- Born
- Died
- Graham Williams joined the BBC in 1966 and worked as a script editor for several years on series such as The View from Daniel Pike (1971), Sutherland's Law (1973), Barlow at Large (1971) and Z Cars (1962).
In 1977 he was made producer of Doctor Who (1963). On taking over the series, Williams was ordered by BBC bosses to lighten the tone and reduce the violence and horror content following Philip Hinchcliffe's highly successful but controversial period producing the series. Williams duly did this, introducing more humour to take the place of the more violent and horrific material.
During his three seasons producing the series, Williams had to face budget cuts and regular industrial action. It was the late 1970s, a time of economic turmoil, and this had unfortunate consequences on the production of many Doctor Who (1963) serials. He also found the series' star, Tom Baker, increasingly difficult to work with. Tom Baker had been working on the series since 1974 and was well established as one of the biggest stars on BBC television. When Williams arrived, Baker's relationship with his co-star, Louise Jameson, was not good and this occasionally led to tensions. She left at the end of Williams' first season.
During Williams' second season, tensions arose between Baker and Williams regarding the direction of the series. Baker made it known that he wanted more input into the series, which would include the right to approve scripts, casting of actors and directors. Williams resisted this, leading to a dispute that eventually involved the BBC One Controller, Bill Cotton, the Head of Drama, Shaun Sutton, and the Head of BBC Serials, Graeme MacDonald. Fortunately, this dispute was settled amicably, with both men agreeing to continue the status quo. The second season also saw the introduction of a replacement for Louise Jameson, Mary Tamm, although she only lasted for this season.
Williams' third and final season was notable for the involvement of Douglas Adams, a young Cambridge University graduate whom Williams appointed as script editor on the series following his script for the previous season, The Pirate Planet: Part One (1978). Adams had already gained acclaim for his radio series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which had been broadcast the previous year, and this season of Doctor Who (1963) was notable for containing much of Adams' trademark humour. The series also saw the introduction of Lalla Ward as Mary Tamm's replacement.
Williams left Doctor Who (1963) after producing three seasons in 1979. Despite the troubles, he had made his mark. His era saw the introduction of K-9, the robot dog, which became a popular hit, as well as the Black and White Guardians (characters that re-appeared several years later) and his second season in charge was based around an ambitious story arc called The Key to Time, something quite unprecedented in the history of the series.
His involvement with the series was not over, however. In 1984 he was commissioned to write a story for Doctor Who (1963) called "The Nightmare Fair". This was never made, but Williams was able to write a novel based on his story for the Target Doctor Who (1963) book range.
After producing Doctor Who (1963), Williams left the BBC but stayed in television to produce Super Gran (1985).
By the end of the 1980s, Graham Williams had left television and ran a hotel in Devon. He died in 1990 from a shooting accident.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
- SpouseJacqueline Williams(? - August 17, 1990) (his death)
- In 1985, he was commissioned to write a Doctor Who (1963) story called "The Nightmare Fair" for the series' 23rd Season in 1986. The story was cancelled before going into production when Doctor Who (1963) was put on hiatus by the BBC. Nevertheless, Williams wrote a novelisation of "The Nightmare Fair" which was published by Target.
- Towards the end of his life he ran a hotel in Devon.
- Sons: David and Richard.
- Nephew of noted Welsh stage dramatist Emlyn Williams.
- To me, a lot of what Philip Hinchcliffe had done went too far. When I learned I was taking the show over, I made special efforts to watch it. One of the stories I saw - Genesis of the Daleks (Genesis of the Daleks: Part Three (1975)) - had Lis Sladen (Elisabeth Sladen) climbing up a rocket gantry, being shot at by guards with rifles. She almost falls once, and then on reaching the top she gets caught and is deliberately tripped by her captors and left dangling in mid-air while they laugh. I had by then just become a father, and so was more aware that if children were going to be watching Doctor Who (1963) at 5.25 in the evening then a lot of this sadism and deliberate shock-horror, which Bob Holmes (Robert Holmes) and Philip Hinchcliffe took a particular glee in producing, was not very defensible. I thought Philip was wrong to let the drowning sequence in The Deadly Assassin (The Deadly Assassin: Part Three (1976)) go through, because the violence was too realistic and therefore could be imitated. Even on Z Cars (1962) one did not show a fight using a broken bottle, for precisely that reason. I was happy to tone down the realistic horror and gore. But then the BBC told me to go further and actually clean it up. It was over-reaction, of that I am sure, but it did not help that in my first year I was under a directive to take out anything graphic in the depiction of violence.
- Sophisticated humour was certainly going to continue for the rest of the time that I was doing the series (Doctor Who (1963)), and that was not accidental. I wanted the humour to be there, available for those who wanted to grab it, and to add a little bonus without detracting from the story at all for those who did not want to catch hold. If people did not get the joke, then it should not impair their enjoyment of the show.
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