History YMMV / DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek

** The Dalek's ArmourPiercingResponse to the Doctor's furious speech--"'''''You''''' '''would make a good Dalek'''"--can be read two ways. It seems to be a NotSoDifferentRemark and insult deliberately designed to hit the Doctor where it hurts the most...but given that the Daleks are an OmnicidalManiac race, it could also be the creature ''complimenting'' the Doctor for his own genocidal rage.

** With the rise of meme culture and other internet developments by the time the actual 2012 came and went, the idea that the Dalek was driven further mad from downloading the entire internet has made the rounds [[https://www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/comments/16thjwp/dalek_vs_internet/ in various jokes]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pafM_bgDoS8 and videos]] in later years.[[note]] The 2021 novelization would even acknowledge with the Doctor taunting that the Dalek had absorbed a multitude of [[TheInternetIsForPorn porn]] and [[SendingStuffToSaveTheShow "revive]] ''[[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]]''[[SendingStuffToSaveTheShow " petitions]], though the Dalek claims such "irrelevant" data was deleted.[[/note]]

** There is mention of a meteor landing in Russia in 2013. Fast forward to 2013, and the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor Chelyabinsk meteor]] would explode in midair over Russia, scattering fragments over the area.

* GrowingTheBeard: Considered to be this for the revived series in general. Creator/ChristopherEccleston was a great Doctor, but in the previous episodes, most of the the monsters were of the quirky and wacky sort, save for maybe the Autons. Here, he faces the most iconic monster of the show, and exaggerates the DarkerAndEdgier aspects of his personality. This is the episode that cemented the reputation of the revival series, and it hasn't looked back since. Some people even said that it wouldn't be ''Doctor Who'' without the Daleks, and that this episode made the Daleks "scary" again after the latter half of the classic series merely made them Davros' {{Mooks}}.

** "The Lone Dalek," a softly desperate chorus, captures the sheer, wasteful desolation of a creature engineered to revile all life, and the futility to which this has driven it.

* TrueArtIsAngsty: "Dalek" is often considered one of the best and most influential episodes of the Revival Series. It's also one of the darkest, being a PsychologicalHorror story that's far more violent than previous episodes. It ends on a note that's {{bittersweet|Ending}} at best and explores the nature of trauma and the [[HeWhoFightsMonsters blurry boundaries]] between the Doctor and the monsters he fights.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: The Doctor wanting to kill the Dalek and wipe out their species is portrayed as bad, except he knows how dangerous the Daleks are, which is aptly demonstrated in this episode when the Dalek kills hundreds of people, and the Dalek makes it quite clear it wants to wipe out humanity. Rose tries to give the moral judgement, except she doesn't know about the Daleks, so this is out of ignorance. Later, she is terrified of the Daleks and shows no remorse on wiping them out (apparently). The Doctor [[{{Sadist}} actively torturing]] the Dalek was going a bit far, but him being ready to kill it certainly seems justified.

* TheWoobie: A Dalek as a Woobie? It's the first Dalek seen in the Revival Series. Tortured into near-insanity; alone in the universe of space and time; cut off from orders and companionship; forced to pollute itself to regain power; adapts to survive, in the process becoming "no longer pure Dalek". Eventually, it find that it can no longer kill its enemies, and admits fear and disgust at itself, and is finally DrivenToSuicide. "This is not life. This is sickness." It may have [[BlueAndOrangeMorality a different set of values]], but [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds despite its high body count and stated goal of wiping out all life on Earth]], you can't help but feel bad for it throughout much of the episode.

** Similarly, there is mention of a meteor landing in Russia in 2013. Fast forward to 2013 and...
** There's also his remark about owning the internet. Fast forward to 2012 and SOPA, and it nearly became a reality.

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven: Creator/RobertShearman set out to make the Daleks scary again. To do so, he made a list of what people found silly about them and managed to work around them.

** When the Dalek told Rose to order its suicide rather than force it to endure its human mutation -- proclaiming; "'''This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you'''" -- there's a couple ways to read that. The most obvious is that the Dalek is disgusted at its impurity and is staying true to its kind's genocidal mindset to the end. But another way of seeing it is that the Dalek is actually referring to the new human emotions it's obtaining from Rose's DNA because it just can't ''bear'' to live with all these overwhelming and new feelings. As a second alternative (backed up somewhat by Dalek Caan later HeelFaceTurn [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd several seasons]] later) that developing a human sense of morality from Rose while still knowing it's a Dalek and [[HeelRealisation what that means]] was more than it could live with.

** When the Dalek told Rose to order its suicide rather than force it to endure its human mutation -- proclaiming; "'''This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you'''" -- there's a couple ways to read that. The most obvious is that the Dalek is disgusted at its impurity and is staying true to its kind's genocidal mindset to the end. But another way of seeing it is that the Dalek is actually referring to the new human emotions it's obtaining from Rose's DNA because it just can't ''bear'' to live with all these overwhelming and new feelings.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: When the Dalek told Rose to order its suicide rather than force it to endure its human mutation -- proclaiming; "'''This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you'''" -- there's a couple ways to read that. The most obvious is that the Dalek is disgusted at its impurity and is staying true to its kind's genocidal mindset to the end. But another way of seeing it is that the Dalek is actually referring to the new human emotions it's obtaining from Rose's DNA because it just can't ''bear'' to live with all these overwhelming and new feelings.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: A rare instance where {{Flanderization}} is widely agreed to have worked out extremely well. In the Classic Series, the Daleks' AbsoluteXenophobe nature was often something of an InformedAttribute, with them often keeping members of other species as servants and entering into alliances with other races, all as early as the 60's. Starting with this episode, the Daleks' one and only goal was firmly established to be the utter extermination of all other forms of life -- which makes them ''far'' more intimidating villains, as we now know that there's no reasoning with them, no trying a FakeDefector gambit, and little to no hope that they'll decide you have some use as a prisoner. It's implied that the Time War made the Daleks go from opportunistic conquerors to monstrously evil world-killers, to the point that the Doctor decided to wipe them all out.

* GrowingTheBeard: Considered to be this for the revived series in general. Creator/ChristopherEccleston was a great Doctor, but in the previous episodes, most of the the monsters were of the quirky and wacky sort, save for maybe the Autons. Here, he faces the most iconic monster of the show, and takes the DarkerAndEdgier aspects of his personality UpToEleven. This is the episode that cemented the reputation of the revival series, and it hasn't looked back since. Some people even said that it wouldn't be ''Doctor Who'' without the Daleks, and that this episode made the Daleks "scary" again after the latter half of the classic series merely made them Davros' {{Mooks}}.

** "The Daleks"' a rising surge of [[OminousLatinChanting choral chanting]], which very much befits a creature of pure, unadulterated evil, who exists for no purpose other than to ''hate''.

** "The Daleks"' panicked surge of [[OminousLatinChanting choral chanting]] very much befits a virtually invincible, insatiably murderous death machine.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: A rare instance where {{Flanderization}} is widely agreed to have worked out extremely well. In the Classic Series, the Daleks' AbsoluteXenophobe nature was often something of an InformedAttribute, with them often keeping members of other species as servants and entering into alliances with other races, all as early as the 60's. Starting with this episode, the Daleks' one and only goal was firmly established to be the utter extermination of all other forms of life -- which makes them ''far'' more intimidating villains, as we now know that there's no reasoning with them, no trying a FakeDefector gambit, and little to no hope that they'll decide you have some use as a prisoner.

* WinBackTheCrowd: This episode managed to do this with the Daleks; prior to this episode's airing, the species had an established reputation of being fairly silly monsters, being remembered as hammy, ineffectual wastebins who couldn't climb stairs, couldn't turn around, and could be wiped out ''en-masse'' by a small militia. Even though [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks "Remembrance of the Daleks"]] from nearly 20 years prior had already reestablished their menace to longtime fans, said longtime fans were the only folks still watching ''Doctor Who'' at that point, and the general public still believed that the Daleks were a relic of shoestring-budget 70's sci-fi television. Thus, "Dalek" sought out to address every criticism and misconception about the titular monster and turn it on its head. The gamble worked; in the years since its premiere, "Dalek" has garnered a reputation for being the story that made the Daleks scary again.

** The [[WhamLine line]] "You would make a good Dalek" becomes a lot more meaningful and tragic by the time of learning about the fate of [[Recap/DoctorWho50thPrequelTheNightOfTheDoctor the Eighth Doctor]]. Cass' treatment of the doctor with comparing the Time Lords are no different than the Daleks eventually brings this Doctor through DespairEventHorizon.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: A rare instance where {{Flanderization}} is widely agreed to have worked out extremely well. In the classic series the Daleks' AbsoluteXenophobe nature was often something of an InformedAttribute, with them often keeping members of other species as servants, and entering into alliances with other races. Starting with this episode, the Daleks' one and only goal was firmly established to be the utter extermination of all other forms of life -- which makes them ''far'' more intimidating villains, as we now know that there's no reasoning with them, no trying a FakeDefector gambit, and little to no hope that they'll decide you have some use as a prisoner.

* TheWoobie: A Dalek as a Woobie? It's the first Dalek seen in the revival series. Tortured into near-insanity; alone in the universe of space and time; cut off from orders and companionship; forced to pollute itself to regain power; adapts to survive, in the process becoming "no longer pure Dalek". Eventually, it find that it can no longer kill its enemies, and admits fear and disgust at itself, and is finally DrivenToSuicide. "This is not life. This is sickness." It may have [[BlueAndOrangeMorality a different set of values]], but [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds despite its high body count and stated goal of wiping out all life on Earth]], you can't help but feel bad for it throughout much of the episode.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: A rare instance where {{Flanderization}} is widely agreed to have worked out extremely well. In the classic series the Daleks' AbsoluteXenophobe nature was often something of an InformedAttribute, with them often keeping members of other species as servants, and entering into alliances with other races. Starting with this episode, the Daleks' one and only goal was firmly established to be the utter extermination of all other forms of life -- which makes them ''far'' more intimidating villains, as we now know that there's no reasoning with them, no trying a FakeDefector gambit, and little to no hope that they'll decide you have some use as a prisoner.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: Though the choice of the Doctor and a [[OmnicidalManiac Dalek]] for this moral is questionable, the idea that turning to merciless violence as a means of combating a hateful person will bring you down to their level is one that is delivered exceptionally well.

** "The Daleks"' panicked surge of[[OminousLatinChanting choral chanting]] very much befits a virtually invincible, insatiably murderous death machine.