This week’s Kasterborous podKast (with a “K”) features regulars Christian Cawley, Brian Terranova and James McLean discussing the legendary Robert Holmes, one of the classic series’ most prolific and remarkable writers…
…or was he? Well, that’s the crux of the conversation, which follows on from James’ assertion that as good as Holmes was, a good portion of his serials weren’t all that good and his reputation is slightly overstated. There begins a vast chat in which we discuss and compare Holmes, Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat.
How could you possibly ignore a podKast that describes The Mysterious Planet‘s Queen Katryca (Joan Sims) as “sub-Irongron and sub-Carry On”?!
listening now and one point that should be brought up is that the “lesser” Holmes episodes were all episodes under other script editors who had a hand in them. In other words, when Holmes was script editor on his own stuff, we got Talons and the like. So in some of the earlier and later scripts, there may have been some outside interference as is usual. Food for thought.
Indeed, not considered that. Like we said, and in the same vein as you replied, it’s about considering a person’s work and how it varies – something which gets lost when people are simply labelled a “legend”. I like looking at all creators, warts and all – for their successes and possible not so much successes. I have to say having studied the Holmes stories, objectively I can’t deny that many of his were my fav Who stories, period. Who can beat Talons of Weng Chiang?