Terrance Dicks

Terrance Dicks
Birth date:	14 April 1935
Death date:	29 August 2019
Work in the DWU
Main jobs:	Writer, script editor
Main time period active:	1968-1977, 1981, 1983 (television) 1974-2008 (prose)
Career highlights
Notable non-DWU work:	The Avengers, Crossroads, Moonbase 3, Space: 1999, BBC Classic Serial
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Terrance Dicks (born Terrance William Dicks on 14 April 1935 in East Ham, Essex, died 29 August 2019) 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 Invasion. He soon began writing scripts for the series. His first notable work was The War Games, an epic, ten-episode collaboration with Malcolm Hulke.

Dicks served as script editor through the Jon Pertwee era. 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 was retired in the early 1990s. Dicks wrote original novels for virtually every line of Doctor Who fiction, with notable exceptions being Virgin Missing Adventures, Telos Publishing, Big Finish Productions' Bernice Summerfield series of books and the current hardcover series of BBC Books novels, although he wrote two entries in the Quick Reads novella series, most notably Made of Steel, which introduced fans to Martha Jones a full month before her TV debut. 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, after a hiatus of seventeen years, 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 thirteen incarnations of the Doctor, Dicks wrote novels and novelisations featuring all of them except the Ninth, Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors. In terms of novelisations, discounting the Modern Era Doctors, for whom novelisations have not been commissioned, along with the Eighth Doctor, the only Doctor era not receiving the Dicks treatment at some point was the Seventh Doctor (discounting the special case of Shakedown, a partial novelisation of the independent film Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, which Dicks adapted for the Virgin New Adventures, expanding the story to include the Seventh Doctor).

He also contributed to the charity reference book Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who.

Contributions to the Doctor Who universe

Major characters and concepts created in a Terrance Dicks script or substantially developed by him as script editor include the Time Lords (in The War Games, co-written with Malcolm Hulke), as well as the Master played by Roger Delgado. More minor creations include the Rutans, the War Lord, the Death Zone and Morbius.

In-universe his name is given to a library at St Luke's University. (COMIC: The Lost Dimension)

The first part of Spyfall was dedicated to his 'Masterful' talents.

In the DWU

Terrance Dicks was mentioned in Bafflement and Devotion as being the author of over one hundred and fifty Target novelisations. In The Lost Dimension, there was a "Terrance Dicks Library" in St Luke's University. Dicks was later played by Jon Culshaw in U.N.I.T. On Call.

Television credits

As writer

Doctor Who

• The War Games (with Malcolm Hulke)
• Robot
• The Brain of Morbius (re-written substantially by script editor Robert Holmes and credited to the pseudonym Robin Bland)
• Horror of Fang Rock
• State of Decay
• The Five Doctors

Direct-to-video

• Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans
• Mindgame
• Mindgame Trilogy: Battlefield

As script editor

Doctor Who

• The Invasion
• The Krotons
• The Seeds of Death
• The War Games
• Spearhead from Space
• Doctor Who and the Silurians
• The Ambassadors of Death
• Inferno
• Terror of the Autons
• The Mind of Evil
• The Claws of Axos
• Colony in Space
• The Dæmons
• Day of the Daleks
• The Sea Devils
• The Curse of Peladon
• The Mutants
• The Time Monster
• Carnival of Monsters
• Frontier in Space
• The Three Doctors
• Planet of the Daleks
• The Green Death
• The Time Warrior
• Invasion of the Dinosaurs
• Death to the Daleks
• The Monster of Peladon
• Planet of the Spiders

Dedications

Spyfall "Masterful" dedication.

• Spyfall: Part One

Prose

Novels

Target Books

• The Doctor Who Dinosaur Book

Virgin New Adventures

• Timewyrm: Exodus
• Blood Harvest
• Shakedown - (technically an expanded upon novelisation of his Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans)

BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures

• The Eight Doctors
• Endgame

BBC Past Doctor Adventures

• Catastrophea
• Players
• Warmonger
• Deadly Reunion (with Barry Letts)
• World Game

BBC Quick Reads

• Made of Steel
• Revenge of the Judoon

Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures

• Mean Streets

Novelisations

Target novelisations

Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen Doctor Who and the Giant Robot Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders The Three Doctors Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks The Revenge of the Cybermen Doctor Who and the Web of Fear Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars Doctor Who and the Carnival of Monsters Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius Doctor Who and the Planet of Evil Doctor Who and the Mutants Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang

Doctor Who and the Face of Evil Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock Doctor Who and the Time Warrior Death to the Daleks Doctor Who and the Android Invasion Doctor Who and the Hand of Fear Doctor Who and the Invisible Enemy Doctor Who and the Image of the Fendahl Doctor Who and the Robots of Death Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks Doctor Who and the Underworld Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood Doctor Who and the Androids of Tara Doctor Who and the Power of Kroll Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor Doctor Who and the Nightmare of Eden

Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon Doctor Who and the Monster of Peladon Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child Doctor Who and the State of Decay Doctor Who and the Keeper of Traken Doctor Who and the Sunmakers Meglos Four to Doomsday Arc of Infinity The Five Doctors Kinda Snakedance Warriors of the Deep Inferno The Caves of Androzani The Mind of Evil The Krotons The Time Monster The Seeds of Death The Faceless Ones The Ambassadors of Death The Mysterious Planet The Wheel in Space The Smugglers Planet of Giants The Space Pirates

Junior Doctor Who

• Junior Doctor Who and the Giant Robot
• Junior Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius

The Sarah Jane Adventures novelisations

• Invasion of the Bane

Short stories

Brief Encounters

• Farewells

The Target Storybook

• Save Yourself

Dalek

• Davros Genesis

Daily Mirror

• Dr. Who and the Hell Planet

Bernice Summerfield short stores

• A Mutual Friend (in A Life of Surprises)

Non-fiction

• The Making of Doctor Who (first edition co-written with Malcolm Hulke; second edition updated and revised by Terrance Dicks alone)
• The Doctor Who Monster Book
• The Second Doctor Who Monster Book

Stage plays

• Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday
• The Ultimate Adventure

Audio

Big Finish Doctor Who stage plays

• Seven Keys to Doomsday
• The Ultimate Adventure

Sarah Jane Smith

• Comeback

Companion Chronicles

• Beyond the Ultimate Adventure

Video Game

• Destiny of the Doctors (with Hannah Redler, Gary Russell and Andy Russell)

Contributions to the mythos

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

• The War Lords
• SIDRAT
• The Time Lords (first named)
• Gallifrey (not mentioned by name)
• The Fourth Doctor
• Harry Sullivan
• K1
• Morbius
• Sisterhood of Karn
• The Rutans
• The Great Vampires
• The Game of Rassilon and the Death Zone
• Raston Warrior Robot
• Time Scoop
• Eye of Orion

External links

• Terrance Dicks at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC.co.uk website interview with Terrance Dicks, 01 January 2004

• Outpost Gallifrey - Interview: Terrance Dicks (archived)