Is there any lore that Nomad was based on the Daleks?

[telerites]

Outside of Nomad ("The Changeling") being a robot (Yes, I know the Daleks had a biological life-form inside) but the raspy voice of each Nomad and the Daleks was similar and of course, Nomad saying, he must "Sterilize!" very similar to the Daleks, "Exterminate!"

This may be common knowledge and previously discussed and if so, apologies for bringing it up.

 

[Greg Cox]

Never heard that before and, honestly, it seems like a stretch.

Murderous robots/cyborgs intent on destruction were a sci-fi cliche long before STAR TREK or DOCTOR WHO.

 

[Metryq]

Murderous robots/cyborgs intent on destruction were a sci-fi cliche long before STAR TREK or DOCTOR WHO.

That's why the poster art for Forbidden Planet depicts Robby on a threatening rampage—'50s sci-fi robots were like that. The audience expected it. In Japan people love robots—some of them want to be robots.

 

[johnnybear]

As a fan of both shows I doubt the producers of Trek had even heard of Doctor Who let alone The Daleks back in 1967, Tel!
JB

 

[Greg Cox]

As a fan of both shows I doubt the producers of Trek had even heard of Doctor Who let alone The Daleks back in 1967, Tel!
JB

I looked it up. Doctor Who didn't even air in America until the 1970s, and it's not like anyone was illegally downloading it on the internet back in 1967 . .. .

Doctor Who is unlikely to have been on STAR TREK's radar back in the day.

 

[Christopher]

The cliche of robotic characters spea-king-in-tin-ny-mon-o-tones is far older than either Nomad or the Daleks. Obviously they were both drawing on that earlier trope. Note that the same type of voice was used by other computerlike entities in both franchises -- e.g. the Enterprise computer, M-5, and Beta-5 in TOS and the Second Doctor-era Cybermen and various robotic baddies in Doctor Who, not to mention others like the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica. And "Ster-i-lize!" and "Ex-ter-mi-nate!" are just variations on the old evil-robot chant "De-stroy! De-stroy!"

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Crush! Kill! Destroy!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_B-9

 

[Greg Cox]

Heck, the homicidal robot is such a cliche that Voyager parodied it. Remember "Satan's Robot" in the Captain Proton holoadventures?

 

[telerites]

I hadn't really thought about before now and have been watching TOS since the early 70s and Tom Baker's Dr. Who started later. I just happened to catch The Changeling on METV recently and when I heard "Steralize," it just popped into my head. Thanks for the responses, folks.

I do wonder though and not trying to make a connection but don't think the Dr. Who craze hadn't reached the US? Daleks was a recognizable reference in England by 1964 even to non-Whovians and I assume creators do try to keep up with the latest world events. I realize information didn't flow like it does now but all that was needed was a quick blurb on the news and even showing how fanatic Whovian fans (especially kids) were. I don't think that is all too far-fetched and again, not asserting a connection as in my original post.

 

[Christopher]

I do wonder though and not trying to make a connection but don't think the Dr. Who craze hadn't reached the US? Daleks was a recognizable reference in England by 1964 even to non-Whovians and I assume creators do try to keep up with the latest world events. I realize information didn't flow like it does now but all that was needed was a quick blurb on the news and even showing how fanatic Whovian fans (especially kids) were. I don't think that is all too far-fetched and again, not asserting a connection as in my original post.

You're overestimating the degree to which pop culture crossed the oceans at the time. They barely had satellite communication. Shows would have to be physically shipped overseas on film. So there wasn't that much crossover. Star Trek wasn't seen in the UK until 1969. Doctor Who was unknown in the US until the '70s and didn't get broadcast nationally until the '80s.

And, again, it is always naive to assume that if two near-contemporary works have an element in common, it means that one is referencing the other. That's ignoring the fact that both those works are themselves drawing on earlier cultural referents. Any similarity is probably due to the fact that they're both independently influenced by some pre-existing idea. You should always assume that's the most likely explanation.

 

[telerites]

You're overestimating the degree to which pop culture crossed the oceans at the time. They barely had satellite communication. Shows would have to be physically shipped overseas on film. So there wasn't that much crossover. Star Trek wasn't seen in the UK until 1969. Doctor Who was unknown in the US until the '70s and didn't get broadcast nationally until the '80s.

And, again, it is always naive to assume that if two near-contemporary works have an element in common, it means that one is referencing the other. That's ignoring the fact that both those works are themselves drawing on earlier cultural referents. Any similarity is probably due to the fact that they're both independently influenced by some pre-existing idea. You should always assume that's the most likely explanation.

I hope you're calling me naive. I merely raised the queson question and throughout my posts said I was not trying to connect them. If raising the thought/question is automatic naïveté, then so be it. Not trying to ignite a conspiracy theory at all. It just struck as a similarity and I still maintain the possibility of a US creator knowing about Dr. Who prior to it being released in the states is a possibility albeit possibly slim and not implying it was even seen by a creator.

Heck we were able to videos all the from Vietnam in the 1960s. And please do not think I am saying Dr. Whom is as newsworthy as the political strife and military action as Vietnam.

In any event, I guess I should not have even started the thread as I realized at the outset that the odds were unlikely to have any influence.

If a mod wishes to close the thread, that would be more than acceptable and even preferred by me.

 

[publiusr]

I don't know about Nomand--but the Daleks might have been inspired by newspaper articles depicting Sputnik III
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Sputnik_(PSF).png
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KXcw9ALHtFQ/SRrMT0lxpuI/AAAAAAAABA8/sKVNXoiCilI/s320/Sputnik3.png

The Sontaran ships remind me of the Vostoks

 

[Christopher]

From what I recall of the behind-the-scenes discussion on the Doctor Who DVDs, with Ray Cusick talking about his design process, the real "inspiration" for the appearance of the Daleks was simply the practical consideration of creating a shape that could conceal a seated person inside and give them some kind of grating at eye level so they could see where they were going, as well as some sort of appendages that the operator inside could manipulate. Cusick just drew a picture of a sitting person, then sketched shapes around it until he found one he liked.

 

[johnnybear]

The two Doctor Who and The Daleks movies were around at that time from Amicus I do believe but I've always thought Nomad looked more like a conventional satellite/space probe than a type of Dalek to be honest!
JB

 

[UnknownSample]

Nomad just doesn't have much in common with Daleks. As for the possibility of cross-Atlantic influence, I think it's possible Roddenberry might have kept tabs on what was going on in the UK, as far as SF television. Anyone flying to the UK occasionally could have seen DW. I guess I say this because his show Andromeda was suspiciously similar to Blake's Seven. That might have been more the fault of the people who revived the idea years later, but B7 was viewable by 1978 when the idea for Andromeda was supposed to have been thought of by Roddenberry.

 

[Christopher]

As for the possibility of cross-Atlantic influence, I think it's possible Roddenberry might have kept tabs on what was going on in the UK, as far as SF television.

That doesn't seem likely. TV production is a full-time job that doesn't leave a lot of room for recreation, so many TV producers don't even watch much TV. And the SF influences Roddenberry seemed to draw on were American prose SF/fantasy authors like the ones he hired to write for the show. The only TV shows he ever mentioned being influenced by were dramas like Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, and Naked City.

Anyone flying to the UK occasionally could have seen DW.

Do we have any evidence that Roddenberry took an overseas vacation at any point between 1963 and 1969?

I guess I say this because his show Andromeda was suspiciously similar to Blake's Seven. That might have been more the fault of the people who revived the idea years later, but B7 was viewable by 1978 when the idea for Andromeda was supposed to have been thought of by Roddenberry.

I don't know where you're getting 1978 from. Andromeda was a reworking of Roddenberry's 1973 Genesis II pilot about a scientist named Dylan Hunt who was put in suspended animation in 1979, was trapped by a nuclear war, and finally reawoke in 2133, where he joined forces with a group that was working to rebuild civilization. When Majel Roddenberry sold the concept to Tribune Entertainment long after Roddenberry's death, they began working on two versions of it, one closer to the original Earthbound premise and one that reworked it as a space show, tossing in the idea of a sentient ship from an unproduced Roddenberry premise called Starship. They went with that version because it was the one Kevin Sorbo preferred. Any resemblances to Blake's 7 are purely coincidental.

 

[UnknownSample]

Well, when they got around to making Andromeda, someone was obviously very B7-influenced, as were those making Farscape. A bunch of civilian outlaws on the run... It seems there are two popular templates for starship based SF shows, Trek and B7.

 

[Christopher]

Well, when they got around to making Andromeda, someone was obviously very B7-influenced, as were those making Farscape. A bunch of civilian outlaws on the run... It seems there are two popular templates for starship based SF shows, Trek and B7.

Laypeople think it's "obvious" that any similarity is proof of deliberate imitation, but that's bull. The fact is, accidental similarities happen so routinely that they're a constant source of frustration to writers. We all try to be original, precisely because it's so damn hard to avoid being unintentionally similar to what someone else has done or is doing. The number one reason why TV story pitches or fiction-magazine submissions are rejected is "We've already bought a very similar story." I encountered that multiple times in just the few occasions when I tried pitching to Star Trek back in the '90s. When I sent in my first TNG spec script, the episode "Quality of Life" did a similar story just 10 days after I mailed it. One of my DS9 pitches was similar to "Empok Nor," which came along the following year. One or two of my VGR phone pitches got rejected because they were already doing something similar, and when I pitched a reworked-for-VGR version of my DS9 spec script to Joe Menosky, he asked where I got the idea, because it was similar to an original screenplay he'd written.

So you are absolutely wrong to assume that similarity is "obviously" proof of deliberate influence. That is not how it works. Similarities happen by accident all the time. They are very hard to avoid, no matter how hard we try -- and we do try, because nobody wants to be accused of unoriginality. But it's inevitable that different works will happen to have similarities. Because there are only so many concepts out there in the pool of cultural references, only so many plot structures that work, and only so many situations that are identifiable and meaningful to an audience. That's why it's so commonplace for different creators to come up with similar ideas without trying, and why it's so enormously wrong to assume that similarity proves imitation. It's not imitation, it's parallel evolution.

 

[johnnybear]

Even if Gene Rodenberry had visited England between 66 and 69 he'd have been hard pressed to see any Daleks on the television as they had been written out of the programme after 1967 apparently for good but they did make a celebrated comeback in 1972 after which Trek had been cancelled by three years!
JB

 

[Christopher]

Even if Gene Rodenberry had visited England between 66 and 69 he'd have been hard pressed to see any Daleks on the television as they had been written out of the programme after 1967 apparently for good but they did make a celebrated comeback in 1972 after which Trek had been cancelled by three years!
JB

Ooh, good point, yes. Nobody ever bothers to work out the timing on these speculations. (Although there was a cameo by a Dalek in the final episode of "The War Games" in June 1969, though that was about two and a half weeks after "Turnabout Intruder" aired -- and, as it happens, just before the BBC began showing Star Trek for the first time, filling Who's time slot in the 6-month hiatus between seasons 6 & 7.)