Extoyminate
- Publication: Irish Independent
- Date: 2005-02-16
- Author: Ed Power
- Page: 15
- Language: English
Dr Who and his arch enemies the Daleks are returning to prime-time TV soon and this time they're looking to exterminate the opposition with a massive merchandising campaign. Ed Power reports
Let the warning ring out across the cosmos - resistance is futile. From next month, an alien master-race that looks like it was cobbled together from spare egg-cartons and supermarket trolleys will be unleashed upon our unsuspecting planet.
Luckily for us, these bug-eyed monsters exist only in the imagination of science fiction aficionados. But that won't prevent them ruthlessly colonising our toy stores and television schedules, their battle cry of 'exterminate! exterminate!' reverberating loud and chilling.
They are the Daleks, absurd, yet oddly disquieting, foes of Dr Who, the foppish time-traveller who is staging an unlikely resurrection on prime-time TV after nearly 20 years in the intergalactic wilderness.
The dastardly Daleks will be to the fore of a new Dr Who series debuting in March, a return which will be supported by a merchandising blitzkrieg of spectacular ferocity. The spin-off business is today a multi-billion euro affair and Dr Who's BBC masters are hungry for a slab of the cash-pie.
Set on outflanking rival franchises such as Star Wars and Batman, which are both revitalised by new movies in 2005, the broadcaster has drafted in the company responsible for the eight-million selling Robosapien toy to produce mini remote-control Daleks.
Should BBC plans come to fruition, living rooms across the globe will be crawling with miniature Daleks expected to retail at around €44 by next Christmas.
However, Dalek-mania merely marks the start of the BBC's grand strategy. The corporation hopes to make Dr Who so ubiquitous you will begin to feel as though the eccentric hero is stalking you. In the months ahead there shall be no escaping the most celebrated question mark in science fiction.
Mugs, T-shirts and collector edition busts are to be adorned with the likenesses of the new Doctor, actor Christopher Eccleston, and his assistant, the former teen-star Billie Piper.
There will be Cyberman biscuit jars, a PlayStation game and Doctor Who clocks and watches linked to the programme's theme of timetravel.
Penguin will publish children's books while audiobooks and DVD sales could top one million.
And a sexy remix of the celebrated Dr Who theme regarded still as a landmark in electronic music is seen as a shoo-in for the Top 10.
What is significant about the return of the Doctor is that it is almost entirely merchandise-driven. The BBC wants the comeback to be a hit but not so badly that it will risk playing havoc with its prime-time schedule. Dr Who is to air on Saturday nights, opposite ITV's bulletproof Ant and Dec Show. Clearly, the Beeb doesn't expect Eccleston and Piper to bring its mainstream rivals to their knees.
It is the potential merchandising extravaganza which truly has BBC accountants in a tizzy. There is some irony to this as it was the popularity of Dr Who in the 1960s, which prompted the broadcaster to establish a licensing division in the first instance.
Spin-offs today the hi-octane fuel that keeps the science fiction. industry in orbit. Star Wars creator George Lucas has earned a far vaster fortune from sales of merchandise - estimated at over $1 billion -
than from box office receipts. In the late 1980s surging demand for Star Trek paraphernalia convinced Paramount to revive the show, first as The Next Generation and then as Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise.
You may not have heard from Dr Who since was pulled (controversially) from the airwaves in 1989 but it has obstinately survived as a line of best-selling books and video games.
A similar demi-existence is the fate of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Battle Star Galactica and Star Trek. Each enjoys a strange immortality, enduring in the twilight of bubble-gum literature and web chatter.
One of the major catalysts behind the sci-fi merchandising revolution has been Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy the first artifact of geekdom perhaps that it was cool for normal folks to like. Jackson's films were elegant and exciting, the ultimate rebuttal to those who mutter and frown at any work of art that does
not ground itself exclusively in the mundane.
The genius of Jackson was his ability to articulate what the geeks had been yelling forlornly for years - that allowing your imagination
off the leash isn't an act of weakness or needless indulgence. It is something to be celebrated. Each of has a capacity for awe and wonder. Why not, as Jackson asked, feed it?
Caption: Dr Who, I presume: Chris Eccleston will be the ninth actor to play the doctor, with Billie Piper, below, as his faithful sidekick
DR WHO: WHAT YOU DIDN'T KNOW...
Dr Who debuted on BBC2 in 1963, at the height of science fiction's 'new wave' boom. The show was initially planned to be educational. The Doctor and his assistant would travel to a historical period in the Tardis, their time machine shaped like a post-war police Early episodes saw Dr Who exploring medieval London, revolutionary Paris and Imperial Rome.
But the script writers soon ran out of interesting eras for the Doctor to visit and opted for a sexier science fiction setting.
The identity of the Doctor has never been made clear. He is known to be a native of the Planet Gallifery and to belong to the extraterrestrial race of Time Lords.
There was some controversy over the show's suitability for children. Moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse made a series of complaints to the BBC in the 1970s over its sometimes frightening or gory content. Ironically, her actions made the programme even more popular, especially with children.
Christopher Eccleston will be the ninth actor to portray The Doctor. Tom Baker, who played him as an eccentric toff in the late 1970s, is widely regarded as the definitive Dr Who.
The Daleks were created by Terry Nation. He intended them as an allegory of the Nazis.
Nation encouraged the myth that he made up the name after seeing the letters DAL-LEK on a set of encyclopedias.
Spelling correction: Gallifrey
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- APA 6th ed.: Power, Ed (2005-02-16). Extoyminate. Irish Independent p. 15.
- MLA 7th ed.: Power, Ed. "Extoyminate." Irish Independent [add city] 2005-02-16, 15. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Power, Ed. "Extoyminate." Irish Independent, edition, sec., 2005-02-16
- Turabian: Power, Ed. "Extoyminate." Irish Independent, 2005-02-16, section, 15 edition.
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- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Extoyminate | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Extoyminate | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=1 May 2025}}</ref>
