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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."
This always happens when you have an estate controlling the interests of an artist or writer. Estate holders only consider the money side of things, but most artists alive wish only to impact the world, by sharing their life-blood with the public -- forget the bottom line. Either that, or the creative community is simply addicted to the process of creation that they don't recognize the business side of things as being very necessary or important. The spirit of art is passion, and sharing passion can make passion spread like a wildfire. I think that it's sacrilege for heirs of creative folks to block the art because of the almighty buck. Therefore, I too will miss our mighty Dalek overlords.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Bah, they couldn't even climb a flight of stairs!
I have a sneaking suspicion that if the new show does well, and is renewed, the Nation estate and the Beeb will suddenly discover their strong mutual interest in reviving the flow of money from Dalek merchandising.
(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?)
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
star wars without darth vader
;-(
star trek without klingons
c'mon
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In most circles, staring is considered impolite.
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
The Daleks were one of the things that kept me going back for more, time and again, from Dr. Who.
...
That and the short skirts of the companions too, of course, but
You *CAN'T* call it Dr. Who if he's not battling the Daleks. Daleks are like, undeniably part of Dr. Who.
Would you have put up with Star Wars without Darth?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
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
In some ways it is for the best. It hold back the progression of a TV series if all you do is recreate yet another encounter with the Daleks.
Perhaps something along the lines of the Borg could be used. The cybermen but a lot more evil. I'm sure someone must have some good ideas.
In the new version, Davros puts the Dalek bioplasm into Roombas. Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate all dirt in deep pile!
I think we've already got more than enough of the Daleks in reruns. They may be the number one bad guys, and rather popular with the fanbase, but they're hardly integral to the series like Gallifrey and the Time Lords (and Earth!) are. Time to move on to other bad guys and other problems with time and space. I'd rather see more of The Brigadier, even though I know he's getting a bit on in the years.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
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.
Maybe they could get permission to use the Borg. Short ones. With wheels instead of legs. And with annoying voices. "You will be assimilated! Assimilate! Assimilate!"
For a series that old I'd have taken whatever money was offered. In another 10-20 years most the people who know about it will be dead and the brand name will have zero value.
...at this site and I can see Dr. Who's problem. Without the Daleks, what new peril's will Dr. Who face if he's matched against a villian that could chase him up a ladder or through a narrow passage? If I ran the estate of Terry Nation I'd come to terms with the BBC before the BBC realizes "TV's most evil villians" are a cross between a shuttlecock and a salt shaker.
It's a nice, romantic view but it isn't the case here. Terry Nation had a serious falling out with the BBC over control and payments, and continually refused the BBC permission to use them. I believe various other monsters are involved as well - a true Whovian will be able to fill the details in here, as opposed to myself who just watches the programmes on cable sometimes.
Plus, the BBC doesn't have a very good record with Daleks. There aren't very many working models left, and when the BBC borrowed one from the Dr Who Exhibition in Llangollen (now back in Blackpool after god know's hoow many years) they managed to damage it.
Nope, I'm not at all surprised by this decision. And to be honest, I'm not all bothered either. It would be nice for a bit of continuity I suppose, but really I'm sure they can find more villians to go up against.
More worrying to me is the idea of 50 minute stand-alone episodes, rather than maybe half-hour installments that you had before. I really feel they need to keep the cliffhangers that used to typify the series.
Cheers,
Ian
Estate holders only consider the money side of things, but most artists alive wish only to impact the world, by sharing their life-blood with the public -- forget the bottom line.
I thought most artist's work was zero until they died, then the value would shoot up. I've always gotten the sense that most artists would love to make a buck off their work in life rather than having it all go to their kids. Why shouldn't the kids think about the money first?
Actually, from what I read of the article, it sounded like "editorial control" and not money was the problem. I could see the BBC wanting to do something different with the Daleks and saying "No" thats not how Daleks should be. I'd rather them just come up with more evil bad guys. Come on the universe is big. It can have more than a half dozen regular bad guy species.
I mean look at their track record, after Davros was introduced they were reduced to the level of galactic criminals and pests, not the all conquering ruthless invaders we feared from the show's first decade.
Fanboys will prolly argue that in Genesis OFTD, where Davros was introduced, the Time Lords asked the Doctor to interfere to hamstring their development. He succeeded only too well. As long as Davros was around he caused so much internal strife among the Daleks, culminating in a civil war, that they realy were just shadows of their former selves.
Actually, they weren't robots. They were mutated creatures controlling the robot-like shell. Aftereffects of the irradiation of Skaro, you see.
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.
Back then lawyers were nice cudly things, and evil media empires (which the BBC isn't, anyway) didn't have the thumbscrews on so tight.
I believe for BBC shows older than a certain date, they actually have to pay the actors more money when they re-run them or release them on DVD.
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
WTF?!?
What's worse: it's apparently true. Crazy fucking Brits.
Another one bites the dust
That it would take *lawyers* to defeat the Daleks!
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
1. Daleks COULD go up stairs. In the 7th Doctor story, "Rememberence of the Daleks", they demonstrated that the Daleks had invented some type of anti-gravity propulsion system giving them JUST enough power to climb stairs but not enough to actually fly around..:)
2. MOST of the Dalek stories were completely retarded IMHO. You create a monster that is supposed to DEFINE *evil* yet can be (usually) fooled by having the Doctor or a companion throw a towel over their eye stalk. ugh!
I think "Genesis of the Daleks" was their last good story and that's only because of Tom Baker and Davros (I forgot the actor's name..Michael somebody I think..sorry).
If they were to be used again, as a Whovian I'm REALLY hoping that they re-create them in a vicious and sinister light. Goodbye retard plotholes, hello ultimate Evil!
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.
*Exterminate Exterminate*
What strikes me as odd is the concept of editorial control over a one dimentional grade-b supervillon that has been in our culture for over 40 years. Perhaps "Rememberence of the Daleks", an episode that has Davros fighting the the Supreme Dalek was ment to illistrate to us the fight for creative control over the future of the Daleks. The Orthadox Daleks born from Skaro's toxic enviroment with their desire to exterminate anything and everything in site, and the Neo-Davros Daleks without conscience or remorse and a geneticly implanted desire to enslave the universe and exterminate anything and everything in site.
What I find more peculiar is the very idea that anyone could "ruin the brand of the Daleks". Daleks are a b-class one dimentional supervillion with a very limited vocabulary. While Dalek is likely a trademark of Terry Nation, I don't honestly see how they could be considered to be a brand outside of Doctor Who. They are salt shakers that run around saying "exterminate" are are not likely to be licensed to anyone with the exception of Doctor Who. Keeping the integrity of a brand name is typicaly only important if you are selling a product, in this case a product that has only one customer.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
That's GNU/Laleks, you insensitive clod!
(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.
the estate of Terry Nation is composed of Daleks. They are tired of being cast as the bad guys, so they made an insane demand of creative control of the film/tv show. They wanted the Daleks seen as the good guys and Doctor Who as the bad guy who lures scantily clad young women into his TARDIS for who knows what?
;) Maybe they go after Doctor Who to learn how the TARDIS works, to use it as a weapon?
;)
I think that there may be a substitute, let us see what evil alien or robot bad guys are not being used much anymore, shall we?
Cylons, not from that Sci Fi channel show, the original ones. The ones that could not shoot the broad side of a barn, and could not fly a Cylon Raider properly even if there are three of them in the cockpit.
The Slayers from Krull, slow moving, dim-witted, and get taken out by a super Japanese throwing star named a Glave.
The Peacekeepers from FarScape. Well FarScape fans want to see more action and are made that the series was cancled. Using these aliens means no special make-up is required, just uniforms need to be made. They speak British anyway.
The Geldts from Red Dwarf. If I spelled it right. Doctor Who is captured with his companion, and told that he would die if he didn't marry the Geldts' leader's daughter. He marries, but grabs the Oxygen Generator his TARDIS needs to recycle air and runs. The Geldts chase him all over the galaxy.
Bring in Servalan and the Federation from Blake's Seven. New actress if you have to. It should prove interesting.
The robots from Ice Pirates, hey, enough said!
Borrow the Ferrengi from Star Trek, I haven't seen anything from them since Deep Space Nine went off the air.
Better yet, have Doctor Who run away from time travelling Lawyers who are trying to issue him a subpeona about the file sharing program he runs in his TARDIS computers.
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1. Many older fans don't want innovation or new things. They want comfort food for the soul. They want to be able to take refuge in the things of their youth. Punch the hot button on their emotional centers, wired up nicely from all the work they did reading, viewing, experiencing in their childhoods. Making new connections is hard work, especially with the much wider range of knowledge and experience they have available to filter stories through. When it is so much easier to see the shit, it's so much harder to bother looking. Finding good things to be motivated by is hard, because 'Good' is bloody rare. (I just finished watching the Firefly DVD set. That's good stuff!
2. The second type of audience is the one NOT looking for old thrills; they are looking for Firefly and new ideas.
So. .
This is not to say that revisiting Dr. Who is a bad idea. Either approach can be done in a successful way. If it's fresh enough and done with an honest intent to really explore and have fun rather than copy old successes, it could easily be a very exciting ride. While, as per Sam Raimi's Spider Man movies, which attempt primarily to be faithful to the originals, there are examples of how re-telling old stories can also work very well. --After all, there is a reason people once sat around the story teller and cried, "Tell it again!" Every society has its favorite myths.
I wonder how it will go with Dr. Who revisited. .
There are some extremely cool ideas which have only recently become available to our popular artists and which have not yet been properly explored, and which could be as explosive and fun as the first Matrix film. In much the way the last couple of Star Wars films could have blown the lid off today's society had they not sucked, Dr. Who could be dazzling. (Just watched the Phantom Edit again. . . Solid stuff. If only the Phantom Menace hadn't sucked, the world would have had a very powerful lesson in how corrupt fascist states can rise. --The methods used by Palpatine were actually more sophisticated and less 'Bruce Willis' than those employed by Bush!).
Anyway. . , Dr. Who could be a great delivery device for some sympathetic themes which the collective subconscious of the Human race would enthusiastically absorb, as it did with the Matrix. But we'll have to see what they come up with. My sense of jade says, "Suckage." But we'll see.
-FL