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After graduating in English Literature, Philip Hinchcliffe worked for a travel company and as a teacher before becoming a script editor for the television company Associated Television. After extensive experience of working with writers and scripts for a number of shows, he began to set his sights on moving into the production side and gained experience as an associate producer.
In the spring of 1974 he joined the BBC to take his first full production job after the corporation's head of serials, William Slater, offered him the role of producer of the popular science-fiction series Doctor Who (1963). He teamed up with script editor Robert Holmes, an experienced television drama writer, and produced three seasons of the programme which were broadcast between January 1975 and April 1977. He led the show into darker, more dramatic storylines, which resulted in unprecedented levels of both popularity and controversy for the series. Television watchdog Mary Whitehouse became a frequent critic of the series during this period, considering it too violent and horrific to be shown at a time when children would be watching. The frequency of her complaints caused growing concern amongst Hinchcliffe's superiors at the BBC, although they publicly backed the producer as he was delivering consistently high viewing figures. After Whitehouse wrote a particularly strong letter to the BBC in November 1976 about the serial The Deadly Assassin, in which she accused the BBC of ignoring its own guidance on the portrayal of violence on television, an apology from BBC Director-General Charles Curran marked a change in the BBC's policy. Hinchcliffe and the BBC agreed that he should be moved on to producing other programmes at the end of that season and his successor, Graham Williams, was ordered to lighten the tone of Doctor Who (1963).
Hinchcliffe's next series was Target (1977), a police series that was intended as the BBC's answer to ITV's popular The Sweeney (1975), although it failed to capture the same degree of popularity and only lasted for two series. Nevertheless, Hinchcliffe would spend the next two decades as one of British television drama's most successful producers, working on series such as Private Schulz (1981) and the long-running Taggart (1983).
Although he has worked on numerous productions, Hinchcliffe is still most famous for his time on the legendary television series Doctor Who (1963), which is still considered the strongest period of the show by many fans. He also wrote novelisations of The Keys of Marinus, The Seeds of Doom and The Masque of Mandragora. Since retiring from television, Hinchcliffe has recorded numerous interviews and commentaries on DVD releases remembering his time on the show. With the death of Derrick Sherwin in 2018, Hinchcliffe became the last surviving producer of the original series of Doctor Who (1963).
