BBC Director-General Greg Dyke is facing a staff rebellion over plans to close the corporation's much-loved special effects department —responsible for Dr Who's adversaries the Daleks, among other monsters. The department, which for 40 years has delighted us with work on such shows as Blake's 7 and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, is closing due to increasing use of digital effects. But, in the BBC in-house magazine Ariel, Kim Shillinglaw of BBC Science praises the 22-strong unit's "amazing" work and "phenomenal technical knowledge". He says a recent recreation of a bomb being blown up in Trafalgar Square was so convincing that Channel 4 executives asked how the BBC got permission to blow up a van in London. Kim concludes: "I hope the BBC will reconsider." A BBC spokeswoman says some special-effects staff will move to other departments. Maybe the Daleks could picket Dyke's office in order to save their creators?
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