10 Notorious Doctor Who Urban Legends

7. The Daleks Couldn't Levitate Until 2005

Doctor Who Dalek stairs
BBC

The Daleks are often mocked by non-Who fans for their apparent mobility issues. People will say "couldn't you just run up some stairs to get away from them?" and fans will reply "NO, you moron, a Dalek was clearly shown levitating up some stairs in the 2005 revival, get your facts right, now be quiet and go watch The X Factor".

And while it's true that a Dalek did elevate up a staircase in the 2005 episode Dalek, this wasn't the first time we'd seen something like this happen, contrary to what the general public - and even some corners of the Who fandom - might believe.

A Dalek was actually shown levitating up some stairs in the 1988 serial Remembrance Of The Daleks, chasing after Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor.

Doctor Who Remembrance Of The Daleks stairs
BBC

But that's not all - if you want to go back even further than this, you can.

In the First Doctor serial The Chase - which aired all the way back in 1965 - a Dalek was shown rising up out of the sand in the cliffhanger of the first episode.

Doctor Who The Chase Dalek rising out of sand
BBC

While this obviously isn't the same as climbing up some stairs, it does prove that the Daleks have always been capable of vertical movement in some capacity, even as far back as the formative years of the show.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!