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Story Authorship

[edit]

Since this is bound to spark a series of edits and at least one editor of a behind the scenes magazine once expressed his joy at ensuring that the relevant issue would be accurate and libel free, here's a quick rundown on the state of play as far as I am aware:

  • Different members of the production team have given different accounts of who wrote which bit.
  • It has been alleged that Woolsey always used the name Moore in her correspondence with the production office throughout.
  • Producer John Nathan-Turner always denied any official knowledge of the story being written by anyone other than Moore.
  • Eric Saward appears to have given contradictory answers in different interviews. The team behind The Sixth Doctor Hanbook/The Television Companion have stated that when they interviewed him for the book he stated:
    • Woolsey had submitted the original storyline.
    • Levine had proposed some elements, which Woolsey was asked to work into her storyline.
    • Saward did a substantial rewrite as script-editor.
  • However others who have spoken to Saward on different occasions claim that he said that Woolsey was no more than a front person and that it was he who had written the story.
  • The same sources claim that Levine also continues to assert he was a co-author.
  • Saward's recent interview with Doctor Who Magazine implies that all three contributed to the story, though Woolsey's input was minimal.
  • The Handbook/Television Companion team also spoke with Woolsey in the early 1990s, who also asserted authorship.
  • As a result of this the Handbook/Television Companion assigned authorship in their notes accordingly.
  • Other series guides have offered other notes.

Feel free to chip in with what else is in circulation. Timrollpickering 00:24, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

the Sixth doctor guide also adds that Paula was a friend of Saward. GraemeLeggett 12:34, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, she was his girlfriend at the time. --khaosworks 12:58, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bit late to the party, think the section in the article reads OK, but are there any citations to back it up? Biscit (talk) 08:30, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm slightly confused about the supposed "Script editors can't commission themselves" problem. I assume The Visitation and perhaps Earthshock were commissioned by Root, but who besides Saward would have commissioned Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks, both of which Saward was credited with? In terms of earlier script editors writing stories, Bidmead got credit for Logopolis and Holmes for The Ark in Space (which perhaps he didn't commission), The Deadly Assassin, and The Talons of Weng-Chiang. What exactly is the actual rule here? Why could Saward be credited for Revelation of the Daleks only a few months after he was supposedly not allowed to credit himself for Attack of the Cybermen? john k (talk) 21:32, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have my references to hand but as I understand it, the script editor was supposed to commission and re-work scripts but not actually provide the whole thing. Permission for them to supply a script had to be got from higher levels of management and would not necessarily be forthcoming. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:46, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There's another factor: the Script Editor was on a BBC salary, paid by the month; the scriptwriters were essentially freelancers, paid per episode. For a scriptwriter to commission from themselves could mean that they were paid twice: the BBC might have insisted that as salaried staff, they should waive the episode fee. This might be why pseudonyms were used by Barry Letts and Douglas Adams. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But, again, plenty of script editors were credited with scripts during their tenure. Holmes was credited with Ark in Space (perhaps commissioned by Dicks), The Deadly Assassin, and The Talons of Weng-Chiang. My understanding is that Adams would have been credited with Shada, although I'm not certain of that. Bidmead was credited with Logopolis. Saward himself was credited with Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks, the latter during the same season as Attack of the Cybermen (Root was the actual or nominal script editor for Saward's first two stories). Again: why could Saward be credited with the two Dalek stories, but not this one? john k (talk) 20:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Long time late but the rules were primarily about the Writers' Guild wanting to ensure work for their members and not a cosy in house arrangement. Many script editors did write for their own series but there would be particular circumstances - either as part of a showrunner style arrangement or to tackle problems such as changing regulars or scripts falling through. Most of the cases were the script editor was also the credited writer fall into the latter category. e.g. Inside the Spaceship was a two week filler to get the series aligned to the number of episodes authorised, The Highlanders and The Talons of Weng-Chiang were both cases of the script editor stepping in when the writers' day jobs changed meaning there wasn't time to write the scripts, The War Games replaced other scripts that had fallen through, The Ark in Space was half of a set sharing idea that the original author hadn't come up to spec on, Logopolis was an important cast change but also clearly written as both the season cheap story and also to be easier to remount if a studio session was lost (e.g. it reuses the same set for two locations and structures the cast so every credited guest character only appears either on location or in a single studio session, makes the one guest character in multiple locations silent on screen with a mask; thus if any studio session fell through there were not be problems trying to reassemble the guest cast). Only a few stories seem to be the script editor being indulged and some of these may have been agreed as part of getting an existing writer like Holmes or Adams in post.
Sometimes a workaround was created. For Earthshock Root was given the credit to hide the inhouse commission (similarly The Rescue and The Romans both omit the credit to hide the changing script editors writing and The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve brings the new script editor credit forward by one episode to allow the outgoing one to get a co-writer credit). For Revelation Saward was formally contracted in a gap between his script editor contracts with JNT carrying it out. Resurrection was a special case where it was felt the importance of getting the Daleks onboard meant the script editor was best placed to deal with Nation directly rather than as a proxy for another writer. But for Attack Saward could not get permission for a more routine commission (and Gerry Davis & the Kit Pedler estate didn't have the same level of control as Nation) so would only have been able to write the story by proxy. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:34, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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