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The ABOUT TIME Books

Steve67

Steve67

Commander
Red Shirt
I have vols. 4 and 5 of Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood's excellent About Time: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who. Each book goes into wonderfully excruciatingly analytical detail about every episode of the classic series and is a nice British pop culture primer for we "Yanks" who are also Anglophiles! I have vol. 3 (revised, expanded second edition) on order and eagerly await the authors' (well, just Wood; Miles is not credited on the 2nd edition) as I venture into the Jon Pertwee Era of Dr. Who.

I grew up worshipping Tom Baker's incarnation as The Doctor and after decades away from the program, I look forward to exploring his predecessors' work on the show.

Has anyone else read these fantastic books?
 
No, but now that I know they exist, I'm placing them on my Amazon Wish List... :techman:
 
They're fantastic!

The explanation for "The Two Doctors" presages Time-Crash, interestingly.

They deal pretty well with the controversial points of Who continuity, and while you may not agree with their conclusions they will make you think.

There are some annoying tendencies throughout the series. They take a fair few swipes at the RTD-era, and Wood really hates the 1996 television movie.

I'm glad I have this series. Puts the Handbooks to shame. :)
 
Allyn Gibson said:
I'm glad I have this series. Puts the Handbooks to shame. :)
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I've got the Sixth Doctor handbook, and the omnibus of Handbook and Television Companion, and find them quite useful. How does the About Time series put the Handbooks to shame?
 
I've only read the one on the Hartnell years so far, but I liked it. There are plenty of episode guides with the basic facts out there. It's the opinions and essays that make About Time interesting.

Still have to get the revised one on the Pertwee years, and the first Time Unincorporated. Mad Norwegian publishes some really good stuff. Dunno what I would have done a few years ago without the I, Who books.
 
Lord Ob said:
Allyn Gibson said:
I'm glad I have this series. Puts the Handbooks to shame. :)
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I've got the Sixth Doctor handbook, and the omnibus of Handbook and Television Companion, and find them quite useful. How does the About Time series put the Handbooks to shame?
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I can't speak to what the Handbooks and the others include (I've never read them), but the About Time authors assume the reader knows more than a bit about DW and takes it from there, as there's not much in the way of episode summaries, other than a brief--and often amusing--reminder of what a given story is about.

Continuity is seriously looked at and scrutinized--but then so is everything about DW! They aren't afraid to take shots at the shoddy production, but then they give credit when things look impressive, too.

Behind the scenes battles are covered: producers, the BBC, the actors and their feuds. Endlessly interesting and a goldmine for Whovians.

The essays are thought provoking and there's much more detail in the books than can be described here about every aspect of the show--except the aforementioned episode synopses!

Amazon has the "Search inside this book" feature, so you can read a few pages to get an idea of how it's set up.
 
Sure make them sould interestign Steve. I'm a sucker for 'behiond the scenes' info, and I've never had patience with books/shows that throw in recaps or intros meant to get first timers up to speed. So these sound right up my alley.

Anyway, thanks for the heads up. Just ordered a used copy of Vol 1 off Amazon.
 
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Another amusing aspect of these books is the inclusion on the cover of a given era's worst special effect or monster. In vol. 4, which covers the Tom Baker era, the giant rat from "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" is featured on the cover.

The scathing but obviously affectionate humor is part of what makes this series so much fun to read. I've never even seen much outside the Tom Baker era, but I still want to get all of these books! The first edition of vol. 3 went out of print and is still fetching HUGE $$$ on the secondary market! The second edition adds 200+ pages of additional material.
 
The most important aspect of these books, I think, is that they're not just about Doctor Who. They're about the social/political/cultural history of the times in which the series was made. As such, there's an awful lot of background on what was going on in the world and what the writers might have been thinking of when they wrote the episodes. The books explore that subtext brilliantly, and demonstrate how Doctor Who wasn't just created in its own bubble, but was part of a larger cultural landscape - this is stuff that would have been prevalent in the minds of the original viewers, who would have understood the resonances in the scripts, something that perhaps we don't see at a thirty year remove - and it's this grounding of the series in the reality of the times that really make these books worthwhile. Having said that, the revised edition of the third volume is just too long - it's the only one of these books that drags a bit.
 
Andrew_Kearley said:
The most important aspect of these books, I think, is that they're not just about Doctor Who. They're about the social/political/cultural history of the times in which the series was made. As such, there's an awful lot of background on what was going on in the world and what the writers might have been thinking of when they wrote the episodes. The books explore that subtext brilliantly, and demonstrate how Doctor Who wasn't just created in its own bubble, but was part of a larger cultural landscape - this is stuff that would have been prevalent in the minds of the original viewers, who would have understood the resonances in the scripts, something that perhaps we don't see at a thirty year remove - and it's this grounding of the series in the reality of the times that really make these books worthwhile.
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Well said!:techman:

Does Trek have anything like About Time?
 
Andrew_Kearley said:
The most important aspect of these books, I think, is that they're not just about Doctor Who. They're about the social/political/cultural history of the times in which the series was made. As such, there's an awful lot of background on what was going on in the world and what the writers might have been thinking of when they wrote the episodes. The books explore that subtext brilliantly, and demonstrate how Doctor Who wasn't just created in its own bubble, but was part of a larger cultural landscape - this is stuff that would have been prevalent in the minds of the original viewers, who would have understood the resonances in the scripts, something that perhaps we don't see at a thirty year remove - and it's this grounding of the series in the reality of the times that really make these books worthwhile. Having said that, the revised edition of the third volume is just too long - it's the only one of these books that drags a bit.
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Well, that whole understanding of the trivia and [what's the opposite of trivia - the supposedly important, but maybe not in retrospect, stuff? Doesn't seem to be a word.] is what Tat does, and what makes him such a joy to spend a night at the pub with...
 
Steve67 said:
Lord Ob said:
Steve67 said:
Does Trek have anything like About Time?
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lol nope.
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Rhetorical question.:lol: But I'm still surprised that after all this time and how "rabid" the fanbase is, that there isn't.
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It's a pity. I'd love to see this kind of book about TOS at least.

I've read these, and even have both editions of the Pertwee volume. I only read about the stories as I see them, and in some cases I enjoy the reading more than the viewing (e.g., Attack of the Cybermen).
 
Ah well, the supposed factual errors don't bother me much, as I don't see the books as definitive guides to Doctor Who - but as I said above, more about the cultural milieu in which Doctor Who was created, and that's something that Tat knows backwards. In any case, the books are more speculative, ruminations around Doctor Who, so the occasional error regarding behind the scenes details seems to me more of an indication that his mind is exploring avenues of possibility and speculation - it's the contextual stuff that really makes these books. (Actually, the only errors that really bother me are those which get the cultural background details wrong - many of which I'm sure crept in at the editing stage, rather than in the original manuscript - as an example: at one point, Secret Army is referred to as a "French resistance drama". This strikes me as the sort of error that Tat simply wouldn't make - which makes me wonder if he just mentioned Secret Army without qualification, and the editor added that erroneous descriptor for the benefit of a US readership.)
 
Andrew_Kearley said:
Ah well, the supposed factual errors don't bother me much, as I don't see the books as definitive guides to Doctor Who - but as I said above, more about the cultural milieu in which Doctor Who was created, and that's something that Tat knows backwards. In any case, the books are more speculative, ruminations around Doctor Who, so the occasional error regarding behind the scenes details seems to me more of an indication that his mind is exploring avenues of possibility and speculation - it's the contextual stuff that really makes these books. (Actually, the only errors that really bother me are those which get the cultural background details wrong - many of which I'm sure crept in at the editing stage, rather than in the original manuscript - as an example: at one point, Secret Army is referred to as a "French resistance drama". This strikes me as the sort of error that Tat simply wouldn't make - which makes me wonder if he just mentioned Secret Army without qualification, and the editor added that erroneous descriptor for the benefit of a US readership.)
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I've come to realize that there's no such thing as "definitive"; of all of the books written on, say, Abraham Lincoln, how many could be labeled definitive, and who's to say anyway?

I find something worthwhile in most any reference book. Errors are just a part of publishing! :lol: So to the poster who has regrets, don't! These books despite some minor errors, are well worth your time.

Interesting that Tat Wood "goes it alone" in the revised Vol. 3. Did he and Lawrence Miles finally get sick of disagreeing with one another? ;)
 
Steve67 said:
Interesting that Tat Wood "goes it alone" in the revised Vol. 3. Did he and Lawrence Miles finally get sick of disagreeing with one another? ;)
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Miles walked away from the series on the sixth volume. It was, from interviews and such, a "life's too short to be miserable" situation.
 
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