The Daleks are going into retirement. At least for a little while.
Doctor Who's most recognizable villains, the Daleks, first appeared on the hit BBC show back in December 1963. They were created by Doctor Who writer Terry Nation and designed by BBC designer Raymond Cusick. They've enjoyed long-running success and have appeared in several Doctor Who serials, as well as two 1960s moves. Now a part of British popular culture, they've appeared on a postage stamp in 1999 and were selected by readers of SFX in 2010 as the all-time greatest monster (beating out Godzilla and Lord of the Rings' Gollum).
Now showrunner and writer Steven Moffat has told the British and TV listings magazine Radio Times that the Daleks are going to take a break from Doctor Who. “They aren’t going to make an appearance for a while,” said Moffat. “We thought it was about time to give them a rest.”
Moffat joked that the Doctor has defeated the Daleks "around 400 times", which actually makes them pretty inept as villains. “There’s a problem with the Daleks,” Moffat said. “They are the most famous of the Doctor’s adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe.”
No word yet on when the Daleks might be returning from their vacation, but we're sure they'll be seen again sometime in the future.