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Daleks Exterminated From New Dr. Who
albino eatpod writes "The BBC are reporting that despite 'the very best deal possible,' a failure to agree terms between the BBC and the estate of late sci-fi writer Terry Nation has meant that we will not being seeing TV's most evil villains in the new series, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billy Piper."
star - may refer to an actor of prime importance to a production, t perform the duties thereof
stare - to gaze intently
staring = to stare in the present perfect tense
starring = to star in the present perfect tense
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
Remembrance of the Daleks (1988)
shows a Dalek hovering
up a flight of stairs
Not entirely true, but I see your point. However, the estate holders of Charlie Chaplain's old films, for instance, are not releasing the silent versions of many of his famous movies to DVD, only the ones with actual sound, voices, etc. This is because they feel that it holds closest to his own aspirations, as Chaplain was a huge advocate of sound in movies. Though there would be a sizeable market for the silent ones, the family wants to hold on to the original artist's ideal. Granted I think this bites, as I like the silent versions better in the same way I think a black and white photograph requires more talent than colour photos, but that's my personal opinion, and not his vision. Not that this remotely applies to Dr. Who and Daleks, but in response to your comment, my reply is "Perhaps often, they do only consider money, but sometimes that's better than considering only the artist's vision. It gives it no room to grow or be remembered properly, it only limits us to the creator's own interpretation."
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
Actually, they weren't robots. They were mutated creatures controlling the robot-like shell. Aftereffects of the irradiation of Skaro, you see.
I'm not sure editorial control is the reason why the Daleks use in the new Dr.Who show was vetoed. If you recall, and you live in the UK, there was an advert showing the Daleks wandering around a shopping mall with a group of tambourine banging hippies saying "WE LOVE YOU!"
Also, in the past, Hancock have said that they will allow Daleks to appear in shows etc., but ONLY if they don't say anything. I think the reason for this is because the look of the Daleks is retained by the BBC, but what they say and do is retained by the creator.
I suspect the reason for the Daleks being booted out is simple - money. Hancock have been well known, allegedly, for demanding huge pots of money for the use of the Daleks. Thats why it took so long to get the remaining Dalek stories novelised - and why Eric Saward had refused to do the two outstanding stories that he wrote (Nation's lawyers wanted something like 75% of the profits of the book ISTR). Hancock also came down heavy on a fan magazine in the 1980s who produced a photonovel of the missing story "The Power of the Daleks". Despite the money from the novel going to charity, Hancock wanted a lot of cash, until Gary Levy, the editor of the magazine reminded Hancock that Nation wrote the script, and that surely the designer (Raymond Cusick) and script editor (David Whittaker) deserved equal credit as they were both instrumental in the success of the Daleks, but whom, as BBC staff, were not eligible to receive a penny in royalties from the tinpot meanies.
My web domain.
Bah! The borg are a shameless ripoff of the cybermen anyway! The cybermen were abducting people and replacing bits of them to make them into more cybermen 20 years before the borg even showed up!
I don't think there will be an issue with the Pedler estate for rights to the Cybermen, and I know Mr. Davis would love to see them back. (Kit Pedler and Gary Davis created them) As for not being "kick-assed" enough, due to budget limits, the true scope of the original concept was never pushed to it's limits. At their root, the Cybermen are more terrifying than the Borg. With the Borg, a human conciousness is crushed by the collective. With the Cybermen, they re-program you so that you don't *want* to be something else. The borg retain what you are, making it part of them. The Cybermen, by contrast, changes what you are so that you are now one of them.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Aftereffects of the irradiation of Skaro, you see.
I have always been fuzzy on this issue. Watching the first Dalek episode it would lead me to believe that they were mutated from the radation. But the Tom Baker episode showed that Davros was geneticly manipluating the pepole of Skaro into what he believed they were evolving into. Also he removed the Daleks conscience, something his fellow scientests strongly objected to. They were exterminated.
As far as as i'm aware, Davros is the father of the Daleks. The mutated creatures were his insperation, but the final design was his, which would be his undoing as the supreme Dalek didn't want to fight Davros for control over the Dalek race, and pitty wasn't in it's vocabulary.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
The doctor (in Tom Baker form) said:
"If you're supposed to be the supreme beings of the universe, why don't you climb up and get me?"
This was on the planet with those other androids (Recalling all of this from memory).
The doctor did in fact believe at that time that the Daleks were so impotent as to not be able to climb simple stairs.
That would explain the look of terrified confusion on the Doctor's (Sylvestor McCoy) face when the Dalek in Rememberence suddenly was able to climb up the stairs to "get him".
Aim for the eyepiece.
WTF?!?
What's worse: it's apparently true. Crazy fucking Brits.
Another one bites the dust
And a Dalek is finally shown going up stairs in Remembrance of the Daleks. The BBC guide says "Although this is the first time that a Dalek is actually seen to ascend a flight of stairs, there is a scene in season two's The Chase: Journey into Terror in which such an occurrence is clearly implied; and season twenty-two's Revelation of the Daleks shows that both the Daleks and Davros are capable of hovering above the ground."
rant
Billie PIper (not Billy) is female, previously "famous" for trying to be the British Britney, she dropped out of pop stardom (ahem) after marrying Ginger Gobsh*te Radio DJ and TV Moghul Chris Evans. A few years later, she reinvented herself last year as an actress (she attended theatre school in her youth, not sure for certain, but possibly RADA) appearing in one of the BBC's acclaimed remakes of The Canterbury Tales.
I was sceptical, but I believe very much that it's important to make classic stories available and accessible to a new generation (OMG, I'm 27, and I'm talking about today's youth like they're somehow detached from me by an unscalable chasm), so I watched.
In short, she was excellent, as a singer, she was shocking beyond belief, her songs mind-mashing ("why d'you play those songs so loud? Because we want to, because we want to"), her voice grating. But my word, the girl can act, she had sensitivity and maturity beyond her years. The weird thing was that she played a singer, and can actually sing as well. What on earth did they do to her voice in post-production?
Bottom line? I think she's an excellent casting as the Doctor's assistant, she'll bring serious acting ability (which the role has been crying out for - think Bonnie Langford) and a cute smile that will nicely counter Christopher Eccleston's "thin-mouth" look. Bring her on!
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
WCET, PBS in Cincinnati Ohio, has been playing Dr. Who in order for over a year and has skipped all the Dalek episodes as well.
(Can someone explain to me how it is that Nation's estate personally own the Daleks? Didn't he write those scripts on spec for the BBC?)
The way the BBC does things (or did), if you're an employee of the BBC, your ideas belong to them. If you were hired by the BBC to do something specific (like write a script), then your ideas belong to you. This explains why Terry Nation (not a BBC employee) "owns" the Daleks and has made millions off them, while the guy who designed them, Raymond Cusick (a BBC employee), received only his BBC salary and hasn't received a penny of the royalties.
Repeat fees for actors are normal. It's quite common even for commercials: Every time something is shown on TV or sold, the actor gets money.
The problem is that for many shows, the actual amounts aren't written into the actors' original contracts. Tracking down each actor and haggling over who gets what can be very expensive, accounting for a much larger slice of the budget than the actual repeat fees. It can also delay many releases, sometimes indefinitely.