Earlier this week int our Dalek Debate article, we detailed the strong fan reaction to the new look colourful Daleks that debuted in series 5. We followed that up with our poll to find out what you all thought about them, and here is how you voted.
YES, THEY LOOK GREAT - A massive 38% of you voted to say that you loved the new look Daleks, with coments on Twitter mainly highlighting the new colour scheme and size which seemed quite 'threatening'.
NO, THEY LOOK AWFUL - 30% of voters say they hated the new design, with many calling for the old look Daleks to make a comeback. Criticisms ranged from saying the Daleks looked like overweight iPods, to them being a marketing ploy to make money.
THEY ARE OK I GUESS - 21% of you are indifferent to the new designs. It seems for some, the Daleks of any design are a welcome addition to the show.
And finally...
THEY ARE STILL GROWING ON ME - A small percentage of you, 9% to be exact, say that the Daleks are still growing on you and are pretty much undecided.
So there we have it. Despite the overwhelming negativity that the Daleks faced when we saw then in Victory of the Daleks, it seems that the tides are turning and the majority of you now like the new design. Who saw that one coming? We certainly didnt.
I love the look of the new Daleks. Their design is simple, pure and uncomplicated, and hearkens back to the classic Dalek designs of old.
ReplyDeleteThese are the Daleks reborn as beings of pure genocidal evil. There's no hybrid DNA polluting them. There's no possibility of redemption. The design is solid, wall-like, in-your-face and clearly non-human. There's no emotion in that plastic shell.
My boys loved 'em the moment they saw them. Their first response was "Wow. They're eeeeevil!".
Mine too.
Um... 38% is not "The majority"; It's just "the biggest group". ("The majority" means "more than half".)
ReplyDeleteYou'd think after that agonising election we went through recently, people would know the difference by now... =:o\
We know 38% isnt a majority. Thats why we wrote like instead of love, which was what was actually in the poll question. With only 30% saying they 'dislike' the new design, the majority belongs to the others three groups, which is the point we were trying to get across by saying how the tides had turned as the majority hated the new design when revealed. But thanks for the imput all the same :D
ReplyDeletewell, the first time I saw the Daleks some out in the V formation, all I could think of was iMacs...or in this case, iDaleks!
ReplyDeleteI guess a statistical breakdown's not really possible with a polling like this using the tools available, but I for one would be interested to know the demographics of the poll, ie: how many people voted in each category and what the trends as far as age, gender and experience with the show are (how long viewers have been watching, for instance) - a simple breakdown like this doesn't really tell us all that much.
ReplyDeleteI would EXPECT that older viewers who've been watching the show longest would probably make up the majority of the 30% who thought they look 'awful', and that younger viewers who have started watching the show since the 2005 revival would comprise the majority of the 38% who voted that they looked 'great'. It wouldn't be absolute, of course, no doubt a number of older and long-term fans voted that the new design is 'great' and there are bound to be new fans (viewers since 2005) who think the new design is 'awful' - these being people who probably were drawn to the shown in large part BECAUSE of the Daleks as they appeared 2005-2009.
I would further expect the overwhelming majority of respondents to be male, gender differences may not be a great deciding factor but it's possible that the colours of the new design may have been something of a turn-off for some male fans, given that much of the criticism directed at the new design asserts that they now look too 'kid-friendly' and not war-like enough.
Of course the biggest flaw with polling like this is that it doesn't allow you to quantify abstentions - those people who for one reason or another think it's not worth responding (whether because they think their opinion doesn't matter and won't change anything, or because they simply don't care). 'They are OK I guess' doesn't indicate complete indifference to the subject of the poll, as suggested above, but rather a sort of 'yeah, I guess' or 'hmm, yeah whatever' tacit acceptance of the new design.
Another interesting way to poll on this question would be to poll two separate groups, each poll being accompanied by a different picture of the new Daleks - one from 'Victory' and the other from 'Pandorica' and see whether you get any significant difference in the results. It's been pointed out in a number of online forums and blogs that the way the New Paradigm was REVEALED may have been a significant factor in viewers' initial reactions to the new design (common criticism include the way the five props were lined up, the set design, camera angles and lighting). A number of fans have remarked that their opinions changed subsequent to 'Victory', presumably on seeing the Daleks in 'Pandorica' and the various live shows and exhibitions. I suspect that the most if not all of the 9% who voted that the new design was 'still growing on [them]' would have had this experience - I count myself among them.