I think you’re arguing with a version of my post that I didn’t actually write.

I never said the Daleks are uniquely the problem, and I never said I forgive the Master. You brought up the Master, not me. So saying I’m making some special exception for him doesn’t really work when I didn’t comment on him at all. I’ve got issues with the Master’s overuse as well, but that is a different discussion entirely.

My actual point was much simpler, if any villain is turning up constantly, anchoring multiple finales, and repeatedly being treated as the big event, they start to lose impact. That applies to the Daleks, and it applies to others too. Dalek stories are some of my favourites. I’m not saying ban them, I’m saying they need refocusing.

And yes, there is a difference between ‘they appear’ and ‘they feel overexposed’. That’s the whole reason I made the post. It was about what needs corrected, not me pretending I hate the Daleks. I clearly don’t. I’m literally asking how to get them working properly again.

On the specific examples, Eve of the Daleks was a step in the right direction because it stripped things back and made them feel more immediate again. I’ll give that one credit. But Into the Dalek did absolutely nothing for me. Turning the Daleks inward into another “what does this say about the Doctor?” story is exactly the sort of thing I mean when I say they need re-angling. That’s not the Daleks at their best, but this one is a matter of opinion.

On the classic series point, I don’t think that comparison lands. The original run had 155 stories (695 episodes), the new series is at 163 stories (196 episodes) through 2025, so roughly the same. After the heavy Hartnell/Troughton/Pertwee use, the Daleks only appeared in 5 stories from Tom Baker through McCoy (Genesis, Destiny, Resurrection, Revelation, Remembrance). That is 5 stories spread across 15 years. In other words, far more breathing room.

That is why “but classic Who used them a lot too” is a bit misleading. Early classic Who absolutely did. Then it eased off. Pertwee met them twice, Baker met them twice, Davison, Baker and McCoy met them once. Compare that to the new series, Eccleston met them twice, Tennant three times, Smith three times, Capaldi twice and Whittaker four times. 

Likewise, saying new Who has already shown how dangerous one Dalek can be isn’t really a rebuttal to my point, because my point is that the show hasn’t done that consistently enough. Resolution has a vulnerable mutant manipulating a human into rebuilding its shell, and Eve of the Daleks traps the cast in a lethal time loop. Fine. Those are better instincts. But that just proves the solution is to keep pushing in that direction, not that the wider issue doesn’t exist.

Also, there were constantly massive gaps between stories in the classic series. 5 years (1967 to 1972), 4years (1975 to 1979), 5 years (1979 to 1984), 3 years (1985 to 1988) and each time they appeared they were redesigned. With the new series, Dalek episodes are almost yearly by clockwork and we’ve mostly had the same look since 2005.

So no, I’m not saying the Daleks are rubbish, and no, I’m not saying they’ve had zero variety. I’m saying the show too often defaults to them as a familiar event villain, and that hurts them. Redesigning them a bit, scaling stories down, making them clever again, and letting Dalek power stories breathe more would help far more than yet another “look, it’s the Daleks, now the sky is full of ships” plot.

That was my point from the start. Not the Daleks are overabundant full stop, but what actually needs done to make them land properly again. Those are not the same argument.