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SuperDaleks set to bring the world to an end
The risk of the whole world being overrun by a master race of giant Daleks is up to 13 trillion times greater than swathes of North America being obliterated by a supervolcano, according to Greg Mullet, producer of DeadBrain TV's terrifying new docu-drama.
Stuff of nightmares, the mini-series comes hard on the heels of an apocalyptic series of similar offerings featuring such delights as nuclear holocaust, giant asteroids, half the Canary Islands falling into the sea, total traffic gridlock, and near-meltdown of the world's financial system (the latter with a disappointingly low body count, though).
"It's not that we're running out of ideas," Mullet commented. "It's just that there simply aren't enough real-life disasters to go round these days - even with all the rehashes and reconstructions. It's not easy, keeping up that subtle sense of threat all the time. We even have to put subliminal special effects into things like nature programmes – 'drumming' music, flash and strobe camera effects, military style targeting graphics and so on."
Mullet gave a swift thumbs-down to the BBC's 'Supervolcano'. "They could at least have put in an interview with a former police chief claiming there were hundreds of terrorists walking the streets figuring how to trigger it off, not just waiting for it to happen once every 640,000 years. Pathetic." 'SuperDaleks', on the other hand, graphically presents the Doomsday scenario which could occur when a box of Dr Who videos falls into the wrong hands – an event which occurs on average 10.5 times every day, according to latest research.
Programme-makers worked closely with experts from the US Federal Dalek Survey in Utah to construct a dynamic 'extermination map' to illustrate the precise areas of the US - and the rest of the world for good measure - in which the entire population would be, in scientific parlance, 'exterminated'. Speaking of the technical difficulties inherent in such an original idea, Mullet admitted, "At one stage, we did consider giving up and doing a film about SuperTeletubbies instead, but when they said 'Exterminate!' it just didn't have the same impact somehow."
Research commissioned for 'SuperDaleks' warns that the disaster would send the world spiralling into catastrophic climate change, too. Dalek expert Professor Douglas Ramsbottom from the UK Met Office explains, "Daleks have a high albedo – their surface is shiny and reflective, and if a sufficient number occupied the Earth's surface, significant levels of sunlight would be bounced back and the Earth could be plunged into a mini ice age, devastating agriculture across the globe and leading to worldwide famine on a scale never seen before. The resulting chaos and panic could threaten the whole fabric of civilisation."
Mullet said the filmmakers consulted the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which handled the aftermath of the supervolcanic eruption of March 2005. "Fema has no contingency plans for a mass invasion of Daleks," Mullet revealed. "But they were very interested to be working with us to come up with a theoretical plan as to how they might deal with it. Apparently they had nothing better to do."
A controversial scene from 'SuperDaleks', showing Tony Blair and his spin-doctors being lined up and exterminated, was initially cut from the programme, but following the renewal of DeadBrain TV's broadcasting licence it has been reinstated. Viewing figures in the UK alone are expected to soar to an all-time high of well over 50 million.
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