Line #30 Creator/RobertHolmes


1	[[quoteright:226:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rholmeswho_4869.jpg]]
2	->''"I like [[WorldOfHam wild, rich, hammy characters]] and ''Doctor Who'' is one of the few series where you can get away with them."''
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4	Robert Colin Holmes (2 April 1926 – 24 May 1986) was a British screenwriter best known for his stint on ''Series/DoctorWho'': he wrote 18[[note]]A couple of these were effective page-one rewrites for other writers and went out under pseudonyms. The number is greater still if you count stories written by others that he heavily script edited.[[/note]] stories between 1968 and 1986, and served as script editor from 1974-1977.
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6	These aren't just ''any'' stories though. Included in his work are many that were crucial in the show's mythos and worldbuilding, introducing the Autons, the Sontarans, the Master, quite a bit of Time Lord mythology[[note]] such as the name Gallifrey, the 12-regeneration limit ''and'' the idea that it could be bypassed (in the same story!), the Eye of Harmony, and Rassilon[[/note]] and several companions. His contribution to ''Doctor Who'' cannot be overstated and we're willing to bet at least one of his stories turns up on your top 10 list, probably more. Creator/StevenMoffat called him "the man who showed us how to write ''Doctor Who''", while Creator/RussellTDavies lamented how [[SciFiGhetto the BBC had no respect for him]], and compared the first episode of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]" to Creator/DennisPotter.
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8	Many of his plots have a formula -- crippled super-villain tries to regain power -- but they vary widely from that initial idea. Holmes was very fond of ThoseTwoGuys: many of his stories are advanced by a double act of supporting characters. His Holmesian Double Act in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", showman Jago and police pathologist Litefoot, were so popular that a spinoff was briefly considered, and eventually realised in 2010 by Creator/BigFinish. He died of a brief, unspecified illness before he could finish "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe The Ultimate Foe]]"; having only completed the first episode, the second and final one was written at the last minute by Creator/PipAndJaneBaker (following a spat where Creator/EricSaward wrote part two according to Holmes' outline before quitting the show and taking his script with him due to CreativeDifferences with producer Creator/JohnNathanTurner). It's also a shame that we never got to see "Yellow Fever and How to Cure It", a story planned for the original Season 23, which would have featured the Master teaming up with the Nestene Consciousness in Singapore.
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10	''Series/DoctorWho'' wasn't the only British science fiction institution Holmes wrote for. He was offered the script editor's position on ''Series/BlakesSeven'', which he declined, recommending Creator/ChrisBoucher for the job. He eventually wrote four episodes for that series, including "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS4E11Orbit Orbit]]", where [[spoiler:Avon stalks Vila through a shuttle in order to [[ShootTheDog throw him overboard to save weight]]. ]]
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12	Holmes joined the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in 1944, and was actually the youngest commissioned officer of the ''entire British Army'' in the Second World War, having lied about his age to join. After the war, he became a [[UsefulNotes/BritishCoppers London policeman]]. His contact with court reporters led him to leave the Met and become a reporter himself, and eventually a television writer. A spec script sent to the BBC led to his first scripting job for ''Doctor Who'', Season 6's "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E4TheKrotons The Krotons.]]"
13	----
14	!!Television stories written by Holmes with TV Tropes pages:
15	* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
16	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E4TheKrotons "The Krotons"]]
17	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E6TheSpacePirates "The Space Pirates"]]
18	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace "Spearhead from Space"]]
19	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E1TerrorOfTheAutons "Terror of the Autons"]]
20	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E2CarnivalOfMonsters "Carnival of Monsters"]]
21	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E1TheTimeWarrior "The Time Warrior"]]
22	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace "The Ark in Space"]]
23	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMars "Pyramids of Mars"]] (credited to the pseudonym "Stephen Harris")
24	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius "The Brain of Morbius"]] (co-written by Creator/TerranceDicks, credited as "Robin Bland")
25	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin "The Deadly Assassin"]]
26	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"]]
27	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers "The Sun Makers"]]
28	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E1TheRibosOperation "The Ribos Operation"]]
29	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E5ThePowerOfKroll "The Power of Kroll"]]
30	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani "The Caves of Androzani"]]
31	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E4TheTwoDoctors "The Two Doctors"]]
32	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E1TheMysteriousPlanet "The Mysterious Planet"]]
33	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]] (Part One; Part Two was written by Creator/PipAndJaneBaker)
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35	* ''Series/BlakesSeven'':
36	** "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS2E7Killer Killer]]"
37	** "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS2E11Gambit Gambit]]"
38	** "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS4E3Traitor Traitor]]"
39	** "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS4E11Orbit Orbit]]"
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41	!!Tropes in his work include:
42	* ArmedWithCanon: He spent a lot of time kicking at things from the Pertwee era that he disliked (like the Third Doctor's InvincibleHero problems) and providing explanations for AcceptableBreaksFromReality tropes in the show that had been previously ignored (AliensSpeakingEnglish, WalkingDisasterArea, HeroBall). He also retconned Time Lord society into a DecadentCourt of elderly bureaucrats because he disliked the {{Utopia}} concept that the previous era used.
43	* AuthorTract: Being one of the most openly political writers in the show's history has lead to more than a few cases of this; among other examples, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers "The Sun Makers"]] is essentially one big diatribe about how much Holmes hated taxation, and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E4TheTwoDoctors "The Two Doctors"]] is an extended ode to Holmes' ethically-based reasoning behind his vegetarianism (to the point where he made the Doctor become vegetarian for pretty much the remainder of the classic series).
44	* BlackComedy: If his sense of humour wasn't clever wordplay, it was this.
45	* BloodierAndGorier[=/=]DarkerAndEdgier: Along with producer Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe, he was responsible for Doctor Who's "GothicHorror" period in the mid-Seventies, and really tested the limits of what they could get away with.
46	* ComicTrio: He often set up his villains like this, then used them to tell a genuinely frightening horror story. Even when he wasn't using the entire trio, the "character who thinks he's a genius, has some legitimate talent, but actually has no idea what he's doing" was one of his favourite archetypes, and formed the backbone of the Master, the Fourth Doctor (a rare heroic example from him), and virtually all other prominent characters he created.
47	* DistinguishedGentlemansPipe: He was fond of smoking one.
48	* EverybodysDeadDave: In at least three of his stories, he butchered nearly all his guest cast. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]", the only person to make it off Androzani alive is Peri -- he even kills the Fifth Doctor!
49	* GothicHorror: His tenure even had a touch of Film/HammerHorror about it.
50	* NightmareFetishist: His attitude to ''Doctor Who'' was essentially, "Let's scare the little buggers".
51	* ObstructiveBureaucrat: He ''hated'' bureaucrats. When he wasn't using them as villains, he was having the Doctor make TakeThat zingers at their expense.
52	* {{Retcon}}: Holmes was never afraid to rewrite ''Doctor Who'''s history to fit the story he needed to tell, and his versions tended to be the ones that stuck.
53	** The Doctor gains his second heart because Holmes needed something to get the Brigadier out to the rural Essex hospital the Doctor was in, and reporting a patient with two hearts (a bit [[RecycledScript he'd used in another script]]) worked perfectly. It also emphasised the Doctor's [[HumanAlien alien-ness]] in the new Earthbound format. The Doctor would pick up more alien physical traits [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands as the plot required them]] during Holmes' tenure as script editor.
54	** Time Lords get exactly thirteen lives because Holmes needed the Master to have a reason for returning to Gallifrey and being close to death, and a finite number of regenerations was a good hook. (Usefully for the future, he also introduced the idea that you could be granted more regenerations in the exact same story.)
55	** He made the Time Lords a DecadentCourt of [[NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering useless, self-involved old men]] because he needed to dramatically justify why the Doctor ran away. (His thinking ran that if the Time Lords really were omniscient Guardians of Time, then by definition their [[AlienNonInterferenceClause policy of non-interference]] must be right and the Doctor choosing to get involved in the universe must be wrong, [[VillainProtagonist which destroys the moral foundation of the whole show]].)
56	** Holmes wrote "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E4TheTwoDoctors The Two Doctors]]" with the intent of re-contextualizing the first six seasons of the show: feeling that it would be out of character for the folks on Gallifrey to just lose track of a TARDIS, he envisioned the First and Second Doctors as having been secretly working for the Time Lords the entire time. This would end up sowing the seeds for "Season 6B", an AscendedFanon theory (based partly on tie-in comics made during the hiatus between Seasons 6 and 7) which states that the Second Doctor briefly had his sentence at the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E7TheWarGames "The War Games"]] postponed in exchange for acting as an agent of the Time Lords.
57	* ThoseTwoGuys: And frequently so well-written they became [[invoked]][[EnsembleDarkhorse pretty popular]]. Some of the more popular examples include showman Jago and police pathologist Litefoot, con artists Garron and Unstoffe, and mercenary Sabalom Glitz and his incompetent assistant Dibber.
58	* UnwantedAssistance: His characters don't stand around and wait for the Doctor to save them, they work on their own solution to the problem. Usually they end up just making things worse (see "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E4TheKrotons The Krotons]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E2CarnivalOfMonsters Carnival of Monsters]]" for good examples).
59	* WriterOnBoard: Occasionally quite obvious, though rarely detrimental to the plot. "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E4TheTwoDoctors The Two Doctors]]" made the Doctor a vegetarian like Holmes (and this actually held for twenty years). "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers The Sun Makers]]" was a jab at the Revenue office (because they subjected him to a gruelling tax audit because he'd been paid as both an employee and a freelancer for the BBC during his period as script editor). "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]" is commonly seen as taking some potshots at the ridiculousness of the House Of Lords and the Oxbridge establishment, too.
60	* WriterRevolt: Holmes was known for taking the piss when given a "nightmare brief" or a shopping list of story elements to include.
61	** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E2CarnivalOfMonsters Carnival Of Monsters]]" was supposed to be StrictlyFormula, so he wrote a serial in which the Doctor and Jo are trapped in featureless corridors being chased by generic monsters for the amusement of a bored audience.
62	** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E1TheRibosOperation The Ribos Operation]]" was supposed to set up a Good VS Evil meta-plot, which he immediately subverted by writing the BigGood as a quietly intimidating bully and the Doctor befriends a pair of honest con artists instead.
63	** Holmes ultimately bounced off "[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]" because he couldn't find a way to include every single thing the producer was demanding in a way that made sense to him as a writer.
64	** Holmes' first two scripts for Creator/EricSaward are often interpreted as Holmes saying "[[IWillShowYouX You want grim violence? I'll give you grim violence!]]":
65	*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani "The Caves Of Androzani"]] takes Saward's habit of painting the Fifth Doctor as weak and ineffectual by putting him in a brutal world of EvilVsEvil where all he can do is try and survive, but deliberately showing the Doctor's [[{{Determinator}} bravery, determination and self-sacrifice.]]
66	*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E4TheTwoDoctors "The Two Doctors"]] skewers the Sixth Doctor era's brutal violence by bringing it over the top with a nauseating story about cannibalism, and its love of ContinuityPorn by giving the viewer a strong dose of WhatMeasureIsANonHuman.
67	** Holmes' final contribution to the Whoniverse mythos, the Valeyard, reads as a scathing critique of the Sixth Doctor, amplifying all of his most antagonistic traits to create an offshoot of the Doctor that's so impenetrably full of himself that he's willing to jeopardize his own timeline if it means potentially saving his own skin (as shown in part one of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]], the last script Holmes finished before he died; he never got around to completing the second part).

Context Creator / RobertHolmes