Although Potter won few awards, he is held in high regard by many within the television and film industry, and was an influence on such creators as Mark Frost, Steven Bochco, Andrew Davies, Alain Resnais, and Peter Bowker. However, Alan Bennett was more critical. He referred in his 1998 diaries to a television programme "that took Potter at his own self-evaluation (always high), when there was a good deal of indifferent stuff which was skated over", and believed that Potter's health was a factor in his fame, saying "he visibly conformed to what the public thinks artists ought to be—poor or promiscuous, suffering or starved."