About Time: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who: 1966-1969, Seasons 4 to 6 (About Time)

About Time: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who: 1966-1969, Seasons 4 to 6 (About Time) | Tat Wood, Lawrence Miles | Extremely informative and well written

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About Time: The Un...

	About Time: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who: 1966-1969, Seasons 4 to 6 (About Time) Tat Wood, Lawrence Miles Mad Norwegian Press, 2006 - 287 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"About Time" serves as the definitive (albeit unofficial) guide to "Doctor Who" Seasons 7 to 11-the whole of the Jon Pertwee era. Written by Lawrence Miles (Faction Paradox) and Tat Wood (SFX, TV Zone), About Time not only examines the usual continuity concerns (alien races, etc.) in bursting detail, but looks at how the political / social issues of the 1970s affected the show's production. Essays in this volume include: "When are the UNIT Stories Set?", "Just How Chauvinistic is Doctor Who?" and "When was Regeneration Invented?"

To Who It Definitely Concerns

"About Time" is the best work written so far about Doctor Who. It is incredibly thorough and somewhat witty, and shows connections that would have made James Burke blush.

Besides giving accurate continuity (which tries to be as objective as possible, unlike "Ahistory" or "The Discontinuity Guide"), "About Time" also offers where the ideas for the stories came from, arguments (both pro- and con-) about the merits of the show, and many, many anecdotes which are a lot of fun to read, as well as a plethora of gaffes and plot points that don't make sense (of which there are many in Doctor Who).

The big thing which is missing is of course a proper synopsis or summary of each story. However, it is more likely that if you have bought these books, you have already seen the stories several times over and just want to read more about them, so a summarization would be a waste of paper. (And if you have not seen Doctor Who, the book has no intention on convincing you to see it.)

This fourth volume covers the Tom Baker era from its inception all the way through the untransmitted story "Shada".

Much is said about the problems with and during production, about the ego clashes that were bound to take place, many of the conflicts with scriptwriters, producers and even occasional fanboys, and quite a few interesting tales about why certain stories work and why some do not.

And yes, there are some new anecdotes about Douglas Adams.

I very heartily recommend this book if you want a very intensive and enjoyable romp through the good old days of the mid to late 1970s and how Doctor Who managed to survive the changeover to "The show with the scarf-wearing, jelly baby eating, sonic screwdriving, robodog-owning, cavegirl's best friend", and having done that, to still keep its identity in the wake of increased competition with other, sometimes more sophisticated science fiction.

Those who do not wish to buy all six volumes will probably buy "The Discontinuity Guide" or perhaps something else, and will definitely miss out on a lot of gold here. (Always keep gold in mind in case of Cybermen.)

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Extremely informative and well written

The "About Time" books are, by far, some of the most thorough analyses that I've ever seen for "Doctor Who." I've written some TV companion books myself and can't even imagine the amount of time that went into creating these tomes. If you want to know about "Doctor Who" before the new stuff, these are highly recommended reading.

I would love to see Lawrence Miles & Tat Wood doing a seventh volume, covering the new series, even though it seems that neither are into the "Welsh series" that much. Their style of writing and critical eyes make "About Time" stand out, so even if it's not painted pretty with gushing praise all the time, it's still incredibly honest.

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Excellent Pertwee Era Exhibition

"About Time" is the best work written so far about Doctor Who. It is incredibly thorough and somewhat witty, and shows connections that would have made James Burke blush.

Besides giving accurate continuity (which tries to be as objective as possible, unlike "Ahistory" or "The Discontinuity Guide"), "About Time" also offers where the ideas for the stories came from, arguments (both pro- and con-) about the merits of the show, and many, many anecdotes which are a lot of fun to read, as well as a plethora of gaffes and plot points that don't make sense (of which there are many in Doctor Who).

The big thing which is missing is of course a proper synopsis or summary of each story. However, it is more likely that if you have bought these books, you have already seen the stories several times over and just want to read more about them, so a summarization would be a waste of paper. (And if you have not seen Doctor Who, the book has no intention on convincing you to see it.)

This third volume, the first to be released, shows the entire run of Jon Pertwee's Doctor, and does a very good job despite one major difficulty: As the first book released, it is much smaller than the others on a pages-per-season basis despite the amount of data available.

Indeed, one gets the feeling that some anecdotes were left out of the book. Perhaps they were. Maybe it is possible that the volume is due for a second edition already?

Of course, those who miss remarks about the Brigadier's moustache changing from story to story are not missing much as many shows had flaws like that.

I very heartily recommend this book if you want a very intensive and enjoyable romp through the good old days of the early 1970s and how Doctor Who managed to survive the changeover to color television and the hiring of a comedian to play a straight role.

Those who do not wish to buy all six volumes will probably buy "The Discontinuity Guide" or perhaps something else, and will definitely miss out on a lot of gold here. (Always keep gold in mind in case of Cybermen.)

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Great, with one exception

I am thoroughly enjoying this book. It's the product of almost too-exhaustive research. There is one glaring ommision, however.
While they provide a snippet of text to remind the reader what a given episode was about, and even go so far as to describe the "cliff-hanging" endings, there's no synopsis - not even in briefest of form. Hence, they provide a thorough research of stories for which they provide practically no context. One must either (a) have a good memory for the shows in question, (b) have seen them recently - or have access to them in some form, or (c) have access to an episode guide of some sort - requiring one to skip back and forth between different documents to gain a throrough understanding of the show(s). How easy would it have been to provide a summary of the show - preferably broken down by episode? The authors might argue that (a) episode guides are readily available and (b) it's a "spoiler" to give the plot away. I'd counter that this kind of omission makes their reference work rather (and sadly) incomplete. I hope they rememdy this with future volumes. (so far I've only looked at volume 3)

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The most in-depth episode guide available

The ABOUT TIME series is the most in-depth (though currently incomplete) guide to Doctor Who. Volume two in the series examines Seasons 4-6, the adventures of the second Doctor. In addition to production notes and an critique of each episodes, there are notes and essays on continuity and the series in a cultural context. While not as handy as a one volume guide, the ABOUT TIME series makes for a much more interesting read.

reviews: page 1, 2

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