View source for Daleks back for a spot of ex-ter-min-a-tion

{{article
| publication = The Daily Telegraph
| file = 1972-01-03 Telegraph.jpg
| px = 250
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| date = 1972-01-03
| author = 
| pages = 6
| language = English 
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| text = 
No fictional invention of B B C television has been more successful than the Daleks, the pepperpot monsters who returned on Saturday in a [[broadwcast:Day of the Daleks|new series]] of Dr. Who (B B C-1).  

Any child can be, Dalek, simply by stretching out his arm and imitating their metallic monotone, which slices every word in two equal syllables.  

The key to their success may lie, however, not merely in their simplicity.  Like most durable stores for children, they transmute of basic human anxiety.

Just as "Peter Pan" builds a fantasy on the fear of growing old, the Daleks, more crudely, embody the fear that soulless robots are taking over society.  But because their basic shape is round and reassuring, they terrify in a comfortable domestic way.  

Certainly the program needed an infusion of vitality, for the forces of good had been growing more tired and mannered and the forces of evil more remote.  

The present Dr Who, Jon Pertwee, with his frilled shirt and taste for good wine, seems more of a dandy than a scientific inventor. His research generally appears to be at the level a very elementary Meccano.  The prospect of imminent ex-ter-min-a-tion at the hands of the Daleks may perhaps stimulate him to more dramatic efforts. 

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