A Matter of Time: Robert Holmes

(02/04/1926 – 24/05/1986)

Robert Holmes was an English television scriptwriter, who contributed to some of the most popular programmes in the history of television, most notably Doctor Who, which he had written many scripts and been a script editor for. Holmes suffered from ill-health in the early 1980s, but still wrote popular stories in that time, including ‘The Caves of Androzani’, which has recently been voted as the best episode in Doctor Who history. Many Doctor Who fans regard him as the best writer of the show,

• In 1968, Holmes decided to re-submit a script to the Doctor Who office that he had previously written, but had fell through, entitled ‘The Space Trap’.
• Script Editor Terrance Dicks was impressed with his ideas, and commissioned Holmes to write two stories for Patrick Troughton’s final series, which became ‘The Krotons’ and ‘The Space Pirates’.
• When Terrance Dicks decided to leave at the end of Jon Pertwee’s era, he asked Robert Holmes if he would consider replacing his job, to which he agreed.

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