RIP Terrance Dicks
I remember being on holiday in England, in the early 1970s, when my eye was caught by two paperbacks, “Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion” by Terrance Dicks, and “Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters” by Malcolm Hulke.
Previous to this, the only Doctor Who novelisation of stories I had come across were those produced back in the 1960s – an Amada Paperback of “Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks”, price 2 shillings and 6 pence, and two hardbacks by Frederick Muller, “Dr Who and The Crusaders”, which I picked up cheap at a jumble sale, and “Doctor Who and the Zarbi” which was available in our local library. But these were old books, featuring William Hartnell as the Doctor.
Now, suddenly, there were two modestly priced Target paperbacks, which became my holiday reading for the rest of that holiday. Hulke had been Dicks’ mentor in script writing, and both were well written.
People have said that Dick’s prose was “workmanlike”, and perhaps compared to some writers styles it was, plain, unvarnished, but it was also clear, descriptive, and at its best, like Hulke, he added backstory elements which filled out the background in ways which was not present in the television version.
Sam Seeley moved through Oxley Woods like a rather tubby ghost. Sam was the most expert poacher for miles around, and proud of it. Many a time he’d slipped by within inches of a watching gamekeeper. Soundlessly he moved through the woods, stopping from time to time to check his rabbit traps. He mopped the sweat from his brow as he moved along. No business to be as hot as this, not in October. Worse than a midsummer night it was. Seeley blamed it on those atom bombs. Suddenly a fierce whizzing and hissing filled the air around him. Terrified, Seeley dropped to the ground, muffling his head in his poacher’s sack. The terrifying noise continued. He heard soft thumping sounds, as if heavy objects were burying themselves in the forest earth around him. At last there came silence.
Sam looked up cautiously. Within a few feet of his head the ground was smoking gently. Cautiously Sam reached for a stick and started to scrape away the earth. Within minutes he uncovered the top half of a buried sphere, roughly the size of a football. The sphere was smooth, almost transparent. It pulsed and glowed with an angry green light. It seemed somehow alive. Sam reached out to touch it, then pulled back his hand. The thing was red hot. Hurriedly, Sam replaced the earth over his find and moved away. He’d come back again when it had cooled down, in daylight. He set off for home.
And here’s the bit where Sam returns to the woods to collect the sphere:
With military precision the soldiers had divided the woods into sections, and were methodically combing them, one by one. The woods were thick and dark, the ground between the trees heavily overgrown with gorse and bracken. The search was taking a long time. So far they had found nothing. They certainly hadn’t found Sam Seeley, who slipped through the patrols at will, sometimes passing within a few feet of them.
The sounds of search came nearer. Sam peered through a gap in the bushes and saw a three-man patrol approaching. Two of the soldiers were carrying some kind of mine-detector, while the third, a corporal, was directing their search. Sam grinned to himself. He knew what they were looking for. what’s more, he knew where to find it.
This is full of description, and the character of Sam Seeley, the poacher is brought to life far better than the rather yokel like performance in the television show. It’s not just a plain transcription of what the script said. It draws the reader in.
Incidentally, I put this into a sentence tester. The sentence test shows no passive sentences, and a Flesch Reading Ease of 82.3. The higher the reading score, the easier a piece of text is to read. Scoring between 70 to 80 is equivalent to school grade level 8, meaning text should be fairly easy for the average adult to read. For example, a reading score of 60 to 70 is equivalent to a grade level of 8-9 so a text with this score should be understood by 13 to 15-year-olds.
Dick’s prose, then is easy for teenagers to engage with, and it is that simplicity which led to thousand of youngsters, mostly boys, learning to enjoy reading. I was already a fully fledged bookworm by the time I came across his books, but I have since learned of the many who learned to enjoy reading for the sake of it by reading his books. That’s some achievement.
His prose novelisations did become more tired as time went on, and Kinda, for example, is a very bland, rather non-descriptive writing, lacking depth, losing much of the atmosphere, the bare bones of script turned to prose. And then he had a second wind, and late novelisations like “Inferno”, “The Mind of Evil” and “The Ambassadors of Death” count among his best.
I also was lucky to get “The Making of Doctor Who”, penned by Dicks and his good friend Malcolm Hulke, this featured photos that I’d never seen before, a summary of all the stories to date, and background material on the three doctors and a brief biography of the actors playing them, as well as the current companions and the UNIT team.
It also has a wonderful extract which shows how a story goes from an overview, to a script, to a camera shooting script (explaining the terms) and then to the novelisation, as well as explaining what happens in a TV studio.
The later version had more details on stories, and also the famous quote about the Doctor used in the 50th Anniversary special, that he should always be ““never cruel or cowardly”.
Another series which was of considerable interest was “Moonbase 3”, which I’ve always regarded as an underrated gem. It doesn’t have any of the flashy science fiction elements, but dramatises, with very good scientific plausibility (James Burke was Science Advisor), what it would be like to live and work together in the confined space of a moonbase. It was created by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks – Letts being the producer on Dr Who during Dick’s time as script editor.
By now I was following end credits – a very geeky thing to do – and noticed that the excellent Classic Serial slot late on Sunday afternoons also had Letts and Dicks after they left Dr Who. Again under his work as script editor, some wonderful serials were produced - The Pickwick Papers, Goodbye Mr. Chips (probably the definitive version, although shamefully never released to DVD), Jane Eyre (another definitive version), Stalky &; Co., Great Expectations.
The Classic Serial slot had suffered in the past from being seen as worthy but dull, but under Letts and Dicks it was a “must watch” television slot on Sundays.
When Barry Letts retired, Dicks took over as Producer for a while, and under his supervision, the Classic slot saw a wonderful production of the Diary of Ann Frank, a brilliant Vanity Fair, David Copperfield, The Franchise Affair, Bratt Farrar and Oliver Twist, taking some more traditional authors such as Dickens and Thackeray, and some modern ones.
For more on that serial at that time see my blog:
https://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2010/02/classics-that-time-forgot.html
As a script editor of Doctor Who, he was part of the team with his close friend Barry Letts which brought it high ratings in the 1970s, and back from the brink of cancellation, and later as a writer of episodes never turned out anything which was not watchable. “Robot”, “Horror of Fang Rock”, “the Five Doctors” and “State of Decay” were all well crafted stories which showed that even under Tom Baker, he could still provide good stories well told.
He also added immeasurably to the “extras” on DVDs with his reminiscences on stories, and lively anecdotes, as well as informative interviews in magazines. With his own modesty he said of his time as script editor:
“My plan was to get the bloody show out, on the air! When people asked me: "What were your aims and ambitions for the show?" I’d say: ‘That the BBC did not have to show the test card at 6pm on Saturday night.’”"
One of the last of the "greats" of Doctor Who has gone. Rest in peace, Terrance.
For further reading:
https://thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2016/04/18/reviewed-doctor-who-and-the-dalek-invasion-of-earth-by-terrance-dicks/
https://downthetubes.net/?p=110626
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/terrance-dicks-dead-age-cause-doctor-who-bbc-writer-death-a9088806.html
I remember being on holiday in England, in the early 1970s, when my eye was caught by two paperbacks, “Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion” by Terrance Dicks, and “Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters” by Malcolm Hulke.
Previous to this, the only Doctor Who novelisation of stories I had come across were those produced back in the 1960s – an Amada Paperback of “Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks”, price 2 shillings and 6 pence, and two hardbacks by Frederick Muller, “Dr Who and The Crusaders”, which I picked up cheap at a jumble sale, and “Doctor Who and the Zarbi” which was available in our local library. But these were old books, featuring William Hartnell as the Doctor.
Now, suddenly, there were two modestly priced Target paperbacks, which became my holiday reading for the rest of that holiday. Hulke had been Dicks’ mentor in script writing, and both were well written.
People have said that Dick’s prose was “workmanlike”, and perhaps compared to some writers styles it was, plain, unvarnished, but it was also clear, descriptive, and at its best, like Hulke, he added backstory elements which filled out the background in ways which was not present in the television version.
Sam Seeley moved through Oxley Woods like a rather tubby ghost. Sam was the most expert poacher for miles around, and proud of it. Many a time he’d slipped by within inches of a watching gamekeeper. Soundlessly he moved through the woods, stopping from time to time to check his rabbit traps. He mopped the sweat from his brow as he moved along. No business to be as hot as this, not in October. Worse than a midsummer night it was. Seeley blamed it on those atom bombs. Suddenly a fierce whizzing and hissing filled the air around him. Terrified, Seeley dropped to the ground, muffling his head in his poacher’s sack. The terrifying noise continued. He heard soft thumping sounds, as if heavy objects were burying themselves in the forest earth around him. At last there came silence.
Sam looked up cautiously. Within a few feet of his head the ground was smoking gently. Cautiously Sam reached for a stick and started to scrape away the earth. Within minutes he uncovered the top half of a buried sphere, roughly the size of a football. The sphere was smooth, almost transparent. It pulsed and glowed with an angry green light. It seemed somehow alive. Sam reached out to touch it, then pulled back his hand. The thing was red hot. Hurriedly, Sam replaced the earth over his find and moved away. He’d come back again when it had cooled down, in daylight. He set off for home.
And here’s the bit where Sam returns to the woods to collect the sphere:
With military precision the soldiers had divided the woods into sections, and were methodically combing them, one by one. The woods were thick and dark, the ground between the trees heavily overgrown with gorse and bracken. The search was taking a long time. So far they had found nothing. They certainly hadn’t found Sam Seeley, who slipped through the patrols at will, sometimes passing within a few feet of them.
The sounds of search came nearer. Sam peered through a gap in the bushes and saw a three-man patrol approaching. Two of the soldiers were carrying some kind of mine-detector, while the third, a corporal, was directing their search. Sam grinned to himself. He knew what they were looking for. what’s more, he knew where to find it.
This is full of description, and the character of Sam Seeley, the poacher is brought to life far better than the rather yokel like performance in the television show. It’s not just a plain transcription of what the script said. It draws the reader in.
Incidentally, I put this into a sentence tester. The sentence test shows no passive sentences, and a Flesch Reading Ease of 82.3. The higher the reading score, the easier a piece of text is to read. Scoring between 70 to 80 is equivalent to school grade level 8, meaning text should be fairly easy for the average adult to read. For example, a reading score of 60 to 70 is equivalent to a grade level of 8-9 so a text with this score should be understood by 13 to 15-year-olds.
Dick’s prose, then is easy for teenagers to engage with, and it is that simplicity which led to thousand of youngsters, mostly boys, learning to enjoy reading. I was already a fully fledged bookworm by the time I came across his books, but I have since learned of the many who learned to enjoy reading for the sake of it by reading his books. That’s some achievement.
His prose novelisations did become more tired as time went on, and Kinda, for example, is a very bland, rather non-descriptive writing, lacking depth, losing much of the atmosphere, the bare bones of script turned to prose. And then he had a second wind, and late novelisations like “Inferno”, “The Mind of Evil” and “The Ambassadors of Death” count among his best.
I also was lucky to get “The Making of Doctor Who”, penned by Dicks and his good friend Malcolm Hulke, this featured photos that I’d never seen before, a summary of all the stories to date, and background material on the three doctors and a brief biography of the actors playing them, as well as the current companions and the UNIT team.
It also has a wonderful extract which shows how a story goes from an overview, to a script, to a camera shooting script (explaining the terms) and then to the novelisation, as well as explaining what happens in a TV studio.
The later version had more details on stories, and also the famous quote about the Doctor used in the 50th Anniversary special, that he should always be ““never cruel or cowardly”.
Another series which was of considerable interest was “Moonbase 3”, which I’ve always regarded as an underrated gem. It doesn’t have any of the flashy science fiction elements, but dramatises, with very good scientific plausibility (James Burke was Science Advisor), what it would be like to live and work together in the confined space of a moonbase. It was created by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks – Letts being the producer on Dr Who during Dick’s time as script editor.
By now I was following end credits – a very geeky thing to do – and noticed that the excellent Classic Serial slot late on Sunday afternoons also had Letts and Dicks after they left Dr Who. Again under his work as script editor, some wonderful serials were produced - The Pickwick Papers, Goodbye Mr. Chips (probably the definitive version, although shamefully never released to DVD), Jane Eyre (another definitive version), Stalky &; Co., Great Expectations.
The Classic Serial slot had suffered in the past from being seen as worthy but dull, but under Letts and Dicks it was a “must watch” television slot on Sundays.
When Barry Letts retired, Dicks took over as Producer for a while, and under his supervision, the Classic slot saw a wonderful production of the Diary of Ann Frank, a brilliant Vanity Fair, David Copperfield, The Franchise Affair, Bratt Farrar and Oliver Twist, taking some more traditional authors such as Dickens and Thackeray, and some modern ones.
For more on that serial at that time see my blog:
https://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2010/02/classics-that-time-forgot.html
As a script editor of Doctor Who, he was part of the team with his close friend Barry Letts which brought it high ratings in the 1970s, and back from the brink of cancellation, and later as a writer of episodes never turned out anything which was not watchable. “Robot”, “Horror of Fang Rock”, “the Five Doctors” and “State of Decay” were all well crafted stories which showed that even under Tom Baker, he could still provide good stories well told.
He also added immeasurably to the “extras” on DVDs with his reminiscences on stories, and lively anecdotes, as well as informative interviews in magazines. With his own modesty he said of his time as script editor:
“My plan was to get the bloody show out, on the air! When people asked me: "What were your aims and ambitions for the show?" I’d say: ‘That the BBC did not have to show the test card at 6pm on Saturday night.’”"
One of the last of the "greats" of Doctor Who has gone. Rest in peace, Terrance.
For further reading:
https://thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2016/04/18/reviewed-doctor-who-and-the-dalek-invasion-of-earth-by-terrance-dicks/
https://downthetubes.net/?p=110626
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/terrance-dicks-dead-age-cause-doctor-who-bbc-writer-death-a9088806.html
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