Doctor Who: The 10 Most Pathetic Plans Put Forward By Villains

10. Dalek + Human = Disaster

Attempts at some version of human-Dalek hybrids have occurred in various forms since the First Doctor ran across the Robomen workforce in the mid 22nd Century. They fulfilled the dual needs of bolstering numbers as well as instilling fear. The most recent attempts focus on allowing the new hybrids to retain greater degrees of humanness, as was demonstrated by the events of the Asylum, and the character of Tasha Lem. These creatures, known as Dalek puppets, can be clever traps. The most famous hybrids are those that resulted from Dalek's Sec plan in 1930s Manhattan. Sec, wanted to not only bolster numbers, but to truly ensure Dalek survival by adding human emotions back into the new Dalek population, and to remove the instinctual desire to fight tirelessly for universal supremacy. What Makes This Pathetic? Each of the attempts at a Dalek-human interbreed has such gaping difficulties that what is truly pathetic is that they keep trying this strategy. In the case of the Robomen, it is clear that they were phased out for simply being far too wasteful. While their noticeable human elements probably helped during such a full scale invasion, their short lifespans would make them largely ineffective otherwise. Dalek Puppets, like Tasha Lem, the Oswin fragment of Clara, and the others the Eleventh Doctor met in the Dalek Asylum, are problematic because the strong-willed can still tap into their original humanness to ruin the Daleks' plans. Finding someone strong enough to retain enough humanity to fool the Doctor but not aid him is really balancing the razor's edge, and so far it has backfired horribly. Between the Daleks and the Cybermen, you would think one of them would have found a more successful in-between state by this point. Dalek Sec's plan is actually a good one in theory. From this standpoint, he has identified the major cause of Dalek mass death, and found a way to combat it, while increasing the current population substantially. However, as the supposedly most brilliant of a race of superintelligent beings, he should have been able to foresee the significant backlash that would result from such a course of action. A wiser path would have been to undergo traditional Dalek reproduction to create a faction of "pure" Daleks who also saw the wisdom in such a strategy and then branched off as a new race to then attempt to convince other Daleks of the benefits, or wage war for control, or merely co-exist peacefully elsewhere. All that said, the Daleks do at least seem to be benefiting off their mistakes in each case and each of these plans had clear benefits in its time, even if they remain unsuccessful altogether. So with that in mind, the history of human Daleks makes for only the first spot in this Hall of Shame.