Gareth Roberts

Gareth Roberts (born 1968 as Gareth John Pritchard Roberts) is a television writer and novelist. He has a substantial body of work related to Doctor Who. across every medium in which Doctor Who fiction has appeared. Indeed, it would be fair to consider him, along with Paul Cornell, as amongst the most versatile writers of Doctor Who fiction.

He has written for both the BBC Wales version of Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures. For the latter program, he was Head Writer for the first series.

Prior to becoming something of a "fixture" at Upper Boat, he was heavily involved in writing popular British soap operas from about 1997-2003. Brookside, Coronation Street and Emmerdale have all employed his services.

Books
Roberts began writing professional Doctor Who fiction in the 1990s, when he started contributing to the Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Missing Adventures novel ranges. His works were generally hailed by fans for their consistent use of good humor. It has been said that his creations, the Chelonians, were "one of the best monsters created in the novels".

All of his MIssing Adventures were set in televised eras generally recognized for their strong use of humor. The Plotters was a First Doctor novel said to evoke the Dennis Spooner era, reminiscent of DW: The Romans and The Time Meddler. But the bulk of Roberts' prose work betrays Roberts' bias for the Graham Williams/Douglas Adams era. No other Virgin writer used the combination of the Fourth Doctor, Romana II and K-9 as much as Roberts. It has been said that Roberts' Missing Adventures were "love notes to Graham Williams". It is perhaps for this reason that Roberts was chosen to moderate a documentary on the Graham Williams era included with the UK DVD release of DW: The Ribos Operation.

Audios
He has exclusively used companion Melanie Bush in his audio plays, once with the Sixth Doctor and once with the Seventh. His work with co-writer Clayton Hickman was amongst the very first to employ Mel in audio, and can therefore be said to have been instrumental in redefining the generally fan-disliked companion for audio.

Comics
Roberts' first work in comics was "Operation Proteus", which featured the first time Susan had appeared in comics outside of cameos and parodies. It also posited a pre-Unearthly Child TARDIS, something that had never been considered by the comics before. Years after this story, Roberts' work experience with Clayton Hickman in audio would help him get a steady string of work in 2005. Roberts was the dominant comics writer during the Ninth Doctor's era. Concepts in his comic work during this period would later make their way into Roberts' televised episodes of Doctor Who. He was entrusted with writing "the Shakespeare episode" in series 3 largely on the strength of his Ninth Doctor comic, "A Groatsworth of Wit", in which he revealed his detailed knowledge of Shakespeare. Meanwhile, the poisoning scene in The Unicorn and the Wasp was first seen in another Ninth Doctor comic.

Novels
Virgin New Adventures
 * The Highest Science
 * Tragedy Day
 * Zamper

Virgin Missing Adventures
 * The Romance of Crime
 * The English Way of Death
 * The Plotters
 * ''The Well-Mannered War

BBC Ninth Doctor Adventures
 * Only Human

BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures
 * I am a Dalek

Short Stories

 * Vortex of Fear
 * Fegovy
 * Return of the Spiders
 * Special Occasions: 1. The Not-So-Sinister Sponge (with Clayton Hickman)
 * The Brain of Socrates

Doctor Who TV Stories

 * Attack of the Graske
 * The Shakespeare Code
 * The Unicorn and the Wasp
 * one of the 2009 specials (with Russell T Davies)

The Sarah Jane Adventures

 * Invasion of the Bane (with Russell T. Davies)
 * Revenge of the Slitheen
 * Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?
 * The story following Day of the Clown in Series 2

Audios
Big Finish - Doctor Who Audio Dramas
 * The One Doctor (with Clayton Hickman)
 * Bang-Bang-A-Boom! (with Clayton Hickman)