Robert Holmes (screenwriter)
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Robert Holmes (screenwriter)
Robert Colin Holmes (2 April 1926 – 24 May 1986) was a British television scriptwriter. For over 25 years he contributed to some of the most popular programmes screened in the UK. He is particularly remembered for his work on science fiction programmes, most notably his extensive contributions to ''Doctor Who'', which included working as its script editor from 1974 to 1977. Holmes suffered ill health from the early 1980s. He died in May 1986 while working on scripts for the second and final Sixth Doctor season ''The Trial of a Time Lord''. Early career In 1944, at the age of 18, Holmes joined the army, fighting with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders regiment in Burma. He rapidly earned a commission, and as such became the youngest commissioned officer in the entire British army during the Second World War. The fact that he lied about his age to get into the army was discovered at his commissioning, but apparently the only reaction was by a general who praised him, adding th ...
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The Two Doctors
''The Two Doctors'' is the fourth serial of the Doctor Who (season 22), 22nd season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in three weekly parts on BBC One, BBC1 from 16 February to 2 March 1985. The serial is set on an alien space station and in and around Seville. In the serial, the alien Time travel in fiction, time traveller the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), his former travelling Companion (Doctor Who), companion Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) and his current companion Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant) work to save the younger Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) from the biogeneticist Dastari (Laurence Payne), who intends to steal the knowledge of how to travel in time from the Second Doctor's genetic make-up. This serial marks Troughton's final appearance as the Second Doctor before his death in 1987. Plot The Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon land the TARDIS on board space station, Space Station Camera in the Third Zone on a missio ...
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Shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''stenos'' (narrow) and ''graphein'' (to write). It has also been called brachygraphy, from Greek ''brachys'' (short), and tachygraphy, from Greek ''tachys'' (swift, speedy), depending on whether compression or speed of writing is the goal. Many forms of shorthand exist. A typical shorthand system provides symbols or abbreviations for words and common phrases, which can allow someone well-trained in the system to write as quickly as people speak. Abbreviation methods are alphabet-based and use different abbreviating approaches. Many journalists use shorthand writing to quickly take notes at press conferences or other similar scenarios. In the computerized world, several autocomplete programs, standalone or integrated in text editors, based on w ...
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Nigel Kneale
Thomas Nigel Kneale (28 April 1922 – 29 October 2006) was a Manx screenwriter who wrote professionally for more than 50 years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and was twice nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay. Predominantly a writer of thrillers that used science-fiction and horror elements, he was best known for the creation of the character Professor Bernard Quatermass. Quatermass was an heroic scientist who appeared in various television, film and radio productions written by Kneale for the BBC, Hammer Film Productions and Thames Television between 1953 and 1996. Kneale wrote original scripts and successfully adapted works by writers such as George Orwell, John Osborne, H. G. Wells and Susan Hill. He was most active in television, joining BBC Television in 1951; his final script was transmitted on ITV in 1997. Kneale wrote well-received television dramas such as ''The Year of the Sex Olympics'' (1968) and ''The Stone Tape'' ( ...
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Spearhead From Space
''Spearhead from Space'' is the first serial of the seventh season in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 3 to 24 January 1970. It was the first ''Doctor Who'' serial to be produced in colour and the only one to be made entirely on 16 mm film. In the serial, which is set in Essex and London, the alien time traveller the Doctor (Jon Pertwee John Devon Roland "Jon" Pertwee (; 7 July 1919 – 20 May 1996) was an English actor, comedian, entertainer, cabaret performer and TV presenter. Born into a theatrical family, he served in the Royal Navy and the Naval Intelligence Division during ...), now exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, joins Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) of UNIT and the scientist Liz Shaw (Caroline John) to stop the incorporeal intelligence the Nestenes from colonising the planet through their use of the Autons, plastic killers which act as human duplicates and sh ...
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Invasion (1965 Film)
''Invasion'' is a 1965 low-budget British science fiction film, directed by Alan Bridges for producer Jack Greenwood of Merton Park Studios. Plot An alien "Lystrian" spacecraft crash-lands on Earth, near a secluded hospital not far from London. The aliens, who are humanoid and resemble East Asians, are taken to a rural hospital after a collision with a car where they cause a forcefield to be raised around the building. The doctors are confused as the blood of the alien is not human. An issue arises as the doctors are not able to determine if the alien is a law enforcement officer, or if the two other aliens are the law enforcement and the patient is their prisoner. Only the patient can speak English, further complicating matters. Critical reception ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' praises Alan Bridges' direction, saying that he "creates a powerfully strange atmosphere despite a very small budget." Creature Feature also liked the movie, giving it 3 out of 5 stars. It sta ...
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ITV (TV Network)
ITV is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV was for four decades a network of separate companies which provided regional television services and also shared programmes between each other to be shown on the entire network. Each franchise was originally owned by a different company. After several mergers, the fifteen regional franchises are now held by two companies: ITV plc, which runs the ITV1 channel, and STV Group, which runs the STV channel. The ITV network is a separate entity from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004. ITV plc holds the Channel 3 ...
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Undermind (TV Series)
''Undermind'' is a science fiction television drama produced by ABC Weekend Television in 1965. It ran for eleven episodes of sixty minutes each. It starred Jeremy Wilkin, Rosemary Nicols and Denis Quilley. The series was devised by ''Shoestring'' and ''Bergerac'' creator Robert Banks Stewart, who also went on to write for ''Doctor Who''. Several other writers known for their work on ''Who'' also contributed scripts: David Whitaker, Bill Strutton and Robert Holmes. Plot Personnel Officer Drew Heriot returns to the United Kingdom after working in Australia to discover his brother, Police Detective Frank Heriot, behaving oddly, to the distress of his sister-in-law Anne. Investigating together, they discover that a disembodied alien force is using high frequency signals to brainwash people—including Drew's brother—into committing subversive acts as a prelude to a full-scale invasion. Together, Drew and Anne battle to stop the acts of sabotage while trying to alert Britain ...
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Public Eye (TV Series)
''Public Eye'' is a British television drama series that ran from 1965 to 1975, for a total of seven series. It was produced by ABC Weekend TV for three series, and Thames Television for a further four. The series depicted the cases and investigations handled by the enquiry agent Frank Marker (Alfred Burke), an unmarried loner who is in his early forties when the series begins. The title is a twist on the more usual "private eye". Background The series was created by writers Roger Marshall and Anthony Marriott with the aim of getting away from "square-jawed" heroes of the type featured in Hollywood movies—a wish shared by Alfred Burke, the actor chosen to play Marker. This aim allowed for flexibility in the structure and plot lines of the episodes; each individual episode usually dealt with an individual case for Marker, but story arcs spanning several episodes, or in one case an entire series, were produced during the life of the programme. Marker's work ranged broadly, fr ...
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Ghost Squad (TV Series)
''Ghost Squad'', known as ''G.S.5'' for its third series, was a crime drama series that ran between 1961 and 1964, about an elite division of Scotland Yard. In each episode the Ghost Squad would investigate cases that fell outside the scope of normal police work. Despite the show and characters being fictional, an actual division did exist within the Metropolitan Police at the time. Inspiration for the series was taken from a book of the same title written by John Gosling, a retired police officer and former member of the real-life squad it is based on. This squad operated only in London, but the members of the fictional team travel all over Europe, sometimes to fictitious countries. As was common practice at the time, most of the foreign settings are depicted by combining stock footage with scenes shot on sets, in this case at Independent Artists Studios at Beaconsfield and Associated British Elstree Studios. The music for the show was by Philip Green. The show was produced b ...
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The Saint (TV Series)
''The Saint'' is a British mystery spy thriller television series that aired in the United Kingdom on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It was based on the literary character Simon Templar created by Leslie Charteris in the 1920s and featured in many novels over the years. In the television series, Templar was played by Roger Moore. Templar helps those whom conventional agencies are powerless or unwilling to protect, often using methods that skirt the law. Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal is his nominal nemesis who considers Templar a common criminal, but often grudgingly tolerates his actions for the greater good. NBC picked up the show as a summer replacement in its evening schedule in 1966 because of the strong performance in the United States of the first two series in first-run syndication. The programme, therefore, ended its run with both trans-Atlantic primetime scheduling and colour episodes. It also proved popular beyond the UK and US, eventually airing in over 60 countries ...
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Dixon Of Dock Green
''Dixon of Dock Green'' was a BBC police procedural television series about daily life at a fictional London police station, with the emphasis on petty crime, successfully controlled through common sense and human understanding. It ran from 1955 to 1976. The central character, George Dixon, first appeared in the film ''The Blue Lamp''. Dixon is a mature and sympathetic police constable, played by Jack Warner in all of the 432 episodes. Dixon is the embodiment of a typical "bobby" who would be familiar with the area in which he patrolled and its residents and often lived there himself. The series contrasted with later programmes such as ''Z-Cars'', which reflected a more aggressive policing culture. It retained a faithful following throughout its run and was voted second-most popular programme on British television in 1961. Jack Warner Warner's success as Dixon was well received by police forces. He was made an honorary member of both the Margate and Ramsgate Police Forces in ...
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Emergency – Ward 10
''Emergency Ward 10'' is a British medical soap opera series shown on ITV between 1957 and 1967. Like ''The Grove Family'', a series shown by the BBC between 1954 and 1957, ''Emergency Ward 10'' is considered to be one of British television's first major soap operas. Overview The series was made by the ITV contractor ATV and set in a fictional hospital called Oxbridge General. Growing out of what was originally intended to be no more than a six-week serial (entitled ''Calling Nurse Roberts''), the series became ITV's first twice-weekly evening soap opera. ''Emergency Ward 10'' was the first hospital-based television drama to establish a successful format combining medical matters with storylines centring on the personal lives of the doctors and nurses. ''Emergency Ward 10'' attracted attention for its portrayal of an interracial relationship between surgeon Louise Mahler (played by Joan Hooley) and Doctor Giles Farmer (played by John White), showing the second kiss on televis ...
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