This entry is about the television scriptwriter. For other people with the same name, see Robert Holmes (disambiguation). Robert Holmes can refer to: Robert Holmes, an English TV scriptwriter Robert Holmes, a composer Robert Denison Holmes, a US politician Sir Robert Holmes, an English admiral This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Robert Holmes

Robert Colin Holmes (born 1928 in Hertfordshire; died 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. Image File history File links Robert Holmes This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ... Image File history File links Robert Holmes This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ... 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Hertfordshire (pronounced Hartfordshire and abbreviated as Herts) is an inland county in the United Kingdom and part of the East of England Government Office region. ... May 24 is the 144th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (145th in leap years). ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2005 est. ... A broadcast of the long-running and popular British science-fiction series Doctor Who. ... Doctor Who is a long-running British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC about a mysterious time-travelling adventurer known as The Doctor, who explores time and space with his companions, fighting evil. ...

Early career

In 1944, at the age of just sixteen, 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. 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... In military organizations, a commissioned officer is a member of the service who derives authority directly from a sovereign power, and as such holds a commission from that power. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ...

Soon after the end of the war, Holmes returned to England and left the army, deciding to join the police. He trained at the elite Hendon College, graduating the top of his year and joining the Metropolitan Police in London, serving at Bow Street Police Station. Metropolitan Police redirects here. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Bow Street is a thoroughfare in Covent Garden, Westminster London. ...

It was whilst serving at 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. Shorthand is an abbreviated, symbolic writing method that improves speed of writing or brevity as compared to a normal method of writing a language. ...

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). In general, the midlands of a territory are its central regions. ... The Press Association is the national news agency of the United Kingdom. ... The 1950s was the decade spanning the years 1950 to 1959. ... Emergency Ward 10 was a British television series shown on ITV between 1957 and 1967. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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, Doctor 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 benefitting from Holmes' real-life experiences. A knight-errant is a figure of Medieval romantic chivalric literature. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series, which ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. ... The Saint was a long-running British action adventure television series, made by ITC Entertainment, that aired on ITV stations between 1962 and 1969, and on American television as a syndicated show (1962-1967) and on NBC (1967-69). ... An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ... // Introduction and background Public Eye was a British television series that ran from 1965 to 1975 (7 series in total). ...

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 first and 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 1955 Quatermass II serial. 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Undermind is Phishs thirteenth and final studio album, released on June 15, 2004. ... ITV (Independent Television) is the name popularly given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the BBC. In England, Wales and southern Scotland, the network has been rebranded to ITV1 by ITV plc, the owners of... The 1944 Invasion of Normandy An invasion is a military action consisting of armed forces of one geo-political entity entering territory controlled by another such entity, often resulting in the invading power occupying the area, whether briefly or for a long period, and sometimes permanently. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... Doctor Who is a long-running British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC about a mysterious time-travelling adventurer known as The Doctor, who explores time and space with his companions, fighting evil. ... Spearhead from Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from January 3 to January 24, 1970. ... Nigel Kneale (born Thomas Nigel Kneale on April 18, 1922 in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England, UK) is a Manx television and film scriptwriter, who has worked mostly in the UK. He is best known for his creation of the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass, who has appeared in three... 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The opening title sequence of Quatermass II. Quatermass II is a British television science-fiction serial, the second in the popular and influential Quatermass series written by Nigel Kneale. ...

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, Head of Drama Serials Shaun Sutton 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. The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ... Shaun Alfred Graham Sutton OBE (born October 14, 1919 in Hammersmith, London, United Kingdom; died May 14 2004 in Norfolk, England, United Kingdom) was a British television writer, director, producer and executive, who worked in the medium for nearly forty years from the 1950s to the 1990s. ... Donald Tosh was a BBC screenwriter during the 1960s who contributed to the Doctor Who programme in 1965. ...

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. Although there was no slot available for the story, Dicks developed it with Holmes to cover the eventuality of an agreed script falling through. When this occurred in 1969, The Krotons quickly went before the cameras and was eventually transmitted as part of Doctor Who’'s sixth season. 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... Terrance Dicks Terrance Dicks (born 1935 in East Ham, London, England, UK) is a British writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular childrens books during the 1970s and 80s. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... The Krotons is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from December 28, 1968 to January 18, 1969. ...

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; when Dicks was promoted to become the programme's full Script Editor, he frequently turned to Holmes for contributions. The Space Pirates is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which originally aired in six weekly parts from March 8 to April 12, 1969. ...

Holmes wrote Jon Pertwee's debut serial as the Third Doctor, Spearhead from Space, in 1970. Between then and 1974 he contributed four stories to Pertwee's five seasons, introducing two alien races who would go on to become famous and recurring Doctor Who villains: the Autons and the Sontarans. 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. John Devon Roland Pertwee (July 7, 1919–May 20, 1996), better known as Jon Pertwee, was a British actor. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... The Autons are an artificial life form from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and adversaries of the Doctor. ... The Sontarans are a fictional extraterrestrial race from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... Doomwatch was a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on the BBC1 channel for thirty-seven fifty-minute episodes, plus one unshown, and one part made, in three seasons transmitted on Mondays from 9 February 1970 to 14 August 1972. ... Associated TeleVision Limited, later ATV Network and best known simply as ATV, was a British ITV company from 1955 until 1981. ...

When Dicks decided to leave Doctor Who in 1974, it was Holmes who emerged as his most obvious replacement as script editor. He accepted the post, working alongside new Producer Philip Hinchcliffe to bring a new tone and direction to the programme, now fronted by new star Tom Baker. 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Script Editor is a program included with Mac OS that allows AppleScripts to be written, debugged, and ran. ... Philip Hinchcliffe Philip Hinchcliffe (born 1944) is a British television producer, who is probably best known for the overseeing of the golden era of British television series Doctor Who in the mid-1970s. ... Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, from The Masque of Mandragora Thomas Stewart Baker (born January 20, 1934) is an English actor. ...

Holmes continued as Script Editor for the next three years, seeing it through one of its most successful eras in terms of both viewing figures and critical acclaim, although the stories he and Hinchcliffe oversaw were criticised for being overly violent or frightening in tone by Mary Whitehouse and her National Viewers' and Listeners' Association. Mary Whitehouse in her later years. ...

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 and decided to leave at the end of the fourteenth season. He was persuaded to stay on for a short while, as Graham Williams had taken over as Producer and it was felt that Holmes remaining would ease his settling in, but halfway through the following season when it was apparent that Williams was now firmly established, Holmes departed, handing over Script Editor duties to Anthony Read. For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... Graham Williams was a British television producer and script editor, whose best known work was on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. ...

Nonetheless, Read was quick to turn to Holmes when it came to commissioning scripts for the sixteenth season, being keen to use writers who knew how the Doctor Who format was best used and could be relied upon to come up with usable scripts in good time. Holmes wrote two stories for the season, but after its broadcast in 1978 he did not return to the show for some six years. 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ...

During this time he wrote for various series, such as the BBC science-fiction show Blake's 7, on which he had been offered the Script Editor's post when it began in 1978, but declined as he had only just finished his role as such on Doctor Who and was not keen to go back to such strenuous work so quickly. Instead, he recommended writer Chris Boucher, who he had used on Doctor Who, to the Producer, and thus it was Boucher who in turn commissioned Holmes to write for the show. Other programmes Holmes worked on in the late seventies and early eighties included the police series Juliet Bravo and an adaptation of the science-fiction novel Child of the Vodyoni, which was screened as The Nightmare Man in 1981. Blakes 7 was a BBC science fiction television drama created by Terry Nation that ran for four series from January 2, 1978 to December 21, 1981. ... Chris Boucher Chris Boucher (born 1943) is a British television writer, best known for his frequent contributions to two genres, science-fiction and crime dramas. ... Juliet Bravo was a British television series which ran between 1980 and 1985. ... The Nightmare Man is a science fiction and horror television serial, produced by the BBC in 1981. ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 1983, the then-current Doctor Who production team of Producer John Nathan-Turner and Script Editor Eric Saward sounded out Holmes about returning to the show to script the planned twentieth anniversary special, due for broadcast that November. Although Holmes had an unhappy time attempting to find a workable story using as many elements from the show's past as Nathan-Turner wanted and he eventually gave up on the assignment (the special was eventually scripted by Terrance Dicks), it did lead to a friendship between Saward and Holmes and eventually a commission to write a regular story for the twenty-first season. 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... John Nathan-Turner. ... Eric Saward was born in December 1944 and became a script writer and script editor for the BBC, resigning from the latter post on the TV programme Doctor Who in 1986. ...

The Caves of Androzani, as the story came to be titled, was Holmes's first script for the programme in six years, and is generally regarded by fans as being one of the best in the show's entire twenty-six year run. It saw the killing off of the Fifth Doctor as played by Peter Davison and his Doctor's regeneration into Colin Baker's Doctor. The Caves of Androzani is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from March 8 to March 16, 1984. ... Peter Davison (born April 13, 1951) is a British actor, best known for his roles as Tristan Farnon in the television version of James Herriots All Creatures Great and Small and as the fifth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, which he played from 1981 to 1984. ... Colin Baker (born London, June 8, 1943) is an English actor who is best known for playing the sixth incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who, from 1984 to 1986. ...

After writing The Two Doctors for the twenty-second season in 1985, Holmes was asked to contribute the first four and final two installments to the special fourteen-part story Nathan-Turner and Saward had conceived to span the entire twenty-third season: The Trial of a Time Lord. Production of the season was far from smooth, however, with tensions between Nathan-Turner and Saward, a lack of faith in the production from BBC executives and Holmes himself falling ill. He was particularly upset at comments made by BBC drama executive Jonathan Powell regarding his opening four episodes, although he agreed to pen the closing two episodes of the season. However, he died in May 1986 after a short illness, having only written only part of the first of the final two episodes. Part Thirteen was completed by Eric Saward while Part Fourteen was written by Pip and Jane Baker. The Two Doctors is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts from February 16 to March 2, 1985. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Trial of a Time Lord is the name used on screen for all fourteen episodes comprising the 23rd season (1986) of the original Doctor Who series. ... Jonathan Powell (born 1947) is a British television producer and executive. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Eric Saward was born in December 1944 and became a script writer and script editor for the BBC, resigning from the latter post on the TV programme Doctor Who in 1986. ... Pip and Jane Baker are British television writers best known for their contributions the long running science fiction series Doctor Who. ...

His last work to be broadcast was an episode of the detective series Bergerac, another show script-edited by Chris Boucher, transmitted in 1987. He did little work outside of television, although he did novelise his script of The Two Doctors for Target Books in 1986. It was the 100th Doctor Who novelisation published by Target Books. The tone of this article is inappropriate for an encyclopedia. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. ...

External links

• Robert Holmes at the Internet Movie Database