The film Doctor Who completely misunderstood the Daleks, even though they never appear

The 1996 Doctor Who The TV movie got the Daleks completely wrong, even though they don’t appear. The BBC canceled Doctor Who in 1989, but the world’s longest-running science fiction TV show still had so many fans – including within the industry itself. Philip Segal successfully negotiated a partnership between Fox and the BBC, which led to the release of a TV movie in 1996 , which was intended as a backdoor pilot for a relaunch. The Doctor Who The TV movie was unfortunately a failure, but that wasn’t for lack of effort or ambition.

The Doctor Who The TV movie starred Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Eric Roberts as the newest version of the Master. But of course The Daleks simply had to appear in some capacity – although negotiating the right to use the Daleks was extremely complex. They were eventually woven into the story’s introduction, which revealed that the Master was tried and executed for his crimes against the Daleks. They were heard but never seen – and even that caused a massive problem.

The Daleks fulfilling the Master’s final wish in Doctor Who makes no sense

The modern viewer will immediately notice this There’s something wrong with the Daleks in this opening scene. Even their voices sound strange; The traditional tones were found to be difficult to understand and were slightly modified in ways that just didn’t quite work (Segal later remarked that he wished he had hired a veteran). Doctor Who Voice actor Nicholas Briggs). The biggest problem, however, lies in the fact that the Daleks have apparently agreed to return the Master’s remains to the Time Lords.

This was portrayed as an act of mercy, but that just doesn’t make sense. The Daleks are the most evil race in the universe, created in the image of the Nazis themselves Doctor Who was very clear: Mercy is foreign to their nature. To the Doctor, the Daleks don’t even have a word for mercy, so the idea of ​​them showing this to a defeated enemy is completely out of character.

The plot hole was of course obvious to the general public Doctor Who fan base, and it was addressed in a variety of ways. Gary Russell’s novelization added a bit of important context, as the Master made the request telepathically to the Doctor and did not actually come from the Daleks. This was a smart solution because it meant The Doctor was the one who showed mercy, not the Daleksand it even portrayed the Doctor’s mission to reclaim the Master’s remains as an untold adventure.

Marc Platts lung cart was Virgin’s last New adventures series featuring the Seventh Doctor (Virgin then published a novel starring McGann’s Eighth Doctor before the rights reverted to the BBC). Here too, the theme of the TV film’s “merciful Daleks” was subtly addressed. It was revealed The Daleks had a contract with the Time Lordsand they were obliged under the treaty to return the master’s remains.

The problem, however, is that none of these explanations are mentioned in the Doctor Who TV movie itself. The latter no longer makes any sense given the Time War; It’s hard to believe that the Time Lords and the Daleks ever had a treaty. So all in all, this is undoubtedly considered one of the great mysteries of Doctor Who Tradition.

What Doctor Who Canon says about the mercy of the Daleks

There was a powerful scene in the Peter Capaldi-era story “The Witch’s Familiar” where Missy trapped Clara Oswald in a Dalek shell and tried to get the Doctor to kill her. There, the Doctor realized the Dalek’s true identity when it uttered the word “mercy” – one which, in his opinion, was completely foreign to the Dalek’s vocabulary. He wasn’t entirely right; Daleks had once begged River Song for mercy. Nevertheless, the point is illustrative and shows the extent of the problem.

However, there is a possible explanation based on the Dalek timeline. In Evil of the Daleks, the Second Doctor effectively created a new alien offshoot by introducing the human factor, sparking a civil war on the Dalek homeworld of Skaro. It is possible that the Daleks that brought the Master to justice were actually a colony of these humanized Daleksevolved (i.e. with different voices), with a treaty with Gallifrey and a desire to bring the Master to justice rather than simply exterminate him outright. That was almost certainly not the case Doctor WhoThat’s intentional, but it fits.