Comic Book DB - Paul Cornell

The 1990s saw him balance his love for Doctor Who against a very active career in mainstream television. He wrote for some of the very most popular British television programs of the era, including Coronation Street, Casualty, Holby City, Children's Ward, Love in the 21st Century, and even the daytime soap opera Doctors.

All the while, he continued to write for the non-televised Doctor Who "industry" that characterized the 1990s. He wrote 6 novels, a number of comic strips, The Discontinuity Guide (a hugely influential non-fiction work about the original series of Doctor Who), and a few audio dramas. Importantly, he created the character of Bernice Summerfield, which he licensed to Big Finish productions as the centerpiece of her own spin-off range of audio adventures.

In 2005, he was finally able to mix his (admittedly paid) hobby with his job in 2005, when he was commissioned to write for the new series of Doctor Who, contributing one of the most emotional episodes, "Father's Day", to the first season of the 2005 revival.

Date of Birth: 18 July 1967
Birthplace:

Favorite Creators:
Paul Cornell is a favorite creator of 21 users
Notes:
Paul Cornell was the only writer to handle both of the Doctors numbered nine. He not only gave us "Father's Day", but also "The Scream of the Shalka", a BBCi Flash animation that immediately pre-dated the announcement of what would become the 2005 series of Doctor Who.

Thinking the series would not be returning to TV, the BBC decided to go ahead and officially regenerate the Paul McGann Doctor into his ninth incarnation in 2003. Their intent was to start the series over as primarily a web-based series of animated adventures. The first in this series was "Scream", starring Richard E. Grant as the voice of the Ninth Doctor.

When BBC Wales stepped up to the plate later that same year to produce new televised Doctor Who, the BBC quietly pushed the Richard E. Grant Doctor back onto the shelves. Since then, this "Ninth Doctor" has been seen as an "alternate reality" Doctor, sometimes fan-referenced by the initials of the actor, "the REG Doctor". The characterizations of the two Doctors were markedly different from each other, but it is interesting to note the structural similarity of "Rose", Ecclestone's debut, with "Scream", in that both wwere somewhat darker versions of the Doctor who discover a new, working-class female companion with a boyfriend who doesn't get to travel with the Doctor in the end.

View a chronological listing of this creator's work