Robert Holmes

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Robert Holmes (1928 Hertfordshire, England - 1986) was a scriptwriter who worked in British television from the late 1950s up to his death in 1986. During that thirty year period, he produced scripts for a broad variety of programs, including the Blake's 7 episode "Traitor" (1981). However, he remains largely known for his memorable contributions to long-running series Doctor Who.

1 Who's Clever New Writer
2 Architect of a Golden Era
3 The Return
4 Impact
5 External Links

Who's Clever New Writer

Holmes' association with Doctor Who began in the program's third season. He had submitted a script to the BBC's drama department for a science fiction serial titled "The Trap." Although the drama department didn't have a use for the script themselves, they suggested sending it to the Doctor Who production office. The program's script editor, Donald Tosh, liked the script enough to schedule a meeting with Holmes. However, Tosh himself would resign soon after and the script would be forgotten about during the turnover. Two years later, Holmes figured he had little to lose by resubmitting the script. The new assistant script editor Terrance Dicks also liked the script and decided to develop the idea with Holmes. It would eventually become the season 6 story "The Krotons." Impressed with the final story, the production team would call on Holmes again later in the same season. His second submission would be called "The Space Pirates."

Terrance Dicks would continue to turn to Holmes, who he got along with very well, for scripts during his remaining tenure as script editor. The third script he was to provide, "Spearhead from Space," carried the load of introducing the Doctor's third incarnation and establishing his new life in exile as well as creating a new villain that would remain a series favorite: The Autons. The story would be so successful that Holmes would be asked to pen a sequel for the following season. The sequel, "Terror of the Autons," would also introduce favorite baddie, the Master and new companion Jo Grant (though both characters were actually created by the production team rather than Holmes himself).

Holmes' sixth Doctor Who script, season 11's "The Time Warrior," would introduce yet another villain who would return multiple times: the Sontarans. It would also introduce popular companion Sarah Jane Smith and include the first mention of the actual name of the title character's home planet in the series' 11 year history.

Architect of a Golden Era

When Terrance Dicks chose to leave the script editor role, Holmes seemed like the obvious replacement. He was clearly the best of the writers that had been regularly contracted to write scripts for the program. Offered the job, he began trailing Dicks during the production of season 11 and finally assumed the script editor title himself starting with the season 12 story, The Ark in Space.

Working with new producer Phillip Hinchcliffe, Holmes brought his love of gothic horror to the program, commissioning a futuristic homage to Frankenstein (The Brain of Morbius) and a science fiction take on The Mummy (Pyramids of Mars) among others. Holmes took a hands on approach to the scripts, often heavily rewriting the scripts he received. At the time, BBC policy prohibited script editors from contributing their own scripts. But Holmes missed being able to write himself and was quickly able to obtain a waiver allowing him to contribute two of his own stories per season.

Under the guidance of Holmes and Hinchcliffe, the program would achieve something like a golden age, ascending to the highest ratings up to that point in the program's history. Holmes' own scripts in this era included the wildly popular "Talons of Weng-Chiang," which would remain at or near the top of fans all time favorites list for decades to come. His most earth shattering revelation, however, came earlier in the same season.

The Doctor's own people, the Time Lords had remained largely shrouded in mystery for thirteen seasons. However, The Deadly Assassin would change all that. It would be the first story entirely set on the Doctor's home planet. Its depiction of a stodgy and entirely fallible society was somewhat at odds with the god-like aspect of the Time Lords in previous stories. However, its conception would be so masterful that its ideas about Time Lord society would form the blueprint of all future stories that included the Time Lords.

When Hinchcliffe decided to leave the program at the end of season 14, Holmes also decided it was time to leave. He much preferred writing his own scripts to editing those of other writers and was impatient to return to freelance work. However, incoming producer Graham Williams managed to persuade Holmes to stay on for part of season 15 in order to ease the transition between production teams. His replacement as script editor, Anthony Read, would immediately try to commission Holmes to write another script. But an exhausted Holmes declined on the grounds that it was still too soon.

He also declined an immediate offer to become script editor for a new program created by Dalek scribe Terry Nation. The program was Blake's 7, but Holmes had had enough of being a script editor. Instead, he recommended a writer that Holmes himself had commissioned to write Doctor Who scripts, Chris Boucher. After a short break, Holmes was back to writing. He was commissioned to write first one and then a second story for Doctor Who's 16th season. He would also soon receive a commission from Boucher for a Blake's 7 episode. However, Blake's 7 would last only four seasons and Read's immediate successors at the Doctor Who production office would lose contact with Holmes.

The Return

It wasn't until early 1980s script editor, Eric Saward began commissioning scripts for season 20 that Holmes was once again contacted. Saward had been viewing earlier Doctor Who stories as research for the job and had been greatly impressed by the contributions of Holmes. Feeling strongly that an individual with such a long and impressive association with the show should be commissioned to write the upcoming twentieth anniversary special, Saward went to great pains to convince producer John Nathan-Turner that Holmes should be the one to do it. When approached about the job, Holmes was initially very interested. However, it soon became clear that Saward and Nathan-Turner had some extraordinary demands for the special. They insisted on including all five incarnations of the Doctor to date, plus the Doctor's three current companions as well as four other companions from the show's past, the Master, the Cybermen and cameos by a number of other characters and villains. Holmes struggled to write a credible script with so many diverse characters, but found it exteremly difficult, eventually bowing out of the process altogether.

Still wanting to work with Holmes, Saward commissioned another script for the following season. This time, the only requirement from the production team would be that the Doctor would need to regenerate at the end of the story. This season 21 story, titled "The Caves of Androzani," quickly gained a reputation among fans as possibly the most well loved story in the program's entire history. It would serve as fifth Doctor Peter Davison's swansong.

Saward would turn to Holmes again in season 22, for which he would pen "The Two Doctors." Moreover, Holmes would be asked to take an even bigger role in the following season. Saward had conceived of a massive 14-episode epic that would take up the entire season. It would be Holmes' job not only to write the four episode "Mysterious Planet" segment that set up the story, but also to write its two-episode conclusion. This two-parter, which was originally to be called "Time, Inc." would end the season on a cliffhanger. He successfully completed the initial four-parter, but rewrites of that story demanded by the Head of BBC Drama Jonathan Paul caused delays in the start of the scripts for "Time, Inc." When he did finally start them, the liver ailment that Holmes had been suffering from quickly grew worse. He was admitted to the hospital in mid May and passed away a few days later on the 24th of May, 1986. He was 58 years old.

Saward attempted to complete the two-part conclusion himself based on the outline he had discussed with Holmes. The first part had already been largely completed by Holmes, so it only required a little editing. As Saward worked on the final episode, however, producer John Nathan-Turner became concerned about the the idea of ending the season on a cliffhanger. He was well aware that BBC management thought the show was old fashioned and were looking for an excuse to cancel the legendary, but increasingly tired program. He was also aware that the ratings had suffered a steep decline the previous season and feared the current season would be the program's last. Ultimately, he would order Saward to rewrite the somewhat downbeat cliffhanger ending of the final episode in order to resolve the story at the end of the season. But Saward's relationship with the program's producer had already deteriorated to the point of becoming untenable. He had already walked off the job once, only barely persuaded to come back in order to finish out the season. This latest development proved his breaking point. He walked off for a final time, taking his script for the last episode with him. With only days left, Nathan-Turner called in script writers Pip and Jane Baker to write a replacement script for the final episode. Due to British copyright law, the Bakers could not be briefed on the contents of the original script, so they had to generate an entirely new episode from scratch. The last contribution of the program's most respected writer would never be filmed.

Impact

There are few writers who can claim to have had the impact on Doctor Who as Robert Holmes. In addition to laying the basis for all stories about the main character's home planet and its culture, he created two of its most popular alien races, introduced one of the most popular Doctors and two of the most popular companion characters. Moreover, his era as script editor was the most popular in the program's long history and his scripts perennially litter the top of the fan favorite polls.

In fact, Holmes' stories were so overwhelmingly popular that a survey by fanzine DWB in the final year of the classic series made him the all time favorite of an astonishing 74% of fans - no mean feat considering that they had 26 seasons worth of stories to consider. Second place went to Terrance Dicks, with a mere 4% of the vote.