1962–1970: Doctor Who
In 1962, Nation contributed an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's short story "The Fox and the Forest" to the ITV science fiction television series Out of the Unknown. This led to him being included in a list of potential writers for the new BBC science fiction series Doctor Who.
Comic performer Tony Hancock sought new writers from ALS for his 1963 television series as he had sacked his previous writers Galton and Simpson. Nation wrote 3 episodes for Hancock, and wrote material for Hancock's 1963 tour. Nation initially refused the opportunity from script editor David Whitaker to write for Doctor Who due to being too busy writing for Hancock. Hancock had also given Nation the advice "Don't write for flippin' kids".
Nation accompanied Hancock on his 1963 tour. Hancock regularly neglected Nation's scripts in favour of recycling his old material, and was also a heavy drinker with erratic behaviour. The two men fell out, and Hancock sacked Nation. Now unemployed, Nation contacted Whitaker and accepted the offer. He hurriedly wrote a seven-episode serial for Doctor Who, known as The Daleks, and then went to Sweden to co-write a variety special for Eric Sykes. Nation called the Doctor Who job "the sort of thing where you take the money and fly off like a bat out of hell". Nation's first Doctor Who story, also known as The Mutants and The Dead Planet, introduced the Daleks, a villainous extraterrestrial race that quickly became the series' most popular and enduring monsters, and resulted in a major merchandising success for Nation and the BBC.
Nation contributed further scripts to Doctor Who. In 1965, he and Dennis Spooner co-wrote the 12-part serial The Daleks' Master Plan, after which Nation, who still held the copyright to the Daleks, attempted to launch a Dalek spin-off TV series in the United States. Various other Dalek tie-in material appeared, including comic strips in the children's weekly TV Century 21 and annuals; such material was frequently credited to Nation, even when written by others. Over the next few years, appearances by the Daleks in Doctor Who became less frequent and were written by other authors (Whitaker wrote The Power of the Daleks (1966) and The Evil of the Daleks (1967), and Louis Marks wrote Day of the Daleks (1972)).
Following an eight-year absence from the series, Nation returned to writing for the Daleks on Doctor Who with the Third Doctor serials Planet of the Daleks (1973) and Death to the Daleks (1974). Producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks felt that the Dalek script Nation submitted for season 12 was too reminiscent of previous Dalek stories, and suggested that Nation rewrite the script to focus on the Daleks' origin. The resulting serial, Genesis of the Daleks, was voted the greatest Doctor Who story of all time by Doctor Who Magazine readers in 1998. In Genesis, Nation introduced the character of Davros, the creator of the Daleks, who went on to appear in further storylines. Nation also wrote two non-Dalek scripts for Doctor Who, The Keys of Marinus in 1964, which introduced the Voord, and The Android Invasion in 1975, which introduced the Kraals. Nation's final script for Doctor Who was Destiny of the Daleks, broadcast in 1979. His work on Doctor Who was the subject of the documentary Terror Nation, a special feature on the BBC DVD release of Destiny of the Daleks.
In 1969, when Out of the Unknown began to be produced in colour, Nation granted permission for the Daleks to be used in the series three episode "Get Off My Cloud", based on the story by Peter Phillips about a bed-bound science-fiction author who finds himself within one of his own fantasies after a mental breakdown. This would be the first time the Daleks had been shown in colour on television, although they had previously appeared in colour in the Peter Cushing films. Only production stills and low-quality audio extracts survive.
