The Daleks

Doctor Who: The Scripts #4

by Terry Nation, John McElroy (Editor)

In a galaxy far away...

A petrified jungle.

A catastrophic nuclear war.

A race of peace-loving aliens and another of indescribable evil... the Daleks!

As the TARDIS lands for the first time on Skaro, the Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, and their unwilling companions Ian and Barbara are about to meet their most terrifying adversary.

Read the complete script of this classic Doctor Who story, together with bever-before published background and technical information.

Genres: Doctor Who

176 pages, Paperback

Published December 12, 1989

About the author

Terry Nation was a Welsh screenwriter and novelist. After briefly joining his father's furniture-making business and attempting stand-up comedy, Nation turned his hand to writing and worked on radio scripts for The Goon Show and a range of TV dramas such as The Saint, The Avengers, Z Cars, The Baron, The Champions, Department S and The Persuaders. He went on to write about 100 episodes of Doctor Who and wrote scripts for the American TV series MacGyver (1985) and A Fine Romance (1989).

He is probably best known for creating iconic villains the Daleks in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who. Nation also created two science-fiction shows - Survivors and Blake's 7.

Terry Nation moved to Los Angeles, California, United States in 1980. He died from emphysema on 9 March 1997, aged 66.

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

The original and one of the best Dalek stories that kick started the Doctor Who series

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The late 80s/early 90s McElroy script books are curious beasts: they're simply verbatim transcripts of the episodes, as opposed to the more interesting actual camera scripts, and the technical/background info that comes with these books are exceeded by other sources far too numerous to mention. This one is one of the few that rises above the pack for one simple reason: its the only place you're going to get an accurate depiction of the TV episodes in prose. David Whittaker's novelization of "The Daleks" departs significantly from the TV episodes, including an introduction to the character that directly contradicts "An Unearthly Child". For this reason, this script book makes itself invaluable, if unremarkable.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although of course nothing really matches the experience of sitting down and watching the story, there is a certain amount of fascination in following the words and the script as they were originally written. One appreciates just how much is brought to the show by the designer, director, producer and above all the actors, but at the same time the strengths of the script itself become clear. The seven episodes are actually all rather distinct from each other, and more self-contained than I had appreciated; the fake-out of the end of episode four is still rather striking; the Thals somehow come over as a bit more interesting on paper; one gets a sense that the vision in the writer's mind was not quite the same as what appears on screen. I have only a couple of other script books but look forward to reading them both (this year I am reading my unread Old Who books in internal chronological sequence).