Customer Reviews

About Time 1: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who - Seasons 1 to 3 (About Time Series)

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The "About Time" books are kind of like TV's Dr. Gregory House. He's smug, rude, disdainful, and in general a colossal pain the butt. On the other hand, he's RIGHT so much of the time, and just so darned interesting to be around that you just can't tell him to stuff it and leave. These books are the same way. "About Time 1" is the first volume of the series in terms of content, but the fourth to be published, and the weirdly two-faced attitude the authors have displayed since the beginning continues to assert itself pretty forcefully. They regularly take what can only be described as "potshots" at both the show itself and the show's fans. Almost every positive comment about one of the stories covered in this book is accompanied by a despairing, off-handed lament about how much worse the show became later on. Wood and Miles also frequently ridicule various examples of silly and/or obsessive fan behavior. Yet even while they're spending so much time slagging off both their subject matter and their intended audience, by creating such an exhaustive and erudite examination of "Doctor Who," they're implicitly showing both show and fans a substantial amount of respect.

And authorial biases aside, the books just keep getting better. Either by accident or by design, each successive volume seems to go deeper in its analyses, to be more insightful and, thus, more entertaining than the one before. "About Time 1" deals with the first three seasons of the show, from its 1963 inception to the 1966 story "The War Machines," so in this volume we get a hugely enlightening look at the cultural and technological environment in which the show was born and the various societal and literary contexts that informed each story. As an American born in the early 1970s, these informative "Where Does This Come From?" subsections were unfailingly interesting. We also get two dozen new sidebar essays explaining various tangential matters in great depth; some are literary, such as "What Kind of Future Did We Expect?"; some are somewhat scientific, such as "What Makes the TARDIS Work?", which touches on some rudimentary quantum physics; and some are metatextual, such as "What Are These Stories REALLY Called?"

So if you are anything more than a casual fan of "Doctor Who," I would honestly say that you owe it to yourself to own, or at least read, these books. Regardless of the aforementioned problems, when all is said and done I think the "About Time" series will stand as the definitive analysis of TV's longest-running sci-fi program. Like Dr. House, its personal shortcomings won't be able to disguise the fact that it's simply unbeatable in its chosen field.

It's so great to see Doctor Who making a resurgence. I've been avidly acquiring the DVDs as they come out to replace the four drawers full of rapidly decaying VHS tapes on which, as a high school student, I recorded every episode that aired on PBS. So, though I don't think I've ever reached the heights of rabidity of some, I guess you could say I'm a big fan of the series. And now I've been able to read a priceless manual for the fan--About Time. In it, Wood and Lawrence fulfill every desire of those of us who have spent much of our lives mulling over the series.

Compared to some of the other volumes in this series, I would expect that this one would be somewhat less popular. There are good reasons for this, of course. Primarily, this is because it covers the first three years of the series. These years of black & white transmission where many of the episodes have been lost struggle in popularity with some of the later Doctors. Which is too bad because, as the authors point out, the series was very experimental during this time as it set the tone for what would be common ideas as the series wore on.

For those of us who have a love and respect for Hartnell's tetchy Doctor, however, this book is fantastic. I, for one, was very interested in getting the background of stories about which I knew very little because the episodes were lost. Additionally, the authors simply offer a wealth of information. Not only do they provide facts about plot, cast and characters, but they also offer their point of view through analysis of continuity and "things that don't make sense" as well as critique of the stories. There is also a series of essays that look at some "big picture" questions like what makes the TARDIS work? can you rewrite history? what's the dalek timeline? did the BBC actually like Doctor Who? and many more.

If there's a problem in reading this book for me, it's that I am, unfortunately, rather young and certainly American. I never got to see these shows in their first run as they were designed to be seen. Nor do I understand some of the references about British TV, movies, and actors, which I'm sure are quite familiar to some readers. Still, I wouldn't have passed up reading this book for anything. I'm already working my way through volume 2.

not only of the start of a great show, but also details British television history and pop culture to put it into a larger context. Sometimes academic, sometimes fanwankish, but never tiresomely pedantic or boring. Can't wait to pick up the next volumes.

Lawrence and Tat continue their absolutely exhaustive review of the whole of Doctor Who. Yet again ther eis more information than you can shake a stick at. This time we explore the Hartnell era with emphasis on the cultural and political landscape at the time. Essential for the serious fan

My Doctor Who Reference books are the most used books in my house. They're read, re-read, glanced at for info and used when I have specific questions. The About Time series are now the only ones I use - even-handed commentary, fantastic contextual information as to the roots of each serial (not just a list as in The Discontinuity Guide) and it's all done entertainingly and thoroughly.

Can't recommend the series highly enough.

From the preface: "Generally we've avoided plot summaries in _About Time_ (on the grounds that most readers won't have any use for them)." In other words, the authors couldn't be bothered to provide even a single paragraph plot description for most episodes. Instead, they rely on small sections called "Which One Is This"; these sections remind the reader about the episode by saying such things as (not exact quotes) "This is the episode without monsters" or "This is the episode that was made into a color movie". If that's all you need for a plot reminder, this book may be for you. Although I'm a Doctor Who fan, there are still a lot of episodes in the series' long run that I haven't seen, and reading about an episode without knowing what the episode is about is more annoying than fun or interesting. If only for this reason, there are better Doctor Who books to get, and as any sort of reference guide that makes this less than complete. Instead of buying all of these volumes, I'll be canceling the ones that I've ordered.

I have collected many books about the Doctor Who series. Books about the plots, books on the history, books on the Daleks and so on. These series of books, About Time, are the final word. If you just became a fan don't bother with the other books. Buy these books. And if you are already a fan dump all the other books into a Black Hole, or sell them on Amazon.com, and buy up these books.
The first book deals with Seasons 1 to 3, the First Doctor, and really gets into the details about EVERYTHING. The characters, the actors, the plot, the writers, the social and historical events that shaped each episode. Not just the origins of the show but the origins of each and every episode. Plots, merits, flaws, sets are dissected, broken down, and debated about. 288 pages of Doctor Who. Get it used or new.

They said complete and they mean complete. This is not a book for the novice. This is a highly comprehensive look at each episode, from the Unearthly Child and onwards. Each episode is examined for it's own issues, then looked at in how it fits the series, and how it fits the culture of the day. It's so detailed, this book only makes it through the first three seasons and there are a total of seven books covering the orignial series and I'm guessing we'll get the new series soon (he does mention the 2005 season).

If you are a detail junky, this is the book for you. The cross referencing of the culture of the day, BBC politics, actors issues, development of the story and so forth are facinating. It's kept me turning pages and running to order the next installment. It's a definite must for the hard core fan.