The Author of Who →
Writer and script editor Andrew Ellard has described what a modern UK script editor can be: either a consultant, a conduit or a contributor. This role has evolved a lot since the likes of Robert Holmes or Chris Boucher, who with Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 respectively often wrote or rewrote stories.
In today’s television, there is often a person you associate with a show’s creative heart. For Doctor Who, it is Russell T Davies and then Steven Moffat, each being an executive producer and the head writer.
When thinking about earlier Doctor Who, would we consider the script editor as the equivalent of today’s head writer/executive producer? They wrote many stories and rewrote others. However, they were not the only driver of the series. Take Robert Holmes’s time script editing Doctor Who. Philip Hinchcliffe had just as much influence on the show, also contributing to the new horror of the show. No script editor had sole, single influence on the show. John Nathan-Turner played a huge role in the creative direction, for example with his “new broom” update of Doctor Who in partnership with script editor Christopher H. Bidmead. Verity Lambert and David Whitaker were a team.
And for today’s Doctor Who, I think the same. Davies and Moffat are not the sole drivers. Davies’s co-executive producer Julie Gardner and producer Phil Collinson both influenced the show, suggesting story ideas and setting the feel. And I suspect that Moffat has the same relationship with his peers.
Today’s head writers and yesterday’s script editors play an important, central part in the creation of a show’s stories, but they are not the only part. Creating a show is team work, from writer to director to actor to designer to producer. Today’s script editor reinforced that team-work principle.
Consultant. Conduit. Contributor.
