“Doctor Who” Daleks Redesign Revealed

By
Garth Franklin
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Ahead of this year’s “Doctor Who” Christmas special, the Radio Times has done a full issue and podcast dedicated to both it and the upcoming thirteenth season of the series.

The special sees not only the return of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) but the debut of a new look Dalek, offering a two-tone design of black and white that ditches the upper ‘grill’ and offers a more severe and darker take than other attempts to reinvent the characters (ala Matt Smith’s widely panned rainbow colored line-up in 2010).

Showrunner Chris Chibnall says: “You’re never replacing what’s gone before, you’re just adding a new variant. It wasn’t like we were saying ‘these will replace the bronze Daleks!’. It’s just this story is about these black and red Daleks, which light up at night and do all sorts of things.”

The thirteenth season recently began production on a slightly shorter series of eight episodes with the pandemic having a massive impact. Chibnall says: “We had to re-interrogate absolutely everything. We couldn’t do [2020’s globe-trotting New Year’s Day episode] Spyfall this year. We won’t be able to do overseas filming. Editorially, production-wise, logistically, health-and-safety-wise, it’s had a massive impact. As much as possible at the moment everybody’s smiling, and we’ve got some really lovely, great, mad, scary ideas.”

The show’s first season had no familiar villains until the New Year’s Day special with the Daleks. The second season brought back the Cybermen, The Master with a new face, and the Judoon.

Chibnall confirms more are returning for the thirteenth season including “ones who’ve appeared over the past 15 years that are deserving of another visit in the next series” which suggests the likes of the Sontarans, the Zygons, the Ice Warriors or the Weeping Angels are back.

One thing you definitely won’t be seeing though are iconic baddies from the pre-2005 era ‘Who’ returning for the first time. So no Draconians, no Sea Devils, no Omega, no The Rani, no Osiris, no Celestial Toymaker, no Great Vampires and no Black & White Guardians.

Chibnall says: “Do you mean from the classic series that have never been brought back? Less that, because I think really a lot of those iconic big monsters have been brought back already.” He adds that he’d never say never though.