The dreaded Daleks have met their ‘final end’ on more than one occasion. Will the Time Lord ever be free of his deadliest enemies? Let’s take a look at all the times the metal mutants have been (seemingly) beaten forever…
1) The Daleks
In the very first Dalek story from 1963/4, the metal mutants were, apparently, the sole survivors on the war-torn planet of Skaro – apart from their biggest enemies the Thals. Most of their home world had been decimated in a nuclear war, and the Dalek creatures had mutated and retreated into their tank-like shells in order to survive. They all lived inside an elaborate city, and were powered by static electricity which was transmitted through the floor.
In this adventure, the Doctor defeated the Daleks by wiping out their power supply, leaving them helpless and immobile. And since these were, seemingly, the only Daleks in existence, they were gone forever, leaving the Thals to live peacefully on Skaro.
Of course, due to the monsters’ explosive popularity, it wouldn’t be long before they burst back onto our screens. But their next adventure – ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ – was in fact a prequel, so it didn’t affect the outcome of their debut story.
2) The Evil of the Daleks
By the time ‘The Evil of the Daleks‘ was transmitted in 1967, the popularity of the metal mutants was global, and their creator Terry Nation (who shared the copyright with the BBC) was attempting to give his creations their own spin-off series in the United States. This meant that the Daleks would have to depart from the world of Doctor Who, perhaps forever, and the BBC planned ahead by having the entire race wiped out at the end of this story. Indeed, the Doctor even dubs it “a final end” as the Daleks descend into something of a civil war and exterminate each other.
And if ‘The Evil of the Daleks’ had indeed turned out to be their last adventure, then it would have been a good one. In the story, the Doctor’s old enemies are trying to identify what they call the “human factor” – the unique qualities of human beings that allow them to defeat the Daleks. To do this, they create a space-time link between Skaro and Victorian London, using the pathway to kidnap humans for experimentation.
But as we all know, this wasn’t the last hurrah for the metal mutants. Although they were absent for five years, they did finally return during the Jon Pertwee era for 1972’s ‘The Day of the Daleks,’ albeit with slightly unusual voices. They would make three further appearances during his tenure in ‘Frontier in Space,’ ‘Planet of the Daleks’ and ‘Death to the Daleks.’
3) The Movellan war
In the late 70s, Terry Nation introduced a new foe for his creations in the shape of the android Movellans. Although they have only featured in one story (apart from a brief appearance during the Peter Capaldi era) they played a significant role in the Daleks’ history in that they were responsible for their (almost) complete annihilation during the 1980s.
This encounter happened off-screen, however, and we only learnt about it during 1984’s ‘Resurrection of the Daleks,’ when the last survivors went in search of their creator Davros in the hopes of salvation. Apparently, the Movellans had manufactured a virus which was deadly to the metal mutants, and wiped out virtually the entire race. By the time the 1984 story was broadcast, there were only a few Daleks left in existence, but they were undeterred. Together with Davros, they planned to rebuild their army and invade Gallifrey, using a clone of the Doctor and his companions to assassinate the members of the high council.
This plan came to nothing, although there are a number of survivors at the story’s conclusion, most of them duplicates. The Doctor insists that these clones are unstable and will be quickly defeated, but he nonetheless warns Earth’s authorities of the potential threat.
And as for the metal mutants’ plan to attack Gallifrey, this was a plot point that would prove to be prophetic…
4) The Time War
Much of the Time War happened off-screen. The battle was primarily between the Time Lords and the Daleks, but it quickly spread to the wider universe, “invisible to smaller species yet devastating to higher forms,” as the Gelth once put it. Ultimately, the Doctor was the only one who could end it all, and Series One establishes that he was the sole survivor of the Time War.
In the beginning, at least. Because the Doctor soon learns that some Daleks survived too. He encounters one of them in 2005’s ‘Dalek’ by Robert Shearman, followed by the Dalek Emperor himself in ‘The Parting of the Ways,’ who has been secretly rebuilding his army using human DNA.
This army is defeated by Rose Tyler, who uses the power of the time vortex to reduce them to atoms. But there are yet more Daleks hiding in the cosmos in a mysterious vessel known as a void sphere, which has the ability to travel between universes. This is the Cult of Skaro, and they have possession of something called a genesis ark which can only be opened by the touch of a time traveller. This transpires to be a Dalek prison ship which contains thousands of the metal mutants.
Ultimately, this band of prisoners is banished into the void, but one member of the cult of Skaro survives and travels back in time to the 1930s where he, once again, attempts to build a new army using human DNA.
This was 2007, though, and the Daleks have appeared many times since then – although they have yet to be as completely defeated as they were in the Time War. The Daleks are still out there, somewhere, and they have not yet encountered Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor. Could 2025 be the year of their return…?
We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, can you think of any other occasions where the Daleks have been seemingly destroyed forever? Let us know in the comments below.
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