Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: The Legend Continues (Doctor Who (BBC Paperback))

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

 

 

This book is a guide to every single TV episode created for the British science fiction cult classic "Doctor Who". But it is a bit unusual in its intent: it doesn't deliver detailed synopses of the episodes or critiques or cast and crew lists or "behind the scenes" revelations about the making of the show. The author states 'Almost every "Doctor Who" story ever broadcast has now been released on DVD...The vast majority have been published in the form of novels...So rather than spend time recounting in detail those stories, we have chose to concentrate on the wider tapestry--the information we learn about the Doctor, his companions and enemies and the worlds he visits as the stories unfold.'

In practice, this means that we get a brief blurb about the storyline for a given episode, its setting and timestamp, who wrote it, when it was first broadcast, a picture or two, a quote from the dialogue, and then details about what was newly revealed about the Doctor, the TARDIS, the companions, the recurring enemies, and so forth. Interspersed amongst the summaries are character biographies and background information on the actors playing the assorted serial Doctors, as well as a tidbit or two about the writers and production staff. This material is fairly spartan, though.

The myriad pictures come in black and white and in color, and you can see the enormous improvement in costumes, makeup, and special effects over the years. I wasn't always keen on the typefaces used in the book for the episode titles, though, and the pages, while very colorful, actually are a little TOO glossy--you really get a bit of glare if you don't hold them at the right angle.

Included here are the adventures of the one-shot Eighth Doctor from the movie, the Ninth Doctor played recently to great acclaim by Christoper Eccleston, and a brief blurb about the upcoming Tenth Doctor, to be played by David Tennant. There is nothing here about the extremely numerous novels and audio plays, however, for which I would recommend consulting magazines such as "Dreamwatch", "Cult Times", or "TV Zone".

I can see what the author was intending here, but honestly, since I do NOT have 500 Doctor Who novelizations, I really would've preferred a more comprehensive and detailed guide to the episodes. Ah, well...it's better than nothing.

I'd actually seen the earlier hardcover version of this book when a friend bought it, and I'd wanted to get a copy for myself. Unfortunately, I never did scrape up the money, and I'd thought my chance was gone. Then this revised version (expanded to include the entire Eccleston run and a preview of Tennant's upcoming series) came out, and I was more than happy to pick up a copy.
For those who have not seen the book, it is furnished with an abundance of photos, and it eschews the standard `episode guide' format by focusing on bits of information (both on screen and behind the scenes) rather than providing episode synopses. While I found that to be a selling point (after all, most of the audience for this book already knows what happened in the stories), I know that some people found that to be a bit annoying.
Overall, the book functions as a nice visual reference (I'm an artist by nature, so that's the first thing I thought of) and as a good coffee table `conversation piece', and it does contain a bit or two of information that I'd not seen elsewhere. If you're looking for a comprehensive Doctor Who guide, though, I'd recommend Mad Norwegian's `About Time' series rather than `Doctor Who: The Legend Continues.'

This books covers 40 years of Doctor Who but barely scratches the surface. There are however lots of nice pictures and this makes a good coffee table book for people wishing to dip in and out of the mythos. Old hands though will find nothing new.

I went searching for Dr. Who books for my nine-year-old fanatic and came up with this one for me. All the doctors, all the companions, all the episodes. A neat resource though I wouldn't have minded still more background info.

I love this book. It has some really good information in it about all the doctors up until the 9th one and their companions. I think it is one of the best and coolest books available to all Doctor Who fans.

I like it because it because it is a book because it has a liitle of everything in it on the doctors and their time travels.

If anyone is an avid Dr. Who fan from the Dr. Who #1 to #10, or a recent fan of the Dr. Who Series, they will want to purchase this book. The information in it is invaluable, that is why I gave this book (5 STARS).

Lois Ache