Doctor Who Should Keep One Chibnall Dalek Change | Screen Rant
Chris Chibnall is departing as showrunner of Doctor Who; here is one upgrade he made to the villainous Daleks that the show should keep.
Chris Chibnall is departing as showrunner of Doctor Who; here is one Dalek change the series should keep. The long-running television show on the BBC follows the time-traveling adventures of a whimsical alien wizard known as the Doctor. Joined by a revolving door of young British companions, the Doctor solves problems and fight monsters that threaten to destroy the space-time continuum each week. The Daleks are the ancient enemies of the Doctor, a race of genocidal aliens bent on exterminating every other species in the universe.
Writer Chris Chibnall (also famously responsible for the popular BBC mystery series Broadchurch) took over the series from Steven Moffat in 2018, coinciding with the debut of Jodie Whittaker as the thirteenth actor to star as the titular Doctor. The Chibnall era of Doctor Who has brought many changes to the nearly sixty-year-old show (the Doctor’s gender notwithstanding) and not all of them were appreciated by fans. As Whittaker prepares to depart the role in 2022, it appears that Chibnall will be out as well, and the series will return to the hands of Russell T. Davies, who revived the series in 2005.
One change that Davies would be wise to keep moving forward is the redesigned Dalek, which first appeared in December 2021 in the New Year’s Eve special “Eve of the Daleks.” The famously one-eyed aliens have been historically bad marksmen. Though their laser gun arms fire reliably-lethal charges, they can only fire one shot at a time, making avoiding and defeating the Daleks a pretty easy task for the Doctor and company. Chibnall wisely gave the Daleks a fighting chance. He didn’t give them depth perception, but he did upgrade their weaponry, giving the Daleks new rapid-fire machine-laser-gun arms.
The new rapid-fire arms have only appeared in one episode so far, but they definitely up the ante. And tweaking the Daleks is nothing new for Doctor Who. Steven Moffat famously redesigned the Daleks with a scary visual upgrade in series 5 episode 3: “Victory of the Daleks." Eventually, the Daleks returned to the traditional aesthetic that has endured for nearly sixty years, but after so many years of stormtrooper-aim, it’s fair to say that the Daleks could use a bit of a leg up and that Chris Chibnall’s change was well-deserved.
Whether or not future seasons of Doctor Who keep Chris Chibnall’s new Dalek arms remains to be seen. The tin-can villains are ultimately fan-favorites due to their silly banter, not because they pose a world-ending threat. If there is one thing that Doctor Who can be counted on, it is that good triumphs over evil in the long run, and keeping the Dalek’s new laser guns won't change that.