Inspiration Behind the Design of Daleks
As mentioned in an earlier blog Terry Nation is the man who came up with what the Daleks should look like and how they function. However, Terry Nation is the writer of these initial Dalek episodes whereas Raymond Cusick was given the task of designing them to Terry Nation’s standards.
Terry Nation had several things that he wanted to the Daleks to be. Nation is quoted in a book titled, Doctor Who The Eighties about not wanting the Daleks to look like the typical, “man in a suit”[1]. This was Nation’s main goal when trying to find a design for the Daleks. So in order to do this he took away legs from the being. This was his way to make sure that the Daleks would not look like a, “main in a suit” and as anybody can tell he was successful. Nation’s next inspiration came from a performance the Georgian National Ballet where the dancers had long skirts gliding across the stage.[2] This inspiration is visible by the triangular lower body of the Daleks.
In a book titled, Doctor Who- The Early Years it is told that Cusick was given an hour to come with the design of the Daleks.[3] Yes, you read that right it read one hour. Nation finished the script and gave Cusick one hour to come up with a design for Daleks. To me this is incredible; Cusick came up with one of the most iconic villains in television history in one hour. Not only did he come up with a design but also he nailed it. Cusick was able to deliver exactly what Nation wanted in a villain. During this hour Cusick said that one of his initial sketches resembled a pepper shaker, this story reads that he only used the pepper shaker to demonstrate how the Daleks would move. Initially the Daleks were only supposed to move along metal paths for the electricity but this but as fans know this is not the case. Cusick’s main inspiration for his creation of Daleks was based on a man seated in a chair. Which actually really helped because retired ballerinas played the first Daleks. They did this because this was a lot more reliable than trying to get a robot to be completely accurate and work one hundred percent of the time.
Part 1 of 2. The blog site allowed for a limited number of characters.
References
[1] David J. Howe, Mark Stammers, Stephen J. Walker, Doctor Who The Eighties (Virgin Publishing, 1997), 80.
[2] David J. Howe, Mark Stammers, Stephen J. Walker, Doctor Who The Eighties (Virgin Publishing, 1997), 80.
[3] Jeremy Bentham, Doctor Who- The Early Years (Carol Pub Group, 1986), 114.
