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TARDIS Eruditorum #2
TARDIS Eruditorum - A Critical History of Doctor Who Volume 2: Patrick Troughton
This second volume of collected and expanded posts from the popular blog TARDIS Eruditorum offers a critical history of the Patrick Troughton era of Doctor Who. Steadily tracking the developing story of Doctor Who from its beginning to the present day, TARDIS Eruditorum pushes beyond received fan wisdom and dogma to understand the story of Doctor Who as the story of an entire line of mystical, avant-garde, and radical culture in Great Britain: a show that is genuinely about everything that has ever happened, and everything that ever will.
This volume focuses on Doctor Who’s intersection with psychedelic Britain and with the radical leftist counterculture of the late 1960s, exploring its connections with James Bond, social realism, dropping acid, and overthrowing the government. Along, of course, with scads of monsters, the introduction of UNIT, and the Land of Fiction itself.
Every essay on the Troughton era has been revised and expanded, along with eight brand new essays written exclusively for this collected edition, including a thorough look at UNIT dating, an exploration of just what was lost in the wiping of the missing episodes, and a look at Stephen Baxter’s The Wheel of Ice. On top of that, you’ll discover:
Whether The Mind Robber implies an alternate origin for the Doctor in which he is not a Time Lord but a lord of something else entirely.
How The Evil of the Daleks reveals the secrets of alchemy.
What can be seen on a walking tour of London’s alien invasions
This volume focuses on Doctor Who’s intersection with psychedelic Britain and with the radical leftist counterculture of the late 1960s, exploring its connections with James Bond, social realism, dropping acid, and overthrowing the government. Along, of course, with scads of monsters, the introduction of UNIT, and the Land of Fiction itself.
Every essay on the Troughton era has been revised and expanded, along with eight brand new essays written exclusively for this collected edition, including a thorough look at UNIT dating, an exploration of just what was lost in the wiping of the missing episodes, and a look at Stephen Baxter’s The Wheel of Ice. On top of that, you’ll discover:
Whether The Mind Robber implies an alternate origin for the Doctor in which he is not a Time Lord but a lord of something else entirely.
How The Evil of the Daleks reveals the secrets of alchemy.
What can be seen on a walking tour of London’s alien invasions
344 pages, Paperback
First published September 21, 2012
11 people are currently reading
91 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Sandifer
24 books87 followersNote: This author previously published under the name Philip Sandifer.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 8, 2015
Once again, instead of just dipping into his website, reading Philip Sandifer’s take on every ‘Doctor Who’ episode in the order the stories were made and the essays were written, really bears rewards. We get a clearer sense of the programme developing, of a show occasionally losing its footing but gaining again, of one finding new directions to take. We see a show that learns from its mistakes, although also one that repeats certain mistakes again and again.
Some will no doubt be surprised that Sandifer is often hostile to the Troughton era. He clearly loves Patrick Troughton himself and thousands of words are given over to extolling the man’s undoubted brilliance; but the base under siege stories which predominate this era clearly don’t interest Sandifer at all, with the result that some essays can’t help but reflect their author’s boredom. He does show a programme progressing though, as well as making great play of the fact that chemistry, alchemy and LSD all seem to have a big part in its development. It’s no surprise then to realise that 1960s ‘Doctor Who’ seemed to have a strange and wonderfully symbiotic relationship with The Beatles.
Much like the period it covers, there are highlights and lowlights amongst the essays in this volume. A surprising highlight would be ‘The Space Pirates’, an essay on a story completely lost and not well regarded by fandom; while a surprising lowlight would be ‘The Invasion’, which is frankly unreadable in its pretentiousness. Seriously, you could mail it whole to Pseud’s Corner at Private Eye, and they’d wet themselves with glee at receiving such an absurd piece of prose. Fortunately, unlike on the website, we do get a second essay on ‘The Invasion’ here, which doesn’t leave the reader wanting to either laugh derisively or scream in frustration.
Much like the previous volume, better editing and more effort to differentiate the book from the blog would have been appreciated. But this is another good and geeky read for fans of creaky, old, black and white, classic ‘Who’.
Some will no doubt be surprised that Sandifer is often hostile to the Troughton era. He clearly loves Patrick Troughton himself and thousands of words are given over to extolling the man’s undoubted brilliance; but the base under siege stories which predominate this era clearly don’t interest Sandifer at all, with the result that some essays can’t help but reflect their author’s boredom. He does show a programme progressing though, as well as making great play of the fact that chemistry, alchemy and LSD all seem to have a big part in its development. It’s no surprise then to realise that 1960s ‘Doctor Who’ seemed to have a strange and wonderfully symbiotic relationship with The Beatles.
Much like the period it covers, there are highlights and lowlights amongst the essays in this volume. A surprising highlight would be ‘The Space Pirates’, an essay on a story completely lost and not well regarded by fandom; while a surprising lowlight would be ‘The Invasion’, which is frankly unreadable in its pretentiousness. Seriously, you could mail it whole to Pseud’s Corner at Private Eye, and they’d wet themselves with glee at receiving such an absurd piece of prose. Fortunately, unlike on the website, we do get a second essay on ‘The Invasion’ here, which doesn’t leave the reader wanting to either laugh derisively or scream in frustration.
Much like the previous volume, better editing and more effort to differentiate the book from the blog would have been appreciated. But this is another good and geeky read for fans of creaky, old, black and white, classic ‘Who’.
October 22, 2023
Elizabeth Sandifer's "TARDIS Eruditorum" blog project kicked off in January 2011: a phenomenally ambitious effort to tell the story of Doctor Who and its place within British culture from 1963 to the present. There is something about Doctor Who - its longevity, its hold on those who fall down its rabbit hole, and its ravenous nature when it comes to devouring stories, weird imagery, mythology, and intertextuality - that spurs fans to write serious academic works about it, more than you will find for almost any other television programme. Such volumes vary from Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles' About Time to the Black Archive series (critical monographs on individual stories). Within this pantheon, however, Sandifer's work stands out as exceptional for a variety of reasons:
(1) while proceeding in chronological order from 1963 to the present might be an approach taken by any number of other guidebooks, few are as meticulous or explicit about tracing Doctor Who's relationship with the wider culture surrounding it. In Sandifer's hands, analysis of Doctor Who is not just about appreciating themes or characterisation, nor is it a matter of documenting ever-changing television production over the decades, although both of these approaches are frequently factored into her work. Rather, she uses the lens of Doctor Who to examine stories the United Kingdom tells about itself - its obsessions and fears, the way it uses its literary heritage, and its material social circumstances - in a startlingly original manner I have not otherwise encountered. One imagines a similar sort of project could be embarked upon with the Bond franchise, and the way its films reflect changing social mores, but I find it highly dubious it would yield results that are anywhere near as interesting or as insightful, not least because Doctor Who's mercurial, ever-shifting nature allows for a far greater range of perspectives, styles and influences than Bond has ever had or could ever have. It has been noted in some quarters that the fact that Sandifer is American leads her to misinterpret certain things or come to unlikely conclusions; I have to say I've never felt this particularly strongly, and would indeed go so far as to say that the perspective of someone looking in from the outside (who has obviously conducted extensive research and immersed herself in British culture) is in some ways more valuable than that of a Brit, and in some respects permits fresher insight.
(2) there is genuine power and bite to the arguments she sets forth. Far too much fan writing falls into the same traps of regurgitating the familiar positives or negatives about a story, or ticking off continuity points of interest as though everything set down in the Holy Writ of Rassilon were actually true in our universe and the pleasure of verifying it falls to the truly devout. By being explicitly aware and indeed profoundly focussed on Doctor Who as fiction but also as having a solid ethical dimension rooted in the real world, Sandifer's essays are as likely to be rousing polemics against a story's abhorrent politics or sensitive discussion about the nature of bullying as they are discussions of production codes and which audio drama contradicts which novel. This inherently politicised approach will probably not be for everyone; clearly, Sandifer is approaching the series from a leftist perspective, although if this fact surprises anybody you have to wonder whether they've ever watched much Doctor Who in the first place. It lends her work a tremendously compassionate and humane quality which also demands the highest of ethical and moral standards, while often being aware and forgiving of the times the series falls short of meeting those standards.
(3) Sandifer is an extremely literate and well-read critic, and it shows, although for the most part not in an obviously showy way. This extends both back into wider literary movements as well as forward to the specifics of television and concerns about spectacle. Clearly, Marxist criticism is a major influence, and she tips her metaphorical hat to Guy Debord and the Situationist International on more than one occasion, the concept of 'psychogeography' being as it is a direct influence on her own term 'psychochronography'. But in this volume alone you will find an eclectic mix of references to Timothy Leary and LSD trips, Laura Mulvey, Golden Age sci-fi, Kubrick, Cathy Come Home, holiday camps, and Talleyrand, and discussion of such concepts as the aforementioned psychochronography, the alchemy of the TARDIS, and the fact that the Doctor has originated from the Land of Fiction. It is the presence of provocative discourse on psychedelia, metafiction, and the countercultural movements of the day which enlivens Sandifer's essays enormously and which elevates them above the bulk of fan criticism.
(4) despite the above, the writing is mostly jargon-free, engaging, and extremely entertaining. I frequently find myself laughing out loud at the author's dry asides or sarcastic observations, and she has a gift for a memorable turn of phrase. You will not always agree with Sandifer (though find me a writer or indeed a person of whom that cannot be said?!), but you will rarely if ever be bored. It is no surprise that the blog series quickly developed a sizeable readership, nor that it has inspired a number of similar projects: I ran a blog along similar lines myself for a time, but far more accomplished examples include GigaWho, Darren Mooney, and Andrew Ellard. The debt these critics, all extremely good in and of themselves, owe Sandifer is significant, and invariably gratefully acknowledged. You could fill a large bookcase with books about Doctor Who, but any such collection that does not include the work of this giant of the field is seriously incomplete.
This particular volume, adapted from the section of the blog covering the tenure of Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, spans 1966-69, and traces the show's growing engagement with psychedelia and youth culture and then the ways in which the formulaic and arguably xenophobic base-under-siege template stymies further experimentation, culminating in a blisteringly good take on 'The War Games' which coincides with the spirit of '68 coming to an end. Sandifer is particularly good at not being cowed by the momentousness of many of these stories: every fan brain has an in some ways unhelpfully overawed tendency to exclaim "the first new Doctor story! the first Brigadier story!" and the like. Instead of approaching them with hindsight, she tends to peel back the dusty layers of history they have accrued and consider how they might have gone down at the time and what they would've said to their original audience. The value of this approach is obvious; no one making 'The Krotons' would have dreamed we'd be discussing it in 2019, after all. It is also in this volume that you will find one of the very best pieces of Doctor Who criticism ever written, Sandifer's staggeringly good piece on 'The Mind Robber', which has been justifiably anthologised in the first volume of the 'Outside In' series of books from ATB Publishing. I can't delve into all its complexities here, but let's just say it recontextualises an already superlative story in a truly original way. If I have one small criticism, it's that Sandifer doesn't pay enough attention to Zoe in the way she tends to give at least some space in the book to analysing each of the major companions and the role they play; I felt Wendy Padbury's 'precocious genius' logician was a little short-changed. In this book version there are also a number of additional essays not found on the blog, many of which turn out to be unexpected highlights - I'd never even heard of the Telos novella 'Wonderland', but now I'm minded to seek it out on the basis of the piece discussing it here, and the same goes for a book I was already aware of, Stephen Baxter's 'The Wheel of Ice'.
There really is hours of reading to be enjoyed and savoured here: essays and insights I will return to time and time again. I cannot recommend this book (and the series as a whole) highly enough.
(1) while proceeding in chronological order from 1963 to the present might be an approach taken by any number of other guidebooks, few are as meticulous or explicit about tracing Doctor Who's relationship with the wider culture surrounding it. In Sandifer's hands, analysis of Doctor Who is not just about appreciating themes or characterisation, nor is it a matter of documenting ever-changing television production over the decades, although both of these approaches are frequently factored into her work. Rather, she uses the lens of Doctor Who to examine stories the United Kingdom tells about itself - its obsessions and fears, the way it uses its literary heritage, and its material social circumstances - in a startlingly original manner I have not otherwise encountered. One imagines a similar sort of project could be embarked upon with the Bond franchise, and the way its films reflect changing social mores, but I find it highly dubious it would yield results that are anywhere near as interesting or as insightful, not least because Doctor Who's mercurial, ever-shifting nature allows for a far greater range of perspectives, styles and influences than Bond has ever had or could ever have. It has been noted in some quarters that the fact that Sandifer is American leads her to misinterpret certain things or come to unlikely conclusions; I have to say I've never felt this particularly strongly, and would indeed go so far as to say that the perspective of someone looking in from the outside (who has obviously conducted extensive research and immersed herself in British culture) is in some ways more valuable than that of a Brit, and in some respects permits fresher insight.
(2) there is genuine power and bite to the arguments she sets forth. Far too much fan writing falls into the same traps of regurgitating the familiar positives or negatives about a story, or ticking off continuity points of interest as though everything set down in the Holy Writ of Rassilon were actually true in our universe and the pleasure of verifying it falls to the truly devout. By being explicitly aware and indeed profoundly focussed on Doctor Who as fiction but also as having a solid ethical dimension rooted in the real world, Sandifer's essays are as likely to be rousing polemics against a story's abhorrent politics or sensitive discussion about the nature of bullying as they are discussions of production codes and which audio drama contradicts which novel. This inherently politicised approach will probably not be for everyone; clearly, Sandifer is approaching the series from a leftist perspective, although if this fact surprises anybody you have to wonder whether they've ever watched much Doctor Who in the first place. It lends her work a tremendously compassionate and humane quality which also demands the highest of ethical and moral standards, while often being aware and forgiving of the times the series falls short of meeting those standards.
(3) Sandifer is an extremely literate and well-read critic, and it shows, although for the most part not in an obviously showy way. This extends both back into wider literary movements as well as forward to the specifics of television and concerns about spectacle. Clearly, Marxist criticism is a major influence, and she tips her metaphorical hat to Guy Debord and the Situationist International on more than one occasion, the concept of 'psychogeography' being as it is a direct influence on her own term 'psychochronography'. But in this volume alone you will find an eclectic mix of references to Timothy Leary and LSD trips, Laura Mulvey, Golden Age sci-fi, Kubrick, Cathy Come Home, holiday camps, and Talleyrand, and discussion of such concepts as the aforementioned psychochronography, the alchemy of the TARDIS, and the fact that the Doctor has originated from the Land of Fiction. It is the presence of provocative discourse on psychedelia, metafiction, and the countercultural movements of the day which enlivens Sandifer's essays enormously and which elevates them above the bulk of fan criticism.
(4) despite the above, the writing is mostly jargon-free, engaging, and extremely entertaining. I frequently find myself laughing out loud at the author's dry asides or sarcastic observations, and she has a gift for a memorable turn of phrase. You will not always agree with Sandifer (though find me a writer or indeed a person of whom that cannot be said?!), but you will rarely if ever be bored. It is no surprise that the blog series quickly developed a sizeable readership, nor that it has inspired a number of similar projects: I ran a blog along similar lines myself for a time, but far more accomplished examples include GigaWho, Darren Mooney, and Andrew Ellard. The debt these critics, all extremely good in and of themselves, owe Sandifer is significant, and invariably gratefully acknowledged. You could fill a large bookcase with books about Doctor Who, but any such collection that does not include the work of this giant of the field is seriously incomplete.
This particular volume, adapted from the section of the blog covering the tenure of Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, spans 1966-69, and traces the show's growing engagement with psychedelia and youth culture and then the ways in which the formulaic and arguably xenophobic base-under-siege template stymies further experimentation, culminating in a blisteringly good take on 'The War Games' which coincides with the spirit of '68 coming to an end. Sandifer is particularly good at not being cowed by the momentousness of many of these stories: every fan brain has an in some ways unhelpfully overawed tendency to exclaim "the first new Doctor story! the first Brigadier story!" and the like. Instead of approaching them with hindsight, she tends to peel back the dusty layers of history they have accrued and consider how they might have gone down at the time and what they would've said to their original audience. The value of this approach is obvious; no one making 'The Krotons' would have dreamed we'd be discussing it in 2019, after all. It is also in this volume that you will find one of the very best pieces of Doctor Who criticism ever written, Sandifer's staggeringly good piece on 'The Mind Robber', which has been justifiably anthologised in the first volume of the 'Outside In' series of books from ATB Publishing. I can't delve into all its complexities here, but let's just say it recontextualises an already superlative story in a truly original way. If I have one small criticism, it's that Sandifer doesn't pay enough attention to Zoe in the way she tends to give at least some space in the book to analysing each of the major companions and the role they play; I felt Wendy Padbury's 'precocious genius' logician was a little short-changed. In this book version there are also a number of additional essays not found on the blog, many of which turn out to be unexpected highlights - I'd never even heard of the Telos novella 'Wonderland', but now I'm minded to seek it out on the basis of the piece discussing it here, and the same goes for a book I was already aware of, Stephen Baxter's 'The Wheel of Ice'.
There really is hours of reading to be enjoyed and savoured here: essays and insights I will return to time and time again. I cannot recommend this book (and the series as a whole) highly enough.
February 26, 2014
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2063515.html[return][return]I occasionally go and dip into Phil Sandifer's excellent blog, but have not read as much of it as I would like to. I find the individual essays fascinating, but in the whole just a little too long for my preferred reading time; and more worryingly, they tend to leave me simultaneously wanting to read more and wishing there was better internal navigation to the blog than simply following Sandifer's stream of consciousness (even though that is largely aligned with the broadcast order of the seizes, subject to diversions).[return][return]These problems are largely resolved by packaging the posts in book form, so that you can leaf back and forth at will, making annotations if you feel like it, but also with all the advantages of traditional dead tree reading rather than squinting at the screen. It is also nicely packaged, with a lovely mosaic cover picture of Patrick Troughton playing the recorder. And the content is of course still excellent.[return][return]The core of the book is the series of essays on each of the 21 Second Doctor TV stories (with extras at the end including The Two Doctors and also The Massacre, left out of Volume One). These add to the standard vade mecum approach some hard data on what was in the charts and in the news at the time each story was originally broadcast, and also Sandifer's own personal opinions, particularly where he diverges from fandom. I often found myself wishing I could have expressed my own views as eloquently where we agree, for instance on why The Power of the Daleks is a better story than Evil of the Daleks, or why The Dominators is so very bad. But I also found our points of divergence interesting - why The Enemy of the World is a classic, or why it may not be such a bad thing that The Space Pirates is lost, both perhaps cases where I would probably have argued the opposite but can now see Sandifer's point.[return][return]The story-by-story write-ups are leavened with another dozen or so essays roughly equally divided between other Whovian topics (spinoff literature, UNIT dating, racism) and other media of the same era (Cathy Come Home, The Prisoner, the moon landings). I found the latter on the whole more interesting than the former, since in general I knew much less about the topics, though I agree with Sandifer's disgust at The Prison in Space and Big Finish's reconstruction of it. Sandifer's style is engaging, and for someone who has lived mostly in the USA and was born after all of these stories were broadcast, he has done a remarkable job of contextualising these stories.
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July 5, 2022Having embarked on the enterprise of watching every single episode from "An Unearthly Child" to "Twice Upon A Time," I thought it might be a good idea to accompany that with some in depth reading, and among the available options very quickly settled on Elizabeth Sandifer's Tardis Eruditorium, as I already had dipped into the blog this book originates from on several occasions (not all of them Doctor Who related).
So I already had some idea of what would be expecting me, and was not disappointed - this is an immensely readable, hightly informative and very clever account of all Doctor Who episodes startting Patrick Troughton as The Doctor (or "Doctor Who" as the character was then still called in the ending credits) as well as an examination of their cultural and political context, with excursions into other related material (mostly Doctor Who novels). The Hartnell volume of the series had mostly focussed an how the Doctor Who we know and love came into being, this Troughton volume sees it settle (mostly) into shape. Sandifer does a great job of showing the contributions Troughton made to the character, and clearly loves the actor(and rightly so, Troughton is utterly fantastic), while also being quite critical of quite a lot of the material he was given to work with (again, rightly so as it tends to be very repetetive [but does have some great stand-out serials, too]). She also is quite outspoken about the political impetus of some of the episodes and is quite open about her own left-wing leanings. While that might be an issue for some, those have only themselves to blame; for my part I thought this was an excellent volume, I particularly liked Sandifer`s in-depth analysis of the serials (which I much prefer to just accumulating factoids on their production) and her (for the most part successful) attempts to wrangle new insights and an original perspective from watching them.
I do not agree with everything she says, and her excursions on how a particular serial were received in fandom tend to go right past me, also some of the connections she makes between the series and its contemporary context seem coincidental rather than compelling - but those are all very minor niggles. Overall I enjoyed reading Sandifer's books so much that i have decided putting my watch on hiatus in order to read another book on the series which Sandifer recommends, namely the first volume of Running Through Corridors, Volume 1: The 60s - Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who which deals with the Hartnell and Troughton eras. After which, it will be on to Pertwee!
So I already had some idea of what would be expecting me, and was not disappointed - this is an immensely readable, hightly informative and very clever account of all Doctor Who episodes startting Patrick Troughton as The Doctor (or "Doctor Who" as the character was then still called in the ending credits) as well as an examination of their cultural and political context, with excursions into other related material (mostly Doctor Who novels). The Hartnell volume of the series had mostly focussed an how the Doctor Who we know and love came into being, this Troughton volume sees it settle (mostly) into shape. Sandifer does a great job of showing the contributions Troughton made to the character, and clearly loves the actor(and rightly so, Troughton is utterly fantastic), while also being quite critical of quite a lot of the material he was given to work with (again, rightly so as it tends to be very repetetive [but does have some great stand-out serials, too]). She also is quite outspoken about the political impetus of some of the episodes and is quite open about her own left-wing leanings. While that might be an issue for some, those have only themselves to blame; for my part I thought this was an excellent volume, I particularly liked Sandifer`s in-depth analysis of the serials (which I much prefer to just accumulating factoids on their production) and her (for the most part successful) attempts to wrangle new insights and an original perspective from watching them.
I do not agree with everything she says, and her excursions on how a particular serial were received in fandom tend to go right past me, also some of the connections she makes between the series and its contemporary context seem coincidental rather than compelling - but those are all very minor niggles. Overall I enjoyed reading Sandifer's books so much that i have decided putting my watch on hiatus in order to read another book on the series which Sandifer recommends, namely the first volume of Running Through Corridors, Volume 1: The 60s - Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who which deals with the Hartnell and Troughton eras. After which, it will be on to Pertwee!
November 29, 2022
Another highly readable exploration of Doctor Who in a redemptive historical set of essays. Sandifer clearly loves the era and it shows, and makes a good case for it without excusing some of its blindspots. Highlights included the connections between the show and the psychedelic in terms of confronting power, the use of alchemy and the role David Whittaker played in writing for the Doctor, how the Land of Fiction is the perfect setting for a Who> story, as well as some of the wider coverage of adjacent franchises and texts which, in some way, orbited Troughton’s era. The overarching argument - that Troughton’s era’s cardinal sin was perhaps that the series didn’t throw itself into the textuality/aftermaths of the situations he encountered, dovetails nicely into the Pertwee book. Highly recommended!
May 24, 2017
The 2nd Doctor is usually the one I've been least engaged by...but Philip Sandifer's elegiac examination of his era -- and its reflection of a crumbling 1960s optimism -- makes for one of the best of an already fantastic series of critiques. I just can't get enough of these books...and my unquenchable desire to consume these critiques and reviews have come a long way from the old John Peel "Files Magazines" I first discovered 30 years ago.
January 3, 2025
I do not always agree with Sandifer but I love the way she makes me re-evaluate episodes and consider other viewpoints. I was iffy on whether or was going to continue reading this series after Troughton but I'm not going anywhere. To Pertwee and beyond!
November 9, 2013
68% completed:
When I started reading this book I had not seen any of the Troughton episodes or read any of the Doctor Who novelizations. I liked the writing, although at the same time I felt it was directed to a different audience to which I did not really belong. This book consists of essays (originating as blog postings) that discuss each of the serials, placing them in the context of the times with mentions of music charts and news items from the times they aired. For the uninitiated, the discussions appeared to be witty and incisive, occasionally even laugh-out-loud funny in a sarcastic vein. Also, occasionally the author goes on to discuss other fictions or the political situation in the late sixties. All in all, I found it interesting.
However: just now I watched The Mind Robber, the only serial from this era I could easily view, and one lauded by the author, and frankly I am not sure any more. It had great ideas, for sure, but the rather stark and minimalistic staging and the theatrical and unnatural delivery were somewhat distracting. Also, a lot of the stuff that was discussed in the essay seemed absent from the actual episodes, which makes me doubt the other essays. Especially, after viewing, the idea that this serial could be seen as providing an origin story for the Doctor seems basically wrong. But maybe I am just too literal-minded to understand what he is getting at. To me it seems that this story indulges in metafiction, but in a contained, well-behaved sense (no strange loops).
(I actually missed the Gulliver line about the Doc being a traitor to the Land of Fiction that apparently is the only thing pointing to it being his origin. To my mind, this story exists in a rather limited and conptained land of fiction, which itself exists within a fictional framework. My reading was that this particular Land of Fiction was the product of the mind of one person, who was snathed from the framing fictional world (real world to the primary characters)).
I have to say that the cover is brilliant, done in a vintage paperback style.
After finishing the book:
I got kind of angry about the cynical/bleak view of space and space exploration offered most notably in the essay about 2001 et cetera. What it seems to say is that space programs were really about military hardware after all, and after space turned to be nothing to write home about, science fiction involving space travel becomes just another branch of fantasy with its own tropes which are not to be taken any more seriously than magic rings and whatnot. Having a fondness of hard SF I am kind of cross about this. There is some value in trying to write stories that utilize concepts from actual science, and stay mostly within the bounds of conceivable laws of physics, at least if they manage to be fantastic while doing so. Also, although sending meat with meat's life support systems beyond low earth orbit seems to be not so feasible these days, it may not always be so. I guess I am disappointed in not seeing the lunar bases and O'Neill colonies I once imagined would exist by this time, and am slowly trying to accept that space may forever be out of reach. On the other hand, Doctor Who writers seem to be insanely optimistic about humanity's future, putting basically unmodified humans into the very end of time. That is crazy, considering the timescales involved. But then, if we view this as just a kind of fantasy (as science fiction apparently has become), it becomes just another day at the trope factory. One thing that I like about Doctor Who, at least the modern version that I am familiar with, is that it can effortlessly juggle genres and tropes, being both serious and farcical at the same time.
When I started reading this book I had not seen any of the Troughton episodes or read any of the Doctor Who novelizations. I liked the writing, although at the same time I felt it was directed to a different audience to which I did not really belong. This book consists of essays (originating as blog postings) that discuss each of the serials, placing them in the context of the times with mentions of music charts and news items from the times they aired. For the uninitiated, the discussions appeared to be witty and incisive, occasionally even laugh-out-loud funny in a sarcastic vein. Also, occasionally the author goes on to discuss other fictions or the political situation in the late sixties. All in all, I found it interesting.
However: just now I watched The Mind Robber, the only serial from this era I could easily view, and one lauded by the author, and frankly I am not sure any more. It had great ideas, for sure, but the rather stark and minimalistic staging and the theatrical and unnatural delivery were somewhat distracting. Also, a lot of the stuff that was discussed in the essay seemed absent from the actual episodes, which makes me doubt the other essays. Especially, after viewing, the idea that this serial could be seen as providing an origin story for the Doctor seems basically wrong. But maybe I am just too literal-minded to understand what he is getting at. To me it seems that this story indulges in metafiction, but in a contained, well-behaved sense (no strange loops).
(I actually missed the Gulliver line about the Doc being a traitor to the Land of Fiction that apparently is the only thing pointing to it being his origin. To my mind, this story exists in a rather limited and conptained land of fiction, which itself exists within a fictional framework. My reading was that this particular Land of Fiction was the product of the mind of one person, who was snathed from the framing fictional world (real world to the primary characters)).
I have to say that the cover is brilliant, done in a vintage paperback style.
After finishing the book:
I got kind of angry about the cynical/bleak view of space and space exploration offered most notably in the essay about 2001 et cetera. What it seems to say is that space programs were really about military hardware after all, and after space turned to be nothing to write home about, science fiction involving space travel becomes just another branch of fantasy with its own tropes which are not to be taken any more seriously than magic rings and whatnot. Having a fondness of hard SF I am kind of cross about this. There is some value in trying to write stories that utilize concepts from actual science, and stay mostly within the bounds of conceivable laws of physics, at least if they manage to be fantastic while doing so. Also, although sending meat with meat's life support systems beyond low earth orbit seems to be not so feasible these days, it may not always be so. I guess I am disappointed in not seeing the lunar bases and O'Neill colonies I once imagined would exist by this time, and am slowly trying to accept that space may forever be out of reach. On the other hand, Doctor Who writers seem to be insanely optimistic about humanity's future, putting basically unmodified humans into the very end of time. That is crazy, considering the timescales involved. But then, if we view this as just a kind of fantasy (as science fiction apparently has become), it becomes just another day at the trope factory. One thing that I like about Doctor Who, at least the modern version that I am familiar with, is that it can effortlessly juggle genres and tropes, being both serious and farcical at the same time.
June 25, 2017
The second volume of Philip Sandifer's critical history of Doctor Who continues in much the same vein as the first one. There are, once again, issues with the formatting, although somewhat less so than in the first volume, and there's nothing obviously missing this time. The signs of the essays having been edited for the book (they originally appear on the web) are also clearer here, perhaps indicating a self-publisher improving with practice. The book also includes the essay on 'The Massacre' missing from the previous volume.
It becomes clear reading this that Sandifer is not a great fan of the Troughton era. He is full of praise for Troughton himself, regarding him as one of the greatest actors to play the role. What he's a lot less keen on are the actual stories, especially those of the fifth season - most of which are thematically rather similar. It's a testament to the thought put into the essays that they remain interesting even if you happen to disagree with them, and that nothing is dismissed without sound reason.
So, yes, there will be some controversy here. Sandifer is not a particular fan of, for example, 'Web of Fear' or 'Tomb of the Cybermen', while he does have high praise for 'Enemy of the World'. On the other hand, there are some stories whose quality, or lack thereof, is fairly inarguable - 'The Dominators' comes in for a particular kicking, and, at the other end of the spectrum, a literature student is hardly going to dislike 'The Mind Robber'.
As before, the essays link the stories to the time that they were broadcast, which in this case means psychedelia and the Summer of Love. In between the essays on the Doctor Who stories of the late sixties, therefore, we have some on British culture of the day, and in particular, how the show relates to other TV of the era. Some comparisons, such as those with The Avengers, Star Trek, and The Prisoner are the sort of thing you'd expect to see referenced. You might be a little more surprised to find that Cathy Come Home is in there too!
There's much discussion here, too, of the relevance of the themes of medieval alchemy to the Troughton years, most notably in scripts written by David Whitaker. It's something that's explicit in 'Evil of the Daleks' (one of the villains is obsessed with turning lead into gold), but Sandifer makes a strong case for their presence in other episodes, too, and at times uses them as a broader lens to examine the era.
There are also essays in here on later novels ostensibly set in the Troughton era. Some of these, such as 2012's The Wheel of Ice, don't appear in the web version. There's discussion of the missing episodes phenomenon, which hit Troughton harder than Hartnell, and of one completed script that was never filmed because it was deemed too sexist - in 1969.
As with the first volume, the essays are interesting, well thought-out, and peppered with a dry wit that also makes them entertaining to read. As a book of literary criticism rather than a set of detailed reviews, it's perhaps not the best place to start a discovery of the Troughton era if you're new to it, but it's certainly worth a read if you want to dig deeper into it.
It becomes clear reading this that Sandifer is not a great fan of the Troughton era. He is full of praise for Troughton himself, regarding him as one of the greatest actors to play the role. What he's a lot less keen on are the actual stories, especially those of the fifth season - most of which are thematically rather similar. It's a testament to the thought put into the essays that they remain interesting even if you happen to disagree with them, and that nothing is dismissed without sound reason.
So, yes, there will be some controversy here. Sandifer is not a particular fan of, for example, 'Web of Fear' or 'Tomb of the Cybermen', while he does have high praise for 'Enemy of the World'. On the other hand, there are some stories whose quality, or lack thereof, is fairly inarguable - 'The Dominators' comes in for a particular kicking, and, at the other end of the spectrum, a literature student is hardly going to dislike 'The Mind Robber'.
As before, the essays link the stories to the time that they were broadcast, which in this case means psychedelia and the Summer of Love. In between the essays on the Doctor Who stories of the late sixties, therefore, we have some on British culture of the day, and in particular, how the show relates to other TV of the era. Some comparisons, such as those with The Avengers, Star Trek, and The Prisoner are the sort of thing you'd expect to see referenced. You might be a little more surprised to find that Cathy Come Home is in there too!
There's much discussion here, too, of the relevance of the themes of medieval alchemy to the Troughton years, most notably in scripts written by David Whitaker. It's something that's explicit in 'Evil of the Daleks' (one of the villains is obsessed with turning lead into gold), but Sandifer makes a strong case for their presence in other episodes, too, and at times uses them as a broader lens to examine the era.
There are also essays in here on later novels ostensibly set in the Troughton era. Some of these, such as 2012's The Wheel of Ice, don't appear in the web version. There's discussion of the missing episodes phenomenon, which hit Troughton harder than Hartnell, and of one completed script that was never filmed because it was deemed too sexist - in 1969.
As with the first volume, the essays are interesting, well thought-out, and peppered with a dry wit that also makes them entertaining to read. As a book of literary criticism rather than a set of detailed reviews, it's perhaps not the best place to start a discovery of the Troughton era if you're new to it, but it's certainly worth a read if you want to dig deeper into it.
February 24, 2015
A fantastic literary piece on the history of Doctor Who as it happened, this time focused on the Patrick Troughton years from 1966 - 1969. The author is full of insightful comments about the development of the series, the Doctor and the stories, and has definitely placed the story of Doctor Who into the history of the late 1960s by discussing psychedelia, the summer of love and space exploration.
Although his opinions may not be to one's individual taste, it is refreshing to see someone share their own thoughts in such a clear and stated manner, with clearly a lot of evidence of thought having gone into each stance he shares.
To finish I would like to agree very much with his conclusion that Patrick Troughton was by far the greatest actor to take on the role of the Doctor, and that it is a great loss to the world that so much of his earlier episodes are currently unavailable to watch (here's hoping Phil Morris can sort that out sooner rather than later)
Thanks for the ride, look forward to Volume 3.
Although his opinions may not be to one's individual taste, it is refreshing to see someone share their own thoughts in such a clear and stated manner, with clearly a lot of evidence of thought having gone into each stance he shares.
To finish I would like to agree very much with his conclusion that Patrick Troughton was by far the greatest actor to take on the role of the Doctor, and that it is a great loss to the world that so much of his earlier episodes are currently unavailable to watch (here's hoping Phil Morris can sort that out sooner rather than later)
Thanks for the ride, look forward to Volume 3.
April 5, 2013
Although a firm fan favourite, Patrick Troughton's tenure risks being forgotten as many of his stories were destroyed by the BBC - in acts of wanton cultural vandalism which blighted many other shows - to reclaim videotapes or save shelf space.
Sandifer's book manages to bring these often lost stories to life once more, mixing behind the scenes anecdotes with a broad sweep across the social and political mores of the time. Whether or not you've seen any Troughton stories this book is a must read for anyone interested in the programme or the late sixties in the UK.
Sandifer's book manages to bring these often lost stories to life once more, mixing behind the scenes anecdotes with a broad sweep across the social and political mores of the time. Whether or not you've seen any Troughton stories this book is a must read for anyone interested in the programme or the late sixties in the UK.
March 28, 2013
I'm a fan of the blog and I have read many of the chapters there already. The expanded version is even more interesting. Fantastic cover, too: I bought the paperback as well as the e-book so I could admire it properly.
January 8, 2014
Why this book doesn't rate higher:
"At the end of the day..."
"If we're being honest..."
"Frankly..."
Sandifer abuses these and many other phrases to the point of maddening distraction. He had a PHD in English lit? I find that hard to believe given his amateurish writing style.
"At the end of the day..."
"If we're being honest..."
"Frankly..."
Sandifer abuses these and many other phrases to the point of maddening distraction. He had a PHD in English lit? I find that hard to believe given his amateurish writing style.
November 24, 2012
Like the first volume, this was an engaging and thought-provoking work. Sandifer's writing is more confident here than in the first volume.
February 27, 2016
A fascinating cultural exploration of the Trougton years of Dr Who. Often illuminating, always interesting.
June 28, 2018
I enjoyed this volume more than the Hartnell book. It did remind me of how many episodes are missing for this Doctor.
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