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Terrance Dicks

From TARDIS Index File, the free Doctor Who reference.

This article is written from the Real World point of view. TARDIS

Terrance Dicks (born 10th May 1935), whom fans have often affectionately called "Uncle Terry", is a former script editor of Doctor Who and the author of many related scripts, novels and novelisations.

Contents

[edit] Profile

[edit] 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 later also began writing scripts for the series himself, with his first notable work being The War Games, an epic 10-episode collaboration with Malcolm Hulke.

Dicks went on to serve as script editor throughout the Jon Pertwee era, at which point he handed the reins to Robert Holmes with the coming of Tom Baker. However, Dicks continued to supply scripts for the series, either under his name, or occasionally a pseudonym, specifically "Robin Bland" which was employed when too many changes were made to his script for The Brain of Morbius.

He continued to submit scripts on an irregular basis, most notably the script for the 20th anniversary story The Five Doctors.

In 1973, Dicks, along with other writers from the TV series, were commissioned by Target Books to begin writing novelisations adapting TV episodes. Ultimately, over the next two decades, Dicks became to most prolific author of the line, also becoming 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 or otherwise unable (or unwilling) to adapt their work in book form.

The Target Books line was retired in the early 1990s, and Dicks went on to write original novels for virtually every line of Doctor Who fiction, with notable exceptions including Virgin Missing Adventures, Telos Publishing, Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield series of books, and the current hardcover series of BBC Books novels, although he has written two entries in the Quick Reads novella series.

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

In 2007, after a hiatus of 17 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 and published by Penguin Character Books.

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

Dicks has written novels, or novelisations, featuring every incarnation of the Doctor, with the exception of the Ninth Doctor. In terms of novelisations, discounting the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, for whom novelisations have not been commissioned, 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).

[edit] 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 original version of the Master played by Roger Delgado. More minor creations include the Rutans, the War Lord, the Death Zone and Morbius.

[edit] Selected credits

[edit] Television

[edit] Doctor Who

Re-written substantially by Script Editor Robert Holmes and credited to the pseudonym Robin Bland.

[edit] Direct-to-video

[edit] Prose

[edit] Novels

[edit] Virgin New Adventures
Technically a novelisation of his Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, expanded upon .


[edit] BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures

[edit] BBC Past Doctor Adventures

[edit] BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures

[edit] Quick Reads

[edit] Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures

[edit] Novelisations

[edit] Target Novelisations
[edit] Junior Doctor Who

[edit] Virgin New Adventures

A novelisation of his Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans with substantial original material.

[edit] The Sarah Jane Adventures novelisations

[edit] Non-fiction

First edition co-written with Malcolm Hulke; second edition updated and revised by Terrance Dicks alone.

[edit] Stage plays

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