Terrance William Dicks (14 April 1935 – 29 August 2019) was an English author and television screenwriter, script editor and producer. In television, he had a long association with the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who, working as a writer and also serving as the programme's script editor from 1968 to 1974. The Doctor Who News Page described him as "arguably the most prolific contributor to Doctor Who". He later became a script editor and producer of classic serials for the BBC.

Dicks wrote many children's books during the 1970s and 1980s. He also maintained his association with Doctor Who by adapting televised stories into novelisations for Target Books and in later years contributing to many documentaries and DVD commentaries for the series.

Early career

Born in East Ham, Essex (now part of Greater London), Dicks was the only son of William, a tailor's salesman and Nellie (née Ambler), a waitress. His parents later ran a pub, the Fox and Hounds, in Forest Gate. He excelled in English at East Ham Grammar School and consumed literature ranging from classics to pulp thrillers and adventure stories. He won a scholarship to study English at Downing College, Cambridge, and later performed two years of national service in the British Army with the Royal Fusiliers. Following his discharge from the armed forces, he worked for five years as an advertising copywriter, and started to write radio play scripts for the BBC in his spare time. He was appointed head script editor the following year and earned his first writing credit for the programme when he and Hulke co-wrote the 10-part serial The War Games, which concluded the series' sixth season and the Second Doctor's (Patrick Troughton) tenure. The serial introduced the concept of the Time Lords and initiated the Doctor's exile to Earth, which would be a major theme of the Third Doctor's tenure. Dicks had been the uncredited co-writer of the earlier serial The Seeds of Death (1969), having extensively re-written Brian Hayles' original scripts.

Dicks formed a highly productive working relationship with incoming Doctor Who producer Barry Letts, serving as script editor on all of Letts's five seasons as series producer from 1970 to 1974. During his tenure as script editor on Doctor Who, Dicks oversaw a number of additions to the series' mythology that still exist in the modern era, including the following:

  • The development of the Time Lords and their society
  • The name Gallifrey (augmented from Doctor Who writer Robert Holmes' "Galfrey")
  • The creation of companions Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, and Sarah Jane Smith
  • The term "regeneration" (Planet of the Spiders)
  • An established race of villainous monsters turn to the side of good (the Ice Warriors in The Curse of Peladon by Brian Hayles)
  • Sontarans (from writer Robert Holmes)
  • The Dematerialisation Circuit is vital for the operation of the TARDIS
  • The concept that the TARDIS is indestructible
  • The TARDIS can be remote controlled
  • The TARDIS has a Telepathic Circuit (in The Time Monster)
  • The TARDIS might be sentient (The Time Monster and Planet of the Spiders)
  • The Blinovitch Limitation Effect used as a plot device to explain away paradoxes (Day of the Daleks)
  • Multi-Doctor stories (The Three Doctors)

During Dicks' tenure, the series also delved into social and political concepts. Sometimes these were straightforward and other times they were metaphors. Concepts and topics included the respect for all life (The Silurians), Great Britain joining the European Economic Community (in metaphor in The Curse of Peladon), apartheid (The Mutants), global pollution (The Green Death) and equality for women (with the inclusion of Sarah Jane Smith as companion).

In 1972, Dicks embarked on a parallel career as an author with the publication of his first book, The Making of Doctor Who (a history of the production of the TV series), which was co-written by Hulke. Horror of Fang Rock (1977) and State of Decay (1980), a re-written version of a story originally titled The Vampire Mutations,

The first serial aired after Dicks' death, the 2020 Thirteenth Doctor-era story "Spyfall", was dedicated to him.

Books

Dicks contributed heavily to Target Books' series of novelisations of the Doctor Who TV serials, writing 67 of the titles published by the company. As Dicks explains in an interview in the documentary Built for War (included on the 2006 DVD release of The Sontaran Experiment), he served as the unofficial editor of the Target Books range.

During the 1990s, Dicks contributed to Virgin Publishing's line of full-length, officially licensed, original Doctor Who novels, New Adventures, which continued the series' storyline following the TV cancellation in 1989. Dicks wrote three Doctor Who novels for Virgin, and continued to write occasionally for the franchise after BBC Books assumed the licence in 1997. He wrote the first of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, titled The Eight Doctors, which was, for a time, the best-selling original Doctor Who novel. World Game, featuring the Second Doctor, is set during "Season 6B". Later contributions to the range were the Quick Reads books Made of Steel and Revenge of the Judoon, both featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones.

His final Doctor Who short story, "Save Yourself", was published posthumously by BBC Books in October 2019.

Other television work

Dicks also wrote for the ATV soap opera Crossroads. and wrote for the ITC science-fiction series Space: 1999 (1976). During the early 1980s, Dicks served once more as script editor to producer Barry Letts on the BBC's Sunday Classics strand of period dramas and literary adaptations.

When Letts returned to directing in 1985, Dicks succeeded him as the producer of the Sunday Classics, overseeing productions such as Oliver Twist (1985), David Copperfield (1986) and Vanity Fair (1987), before retiring from the BBC in 1988 to resume his career as a novelist.

Children's fiction and non-fiction

It was through his work on Doctor Who books that Dicks became a writer of children's fiction, penning many successful titles during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1976, he wrote a trilogy for Target Books, The Mounties, concerning a Royal Canadian Mounted Police recruit. They were followed from 1979 to 1983 another trilogy, Star Quest, which was later re-printed by Big Finish Productions.

Beginning in 1978, Dicks penned The Baker Street Irregulars inspired by the Sherlock Holmes characters; the series eventually ran to 10 books, They also had three grandchildren: Amy, Nelly Rose, and Rufus.

Dicks died in London on 29 August 2019 after a short illness.

In 2025, the Terrance Dicks archive was acquired by the Borthwick Institute for Archives, part of the University of York.

  • The Revenge of the Cybermen (1976)
  • The Genesis of the Daleks (1976)
  • The Planet of the Daleks (1976)
  • The Pyramids of Mars (1976)
  • The Carnival of Monsters (1977)
  • The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1977)

Original novels

  • Virgin New Adventures (the Doctor):
  • Timewyrm: Exodus (1991)
  • Blood Harvest (1994)
  • Shakedown (1995)
  • Virgin New Adventures (Bernice Summerfield):
  • Mean Streets (1997)
  • Eighth Doctor Adventures:
  • The Eight Doctors (1997)
  • Endgame (2000)
  • Past Doctor Adventures:
  • Catastrophea (1998)
  • Players (1999)
  • Warmonger (2002)
  • Deadly Reunion (2003) (with Barry Letts)
  • World Game (2005)
  • New Series Adventures (Quick Reads):
  • Made of Steel (2007)
  • Revenge of the Judoon (2008)

Original short story

  • "Save Yourself" in Doctor Who: The Target Storybook (2019)

Non-fiction

  • The Making of Doctor Who (1972; co-written with Malcolm Hulke; updated and re-issued in 1976)