Doctor Who

In Doctor Who, the flying saucer is never mere scenery. From the Daleks' disc-shaped war machines in the classic era to the vast spherical ships hovering over modern London, the show treats the unidentified object as a narrative engine: first the upturned faces, then the reveal of what waits behind the hatch. Its signature creation, UNIT — a para-military body tasked with alien threats — reads almost like the Cold-War folklore of a government hiding UFO contact, only here the cover-up gives way to open defence.^[1] For British audiences the series has long served as a gateway to science fiction, lodging the idea that aliens might already be walking among us into everyday imagination.^[2]