Health and Safety of the Daleks

While we're talking about threats to health and safety, it isn't just that bloody Roger Moore who has been setting a bad example.  What about those Daleks from Doctor Who, eh?  Not the ones in the TV series, obviously.  Their avoidance of dangerous stuff like stairs demonstrates an exemplary adherence to health and safety guidelines.  No, I'm talking about the ones in the films.  You remember the films?  You know, the two Milton Subotsky made in the sixties to try and cash in on the first wave of Dalek-mania.  They were loosely based on the first two Dalek stories on the TV series and starred Peter Cushing not as 'The Doctor', but rather a character called (and referred to in dialogue) as 'Doctor Who'.  Anyway, I was watching the second of these films - Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD - on one of the digital channels the other day, when it occurred to me what a disservice to fire prevention the aliens were doing.  Now, I know that hardcore Dr Who fans - you know, the sort who spend all their time on Twitter bemoaning how it isn't as good as it was when they first saw it in 1983 and how it isn't as well-written as it was when Sylvester McCoy starred in it - will tell me that I shouldn't enjoy either of these films as they are non-canonical and debase the brand, but I find them quite enjoyable in their own rickety way.  (I say rickety, but, to be frank, they had better production values than the contemporary TV series they derived from).

One of the things which particularly amuses me about the Dalek films is the way the eponymous villains despatch their foes.  Unlike their TV equivalents, their guns don't fire death rays which turn everything negative.  Instead, for budgetry reasons, they fire great clouds of apparently deadly vapour.  (Which means they have to get very close to their targets in order to kill them).  This not very special effect was achieved by the Dalek operator discharging a fire extinguisher down the barrel of the ray gun.  Which, when I thought about it, rather undermines the image of the fire extinguisher, by implying that, far from being a potentially life-saving device, it is actually a deadly weapon, capable of killing any living thing within range of its blast.  But the Dalek defaming of this esential piece of health and safety equipment went far beyond this.  In a scene toward the end of the film, a group of Daleks surround a shed in which Philip Madoc  is trying to shelter and blast it with their fire extinguishers.  The shed promptly explodes in a ball of fire!  The message here is clear: far from putting out fires, fire extinguishers actually cause them!  Outrageous!  It's quite obvious that the Daleks' master plan was to so undermine our faith in even the most basic health and safety equipment that the human race would end up destroying itself in fires and other accidents, thereby leaving the earth ripe for their takeover.  Bastards!