David Fisher (13 April 1929 – 10 January 2018) was a British television

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

. He is best known for writing four ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

'' serials when it starred

Tom Baker Thomas Stewart Baker (born 20 January 1934) is an English actor and writer. He is best known for having played the Fourth Doctor, fourth and longest-serving incarnation of The Doctor (Doctor Who), the Doctor in the science fiction television ...

as the

Fourth Doctor The Fourth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He is portrayed by Tom Baker. Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time Lord from ...

Career

''Doctor Who'' script editor

Anthony Read Anthony Read (21 April 1935 – 21 November 2015) was an English television producer, screenwriter, script editor and author. He was principally active in British television from the 1960s to the mid-1980s, which included a period as a script ...

commissioned Fisher to write '' The Stones of Blood'' (1978) and ''

The Androids of Tara ''The Androids of Tara'' is the fourth serial of the 16th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 25 November to 16 December 1978. The serial is set on t ...

'' (1978) for ''The Key to Time'' storyline of season 16, and he was subsequently commissioned to write '' The Creature from the Pit'' (1979) for the seventeenth season during the tenure of

Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, humorist, and screenwriter, best known as the creator of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the ...

as script editor. He worked on a story called "A Gamble with Time", also for the seventeenth season, but owing to the divorce proceedings ending his first marriage, he was unable to finish the scripts. That story was reworked and completed by Douglas Adams and then-producer Graham Williams, and was recorded and broadcast as ''

City of Death ''City of Death'' is the second serial of the seventeenth season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor. It was produced by the BBC ...

'' (1979) under the pseudonym of

David Agnew "David Agnew" is a pen name that was employed on BBC television drama programmes of the 1970s as a scriptwriting credit. Conditions of use The pseudonym "David Agnew" was most often used when the original freelance scriptwriter was unable to ...

. His final ''Doctor Who'' story was season eighteen's ''

The Leisure Hive ''The Leisure Hive'' is the first serial of the 18th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 30 August to 20 September 1980. It marks the return of John ...

'' (1980). Fisher novelised both ''The Leisure Hive'' and ''Creature from the Pit'' for the Target book range of ''Doctor Who'' novelisations, and appeared extensively on the interview features accompanying the DVD release of the former story. Fisher also wrote novelisations of ''The Stones of Blood'' and ''The Androids of Tara'' for audiobook releases in 2011 and 2012, which received print editions in 2022. He was also interviewed for a documentary accompanying the DVD release of ''City of Death''. Fisher's other work included writing for the television series ''

Dixon of Dock Green ''Dixon of Dock Green'' is 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 ...

'', ''

Crown Court The Crown Court is the criminal trial court, court of first instance in England and Wales responsible for hearing all indictable offences, some Hybrid offence, either way offences and appeals of the decisions of magistrates' courts. It is ...

'', and ''

Hammer House of Horror ''Hammer House of Horror'' is a British horror anthology television series produced in Britain in 1980. Created by Hammer Films in association with Cinema Arts International and ITC Entertainment, it consists of 13 hour-long episodes, origin ...

''.

Non-fiction

In the late 1980s and 1990s, he often collaborated with Anthony Read on non-fiction history in print, largely related to the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Death

Fisher died on 10 January 2018, aged 88, in Norfolk, England.

References

External links

*
Biography of David Fisher at On Target
* Work review o
Amazon.com
1929 births 2018 deaths English science fiction writers English horror writers English television writers English screenwriters English male screenwriters 20th-century English male writers British male television writers {{UK-screenwriter-stub