Introduction

Dalek 63•88 is a research project about a very specific area of TV production: The provisioning of Dalek props for Doctor Who. This site documents every casing which was created for the programme, the individuals who worked on them, the companies that made them, and the events (both on and off screen) in which they were involved.

Begin the story with The Dead Planet

What’s New

• The 2022 Specials (9/3/2023) - We are pleased to announce that our page on the 2022 specials, Eve of the Daleks and The Power of the Doctor, is now up! Read all the details HERE!
• Terry Nation Army – Season 2022 Begins! (5/12/2022) - We are pleased to announce that our second season of Terry Nation Army has (finally 😂) launched on YouTube! We have some great videos coming up so why not check out the first here or at our YouTube channel here.
• Support us on Ko-Fi (9/15/2021) - We are extremely grateful to everybody who supports us on Patreon and we’d love to have you with us if you aren’t already. Our Patrons have helped us subscribe to Newspaper archives from which we have been able to dig up a number of Dalek related articles for upcoming videos! But we realise that the […]
• The Dalek 63•88 Propcast (9/11/2021) - Why not join us in our new adventure – the Dalek 63•88 Propcast! First, meet the team! Then, enjoy a casual chat about the week’s research: The Saucer Commander Mystery and Strange Script Censorship. Delight in our Pointless Dalek Quiz. Listen to the Biscuit Issues. And to finish: a Q&A from our Patrons including Servo […]
• Series Twelve (5/6/2021) - We are pleased to announce that our page on Revolution of the Daleks is now available.

Background

We’re Jon and Gav and we’ve been researching Daleks together since 2005. Jon started the whole thing in 2002 but Gav came along later with a shared interest to help revamp the whole site. It’s not the first attempt at a prop history and much ground work was laid down in articles by Tony Clark and Stephen James Walker in the 1980s, and by Mark Dando and Dave Muirhead in the 1990s. But often the production team contradicted each other and resources in those days were limited. With episodes now clearer than ever on DVD, and so many photos available, we decided the only way to tell the whole story was to start from scratch and work through every piece of visual evidence from the start.

After two years of exhaustive investigation, a new site was launched in 2007. But over time, new fragments of information came to light and some cracks seemed to appear in the reasoning behind certain conclusions we’d reached. As the niggles accumulated, it became obvious that it was time once again to revamp the site.

Following some helpful insight from researcher Simon Ayers, seven months of painstaking analysis resulted in a huge relaunch in the summer of 2010. A new timeline was finally created in which each prop could be followed from its construction until its last appearance on screen – and in many cases beyond.

Since 2010, thousands of visitors have dropped by and we’re immensely proud to have been featured on the BBC’s Click programme. In 2013 our research began to be used for the Dalek ‘costume’ profiles in the Doctor Who Figurines Collection Magazine and in 2014 we have been honoured to contribute a feature to Doctor Who Magazine.

In 2019, we began a YouTube series called ‘Terry Nation Army’ that delves deeper into Dalek mysteries (and occasionally other topics) and as of May 2022 (going into our second season) we have over 14,500 subscribers and the videos have been watched over one million times!

We continue to delve deeper into the stories of these props and updates to each page are regular with new pages added when a new Dalek story is transmitted. Our research time is often limited due to our jobs but we hope to add new content whenever we can! (If you go on Facebook here and click LIKE, you’ll get all the news).

We have enjoyed everything that has gone into this site and we hope you enjoy reading it. We love getting comments and we’re excited to hear anecdotes about Daleks. If you have any private photos of TV props then please get in touch because they could solve the mysteries which still remain.

Acknowledgements

We’d like to express our sincere thanks to all the people who’ve shared photos and snippets of info down the years which have made our research possible.

For invaluable photos which made it all possible, thank you Richard Atkinson, James Russell, Robert Kew, Will Brooks and Tony Clark. For patiently answering our inane questions, thank you Mike Tucker, Stuart Brisdon, Martin Wilkie and Scott Wayland. For support, information, and general Dalek debate, thank you Richard Bignell, Simon Ayers, Steve Allen, Andrew Pixley, Andrew Beech, Mick Hall, Chris Balcombe, John Kelly, Derek Handley, Matt Parish, Mark Dando, Steve Murray and various members of Project Dalek Forum (John Darley, Tony S, J “MovieDalek”).