Robert Holmes

Robert Colin Holmes (2 April 1926 in Hertfordshire – 24 May 1986) was an English television scriptwriter, who for over twenty-five years contributed to some of the most popular programmes screened in the UK. He is particularly remembered for his work on science fiction programmes, most notably his extensive contributions to Doctor Who. Holmes suffered ill-health from the early-1980s and died in mid-1986.

Early career In 1944, at the age of eighteen, Holmes joined the army, fighting with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders regiment in Burma. He rapidly earned a commission, and as such became the youngest commissioned officer in the entire British army during the Second World War. The fact that he lied about his age to get into the army was discovered at his commissioning, but apparently the only reaction was by a general who praised him, adding that he had done the same thing himself. Soon after the end of the war, Holmes returned to England and left the army, deciding to join the police. He trained at Hendon Police College, graduating the top of his year and joining theMetropolitan Police in London, serving at Bow Street Police Station. It was whilst serving as a Police officer that Holmes first began to develop an interest in writing as a career. When giving evidence in court for prosecutions against offenders, he would often note the excitement and frantic work of the journalists reporting on the cases, and decided that he would like to do similar work. To this end, he taught himself shorthand in his spare time and eventually resigned from the Police force. He quickly found work writing for both local and national newspapers, initially in London and later in the Midlands. He also filed reports for the Press Association, which could be syndicated to a variety of sources, such as local or foreign newspapers. In the late 1950s he worked for a time writing and editing short stories for magazines, before receiving his first break in television when he contributed an episode to the famous medical series Emergency Ward 10 (1957). Television Holmes found himself working almost exclusively in television drama after 1957. He began contributing episodes regularly to the adventure series Knight Errant before becoming that programme's Story Editor in 1959. He wrote several episodes of another medical drama, Dr. Finlay's Casebook, before in the early 1960s writing for a range of crime-related dramas: Dixon of Dock Green, The Saint, Ghost Squad, Public Eye and Intrigue all dealt with law enforcement, and benefiting from Holmes' real-life experiences. It was in 1965 that he first began writing in the science-fiction genre, when he contributed scripts to Undermind, a body-snatching drama from ITV. He also worked in film for the only time, storylining the movie Invasion, several elements from which would later crop up in his 1970 Doctor Who serial Spearhead from Space, and which had also been inspired by Nigel Kneale's 1955Quatermass II serial. Doctor Who The same year, he wrote on-spec an idea for a stand-alone science-fiction serial entitled The Trap, which he submitted to the BBC. There, the Head of Drama Serials wrote back to Holmes, informing him that they were no longer interested in producing such serials, but that he might have better luck if he tried submitting it to the Doctor Who production office. This he did, and had a fruitful meeting with the show's then story editor Donald Tosh; but when Tosh left the programme shortly afterwards, the script was forgotten and Holmes moved on to other projects. In 1968, after some work on other projects appeared to be falling through, Holmes decided on the off-chance to re-submit The Trap (now entitled The Space Trap) to the Doctor Who office, and again found a favourable response, this time from Assistant Script Editor Terrance Dicks, who developed it with Holmes to cover the eventuality of an agreed script falling through. At the beginning of the sixth season, there was no slot available for Holmes' script, but the production staff began experiencing a number of problems with scheduled scripts. The Dominators, the first story in the season, ended one episode earlier, resulting in an extra episode being tacked onto the following story, The Mind Robber. When the fourth six-part storyline fell through, the story before was extended by two episodes while Dicks worked with Holmes to adapt the The Krotons to fill the rest of the gap in the schedule. The story was regarded as a success by the production team, who quickly commissioned Holmes to write a second story for the season, The Space Pirates. Holmes and Dicks got on very well, so when Dicks officially took over as script editor he frequently turned to Holmes for contributions. Holmes wrote Jon Pertwee's debut serial as the Third Doctor, Spearhead from Space, in 1970. During the early 1970s he also wrote for another BBC science-fiction show, Doomwatch, as well as other programmes such as the ATV series Spyder's Web. Holmes was commissioned to write the first story of season eight in 1971, Terror of the Autons. The story was considered a great success. Holmes would go on to contribute two more stories in 1973 and 1974. Holmes introduced two recurring alien races to Doctor Who: the Autons and the Sontarans. Terrance Dicks intended to have Holmes replace him as script editor after he left. Holmes accepted the offer while the season was still in production, editing (uncredited) Death to the Daleks. Holmes was known for his morbid sense of humour and his inclination to write material that was often dark and disturbing. The previous producer Barry Letts often had Holmes tone down his writing, but Letts's successor Philip Hinchcliffe wanted to take the programme in a darker and more dynamic direction along with the introduction of its new star Tom Baker. Holmes continued as script editor for the next three years, seeing Doctor Who through one of its most successful eras in terms of both viewing figures and critical acclaim. Despite this, a number of stories came under fire from Mary Whitehouse of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association for their alleged excessive violence or frightening tone. Some of the most controversial stories were written by Holmes himself. A scene from Holmes' story The Deadly Assassin, in which the Fourth Doctor's head is held under water as the cliffhanger, caused what is commonly regarded as the noticeable controversy of the time. On 11 February 1977, the Daily Express published an interview with Holmes by Jean Rook under the title "Who do you think you are, scaring my innocent child?", in which Holmes said "Parents would be terribly irresponsible to leave a six-year-old to watch it alone. It's geared to the intelligent fourteen-year-old, and I wouldn't let any child under ten see it." During this time, Holmes wrote three of his own credited stories for the programme, performed complete ground-up rewrites on at least two other stories (which were broadcast under pseudonyms) and had a strong hand in almost every other script. It was very much his era of the show, although by 1977 he felt that he had done all he could for the programme. He had intended to leave at the end of the fourteenth season, but was persuaded to stay on for a short while by the new producer Graham Williams. While he script-edited the first two stories he commissioned for season 15, he left the third to his successor, Anthony Read. He also requested a last minute re-write so that K-9 would become an ongoing character. The difficult task of working him in was left to Read. Nonetheless, Read