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City of the Daleks

On 23 November, 2009, exactly 46 years after the very first episode of Doctor Who was transmitted, Matt Smith took part in the read-through for Vincent and the Doctor. Literally moments after this concluded he rushed to another room in the building, changed into the Doctor's outfit and was filmed and photographed by members of The Adventure Game's production team. The material they captured was repeatedly studied and analyzed, allowing them to recreate not simply the Doctor's likeness but the pattern and nuances of his movement. After changing back into his 'normal' clothes Matt then dashed away in time for the read through for The Vampires of Venice.

The first footage of City of the Daleks was released moments after Victory of the Daleks finished, on 17 April, 2010. As The Adventure Games feature the new Daleks it was felt viewers should see them first in a television story before witnessing them in action in the game.

Although they debuted in Victory of the Daleks, The Adventure Games are the first time we hear the red Daleks speak. Nicholas Briggs, who voices the Doctor's oldest enemy, has confirmed that he will be using the same voice if the red Daleks re-appear in a television adventure.

We learn very little about Sylvia in City of the Daleks but an early design document observed she was, 'Not a natural hero, she's not military or anything like that. An every-day girl who worked in an office and had to find a way to survive the day the Daleks arrived. She is armed with a detonator and explosives.'

At one point the Doctor name checks Cathy Gale, a character from the long-running TV series, The Avengers. She was played by Honor Blackman who starred as Professor Lasky in the Sixth Doctor story, The Trial of Time Lord.

An early draft of the script had the Doctor mention Susan, one of his earliest travelling companions. She left the TARDIS to build a new life on Earth after the planet had been ravaged by Daleks in the 22nd Century. The brief exchange that didn't make it into The Adventure Games involved Amy finding an item of clothing that the Doctor assumed has been left behind by Susan.

City of the Daleks is not the first time The Beatles have been referenced in Doctor Who. In a previous Dalek story, The Chase, the Doctor and his then-companions Ian, Barbara and Vicki watched the 'Fab Four' perform one of their hits on a device known as a Time-Space Visualiser. Appropriately enough for the crew of the TARDIS, the song was Ticket to Ride.

The TARDIS first landed on Skaro at the end of Doctor Who's fourth episode in late 1963. The Doctor revisited the Dalek home world in The Evil of the Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks and Destiny of the Daleks. Understandably, the look of the planet has changed depending on when the Doctor has arrived. His first visit involved an expedition to a sleek, futuristic Dalek city and trips through a forest where the vegetation had turned to stone. In contrast, Skaro was a scarred, nightmarish world of mud, fog, trenches and relatively basic cities when the Doctor returned in an attempt to prevent the creation of the Daleks.

For the design of Kaalann, Sumo Digital artists were given a one word brief by Executive Producer Steven Moffat: brutal. Their original concept sketches for the city were deemed 'too human', however, and so one of City of the Daleks' two Voice Directors, Gary Russell, suggested Fritz Lang's Metropolis as an inspiration. He also showed the team artwork from a comic strip known as The Dalek Chronicles which originally appeared in TV Century 21 between 1965-67.

The script indicated that the ruined Dalek city should be overgrown with Varga vines. The murderous Varga plants first appeared in the 1965 story, Mission to the Unknown. Although native to Skaro, Daleks exported Varga plants around the cosmos as their movement and deadly thorns made them feared and effective sentries.

Viewers got their first glimpse of a Dalek on 21 December, 1963 in an episode entitled The Dead Planet. It was the first of a seven-part story which saw the Doctor intervene in a war between Skaro's two indigenous species, the Thals and the Daleks. The adventure was written by Terry Nation, but the story and the Daleks were almost never born as originally Nation declined the offer to write for Doctor Who. If he hadn't changed his mind the whole history of the series would have been startlingly different. The plots of dozens of Dalek adventures may have emerged in some form but children could never have copied the harsh metallic cry of 'Exterminate!' or felt the thrill that foreshadows every episode featuring the gliding, evil aliens. And, of course, there would have been no City of the Daleks!