Williams' first two seasons, they remained healthy and in 1979 the series achieved its highest ever ratings of 16.1 million viewers (for episode 4 of City of Death), although this was partly attributable to the strike which took the BBC's then-only rival, ITV, off the air. Williams had three difficult years on the show, including clashes with the increasingly demanding Baker, who wanted more influence over the production side, and also had to deal with budget cuts due to inflation and several instances of industrial action affecting the show, most notably with the abandonment of his final serial, Shada. He decided to leave in 1979, handing over the role of producer 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. It was to feature the return of the First Doctor villain the Celestial Toymaker. 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' (included in the 2007 BBC DVD release of The Key to Time season), which includes excerpts from two interviews with Williams, conducted at 1980s Doctor Who fan conventions. Later life and death He left the BBC in the early 1980s and went on to produce Tales Of The Unexpected for Anglia and the Tyne Tees children's series Super Gran, before leaving television in the late 1980s to run The Hartnoll Hotel, a country hotel in Bolham, Tiverton, Devon. He died in a shooting accident at home on 17 August 1990. He left a widow, Jacqueline, and three children. References External links 1945 births 1990 deaths 20th-century British screenwriters Accidental deaths in England BBC television producers British television writers Deaths by firearm in England English television producers Firearm accident victims