“Don't tread on an ant, he's done nothing to you.”

The Web Planet, transmitted in six episodes in spring 1965, remains one of the most highly rated Doctor Who stories ever. That’s not, by the way, in terms of how fans feel about it now, nearly sixty years on. No. In fact, this piece is in part prompted by readers of Doctor Who Magazine decreeing it their least favourite story starring William Hartnell as of March 2023.1 In terms of the number of people who have actually seen it however? Well, of the fifteen or so Doctor Who episodes watched by more than 13m people on first transmission, from November 1963 until the very day you are reading this, two of them are from this story. Of the ten twentieth century episodes to feature in the weekly top ten of watched television, three are from this story. In 1965 the UK contained 54,229,565 people. Which means the 13.5m who tuned into the first episode of The Web Planet were almost exactly a quarter of the population.

The Web Planet was big, and the serial’s monsters and guest characters were pushed in contemporary merchandise - on badges, and as slides in a toy projector but not, sadly, ever as dolls. They also appeared in the Doctor Who comic strip in TV Comic and in stories in the first ever Doctor Who Annual. They were even on the cover of Radio Times. The most significant item of merchandise, however, was the novelisation of the serial. Doctor Who And The Zarbi, written by Bill Strutton, the story’s screenwriter. This was only the third Doctor Who novelisation, and the first not written by David Whitaker, Doctor Who’s original story editor and someone who had played a huge role in the series’ development.

That makes it big not only in terms of its total audience on transmission, but also in terms of the series’ merchandising and publishing spin offs. Strutton’s book was hardly ever out of print between its 1973 paperback reissue2, and the end of the twentieth century. There are two (relatively) recent twenty-first century editions too, a first edition hardback replica, and a new version of the paperback. There’s even a splendid audiobook read by William Russell. It’s a vast ambient six hour extravaganza, recorded in 2005 but available new as a download as I type. Doctor Who And The Zarbi is a book with a very long shelf life, both literally and figuratively. 

Writing Doctor Who And The Zarbi, then, and the TV serial on which it’s based, is an achievement. But one with a downside. Despite a long and seemingly successful career as a writer in several media, most of Strutton’s wikipedia entry concerns the story, rather than him, and The Web Planet dominated his obituary in the UK Daily Telegraph. Although it is possible that, without his six hugely successful episodes of Doctor Who, he’d not have received newspaper obituaries at all. He’s one of those writers for whom their contribution to Doctor Who is their only real posterity.