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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."

6 of 434 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Daleks and Dollars by pubjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Estate holders only consider the money side of things

    No they don't. They often want editorial control as well. Which was the problem in case case, and I believe has been a problem with the Tolkein estate aswell.

  2. Lets be honest by Timesprout · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The daleks trundling about would look pretty pathetic to modern kids.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  3. More than money by voice+of+unreason · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, money isn't behind this fallout. Basically, when Terry Nation died, he was pissed of at the BBC, and pretty much didn't want them to have the Daleks under most circumstances. So I'm not surprised that the estate is being picky.

    As for the new show, I don't think the lack of Daleks will really hurt it. If you watch the old shows, they had a pretty big variety of popular villians. The Daleks didn't appear in most episodes. The BBC still has lots of other classic villians they can use, like cybermen, autons, the Black Guardian, and the Master, who was always popular. They also had some great baddies that were only on for one storyline, like Sutekh or the Tractators. Really, though, they should also be making up new villians and characters as well, not just using old ones.

  4. Re:Daleks and Dollars by bman08 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    " Shame the Tolkein estate didn't have editorial control over those dreadful films." Yet I believe that Suess's wife had a good deal of control over both the Grinch and Cat in the Hat, so you never can tell. Not to mention the wonderful things the Herbert family is doing with Dune. Estates are run by people. Some are greedy, others are altruistic. Perhaps a bus will hit Lucas and the Estate will choose to release Star Wars (the real one) on DVD.

  5. Copyright Too Long by Famatra · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What benefit is it to society to have copyright so long that the great grandchildren of the authors have say over the work?

    Copyright should end at death, and be at most 30 years in length. 30 years seems like a reasonable amount of time to get money out of the monopoly on the expression of an idea.

  6. Re:Daleks and Dollars by garethwi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The main problem with an estate wanting to editorial control is that there isn't a tenth of the talent in there as was in the person who died.