Eric Fucking Saward

It boggles my mind how underrated this chap actually is. The dark, gritty stories he wrote back in the Davison/Baker era kick the living shit out of the modern series. High death counts, REAL consequences of character actions and science fiction blended with quality action. Great characters like Lytton, Jobel, Styles, Mercer, Orcini and Scott were people I gave a damn about. The Whittaker era's only hope of being good is to get this man back as soon as possible and pen one of his famous bloodbath tales where people actually die and stay dead and show the universe isn't all sunshine and roses. Sadly, I doubt much will change from Capaldi's torrid tenure.

Also, read Eric Saward's Twin Dilemma, Slipback and Attack of the Cybermen target novels. Great character development and fantastic black humour.

He had his flaws but his era was certainly superior to the modern fairy floss.

I feel Saward was underrated, despite his flaws. Also, working with JNT was a total mismatch which really didn't do him any favours. I was reading Philip Sandifer's usually rather good Tardis Eruditorum Vol 6 over Christmas. It's supposed to specialise in redemptive readings of the classic series but he throws a major strop when he gets to this era!

He completely slates series 22 and only begrudgingly admits that the Dalek finale was really rather good. Plus, he favours Time-Flight over Arc of Infinity. I know they are both seen as stinkers but I have always rather liked Arc. His defence of Time-Flight was just bizarre.

Thankfully, he seems a fan of the McCoy era so, hopefully, the next book will be better...

There's an edit of Time-Flight out there which makes the whole thing a lot more tolerable and shows there was a decent premise in there, but defending the actual, unedited story? Yeah, that's a stretch.

Saward's hands were mostly tied by JNT, but on-point he could deliver the goods, and he always had a knack for dialogue

Zarius wrote:There's an edit of Time-Flight out there which makes the whole thing a lot more tolerable and shows there was a decent premise in there, but defending the actual, unedited story? Yeah, that's a stretch.

TBF, his defence was 50% it's not as bad as AoI and 50% there were good ideas in there which is what the edit you mentioned proves.

The book is OK but the televised version is total crap. Even Davison came out and said as much while he was making the bloody thing. Better than Arc of Infinity? With Maxil, the beautiful Amsterdam setting and the return of Omega I can't see how that's worse than watching decent actors act in front of a shit painting and some ugly set design. The only things about Arc that I didn't like were Tegan's cousin and his mate. Proper dodgy actors. The rest is decent if a little inferior to the likes of Mawdryn and Enlightenment. Better than Terminus and The King's Demons and probably a little below Snakedance.

Season 22 is one of the better JNT era seasons so I'm not quite sure what Philip Sandifer is banging on about. 4 of the 6 stories are essential viewing with Varos and Timeflight being weaker but enjoyable in a B-movie way because of their cheapness. Season 23 was awful though which I refuse to defend. I remember thinking it was going to be completely epic because season 22 was so good. When I received the boxset and started binge watching it I become aware around the 3rd part of Mysterious Planet that the show had completely gone down the shitter and that Colin's portrayal was frighteningly off point. Funnily enough, Season 24 is considered worse despite having better visuals, more interesting plots and a more stable feel than 23.

I used to prefer S23 to S24 but part of that was me wanting to be contrarian and back the underdog. After repeated viewing, however, S23 just gets worse, whereas, S24 not only improves but, after watching High Rise and getting the cannibal reference, it improves with age. Honestly, P+J Baker were useless but having King Solomon instead of Einstein was a much better idea. Yet, Cartmel wanted him replaced with Albert cos people wouldn't get the reference? C'mon Andy, credit your viewers with more intelligence than that. Overall, Cartmel did wonders compared to S23 and most of the Davison era.

Mr. Happy wrote:I used to prefer S23 to S24 but part of that was me wanting to be contrarian and back the underdog. After repeated viewing, however, S23 just gets worse, whereas, S24 not only improves but, after watching High Rise and getting the cannibal reference, it improves with age. Honestly, P+J Baker were useless but having King Solomon instead of Einstein was a much better idea. Yet, Cartmel wanted him replaced with Albert cos people wouldn't get the reference? C'mon Andy, credit your viewers with more intelligence than that. Overall, Cartmel did wonders compared to S23 and most of the Davison era.

Bang on.

The best thing about Season 24 is that it is completely fresh. New titles, very different incidental music, superior effects, better camerawork and writers that weren't afraid to shake things up a bit. Time and the Rani is Pip and Jane's best story by far. Paradise Towers & Delta was when Cartmel's vision was starting to influence certain aspects of the storytelling. You could argue that saving a princess from an evil bounty hunter in 1950s Wales is a bit silly and zany but it sure beats the previous year of mostly indoor stories set in underground complexes. I refuse to watch Trial again except for Part 13 & 14. Despite not hating Vervoids it isn't one I want to watch again either. Davison's era was inconsistent but he had more watchable stories than he did really terrible ones.

The CIA agents in Delta, Hawk and Weismuller, a BF spin-off just waiting to happen.

He comes off to me as a talentless square who had to compensate with desperate attempts to appear edgy to cover for vacuous storytelling.

No wonder he's so popular round these parts.

According to the latest DWM, in addition to both his Dalek story novelizations, Eric's also coming out with a graphic novel based around Lytton's off-screen adventures this summer. Which might be interesting.

I loved his time on the show - up to but not including "Trial". He seemed to help JNT steer it towards a more action packed saturday evening sci-fi / fantasy show as opposed to the nonsense of the Graham Williams era. The latter seemed to give up on any sense of drama and relied too heavily on weak, childish humour which undermined any dramatic pretensions that theshow had. Some of his self penned stories are among some of my favourites - Visitation, Resurrection and Revelation. The problems i did have with those stories tended to revolve around casting decisions which i do not think would have been down to him.

It wasn't a perfect time for the show - every era has downsides to it - but it was better than what came immediately before season 18 (i.e., Williams) and after.

One criticism i have was his lack of professionalism after he left the show. He should not have combined forces with Ian Levine to slag off JNT in the pages of Dr Who Bulletin the way he did. It made him look petty and also too eager to pass the buck for the problems the programme had in the run up to, and during, "Trial".

I personally would love to see him make some sort of come back.

I think sadly the Williams era did demystify and defang the show and its universe of terrors.

Not deliberately or immediately, but very gradually it happened.

I think Horror of Fang Rock, Ribos Operation, Androids of Tara and City of Death are still pretty solid, but the rest is a bit flimsy, and unfortunately toward the end of Season 17 the flimsiness added up and began to get terribly samey.

Though I do wonder if maybe Williams had left at the end of Season 15 or 16, fandom might be more forgiving toward his time.

As for Eric Saward, I tend to think he was incidental at best at fixing the show again. Earthshock played its part, certainly but to my mind the repair work was done by The Five Doctors, at which point JNT and Saward should've left. Because all they did after that to my mind was undo their good work completely and make the show worse than ever.

Largely because they both had their own terrible, rotten, unworkable ideas about the show, and rather than discouraging each other's worst ideas and creative instincts, they both seemed to frustrate and embitter each other into willfully doubling down on them.

And that's why I think we began from Season 21 onwards to see some of the worst from Saward, and yet occasionally (Revelation) some of the best from him too.

I'd say Warriors of the Deep was the nadir of the franchise full stop, and of the Doctor's characterization. Largely because of Saward's rewrites.

I think Saward had a complete misunderstanding of where the show's suspense comes from. The Doctor usually enters the fray without weapons and so we spend the story in genuine suspense because he's up against genuine dangers and we want to see what he ultimately has up his sleeve at the end that will decide victory against the adversity (though I'll grant by Revelation he seemed to have somewhat learned). But in Warriors he's ultimately got nothing and the story just uses the supposed 'precedent' of his pacifism as an excuse to have him procrastinate and fail without any rationale.

Far from restoring the show to proper drama, I think it disgraced it completely and sent the message that the show was exclusively for the cranks of fandom only, and the Doctor is so defective and unfit for purpose that it was a mistake to have ever cared about the show or its stakes. And I don't think anything after could fix that impression.

Infact when Resurrection and Attack were designed to end similarly with everyone dead and the Doctor losing to the might of the Daleks or Cybermen, it now didn't convey anything special or powerful about the Daleks or Cybermen, because it just meant that they could achieve the same thing the ragtag Silurians did against an impotent Doctor. So I think it diminished the appeal of them as foes too.

Like I said though, I think that work environment around the frequently difficult JNT and Levine is what brought out the worst in his writing, often under duress, and I'm certainly behind the idea that now, away from that circumstance he might be able to produce something special and worthy of his better reputation.

stengos wrote:He should not have combined forces with Ian Levine to slag off JNT in the pages of Dr Who Bulletin the way he did.

I'm very much of the mind that Ian Levine was to the show then what the current SJW's are to it now.

Both spiteful, demanding ideologues who ended up having too much ruinous influence over the show's making and creative process (despite having no clue about the writing craft), and still weren't satisfied.

Tanmann wrote:According to the latest DWM, in addition to both his Dalek story novelizations, Eric's also coming out with a graphic novel based around Lytton's off-screen adventures this summer. Which might be interesting.

Sounds interesting. I always thought Lytton was quite a good character. People make out that the Doctor was stupid for thinking he has misjudged Lytton in Attack, saying "Oh he was still a mercenary, he was just being paid by the good guys."

IMO that's a lot of crap. To start with Lytton says he was only working for the Daleks because he had too, not because he was being paid. Second the Daleks may have been controlling his mind (the Black Dalek even says "Lytton continues to resist our control")

Furthermore in Attack Lytton whilst still ruthless, does prove his loyalty to the Cyrons and humanity. He withstands torture and conversion at the hands of the Cybermen to protect humanity, and his final action is to sacrifice himself to save the Doctor.

If he was just a mercenary out for number 1, he would have sold out the Cyrons when they captured him and not distracted the Cyber Controller to save the Doctor. With this in mind the Doctor might feel a bit bad.

(The only bit that I think was a bit stupid was Lytton defending the Cybermen when they were locked up in the TARDIS together? Why was he doing that if he didn't want the Doctor to think he wasn't a bad guy?)

IMO people are too hard on Attack. Whilst its not an all time classic like Tomb, its a great opening story. Certainly better than Silver Nemesis IMO. I think its just Ian Levine's association with it that makes people hate it more.

stengos wrote:I loved his time on the show - up to but not including "Trial". He seemed to help JNT steer it towards a more action packed saturday evening sci-fi / fantasy show as opposed to the nonsense of the Graham Williams era. The latter seemed to give up on any sense of drama and relied too heavily on weak, childish humour which undermined any dramatic pretensions that theshow had. Some of his self penned stories are among some of my favourites - Visitation, Resurrection and Revelation. The problems i did have with those stories tended to revolve around casting decisions which i do not think would have been down to him.

It wasn't a perfect time for the show - every era has downsides to it - but it was better than what came immediately before season 18 (i.e., Williams) and after.

One criticism i have was his lack of professionalism after he left the show. He should not have combined forces with Ian Levine to slag off JNT in the pages of Dr Who Bulletin the way he did. It made him look petty and also too eager to pass the buck for the problems the programme had in the run up to, and during, "Trial".

I personally would love to see him make some sort of come back.

Eric Saward is someone I have mixed feelings for. I think that he was a good writer. His stories, Earthshock, Visitation, Resurrection and Revelation all range from great to classic.

However I don't think he was a good script editor. First of all he didn't really seem to like the character of the Doctor. It may have been that he just didn't like the actors playing him during his time. (People forget he slagged off Peter Davison in the press too. As the show wasn't in such a bad state, then it just kind of blew over, unlike his tirade against Colin.)

Still whatever the case he tended to sideline the Doctor and make him useless in his stories. I think the Visitation might be the only story he wrote where the Doctor saves the day.

He was also very unprofessional and lazy too. Leaving aside his shameful behaviour in the interview he gave after he left. Saward apparently often only wanted the old writers back because he wouldn't have to do much work on their scripts. Also he struck me as being one of these guys who is happy to be really nasty about someone behind their back, but quite meek and sheepish to their face.

For instance look at his relationship with JNT. He always caved to JNT's terrible creative decisions like the costume. People often put that down to JNT being a tyrant, but IMO it was Eric being a pushover.

Consider this. JNT worked with two other script editors who were given more say over the show than Saward apparently was. Andrew Cartmel doesn't moan about it always being JNTs fault.

Also if Saward was constantly disagreeing with him, why was JNT so shaken when Saward slagged him off? Indeed nobody else working on the show like Nicola Bryant had any idea there was a problem between JNT and Saward. Only Colin Baker knew there was some strife between them in JNT's biography Colin said Saward would always bitch to him about JNT, until Colin eventually said "just tell him this, not me."

So IMO he let JNT get away with too much. A script editor and producer are supposed to work together like Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks. Dicks for instance stopped Barry from getting too political. Had he been like Saward however he would have just gone along with it all, and then slagged Barry off to the cast and later in interviews behind his back.

IMO Saward was the worst script editor of the original series. He stands out as the only one without a clear vision for the show and the most unprofessional.

burrunjor wrote:However I don't think he was a good script editor. First of all he didn't really seem to like the character of the Doctor.

I certainly agree with that.

To be honest I have a bit of a theory that Saward was at first, politically speaking, quite a liberal peacenik (as was fashionable among his middle-class peers) and would've seen the Doctor as his kin.

I think however during the course of the show, we saw Saward as a once true-believer, become actively disillusioned at how practical those ideals are, particularly when writing the Doctor in action and seeing how his ideals would hold up.

So I think that's possibly what led him to despise the Doctor and subject him to one punishing defeat after another. Because he saw too much of his former naivety and betrayed ideals in him.

Saward apparently often only wanted the old writers back because he wouldn't have to do much work on their scripts.

Well, surely there's more nuance to it than that. If he has experienced writers back that he recognizes have their talents still, then they can produce better work, which not only makes a good story in itself but provides a better model of what him and his writers should be aiming for.

It was about more than just him wanting to sit on his laurels.

burrunjor wrote:For instance look at his relationship with JNT. He always caved to JNT's terrible creative decisions like the costume. People often put that down to JNT being a tyrant, but IMO it was Eric being a pushover

Well on that particular note I don't see how Saward was in any position to challenge JNT.

Saward's department was the scripts, so he would've had very little input into the costume designs. And indeed the problem with the coat (though I don't think the coat was really half the problem it's made out to be) was that JNT was asking for costume designs and every time he got a good design back, he rejected it because it wasn't tasteless enough, until the horrible final result.

It wasn't a case of no-one challenging John that the coat was bad, it was about John rejecting every good variation on the coat until only the bad one was left. Which in a way is a microcosm for the era as a whole under him.

Consider this. JNT worked with two other script editors who were given more say over the show than Saward apparently was. Andrew Cartmel doesn't moan about it always being JNTs fault.

Well don't forget Cartmel only had half of Saward's workload of scripts to prepare a season, and I think JNT, in addition to seeing less chances to try his more heavy-handed gimmicks to add frills to the season, was a lot more ground down by the job by that point, which probably meant Cartmel would have been allowed much more creative freedom. Same way Bidmead probably was because for that first year, JNT had Barry Letts reigning his authority in a bit.

Also if Saward was constantly disagreeing with him, why was JNT so shaken when Saward slagged him off?

To be frank I don't think that's any kind of mystery why JNT would react differently to Saward's public smears than he would to whatever creative disagreements took place beforehand. They're both completely different experiences. One is a confidential disagreement, the other is a betrayal of trust, and an attempt to genuinely defame him public (made worse by the fact the BBC and fandom now seemed to have it in for him as it is, so having an ally turn against him would be pretty nerve-wracking).

I get the impression when Saward made his disagreements or objections known beforehand, JNT would've quite stubbornly refused to really listen and done it regardless. And if that's really how it was, I can see why Saward felt (and ultimately he seemed to be borne out in that) that going so public with his venting was the only way his objections would finally be genuinely noticed by JNT.

So it's possible Saward could've disagreed to his face lots of times and it made little difference. Maybe that's a sign he wasn't very good at disagreeing with him, but it's also possible that JNT was only receptive to some personalities under him and not others, and not necessarily based on their better talents or ideas.