Dalek writer Robert Shearman has give a new in-depth interview, talking his famed first series episode, it’s source material Jubilee and much more.

Speaking to Den of Geek, Shearman revealed how he adapted Jubilee for the big screen:

“Russell [T. Davies] had heard the audio drama I’d written for Big Finish, about a lone Dalek being tortured in a fascistic English Empire. Luckily for me, the idea of bringing back the Daleks in that unpredictable way, minimalist and defeated, really resonated with him - and even more luckily for me, he wanted to give me the chance to write it. That was pretty much all we took from “Jubilee'”, though. “Jubilee” was a huge black comedy about the way as fans we’ve forgotten the darker metaphor of what Daleks are through merchandising - it’s a story that relies completely upon overfamiliarity with the Daleks. And the humor is very sick - it’s very definitely intended for the exclusively adult audience who still cared about Doctor Who in its wilderness years.”

And Shearman revealed how Dalek, despite being derived from Jubilee, had to serve the opposite purpose:

“In all other regards, “Dalek” had to be the flipside of that - a story that supposed no one watching the episode would have a clue who the pepperpots were, it had to serve as a genuine introduction. And be suitable for a family audience six weeks into a show that was trying to redefine what a ‘family audience’ could be in the first place. So, my basic method of adapting “Jubilee”? Throw ‘”Jubilee” in the bin, start over.”

Rob also reveals how he didn’t deal with the pressure of bringing back Doctor Who‘s most famed monsters very well:

“I spent some months in a state of never changing irritable panic. It was such a high profile job, and I was utterly unused to that - most of the work I’d done had been in the theatre. And suddenly you’d find that writing complications you’d have, like the month period when we thought we’d lost the rights to the Daleks, and I had to rewrite the story for a new monster, would be on the front pages of tabloid newspapers! I really just wanted not to let anyone down.”

The writer’s greatest fear was that the Daleks would not resonate with a new generation of viewers:

“My big fear, I suppose, was that there was no innate reason why a child watching this new TV show would identify more with the Daleks, say, than with the Slitheen that had been on the week before - Slitheen are great, they look like giant babies and fart! So the pressure was to reintroduce them and suggest why they were the big icons of Doctor Who, without ever relying upon the iconography to do the job for me - because this time that wouldn’t wash. My wife gave me a list of reasons why she found Daleks embarrassing - the obvious ones, like not climbing stairs, the sink plunger, the limited vocabulary - and I tried to tackle them one by one, squashing down the criticisms before any new viewer could raise them.”

For the full interview where Rob Shearman comments on working with Russell T. Davies, his future with Doctor Who, the legacy of Dalek and so much more besides, head over to Den of Geek.