After working as script editor for The View From Daniel Pike, Sutherland's Law, Z-Cars and Barlow at Large, he was encouraged by his friend Bill Slater, then BBC Head of Serials, to move to producership and was eventually charged with taking over Doctor Who after Philip Hinchcliffe's highly successful but controversial spell in charge of the series.
Work on Doctor Who
He was the producer on the show between 1977 and 1980, during the Tom Baker era. Under Hinchcliffe, the series had come under heavy media criticism for the violent content. Upon taking over the reins of the series, Williams was instructed by his superiors to tone down the violence. Although the viewing figures dipped somewhat during Williams' first two seasons, they remained healthy and in 1979, the series achieved ratings as high as 16.1 million viewers, its highest ever – although this was partly attributable to the strike which took the BBC's then-only rival, ITV, off the air. Williams also wrote significant portions of the script for two stories beset by writing problems, City of Death and The Invasion of Time. During his period on the programme, Williams worked closely with three script editors: Robert Holmes; Anthony Read; and Douglas Adams, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Williams left the series after three difficult years, handing over to John Nathan-Turner who had worked under him as Production Unit Manager. During Nathan-Turner's reign as producer, Williams was approached by script editor Eric Saward at Nathan-Turner’s instigation to write a story for Colin Baker's second season. The script was at an advanced stage when it was abandoned, as were all the scripts initially commissioned for that season, after the series was put on hiatus in February 1985. In 1989 Williams wrote a novelisation of his story, The Nightmare Fair. In 1985, he helped design the Doctor Who text video game Doctor Who and the Warlord. His work on the series is examined in some detail in the documentary 'A Matter of Time', which includes excerpts from two interviews with Williams, conducted at 1980s Doctor Who fan conventions.
After Doctor Who
He left the BBC in the early 1980s and went on to produce children series for ITV, including Tyne Tees's Super Gran, before leaving television in the late 1980s to run The Hartnoll Hotel, a country hotel in Bolham, Tiverton, Devon.
Death
He died in a shooting accident at home on 17 August 1990. He left a widow, Jacqueline, and three children.
