Doctor Who and the racial state: Fighting National Socialism across time and space

Abstract

It is a commonplace of 'Doctor Who' fandom that the Daleks are stand-ins for the Nazis. The real world creator of the Doctor's most enduring enemies, Terry Nation, often made it clear that he intended the parallel, and his intent was honoured by successive scriptwriters from Louis Marks ('Day of the Daleks', 1972) through to Ben Aaronovitch ('Remembrance of the Daleks', 1988). Nor have the 'serious' students and theorists of the programme ignored this glaringly obvious metaphor in their analysis and deconstruction of the series. Nicholas J. Cull argued as long ago as 2001 that the series' overarching model for all that is monstrous has always been the Third Reich; that the classic series itself can be reduced to "an extended elegy on Britain's triumphant role in the Second World War"; and that the Doctor's repeated defeat of the Daleks is a means for British audiences to relive the 'finest hour' in resisting and crushing the Nazi menace. Since Cull wrote, the recurrence of the stand-in Nazis has only served to reinforce the intended parallels, with 2005-09 show runner Russell T Davies agreeing with 'Doctor Who Magazine' writer, Benjamin Cook, that the monsters from Skaro have "always been German, really, haven't they?"; and Mark Gatiss's 'Victory of the Daleks' (2010) actually setting the Eleventh Doctor's first full-scale encounter with them to the time of the London Blitz. Yet despite the apparent willingness to deal with issues associated with Nazism - including forced labour, racism, totalitarianism and genocide - 'Doctor Who' has been relatively unwilling to confront National Socialism in anything other than metaphoric, or simplistic form. Surprisingly, for a series the basic premise of which is the ability to travel anywhere in time and space, the mainstream Doctor has never been pitted against the real Third Reich in any meaningful sense. It has largely been left to fan fiction - extending to the ultimate expression of that massive sub-genre, 'The New Adventures' novels (1991-97) - to take the Doctor and his companions back to the era of fascist ascendancy; therefore the nature of the treatment of National Socialism in 'Doctor Who' remains an open question. This essay therefore seeks to clarify the extent to which 'Doctor Who' has dealt with historical Nazism in a critical sense, in metaphorical as well as literal form.