title: Knossos

text: Building techniques at Knossos were typical. The foundations and lower course were stonework with the whole built on a timber framework of beams and pillars. The main structure was built of large, unbaked bricks. The roof was flat with a thick layer of clay over brushwood. Internal rooms were brightened by light-wells and columns of wood, many fluted, were used to lend both support and dignity. The chambers and corridors were decorated with frescoes showing scenes from everyday life and scenes of processions. Warfare is conspicuously absent. The fashions of the time may be seen in depictions of women in various poses. They had elaborately dressed hair and wore long dresses with flounced skirts and puffed sleeves. Their bodices were tightly drawn in round their waists and their breasts were exposed.


title: Knossos

text: The prosperity of Knossos was primarily based upon the development of native Cretan resources such as oil, wine, and wool. Another factor was the expansion of trade. Herodotus wrote that Minos, the legendary king of Knossos, established a thalassocracy (sea empire). Thucydides accepted the tradition and added that Minos cleared the sea of pirates, increased the flow of trade and colonised many Aegean islands. Archaeological evidence supports the tradition because Minoan pottery is widespread, having been found in Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, Rhodes, the Cyclades, Sicily, and mainland Greece. There seem to have been strong Minoan connections with Rhodes, Miletus, and Samos. Cretan influence may be seen in the earliest scripts found in Cyprus. The main market for Cretan wares was the Cyclades where there was a demand for pottery, especially the stone vases. It is not known whether the islands were subject to Crete or just trading partners, but there certainly was strong Cretan influence.


title: Knossos

text: This also applies to the mainland, because both tradition and archaeology indicate strong links between Crete and Athens. The main legend here is the Minotaur story wherein Athens was subject to Knossos and paying tribute. The legend concerns a creature living in a labyrinth who was half-man and half-bull. Bulls are frequently featured on pottery and frescoes found at Knossos, where the intricate layout of the palace might suggest a labyrinth. One of the most common cult-symbols, often seen on palace walls, is the double-headed axe called the "labrys", which is a Carian word for that type of tool or weapon.


title: Knossos

text: At the height of Cretan power around 1450 BC, the palaces at Mallia, Phaestus, and Zakro were destroyed along with smaller settlements elsewhere. Only Knossos remained and it survived until c. 1370. At the time of its destruction, it was occupied by Greeks, whose presence is suggested by a new emphasis on weapons and warfare in both art and burial. Mycenaean-style chamber tombs had been adopted and there was mainland influence on pottery styles. Confirmation came in written form after Michael Ventris deciphered the Linear B tablets and showed the language to be an early form of Greek that was quite unlike the earlier Linear A. Sir Arthur Evans found the Linear B tablets at Knossos and, although the writing was different from the Linear A ones at Phaestus and elsewhere, he thought they were a development of the first and so called them Linear B.


title: Knossos

text: Despite speculation that Knossos was destroyed by the volcanic eruption on Santorini, it is generally accepted that the cause was human violence following an invasion of Crete by Greeks from the Argolid, most probably Mycenaean. Knossos was still prosperous at the time of its destruction c. 1370 with trade and art continuing to thrive. Explanations for its destruction are speculative, but a likely reason is that the Mycenaeans, now prospering on the mainland, decided to remove a rival power.


title: Knossos

text: In Greek mythology, King Minos dwelt in a palace at Knossos. He had Daedalus construct a labyrinth, a very large maze (by some connected with the double-bladed axe, or "labrys") in which to retain his son, the Minotaur. Daedalus also built a dancing floor for Queen Ariadne. The name "Knossos" was subsequently adopted by Arthur Evans.


title: Knossos

text: As far as is currently known, it was William Stillman, the American consul who published Kalokairinos' discoveries, who, seeing the sign of the double axe on the massive walls partly uncovered by Kalokairinos, first associated the complex with the labyrinth of legend, calling the ruins "labyrinthine." Evans agreed with Stillman. The myth of the Minotaur tells that Theseus, a prince from Athens, whose father was an ancient Greek king named Aegeus, the basis for the name of the Greek sea (the Aegean Sea), sailed to Crete, where he was forced to fight a terrible creature called the Minotaur. The Minotaur was a half man, half bull, and was kept in the Labyrinth – a building like a maze – by King Minos, the ruler of Crete. The king's daughter, Ariadne, fell in love with Theseus. Before he entered the Labyrinth to fight the Minotaur, Ariadne gave him a ball of thread which he unwound as he went into the Labyrinth so that he could find his way back by following it. Theseus killed the Minotaur, and then he and Ariadne fled from Crete, escaping her angry father.


title: Knossos

text: As it turns out, there probably was an association of the word "labyrinth", whatever its etymology, with ancient Crete. The sign of the double axe was used throughout the Mycenaean world as an apotropaic mark: its presence on an object would prevent it from being "killed". Axes were scratched on many of the stones of the palace. It appears in pottery decoration and is a motif of the Shrine of the Double Axes at the palace, as well as of many shrines throughout Crete and the Aegean. And finally, it appears in Linear B on Knossos Tablet Gg702 as da-pu-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja, which probably represents the Mycenaean Greek, "Daburinthoio potniai", "to the mistress of the Labyrinth," recording the distribution of one jar of honey. A credible theory uniting all the evidence has yet to be formulated.


title: Knossos

text: Rhadamanthus was the mythological lawgiver of Crete. Cleinias of Crete attributes to him the tradition of Cretan gymnasia and common meals in Book I of Plato's Laws, and describes the logic of the custom as enabling a constant state of war readiness.


title: Knossos

text: Fieldwork in 2015 revealed that during the early Iron Age, Knossos was rich in imports and was nearly three times larger than indicated by earlier excavations. Whilst archaeologists had previously believed that the city had declined in the wake of a socio-political collapse around 1,200 BC, the work found instead, that the city had prospered, with its final abandonment coming later.


title: Knossos

text: After the fall of the Minoans, Knossus was repopulated approximately 1000 BC and it remained one of the most important centers of Crete. The city had two ports: Amnisos and Heraklion. According to the ancient geographer Strabo the Knossians colonized the city of Brundisium in Italy. In 343 BC, Knossos was allied with Philip II of Macedon. The city employed a Phocian mercenary named Phalaikos against their enemy, the city of Lyttus. The Lyttians appealed to the Spartans who sent their king Archidamus III against the Knossians. In Hellenistic times Knossos came under Egyptian influence, but despite considerable military efforts during the Chremonidean War (267–261 BC), the Ptolemies were not able to unify the warring city states. In the third century BC Knossos expanded its power to dominate almost the entire island, but during the Lyttian War in 220 BC it was checked by a coalition led by the Polyrrhenians and the Macedonian king Philip V.


title: Knossos

text: Twenty years later, during the Cretan War (205–200 BC), the Knossians were once more among Philip's opponents and, through Roman and Rhodian aid, this time they managed to liberate Crete from the Macedonian influence. With Roman aid, Knossus became once more the first city of Crete, but, in 67 BC, the Roman Senate chose Gortys as the capital of the newly created province Creta et Cyrene. In 36 BC, Knossus became a Roman colony named "Colonia Iulia Nobilis". The colony, which was built using Roman-style architecture, was situated within the vicinity of the palace, but only a small part of it has been excavated.


title: Knossos

text: The identification of Knossos with the Bronze Age site is supported by the Roman coins that were scattered over the fields surrounding the pre-excavation site, then a large mound named Kephala Hill, elevation from current sea level. Many of them were inscribed with Knosion or Knos on the obverse and an image of a Minotaur or Labyrinth on the reverse. The coins came from the Roman settlement of "Colonia Julia Nobilis Cnossus", a Roman colony placed just to the north of, and politically including, Kephala. The Romans believed they were the first to colonize Knossos.


title: Knossos

text: During the ninth century AD the local population shifted to the new town of Chandax (modern Heraklion). By the thirteenth century, it was called Makruteikhos 'Long Wall'.


title: Knossos

text: Today, the name is used only for the archaeological site now situated in the expanding suburbs of Heraklion.


title: Knossos

text: In 325, Knossos became a diocese, suffragan of the metropolitan see of Gortyna. In Ottoman Crete, the see of Knossos was in Agios Myron, 14 km to the southwest. The bishops of Gortyn continued to call themselves bishops of Knossos until the nineteenth century. The diocese was abolished in 1831.


title: Knossos

text: The site of Knossos was discovered in 1878 by Minos Kalokairinos. The excavations in Knossos began in 1900 by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941) and his team, and continued for 35 years. Its size far exceeded his original expectations, as did the discovery of two ancient scripts, which he termed Linear A and Linear B, to distinguish their writing from the pictographs also present. From the layering of the palace Evans developed an archaeological concept of the civilization that used it, which he called Minoan, following the pre-existing custom of labelling all objects from the location Minoan.


title: Knossos

text: Since their discovery, the ruins have been the centre of excavation by renowned archaeologists, education, tourism, and occupation as a headquarters by governments warring over the control of the eastern Mediterranean in two world wars.


title: Knossos

text: The features of the palace depend on the time period. Currently visible is an accumulation of features over several centuries, the latest most dominant. Thus, the palace was never exactly as depicted today. In addition, it has been reconstituted in modern materials. The custom began in an effort to preserve the site from decay and torrential winter rain. After 1922, the chief proprietor, Arthur Evans, intended to recreate a facsimile based on archaeological evidence. The palace is not exactly as it ever was, perhaps in places, not even close, and yet in general, judging from the work put in and the care taken, as well as parallels with other palaces, it probably is a good general facsimile. Opinions range, however, from most skeptical, viewing the palace as pure fantasy based on 1920s architecture and art deco, to most unquestioning, accepting the final judgements of Arthur Evans as most accurate. The mainstream of opinion falls between.


title: Knossos

text: From an archaeological point of view, the terms "Knossos" and "palace" are somewhat ambiguous. The palace was never just the residence of a monarch, although it contained rooms that might have been suitable for a royal family. Most of the structures, however, were designed to serve a civic, religious, and economic center. The term palace complex is more accurate. In ancient times, Knossos was a town surrounding and including the Kephala. This hill was never an acropolis in the Greek sense. It had no steep heights, remained unfortified, and was not very high off the surrounding ground. These circumstances cannot necessarily be imputed to other Minoan palaces. Phaistos, contemporaneous with Knossos, was placed on a steep ridge, controlling access to the Messara Plain from the sea, and was walled. To what degree Minoan civilization might be considered warlike remains debatable. It can, however, be said that Knossos bore no resemblance to a Mycenaean citadel, whether before or during Mycenaean Greek occupation.


title: Knossos

text: The complex was constructed ultimately around a raised central court on the top of Kephala. The previous structures were razed and the top was made level to make way for the court. The court is oblong, with the long axis, which points north-northeast, generally described as pointing "north". Plot plans typically show the court with the long axis horizontal, apparently east-west with the north on the right, or vertical with the north on the top. Either arrangement is confusing unless the compass points are carefully marked. About to the north of the palace complex is the sea at the Port of Heraklion. Directly to the south is Vlychia Stream, an east-west tributary of the north-south Kairatos. Kephala is an isolated hill at the confluence.


title: Knossos

text: The Kairatos River reaches the sea between the modern port of Heraklion and Heraklion Airport to the east. In ancient times the flow continued without interruption. Today the stream loses itself in the sewers of Heraklion before emerging from under a highway on the shore east of the port. It flows down from higher ground at Arkhanes to the south, where part of it was diverted into the Knossos Aqueduct. The water at that point was clean enough for drinking. When it reached Knossos it became the main drain of the sewer system of a town of up to 100,000 people, according to Pendlebury's estimate. Today the population is mainly to the north, but the sewer function continues, in addition to which much of the river is siphoned off, and the water table is tapped for irrigation. Looming over the right bank of the Vlychia, on the opposite shore from Knossos, is Gypsades Hill, where the Minoans quarried their gypsum. The limestone was quarried from the ridge on the east.


title: Knossos

text: The archaeological site, Knossos, refers either to the palace complex or, to that complex and several houses of similar antiquity nearby, which were inadvertently excavated along with the palace. To the south across the Vlychia is the Caravanserai. Further to the south are Minoan houses. The Minoan Road crossed the Vlychia on a Minoan Bridge, immediately entering the Stepped Portico, or covered stairway, to the palace complex. Near the northwest corner of the complex are the ruins of the House of the Frescoes. Across the Minoan Road entering from the northwest is the Arsenal. On the north side of the palace is the Customs House and the Northeast House. From there to the northeast is the modern village of Makrotoichos. Between it and the palace complex is the Royal Villa. On the west side is the Little Palace.


title: Knossos

text: The Royal Road is the last vestige of a Minoan road that connected the port to the palace complex. Today a modern road, Leoforos Knosou, built over or replacing the ancient roadway, serves that function and continues south. The excavated ancient Royal Road is part of the complex. The junction of the ancient and the modern roads is partly over the Little Palace. Just to the northwest of there, off the modern road, is where Evans chose to have Villa Ariadne built as his home away from home and an administrative center. The villa is on a slope overlooking the ruins. At the edge of the property, on the road, is a pre-excavation house renovated many times as a residence for the official keeper, called the Taverna. Immediately to the south of the villa, over parts of the Little Palace, is the modern Stratigraphical Museum, a square building. Excavation continues sporadically on its grounds. To the south of the museum is a modern settlement across from the entrance to the west court. Parking facilities are to the north, off Leoforos Knosou. A band of fields has been left on the northwest between the palace complex and the city streets of Heraklion. The east and west are protected by north-south mountain ridges, between which is the valley of the Kairatos.


title: Knossos

text: The great palace was built gradually between 1700 and 1400 BC, with periodic rebuildings after destructions. Structures preceded it on Kephala hill. The features currently most visible date mainly to the last period of habitation, which Evans termed, Late Minoan. The palace has an interesting layout – the original plan can no longer be seen due to the subsequent modifications. The 1,300 rooms are connected with corridors of varying sizes and direction, which differ from other contemporaneous palaces that connected the rooms via several main hallways. The of the palace included a theater, a main entrance on each of its four cardinal faces, and extensive storerooms (also called magazines). Within the storerooms were large clay containers (pithoi) that held oil, grains, dried fish, beans, and olives. Many of the items were processed at the palace, which had grain mills, oil presses, and wine presses. Beneath the pithoi were stone holes that were used to store more valuable objects, such as gold. The palace used advanced architectural techniques: for example, part of it was built up to five stories high.


title: Knossos

text: The palace had at least three separate water-management systems: one for supply, one for drainage of runoff, and one for drainage of waste water.


title: Knossos

text: Aqueducts brought fresh water to Kephala hill from springs at Archanes, about 10 km away. Springs there are the source of the Kairatos river, in the valley in which Kephala is located. The aqueduct branched to the palace and to the town. Water was distributed at the palace by gravity feed through terracotta pipes to fountains and spigots. The pipes were tapered at one end to make a pressure fit, with rope for sealing. Unlike Mycenae, no hidden springs have been discovered.


title: Knossos

text: Sanitation drainage was through a closed system leading to a sewer apart from the hill. The queen's megaron contained an example of the first known water-flushing system latrine adjoining the bathroom. This toilet was a seat over a drain that was flushed by pouring water from a jug. The bathtub located in the adjoining bathroom similarly had to be filled by someone heating, carrying, and pouring water, and must have been drained by overturning into a floor drain or by bailing. This toilet and bathtub were exceptional structures within the 1,300-room complex.


title: Knossos

text: As the hill was periodically drenched by torrential rains, a runoff system was a necessity. It began with channels in the flat surfaces, which were zigzag and contained catchment basins to control the water velocity. Probably the upper system was open. Manholes provided access to parts that were covered.


title: Knossos

text: Due to its placement on the hill, the palace received sea breezes during the summer. It had porticoes and air shafts.


title: Knossos

text: The palace also includes the Minoan column, a structure notably different from Greek columns. Unlike the stone columns that are characteristic of Greek architecture, the Minoan column was constructed from the trunk of a cypress tree, which is common to the Mediterranean. While Greek columns are smaller at the top and wider at the bottom to create the illusion of greater height (entasis), the Minoan columns are smaller at the bottom and wider at the top, a result of inverting the cypress trunk to prevent sprouting once in place. The columns at the Palace of Minos were plastered, painted red and mounted on stone bases with round, pillow-like capitals.


title: Knossos

text: Pottery at Knossos is prolific, heavily-decorated and uniquely-styled by period. It is used as a layer diagnostic. Comparing it to similar pottery elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean, Evans established a wider chronology, which, on that account, is difficult to question successfully. On the negative side, careful records of the locations of some objects were not always kept, due to the very size of the project and the difficulties under which the archaeologists and workmen had to labor.


title: Knossos

text: The palace at Knossos was a place of high color, as were Greek buildings in the classical period, and as are Greek buildings today. In the EM Period, the walls and pavements were coated with a pale red derived from red ochre. In addition to the background coloring, the walls displayed fresco panel murals, entirely of red. In the subsequent MM Period, with the development of the art, white and black were added, and then blue, green, and yellow. The pigments were derived from natural materials, such as ground hematite. Outdoor panels were painted on fresh stucco with the motif in relief; indoor, on fresh, pure plaster, softer than the plaster with additives ordinarily used on walls.


title: Knossos

text: The decorative motifs were generally bordered scenes: humans, legendary creatures, animals, rocks, vegetation, and marine life. The earliest imitated pottery motifs. Most have been reconstructed from various numbers of flakes fallen to the floor. Evans had various technicians and artists work on the project, some artists, some chemists, and restorers. The symmetry and use of templates made possible a degree of reconstruction beyond what was warranted by only the flakes. For example, if evidence of the use of a certain template existed scantily in one place, the motif could be supplied from the template found somewhere else. Like the contemporary murals in the funerary art of the Egyptians, certain conventions were used that also assisted prediction. For example, male figures are shown with darker or redder skin than female figures.


title: Knossos

text: Some archaeological authors have objected that Evans and his restorers were not discovering the palace and civilization as it was, but were creating a modern artifact based on contemporary art and architecture.


title: Knossos

text: The centerpiece of the "Minoan" palace was the so-called Throne Room or Little Throne Room, dated to LM II. This chamber has an alabaster seat identified by Evans as a "throne" built into the north wall. On three sides of the room are gypsum benches. A sort of tub area is opposite the throne, behind the benches, termed a "lustral basin", which means that Evans and his team saw it as a place for ceremonial purification.


title: Knossos

text: The room was accessed from an anteroom through double doors. The anteroom was connected to the central court, which was four steps up through four doors. The anteroom had gypsum benches also, with carbonized remains between two of them thought possibly, to be a wooden throne. Both rooms are located in the ceremonial complex on the west of the central court.


title: Knossos

text: The throne is flanked by the Griffin Fresco, with two griffins couchant (lying down) facing the throne, one on either side. Griffins were important mythological creatures, also appearing on seal rings, which were used to stamp the identities of the bearers into pliable material, such as clay or wax.


title: Knossos

text: Additional speculation is, since the indentation of the seat seems to be shaped for a woman's buttocks, that the throne was made specifically for a female individual. Also, the extensive use of curved edges and the crescent moon carved at its base both symbolize femininity.


title: Knossos

text: The lustral basin was originally thought to have had a ritual washing use, but the lack of drainage has more recently brought some scholars to doubt this theory. It is now speculated that the tank was used as an aquarium, or possibly a water reservoir.


title: Knossos

text: A long-standing debate between archaeologists concerns the main function of the palace, whether it acted as an administrative center, a religious center, or both, in a theocratic manner. Other important debates consider the role of Knossos in the administration of Bronze Age Crete, and whether Knossos acted as the primary center, or was on equal footing with the several other contemporaneous palaces that have been discovered on Crete. Many of these palaces were destroyed and abandoned in the early part of the fifteenth century BC, possibly by the Mycenaeans, although Knossos remained in use until it was destroyed by fire about one hundred years later. Knossos showed no signs of being a military site; for example, it had neither fortifications nor stores of weapons.


title: Darkman

text: Darkman is a 1990 American superhero film directed and co-written by Sam Raimi. Based on a short story Raimi wrote that paid homage to Universal's horror films of the 1930s, the film stars Liam Neeson as scientist Peyton Westlake, who is brutally attacked, disfigured, and left for dead by ruthless mobster Robert Durant (Larry Drake), after his girlfriend, attorney Julie Hastings (Frances McDormand), runs afoul of corrupt developer Louis Strack Jr. (Colin Friels). After a treatment to cure him of his burn injuries fails, Westlake develops super-human abilities, which also have the unintended side-effect of rendering him mentally unstable and borderline psychotic. Consumed with vengeance, he decides to hunt down those who disfigured him.


title: Darkman

text: Unable to secure the rights to "The Shadow", Raimi decided to create his own superhero and struck a deal with Universal Studios to make his first Hollywood studio film. It was produced by Robert Tapert, and was written by Raimi, his brother Ivan, Chuck Pfarrer, and brothers Daniel and Joshua Goldin. Makeup effects artist Tony Gardner, who also cameos in the film as the Lizard Man in the carnival Freak Show sequence, designed and created the makeup effects required to turn Neeson into Darkman.


title: Darkman

text: Neeson's first action film in the main role, "Darkman" received generally positive reviews by critics and was commercially successful, grossing $48 million, above its $14 million budget. This financial success spawned two direct-to-video sequels, "" (1995) and "" (1996), as well as comic books, video games, and action figures. Neeson did not reprise his role for the direct-to-video sequels.


title: Darkman

text: Dr. Peyton Westlake is developing a new type of synthetic skin to help burn victims but cannot get past a flaw that causes the skin to rapidly disintegrate after 99 minutes. His girlfriend, attorney Julie Hastings, discovers the Belisarius Memorandum, an incriminating document that proves developer Louis Strack Jr. has been bribing members of the zoning commission. When she confronts Strack, he confesses, showing Julie that he plans to design a brand-new city, creating a substantial number of new jobs. He warns Julie that the city's reigning crime boss, Robert G. Durant, also wants the document.


title: Darkman

text: At Westlake's lab, Westlake and his assistant Yakitito are testing the skin when the lights go out. The synthetic skin remains stable after 100 minutes, so Westlake deduces that the skin is photosensitive. Their joy is short lived as Durant and his mobsters show up and demand the Memorandum, which Westlake knows nothing about. They search for the document, and Durant has his men kill Yakitito and beat Westlake, burning his hands and dipping his face in acid. After finding the document, they rig the lab to explode. Julie witnesses the blast as a hideously burned Westlake is thrown through the roof and into the river. As a John Doe, he is brought to a hospital and subjected to a radical treatment which cuts the nerves of the spinothalamic tract; physical pain is no longer felt at the cost of tactile sensation. This loss of sensory input gives him enhanced strength due to adrenal overload and keeps his injuries from incapacitating him, but also mentally destabilizes him. After waking up from a coma, Westlake escapes from the hospital.


title: Darkman

text: Believed dead by Julie, Westlake re-establishes his lab in a condemned building and begins a long process of digitization to create a mask of his original face, using the time to plot revenge against Durant and his men. He kills Durant's henchman Rick by putting his head in front of an incoming car after forcing him to reveal the identities of the other men. He then studies them to subdue and impersonate them (having a talent for impressionism). When his face mask is complete, Westlake manages to convince Julie that he was in a coma rather than dead. He mentions that he is aware of Julie seeing Strack after his supposed death; she responds that Strack only comforted her. Keeping his disfigurement from her, Westlake instead probes whether she would accept him despite his appearance.


title: Darkman

text: Westlake sows dissension and confusion among Durant's henchmen by assuming their identities. On a date at a carnival with Julie, Westlake loses his temper after an altercation over a stuffed elephant and assaults a worker, revealing to Julie that something is wrong with him. He flees as his face begins to melt, and she follows him, discovering the discarded mask; she calls to Peyton that she still loves him regardless. Julie tells Strack she can no longer see him before discovering the stolen Memorandum on his desk, confirming that he was collaborating with Durant the entire time. She reveals Westlake is still alive, but Strack tells her as long as he has the Memorandum, no charges can be filed. When Julie leaves, Durant enters and is told to capture Julie and kill Westlake.


title: Darkman

text: Durant intercepts Julie, kidnapping her before attacking Westlake's lair. Two of his men enter the lab to locate and kill Westlake but are outmaneuvered and eliminated. Durant flees in a helicopter with Westlake dangling from an attached cable, which he uses to crash the helicopter. Impersonating Durant, Westlake meets up with Strack and a captive Julie at the top of an unfinished building. Strack breaks Westlake's ruse, and they fight; Westlake eventually gains the upper hand and dangles Strack by his ankle in the air. Strack says that killing him would not be something he could live with. Westlake drops Strack, remarking: "I'm learning to live with a lot of things". Julie tries to convince Westlake that he can still return to his old life, but he tells her he has changed internally as well, and cannot subject anyone to his new, vicious nature. He rushes from Julie as they exit an elevator, pulling on a mask and running into a crowd of pedestrians. As Julie unsuccessfully searches for him, a disguised Westlake watches her for a few moments before turning and walking away, narrating, "I am everyone and no one. Everywhere. Nowhere. Call me... Darkman".


title: Darkman

text: Additionally, Raimi's brother Ivan and director John Landis have cameos as hospital staff, while Jenny Agutter plays the doctor treating Westlake's burns. Neal McDonough, William Lustig, Scott Spiegel and Stuart Cornfeld portray dockworkers. Other appearances include Joel and Ethan Coen as the driver and passenger in an Oldsmobile, Professor Toru Tanaka and Nathan Jung as Hung Fat's Chinese Warriors, and Julius Harris as the Gravedigger. In the final scene of the film, Campbell portrays the disguised Darkman as he flees, credited as "Final Shemp".


title: Darkman

text: The idea for "Darkman" developed from a short story Raimi had written about a man who could change his face. The story drew elements from "The Phantom of the Opera", "The Elephant Man", and "The Shadow" (Raimi had previously sought the film rights to "The Shadow"; when rejected, he decided to write his own superhero). Raimi was also inspired by the Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s because "they made me fear the hideous nature of the hero and at the same time drew me to him. I went back to that idea of the man who is noble and turns into a monster". He originally wrote a 30-page short story, titled "The Darkman", and then developed into a 40-page treatment. At this point, according to Raimi, "it became the story of a man who had lost his face and had to take on other faces, a man who battled criminals using this power". It also became more of a tragic love story in the tradition of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". In 1987, Raimi submitted the treatment to Universal Pictures which they liked, green-lighted a budget in the range of $8–12 million, and suggested that he get a screenwriter to flesh out the story.


title: Darkman

text: The more Raimi worked, the more Darkman became a crime-fighting figure like Batman, "a non-superpowered man who, here, is a hideous thing who fights crime. As he became that hideous thing, it became more like "The Phantom of the Opera", the creature who wants the girl but who was too much of a beast to have her", according to Raimi. The process of developing his treatment into a screenplay was difficult with Raimi hiring ex-Navy SEAL Chuck Pfarrer based on his work on "Navy SEALs". He wrote the first draft and then Raimi's brother, Ivan (a doctor), wrote drafts two through four with Sam. Ivan made sure that the medical aspects and scientific elements were authentic as possible given the nature of the story.


title: Darkman

text: As Raimi and his producing partner Robert Tapert progressed through various drafts, they realized they had a potential franchise on their hands. Universal brought in screenwriting brothers Daniel and Joshua Goldin to work on the script. According to Daniel, they were presented with various drafts and "lots of little story documents. There was just material everywhere; drafts seemed to go in many directions". Goldin said that they "spent a lot of time talking and pulling together a way of making the story work. I think that mostly we talked in terms of the nuts and bolts of the story". The Goldins added new lines of dialogue, new characters and bits of action. The studio still wasn't satisfied, so the Raimi brothers wrote drafts six through twelve before they had a shooting script. Raimi wanted to emphasize Peyton/Darkman's arc over the course of the film, saying, "I decided to explore a man's soul. In the beginning, a sympathetic, sincere man. In the middle, a vengeful man committing heinous acts against his enemies. And in the end, a man full of self-hatred for what he's become, who must drift off into the night, into a world apart from everyone he knows and all the things he loves".


title: Darkman

text: Working with Universal meant a significant budgetary increase for Raimi, allowing him to design and build a laboratory set for Darkman and afford helicopters and professional stuntmen to film the climactic helicopter chase through the city. He was eventually given $14 million to work with, including a longer schedule and much more effects work.


title: Darkman

text: Visually, the filmmaker was interested in paying homage to Universal horror films of the 1930s. Production designer Randy Ser remarked, "if you look at Darkman's lab that he moves into, which is an old warehouse, what was on my mind was Dr. Frankenstein. There were a number of references visually to what we were thinking about in regards to those films". Raimi consciously wanted to tone down his style because of a desire to "get into the characters' heads and follow them as real human beings in extraordinary circumstances".


title: Darkman

text: McDormand and Neeson worked closely in rehearsals, rewriting the three love scenes they had together after he becomes Darkman. They got through these scenes, according to the actress, by depending on "each other's knowledge, of theater and each other".


title: Darkman

text: Raimi said directing McDormand was "very difficult". Raimi said, "apparently I didn't know Fran as well as I thought I did ... The reason it was difficult was that our conception of the best movie to make differed, arguing in trying to make the best picture possible. We did come across disagreements, but they were very healthy".


title: Darkman

text: Durant's finger collection developed over the Pfarrer and Raimi brothers drafts. The director wanted a specific trademark for the character – one that hinted at a military background.


title: Darkman

text: Neeson worked in ten-piece prosthetic makeup, sometimes for 18 hours. He saw the lengthy time spent in extensive makeup as a challenge and liked "the idea of working behind a mask on camera, and just exploring the possibilities of what that entailed". He and makeup effects designer Tony Gardner did tests using specific glues, foams, and bandage coverings. They also timed how fast they could apply the prosthetic makeup and put the costume on. Neeson worked with the costume designer on his outfit, including aspects like the cloak. The hardest part for the actor was speaking with false teeth and he ended up doing "a lot of work on my voice – I didn't want the [false teeth] to move at all".


title: Darkman

text: Raimi and Tapert ran into conflicts with the studio during post-production. The director had a problem with the editor that the studio assigned him and eight weeks into assembling the rough cut, he was not following Raimi's storyboards. The editor had a nervous breakdown and left. Early preview screenings did not go well as people laughed in the wrong places and complained about a lack of a happy ending. Universal told Raimi that some people rated "Darkman" the worst film they had ever seen. According to executives, the film was one of the worst-scoring pictures in Universal's history. Then, two preview screenings, one with Danny Elfman's score, went well. Tapert remembers, "the experience on "Darkman" was very difficult for Sam and me; it isn't the picture we thought it should be, based on the footage we shot and all that. The studio got nervous about some kind of wild things in it, and made us take them out, which was unfortunate". Raimi did like the "brilliant" marketing campaign that the studio came up with, releasing posters in advance with a silhouette of the main character and the question, "Who is Darkman?" According to the director, "the marketing made the film a money-maker".


title: Darkman

text: Released on August 17, 1990, the soundtrack to "Darkman" was composed by Danny Elfman, who previously scored the music to Tim Burton's "Batman" in 1989. La-La Land Records has released an expanded soundtrack album in January 2020, featuring over 30 minutes of previously unreleased music. In 2017, Waxwork Records released the soundtrack on vinyl which was remastered from the original tapes.


title: Darkman

text: Elfman said of his score: "Again old-fashioned and melodramatic, but in a way that I'm crazy about. Sam Raimi has a wonderful visual style that lends itself easily to music. It was an enormous relief writing long, extended musical sequences, something which is very rare in modern films. No reason to hold back on this one".


title: Darkman

text: Ads asking "Who is Darkman?" began appearing on bus benches, public transit, and television as early as June 1990. Universal VP of Media Vic Fondrk said that the studio did not want to spend much money promoting the film in advance, "but we wanted to create some intrigue for the Darkman character".


title: Darkman

text: In 1998, "Darkman" was released on DVD. Bonus material included production notes, cast & crew bios, and a trailer.


title: Darkman

text: In 1999, "The Return of Durant" was released on DVD. Bonus material included production notes, cast & crew bios, a trailer, and web links.


title: Darkman

text: In 2004, "Die, Darkman, Die" was released on DVD as part of the "Universal Studio Selections". The DVD contained no bonus material or even a main menu (although there were chapter selections).


title: Darkman

text: All three "Darkman" films were released in a box set by Universal Studios in August 2007. Each is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. No extra material was included. The high definition version of "Darkman" was released on HD DVD July 31 the same year.


title: Darkman

text: A Blu-ray Disc edition of the first film was released on June 16, 2010. Shout! Factory released a second Blu-ray edition on February 18, 2014.


title: Darkman

text: On its opening weekend, "Darkman" grossed a total of $8 million in 1,786 theaters. To date, the film has grossed a total of $48.8 million worldwide.


title: Darkman

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 84% based on reviews from 61 critics. The site's consensus states: "Gruesome and deliciously broad, Sam Raimi's "Darkman" bears the haunted soulfulness of gothic tragedy while packing the stylistic verve of onomatopoeia springing off a comic strip page". On Metacritic the film has a score of 65 based on reviews from 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Darkman

text: "Los Angeles Times" film critic Michael Wilmington felt that "Darkman" was the only film at the time "that successfully captures the graphic look, rhythm and style of the superhero books". Terrence Rafferty of "The New Yorker" said, "Raimi works from inside the cheerfully violent adolescent-male sensibility of superhero comics, as if there were no higher style for a filmmaker to aspire to, and the absence of condescension is refreshing". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote: "Raimi's live-action comic book aims to deliver scares spiked with laughs. That it does". "USA Today" gave the film three out of four stars, and wrote: "With good leads and a few bucks, he's come up with a high-octane revenge piece mentionable in the same breath as its predecessors". Richard Corliss in "Time" said "Raimi isn't effective with his actors, and the dialogue lacks smart menace, but his canny visual sense carries many a scene". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "B" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote: "The movie is full of jaunty, Grand Guignol touches (the main gangster enjoys snapping and collecting fingers), but Raimi's images also have a spectral, kinetic beauty". In his review for "The Washington Post", Joe Brown wrote: "Though Raimi seems to be trying to restrain himself, his giddily sick sense of humor still pops out all over the place – "Darkman" is a frenetic funhouse ride that has you laughing and screaming at the same time". Rita Kempley also of "The Washington Post" called it "a fiendishly stylish journey that links the classics of transfiguration to the terrors of our times". On the TV program "At the Movies", Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up". Both remarked at how original and stylised Raimi's sense of direction was, with Siskel adding that Darkman as a character was "interesting".


title: Darkman

text: Ian Nathan of Empire magazine said the film was "certainly not Raimi at his best, but some knowing genre nods and an array of great effects make up much of the deficit". "People"s Ralph Novak called "Darkman", a "loud, sadistic, stupidly written, wretchedly acted film".


title: Darkman

text: "Darkman" was singled out for notice by comic-book writer Peter David in the "Comics Buyer's Guide" as "The Perfect Super-Hero Film of All Time", although this assessment was based upon other features of the film than general quality.


title: Darkman

text: The A.V. Club called "Darkman" a key transitional film, bridging from Burton's Batman films, while forging its own dark path to the future.


title: Darkman

text: "Darkman" has been the subject of two Marvel Comics series (one a movie adaptation, the other an original sequel), numerous novels, as well as a video game published by Ocean Software, "Darkman" (1991). Tony Gardner's company Alterian, Inc. produced two different Halloween masks of the Darkman character after the film was released. Merchandising for the character all but disappeared for close to a decade until SOTA Toys obtained the rights to make a Darkman action figure. SOTA president Jerry Macaluso was interviewed by Dread Central:


title: Darkman

text: In 2005, SOTA produced two versions of their Darkman action figure (including interchangeable head and hands to allow the figure to be either bandaged or revealing his scarred visage), as well as a Darkman statue.


title: Darkman

text: Dynamite Entertainment in 2006 reached an agreement with Universal Studios Consumer Products Group to produce original comics based on "Darkman". A bimonthly limited series entitled "Darkman vs. Army of Darkness" was published from August 2006 to March 2007.


title: Darkman

text: In November 2007, Sideshow Collectibles put up for pre-order a 1:4 scale "Premium" Format Figure version of Darkman that would be released in 3rd quarter 2008.


title: Darkman

text: With release in 1990, Marvel Comics published a 3-issue adaptation of "Darkman" in color along with a larger black and white magazine size adaptation consisting of all three issues. In 1993, Darkman returned in a 6 issue mini-series also published by Marvel Comics. In 2006, Dynamite Entertainment published a crossover that pitted Darkman against Sam Raimi's Ash Williams of the "Evil Dead"/"Army of Darkness" franchise.


title: Darkman

text: Alongside the theatrical release in 1990, Jove Books published the novel adaptation written by Randall Boyll. In 1994, Boyll returned to expand upon the adventures of Darkman in a four-novel miniseries from Pocket Books. Over Pocket Books' four novels ("The Hangman", "The Price of Fear", "The Gods of Hell", and "In the Face of Death") Boyll further develops Darkman's character and how he deals with his new existence as an outcast individual with the ability to help others.


title: Darkman

text: In April 2022, Neeson was in talks about that he would be interesting to reprise his role for a legacy sequel to the original film. The producer of the sequel film was attached, and the studio had started to talk about the sequel.


title: Darkman

text: Universal Television financed a 30-minute television pilot presentation based on "Darkman", which was made in 1992 and was to be shown on Fox. The pilot, directed by Brian Grant, retold the origin of the character (with some alterations) and introduced several new characters. Christopher Bowen starred in the role of Peyton Westlake/Darkman, Larry Drake reprised his role of Robert G. Durant, and Kathleen York played the cop, Jenny.


title: Darkman

text: The origin is similar to the one in the original film as Peyton discovers his synthetic skin, is attacked and left for dead by Durant and his gang. In this version, however, Peyton is already married to Julie, and she is killed in the explosion. As in the films, Westlake becomes Darkman, and seeks vengeance on Durant and his gang. Darkman's headquarters are in an abandoned observatory overlooking the city, and he is wanted by the police for his actions against Durant's gang. The pilot ends with some scenes from the first film (particularly of Darkman and Durant fighting) and Darkman stating that Justice will answer with a brand new face.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Stephen Russell Davies (born 27 April 1963), better known as Russell T Davies, is a Welsh screenwriter and television producer whose works include "Queer as Folk", "The Second Coming", "Casanova", the 2005 revival of the BBC One science fiction franchise "Doctor Who", "Cucumber", "A Very English Scandal", "Years and Years" and "It's a Sin".


title: Russell T Davies

text: Born in Swansea, Davies had aspirations as a comic artist before focusing on being a playwright and screenwriter. After graduating from Oxford University, he joined the BBC's children's department, CBBC, in 1985 on a part-time basis and held various positions, which included creating two series, "Dark Season" and "Century Falls". He eventually left the BBC for Granada Television, and in 1994 began writing adult television drama. His early scripts generally explored concepts of religion and sexuality among various backdrops: "Revelations" was a soap opera about organised religion and featured a lesbian vicar; "Springhill" was a soap drama about a Catholic family in contemporary Liverpool; "The Grand" explored society's opinion of subjects such as prostitution, abortion and homosexuality during the interwar period; and "Queer as Folk" recreated his experiences in the Manchester gay scene. His work in the 2000s included "Bob & Rose", which portrayed a gay man who fell in love with a woman; "The Second Coming", which focused on the second coming and deicide of Jesus Christ from a mostly non-religious point of view; "Mine All Mine", a comedy about a family who discover they own the entire city of Swansea; and "Casanova", an adaptation of the complete memoirs of Venetian adventurer Giacomo Casanova.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Following the show's sixteen-year hiatus, Davies revived and ran "Doctor Who" for the period between 2005 and 2010, with Christopher Eccleston and later David Tennant in the title role. Davies' tenure as executive producer of the show saw a surge in popularity which led to the production of two spin-off series, "Torchwood" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures", and the revival of Saturday prime-time dramas as a profitable venture for production companies. Davies was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2008 for services to drama, which coincided with the announcement he would step down from "Doctor Who" as the show's executive producer with his final script, "The End of Time" (2009–2010). Davies moved to Los Angeles in 2009, where he oversaw production of "" and the fifth and final series of "The Sarah Jane Adventures". Davies returned as "Doctor Who" showrunner in October 2022 after the departure of Chris Chibnall; the first episodes of his second tenure will be the show's sixtieth anniversary specials in 2023.


title: Russell T Davies

text: After his partner developed cancer in late 2011, Davies returned to the UK. He co-created the CBBC drama "Wizards vs Aliens", and created "Cucumber", a Channel 4 series about middle-aged gay men in the Manchester gay scene; "Banana", an E4 series about young LGBT people in the "Cucumber" universe; and "Tofu", an All 4 documentary series which discussed LGBT issues. Davies' later work for BBC One in the 2010s include "A Midsummer Night's Dream", a television film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play; "A Very English Scandal", a miniseries adaptation of John Preston's novel of the same name; and "Years and Years", a drama series which follows a Manchester family affected by political, economic, and technological changes to Britain over 15 years. Davies returned to Channel 4 for a third time in 2021 as creator of "It's a Sin", a semi-autobiographical drama about the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Stephen Russell Davies was born on 27 April 1963 at Mount Pleasant Hospital in Swansea. His father, Vivian Davies (1925–2015), and his mother, Barbara (1929–1999), were teachers. Davies was the youngest of three children and their only son. Because he was born by caesarean section, his mother was placed on a morphine drip and was institutionalised after an overdose resulted in a psychotic episode. He described his mother's experience as "literally ... like science fiction" and an early inspiration for his writing career. As a child, Davies was almost always referred to by his middle name. He grew up in a household that "never switched the TV off" until after closedown, and he subsequently became immersed in dramas such as "I, Claudius" and "Doctor Who". One of his first memories, at the age of three, was the 1966 "Doctor Who" serial "The Tenth Planet". He was also an avid cartoonist and comics enthusiast, and purchased series such as "Asterix" and "Peanuts".


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies attended Tycoch Primary School in Sketty and enrolled at Olchfa School aged 11. In his first year, the main school buildings were closed for rebuilding after inspectors discovered the high alumina cement used in construction had caused other public buildings to collapse. Lessons were instead held in portable buildings, which influenced Davies' imagination to create mystery, science-fiction, and conspiracy thriller stories about the main building. He also immersed himself in books such as "Sons and Lovers" by D. H. Lawrence and "The Crystal Mouse" by Babs H. Deal; the latter influenced him so much he could "see it echoing in anything" he wrote. At age 14, he auditioned for and joined the newly formed West Glamorgan Youth Theatre Company (WGYTC). The group's founder and director, Godfrey Evans, considered him to be "a total all-rounder" who was talented and popular with the other students. Working with the group allowed him to define his sexual identity, and he embarked on a several-month relationship with fellow youth actor Rhian Morgan. He later came out as homosexual in his teenage years.


title: Russell T Davies

text: In 1979, Davies completed his O-Levels and stayed at Olchfa with the ambition to study English literature at the University of Oxford; he abandoned his aspirations of becoming a comic artist after a careers advisor convinced him that his colour-blindness would make that path unlikely. During his studies, he participated in the WGYTC's assignments to create Welsh language drama to be performed at the National Eisteddfod of Wales; two such productions were "Pair Dadeni", a play based on the Mabinogion myth cycle, and "Perthyn", a drama about community belonging and identity in early-1980s West Glamorgan. In 1981, he was accepted by Worcester College, Oxford to study English literature. At Oxford, he realised he was enamoured with the narrative aspect of fiction, especially 19th-century literature such as Charles Dickens.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies continued to submit scripts to the WGYT during his studies at Oxford, including "Box", a play about the influence of television which Evans noted contained Davies' penchants for misdirecting the audience and mixing comedy and drama; "In Her Element", which centred on the animation of still objects; and "Hothouse", an Alan Bennett-inspired piece about internal politics in an advertising office. In 1984, he made his final performance for the WGYT and signed up for a course in Theatre Studies at Cardiff University after he graduated from Oxford. He worked sporadically for the Sherman Theatre's publicity department and claimed unemployment benefit in the interim. In 1985, Davies began his professional television career after a friend suggested he should talk to a television producer who was seeking a temporary graphic artist for the children's show "Why Don't You?"


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies was taken on as a member of the BBC Wales children's department (CBBC) in 1985 and given one-day contracts and commissions, such as illustrating for "Why Don't You?". As he was only given three days of work per month by the BBC, he continued to freelance and volunteer for the Sherman Theatre. In 1986, he was approached by the "Sunday Sport" before its launch to provide a football-themed daily strip; he declined because he was concerned about the pornographic content of the newspaper. He submitted a script for "Crossroads" in response to an appeal for new writers; it was not used because the show was cancelled in 1987. He ultimately abandoned his graphic art career entirely when he realised in his early twenties that he enjoyed writing the dialogue of a comic more than creating the art.


title: Russell T Davies

text: On 1 June 1987, Davies made his first and only appearance as a television presenter on "Play School" alongside regular presenter Chloë Ashcroft. "Why Don't You?" line producer Peter Charlton suggested that he would "be good on camera" and advised him to take his career public. Davies was granted the opportunity for sporadic appearances over a period of six months; he hosted only one episode as a storytelling illustrator before he walked off the set and commented he was "not doing that again". The appearance remains an in-joke in the industry, and the recordings were invariably requested for wrap parties Davies attended.


title: Russell T Davies

text: On "Why Don't You?", Davies held various jobs including: researcher, director, illustrator, assistant floor manager and unofficial publicist for fan-mail. He was offered his first professional scriptwriting job in 1986 by producer Dave Evans; he had entered Evans's office to collect his wages and was offered an extra £100 to write a replacement script. Davies' script was positively received by the CBBC and led to increasingly larger roles which culminated in a six-month contract to write for the show after it relocated to Manchester in 1988. He worked for the show for two more years and became the show's producer. He oversaw an increase in drama which tripled its audience—despite the fact BBC Manchester was not permitted by the corporation to create children's dramas—which reached its climax with his last episode: a drama where the "Why Don't You?" protagonists, led by the show's longest running presenter Ben Slade, were trapped in a café by a supercomputer which tried to kill them.


title: Russell T Davies

text: While producing "Why Don't You?", Davies branched out within CBBC at BBC Manchester: he attended directors' courses; wrote for older audiences with his contributions to "DEF II" and "On the Waterfront"; and accompanied Keith Chegwin to Norway to assist in the production of a children's documentary about politics. The head of CBBC, Ed Pugh, offered him the chance to produce "Breakfast Serials", a new series scheduled for an 8:00 am slot. "Breakfast Serials" incorporated elements of non-sequitur comedy and popular culture references aimed at older children, such as a parody of "Land of the Giants". He decided to leave CBBC during the production of "Breakfast Serials": a friend called him after the first episode was transmitted and observed he had "broadcast a joke about the juvenilia of Emily Brontë at eight o'clock in the morning"; the conversation caused him to reflect he was writing for the wrong audience. Davies worked as a writer on three more children's series while he pursued an adult drama career, creating "Dark Season" and "Century Falls", and writing for "Children's Ward".


title: Russell T Davies

text: During his tenure on "Why Don't You?", Davies oversaw the production of a story that took place in Loch Ness. The story was the precursor for his first freelance children's project: "Dark Season". The show, originally called "The Adventuresome Three", would feature the "Why Don't You?" characters in a purely dramatic setting influenced by his childhood. He submitted the script to the head of CBBC, Anna Home, and Granada Television. Both companies were interested in producing the show with minor changes: Granada wished to produce it as one six-part serial, as opposed to Davies' plan of two three-part serials; and Home was interested in accepting the show on the condition it included a new cast of characters. He accepted Home's offer, and the show was allocated the budget and timeslot of "Maid Marian and her Merry Men", which had been put on hiatus the year before.


title: Russell T Davies

text: The first three episodes of "Dark Season" feature three young teenagers in a contemporary secondary school, Reet (Kate Winslet), Marcie (Victoria Lambert), and Tom (Ben Chandler), who discover a plot by the villain Mr Eldritch (Grant Parsons) to take over the world using school computers. Eldritch is eventually defeated by Marcie and the computer expert Professor Polzinsky (Rosalie Crutchley). The next three episodes focus on a new villain: the archaeologist Miss Pendragon (Jacqueline Pearce), later described by Davies as a "devil worshipping Nazi lesbian", who becomes a part of the ancient supercomputer Behemoth. The two distinct plot elements converge at the end of the fifth episode, when Pendragon crashes through the school stage as Eldritch walks into the auditorium.


title: Russell T Davies

text: "Dark Season" uses concepts seen in his tenure as executive producer of "Doctor Who": "School Reunion", written by Toby Whithouse, shares its concept of the antagonist using computers in a comprehensive school to take over the world; "Army of Ghosts" unexpectedly brings together the series' two major villains for the final episode; and the characters of Marcie and her friends are similar, albeit unintentionally, to the structure of the Doctor and their companions. "Dark Season" was the first series he was credited as "Russell T Davies"—the initial arbitrarily chosen to distinguish himself from the BBC Radio 4 presenter—and the first series he was commissioned to write a novelisation: it features a more ambiguous climax and foreshadows a sequel set in an arcade similar to the one featured in "The Sarah Jane Adventures" serial, "Warriors of Kudlak".


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies started planning a second series for "Dark Season," which followed a similar structure. The first half of the series would take part in the arcade mentioned in the novelisation, and the second would feature the appearance of psychic twins and the re-emergence of the villain Eldritch. The concepts were transferred to its spiritual successor, "Century Falls", which was produced in 1993 at the request of "Dark Season" director Colin Cant. The series primarily used the "psychic twins" concept and was set in an isolated village based on those in the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors.


title: Russell T Davies

text: The plot of "Century Falls" is driven by a legend that no children had been born in the eponymous village for more than forty years. The protagonist, Tess Hunter (Catherine Sanderson), is an overweight teenager who moves to the village with her mother at the beginning of the serial. She quickly befriends the psychic Ben Naismith (Simon Fenton) and his twin sister Carey (Emma Jane Lavin). The three teenagers examine the waterfall that gave Ben his powers and the disaster which caused the legendary infertility. The serial climaxes in a confrontation between Tess and the deity Century, who is attempting to fuse with Tess's unborn sister.


title: Russell T Davies

text: "Century Falls" is conceptually much darker than its predecessor "Dark Season" and his later work, which Davies attributed to a trend that inexperienced writers "get off on the dark stuff": In a BAFTA interview with Davies, Home recalled she "very nearly got into trouble because it did actually push at the boundaries which some of the powers-that-be would rather not have been pushed". The series offered a sense of realism in its protagonist, who is not heroic and aspirational, has poor social skills, and is bluntly described by Ben as a "fat girl". "Century Falls" was the last script he wrote for CBBC for fourteen years. He had begun to formulate another successor: "The Heat of the Sun", a series set over Christmas 1999 and New Year's Day 2000 which would have included the concepts of psychic powers and world domination.


title: Russell T Davies

text: While he was writing "Dark Season" and "Century Falls", Davies sought freelance projects elsewhere; these included three scripts for the BBC children's comedy "ChuckleVision". One venture in 1991 led him to Granada Television, where he edited scripts for the ITV children's medical drama "Children's Ward" under the supervision of eventual "Coronation Street" producer Tony Wood and his former boss Ed Pugh. By 1992, he had been promoted to producer and oversaw an increase in discussion of larger contemporary issues. In 1993, he wrote a script about a teenage boy who had been infected with HIV via a blood transfusion, which challenged the prevalent assumption only gay people contracted HIV:


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies left the role of producer in 1994, but continued to write occasionally for the series. Notably, he was requested to write the 100th episode of the series, by then called "The Ward", which aired in October 1996. Instead of celebrating the milestone, he wrote a script about a recently emerging threat: paedophiles in online chat-rooms. The episode was about an "X-Files" fan who was drawn in by a paedophile's offer of a rare magazine. In the "dénouement" of the episode, the child recounts the tale of his near abduction and describes his attacker as "just a man like any other man". The episode earned Davies his first Children's BAFTA award for Best Drama.


title: Russell T Davies

text: During his production tenure on "Children's Ward", Davies continued to seek other freelance writing jobs, particularly for soap operas; his intention was to eventually work on the popular and long-running Granada soap "Coronation Street". In pursuit of this career plan, he storylined soaps such as "Families" and wrote scripts for shows such as "Cluedo", a game show based on the board game of the same name, and "Do the Right Thing", a localised version of the Brazilian panel show "Você Decide" with Terry Wogan as presenter and Frank Skinner as a regular panellist. One writing job, for "The House of Windsor", a soap opera about footmen in Buckingham Palace, was so poorly received his other scripts for the show would be written under the pseudonym Leo Vaughn.


title: Russell T Davies

text: In 1994, Davies relinquished all of his producing jobs, and was offered a scriptwriting role on the late-night soap opera "Revelations", created by him, Tony Wood, and Brian B. Thompson. The series was a tongue-in-cheek deconstruction of organised religion, and featured his first overtly homosexual character: a lesbian vicar portrayed by Sue Holderness, who came out of the closet in a two-hander episode with Carole Nimmons.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies attributes the revelation about Holderness's character as a consequence of both the "pressure cooker nature" of the show and the recent ordination of female vicars in the Church of England. He let his contract with Granada expire and pitched a new early-evening soap opera to Channel 4, "RU", with its creator Bill Moffat, Sandra Hastie, a producer on Moffat's previous series "Press Gang", and co-writer Paul Cornell. Although the slot was eventually taken by "Hollyoaks", he and Cornell mutually benefited from the pitch: Davies introduced Cornell to the "Children's Ward" producers and established contact with Moffat's son Steven, and Cornell introduced Davies to Virgin Publishing. Davies wrote one "Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures" novel, "Damaged Goods", in which the Doctor tracks a Class A drug tainted by Time Lord technology across several galaxies. The book includes several themes which Davies would intersperse in his later works—including a family called "Tyler" and companion Chris Cwej participating in casual homosexual sex— and a subplot formed the inspiration for "The Mother War", a proposed but never produced thriller for Granada about a woman, Eva Jericho, and a calcified foetus in her uterus.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies continued to propose dramas to Channel 4. The next drama to be commissioned was "Springhill", an apocalyptic soap-opera, co-created by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Paul Abbott, which aired simultaneously on Sky One and Channel 4 in 1996–97. Set in suburban Liverpool, the series focuses on the devoutly Catholic Freeman family and their encounter and conflict with Eva Morrigan (Katharine Rogers). He storylined for the second series, but submitted fewer scripts; Granada had commissioned him to write for their soap "The Grand", temporarily storyline for "Coronation Street", and write the straight-to-video special, "". The second series of "Springhill" continued his penchant for symbolism; in particular, it depicted Marion Freeman (Judy Holt) and Eva as personifications of good and evil, and climaxed with a finale set in an ultra-liberal dystopian future where premarital sex and homosexuality are embraced by the Church. Boyce later commented that without Davies' input, the show would have been a "dry run" for Abbott's hit show "Shameless".


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies' next project was "The Grand", a period soap drama set in a Manchester hotel during the interwar period. It was designed to be a valuable show in a ratings war with the BBC and was scheduled at 9 pm on a Friday night. After the original writer abandoned the series, Granada approached him to write the entire show. His scripts for the first series reflect the pessimism of the period; each episode added its own emotional trauma on the staff; these included a soldier's execution for desertion, a destitute maid who threatened to illegally abort her unborn child to survive, and a multi-episode about the chambermaid, Monica Jones (Jane Danson), who kills her rapist in self-defence, is arrested, and eventually hanged for murder. The show was renewed for a second series despite the first's dark tone.


title: Russell T Davies

text: The second series had a lighter tone and greater emphasis on character development, which Davies attributed to his friend Sally, who had previously warned him of the adult humour in "Breakfast Serials"; she told him his show was too bleak to be compared to real life. He highlighted the sixth and eighth episodes of the second series as a time of maturity as a writer: for the sixth, he utilised then-unconventional narrative devices such as flashbacks to explore the hotel barman's closeted homosexuality and the societal attitudes towards sexuality in the 1920s; and he highlighted the eighth as when he allowed the series to "take on its own life" by deliberately inserting plot devices such as McGuffins to enhance the comic relief of the series.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Although well received, the series' ratings were not high enough to warrant a third series. After its cancellation in September 1997, Davies had an existential crisis after almost dying from an accidental overdose; the experience persuaded him to detoxify and make a name for himself by producing a series which celebrated his homosexuality.


title: Russell T Davies

text: After his near-death experience, Davies started to develop a series for Channel 4 which reflected the "hedonistic lifestyle" of the gay quarter of Manchester he was leaving behind. Encouraged by ex-Granada executives Catriona MacKenzie and Gub Neil to "go gay", the series focused on a group of friends in Manchester's gay scene, tentatively titled "The Other End of the Ballroom", and later, "Queer as Fuck".


title: Russell T Davies

text: By February 1998, when he completed the first draft for the series première, the series was known under its eventual title "Queer as Folk". The series emulates dramas such as "Band of Gold" in presenting realistic discussion on sexuality, as opposed to "one-sided" gay characters in soap operas such as "EastEnders", and eschews "heavy-handed discussion" of issues such as HIV; the show instead focuses on the party scene on Canal Street.


title: Russell T Davies

text: After he wrote the pilot, he approached actors for the main characters. Christopher Eccleston was Davies' first choice for the role of Stuart Jones; Eccleston declined because of his age and suggested his friend Aidan Gillen instead. The roles of Vince Tyler and Nathan Maloney were given to Craig Kelly and Charlie Hunnam, and the secondary character Alexander Perry, originally written for the television producer Phil Collinson during his brief acting career, was portrayed by Antony Cotton, who later played the gay character Sean Tully in "Coronation Street". The series was allocated a £3 million budget, and was produced by Red Productions, owned by his friend and former colleague Nicola Shindler, and filmed by director Charles McDougall and Sarah Hardin on location in Manchester. The eight 40-minute episodes emulated experiences from his social life and includes an episode where the minor character Phil Delaney (Jason Merrells) dies of a cocaine overdose, unnoticed by his social circle.


title: Russell T Davies

text: The series was aired in early 1999, when Parliament were discussing LGBT equality; the series première aired on the day the House of Lords was discussing the Sexual Offences Bill 1999, which eventually reduced the age of consent for homosexual couples to 16. The première was controversial, in particular because it depicted the character Nathan, aged 15, in sexual intercourse with an older man; the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom received 136 complaints and the series received criticism from Hunnam's parents and from activist Mary Whitehouse. The controversy was amplified when the sponsor Beck's withdrew after several episodes and homosexual activists complained the series was not representative of gay culture. Nevertheless, the show garnered 3.5 million viewers per episode and a generally positive reaction from fans, and was renewed for a two-episode special due for the following year.


title: Russell T Davies

text: "Queer as Folk 2" was broadcast in 2000 and was driven by the plot element of Vince's half-sister's wedding. The specials place emphasis on Vince and Stuart's relationship, and ends with their departure for another gay scene in a pastiche of "Grease", as Nathan took the role as the leader of the Manchester scene's next generation. The show ended on 22 February 2000. On the heels of the special, Davies pitched the spin-off "Misfits", a late-night soap opera set in a boarding house owned by Vince's mother, Hazel, and "The Second Coming", a series which depicted the Second Coming of Christ in contemporary Manchester. "Misfits" was rejected in December 2000 and "The Second Coming" was initially approved by Channel 4 but later rejected after a change of executive personnel. Instead of contesting the cancellation of "The Second Coming", he left Channel 4 and vowed to not work with them again.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Shindler continued to pitch "The Second Coming" to other television networks while Davies sought other ventures. His next series was based on a gay friend who married a woman and fathered a child. He saw the relationship as a promising concept for an unconventional love story and asked the couple about their relationship to develop the show. After he developed the series around the prejudice he and his gay friends had shown, he realised he was creating caricatures for the purpose of exposing them, and instead focused on telling a traditional love story and gave the couple the traditionally British names of Bob Gossage and Rose Cooper.


title: Russell T Davies

text: To simulate a classic love story, the plot required antagonists, in the form of Bob's best friend and fellow teacher Holly Vance and Rose's boyfriend Andy Lewis (Daniel Ryan). While Andy, named after Davies' boyfriend Andrew Smith, was a minor character and departed in the third episode, Holly featured throughout the entirety of the series. "Bob & Rose" thus followed a similar format to "Queer as Folk", in particular, the triumvirate of main characters composed of a couple and an outsider who lived in contemporary Manchester, and inverted the traditional "coming out" story by focusing on Bob's uncharacteristic attraction to Rose; Bob describes his sexual life by simply speaking the line "I fancy men. And her." The series was similar to the Kevin Smith film "Chasing Amy" (1997), as they both portrayed a romance between a straight character and gay character and the resulting ostracism from the couple's social circles, much like "The Second Coming" shared its concept with Smith's 1999 film "Dogma".


title: Russell T Davies

text: Like "Queer as Folk", "Bob & Rose" contributed to the contemporary political debate around LGBT rights: a subplot involves the fictional pressure group "Parents Against Homphobia" (PAH), led by Bob's mother Monica (Penelope Wilton), an ardent gay rights activist, and their campaign to repeal Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which prohibited local authorities from "intentionally promot[ing]" homosexuality. The subplot climaxes in the fourth episode, when Monica and Bob lead a rally into direct action by handcuffing themselves to a bus run by a company whose management donated millions to keeping the law on the books; the scene directly parallels protests against the transport company Stagecoach due to their founder Brian Souter's financial and political support of Section 28—at one point, Davies intended to explicitly name Stagecoach in the script— and is inspired by earlier protests undertaken by the LGBT rights pressure group OutRage!.


title: Russell T Davies

text: After successfully pitching the show to ITV, Red Productions joined Davies in casting the show and initially approached "Jonathan Creek" star Alan Davies to portray Bob. Although he was not gay, Davies accepted the role and spent several weeks researching first-hand Manchester's gay scene with series director Joe Wright. His only objection to the role was Bob being a fan of Manchester United F.C., the team Shindler had named Red Productions for, because of his prolific support of Arsenal F.C. The part of Rose was given to Lesley Sharp, her first leading role after her portrayal of secondary characters in past Red shows "Playing the Field" and "Clocking Off", and Jessica Stevenson was cast as Holly by ITV Head of Drama Nick Elliott on the basis of her performance in the Channel 4 comedy "Spaced".


title: Russell T Davies

text: The series was filmed in the southern suburbs of Manchester between March and June 2001 and often used Davies' own home as a green room. The series was the only Red–Davies collaboration not to be scored by future "Doctor Who" composer Murray Gold; the soundtrack was a Martin Phipps composition inspired by Hans Zimmer's work on the 1993 film "True Romance". It aired on Monday nights in September and October 2001. Critically acclaimed, the series won two British Comedy Awards, and received a nomination at the British Academy Television Awards. However, the series had lower viewership than expected and was moved to a later timeslot for the final two episodes. Although the series was not as successful as he hoped, the show helped Davies rekindle his relationship with his mother shortly before her death, just after the transmission of the fourth episode, which he sees as "possibly the best thing [he has] ever written".


title: Russell T Davies

text: Shortly after the transmission of "Bob & Rose", Davies was approached by Abbott to write for his new BBC show "Linda Green". He accepted the offer and wrote an episode where the titular character (Liza Tarbuck) and her friends attend a schoolmate's funeral and become psychologically haunted by the deceased woman's solitary life. His first work for the BBC in eight years prompted them to approach him with additional concepts for period dramas, which he invariably declined as his sole intent was to revive "Doctor Who", which had then been on hiatus for over a decade.


title: Russell T Davies

text: In 2002, he met with the BBC to discuss the revival of the show and producing "The Second Coming"; the BBC were unable to commit to either, and he again declined to work for them. After the BBC rejected "The Second Coming", Shindler proposed the series should be pitched to ITV. Despite the story's controversial message, the critical success of "Bob & Rose" encouraged the channel to commission the series for broadcast.


title: Russell T Davies

text: "The Second Coming" had been several years in the making and endured many rewrites from the first draft presented to Channel 4 in 2000, but retained its key concept of a depiction of the Second Coming of Christ with a humanity-centred deity. A major removal from the script, due to time constraints, was a long sequence titled "Night of the Demons": the main character, a shop assistant, Stephen Baxter, who discovers his divine lineage, takes over a hotel with his disciples and eventually encounters several of the hotel's employees which had been possessed by the Devil. Several similar sequences were removed to create a thriller set in the days before Judgement Day.


title: Russell T Davies

text: An experienced actor was required to portray Stephen; Davies approached Christopher Eccleston, who had previously been approached for the role of Stuart in "Queer as Folk", based on his performance as Nicky Hutchinson in the drama "Our Friends in the North". Eccleston accepted the role and helped Davies make the character more human after he observed "Baxter was getting lost amid his loftier pronouncements". The character of Judith, who would represent the fall of God, was given to Lesley Sharp after her performance in "Bob & Rose", and the role of the Devil was given to Mark Benton.


title: Russell T Davies

text: "The Second Coming" was controversial from its conception. When it was a Channel 4 project, it was the subject of a "Sunday Express" article a year before its original projected transmission date of late 2001. The series would again receive criticism when it was rumoured it would be broadcast over the Easter weekend of 2003. The series was eventually broadcast over consecutive nights on 9–10 February 2003 to 6.3 million and 5.4 million viewers, respectively, and received mixed reactions from the audience: Davies reportedly received death threats for its atheistic message and criticism for its anticlimactic ending, as well as two nominations for Television Awards and one for a Royal Television Society Award.


title: Russell T Davies

text: In the time near his mother's death, Davies returned to Swansea several times and reflected on the role of family. During one visit, he realised he had not yet written a series set in Wales; hence, he created a series about a family who discovers they own the entire city of Swansea. "The Vivaldi Inheritance", later renamed "Mine All Mine", was based on the tale of the Welsh pirate Robert Edwards and his descendants' claim to of real estate in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The series was a departure from his trend of experimental social commentary; it was instead designed to be a mainstream comedy which utilised Welsh actors: Davies and Red Productions even planned a cameo appearance by Academy Award-winning Swansea-born Catherine Zeta-Jones.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Because the series was centred on an entire family, Red Productions was given the task of casting eleven principal characters: the role of family patriarch Max Vivaldi was given to Griff Rhys Jones, at the request of ITV for prolific actors; Rhian Morgan, Davies' ex-girlfriend from the WGYT, was cast as Max's wife Val; Sharon Morgan as Max's sister Stella; Joanna Page as Candy Vivaldi; Matthew Barry and Siwan Morris as the Vivaldi siblings Leo and Maria; "Hi-de-Hi!" actress Ruth Madoc as Val's sister Myrtle Jones; and Jason Hughes as Maria's boyfriend Gethin. The series, specifically the family's composition of two daughters and a gay son, mirrored his own upbringing to the point where Davies and his boyfriend referred to the show as "The Private Joke".


title: Russell T Davies

text: The series was originally written in six parts, but Davies excised a large portion of the fifth episode because the crew expressed concerns with its pacing. The series was filmed in late 2003 under the direction of Sheree Folkson and Tim Whitby, and utilised many areas of Swansea which Davies was familiar with since his childhood. It aired as four-hour-long episodes and a ninety-minute finale on Thursday nights preceding Christmas 2003. Eventually, "Mine All Mine" would be his least successful series and ended its run with just over two million viewers, which he later blamed on the series' high eccentricity.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Shortly after the transmission of "Mine All Mine", the BBC commissioned Davies to produce the revival of "Doctor Who", which completed his decade-long quest to return the series to the airwaves. At the time, he was developing two scripts: the first, a cinematic adaptation of the Charles Ingram "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" scandal, was cancelled after he accepted the "Doctor Who" job; and the second, a dramatisation of the life of the Venetian adventurer and lover Giacomo Casanova, was his next show with Red Productions.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies' association with "Casanova" began when London Weekend Television producers Julie Gardner, Michele Buck, and Damien Timmer approached him to write a 21st-century adaptation of Casanova's memoirs. He accepted to script the series because it was "the best subject in the world" and, after reading the memoirs, sought to create a realistic depiction of Casanova instead of further perpetuating the stereotype of a hypersexual lover. The series was originally written for ITV, but was turned down after he could not agree on the length of the serial. Shortly after ITV declined to produce "Casanova", Gardner took up a position as Head of Drama at BBC Wales and brought the concept with her. The BBC agreed to fund the series, but could only release the money required if a regionally based independent company produced the series. Davies turned to Shindler, who agreed to become the serial's fifth executive producer.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies' script takes place in two distinct time frames and required two different actors for the eponymous role: the older Casanova was portrayed by Peter O'Toole, and the younger Casanova was portrayed by David Tennant. The serial takes place primarily during Casanova's early adulthood and depicts his life among three women: his mother (Dervla Kirwan), his lover Henriette (Laura Fraser), and his consort Bellino (Nina Sosanya). The script takes a different approach to Dennis Potter's 1971 dramatisation; instead of Potter's focus on sex and misogyny, the 2005 serial focuses on Casanova's compassion and respect for women.


title: Russell T Davies

text: "Casanova" was filmed alongside the first few episodes of the new series of "Doctor Who", which meant producers common to both projects, including Davies and Gardner, made daily journeys between the former's production in Lancashire and Cheshire and the latter's production in Cardiff. Red Productions also filmed on location overseas in a stately home in Dubrovnik, and alongside production of the identically titled 2005 Lasse Hallström film in Venice. The two production teams shared resources and were given the unofficial names of "Little Casanova" and "Big Casanova" respectively. When it premièred on BBC Three in March 2005, the first episode attracted 940,000 viewers, a record for a first-run drama on the channel, but was overshadowed on BBC One by the return of "Doctor Who" in the same month.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Since watching First Doctor's (William Hartnell) regeneration into the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) at the end of the 1966 serial "The Tenth Planet", Davies had "fallen in love" with the show and, by the mid-1970s, he was regularly writing reviews of broadcast serials in his diary. His favourite writer and childhood hero was Robert Holmes; during his career, he has complimented the creative use of BBC studios to create "terror and claustrophobia" for Holmes's 1975 script "The Ark in Space"—his favourite serial from the original series—and has opined that the first episode of "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" (1977) featured "the best dialogue ever written; it's up there with Dennis Potter". His screenwriting career also began with a "Doctor Who" submission; in 1987, he submitted a spec script set on an intergalactic news aggregator and broadcaster, which was rejected by script editor Andrew Cartmel, who suggested that he should write a more prosaic story about "a man who is worried about his mortgage, his marriage, [and] his dog". The script was eventually retooled and transmitted as "The Long Game" in 2005.


title: Russell T Davies

text: During the late 1990s, Davies lobbied the BBC to revive the show from its hiatus and reached the discussion stages in late 1998 and early 2002. His proposals would update the show to be better suited for a 21st-century audience: the series would be recorded on film instead of videotape; the length of each episode would double from twenty-five minutes to fifty; episodes would primarily take place on Earth, in the style of the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) UNIT episodes; and Davies would remove "excess baggage" from the mythology such as Gallifrey and the Time Lords. Davies' pitch competed against Dan Freedman's proposed retool as a fantasy series, Matthew Graham's gothic horror-styled reboot, and the Mark Gatiss—Gareth Roberts—Clayton Hickman pitch which made the Doctor the audience surrogate character, instead of his companions. Davies also took cues from American fantasy television series such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Smallville", most notably "Buffy"s concepts of series-long story arcs and the "Big Bad".


title: Russell T Davies

text: In August 2003, the BBC had resolved the legal confusion over production rights which had surfaced as a result of the jointly produced Universal Studios–BBC–20th Century Fox 1996 "Doctor Who" film, and the Controller of BBC One Lorraine Heggessey and Controller of Drama Commissioning Jane Tranter approached Gardner and Davies to create a revival of the series to air in a primetime slot on Saturday nights, as part of their plan to devolve production to its regional bases. By mid-September, they accepted the deal to produce the series alongside "Casanova".


title: Russell T Davies

text: Davies' pitch for "Doctor Who" was the first one he wrote voluntarily; previously, he opted to outline concepts of shows to commissioning executives and offer to write the pilot episode because he felt a pitch made him "feel like [he's] killing the work". The fifteen-page pitch outlined a Doctor who was "your best friend; someone you want to be with all the time", the 19-year-old Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) as a "perfect match" for the new Doctor, avoidance of the 40-year back story "except for the good bits", the retention of the TARDIS, sonic screwdriver, and Daleks, removal of the Time Lords, and a greater focus on humanity. His pitch was submitted for the first production meeting in December 2003 and a series of thirteen episodes was obtained by pressure from BBC Worldwide and a workable budget from Julie Gardner.


title: Russell T Davies

text: The first new series of "Doctor Who" featured eight scripts by Davies; the remainder were allocated to experienced dramatists and writers for the show's ancillary releases: Steven Moffat penned a two-episode story, and Mark Gatiss, Robert Shearman, and Paul Cornell each wrote one script. Davies also approached his old friend Paul Abbott and "Harry Potter" author J. K. Rowling to write for the series; both declined due to existing commitments. Shortly after he secured writers for the show, Davies stated he had no intention of approaching writers from the old series; the only writer he would have wished to work with was Holmes, who died in May 1986.


title: Russell T Davies

text: By early 2004, the show had settled into a regular production cycle. Davies, Gardner, and BBC Controller of Continuing Drama Series Mal Young took posts as executive producers, and Phil Collinson, his old colleague from Granada, took the role of producer. Davies' official position as showrunner combined the roles of head writer and executive producer and consisted of laying a skeletal plot for the entire series, holding "tone meetings" to correctly identify the tone of an episode, often described in one word—for example, the "tone word" for Moffat's "The Empty Child" was "romantic"—and overseeing all aspects of production.


title: Russell T Davies

text: The production team was also tasked with finding a suitable actor for the role of the Doctor. Most notably, they approached film actor Hugh Grant and comedian Rowan Atkinson for the role. By the time Young suggested "The Second Coming" and "Our Friends in the North" actor Christopher Eccleston to Davies, Eccleston was one of three left in the running for the role: the other candidates are rumoured to have been Alan Davies and Bill Nighy. Eccleston created his own characteristics of his rendition of the Doctor based on Davies' life, most notably, his catchphrase "Fantastic!":


title: Russell T Davies

text: The show started filming in July 2004 on location in Cardiff for "Rose". The start of filming created stress among the production team because of unseen circumstances: several scenes from the first block had to be re-shot because the original footage was unusable; the Slitheen prosthetics for "Aliens of London", "World War Three", and "Boom Town" were noticeably different from their computer-generated counterparts; and the BBC came to a gridlock in negotiations with the Terry Nation estate to secure the Daleks for the sixth episode of the series; Davies and episode writer Rob Shearman were forced to rework the script to feature another race, until Gardner was able to secure the rights a month later. After the first production block, which he described as "hitting a brick wall", the show's production was markedly eased as the crew familiarised themselves.


title: Russell T Davies

text: The first episode of the revived "Doctor Who", "Rose", aired on 26 March 2005 and received 10.8 million viewers and favourable critical reception. Four days after the transmission of "Rose", Tranter approved a Christmas special and a second series. The press release was overshadowed by a leaked announcement that Christopher Eccleston would leave the role after one series; in response, David Tennant was announced as Eccleston's replacement.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Tennant had been offered the role when he was watching a pre-transmission copy of "Doctor Who" with Davies and Gardner. Tennant initially believed the offer was a joke, but after he realised they were serious, he accepted the role and made his first appearance in the "dénouement" of "The Parting of the Ways", the final episode of the first series. "Doctor Who" continued to be one of BBC's flagship programmes throughout Davies' tenure, and resulted in record sales of the show's official magazine, an increase in spin-off novels, and the launch of the children's magazine "Doctor Who Adventures" and toy sonic screwdrivers and Daleks. The show's popularity ultimately led to a resurgence in family-orientated Saturday night drama; the ITV science-fiction series "Primeval" and the BBC historical dramas "Robin Hood" and "Merlin" were specifically designed for an early Saturday evening timeslot. Davies was also approached by the BBC to produce several spin-off series, eventually creating two: "Torchwood" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures".


title: Russell T Davies

text: In October 2005, BBC Three Controller Stuart Murphy invited Davies to create a post-watershed "Doctor Who" spin-off in the wake of the parent series' popularity. "Torchwood"—named after an anagrammatic title ruse used to prevent leaks of "Doctor Who's" first series—incorporated elements from an abandoned Davies project titled "Excalibur" and featured the pansexual 51st century time-traveler Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and a team of alien hunters in Cardiff. The show began production in April 2006 and was marketed through foreshadowing in the main story arc of "Doctor Who's" second series, which portrayed Torchwood as a covert quasi-governmental organisation that monitors, exploits, and suppresses the existence of extraterrestrial life and technology. Upon its transmission, "Torchwood" was one of BBC Three's most popular shows; however, it received criticism for "adolescent" use of sexual and violent themes. This led the production team to alter the format to be subtler in its portrayal of adult themes.


title: Russell T Davies

text: Concurrently, he was approached to produce a CBBC show which was described as "Young Doctor Who". Davies was reluctant to diminish the mystery of the Doctor's character and instead pitched a show with Elisabeth Sladen as the once-popular companion Sarah Jane Smith: "The Sarah Jane Adventures", which follows Sarah Jane and local schoolchildren as they investigate extraterrestrial events in the London Borough of Ealing. The show was given a backdoor pilot as the "Doctor Who" episode "School Reunion" and premièred in its own right with "Invasion of the Bane" on 1 January 2007. The show was more successful than its 1981 predecessor "K-9 and Company"; it received more favourable reviews than "Torchwood" and a significant periphery demographic which compared the show to 1970s "Doctor Who" episodes.


title: Russell T Davies

text: The workload of managing three separate shows prompted Davies to delegate writing tasks for "Torchwood" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures" to other writers so he could focus on writing "Doctor Who". After Billie Piper's departure as Rose Tyler in the second series finale "Doomsday", he suggested a third spin-off, "Rose Tyler: Earth Defence", a compilation of annual bank holiday specials which followed Rose and a parallel universe version of Torchwood. He later reneged on his idea, as he believed Rose should stay off screen, and abandoned the idea even though it had been budgeted.


title: Russell T Davies

text: In September 2008, BBC Books published "The Writer's Tale", a collection of emails between Davies and "Radio Times" and "Doctor Who Magazine" journalist Benjamin Cook. Dubbed the "Great Correspondence" by Davies and Cook, "The Writer's Tale" covers a period between February 2007 and March 2008 and explores his writing processes and the development of his scripts for the fourth series of "Doctor Who": "Voyage of the Damned", "Partners in Crime", "Midnight", "Turn Left", "The Stolen Earth", and "Journey's End". The book's first chapter focuses on Cook's "big questions" on Davies' writing style, character development—he used the "Doctor Who" character Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) and the "Skins" character Tony Stonem (Nicholas Hoult) as contrasting examples—, how he formulated ideas for stories, and the question "why do you write?". After several weeks, Cook assumes an unofficial advisory role to the scriptwriting and the development of the series. The book's epilogue consists of a short exchange between Davies and Cook: Cook changes from his role as "Invisible Ben" to "Visible Ben" and strongly advises to vastly alter the "denouement" to "Journey's End" from a cliffhanger which led into "The Next Doctor"—which had occurred in the previous three series finales, "The Parting of the Ways", "Doomsday", and "Last of the Time Lords"—to a melancholy ending that showed the Doctor alone in the TARDIS. After three days of deliberation, Davies accepts Cook's suggestion and thanks him for improving both episodes.