Marcus Harmes

Since 2015 various news outlets have been reporting plans for [Steven
Spielberg](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/syfy-brave-new-world-793603)
to create a new television adaptation of the 1932 novel *Brave New
World* and since 2013 a film adaptation by [Ridley
Scott](http://www.blastr.com/2012/06/ridley_scotts_brave_new_w.php) has
been in the pipeline. The book by Aldous Huxley was last adapted for TV
in 1980 and filmed in 1998. Whether or not a Spielberg version gets off
the ground remains to be seen, but in one sense the novel has been
brought to the screen repeatedly in the program that adapts from
everything: *Doctor Who*.

Any fictional evocation of a future philistine dystopia from *Logan's
Run* to Alan Moore's Norsefire Britain to the scientific labour camp in
the 1970 *Doctor Who* serial 'Inferno' owes something to both Huxley and
Orwell's *1984*. Neither book ends happily. Orwell's suggestion of a
'*boot stamping on* a human *face -- for ever'* is as bleak as the
ending of *Brave New World*. Here the last verbal image is the feet of
the Shakespeare-loving Savage spinning gently round after he has hanged
himself. However in *Brave New World* there is no need for any Big
Brother surveillance, as the population of the post-Fordist world
delineated by Huxley is so strongly socially conditioned by hypnopaedia
and so heavily drugged by the soma they are all permanently happy.

Similarly, *Doctor Who* from its black and white era to its most recent
stories has adapted from Huxley, who died coincidentally on November 22,
1963. The hypnopaedia, or playing recordings that indoctrinate while
people sleep, is directly represented in '[The Macra
Terror](http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/macraterror/detail.shtml)'
(1967), as is the enforced happiness and the banal philistine culture
based on upbeat music. Drugging a population into submission is a
feature of '[The Sun
Makers](http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/sunmakers/detail.shtml)'
(1977). The permanent happiness and vacuous music combine in '[The
Happiness
Patrol](http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/happinesspatrol/detail.shtml)'
(1988). The revived series revisits Huxley with the drugs and community
singing in '[Gridlock](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1000253/)' (2007),
and the hymn singing echoes the mass singing organised by the
Arch-Community-Songster of Canterbury.

The sociology of these worlds also adapts from Huxley, especially in the
cruel demarcation between a small elite and a large labouring
population. Huxley stratified his society from Alphas down to Epsilons.
The community in 'The Macra Terror' comprises a small elite and then a
large number of labouring miners. The World Zones Organisation in 'The
Enemy of the World' echoes the political structure in Huxley's book and
the charismatic Salamander bears resemblance to the controller Mustapha
Mond in *Brave New World*. The rulers of Pluto in 'The Sun Makers' and
Helen A's regime in 'The Happiness Patrol' live in comfort compared to
the toiling masses. In 'The Happiness Patrol' there is reference to
off-screen factories and labour camps. An elite also governs an
exploited population in '[Vengeance on
Varos](http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/vengeancevaros/detail.shtml)'
(1985). There was space in Huxley's novel for prolonged discussion of
God and religion and *Varos* also shows the potency of music and a type
of religion in a sequence where the Doctor undergoes a mock execution
accompanied by a chanting priest.

But I noted Huxley's book does not end happily, at least if you're
someone who cares about high culture or individual freedom. The
individualist thinkers Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson are banished to
the Falkland Islands, the Shakespeare loving Savage hangs himself and
the banal, exploitative and elitist society continues as before, like
Orwell's boot continues to stamp down on the human face. In this regard,
does *Doctor Who* really adapt from Huxley at all? After all, the Doctor
blows wide open the Macra's subterfuge and brings the exploitation to an
end, as he does later in 'Gridlock'. Salamander dies and his regime is
collapsing and the elitist rulers on Pluto are killed when the workers
revolt and the Doctor switches off the pacifying drugs being pumped into
the air. Helen A's world collapses and the Doctor teaches her a very
personal level about the potency of unhappiness after her pet monster
dies. The sociology of Huxley's novel does not fit within a program
where the Doctor fights injustice and overcomes evil.

And yet there is a space in *Doctor Who* where Huxley's bleakness can
surface. 'Vengeance on Varos' famously ends with two of the down trodden
Varosians staring in horror at their blank television set. The ending of
the story had been fairly conventional up to this point. Evil had been
fought and overcome, the tables were turned on the ugly monster Sil, and
the antagonists Mr Quillam and the Security Chief are dead. However the
regime dies with them, meaning the programs broadcast to keep the
inhabitants entertained suddenly stop. The subversive ending, as the two
workers stare at their screen and realise they have no idea what to
next, is rightly celebrated as a more-than-usually complex impression of
the aftermath of the Doctor's actions; the people he has apparently just
saved are far from thrilled about it.

There is another story which invites us to ponder that the Doctor's
actions may be far from straightforward. 'The Face of Evil' shows the
Doctor cleaning up his own mess; in an unseen adventure he had
programmed a computer that promptly went mad and began undertaking
experiments in social conditioning. We don't know what will have
happened next on Varos, but we are left a strong hint in the final scene
that it may not be pretty. Huxley left us with no hope that the sterile,
exploitative, stratified world that had banned books and high art,
destroyed ancient monuments, genetically engineered its population and
drugged them all into a permanent state of happiness would ever change.
In 'Varos', the Doctor apparently has done what he always does and
overcome an oppressive regime. But has he? Did the people on whose
behalf he fought want him to? Would they know what to do with freedom?
In *Brave New World* the only person who didn't want permanent happiness
ends up killing himself while the controller is absolutely certain that
he is doing the right thing. In this way perhaps 'Vengeance on Varos' is
the truest adaptation from Huxley in *Doctor Who* and a rare iteration
of story showing that bringing down a dystopia may be what the Doctor
does best, but leaves open to question if he does it at all well.

 

**Dr Marcus Harmes** lectures at the University of Southern Queensland,
Toowoomba, Australia. He has authored books including *Doctor Who and
the Art of Adaptation* (2014) and the entry in the Devil's Advocates
series on *The Curse of Frankenstein*.


Since 2015 various news outlets have been reporting plans for Steven Spielberg to create a new television adaptation of the 1932 novel
<em>
 Brave New World
</em>
and since 2013 a film adaptation by Ridley Scott has been in the pipeline. The book by Aldous Huxley was last adapted for TV in 1980 and filmed in 1998.

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