Robert Colin Holmes (2 April 1926 – 24 May 1986) was a British television scriptwriter. For over 25 years, he 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, which included working as its script editor from 1974 to 1977.
Holmes suffered ill health from the early 1980s. He died in May 1986 while working on scripts for the second and final Sixth Doctor season The Trial of a Time Lord; his last serial as sole writer, The Mysterious Planet, and The Ultimate Foe, of which he only wrote the first part (the second being completed by Pip and Jane Baker), were released posthumously between September and December 1986.
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Early career
In 1944, at the age of 18, 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 the Metropolitan 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.
Holmes 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.
In 1965 Holmes began writing in the science fiction genre when he contributed scripts to Undermind, a body-snatching drama from ITV. He also worked in film once, 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.
Doctor Who
In 1965 Holmes wrote on-spec an idea for a stand-alone science-fiction serial entitled The Space Trap, which he submitted to the BBC. 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 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 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. This was originally planned to be four episodes long but was extended to become a six-parter when another story fell through. 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, Carnival of Monsters and The Time Warrior. 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.
Legacy
Holmes's work on Doctor Who has been discussed in numerous DVD documentaries, most notably Behind the Sofa, produced by Richard Molesworth, which appears on the DVD release of The Two Doctors.
Holmes's friend, fellow TV writer Roger Marshall, argued that his work never received the acclaim it deserved because most of it was in series television as opposed to television plays or serials. According to Marshall: "In retrospect, he spent too much time tinkering around with lesser writers' work rather than getting on with his own."
Russell T Davies, head writer and producer for Doctor Who's 21st-century revival, stated Holmes' serial The Ark in Space as his favourite story from the original series. He said he considered Holmes to be comparable with the greatest screenwriters, describing the first episode of The Talons of Weng-Chiang as having "the best dialogue ever written. It's up there with Dennis Potter... When the history of television drama comes to be written, Robert Holmes won't be remembered at all because he only wrote genre stuff. And that, I reckon, is a real tragedy".