About Time 8: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who (Series 3)

About Time #8

by Tat Wood, Dorothy Ail, Lars Pearson (Editor)

In About Time, the whole of Doctor Who is examined through the lens of the real-world social and political changes as well as ongoing developments in television production that influenced the series in ways big and small over the course of a generation. Armed with these guidebooks, readers will be able to cast their minds back to 1975, 1982, 2005 and other years to best appreciate the series' content and character.

Volume 8 of this series focuses on Series 3 (2007) of the revamped Doctor Who starring David Tennant, as well as the Christmas special Voyage of the Damned and the animated story The Infinite Quest. Essays in this volume include: "Why Weren't We Bovvered?," "How Messed-Up Can Narrative Get?," "Which are the Most Over-Specialised Daleks?," and "Is Kylie from Planet Zog?"

Genres: Doctor Who, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2017

About the author

Tat Wood is co-writer (with Lawrence Miles) of the About Time episode guides to the television series Doctor Who. This book series, begun in 2004, emphasises the importance of understanding the series in the context of British politics, culture and science. Volume Six is entirely Wood's work.

Wood has also written for Doctor Who Magazine. In a 1993 edition of "Dreamwatch", he wrote a piece entitled "Hai! Anxiety", in which the Jon Pertwee era of the series was — unusually for the time — held up to sustained criticism.

In addition to this he has written features for various magazines, on subjects as diverse as Crop Circles, Art Fraud, the problems of adapting Children's novels for television and the Piltdown Hoax.

He is also active in Doctor Who fandom, notably as editor of the fanzines Spectrox and Yak Butter Sandwich and Spaceball Ricochet, which mixes academic observations with irreverent humour and visual bricolage. Some of his fan writing was included in the anthology Licence Denied, published in 1997.

For most of 2005 he was the public relations face of the Bangladeshi Women's Society, a charity based in Leyton, East London, and managed to keep his work running a supplementary school separate from his writing.

Reviews

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3103526.html

This concentrates purely on the 2007 series (the one with Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones), starting with the 2006 Christmas special (The Runaway Bride) and finishing with Time Crash, the 2007 Christmas special (Voyage of the Damned) and the animated Infinite Quest. Counting (arguably) three two-parters and not counting Time Crash, at 340 pages that's about 26 pages per story; Counting The Infinite Quest as a single episode, and including Time Crash this time, it's 21 pages per episode. Compare with less than nine pages per story in Volume 4 and a shade over two per episode in Volume 2.

This is the season that includes my personal favourite episode of New Who (the Hugo-winning Blink ), Paul Cornell's excellent two-parter based on his own novel (also a Hugo finalist), and the return of the Master in the shape of first Sir Derek Jaobi and then John Simm. David Tennant then encounters his future father-in-law Peter Davison in the first multi-Doctor story of the new era. The low points are the awful two-part Dalek story and the final episode's failure to deliver on the buildup of the two previous ones. It also has to be said that Martha's character arc is not the most elegantly executed (though, come on, at least she doesn't get sent to stay on Sir Charles' country estate), though I rate Freema Agyeman very highly indeed.

I wrote about these stories both at the time they were first broadcast ( The Runaway Bride , Smith and Jones , The Shakespeare Code , Gridlock , Daleks in Manhattan , Evolution of the Daleks , The Lazarus Experiment , 42 , Blink , Utopia , The Sound of Drums , Last of the Time Lords , Time Crash, Voyage of the Damned ) and again when I did my rewatch in 2013 ( The Runaway Bride , first half of main season, second half plus Infinite Quest, Time Crash , Voyage of the Damned ). In general, Wood and Ail's assessment of the stories is pretty similar to mine - they are even tougher than I am on the Dalek one, saw more in The Infinite Quest than I did, and perhaps less enthusiastic about the high points than I am. As usual, the commentary is pretty brutal about the Things That Don't make Sense plot-wise, but normally sympathetic to the constraints of production (grim accounts of David Tennant struggling with a heavy cold but still putting in long days and night shoots).

There's surprisingly little exploration of the roots of individual stories, a strength of earlier volumes, but I did gain a new appreciation for the extent to which Paul Cornell draws on Neil Gaiman. The big gap here is that Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures were already well under way, and it's a bit tricky to analyse Tennant-era Who without bringing them into the mix as well. However, the accompanying essays as usual are well worth the cover price in their own right, tackling inter alia New Who's (or at least RTD's) approach to race and sexuality as displayed on screen, and also a fascinating piece about the online extras.

My usual gripe, magnified this time: 65 endnotes (I hate endnotes), including two numbered 14, the first of which is located between notes 7 and 8, so that it's not at all clear what text it is referring to.

I still think the About Time series is the standard by which other critiques of Who should be judged.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd been sitting on the second half of About Time 8 - this volume of the Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who covering 2007's Series 3 episodes (from The Runaway Bride to Voyage of the Damned and including The Infinite Quest and Time Crash) - for a while, namely because I don't find as much joy in these later volumes. The behind the scenes stuff is more boring and less mythical than for the classic series, and the authors have traditionally been more down on NuWho that the original flavor, as is evidenced I think by various "out of universe" essays in this volume questioning how the series gets MADE. But picking it back up again a year later, I got into a good groove with it, and since 1) the second half of Martha's season is the better half, and 2) we are in agreement as to how badly treated her character was, rather started enjoying myself. There is no more complete series of guidebooks than About Time, both in amounts of in-universe trivia, detecting influences on the stories, and critical thought, and we usually get very interesting big picture essays, in this case the likes of Why does every forget about the aliens?, How many times has this story happened (about Human Nature)?, and Which are the most over-specialized Daleks? I even quite enjoyed the nitty-gritty explanation of cricket and why it's the perfect sport for the Doctor to have played. On to Volume 9!

[Michael T Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, just a wonderful font of information. I'm not as fond of these covering the modern era because we now have a bit TOO MUCH information on everything (we live in the SoMe age, and so did Who at this period), hence the giant size. I also feel like some of the essays meandered into ouroboros-like investigations more into previous essays rather than essays that made any sort of point. Still, overall, just an incredible reference point, and the humor is the same.

I'd say I miss Lawrence Miles's addition to the books, but honestly I just miss Lawrence Miles doing ANYTHING. These books seem to be trucking along fine w/o him.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

In regards to the most recent seasons of "Doctor Who", Tat Wood still has a big old adamantium claw stuck up his butt. I disagree with much of what he writes, yet -- as with all the previous books in this exhaustive, detailed series -- the disagreement is part of the fun. This is a much more relaxed book than the previous volume, although I wish it covered far more episodes...especially at the expense of some of the more esoteric essays (specialized Dalek fetish, anyone?).

[Warreni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent entry in the series that takes a hard, in-depth look at every televised Doctor Who story. This one addresses just the third series of the new show. I was disappointed that not all of the stories had an explicit Critique section, although all of the stories have some degree of criticism contained in other sections of the discussion. Because the text is so dense and the type is not very large, I don't recommend getting this as an e-book. I'm looking forward to Volume 9.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

As much a social history of Britain as an exhaustive review of Series 3 of 'Doctor Who', this book is a definite recommendation.

While the author pulls no punches as to the shortcomings in the writing of the new series, it is more through a sense of frustration as to how easily it could have been made better than a sense of disparagement.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the definitive series for trivia, production notes, continuity, errata, and other nerd stuff for Doctor Who. It's incredibly geeky in the most hardcore way. I can't wait for the Moffat stuff to be covered in the next volume.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tat Wood has opinions about Doctor Who.

Some of those I agree with. Some of those I don't. However, I always find these books interesting reads. Packed full of useful information, gossip and a little wit.

Recommended if your interest in Doctor Who is of the forensic kind.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, but hampered by the fact that this is still too recent for a lot of the dirty laundry to come out. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...