The Legacy of The Evil of the Daleks

The plan for the Daleks to be destroyed for good was one small factor in what lead to one of Doctor Who's most popular eras. 'The Monster Years' as they have sometimes been called is mainly centred on season five which saw the reappearance of the Cybermen in two stories, and the creation and rapid return of the Yeti. Had the Daleks not been on hiatus, then who knows, maybe the Yeti, Ice Warriors or the Weed Creature might never have been devised.

Daleks mind probe the third Doctor

It was five years before the Daleks were seen again and the first question was - would there be an explanation for their return after their supposed final destruction? Well, in the original script of Day of the Daleks, yes. It was mentioned that the 'Human' Daleks had been wiped out. However in the final screen version, no attempt at continuity was made.

This left the door open for various interpretations as to when The Evil of the Daleks might have been set, and how it relates to known Dalek history. Even though some fan histories of the Daleks (and even the FASA Doctor Who Role Playing Game) will push the civil war back to the end of time, it was clear at the time that it was another contemporary battle in the Doctor's running feud with his old foes. Despite the line in Day of the Daleks not making it to screen, the TV screen shows the faces of the first and second Doctor, and only by mind-analysis do the Daleks discover this new face also belongs to the Time Lord, further suggesting that all stories generally happen in chronological sequence unless explicitly stated.

What happened to the human Daleks is explored in the Doctor Who Magazine Dalek Special which largely agrees with the dialogue missing from Day of the Daleks. The question is also explored in the contradictory Children of the Revolution from issues 312-317 of Doctor Who Magazine which featured an Eight Doctor and Izzy comic strip.

The splitting of the Dalek world into two factions was a theme continued during the 1980s as the Supreme Dalek, who seemed to replace the Emperor, battled for control with Davros, their creator. Davros ultimately appointed himself an Emperor of sorts, but his appearance was a reference to the Emperor who preceded the TV incarnation, and this was a sphere-headed model first seen in the comics of the mid sixties.

Ideas of making Daleks human, and making Human Daleks were brought forth into the new series revival. Firstly Rose's DNA was extrapolated by the last surviving Dalek from the Time War, making the alien start to experience fear. But whilst the Human Factor Daleks from 1967 started to question their orders, this lone Dalek in 2005 still could not function without being told what to do.

The Daleks returned in 2005 in the Episode Dalek in which a collector called Van Statten held the last surviving Dalek from the time war, in which he intended to find out the secrets of its technology so that, along with broadband and the cure for the common cold, he could accelerate human developments which had been possible via technology from outer space

Not long after the 2005 episode Dalek, we meet another Emperor. Just as in the story featuring the original, The Parting of the Ways showed how the Daleks were manipulating and exploiting humanity in order to gain the upper hand. The 2005 story asked questions about what makes us human and the scene in which Rose is menaced in the Dalek saucer is not unlike that in which Victoria is intimidated in her prison cell.

To underline the tribute to the original Emperor, the new version was flanked by black-domed Daleks just as his predecessor had be been. Voice artist Nicholas Briggs also went some considerable way to emulating Peter Hawkins' speech, giving the Dalek ruler the same booming, echoing and ironically more human voice.

 
The idea of creating humans who behaved like Daleks was carried on in the new series, in the two-parter Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks. Like the 1967 story it also featured a greedy human collaborator who worked for the Daleks without much conscience.

Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks took the idea of making Human Daleks to the extreme, with the Kaled mutant blob inside Dalek Sec hybridised with a man. Once again, as in The Evil of the Daleks, the pure Daleks rejected the contamination of their race, and the hybrid was exterminated.