When Daleks Were Scary
As villains with a storied history in the science fiction pantheon, I have to say that Daleks have never particularly impressed me. Sure they have a fantastically awesome catch phrase, but for a species without remorse bent on taking over the universe, their character design is kitschy as all hell. British kids laugh at the Daleks.
I mean, come on, they were slotted to be in a porn. A porn. Darth Vader is never going to find himself in a porn. That’s because Darth Vader effing rocks. In fact, the writers of Doctor Who seem to have a bunch of scenes thrown in where the Daleks kill extras just to establish the fact that they’re badasses.
I’ve always kind of wondered about that, though. I guess at some point in the 80s, people really dug the Daleks and thought they were some freaky stuff just on their own. Never had evidence to point to that though.
Thanks to Wikipedia and a good reference from USBFB ally Garett, that historical ambiguity can now be resolved:
“In a 2006 interview with Sky News, Prince Andrew, Duke of York said that he hid from Daleks behind a Windsor Castle settee while watching Doctor Who as a child. The Economist has presented “hiding behind the sofa whenever the Daleks appear” as a British cultural institution on par with Bovril and tea-time.”
The aesthetics of fear, they do change, I guess.
I wonder if each generation gets its own vulnerability to a particular pattern of fear. Robots/mechanical stuff are only lame as villains to us now because we’re psychologically more at ease with “smart” technologies in our everyday lives. Having some trouble picking out the major “type” of boogeyman in the 2000s, though. Creepy supernatural girls? Dutch businessmen? Avenging puppet-based psychos?
