Graham Williams.

[Larry]

just seen the documentory on his era on The Ribos Operation, DVD and I had no idea he died so young dose any one know what he died of.

[Si Hunt]

Officially it was "a shooting accident". It's been suggested that it may have been more sinister, but I don't know how much truth there is in that.

Si.

[SiHart]

He was shot in an accident. His gun went off while he was cleaning it or something. It was very sad indeed.

Si xx

[Logo Polish]

I believe the "more sinister" rumour was that he had committed suicide, but that's never been confirmed by anyone to my knowledge.

[Dirk Gently]

It's really hard to shoot yourself by 'accident' if you are cleaning a gun. Because to clean it you have to remove the shells & 'crack it', if it was a shotgun or the magazine if any other weapon.

[Si Hunt]

Someone must know, because there'd have been a post mortem and they can tell by the bullet entry whether it's suicide or not.

Besides, if he was going to go that way, you'd have thought it would have been nearer to the transmission of "Underworld".

Si.

[Milky Tears]

I remembered the Graham Williams stuff as my dad had died in a shooting accident about two years before. Crazy fool left the safety catch off his rifle whilst climbing a fence! Stupidity clearly runs in my family.

[Dirk Gently]

I'm sorry to hear the James. I hope my comments didn't offend?

[Ralph]

I remembered the Graham Williams stuff as my dad had died in a shooting accident about two years before. Crazy fool left the safety catch off his rifle whilst climbing a fence! Stupidity clearly runs in my family.

Sorry to hear that too James.

[Wayne]

And me, James.

[Milky Tears]

Thanks.

I seem to have derailed this thread with my earlier post.

Get back to the Graham Williams stuff.

[Wayne]

Get back to the Graham Williams stuff.

I like most of S15 & 16.

[Carol Baynes]

I remembered the Graham Williams stuff as my dad had died in a shooting accident about two years before. Crazy fool left the safety catch off his rifle whilst climbing a fence! Stupidity clearly runs in my family.

You know, that post made me want to give James a huge hug and X.

Season 16 is William's finest "hour", and a couple of serials in season 17. I always got the impression he was ill suited to the role of producer, and wasn't a big 'people person' and was quite placid around strong personalities. Tom Baker certainly walked all over him.

[Andrew Curnow]

I think Graham Williams did a good job in very difficult circumstances - he was put in charge of a hit show, but to a large extent was told to remove those elements (the Gothic, horror feel) that had made it a hit. He was also crippled by finances (not only the inflation issue, but I think I'm right in saying that Hinchcliffe's stories often went over-budget, and that Williams was told to curb that when he took over) so arguably the fact that he was able to get any even halfway decent scripts, and produce even halfway decent TV from them, is an achievement.

The fact that, to my mind, his era saw some absolutely corking scripts, brimful of imagination and ideas, and that they were generally produced to a high standard, is worthy of praise. Underworld's caves may look cheap, but it's spaceship is one of the best; City of Death looks fantastic; personally I think Destiny of the Daleks has more atmosphere than any other Dalek story, and the underground shiny corridors are very spooky. The Ribos Operation is a small-scale bit of nonsense, but one which oozes quality from every pore (except perhaps that poor, flabby monster). Concepts such as a hollow world, or the trick of the multiple duplicates on Tara, or the business of a creature living on chlorophyll, even the notion of the two Guardians... The three Williams years are just full of such inventions and images and 'moments' that (for me as a 6-8 year old) they have stayed with me. The cliffhanger to Pirate Planet part 3, or Androids part 2, or T'Pit part 3; the Doctor lining up the paintings in the cellar in Stones; the resurrection of Davros; the Mona Lisas.....

They were, for me, the best possible Who as a kid, and IMHO the Williams' era is the one which has most influenced the 21st Century Who, in its aspirations to mix drama with absurdity with ideas. It's a crying shame that the (in)famous season 17's Producer AND Script Editor are both no longer with us, since with the show's revival, and the increased interest in the old stories coming out on DVD it would be fascinating to get some first-hand thoughts and recollections from those days. As it is, we only have those 18 stories, and amongst them are some of my all-time favourites.

[Captain Tancredi]

What the Key to Time documentaries make fairly clear is that Williams was asked to do a job which most producers would probably have walked out on after a year or so. The amount of interference from his immediate superior wasn't something I'd appreciated before, and yet if you have 26 episodes a year to make, having them vetted by your head of department before you can do anything- and then having the scripts torn to shreds by your lead actor- makes it amazing that he stayed there for three years. My impression is that he was a fair and decent man asked to do an impossible job under increasing pressure from several different directions.

[Si Hunt]

It seems to me that the rise of Tom's ego was much more of a factor in the 'whimsification' of the Williams era than declining budgets. Maybe this was Grahams "fault" too, he clearly wasn't as strong a personality as Hinchcliffe and Tom walked all over him. When you look at what's on-screen, the Williams era doesn't look THAT much cheaper than the Hinchcliffe one. Okay, maybe slightly, but it's very cleverly manifested in ways that arn't immediately apparent, e.g when you realise that three whole stories in Season 15 have no location filming at all.

All the same, it's impossible to read about how the end of Hinchcliffe's reign (mainly "Talons") went fragrently overbudget for which Williams picked up the tab, and not feel annoyed that Williams then got the flak for producing cheaper-looking stories.

Also that damn dispute over the Playschool Clock clobbered a lot of Williams stories, which Hinchcliffe apparently never had to cope with. I wonder if this is why a lot of mid-era Tom stories look rushed.

Si.

[SiHart]

Graham Williams is I think, the first producer who was concerned with the mythos of the show. From what I can gather he seems to have really cared about the wider stories, not just the small ones, and so during his reign we have additions to the legends of the Time Lords, the introduction of the Guradians and the Key to Time. His comments about whis worries about the moral attitudes of a Time Traveller just travellign without any idea of where he's going speaks volumes about his apporach to the show.
I think i some ways he'd have been better off as the show's script editor at the time, or in a RTD type position really, as he seemed to have more affinity with the creative side of the show over the production side. He didn't seem to be someone who thrived on creative tensions or whatever, like Tom Baker did, so that seemed to add to the stress of the job for him.

Certainly dealing with Tom Baker at his most egotistical and monstrous, dealing with the financial constraints and with the interference from above meant he perhaps didn't have the control he needed to really get the show going in the way he wanted. It's a shame in some ways he was never able to cast his own Doctor, as that could have been really interesting, as he may have been able to have a more sympathetic star to work with and thus perhaps have been able to use his energies in a more productive way.

That said, I thinkwe got three seasons full of interesting and wonderful Doctor Who. Doctor Who that appealed to adults and children (though not the fans, of course) and was witty, funny and exciting. When he got it right, he got it really right, at least as far as i'm concerned. It just feels like the rigth approach to me, even if what came to the screen wasn't necessarily quite the way it was planned.

I think The Williams Era has been vilified for far too long. People are too willing to look at the things they don't like and dismiss it, without looking at the wider way it shaped the show. I think it was Doctor Who's bravest and most creative period. And very probably my favourite era too.

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

It seems to be an era of three distinct parts to me. Season 15 contains all my favourite stories (at least favourites at one time or another) - "Fang Rock", "Sunmakers" (yes, I loved this when I first saw it!"), "Fendahl" - and all my worst ones too ("Invisible Enemy", "Underworld", "Invasion of Time"). So it's a real mixed bag. Tellingly, when it looks expensive, it's good, when it looks cheap the humour really seems tacky rather than witty.

Season 16, as we are all discovering, has got to be the apex of the Williams era, some of the best stories (and villains) of the seventies, and so little reliance on the past.

Season 17 seems to go back down in quality again. Although this wasn't my view at first (I simply loved all of it) these days the budget problems don't make it too fun to watch, and again some of the humour goes awry when it doesn't work. But "City of Death", the one great perfect story of the season, and what was filmed of "Shada", again show that when it had money behind it, this season could be great! I wonder if that again suggests that the Ideal Williams era would have had exactly the same scripts, just a bit more time and money. In short, I wouldn't change a thing about the Williams stories because they contained such great ideas, characters and situations (better than much of Hinchcliffe, which had the money but were still dull at times - "Android Invasion", "Planet of Evil"); the only time they fail is when they look rushed or twee through lack of time and money.

Si.

[Logo Polish]

It's a shame in some ways he was never able to cast his own Doctor, as that could have been really interesting, as he may have been able to have a more sympathetic star to work with and thus perhaps have been able to use his energies in a more productive way.

Ah yes, Geoffrey Bayldon (who would have been Williams' choice, according to what he reportedly said at some convention in the 80s)...and years later, it happened, sort of.

[Wayne]

I'll do my talking in lists!

My Top 5 GW stories:

1. Horror of Fang Rock - 8.5/10
2. Image of Fendahl - 8/10
3. Stones of Blood - 8/10
4. Destiny of the Daleks - 7.5/10
5. The Sunmakers - 7.5/10

My Bottom 5:

5. Creature from the Pit - 5/10
4. Shada - 5/10
3. Pirate Planet - 4/10
2. City of Death - 4/10
1. Nightmare of Eden - 3/10

[Antony Cox]

Aside from their original tramission and once each on UK Gold about 12 years ago, I've never really seen any of the Williams era apart from the three stories which I have on DVD, namely City of Death (which I've laways loved), Horns of Nimon (which I've always hated) and recently a ropey copy of Destiny of the Daleks which I can't really watch as it keeps freezing periodically. Oh, and I wathced Nightmare of Eden round Si & Simons a year or so ago which was actually quite fun (but then again, watching anything round theirs is fun - where else would I have watched a programme with Lynda Barron singing about poo? - apart from that dreadful DW spin-off video which will remain nameless).

So I'm very much looking forward to eventually getting the KTT boxset and giving Season 16 at least a fresh viewing and a proper appreciation.

[Si Hunt]

Bring back "Daemos Rising"!

Si.

[SiHart]

Don't bring back "Daemos Rising" Please!

Si xx

[Antony Cox]

The irony is that the reason than it remained nameless is because I actually couldn't remember what it was called!

But now you've reminded me!

[Si Hunt]

Feel fear the next time you get an invite people... we may just be about to rustle up the new one, "Zygon", which features amateurly shot nudity!

You can be absolutely, totally, utterly certain that the people involved will be ugly.

Si.