Evaluating the Daleks.

Doctor Who wasn’t very good. It had daleks in it, and I doubt that the long history of film and TV has ever produced a more ineffectual villain than the daft dalek. At one point the Doctor mutters

‘...the one thing the daleks can’t do: feel!’

Er, no. The dalek is also unable to function on rough, soft or slippery terrain, negotiate steps, or move faster than about five miles an hour. And it has a hazardously high centre of gravity, all of which would make it easy prey to anybody with a decent pair of legs, a golf buggy or a long pole. Its greatest weapon must surely be its squeaky voice. Hearing such a voice intoning hysterically ‘Exterminate! Exterminate!’ is rather funnier than it is frightening, and would surely have its human adversary doubled up with laughter. Such a state would obviously place one at a disadvantage in a combat zone.

On the plus side of tonight’s episode, I have to admit that Billy Piper does express emotion extremely well. I might have been moved to a small knot in the throat myself, had I not still been laughing at the damn daleks.

On an almost unrelated note, Venus was high in the sky tonight. I wonder whether that fact might prove to be portentous in some way.