & War Doctor)

Reason: Now I'm sure some of you will argue that I am ignoring my own rules and logic by putting this here, and normally you'd be right, but the thing you must remember here is context. Every bit with the Daleks in it was focused onto several key things; this IS the Time War, this is the Daleks killing the Time lords. It does exactly what the Daleks are; a real return to form. The only let down really is that there isn't enough time to flesh them out a bit more, thankfully the next story does that.

No. 23: Into Dalek (2014, Twelfth Doctor)

Reason: I'm a big fan of pastiches, especially in Sci-Fi; they work very well. And Doctor Who has a history of doing this as well so you would think; win-win for all. Not in this case. There were little things throughout that I liked; the Daleks are a moving, growing force in the story; they are a space-faring empire; design of Rusty himself (I quite liked it), the bit where the Doctor is trying to convince of the beauty of the universe... and all Rusty sees is the beauty of the Doctor's hatred of the Daleks, and then there's the bit where Rusty tells the Doctor HE is a good Dalek. All these little bits are very nice, but as a whole the story did not really grip me. That may have had more to do with the writing (although this is the same person who wrote Waters of Mars so go figure). It's not necessarily a bad showcase of the Daleks, but it isn't a good one either. They're a bit more 3-dimensional than in the other stories but only slightly.

No. 22: Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks (2007, Tenth Doctor)

Reason: This was a close-call; I really went back and forth as to whether or not to have this one as no. 26 instead. But I'm putting this one here because this story did some good things for the Daleks (at that time anyhow);


    1. It reduced the number of Daleks in the universe from 4 to 1 (think about it; the knowledge for the Doctor that this is only 1 Dalek left in the entire universe, just as he is the last of his own kind).

    2. It was a good showcase for how evil the Daleks could be; Turning on Sec and Killing him because he dared to dream of a better life for Daleks, Turning humans into pig-slaves (which is both hilarious and stupid at the same time; I'll get to that later), Genocide of an entire race of Human-Dalek Hybrids. These are all big ways to remind people the Daleks aren't just alien monsters; they're evil.

    3. It showed that individual Daleks could have their own plans and machinations; now that is good characterisation.


And while these are all good things, I feel it is let down in areas as well; the Human-Dalek hybrids are rubbish, the Dalek Sec hybrid is 1 part cool and 3 parts bad and then there's the pig slaves. The Daleks made human beings into pig slaves. Pig. Slaves. Daleks have had slave workers before; they're called Robomen. Are you seriously suggesting it was easier to turn human beings into half pigs, than to simply turn them into Robomen? ugggh. All in all it's not a bad Dalek story, but looking just at the new series one's so far, I'd hardly call it one of the good ones. 

Just the first few so far, and more sure to follow soon!

Also, a huge thank you to Librarian-bot, https://www.deviantart.com/librarian-bot ,for letting me use one of his many great pieces of artwork, and you should all go take a good look at his galleries.