Put scary Daleks back in Dr Who!

From the archive, first published Saturday 3rd Jul 2004.

IT'S enough to make you go into a spin and self-destruct.

The new series of Doctor Who won't include Daleks - the deadly machine creatures who became the Time Lord's biggest enemy with their constant threat to "Exterminate!"

But a Hampshire Dalek-builder is leading a protest to save the pepperpot-shaped monsters from being blasted out of the space-time continuum for good.

Photographer Chris Balcombe took his full-size Dalek to a shopping parade in his home village of Dibden Purlieu to protest at the monsters' absence from the new series because of a dispute with their creator's estate.

"It's unthinkable to bring back Doctor Who without the Daleks. They go together like fish and chips," said Chris, 44, whose Dalek was seen in a Kit-Kat TV advert three years ago.

"What people forget is that when Doctor Who began it was the Daleks that secured its future. My first memory of them is being terrified of them and literally hiding behind the sofa."

Producers of the new multi-million pound series had planned to reinstate the tin-plated terrors, who first appeared in the science fiction series in 1963.

But a dispute between the BBC and the family of the late Terry Nation, who created the Daleks, means they have been exterminated at the last minute.

Reaction in Dibden Purlieu, where Chris - crouched inside the casing - urged shoppers to save the Daleks from extermination, was far from terrified.

"One woman came out of a hairdressing salon and gave me a kiss on my dome," he said.

The new 13-part series of Doctor Who, which is being produced by BBC Wales, is due to be screened early next year.

It was announced recently that teen singing sensation Billie Piper would be playing the Doctor's assistant.

Archive Home