Customer Reviews

Through Time: An Unauthorised and Unofficial History of Doctor Who

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

 

 

I usually read at least 3 - 5 books a week but this book took me a month to get through because I kept putting it down (rather than flinging it against a wall or out a window). So why did I give it four stars? It contains a lot of interesting behind the scenes information on the early years of Doctor Who up to as recently as the Christopher Eccleston year.

I would recommend it with the caveat that a true fan will appreciate the information while finding Mr. Cartmel's style very irritating. He repeatedly tears the show we love to pieces. Time and again, he will say most fans consider XYZ episode to be a great Doctor Who story but here let me tell you all the things that were terrible about it. As someone who has loved the Doctor for over a quarter of a century, I was not happy about all the pot shots the author took at the various doctors and at the show in general.

For someone who is mainly interested in TV show creation (and the history of such), this would be an excellent book as it gives a lot of behind the scenes data on things such as how budget issues required cutting corners that hurt the show and how creative differences weakened the show, etc. For a true fan, you will have to grit your teeth at all the disparaging remarks about the show (as I often found myself doing) to get through the book. I don't regret having done so though because I did learn enough new data to make having to wade through all of the put downs worth it.

The author does know his stuff. I just wish he had been less pompous in his attitude towards a beloved show.

I really liked this book. I've been a Who fan for years but only recently really got "into it". Love the new series but I will always have a spot in my heart for the original. Mr. Cartmel's book does justice to the beginngs of the show through to the time he worked with Sylvester McCoy's incarnation up to the publish date (Eccleston). I can only imagine what he'd have to say about the Tennant and Smith versions of the old Time Lord. Perhaps he can be persuaded? In any case, for the budding fanatic or those having followed the show for years "Through Time" does a good job of detailing behind the scenes and confirmed quite a few of my hunches I had about how the show was put together back in the day. Too bad indeed that most of Hartnell and Troughton's Doctors were erased. Something similar happened to the early recordings of my favorite band of the 60's at EMI studios on Abbey Road in London.