Making Daleks Scary Again!

By Christian Cawley, August 27, 2012 - Doctor Who - 2 comments

It’s easy to forget just what tough job Steven Moffat and his colleagues have. Basically, they’re in charge of making sure the right people are working on the show, from catering and other facilities on location to providing SFX and post production after the cameras stop rolling.

Doctor Who chief Steven Moffat and a Dalek. Obviously there is a hierarchy and some delegation; but the buck stops at the top. So if Steven Moffat invites an unsuitable writer into the show, the individual concerned is more than likely going to have some difficulty settling into the task and being able to produce the required number of drafts in the necessary style for television.

This subject cropped up at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival on Saturday.

“If it’s your first television show you have written you are going to screw up royally, I tend to favour highly experienced television writers for the sake of my sanity. We do go outside of the circle … it’s a tough old job. No brand new TV writer should be tackling this one. It’s hard.”

But not, one imagines, as hard as that old chestnut of “making the Daleks scary again”. Did they ever stop being scary? If so, why? It’s arguable that the last time they really made an impact was in the Army of Ghosts cliffhanger, and it took a remarkable story (along with 17 years off-screen) like Dalek to breathe fire back into the legendary villains.

“Kids are supposedly frightened of Daleks but they take them to bed. Is there a way we can make them scarier, get them back to being more monstery?

“I hope they will leave them outside their bedroom doors, was my response to that. There is a tremendous temptation to go kitch and sweet with the daleks. You shouldn’t. They are insane tanks.”

That’s a brilliant way of putting it – so let’s hope that Asylum of the Daleks does the job!

Tagged: Asylum of the Daleks, Doctor Who Series 7, MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, Steven Moffat

About the author

Christian Cawley

A long-term Doctor Who fan, Christian grew up watching the show and has early memories of the Graham Williams era. His favourite stories are Inferno, The Seeds of Doom and Human Nature (although The Empty Child, Blink and Utopia all come close). When he’s not bossing around the news team, Christian is a freelance writer specialising in mobile technology and domestic computing, and enjoys classic rock, cooking and spending time in the countryside with his wife and young children. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

2 thoughts on “Making Daleks Scary Again!”

Ian August 27, 2012 at 8:30 am

Well if kids take the Daleks to bed that is his fault introducing the awful Paradigm Daleks. Love it if they got wiped out.

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Mugen Pharoah August 27, 2012 at 9:17 pm

Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks was the absolute nadir for modern Dalek stories. A big Dalek lump of cheese with them gliding about bone dry sewers with pigmen…PIGMEN!!! Awful.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I prefer the RTD Daleks to New Paradigm. In some ways though that sort of knee jerk reaction to negative fan opinion on the bright fatty Dalek is a worrying, almost John Nathan Turnerish to not go with their own decision and parade the RTD Daleks again.

I’ve never like the bronze Daleks as a colour, thought that design looks better in gunmetal like in the 2005 concept art.

In fairness the fatty Daleks were a response in part to Dalek designer Ray Cusick’s assertion as alien machines they shouldn’t show any rivets and joins. Which RTD ones do.

I am a miserable old moaner but I’m sure I will be ‘rivetted’ come Saturday night, arf arf.

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