Terry Nation wrote numerous Doctor Who television stories and created the Daleks. Outside of Doctor Who, he is best known for creating Blake's 7 and the post-holocaust drama serial Survivors. Nation was born in Wales and worked as a writer for Tony Hancock before Hancock fired him.
Nation wrote for science fiction series such as Out of This World, Festival and Out of the Unknown and later moved on to action series such as The Saint, The Baron, The Champions, Department S, The Avengers, The Persuaders! and The Protectors. He also served as script consultant on The Baron, The Avengers and The Persuaders!.
He later moved to America where he produced episodes of MacGyver. He died of emphysema in Los Angeles in 1997. In later Doctor Who TV stories he has been credited as the creator of the Daleks in on-screen credits.
Selected credits
Writing
Television
Doctor Who
- The Daleks
- The Keys of Marinus
- The Dalek Invasion of Earth
- The Chase
- Mission to the Unknown
- The Daleks' Master Plan (episodes 1-5, 7)
- Planet of the Daleks
- Death to the Daleks
- Genesis of the Daleks
- The Android Invasion
- Destiny of the Daleks
Theatrical movies
- Dr. Who and the Daleks (story)
- Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (story)
Prose
Short stories
Other
Appearances
Television
- Whicker's World
Specials
Direct-to-video
Notes
- Though credited with the authorship of The Dalek Chronicles and the various Dalek annuals, the actual extent of his creative input on the author(s) remains unknown.
- Terry Nation created and wrote much of the dystopian sci-fi television series Blake's 7. He also created Survivors and was involved in several other series including the 1960s action-adventure show The Baron for ITC.
- Nation's later work shifted to American television, including writing and producing episodes of the action-adventure show MacGyver for ABC.
- His literary writing credits include novels based upon Blake's 7 and Survivors, along with standalone works such as the 1975 fantasy novel Rebecca's World. Despite this output, he never wrote a novelisation for Target Books based upon any of his Doctor Who storylines.
Contributions to the mythos
- Daleks
- Thals
- Skaro
- Voord
- Robomen
- Slythers
- Mechonoids
- Steven Taylor
- Sara Kingdom
- The possibility of a companion dying during a story (in this case, Katarina)
- Exxilon
- Davros
- Thousand Year War
- Kraals
- Second Romana