Doctor Who aliens - the truth is out there

Doctor Who might be the last place you would expect to encounter hidden political messages, but the series has been most successful when combining tales of adventure with a subtle critique of contemporary social, political and cultural issues relevant to viewers' real lives. With its privileged access to generations of family audiences on Saturday evenings throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the series dealt with social realities disguised as teatime science fiction. When Doctor Who returned in 2005, the series successfully re-engaged with the mass audience lost in the 1980s, and the good Doctor is now considered one of the great British fictional folk heroes, alongside Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood and James Bond. So could The Flood – the Doctor's latest alien nemesis – be a comment on localised flooding across the UK every winter, or even climate change? Possibly. Let's recap …

THE DALEKS AS SPACE NAZIS (DALEK INVASION OF EARTH, 1964)

Capitalising on memories of wartime, creator Terry Nation depicted the Daleks as space Nazis: they speak of "extermination" and a "final solution", they even make fascist salutes with their plungers! When the Doctor arrives in future London, it looks like the Blitz (a fresh memory for early-1960s viewers). Childhood evacuees who had returned to wrecked cities and devastated communities now watched with their own children, well aware how narrowly a real invasion had been averted.

THE CYBERMEN AS ORGAN THIEVES (THE TENTH PLANET, 1966)

Spare-part surgery was just beginning in the 1960s, and the Cybermen reflected anxieties about organ replacement, cosmetic surgery and medical technology. Humanoids from Earth's twin planet, the coldly logical Cybermen replaced their failing limbs and organs, losing their humanity. Maybe Harold Wilson's 1960s "white heat" of technological process had its downside. In the new show, the Cybermen are from an alternate Earth where the population has "upgraded" itself (willingly at first, through force later), a satirical take on high-tech consumer culture which is as relevant in the noughties as it was in the 60s.

ICE WARRIORS AS ILLEGAL ALIENS (THE ICE WARRIORS, 1967)

As now, immigration was a controversial issue in 1960s Britain. Strange invaders from space – the lumbering Martian Ice Warriors among them – could easily be viewed as a metaphor for the arrival of peoples from other countries and cultures. Issues of foreign/alien invasion, assimilation and domination thread themselves throughout 1960s episodes of Doctor Who in a way that makes the stories told inseparable from the politics of contemporary Britain, as seen in yarns such as The Web of Fear (1968), The Invasion (1968), and The Seeds Of Death (1969).

DAEMONS AS THE DEVIL AND SPIRITUALISTS (THE DAEMONS, 1971)

The 1970s were a time of changing values, and the alternative new-age movement symbolised a switch from materialism to hippy spirituality. In this Doctor Who episode, Satanic magic turns out to be just advanced science (Arthur C Clarke suggested that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", while his novel Childhood's End has aliens who resemble Satan). The Daemons proposed that powerful Satan-like aliens had visited Earth in ancient times and left their technology behind, only for it to be misused by man.

GIANT MAGGOTS AS ECOLOGICAL WARNING (THE GREEN DEATH, 1973)

Doctor Who reflected growing environmental awareness in the 1970s, when Jon Pertwee battled giant, man-eating maggots created by toxic waste. The villains are the suits who run Global Chemicals, and the heroes are the hippy drop-outs of the "Nut Hutch". It may have been a simple depiction of big issues, but for popular television (attracting about eight million viewers) aimed at a young audience, this was radical political and social drama disguised as adventure fiction.

THE GALACTIC FEDERATION AS A EUROPEAN SUPER-STATE (THE CURSE OF PELADON, 1972)

This none-too-subtle tale about a backward planet's attempt to join a Galactic Federation would have been easy to decode for UK residents watching TV news about the pros and cons of Britain's membership of the EEC. With the second world war still a recent memory to anyone in their early-40s, the idea of seceding political or economic control to Europe was controversial. The case for and against had long been debated, so the backroom machinations (and murder!) among Doctor Who's weird alien delegates would seem curiously familiar.

HELEN A AS MAGGIE T (THE HAPPINESS PATROL, 1988)

Space dictator Helen A (played by Sheila Hancock) was an obvious Margaret Thatcher analogy, but the visual display of her law enforcers The Happiness Patrol – all pastel colours and candy-inspired decor – reflected fears over the burgeoning late 1980s rave culture (smiley-face symbols and "happy" drugs) and the dance music scene. Meanwhile, the Kandy Man – Helen A's robotic chief torturer who killed his victims with various confectionary concoctions – looked like a ravey Bertie Bassett!

THE SLITHEEN AS CORRUPT, WAR-MONGERING POLITICIANS (ALIENS OF LONDON/WORLD WAR III, 2005)

Number 10 Downing Street has been infiltrated by the Slitheen, the prime minister has been killed and key ministers replaced by corpulent, yellow-green aliens disguised in human "skin suits". Aired in April 2005, just before the election, the replacement of government figures by flatulent aliens was obvious caricature. But the script went further, satirising the war in Iraq and the "dodgy dossier" that was used to justify it. Dialogue references included a plan to use "massive weapons of destruction" unleashed "within 45 seconds". Imagine the fun Doctor Who writers could have with MPs' expenses …

THE DALEKS AS RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS (THE PARTING OF THE WAYS, 2005)

The Daleks have been harvesting humans to boost their numbers, and the Doctor declares them to be mad, driven insane by self-loathing. Updating Terry Nation's original space fascists to confront a contemporary issue, here the Daleks are fundamentalist zealots, crying blasphemy when the Doctor suggests they're now half-human. These post-9/11 Daleks hit TV screens just three weeks before religious fundamentalists carried out the 7 July 2005 attacks in London.

ALIENS AS THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC (SCHOOL REUNION, 2006/PARTNERS IN CRIME, 2008)

Jamie Oliver's campaign for healthy school meals figures in School Reunion, where lunchtime chips are coated in alien oil to control the kids. After all, young viewers always believed their teachers were aliens. Health issues linked to big-business exploitation reappear in Partners In Crime, where Adipose Industries' weight-loss pill sees unwanted fat converted into an alien lard creature.

Brian J Robb's book Timeless Adventures: How Doctor Who Conquered TV (Kamera Books) is out now