Although the United Kingdom has a rich history of important contributions to science fiction and fantasy, including notable authors such as HG Wells, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and JRR Tolkien, there is a strong argument to be made for Doctor Who as Great Britain’s greatest science fiction and fantasy contribution. Like any great hero, the good Doctor has been elevated by his foes… and chief among them are the Daleks.
Debuting in the show’s second story, the Daleks were unlike any alien or monster ever created for television. Although robotic and very alien in appearance they were distinctly non-humanoid. They managed to avoid completely the “man in a suit” look which worked against so many TV and movie monsters and robots in the past to create a very credible and unique threat. Daleks immediately took off and anywhere the BBC could be seen was swept in Dalekmania. The Daleks were so popular they were featured in two films, starring Peter Cushing, which played even in the United States (where Doctor Who was an unknown quantity) and almost got their own US television series.
In the canon of the series, the Daleks are the mutant descendants of Skarro’s Kaled people. After generations of chemical and nuclear warfare they were doomed to evolve from humanoids into octopus-like creatures roving the halls of their city in personalized tanks. These mechanized battle suits, and indeed the progression of the Kaled into Daleks, were masterminded by the crazed Kaled genius Davros. In real life, the Daleks were created by a 34 year old Welsh writer named Terry Nation (August 8, 1930 – March 9, 1997) who had been writing for Tony Hancock’s BBC comedy show.
It is not hyperbole to use the word iconic when describing the Daleks. They have become one of science fiction and fantasy’s greatest and most recognizable villains, easily rivaling the Klingons and the Sith (both of whom they pre-date). Over the years the seemingly one dimensional violent and xenophobic race known for screaming “Exterminate” in terrible, mechanized voices have developed into a multi-faceted violent and xenophobic villain with their own history, motivations and internal conflict. Factions arose among the Daleks, a civil war raged, other enemies were revealed and eventually they challenged not only the Doctor but the Time Lords themselves for control of eternity. Because the BBC actually allowed Nation to retain intellectual property rights for the Daleks, he was personally involved with the majority of stories featuring them during his lifetime. Of the thirteen stories in the original series which feature Daleks*, Nation wrote or co-wrote eight.
The great popularity of the Daleks led to comics, books, two feature adaptations of Dalek stories with a different version of the Doctor (an Earth scientist portrayed by Peter Cushing) and even an attempt to sell a US series in the 1960s featuring a future Earth-Dalek war. Since Terry Nation’s death in 1997, the Daleks have returned in the new Doctor Who series, video games, several Big Finish audio dramas (including Dalek-themed series I, Davros and Dalek Empire) and even as Lego toys. Given their impact, the Daleks alone would be an incredible legacy for Terry Nation. However, he gave more to science fiction and fantasy fans than the Daleks!
When Doctor Who premiered, Nation had primarily worked in comedy (including a feature film screenplay about a reporter faking a Loch Ness monster sighting) although he had penned three episodes of the British science fiction anthology series Out Of This World. After creating the Daleks, Nation finished out the 1960s contributing to horror anthology series Out of the Unknown and writing episodes of The Avengers, spy series The Baron and The Champions, which featured spies with paranormal abilities. Like The Avengers, it would also be aired in teh United States.
In the 1970s, Terry Nation created two science fiction dramas which were highly influential in the United Kingdom, although they received less attention in the US. The first, Survivors, ran for three series starting in 1975. After a Chinese scientist creates a mutated plague which kills 98% of the world’s population, the show follows a group trying to navigate the post-pandemic world in a chilling mix of real life and the later series The Walking Dead. Big Finish has since released several audio plays based on the series and Survivors was also rebooted by the BBC in 2008 for two additional television series. Then, in the wake of the success of Star Wars and the science fiction boom it inspired, Nation created Blake’s 7.
Much like Doctor Who, many US viewers were introduced to Blake’s 7 thanks to airings on PBS in the 1980s. Unlike Doctor Who, Blake’s 7 has never been released on home video in the US (although it is currently available in the US exclusively on the BritBox streaming service). Set in a future where an Orwellian Earth dominates the known galaxy, a group of escaped criminals with an alien spaceship fight to spread freedom. Although definitely a product of the late 1970s and early 1980s in appearance, Blake’s 7 is a surprisingly mature (and often dark) series which offers a much more adult storyline than Star Wars. Arguably an influence on later series, such as Firefly, Farscape and even Star Trek: The Next Generation, Blake’s 7 was bold enough to kill off main characters and included an ambitious, duplicitous and power mad female government official as its main villain. Big Finish has also continued this Terry Nation series in the form of audio plays although attempts to revive the series on television or the silver screen (and there have been a few, including an announced SyFy series) have never materialized.
Terry Nation’s influence on science fiction is undeniable, particularly television science fiction. His name should be as familiar to modern fans as Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas. From the shrill cries of “Exterminate!” recognized by fans around the world as the Dalek battle cry to the more subtle influences of Survivors and Blake’s 7 on later series, Nation has placed his stamp on modern science fiction and the genre is better for it.
(*I am not counting Mission to the Unknown, as it is a single episode stand-alone prequel to The Dalek’s Master Plan. Even though it aired with a different, non-Dalek serial between it and the main serial it is essentially part of The Dalek’s Master Plan. Frontier in Space has Daleks in the final episode, but this ties into the next story Planet of the Daleks, which is arguably a continuation of the same story, so I am counting these two stories as a single unit. Finally, a Dalek makes a brief cameo in The Five Doctors, but it is not central to the story so I am not counting this story in the total either.)