After his departure, Dicks continued to be associated with the programme, writing four more scripts: Robot (1975, the opening story of Tom Baker's era as the Fourth Doctor), The Brain of Morbius (1976), Horror of Fang Rock (1977), State of Decay (1981) and the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors (1983).ĭicks also contributed heavily to Target Books' range of novelisations of Doctor Who television stories, writing more than sixty of the titles published by the company. Dicks went on to become the main script editor on the programme the following year, and earned his first writing credit on the show when he and Hulke co-wrote the epic ten-part story The War Games which closed the sixth season and the era of Second Doctor Patrick Troughton.ĭicks went on to form a highly productive working relationship with incoming Doctor Who producer Barry Letts, working as the script editor on each of Letts' five seasons in charge of the programme from 1970 to 1974. In 1968 he was employed as the assistant script editor on the BBC's popular science-fiction series Doctor Who. He also wrote for the popular ATV soap opera Crossroads. His break in television came when his friend Malcolm Hulke asked for his help with the writing of an episode of the popular ABC (ITV) action-adventure series The Avengers, on which Dicks received a co-writer's credit on the broadcast. When they offer Susan a ride home, she replies ‘I like walking through the dark it's mysterious.’ This leads Ian and Barbara to drive to the junkyard and await Susan’s arrival, motivated, as they admit to each other, by the mystery around the girl.Terrance Dicks was an English writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular children's books during the 1970s and 80s. But though she is the focus of our attention, the narrative viewpoint is unquestionably with the two ordinary people, Ian and Barbara. When we first see Susan, her dancing to the radio’s pop music is meant to seem a little ‘unearthly’. ‘She lets her knowledge out a little bit at a time, so as not to embarrass me,’ Ian says Barbara’s offer of a visit to her home is refused because her grandfather ‘doesn't like strangers’. And it seems that the address given to the school is an old junkyard, not a house. She mentions a decimal currency system years before it was introduced in Britain and yet seems unable to compute with simple geometry. Susan Foreman, the student in question, has behaved oddly: she seems to know both more than she should in some cases, and less than she should in others. One of the pillars of the programme is quickly and firmly embedded: the story begins properly with the teachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, in the context of their ordinary, everyday lives at Coal Hill School, being both curious about one of their students and morally responsible, deciding to investigate, as they do, where exactly she lives. It’s almost the kind of juxtaposition one would find in something from the horror genre: things are placed together which shouldn’t be together things are apart which shouldn’t be apart. These images are only on screen for seconds, but a core mood has been established: there is something strange going on, a juxtaposition that shouldn’t be. ![]() And there’s some kind of electronic humming noise coming from inside it. The policeman who should have had access to such a thing has walked by on the other side of a locked gate. But then the camera rests on an old police box, an object which viewers in 1963 would have found quite ordinary and mundane. Already the apparent laws of material objects are being casually broken, it seems. Oddly, as he moves off, never to be seen again, the gates to the junkyard swing inexplicably open - even though we have just been shown that they were locked - and we follow the camera through them, glimpsing a blanket, a rake, and other assorted items. Foreman, Scrap Merchant, 76 Totters Lane’, checking to see if its gates are properly locked before moving on. ![]() He seems vaguely curious about a junkyard marked with the sign ‘I.M. The first thing we actually see on-screen (after the marvellously unique and haunting opening theme, ahead of its time) is a policeman making his rounds through a foggy, barely visible (in the fuzzy black and white television picture of 1963) neighbourhood in London.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |