daleks | Richard S. Crawford's World

Remember this scene from our kitchen from last night?

Well, we thought that a single Dalek in the kitchen, easily dispatched by my sonic screwdriver, would be the end of it.

We were wrong.

When we woke up this morning, we heard a familiar sound from the kitchen: a soft, almost plaintive “Exterminate!” We came into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and barely awake, and saw this:

It was cute, in a sort of ready-to-destroy-the-universe way, and it was easy to take care of. We simply grabbed it, and smashed it to smithereens on the floor and gave the pieces to Sherman to play with.

But then we went to make coffee:

And then we realized the entire kitchen had been taken over! The Dalek from the night before had merely been a scout or it had left spores or something behind! The Daleks were everywhere! Daleks in the silverware drawer:

Daleks in the microwave oven!

Daleks among the potatoes! (Warning: DO NOT LET YOUR POTATOES GROW EYESTALKS!)

Daleks in the Kitchen-Aid!

Daleks in the refrigerator!

Even Daleks in the dishwasher!

It’s an invasion! Help! Someone call the Doctor!

Another thing I’ve never made a secret of is my fondness for the British science fiction show Doctor Who. It’s a cheesy show, filled with great villains and monsters and aliens; and the Doctor himself is just so much fun (especially as portrayed by David Tennant).

One of my favorite villainous races in Doctor Who are the Daleks. Created thousands of years ago by a mad scientist (or possibly they evolved — there are two distinct origin stories for the Daleks in the Doctor Who universe), the Daleks swarm the Universe, destroying everything in their path so that they one day become the only life form in existence. Not afraid to think big, these Daleks.

Of course, because the budget for building sets for science fiction shows in the BBC in the 20th century was pretty much nil, a lot of the Dalek stories took place on Earth, and were filmed… Well, here on Earth. Apparently at one point during the 1980’s, some of the Dalek props were just tossed into a local pond after the filming of the episode, and were recently uncovered. And here’s a photograph of a recent removal of one of these props: