Loading ...Well, the season finale of Doctor Who is over, and as much as I would love to talk about the ending of Series Four of Doctor Who, there are people in New Zealand and Australia who have not yet seen it. So for those who haven’t had the chance to see how the Doctor and Donna fare after “Journey’s End,” I’ll try to be spoiler lite, and I will talk about . . .
Well, why not look after the jump to see?
I would like to talk about the vocabulary of the Daleks. When the Daleks first appeared on the 21st of December in 1963 in “The Dead Planet”, episode one of The Daleks (which was also called The Mutants, because stories didn’t have overarching name in them times) they didn’t say a word. All we saw was a dangerous looking toilet plunger menacing companion Barbara Wright. But by the next episode “The Survivors,” they were positively verbose. They just jabbered on and on and on, hardly shutting up. Oh, the staccato imperatives were there, but unlike later Daleks, the originals were given to rambling and overexplaining a situation.
And they weren’t quite as mean as they eventually became. In fact, when they first met the Doctor, they shot his companion Ian, but less Ian worry about being shot, the Dalek said to him, “Your legs are paralyzed. You will recover shortly unless you force us to use our weapons again. In that case, the condition will be permanent. You two, help him.”
Later Daleks would have just said “EXTERMINATE!” and that would have been the end of Ian. A paralysis ray? What kind of un-Dalek thing is that?
It took a while for them to lose their verbosity. Here is a bit of Dialogue from “Day of Armageddon” Episode 2 of The Daleks’ Masterplan from 20th November 1965.
Dalek Supreme: This seventh meeting is now in session. Representatives, I have important news. The Time Destructor is now completed. It only requires the core to be fitted. Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System, will address the meeting.
As you can see, the Dalek love of organization is there from the beginning. But later, they would abandon chairing meetings and turn their attention to exterminating. Thank goodness. Can you imagine? That was their seventh meeting! That means they had six previous meetings and they still haven’t managed to finish the Time Destructor!
But as the Daleks aged, they dispensed with all that extra unnecessary dialogue. Eventually the Daleks would say such things as “Halt!” “Obey!” or my personal favorite, and one that Mojo quotes all the time “Do not move!”
In fact, Dalek Dialogue became a bit tedious and repetitive (which, it can be argued made it all the more fun.) Eventually Daleks just ran about yelling “Exterminate!” There were other repeated lines as well, but the the (second) most famous bit of dialogue uttered by the Daleks is one that has been repeated in various iterations since the very first Dalek story. And that bit of dialogue is
“MY VISION IS IMPAIRED! I CANNOT SEE!”
Yep, that’s right. Throw a dish towel over a Dalek’s eyepiece and it will go apeshit crazy, start spinning around in random circles, shooting its gun off wildly and yelling in an embarrassing little screaming fit, “MY VISION IS IMPAIRED! I CANNOT SEE!” It may even throw itself out a window while screaming about its myopic state.
That is why I laughed out loud when the Dalek in the Series finale burned off the paint on its eyepiece and said, “My vision is NOT impaired.”
Classic.
Of course, the funniest bit of dialogue in tonight’s episode was “Daleks do not accept apologies!” but , for the weight of history,”My vision is NOT impaired!” wins best bit eyestalks down!
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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 12:28 am and is filed under hysterical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
So very true! Loved the unimpaired vision quip as well as the “Daleks do not accept apologies!”. They’re nothing if not sure of themselves.
I will remember to always carry a towel, in case of dalek attacks.
Really, it is the only wise thing to do.