Dystopia
Thinking conceptually
Activity 2: Terry Nation and David Whitaker, Doctor Who, 1964
It might seem odd to see a Doctor Who novel is an A level syllabus guide, yet Dystopia has long
been a staple of popular culture and popular literature. It is worth considering the distinction
between literary and popular fiction: who decides what is literature and what is a popular, and
therefore presumably “lesser”, text? Some critics see all dystopian fiction as nothing more than
horrific pulp fiction and potboilers, unworthy of serious consideration.
Yet dystopian fiction has never been more popular, particularly with the relatively recent
phenomenon of “young adult” books. The Hunger Games and its imitators have enjoyed enormous
success as novels and films.
One of the first dystopian novels for young people is the first Doctor Who novel. One test of what
constitutes literature might be, is the text still read and does it still mean something to people fifty
years after its first publication? In this case, Doctor Who* constitutes literature: it was first
published in 1964 and is still in print.
The novel is based on the script of the second Doctor Who story “The Dead Planet” by Terry
Nation, televised 1963-4. David Whitaker, the programme’s script editor, adapted the scripts into a
novel in 1964 and the novel was published in the same year. It was the first “novelisation” in a
range of some 200 Doctor Who books adapted from scripts, which sold over eight million copies
and contributed considerably to children’s literacy in the sixties, seventies and eighties. The writer
Terrence Dicks observed that people might be sniffy about Doctor Who novels, but school
librarians found that children who wouldn't otherwise touch a novel would happily read a Doctor
Who book.
Born in South Wales, Terry Nation began his career writing comedy scripts for Spike Milligan and
Tony Hancock in the 1950s. His scripts for the ABC/ITV science fiction anthology series Out of this
World (1962) brought him to the attention of David Whitaker, the story editor of the new Doctor
Who series, who invited Nation to submit a script. This was the second transmitted story, “The
Dead Planet”, which introduced the Daleks and whose success saved Doctor Who from an early
cancellation.
In another example of the cross-fertilisation of the Dystopia genre, Doctor Who took much of its
inspiration from H.G.Wells’ The Time Machine (1895): the unnamed time traveller, his female
companion, the encounters with monsters, the use of futuristic settings to comment on the present
and so on. Indeed, the original scripts suggested that the Doctor, like Wells’s hero, built his time
machine himself (the TARDIS, of course. The Time Lord backstory didn't arrive until 1969).
Whitaker also asked John Wyndham to write for the series: history is silent on his reply, but
Whitaker’s first person narrative for the novel Doctor Who is very reminiscent of Wyndham’s
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sparse prose and understated horror. Ian Chesterton, the Doctor’s companion and the novel’s
narrator, is from the same middle class, educated, cultured, masculine stable as Wyndham’s
heroes in The Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids.
Like Wyndham and Golding, Nation’s world view was profoundly affected by his experience in the
Second World War: a seminal inspiration for the Dystopia genre. As a terrified child, he had
cowered in his parents’ air raid shelter while the Luftwaffe endlessly bombed his home town. He
had been awed and appalled by the destructive power of the German Air Force and of the two
atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the war.
Nation’s detestation of fascism, fear of terrible weaponry and, in particular, nuclear war, are all
themes of the novel and television script. The Doctor’s description of the Daleks’ bomb is of the
neutron bomb, then in development in the United States in the early 1960s. The USSR dubbed the
neutron bomb “a capitalist weapon” as it would destroy living tissue but leave buildings and
artefacts intact.
In this extract from Doctor Who, the Doctor and his companions, Ian, Barbara and Susan, are
resting after their first encounter with the Daleks. They are on the planet Skaro, which has been
completely destroyed and irradiated by an ancient war between the Daleks and the Thals. The
Daleks are hideous mutations protected by a metal life support machine; the Thals, now pacifists,
are beautiful humanoids. (The post-nuclear devastation and themes of mutation may have been
influenced by Wyndham’s novel The Chrysalids: see Activity 3, below.) The fascist Daleks invite
the Thals into their city with the promise of food and reconciliation: this is a treacherous ambush
and the Daleks kill many of them, including their leader Temmossus. The Doctor, Ian and the new
Thal leader Alydon discuss the planet’s history.
*also known as Doctor Who in an exciting adventure with the Daleks (1964); reprinted in 1973 as
Doctor Who and the Daleks.
Read and annotate the extract carefully, then answer the questions which follow. Quote
from the extract to support your ideas.
[extract from Doctor Who and the Daleks pub. BBC books 2011, pp. 99-101, 103-105, ISBN
9781849901956]
Activity 2: Questions
1.
How does the passage treat the theme of war and its consequences? How might this theme
have developed from Nation’s understanding of the Second World War?
2.
What is Alydon and Dioni’s view of war? What is the Doctor’s response? With whom is the
narrative most in sympathy? How does this conflict of views rehearse some of the
philosophical positions of the Second World War?
3.
Analyse the Doctor’s speech, from, “This planet, madam…Teach the children.” What
rhetorical devices does the speech employ and how effective do you consider the speech as
a piece of rhetoric?
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4.
The characterisation is very much of the early 1960s. What do we learn of the characters of
a)
the Doctor
b)
Ian Chesterton, the narrator
c)
Barbara and Susan, the Doctor’s other companions
d)
Dioni , the Thal woman?
5.
What similarities can you find between the characters here and the characters in the extract
from The Day of the Triffids, above?
6.
The novel (and the original television series in 1963) has been criticised as exemplifying the
sexual politics of its time, not least in the roles assigned to men and women. Do you think
this criticism is demonstrated in the passage?
7.
Dystopian fiction sometimes has a mythic element, in, for example, the assumptions it makes
about human nature as eternal and unchanging. What mythical elements or characters can
you identify in the passage? In answering this question, consider the physical appearance
and morality of Skaro’s two races and the characterisation of the Doctor and his companions
8.
Why do you think monsters – human like O’Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four or alien like the
Daleks – are a common feature of dystopian fiction?
9.
How does the theme of racism relate to the novel’s Second World War origins? What is the
irony in the passage’s treatment of the Daleks’ racist dislike of the Thals?
10.
If you are familiar with the television series, how does the character of the original Doctor in
the novel compare with and differ from the character of the Doctor in today’s episodes of
Doctor Who?
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