Chris Boucher

Chris Boucher
Born	1943 (age 71–72)
Occupation	Television screenwriter and script editor

Chris Boucher (born 1943) is a British television writer, best known for his frequent contributions to two genres, science fiction and crime dramas.

Biography

Prior to becoming a television writer, Boucher had worked at Calor Gas as a management trainee and he also gained a Bachelor of Arts in Economics at the University of Essex.^[1]

In science fiction, he wrote three Doctor Who serials in the late 1970s: The Face of Evil, The Robots of Death and Image of the Fendahl. One of his contributions to Doctor Who was the creation of the character Leela (Louise Jameson), the savage companion who featured in the series during 1977 and 1978. The character was based on the Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled.^[2] Boucher was commissioned for the programme by Robert Holmes, who suggested that Boucher should be appointed as script editor for the science fiction series Blake's 7 (1978-81). He served in this role for the entirety of its four-series run, and also wrote several episodes himself, including the final episode.^[3] In 1987 he created his own series Star Cops, which combined the science fiction and crime genres. Although the series encountered several production problems and was not a ratings success,^[4] lasting only nine episodes,^[5] it has attracted a cult following and has been acclaimed for the strength of its writing and characterisation.

In the genre of police dramas, between working on Doctor Who and Blake's 7, Boucher was the script editor on the second season of the drama Shoestring, which followed the investigations of private detective and radio show host Eddie Shoestring. In 1982, following the end of Blake's 7, Boucher script edited and wrote for the third season police drama Juliet Bravo. He later moved on to script edit the detective show Bergerac, working on the programme throughout the 1980s.

All of the above television programmes were produced in-house by the BBC and broadcast on the BBC 1 network, with the exception of Star Cops which was shown on BBC 2. For the ITV network, he briefly contributed to Thames Television's police drama The Bill during the mid-1980s.

More recent work has included several Doctor Who novels for BBC Books, all featuring the character of Leela,^[6] and a series of straight-to-CD full-cast audio dramas entitled Kaldor City, which combine elements from his Doctor Who serial The Robots of Death with his Blake's 7 work.

Personal life

Boucher is an atheist. He disapproves of the introduction of religion into government policy and the education of children.^[7]

Scripts

1977: Doctor Who: The Face of Evil, Doctor Who: The Robots of Death, Doctor Who: Image of the Fendahl (Each story released over twelve months).
1979: Blake's 7: Shadow, Blake's 7: Weapon, Blake's 7: Trial, Blake's 7: Star One (Another story released every three months).
1980: Blake's 7: City at the Edge of the World, Blake's 7: Rumours of Death, Blake's 7: Death-Watch (Another story released every four months).
1981: Blake's 7: Rescue, Blake's 7: Blake (2005, ISBN 0-563-48618-X)
1982: Juliet Bravo: Where There's Muck... (Released in December).
1987: Star Cops: An Instinct for Murder, Star Cops: Conversations with the Dead, Star Cops: Intelligent Listening for Beginners, Star Cops: Trivial Games and Paranoid Pursuits, Star Cops: Little Green Men and Other Martians (Another story released every two months starting with April).
2002: Kaldor City: Death's Head (25 YEARS OF BOUCHER ENTERPRISES SPECIAL EDITION RELEASE: Released in April).

Novels

1998: Doctor Who: Last Man Running
1999: Doctor Who: Corpse Marker
2001: Doctor Who: Psi-ence Fiction
2005: Doctor Who: Match of the Day

References