Dalek SOS for Series 9: But Where’s the New Paradigm?

Jeremy Remy is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

According to Peter Capaldi, the number of Daleks present in Doctor Who’s Series 9 opener, The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar, necessitated an SOS to add to their numbers: “We sent out a distress call. We’ve been working to pull Daleks from different sources. A few have been taken from the Doctor Who Experience.”

The Daleks brought in to challenge the Doctor include the Emperor Guard from the 1960s and the Renegade Dalek from the 1980s. However, one type of Dalek was conspicuously absent: the New Dalek Paradigm.

Introduced in Victory of the Daleks, the New Dalek Paradigm returned the Daleks to their pure, unadulterated xenophobic roots. As of Asylum of the Daleks (an episode which previously brought the numbers of our favorite mutated Kaleds to the level of Dalekmania), the New Paradigm also provided a specific chain of command within Dalek hierarchy alongside the more Time War-style bronze Daleks, who now functioned as drones. Those bronze-style Daleks will be returning to our screens, but where the Supreme, the Strategist, the Scientist, the Drone and the Eternal.

Those who have visited the Doctor Who Experience may already know the answer (and if you haven’t, here’s where I insert a warning of spoilers ahead). The Dalek exhibition within the Experience includes an interactive element, where visitors experience a battle aboard a Dalek ship. Just as the New Dalek Paradigm is preparing to take on the Doctor and the “shoppers” in the Experience, the ship is attacked by the Children of Davros—a group of bronze Daleks who claim to be the one true master race. The Supreme Dalek of the New Paradigm pronounce the Paradigm’s own genetic purity, and determines the need to exterminate the Children of Davros. At this point, the leader of the Children of Davros announces they are at war, and one of the New Paradigm announces an attack from “rebel” Daleks. Ultimately, the Doctor rescues the shoppers before the outcome of the battle can be determined.

Civil war is nothing new for the Daleks, be it the Humanized Daleks against the non-processed Daleks from Evil of the Daleks, or the Imperial Daleks against the Renegade Daleks across Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks (with a few audios, comics and books in between). So, what do you think? Is the absence of the New Dalek Paradigm indicative of a new Dalek civil war? Is the Parliament of Daleks still hiding somewhere in the background?

Have we seen the last of the New Paradigm?

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