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Terrance Dicks

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Terrance William Dicks (14 April 1935-29 August 2019),[1][2] whom fans have long affectionately called "Uncle Terrance", script edited the Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee eras of Doctor Who and wrote many Doctor Who episodes, novels and novelisations, becoming one of the most prolific authors and scriptwriters.

Profile[]

Overview[]

Terrance Dicks began his long association with Doctor Who in 1968, when he joined the production team during the Second Doctor story The Web of Fear. He eventually became full time script editor, during the next season, beginning with the story The Invasion. His first notable writing for the show was The War Games, an epic, ten-episode collaboration with Malcolm Hulke.

Dicks served as script editor through the whole Jon Pertwee era, alongside Producer and life-long friend Barry Letts they both crafted a hugely successful era of the show. He handed the reins to Robert Holmes with the coming of Tom Baker. Dicks continued to supply scripts for the series under his name and pseudonyms, specifically "Robin Bland" which was used when too many changes were made to his script for The Brain of Morbius.

Between seasons 13 and 14, he unsuccessfully attempted to sell a version of Doctor Who to BBC Radio, which would have starred Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen. (INFO: The Seeds of Doom)

At roughly the same time, he submitted what would become State of Decay to the Doctor Who production office. It remained unproduced for several years as the BBC had recently produced a new version of Dracula. His final script for televised Doctor Who was for the twentieth anniversary story The Five Doctors.

In 1973, Dicks, along with other writers from the TV series, were commissioned by Target Books to write novelisations adapting TV episodes. Over the next two decades, Dicks became the most prolific author of the line. He was editor of the range at one point. In later years, when Target adopted the policy of commissioning the original teleplay writers to novelise their works, Dicks became the "go-to guy" when the original teleplay writer was deceased, unable or unwilling to adapt their work in book form.

The Target Books line went on a 24-year hiatus after 1994, with Dicks' last novelisation for Doctor Who being 1990's The Space Pirates. Dicks wrote original novels for the Virgin New Adventures, BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures, BBC Past Doctor Adventures, and Quick Reads lines.-. He is one of only a handful of Classic Era TV writers to have written licenced Modern Era stories (others include Andrew Cartmel, who has written for the Doctor Who Adventures comic strip, and Rona Munro, who contributed a script to Series 10).

He also co-wrote The Making of Doctor Who, the first non-fiction book about the series.

In 2007, Dicks returned to writing episode novelisations by adapting Invasion of the Bane for a new series of novelisations based upon The Sarah Jane Adventures, published by Penguin Character Books.

Although most closely associated with Doctor Who, Dicks has also worked on other projects, such as a mid-1970s series of novels featuring the adventures of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Of the first ten incarnations of the Doctor, Dicks wrote novels and novelisations featuring all of them except the Ninth.

He also contributed to the charity reference book Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who, as well as several audio commentaries and documentaries.

Legacy[]

SpyfallDedication

Spyfall "Masterful" dedication.

Following his death in 2019, Spyfall, Part One was dedicated to his memory.

Credits[]

As script editor[]

Doctor Who[]

As writer[]

Doctor Who[]

Direct-to-video[]

Prose[]

Target Novelisations[]
Junior Doctor Who[]
Target Books[]
Virgin New Adventures[]
BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures[]
BBC Past Doctor Adventures[]
BBC Quick Reads[]
Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures[]
The Sarah Jane Adventures Novelisations[]
Brief Encounters[]
The Target Storybook[]
Dalek[]
Daily Mirror[]
Bernice Summerfield short stores[]

Non-fiction[]

Stage plays[]

Audio[]

Big Finish Doctor Who stage plays[]
Sarah Jane Smith[]
Companion Chronicles[]

Video game[]

Miscellaneous[]

Documentary[]

to be completed

Audio commentary[]

Contributions to the mythos[]

Major characters and concepts created for or debuting in a Terrance Dicks script include:

External links[]

Footnotes[]

  1. ↑ TCH 14
  2. ↑ Toby Hadoke. "Terrance Dicks obituary". The Guardian. 3 September 2019. Accessed 30 January 2023.
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