A Matter of Time: Douglas Adams

(11/03/1952 – 11/05/2001)

Nine years ago today, the script editor for the seventeenth season of Doctor Who, Douglas Adams, died of a heart attack at the young age of 49, after his regular workout as a private gym in California. He wrote three stories for Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor, as well as editing the series of 1979. His third script, ‘Shada’, was only partially filmed and not broadcast due to strikes.

Adams sent the script for ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ pilot episode to the Doctor Who production office in 1978, and was commissioned to write ‘The Pirate Planet’ for the second part to the ‘Key To Time’ story arc, in Season 16. He had also previously attempted to submit a potential movie script, called ‘Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen’, which later became his novel ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’.

The episodes written by Douglas Adams are some of the few that have not been novelised, as Adams would not allow anyone else to write them, and asked for a higher price than the publishers were willing to pay. He was often known to include in-jokes from ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy’ in stories he wrote for Doctor Who.

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