David Whitaker was an English television writer and novelist who worked on the early years of the science-fiction TV series Doctor Who. He served as the programme's first story editor, supervising the writing of its first 51 episodes from 1963 to 1964. He also wrote Doctor Who serials including The Crusade, The Rescue, The Power of the Daleks, The Evil of the Daleks and The Wheel in Space, and two of the first novelisations from the series, Doctor Who and the Daleks and Doctor Who and the Crusaders. His other work included writing the Dalek comic strip for the weekly children's magazine TV Century 21, in addition to the stage play The Curse of the Daleks (1965).