Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: The Legend (Doctor Who (BBC Hardcover))

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book has received a lot of flack since its release. People complain that it's just a "rehash" of information we already have and doesn't offer much else. The whole purpose for this book was to be a CELEBRATION of Dr Who's 40th anniversary, nothing more!

I had heard about the extensive amount of photos (many never before seen) in the book, which is the only reason why I wanted it. None of my local bookstores had the book in stock for me to preview so I decided to risk it and order it.

I was very disappointed for these reasons:

-As a photo album, it was just ok. There were a few photos that I hadn't seen before, but many of them were either too small, or made into a faded background behind the text!

-The information was unorganized. The stories didn't even have a description, just some random things like the occupations of some of the characters, or how the sonic screwdriver was used in the story!?

-Randomly thrown throughout the book were articles about things like special effects, music, etc.

-The design of the book was amateurish. ie: Each page had about eight different fonts on it!

Overall, they tried to squeeze FAR TOO MUCH into this book. The result was that every aspect of the book was lacking. The "60's," "70's," and "80's" books are much better. Why couldn't they have just made this a huge photo book entitled "Dr Who - A Pictoral Celebration?"

This book was produced by BBC Books to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who. It's not as detailed as some other books about the show, but it makes up for it by featuring many photographs illustrating the shows history as well as being extremely well designed. This is the sort of book that is an essential purchase for more recent converts to the series who may have missed out on now out-of-print non-fiction hardcover volumes written by authors like Peter Haining, David J Howe and Stephen James Walker, etc over the last few decades. And unlike those books, this book is right up to date, featuring coverage of the 2003 webcast story starring Richard E.Grant called 'The Scream Of The Shalka' and mentioning the upcoming new television series.

If you already have a multitude of books about the series filling up your bookcase, then you could probably give this book a miss as it doesn't offer up any new information...but if you are a casual fan or someone who's new to Doctor Who fandom then you'll love this book. Even if you are a longtime fan, you may still appreciate this lavishly illustrated and handsome volume.

Fully detailed with text and photos, some that haven't been seen before, this book is a definite must have for Doctor Who fans. From the days of William Hartnell, to the very recent news of Doctor Who's return to television in 2005, this book has everything you want to know about every episode. Plus for those that were not around during Hartnell and PARTICULARLY Troughton's era, younger fans can read about episodes of these two Doctors (First and Second) which no longer exist in full format, or not at all, due to being erased by the BBC. A wonderful book!

This huge 500 page book covers the first 40 years of Doctor Who, and was published in 2003 to commemorate 40 years of Doctor Who. None of the new Doctor is in here, and if you are interested in going back and seeing what Doctor Who looked like before the new series took off, then this is the book you want to get. This also includes information from the 2000 special that is impossible to find (BBC needs to release the movie someday) so you can get a digest between when the series stopped and when it picked up again. This is a very cool book to get, and worth your time. Hard to find, expensive, but if you can find a new copy it is worth putting next to your Peter Haining books on Doctor Who. Some have a hard time with the book and think that it delivers nothing new, but it is worth picking up in its original hard cover, and will inform hard-core and beginning Doctor Who fans worldwide. I really enjoyed this book, and found it to have pictures and information that is not in other books, that is what makes this special. There is no way that a comprehensive Doctor Who book will ever come out, these books will rehash each other, and given when it was published, this is not a bad book to have next to the rest of your doctor who books.

Peter Haining has written what I believe are the best Doctor Who reference books. Justin Richards wrote a really cool book, one that is graphically quite nicely done, but that's actually about it. It's all information we've seen in several other books, but this time it's presented in a quasi-disjoint visual style. Sometimes it works, but other times it's just plain distracting. This one is more flash than substance. I wouldn't advise buying the book. Ask for it as a present, and that way you can spend your cash on something better about the series.