Terrance Dicks

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Terrance Dicks (born 1935) is probably the closest thing the Doctor Who franchise has to a single "public face", and has been involved with the show for a longer period of time than anyone ever.

He was hired as assistant script editor in 1968 through the recommendation of his friend and fellow writer Malcolm Hulke, and became full script editor in 1969. He and Barry Letts, the producer, had creative control of the show for all five seasons in which Jon Pertwee played the Doctor.

Although he was not credited as a writer on any of these stories, he made a heavy contribution to the scripts. Outside his period as script editor, he was credited writer on The War Games (with Hulke), Robot, Horror of Fang Rock, State of Decay, and The Five Doctors. He also wrote the first drafts of The Brain of Morbius, but asked for his name to be removed from the story because of the extent to which the scripts were rewritten and the story reconceptualised by his successor as script editor, Robert Holmes.

His most visible contribution to the franchise, however, was his involvement with the Target Books novelisations of the TV stories between 1973 and the end of the original TV show. He personally wrote over sixty of the novelisations, and acted as an unofficial head writer and artistic administrator for the series.

Since the end of the original TV show, he has written thirteen original novels in all the different prose sections of the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, including the second Virgin New Adventure, Timewyrm: Exodus, and the first of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, The Eight Doctors.

Other oddments in the Who franchise include the plays Doctor Who and the Seven Keys to Doomsday and The Ultimate Adventure, the novelisation of Invasion of the Bane (the inaugural episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures), and a few official non-fiction works in the Universe Compendium and "making of" genres. And many, many DVD Commentaries and documentary appearances.

The fandom still sees regular demands for him to be invited to write a TV story again.

Outside his work for Doctor Who, he wrote well over a hundred original books for children, mainly in the crime, adventure, and Funny Animal genres.

After leaving Doctor Who, he and Letts created the short-lived and extremely grim hard-SF BBC show Moonbase Three, and then worked on many adaptations of classic novels and other literature for the Beeb. His early pre-Who TV work included episodes of The Avengers and Crossroads.

Known For:

• Beige Prose
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Hence his fan nickname of "Cuddly Uncle Tewwy"
• Fleeting Demographic Rule: Known for his rule that, in an age before home video or frequent multi-channel repeats, no story should expect the audience to remember another story that happened more than three years previously.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: His works in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe (the later ones particularly) began to see a lot of scenes wherein the main female characters would be threatened with rape by the bad guys.
• Money, Dear Boy: One of the world's most shamelessly charming public practitioners.