The Daleks are the most feared and the most evil creatures in the cosmos. They are the sworn enemy of the Doctor, our hero in Doctor Who. However, every evil race or movement needs a leader and the Daleks are no exception. The Emperor of the Daleks declares itself the god of all Daleks and is a position that has been occupied by multiple beings. The Daleks’ priority is to protect the Dalek Emperor at all costs and to serve it in thought, word and deed.

The Evil of the Daleks

★★★★★

TX: 20/05/1967 – 01/07/1967

Written by David Whittaker    Directed by Derek Martinus

Following a trail after their stolen TARDIS, the Second Doctor and Jamie arrive at the Victorian home of Theodore Maxtible, scientist Edward Waterfield and his daughter Victoria. Waterfield and Theodore Maxtible experimented with time travel, which accidentally brought them into contact with the Daleks in 1866. The Daleks are trying to find the human factor, so they experiment on humans in the 19th Century.

The Daleks draft the Second Doctor into distilling the human factor in order for them to understand why they have always been defeated by humans in the past. After testing Jamie, the Dalek scientific group (Alpha, Beta and Omega) subject themselves to the human factor, which makes them regress into child-like states. The Doctor believes that he has won after gleefully riding on the back of one of the infected Daleks.

However, the Doctor and his companions are brought before the Emperor of the Daleks on the planet Skaro. The Dalek Emperor reveals that the test to find the human factor was actually a means of isolating the Dalek factor. Once implanted, the Dalek factor will make the Dalek race invincible. Holding the Doctor’s TARDIS as bait, the Dalek Emperor orders the Doctor to implant the Dalek Factor across the history of Earth. The Doctor manages to cause a civil war on the planet Skaro between the loyalist Daleks (plus human Daleks – including Maxtible) and the Daleks affected by the human factor. In the ensuing carnage, the Dalek Emperor is destroyed and the Doctor and his companions make their escape in the recovered TARDIS.

Remembrance of the Daleks

★★★★★

TX: 05/10/1988 – 26/10/1988

Written by Ben Aaronovitch    Directed by Andrew Morgan

The Dalek race has become divided into two factions. The rebel Daleks led by the black Supreme Dalek and the Imperial Daleks loyal to the Dalek Emperor: Davros (the creator of the Daleks). Both sides have come to Earth in 1963 in search of the powerful, ancient Time Lord artefact, the Hand of Omega. The Seventh Doctor hid the Hand of Omega in London 1963, but now he and his companion Ace have come to the Dalek battleground to retrieve it. The Doctor ultimately allows the Imperial Daleks to capture the Hand of Omega, but this is part of his trap to ensnare Davros into destroying his own home planet of Skaro and the Dalek fleet.

Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways

★★★★★

TX: 11/06/2005 – 18/06/2005

Written by Russell T Davies    Directed by Joe Ahearne

In the year 200,100, society on planet Earth has devolved to the point where the population simply sits and watches sadistic reality TV and game shows where the losing contestants are executed on live television for the entertainment of others. In reality, the unfortunate contestants are transported to a massive Dalek fleet hiding on the edge of Earth’s solar system, where they are harvested in order to become part of a new Dalek army. Led by the Dalek Emperor, who has survived the Time War, the Dalek fleet launches a devastating attack on the planet Earth.

The Ninth Doctor, Captain Jack and other humans hopelessly mount a defence on the Game Station orbiting the Earth. The Doctor sends Rose Tyler back home to the present in the TARDIS to keep her safe. But Rose returns after she looks into the heart of the TARDIS and with the power of the time vortex she defeats the Dalek Emperor and the Daleks once and for all. The Doctor takes the power of the time vortex out of Rose by kissing her and he absorbs it himself. But the power is too much for the Doctor too and so this forces him to regenerate. John Barrowman, Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston all give incredible performances in this iconic finale. Eccleston is on the podium of Doctors!

The Daleks later have a parliamentary system of government and even a Dalek Prime Minister as the head of it (Asylum of the Daleks). The Emperor of the Daleks continues to appear throughout Dalek history, most recently in the Lego Dimensions Doctor Who game (2015).