What became the opening story in The Trial of a Time Lord began life as a very different adventure…
Feature by RICHARD MOLESWORTH
Robert Holmes was Doctor Who’s most prolific scriptwriter during the late 1960s and most of the 70s, as well as serving as script editor on the series during Tom Baker’s first three-anda- half seasons in the title role. After a gap of around five years, during which he wrote for various other BBC programmes such as Blake’s 7, Shoestring and Bergerac, Holmes returned to scripting Doctor Who in the early 1980s. He quickly built up a good rapport with the incumbent script editor, Eric Saward, who knew Holmes’ talent lay not just in good storytelling but also with delivering tight, workable scripts that required minimal editing.