I’ve been ranting enough about this on my Facebook page, and doubtless boring the arse off people by banging on about it so thought I’d condense my vitriol and pure unfettered disappointment here.
I. Hate. The. New. Daleks.
And here’s why.
1) They’re completely out of proportion. Simply put, they look bloody ridiculous. The base rims are rounded and far too high; the bulk of the base itself compared to the upper half is far too tall; the mid-section sticks out like the damn thing’s wearing an inflatable ring with a plunger on it, and the gun is now far too long; the head itself isn’t too bad, but the eye stalk is needlessly overdesigned.
2) That fucking hunchback. Front on, they don’t look too bad, you could almost forgive them that. But turn them more than 30 degrees to the side and all of a sudden it’s Quasimodo himself. The head section sits there on top of it like an upended garden bin (or as a friend put it, like a press-down sauce dispenser), looking like it’s been shunted forward. The symmetry (such as it was) is gone. And instead of a straight line running down the back from grille to base, now there’s a bump where it joins. Cover up the hunchback and it’s not so bad, but with it added… almost looks like they forgot to plane off the last bit of the design model and the error carried on to the final design.
3) Too tall, and too fat. How on earth these Daleks manage to fit through the doorways and spaces of that ship (originally full of the other, smaller, scarier and frankly better Daleks) without banging their heads or simply getting stuck escapes me. And now the gun and plunger have to be angled downwards rather than up as before, which sounds petty but take a look – in comparison, which looks better?
4) The colours. No. In the past we had a small number of moderately tasteful and acceptable colours – white, grey, silver, with the higher ranks of black and gold and the red Supreme. They weren’t an orgasm of garishly bright primary colours. Come on guys, less is definitely more. I was extremely impressed by the khaki WW2 Daleks in their British webbing, and yes I’d buy a toy of that in a second but this? What is this, a Japanese cartoon? (thanks Lee). I smell a horribly transparent excuse to sell a shitload of toys to 5 year olds, and it stinks.
5) They look cheap, childish and completely unthreatening. 2005 brought a solid, tank-like look to the Daleks. These things finally looked like they were unstoppable – the bronzed steel look was spot on. Taking the Cushing movie design as a template with the larger base rim and the larger lights, then making them ultra-hard bastards from that was EXACTLY what they needed. Turning them into flimsy looking, plastic bubble bath bottles is not an improvement.
You know what? For the first time since the show came back in 2005 I really am concerned. Not because of Matt Smith (superb) and Karen Gillan (fun), not because of the new TARDIS (gorgeous), and not because of the titles and theme tune (jury still out on that one).
It’s because Stephen Moffat has always come across as being exactly what the series needed in a showrunner after Russell T Davies left. His episodes without fail have been scary, intelligent, interesting and fun. They’ve been what Doctor Who should be all about.
Look, I’m all for someone wanting to stamp their mark on the show. But this is a huge misjudgement and one we’re now stuck with. They made such a big deal out of these being the ‘real’ Daleks (oh do fuck off) and the scene of their obliterating the Russell T Davies versions couldn’t have been more symbolically sledgehammered if they’d tried. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ll be sat there praying for some belated April Fool’s Day joke to be revealed, or for it to turn out that this is all some bizarre, horrifying alternate universe and that within a few months all will return to normal. But I don’t think it’ll happen. These are the new Daleks, and they’re here to stay. Christ on a bike (would fit inside one).
The fact that not only did someone design these and think “Yeah, that’ll work” (having seen the concept art, it looked just as shit on the drawing board) but Moffat and the other execs came along and then signed off on them makes me more than a little wary of what else he’s got in store. Change for the sake of change (and the sake of selling toys to kids)? No. Just no.
Yes, Doctor Who should be scary, but not like this.
I. Hate. The. New. Daleks.
And here’s why.
1) They’re completely out of proportion. Simply put, they look bloody ridiculous. The base rims are rounded and far too high; the bulk of the base itself compared to the upper half is far too tall; the mid-section sticks out like the damn thing’s wearing an inflatable ring with a plunger on it, and the gun is now far too long; the head itself isn’t too bad, but the eye stalk is needlessly overdesigned.
2) That fucking hunchback. Front on, they don’t look too bad, you could almost forgive them that. But turn them more than 30 degrees to the side and all of a sudden it’s Quasimodo himself. The head section sits there on top of it like an upended garden bin (or as a friend put it, like a press-down sauce dispenser), looking like it’s been shunted forward. The symmetry (such as it was) is gone. And instead of a straight line running down the back from grille to base, now there’s a bump where it joins. Cover up the hunchback and it’s not so bad, but with it added… almost looks like they forgot to plane off the last bit of the design model and the error carried on to the final design.
3) Too tall, and too fat. How on earth these Daleks manage to fit through the doorways and spaces of that ship (originally full of the other, smaller, scarier and frankly better Daleks) without banging their heads or simply getting stuck escapes me. And now the gun and plunger have to be angled downwards rather than up as before, which sounds petty but take a look – in comparison, which looks better?
4) The colours. No. In the past we had a small number of moderately tasteful and acceptable colours – white, grey, silver, with the higher ranks of black and gold and the red Supreme. They weren’t an orgasm of garishly bright primary colours. Come on guys, less is definitely more. I was extremely impressed by the khaki WW2 Daleks in their British webbing, and yes I’d buy a toy of that in a second but this? What is this, a Japanese cartoon? (thanks Lee). I smell a horribly transparent excuse to sell a shitload of toys to 5 year olds, and it stinks.
5) They look cheap, childish and completely unthreatening. 2005 brought a solid, tank-like look to the Daleks. These things finally looked like they were unstoppable – the bronzed steel look was spot on. Taking the Cushing movie design as a template with the larger base rim and the larger lights, then making them ultra-hard bastards from that was EXACTLY what they needed. Turning them into flimsy looking, plastic bubble bath bottles is not an improvement.
You know what? For the first time since the show came back in 2005 I really am concerned. Not because of Matt Smith (superb) and Karen Gillan (fun), not because of the new TARDIS (gorgeous), and not because of the titles and theme tune (jury still out on that one).
It’s because Stephen Moffat has always come across as being exactly what the series needed in a showrunner after Russell T Davies left. His episodes without fail have been scary, intelligent, interesting and fun. They’ve been what Doctor Who should be all about.
Look, I’m all for someone wanting to stamp their mark on the show. But this is a huge misjudgement and one we’re now stuck with. They made such a big deal out of these being the ‘real’ Daleks (oh do fuck off) and the scene of their obliterating the Russell T Davies versions couldn’t have been more symbolically sledgehammered if they’d tried. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ll be sat there praying for some belated April Fool’s Day joke to be revealed, or for it to turn out that this is all some bizarre, horrifying alternate universe and that within a few months all will return to normal. But I don’t think it’ll happen. These are the new Daleks, and they’re here to stay. Christ on a bike (would fit inside one).
The fact that not only did someone design these and think “Yeah, that’ll work” (having seen the concept art, it looked just as shit on the drawing board) but Moffat and the other execs came along and then signed off on them makes me more than a little wary of what else he’s got in store. Change for the sake of change (and the sake of selling toys to kids)? No. Just no.
Yes, Doctor Who should be scary, but not like this.
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