Doctor Who writer feared Daleks would be banned from killing in 2005 revival

"I didn't know what I was doing," Shearman confessed at a recent event held at the BFI Southbank, in partnership with the Doctor Who Appreciation Society.

"You'd go into the first meetings and Russell [T Davies, Doctor Who showrunner] would say we're going to explore all these different tones. [But] we weren't sure in the first couple of drafts if we could even kill people on-screen anymore... for a family audience-type show that we hadn't had on TV for about 15 years.

"It was that bizarre thing – I thought for a while we might have simply to stun people.

"Then we got the go-ahead and Russell sent me an e-mail saying, 'It's alright, we can kill to our hearts' content!'"

Still, striking the right balance when it came to on-screen violence remained a challenge, as Shearman explained: "I went away and that day I wrote the scene where Simmons (played by Nigel Whitmey) gets suckered – but it was much, much worse... it went over his head and his skin had burnt off and Russell wrote back to me saying, 'Please don't try and get the entire show cancelled before we start'."

The final version of Dalek – aired on 30th April 2005 – remained notably darker in tone than the five episodes which had preceded it, dealing in moral complexities and the Doctor's (Christopher Eccleston) survivor's guilt following the Time War.

"I'd been sent scripts by Russell and I was reading Aliens of London and Rose – and they were quite childlike in some ways," Shearman recalled.

"I would worry that I was going too dark and Russell would say, 'No, I want to see how dark we can go as well' so he was always pushing me.

"The scene where Chris meets the Dalek for the first time, I was holding off for ages and it was Russell who was always saying, 'Just make it vicious' and so I was allowed to go as dark as I possibly could."

Doctor Who recently wrapped up its latest season starring Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu, but 2005-era stars Eccleston and Billie Piper are set to reunite for a new audio drama series from Big Finish, scheduled for release in August.

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