WHAT IF? Dr Who without Pepperpots

WHAT IF? 

Dr Who without Pepperpots

A universe without Daleks is scarcely worth thinking about

At the time, there was so much adversity to Dr Who by the BBC management, that without the Daleks, it is (with all probability) that the show would have been scrapped short of completing its first season. 

Verity Lambert (left!) 

Saying that, its youthful strong willed producer (Verity Lambert) might have discovered new ways to save the show, (which could have given it a little more staying power) but it would still only have stemmed the inevitable and seen the show promptly cancelled, perhaps within three seasons at best. 

Bare in mind, its hard to imagine Dr Who being any sort of huge success without the Daleks. People forget that these Nazi Pepperpots were not only the most successful monsters in Dr Who but they were also the first of many moralistic tales about the abuse of power and science, opening the flood gates for a whole plethora of monsters. 

Take the Cybermen for instance, basically a stark warning to humanity about the dangers of wanting to live forever in a body, impervious to heat or cold. Also impervious to love and hate and any other emotion. Look at the Sontarons, a warning, of excessive militarisation and cloning. The Zygons, a warning to… well who cares by that point, it didn’t really matter, so long as the monsters looked cool. 

But the Daleks clinched it first. Take a thousand year war between two races, followed by centuries of nuclear fallout and you have radiated mutant human beings, withered to that of mere octopuses, dependent on their travel machines to throw their weight around. And for a children’s Tv series, (akin to Bill and Ben and Juke Box Jury), this was pretty heavy science for kids, who had just missed the more adult orientated Quatermass serials a few years earlier. 

Essentially every Dr Who monster tale, is a reminder of Mary Shelly’s Modern Prometheus. It is the Frankenstein Syndrome, by which scientists create monsters that destroy their creators and rampage across the local community.  The point is, the Daleks cemented the moralistic format and gave the show options for other monsters to be dreamed up, so long as they had some reflection of humanity’s deepest fears or shortcomings. 

Basically, the Daleks are us, taken to the absolute extreme of far right neo socialism values, which had thrown us into a second world war, in the first place. Of course, it takes two to tango and Nazis wouldn’t be Nazis without a suitable nemesis. Divide and conquer. Exterminate the other. That is essentially the Daleks. 

Without this moralistic format, Dr Who would have strictly spiralled into various historical romps, such as the Romans, Marco Polo and so on. Good stories in their own right but too many historical tales would have made Dr Who too bland for fans of American science fiction and difficult to sell overseas to the USA etc. 

Without the Daleks, the ailing Doctor would have had to contend with things like the Zarbi, basically a bunch of blokes in giant ill conceived Ant costumes and that would have killed the show off for sure. 

So its with heartfelt thanx to Verity Lambert for standing her ground, allowing Terry Nations story the green light, thus permitting Ray Cusick, Bill Roberts and Shawcraft to create the most successful monsters in Television history. Who would have thought, that these angry pepper-pots would become as famous as Santa and a British institution in their own right. 

Its all about teaching the kids 

because one day, they will inherit the Earth, 

perhaps one day the U*N*I*V*E*R*S*E !